Brave Girls Club

I've been getting weekday emails from something called the "Brave Girls Club" for a number of weeks now, and they've moved me deeply.  They've been timely in the truths they speak, and I wanted to share one here, along with the link to their website, where you can sign up for yourself.

This one was from late last week and again spoke truths I very much needed to hear in those moments:

Dear Authentic Girl,



It's ok to cry sometimes, you know. It's even ok to completely fall apart for a little while so that you can put yourself back together in the way you are supposed to be together.

Sometimes the pieces of us get a little bit mixed up and we have to let ourselves fall apart so that we can get ourselves back in order. And it's ok to grieve over things that we've lost. It's ok to grieve over people that we've lost and it's ok to grieve over time that has been lost. It's ok to feel a bit of a hole in our hearts where loved things used to be.

HERE'S THE IMPORTANT THING, though. Remember, that you can still do the things that you want to do, and work toward the places that you want to be, and learn the things that you want to learn WHILE you are working through grief. You don't have to wait. Sometimes we make ourselves wait until all of the pain is gone to start living the life we want to have.

The time to start living the life we want to have is RIGHT NOW, even if it's while we are holding hands with pain. They really can live next to each other. And then when it's time for the pain to go, you are not left alone trying to figure out what to do next. You are already there -- just without the pain.

So please stop waiting, lovely you. Please stand up and take some steps into the places that you want to be. It's ok if your pain comes with you. It really is. Someday it will feel like it's done its job, and it will be gone. It really will.

YOUR JOB is to just keep moving, and you are the only one who can do it. You know it's time. Stand up, sweet sister. Take a step. You can do this.

Have a wonderful weekend.

xoxo

A message from your friends at the Brave Girls Club - www.bravegirlsclub.com

And I Burst Out Laughing

I have to tell you this. Just now I opened an email from a mailing list that I'm on. I opened it because it said it had a Christmas Offer for me. (I would have opened it eventually anyway, but hey, I love free stuff, and free Christmas stuff at that!) But I had to laugh. Inside it said something to the effect of "Merry Christmas! Please enjoy a complimentary copy of..." (I'm eagerly looking for the book title now - free books - even better!) "...Tortured for Christ..." And, I burst out laughing.

Because, while I'm certain that it's an excellent and important book, and I think the world in general needs to be more aware of just how much persecution of Christians goes on, it was just so not what I was expecting.

I mean, it's like it was saying, "This Christmas, spread the love and joy with a copy of a book on persecution and torture."

Maybe my sense of humor is twisted, or maybe it's simply that I went to bed LATE and I'm up quite early. But it struck me as incredibly ironically funny.

To be fair, I think this particular book give-away is a paid advertisement for an organization that works against the persecution of Christians around the globe, and to raise awareness of that persecution in North America where we tend to turn a blind eye to it. I've certainly received the offer to receive this book a number of times before, in various emails, from various mailing lists that reach a fairly wide spectrum of the Christian world. It was just the presentation of this particular one that caught me as funny. the "We have a Christmas Gift for you - a book about torture" motif that made me laugh.

Like I said, maybe I'm twisted... who knows...

Snapping into that space

Ever had a day where you were completely not in a certain space, and then someone says something that pulls you immediately into that space?

I was really relaxed today. Peaceful, at rest. (and this sounds bad to say.) Not engaging at all in a spiritual or moral way with the world. I did completely random things today. Went boxing day shopping with my brothers, my roommate, and a friend for several hours this morning. Came home, watched an episode or two of Grey's Anatomy. Popped in a movie I borrowed from my brother (Step Up) and fell asleep on the couch for an hour. Went to the mall and mailed some letters to New Zealand for my roommate, bought a book, and found some great deals on shoes. Picked up vietnamese for dinner, watched the end of my movie, and crashed on the couch. Let my roommate talk me into letting her dye my eyelashes (her alternative to putting mascara on all the time), and then painted my toenails.

I got two emails today that have pulled me into two separate spaces.

One from someone very close to me. Criticizing an action I made the other day. One that I'm not sure how I feel about. It pulled me into a guilty, uncomfortable, angry, self-evaluating state.

One from a relatively new friend. That one came just a little while ago. Pulled me into a space where I need to pray. I'll finish the tv show I'm watching, and hole up in my room.

I'm not going to think about the fact that I need to leave my house before 7 tomorrow morning to drive my roommate to the airport, and then go to work. I'm not going to think about the whole day of work that's facing me. I'm just going to hole up and pray.

Which is probably how I should have responded to any number of things today, including both of those emails.