12yodreams - Tumblr blog

[12yodreams]

I love this

Blessing in the Chaos

Recently discovered that a blessing that I wrote has been traveling around Tumblr and beyond, which is cool, except that it’s being attributed to John O'Donohue. I love O'Donohue’s work but would like to stick a pin in this blessing as being mine. Please share!

Blessing in the Chaos

To all that is chaotic in you, let there come silence.

Let there be a calming of the clamoring, a stilling of the voices that have laid their claim on you, that have made their home in you,

that go with you even to the holy places but will not let you rest, will not let you hear your life with wholeness or feel the grace that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you cease. Let what divides you cease. Let there come an end to what diminishes and demeans, and let depart all that keeps you in its cage.

Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm.

- Jan Richardson janrichardson.com

I wrote this for my post “Blessing in the Chaos” at my blog The Painted Prayerbook.

Bless you for sharing!

[12yodreams]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpChZxPfa-c)

[12yodreams]

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Rumi (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[12yodreams]

The best kind of people are the ones that come into your life, and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds. The people that believe in you so much, you start to believe in you too. The people that love you, simply for being you. The once in a lifetime kind of people.

Unknown (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[12yodreams]

I appreciate the people who love and understand me. Even when I’m hurt and pushing people away they know me better and push back with love and support.

Power of Positivity (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[12yodreams]

The best gift you are ever going to give someone - the permission to feel safe in their own skin. To feel worthy. To feel like they are enough.

Hannah Brechner (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[12yodreams]

I wish they understood

[12yodreams]

(via 12 pieces of advice for giving talks that have impact)

[12yodreams]

(via Teachers in Maine School Decide to Go Ahead and Run the Place)

It’s about time. I wish them well. Take the bull by the horns and just do it.

[12yodreams]

(via Study: Teacher Outreach to Parents Has 'Under-Explored Potential' in Schools)

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2015/05/study_teacher_outreach_to_parents_boosts_student_performance.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2

[12yodreams]

Great sermon text. Dave Rowe...Nicely done, Dave. Nicely done.

[12yodreams]

'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.'

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

[12yodreams]

I had a different post planned for today.   It's a cute, feel good one about dancing with my kids.  You would have loved it, and maybe I'll post it in the next couple of days so you'll get to read it.  I just have other things to write about, that feel like they can't wait. This isn't going to be as fun as my favorite things, or as mundane as what I am or am not eating.  I have hard things I've been thinking about, and it just needs to come out. The world is on fire.  It is taut with hate, anger, violence, illness, destruction, and all kind of things that shatter my comfortable and happy world.  I have a hard time finding a place that doesn't seem overrun with strife.   I'd like to just chalk it up to too much media coverage, and believe that things are not as bad as they seem, but I would only be kidding myself.  There is a battle going on.  Evil seems to be criss-crossing around the globe. I've been reading "No Ordinary Time" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  It is a book that tells the story of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's partnership in mobilizing the home front during World War II. I was interested in reading this book because of my Grandma Fran.  She was an actual "Rosie the Riveter."  During World War II, while her husband was fighting in Europe, she was riveting airplane wings.  I loved hearing how her life and world were transformed. It was both an awful time for her, and yet there were things about it that were really good, things I have envied.   I know that she lived fearing for her husband, and others that she loved.  There was evil criss-crossing the globe and coming ever closer, she must have been scared. I know that there were both true hardships and minor inconveniences that she dealt with everyday.  She had to be brave, and use her ingenuity to learn to do things differently and to find her way.  These burdens all could be heavy at times. It was also a time when she came into her own.  Here she was, with new skills, being valued and really contributing in a way that changed the world.  She was part of a real community both in Detroit where she was working, and in the greater group of Allies. She was there on the home front, but she was making a difference in her own way that echoed around the world.  At every turn she was reminded that she was part of the team, and what she did really mattered.  I have been feeling a restless aching for the past few years.  I have a nice comfortable life full of good things.  I don't want to sound ungrateful at all, because I have been given blessing upon blessing and I am so grateful.  I just can't shake the whisper that asks me if this is all there is.  Is a life full of nice, comfortable, and benign what I should be aiming for?  It seems like it is the American Dream, and yet if I'm honest, there is some emptiness too. I long to feel like I contribute.  I long to feel like what I do really matters.  I long for a home front effort that I can be a part of,  We would band together to say that evil should be stopped.  To say that we will support one another even in our fear, and we will live as a real community.  I want the people around me to be brave, and learn new skills; to live a life of sacrifice for a greater cause and to really come into their own. I want that for myself too. So back to our current world.  There is a battle going on, and I can't believe that it is only geopolitical.  It is too evil, it is too rampant, it is too widespread.  I think that this is a spiritual battle.  I see it in the stories of people being crucified.  It's there in students being killed or kidnapped and sold into slavery just because they are Christians.  You can't miss it when you read about systematic rape of girls as young as 8 in Iraq and the sale of young children as slaves.  It's there at every turn and it is out roaming unabashedly.  I'm left wondering what do we do here the home front? The frontline of this battle seem so far away.  How do we even get into the fight?  How do we contribute?  How do we say that we won't let evil criss-cross our world without putting up a fight?  I'm just a regular girl, how could I make a stand? Is this even my place?  Is this something I can ignore? Again and again we see examples where God uses the weakest, because then we all know it was really Him.  Maybe we don't need to be strong or powerful, because He is.  Not by might or by power but by my Spirit .  Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord. Is it time for us to contribute, and do things that really matter?  Do we need to be people who say that Evil can't run rampant on our watch?   We would need to support one another when the darkness is just too much.  It could change our whole lives.  We would need to be brave, and learn new things, we need to put all our ingenuity to work, and most of all we need to do it together.  The whisper of an answer is faith and prayer are first.    

[12yodreams]

Absolutely beautiful.

[12yodreams]

Sometimes, just sometimes, it's not about you."

Unknown

[12yodreams]

I've been mulling this over for a few days trying to figure out what to write, and how best to say it.  This is the kind of topic that would be easier to leave as my own thoughts because part of it isn't my story to tell; I don't want to be telling my kids' stories on the internet.  More than that,  it would be much easier to act like my kids never struggle, but it's not the truth and it doesn't help anyone to pretend it is. I've come to the conclusion that we will all watch our kids struggle with something.  At some point in their life they will struggle with a skill or ability, with fears, or relationships. They might even struggle with illness and loss. There will be something.  We all struggle as people, so it would be crazy to think that the small people we are raising would somehow be exempt. Here are 3 principles that have helped me be a better parent in these difficult situations.1. Struggling isn't always an entirely bad thing.   Now hear me out.  I know this makes me sound a little callous and cold-hearted, but I think this is important. There are valuable lessons gained when we struggle.   Through my own struggles I have learned how to be a better friend, I have learned how to work hard, and I have learned how to ask for help. Struggling has revealed some of the things I am really good at, as well as where it is best if I don't invest my time and resources. I have seen time and time again that I am not perfect and fall short of God's plan for my life.   Ultimately, I think that struggling is where we encounter a broken world and the need for God's redemption.  I run into problems when I am embarrassed and feel shame over what I am struggling with, or when I pretend that I don't actually struggle at all.  What needs to be demonstrated to our kids is struggling and suffering occurs for everyone, but there is hope and there is help. 2. There is a valuable opportunity provided when your kids struggle. We don't ever want our kids to hurt.  As a parent, I would much rather take the pain instead of my kids, it just isn't an option.   There are struggles for everyone and this situation won't be the last time that they face difficulty.  It's unavoidable.  As parents we get the opportunity to help our kids gain the skills they need to face life on their own. Learning how to pass through difficult times is a vital lesson.  Wouldn't you like the opportunity to walk with your kids and help them gain the skills they will need when difficult times come?  Through struggling they can learn how assess themselves, how to take advice and criticism from others, and how to evaluate what importance that criticism should be given? Wouldn't you like the opportunity to teach them to work hard, and to ask for help. Wouldn't you like to model praying because you really need God in this situation?  Although I hate to see my kids hurt or disappointed I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to walk through difficulty with them speaking truth into their lives as we go.   3. You aren't a bad parent because your kids are struggling .   I wish that there was a direct correlation in life.  If you do the right things, nothing difficult will happen to you. As we have walked the road of difficulties with our kids I have done a lot of soul searching to figure out what role I play in the hardship my kids are facing.  Did I not teach them well?   Should I have done something differently? Is this really all my fault? The questions just go on and on.   Again and again, I land in the same place.  This isn't about me.  It needs to be about them.   This isn't true because I'm such an amazing parent, it is because my value as a parent and the measure of my success isn't determined by the way my kids perform or behave. I know that at times I have acted like it is really about me. I have secretly hoped that my kids are amazing, and that people think that I am such a great parent.  Here is the truth, my kids are people too, with their own wills, and their own broken places.  They have their own skills and their own path through life. No matter how much I see myself in their situation (I had a hard time with that subject in school. I remember what it felt like to be left out. Oh, the pain of not making the team.) it gets to be their situation this time. The success of our children can't rise and fall upon our ability as parents, and our parenting ability can't be measured by the trappings of our children's successes.  Where we get the opportunity to do great parenting is in helping our kids develop and gain skills that will serve them through their life.  We get to build authentic relationships with our kids that hold out markers to who they can become someday all they while loving them deeply exactly the way they are.  This only happens when we can let it be their story. When I untangle my pride from the situation I am can help them receive feedback and evaluations. I can lead the way in asking for help. I am better at just loving them for who they are instead of how they perform. If you and your kids are going through a difficult time there are lots of resources. Please find help!  We have found our pediatrician, kids teachers, and parents of older kids to be great resources. We have also gained great support through sharing what is going on with our friends.

[12yodreams]

How does one encourage another to let go? How do you get someone to want to?