Embracing the Pain of Transition using Art & Movement

In my recent season of intense stuckness, where every path forward was cloudy and unclear; I often could not see past my own pain. Rather the still small voice invited me to sit in the fullness of confusion on a day-to-day basis and just wonder. My choices became noise cluttering my already full and naturally-analytic brain. I would feel flooded easily. I could not think my way in or out of this complex transition. I sought to not just simply exist, as I daily felt that was all I had the energy for. Ultimately I desired to gain healthy momentum past this painful season. But how could I, if decision-making was so impaired?

As I sought the way out, I was subsequently enveloped in new, but familiar pain...residual from both my recent and distant past. Lessons I had to return to and learn in a new way. The depth of my experience of pain, I prayed, would enrich the empathy I felt for others—equipping me to better come alongside. Yet in the midst of my own soul-aching darkness, I truly could not imagine the other side of the pain. And even more troubling was the nagging thought that I may never have a capacity to work with others in this painful painful place.

A wise mentor of mine consoled me in this season, "Sara, if there was ever a top 10 list of things people (and especially workers) experience on the field, you're basically learning the dictionary and becoming proficient in it! If anything, your experiences of painful transition broaden your capacity for the work that you are called to do." How dreadfully dark to base a career on the most intense seasons of pain! Yet the reminder of feelings of intense isolation, and those that accompanied me in it, propelled me toward but a sliver of hope that maybe this time would be redeemed to help someone else in their dark season. I desired hope and ultimately purpose in it all. Not to push past the reality of the pain, but to learn to embrace what God wanted to teach through the intensity that could only be learned by going directly through transition.

As my thoughts became noisy and I couldn’t analyze or strategize my way out of my transition, I in turn took to walking. My body was required to pick up where my thoughts left off. Walking, hiking, biking and yoga became my outlets to hold my pain. This bodily engagement afforded me time and space to NOT have to figure life out. These outlets became a life source for me.

My sole purpose in the pain became “fighting” to learn all that I could; about my own weaknesses, my own woundings, my past, and how my body needed acknowledgement and outlets for carrying my pain. A far more poignant and intense classroom than theories, concepts or textbooks could convey were these lessons I was learning in a visceral way. The experiential learning, unequivocal to the conceptual knowledge, catalyzed me to engage the learnings of transition in new and deeply profound ways—through both movement and art.

I began playing with ways of using transition tools and art to process using the right & left brain

Because transition requires all of our being, I've become convicted through my own learnings that navigating these seasons should be approached with our whole self; our whole brain. The holistic approach includes experiences of physical, spiritual, and emotional encounters to integrate our often-felt disorientation and disintegration. Alongside body movement, finding and creating art that resonated with or spoke to the pain became my goal: “Look for art that captures the heart” became my mantra!

Visual art and kinesthetic movement became powerful outlets for the overwhelm I would feel in my brain. I played with words and color despite the negative voices from my past discouraging me to do so.

The most comforting voices in transition are those who have gone before us and can genuinely say “keep going,” “it won't last forever,” "YOU ARE NOT ALONE on this pilgrimage,” “THIS TOO SHALL PASS.”

Despite not being entirely out of my own current transition journey (and question if we ever really are) I am grateful to be in the direction phase; trusting God that He will use my scarred stories similar to the way in which he has redeemed other's wounds for my growth. I pray that I would be used to provide a healing balm where the wounds remain so raw and open in others.

Therefore, my goal for the creation of both the Art of Transition and The Long Camino Walk is simply: To use art and movement to learn the unique lessons God is inviting each of us into as we continue to unpack our unique calling in this world. May we together embrace these transitions as a normal process the Creator intended for us. And similar to the transition cycle that all of creation is subject to, may we see the mistakes, the time of seeming unfruitfulness, as a vital and necessary season on the journey of making something more beautiful and abundantly fruitful. I am still on a long journey of embracing this season of the way between.

A Transition Prayer of Lament

Injustice, Sorrow, Tears

A deep well of seemingly never-ending grief

Keeper of my heart, beautiful Jesus

Humbled, I bow

You wrong the right 

It is all yours

That others would see your love—

not my pain, my anger, my shame or my sin.

Brighten my face that your wisdom would shine through

Redeem my experience in worship to you

FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

·       What change has precipitated your entry into your current transition? 

·      What do you sense God is trying to address in pushing the pause button on your journey?  

·      How are you currently receiving it?

Relational Saturation: When Our Love for People Turns to Burnout - Part 1

Authors: Jeff & Sara Simons April 2015

It’s amazing how many leaders we sit with from whom we hear this sentiment: “I still love God, and I still feel “called”… but man, I just really can’t stand people right now. I just want to get away from them!” It may sound extreme but it’s a very real aspect of full-time relational ministry.

Even as an extrovert in the ministry world, I’ve been there too! Too many times. I’ve felt the same sentiment for example when support-raising to “get to the field”. As we would hit the road for yet another support-raising roadtrip. Pulling up to an appointment I would feel myself just wanting to be somewhere alone; away from ministry, family, and the energy output. I even remember pulling up to a close friend’s house one time and asking my wife what this friend’s kid’s names were again… it’s like the relational saturation was even flooding my ability to remember normal details—a helpful saturation “threshold sign” I’ve come to identify in time…

 Consider your relational “web” for a moment:

·       How many people are on your ministry newsletter list? 

·       How many are in your local gathering of followers and seekers in your context (whatever form that takes)?

·       How many “friends” are you connected to on Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other frequently used social media sights?

·       How many individuals, churches or groups are currently supporting your ministry in tangible ways that you keep up communication with?

 Despite how structured, organic, tangible or fluid our ministry work and lives are, the bottom line of the “business” we deal and interface in is the currency of relational equity.

Where We Don’t Lean in Enough…

Often-referenced leadership author and teacher Bobby Clinton made some pretty significant discoveries around the area of relational connection, saturation and management in a lesser-know study that he called the core Social Bases of leadership endurance for long-term service.

In the process of researching the leadership timelines and patterns of hundreds of leaders, some significant patterns pertaining to leadership endurance began to emerge. Interestingly, there was not a marked difference between leaders who finished well and left a growing legacy, and those that “finished” but collapsed over the line, and those who burned out or fell away from ministry prematurely. At least not a marked difference in the usual support systems we think of: financial-support and prayer-support. 

However, some very interesting patterns emerged in other significant areas; one of which Clinton defined as Emotional Support. This could include regular, life-giving relational connections for you that support the various needs for your social and relational needs—e.g. intercession teams, Spiritual direction, accountability groups, Counseling, time for free-flowing fun with friends, hobby-based groups, local gathering of believers, and frequency of life-giving connection with family and friends local and “back home”.

Intentionally engaging these areas regularly in a leader’s life proved to truly be a key aspect of empowerment that influenced a marked a difference between the few leaders who finished well, and those who left the journey of calling pre-maturely.

This remains a key attrition area to help leaders intentionally lean into, develop, and manage for relational health in our support structures. Often this is malnourished in place of our impassioned tunnel-vision attention to our growing “donor-base back home” and our growing “ministry community in context”. Often there is overlap between these and the areas of Emotional support described above, but how the time is focused and intentionally spentmakes the main difference. 

Our hope is that new perspectives for connecting more authentically and sustainably with family, team, community, supporters, those you’re ministering to, and with God, will help move you toward better resiliency on the field.

See Relational Saturation - Part 2 for a construct to discuss healthy balance and sustainability

·       Q: What implications could this have for doing furloughs and support-raising trips more effectively, sustainably, and fostering authentic connection?

·       Q: What implications can this have on how we communicate to particular audiences in our newsletters and ministry reports?

·       Q: What implications does this have for mixed ministry teams: families, singles, lifestage differences, age differences, cultural or sub-cultural differences? 

·       Q: What implications does this have for questions of “team” and “community” structure and how much they should overlap?

·       Q: What implications does this have regarding the ways we are connecting, or pressuring ourselves to connect, and also projecting or pressuring our kids to connect in the context? 

·       Q: How do we expose our MKs to a variety of environments and help them process authentic and appropriate interaction in each? 

·       Q: What implications does this have for the way you do ministry and where and how you connect?

·       Q: What similar and different implications does this have for doing ministry to moderns and postmoderns?            

Relational Saturation: When our Love for People Turns to Burnout - Part 2

Authors Jeff and Sara Simons April 2015

Part 1 - Relational Saturation: When our Love for People Turns to Burnout

Are you able to “un-plug” and put down work and relational dynamics on a regular basis? 

Do you have places to process and connect outside of your direct ministry context and donor base? That’s what matters for resiliency…

Areas We’re Drowning Ourselves…

How do we think creatively about this with the ever-increasing pressure to grow the connections in our context, with those back home, and with those available to us virtually?

Joseph Myers, in his work, Search to Belong, provides a helpful construct for us to process this for our personal areas of relational saturation and management. He labels the 4 relational spheres in which we develop our personalities, culture and communication and through which we move towards creating a sense of belonging: 

·       Intimate sphere (often only 1-3 people in your life actually are intimate connections); e.g. married couple, very close friendships, close siblings: “Intimate Belonging occurs when we share “naked” information and are not ashamed” (Myers 67).

·       Personal sphere (3-9 people connecting); e.g. closer person or group of friends, often share with deeper passion/knowledge: “Personal belonging occurs when we share private (but not ‘naked’) experiences, feelings, and thoughts” (67).

·       Social sphere (usually between 8-25 people connecting); e.g. new small groups, work teams or groups : “Social belonging occurs when we share ‘snapshots’ of who we are” (65).

·       Public sphere (25 or more connecting) “Public belonging occurs when people connect through an outside influence [such as a team or a church]” (64).

Now, obviously there is overlap between these spheres of connection for us in our day-to-day. However, one thing that may surprise us, especially in the ministry world, is that in all 4 spheres we have potential to connect, to be committed and participate, and to find the connection significant. 

Contrary to ideas and fads, belonging is not demonstratively achieved through more time, more commitment, more purpose, more personality, more proximity, or more small groups. These can be helpful environments, but don’t show a promising track record for yielding increased “belonging” in people. Belonging happens spontaneously when the environment is conducive. Therefore attention to the environment for others and ourselves, and realistic expectations for the level of appropriate connection that can take place in that setting becomes very important. People must move from the public sphere first and must do so willingly. Contrary to many relationally-minded people, not ALL people want to move or even should move from the public to the intimate sphere. Ultimate health and balance in one’s relational health is determined by the balance in all four.

Community—the goal humankind has sought since the beginning of time—is achieved when we hold harmonious connections within all four spaces. Harmony means more public belongings than social. More social belongings than personal. And very few intimate. True community accomplished through the significant relationships we embrace in all four. This study provides insight into the environments we spend our time in, and sheds a light on the appropriateness of our expectations for connection in those environments. 

How many times have you participated in a small group (or the like) that formed out of a larger community or gathering? The first few meetings often involve telling our life stories in an attempt to quickly form “intimacy” and commitment. Within the walls of the church the focus is most often on two spheres: the public and the intimate to the neglect of the other two spheres. The balance is what is needed for healthy community and more importantly like Clinton would say, support structures. We ourselves fall into the same trap, and then feel the inauthenticity and guilt that relates.

The principal power behind all of this is that we are given a construct with helpful guides/boundaries to be able to evaluate our significant connections in our social life, to determine if there are areas that are missing, or would be good to lean into; and if there are areas that we are over-saturated for whatever reason, and need to healthily take a step back and give ourselves grace and boundaries. Seasons of transition and grieving are especially unique seasons of grace extension. The ultimate goal is for healthy balance and authentic, reciprocated relationships. It is here that we can find healthy balance and avoid unnecessary emotion burnout and fatigue, or unnecessary loneliness and isolation. That we would be able to effectively and authentically engage and know when we are able to give and when we are not.

Some key questions that could emerge from these principles:

• Which sphere is most challenging, or confused for you currently?

• Which sphere is most life-giving and healthy for you?

• Is there a relationship and connection that you feel you need to either consider more realistic boundaries, give yourself more grace, or that the Spirit may be nudging you to be more open?

• In what ways, if any, do these perspectives change the way you are doing, or will do ministry in the future?

• In what ways do you need to give yourself grace in the pressure you feel for connection levels in your context?

• In what ways do you need to credit others with more trust and grace, allowing them to belong to the space they choose in this season?

Transition game for the Whole Family: Questions to Engage Before Short or Long-Term Transition

Originally posted: March 26, 2014

Reality shows us: Furlough and re--entry can be a very unsettling times for all the members of a family

OBJECTIVE: To help families talk about their feelings and experiences. To create a safe space for every member of the family to process. Families could do this at any time, but there is an especially high need for children to feel secure and understood during times of transition.

INSTRUCTIONS: Take one month prior to your transition during a meal or other time and as each person is able, answer one question per day. You can play this 1 of 2 ways. Pick a number corresponding to the questions. Or print out the questions and cut the questions out drawing them from a hat. Note: You may have to reword questions for younger children, or modify those that don’t apply.

Dear Parents,

When your family relocates, either for furlough or for a change of assignment, that transition experience is sometimes a “mixed bag” of feelings for various members of the family.

The following communication game has been designed to help you and your children talk about these feelings in a non-threatening manner. It allows questions to be asked or topics to be discussed at the suggestion of an external source (the game), rather than through the initiative of any single family member. Everyone is on common ground…everyone who can, plays.

As you use this game, there are some things worth remembering:

• Ask questions in a relaxed, spontaneous, non-judgmental way

• Don’t try and fix their experience or what they share

• Be willing to admit your own feelings – fears, loneliness, etc.

• See the upcoming time in your country of origin as a great time to experience new things

• Re-frame the questions if it’s confusing or not age-appropriate

• Remember that during times of transition it is especially important to find something each day to praise/celebrate with each child.

• Don't force processing or make this game go on too long. It's meant to be a fun listening and sharing time, not an obligatory experience.

Transition questions (pre-furlough or pre re-entry): Talking to a 4+ year old (give younger children concrete situations they can relate to; adapt questions to maturity level)

1. The thing I miss most about where we are going back to (passport country) is…

2. What is a funny question a national friend has asked you?

3. What is the strangest food you have eaten? Do people in this country think it is strange?

4. Tell about a travel experience you’ll never forget, either in your passport country or this country

5. One thing parents should never do is…

6. One of my favorite memories of celebrating a holiday in my passport/this country is…

7. What is one of your favorite things that you own? What makes it valuable to you?

8. The food I miss most from my passport country is…The last time I ate it was in___with___

9. One of the things I’m looking forward to most this year is…

10. If I had one wish I would…

11. Is there something about being here/living here that made you feel uncomfortable at first but not anymore?

12. What is something you’d like to thank your parents for?

13. What will you miss most about being here? What could help with this when you are gone?

14. What helps most when you are lonely or sad because of being separated from friends or family? What could someone else do to help?

15. What do you do with friends here?

16. When you get back to your passport country and people ask you what it was like here, what will you say?

17. One of the feelings I have a hard time expressing is…

18. What is a good thing that happened to you today? Could it have happened to you in your passport country?

19. The thing I will miss most about this country is…

20. Tell about an embarrassing situation you’ve experienced since coming here. How did you get over feeling embarrassed? How do you think you might face situations like that back in your passport country?

21. Is there anyone you’ve met that you’d like to be like? What makes you want to be like them?

22. How do you figure out what to do when you don’t know how to act?

23. When you get back to your passport country and people ask you where you are from, what will you say? (Do you think that sometimes you will want to answer the question differently?)

24. What would you do to help someone who is sad?

25. It was really fun when our family went…

26. What are the things that make you feel happy (or sad, worried, afraid, angry)? Why?

27. Sometimes I wish I would never have to ______ because…

28. Who do you miss the most from your passport country? Write a letter to that person?

29. Who would you like to invite to our house for supper?

30. The first thing I would do if I were back in my passport country would be…

31. What is the best thing about being a TCK (or being in ministry for parents)?

32. Where is home for you? Where do you feel like you belong? What makes you feel that way?

33. When I feel excited, I…

34. When I feel disappointed, I…

35. When I feel lonely, I…

36. When I feel happy, I…

37. When I feel discouraged, I…

38. When I feel angry, I…

39. *Make up your own question today

Talking to an older child 7+

1. Tell about a person who has influenced your relationship with God

2. To me, living here has been…

3. Tell me about one of your fondest memories in the country you live in

4. Describe your favorite teacher and what it was about the class you liked

5. Complete this statement: To me, living here has been…

6. Tell about one of your fondest memories of something we did as a family together on the field

7. One of the biggest celebrations of my (our) life has been…

8. Which skill would you like to develop that you have an opportunity to learn while here, that may be difficult to learn in your passport country?

9. What makes you feel more “at home” either in your passport country or here?

10. I hope we never stop doing ______because…

11. Right now my friends back in my passport country are probably…

12. What cultural differences do you notice between here and your passport country?

13. Are there cultural things you’re unsure of when you get back to your passport country?

14. If you had all the time and money you needed, what would you like to do most? Why?

15. What is the hardest thing about being a TCK or someone in ministry?

Remember the most important part of this communication game: Creating a safe space to be heard and understood. You may have to gently remind players that there is more value in open communication than being correct. "That's how he feels" Can keep kids from arguing over the right or wrong answer. Older children may have the tendency to want to correct younger ones and parents may have to resist the urge to fill in the sentences for their children. Finish by thanking the children for what they shared and for letting you in on a part of their journey.

Other Potential talking points prior to leaving:

• Do you know anyone else who has ever left from where we live for 3-6 months

• What is a TCK?

• What is a passport country?

• What does it mean to be a national?

• If it’s your first time back in years, talk about things that might be different or strange that they’re not prepared for (i.e. technology, consumerism, friendships, how they’ve grown up and so have their friends)

Transition:moving from one state or condition to another 

TCK = Third Culture Kid

Adapted from: Jim & Ruth Lauer Transition is a Family Affair: Communication game for the family Modify for pre-deployment or indefinite re-entry

The Powerful Art of Reconciliation - Part 2

Originally posted Feb 5, 2019

Read The Powerful Art of Reconciliation - Part 1

Forgiving ourselves

Often times the hardest area of forgiveness is to look in the mirror with love and grace, and say I forgive myself. Forgiving ourselves of actions (or inaction) requires acknowledgment to see that our choices have caused pain in ourselves and possibly someone else. It requires an admission and confession of pain. When we are able to gain perspective and acceptance, we can experience both freedom and responsibility simultaneously. Forgiving ourselves requires the difficult task of self-love.

The invitation of a cross on the Camino de Santiago

Similar to others hurting us, we have the choice to use these learnings to reshape our future. If we can recognize that an event or events is not the totality of who we are, this liberating place of acceptance, holds power for ourselves and ALL of our relationships.

“What discipline is required for the future leader to overcome the temptation of individual heroism? I would like to propose the discipline of confession and forgiveness. Just as the future leaders must be mystics deeply steeped in contemplative prayer, so also must they be persons always willing to confess their own brokenness and ask for forgiveness from those to whom they minister.” (Nouwen 64)

This transformational work of the cross becomes that much more evident in times of transition. The encounters of the dark parts of our selves require attention – we either face them or stuff them away and become more calloused and bitter.

We all at some point in life will face that chaos. Many artists depict the pain and struggle of their soul in their creative work: Paintings are dark with shades of black and red, scenes of skeletons and war. Poetry is filled with words of hatred. Lyrics to songs blare with rage. The artist’s within each of us, are given a chance in seasons of transition to express ourselves, make amends and choose beauty instead from this pain. As we tap into those difficult and often dark places, a knowledge of a restorative God desiring to use our woundedness and pain for His glory persists. It’s here we have decisions to make.

Transformation usually includes a disconcerting reorientation. Change can either help people to find new meaning, or it can cause people to close down and turn bitter. The difference is determined by the quality of our inner life…Change initself just happens; spiritual transformation is an active process of letting go, living in the confusing dark space for a while.

Drawing by #EMYOArtwork

God’s restoring plan is the patient work of spiritual transformation. It requires on our part a repeated yes to the Lord’s nudging us to go knock on the doors of ugliness inside each of us. The lasting transformation comes only through the active engagement with confession and forgiveness. The invitation for everyone is to release with the new that which is old, bitter, not working, worn out. The desire is for the cross to provide the freedom only it can. The wounds and the pain released rather than staying clung to us. The transformative peace can only be found here.  The great invitation remains: The opportunity transition provides for us to be self-reflective reconcilers, confessing and forgiving deep areas of incredible hurt and pain. To move into the new with great freedom.

In our challenges with others, can I actively thank God for the people that bring dissonance in my life? “To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll your tongue over the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor the last toothsome morsel of both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you” Fredrick Buechner

For deeper reflection: 

Where do you feel deep emotional hurt? Where do you carry anger or bitterness in your heart towards yourself, your spouse, your parents, your organization, or your community with whom you’ve ministered? What is your invitation today as it relates to confession and forgiveness? What are the dark sides of your leadership that lie beneath the surface and need attending to in this period of in-between? 

Drawing by #artofhoping

Visual Prayer Exercise:

Draw a cross with as much or as little detail as you’d like. Consider someone with whom you are currently struggling. (i.e. Yourself, God, another person). As you draw, let the color express heaviness, negativity, ways you are hurt or have been wronged. As you think of words list them in relation to each party on either side of the arms of the cross. These might include thoughts or feelings, ways you’ve been hurt or wronged, things you dislike about the person, ways that you have done wrong. Let negative and angry thoughts be welcome but not take over.

Walking into the Labyrinth called Sabbatical

In many ways going on a sabbatical is a lot like the purpose of walking a labyrinth. A labyrinth opposed to a maze, uses the same path in and out without any dead ends. Where the path winds or turns there is an opportunity for reflection into one’s life. With an open heart and mind, walking a labyrinth offers each one who walks an opportunity to engage his/her whole self: body, heart, and mind.  The intentionality of walking a labyrinth includes 3 stages: Releasing, Receiving and Returning. 

First Stage: Releasing

As one enters into a walk through a labyrinth there is an invitation to stand at the “entrance” and consider what is ahead. The releasing stage is where you stand at the edge of the labyrinth, knowing you are about to enter in, but uncertain of what is to come. It is a space to prepare one’s heart and mind. To shed thoughts and distractions that would disable you from entering in more fully. Letting go of the details and logistics of life enough to open your heart and quiet your mind before God. 

 Off-ramping daily tasks in preparation for a sabbatical parallels this concept of entering in. There is intentionality needed. Sure once could just start walking or as many do on a sabbatical stumble in exhaused. And sometimes this is the only option of how to arrive. But what could be gained in the intentional preparation of your heart, mind and body to receive what this unique and sacred space has to offer? 

Second Stage: Receiving 

Whether you pray, sit, stand, meditate, as you walk through at your own pace, allow yourself to connect with your whole self and consider where you are at right in this moment. For many sabbatical is a unique and precious gift of rest. Much of life is lived in a hurried rush from one event or meeting to another. Sabbatical is a call to release the tasks that might otherwise consume and fill one’s thoughts with too much noise. And an invitation to receive the gift of the stillness and silence often not afforded by the demands of daily life. 

There is awareness that for many, kids still need to be attended to and bills still need to be paid. The challenge here is to engage this labyrinth-like space daily on sabbatical while the structure of life is less demanding to be able to implement this intentionality these rhythms in the midst of normal routines after.

It is from this place of receiving that a richness; a connection of head and heart ensue. The re-integration of one’s whole self, drinking from the well spring of life at “the center” provides the life that one needs to carry on with the task he/she has been called on this earth to fulfill. If this rushed, ignored or never encountered there is a drought of the spirit and mind that remains. 

The other joy encountered in receiving from the the center is Creativity. The encounter and connection with the creator God happens in the stillness and openness afforded at the center. A depth of openness to accept who God created you to be happens after shedding off the logistical cares of the world, listening without the noisiness of the world and refocusing on that which is important for the greater good of the world. 

 Third Stage: Returning

Leaving the center requires faith and courage. From this safe and comfortable union remains the invitation to go boldly back into the world. Yet not alone; carrying with you the certainty of the encounter and experience of the wonder of the Creator God. There can be a peculiar and wonderful sense of strength and clarity that comes from having walked in. The renewed invitation is not to stay but to take what has been learned, absorbed, & experienced at the center and give it back to the world in the unique way that your unique calling in this world allows. From the richness of the center and the returning to give life away, each one who enters becomes more empowered to find and do the work your unique soul is called to do. 

Finding Perspective in Pursuit of a Treasure

Originally posted July 19, 2018

Photo: “All the things” A tradition of mine to take pictures of all the things I didn’t buy! Prizes given for the most bizarre thing found!

We walked into a trinkety-tourist shop at the end of a family trip, eager to spend the few coins the kids had. Spying the ever-familiar snow globe, keychain, and magnet, with the flare of the current location, I judged the location as your run-of-the-mill tourist-trap. My kids however saw every item as a “remember when” moment of our trip. A possibility to possess a memory of this family holiday. What form would each person’s memory come in?

A day prior, the four of us walked for 2 hours on the beach. Decision-making power delegated to my son to control the plan for our time. Warning: Accommodation and flexibility required! We all complied to our 8 year-old’s lead and set a time to search for sand treasures and after reunite for the great family swap of 2017!

This day seaside treasures were the commodity causing family equilibrium in the greater scheme of currency. No one possessed any advantage over another here to collect memories.

I admit, I had a bad attitude to start. It was a windy but sunny December day. The beach seemed abandoned yet still beautiful.  My preferred engagement with the beach is generally to soak up nature –  swim, walk, rest, read, take pictures, or even dig in the sand. This day I walked in circles! Random pieces of trash littered about. I found nothing. Disappointed there were no shells to be found but rather a standing pond of water with a plethora of seaside foam causing a great sense of caution of what bacteria was waiting to parasitically call us home.

I reluctantly complied and showed up to the barter party, however, empty-handed. After 30 minutes of trying I found nothing “treasure-worthy”. Nothing that I wanted to keep for myself or give value enough to initiate a trade.  My children gave me some of their loot! Having discovered treasures unending. They possessed bags full of rocks and random pieces of whatever they stumbled upon: broken shells, an empty water bottle, chewed on trinkets, and a few bones! Treasures, eh?! The bones, as you can imagine became the hot commodity which led us scavenging through sand for a potential gravesite. Fortunately (or not) the discovery of a whole bird skeleton was eventually puzzled together and a lesson in biology, the food chain and God’s creation ensued.

My attitude gradually changed as I engaged and began seeing the experience through their eyes. Dune jumping concluded, slow-motion videos captured and bartered goods collected…we called it a day. With wonder and delight my kids shared later this was their favorite day of our vacation!

My kids remain the best teachers to me for perspective shift. Delighted over the simplest of things: Look at this rock! Look at this stick! Watch me jump into the pool. I bought you a beautiful flower! When I see the value of things, experiences or life through the eyes of a young child – I’m reminded of the un-ending need for gratitude. I’m reminded to stop and slow down and look at an experience from a different angle. I’m challenged to find the little joys in life that are right in front of me. I pray a quick prayer of repentance over my bad attitude. Sometimes the treasures are right in front of us. And sometimes they take looking at them from a 36 inch height.

The Powerful Art of Reconciliation - Part 1

The Powerful Art of Reconciliation- Part 1 Originally posted: Feb 5, 2019

In my recent dark night of the soul, Ps. 139 was my daily prayer “Search me and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you. And lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Ps 139: 23-24). For the first time in my life I really felt the impact on my life where years of unforgiveness had sown bitterness and anger in me. Like a dentist cleaning teeth with those awful, but necessary dental tools, I visualized God scraping clean the dark parts of my heart. I hesitantly prayed, “Scrape clean my heart where there are layers of hurt buildup.” Mercifully time and again, Christ allowed me to find a way to interact with his powerful love and forgiveness. I was desperate to find the peace on the other side…so desperate I was willing to be vulnerable in whatever way, particularly saying I can’t do it on my own to him and to others. Putting my pride aside and asking God to examine over and over where I held hurt and pain. Like a member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group, I found myself wanting to seek reconciliation with everyone in every way in my life.

Confession and forgiveness are the most valuable and necessary disciplines we as believers and especially leaders must engage in to truly worship the Creator. Being able to honestly confess with a repentant heart allows for freedom from shame, guilt, bitterness and condemnation. I recognize these as having the greatest potential for personal transformation of all other topics discussed thus far. Even as I write, I’m reminded of that in the spiritual resistance I’m experiencing in my own life and the ugliness of old friends – skepticism, criticism, and suspicion creeping in very unassumingly. This is active engagement work we as believers are to return to.  In his book, In the Name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen states profoundly:

“In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God, a heart that forgives, cares, reaches out and wants to heal. In that heart there is no suspicion, no vindictiveness, no resentment, and not a tinge of hatred. It is a heart that wants only to give love and receive love in response.” (37)

But why the need for these disciplines of confession, forgiveness and healing – so vulnerable and exposing? He goes on to state that through confession and forgiveness, these powers of evil are brought to the light. “Through forgiveness, [the darkness] is disarmed and dispelled and a new integration between body and spirit is made possible…called to minister with our whole being, including our wounded selves.” (68-69). The integrated, whole, Christ-like self is the longing. A safe reflective space is needed in our hearts first and in our lives with others, where we can be guided ever deeper into God’s love. The difficult, stripping, painful experience of admitting our hurts and our wrongs allows us to lean deeper into the truth and light. God continues his work in us desiring the cross to do that which only the cross can do. Release us from the pain and sin of our past. Scarring over wounds that were once raw and deep.

Stuck in the past

Key events in our stories cause character building opportunities or if unprocessed, places of stuckness. Our childhood is filled with opportunities to grow and gain momentum or stay in a developmental lock-down emotionally, and sometimes physically. These unexamined points are appropriately referred to synonymously as freeze points or pinchpoints. According to author John Trent, “An emotional freeze point is a season of time over which unexamined and unprocessed layers of hurt are laid down, restricting or blocking personal and spiritual growth” (103). These are most likely to occur when you are left with an unexamined or unprocessed trial. Pinchpoints are the sensations of having freedom pinched or stolen from us in a relationship.

For many, unaddressed patterns formed unconsciously. While we were young these may have served us at the time as pretty good coping mechanisms for dealing with pain. These same survival mechanisms, carried over into adulthood can create great havok in not some but every relationship. Each human with proper self-examination can admit to such an example of hurt or trial stemming from childhood; some carry an enormous caseload of painful and traumatic pasts. The coping mechanisms used to survive these experiences of our past turn into defense mechanisms in our adulthood if gone un-examined.

These same survival mechanisms, carried over into adulthood can create great havok in not some but EVERY relationship.

Whether during a recent season of hurt, or from a young age, these painful pinchpoints and the freedom upon examination have the power to set our future on a different trajectory. Upon examination, these occasions invite us into new growth and freedom for ourselves and others. We all have the choice to allow these experiences to control us or to grow us.

Grace in Transition

God gives us transition as a rest stop on the journey; an intentional place to examine the trials that have caused bitterness or calloused places in our hearts. The invitation may come in the confusing mix of feelings of hopelessness, depression, overwhelm, exhaustion, criticism and anger. Slowing down to acknowledge that something is not right, gives us time to admit that there are warning lights coming on our emotional dashboard. Similar to a car, if we ignore them we will eventually crash or fall apart. The warning lights of our soul require us to stop and pay attention to the way we have been living out of the hurt & unmet longings from deep places in our hearts. Here is where we must find a way to take all of ourselves into the Creator’s hands and wait for solitude and His grace to do it’s powerful and necessary healing work. To live fully and securely in the present moments. This is the most important task ahead of us.

God’s invitation for me as an adult came in the form of a gracious, profound gift. A gift that was wrapped in the confusing package of pain. Along with an invitation to address what lay under the surface. Fortunately I was not invited into it alone. Attending to these dark, deep forces under the surface, required a daily battle for my soul. The battle ultimately was for authenticity and freedom.  The healing work that needed to be done in the deep interior places of my life was the work of attending to that pain. Work required extended time, space and safe people surrounding me. As I kept coming back to this pain, often daily, with the help of the Lord, I was able to see and admit the ugly casing of my heart. Ruth Haley Barton says it best, “At times the dark side seems to leap on us unexpectedly but in reality it has slowly crept up on us…it has been a lifetime in the making. (42). My dark side included the soldiers of defensiveness, criticism and contempt, all guarding my vulnerable, broken heart for years.

The critical, arduous task called repentance and forgiveness is essential to giving us freedom from the pain and bondage of our past. These are holy places. The place of releasing others, especially those who have not asked for forgiveness and repenting to my desire to hold onto a piece of it. We must let go and let the cross do the work of the healing. The wounds and hurt are still felt in a real way. As well, the wearisome action of re-wrapping the wounds and attending to these scars starting to form are all part of the gracious gift of keeping my heart open to the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. I want to be released and move into freedom. That’s what makes it all worth it.

Read The Powerful Art of Reconciliation Part 2 - for the continuation and an idea of how to interact with forgiveness visually

All of Creation is Subject to Transition

Created for Transition originally posted Jul 31, 2018

Avocado bounty

The natural order of creation necessitates built-in rhythms of seasons of lacking, and seasons of fullness. Consider the journey of the last 5 years of our avocado tree for example. A poor sickly first year after we moved in; and although ripe with fruit, they were small, tasteless, & unhealthy. The gardener insisted on following this crop with a sharp, extreme pruning and long season of watering and plant food. Much to my sadness and doubt of the extreme pruning approach, the following year produced absolutely nothing! I was ready to call it for dead. Year three followed with another constant stream of watering in the off-months, fertilizing and nurturing. During harvest season to our delight we saw one! large, healthy avocado per week for eight weeks! The flavor increased as the tree came into greater health. But the crop unusually small, in my opinion. Uncertain if the tree would ever fully recover from its extreme pruning and years of unhealth, year four shocked us! During the harvest season, over the course of several months, one single tree produced an incredible and abundant fruit incomparable to the years prior. Over 800 large and incredibly flavorful avocados were picked and enjoyed with great delight! The harsh pruning and years of barrenness that preceded produced in it an amazing fruit that required time, patience and faith.

For me, the symbolism of this one tree, highlighted to me that our great Creator subjects every part of His creation to seasons of barrenness, pruning and harvest. Showing me so poignantly in this beautiful illustration his care for all of creation remains. All of creation is subject to seasons of transition.The metaphors of this season are all around for us, the observer. A brilliant, painful and potentially comforting part of the great designer’s purpose. Illustrations for our learning…

God’s beauty in creation as seen in Mallorca

This knowledge that change precedes transition, and is in turn followed by loss—as well is a natural order to creation—when embraced by atransitionee, helps with the release of expectation to have to figure it all out. Rather permission is granted to allow freedom to embrace transition almost as a rite of passage—a relatively short season of in-between, or rather a way of disengaging from the old identity, helping us find new norms and pathways. It is symbolized by an end of one way and a passage into a new way. Well-known author William Bridges states that “Transition is the process of letting go of the way things used to be and then taking hold of the way they subsequently become. In between the letting go and the taking hold there is a chaotic but potentially creative ‘neutral zone.’” How then do we enter this neutral and often barren transition space?

INVITATION

The period of time in which we label transition is a season where God is looking to transform each one of us and make us more like Him. We discover again and again our need for intimacy and connection with the Creator of the universe, but ever so poignantly in this often vacuous and dark season. We are reminded of the gift of being the only created beings with the ability to communicate, think, and have intimacy with the artist of the universe!

The invitation remains to lean into this “in-between” or “boundary phase,” as Robert J. Clinton labels it. In these seasons God is asking us to process the stirrings of the soul to give clarity to one’s call. God uses transitions to shape life direction and further the discovery of one’s unique contribution in the expansion of His Kingdom. Transitions serve to bring about needed change, provide clarity in life direction, consolidate learning, deepen values, shift paradigms and advance one’s influence or ministry. God does some of his greatest shaping in our lives during times of transition most importantly if we remain open to it.

Role Discontent

Originally posted Feb 11, 2019 on saraandjeffsimons@wordpress.org

Identity and Loss

Despite sharing the load of being a parent to young kids in a more egalitarian way, the current phase of parenting finds both of our young kids at my side of the bed regularly in the middle of the night. Pattering footsteps are heard for any number of reasons. In this particular stage I’m the one theywant first. A gift, I suppose… but a confused one for me, as I wrestle with God about how He wants to use me in this coming season. The cluster-roles of motherhood, transition coach, trainer and cross-cultural worker remain in regular tension.

Thanks to Jeff, I’ve been blessed in the last several months to have time away to reflect, dream, and consider what the next season in these roles might entail. A lovely week away with unlimited personal time, the ability to dream, sleep, and exercise at leisure allowed for an amazing time to consider the possibilities of our future. Yet as is the case in coming back to reality, I returned and re-engaged to acknowledge much to my surprise (again!), that my life consists of limitations!

You see, I’m not a “natural mom” in strengths or God-given gifting. I’m introverted for one, with ahigh need for alone time to rejuvenate and just function well. And because deep processing is part of my wiring and a high value, I need silence to hear my thoughts! For some reason my young kids don’t seem to understand that! A friend recently asked me, “Sara how do you get your introvert time as a mom?” The answer: “I don’t very often. It’s an ongoing struggle (sigh)!” My personality also begs to operate most effectively when asked to contribute my strengths of ideas,strategies or analytical skills. Sure, some of those are transferable to motherhood, but I don’t oftenfeel that I have my best foot forward in giftedness output in this particular role. I’m just not yournaturally-maternal, gentle, service-oriented, loves to [fill in the mom expectation here] personality.

Okay so maybe there are some idealized expectations to unpack there… but truly I wrestle with it daily! How do I reconcile not stewarding these other “gifts” during a season where one role takesprecedence? How do I find contentment amidst the grumpiness and irritation of mom-dum? When my calendar of events says “no upcoming events”, or worse, kids birthday parties for the next 7 Saturdays! In these times, I find myself down in a slump.

Even today, while I’m writing about calling, identity, and limitations, I’m loving the space! The research is confirming and I have a newfound hope in the coming opportunities to share withothers. I’m only slightly amused at the irony of being continually interrupted by a preciousdaughter, who is at home sick and sitting next to me.

I stop for a brief moment to cuddle and play a quick game of “I Spy” with my at-home-sick child and continue to accept my invitation to wrestle with my identity as mother and worker. When I’mhonest, I can acknowledge these interruptions make me grumpy, short-tempered and full of entitlement. I remind God that it was His divine plan for me to be hired for a formal member carerole when I was 9 months pregnant with my first child, almost a decade ago. He “called forth” my calling with such strange timing. I don’t want to wish these years away by any means. It’s these places of disruption in my calling, my plans, my best-foot-forward that I find hardest to embrace. The invitation to the disruptions being the life we were called to. I desire to live well into the roles of motherhood including the invitation to the LIMITATIONS that coincide.

It’s painful to face the unfulfilled longings left un-met within us. A single person desiring to be married but with no prospects. A couple desiring to be parents only to discover they are infertile. Another couple desiring to enjoy their new marriage, and quickly met with an unexpected pregnancy. A worker who desires to be seen for strengths in leadership with no possibilities for exercising those gifts. The role of missionary stolen as adult-caretaker of aging parents takes precedence. Whatever the unwanted role, how does one reconcile calling with God-given giftings in seasons of having to deny certain roles and accept other unwanted ones?

I believe the invitation is to acknowledge the un-met longings as losses. When I give credibility tothat which is unmet I’m met with sadness, and possibly disappointment. When I move too quickly past what is begging for attention inside of me, I hold onto it and without knowing, place those unmet longings elsewhere, often in other misdirected, unhealthy ways—on the love received from a spouse, on the success of a child, the gratitude of a boss, the performance of a co-worker.

These attempts mask my desires and longings only to temporarily escape the heartache and the reality of the things I dislike about the present. They try to erase the disruptions of life. Instead they take me on a winding road full of forks and turns, detours and dead ends. Here I will soon find myself back again and again if losses are unacknowledged. William Bridges (The Way of Transition) talks about transition or the “neutral zone” as the time to let go not so much of a relationship or a job itself but rather the time of letting go of hopes, fears, dreams and beliefs that we have attached to them. It’s in these attachments of hopes, dreams and longings that we redirect our stance towards a posture of embracing the losses in our current reality. We are called in this place and time to accept our limitations as a part of our calling, a part of our “normal”. To acknowledge limitations is to acknowledge loss.

What if instead of focusing on what we are giving up we are able to see what we are gaining instead? In this place of accepting the current reality and embracing the losses we are called to acknowledge that we are not in control. The places of “disruption” develop in us a deeper ability to empathize with others who are on the same journey of disruption. Our task-oriented selves begin to let go of our attempts to control, to direct, or to plan. In that space we are vulnerable. Painfully vulnerable. We’re invited into the place where our heart engages with the lack of control we feel. We mature in our understanding of development. We gain empathy for others. We gain understanding that life doesn’t turn out how we plan.

As poet David Whyte implores, we are called to spaces of alertness; and alertness is the hidden discipline of the familiar. We create in us a place to be moved and changed, impacted by the unfamiliar. We are put in a proper relationshipwith reality and the created order. We’re reminded once again that we were created and there isa great Creator with a bigger purpose than what we can fathom. A non-linear, uncomfortable road that when acknowledged and surrendered to, frees us from the unrealistic expectations that life is to be lived in a straight, continuous path. There is loss in accepting our lack of control. Simultaneously there is great gain in the freedom and invitation to accept the unknown and our greater calling in this in-between space.

[Finesterre] – “The road in the end

The road in the end,

Taking the path the sun had taken

The road in the end

Taking the path the sun had taken

Into the western sea

The road in the end

taking the path the sun had taken into the western sea

And The moon

and the moon rising behind you

as you stood where ground turned to ocean

No way to your future now

No way to your future now

Except the way your shadow could take

Walking before you across water going where shadows go

No way to make sense of a world that wouldn’t let you pass

Except to call an end to the way you had come

To take out each letter you had brought

And light their illumined corners;

And to read them as they drifted on the late western light;

To empty your bag

To empty your bag

to sort this and to leave that

to sort this and to leave that

To promise what you needed to promise all along

To promise what you needed to promise all along

And to abandon the shoes that brought you here

Right at the water’s edge

Not because you had given up

Not because you had given up

But because now you would find a different way to tread.

Because through it all, part of you would still walk on

no matter how, over the waves.”—David Whyte

Reflection Questions:
In this particular transition, as you consider identity-challenge, what qualities do you feel God is maturing in you?
How does knowing that transition causes great upheaval but also qualities of persistence, empathy, & depth change the way you approach it?
What way forward have you found for coping with current limitations?

Created to create

Holistic resources for cross-cultural living and transition.