Category: FemmeFuel by Sasha Katz

Part 2/Boundaries

On By sashakatzIn April 2012, FemmeFeatures by Sasha KatzLeave a comment

A wise woman knows that there is more than one way to trample her garden.  One of the more tempting ways to scorch garden flowers is to fill a need that is not yours to fill.  You can almost watch yourself prepare to flatten tall vines and blossoms.  You can almost see yourself begin to clip away at blooming buds.  In the names of grateful, accommodating, agreeable, encouraging and hospitable, you will do a lot for the “needy.”  You swing back your satchel of good things and get ready to deliver.  You are rearing to save . . . apart from the fact that the “needy” haven’t asked and your internal wisdom has already told you the timing is not right.

This is the sure way to give your garden a lawn job.  With your many gifts and talents, it is grueling to withhold passing on a treasure from your hard-earned collection.  You have weathered storms and gathered wisdom – – for the purpose of sharing and passing along.  It is challenging to hold back your arsenal of love from an opportunity even if it is not yours.  You can’t help to think that you can help.

A wise woman sees past her momentary need to give or help.  She gathers her sense of purpose and panoramic perspective.  She thinks back to the years she built her garden.  The pattern, sort and style of the rows and planters.  She sees the intersections of relationships and the timeliness of the happenings of her life.  The foundation of her garden and its gates center upon her very specific path and purpose.  Stepping off the already intricate, complex and full path to fill a need or gap that is not yours to fill is counterproductive.  The fact of the matter is that this is one sure way to trample your garden.

A wise woman knows the aftermath of a trampled garden.  She knows because she has been there at least a few times before.  Flatten some of your flowers while running off track.  Muddy up your shoes, trip and skin your elbow.  Show up late because it wasn’t your route.  Deliver the wrong flowers because they were supposed to be from someone else’s garden.  Awkward moment since the gift was meant to be delivered by someone else.  The bottom line is that you depleted your stock for a cause that was not yours and for a need that surely won’t be perfected by your gift.  Trampled garden, trampled cause.  This section of your garden is now a mess.  And now it’s clean up time.

A wise woman knows that she can help but waits for the opportune person, place and time.  Agreeable, encouraging and hospitable have remarkable worth when nurtured in a garden with a gate managed by a wise keeper.  It is challenging to hold back an arsenal of gifts.  It is challenging to desire to see someone blessed.  But she waits.  Her path and her purpose are tried and true.  She waits.  For her wisdom has grown her to be as set apart as her attractive garden.

Part 1: Boundaries

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFeatures by Sasha Katz, FemmeFuel by Sasha Katz, March 20121 Comment

A wise woman knows that beauty accumulates through loving and sharing in trusting relationships.  A wise woman adds to her beauty by giving many gifts to others.  Her giving is wise.  It is thoughtful.  It is blessing.  She knows that her gifts are not up for auction or for grabbing from all sides.  Her garden offers fruit and friendship with a sensible, compassionate heart.

This type of wisdom in giving was not gained without many casualties – – primarily through many deaths of herself.  If you ask her, she will tell you that her past is splattered with falls down stairs, wipe outs and thoughts of insane asylums.  She learned disappointment as she tumbled down stairs that she thought would lead to faithful fellowship.  As she lay flat faced on the hard floor, she learned that unbalanced relationships can wipe you out.  She genuinely thought she was going nuts when her gifts were received with scorn and rejection.

She has learned that not all giving makes you beautiful.  The truth is that you cannot be a wise giver if you haven’t had a few slaps in the face.  If fact, you are not a wise giver in your relationships unless you have had your world turned upside down.  Upside down is a hard series of lessons to learn.  But, a woman like you takes her life lessons in seriousness and in stride.

Upside down means that you cannot be grateful, accommodating, agreeable, encouraging and hospitable without also setting in place wise boundaries around your garden.  If you have a well-kept, sturdy fence in your yard, you see the value of your labor.  You know what it takes to develop roots that take hold far below the soil.  You know that your garden’s rest under the stars prepares it for the rising sun at dawn.  You know that, if not for food and water, the blazing sun would harm your garden’s fruit and flowers.  You know that, without careful planning for the seasons, your garden may not produce fruit at the right time.  You know the value on your labor.

A wise woman knows when to open the gate of her garden’s fence.  She is thoughtful and mindful of the needs around her.  She is thoughtful and mindful of the hearts set before her.  She sees her brothers and sisters coming from a mile away.  And, she knows well her collection of treasures from the fruits of her garden.  She picks just the right fruit to give at just the right time.  This is true giving.  This is beautiful.

Part 3: Confidence that Gives

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFeatures by Sasha Katz, Love3 Comments

By AbbyA

You have been through a lot.  So much you can hardly recall.  You have experienced many revisions of yourself.  As the revisions color over top of one another, you have become quite beautiful.  In the making of woman, you have become gifted and full of treasure.  You are her now.  

You have walked to where you are supposed to be.  Many good miles in your shoes.  Paths, trails and routes under your belt, and in these shoes.  But your feet don’t hurt.  You are pleasantly quenched and the light unto your path warms and directs you as you walk.  The magic of your condition and of this course is that you seem both to attract and seek out souls to cross paths with.  Beauty doesn’t walk alone and treasures are worthless unless shared.

You are her now.  You hold treasures in your trinkets that are hidden in your colorful character.  You have gifts tucked away in the layers of the fabric of your life.  You see into the lives of the souls put before you.  You pass messages of encouragement and share bits of your journey in the right proportion.  You breathe life into what otherwise may have been dead.  The depth of your exchange resonates deep and wide.  For the good of others.

You could have chosen to keep your beauty to yourself or close the box that holds your remarkable worth.  You could have.  But then you would cease to be her.  You would slowly lose your luster.  Your layers would become limp, faded and unattractive.  You would find yourself selectively remembering the should haves, was nots and wishes for different.  Sadly, you may even find yourself alone on an island.  Loneliness lends itself to thirst and exhaustion, and depression.  This is no place for a woman of your quality.  No place for a woman who has walked good miles in her shoes.  No place for her. 

You are made of long lasting fabric.  The kind that holds up over space and time.  The kind that warms souls and quenches thirsty hearts.  The kind that transforms itself by loving, giving and growing.  She has so much to offer.  Explode into her.  She has become you.

Part 2: Walking Good Miles in Your Shoes

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFeatures by Sasha Katz, Love1 Comment

You have been through a lot.  So much that you can hardly recall.  Much is stored up in memory boxes of the heart.  You have childhood memories.  Holding your dad’s hand as you walk across the street.  Toy boxes.  Your little brother’s squishy hands and toes.  Your mom’s annual April Fool’s jokes.  Being queen for a day at grandmas.  You might remember road trips, camping trips or trips to time out.  For the most part, this memory box feels like warm sun on your face; it feels like licking an ice cream cone or sucking on a lollipop.  Whether sweet fantasy or true bliss, the good stuff drips down your chin, and since this is your childhood, you don’t mind at all.

The happenings of childhood are marked by innocence, naivety and blind love.  Children don’t pick birth places, living spaces or whether they get a silver spoon.  Children arrive into the environment prepared for them by imperfect human beings.  Your birthday suit probably did not include a tag stamped with equality, justice or life without bumps.  You got a partial clean slate, promises for good and a large serving of hope for who you just might be.

As time ticks forward, childhood innocence, naivety and blind love metamorphose.   As time ticks forward, who you are fills the space between your growing bones.  Independence and personal choice roll in.  As you discover the facts of your life, you can choose what may have been or you can choose to be who you were made to be.  In other words, you can choose to bloom or stay a sprout.

As you realize personal choice, you both stumble and discover over time spent becoming who you are.  If you check your memory boxes, there are whole periods of your life marked by an initial decision.   Whole periods of your life marked by an initial decision.  It is hard to imagine that there was an initial decision that defined a period of your life.  But that is how it happens.

Even if in the most subtle way, decisions are hued in darkness or light.  If you couldn’t see it then, you can see it now.  Looking behind you.  You may have thought there was one door of choice, but there was not.  There were at least two.  Perhaps the door you opened looked like the only one.  Perhaps that door was not wholly inviting, but it did appear to be the sole knob.  Looking back with later-found wisdom and clarity, you now see that it was not.

We all have our was nots.  Sometimes personal choice causes you horrible pain in remembrance.  Sometimes was nots make you feel quite stupid.  Sometimes it is unintentional mistakes that stab us in the chest for years to come.  Sometimes, should have, was not and wish for different compete to define whole periods of your life.  But no, that is not who you are.

You can walk good miles in shoes worn down by a few was nots.  In fact, you have walked many good miles in your shoes.  Perhaps some miles were not initially tagged as good, but eventually . . . your discoveries along life’s time line have healed you.  The memory box that used to haunt you is now covered by wisdom and truth.  It may be that it takes some time to get to these memory boxes; they are farther down your life’s time line.  But these boxes better represent the substance of you.  You chose to be who you are and the beauty of the box is remarkable.

Part 1: Colorful Confindence

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFeatures by Sasha Katz, January 2012Leave a comment

By AbbyA

You have been through a lot.  So much that you can hardly recall.  Your physical body is like a map or legend for a map.  You have been both walking and leading the way.  Your journey is embedded in the tiny lines that form around your well-worn smile.  It is the kind of smile that draws sweetness from the inside and makes sturdy promises in soft curves to the onlooker.

The depth of your life is stored in the reflection radiating out of your eyes.  You have the kind of deep eyes that the onlooker can see through.  Into knowledge resulting from well weathered storms.  Into an abiding pure white that comes from poured out trust over bumpy travels.  Into fertile ground where both new seeds grow and taller trees reach for the heavens.

Your life is volumes.  The chapters flow down in layered ruffles.  Starting at your neck line.  Moving down around your shoulders, to your waist line, to the floor.  Dancing around in layers where the color comes from the tint of your journey.  Some layers are dyed in pink.  This tells of crowns and dreams of crowns like marriage and motherhood.  Like beaded necklaces put together by little children and then put on.  These are childhood dreams that you believed would one day be your milestones.

Some of your ruffles are stained in red or magenta.  This tells of your passions.  The culmination of your time spent pursuing.  Hunting down the substance of your life.  This is your blood and your sweat.  You will produce many colors, but the dye of your passionate efforts become you.

Some of your layers are patterned.  You don’t make patterns alone.  You labored with someone.  You set out with someone.  You made something together.  This part of you is speaking joy.  A configuration on your body that you can’t repeat or make by yourself.  Speaking joy.

Some white and pressed.  White and pressed never start that way.  These are your muddled messes that turned out brighter and better than you could have ever imagined.  This is the kind of white and pressed that doesn’t become wrinkled or stained.  You bled through red and magenta to get white.  Bright white remains.

Some layers are worn out because it was your favorite.  These few are faded, but it’s not out of lack of love.  It is out of so much love that it becomes worn.  It somehow becomes the color of you.  It is neither what it was before nor fully what you were then.  It has faded into now.

There are a few ruffles that you have cut off because they no longer wear well with the hue of your skin.  These are crossroads.  Old Ambitions.  Wrong paths. You moved on, cut off, set apart.  You walked on.  You have some apparent clippings on your form, but it has added to you the sense that you know when your colors don’t become you.

These are your volumes, your chapters, your pages.  Layers flowing down and around made of who you are and where you have walked.  Your physical body, your eyes, your smile.  Your flowing colors.  Your external body represents your internal beauty.  Your beauty is the culmination of your journey as of yet.

You have passed through so much that it is hard to recall.  Sometimes it may feel like a whirlwind.  Sometimes it is hard to recall that you that have made it here.  But you have.  You have weathered storms.  You have invited abiding pure white.  What once was untamed, bare land is now your fertile ground.  Crafted from passions and patterns.  Pruning and clippings.  This type of beauty does not come easy.  Now that she is here.  Explode into her.  She has become you.

Welcoming Real

On By sashakatzIn December 2011 (Unplugged), FemmeBytes by Sasha KatzLeave a comment

By AbbyA

There are stories both told and untold.  They are in the hearts of all of us.  We often hide them deep; sometimes we wear them on our sleeve; but we rarely reveal them.

There is a reason for Femmefuel.  Much of our purpose is a story both told and untold.  Like yours.  We fuel, we write, because of the stories in our collective hearts.  We write because the story is better told through the eyes of Christ.  We write because sometimes it is too hard to speak what the inner soul is saying.  We write because we yearn for you to be known.  With the yearning that real words will ignite freedom in you to go deeper in your relationship with Christ.

Spooled up in this ball of yarn is Femmefuel’s greatest hope.  That you would be bold enough to be real.  That you would be bold enough to show yourself to your brothers and sisters.  That you would step out on the trapeze line of real.  To live your real story.  Both told and untold.

Our hope for real is knitted up in one core belief.  That your willingness to be real will rock and change your world.  That you would shine bright warming and lighting the hearts of your brothers and sisters.  Solely for the glory of the true and living God.  Fuel with us; it is never a good idea to go at real alone.

 

Consider Your Destiny

On By sashakatzIn FemmeBytes by Sasha Katz, November 2011 (Thankfulness)1 Comment

By AbbyA

She did not consider her destiny; Therefore, her collapse was awesome. Lamentations 1:9. Jeremiah is speaking of Israel. But the form of his words causes me to think of the feminine, of woman, of me. She did not consider her destiny; Therefore, her collapse was awesome. It doesn’t even sound like it would apply to a man. Of course it could, but it makes sense in a feminine context to me.

I am thinking of the impulses that cover a woman’s time line. Temptations to choose a career direction without fully consulting God’s plan for your life. The same applies to friendships and boyfriends. There is temptation to miss the relationships that God has handpicked for you in exchange for the convenient relationships that miss God’s mark for your life. There are temptations to become tired or lazy in the pursuit of Godliness as a mother. Temptations to avoid depth in order not to hurt. To cast blame rather than to grow. To be deceived rather to stand for who you are. This is the tendency of the natural woman and her collapse is great.

Jeremiah, I am starting to understand your pain. You have gathered up the desolation of your land and your people as suffering in your heart. You experience the consequences of the adultery of the natural woman as your own. You grieve and weep for the destruction she called upon herself. But your spiritual self recalls that you have hope. You write that Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22.

We all have been both the spiritual and natural woman.  We have succeeded and failed.  But the spiritual woman is not without Comfort when she falls.  Lamentations 1:9.  Before all that you do, consider your destiny.  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him.  Lamentations 3:25