Reflection of 2018...
Hello Everyone!
2018 was kind of a year that happened to us. It was
wonderful, but wowzers. It was hard.
In 2016 Nate and I moved here from Napa become the Worship
and Creative Directors of a church called Hingepoint. The church had just come
out of it’s church plant stage, it was about seven years old, and had about 400
people between two identical services weekly. After about a year of building
the team, our relationships and culture a bomb dropped on us and we were going
to merge with another church. The end of 2017 was spent getting to know Calvary
Bible Church. CBC was a 60 year old church community of about 500 people, with
a full-time worship pastor, a traditional service with full choir and
orchestra, and a contemporary service. Also: did I mention the average age of
Hingepoint was 28 and the average age of CBC was 58? To say that the culture of
our two communities was very different is the understatement of the century, but
we could see that God was in it. We saw how much we needed one another on so
many levels. Let’s get an “Amen” for young Christians in their 20’s needing
Christians who have been walking with the Lord longer than we’ve been alive,
and another “Amen” for how you really can share the Gospel while jumping and
utilizing two electric guitars. We needed each other.
So 2018 began with “The Vote”. We were no longer
Hingepoint or Calvary Bible, we were now
Resurrection Church. We blasted off with the surprise resignation of their
worship pastor, the departure of most their contemporary team, and the instant
need to triple our worship and production team… and that’s just OUR department!
We were instantly thrown into the big leagues in a major way. The rest of this
year was spent learning how to be a multicultural, multigenerational church.
I’m not being sarcastic when I say it was super fun and exciting, and I’m being
absolutely dead serious when I say it was hard, like I want to quit my job,
what on earth am I doing here, I suck at my job, I’m the worst kind of leader,
I’m cold-hearted and underqualified hard. But the Lord kept me going when all
of those things playing my head at once on blast.
1)
I need help: By help, I mean people. By people,
I mean friends, mentors, and community. Nate and I were the only creative staff
when we the merger went through. While we are talented and driven people, we
were also only a year into our vocational ministry career. God put people in my
life who loved me enough say the things I needed to hear. If you’re curious
what that looked like you can read about my insane season of isolation here. He
also gave Nate and I friends who have walked a path similar to ours. The bottom
line is the Lord showed me that I need REAL life flesh and blood people in my
life, and by HIS grace He sent them to me without my asking. (This year, I’m
gonna ask, and look and be that for someone else)
2)
I need health: Obviously I know I need to be
spiritually healthy, but I learned the importance of being physically healthy,
and how that fits into being spiritually and emotionally healthy. I’m 5’8”, so
I’m on the tall side. Medically overweight for someone my height is 165, medically
obese is 190. At my heaviest I was 185. I was miserable. I hated my body, my
hated my clothes, I felt gross no matter what. I was in emotional survival mode,
from August of 2017 until about August of 2018, and I was eating my feelings
super hard. It was most vicious cycle, I would self medicate with food, gain
wait and beat myself up, and self medicate with food and TV. It was awful. Then
one Wednesday night at worship practice I noticed this cute new girl checking
in her babies to the kids program, only she wasn’t new. Well, she was in a way,
but I had known her for a over a year, and she looked like a different person.
Her health and happiness was glowing from the inside out. I knew she had been
doing the Ketogenic diet, but I didn’t really know what it was, and I just
dismissed until that moment. I had no clue what Keto was all about, but I was
all about keto from that second on, and I am hooked.
At the beginning keto felt like a fast. I
had to break emotional ties with all the crap food that I’d been eating and relying
on (My relationship with hot Cheetos is very complicated). It was a major slice
of no-carb humble pie for me to admit to myself that food had become an idol to
me. Even writing it now I get embarrassed. But, it was a huge eye opener to the
grace of God. Besides the fact that I’m no longer close to obesity (words I never
thought I would say), I really learned for the first time what letting the Lord
bare your burdens really looked like. I’ve lost 35lbs, and the emotional and
spiritual upswing from feeling good about myself for the first time in a while is
seriously amazing. It may come from not being in my 20’s and my body just doesn’t
bounce back from eating garbage like it used to, but I’m also a lot more in
tune with how I feel. Before keto, I was CONSTANTLY tired, my face was super
puffy and red, and my back was always hurting.
Those things aren’t really a thing for me anymore, also, I’m a lot more
intentional about drinking water, and that helps with those things as well. I
guess I could do a thing on Keto, but since I’m not a nutritionist, I’m a
little hesitant. Either way, I NEED health, and Keto helped me find that.
Also, you may find this hilarious, but one
thing that REALLY helped me emotionally was going and getting my nails done. We’re
talking like I got my nails DID. They aren’t classy, or subtle, but man they’re
fancy, and they’re sparkly, and they’re super fun. I freaking love getting my
nails done. In fact I just told my friend who does my nails (she’s not my ‘nail
tech’, she’s my friend) “I don’t know what it is Becky, but there is NOTHING in
this world that makes me feel like I go and conquer the universe like fresh
nails.”
3)
I need rest: By rest I don’t mean a nap, or getting more
sleep. I don’t even mean going on vacation. What I mean is, I need to go home to a place where I can
exhale. I need to leave work and go to a place that doesn’t mean more work. So…
In November, while I was on my dr. ordered staycation (hernia surgery recovery),
my dear friend Karen helped me fully organize my home. I’m talking Marie Kondo level
organizing, like I invested my money in organizational bins and shelves and a
label maker. Now our home is calm. All of our stuff has a place to live, and all
our stuff is happy too. When I come home from work, I don’t need to go to a
different kind of work. I just put my keys and my purse in their home, and
exhale. Part of me wishes I had taken before and after photos, but at the same
time I don’t know if I want to invite the internet into my literal mess.
While we were organizing Karen said something
to me that really stuck out, and it’s so true. “If you’re in survival mode,
your house will look like it” She is so right! 2018 was totally a year of just
surviving the church merger! Here are a few pointers if you need a place to
start.
·
Start one room or area at a time. I started with
the bathroom because it was the smallest and least sentimental room, but I
still had two big boxes of stuff to donate or throw away. Nate and I live in a
930 sq. ft. loft. It’s one giant room, so getting overwhelmed by clutter is easy.
I went from least sentimental spaces to the most sentimental space. For me, that’s
the bathroom/laundry room, the kitchen, the clothes closets, my clothes
drawers, the music room, then the storage closets where all of our keepsakes,
things we inherited from loved ones, and “heirlooms” that were pawned on us in
other family moves. If you don’t start with a plan or write a checklist (and
make little mini-ones along the way), you’ll get distracted, then you’ll get
overwhelmed, and then you’ll have a bigger problem.
·
Make it work for you. This takes a lot more thought
than I realized. For example: When I was organizing my kitchen, my Keurig was on the opposite end of the counter than
allllll my coffee stuff. Making coffee was like a cardio workout walking back
and forth! My same with my cooking utensils and my stove. My counter made
literally no sense.
·
Invest in bins and organizational containers. Like
tons of bins. Big ones, little ones, all the bins. This makes it so you can see
your “systems”. If you’re not a very
organized person (me), then there is no way you already have the containers you
need. I got most of mine at Big Lots, Ross (that’s where I find the fancy
ones), and the Dollar Tree. Bins give all of your stuff a place, and it gets
rid of your junk drawer…both of them. They create systems in your house so when
you’re tidying you remember where they go, and you remember where to find them.
Ev-er-ree thing in my house lives in a bin or container of come sort.
·
Have someone help you. I was recovering from my
hernia surgery, so I needed literal help lifting stuff. But having a friend who
is more instinctively organized than you is very important. ALSO, you’re taking
on a super vulnerable project. You’re gonna want someone you really trust to
talk you through this process. The professional organizers I know who take
people through this process are such warm and caring people, so if you’re
thinking of hiring a professional, maybe take them out for coffee first and get
to know them. Organizing with Karen was like a week and half long therapy session.
·
Remember that this process takes time. A week
and half is probably on the short side, because I had the time of from work,
and my living space is relatively small. If you’ve got tall ceilings and wall
to wall floor to ceiling built-in bookshelves full of mementos from your
grandma, that’s gonna take a while! Nate and I have always been small spacers
and renters, and we STILL had so much stuff to go through.
·
Give yourself grace. The State of your home
represents your season my of life, and while you may no longer be in that
season, you will find reflections of it.
4)
I need Jesus- That’s all. There is one person
who makes everything worth it, and everything exciting. When you see entire
families baptized, marriages restored, altars being flooded for the first time
in recent memory, you are reminded of WHY. God qualifies the called. If I had known
what 2018 was going to hold, We might not have applied for the position in 2016
because I didn’t think I’d (Nate would be for sure) be qualified for what we we’re
doing. I can do WHATEVER God puts my way as long as that’s where I’m finding my
strength. With than being said… 2019, here we come!
I feel like reflecting before I make my plans (not goals)
really helps, and I don’t about you, Christmas time is too crazy for me to
really reflect. When do you start working on the next year? I’m gonna share some
of my plans and projects for 2019 in the next post. Do you have a word or a big
lofty goal? What do you want to accomplish this year?
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