Dear 20-Something,
I see you.
I see all of you. I see your heart. You and I would probably have pretty similar Instagram bios about how we love Jesus and tacos.
I see the way you have a vision for your family to get better. I see that tiny glimmer of hope for a marriage so strong and vibrant that people write articles about it. I even see your longing for someone to send you a text just to check on you today.
I see the part of you that craves impact. You want to make a difference...fill a cup, change a heart, save a life.
I see your get-it-done side that gets there on time and stays late to clean up.
I see you singing in the car, silently blessing a stranger, meeting a need, bouncing a baby, paying for a meal.
I see those equal parts of reluctance and joy you feel packing up to go home for the weekend because family time isn't all laughs and hugs.
In fact, I see those people, maybe even the ones who share your last name, who were supposed to love you, but didn't. They were supposed to be there for you, show up for you, but somehow, they were just...absent.
And what your heart heard when they didn't come through for you?
I hear that.
Something about me is missing.
I'm less than what it takes to make it all okay.
I'm more trouble than anyone signed up for.
I see the part of your heart you keep in a box on a shelf because he chose you, but he changed his mind. Or maybe he never chose you at all, and now your expectations are what you'd define as 'much more realistic' because next time it won't hurt so bad if someone walks out - they won't have ever seen that box of your truest self on the shelf, anyway.
I see you scroll through Facebook and wish your countenance truly reflected those happy images because even Likes don't lift the rain cloud.
I see you scroll through Instagram and hold up a tape measure to your own abilities and wonder what it would take to make your inside match their outside.
I see you mapping out a future in your head. One foot here in the present and one foot in a bigger house, skinnier body, better job. But with your feet in two places it's awful hard to walk forward into today.
I see your gifts. Your writing, your voice, your passion to teach, to lead, to come alongside. Feeling the burden of waiting for
some job,
some man,
some life
...to find you, to pick you, to invite you on a beautiful adventure.
Today you find yourself standing in a life that doesn't have an answer to all those defining questions.
What kind of person are you?
What's your character?
What's your career?
Who did you marry?
The answers to these questions feel like missing subjects in a painting about your life, and honestly, painting the background is starting to get a little old. You're unsure what you even want the finished product to look like, or if you'll even like it at all when it's finished.
I want to meet you right here. In the already and the not yet. In the moments of waiting, cautiously hoping and anxiously praying.
I want to sit with you in front of your canvas and ask you questions.
I know what this painting can be.
But so does someone else. And he wants to smudge the strokes and dry out the acrylics and convince you that maybe it's not so much of a painting as it is a big mess.
This will never be in a gallery, it's already too ordinary, too dull, too gray, who would ever choose this painting?
But I know the Artist. His voice doesn't sound like that. Never has.
He stretched the canvas across its frame and ground the powder to make the paints. He chose to place by the window to do his work, and the day to start.
He knows the end from the beginning and the one thing he'll do is finish.
And maybe the enemy sees glimpses of the finished product, too.
Maybe those creeping doubts you feel have more to do with you might become than they do with who are right this minute.
The painter isn't finished.
He's barely even started.
So maybe I can grab your hand and take you to a house. It has a wide porch and a heavy door and fountain out back. And through the bright foyer and past heavy furniture, there's a painting over the fireplace. It's bold and draws you in.
The Artist doesn't just want to finish your painting, he wants to build a life and a much bigger purpose around the person you're discovering your already are, around those first few strokes.
So today, let's sit alone in front of that unfinished painting on the easel next to the open window. Let's settle our souls on the sight of open cans of paint and the smells of progress, and let's wait with confidence for the Artist to do his best work, at his steady, purpose-filled pace, trusting that He will be called Faithful and True, and looking ahead, we can hear him say,
It is good.
It is finished.
It is mine.
Holy Spirit, be gentle and complete and give us the strength to see ourselves as whole, right in this moment, yet hopeful for your plans ahead. Give us the wisdom to lower the volume on our own desire for control and our propensity towards feeling forgotten and afraid that what's ahead might be a disappointment. We need the fullest measure of your grace to embrace the women we are right now, and the women we will be, in you, Together.
I believe in the person you're discovering you were made to be.
XOXO,
Elena Balkcom
Photography in this post credited to Hannah Forsberg from our collaborative work you can see published right here in Southeastern Bride.
What I'm Done Being Afraid Of
If you're afraid of things, you and I already have lots in common.
And for me, it's not just heights. I can get real freaked out over weather, germs, traffic, water where I can't see my feet, bugs, I mean...there's no end.
On July 8th, 2017 at 2:15pm I was bouncing up a mountain in the back of a van. All 43 muscles in my face were fully clinched around my death-stare out the window towards the base of the zip line my family and I were headed to.
It's not the fear of dying. Well maybe just a little. But this particular adventure group has been sending thrill-seekers down zip lines for a decade without so much as an injury. To me, that sounds way safer than I-75.
I was at least 80% sure that I would choke.
I would have to embarrass myself and slow everyone else down by declining to jump because I just couldn't get enough gumption to step off the edge of a mountain to dangle at high speeds over a canyon.
I'm not a brave girl. I don't do anything big. I don't drink coffee that's too hot. I don't take risks. I get real crazy and try a new recipe off Pinterest sometimes but that's a banner day in my house.
I just don't see myself even as brave as an average person.
Stepping off the first platform (the easy "warm up" line) was made possible by looking at the ground just 8 feet below me and pretending that I would land softly there instead of flying down the mountain towards a much-higher tree platform. Once I was there, there was no turning back.
My little brother was testing the limits and leaning out over the edge of things and I was sitting indian-style in the tree house, face against the trunk, bargaining with God that I would never make fun of MLMs again and I would agree to take the word "authentic" out of my vocabulary, and that I was sorry for using someone else's Netflix for 3 years, if he would just magically get me out of that tree and back onto solid ground.
If you haven't been zip lining, let me also warn you that the sound a line makes as you zip across it... is brutal. Your zip-clip is metal and the line is metal so the high-pitched metal scraping sounds like the last thing you might hear before being decapitated by a rotary saw.
The last line was long enough that even with traveling at 65 mph, dangling above the trees, one has time to scream multiple times. Or, in my case, scream once, cry some, do some delivery room style breathing, and then upon arrival, collapse on the ground in emotional exhaustion.
Back in the gift shop, I realized it was over. I did it.
They could charge a hundred dollars for those t-shirts and people like me would still buy them because I did a thing I never thought I'd do. Immediately I was looking for anyone one their way to the lines to tell them they totally got this.
Deciding to step off the ledges
...felt a lot like deciding to walk up to a stranger and introduce myself, or agreeing to attend a networking event with mostly people I've never met, or deciding to move to a new city or visiting a church for the first time or waiting for the trigger getting a new ear piercing, or clicking "publish" on an honest rant or new services pricing, or just asking someone for help.
Stepping off the ledge, even when we know we're safe, is terrible.
And I know terrible because I was at a fundraiser once where they played Hey Ya! on repeat until the total was raised.
Fear wants to re-write the past and control the future.
It sounds like:
"You've never been brave enough to do something like this," &
"You won't be able to slow down or catch yourself from falling so this is disaster."
In the immortal words of The Office character, Robert California:
Fear plays an interesting role in our lives. How dare we let it motivate us? How dare we let it into our decision-making, into our livelihoods, into our relationships?
While I'm convinced my healthy fear of spiders keeps me from dying a spider-poison death, the fears I have related to my own abilities and beliefs that I'm less-of-a-person need to go.
Do you feel that?
Being afraid to step over a line and operate in your God-given bravery is worth working on. And believe me, you'll live to buy the t-shirt.
An Inn Keeper Year
I'd like to give a voice to my favorite character in the Christmas story.
What does this have to do with being a wedding planner with a wedding planning blog?
Well, probably nothing, and bless my Search Engine guys I have no idea what they're going to do with this content.
Anyway, back to Christmas.
. . .
I bet if the Inn Keeper got a second shot, he would frantically tap his sleepy wife on that silent night and say,
"Honey, get up, Jesus Christ needs a place to be born and he needs our bed!"
I mean that poor guy. He's a local business owner and
THIS.
WAS.
BUSY SEASON.
Everyone has to go to their hometown to register, thanks to Caesar Augustus, and this Inn Keeper has every room booked out for the next 4 weeks. If I were him, I don't know if I would have the presence of mind to find a spot for a couple more exhausted customers. After handing out extra towels, sweeping, stocking the complimentary cookies and doing check-ins for tired, cranky people ALL DAY, I don't doubt he was feeling pretty spent.
And then two more knock and he says honestly,
"We have families in every room."
But he sees the girl that looks like she's about to pop and says,
"If you're looking for a spot to rest, I certainly don't mind if you find a place in the barn. The goats won't bite."
. . .
I've had an Inn-Keeper year, myself, giving Jesus what I have available. But when I look back, I would give more. If I knew the profound beauty of what was REALLY going on, I would have given up my room. I would have given more than $5. I would have given time and attention and care.
But just like the Inn-Keeper who did what he could with what he had, Jesus took it and said,
"This'll work."
This will work in my big plan and purpose for you and for the world. Even though you could have given me more of what I have already given you, I receive this offering, and all is grace.
Grace takes enough and makes it abundance.
Grace takes a stable and 2000 years later it's still Holy Ground.
Grace takes my impatient prayers and turns them into provisions and promises kept.
And if you've had an Inn Keeper year too, where you look back and could have given more, just remember that Grace will say,
"This'll work."