I’m not quite sure what to make of all this.
All this marketing. Trying to figure out who to ask, where to go, and how to do it.
Yes. As you know, the manuscript for my new book is finished. The final design pages are being put together and the words are being prepped to be inked on printed pages.
It’s now time. To work on plans to get the word out.
Talk about experiencing anxiety asking real in-life friends to join me to celebrate my birthday with me (for a hike and a bite of crepes for brunch).
Friends, can you imagine me now? Collecting my heart to invite people across the blogosphere (whom I’ve never met) to come alongside me to celebrate and launch a book?
And not only that — to ask them to ask their friends to join in and help spread the word?
Gulp.
Double gulp.
{heart thumping}
{head dizzy}
Open a Space
God, I don’t know how to do this.
Who am I to dare and attempt such things?
I don’t know how this world of trauma, faith, and story — integrates — with the world of books, publishing, and promotion.
For nearly two years, my world had gotten very small. When where I chose to go, who I chose to see were wrestled over until they spiraled into anxiety storms of self-doubt and fear. There were times I could even hardly step out of my house, touch the keyboard or even put words to all the tears that have been flowing.
I peek out, from the deep, safe places of my soul where I’ve journey with Jesus — and with you here on the blog — and I look out at the big, wide world.
And I can’t help but feel small. Inadequate.
What could I possibly say to compel someone to spend the time together — to open up a space in her heart through the printed page?
So we can go on on a journey together.
Into their stories. My stories.
So we can both find a comfort, an encouragement on this journey called faith together?
A Seed
A Faith Jam blogger in our community Lisa of Lisa Notes shared a comment on last week’s The {Beloved} Begins post.
Lisa confided in return —
“I feel it’d be rude for me to ask for someone’s time–who has extra? But you’re right that we need to move past that.
It’s a gift we’re offering to be in someone else’s presence for the sake of Love. Beloved = be loved.”
Time. Isn’t that what we’re all really asking for whenever we step out to create?
Aren’t we really trying to say to the other person —
Do you see me?
Will you spend time with me?
Lisa didn’t know it, but her words landed right in my struggle to become {the Beloved}.
But even in the small, there remains a seed.
Of desire.
One God planted in me.
That cannot be destroyed.
That cannot be stolen.
Or crushed.
Even if it’s been buried.
It’s still there.
In you. And in me.
We want to make beautiful things.
We want to be {the Beloved}.
The Desire
Yes. God is showing me there is a world that’s deeper — and truer — than the outer world Jesus says we are to be “in” but not “of” it.
This world resides in you and me. Where we rest. And dream.
And He wants us to help each other.
To be who He placed in us to be.
God put this desire in us from the very beginning, before we even knew we had a name.
The desire to create.
Before we even understood what it meant to be loved, God placed a token of His everlasting love in us: His imprint.
You and I were made to reflect His image.
He traced His heart in us as He gently molded us.
And as He nestled us close to him, like a father would do as he holds his newborn, his lips whispered and breathed —
Your name.
Name What You See
And as the sun set and moon rose night after night — and the seasons passed — your Father has been waiting.
For the day. For the moment.
You would hear Him.
He’s been waiting to say to you what He said to Adam when he first woke up to a new world.
Name what you see.
He’s been waiting for the moment He can bring everything He made into your awareness.
Everything you see, touch, experience and hear.
He wants to hear your voice in return.
In the same way God brought the most beloved things He never, ever created before to Adam — just to see Adam’s response and hear him name them — God has brought a unique set of experiences into each of our lives —
— the stories you’re living now
— the questions and the struggles
— the dreams and the triumphs
— the children you want to connect with
— the friends you want to reach out to
— the art you long to create
— the song, dance or craft you want to express
Out of the ground
the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky,
and brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
and whatever the man called a living creature,
that was its name.”
~ Gen2:19
Whatever God’s brought into your life, He calls us to name them.
What do you see?
You and I have the power to make something beautiful.
Don’t worry what anybody else is naming.
Don’t evaluate whether what you have to say, do, make, or create is worthy.
The {Beloved} creates.
Do You Hear Him?
Name what you see.
Whisper it if that’s all you’re able to do.
Do you hear Him?
God is whispering.
{Beloved}
What do you see?
Name it all.
Your dreams. Even the broken pieces.
It’s all beautiful to me.
You are beautiful to me.
I want the world to see what you and I see.
I love you.
Fill The World
So, when you look at your children and you’re not sure what to say — name what you see. Parent from where God is leading you.
And when you feel it’s just too hard to do what you want to do — name what you see.
Find a way to do the work — even if you don’t know where it will lead or who will see it.
The {Beloved} creates.
And as you do, look beside you.
Just as God knew it wasn’t good for Adam to name things alone and brought him a helper, you are not alone either.
Our paths have crossed here. God has placed friends for us to discover in our everyday.
It’s time for you and me to fill the world with beautiful things.
Let’s name what we see. And see who we meet.
Let’s be the {Beloved}.
Let’s create.
~~~~~~
How can you bring beauty by naming things? By creating?
Pull up a chair.Create a little community now. Click to comment.
~~~~~~
A #BelovedChallenge: Photo Journal Your Heart
One way of naming things is by taking a picture. Photo Journal Your Heart.
How has God been touching your heart this month? Share what you see. Pick 5-10 photos and share a few comments each. Then, publish them in a blog post next Thursday 1/30 and link-up in the Faith Jam (you’ll see a link to submit the url of your blog post on Thursday’s post). There are no rules. Yours will be unique to you!
Your {One Word for 2014} can inspire you too. Click here to see one example of photo journaling.
For Inspiration
My friend Emily Freeman recently released a beautiful book — A Million Little Ways — to encourage the artist in you. If you’re looking for a book to inspire you on the journey to create, I know you’ll enjoy making room for her words to accompany you.
“I don’t believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.” ~ Emily Freeman
**NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN — LINK UP IN THE FAITH JAM **
HTML Code For Special January Faith Jam Faith Fresh Badge
Faith Barista Jam Thursdays
1) I serve up a writing prompt. Let the topic soak in your heart, then publish your post the following Thursday and link up to share it with us. If you don’t have a blog, just write directly in the comments.
TO LINK UP: Click the blue button below: “Add Your Link” and type in the *specific* URL to your blog post (not just the name of your blog). (Subscribers: click here to get there directly).
2) Place the Faith Jam Badge in your post. It’s a welcome sign for our community, inviting others. Grab the HTML Code above. Thank you.
3) Then, pull up a chair. Visit the post before yours and say hi with a comment. Make a faith friend.
*Today’s Thursday 1/23/14 Writing prompt:
Beauty
— Or —
Use our open writing prompt: {Soul Rest}
Just write about anything that touches your heart during your 1-1 time with God.*Next Thursday’s 1/30/14 Writing prompt :
Photo Journal Your Heart. How has God been touching your heart this month? Share what you see.
Pick 5-10 photos and share a few comments each. There are no rules. Yours will be unique to you! Your {One Word for 2014} can inspire you too.Click here to see one example of photo journaling.Approach it any way you feel inspired! Only required ingredient: keep it real. Click here to learn more.
** Don’t miss! ** If you are new to Faith Barista, I’d like welcome you here.Click to subscribe by email and get each post in this series served up hot and fresh directly in your mailbox.
Today’s post is part of Bonnie’s {Beloved} series, where becoming #thebeloved and #soulrest is the conversation. Click here for the entire {Beloved} series.
{Photo Credit: The_ZippyGirl via Photobucket}
33 Comments
Hi,
Thank you for your posts. They do resonate with me – I have been in a job loss situation for almost two years…it’s been trying. Life does not look the way I had hoped at this point and I’m almost afraid to wish again.
Aislin, this is very, very hard what you’re going through. The world is broken but I’m praying that God who understands this and cares deeply for you will give you comfort, so you can hope again enough to keep trying. One step at a time. God, please give my friend ideas on job search and pray you bring someone in her life to encourage her in the skin.
Bonnie I am so excited for you as this new chapter begins for you! Your words today really resonates with me. Name what you see. I love this! I agree, “it’s time for you and me to fill the world with beautiful things”. Let’s do this!!! 🙂
Krista, I just read your post… and if I was near you, I’d come and drop off a strawberry pastry and a hug for you. xoxo Thanks for sharing this tender moment with us in the faith jam. Beauty is not always an easy question to delve. It is deep, mysterious. And real.
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Thank you, Bonnie, for the inspiration to “name what we see,” to reflect the glory of His image, to let out the art He Himself has created in us.
I gladly have time for the beauty of your story and His story in you, Bonnie. I have been looking forward to reading your book! I wish you strength and courage to go through the publishing process.
Aw… thank you, Trudy! Thank you for sharing your heart in the faith jam today. Thankful to be part of your journey.
“God, I don’t know how to do this. Who am I to dare and attempt such things?”
Your words always find a home with me. Thank you for sharing that mine hit home with you last week. You know how to encourage us in so many ways.
I still don’t understand how this works, but I want to trust more and more in its truth:
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
I love the photo journal idea! Looking forward to seeing hearts again next week through everyone’s pictures.
Oh, I can’t wait!! It’s our first one together… 🙂 Yay! Lisa’s in!
Naming is creating? Or a proper response to creating? I don’t think I understand the connection you’re making.
But.
I do remember Madeline L’Engle’s book The Wind in the Door where she talks of naming: Meg has to name her principal (whom she doesn’t like) and there are three look-alikes and she gets confused until she remembers his act of kindness to her friend Calvin and realizes she can choose that act to name who he really is.
And C.S. Lewis in Weight of Glory names us all as creatures to be: either extraordinarily beautiful or terribly warped and how we are nudging each other toward one of those futures all the time.
Naming:
I am overweight and want to work on getting fit before April (when I get to go to Catalina Island for science camp with my daughter) and before May (when I get to go to England for study tour with husband and daughter).
I fear and my word for the year is grace, to hold onto God’s precious promises and look for his abundant grace to calm my fears. Naming promises and grace, yes.
Creating? Crocheting, driving people, cooking meals, meeting for coffee, school work squeezed in: this is my day today. It can be beautiful, be loved.
Thanks Bonnie!
Grace and peace to you.
oh, what a beautiful place your soul is… with the words of Madeline L’Engle and CS Lewis! Love your one word and how it’s prompting you to be #thebeloved, Beth!
Can’t wait for you book!! So excited. Also, I tried to send you an email but it said it didn’t work. Look forward to helping you get the word out.
Hi Tammy! Thanks for letting know. I’ll have to fix the contact form. 😉 I’ve taken it down for now. You can email me at faithbarista[at]gmail[dot]com.
Bonnie-
You are a voice in the wilderness, pointing to the way of abundant life, to the One who loves us. Every time I read your writings, I am pulled into the invisible reality that is greater than the visible one. I think we all love you because you make us believe we can live from the heart and speak to the world with honesty. You are living proof that it IS possible!! You are a friend in the wilderness Bonnie…thank you
Cheri
Cheri, you’ve got to write. You come alive in your words — and deliver real words straight into my heart. God’s brought you through so much — and the way you see things…. four words friend for you: name.what.you.see. (okay, add two more: be #beloved) xoxo
This was so beautiful, Bonnie! I love to read your words, always. I also recently read Emily Freeman’s book, A Million Little Ways, and it was such an encouragement to me. And your words are, as well, as we live out who we are created to be, made in His image. May God fill you with strength and courage, and a deep sense of His love for you, each step of the way as your book is released this year!
It’s amazing how we all hear the same echo of God’s invitation… and yet, so uniquely in our own world He’s placed us in… I need to come visit you over at your place, Cherry. I miss home that I feel whenever I’m there… you are #soulbeautiful.
Dear Bonnie, thank you for offering your presence and your love here. You bring beauty and stir creativity through every offering you bring. I’m glad you linked back to your post on Whitespace. I have somehow forgotten that I need to be out and experience this myself. The winter’s intense cold here on the east coast has somehow drawn me into myself and I must push out into grace to wake and create.
If you do go — and I am happy even hearing your soul stir to do so –and you feel prompted — write something and share with us. And link up on Thursday. I’m curious, Elaine, how it feels for you and what you see…. and hear…
Dear Bonnie,
As I seat here quietly wepting-your writing so touches me and your writing has given me a voice and given the words held within my heart. Thank you for your obedience to allow yourself to move within the fear, the struggles and self doubt. Every week as I read your blog it brings healing and freedom. And I sit here thinking I am not alone for the beloved is speaking words of encouragement thru this vessel. I am so grateful for women like you. For God so loved the world…..thru this Jesus thru his flesh and blood to give us new life. Thats these writings given new life. Blessings to you
You are not alone. Definitely. For sure. Although it may feel at times. Even deeply so. I hope you find pockets — moments — where you not only remember this,but you actually feel it. So grateful I can be one of those reminders for you. You are #thebeloved. This is deeply, deeply true.
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God creates beauty in and through things we could never imagine, dear Bonnie. Through our heartaches and our sorrows, through the hard places and the messy. He renews, transforms, and gives life. Your life is blossoming and bringing us images of His beauty through you. Thank you, Friend.
It’s time for you and me to fill the world with beautiful things….I love that Bonnie! This world…I’ve struggled to find beauty in the midst of hard, concrete, uncaring parts of life. But praise God that He gave me a voice, just a whisper after a crazy hard season. I feel it growing stronger each day, each moment. I call it victory…Jesus girls loving each other and becoming closer and stronger to our King. Thank you for providing a space to fill this world, this life that we do together with beautiful things!
Oh Bonnie how I have missed your words. How my heart is lifted to be part of this community again. I too am on a journey, staying temporary at this home until my new one is created.
Bonnie, I have prayed for you during this season of writing out your story and the PTSD and the anxiety…. During the same season, I watched my sister nearly stolen from depression and anxiety and another sister spiral due to repressed trauma and PTSD. What you have to share, as painful as it has been, can bring glimmers of hope to someone who desperately needs it. I know we want to walk away sometimes, burn-out is a real thing. But we persevere and tell our stories and learn as we tell them to give them away, to see their intrinsic value. And we hold others’ stories with tender awe, because we know the fires that purified them. God loves your heart, dear one.
Oh Bonnie, all that keeps standing out from this post is how I relate to you. I’m a social introvert. Thank goodness for coaching with Holley. I also get nervous asking friends to get together. We’ve known each other so long and they know deep things about me and accept me completely. Yet, I still get nervous. But, I love them so much.
My beauty I find through your words today is that they love me in spite of my condition or issues. They don’t mind even a little bit. They just love me. I love them too. And I love you for who you are in all you go through.
Hugs over the ocean my friend.
I love the quote you included from Lisa. And Bonnie, I know it is hard to ask for help. I tend to be afraid to ask and impose. However, I’m sure others would agree with me. We get to hear your heart as you write your words on this blog. You are such an encouragement to others and this gives us an opportunity to encourage you. I will be happy to help in any way I can to market your book.
Blessings and love,
Debbie
I attend several churches where communion is practiced weekly. We go to altar and kneel to receive. Lately, since my husband has been in a season of steady decline in his health and life has become so different and so restricted in some ways, each time I kneel at the altar tears arise. I have no “name” for why. No reason. No understanding. Today I was reading in Luke 24 where Jesus has returned and talked to them and they did not recognize Him until the moment he blessed and passed the bread to them. God showed me that it the same for me… the moment when my heart (which is holding so much fear and sorrow and trying to “be” strong in order to navigate this season of life)….opens to be touched by “knowing” Jesus and SEEING him afresh in that precious moment at communion. From there I went to write and these are the words he spoke to me but also for others.
eloved,
I know the need.
There is a need for heart connection.
A need for awareness of My love for you.
Come before me, as often as you are able.
Kneel (symbolically or literally) and lift up your hands,
As well as your eyes and simply receive.
My love is ready for you to receive.
You ARE My beloved.
My LOVE is the CONSTANT in turbulent times,
When nothing seems stable,
When the old ways no longer work,
When life is changing moment by moment.
And you recognize your inability to “be” in control
Instead, come to me and
Recognize your position of “being” Beloved.
The need to “be” will shift to simply BEING and knowing that,
YOU ARE LOVED.
You are loveable too.
Simply because you are My Beloved child.
Isn’t that so true? All we need is to “know” we are loved, beloved and He is WITH us, aware of us, loving us no matter how hard life is?
Bonnie,
As always your words are powerful, beautiful, and a foreshadowing of this amazingly fearless person you are day by day becoming…. I enjoy your words and how you share your life journey with such grace.
Excited to read your new book when it is released!
With Love in Christ,
Brandi
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The direction you took your own “beauty” prompt very much surprised me and hit a tender spot. Life has been very busy lately, and I’m more tired and moving more slowly as a result. Creating has given way to coping more often than not, although I have been more consistent in taking piano time, even if only for one hymn. Thank you for giving me more to think about on this topic. You are beautiful, inside and out!
I’m a little late in reading this post, but so very glad it was there in my inbox for me to still read. Naming what we see, wow! I read and re-read this and crying out “I don’t understand”. Who am I to create anything? Who am I to dare to dream? Then your words reach in and remind me I am Beloved. So in the quiet of this morning I am reminded that I create everyday;with the cakes and muffins I make to share with friends, in the walks I take or the moments I stop to just listen to another friend pour out their hearts. I have been struggling with what exactly is the dream I’ve lost because it was crushed or broken. So many thoughts cluttered my head and it was so hard grasping what God was trying to show me. Then in the quiet of this morning; I listen and I hear. In return…. I am naming what I see. Thank you so much for your posts. They always resonate within me and give me the words, so often, to what I am dealing with at the time.