To Face Them

I woke up on January 1st feeling nothing but pressure. I should have avoided social media entirely. Instead, I read through everyone's reflections, resolutions, and expectations for 2015. I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or puke.

This is out of character for me. I usually love the days between Christmas and the new year. The list making, the planning, the dreaming-I eat it up! 

Not this year. No. This year, I was afraid to face my resolutions. Afraid to scribble them down, to figure out when and how, to get lost in the excitement of their possibility. I thought it would be easier to push them aside as a way to protect myself from feeling discouraged and disappointed when I fail. From feeling angry with God when He "fails." From feeling angry with myself for forgetting God doesn't fail.

Today is day 5 of the new year, and I realize whether my resolutions come to the surface or stay tucked away in a corner of my soul, there will still be times of discouragement, disappointment, and anger because hiding my dreams from myself is difficult and hiding them from God is impossible. 

With that in mind, though I am more hesitant than in years past, I have decided to face the wonderful goals that terrify me.

I'll face them with pen to paper. With words on a screen. With friends over coffee. With the ones I love most in the day to day. With God in the quiet mornings and in the sleepless nights. 

I'll face them knowing there will be times of encouragement and attainment. I'll face them knowing there will be times of joy. 

This is my first resolution: to face them. 

And I hope you face yours, 

-Elise 

I wish that I could be like the cool kids.

It's exhausting, you know? To wish to be like the cool kids.

Cool looked different then, but for the first few years of high school, I was a "cool" kid, I think. By senior year, though, I was voted "most changed' because...well...I was cool and then I wasn't. It was a weird year for me, and I ended up not even accepting the superlative because I didn't want to forever be known as the girl who became uncool. I decided I'd rather be known as the girl "most likely to win an Academy Award." There's still time.

So here I am, seven years later, ashamedly wishing to be like the cool kids again. And the cool kids, they're everywhere. On my social media feeds. Standing next to me in line to get coffee. In the neighborhood drinking craft beer on their porches. There is no escaping them, only opportunities to covet their coolness.

And I've been doing my share of coveting. And after the coveting comes the trying. And after the trying comes the failing. And after the failing comes the self-loathing. And after the self-loathing comes this post where I publicly throw in the towel on wishing to be anything but myself.

Maybe I've fooled you into thinking I'm one of them. Maybe I've posted all the right photos with all the right hashtags. Maybe you've caught me out and about wearing my trendiest outfit. If that's the case, I promise you, too much thought went into it all and not enough heart. Not enough me. Not enough of someone who would rather not try at all. Someone who would rather just post the pic without hashtags and go out wearing jeans and a hoodie most of the time.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to wish to be like the cool kids anymore. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad to be a cool kid. It's who they are. They can't help being effortlessly cool with everyone all the time.

But I just want to be effortlessly myself with everyone all the time. Cool or not.

Stay forever and always you, my friends.

-Elise

Vulnerability Out Of Order

Recently (like two days ago recently), I listened to a Matt Chandler sermon that said a lot, but to me, it mostly only said this:

"Nothing drives shame away from the heart more than being fully known yet still delighted in."

When I heard this, my face got hot, and my heart started pounding, and I had one of those moments where I really wanted to shut out the voice of God because I knew He was saying it was time...

To be fully known. To be vulnerable.

But being "still delighted in," though it always is with God, is never a guarantee with people, and it is there the tension lies. It is there where trust in God is required.

It is there that proves we need God in order to be vulnerable with those around us.

I could not have been vulnerable in the way He was asking if it weren't for His grace. Without it, my choosing to be vulnerable would have been riding on the reaction of another person. A person I love. A person I didn't want to disappoint with knowing all of me. Without it, I would have remained bound to my fear. I would have remained stuck in the order of which I thought vulnerability should take place.

But with tears and shaky voice, I let God take my vulnerability out of order, and in return He brought great freedom.

I think Brené Brown perfectly sums up my feelings since:

 "This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee, to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."

Yours in being known completely,

-Elise