Hobbies

 

I've never really had a hobby before. There have always been things I have enjoyed, but I never would have called them "hobbies". I think there is something intimidating to me about the word "hobby". As if there is this great commitment, discipline, and dedication that comes along with it.

 

A few summers ago I started biking. I never in a million years thought that I would actually enjoy the sport -yes, I will call it a sport. Then I started to ride and it felt freeing. I slowly built up my courage to hit the road and eventually, I got brave enough to clip my feet into the pedals. Talk about scary! But I did it and it felt great.

 

Boise has a great biking community and we have some very intense riders! I would get passed up all the time by these dedicated riders and at first it was disheartening. I would have to remind myself that it's about commitment, discipline, and dedication. In order to be better, I needed to put my whole self into it.

 

One day I was riding and I started thinking about my new hobby. I thought about how much time, thought and energy I put into it and how I'm not even that great at it. It made me think about the word satisfied.

 

I thought about how so often we {as a Western culture} are not satisfied with life. We dabble at a lot of different things in our lives, yet we rarely go deep with one. We juggle meetings, parties, events, and often go home feeling exhausted. We have hundreds of facebook friends and we still feel like no one truly knows us. We have hundreds of options of products, food, clothing, entertainment and yet, we still cannot find the one we are looking for.

 

In a hobby you go deep with it. You study it. You are dedicated to it. You live it, breathe it, and know it well. I wonder if we were to minimized our focus in life, just like in our hobbies, if we would find greater satisfaction. Would we have fewer, but deeper connected relationships? Would we give up much to enjoy the depth of a few things? To live it, breathe it, and know it well.

 

To be satisfied in our deeper focus.

 

 



Out on a Limb

Dear Friends,

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the huge encouragement you have been in regards to my Desert post. I have received so much feedback; most of you sharing about your own "desert" times.

As I have been reflecting over the last few days, I have again been reminded that the desert is not a bad place to be, instead it is a place that makes us stronger and helps us to appreciate what is to come.

I take heart in that and I hope you do too.

~ ~ ~

 



On another note, many of you have requested that I blog "more often"... I must be honest, that kind of intimidates me. My writing has never been intended for anything other than my own need to process. Putting it into "blog" form has been it's own little way of holding me accountable to keep me writing.

Nonetheless, my sister has been so great to "revamp" the look of my blog and has been very vocal about my need to continue in my blogging quest. I guess sometimes all you need is just one person who believes in you enough to push you to step out on a limb.

My sister, Mandy. Thanks for believing.

So here is to writing more.

Sincerely,
S

Desert

I stood there on stage, microphone in hand and 300 junior high and high school students staring. Even for someone who is not scared of speaking in front of large groups, this was intimidating. Teenagers are ruthless; they size you up even before you speak.

But there I was. Voice quivering.

It would have been easy to put a smile on my face and pretend to be a super teacher who had it all together, but the honest truth is that I am not a super teacher and I don't have it all together. So I dared myself to talk about life as it is. As soon as I opened my mouth, I started to cry! (Talk about embarrassing!)

I shared about how when I moved to Boise, I knew I was moving to the desert. The foothills are brown, the tumbleweed does summersaults across the road, and the heat is dry and hot. What I didn't know is that I would be moving into a season of my life that also felt like a desert. I shared about how the last 3 years have been long and hard. How many times I have cried out to God and have heard silence. The desert is dry, dusty, and in desperate need of water and that's how my life has felt. Finally, I tried to be encouraging by saying that I think sometimes God wants us in the desert; to just sit and be alright with waiting on him. To wait for the cool breeze of hope and water of contentment... and to trust that it will come.

It was only a couple minutes of sharing and before I knew it, chapel was over and the rest of the day continued as normal.

The confusing thing happened the next day. I received email after email from parents who said that their child came home after school talking about chapel and more specifically, how they were encouraged by what I had shared. I found myself sitting in front of my computer so confused. I mean, really, most of what I had to say was not "encouraging" at all, in fact, it was rather depressing.

But then a teacher stopped me in the hall and it all began to make sense.

"Thank you for admitting that life isn't always easy. Thank you for being transparent and talking about the hard times. We all have hard times, but most of us are just too afraid to admit them... let alone talk about them in front of hundreds of people," the teacher trailed off in mid thought.

It made me wonder...

How many of us are out there feeling like we are in a desert... thirsty and needing water, hot and needing a cool breeze, tired, weary, and feeling like God isn't quite answering... and yet we put a smile on our face and pretend that we are a super mom, friend, teacher or whatever our role is.

And then it made me wonder what life would look like... if we were simply honest about the hard times. And when I mean "hard times", I mean the really hard times. Not the messy dishes or the dirty diapers, not the cookies that didn't turn out "quite right"... but rather, the really hard times, the mess of life that we are scared of talking about. Our deeper, darker secrets... those are the hard times that we all desperately wish we could share, but we don't.

Because we are afraid.

Perhaps being honest about our desert time is like giving water to a friend who is also in the desert.