One Voice, One Song, One Word

Sorry for the lack of Memorable Monday these past two weeks.  It will return on New Year's Day, with an extra helping of memorable quotations!!!  Email me at musicalmom725@comcast.net if you have a good idea for this special Memorable Monday.  Do you have a saying, phrase, or quotation that can help us start 2012 off right?? 

For today, though, I've got something else I'd like to share with you: a new approach to that mile-long resolution list.  Maybe you don't do this, but I'm definitely guilty of making a huge list of resolutions.  Most of them, sadly, hit the cutting room floor a week into the new year even though my intentions are good and I desire the described changes. 

A few weeks ago, I met with our campus pastor's wife, Heather, for coffee and a chat.  She led me to the One Word website: www.myoneword.com.  The campaign has been assembled by Mike Ashcraft, leader of Port City Community Church in North Carolina.

Here's the basic premise: Instead of creating the huge resolution list, complete with failures and our guilt over them, pick one word to serve as your focus for the year.  You're not just selecting a word randomly--you're picking a word you feel God has placed in front of you, that you've prayed over, and that you've hopefully examined in the Bible before choosing.

Rest assured, you'll be challenged over your word throughout the year! The website features some great videos and stories of the word that people selected in 2011.  Regardless of what happens during the year, you look at that word differently by the end of the year.

I was really intrigued by the site and its stories, and I decided to take the challenge to select one word for 2012!  And I'm not alone--many of my close friends are signing on, as well as my Friday moms' small group!  I'm so excited to see what happens throughout the year with each of them!!

After some prayer, and a slew of words going through my head, I've decided that my word for the year is peace. I think there are several words that fit under this category for me, but peace was the overriding thought, feeling, and need I felt, and have felt for a long time.  I feel like I live in such chaos most of the time, and I almost crave a feeling of peace.  I'm not at all sure how I'll get to that feeling--I do think it will have to be a work of God...which is kind of the point.

So, are you game??  Check out the website, select a word, and post it here so we can follow and encourage each other!!!

I wish for each of us a happy, healthy, blessed, peaceful new year!!!!

Memorable Monday #2

I actually had a different quotation in mind for today, but when I saw this shared on a friend's Face Book status, I thought this would be a great choice.  As we approach the end of this year and prepare for the next, inevitably resolutions start to rear their ugly heads.  To be truthful, I don't think there's anything wrong with looking to the new year as a fresh start, a chance to do things differently. Believe me, my resolution list will be filled to the brim as usual!  I think this quotation is a good reminder to me, and hopefully to someone else out there, that our resolutions don't always have to be tangible.  We can put down emotional baggage as we head into the new year, and thus make a different kind of "fresh start."

Are you with me??


You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.


Johnny Cash

Deal Me In

Tonight I am sitting in the cafe area of our church, not awaiting my call to stage but instead serving as stage mom. My daughter is part of a dance team called the Shining Lights. They used to serve just as a ministry of our church but they have since branched out and are now part of a not-for-profit group. For the next two weeks they are dancing as part of a Christmas musical our church puts on, called Let it Be Christmas. Come check it out (www.communitychristian.org)!!

While I just love watching my little girl dance (she has a grace about her that can't be taught), it is so much harder to be a stage mom than to actually be on stage yourself! The role of Stage Mom is not one that comes naturally to me, so it takes a lot of thought and organization. If it helps my daughter to better be able to share her gifts, I will survive.

One of the keys to dance, as with music and so many other things, is that you can't do it half-way. You perform with not just your feet or your voice but with your heart and spirit, otherwise it's not as genuine, not as good of an experience for you or the audience. That's one of the things I love about watching my daughter dance--she's all in...and it is beautiful. I tear up every time, and I pray I continue to do so forever.

I used to be very good at putting myself all in, I think...and then life happened. Every setback or perceived failure made me less and less willing to put myself out there. It's too risky, I thought, too scary.

I came to this realization while playing Solitaire on my phone recently. The app I like to use allows you a certain number of cheats each game. You can choose to have the computer find the aces for you, move the cards over a space, shuffle the deck, or undo your last move. Much of the time, if I don't get the cards that I want, or I don't feel the game is going my way, I'll quit and start over, eve though I could have used the cheats and simply tried my hand. I don't take the time to try, to press on with the game and see where the deck falls.

And then, it hit me: If I don't have the patience to follow through and be all in with a computer version of Solitaire, how will I ever be able to be all in with real-life things, scary things with real consequences and outcomes??

Since then I've tried to complete more games of Solitaire than I quit, with the hope that it will translate to my bigger goals. I think it's already had some effect: it's helping me to get my fight back, to press on even when it's tough and I'm not comfortable. Currently I'm sick with bronchitis and laryngitis, which is tanking me on the exercise front. But I'm not giving up. I know that this too will pass, and I'll continue to move forward.

Not with perfection, but with persistence.

Memorable Mondays

I've been trying to come up with some ways for me to remember to get over here and post more often.  As a result of this, I've decided that on Mondays, I will post a quotation, passage, or something of the like that I think others would enjoy as much as I do.  Welcome to Memorable Mondays at The Wholeness Project!

I hope you enjoy these posts, and please feel free to pass them on to friends and family!  Email me some of your favorites and I may share them in a Memorable Monday post here.

Here's today's Memorable Monday passage, from the movie The Princess Diaries:


Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.  The brave may not live forever, but the cautious will not live at all.

The Fault is Mine...

A quick note to KB--thanks for your email.  I'm sorry I haven't responded...even though it's been forever since you sent it.  I appreciate it very much and I will write back.  Soon.

Not long ago I pulled out the movie You've Got Mail, with the dynamic duo of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.  I love that movie, for many reasons, and I've watched it more times than I would ever admit.  The title of the last post I wrote is a spoof on that movie, and very fittingly, today's post is a quotation from that film that has been stuck in my head these last few weeks.

The scene in which this line occurs is a little hard to explain--suffice it to say that Hanks has upset Ryan, which caused her to act out of character, and he is trying to relieve her of any blame and apologize for his actions.  One of the last things he says is "the fault is mine."

That line has weighed on me since then, and it's really got me thinking about my life and the struggles I feel like I'm facing.  I don't know that I've ever really admitted the role I play in many of these issues.  Oh sure, I'm good at looking outside myself, and I'm good at attempting to find a solution.  A friend of mine commented this week, after being in my house for a bit, about all the "attempts" I've made at things.  All are well-meant, and to an extent all of these attempts would probably bring some level of success to what I was doing...if I hadn't abandoned them prematurely to pursue something else that surely works better.

In all the searching for a better solution, I've gotten myself into a true place of confusion, of feeling lost and not sure where to look.  Yet there's still this part of me that's driving to find THE answer to my problems, the trick or tool or gimmick that will solve everything and steer me down the right path.

With all the finger pointing I do, I've not taken the time to point the thumb.  Sure, I've thrown the punching bag to beat myself up.  I've used glaring eyes to see that I'll never feel good enough.  I've looked out and about, instead of in...and up.

Pointing the thumb, I'm realizing, isn't about beating myself up or admonishing my obvious insecurities.  That is a separate issue that needs to be dealt with and thrown out.  Rather, pointing the thumb is admitting that I've set myself here, forgiving myself for whatever caused this to start in the past (when some of these things were necessary coping mechanisms), learning that I can change the course of my future, and setting a goal to move forward in a good direction. 

Now, that does not mean that I'm at fault for everything, either.  There were events going on in my life and caused a reaction, or a need to protect myself, and I acknowledge that.  Those events have shaped who I am today.  But to continue using coping mechanisms that are no longer needed is a bad choice, and that's on me.  It's like listening to the dial-up modems they had in You've Got Mail.  These old strategies of mine are outdated, and they will not help me to be what I'm meant to be in the future.

My small group leader said something that really stuck with me.  He said that people will reach a point where they hit bottom with something they are dealing with...but they get to choose their own bottom.  We can decide that this is as bad as we will let things get.  You mean, I have a choice?  I have the choice?  I can decide that this is where I will draw the line?

I can...because I play a part in the situation (the fault is mine), I get to say where the bottom stops.  And I choose to go up from there.

Because, the fault is mine. 

You've Got Fail

So far, in the very short life of my very short blog, I've written about a few of the key issues that I face on a daily basis.  I constantly deal with issues resulting from my perfectionism, my need for order and schedule, and my love-hate relationship with numbers.  Today's blog topic has been weighing on my mind for a while now, but I have not been able to make myself sit down and write about it.  Maybe waiting for the right words, maybe wanting to avoid the topic.

Today, I want to write about some events that took place in my life a few years back, events that have really left me stuck in many ways.  I'm now able to start looking at them a little differently, which I will explain as I go on.

My first job after college was as a music teacher in a public school.  I held this type of job for four years, at various age levels and locations.  When I decided during my fourth year that I needed to leave the profession, it was as I was approaching major burnout.  I could never give my students the love for music that I had--so many of them just did not care.  It made me cold...and I said that when that happened it was time to leave.  Through an amazing act of God, I was connected with a fine arts school that was run as a ministry of a church near me.  I fell in love with it, and started working there as a teacher the following year.  The longer I worked there, the more I loved it and the farther up in the ranks I moved.  I became the assistant director of the school, and I was so excited.  I loved what the school was about and what they did--I still do.

Then after a while, things began to change.  I faced a great deal of verbal attack from a co-worker who didn't think I was cut out for my job.  The autonomy I was told I would have vanished.  The ideas I had to change and improve the school were never allowed to come to fruition.  I was beside myself.  I still loved this place so much, yet I was left with almost daily panic attacks and a powerless feeling every time I went in.  I asked for help.  I explained that it was too much, that I spent all my time there (at a part-time job) and my family was struggling.  I shared my ideas for improvement to no avail.

And finally, begrudgingly, I made the very hardest decision I have ever made...I resigned.  I finished the school year, cleared out my desk, and headed for home.

I wish I could say I felt better afterwards....maybe I felt a little better.  But sadly, I don't think I'd ever felt like more of a failure in my life.  I still do some days, and it's been over a year since I left.  I felt like I let my teachers down, like I'd let a lot of people down.  I'd thought that some of the people around me believed in me...it ripped me apart to find out that some of them probably hadn't.  I'd had all these ideas, and I still believed in the mission so much, yet I didn't feel I could do anything else.  I broke down in my exit interview, because I hated leaving while feeling so...unfinished. 

I felt lost on a spiritual level as well.  I thought I'd heard God tell me that one day I'd even get to be in charge of the whole thing, that I could run it and do great things with it!  Had I heard wrong?  Was I not listening clearly??  Had I just strutted way out ahead of God, again?  The answer? Probably, at least in part.  I seem to be quite good at that.

This deep sense of failure has carried with me since then.  I think it's left me afraid to really step out and put myself and my abilities out there again.  The hurt, anger, sadness, and other emotions from this experience were so deep.  I really haven't wanted to get anywhere close to that again.  And so, even the things I know I can do are left in doubt: my singing, my teaching, my ability to run anything.

Sadly, the ministry folded at the end of this past school year.  As you can guess, that did NOT help my emotional standing at all!  I sank down deeper, wondering if I'd have made a difference if I had just stayed and kept working at it.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, I know that the answer to that last statement is no, nothing else I could have done would have changed it.  Some days, that answer's not enough for me.  I'm so sad to see something I loved so much, that I feel I gave everything I had to, just gone. 
Not too long ago, I was lifted a bit when I felt God present me with another angle to the situation.  Maybe, because God knew how much I loved this ministry, he removed me from the situation in the final year.  Maybe, he knew that actually seeing it go down, up close and personal, would have crushed me.  Maybe, He was protecting me from that really really deep hurt of being there at the end.

If that's the case...then I can be truly thankful.  If that's the case...then I can try to pull myself up out of this failure pit, dust myself off, and know that while I made mistakes, I did the best that I could with what I had.  If that's the case...then slowly, I can try to open myself up to what else may be down the road for me.  I have a feeling that there are some great things coming.  And I hope that when they arrive, I can step out from the shadow of failure and be truly ready to embrace them. 

I can learn.  I can say goodbye.  I can move on.  I can succeed.  I can...be thankful.

Little Miss Perfect

This post is going to be super short...on purpose.

My perfectionism has held me hostage from my blog this past month.  Believe me, I've had several good post ideas.  Several!!  And did I write about any of them?  Nope.  Because I was waiting for the perfect.

...time, day, wording.  Heck, maybe even the perfect lighting so I'd look super pretty while I poured out my ideas on my laptop! 

So, the sole purpose of this post is to remind me of a few key things...

There is no perfect....time, day, wording, lighting, PERSON.  The only perfect person was Jesus, and while we're supposed to try and be more like him, to try and be perfect is not realistic.

Remember the title of your blog, Jen.  This is about the journey to wholeness, not about writing as you wave down to everyone else if/when you ever get there.  It's about the good and the bad, the stops and the starts,and the fact that you're NOT alone.  In any of it.

Stop waiting for the perfect.  If you do, you'll miss everything else.

So to close, a question or two to ponder: How do I let go of the perfect, and instead pursue the "good enough," the "best effort" I can give??  How can I wrap my brain around that and make that okay???  How can I be at peace with the perfect?