New house.

Oh yeah, Nathan and I are moving in to a new house in a few weeks.  I keep forgetting about that.

People have been saying congratulations and asking if I was nervous, but honestly, I've only really been thinking about it when Nathan or someone else brings it up in conversation.  Nathan's been taking care of pretty much most of the details (shocking to most, but not really in my opinion), so I guess that's part of the reason why.

I wonder if part of why it hasn't sunk in is because you can get a house for pretty cheap in Rochester, so it's not as big of a dent in your wallet as it would be getting a house somewhere in NYC.  Buying a house in NYC, my dear readers, would be a big deal to me.  Now that would be a big commitment and very permanent in my opinion.  And it would definitely whack a whopping dent in my wallet.

I'm not really looking forward to the actually packing and moving part.  And I'm not too keen on the upkeep side of being a homeowner (with our apartment it's so easy - you just call when there's a problem and then someone comes and fixes it for you for no additional cost!).

I am, however, excited about the possibilities of DIY projects that owning a house can bring.  While it's not like I was in prison and couldn't do any DIY projects in our apartment, not being able to paint the walls or hammer in nails were apparently enough limitations for me to feel like my entire DIY craft freedom was taken away.  That's probably how I subconsciously rationalized my lack of home projects.  I have hope that actually owning a house will help inspire me and kick me into a let's-make-something-creative-and-useful-and-pretty kind of mode.  

The other thing is, we'll be moving in with other people (though it keeps changing and is not entirely set yet).  I was hesitant at first about this whole intentional living community thing, but less so now that Nathan and I have at least a year of marriage and living together on our own under our belt.  But as to how I'll feel about that emotionally as it becomes a reality is hard to say right now.

As many of my faithful readers probably remember, I do not think I am a person who naturally likes to be on the move.  If things were up to me, I'd probably pick a spot and stay there for the rest of my life.  I think of myself as someone who likes to set her roots and keep those roots growing.  But with feeling disconnected from my NYC home and with college and post-college life keeping me on the move, I've often wondered if this is how Abraham felt when God called him to pack up and go.  And keep going.  And keep moving.

But strangely, as I think about moving from the apartment to the new house, I don't feel anxious or reluctant or like a turtle being pulled out from her shell.  I don't know if that's because the whole new house thing hasn't sunk in yet, or because I'm starting to get used to this state of constant moving.  Who knows?  Maybe I'm just...ready.

I guess we'll find out in a future blog post.

Growing up.

Lately I've been thinking about how I'm 24 years old and how that seems quite bizarre to me.

When I was in high school I thought 24-year-olds (or almost any twenty-something, I guess) carried themselves with a sense of maturity while simultaneously pull off being cool and fun.  I thought they could be as proper as the Old English could be during tea time.  And I thought they gushed with wisdom in such a way that they seemed to have life pretty much all figured out.   

Boy, was I sure wrong about this 24-year-old.

I still feel like I'm 17 and still have nothing figured out.  There's this sense of naivete I can't seem to shake off.  I sometimes feel like I live under a rock even though I thought I got out from under it.  Maybe I'm scared to be exposed to the elements.  I don't want to leave my ideals behind to make space for cynicism and jaded attitudes. 

But I'm beginning to feel these elements brush alongside of me this year.

Prior to moving to Rochester, I had never really experienced any personal encounters with racist remarks.  Before this year I could've told maybe just one story from middle school that I wasn't even offended by because I didn't really understand it.  But from this year I could probably tell you about at least 5 different incidents.  They each evoked a different level of emotion, but now they more so just stand out in my mind rather than seem to weigh me down.  At the same time, there are instances I hear about or witness that I feel like I should feel offended about but am not.  Try that on for size.  Still a very confused Asian American as ever.

Death nowadays seems to weigh heavier in my heart.  The two closest people to me who passed away were my grandfather and my favorite teacher, Mrs. Hamilton, who taught me in the 4th grade.  And when they passed away, I was in middle school and it didn't really sink in as much as it would have now.  There's also something different and a bit removed about experiencing the death of your great-grandparents or grandparents' friends than knowing a friend's first baby girl who passed because of a rare cancer, or your dentist who went to the church you grew up in who also passed away from cancer, or the tragedy of the pastor who did your pre-marital counseling who suddenly passed from a rare pregnancy complication right after giving birth to her second child.  It all hits much closer to home and wells up that it-doesn't-seem-fair kind of anger in me that comes from an less familiar part of my heart.

Being out of school and out of those immediate relational contexts makes me feel like I've forgotten all I've learned intellectually and relationally.  And it's still so easy for me to compare myself to others (I know, I know, bad habit) that it's hard for me to figure out what I'm actually good at or what I can even offer the world.  I've been letting my drive, my focus, and my discipline drip out of me like a leaky faucet.

This blog has kind of been like a bucket underneath the leaky faucet.  I'm not really sure how to stop the leak, but I'm catching what I can and am trying to figure out what to do with it.  This blog, even with long breaks between posts, is the only thing I keep coming back to.

At least I'm not too naive to think that I'll have everything figured out in my thirties. 

A personal advent season. (Part 2)

As I've been gaining a better understanding of what the Advent season is really all about (this article also helps explain a little of what I've been learning), I've been starting to make some connections to my own season of life.

It's been a process of recognizing how our hope and anticipation of the coming of Christ does not stem out of this happy, easy-going, I-can-see-gifts-under-the-tree-and-can't-wait-to-open-them type of waiting.  Instead, it stems out of a period of darkness, suffering, and silence.  Advent is a season of spiritual preparation; a longing; a desire for that which is yet to come, and it is not here yet.  And this year the hope of the coming of Jesus has been evoking a much deeper response in me than simply to celebrate Jesus' birth like any other birthday, do good deeds, and extend my thanks and give good gifts.

There's simply something deeper and richer about the season of Advent that I had never learned before.

While I may not have been exiled from my land or suffered deeply as the Israelites have, it seems as though following Jesus has led me on an exodus into the wilderness, leaving behind almost everything I know and find comfort in.  Geographically, I've left my NYC hometown and my college hometown for a completely new location.  Relationally, I've left behind my friends and family to a community I have to develop and adjust to.  Vocationally, I've left behind familiar students of a familiar campus culture to lead students I've never led before in a campus culture I know next to nothing about.  Personally, I've left behind all of who I thought I was for a completely clueless twenty-something who tries really hard not to just drift through life but can't seem to get a grip on anything.

And spiritually, I have felt more disconnected from God than I ever have in my life thus far.  With these changes in life and marriage I've been forced again and again to come face to face with my selfishness and sinfulness.  It's been difficult to experience God's presence and grace,  even with the knowledge of them in my mind.

But I've been holding on to the hope that God is with me, even in the darkness.  And it's only been within the last few weeks where He has been helping me now start to see that things are getting better, slowly but surely.  There is progress in all areas of my life; despite how subtle and undramatic the progress has been, it is progress nonetheless.  The darkness still surrounds me, but the small light from a candle all the way at the other end of the unknown and uncertainty is enough to help me keep going, and keep holding on.

So as I prepare to enter the official Advent season, I've been trying to come up with creative Advent calendar ideas to help me press in to this season of recognizing the Israelites' preparation and longing for the Messiah, as well as my own today.  And while Pinterest has some really cute and crafty ideas, they don't really hit home for helping me engage and go deeper.  But we'll see what happens.  I'm sure God will use whatever I come up with to encounter Him and worship Him.

More than lost signals.

Someone stole our GPS from our car last week.  They also stole a few CDs and a car charger, too.  It didn't look like anyone broke into the car, so I suspect that Nathan and I somehow forgot to lock the car when we unloaded it the day before, carrying way too many conference supplies and snacks after running some errands.

There were many different frustrations to reckon with - frustration that Nathan and I (though I think it was probably really me) forgot to lock the door in the first place; frustration that I didn't want to feel dependent on the stupid GPS but was feeling the tensions of not having it because everywhere we've needed to travel to so far didn't seem to have proper signage.  Cue the extra u-turns, missed exits, and roundabout routes to destinations.  Then cue the rain, the unnecessary tears, and confused husband who doesn't know what to do with his mess of a wife.

But the stolen GPS also came in the midst of this major season of frustration in my life, which can be boiled down into two categories:  frustrations with ministry, and frustrations with myself.

I know this may sound super cheesy, but I can't help but compare how I feel about our missing GPS with how I feel about my life.  I feel like a terrible wife, a terrible daughter, a terrible staff worker, and a terrible follower of Jesus.  I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what God's saying, or how to lead others who don't think like me or communicate like me very well.  I don't know how to trust God but also avoid sitting around waiting for God to wave a magic wand and do something.  I know He doesn't work that way.

It's frustrating because I'm trying to make decisions about where to go or what to try instead of just standing around, but I don't have any signs telling me if I'm going the right way or need to turn around.  Everything I try seems to hit dead ends.

Today I realize I'm starting to feel a numbness creep in.  There's a temptation for me to start shutting down because I've tried caring and it's not getting me anywhere.  It only seems to deepen the sense that I'm lost.  Nothing seems to work.

But my fear of becoming depressed seems to be outweighing everything else to give me enough strength to fight the numbness for now, so I'm trying to dig into God's Word again.  I may not recognize where God's working or what God's doing in my life.  I may not understand what He's trying to tell me.  And I may be terrible at almost everything.  But I'll use what little gas I have left in the tank to try and show up. 

The honor of listening.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive a student home from Large Group.  I'm really glad I did because spending time with her struck a familiar chord in me:  how much I love listening to people share their stories.

If you know me well, you know that I really dislike small talk.   What's your name?  What do you do?  Oh?  What are you studying?  Where do you live?  I hate that I often have to collect the basic pieces of information before I can dig deep and get to the more valuable stuff in a conversation.  I want to know what you're passionate about, what you're frustrated with, who you want to become, and what issues you're struggling through.  I want to know your story.  I want to know the real you.

It takes practice, and it takes courage.  It takes practice to think of questions to ask that could nudge the conversation in that direction, to try and read the person in the moment, and without making the person feel awkward or uncomfortable.  It takes courage to ask the deeper questions, to share some of your own real stories, and to actively listen without judgment and without automatically trying to fix problems.

It takes patience, and it takes resilience.  Not everyone you talk to is willing to go very deep right away or at all.  And just because it works out or doesn't work out once doesn't mean others won't share or that the same person wouldn't be willing to share their stories next time.

I don't always attempt to practice or pull together the courage.  I don't always have the patience or the resiliency.  I'm not always intentional.  I'm not always satisfied when I am.  To love someone that way often means you put yourself out there for the other person without expecting anything in return.

The conversation I had with this student I drove home last night was the first I've had with her.  All I did was ask her in what ways God has been challenging her through InterVarsity, and she shared with me about how difficult it is for her to trust people lately.  She shared with me about how she thinks that struggle has come about, with some difficult family situations she's witnessed and has experienced.  She shared so openly without my prompting, all in just a few minutes.

She didn't have to.  She could've answered the question differently or avoided the question altogether, saying, "I don't know."  Instead, she took the brave opportunity of sharing some her story, the real her.  And I felt loved to receive that gift from her.

Desert ground.

I've learned many important things about marriage before I actually got married.  One of those things was that getting married doesn't erase the loneliness in your life.  It makes sense - the marriage of two people means the marriage of two sinful people who live in a sinful world.  And while Jesus is our ultimate source of comfort and joy, it doesn't mean you won't ever feel lonely.

This year was a pretty rough one, in that every area of my life was in transition, change, and in some cases, chaos.  But in the invisible and subtle ways that God often works, He pulled me through.  I don't really know how He did (though I'm pretty sure having Nathan in my life had something to do with it), and I'm still having trouble connecting with God and experiencing His presence in my life this year, but I feel like the storm has passed for the time being.  It still has its effects, but that's a whole different story.

Though, as I've been reflecting on my lack of best friends, mourning the loss of community, and chewing through the time and effort it takes to build a new one, I think I'm beginning to feel a sense of loneliness sink in for the first time.  I think part of what evoked it is from the fact that I'm in NYC without Pam or my dad around, and Nathan is away hiking the Appalachian Trail for a few days in radio silence.  Some of it just comes out of the basic desire for someone to take initiative with me - to be excited that I was in NYC and express desire to spend time with me without me having to fish for it.

From there, my loneliness manifests itself just from thinking - wondering whether or not I make some difference in the world and if I really matter to people besides those who are kind of obligated to love me (aka, my family and Nathan).   Or what my life would look like if I didn't work for InterVarsity, having some pretty stellar colleagues who are there for me simply through the circumstances that we work together.  Even though in movies it's always inspiring and sweet when something tragic happens to someone and they discover all of these people who come flocking to them with encouragement and support, I don't want to wait for something tragic to happen to me to find out who really cares.

It sounds pretty emo when I read that.  But I think it feels like because I've moved out of Rochester, I've moved out of people's lives.  It feels like it has caused a chasm in physical distance and relational distance, and no one really wants to make the effort to reach across it, even just to meet me halfway.  There's this hunger in me to go deeper with others; not necessarily to debate things like political views, theological beliefs, or the weaknesses of this generation; but instead to listen to others' struggles, character flaws, or mistakes, and to be able to share mine.  I want to be one of the first ones they think of to share some joyful piece of news, and vice versa; simply so that we could be there for each other.  

Mish-mash of loose ends.

I don't know if it's because I drank a cup of green tea just before bed, or because there's a very loud band playing at the bar across the street and they've left the door open so that it sounds like the band is right outside my open window, or because of the fact that my husband won't be home for the next six days, but I'm suddenly very awake and can't go to sleep.

I've washed my face and in the meantime, the band seems to have put away their drumsticks and guitar amps for now.  But being this awake made me think about things I think about and how I've been having such a hard time writing any blog posts lately because they'd just all be loose ends.  Maybe if I write them down they'll eventually become inspirations for new posts.

My fear and discomfort with asking people for things - which covers everything from ordering pizza or helping me in some way - has been recently re-surfacing.  It was going to be the topic of this next blog post, but I've already spent nearly two weeks on it and I still have no closing thoughts.

I still have not been connecting with God the way I used to, and even though I've stopped trying to keep up my old ways, I've lacked the motivation and inspiration to try new ways of connecting with God.  I also realize I lack the faith that God is pursuing me and is with me, even though I know in my head that He is.

Today I led a couple of my freshmen students through a discussion around what's the most difficult part of committing to following Jesus - sacrificing comforts or desires, finding Jesus' purpose for me, or following through with my decisions until they are complete.  And I found myself steering towards the second, as I thought about how I am average at many things and not great or passionate in any particular focus enough to discipline myself to develop my interests and skills further.  I like singing, I like baking, I like planning parties, I like hosting others, I like reading, I like taking pictures, I like blogging, and so on, but I am not particularly dedicated to any one of those things, not even in small ways on a regular basis.  I feel paralyzed and stuck with my gifts and purposes.  It's discouraging and nothing new.

I've also been mulling over my ongoing naivete about best friends.  For some reason, ever since I was extremely young, I had this solid core belief ingrained in me that it was possible and desirable to have a best friend for life.  And maybe this belief was reinforced by shows or movies I watched, books I read, or relationships I've observed, but nonetheless, out of this belief came my deep value over my close friendships.   I knew I would get hurt, and I knew I would hurt them at some point.  But I invested myself wholly because I believed that if we could get past the hardships together, we would make it as best friends.  The hardships would make us stronger.  But somewhere along the way, my belief in lifetime best friends broke.  And as I let myself hope again and gained back my belief, it broke again.  Healing came, but with so many we've come out the other side as friends - some, good friends - but no longer as best friends.  We've stood the test of forgiveness but couldn't stand the subtle test of time and change.  And now, in a completely different phase of life, with no nearby old friends and the difficulty of making new ones, there's this yearning to again build upon the belief that it's possible to have a best friend (different from my husband).  At the same time, there's this part of me that wants to say, "Why bother?"

This year I've noticed that I've reverted back to my usual shy-person-taking-forever-to-adjust-to-her-new-surroundings-and-not-be-as-shy phase that has typically occurred when I enter a new school.  I'm not talking about introversion - yes, I'm still introverted and need my alone time, but this is the kind of attitude people always associate and mix-up with introversion that isn't always true.  Shyness does not equal introversion.  When I'm at the office, I don't really initiate conversations, and it's really hard for me to put myself out there to try and get to know the student workers or other chaplains.  When I'm with my students, no one really comes over to talk to me, and while I try my best to meet new students and keep conversations going, I feel like it's particularly difficult because I don't have any go-to relationships with any of my students that can act as a home base in those kinds of group settings for me.  And it's an annoying realization because I don't want to be shy.  And I wasn't this shy just a year or two ago.  But I can't help it - it's my slow adjustment process to the change of environment.  Can you feel the tension?

Well, there you have it.  My unfinished thoughts for the week.  It seems as though the band across the street have packed up their music for good, and my eyes are ready to stop opening for the rest of the night.

Learning the pattern of forgiveness.

Whether or not you've known me for a long time or for not very much time at all, chances are you haven't heard me raise my voice - our of anger, frustration, or stress.  I'm pretty sure I rarely (not never!) express any of those things by raising my voice, or even yelling.  You might see them in my facial expressions, but I can't think of the last time I've had an outburst.  Even if I had an outburst, I probably didn't realize I was having it until after the fact.

At home with Nathan, though, I'm very comfortable with raising my voice when I'm angry or frustrated, and I'm very aware that I'm doing it.

Now, you may be thinking, "Why the discrepancy?"  Part of it may be a subconscious effort to compose myself in public - not necessarily because of insecurities, but that my anxiousness about making others feel uncomfortable, awkward, or shaken easily outweighs my desire to express my anger or frustration.  Part of it is simply because it takes a LOT to get me so angry or frustrated to a point where I'd yell.

But with Nathan, it's easy for me to get annoyed to the point where I want to yell.  We're so different in so many ways - the way we think, the way we process information, the way we make decisions, the way we interact with people, the whole shebang - that we easily misunderstand and miscommunicate with each other, and get on each other's nerves.

In fact, this may sound weird, but I like the fact that I raise my voice and/or yell when I'm upset with Nathan.  Don't get me wrong - it's not that I enjoy conflict or am happy when I get frustrated.  Oh, no, no, no, no indeed.  It's the fact that I feel comfortable enough with Nathan to express my frustration.  Especially for someone like me who came from a culture and a home where issues were often swept under the rug, passive aggressiveness was the common route of conflict avoidance to take, and yelling at someone when angry or frustrated felt wrong to me, I have a better sense of freedom now.  I have the safe space to learn how to fully engage these kinds of conflicts without necessarily hurting others or myself.

There's a sense of freedom also because there's security in our commitment to love each other.  It feels okay to engage Nathan in our conflicts head on because I'm not afraid he'll leave or throw in the towel in our marriage when either of us are upset or we face conflicts.      

I'm not saying I'm any expert on dealing with conflict now, but I've definitely grown tremendously since I've been with Nathan, and even more so being married to him.  I've been recognizing my own wrong attitudes or actions more quickly, and am able to ask for forgiveness in a more timely manner, as opposed to letting my pride fester in lies or burying my emotions with the time that has passed.  Facing our faults together definitely makes the healing process come a little faster and in a healthier way, and I think it makes us stronger.

Forgiveness.  Diminishing your pride and taking up humility to ask for forgiveness really does seem to be the key to a thriving marriage.  Or any relationship, for that matter.  And isn't that one of the biggest things Jesus exemplified in His great love for us?

My first Easter as a married woman.

We celebrated Easter in Binghamton, work has been kicking our butts, and I've got that "Ho Hey" song stuck in my head.  Okay, that last one was more of a random, unimportant thought to share.  Still, there are a lot of thoughts to unpack, but since I'm a big fan of linear thinking, we'll go in the order I've said them.

Nathan and I did indeed celebrate our first Easter as a married couple in our alma mater town.  Most of our friends there assumed we were on our way down to NYC or were passing through Binghamton on our return home to Rochester.  But neither were true.  The original plan was always Rochester-to-Binghamton, Binghamton-back-to-Rochester.  

Ironically, Easter was never a big thing to celebrate in my community growing up.  I say, 'ironically,' because as Christians, it should be one of our biggest celebrations of the year.  Very arguably bigger than Christmas.  It's the day we recognize Jesus's power to conquer death, the penalty he took on himself though we deserved it.  Declaring, "Christ is risen!" and, "Alleluia!" doesn't even seem to capture the magnitude of awe for what Christ has done.

But I don't have many childhood memories of making Easter a big deal.  My family didn't get together to have a special meal, and my church would maybe sing some special songs and put white, smelly lilies at the foot of the sanctuary podium.  Besides those few things and my Sunday School teacher saying, "Happy Resurrection Sunday!" to everyone he passed by, Easter more often than not didn't feel very different from any other Sunday.  And it's only within the past several years where I actually began to care enough to notice and grew a desire to do something about it.  

Now, even though I come from an Asian American Christian background/community, I can't assume or blatantly generalize that we're not joyful or that the way we express it is simply wrong (I can rant about the ideas I have for ways the Asian American Christian community could celebrate Easter in a special way without losing or diminishing our Asian American culture, but that's a post I've already done somewhat and can continue at another time).  Instead, my desire comes from a place of wanting to partake in a corporate celebration that expresses deep, gracious joy in a way that's special from ordinary days but isn't so completely different that it distracts me from the true focus. 

Visiting Binghamton was a great opportunity to fulfill this desire.  Last year, Nathan attended the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd's (a church we've been to several times because some of our friends go there) Easter Vigil and Sunday Easter Service and joined the MacQuarrie family (InterVarsity volunteers) Easter dinner as well.  Nathan's love and appreciation of worship through liturgy (as well as the pastor's teaching), and the notorious chaos of the MacQuarrie family get-togethers had won him over so much that he asked me if we could go back this year.  Although my introverted side of me cringed a little, the idea of visiting friends and celebrating Easter in a new way immediately outweighed any of my hesitations.    

There are so many thoughts I could share from this great weekend (though it had its hiccups as well), but since it's the end of Easter weekend I'll share one thing that struck me during the Easter service sermon:

I am like the women who went to Jesus' tomb with embalming spices.  Like them, I have been following Jesus for a long time.  Like them, I know His promises in my head.  And I've tried and tried and tried to jump-start this knowledge as felt reality.  But this year it's been hard to feel His presence.  And as this year has gone on, it has gotten harder to believe His promises.  As I said earlier, ministry work has been kicking my butt - and when your husband's ministry work is also kicking his butt, and you're adjusting to married life with someone who's almost your complete opposite while also trying to develop solid community from scratch in the post-grad world, it can take a toll on your already waning relationship with Jesus.  I began to mourn the loss of my relationship with Jesus the way the women were convinced Jesus was not coming back. 

But today, while there was no bursting whoop-de-doo moment or tear-jerking movement, Jesus has reminded me of His hope.  I was faced with the reality that Jesus' promises are not grounded in the strength of my emotive will.  Today, Jesus has filled my empty heart with true joy despite my circumstances.  And though I've heard the Easter story over and over again many times, today Jesus gave me a fresh glimpse of the fullness of his conquer over the grave.  Alleluia, alleluia!

With Barb MacQuarrie's, "Once you have a seat at our table, there'll always be a seat for you," comment, it looks like Nathan and I have a new Easter celebration tradition to partake in that I will certainly look forward to each year.

She clings, though she doesn't know why.

You know something's wrong when an introvert doesn't want to be alone with her thoughts.  Something's awry when an introvert spends time thinking and sorting through thought after thought after thought, only to find herself spiraling down into a pit mixed with possible lies and possible truths, only she can no longer tell which ones are which.  Not only is it draining to be around others, it's now draining to be around herself.

It's worse when she doesn't really know who can help her.  She knows there are people who love and care about her - her husband, her friends, her family, her supervisor - but they all don't seem to be very helpful or understand the whole story.

It gets even more worse when she knows that her relationship with God looks like her not wanting to call out, "Lord, save us!" to the sleeping Jesus in the lower deck of the boat during this furious storm that seems to be lasting the whole year because she's afraid she'll be reprimanded for being ye of little faith.  And it's not that she hasn't asked Him for help.  She prays the simplest, shortest, most genuine prayers.  But either it doesn't seem like enough, or she needs to wait.

So she hangs on.

You know something's wrong when an introvert doesn't know exactly what she needs to fill her nearly empty bucket that has been slowly, and subtly leaking this whole time.  It's worse when she actually tries and tries and even tries new things to fill it with no avail.  The self discipline she had been working on for so long seems to wear off more and more with all the tears of frustration.

But she hasn't lost her imagination.  She still dreams of who she could be, what things she'd like to do, things she'd like to learn.  She dreams of being an unselfish wife, leading a vibrant campus ministry, living a healthier lifestyle, participating in a life-giving community, growing a deep, life-long passion for...something.

It's sad because the reality of the present begins to sink in with the deep disappointment that her imagination is beginning to look a lot like a carrot dangling in front of her face that will always be
just
out
of
reach.  

Pursuing?

Whether I'm scared or worried, I'm not quite sure.  I believe I have matured and grown to a point where I'm aware that I'm not serving others well when I don't take care of myself.  So I think I've grown a healthy pattern and attitude of not literally overworking or constantly being preoccupied with my work or relationships.  It's not as awkward or difficult for me to "end" my days well or carve out time for sabbath each week because I know it's important.

The problem that scares or worries me, though, is not knowing what to do with the space and time I have.  The amount and quality of ministry work that I have had to do, think, and pray about over this school year so far has been draining me in ways I never imagined would drain me.  It has chipped, worn, and shaken me emotionally and spiritually in ways I don't even know how to articulate anymore.  So I know I need to include habits and patterns and make time and space for activities, people, and processes that will give me life and help me grow as a whole person, not just in leadership.

This search for the new Mrs. Bixler has been tough.  At first it was exciting to dream and imagine and create the possibilities, but now that I've actually come to a point today where I need new life and rest right at this moment and am still "in process" - it's a bit disconcerting and disorienting.  I don't feel physically drained, so I don't want to take a nap.  Thinking about what supplies I would need to buy in order to bake something seems more time consuming and draining than it would be worth to actually bake something.  I'm uninspired to sing or write a song.  Watching something feels like a waste of time and starting a craft project feels like a chore.  Reading a book seems like a source of escape instead of a source of life, and my photography class doesn't start until two weeks from now.  And since I don't really have any friends in the area that give me life - ones that can just listen or just sit with me and keep me company because they already understand me - it just feels like I've hit a dead end.

Maybe it's the weather.  It's gotten mighty cold and gloomier in Rochester recently, and this post is in such stark contrast with my previous post I wrote just a few weeks ago that things could change tomorrow for all I know.

I hesitate to post this because I don't know what I'm really trying to say or share, and it hasn't really helped me process things all that much, but at least it's something.  At least I've showed up.  The problem, though, is that it's starting to get harder and harder to show up when it feels like God isn't meeting me there.  I know in my head that the truth is He is, but it doesn't help when it doesn't feel like it's true.

The search for Mrs. B.

A few weeks ago I was asked some questions about myself.  They were supposedly simple things:  list your favorite hobbies and interests, some of your favorite drinks and snacks, personality type, etc.  On the surface they were no-brainers.

But after I wrote my typical answers, I started thinking about how automatically I had written them and how, if I really thought about it, I haven't really done or had nearly half of the things in a long time what I wrote on that survey.  Bake?  I've baked once since moving to Rochester, and who knows the last time I baked before that.  Gilmore Girls?  The second season has been in my possession for the past year or two, and I'm beginning to wonder if I wouldn't really miss it if I gave it back to my sister.  I only really sing when we're supposed to in church (if even then), and I think I've played with my guitar and sang for fun about as many times as I've baked since moving to Rochester.  I get sad when I find opportunities like open mics and contests to enter in the Rochester area because I'd sign up in a heartbeat if I hadn't been on this accidental hiatus and wasn't so afraid of embarrassing myself for performing when I haven't practiced.

It seems as though I've fallen back into this weird in-flux season in my life.  It's the season I guess most of my generation continues to sift and swing back and forth through:  the search for who I am.  It can a be a little frustrating to admit that that's where I am, considering I thought I knew who I was and now I have to learn about myself again and can't just declare truths about myself when they very well could have changed over these past couple of years.  At the same time it makes sense, considering how I've been out of my parents' house for a number of years and have been out of college for a couple of years as well.  Oh, and you know, how I've gotten married and such.  That always changes people (or should, at least).

Ever since I've begun to realize that this is the stage of life I have returned to (or maybe I've never left?), I've already begun to accept it and embrace it.  It's brought new life to new dreams and ideas, and the process of just thinking about possibilities is exciting.

Of course, I love lists, but the problem with writing them out is that I have so many ideas that the organization of those ideas would be very difficult.  So I've started a word document for all of my personal life ideas, to give ample space for saving and organizing my word vomit of thoughts.  I have a section for hobbies I want to continue developing and ways I could put them into practice, as well as new hobbies I may want to pursue and ideas for how I could do that as well.  I have a section for my personal relationships and how I can be intentional and creative with developing those near and far.  And I have an interests section that lists fun things I want to learn more about (e.g., photography, art & art history, figure skating) and things that I'm not super interested in at face value but want to learn about because I feel like I need to and want to grow in my knowledge and understanding of the world (e.g., politics, geography, sports).  It also gives me the space to list out whatever resources (especially creative ones) I come across.

It would be very tempting, as I have begun to adjust to being married (though I'm sure I have much to adjust to for the rest of my life, of course) and to life in Rochester, to reach a level of contentment and inevitably grow comfortable and complacent.  But I'm praying that God would continue to develop my desire to learn - about Him, His world, and myself.

Waiting for joy to come in the morning.

I never expected my wedding to be the best day of my life or even nearly perfect.  I knew things wouldn't go the way I'd want or planned, and I knew it wasn't necessarily going to be "all downhill from here" unless I let it become so.  But I guess I would at least experience a deep sense of joy in recalling my wedding rather than a reminder of deep hurt and regret.

It really stinks that I'm still burdened by memories of my wedding - and it's sad to think that I can truthfully write that.  After praying about it so much, asking for forgiveness from others and from God and going through some significant spaces of spiritual formation, I thought I had given my regret and guilt over to the Lord for good.  I thought I had accepted the freedom Christ so graciously offers every day so that I'm not having a hard time falling asleep because my thoughts keep drifting around decisions I had made and the things I have learned since then.  I had been doing so well over the past week or two, not having any trouble falling asleep or dreaming dreams that evoke the same old unsettling feelings.  Now I wonder, though, if my travels and work have just been distractions for what I have not yet fully dealt with or if this is just a stark reminder that healing more often than not is a process that takes time.    

It is indeed a blessing, though, that I am enjoying my husband and sharing my life with him and that there are no regrets around the decision to marry him in the first place.  Hopefully, though, with the Lord's strength I will not grow suspicious or doubtful of this blessing but that it would instead be a reminder of God's abundant grace; that He wants to give good gifts to His children and is faithfully beside me in this refining journey of healing.

Sweet, sweet sabbaths.

I am so grateful to God for the gift of sabbath.  Especially in the midst of having this rain cloud hang over my head, taking sabbath is like running into a shelter for a moment of protection from the downpour.  It is by God's grace and mercy that I can rest despite the unrest I've often felt recently in my vocational world, my familial world, and my future.

It's also twice as wonderful to take sabbath with my new husband - three times as wonderful when you find a   beautiful way of taking sabbath together for two very different people.  Nathan came up with the brilliant idea of making a list of all the local coffee places and deciding to visit a different one during each sabbath.  It works really well for us.  Nathan gets to go explore a new area of town and gain a mini sense of adventure; I get the stability and consistency of visiting a coffee place (there's coffee and there's food).  Since Nathan is a high extrovert, he gets to be around the hustle and bustle of people coming in and out, having intriguing conversations or just being there; since I'm a pretty high introvert, although there are people everywhere, I thankfully don't have to talk or interact with them - I can just be in my own world of reading or writing or talking (when I feel like it) with my husband.  There's no rush to go somewhere or meet anyone, and we have the freedom to change plans on the spot.  And on top of it all, we get to learn a little bit more about our new neighborhood, enjoy some delightful treats, and spend quality time in each other's presence.  Even more so, since we tend to travel a lot, we can take our sabbath practices with us on the road...there's usually a coffee place of some kind in every town!

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy taking sabbath with my husband yet?

The dangling rain cloud.

You know, for a mostly-people-pleasing-driven person like me, I think I'm doing pretty well - considering the downhill roller coaster of emotions I've been enduring this past month.  Not that it would be impossible, but I just thought I had too much optimism and hope running through my veins and built into my bones that I would never really experience being depressed.  Yes, I can feel sad and upset and frustrated, but this season has definitely been more than that, and has cut much deeper.

Now granted, I'm being really vague and probably sound pretty emo right now, and really, by God's grace it's not like there have been any sudden, life-changing circumstances.  But part of my obscurity is because  this is public cyberspace and I still never know who reads this thing.  The purpose of this blog is not to be the megaphone to vent/whine about private things of my life or avoid confrontations/conflicts with others.  It's not a place for me to justify my actions or feelings but a way to help me process some of the things in my head and from my life.

At the same time, I can't count this season of my life as insignificant.  I can't think of a period of time in my life where I've gone through weeks and weeks of dreading school/work, had very little to no desire to do anything I usually enjoy, or went day in and day out thinking there was no hope.  There have been a couple of days where I could feel my heart hardening, a few days where I didn't want to try and reconcile relationships, and many days where I found it very hard to believe I'd find anything good or beautiful within my own flawed, filthy, wretched self.

Apparently, I've made my home in Rochester because during this past month it's all I ever wanted to do; I long to be home.  Sometimes it's because I don't want to face the feeling of hopelessness I get when I try to do anything right, let alone do anything well in my life.  Sometimes it feels like the only place where I can have my privacy and be completely me without feeling like I have to explain or defend my decisions, my feelings, or who I am/whom I've become in any way.  Sometimes I realize it's like a nest I've finally built for myself in which I find a deep sense of security, comfort, and belonging.

Yes, I think I'm doing relatively well for a typical people-pleasing person like me, because even though I still care deeply about what people think of me and how they feel, I'm not pouring my energy into being disappointed with myself or changing my thoughts or behaviors for the sake of making others happy.  I'm trying to keep my spine, stand my ground, and not let others steamroll over me, while also owning up to my mistakes and accepting my broken self.  Well, it's a start at least.  It's a process, but it's a start.

Trying not to wallow in self-pity has been pretty tough lately, and life still stinks in many ways, but the slivers of hope have slowly begun to peek out again.  Despite how wretched I've felt, I've showed up, did my best to remain open and not let my depression drag me down, and hung onto the opportunities for new seeds to be planted, and joy to be sown.

The rain cloud still hangs over my head, but the Lord seems to have handed me an umbrella, and it's up to me to decide if/when I'm going to use it.

Whac-an-insecurity.

So I'm beginning to find that this whole newlywed-in-a-new-town-with-a-new-job-looking-for-a-new-community thing is turning out to be a lot like the "Whac-a-mole" carnival game.  At least, that's what I think of in terms of recognizing how I'm doing during this whole adjustment period.  It's more like, "Whac-an-insecurity" kind of game.

Maybe that's how I'll answer people when they ask me how I'm doing.  Because for the most part, I'm doing pretty well.  I'm content but not settled, at peace and not deeply stressed out, mostly happy but managing to find joy in Him in times of tears. 

It's just that there are these moments where something will seem to pop up almost out of nowhere.  They come in unexpected moments of "little things" that tap into old or deep insecurities.  One of the biggest is this insecurity of being wrong.  I think it's one of the subconscious reasons why I often fall on the indecisive side most of the time.  I don't want to be wrong and I don't want to carry the shame or responsibility for choosing the wrong thing.

It seeps into a lot of areas in my life - not wanting to lead others in the wrong direction at work, not wanting to react to situations in the wrong way, not wanting to make the wrong decisions.  And when I think about it, the way I tend to measure how "wrong" my decision is falls on the basis of how upset or happy people are after I make them.  It ties into my character of wanting to please people and make them happy and proud of me.

I've reflected a lot on this deep insecurity.  I'm not quite sure where it came from.  Part of it could be the Asian-American culture I grew up in, but part of it could just be my temperament.  It's probably both and then some.

After thinking about it for a bit, I think the insecurity goes hand-in-hand with how much I don't understand God's grace very well.  Meaning, I think I'm not really good at recognizing when He offers it to me, and so I'm not really good at receiving it, either.  I think sometimes I even move into this self-righteous mode in moments where because I had tried so hard not to be "wrong" it somehow cancels out my need God's grace.  There are many times, too, where I need to recognize that wrong/right is not based on how I expect people to react.  There are times when I'll move in a good direction and people will be upset by that.  But there will also be times when I'll move in a poor direction and people will be happy with that.  It's a discernment process to work on.

Though it's obvious that I need to remember instead of knocking my insecurities down like a whac-a-mole I need to give it to Jesus, it's way easier said than done.

I wanted to end this post with a funny whac-a-mole video, but when I searched YouTube, I found this instead:

And of course, you can't leave out a good video from The Ellen Show:

Now I want to eat some guacamole.

I've forgotten how to make friends.

There are not many things I expected or clearly wanted in a "potential husband."  I didn't create this customized soul mate for myself in my head because I knew "the one" didn't exist.  However, one of the few things I whole-heartedly (and still do) believed was that it was possible and it was okay to want my husband to be my best friend.  And friendships don't just pop out of nowhere - they need to grow and mature if you nourish them and let them go through trials.  That's how I concluded that if I were to enter a dating relationship (which, from my perspective, is for the purpose of working towards marriage), it would stem out of a solid and somewhat deep friendship I had with a brother in Christ.

And that's exactly what happened.  But I think Nathan and I did a pretty good job making it clear while we were dating that we weren't going to be each other's entire world.  We knew our significant other wasn't going to fill our emptiness, meet our every need, or make us never feel lonely again.  Other people are very important to me.  Friends and those in need were my top priority for most of my life, and a boy wasn't going to come in and mess that up. I've always needed and wanted different circles of friends, and because of this, I knew that that aspect of moving to Rochester was going to be difficult and that being married wouldn't be enough.

I don't have any friends here.  I'd like to make some.  The only problem is, I've practically forgotten how to make friends.  During my college years I was more often than not surrounded by people I knew, and even if there were new friends to be made, I made them together with my home base of friends there with me.  Nowadays I get shy or just don't open up as easily or quickly because it feels so new.  And I don't have a solid base of friends to retreat to when new relationships don't quite hit it off the way I'd hoped.

This old feeling has returned where I feel like I'm barely hanging on to my relationships from back home.  Ever since my college years I've always found it very difficult for me to develop my relationships with those who weren't within my immediately community.  It becomes a nasty tug-of-war within myself because it takes a lot of work to develop my immediate community around me, and it takes a lot of work to develop the community I grew up with, and finding a balance is like walking through some thick, pitch-dark woods without a flashlight or anything else to survive the night with.

I want my friends and family back home to know how important they are to me and how much I want to be there for them, but I know that I can't be there for them the same way I could if I was living near them.  Maybe it's been like this for a while or it's a long time coming, but the reality that I'm not going to be the first person anyone would call for help or advice has been sinking in.  No one's going to expect me to comfort them through this difficult time they're going through and ask me to pray for them right now.  I'm not going to be asked for my opinion about which color to paint their room or if they could borrow one of my dresses.  No one's going to say, "I'm so glad you picked up your phone because I really needed to talk to you."  I'm not going to be at the forefront of people's minds because the reality is that people are busy, I'm not in a dire situation (like a soldier or missionary serving overseas), and I'm not by myself.  I'm married now.

Well, I got what I asked for: my husband is my best friend.  It just never sunk in as to how, after gaining this best friend of a husband, moving to Rochester would be at the cost of so many other relationships.  The rubber has begun to meet the road where I'm working through the losses of stepping out of a community that has loved me, encouraged me, and supported me for many, many years. 

I've been thinking and blogging a lot lately about the concept of living a good story.  And as I wrestle within the tensions of moving to the fringe of one community and what it means to move deeper into another, it forces me to think about the God I serve - the God who calls us to develop and steward community as we go to the places God leads us.  The move to Rochester is a threshold I'm forced to make a decision about:  I can either constantly look back over my shoulder at what could've or should've been, or I can look forward to the opportunities I have before me to live a better story.  So I'm choosing to embrace the new stories and relationships God invites me to participate in and I'm looking forward to sharing these stories with those in both the community of my past and the community of my future.

My hunt for a 20-mile march.

I attended a couple of conferences almost back-to-back in the middle of August.  First was the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit, and the second soon after that was the InterVarsity NY/NJ Regional Staff Conference.  There were a lot of things I immediately gleaned from the prior, but it's been a bit tougher trying to figure out what I've soaked in from the latter.

However, there was something from the staff conference that I've been thinking about recently.

If I remember correctly, Bill Sweeting, our speaker for the conference, quoted something from John C. Maxwell who said, "The toughest person to lead is always yourself" (read about it here).  In the midst of a million things to do, goals to work towards, and feeling like I'm just moving backwards and will never achieve great things or simply do things I like or want to do, I recognize how incredibly undisciplined and faithless (unreliable) I am.  It takes me a long time to do things, especially when it comes to processing things that feel like they're really important or are really important to me.  And a lot of times in the process of pursuing those things, I end up completing the minimum to get by with what I can or it begins to look like a hanging carrot I just cannot physically reach.  

It's probably why I've always felt like I never had any big dreams.  Maybe the reality is I probably don't want anything bad enough to keep at it, or somehow I'm afraid of actually succeeding (isn't this sounding ridiculous and not at the same time?).  Here, take a look at some of the things I could potentially pursue:

Since I was nine years old I've always wanted to write and publish a novel.  It's a big dream, but not impossible.  But over the years I haven't been willing to practice writing.  I haven't written any short stories unless I had a deadline for a creative writing class, I haven't entered any contests, I haven't submitted any pieces for publications or just wrote some chapters or story ideas for fun.  I've been limiting my writing to blog posts.  I don't give my writing the time or space to grow and develop.  It's like any musical pursuits (which, by the way, I also don't really work on at all) - if you want to get better, you need to practice.  You need to make mistakes and learn your craft and cover the basics.

Look at my big dream to own and run a cafe/bakery/bookstore/gift shop/inn/community center combo thing.  You don't see me reading books about small businesses/non-profits, baking or designing greeting cards at every opportunity I can get, or asking questions to those who may have experience in those areas.  I can say, "I want to do that!" all I want, but if I don't actually put anything into motion, it's not going to happen.  I don't have a lot of drive or discipline.  And I'm aware of that.

But I want that to change.

During the Leadership Summit, Jim Collins gave a great talk based on his new book, Great By Choice, which addresses why some companies excel despite chaos.  One of the concepts Collins focuses on is the idea of a "20-mile-march," which encompasses the evidence that successful companies "embrace a paradox of control and noncontrol."  They're disciplined in their commitment (i.e., marching no more and no less than 20 miles) everyday, whether or not the circumstances are beneficial or not.  Collins provides the example of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, two adventurers who were on the quest to be the first to reach the South Pole.  While both explorers experienced the same uncontrollable climate issues, Amundsen "adhered to a regimen of consistent progress, never too far in good weather...yet pressing ahead in nasty weather to stay on pace," while Scott "would sometimes drive his team to exhaustion on good days and then sit in his tent and complain about the weather on bad days."  Amundsen stuck to his 20-mile-march and successfully reached the South Pole.  (Collins explains it a little better his article here)        

And so I've been thinking about I'm the toughest person I'll ever lead, and how if I'm going to leading others on a constant basis, then I need to really learn to lead myself.  And if I'm going to lead myself, I need to accumulate the discipline to really, truly pursue something.  I've also been thinking about what it means to live a good story, which requires wanting something enough to overcome conflicts.  The problem is, I don't know what I really want.

So maybe I should figure out what I really want first, but I can't help but think of some daily 20-mile-march ideas...  

• Write one blog post.
• Memorize one Bible verse.
• Practice guitar/singing for 30 minutes.
• Read a novel for 30 minutes.
• Run x miles (every week?)
• Bake something (every week?)
• Read 5 news articles.
• Write and mail a letter to someone.

I would say, "Feel free to pipe in with your vote/opinion on which one I should pursue or suggest your own," but I guess that's going in the opposite direction of trying to figure out what I want.

Transitions.

You know something's wrong when Tammy Chan doesn't post on her personal blog for 5 1/2 weeks straight.

I did start a couple of posts, but I haven't had (or made?) the time to sit down and work on them or finish them.  Hence, the unplanned hiatus.

It's the reality of transition, right?  You get swooped up into this tornado of change and never even get the chance to consider whether or not you're strapped in and ready.  And even when you think you are ready, you're not. 

That's what happened earlier this week.  It was like I knew I was throwing myself willingly into the deep end of the crashing waves with full knowledge that everything was going to be chaotic and I was going to swallow a ton of sea water.  But instead of drawing deeper in my dependence on God, I tried to protect myself from stressing out by absorbing the hits.

The sea water came back out of my system in the form of rivers of tears as I literally traveled to my recent staff conference.  I was talking with Nathan the whole bus ride from the airport to the hotel and pretty much cried the whole three hours.  We had some hard conversations that I was responding pretty poorly to because all the sea water I had been absorbing was suddenly spewing out of me without my control.

I was still on the verge of tears when we arrived at the hotel and bumped into some of our colleagues, but thankfully I had a chance to take a shower and head down to a bench outside the hotel to talk to Nicole Page.

Something I love about talking to Nicole is that I always feel like I have the freedom to cry and not have to work hard to fight them.   I also love her intuition.  People who are keenly intuitive and interpret their gut feelings correctly are so great.  Nicole is one of those people.  Talking to her made me come face-to-face with the reality that, as much as I'd like to pretend I don't, I do thrive better in stability than chaos to a certain degree; that different does not mean impossible; and that God is faithful.  She created space to help me confess the lies I let creep into my heart, and affirmed the truths I vaguely knew to be true in my head but needed to be planted firmly in my heart.    

I know it's not completely over, but the great movement of emptying myself completely to be filled again with hope and affirmation and faith was really helpful.  Praise God for the good night's sleep and the refreshing sense of being present during this week of training. 

Later on in the week Carolyn Carney asked to pray for me and the picture of the disciples in the boat with Jesus sleeping came to her mind:  they left point A but weren't quite at point B, and there was chaos and an impending sense that they weren't going to survive the trip across.  She prayed that I would have a sense of faith and peace of having the Lord who calms the storms with me on board my ship. 

Amen.

The discipline of thinking outside the box.

Recently I've been noticing God's little nudges to remind me that I worship a creative God.  During Lent I actually re-decorated my room in some creative ways (incomplete, unfortunately).  During a discipleship meeting with a student we went over how we were made in God's image in the first few chapters of Genesis.  Last week at my upstate staff meetings it came up during my retreat of silence, group time and prayer sessions. Our spiritual director read a number of excerpts from a book on Sabbath, but this quote stuck out to me the most:

"Emptiness is the pregnant void out of which all creation springs." --Wayne Muller

It struck a chord in me because I actually had a really hard time focusing during my retreat of silence.  I wasn't looking forward to that or the "Great Silence" we always have that night all the way into the morning through breakfast time.  It wasn't because I was afraid of silence or don't like quietness - I'm an introvert, of course I enjoy silence and quietness.  At first I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't want to be in silence.  It wasn't like I was trying to avoid silence by distracting myself with busyness or noise or wasting time.

I felt like I have been hitting a good rhythm in life of learning to say no, learning to practice Sabbath and quietness and stillness (especially through my morning and evening routines), not over-burdening myself with tasks or the weight of responsibility that isn't mine to carry.  It's just that I've been by myself and practicing silence and solitude a lot as a new staff worker that I was, as my dear co-workers helped me discover, in fact just plain discontent with the emptiness that rang out into the silence.  I've been longing for more.

But that Muller quote, along with all the other things popping up in my life remind me that God is such a creative God and that He created me in His image in such a way that I have the capacity to create something new or take something old and make it my own.  In fact, all of us humans have that capacity.  I sometimes get frustrated when people say, "I'm not creative," because I think by believing that you deny the creation God designed you to be.  Honestly, I do think it is a discipline we can develop.  It's something we practice and learn.  I don't think I would be so inclined to creativity if it wasn't for the way my parents raised me.

Creativity goes a long way with problem solving, too.  You have a problem because you have a goal but there are obstacles or rules or limits that prevent you from achieving that goal.  Creative problem solving steps in when you seek solutions that work outside the limits presented before you.  Creativity thrives when you go beyond what is expected.

I think it's part of the reason why I thrive with structures and systems.  You can't think outside the box if you don't know what the box is.  You can't move beyond limits if you don't know what parameters you're limited to.  It's why it's important to learn the basic rules and structures of any form of writing or art (which is usually associated with creativity) - you can't break the rules if you don't know what the rules are.

The sad part is when the only thing stopping us from being creative is ourselves.  It's like we look at the fence that's blocking our way, say, "Well, I guess we can't get to the other side," when really all you had to do was be willing to do a little work to find the gate that was never locked in the first place.

It's funny because as I was working on this post yesterday, I decided to look at Donald Miller's latest post, which was about being a creator rather than a critic.  I liked the post a lot because it's sometimes how I feel about people who complain or whine about an issue they see but don't seem to do anything about it (which, trust me, I've been guilty of before).  I don't know if it's my optimistic outlook, but I usually believe and hope that there is an alternative solution.  Sometimes it means changing our attitude when we can't change our environment or people around us.

So being creative is not always something we're instantly good at doing.  It takes practice and work and a different kind of mentality.  It means faithfully showing up even if you don't get the inspiration you hoped for.

If you're willing to take on the challenge start somewhere, this website has some interesting places to start.  But you don't need some website to tell you ways to be creative.  Just take your current situations, problems, issues, and identify those limits.  Think about where you are/what you anticipate will happen and then think about where you'd like to be.  Make some observations and brainstorm some alternative solutions.  Take ownership over your situation and turn it into a chance to do something you haven't tried before - you might like what you find!

I've still got a lot to learn,  I'm discovering that creativity can sometimes be an ironic part of my life.  But at least my balloon of discontent silence is slowly deflating.  Emptiness allows space for new life to spring up!  That's exciting.