All In ! ? Hmmm?

This last week, I've been recovering from my daughter's wedding - the first of two this summer, and a pulled tooth that I didn't take care of sooner.  And  I have been pondering.  Mostly because to do anything else was just too stressful this week.  But you know how you have recurring thoughts and messages that continue to bombard you from one angle or another?  Well... here's mine over the last couple of weeks?

Kathy, are you ALL IN?

Now I've been pretty tired this week.  The thought of mustering up enough energy to be IN to anything has me going back to bed and pulling the covers up over my head.

What does ALL IN mean? 

Is it fully committed?

Completely engaged?

Totally disciplined?

Giving all energy, time, money, & effort toward a cause- or a relationship?

Does it mean you've got it all together?

Is it in my marriage? my relationship with my girls? most significantly with the Lord?

Is it commitment to my job?

or my dreams?

or others in my world?

Whoosh! I'm tired again!

If I were to ask you ... Are you ALL IN?

how would you reply?

Do you feel like you are ALL IN anywhere?

I don't! 

I want to be, ...I think.

I want to feel committed to something important

I want to feel drawn by the urgency of a dream

I want to feel deeply involved in lives- especially Ren and the girls and their important young men

I want to impact lives of friends, and family, and clients

I want to be so IN in my relationship with my God that I KNOW what His best is for me

I want to be so ALL IN in my care of myself that my health; body, mind, and soul show it.

I want to be so ALL IN that my finances reflect health also

There have been times when I thought I was ALL IN- truly was!

Total commitment- total energy- total vision

Only to discover that the cost of being ALL IN was very high!

Being ALL IN didn't lead to health; in me, in my family, in those I worked with.

I don't want to be ALL IN like that again.

...ever again.

or do I?

Did I - even in the 'unhealth' of being ALL IN- experience incredible healing & fulfillment?

Is there a way to be ALL IN and still be balanced?

 or is balance a mirage- an ideal that is truly not possible?

To live only partially in... is that even worth doing?

This past weekend, we went to Wheaton Bible Church with Cait & Jack.  In the sermon, the pastor kept saying, "It's not how you started, but how you finish."

I want to finish well. I want to finish ALL IN.  But as you can see,  I have more questions at the moment than I do answers.

And I will just say it out right ... I am not looking for pat answers to these questions.

I want to hear from people who know what it is to wrestle with these same questions.

People who know what it is to live in these questions ....the key word being LIVE!

People who know it's not about balance at all.

You, I would like to hear from.

Are you ALL IN? 

What are your thoughts?

Lessons learned from a garden!

For so many years of my life, I have LOVED the first flowers of spring- daffodils, tulips, even dandelions bring me joy.  Their bright vibrant colors and entrance into a grey brown world give energy and promise of more sun to come!

Now dandelions have never been a problem.  My huge yard covers with them as soon as the weather allows.  But in all my years of living in this house, with a huge yard that I could fill to my content, I have never taken the time to plant any of the daffodil or tulip bulbs in the fall, so that I can enjoy their beauty!

Until now!  Last fall, I determinedly bought up a couple of different kinds of bulbs, threw them in the ground and hoped that I would see some color this spring.  (Yes, there is a reason that I have not done a lot of yard work.  I'm not very good at it.)  But sure enough, earlier than expected because of the beautiful early spring we have had, those bulbs sprang up in spots of daffodil yellow and tulip shades of yellow, orange & pink.

In the middle of my very unkept flower bed (pictures don't lie) I have found GREAT JOY! I look for time to go to the window, or step outside to breathe the fresh air and behold their beauty.  What a gift they have been to a winter weary heart!

At the same time that I have been enjoying this first...I have been experiencing another.  It's an inward growth that is laboring to 'spring forward'!  It's been hard and I'm finding myself waffling between wanting to 'give up' and desperate to make it work this time.  It's part spiritual, a lot emotional, with a smack of physical, and it is taking all of me to work my way through it.

But my trips to the flowerbed have been speaking to my internal growing place.  I'm learning some valuable lessons.
     1. These bulbs were made to produce one thing. They are either daffodils or tulips.  They don't try to be something they are not.
     2. Their colors and size vary and even change as they grow and enjoy the sun's warmth and drink the rain's sweet juice.  But they remain daffodils and tulips.
     3. They don't produce all year long. Just for a season!  They will always be daffodils or tulips, but they sometimes look like a plain old ordinary bulb.

Now to a proficient gardener, I'm sure I have much to learn about the beauty of a bulb.  But to me, much of the time, I don't even notice they are in my garden.  Yet when the spring comes, when it's the right time- they are the shining stars of the garden plot.  They give life and hope and joy to my heart!

Hmmm! So many questions come to mind.
Why do I try to do so many things? at once?
What is my one thing that I was designed to do better than anyone else in my world?
Why do I work to look like something different than I am?
Why do I keep on doing and doing, when my whole being craves to rest? to take in? to lie dormant?
Why do I think I have to shine all the time?

I'm sensing deep inside this bulb of mine that something is happening!  It's not my time to SHINE yet!  But the growth that is inside is beginning to push it's way up through the cold, hard, bare ground.

This season reminds me of another 'in the ground' time.  As Jesus appeared to be an 'ordinary human'- not able to save himself on that cross.  Yet he waited!  He allowed the death to come!  He stayed! He let the death be 'official'. I've learned that the Jewish belief was that the spirit hung around a dead body for three days hoping to rejoin with it.  But on the 3rd day it waited no more!

Jesus waited!  He stayed! No one could dispute he was dead! But then, when the time was right, life bloomed again. He was dead no more!  He rose up from the ground and He could be seen.  Not to everyone at once. Not with pomp and circumstance. But just to a couple, then a few more and then a few more! He was WHO He was supposed to be WHEN He supposed to be. HE brought LIFE to all because of it! Wow!

I feel like I've been in the ground- probably for 3 years just after Leisha died. I feel like the last few months, maybe more like the last 3 years, something has been stirring within me; something has begun the growing process.   I'm beginning to see a 'bit of green growth' pushing through the soil. It's not my turn to bloom yet!  But I want to be ready!  I will do the hard work!  I will wait and stay!  Lord, only you know who I truly am and what I am to be! Help me be patient! Help me be ready for my moment to shine as you made me too! Help me be part of helping others find your LIFE that you offer!

How about you?  What lessons are you learning from your garden?  What is growing in your flowerbed? Leave a comment to tell me what kind of bulb your are.  I'd love to hear!

Come on Sunshine! Hello rain! Let's get this garden growing! Easter is coming!