Blog - emily p. freeman -

When You’re In The Ellipsis of Life

This post is an adapted version of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing: Episode 91 and you can listen to it right here. If you want even more help with discernment and decision-making in your own life, grab a copy of The Next Right Thing book. Affiliate links are used where books are mentioned.

It’s 2013 and I sit in the back seat of an airport shuttle on my way to speak at a writer’s conference in Austin, Texas. In the ride with me is my friend and, at the time, assistant Melissa, and author and pastor, Mark Batterson. This is the first time I’ve met Mark in person, though I’ve read at least one of his books by this time, The Circle Maker, and he endorsed one of mine, A Million Little Ways.

We are essentially strangers, but we fall into easy conversation around common ground: writing and ministry. As we ride from the airport to the hotel, I end up sharing with Mark about the transition John and I are in at this stage of our life. I tell him about John leaving youth ministry after 12 years, just a few months earlier. I tell him about how John has for now chosen a stay-at-home life, the changing sheets and doing laundry and planning meals kind of life, and how he’s good for now, but he’s open and listening for what kind of work might be next.

I tell him about how I love writing books and sometimes speaking, but I’m not sure what that means five or ten years from now. And really, I could do that kind of work from anywhere.

So what does that mean about where we call home?

And even though from what I’ve just said, it might sound like I’m telling him everything, if you can believe it, I still have questions I’m not asking out loud. He seems to know this. He seems to hear the silent questions that I’m not asking and he smiles before he says this line that I never forget.

“You’re in the ellipsis.”

Immediately two things happen. Number one, I know he’s right. And number two, I don’t want to be here, in the ellipsis. I want to be in the middle of the paragraph, in the middle of the book where I know the title and the subtitle and the back cover copy.

In that moment I realize how desperately I want my life to be written in ink, filled out, formed, and finished. What in the world is next?

(If you want to know more about that season of our life in 2013, when we had way more vocational questions than we had answers, check out chapter five of my book, The Next Right Thing, or listen to episode 24 of The Next Right Thing podcast.)

Back in the shuttle, I listen as Mark begins to tell his story and he says how he’s been at the same church for seventeen years and he hopes to stay there until he retires. This is a foreign language to me. Up to this point, we’ve never felt this way about a church, a home, or a job. Here in the seat of an airport shuttle next to Melissa and our new friend, Mark Batterson, I realize for the first time that I want to feel about our life and our work and our home the way Mark feels about his life and work and church in D.C.

I want to be so committed to a local church and a job and a home that I could say with confidence, “I could stay here forever.” That ride from the airport to the hotel with Mark and Melissa, that was six years ago. And while I still have questions, here are a few things I know for sure.

I know that being confident about what you want does not guarantee you’ll get it, any more than being unsure guarantees you won’t.

I know that it’s possible to be rooted, even if we’re in motion, just as it’s possible to be scattered, even if we’re staying in one place.

I know that having doubts and questions about what you want to do and where you want to live does not mean you don’t have a home.

I know that finding where we belong is not a one-time decision and uncovering your calling is a slow, important work.

Last week I sat on the porch of our cul-de-sac home where we’ve lived for over 10 years, reading a book called Placemaker by Christie Purifoy, the book that inspired the title of this episode. In her book, Christie writes these words I’ve underlined.

“Home is never a threshold you cross. It’s a place you make and a place that might make or unmake you.”

Christie Purifoy, Placemaker

What I longed for in that airport shuttle was surety, rootedness, and a promise that I had found my place. What I’ve discovered and am still discovering in the six years since is that even though it goes against everything we’ve learned about plants, roots are something we can take with us wherever we go.

Home isn’t something we have to wait for. Home is a place we can make.

I’ve been paying attention to how this can look in my actual life. It might sound unimportant, but when I’m feeling small, scattered, or disconnected, I’ve found placemaking to be a grounding practice.

I’m paying attention to my everyday spaces, like the place where I type on my computer at my house, like the closet where I record my podcast, like the second drawer in the bathroom where I keep my makeup.

For ten years our back bedroom has been a guest room and half of that time it’s doubled as my office. But guests don’t stay with us very often. And I realized I was squeezing into the corner of the room with a too small desk that I used every single day in order to make space for a guest room bed that was used twice a year.

So we took out that bed and we made a place for my work in that guest room. I turned it into an office because I decided to take a second look and be honest about what was really going on here and what was the place I really needed to make.

For two years I’ve recorded my podcast in a tiny closet and it’s worked just fine. But I took a second look and I realized that the bookshelves in there that were crammed into the corner weren’t really being used and the walls could handle some soundproofing.

After a few orders on Amazon and a few days of work, John and I made a place for the recording of this podcast. It’s in the same place it was in before, but now it has more of a purpose. It’s not fancy and it’s certainly not expensive, but making that space in the guest room and in the podcast closet felt like a declaration: “This work is important. You’re in this for the long haul.”

That’s not to say we’ll be here forever. It is to say we’re here for now, so let’s make a place for the work we’re called to do.

I’ve been paying attention to more than just workspaces. I’ve made a place in my bathroom drawer for the things I use every day. We created space in a corner of our kitchen for coffee, tea, and our black and white mugs because we use this space every day and it deserves to be organized and accessible.

We’ve made space in our sunroom for real plants to grow in pots. Every Saturday I carry these plants outside, including other plants from around the house. I gather them all together and water them all at once. Spread out all over the house they aren’t as impressive as they are gathered all together, but each one has a job to do in helping to make a place for us.

Again, I know it might seem small to move a bed out of a room, to clean out a bathroom drawer, to gather up the plants to water on a Saturday morning, but each of these small actions have been a way of making a place for peace, for belonging, for home.

As I sat on my front porch, the gift of placemaking rose up to meet me. Because long ago in the backseat of an Austin airport shuttle, I longed for the rootedness I heard in Mark’s voice; the surety, the face set like a flint in the direction of home of a people and of a place. And now I see how the answer to that longing from six years ago is all around me now. It didn’t come swiftly and it didn’t come all at once and, to be honest, there are some things I’m still waiting for. But, it’s important to notice and to name what’s here, what has come, and how grateful I am.

At one point in her book, Christie describes in detail about the work she and her husband Jonathan put into their Chicago apartment years ago. She writes in a lot of detail about the subway tile and the porcelain sink in the bathroom. She writes about the edge glass mirror and the shiny chrome faucet, and she writes about her friend Laura, who was often a guest in that Chicago apartment.

Years later, after they moved away, she asked Laura what she remembered about the apartment and surprisingly her friend Laura didn’t mention anything about tile or tubs or shiny chrome faucets. Instead, Laura remembers how Christie would light a candle when the sun went down, how she always had cloth napkins clean and ready for use, how she poured maple syrup into a glass jar before putting it on the table.

All of these things surprised Christie. You mean you don’t remember the fish pattern bathroom tiles, the porcelain sink with the porcelain legs, the pretty color painted on the walls? Yeah, that’s not what Laura remembered. She remembered the spirit of the place. The peace embodied in the simple liturgy of laundering napkins and lighting candles and pouring maple syrup into glass jars.

Christie and Jonathan were placemaking when they remodeled the bathroom, but the little things counted too, and that’s what their friend remembered.

When we have 35,000 decisions to make every single day, I wonder if being a placemaker would lighten the load a little bit? Because there’s nothing like the in-betweens of life to bring decision fatigue on fast and furious. When you feel like you’re waiting for something beyond your ability to manage or control, decisions can feel both overly important and profoundly unimportant at the same time. What does it matter what I decide? It won’t make a difference anyway.

Might I introduce a new narrative?

While we may not be able to change the whole story, perhaps we can still impact the plot point. That means in hardship, joy is still possible. In disappointment hope is still available. In uncertainty faith is still a lifeline.

Instead of thinking things have to be a certain way before we can enjoy them, what if we dare to enjoy them even in their imperfection?

What would it look like to make a place right where you are? Does it look like a candle, a cloth napkin, or a jar of maple syrup? Does it look like a cup of coffee, a long walk, or an arm around her shoulder?

Does it look like delivering a bag of groceries to your neighbor, a load of laundry for your daughter, a plant on the corner of your office desk?

If you’re in the ellipsis in your own life right now, it’s true, you might have more questions than you have answers. You might have more furrowed brows than nodding heads.

But there are some things you can still choose, like making a place where your roots are lacking, like believing for sure that God is with you, like doing your next right thing in love.

Learn more about Christie and the places she’s made right here. Grab a copy of her book, Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace.

How to Create Space for Your Soul To Breathe

This post is an adapted version of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing: Episode 90 and you can listen to it right here. If you want even more help with discernment and decision-making in your own life, grab a copy of The Next Right Thing book. Affiliate links are used where books are mentioned.

I recently read a helpful business book that I liked a lot and really appreciated what the author taught, but in one chapter in particular, I struggled with how to take what I read and apply it directly to my own life and work.

Upon reflection, I realize it wasn’t necessarily because of the content because the author taught a fantastic concept. The disconnect, for me, was in his failure to apply that concept with concrete, clear examples that I could easily understand. In the end, it was still a helpful book and I’m glad I read it, but in one chapter in particular, I was left to fill in a lot of the gaps for myself.

I love a good example. In elementary school, if our teacher tried to explain an art project to us with words, I couldn’t always picture it. But show me an example and get out of my way, it’s time to create.

I was never a confident test taker in school, but if you give me an example for a story problem in math, I could nail the practice problems beneath it in record time.

Examples help us visualize what’s expected. They help us apply what we’ve learned and hopefully, if done well, they free us up to create something unique to our own situation.

Examples aren’t necessarily meant to be replicated exactly. They’re simply models of what could be.

The purpose of an example is to provide a path to follow, not a program to implement.

We see this in the life of Jesus. If you read in the Bible about the way He interacted with people, you’ll see it there. He invited people to follow Him, a person, and learn His way of living. He didn’t give them a manual to memorize and then to enforce. While He would tell people what to do, He didn’t always tell them how to do it.

In fact, this caused no small amount of confusion for some of His hearers. He told them to seek first the kingdom of God, but He didn’t tell them exactly how. He told them to be as wise as serpents, but innocent as doves. How are we supposed to do that?

When He said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind, what exactly did He imagine that to look like?

He gave directives, but He didn’t often give directions.

He was clear about loving children, caring for widows, honoring parents, serving one another, but He didn’t always say exactly how to do those things.

I write a lot about the importance of creating space for your soul to breathe. One question I often receive is, “How?”

What does it look like to create space for your soul: practically on a Tuesday, in the middle of your regular life?

Well, I’ve been writing the answer to that question for the past 10 years, but my words don’t always provide prescriptive advice. I admit, that’s just not my style.

Having said that, I’ve actually written a lot about what it could look like to create space for your soul, even though my words on the subject tend to be more narrative than didactic.

For example, my book, Simply Tuesday, is all about finding contentment in your right now life and learning to breathe in a breathless world.

My podcast is an attempt to offer one simple next right thing in the midst of endless possible choices. And of course, the book, The Next Right Thing, is yet another way I’ve worked to provide a tangible example for what it could look like to create space for your soul to breathe so that decision making isn’t so overwhelming.

Even with several books on the subject and a weekly podcast dedicated to helping to create a soulful space, I still hear from people who want even more detail.

What does it look like?

What are the steps?

What do you practically do with the actual time you have to make space for yourself, for listening, and for God?

Well, if you can’t tell, part of me is resistant to those questions. For so long, I listened to people who told me there were certain rules to follow to ensure a healthy faith. I think the people meant well, but the intention didn’t always translate into health for me. Instead, the rules became a burden and the steps given were often ill-fitting. That’s one reason why, as you may already know, I prefer to talk about our walk with God as a rhythm rather than as a rule, more like a lyric rather than a list.

There isn’t one way, there are a million little ways. (P.S, I wrote a book about that, too.) And it will look different for you at 18 then it looks for you at 28 or 89, the same way it’s going to look different for me. While part of me is resistant, I admit, to the question, another part is compelled to continue to answer it.

In fact, I see it as part of my calling, part of my responsibility to teach this practice of creating space. Because if I say it’s important (and it is) and if I practice it myself (and I do) then I needed to come up with words to explain what that could look like for someone else. Maybe even for you.

***

The answer, as it turns out is, it depends. It depends on your personality, your schedule, your season of life and a million other things.

I can’t give one foolproof way to create space for your soul, because there isn’t one foolproof way. But what I can do is tell you one thing I do every day to create space for my own soul to breathe, and it takes less than 30 minutes. Maybe you’ll find something that resonates and adapt it for yourself.

“I find that a little bit of structure actually helps me rest because then I’m not faced with decisions every minute about what to do; rhythms give shape and structure to my desire and intention to seek God.”

Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Retreat

When people ask me that question, “What does it look like to create space for your soul to breathe?” I know that the desire buried within the question is, “I want to seek God. I want to be with Him. I want to become more fully myself, but I don’t know exactly how.”

The problem isn’t what to do or not to do with the time you have. The problem for a lot of us is simply an overwhelming array of options.

There are a lot of things we could do to connect with God and to create space for the soul. The problem is choosing. If you have the desire to create space in your life these days, but you don’t know where to start, perhaps this short practice will help you as it’s helped me.

For the past few months I’ve been practicing the same rhythm in the morning, and it’s been life-giving for me. I’ve shared about my morning routines and rhythms before, and they’re always changing a little bit, but for the last couple of months, I’ve stuck to one particular practice.

Here’s the five-movement rhythm I practice every morning: PRWRP.

P – Pray

When I first sit down, I begin with a short prayer. You could begin with a longer prayer. The length doesn’t matter, but for me it tends to be the same one every time and I keep this first one short (maybe even less than 30 seconds). I often use a pre-written one because that helps me get into the space without being distracted by what I’m going to say.

A favorite one of mine is from Ted Loder: “Oh God, gather me now to be with You, as You are with me.”

Or you may want to use the familiar prayer of Jesus that we call the Lord’s prayer, that begins with, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

Maybe this is a space that you want to use to simply whisper a greeting to your friend Jesus as you start the day together. There’s no wrong, just begin with prayer.

Remember, it can be less than 30 seconds. That’s the first P.

R – Read

This is where I read a portion of scripture. This summer I’ve been in the book of John, but you can read any book you want to read. Read slowly, and don’t confine yourself to a chapter at a time if you don’t want to. Remember when the Bible was written, it wasn’t divided into chapters. That came later.

So reading only half a chapter or even a few verses isn’t cheating. Don’t just read the text. Let the text read you. Read slowly, read twice, and sit in some silence as you go along.

If you’re reading in the gospels, remember you’re reading an account by a person who was there. If you’re reading a Psalm, remember this is poetry, so read it like it’s poetry. If you’re reading Colossians or Ephesians, remember these were written as letters from a particular person to a particular group of people.

I think so often when we read scripture, we rushed quickly to application. “What’s in it for me? How can I apply this to my life?” And while that’s so important and an honorable desire to have, sometimes we rush to it too quickly before we really stop to consider, “Who wrote this? Who were they writing to? What was the context of these words? What might God want to say to me right now that might not require an action at all, but that might just be something that’s true?”

If a passage brings up questions, let them rise. If it causes anger or confusion, tell God about it. This is where I read to be with God, to get to know Him better. That’s the first R.

W – Write

This is the part I’ve not always had in the mornings, but recently it’s been really good for me. I personally write two pages every morning with a pen and on paper. I have a journal specifically for this, but that’s not necessary.

You can write it anywhere. You can ball it up and throw it away when you’re done if you want. Sometimes I write reflections from the Bible reading that I just read or I write about what’s on my mind in that moment; the weather, family, questions I have, or wins or losses that I’m carrying around. There’s no wrong except I challenge myself to fill two journal pages every morning.

This is an important practice for me in my life right now, but for you it might just be you want to make sure you write one line, or a whole paragraph, or maybe you want to write more than I do. Maybe you want to write three or four pages. That’s up to you. I want to write every day, so I’ve built it into this little routine that I have, PRWRP.

R – Read

We’re being repetitive now, but this is where I read a nonfiction spiritual life book. Again, this can be anything. Maybe you want to read poetry here or some other kind of devotional. This will be personal to you, but the one advice that I would give is for this not to be a book that’s going to really wake up your work muscles in this particular time, so I wouldn’t read a business book during the second R.

I like to read something more devotional and thoughtful and reflective. For example, recently a book I just finished during my morning reading was Christie Purifoy’s book, Placemaker. Once I finished that book, which by the way I’m going to talk about in a later episode, it’s a fantastic book. I loved it. Now I’ve picked up Frederick Beachner’s book, Whistling in the Dark, which is a really great read and it’s divided up nicely so that I can read it in small chunks in the morning.

When I write during my morning rhythm, I place a limit of two pages on myself. This reading portion also has a limit but instead of a number of pages, I use a timer, typically set for 15 minutes. If I’m crunched for time, sometimes I will set my timer for five minutes. The important part is to include a little bit of reading someone else’s words before I jump in to the day.

P – Pray

Well, number five and finally, I end again with prayer. This is the final P. Sometimes this prayer is more extemporaneous and other times it’s liturgical where I’ll read a prayer written by someone else.

Either way, this simple morning rhythm begins and ends with prayer, the foundation of any spiritual practice.

So how can we create space for the soul to breathe? This is one way.

One way to enter into a regular rhythm of creating space for your soul is to practice this, pray, read, write, read, pray cycle. Again, this entire cycle can take as little as 20 minutes, depending on how long I give myself to read.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. It simply has to be.

Jesus didn’t give examples. Jesus is the example. His very life, the way He interacted with His disciples, with women, with children, with those in charge and with those in the margins, and with His Father in heaven.

All of these interactions were and are all the example we need to learn what it looks like to walk by faith. Creating space for the soul to breathe isn’t the answer to our problem, not by itself. It’s simply a way of setting the stage so that we can better see the answer who is Jesus Himself in whom all our hope is found. We don’t have to try hard to copy Him by mustering up a brilliant plan. We are simply invited to trust Him as we do our next right thing, with Him along the way.

*******

I hope this is a helpful practice for you. I hope even more that you read it, change it, and make it your own. The point, and I hope you’re reading it, is that life with God is an invitation to communion. The invitation is one to be together. What you do once you get there might depend on the day, but you can create a rhythm to count on so that being in God’s presence is part of your daily life and not just a nice idea.

All of this can be summarized in one of Jesus’ kindest invitations when He said the words recorded in Matthew 11: 28-30:

“Come to Me all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light.”

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

The One Thing I Forgot to Plan Before I Took Time Off

This post is an adapted version of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing: Episode 89 and you can listen to it right here. If you want even more help with discernment and decision-making in your own life, grab a copy of The Next Right Thing book. Affiliate links are used where books are mentioned.

Susan Cain, author of Quiet, says, “Solitude is a crucial and underrated ingredient for creativity.” Solitude here (in my estimation) implies silence. You know what also requires solitude, silence and creativity?

Decision-making.

For better or worse, making decisions is a lifelong practice. It’s one we can’t delegate, graduate from, or grow out of.

Of the many things making decisions often require of us, our creative imagination is most certainly one of them. If you think the decision-making process is simply a fact-gathering exercise, consider what we do with the facts once we have them. We imagine the outcomes. If I choose this, then this thing might happen. If I choose that, it could lead to this.

All those scenarios play out in our minds without much effort. Sometimes we do this in productive ways with whiteboards and healthy conversation and lists. Other times we imagine scenarios in more unproductive ways with tossing and turning in the middle of the night.

If we don’t give ourselves a bit of time and space to consider possibilities, to sit with potential, to let ideas form slowly, then our imagination will just do its knee-jerk thing. We’ll make our decisions not based on our gifting, our calling or what matters most, we’ll just make them to avoid pain, discomfort, disappointing others or sometimes just to get the decision out of the way.

The bigger the decision, the greater the need for silence, solitude, and creativity.

And so I had several reasons for my own sabbatical and I’ve shared some of those reasons with you already. Mainly it’s because in order to uphold the integrity of my own calling to help create space for your soul to breathe, I have to create space for my own. So that’s what I did.

From late June to early August I took some intentional time away from my work. Just after the fourth of July, I deleted Instagram and Facebook from my phone and didn’t (well, okay barely) looked back. Just last week, I reinstalled them and feel refreshed and ready for a new season.

Nearly half of my time off, I was in London: first to co-lead Literary London and then to have a vacation with John and the kids. On July 6, Meghan and Harry’s baby, Archie, was christened at Windsor Castle. While it happened, my family and I stood outside.

We did not see any royals, but we did see a flower delivery van leave the castle. On the side was the logo of the same company that did the flowers for the evening reception at Meghan and Harry’s wedding and I was very proud of myself for this moment of sleuthing brilliance which at the time felt like a very big deal.

Closer to home, last month the podcast quietly passed four million downloads and then last week we passed the two-year anniversary of launching it. I’ve yet to make a point to celebrate these milestones but simply mentioning it here is fun all by itself.

In more global news, July 19th, 2019 marked 50 years since Apollo 11 made the historic trip to the surface of the moon. While history always highlights the moon walk, the truth is we would be telling a very different story if the astronauts had not returned home. As even the most space-ignorant humans know, in an atmospheric reentry, a million things can go wrong.

As I watched a documentary on the Apollo moon landing, I was struck by how little thought I’ve given to a crucial part of that mission: getting the astronauts home.

There are two main types of atmospheric re-entry: uncontrolled (like space debris hurling through the atmosphere) and controlled (like a spacecraft coming home on a preplanned path). Just like divers coming up to the surface from the depths of the ocean or climbers coming down to the surface from the heights of the mountains, coming back is not one swift movement. There are intervals to consider and pauses to take and all of that takes some time.

They say when astronauts return to Earth after being in space even for just a few weeks, they feel about five times heavier than they expect when they walk around. The longer in space, the greater the impact.

In 1969, when Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed on Earth after their historic lunar landing mission, they had to wear isolation suits in case they brought microbes back from the moon and they were even sprayed with disinfectant. (Picture: President Nixon spraying them down with Lysol. hehe). They didn’t have to stay in the suits the whole time, but they did have to stay in isolation for a full three weeks before they were reunited with their families.

When Scott Kelly returned to Earth after a year in orbit just a few years ago, his feet still hurt two months after being back in gravity. Reentry has a lot of implications on the body of an astronaut, but the first transition happens between space and the Earth’s atmosphere.

A controlled reentry has three movements, entry, descent, and landing, or EDL in space terms. This is all about dissipating the energy to ensure a smoother landing by using rockets and parachutes and all kinds of other things that I don’t even know. But even then, landing on Earth from space in a capsule is described as a series of car crashes. That’s how it can feel to the astronauts inside the capsule.

For all the emphasis put on missions to space and what happens once they get there, those missions would be incomplete without a solid plan to get them safely home.

When I was planning for my own time away, I admit I was mostly focused on two things, preparation and duration.

First, I knew I needed to get everything in order before leaving. I had to delegate tasks and put things on hold, create an away message for my email, have endless conversations with as many people as I could and I still knew I couldn’t possibly cover everything that needed covering in time.

At some point, I just had to let things go and trust the people put in charge in my absence could do the job that they had. It’s a real practice and it’s not easy, but I made all the necessary preparations for taking time away.

But second, and most obvious, I focused on what I was going to do during the duration of my time away. What books did I want to read? What questions did I want to carry? What rhythms would I follow during this extra time off?

For as much attention as I gave, preparing to leave and then going away, I only gave a glancing look to an important element of my sabbatical: reentry.

How would I plan to come back?

As it went, I got lucky. I made two decisions that I think made all the difference and I promise you I stumbled into them both by accident. If you’re planning to take an extended time off or even a short time off, some version of these two things might help you as well.

1. A transition week

The first was a half-plan for my last week of sabbatical to be a transition week. I would work but I wouldn’t tell anyone. I would plan but I wouldn’t act. I wasn’t sure if that was dumb or brilliant, but it felt right and for me, it turned out it was right.

That final week of sabbatical came with some surprises in transition that I wasn’t expecting. If there’s one thing you can count on when you’re away from your work for any amount of time really, it’s that there’s going to be some surprises when you get back even when you’re only back halfway. I didn’t realize early on how much I was going to need that in between working but not all the way working week.

It was crucial to give myself permission to take that final week off for letting my mind go into work mode even if my vacation responder was still on. It was important for me personally to make a clear decision and then put away any guilt about “wasting my sabbatical” by thinking about work that final week.

2. A short, final personal retreat

At the end of that semi-work week, I scheduled a short personal retreat. This was a last minute add-on scheduled in somewhat of a sloppy panic when I realized I was going to be returning to work soon, and I thought, “Oh, I just need one more day to really focus and think.” I scheduled an overnight retreat to completely unplug.

My friend and teacher, Keas Keasler, talks about the importance of having this kind of day take place outside of your own zip code so that’s what I did. It was a needed expression for me personally to have some time with my friend Jesus with a little bit of knowledge of what I was headed back into because I had that semi-work week already.

This was also a way to end the sabbatical experience with a short time of thanksgiving, of silence, and true physical rest. It was imperfect and I questioned my own timing while I was there. I honestly cried half the time and I still don’t fully know why, but I also trust that God often works within us things we can’t see or understand. The simple act of one final time of solitude with him was not going to be a waste.

Both of those things, a transition week and a final solitude night for closure and reflection, didn’t guarantee a smooth reentry. There were definitely still a few times I felt like the astronauts in the capsule headed toward Earth experiencing a series of car crashes during entry, descent and landing.

Reentry may not be smooth, it may not be easy, but bumps and bruises don’t mean you’re unsafe. They don’t mean you did it wrong. They may mean that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

This work, this calling, this invitation you have to live with God and people and coworkers and neighbors; sometimes it’s just bumpy. Time away is necessary. Reentry is tricky. But our Father is kind and nothing takes him by surprise.

Whether you plan to take some time off in the future, have had some time off and are now planning your return, or if you simply struggle to transition from the weekend into Monday morning chaos in a way that feels life-giving, coming back with peace doesn’t mean all goes well. It means your faith is in the one who holds all things together, even when it feels like things are falling apart.

Where are you anticipating a reentry of your own?

Is there something you can do in the transition that feels life-giving to you?

What might God be saying to you as you prepare to move from being with one group of people to another, one home to another, one job to another, one schedule to another?

In this transition, what’s God’s invitation to you?

Are you willing to carry peace with you into the next room even if the t’s aren’t crossed and the beds aren’t made and everything feels crazy?

May the love of the Father, the courage of the Son and the comfort of the Holy Spirit be with you as you continue to do your next right thing in love.

“The worst things will surely happen no matter what. That is to be understood. But beyond all our power to understand, we will have peace both in heart and in mind. We are as sure to be in trouble as the sparks fly upward, but we will also be in Christ.”

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

If It Feels Like the Walls Are Closing In

“Space has a spiritual equivalent and can heal what is divided and burdensome in us. My grandchildren will probably use space shuttles for a honeymoon trip or to recover from heart attacks, but closer to home we might also learn how to carry space inside ourselves in the effortless way we carry our skins. Space represents sanity, not a life purified, dull, or ‘spaced out’ but one that might accommodate intelligently any idea or situation”

Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces

Where books are mentioned in this post, affiliate links are used.

Last spring, after leading a women’s weekend in Southern California, John and I stayed a few days longer in Carlsbad for some rest before we headed back east. On a slow walk through town, we wandered into a local book shop, the kind where the bookstore owner watches you as you browse the shelves of books that seem to have been placed there since the dawn of time.

It was as if the whole bookshop might fall apart if we removed one book from the shelves so I felt more comfortable right outside the doors where some discounted books were stacked on carts. One marked a dollar caught my eye based on the title alone. It was called The Solace of Open Spaces.

I’d never heard of the author, Gretel Ehrlich, but I bought the book based on the title and a short endorsement by Annie Dillard. It’s only a dollar, I thought. If nothing else, the title alone had already brought me at least a dollars worth of thoughtful reflection.

For over 13 years I’ve been writing under the headline creating space for your soul to breathe. I stand by it as a foundational practice for all of us, not just those of us with introverted personalities or who gravitate toward the contemplative tradition.

Creating space for the soul is part of being a healthy human. Still, I understand while for some of us that phrase sounds delightful, for others, well. Not so much.

What does it mean to create space for the soul and why does it matter?

John and our son were on an evening drive together (they do that sometimes) and I got a text from them telling me to go outside and look at the moon. They know how much I love to see the moon in all her stages but especially when she’s close to full and that night, she was.

But trees surround our house on all sides and by the time the moon rises high enough to see, she’s lost all illusions of grandeur. Still, I went outside and looked.

I love those lush green trees. But I long for open space. Most of the time.

For all the ways I crave space in my surroundings, I have a tendency to avoid it in my soul. When it comes to confronting the reality of our inner life, it’s not all full moons and rolling hills is what I’m saying.

I’m sure you’ve heard the mantras people like to say: be yourself, take care of yourself, protect yourself, love yourself, defend yourself, and express yourself. But, in the words of John Ortberg in his book Soul Keeping:

“What if your self is a train wreck? What do you do then? The more obsessed we are with our selves, the more we neglect our souls.”

Creating space for your soul is not self-obsession. It’s self-awareness in the presence of God.

Soul whiplash is real and it happens to the most faithful and spiritually mature among us.

If what’s going on in my life right now is at the center, that’s what my soul will revolve around, as evidenced by the shame and anxiety I feel when I’m behind, rejected, embarrassed, you name it.

Good circumstance leads to good feelings and experience. Bad circumstance leads to bad feelings and bad experience. It’s a cycle and we’re all caught up in it. And that is what leads to soul whiplash.

“If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life.”

John Ortberg, Soul Keeping

To keep our soul healthy, first we have to admit that invisible things are real, as real as love, hope, loyalty, and excitement.

You can’t touch them or point to them, but we experience them every single day because they’re as real as your living room sofa or the trees in your front yard.

Yes, invisible things are real, but real in a different way. We can’t easily diagnose a sick soul and give it a spoonful of medicine to fix it. When your arm is broken, it’s obvious you need help. What about when your heart is broken?

It’s easy to get tangled up in a fast-paced world: driven, distracted, and productive. But that’s a language the soul doesn’t speak. We can go on that way for many years. Many of us do.

Our invisible soul is often forgotten beneath the demands of everyday life. Creating space for your soul is simply your invitation to remember it. We can decide on purpose to create space so that we remember where we live: in the strong and unshakeable kingdom of God.

It’s about respecting the daily pauses we need to be fully ourselves so that we can be present with God and faithful in our home, our work, and our community.

If you feel like creating space for your soul seems too much like being lazy and doing nothing, the truth is it actually takes more work to create margin than it does to stay busy.

Busy is the default. Margin takes intention.

Here’s the secret that’s hard to believe: there’s still value in creating space for the soul even if you have nothing to show for it. Spending time in the presence of God without an agenda does not come naturally for most of us. But how desperately we need it.

***

I’m nearly finished with Gretel Erlich’s book. It’s her story but not so much a chronological one. It’s organized more as a collection of essays and for some there may be too much meandering in her writing. As for me, I like her style though it takes some time to settle into. Once I do, I’m always glad.

As I read about her life in Wyoming, I’m struck by the personality of this open space she writes about. It’s romantic in thought but gritty, earthy, and dangerous in reality. It’s offensive, this western space, filled with wild animals and death and harsh extremes; too much snow in winter, not enough water in summer. Almost everything is abundant, but not always in the right direction.

Erlich points out when we see space as Americans, we gravitate toward filling it.

“We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough. We have a cultural tendency toward denial, but, being affluent, we strangle ourselves with what we can buy. We have only to look at the houses we build to see how we build against space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness.”

Gretel Erlich

Facing the space on the inside can feel that way, too. We’ll see the all the extremes of our own shortcomings, all the ways we aren’t quite living the life we long to live. Why would we choose to face all that on purpose?

Because if we turn our back on the shadows within us, we’re also turning our back on the light. If we refuse to see the extreme of our own shortcomings, we’ll also miss the abundance of God’s full-hearted love, the comfort of his presence, the peace that goes beyond what makes sense to us.

As we begin to turn inward, we may first see empty nothingness. But in time, it may turn into sacred space instead. This practice of a transformed perspective does not come quickly.

“As a people, we are not comfortable with waiting. We see it as wasted time and try to avoid it, or at least fill it with trivial busyness. We value action for its own sake. It is hard to trust in the slow work of God.”

Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening

There’s a line from Dallas Willard I’ve heard repeated several times over the years where he says, “If you don’t come apart for a while you will come apart after a while.” We are made in the image of God so what did God do as a human? The life of Jesus makes it so we don’t have to wonder.

When God came to earth in the person of Jesus, he got away alone, took time apart from the crowds. Even though he remained in constant communion with his Father when he walked along the road and had lunch with his neighbors and taught on the mountainside, he still found it necessary to get away.

If God himself set an intention to come away for a while, how much more is it necessary for us? And what does that look like in our regular life?

***

It’s true the traditionally contemplative people among us may see the need for time away more quickly and may find it easier to prioritize, but as people who live in the kingdom of God, we are all praying people. And prayer is a reminder that God is not in a hurry. His work is often painfully inefficient, at least according to my timetable. Especially in times of decision and discernment, coming away to listen and simply be is not a luxury but a necessity.

This need for us to come away is recognized by not only by churches but other people as well in other fields.

Author of the book Quiet by Susan Cain told Scientific American this about solitude: “Solitude is a crucial and underrated ingredient for creativity . . . From Darwin to Picasso to Dr. Seuss, our greatest thinkers have often worked in solitude.”

The words we use are important.

There are many ways to create space and I’ve learned definitions matter. When I say create space for your soul or come away for a while, there are many words and concepts that might come to mind for you as there are for me.

1. Vacation

Usually this is scheduled, has an agenda with either tickets, appointments or excursions. We’ve made plans for a long time, we bring family, or friends or whomever. It is a time to get away for recreation. But how many times have we gone away for a vacation and we come home exhausted?

2. Church Weekend

Most churches will call this a “retreat” but I prefer to use the phrase church weekend because that word retreat can get wrapped up in all kinds of definitions. A time away with church members can be a beautiful time of connection and community but also time when several people share a room, you listen to a speaker or several speakers, you follow someone else’s agenda, you have to engage in weird and uncomfortable icebreakers, stay up way too late, and come home tired.

3. A Break

When my kids were small, this is what I called a trip to Target. I needed a break from the questions, the needs, the being on point-ness of being a young mom with young kids. Self-care is so important. But that is more like a spa or a massage or time alone in the car than a spiritual encounter with God.

Can a spiritual encounter happen on a vacation, a church weekend, or a break? Absolutely.

Can you create space for your soul in these first three? Of course, but if your purpose is soul space, these three scenarios are not ideal.

Still, these take place in our regular life where we live, and one of the reasons I created this blog and the podcast is to offer ways to help you create space in regular life, including on vacation with family, in community with church members, and that much needed break you get in your car while running errands.

But there’s another kind of coming away when the walls are closing in, and that’s the kind we do on purpose with God.

4. Sabbath

Sabbath rest can be a weekly part of the rhythm of life and we are invited to keep it. If you want to learn more about that, listen (or download the transcript) to Episode 40: Keep Your Rest. It could be argued when we don’t keep the sabbath weekly, our need for time away may come more quickly, but that is one way to come away with God weekly, regularly, part of our rhythm of life.

5. Retreat

This is a scheduled time apart from daily life where we come away on purpose to connect with God for a short but extended period of time, from a full day to a couple of days. If you’re tired, take a nap. If you want to read, do it slowly. My friend and teacher Keas Keasler emphasizes the importance of getting out of your zip code for this.

If you want more information or guidance on what a true retreat might look like, check out Ruth Haley Barton’s book, Invitation to Retreat. She talks about the importance of retreat and how to practice it in your actual life. She started this practice of coming away with God on retreat when her kids were young, but it wasn’t fancy and it probably wasn’t for super long periods of time.

6. Sabbatical

This is a longer span of time that includes a leave from work, sometimes associated with education but also in ministry, generally given after 7 years of work a time of rest, renewal, sometimes study. It could be anything you want it to be as long as it’s restful and fits with your life stage.

Creating consistent space for your soul is available to each of us, and it doesn’t depend on our planner, it depends on our heart. And it might not take as much time as you think.

A note on sabbaticals: I recognize the remarkable privilege it is to be in a position to receive a sabbatical. I thought about this a lot last summer during my History and Traditions of Christian Spiritual Formation class because our teacher, AJ Swoboda, was entering into a time of sabbatical himself right after our class was over.

He acknowledged the discomfort this sometimes brings up – like how come you get to take a break from work when so many people around the world have to work 2 jobs just to get the bare necessities and sometimes not even that? Where is their sabbatical?

His response to this has stayed with me. He simply said, “The problem isn’t that the rich get a sabbatical but that the poor don’t. And the poor won’t get one until the rich start taking them because these are the times when we have our best ideas.”

Dr. Swoboda has some beautiful things to say about living a sabbath keeping life, pointing out that rest is not something “that comes with getting our lives in order. Rest is something God finds on our behalf.”

He mentions that nowhere in the Bible are we asked to create or make Sabbath. Instead, we protect it and enter into it. It’s not something we make up, it’s something we’ve been asked to take care of. We’re invited to do that in any capacity that works for our season of life. God is always beckoning, always ready for us to come away. Not forever, just for a while.

Soul space is not an end in itself, but it is a way for us to place ourselves in the presence of God.

We can find him anywhere, even beneath the piles of busy, everyday life. But sometimes we need something drastic. Something longer, something that will allow spacious places for deep work that can only happen in the silence.

As for me, July will be a time for me to come away for awhile.

I’ll do some traveling at the beginning of the month but then it’s home for reading, for listening, for being with my people after maybe the busiest two years of my life so far. My girls have two summers left at home after this one. My home needs my attention. I want to take longer walks around the neighborhood.

I plan to rest and as I do, I’ll be carrying some questions along the way. What does it mean for us to, as David Fitch says in his book, Faithful Presence, live together in Christ’s kingdom? And what does it mean for me vocationally to bring the world along?

What is my next right thing?

Discerning our next right thing is a question we’ll always be asking.

I don’t necessarily expect to come away with answers but I do hope to come away as more fully myself. In order to do my job with any amount of integrity, I also have to create space for myself. So this will be my last post on the blog until mid-August. That’s also when podcast episodes will return.

Until then, I hope you’ll catch up on any posts you may have missed.

More, though, I hope you’ll find ways that make sense for you in this season of your life and in your own way to create a little space for your own soul to breathe, whether that be 10 minutes in the morning, 10 hours on a weekend, or 10 days unplugged from all distractions.

Father, may you be our vision as we walk into the darkness.

Transform our emptiness into sacred space.

Be our patience as we trust in your slow work and simply do our next right thing in love.

“Perhaps silence makes you uncomfortable. Gradually you may learn to welcome silence, understand that it is a time of great fertility and growth, not of emptiness. Silence cultivates vulnerability toward God, because silence is an outward form of an inward surrender.”

Jan Johnson, Meeting God in Scripture

***

We’ll be back with new podcast episodes mid-August but in it’s place, you can always download the audio version of The Next Right Thing for less than 10 dollars. Happy listening and happy reading to you.

There is No Wrong Way to Grieve

This post is an adapted version of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing: Episode 85 and you can listen to it right here. If you want even more help with discernment and decision-making in your own life, grab a copy of The Next Right Thing book. Affiliate links are used where books are mentioned.

Around here it’s the beginning of summer, longer days stretching out toward the summer solstice. Truth is, I’m mildly obsessed with marking both the longest night in December as well as the longest day in June.

The way the world tilts, turns, and rotates on a predictable rhythm we can measure and count on year after year is equal parts comforting and mysterious to me. It deepens my faith at the same time it introduces big questions.

Maybe part of my fascination is the rhythm God built into creation around us is mirrored within us: in birth, in life, in death, in our hellos, goodbyes, our joys, our sorrows, and in the inhale and exhale that sustain us.

While we know death is part of life and will come to all of us eventually, built into time, woven within the fabric of how things work, still. When it comes we’re never ready for it, a reminder that even though this is how things are, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

When talking about making decisions and making a life, I would be remiss if I never talked a bit about the death that comes along with it; the grief that descends as a permanent part of our rhythm of life, coloring everything, reshaping the narrative, changing us in ways we would never ask for but there it is anyway.

This week what I have to offer you in our short time together is a simple reflection about how death changes every part of life, including our ability to do our next right thing.

***

This summer marks 20 years since the plane crash that took the life of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren. I still remember where I was when I first heard the news that their plane was missing.

We were on vacation with John’s family at the time – he and I were only dating but they invited me to come along on their annual beach trip. A family friend called down the news to us from the balcony above as we hung out by the pool.

That week we kept the TV on more often than normal, watching as the terrible news unfolded. We didn’t know John, Carolyn, or Lauren. But we were compelled to keep the TV on, to hold space for the news when it came, however bad the news was to be.

One memory that stands out distinctly in my mind about that week is one night we went to a crab shack on the island. The news had reported at that time the plane was missing but it was not yet found and though all signs pointed to a plane crash, nothing was confirmed.

As we sat in the restaurant that evening, one of the waitresses looked so much like Carolyn Bessette Kennedy that it seemed like the entire restaurant was wondering if it actually was her. She even said something to us like “I know I look like Carolyn Bessette. It’s all anyone is talking about.”

It is so hard to explain the respectful hush that was over that restaurant that night as if everyone was staring at this one waitress. I know it sounds crazy to say it, but at the time it seemed a little bit possible because I wondered maybe they were so sick of the paparazzi that they decided to disappear. Maybe they chose to go undercover and move to a tiny island off the coast of South Carolina. Maybe she’s working in this crab shack because it’s the last place anyone would look. Again, it sounds crazy but at the time, I still thought it. What if that is her?

The mind does weird things in the face of devastating tragedy. Even when we don’t know the person.

How much more, I wonder, do our minds play tricks when we lose someone we know and love?

***

A few days after Prince died in April of 2016, I read an article on Entertainment Weekly about actor Will Smith’s reaction to the news. He said, “I am stunned and heartbroken. I just spoke with him last night.”

When I was in college, one of my high school girlfriends died in a car accident on her way to the beach. I remember exactly where I was when I got the phone call (on my parents’ deck laying in the sun) and I remember exactly what I was reading, Max Lucado’s No Wonder They Call Him the Savior.

My friend Summer was on the phone and I could tell from her voice that whatever she had to tell me was going to be terrible news. Just say it, I heard myself spit out those words in a voice I didn’t even recognize. I never spoke to her this way, but I knew she didn’t want to say the words. But she had to say them.

It was late June 1998. I was 21 and Brandy, my friend who died, was only 20.

It was heartbreaking and heavy and the worst kind of sad. But the part that made it impossible to believe was we had just seen her a few weeks before that. It was on her wedding day, yes, she got married very young. She was the first one of our friends to get married and our high school group of friends all went back and served at the wedding – passing out programs or something like that, I can’t remember.

But we had just gathered. We had just celebrated and laughed and shared memories and stared at each other in total disbelief because could it be possible we were old enough to get married now?! (One could argue we weren’t old enough, but that’s for another conversation)

It would have been a different kind of hard if it had been years since I’d seen Brandy. As it was, we gathered in the church to grieve her loss only weeks after we had gathered in the same place to celebrate her marriage.

Today, over 20 years later, I sometimes still can’t believe she isn’t here. Joan Didion writes in her book, The Year of Magical Thinking where she reflects on the sudden death of her husband and says “How could this have happened when everything was normal?”

Because that’s part of this whole thing. It’s the ordinariness that surrounds the loss, the regular day stuff that was happening right before tragedy. They were going to a wedding, she was driving to the beach, he was talking on the phone just last night.

The first thing we try to piece together when someone dies is that last interaction we had with him, the last time we saw her face, the last words we exchanged. It seems the more recently you’ve seen a person alive, the more difficult it is to believe that they’re gone.

So the first thing we often say is, but I just saw her. Will Smith’s response to hearing the news of his friend’s death rings so familiar. But I just spoke with him last night.

Our brains try to reason with reality. This person can’t be gone because they were just talking to me yesterday. We aren’t accustomed to not being able to trust our eyes and our ears. Our eyes and ears say they were just right there.

Of course, the grieving will come. But that initial reality of realizing we stand in the after and everything has changed even though we haven’t moved. We need space for our minds to catch up to this reality.

***

This past weekend, the friends and family of author Rachel Held Evans gathered in Tennessee to say their final goodbyes. Graciously, her family allowed the funeral to be live-streamed online so Rachel’s friends and readers could watch from home all around the world. I watched too, from the beginning until the end, listened as her friends and family read the liturgy, read from Scripture, and told stories in remembrance of her.

I found myself joining in on the responsive readings even though I wasn’t in the room, passing the peace along in my heart, reciting the Apostles Creed, whispering thanks be to God.

This wasn’t because she was a personal friend of mine (she wasn’t) and it wasn’t because I was a diligent reader of all of her writing (I wasn’t, though I did read her blog over the years and her courage and conviction still instructs me to this day). Still, I felt compelled to hold that space on Saturday afternoon – to honor her life as those close to her grieved her death. I felt compelled to stand vigil, to bear witness, and to honor her life even if from a distance.

But I know those close to her don’t have the luxury of distance. And in my own life when I’ve lost those close to me, I haven’t had that luxury either.

If you are walking through the loss of someone dear to you or someone you only admired from a distance, its okay to hold space for it. That might mean staring out a window, or it could mean going for a run. The holding might be active and celebratory or it could be silent and still. It all counts. However, you work through the loss and the sadness counts.

There is no wrong way to grieve.

Here at the beginning of June, while the grocery stores have sales on sunscreen and floaties, while the neighborhood pools blast the Oldies station, while families pack their vans for the beach and swim teams gear up for their nighttime meets, while college students start internships and children run through backyard sprinklers, beneath all of this, there are so many who are carrying loss.

Whether it’s the new grief of a close friend or family member who died too soon and suddenly, or if it’s a more familiar grief woken up because of an anniversary, conversation, or for no known reason at all, still. Here you are carrying a deep sadness even in the middle of a warm summer day.

Be kind to yourself.

Resist the urge to measure your handling of grief against a standard you’ve created in your head or one that someone else has created for you – like you should be over it by now, or you should be less sad or sadder or anything other than what you most plainly are.

You have this moment and perhaps your next right thing is to receive it for exactly what it is.

If you have lost someone close to you, especially if you’ve seen them recently, I don’t have any good words to share, not really.

The only thing I can offer is my own experience and the knowing of Christ even in the midst of the unknowing of anything else.

And if you know someone who is experiencing loss, have patience. They are learning how to navigate a world where their senses can’t always be trusted, where their mind plays weird tricks, where a fast-fading memory is all they have left and they need all their current energy to hold on to it as best they can.

May Christ comfort you who are standing in the gap of this before and after. As you slowly begin to convince your senses of how things are now, may you discover a new way of seeing that perhaps you didn’t expect.

May this inability to trust your senses lead to a new understanding of the kingdom of God – that seeing isn’t the only reality and love isn’t limited to earth.

May the Father be your sustainer, the Son be your defender, and the Spirit be your comforter as you relearn what it means to simply do your next right thing in love.

“Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.”

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

10 Things I Learned This Spring

We do this every quarter and will share our next list (What We Learned in Summer) on Friday, August 30. If you are drawn to reflection but aren’t sure where to start, I’ve created an entire self-paced, online class to help you reflect on your life. Learn more and enroll in Discern + Decide right here.

Now on to the list! FYI Where books are shared in this post I use my affiliate links.

Welcome to What We Learned, where we pause to reflect on the past season before we move ahead into the future. “It’s not the experience that brings transformation,”says author and teacher Jan Johnson, “it’s our reflection upon our experience.”

If that’s true (and I’m convinced it is) then it’s vital we establish intentional time to reflect on our lives. Reflection is part of my daily and weekly routine, but once a quarter I like to share some of my list and invite you to share yours.

At the end of this post, you’re invited to link up to your own list of what you learned this quarter – be it silly, serious, sacred, or just plain useful. I like to share a mix of all of those.

Here are 10 things I learned this spring in no particular order:

1. Let Bri McKoy boss you about what to order at Starbucks.

Bri is my go-to person for recommending things I need in my life but didn’t know it until she told me. Like this Starbucks order: Iced Grande Starbucks Doubleshot. 1 pump classic. Heavy cream instead of 2% milk.

I’ve modified this slightly as I like the world a bit sweeter than she does (2 pumps classic or 3 if I’m feeling fierce) but the rest is just right.

Find Bri at Our Savory Life here or on Instagram @brimckoy

2. I’m getting worse at email, phone calls, and follow up.

When I perused my to-do lists from the past 3 months, I recognized a pattern that I can no longer ignore. The items that remain consistently un-checked from my to-do lists are ones that involve an email, a phone call, or some kind of follow up.

I’m not sure if this means I need to delegate more, care less, or if it means I need to be a better grown up.

On the one hand, it’s important to me to be available to people, make appointments, and respond. On the other hand, a lot of the email in my inbox is really just someone else’s agenda for me.

It’s complicated is what I’m saying. I need to read more Cal Newport.

3. Get the 850 foot view as often as possible.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, the last two years have been some of the most full years of my life. Busy, is what I’m saying. I’ve been busy.

When I was in New York to record the audio version of The Next Right Thing, I had a lot of extra time in between things. So on a Friday morning, I booked the fast elevator up to the Top of the Rock right when it opened and was the first one there.

For a few minutes, I was alone 850 feet above a city of 8 million people.

And I remembered, even if only briefly, that above the hum of the daily grind, there is a bigger picture. Even though I can’t always see it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

4. I was right about book launch teams.

They do still work.

If you don’t know what a book launch team is, it’s basically a bunch of people who agree to help you spread the word about a new book before and after it comes out.

These days they say book launch teams are changing and don’t have the impact they did years ago.

To that? I said watch us prove them wrong. And we did. Here are just a few of them:

This team helped us launch The Next Right Thing all the way to #5 on Amazon (Of all books! On all Amazon!), #7 on the Publishers Weekly Bestseller List, #6 on the Publishers Weekly Religious Non-Fiction List for April, #8 on the April ECPA Bestseller List.

Top 10 all around! What a gift.

Grab a copy of The Next Right Thing for a graduate, new parent, newlywed couple, or anyone in the middle of a life transition.

5. Simple mantras help me remember what’s important.

By “mantra” I simply mean a short, easy to remember phrase that brings me back to center. I’ve just spend the last two years with do the next right thing. That’s a mindset that has become a life-saver for me when I start to spin out. This spring I’ve learned another one:

“Do what you know. Use what you have. Finish what you started.” — Myquillyn Smith

My sister said these three short sentences in a conversation we had for the podcast and ever since then I’ve been applying it to everything: my work, my closet organization, my meal plan. It really is solid, universal advice for when you feel stuck, uncertain, or overwhelmed.

Bonus: Myquillyn Smith, My Sister The Nester
Three Mantras by Myquillyn Smith

6. I learned how to wash my face.

I mean I’ve known how to wash my face and have done it for years. But after listening to episode14 of 10 Things to Tell You with Laura Tremaine, I feel like I finally understand some of the gaps in my own skincare routine. Highly recommend this conversation!

10 Things to Tell You Ep. 14: Skincare & Makeup Favorites with Jamie Golden

7. Seeing my book in an airport for the first time was as exciting as I hoped it would be.

If you follow me on instagram, you know I’ve been documenting airports sightings in my stories over the past month. When readers and/or podcast listeners travel, they duck into airport bookstores and look for The Next Right Thing.

When they see it, they snap a photo and tag me and I’m collecting them all in my Instagram highlights because I’m giddy about this airport thing and I’m not even sorry about it.

Find me on instagram @emilypfreeman and next time you’re in an airport, snap a photo and tag me and I’ll add it to my highlights. We’re up to 54 sightings so far!

8. Writing is still the way I process the world.

On Tuesday March 12, 2019, fifty people in six different states were accused by the Department of Justice of playing a part in a major college admission scandal. For weeks I couldn’t get it off my mind. Finally, I sat down and wrote my way through some of my thoughts about it and it became both a podcast episode and a blog post and I was able to move on from it.

After a decade of being a working writer, I’m glad to know writing is still the way I process the world.

9. What to do when things end.

A few weeks ago I finally graduated with my Masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership. When I came home, I spent some time reflecting on the essentials of closure. From that I came up with 3: put a period on the experience, don’t let the stuff outweigh the sacred, and look for hints of your next right thing in your last right thing.

Read 3 Things to do When Things End

10. Be a hometown tourist at least once a quarter.

We’ll be traveling some this summer so over spring break we decided to stay home, take a half a day, and head downtown with the kids for lunch, coffee, and an afternoon walk in the middle of the week. It was one of my favorite days of spring this year.

This is More Important Than Your Decision

I recently finished reading a book called Visions of Vocation where author Steven Garber dives deep into the implications our vocation has on the wholeness of our lives, not only our work like we often think, but also our relationships and responsibilities in the world.

As I read, I found myself continuing to take notes about decisions and the decision-making process, a subject that is becoming a pillar of my own vocation and one I’m endlessly fascinated by.

At the most basic level, making decisions in a better way starts with understanding that we don’t make decisions in a vacuum. There are too many factors at play that give color, texture, and nuance to every single decision we make, even the small ones. As much as we may think otherwise, it’s impossible to approach decisions apart from who we are because our choices are born out of our character.

What we decide is tied to the person we are and the person we’re becoming.

Toward the end of Visions of Vocation, Garber brings up Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables. He points out the life of the bishop in the novel. While the play and the movies that have come after the book only show the part of his life that intersects with Jean Valjean, the novel spends over a hundred pages to show the reader who the bishop was and the story that shaped his life in such a way that he saw the needs of the world and what was his to care for.

What we don’t know about the history of the bishop, we can infer from the choices he makes. First, he opens his door to a stranger. Then, he shares his table, his home, and his trust. And in the morning, when the bishop discovers his guest has stolen the silverware, he discerns his next right thing is to offer the candlesticks, too.

As Garber points out, “When you get to know the man, you understand why his instinct was to show mercy.”

I guess that’s what’s standing out to me today. Not necessarily the choice itself although his generosity is radical to the point of seeming foolish, but what stands out is the instinct that made the choice so obvious for the bishop.

Left to myself, my instincts don’t tend toward sharing and generosity. That has to be groomed and shaped. Just like being a writer or a basketball player or a pianist doesn’t happen overnight, neither does being kind, generous, trusting or trustworthy.

In the fake high school curriculum I often design in my head, I wish, in addition to algebra and history, we might also include Humanity 101: How to become a person whose instinct it is to show mercy to people who don’t deserve it.

That class I’m sure would be standing room only. I joke about it, in a way, but this is the important stuff in life.

Is it possible to move through a broken world as broken people without wanting to break everything in our path?

How can we learn to pay attention to the pain around us without letting the pain control us?

In Garber’s book, he asks a similar question: Can you know the world and still love it?

These are not simple questions and I don’t intend to resolve them in a short blog post. But when the answers aren’t simple, it may be even more important to continue to ask the questions.

When it comes to pivotal moments in my own life, what does my instinct lead me to do?

“At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.” — Iris Murdoch

She said succinctly what I’ve been trying to say in 83 episodes — that the decision is rarely the point. The point is the person I’m becoming.

The point is how the decision-making process informs and shapes me in such a way that my instinctual choice is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The point is to understand that the habits in my life, the way I spend my time, the things I choose to focus on — these things are shaping me. And they will always impact my decisions for better or for worse.

We can’t live our lives distracted, angry, hurt, overwhelmed, afraid, and exhausted and then expect to somehow be able to make a thoughtful, wise, wholehearted decision about our job, our family, or our children’s future.

As Iris Murdoch said, At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.

Again, I don’t have easy answers. But I do have simple encouragement. The person you are becoming matters.

The faith that’s being built within you as you move into an unknown future might seem invisible now, but as you continue to move into the world, your faith will be for you a foundation to lean on in times of difficulty.

The patience you’re cultivating with your two year old might seem endless and forgettable now, but it matters.

That late night conversation with your teenage daughter, the one that only seems to happen exactly four hours after your preferred bedtime but you stay up with her anyway? That matters.

The years you’ve been waiting for answers that seem to never, ever, ever come, every second of those years matter.

The choice to sit in silence with Jesus even though you don’t have words to pray because everything just feels so hard, that matters.

Making the cake, folding the laundry, tending the garden, driving the carpool, writing the proposal, asking the question, cleaning the toilet again. It all matters.

It’s important what job you take, which house you live in, which volunteer opportunities you say yes and no too. But these are secondary in comparison to the person you’re becoming.

The person you’re becoming will carry on beyond you, in the minds and hearts of the people you love and the people who love you.

May we be people whose instinct it is to move through the world as ones who live in the kingdom of God so that our choices always reflect the love of the Father, the power of the Son, and the compassion of the Holy Spirit as we continue to do our next right thing in love.

“As the poet, Bob Dylan once sang, ‘Everything is broken.’ And so we must not be romantics. But the story of sorrow is not the whole story of life either. There is also wonder and glory, joy and meaning, in the vocations that are ours.

There is good work to be done by every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve all over the face of the earth. There are flowers to be grown, songs to be sung, bread to be baked, justice to be done, mercy to be shown, beauty to be created, good stories to be told, fields to farm and children to educate. All day, every day, there are both wounds and wonders at the very heart of life, if we have eyes to see. And seeing is where vocation begins.”

Steven Garber, Visions of Vocation

This post is an adapted version of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing: Episode 83 and you can listen to it right here. And if you want even more help with discernment and decision-making in your own life, grab a copy of The Next Right Thing book.

3 Things to Do When Things End

As is becoming our weekly practice, this post is modified from this weeks podcast episode 82: Find the Beginning in the Ending. If you want to listen instead, have at it! Meanwhile, this post includes a few affiliate links where books are mentioned. Glad you’re here!

After two years, I’ve finally earned my Masters in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership. Well, almost. Because what my fellow students and I all lamented as we stood in our caps and gowns together before the ceremony as though we were being hooded that day, our assignments weren’t completely over.

We still have two papers due before the end of the month. Talk about pomp and circumstance. More like womp and circumstance.

(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

After the ceremony, some of us went out for burgers and ice cream (as the Lord intended) and then I made my way back to my room to figure out how to pack a mortarboard cap into my suitcase. The next day, John and I flew back to life and to business as usual.

But, I carried a little secret with me and I’m almost embarrassed to admit it to you and that is after two years of assignments, tons of reading, endless papers, and four-week-long residencies, I should be relieved that it’s almost over and frustrated about those two final papers hanging over my head but the truth I’m going to tell you right now is I’m secretly glad I still have these papers left to write.

I know it’s so weird and I quite possibly might have a strange addiction to learning, but once those papers are turned in, then this experience really is over. And while that is the point, it’s also a little sad.

Maybe you’re facing down an ending today and that ending has a few loose ends left to tie up. Are you a little hesitant to move forward too? Are you dragging your feet to the finish line, concerned about what might come after? Or maybe you’ve already ended a thing but it went by without acknowledgment and now, you find yourself a little bit stuck with what to do next.

Today I’ll offer 3 simple things to consider as you discern your next right thing.

1. Put a period on the experience.

Marking the ending of things is embedded into our culture. The parties, finales, celebrations, and farewells are all part of our regular rhythm of life. Even our birthdays technically celebrate an ending. When a baby turns 1, we mark the end of her first year, not the beginning of it.

When an ending is communal, involving families or groups, the likelihood of us marking it might be greater simply because more people are involved. But just because the group marks a thing doesn’t mean you owned that ending for yourself. Not to mention, that if an ending is more personal or quiet, it might be even easier to overlook.

It’s important to not rush through the ending, but we still have to have one. One way to do that is to find a period to end things as best we can.

On the last day of school last week, one of our teachers James Bryan Smith gave a short lecture about the ending of our time together. I really appreciated his intentionality to say This is over and it cannot be duplicated. That’s helpful for those who may tend to expect things to carry on as they have been when in fact, circumstances have changed and so must our expectations.

We’ve all been to events done well and events done not so well. For example, at a wedding we love it when the pastor pronounces the couple husband and wife, the bride is kissed, the couple is announced as Mr. and Mrs. for the very first time, the crowd cheers, and the music starts right on time while the bride and groom rush down the aisle together.

What we don’t love at weddings is when the pastor pronounces the couple husband and wife, the bride is kissed, the couple is announced for the very first time, the crowd cheers and then the music doesn’t start right away. The couple doesn’t want to walk awkwardly down the aisle in silence, so they look around and wait, and then everyone is quiet and then when the music does finally start it’s too quiet but they go down anyway. It’s a whole thing and it’s the worst.

In a small way and for the sake of this illustration, the music is the period the ceremony needs. When every part falls into place, when the crescendo comes at the right moment and the rhythm fits the expectation and everyone plays their part, there’s a sense of completion, of joy, and a settled satisfaction.

Maybe one reason you’ve not been able to move forward into your next right thing is because there’s an ending lingering in your life that never ended with a period. Maybe it’s even been years. So instead, you just kept on going without acknowledging the thing was even over at all.

Maybe it ended abruptly and there was no time to recognize it, much less grieve it.

Perhaps it ended badly and it was too painful to look at so instead you chose not to.

Or maybe it’s simply that life got busy. Yes, you met that goal, reached that finish line, or achieved that accomplishment, but there was dinner to make and errands to run and you never had a chance to mark the moment.

All of these things could be reasons why we are having trouble of moving on to the next right thing. We’ve been unwilling, unable, or maybe simply unaware that we needed to put a period on an ending.

2. Don’t let the stuff outweigh the sacred.

In high school, my best friend Heather and I started to hang out with two guys who were also best friends. When she and one of the guys started to date, it only “made sense” the other guy and I hung out a lot more and started to date as well.

(It was high school so you know, the things that make sense in high school might not make sense when we are grownups, but have mercy.)

Eventually, we all went to prom together and for a few months we had the best time laughing, going to soccer and baseball games, and hanging out at each other’s houses.

For a while the four of us were inseparable. But our days were numbered together and we knew it because that summer, one of the guys had to move away. I held on to notes, photo albums, journal entries, and other memorabilia from that fun spring and that was my way of trying to hang on to the experience. But those things were not the experience, they were the evidence that the experience was real.

In other words, they were the stuff.

But, I was young and my brain wasn’t fully developed so I focused only on the loss and the memories lived mainly in the stuff that I couldn’t bear to get rid of.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping the stuff, but I didn’t yet understand the importance of letting the stuff lead me to the sacred — specifically how my experience with my friends changed me, how it formed me, and what I was grateful for as a result. So I kept the stuff but because it was sad to go through it, I put it all in a box in the top of my closet which resulted in memory clutter and deferred grief.

For much of my life, I’ve allowed the stuff to swallow up the sacred.

Who can teach us how to let the stuff lead us to what really matters? Sometimes I wish it was my job to design a few classes that every student has to pass before graduating high school — how to do online banking, how to structure your day as a working adult, how to say a healthy goodbye. There’s so much we have to learn on our own, isn’t there?

3. Hints of your next right thing can be found in your last right thing.

I have always found this to be true. Every book I’ve written has seeds of the next book embedded within it. If you look closely and have nothing better to do with your time, you can find all of those hints because endings always also carry the first string of new beginnings.

We celebrate the first year of a baby but it heralds in her second year, too. We celebrate the wedding that ends the engagement but begins a lifetime together. We celebrate a graduation that ends the time of structured study but begins a time of continued learning in the world.

The sacred things we mark from the ending will be brought forth into our beginnings, not necessarily because of an external thing we bring with us, but because of the person we have become.

When things end, we come forth changed.

We would do well to take some time to pay attention to those changes, to mark them, to honor them and see how they might lead us forward.

When I’m facing, or in the midst of, or just beyond an ending,

Have I become more confident?

Has my heart expanded as a result of my experience?

Do I see gifts in small things?

What corner of the kingdom do I feel drawn to most?

When I look at people, do I see the image of God more quickly now?

In some ways for me and my own ending, school is safer than not school. School means someone else tells me what to focus on, where to spend my time, and what is important to remember. And while I’ve been a grown up for quite a long time by now and I know how to do things, I admit it’s been nice for these last few years to trust someone else to design my learning curriculum. Because not school means now I have questions to answer, pathways to choose, and more decisions to make.

It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? Decisions, choices, this path or that one, which way to go?

God is always forming us. And so often he uses the decision making process to do it.

Can you think of something in your life that ended without fanfare or acknowledgment? Maybe it’s time to name it.

Is there a small thing you can put a period on an ending in a life-giving, appropriate way?

Maybe its time to say a formal goodbye, have a small (or big!) celebration, or even simply to light a candle to mark a memory.

What about all your stuff?

Have you put the stuff of your experience into a box to go through later?

Might it be time to pull the box out and allow the stuff to lead you to the sacred gifts the experience has to bring your way — the transformation that happened in your mind, your body, and your heart as a result of that time in your life?

If you’re not ready, that’s okay too. Our friend Jesus can help you to know when the time is right. You can trust him with that.

Maybe you’ve marked the ending, you’ve allowed the stuff to lead you to the sacred work, but you’re still wondering what your next right thing might be.

Take a little time to be silent and to be still. To be watchful. To bear witness.

If you can’t yet see a new spark, a small shoot, or the start of a new thing, take heart. Ask Jesus what you are to look for. Remain open to seeing things in a way you might not expect.

If nothing comes, be gentle with yourself. We don’t stop living just because we are unsure. We continue on, trusting in the King of the Kingdom as we simply do our next right thing in love.

“Everyone has lost sight of your heart And you can see nowhere to put your trust; you know you have to make your own way through. As far as you can, hold your confidence.

Do not allow your confusion to squander this call which is loosening your roots in false ground, that you might come free from all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind, and it is difficult and slow to become new.

The more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your heart will become for your arrival in the new dawn.”

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

If you want even more help to discern your next steps, grab a copy of my new book The Next Right Thing.

Read This Before Graduation

As is becoming our weekly practice, this post is modified from this weeks podcast episode 81: Listen to This Before Graduation. If you want to listen instead, have at it! Meanwhile, this post includes a few affiliate links where books are mentioned. Glad you’re here!

As we quickly approach the end of another school year, the time has come to talk to one specific group of people who may be carrying a lot of question marks. It’s time to talk to our graduates.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a listener named Sharon and she had this question for me:

“My daughter is graduating from high school in a few months, and I have seen her struggle with making after-high-school choices. So many of her peers struggle with this as well. Basically, it seems the only thing people ask a student in grade 12 is ‘What are your plans for the future? What are you doing after high school?’ and that question can be so stressful to a student who doesn’t know what he/she wants to do. How does a student stay chill when they don’t know what to do?“

This is an important question to consider and one I’m perhaps in a unique position to navigate. Not only because I host a podcast and wrote a book about life transitions and making decisions, but also because in a few short weeks, I’ll be graduating as well – not from high school, mind you, but from graduate school.

The life-stage may be different, but the questions, hesitations, and excitements are much the same. I’ll speak both as a mom and as a graduate.

Because it doesn’t matter if you’re 18 and people want to know what college you’re going to, or if you’re 22 and people want to know about your career plans or if you’re 42, (like me) and people want to know why you went to grad school in the first place or finally, if you’re a mom or a dad and you want to give your graduate direction but you also help them navigate the questions on their own.

While I’m sure there are hundreds or even a thousand things that I could say, I’ve chosen just three things to remember as you or a student you love moves into the next stage of life after graduation:

1. Keep a light heart.

Just because people ask a question in a certain way does not obligate you to answer the question they’re asking. Many times people ask me why I went back to school. The truth is, I don’t always answer it directly for two reasons.

One, I honestly don’t have a short, succinct answer for that.

Two, when people ask me they aren’t typically asking for a 3 point answer, they’re just making small talk, being curious, or can’t think of what else to say once they hear I’m in grad school.

If you’re a senior in high school or college, the same thing is true. Most of the time, people are just being people. They ask about the weather, your extra-curricular activity, and school.

When the questions come, there is no wrong answer. Keep a light heart. Assume people are on your side. Decide ahead of time what you want to say because you know that they are going to ask.

Remember “I don’t know” is a valid answer.

Just because you can’t explain it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

And just because your answer may be different from other people’s answers or from what you thought your answer would be at this stage in your life, well that doesn’t make it wrong either.

Be slow to judge, slow to speak, slow to anger and not just toward others, but especially toward yourself. Keep a light heart and be relentlessly kind to yourself and to the people asking the questions. Let that be your first spiritual practice as you move into your post-graduate life. If you see the question coming, no matter what comes out of your mouth decide ahead of time it’s going to be wrapped in kindness.

2. It’s okay not to have a five-year plan.

Jamie B. Golden, co-host of The Popcast and The Bible Binge said a line about making future plans that I liked so much, I put it on page 223 of The Next Right Thing. What did she say? She said she’s stopped making 5-year plans because “God’s word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path, not my football field.”

We live in a stadium lights culture. But most of our life is lived under the lamplight of the path of everyday life.

That doesn’t change just because we’re graduating.

Yes, this is a big moment. Yes, we’ve come a long way and accomplished much. But we are still called to now, still given only this day, still invited to trust God with our next right thing.

That means we can live our days in confidence even if we can’t see the whole year. And while decisions still have to be made, and choices still need to be chosen, we don’t have to freak out if we still can’t see five years into the future. We wouldn’t be prepared for it anyway.

When it comes to the future, let your ignorance be a blessed gift, not a liability.

3. Your pace is your pace.

This pivotal transition from high school to college or from college into the world is equal parts thrilling and terrifying.

You’re told to dream big and aim high. But is it all a bit too much? Is this the pace your life wants to go?

Do you already feel behind before you’ve barely even started?

Do you lose sleep at night because you didn’t get that internship?

Are you already caught up in the comparison game, running a race that feels impossible to win?

As you move into the world and begin to uncover who you are as a person, a creator, a student, a friend, and maybe an employee, don’t forget who you are in Christ.

No matter how far you travel away from home, you are never alone because Christ has made his home in you.

He’ll keep company with you at a walking pace. He won’t let you miss your own future.

***

That’s three things to remember, but I’m going to give you a bonus one:

Bonus: Pause to look back.

Take a little time before graduation or just after graduation and make a short list of what you’ve learned. Not about history, or systematic theology or the Pythagorean theorem.

Make a list of what you’ve learned about yourself.

What are you bringing forward into the world in this new stage of life? What gifts are we waiting to receive from you?

This will remind you of what your schooling has done for you, how being there has shaped you, and how you’ll be changed moving forward.

And because I never like to invite you to do something I haven’t done myself, I’ll go first.

When people ask me why I want to grad school or what I’ve learned as a result, or what I’m going to do afterward, here are a few things I’ll say.

I’m learning how to walk into a room.

I’m learning that even though my natural tendency is to lean back and blend in, I am often called to lean forward.

I’m learning how to bring peace with me into a chaotic situation.

I’m learning how to sit down on the inside even when I have to stand up on the outside.

I’m learning I can be my full, feminine, creative, authentic self and it’s not a liability, it’s a necessity. A strength. A gift.

I’m learning to access courage to speak up even when it feels unnatural, even when there’s opposition, even when I don’t want to.

I’m learning I can be a leader even when I’m not in charge. In fact, it’s an imperative call.

I’m learning, as my teacher James Bryan Smith says, “the kingdom of God is not in trouble and neither am I.”

Isn’t that root of it? Because as much as we want to be independent and on our own, as much as the high school student might be thrilled the time has almost come for him to finally leave the house, as much as the college student might rejoice at the thought of no more semesters, the truth is when the sun goes down and the house gets quiet, what we really want to know is this: is everything going to be okay?

It’s tempting to think only children have the question, but I’ll let you in on a secret you already know: this is a question we never grow out of. Whether you’re 8, 18, 28 or 80, we all want to feel safe and seen and protected.

Is someone watching over me? The answer in a word is yes.

May we be gentle with ourselves as we get still, stop talking, and pause the constant string of questions happening within and around us. May we remember to keep a light heart, to stop trying to plan so far ahead, and to embrace the pace our life invites us to walk without fear or second-guessing.

May the love of the Father, the power of the Son, and the protection of the Holy Spirit be with you now as you simply do your next right thing in love.

***

All of these insights shared in today’s post are taken in one way or another from the principles listed in The Next Right Thing book. If you are a graduate or know a graduate, male or female, high school, college, or graduate school, this book will make a lovely gift.

Grab a copy or 10 for the graduates in your life and tie it up with a ribbon for a gift that says “I see you and you don’t have to figure out your whole life at once. Just do the next right thing.”

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Christianbook.com

But, of course, it’s not a book just for graduates, it’s for mothers, for workers, for employers, and employees, for anyone facing decisions in their life big or small who want to not only make better decisions but to make their decisions in a better way.

It’s clear I can’t get enough of talking about decision making and about the people we are becoming because of our indecision. I hope you’ll grab a copy either for you or for someone you want to support.

In this season of finishing up, of moving on, of celebrations and endings and new beginnings, I’ll close with a short blessing, first for the graduate then for the parent.

For the graduate, whether you are transitioning from one classroom to another or from classroom to workplace, may you ever be a student of life, of people, and of the world around you.

May your apprehension of the future melt into hope. May you make your choices from a place of truth and confidence, not from the shaky ground of fear. May you not be overwhelmed by too many options or underwhelmed by the lack of them. May you know your Father sees you and He knows what you need.

For the parent of the graduate, though your job is never finished, though you won’t get closure on the work you do or the love you pour out, may you breathe in a deep sigh of relief as you have kept kind company with your child through another year of their life transitions.

As you watch and walk with her, may you be lifted in your spirit as you see her grow, trusting the details of her future to a God you know. May you be one who receives the gifts your Father offers you in secret so that you may turn and offer those gifts to your children – the gift of love, the gift of presence, the gift of hope.

Congratulations to you on all your hard work. To the graduates, the parents, and friends, and spouses of the graduates, I’m right there with you. We are almost there. Way to go.

“You’re in the ellipsis.”

In that moment I realize how desperately I want my life to be written in ink, filled out, formed, and finished. What in the world is next?

I know that finding where we belong is not a one-time decision and uncovering your calling is a slow, important work.

Home isn’t something we have to wait for. Home is a place we can make.

That’s not to say we’ll be here forever. It is to say we’re here for now, so let’s make a place for the work we’re called to do.

But there are some things you can still choose, like making a place where your roots are lacking, like believing for sure that God is with you, like doing your next right thing in love.

The purpose of an example is to provide a path to follow, not a program to implement.

He gave directives, but He didn’t often give directions.

What does it look like to create space for your soul: practically on a Tuesday, in the middle of your regular life?

***

The problem isn’t what to do or not to do with the time you have. The problem for a lot of us is simply an overwhelming array of options.

Here’s the five-movement rhythm I practice every morning: PRWRP.

P – Pray

R – Read

W – Write

R – Read

P – Pray

It doesn’t have to be fancy. It simply has to be.

***

For better or worse, making decisions is a lifelong practice. It’s one we can’t delegate, graduate from, or grow out of.

1. A transition week

2. A short, final personal retreat

Reentry may not be smooth, it may not be easy, but bumps and bruises don’t mean you’re unsafe. They don’t mean you did it wrong. They may mean that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

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What does it mean to create space for the soul and why does it matter?

Creating space for your soul is not self-obsession. It’s self-awareness in the presence of God.

Busy is the default. Margin takes intention.

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The words we use are important.

Soul space is not an end in itself, but it is a way for us to place ourselves in the presence of God.

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The mind does weird things in the face of devastating tragedy. Even when we don’t know the person.

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There is no wrong way to grieve.

Be kind to yourself.

1. Let Bri McKoy boss you about what to order at Starbucks.

2. I’m getting worse at email, phone calls, and follow up.

3. Get the 850 foot view as often as possible.

4. I was right about book launch teams.

5. Simple mantras help me remember what’s important.

6. I learned how to wash my face.

7. Seeing my book in an airport for the first time was as exciting as I hoped it would be.

8. Writing is still the way I process the world.

9. What to do when things end.

10. Be a hometown tourist at least once a quarter.

What we decide is tied to the person we are and the person we’re becoming.

How can we learn to pay attention to the pain around us without letting the pain control us?

Making the cake, folding the laundry, tending the garden, driving the carpool, writing the proposal, asking the question, cleaning the toilet again. It all matters.

1. Put a period on the experience.

2. Don’t let the stuff outweigh the sacred.

3. Hints of your next right thing can be found in your last right thing.

1. Keep a light heart.

Just because you can’t explain it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

2. It’s okay not to have a five-year plan.

We live in a stadium lights culture. But most of our life is lived under the lamplight of the path of everyday life.

3. Your pace is your pace.

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Bonus: Pause to look back.

Make a list of what you’ve learned about yourself.

I’m learning how to walk into a room.

May the love of the Father, the power of the Son, and the protection of the Holy Spirit be with you now as you simply do your next right thing in love.

In this season of finishing up, of moving on, of celebrations and endings and new beginnings, I’ll close with a short blessing, first for the graduate then for the parent.

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