the infamous book list

So... I've had several ladies ask if I could pass on my book list to them.  I am including it here along with my the notes from my break out session for the retreat.  For those of you that follow my blog, you will recognize some of the content from the past year. For those that know me well, you will recognize some of the content from my endless ramblings...

Living Life on Purpose 2014:

Hi!

I’m Lisa. I’m a PW. Which really just stands for Pastor’s Wife but makes me feel all covert like I’m a PI or work for the FBI or CIA or something. Don’t get too excited, I’m not what you might expect. I can’t play piano even though I took eleven years of lessons. I shouldn’t sing, except for in the shower or in the car with the radio turned up to thirty. I don’t teach Sunday school, mostly cause I stink at crowd control & the sound of my Minnie mouse voice whips small children up into a frenzy. But I love, love, love little babies with their tiny rosebud lips & their wide eyed wonder. I don’t work in the church office cause I have a little ADD & organization is not my thing. So if you catch me at church & try to set up a time we can get together for coffee or need me to relay something important to Hubs, I will likely have forgotten it by the time I get home. It’s not that I don’t like you or am trying to be insensitive. I just have a hard time keeping things strait in my mind. Shoot me a reminder email or text later. Trust me I will NOT be offended. Ever. Let’s see… I’m super laid back & hate dumb things like rules, grades, politics & conflict. Because I’m totally an introvert, I struggle with friendships, have to work really hard at things like small talk & I’m really best in my own living room sipping a cup of tea in a pair of old sweatpants… or maybe in a blanket fort.

So… welcome to my blanket fort. Please feel free to get all comfy. Kick your shoes off. Have a little popcorn. Pretend it’s just us in my living room. That’s what I’ll be doing… instead of envisioning you all in your underwear.

Ok. So… I digress. Back to the whole PW thing.

I have to admit, I was in the beginning, a reluctant PW at best & while it’s not really the life I thought I’d have, it’s mine & I’ve learned to love it.

This is my Hubs. He’s a burn-the-barn-down hottie. I’ve been his girl since I was fifteen years old. 

 

This is my family. They are all kinds of spectacular.

 

This is our oldest son Joshua & his beautiful wife Kristen. Josh is a youth pastor & Kristen a social worker who works with high risk kids. They live on the gulf coast of Florida where this picture was taken, with my two grand-dogs. Which I don’t have a picture of here but if you are interested in a photo I have approximately one hundred & seventy two on my iPhone. Hit me up later.

This is our son Caleb & his fiancé Courtney. The live in Fargo North Dakota where there is only one tree but where the sky kisses the ground & there is always a breeze. They are in their third years at NDSU & Moorhead respectively & are pursuing degrees in construction management & elementary education. They recently adopted a kitten who currently resides with Courtney & will officially become a Pelkey on June 13^th of 2015. I also have pictures of that guy. Just sayin’.

& this is our super spicy daughter Hani who is the only one brave enough to still live with me. She dances & sings & runs like the wind & continues to remind me of who I am & what is important every day of life.  

I know some people look at me from the outside & think because of who I am or maybe even who I’m married to, that my life would be easy or perfect but it’s not.

Sometimes life just happens… & sometimes I bring it upon myself.

Today I want to share with you part of my story. The part where God is still working & moving & growing me.

In early 2014, a precious friend of mine challenged me, instead of making a New Year’s resolution, to choose one word on which to focus for the year. Because of where I was in my life at the time—I’ll unpack a little more of this later—I chose the word Abide.

It is from this place that am feeling God asking me to share John 15:4 with you… “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.”

Stuff:

A few years ago I found myself in the strangest place. We were living a comfortable life. An American life. A nice big house. Two kids in college. Four cars. A family vacation once a year.

But thru some circumstances & some things I had been reading, God began working on me & I became super uncomfortable. Never in my life had I been so convicted about my Christian walk. Not just in the way I study the Bible, share my faith with others or even my commitments to our church family, but rather in the way I live my every-day life, how I spent my time, my money, my energy. 

In the end I felt duped… & a little bit angry. There was no doubt that I had bought many of the lies that my American culture, as well as my Christian culture had told me. I had become so engaged in the quest for the house, the job, the church & the relationships that I thought I had to have; that I found that I'd spent much of my life’s energy  focusing on a lot of things that just don’t matter. At least not in the spiritual sense. I had forgotten that people are the only thing I can take with me.

When I realized that I had it all wrong, I was devastated… I was humbled... I was moved to do… something.

But to be quite honest, the idea of starting my whole life over, to retrain my brain to accept everything that God was teaching me & then to actually do something about it, was so overwhelming that I didn’t know where to begin. I mean, what if Jesus really meant it when He said, “If you want to give it all you've got, go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.” –Matthew 19:21 

As Hubs & began to really talk & pray about what God wanted us to do with our lives & ministry, we began to feel very strongly that we needed to decrease our lifestyle so we could increase giving to those in need around us. The first part of following in this conviction is that we decided to sell our house; to downsize from our four bed, three bath home & move into a much smaller rental. I want to make clear that this is NOT something God calls everyone to do & it wasn’t a decision we took lightly. It was a decision we made out of obedience to God & the realization that obedience isn’t a lack of fear. It’s just doing it scared.

I’d love to tell you that we had some time to get our heads around this idea of downsizing our stuff but in real life, we had about three weeks. Cause that’s exactly how long it took to sell our house. When our real estate agent called to tell us, Hubs & I looked at each other & began to laugh.  For the first time in 23 years of marriage we had absolutely no idea what we were doing or where we were going next. It seemed completely crazy & yet… we had an amazing sense of peace about it.

During this time I remember one of our elders asking me what would be the worst case scenario for me… I quickly replied, “To be in an apartment that wouldn’t allow us to keep our dogs & that wouldn’t have laundry in our unit.” Of course you know… we wound up in an apartment. No dogs. No laundry.

I want to tell you that I handled everything perfectly, but I didn’t. In fact the first week we were in the apartment I was so heartbroken over all we had given up & was missing my dogs so much I found myself buying three bottles of cheap wine at the liquor store in my snowflake pajamas. I’m not proud of it. I just want you to know when it comes to ‘obedience’, I am so far from perfect.

But God kept moving in my soul & kept bringing me back to Romans 12:1-2

‘So here's what I want you to do, God helping you:
Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.’

This life change became something much bigger than a change of living space. It began a journey into the world of the divine.

Cause here’s the deal ladies, as the ‘stuff’ began to take up less & less space in our lives, other more important things pushed their way to the front.

The first thing was a conviction of the way we chose to spend our time… our seeming glorification of busy.

Did you know?

That one study found that eighty percent of Americans work the equivalent of a second workday after leaving the office?

We’re doing plenty of work inside our office walls too. Nearly ten million Americans worked more than sixty hours per week last year. We work longer hours than almost every other advanced country.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans have up to two weeks of unused vacation at the end of the each year.

We’re too busy to sleep. More than one-third of working Americans sleep less than six hours per night. That means there are forty-million of us suffering from chronic sleep deprivation.

One-third of us are living with extreme stress daily & half of us are regularly lying awake at night because of our stress.

If I get right to it, what I am really saying is that we are so busy girls… we hurt.

A couple of years ago now, our son Joshua got married. Actually, he managed to do the following in about two weeks: He graduated from college. He packed up everything he owned in his little car & he & his bride-to-be, drove 1787.2 miles to Florida where they were to be married & begin their life together. The following week he applied for, interviewed & was hired for a youth pastor position at a church near their home, married the love of his life, headed out on a two week honeymoon & came home to a new apartment, a new job (praise God), a beautiful wife & a whole new life.

As I watched this all play out in front of my eyes, I found myself strangely grieving... not grieving because my son had gotten married. I love love love my daughter-in-law. She's by far, the best thing that has ever happened to my son... but I was stuck. So stuck that I found myself on the verge of an all-out meltdown. In the wake of this change in our family, I just couldn’t shake the overwhelming weariness of my day to day life.

To be honest, I was so busy that I just didn’t have the time to stop & process it.

Let’s stop a minute here & unpack this a little bit… let’s take a look at what busyness isn’t.

Busyness is not productivity. Study after study have shown that all the working we are doing just puts us on a hamster wheel. Just because you are working more does not actually mean that you are doing more.

Too many of us work for show. We say things like, “Look how productive I am! Look how hard I work! Look how full my calendar is!” But we are just building an illusion. We’re not really getting much done.

Work is good. The Bible esteems hard work. In fact the Bible mentions the value of hard work somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty times. Sabbath rest however, is mentioned closer to a hundred & fifty times. Doesn’t it seem like we have our wires crossed?

Busyness is not indicative of your value. We all seem to have swallowed the Kool-Aid that we are busy because we are important & we are important because we are busy. A nasty side effect is that we are embarrassed if we read a book cover to cover, spend the afternoon watching old movies, take a nap or in my case, stop a moment to process that my oldest child, had just moved 1787.2 miles away to begin his adult life. Yes I know, I’m still little stuck on that one.

Anyhoo… because I was so caught up in the busyness of life, the weariness I felt was really beginning to take a toll on me. Worst yet, other people were beginning to notice. Least of all my family, who was kinda at a loss of what to actually do with me. So, at my husband's gentle prompting, I went away on a silent retreat. Actually, I came here & stayed just up there in the guest house.

Just me.
My Bible.
My camera.
My journal.
& a whole mess of pencils.
It was truly the best thing I've ever done for myself.
I took long walks.
I prayed.
I spent the afternoon in a kayak.
I mulled over the scriptures.
I took lots of pictures of simple things.
I ate popcorn for dinner.
I cried.
I laughed.
I poured out my heart to the One who knows me best.

When I finally wandered home on Sunday night my heart was full of renewed hope & a sense of purpose.
As I look back on that time I realize that I had become worn out from a lack of the sacred. A synonym for sacred is untouchable. There was no part of my day untouchable to the demands of everyday life. Without regular moments of sacred, life had started to fly by at an unbearable place. I had to stop this thing. I needed to make time for God to come & fill my soul.

I cannot express enough how important it is for us to make time to be alone with God. We’ve got to find a way to take a step away from all that’s on our plates & walk toward peace. Psalm 46:10 is a verse many of us know well, but perhaps it’s become so familiar we’ve started to ignore it. “Be still & know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will exalted in the earth!”

Be. Still.

Slow down.

Tell the “to-do’s” to take a chill pill. Because God is God & you are not.

If you don’t get it all done, or make it to every church function, or have the planet’s most well-rounded children, the world will keep spinning. Making it a priority to spend time alone with the Father will fill you up. When you are full you are able to pour out.

Since we are sitting here in a blanket fort & I’m feeling super comfortable, I’d like to suggest that for the sake of ourselves & our families that we put ourselves in a great BIG time out:

I’m going to give it to you strait—when it comes to scheduling our families, we’ve all gone crazy. I could go on & on & on about this but because I have to start somewhere & this is something Hubs & I have long struggled with in our own home, let’s just use sports as an obvious example.

Did you know:

In a study of sixteen declining congregations in the U.S. & Canada, the number one reason cited by clergy & church members for failing attendance was the “secularization of Sunday.” Many church members cited their kids’ sports as being the most critical factor.

More than one-third of congregants in a separate study said school & sports-related activities were “quite a bit of an issue” when considering church attendance.

About two-third of “Christmas-Easter Christians” polled said they attend church only twice a year because they are too busy with other commitments including kids sports programs.

Shouldn’t someone throw a red flag here? Isn’t it time we noticed that sports are pulling Christians out of the pews? There is bound to be a ripple effect. Church isn’t just something we do. Church is the artery that pumps the necessary blood through our bodies to run the race of faith well. It can also be the birthplace for some of our deepest, most meaningful relationships.

Listen it’s not my intention to pack your bags for a guilt trip. I’m just suggesting that instead of cramming more into our schedules or into our children’s schedules that we take our lives back.

This past spring, this was weighing heavy on my heart. Especially with our daughter Hannah who was just entering the awkward & precarious tween years.

We were fortunate to be able to take a family vacation to Florida where I made the conscious choice to come apart & rest awhile. What happened that week changed how I view my relationships with my family… particularly when it comes to Han.  

Here’s what happened:

I pretty much lived in my swimsuit & flip flops for a week.  Make up didn’t matter... messy hair didn’t matter... the fact that my nose was covered with freckles & my front two teeth are crooked didn’t matter.

The cruel inner voice I sometimes battle was silent & the poor self-image that sometimes rears its ugly head was quiet...

Because what DID matter was happening right then. In that moment.

It happened while I had coffee with Hubs in my sweatpants on our cottage porch. In holding his hand as we walked down the beach at sunrise. In sharing our deepest thoughts & dreams as we listened to the ocean breeze in bed at night. 

It happened while swimming in the pool with my daughter & not caring what I look liked in a swimsuit. In picking up seashells with her on the beach & shopping for souvenirs for her girlfriends in the little shops downtown. In having ice cream & laughing when we lost half of it on the sidewalk. In the way she pressed into me for a hug or grabbed my hand as we walked.

It happened while I watched our boys play together & laugh together even though they are mostly grown... Ok... So they are grown... I may be a little bit in denial.

It was having precious time with my parents, being able to really talk with them in person. It happened while I listened to my daughter-in-law as she shared her faith story with my mom & seeing them both talk & laugh with their grandchildren.

It was watching our son read scripture in the church where he & our daughter-in-law minister. In seeing their new apartment & playing with their dogs. It was seeing the way my daughter-in-law looks at my son & the way he loves her.

It was witnessing our younger son's engagement & celebrating this new relationship with him & his fiancé. It was knowing that he is at peace with his life & his path.

It happened in many precious little moments I might have missed had I not truly left the cares of my real life behind.

As our vacation came to a close, I felt real sadness come over me. While I knew that vacation can’t last forever, I found myself asking myself… why can’t this sense of intentional living carry over into my for real life?

In those final moments, I committed to be more intentional with our daughter. As our family dynamics have drastically changed over the last couple of years, parenting her has become a new kind of challenge. When her brothers were at home we were very intentional about our family time. It was important to us to have deep relationships with them that would grow & change as they did… There were never TVs or computers in their bedrooms & we set time limits on both.  & while they both played football & were active at school & church, we were very careful to have dinner at the table together every night. We were deliberate about our evening times together as well. We’d gather after supper in the living room where we would talk, play games, watch movies & spend time just being a family. Our home was filled with their friends & their noise & their laughter. 

With Hannah it’s different. She’s become an only child. While I find that her social & extracurricular schedule is a little busier than that of her brothers, with dance & guitar & her small group, I have also found that when we are home, she is happy to pull out the iPad to play a game or watch a movie or curl up with in her bed with a book. With her ‘occupied’, I’ve had more time to myself to read, blog & fill up the white space of my calendar with church lady stuff. While these things aren’t bad in & of themselves, over time, they have developed into distractions that keep me away from my child & that is not what I want. 

You see, being on vacation with our whole family made me realize something. Our intentionality while our boys were at home, has not only strengthened the bond we have with them as they have become adults but it readied the ground on which more mature friendships with them have grown. I know our boys. I really KNOW them. 

I want this with my daughter. She deserves to have a present, engaging & hands on mama. So I made some commitments to God & to her in my heart while we were away. 

I should have known that making this kind of decision would open me up to the enemy. Satan would rather our family be fragmented… have us continue to each do our own thing & ultimately have us feel alone, unsupported & disconnected. 

The night before we were to fly home, Hannah developed some kind of tummy thing that had she & I up most of the night in the bathroom. Normally, any kind of sickness (day or night) falls on my husband. He’s so much better with that kind of stuff than I am but because I am working on turning over a new leaf & be engaging even if it’s WAAY out of my comfort zone, I found myself kneeling beside her on the cold tile in the middle of the night, holding her hair & rubbing her back. At one point, she thanked me for being there& apologized for keeping me awake. It pierced my heart. Of course I should be there. I want to be there. I’m her mumma after all. 

I’d love to say that she was fully recovered by the time we got on the plane in the morning but she wasn’t. It made for a long traveling day for everyone. When we finally arrived home, I prescribed a quiet pajama movie night for all & curled up with her on the couch. We could unpack& grocery shop tomorrow.  

But, just when it seemed as if all was well. It wasn’t. Between the fever & the crazy dreams, Hannah popped up by the side of my bed several times after I lay down, begging for one thing or another. Finally, around 3am, I gave up, grabbed my pillow & went & crawled into bed with her. At least there all she’d have to do was touch my shoulder & ask me for something.

As I lay there staring at the ceiling & listening to her breathing, I began to wonder if all of this was a test of my will. To see if I would stick with my commitment to live in the present & not worry about everything I have to do when I’m not on vacation.

I’m sharing this piece with you because intentionality is not the easy way… but I know that if I choose to be intentional with my children & with others God has put in my life, they will see through me the heart of Christ.  

You know, valuing people means adopting an overt willingness to be inconvenienced. It means doing things that cannot be measured. It means developing relationships based on who people really are & not who we want them to be.

In our former church, Hubs & I started a small group with two other couples in our home. Every Friday night our families got together to make pizza& talk about the Bible. As time went on we got together more frequently. Always for a meal. Sometimes we studied a passage in the Bible… sometimes we just played cards & talked about how God was working in our lives. As our kids played night games & built blanket forts & watched movies & played video games, we shared what we were reading, what God was teaching us, we laughed together & cried together. Those the eight years we had living in community with them changed how we view 'church' for the good. Church is not a building. It's not programming or the worship band or the pastors. It is the people... living in true community together.

Let me be clear, it is not convenient.

Meeting together regularly interrupts our schedules. It interferers with extracurricular activities & bed times. It takes effort to care for each other. Needs rarely pop up on weekends & evenings. But that’s what valuing people looks like. It means accepting a dirty house because people have been loved, cared for, & entertained within the walls of your home. It means accepting a schedule in flux because you are determined to make time for others whenever necessary. It means considering the tasks of your to-do list as less important than the people you’re doing them for. It means measuring success through relationships—not how neat & tidy your life looks.

Being known won’t fit onto a checklist. Christian community has become a buzzword for something we do, something we can put into our day planner, but that’s not true community.

Jesus knew all about this. His community was no cakewalk. Judas betrayed Him. Peter denied Him. Paul persecuted His flock & yet… Jesus pursued a relationship with them.

If you want to be known you must be willing to get messy & you’ve got to the ditch the idol of convenience our culture worships so freely. I’m being super blunt right now because I want you to know it’s not an easy an easy road. But it is on that God has always walked, & it leads to a life more meaningful & connected than you could ever dream up yourself.

Unplugging:

Since I have your attention for just a little bit longer, I want to share with you one last thing about intentionality. It’s a super touchy subject… like how much your Hubs spent on your engagement ring or who you voted for in the last election or how much you put in the offering plate at church or whatever.

It’s not easy to come clean about it so I’ll go first. Truth is I’m addicted to my iPhone. Yeah I said it. I love that little thing. I love the texting. I love the Instagramming. I love the Facebooking. I love the blogging. I love all the things.

Did you know?

That seventy percent of Americans sleep with their cell phones within arm’s length. One-third of us get online before getting out of bed.

Sixty-one percent of us check our phones every hour.

Adults spend at least eight to twelve hours per day staring at screens. That’s more time than we spend on any other activity, including sleeping.

Despite the fact that most young people have an average of 243 Facebook friends, it’s not translating into real-life friendships. Researchers theorize that we are spending so much time online, that we no longer have time to go out with our non-Facebook friends.

I’m embarrassed to say that I can relate to three out of those four things.

So in preparation for this talk. I decided to unplug from all social media on my iPhone for a week. It lasted all of one day before I took a less aggressive approach & designated just one day a week to unplug. Yes I know this isn’t the best case scenario but remember… I’m addicted.

The first day, I found myself reaching for my phone every twenty minutes. It was a reminder that I am spending far too much time on that thing. & because I was feeling guilt & shame over my iPhone use, I chose to take the experiment one step further & take a little break from social media on my computer as well. That evens out my lack of commitment right?

Anyhoo… I can’t begin to tell you how hard it is to be typing away on my computer & not be checking all the updates. I know that my addiction to all this stuff stems partly from my kids being so far away (or at least this is my most used excuse-but it’s a bad one since my gone kids don’t really even go on there much anymore). Mostly I think I check my updates because of two things:

The first is my insatiable desire to know all the things. I really should have been a private investigator. I can’t stand not knowing everything that is going on everywhere.

The second is the science of my brain. Scientists have discovered that every time we get a technological ‘ping’ such as a text or email alert, our brain gets a hit of dopamine.

Here’s a crash course in that science. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that runs the brain’s reward & pleasure centers—BTW this is not something I made up on my own to excuse my ridiculous behavior. This is for real science.—So… dopamine also regulates our emotional responses & helps us take action toward rewards. When someone shoots us an email, or sends us a friend request, or makes something we did or wrote go viral, our brains get all tingly. That feels like a reward & our brains want more of it.

Brain researchers say that when we get low levels of dopamine, we are prone to addiction. Yes our technology makes us feel good, but chemically speaking warm fuzzies are seeping in at such a low level that we’re all left wanting more.

& there are other things happening in our brains as we click away. When we stare at a screen our heart rate slows. Our brain vessels dilate. Blood flows away from our major muscles. In other words, our body starts to relax. But the constant flow of visual stimuli can shift our orienting responses into overdrive, eventually leading to fatigue & a sense of depletion.

What’s more, we are feeling more & more insecure. One Today Show survey revealed that seven thousand mothers worry that they are not crafty or creative enough. Some admitted that they stay up all night looking at Pinterst because they’re unable to stop the negative comparison. Some women admitted to developing body image issues after comparing themselves to others online. Never mind that we all know that no one really looks like their profile pic. Somehow, the constant parade of other’s achievements & happy moments is messing us up.

Listen, again it is not my intention to pack your bags for a guilt trip. It is possible to use technology as a means to enhance our best relationships. We don’t have to be addicted. We can live modern lives with real relationships. But it requires us to put down the iPhone or whatever else ensnares you & to enter the restaurant, or church, or coffee shop or blanket fort or family, where real people live & real life is happening.

So remember my verse at the beginning of this twisty turny talk? That’s OK. I’ll be bringing it back around now:

John 15:4 says, “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.”

Do you see that this is really the key to living life on purpose? If we choose to live in Christ, make our homes in Him.  If we submit our time, talent & treasure to His leading. If we lay our day to day schedules, our relationships & yes even our technology at His feet there will be no doubt of who we are & whose we are. 

& that is what God desires most.

Let’s pray. 

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt

Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus by Kyle Idleman

Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan 

Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker

Barefoot Church: Serving the Least in a Consumer Culture by Brandon Hatmaker

Everything: What You Give and What You Gain to Become Like Jesus by Mary DeMuth 

Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters by Rachel Macy Stafford

Connected: Curing the Pandemic of Everyone Feeling Alone Together by Erin Davis

 

*NOT Pictured because they are currently being lent out: 

Your Beautiful Purpose: Discovering and Enjoying What God Can Do Through You by Susie Larson 

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp

**NOT Pictured because it's in my purse (I don't go anywhere without it) 

The Message Bible  

***A special thanks to my dad for passing me '7'... to my friend Greta Jarrett for passing me 'Hands Free Mama'... & to Erin Davis for writing 'Connected' & putting words to everything that I couldn't.