Category: Thoughts from Life

Posted in Thoughts from Life

The Work of Learning

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Let’s set a scene for a moment. Child comes in from school. Parent, grandparent or other adult is waiting, ready to start a conversation, hoping to discover how the school day went. Despite all of the hopes of the adult, the conversation frequently ends up being little more than a brief exchange, going something like this:

“What did you learn today?”
“Nothing.”

You just might be chuckling right now as you connect those words to familiar voices. You’ve probably overheard that exchange once or twice, if not had it yourself. It’s possible you’ve even been on both sides of the conversation. The adult sometimes pushes, hoping the child will dig a little deeper and realize that learning really has occurred. Other times, the adult simply chuckles, recognizing the truth that, even if the exchange remains exactly the same day after day after day, it will be obvious by the end of the year that the child did, in fact, learn a great deal through the course of the year.

Every single day, students receive information, engage with it, process it, and reinforce the learning of it through discussions, projects, and tests. Learning happens slowly but steadily, reinforced through the very system that they often assume is failing them because they don’t tangibly see what they learned that day, week, month, or year. Learning is work. It takes time. But our educational systems are designed to guide students through that lengthy process in such a way that they don’t even realizing the work is truly…well…working.

Now, I admit that not all of our educational systems are successful. That’s another discussion for another time and place. But the point is that learning happens for students whether they are consciously aware of it or not, simply because they are engaged in a system that helps them engage with the information presented to them. It is a system designed to equip the learning process.

Then we graduate and the system changes. We have avenues for learning how to meet the demands of our jobs. And we have demands that insist we learn even when there are not systems in place to help us with the learning. Tax season insists that we learn how to file properly. Life management requires that we learn how to keep up with cleaning and maintenance of our homes and vehicles.

But, there is so much more to learn than just how to do our jobs or pay our taxes or maintain homes and vehicles. A wide range of personal growth awaits us throughout our adult years. It’s just so easy to miss that growth because we lack the automatic systems that present the information we need before guiding us through a pattern of reinforcement.

So, we have to create those systems ourselves. We have to build habits of taking in, processing, and engaging with new information. And we have to make ourselves push through, even as they days, weeks, and months pass with us feeling like that child who has learned “nothing” in school. Just like that child, we don’t see the increments of growth. We’ll only discover it when we look back after a year or two, or maybe even ten, and see how we are different now. How our understanding has grown. How our patterns have changed. How our hobbies or habits or skills are more developed.

Friends, that’s hard work.

But it’s worthwhile work. It’s worth it to have a huge “to be read” stack of personal growth books. It’s beneficial to make yourself journal something every single day even if it’s hard to pinpoint what stood out. It’s progress when you keep practicing, keeping pounding, keep persevering even when you don’t benefit or progress from your effort.

It’s worth it because you’re learning something, even when it feels like nothing. Yes, it’s hard work. Yes, it seems as pointless as sitting in a classroom often did when you were a student. But, at the end of the year, you’ll be able to look back and see that somewhere along the way you really did learn. You grew. You improved. You advanced. You progressed.

That’s the hard work of learning. And it’s worthwhile. So, what have you learned today?

Posted in Thoughts from Life

Upstream

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Have you ever watched fish in a river or stream swim against the current? It’s truly fascinating, especially in those moments when they swim but seem to make no progress.

It’s how I feel so very often. Like I’m pumping those fins but not getting anywhere. I’m trying to make progress in learning and growing and serving in the kingdom of God, but I fill as if I’m going nowhere and simply exhausting myself in the process.

I don’t know much about the science behind why fish swim against the current, but I can think of a few reasons why it would make sense. In some locations, if fish flowed with the current, they would eventually wash out to sea where they would die in an environment unsuited to them. And we all know the fascinating behavior of salmon who swim upstream to spawn in the same place where they themselves were spawned.

Despite my ignorance of the science behind why these fish behave the way they do, I know one thing for certain. They behave the way God designed them to behave. He created them with this natural drive to swim against the current. If He did it, it is good.

Do I trust that truth for myself as well? Do I trust that all of my struggles in life, in learning, and in serving are still in His hand? That He is guiding and strengthening and working in me even when it feels that I’m flapping away and make zero progress?

Do I trust that, no matter what, His engagement in my life is good?

I don’t really have a biblical reason to compare myself to a fish swimming against the current. It’s simply a reflection of how I feel sometimes. When I see a fish swimming with all its might and going nowhere, I identify with this living illustration from nature.

But there are truths that I do have biblical reason to believe. I share the yoke with Him, and His yoke is easy. His burden is light on my shoulders. Yes, even in the middle of the current. Even when I’m flapping my fins and feeling like I’m going nowhere.

I’m in that season right now where it feels like I’m not making any progress. But my heavenly Father is constant, and His Spirit is still whispering truths to my heart and mind. He is still growing me and drawing me closer to Himself, even when it feels like I am not truly making progress.

So, I’ll keep flapping those fins. I’ll keep swimming. And I’ll trust the progress to His faithfulness.

Posted in Thoughts from Life

So Many Words

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I’ve struggled in writing lately. A few weeks ago, I had a couple of days when the words just flowed. They weren’t ready to be published, and I still don’t know where they’ll go, but they poured out of me through my fingers.

Then they stopped.

Some days I’d write and then delete because it just wouldn’t all come together. The thoughts were there, but the ability to communicate them failed me. Other days there was just nothing. No thought. No inspiration. No nothing.

For a writer, that feels bad, something to be overcome. No writer wants to admit to writer’s block, and suggestions abound for working out of a place of blocked creativity or flow.

I wonder sometimes, though, if that is our problem. Whether we are writers or artists or engineers or researchers or teachers or whatever, we spend so much time and effort trying to resist blocked paths. I can’t help but wonder if that very effort ends up contributing to the creation of the blocked paths we so greatly fear. If we experience a void, it is something to escape, never something to lean into and experience.

Could that keep us from discovering new avenues of creativity? Could the fact that I am constantly reaching for so many words be the very thing that keeps me from listening for the words I really need? The words that will take me to the next lesson? The next exploration? The next discovery? The next thoughts to share?

Years ago, the music trio Phillips, Craig, and Dean released a song entitled “Let My Words Be Few.” The lyrics are suitably simple, focused on awe and love for Jesus and the recognition that sometimes basking in His presence is better than many words. I remember chuckling a bit when I first heard the song because it was coming from three pastors. These men rely heavily on their ability to communicate with words. Words make up the core of their professions, both through music and in the pulpit. Without words, they would have quite the struggle on their hands. Yet they recognized that sometimes their words needed to be few.

I miss that truth so very often. Apps like Grammarly fuss at me regularly because of my love for adjectives and adverbs. I like to illustrate and intensify, even when it isn’t necessary. Much of what I say could easily be expressed in half as many words, but why do that when you can make words so pretty? So many words exist. Shouldn’t I try to use as many of them as possible?

That inclination, though, can get me bogged down in words. And then when the words don’t flow, when a thought comes through in a couple of short paragraphs or doesn’t even come at all, I feel as if I’m failing. I’m blocked. And that’s bad, right?

Right??

Perhaps not.

Maybe instead of being a bad time, it’s a time to lean into. Maybe it’s a challenge of trust. If I need words, whether for my own healthy processing or for my livelihood, perhaps the void of words is a signal I’m not listening to the Author of words. The one who gives me the ability to use those words.

Perhaps He’s calling me to listen better.

Am I will to say here I am and listen, with or without words?

Posted in Thoughts from Life

Messy & Real

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I’m struggling today.

I want to publish something, especially after not getting anything up in the chaos that has been our past week. But, I’m tired, words aren’t flowing very well, and I’m not even doing a great job of processing old stuff to edit. In all honesty, none of that stuff feels “real” for today. It was real and genuine at one time, and it will be again. But not today.

Here’s the deal: I like things neat and tidy. Orderly. Give me a good routine, a nicely ordered checklist, a structured week, and a place for everything with everything in its place, and you’ll have a happy Ann.

So, just out of curiosity, how often has even one full day been nice and tidy for you? Yeah, me neither. It might be desirable, but it’s not ever real. We try to make it reality, though, don’t we? Especially those of us who are ordered, structured people. Whether on a blog, via social media, or even on Sunday mornings when we head to church, we like to give others these neat and tidy snapshots of our lives. Lessons learned and wrapped up in a bow. Thoughts that are complete and full and structured. Smiles that say we’re fine and blessed and everything is going great!

On the one hand, that’s what I want to give today. It’s what I wanted to give last week, too. I knew the week was going to be chaotic, messy, and exhausting, so I intended to have multiple posts scheduled and ready to go, posts that reflected those structured thoughts or tied up lessons or abundant blessings. (Don’t get me wrong, I do have structured thoughts and solid lessons learned and abundant blessings. But, they are never that simple and straightforward.) Instead, I ran out of time. So, I ended up sharing nothing.

Then I sat down this morning to remedy last week’s neglect, and I hit a wall. I didn’t know what to share, either in fresh writing or in edits of my backlog. I don’t have a whole lot of brain power this morning after the exhaustion of last week, so I figured I’d just find something to share that says, “Hey, I’m back!”

Except I want to be real.

I want to be seen. I want to be known. I want to share what I’m experiencing and learning. But I often find myself wishing that I could be seen and known without revealing that my real life is messy and untidy, despite my best inclinations. I want real life to be that neat, tidy, bow-on-the-top package so that I can be honest and be orderly all at the same time. (For the record, I can’t even tie a pretty bow on a gift, so that mental image does make me laugh a bit!)

But it’s not. I cannot be known and seen without admitting the mess. I cannot honestly share genuine thoughts this morning without admitting that I’m just plain tired. Oh, I can find something I’ve written in the past and tidy it up for you, but it will not reflect me right now.

Sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes it’s better to wait until I can give something that’s a little more complete and whole, a little tidier, and a little more coherent. Sometimes you don’t need to see the mess.

But sometimes you do. Because the honest truth is that life is messy for all of us. And we’re all learning and growing through that mess. And if all we ever share is the pretty — and complete — packages, then we’re not being real or honest with one another. And as a result, we’re not encouraging one another.

So, here’s me being messy and untidy. Here’s me letting you know that after a week that was exhausting and chaotic — although also really good — I don’t have a lot to give or even a lot of ability to receive. But I’m here. And today is a “real” day. And that real day is part of what contributes to the learning and growing, the thoughts I can share and the lessons I’ve learned.

If you’re in the middle of messiness or exhaustion or chaos, know you’re not alone. And know that this is part of real life. This is part of growing. This is part of truly living. Part of the puzzle pieces that come together to give us thoughts and lessons learned. Part of what enables us to encourage and strengthen one another in the journey.

That’s what I have today — the realization that even in the mess and exhaustion, there is something to share. When I struggle, I still have to try. Wherever you are today, I hope you can find the encouragement to do the same.

Posted in Thoughts from Life

About Me

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Yesterday I wrote over a thousand words before I ever started writing an actual blog post. I have no idea what I will do with what I wrote first. It doesn’t really fit anywhere right now. It’s just there.

Today I wrote another 1800 words before starting this blog post. It doesn’t fit with yesterday’s writing, I don’t think, so it’s not like I can put it all together. It could be the introduction to a book. Maybe. If I can figure out how to flesh out the rest of the idea. But I don’t know. It’s just there. It’s just thoughts that poured out of my head randomly, exploding from a place that has been buried for a long time.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I vividly remember being ten years old standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes while mentally writing an instruction manual for washing dishes. (Yes, please laugh. It’s hilarious.) Later, I kept a notebook where I hand wrote portions of stories that filled my head.

But I could never go anywhere with the stories. I had bits and pieces, but nothing real that I could truly form into a plot or a point. Having heard “real” writers talk about how their stories almost wrote themselves, I figured I wasn’t a “real” writer. I was just a wannabe writer. A fake. No need to waste time on such nonsense if I wasn’t a real writer.

And yet, there have been times in my life when the words really did flow. I didn’t always know what to do with them, just as I have no idea what to do with the words that have pounded out through my fingers over the past couple of days. But, I’ve been most healthy as a person — and had the strongest inclination that maybe I am a writer after all — when I’ve let the words just come. When I’ve written them whether I knew what to do with them or not.

The problem is that I like to be productive. To have a purpose for what I do. If the words have no place, why should I waste my time writing them?

But, when I’ve tried to only write what has seemed productive, the writing has dried up, leaving me in seasons where I couldn’t write my own thoughts. Where I had no voice. Where I wondered if I even had thoughts at all any more. Those seasons left me feeling dry and dead and silent and so very far from being seen or understood.

A lesson I’m very, very, very slowly learning is that sometimes productivity has nothing to do with the usefulness of what I produce. Sometimes it has to do with just being good for me, even if it does absolutely nothing for anyone else. Sometimes that really is productive.

That’s hard for me. I’m a people pleaser by nature. And, after all, doesn’t Scripture warn us against thinking too highly of ourselves? So, it’s definitely hard to believe that I should spend any time on an activity that might never do anything for anyone else. How can that be godly? How does that grow the kingdom? How does that even compute?

And yet, I am better today for having written those 2800 words yesterday and today, as well as the words that I know I’ll turn into blog posts. I am healthier. Which means I am more capable of investing in other people. These are realities, but I have to figure out a way to convince myself of their validity day after day after day. Otherwise, I won’t keep writing the random thousand words here and there. And if I don’t keep doing that, I won’t be able to keep writing blog posts. Or processing the thoughts I have in my head that make me who I am and help me engage well with others.

Sometimes it is about me. I don’t like it. I struggle with it. But it’s the truth.

Sometimes it’s about you, too. Sometimes you need to do things solely for the sake of your own health. Your own growth. Your own pleasure, even. Because when you do, you are learning who God made you to be. You’re learning the gifts He placed in you. You’re honing them and developing them. Even if in this moment it feels selfish and all about you, it’s actually about so much more. It really is about honoring God with every single part of who you are.

I’m going to forget this. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but probably next week. Next month. A year from now. I’ll forget it. And I’ll need to be reminded. I won’t want to be reminded, but I’ll need it.

So today, while I’m aware and accepting this truth, I’m saying it.

What truth do you need to say out loud today? What do you need to record? What will you need reminded of next week? I’ll be glad to help. Because this is how both of us will grow. Are you in?

Posted in Thoughts from Life, Thoughts from Scripture

The Choice

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. Psalm 94:19 (NASB)

This was the first verse on my mind this morning. I felt the anxiety tighten its band around me, even though I had no idea where it was coming from or what specific thing was causing it. So, I breathed this verse and asked the Lord to whisper to me the truths of His consolations. The things I sometimes don’t automatically remember when I’m in the middle of anxiety.

When the anxiety hits, instead of the consolations I usually see the circumstances. And never the good parts, no matter how numerous they might be. I only see the negative parts of our circumstances. The struggles. The discouragements. The places where we are lacking. I know this shouldn’t be my focus, but it can be hard to redirect. To actually enumerate the consolations of our amazing, victorious, loving God.

When I look in Scripture, I see many who were stuck in their circumstances. Abraham in the waiting. Jacob in his bondage to Laban. Joseph in slavery and prison. David in being pursued, first by Saul, then by one challenge after another. The Israelites in slavery and exile. The prophets in abuse and rejection of the people. And on and on and on.

But what I don’t see is evidence of rejection by God. They might have felt forsaken and abandoned by God, forgotten in their mire. But they weren’t. They just needed a different perspective.

This is what the psalmist recognized when penning the words of Psalm 94. Perspective was everything, and that perspective revolved around choosing to remember and receive God’s consolations. The truth about God.

That’s where I am today. The specific circumstances that weigh down on my heart and mind change through the years. But they are always there, in one form or another. They impact my heart, my mind, and even my health. They have wounded my husband and our children. We have often felt completely powerless to change them or to even protect our children.

Yet God is calling me to remember His consolations, no matter what today’s circumstances are. He’s calling me to remember who He is. His goodness. His truth. His purposes. His love. Circumstances may or may not reflect those things in the moment. But, He is above circumstances, and circumstances don’t change Truth.

The problem is not with the reality of God. The problem lies in the choice before me today. Before all of us in the throes of a struggle. Will we choose His consolations?

It’s hard work, and it’s easy to grow weary. But today I will choose His consolations.

I can’t speak for tomorrow or the next day, only for today. And today I will choose and pray that they really do delight this anxious soul.

Posted in Thoughts from Life

My View

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I can see irises through my office window.

When we moved here, I transplanted just over a dozen of my iris bulbs. At our previous home, they were planted in a nice little circle around a large oak in the front yard. The new home also had a spot in the front yard where flowers could easily be planted around a tree, and that tree happened to be right outside the office window. Perfect location!

The catch was that the bulbs didn’t bloom. I didn’t really expect blooms the first year after we moved, one full year after transplanting, although I knew it was possible. But I did kind of expect them the second year. So, I was disappointed when there were no blooms at all. The third year, when I began seeing irises elsewhere around the community, I went out to check my own. Just leaves. Not even a sign of stalks growing.

Less than two weeks later, I suddenly had buds on three of plants! Then buds showed up on two more plants! Although it was still fewer than half of the transplanted bulbs, those five began to produce abundantly, providing wave after wave of beauty.

And the best part was that I could see them from my window. Every time I got up from my desk or passed through the room, the irises were there to make me smile.

It sounds perfect, doesn’t it? A beautiful view from my window! But what if I told you it was incomplete?

You see, only four of the five sets of blooms can be seen from my window. The fifth one is behind the tree.

But there’s more. My fledgling hydrangea bush is off to one side of the porch, out of sight from the window. It is just starting to produce color, pink this year instead of the blue it boasted when we bought it last year. I have to make sure to step outside if I want to enjoy the new growth. My Norfolk pine, the one bought years ago as a small living Christmas tree for our bedroom, comes inside during the cold winter months. During that season, I can easily see it on its high perch, safe and sound from cat attacks. But as soon as the overnight temperatures rise enough each spring, I move the large pot to a spot right beside the front door where it will be able to enjoy the humid warmth and get the right amount of sunlight. It sits just out of sight between the office window and the front door, along with the potted blueberry and elderberry bushes lined up on either side of it.

I’m honestly horrible at growing things, and more plants die at my hand than survive. But these are growing, and it’s delightful to see them. But in order to do so, I have to actually step outside. I can’t enjoy their beauty through the window like I can most of the irises.

Oh, and have I mentioned the peach trees? This is their first year to be mature enough to produce, and they are covered in maturing peaches. Not only can I not see them from the window, there is also no way to smell them from inside. The peach smell has been glorious from the moment those beautiful buds first began to swell and produce fruit! I just have to step outside the door to see and smell and enjoy.

Life is beautiful in the same way, isn’t it? God gives us so much to see from right where we are. It’s glorious and it’s nourishing. But do we catch the fact that it’s also incomplete?

God has given us the incredibly nourishment of our immediate families, our work and social spaces, and our church home. There is so much to see and smell and taste and touch in those spaces. It can be so very nourishing and powerful.

But as beautiful as life is in the immediate spaces God has created for us, if we don’t look further, we’ll miss the fuller and more powerful beauty. If we don’t step out of our comfortable spaces into the wider world, we’ll lack an understanding of how God creates beauty in the most unexpected ways. We’ll miss the smells and sights and visions of His expansive kingdom. We’ll miss the understanding that there is beauty beyond our wildest imaginations, beauty that will be fully revealed when we cross the boundary between temporary and eternal.

My view from my office window is precious and nourishing. But stepping into my yard gives me much more. Will we step out and see the greater Kingdom beauty that exists all around us?

Posted in Thoughts from Life

Not Today, Please

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

Lately, I’ve been processing through some things I wrote years ago but never published. At the time, I was putting pressure on myself to organize my blog just so, taking time to design and maintain themes. And a lot of what I was writing either didn’t fit into the themes or took too much effort to design just right. So, it just got stored, waiting for…someday.

But there’s also another category of writing from those years. Thoughts that came from a place of deep struggle. Pain. Darkness, even. I don’t specifically remember writing the words, but I do remember never intending to publish any of that content. It felt too raw. I needed to process my feelings, but I did not believe I was free to show that side of myself to other people.

I know, and have always known, that we encourage others by sharing it all. Not just the good or nourishing. Not just the wrapped-up-in-a-pretty-package lessons after they have been learned. But the struggle, too. The hurt. The ugly. But it takes a lot to actually be the one to encourage that way. Not just the freedom of courage, but freedom in many other areas as well.

Today I am in a very different place with a new set of struggles but also a new fount of freedom. And today I found one of those posts that I never meant to publish. I have no idea what was happening at the time, but I know it’s not the only time I felt this way. Nor is is the most recent time I’ve felt that way. So, today, I’m going to do what I never intended to do. I’m going to take advantage of where I am right now and share it. And if you have ever felt this way, or even feel this way more often than not, I hope that today you can know you are not alone.

I’m just not feeling it today.

It’s one of those days when actually getting out of bed was a hard-won victory. One that took every ounce of the will power I had to accomplish anything. Real work, real productivity, real living all take too much effort. It would be so much easier to curl up with a book or lose myself in the mindlessness of social media. To just play. Goof off. Push it all aside. Or better yet, just hide completely. Be invisible.

To push aside the hurt of feeling unwanted – rejected, even – in the very thing that I thought was actually going well.
To walk away from the overwhelming feeling of being behind in everything.
To stop trying to succeed when at every turn I feel like I’m failing.

It would be so much easier.

And yet, I can’t. So, I wish I could write a poem like my precious daughter does. To get it all out in bare honesty. But that’s not part of who I am. I have to find my own way. Figure out my own release. Work this out in the way God created me to do so.

So, here I am. Tapping it out. Vaguely, yet openly. Not naming the hurt, yet seeing it in every word. Not exploring the sense of failure, but trying to recognize the truth behind the feeling. Not listing all that leaves me feeling overwhelmed, yet acknowledging the tension in my neck. My shoulders. My back. My head. And seeking that planner so I can create tangible to-dos to help focus my energy and relieve the pressure.

I’m not feeling it. But I’m going to do it. I’m going to dive into the work day. I’m going to accomplish tangible tasks. I’m going to choose progress, even when I’d rather curl up and hide.

And with that decision alone, I feel better.

Maybe I can do today after all.

Posted in Thoughts from Life, Thoughts from Prayer

Never to Return

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

I occasionally jot down writing ideas, or post starters, to come back to later. Sometimes I come back to them and have no clue what my notes mean, so they end up being ignored or discarded. Other times, the memory of what I was thinking comes flooding back with even greater clarity than when I first had the thoughts. The writing flows in a way it never would have had I written about it back then.

Still other times, though, the post starters feel almost prophetic. It’s in those times that I truly see how the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and minds to not only grow us but to prepare us for challenges that lie ahead.

I recently revisited one such post starter for about the third time. It’s over seven years old, but the implications are profoundly appropriate for right now. Here’s part of what I wrote:

Sometimes, normal will never return. It’s a new normal.

Restoration never involves going back. It involves going forward and realizing that the only constant is Christ Himself. Not normalcy.

I’d jotted down these thoughts as we watched two different dear friends process through losing their spouses. The circumstances and ages of the friends were very different, but the reality was the same: their lives could never go back to what they had previously considered to be normal. It wasn’t possible.

The realization led me to recognize my own struggle with some changes our family had made a couple of years before. We’d made such changes many times before, but this particular time, it was harder to figure out how to make the adjustment. There were just too many differences. We had tried for so long to settle back into normalcy. But, it always failed. Only when we realized that we needed to start from scratch were we able to make some sense of the changes. And in the experience of processing through all of this, we learned what it meant to be able to rediscover routine and normalcy again, even when everything had changed.

Who knew that a global pandemic would require us to fall back on that skill again years later? That was actually the second time I revisited this thought and fleshed it out a bit more. But I still wasn’t ready to put it out there. Everything felt very raw, and I struggled with how I was processing any of it.

And now, as I revisit this thought yet again, my family is in another stage of transition. Long, drawn-out transition that prevents settling into a “new normal.” (I grew to greatly dislike that phrase during Covid, and it’s not much happier now.) Through it all, I’m realizing that we haven’t really hit a “normal” for our family in a long, long time. That forces me back to the last part of my original thought, the one about our only constant being Christ Himself, not normalcy.

That’s hitting me hard.

What if I were to redirect my thoughts and focus on something other than normalcy? What if I were to focus instead on restoration? On truly letting Christ be my constant instead of always seeking after normal?

We often think of restoration as returning something to its former glory, but that’s never the case. We can’t accomplish that because there will always be a newness. Even if the restored treasure looks the same, the materials are always new. They are always bound to the time in which they were restored, no matter what style they may represent. It’s never a return. It’s always a newness.

That’s where we are right now. We’ll never return to “normal.” But, we can move into beautiful restoration. We can move into a newness of life. Of course, that’s only possible when we embrace the Author of life Himself. After all, He is the only constant. The only thing that ever remains the same, no matter the changes. The only One who can never be restored because He can never be damaged. Never changed. Never warped. He is. Continuously and always. He restores us, constantly remaking us into the image He intended from the very beginning. Were we to cling to our sense of normal, we would miss the restoration. We would never succeed in becoming what we were intended to be because our normal is warped. Incomplete. Corrupted. He is bringing us into the incorruptible, but that means that we must go through the refining.

Thinking of this, I realize I don’t want my old normal back. I don’t want to settle for a new normal, either. Instead, I want restoration. It’s a process that will continue until I see my God and Savior face to face, and that’s okay. That means that this “new normal” is temporary as the restoration continues.

May I walk faithfully through it, trusting His work all the way and never hungering to return.

Because what lies ahead is so much better.

Posted in Thoughts from Life

The Goodness of Messy

Posted on by Ann B. Hibbard

If you’ve processed through any advice from time management gurus, you’ve probably heard about things like routines, rhythms, and habit stacking.

For the record, I love all of those. Good routines and rhythms, built around a reliable structure, breathe life into my ability to process each day. Without those, I feel more than a little lost. In times of life when I lack that solid structure and the ability to build my rhythms, it takes a lot of effort to avoid wasting my day. And usually I spend so much energy trying to figure out how to handle each day that I don’t have a whole lot of energy left for actually doing the things I determine need to be done.

So, yes, I’m a huge support of structure, habits, rhythms, and routines. But I also recognize how easily they can backfire!

Easter Sunday was the picture of backfiring habit-stacking and rhythms.

Frequently on Easter Sunday we have a sunrise service, which means that our rhythm is completely off anyway. This year, for a variety of reasons, we didn’t have that service. So, we had our normal rhythm with one exception: our traditional enjoyment of caramel pecan sticky buns on Easter morning.

The sticky buns are super easy to make in advance, which makes them easy to add into Easter morning prep. And I thought this year would be even easier without having to figure out timing around the sunrise service.

And I was right on one count. Getting the sticky buns ready was still easy. All I had to do was pull the prepared buns out of the fridge when I first got up and was prepping coffee and Choffy. My hubby turned on the oven as he headed to the treadmill, then I popped them into the oven when it was my turn to head to the treadmill. When I was done, I rotated them so they’d cook evenly, then he got them out of the oven while I was in the shower.

Easy, right?

Yes…but also no. Because suddenly all of my rhythms and habit stacking were off.

Had I been alert and awake, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But I was sleepy. Tired. And not feeling my best because of allergies. So, the brain just wasn’t firing quite right. And when that happens, I fall heavily back on that habit-stacking approach to the morning. I do this, then this, then that, almost mechanically.

But this particular morning, I added in some things. It was all fine until I went to rotate the sticky buns and had to do some quick problem-solving because the caramel was overflowing the pans. After that, I was thrown off. I got to my bedroom and forgot my post-treadmill stretches. Then I missed another step. And another. All because my habit-stacking was thrown off and my brain just wasn’t keeping up.

So, what’s my point here? To give up on the time management guru advice? No, not really. I still love having structure and habits. I still believe in rhythms and routines.

But, Easter Sunday was a reminder that I’m not a machine. Instead, I’m a living, breathing, flexible human being who was designed to respond and feel. Because of that, sometimes the best keep-me-on-track tricks fail. They are mechanics. I am alive.

Being alive makes life messy. It means that even when there seems to be a solution that perfectly fits our personalities, even that solution doesn’t always work. Sometimes things go wonky just because life is an experience.

And guess what? That is good! The mess is good. The wonkiness is good. The things that go a little haywire are good. They might not feel good in the moment, but they serve as a reminder of goodness. A reminder that we are not machines but are living, breathing human beings. That we are unique.

As a perfectionist, that can be hard for me to remember in the moment. Oddly enough, though, that was the biggest blessing on Easter Sunday. I recognized this reality right in the middle of everything going wonky. It made me feel alive, even in the moment. (Kind of appropriate for Easter, huh?)

Is life messy for you right now? Either in small moments or just in an all around immersion in mess? I know you need to get out of the mess. To deal with it. To get your structure back and recapture the benefits of the practices those time management gurus teach us.

In the meantime, though, remember that there is goodness in this mess. That you can be encouraged by it. That it serves to remind you that you are alive!