​Some of the most harmful conversations we engage in are conversations we have with ourselves.

Circumstances get tough and we're often the first ones telling ourselves they are TOO tough. More often than not
circumstances don't turn hopeless because they ARE hopeless, they turn hopeless when we begin telling ourselves they are.

It's easy to forget some days what an inside out experience life is. It's easy to get up in the morning and begin wondering what the day is going to bring my way instead of considering what I'm about to bring this day.

We are all looking for cheerleaders in life, people who will help us believe we have what it takes. What cheerleader, though, can compete with the cheerleader inside of us telling us we never will?

In the bible we are called to be strong and courageous.

That is not the same as never feeling afraid.

That is not the same as never feeling discouraged.

That calling is a call to never let our feelings have the power to write the story of who we are. Feelings can be allowed to write the story of how we feel, but they can not be given authority to write the story of who we are.

Because I have personally discovered, once you give them that authority, our feelings are slow to hand us back the pen. Feelings love being THE story; they hate simply being a part of it.

I have felt it a few times the last couple of weeks. I have felt discouraged. And I have quickly acknowledged - that's a very real feeling that does not tell the story of the very real me.

We can all do that. We can all say, that's a feeling, that is not me.

We can all recognize that feelings come and go, but I'm going nowhere.

You don't have to wait for the circumstances of this day to show up and tell you who you are. You can decide that before you ever crawl out of bed.

The day will try to convince you otherwise. But you are your best cheerleader - you are your best conversation - you tell yourself and then you tell your day what your day needs to know about who you are.

Life is an inside out experience.

Be kind to your insides.

​Last Tuesday morning I woke up feeling as ill as I've felt in some time. Covid...

I immediately entered into a pattern my life knows well. It's called the downward spiral.

The downward spiral: an invisible force in life that can sense when one seems to be headed in a favorable direction. The downward spiral is a balancing act of sorts, in place to make certain one's life never turns too favorable.

At least that is how one can come to see it in the middle of the spiral.

I went for a walk yesterday morning. Intent on seeing the sunrise. Only it was cloudy. At 6:47AM - when my weather app calculated the sun would be there, there was no sun.

My attempt at breaking the momentum of the downward spiral thwarted by clouds.

A friend shared a song with me recently. It's called Rainbow. There are lyrics in the song that say this:

Well, the sky has finally opened
The rain and wind stopped blowin'
But you're stuck out in the same ol' storm again
You hold tight to your umbrella
Well, darlin', I'm just tryin' to tell ya
That there's always been a rainbow
Hangin' over your head

It's the nature of the downward spiral. It will certainly spiral you through the storms of your past. And when it can use the storms of your past to intensify the storms of your present, it's easy to hide you from the sun.

From the rainbow.

But the power of the downward spiral is only as great as our capacity - our willingness - to forget the sun. For it is always there. It's like the picture hanging on the wall in the other room. It's still there when you aren't standing directly in front of it.

Staring at it. Being moved and warmed by it.

I think the most beautiful thing about the human being is we all come equipped with a reset button; it's called sunrise.

I didn't go look for the sunrise this morning. Because I've been reminded that it is always there, always hangin over my head. Sometimes we simply need to sit down and write that it's so.

So good morning sunrise.

And so long downward spiral. You are clearly still a force in my life, but you are no longer invisible.

I see you.

Until I see the sun. And what a beautiful gift it is to have the power to choose to see the sun.

And today, I see the sun....

​Most days emotions can feel like bad things. I suppose because they often feel like walls and not gateways. They feel like hurdles in the exact middle of a relationship - demanding distance - not invitations.

I was hiking in a dense wilderness with a friend a couple of years ago. I was a little bit ahead of her. There was silence. Until I could hear her crying - sobbing, really. It entered the silence out of nowhere.

I wanted to run away. That's what I wanted to do because that's what I'd always done. There was something scary about it all. Crying comes with an unease you don't find with laughter.

I didn't run away, though. I made myself stop. And turn around. And go to her. And hug her and ask, are you ok?

Clearly she was not ok, but sometimes that's what emotions are. They are often words that can't be spoken. They are a way of asking for questions we don't know we need to be asked.

Are you Ok?

Would you like to talk?

Is there anything I can do?

She wasn't OK. And she told me why. Then she stopped crying and out of nowhere I started telling her about my own tears in life. Not because I owed her that in return, but because I wanted to. Because emotions had created this gateway into a place where I could explore my own life in connection with her emotions.

Gregory Boyle says, "we all taste eternity when person merges with person. We need to find ourselves poised to enter into relationship with anyone anywhere."

I do believe that about eternity. That in some supernatural way we will all be one. We will be merged. We will all be merged but with our own stories. I imagine - with a smile - that the difference will be that we will suddenly embrace each other's stories with acceptance and compassion and love.

Our emotions will have walked us through the ultimate gateway of discovering who we are. Through the gateway of discovering that who I am is a lot like you.

Emotions often try to hide that truth from us. But if we allow them to, they will absolutely lead us to living in that truth.

A truth found looking through the eyes and hearts of relationship.

​As the story goes in the book of Mark in the bible, there was a large crowd surrounding Jesus near a lake. The crowd was pressing in on him, wanting to hear him talk, and he needed room.

There were two boats nearby and Jesus jumped into one of them belonging to a guy named Peter. Jesus asked Peter to push the boat out a little bit - away from the crowd - and then Jesus began to speak.

When he was done speaking, Jesus told Peter to push the boat out a little further. Then he told him to throw his fishing nets into the water. When he did - even though Peter hadn't caught a thing all day - his net became full of fish.

Peter was so moved by this that he left everything behind and followed Jesus. And Peter would eventually become a foundation on which the church was built.

I hear the word overwhelmed a lot lately. I FEEL the word overwhelmed a lot lately.

I think we get overwhelmed sometimes because we can't imagine that the little steps we're capable of could be remotely large enough to address the challenges in our lives. In fact, we often ask God to deliver us to a giant solution while failing to notice he's already delivered us a first step.

I fear we've been so sold on the value of BIG in the world that we've lost sight of the power that can be found in the little. And when we focus on the impossibility of the BIG we can't possibly have or do right now, we neglect the little we can do.

And settle back into overwhelmed. Or defeated.

I was feeling overwhelmed earlier this week. Trying to balance way too much in my work and personal worlds. It was late afternoon and I decided - I'm just going to go play in the woods. So I went to a local park and walked three miles on a wooded trail.

When I was done, it didn't feel like the world was in perfect alignment, but it did feel like I'd pushed the boat out in the water a little bit.

When I write in the morning - it's my way of getting my day off to a good start. It guarantees nothing about the day ahead, but it's my way of pushing the boat of my day out in the water a little bit.

When I decided to cut back on sugar this year, I quit buying ice cream. It didn't eliminate all the temptation of sugar in my life, but it was a way of pushing the boat out in the water a little bit.

Maybe you go to social media and you find yourself feeling less than whole after a few minutes there. Deleting the app or deleting people on the app won't make you feel immediately whole, but it allows you to push the boat out in the water a little bit.

I encourage you, when you get to feeling overwhelmed - stop. Stop considering the magnitude of the solution to the entire challenge and take a look around for a step. Because there is always a step.

And when the step tries to tell you it will never be enough, don't listen to it. Listen to the God who rarely pulls off anything deep without a seemingly shallow start.

Seemingly, because to us a walk in the woods hardly seems like an answer. But I'm not sure God's much interested in us knowing answers. I think he's more interested in us continually taking steps.

He's interested in us pushing the boat out in the water.

Just a bit.

​Our brain's main job is to predict what is coming next. There is no better way of keeping something safe than knowing the future. Our brain is the captain of our personal safety, so the brain is constantly trying to get better at knowing what's coming next.

Our relationships are our primary source of safety. And threat. So our brain prioritizes knowing whether our next interaction is a safe one or a risky one.

In some ways the brain works against itself in this effort. The brain loves patterns. Habits. If it can get wired into us predictable habits, it doesn't have to use a lot of energy trying to figure things out. It turns certain areas of our lives over to our patterns.

Relationships are one of the brain's favorite patterns to create.

Maybe we find ourselves over and over again in relationships where there is little emotion or communication. There is quiet and isolation. Our brain comes to expect that. It makes the brain's job easier trying to keep us safe in isolated relationships if it knows we are always going to live in isolation.

Maybe we find ourselves over and over again in relationships where there are extreme emotions and volatility. There is chaos. Our brain comes to expect that. It makes the brain's job easier trying to keep us safe in chaotic relationships if it knows we are always going to live in chaos.

We know that neither isolation or chaos is the safest place for us to live. As much as we appreciate the brain's effort to keep us safe in these spaces, we know these spaces are full of turmoil.

At some point we have to say thank you brain, but no thank you. I appreciate that you try to wire me for predictability - I appreciate your love of habits and efficiency - but I'm afraid you've mixed up some wires in my life.

Then we have to grab hold of the wires and do some intentional re-wiring ourselves. Maybe we need to watch a few YouTube videos on electrical repairs, but when it comes to relationships - until we make some changes - we will always seek what we've always had. So watching those videos is pretty important.

Call it a brain flaw if you want, but when you know the flaw the impact of the flaw loses its power.

When you are used to living in isolation or chaos, it's difficult to seek out safe and secure relationships. If you've never been there you haven't the slightest clue how to go there.

But all of us have an innate longing for safety in relationship. All of us can begin looking around and seeing hints of it in someone else. We see someone who isn't afraid to safely share emotions. We see someone who is seemingly living free of volatility. We see people worth taking a chance on. Reaching out to.

It's hard to leave our senses of isolation and senses of volatility for a sense of safety. Leaving ANY pattern is hard; I gave up ice cream this year - patterns are daggone hard to abandon.

But they can be abandoned. And as useful as our brain can be, its love of habits can work against us.

Until we recognize unhealthy ones and decide, today I'm leaving my pattern.

And starting a new one.

Until one day the brain recognizes this pattern we have of living in safe and secure relationships. And we get to put our electrical tools back in the closet.

Don't forget where you put them though, you never know when the brain might need our help again.

​One of my dear teacher friends was recently asked by one of her third grade students to deliver a love note. The note simply read:

From Lori. Love you Seth.

(names changed to protect the innocence of the 3rd graders)

My friend delivered the note. And as a recovering third grade love note passing addict who had more than one note confiscated by a teacher, I give my friend a standing ovation! 👏

She said about the young man who received the note: "he held on to it the entire class like it was his blanket. All smiles...."

I thought, what a beautiful scene.

Of course the love cynic in me told her to tell that young man to hang on to that blanket because love gets much more complicated. 🙄🤷‍♂️

I do love the imagery of that, though. Love like a blanket. Today is Valentines day and hearts will be the more popular symbol for love. But I think I'd like to propose that next year we exchange blankets.

I like the thought that love isn't an inside out heart to heart exchange but more a covering of one another. Love isn't buried deep within, it's exchanged on the surface. With a blanket.

If you want to research a holiday that literally no one agrees on where it came from, research Valentine's Day. The historical accounts are all over the place. But one account I read and will choose to go with attaches the holiday to a saint known for his empathy.

For today, I'd like to think of empathy as a gnawing desire to know who needs a blanket. Who needs covered in love right now? And the gnawing gets so persistent and unbearable that one finally just decides that everyone needs a blanket.

Because everyone does. Everyone needs love. Everyone needs a blanket to hold on to. All smiles....

Happy Valentines Day dear friends.

While your passing out cards and candies and flowers today - all beautifully appropriate gestures - maybe consider giving someone a blanket.

And if you are wondering who might need one - that answer is easy.

Everyone.

Everyone needs a blanket.

​We all have those songs. We're driving down the road and a song comes on the radio and without thought we're playing drums on the steering wheel and singing along. The guy sitting next to you at the traffic light wondering if he should call 911.

For me one of those songs is Bruce Springsteen and Thunder Road.

Or Coldplay and A Sky Full of Stars.

Or anything Maverick City Music.

There are many, really. I mean there ARE a lot of traffic lights...

The thing is, all of those songs that make us sing along - which I have to believe is at least a part of the dream behind every song writer and singer - you write them and sing them for the first time without knowing if anyone will ever sing along.

If anyone will ever be banging on their steering wheel.

I think sometimes we don't chase our dreams because we're afraid our dream won't be a hit. But very hit was at one time NOT a hit. Every song we sing along to was once someone simply brave enough to piece it together in a basement or a garage or alone at the piano in their living room.

Singing it alone.

I'm afraid we don't share our songs. Or share our writing or our thoughts with the world. We don't share our ideas at a meeting. We don't tell someone how we feel. There are so many things we don't do because we're afraid we'll be left standing all alone with our idea or our thought or our feeling.

But you are already alone with that thing. You're alone with it and wondering - if I sing this song, will anyone sing along.

There is beauty in having that question answered. Even if no one ever sings along, there is beauty in being brave enough to put the song out there.

Because life is better when we're brave enough to sing every song we have some desire to sing.

Life is better when we sing the things we've been holding on to.

The world can't have too many songs.

Sing yours this week.

​In the very earliest words of the bible we read - in the beginning there was nothing but the spirit of God hovering over the waters.

And so, if you think of God as I do, as the father, the son and the holy spirit - three persons in one - in the beginning there was nothing but a relationship.

In the midst of eternal nothingness, there was one relationship.

Trust me, nothing confuses me more than the idea of a triune God. I struggle daily to figure out the idea of one me let alone three of me.

But when you have come to consider relationships as foundational to life as I have, it's much easier to begin believing that a relationship was foundational to the creation of the world.

When that spirit looked upon the world and said let's create humanity, the spirit said, "let US make mankind in OUR image, in OUR likeness."

The relationship said let's make a relationship that looks like ours. Which is why after God created Adam he quickly declared, it's not good for man to be alone. God didn't believe this because he'd read it in some relational self help book; he believed it because he had spent eternity in a relationship.

God knew the most beautiful part of life was connection.

That's why every birth that further creates us in their image comes as a result of connection.

And each birth subsequently depends on human connection for survival.

We depend on relationship for survival because our creation was inspired by relationship, formed out of it and wired to forever be dependent on it.

Our self-help-you-can-go-it-alone culture often forgets we were created in THEIR image, not HIS image.

There's a lot of research that suggests that all of humanity has one struggle in common right now. We are all some level of lonely. And that research connects loneliness to a host of poor health risks and consequences.

Which begins to make sense when you embrace the truth that we were created out of relationship for relationship. An oven doesn't do a great job keeping your milk cold; it's not what it was created for.

Jesus was once asked about the secret to life - like it was the end of a long podcast interview and the interviewer wanted him to give a couple of nuggets listeners could take away as action steps.

Jesus said, love God (us) and love one another. And when Jesus said that, he said those two things - loving God (us) and loving one another - he said those two things were alike.

Because they are.

God said let's make them in our image. And that image was a loving relationship with one another. The father and the son and the holy spirit - there was no hate there.

Only love. Only togetherness. Only connection.

When we talk about a broken world, that's the brokenness. We were created in the image of relationship, and in so many ways we are working against that image.

I think we need to go back and listen to that episode. The one where Jesus said, love God; love one another.

It's our purpose. Anything else leads to brokenness.

​Alexi Pappas says confessing a dream is one of the bravest things we can do. Because once we confess it, she says, we have to face the possibility our dream won't come true.

How many of us haven't said our dream out loud for fear of facing the reality our dream might not come true?

It makes me wonder, how many hidden dreams are out there?

Hidden dreams are a form of torture. They daily gnaw at the soul of the dreamer, and in a quieter and more unknown way, they torture the rest of the world. Because a dream come true doesn't just change the life of the dreamer, it changes the dreamer's world.

Your hidden dreams deprive you AND me.

It's easy to get caught up in wondering what will become of me if my dream doesn't come true. Maybe it would be helpful to begin wondering what becomes of the world if my dream doesn't come true.

What if our dream is something more than an outcome we long for; what if it's actually something the world desperately needs?

What if an answer we fear is an answer the world is waiting on?

For so many reasons, we can't afford NOT to confess our dreams.

So I encourage you, confess your dream, surround yourselves with the people who believe you can do it, then every day make choices that favor your dream come true.

Because we the world - we are rooting for you.

We the world - we need your dream come true.

​I have had several opportunities lately to recount the path of my life. And so many times in the retelling of that path, I have been awed by how perfectly the events and circumstances and people of my past were placed to prepare me for my today.

Too perfectly for me to ever consider it an accident - too perfectly for me to not believe someone was preparing me for a day I was completely incapable of preparing myself for.

I was telling a young woman about my career path earlier this week. I told her about the unlikely job I took right out of college. A job that literally fell into my lap. I had just received a business degree, yet a few months later I was living in the woods counseling struggling teens.

That was not my plan, but there I was.

When I was done talking to her, she said, you wouldn't be doing what you are today if it weren't for that first job.

No. I wouldn't.

Last night I spoke to a local non-profit about the healing power of relationships. I started that talk by telling them I wouldn't be there talking to them if it hadn't been for that unlikeliest of jobs 30 years ago.

But standing there - saying that - I knew God knew I'd one day be standing there. Thirty years ago God started forming the language I would use with this group last night.

It's powerful to look back and see the all knowing presence of God in my life. It's miraculous.

But that's not a miracle meant to highlight the nature of my God in the life I have lived. It's meant to remind me that God is right now - in this writing - shaping the direction of my life today and tomorrow.

There is no value in seeing the God of my past if it doesn't flame the trust I have in the God of my right now.

The struggles of my past have perfectly prepared me for the peace and struggles of my right now. So how can it not be that the peace and struggles of my right now are placed perfectly to prepare me for tomorrow.

How can I not see the prophetic work of God in my past and not trust that he is prophetically using today the very same way.

I don't know is my answer. I don't know how I can not see that. But I confess there are days I don't see it. There are days I see this perfectly blazed trail of my past - even with all of it's destruction and darkness - and wonder where the heck God is today.

Every day I know that God has always known where I was headed, yet there are still countless days I don't trust God knows where I am about to go.

It helps, though, to recount that past. To tell my stories. I can never tell them without seeing God as the leading character.

I cannot tell them without being reminded that he is still leading.

And little by little I trust more that he knows where I am going.

Even when I don't.