Paper & Glam

This is the Part Where You Find Out Who You Are

Do you ever fall into an existential crisis, and you can't remember the point of it all?

That's where I've been living lately. The last time I fell into this perverse, foul little mood was after I graduated from college. Instead of being excited to start my post-collegiate life with youthful resolve, confident that I would tackle the coming years with optimism and tenacity, I was depressed by the thought of spending the foreseeable future sitting behind a desk waiting for 5 PM five days a week.  In that tempest of confusion and catharsis I moved to Denver. In other words, I ran away. 

Five years later, I find myself back at the same crossroads, exhausted, burned out, and lost. I'd love for you to think I have it together; but the truth is, in spite of the grace, love, and opportunity life has shown me, I still feel lost.

It's not that I don't appreciate my life, deeply, I do. As I type, Sunday (my puppy) carries around her pet elephant, Ellie. Ellie has holes in her ears from Sunday carrying her around the house. Where Sunday goes, Ellie the elephant goes. I find Ellie on the deck, in my bed, and hidden in the cabinet that houses the snacks.

I'm smiling, but I'm lost.

Do you ever feel lost like you can't see the future, and you can't manage to get the present right either?

Last Monday I woke up at 4 AM to write a post inspired by The Great Gatsby, and I spelled "Gatsby" wrong. Really?! I'm about Fitzgerald like I'm about God, glam, Vogue and Voltaire. 

What's happening to me? I'm just going through the motions, but I'm not all there.

This week in my haste to get my inbox down to double digits, I sent out an e-mail to my team with "region" auto-corrected to "groin." Where is the Holy Spirit when you need Him?

I haven't done laundry in so long I wore swimsuit bottoms to work. A co-worker commented that she'd never seen my nails unpolished and I thought, Well, I've never worn a bathing suit to work but here I am.

I thought I was past this stage of quarter life crisis. I thought I'd learned the secret to joy is learning to live above my circumstances. Learning to live above our cirmcumstances is a crucial lesson, because when our happiness has no dependencies we're free.

I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I've found the recipe for being happy whether hands empty or hands full. Whatever I have, whatever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

{Philippians 4:12-13,23, MSG}

But what happens when it's not external circumstances we're fighting? What happens when you realize the monster under the bed, is inside of you?

I won't run, and I'll try not to hide. I won't date over these feelings, shop over them, drink over them, or work over them, and I won't do some combination thereof. I won't try to escape. 

I'll work through this. 

I'll be honest and vulnerable. I'll say what I mean and own what I feel. I'll trust that I'm safe, and though I feel lost, I'm right where Gods wants me.

Pain is God doing surgury, removing what's holding us back. Pain humbles and reveals where God is working and healing. Pain empties us of ourselves and frees us from what enslaves. 

Here's great advice on what to do when we feel lost:

"This is a great time to start counseling. Unravel the knots that keep you from living a healthy whole life, and do it now, before any more time passes. This is the perfect time to get involved in a church that you love, no matter how different it is from the one you were a part of growing up. Be patient and be prayerful, and decide that you're going to be a person who grows, who seeks your own faith, who lives with intention.

There is a season for wildness and there is a season for settledness, and this is neither. This is a season about becoming. Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure."

{Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet}

If you're lost, hold tight to your faith and the people who never let you go. The quickest way to find yourself is to lean into the hurt, and let it teach you what it came to teach you. If you run, you'll escape the pain, but you'll lose the lesson. Then five years later, the same feelings will come knocking on your door, asking if you're ready to feel the pain to get the growth and the freedom that came with them.

Why do we suffer under a just God?
This is a knot that must be untied.
{Voltaire, 1755}

It's ok to be lost, it's good that you're here. This is the part where you find out who you are.

Love wins,
Lisamarie

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The Great Gatsby & Hope Deferred

The Great Gatsby: Have you seen the movie or read the book?

The Great Gatsby is the story of a man known for throwing decadent parties shrowed in mystery, parties he hosts but never attends. The Great Gatsby strikes at the fear that we will walk through life without living it, going to the party without experiencing it. 

Like all great writing, the story is enchanting and haunting with undertones of our greatest fears: unfulfilled dreams, unrequited love, hope deferred, and a life unlived.

Gatsby doesn't pursue the love of his life because he isn't wealthy enough. When he's ready to pursue Daisy and feels like "enough," she's married to someone else and it's five years too late. It's tragic, but there's clarity.  

It's tempting to waste our lives waiting to be good enough, or waiting for the waiting to be over. It's tempting to believe that we're not enough for our future, or that we're not enough to receive grace, love, and healing.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."
{Proverbs 13:12. NIV}

The story of the Bible is God loving people into their futures. It's not a story of anyone being good enough. It's a story of flawed people who don't feel like enough, life gets hard and there are countless reasons why God isn't who He says He is...and then God comes through.

When things are going my way, according to my timing, life doesn't take much resolve, faith, or perseverance. It's easy to motivate myself when I think I know what's next, when I have plan and vision for the future. But when the page is blank, and the storyline is confusing, and we're lost and emptiness sets in, that's when our faith becomes real. That's when we learn to say even if, to choose faith, and choose to say today is magic.

"Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it epic, that's when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful because the force of your belief and your hope and your desperate love for life as it is actually unfolding, has brought a blessing from a curse, like water from a stone, like life from a tomb, like the actual story of God over and over. 

Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future...We become who are in these moments."

{Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines}

The story of the Great Gatsby reminds us not to leave life unlived until we are enough. Often we become who we are while we are waiting for life to begin again.

If you're weary today, remember we're called to love our lives as they are actually unfolding. The Great Gatsby reminds us that "we can't recreate the past," but we can be loved into our futures by a God who comes through, making us new with summer and grace.

Love wins,
Lisamarie

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Set A Fire & Shine.

You know those seasons when you're in a rut and you can't snap out of it?

You feel overwhelmed and there's dishes in the sink and laundry piling up, and you really should go to the gym, but all you want to do is take a nap, or watch another episode, or click "see more pins" one more time.

This is how I spent most of the last month, and the word I kept coming back to was "disconnected." I felt disconnected from life and God, and the community I love. 

You know the book you read and you can't put it down because you need to see what happens next? 

What if our lives felt like that?

You jump out of bed from this fire lit from within by hope and vision for the future. You're driven because you can't wait to see what God has around the next corner. That's life in Christ, but how do we get there?

By staying connected to what makes us come alive.

For me, it's running and writing. Once I'm running and writing, the rest falls into place. Suddenly, there's meaning and purpose in laundry and one more status report. I don't know how it works, but it does. 

"There is a genius part of you that wants to create. That part of you wants to talk to God. Get out of the way. When you create something beautiful that helps someone else, you'll feel meaning."

{Donald Miller}

What makes you come alive? Commit to it with me.

Let's resolve to beautify our lives everyday from the inside out. Sometimes all it takes is a coat of pink nail polish or fresh flowers to bust us out of our ruts, but other times the issue is much deeper. A beautiful life comes from a deep place inside that demands we turn inward, instead of looking outward to the world to satisfy us. Creating is a celebration of life that requires us to turn inward, which makes it as powerful as the God who created us.

I know something about you, because I know something about me, and part of you wonders if there is a better way to do life.

The door to heaven is wide open and every day we decide whether we'll walk in, or spend the day living a small story all about us.

I want my eyes to sparkle, and my life to shine and point back to God. If I want my life to be the proof that God is who He says He is, then I need to start the day by recommiting myself to the story God wants to write with my life. 

Today let's recommit our lives to living well...by waking up an hour early to create beautiful lives and trusting God to make it worth the sacrifice, by spending that hour in the gym because our health is worth the sacrifice, and by putting down the remote, or the chips, logging off, and spending an hour each day doing what makes us come alive.

Shine on.

Love wins,
Lisamarie

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