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2012: Ready to Run

December 27, 2011 by 19 Comments

My three-year-old cousin raced around our downstairs yesterday. All joy and determination, he desperately wanted to go as fast as he possibly could around and around the center fireplace in our home.

He sped past stone corners un-childproofed, near wooden beams not padded to protect little heads, and by shelves that wouldn’t budge. The mom in me winced at every circuit. But he laughed and he ran and in all honesty, I don’t think it occurred to him he might fall.

At three you don’t worry about the stone hearth you might crack your head open on, you just worry about going fast and the fun you will have while doing it.  You aren’t scared or stuck or stopped. At three, you don’t count the risks, weigh them and wonder if you will survive. You just run.

At three, you are free.

The opposite of fear isn’t courage. The opposite of fear is freedom.

The past year was a difficult one for me.

I got stopped and stuck and at times I wondered if I really was going to survive. I did not live a year that felt free. Instead it felt heavy and hard and bogged down.

I’m pretty sure I’m ready to run again. I’m ready to speed around the fireplace and not worry about the sharp corners. The sharp corners will always be there and I’m stupid to think I can avoid them and still live a life that is free and full of adventure.

So let’s ALL begin to run again. Let’s jump up and take a step forward and another one. And let’s take another one until the moving forward turns from a creep into a walk into a run. Let’s move with joy and with determination in the hope that this year is full of promise and of freedom.

I’m ready. Are you?

 

 

 

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Filed Under: courage, fear, On Freedom, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Fearless

November 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

On Monday I took the scariest flight of my life. By leaps and bounds.

But I made it. My daughters, on the other hand, thought it felt like a roller coaster.

“This is JUST LIKE THE TOWER OF TERROR, Mommy!” That was the sentiment from my five-year-old.

Here’s my story. And theirs.

Mine is full of fear and theirs is full of joy.

Have you found joy and fear in the same place?

 

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Filed Under: courage, fear, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

The Danger of Safety

October 17, 2011 by 4 Comments

Did you know they’ve put the whole catalog of “The Wonder Years” on Netflix?

“What would you do if I sang out a tune, would you stand up and walk out on me…”

If your upbringing resembled anything like mine you know exactly what I’m talking about. It is essentially a show that raises the nostalgia of a time gone by to a heightened level of respect and near-worship. And as an adolescent, I ate it up.

Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper: boy-next-door falls in love with girl-next-door. It’s perfect, right? Most of us, if we’ve grown up in the US, have grown up with the idea that the past is better than anything the present has to offer. We used to have safe schools and neighborhoods, nobody had to worry about the Internet or cyber-bullying, and kids, for the most part, obeyed their parents.

Safety is idolized and the American Dream has run rampant through the fields of our adolescence. We want to grow up and “do better” than our parents, grab the luxury cars and live in places where we don’t have to lock our doors at night.

Sigh.

Is that even real? And more than that, does that kind of thinking go against all that God has for us?

I’m writing on A Deeper Story today about that.

The Danger of Safety

I sat across the table with a friend a few months ago. “I’m beginning to question if the idea of basing my whole life on safety means that I’ve been missing the Grand Adventure and what God has wanted for me all along.”

Seriously it was like I was speaking Russian. She looked back at me with a blank look in her eyes.

And then she began to shake her head. “I have no idea what you mean, Sarah. Safety is GOOD, isn’t it?”

Isn’t it? It is if you believe in the American Dream.

Click here to read the rest.

 

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Filed Under: adventure, courage, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

"Dropped Off" at the Pool

August 11, 2009 by 5 Comments

Today, I’m over at (in)courage…

Remember, one of the exciting things that I talked about here and more recently here?

I’m writing about courage, something I wish I had in abundant supply.

Here’s a peek:

My kids take the cheap swimming lessons.

You know, the forty dollars for two weeks of 25 minute group sessions taught by college students at the community pool. I used to pay for the teach-the-kid-how-to-swim-in-a-week luxury lessons back when I thought I was rich and pampered my first child like a baby Buddha.

But now, we all settle for the cheap ones.

A regular part of the community pool lessons is the go-off-the-diving-board day. And note that it is GO off the diving board day, not DIVE off the diving board day or JUMP off the diving board day. Every child just has to get off the end no matter which method they choose. Most of the older kids jump or dive, but some of them, including my three-year-old, have to be dropped off…

You can read the rest of it by clicking here.

Then come back and let me know here what you think! Do you like the new site?

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Filed Under: courage, swimming lessons