Trenches

My blog seems to have found a very transparent voice. To remain true to that voice, I have to be honest; I can't come up with anything to write about tonight. I have tons I have written tonight, but nothing I can post. As my writing is normally what is going on in my current world, there are some BIG things happening in the lives around me I just can't put up right now.

I am blessed by the people who trust me to do life with them. Life is hard. It's hard core, in-your-face, screaming mean sometimes. I find it doesn't have much rhyme or reason from time to time, and shell shocked I stand in debris waiting for God to start the process of restoration. I'm not standing in this blast zone of a personal encounter, but I am standing next to a friend, I have been, the last few weeks. Big, life changing, powerful stuff my girls have had to endure. Women are powerful things. We carry such weight with such grace. Even at it's rawest of emotion we move with grace and beauty.

When I know these things with my friends I am often quiet in writing, stick around long enough and you'll learn quickly if you are my friend you will probably end up in my writing one day. I write best when it's my own experience, however. I think I'm a lame fiction writer because the only character I know how to develop is my own, and that's a full time job!

So in an effort to make sure I write, but from my own experience: I am humbled and deeply honored I am able to be trusted to carry some of the hardest things I can imagine a woman carrying. I pray I never get used to the power of someone else’s experience in my life. I am humbled to get to do life with these women who shape my everyday. I don't understand everything, and I don't need too, their situations leave imprints on my soul as well and I have to find my own answers in a highly circumstantial and subjective world. Despite the situation though, there is something in the power of their circumstances that shows life as extraordinary; the resilience of a woman's heart, the strength of her spirit, and sisterhood. My girls are my sisters and I can't do life with out them. Tonight I want to kick the crap out of life and tell it to leave my girls the hell alone, but all that's gonna do is leave me looking crazy. What I can do is encourage you to think of who you're doing life with.

There is such beauty through the debris. As the dust settles I see my friends still standing and not only are they still standing but I'm standing with them. Of all the people in all the world I get to be the one who goes along with them. I hope your life is as full as mine is. I pray you are walking some hard yards with someone so they aren't alone in the battle. And to the few that I am writing this about tonight I love you, I'm committed to you, and tomorrow will be better. We press into hope together tonight.

tis whadit tis

I’m really just writing to write tonight. I determined if I am going to hit these goals of mine then I need to be showing up to write like I’m getting paid for it. So here I am with a blank screen and not much else.

Today was a day of encouragement. I had to ask for it today. I was dealing with some super sensitive issues and God in all his sweetness to me showed up. A lot. I was in a text frenzy with my girl Rachael, emailing sporadically with my Pattee, and talking on the phone with Megan. Today I had to ask for encouragement. I’m sort of proud of myself for asking. Pattee used to tell me all the time I didn’t need to do it all on my own and it’s ok if I have a discouraged day to ask for help. She taught me that, and I learned it. My girls are awesome, but God was just funny. Facebook and Twitter for all the grief it gets pulled me from the trenches today.

One person’s status on Facebook gave the scripture Isaiah 41:9-10 which is now hanging from my monitor, it told me I was chosen. It says, “I have chosen you and I will not throw you away.” It actually uses the word discouraged in the text! Then someone twittered something Carl Lentz said in a message I remember sitting in, which said, “your season is not what you think it is, there’s more going on than you know.” I remember being encouraged by that when I heard it. Then a bit later back to Facebook and someone else’s status read, “you are WORTH it.” Then another’s twitter gave the same verse over.

I told Rachael and she replied it was God’s way of letting me know that he’s involved and he’s with me today. It was one of those supernatural realizations for me when I read her text. It gave me freedom to really let go and not try to understand anything. This morning I woke up feeling the heaviness of discouragement immediately. It was purposed steps to get myself to work this morning, but I understood my steps are ordered by the Lord so nothing more to do than look up and put one foot in front of the other.

Today I stood, stood for grace and mercy, dependant on its strength to help me put one foot in front of the other. This morning I thought it was a breakdown, but tonight after church, after the girl from work coming and giving her life to Jesus, and after the word I realize it was breakthrough.

Breakthrough to tomorrow, breakthrough to more of my character, breakthrough to more of the character of God; there’s beauty in the breakdown and power in the breakthrough.

I’m glad today’s over though. Sleep will do me well and tomorrow will be grand!


Oh I have a page for the blog on Facebook now. gin paynter's ginnyisms come hang out with us!

Fleet of People

My mom said when I got this job I would have tired shoulders from all the people going in with me on my first day in spirit. She was right. The day I got the job, between text, instant messages, email, and phone I probably had to tell 60 people. As each new thing has come to pass, from my own direct line at my desk, title, and my first paycheck I’ve had a fleet of people to tell.

It is interesting to me I have been struggling so deeply with worth and value. I really came to the revelation deep down there are some areas that do not believe what I thought they believed. I guess I have always been working out this feeling by trying to be good enough. I’m thankful for the people who really love me and aren’t afraid to show me this area of weakness which God was raising up to let me let him fill. It has been like a love recovery. To recover the areas of my heart that feels unlovable. I’m learning to make them lovable, I have to open them up to be loved, to allow the love and not tell it no. I know I sound sort of like a hippie all this love talk, but maybe the hippies had it right. All you need is love, right? For God so loved, Jesus loved, it’s changed the world that love. Lainie told me I was talking myself right out of receiving it. Annoying to have to hear when I guess I wanted to wallow a bit, but she was right. It’s my choice to believe if I am lovable or not. Pattee keeps listening to the same story every other day. Listening to me work out the lowest parts of the secrets I’m acknowledging. She even told me tonight, this is where life gets real. She’s stealing my lines, that one she is, and using them on me!

I know God loves me because he chose me. He didn’t have to, but he did. I don’t really know where I’m going with this today. I guess I want to encourage you. I want you to know that whatever inside you're working out, you aren’t the only one doing it. I want to encourage you not to give up. Whatever it is you are working through, letting go, picking up, or putting down, I am too and you aren’t the only one. I want to encourage you to know it’s gonna be worth it. I know this because I know God’s character which is innately good and perfect. I want to remind you he says he has good plans for you, he’s seeking to prosper and fulfill your ache, who else is saying that about you? I want you to know I’m working out my own crap too, it’s ugly and messy, super unflattering, and so vulnerable, but I need you to hold and push through because your next breakthrough could just be the cause that effects mine!

I guess I want to remind you, we’re all in this together. I have 60 people I have to tell whenever something major in my world shifts, they do life with me. Now you do life with me.

Thanks for coming. It’s less lonely with you here.

Tailored

I heard a preaching by Rick Godwin seven or eight years ago about our destiny and who we are made to be. I remember him talking about a tailored suit being worn by someone else. He spoke on how a perfectly tailored men’s suit is a good feeling. As I am a woman with no desire to wear a perfectly tailored men’s suit I related more to the second image; the design of a stealth bomber is designed to perform a specific function, so specific it doesn’t work if used as something else.

It was a life altering revelation, years later I still remember the image of a stealth bomber designed to fly through your bedroom window and drop a bomb between your eyes. It’s that specific. I’ve remembered and reflected on the suit analogy but I always came back to the bomber. I could understand the specific purpose in design but I couldn’t understand the comfort of a perfectly tailored men’s suit.

I could understand the bomber analogy and relate it to my life, because I understood I was designed for a specific purpose. I’ve always known that. Since I was a little girl there has always been something so much bigger in me longing for something so much more. It is still very much alive within me, actually so is the little girl. The men’s suit analogy was lost on me however, not because I was a woman and didn’t understand a suit’s fit; but because I didn’t understand the specific purpose. Not knowing that purpose caused me to try on a lot of different suites, which frankly just didn’t fit.

I understand it now somehow. Though I’ve still never worn a man’s perfectly tailored suit, I understand about wearing something fitted. It’s more comfortable. My purpose has always been just to be me, who I am and be comfortable in that. I was reading the amazing feedback I have received from the Chapters pieces, thinking about how I resisted writing so much before, and for what? Because I thought something was supposed to look a certain way? Because I thought I had to BE a certain way? I thought to myself, how comfortable it is, wearing your own skin even though most of this isn’t the way I thought it was going to be or how it would unfold but it is so comfortable. Being me.

Being ok with being me.

It’s a good fit and I think I wear it pretty well.

Chapters 2

Certain laws of the universe govern our lives. The Law of gravity governs our ability to fly, the law of sowing and reaping governs our harvest, and the law of cause and effect changes each day by the decisions we make. Just as these laws govern our universe and keep things aligned and rotating, there is a law in my life which keeps me in an ever constant state of flux. Please don’t misunderstand, I am not complaining by any means, it’s more my way of understanding God has a sense of humor. He fluxes my world and everything shifts.

I have the new job and now, I am moving! That’s right, out of my gorgeous ice cream pink room! It’s been a year and what a year has it been. I think Pattee and I are both different people having lived together, but now things are shifting, the direction of life is changing the current and I am moving out. The circumstances are good and Pattee and I are both very excited about our transitions.

I didn’t know I was moving however, until last Wednesday, this point important because I am now probably moving with in weeks to make the first of the month. There are lots of circumstances leading to this quick paced move which frankly aren’t important. What is important is there is a lot of shifting and at a ridiculous rate of speed! I’m a bit shell shocked; new job, new car, and now new house! I’m excited because I am living in my brother’s house he owns here. He lives out of town and this will help us both out, plus I get to be the head of my own home for a season. I’ve never had that before. I am very excited about this endeavor.

It scares me a bit I have to admit. I am thankful. I am thankful because I really do trust God and somewhere deep inside me there is something so solidly planted in peace; it’s still cool waters keeping me calm. It’s a different place then I have ever been. I feel the momentum in my life speeding up. I feel things being removed to have newer bigger things established. And somewhere deep with that peace is something else whispering to hold on, this is what it looks like to have the desire of your hearts satisfied.

Hope is living brightly right now and it covers the emotions of sadness and worry. I have learned people like to hold on to what they know because it’s safe, even when it hurts them. We get used to what we know and let that emotion rule the fear and tell it to quiet down. I don’t want to be a person who settles out of fearing what I don’t know. Who cares what I don’t know. This is what I do know…he’s good, he’s getting better, and I’ve not even scratched the surface of how much he loves me. Knowing all that, the rest doesn’t seem all that scary.

Chapters

I've come to the conclusion life never slows down. One thing rolls into another and gives birth to a whole new season, guiding you directions you never would have thought for yourself. What I love about God however, is how it's still what you wanted. I didn’t expect the road I took, but I wanted a deeper relationship with God. I asked for more intimacy, for greater trust, and a fully surrendered heart. Ask and you will receive, what I forgot about was what it would take to get there.

I GOT A NEW JOB!!! It's wonderful and in marketing, I love it, and it fits me well. I knew this was the job for me. I worked, prayed, fasted, and prayed again for six months for this job and I got it! They picked me! It was a brilliantly awesome day when I received that call. I had called for four weeks to get the first interview, waiting four weeks until the second, and held steady for three agonizing days until I was offered the position.

Those three days were a final sprint in a two year, eight month marathon of one of the toughest seasons I've been in. God was so faithful. Monday night was the interview. It went well though I didn't leave as confidently knowing I was in competition with one other who had industry experience. Oh well, that's ok, we knew that going into it! Monday night was easy, Tuesday proved itself to be one of the hardest days I may have ever had to endure. I hated where I was and time literally was crawling backward, People were asking if I had heard yet, my friends that I normally share my day with where busy so I was hanging solo and sour on Tuesday. Tuesday I reminded myself every four and a half minutes that God is not a man so he does not lie. He is not human so he can not change his mind. I said that over and over. The rest of the verse continues to say, has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and failed to carry through? I knew what I had heard and I chose to remember those words instead of the ones like doubt, uncertainty, and anxiety. I used other scripture to fight those words and so on and so forth.

Wednesday wasn't as hard as Tuesday, but it came with its own challenges. I was much more at peace this day. Whenever my mind tried to take me somewhere else my inside would tell me to be still and know that he is god. In doing that I remembered he was not a man, he could not lie, his character has always proven itself to be good, and I chose to believe in those truths than the lies that wanted to try and take ground. I was quiet, I rested in this place, and God's sweetness held me gently that day. Thursday I knew I would hear either way. It was the day and I was waiting.

At 9:13 my cell phone started to ring, the caller id revealing the companies phone number. I had called after this job so much I knew that number when it showed up. I was about to find out. I answered the phone with the slightest bracing to bad news that never came. I remember him offering the job, accepting, asking about my start date, and giving him my email address. That's it. There was more but I don't remember. I got off the phone stood up and whispered in the most excited whisper you can imagine to my coworker, "I GOT THE JOB!"

I said that sentence for the next three days. It Was AWESOME! I had daydreamed of that moment and the one of me giving my notice over and over again for months and to stand in those moments was so freaking great. It really was.

The best part was knowing I was faithful. I was able to say I was faithful and this is sweet reward. It is hard to explain. To know I didn't do it perfectly and there were some ugly ugly days, but I never stopped believing God. I chose to believe his word and trust his character and no matter how many times I failed, I dusted off and believed again. I finally got it. The place of knowing with out condemnation I trust God deeply and intimately encourages me to go further than I have before. It's been my tangible manifestation of the words that say: I will go from strength to strength, from glory to glory, all the while on the ever winding upward road to heaven, inviting others along on the journey.

Despite how deep you've gone, he's deeper still, and his wells are overflowing and looking to carry you down rapids that look overwhelming, but steady and consistently he’s already braved them. So just hold on it. It gets better and better. I promise.

Finishing Well

My family gathered under umbrellas and a tent yesterday, and bid farewell to my grandmother who passed at the age of 95 last month. Her ashes were interred next to my grandfather in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, while the rain poured down as it has at every family funeral to date. It was a beautiful memorial where we laughed through tears and mourned our loss of someone who so deeply impacted our lives.

My mother lovingly took time to put together a memorial table at the reception to remember Virginia Emerson Palmes, the opera singer, the college graduate, mother of three, and fiercely devoted wife, with pictures of our family, a scrapbook of her life, and random scribblings and poetry my grandmother had collected along the way. As I sat at the table and went through the papers I came across a credo written by her when she was 83. My grandmother’s mind was stolen from her, inevitably stealing her from us, some 15 years ago by Alzheimer’s. She was in the earlier stages at 83 and as I read her credo for her future I learned my grandmother was a visionary. She was humble and seeking to be more merciful, more gracious, and more loving. Nowhere in the credo was there mention of her illness, never a voice of defeat or surrender; just a teachable spirit that longed to love more and finish well. She never gave in and she never gave up.

I was so impressed by her spirit to live well, to love well, and to finish well. She was 83 and she was still casting vision for the character she longed to have more of. I thought I was blessed because I loved her so much. I thought I was blessed because she loved me so much. I am more blessed because even in her passing she is teaching me about grace and mercy, about life and love, about character, and about being a woman of vision and high caliber.

I hope I continue to learn more things about her as I grow that will surprise me. I pray when I am 83 I am not waiting to die but excited and casting vision for the next season in my life. They say you can’t pick your family, and I am sure in some areas it’s a very true statement, where my Nana is involved though I couldn’t have picked better.

My grandmother was incredible and I pray as I pass from death into life I will finish well as she did with a generation behind me following the legacy she started.