Tag: friendship

Let Your Faith Take a Turn

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The neat thing about faith is that it is always taking turns.  If you ever feel it stop moving, it is time to stop and let it move.  I’m in a moving season.  My faith has started to take a turn.  It’s like standing in front of an IMax screen and getting ready to step inside.

Part of what leads me to move has to do with friendships, the words I read, quiet moments.  Funny enough, exhaustion that brings me to spend most of day laying on the couch also brings my faith to move.

I’ve been writing a book about time.  As I have been wrapped up in my thoughts about time and eternity, I am being moved by what time really means and how that meaning ought to drive how we live life.

Emily P. Freeman shared an article by Ed Cyzewski about the contrast between a salvation moment and a life long conversation with God.  We are converted throughout our lives as we learn what it is to abide and to receive the life and transformation that God slowly brings. It’s not that we have a ticket that we can either protect or lose. It’s that God’s passionate love is pursuing each of us right now, and we can choose to either abide in it or go about our own business. 

We can abide in Him or we can go about our own business.  It may feel like an easy answer to choose to abide in Him.  It’s an easy Yes.  But in the hundreds of little choices you will make today, will you choose to abide in Him?  The decision is easy, the action point is harder.

I’m reading a book called Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin.  She tucks in a few lines that speak to my thoughts on time and how it plays into our long term life.  What if the [bible] passage you are fighting to understand today suddenly makes sense to you when you most need it, ten years from now?  It has been said that we overestimate what we can accomplish in one year and underestimate what we can accomplish in ten.  Are you willing to invest ten years in waiting for understanding?

I think we are meant to live like there is no time.  We are meant to live and move and breathe in a place and a space of depth.  Where we are not lassoed in by time constraints, judgmental time lines or frozen by time.  I think we were meant to live in the light of eternity.  Where there is no time.

 

Walking & Talking on Mountains

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFuel by Sasha Katz2 Comments

I was walking in the sun with my daughter training for our summer mountain climb.  We were with about ten other women on what we affectionately call Trash Mountain.  In Florida, we have flat and, when we want an incline, we go to the local trash mountain.

There we were, sweating bullets in groups of two and threes, hiking up and down the sides of the man-made hill.  As I held my daughter’s hand and walked, I listened to the conversation ahead and behind me.  I leaned into my own conversation with my daughter and thought about the magic taking place.

There is something profound that happens when like-minded women gather together for a purpose.  Without any agenda, the conversations run deep on Trash Mountain.  The words shared mirror the seasons of parenting and speak of children still small and others taller than their mamas.  The conversations speak of concerns only women know.  The conversations dig up past experience and contemplate the future.  The conversations echo and resonate among the group of hiking ladies. I walk with my daughter and ponder the beauty and depth taking place.

Women have an uncanny knack for seeing more than meets the eye.  I see this gift at work as women on this mountain walk and talk.  As I hike with my daughter, I want her to be invited into the depth.  I want her to hear the thoughts of women as they talk through motherhood, education, the beginnings and ends of things.  Of times past and times to come.  I am proud of her when she enters into the conversation in her ten year old way.

This is the beginning of her introduction to womanhood, to motherhood and to friendship.  In this community, she will find in herself the knack to sense the needs of others.  She will become attuned to how needs can be met through walking and talking along side another woman.  She will understand why women gather for a purpose.

She will understand that, while she is young, she has a lot to learn from the mamas around her.  She will know unity and community well enough to enter in even as a girl.  Over many walks and talks, she will understand that she has both much to learn and much to give.  She will take in the value of becoming wise and in giving freely.  And, someday, when her path has stretched over many years, she will continue the walk and the talk of mamas.  She will continue to share and love and embrace the magic of hiking with like-minded women on mountains.

If you like the idea of hiking on mountains for a purpose, check out thefreedomchallenge.com.  You may find yourself in Machu Picchu in the the Fall of 2017. 

Dear Nathalie, You Inspire Me

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I have a bright, determined best friend named Nathalie. I have known her since we were 1Ls in law school. We both signed up to be on University of Miami’s roommate list. As fate would have it, we found each other.  Loyalty runs through her blood, so we have been best friends ever since.  It’s been a lifelong friendship of good and bad, up and down; all erupting with hilarious laughter; because after all, life really is that funny.

I mentioned that she’s bright, and also witty.  I mean that.  No matter what the table conversation begins or ends with, she lays down questions about world politics, sex and marriage, life’s hits and misses.  In the midst of conversation, she reminds her closest friends how good it is to have each other, after all this time.

When you have been friends this long, you can blame each other for stuff from time to time.  Nathalie still blames me for her divorce. She says that, since I didn’t show up to her wedding, I cursed the whole thing.  Lucky for both of us, she has two beautiful children that proves her marriage was necessary. How could we live without her sweet babies C and R?

Using one of her phrases, all this to say, she has an awesome annual reading habit.  For as long as I’ve known her, she reads 12 darn books per year. She picks them out and gets them read, one per month.  That would explain her ability to lead interesting conversation anywhere with anyone. Something I will strive for, probably, for the rest of my life.

In honor of her, and because of my admiration for her, I am inching towards 12 books per year.  In 2015, I covered approximately 9 books.  I didn’t finish two and I can’t count bible study guides.  I revisted some of the books I read and chose a quote to share with you.  Whether you are well read or not, or even whether you aspire to be, enjoy these literary patches that made up my reading quilt for 2015.

That’s how we get to know each other – we tell each other our struggles and victories. We talk about our past and how those pasts have shaped us and changed us into who we are today. We talk about the experiences in our lives that affect us, and we talk about the ways other people throughout our lives have changed as too. We speak.  Speak, by Nish Weiseth

If you are worried that your art is a waste of time, perhaps you need to redefine success in art. Are you becoming more fully yourself? Is there someone else who believes in you or has been inspired because you were living life more fully alive? Are you learning what it means to depend on God in ways you’ve never had to depend on him before?  A Million Little Ways, by Emily P. Freeman

Could it be possible we have it wrong? Maybe success isn’t in believing I can do anything but in knowing I can do nothing. My limits – those things I wish were different about myself – are perhaps not holding me back but are pointing me forward to pay attention to my small, eight-foot assignment.  Simply Tuesday, by Emily P. Freeman

I am of the opinion that the thoughtful arrangement of your daily and weekly calendars is one of the holiest endeavors you can undertake. Drafting a new, proactive, holistic schedule is tantamount to writing a whole new script for the next season of your life. Your calendar plays a critical role in determining who you will become as a person, as a Christ follower, as a family member, and as a friend.  Simplify, by Bill Hybels

I once heard somebody say that God had closed the door on an opportunity he’d hoped for. But I’ve always wondered if when we want to do something that we know is right and good, God places that desire deep in our hearts because He wants it for us and it honors Him.  Maybe there are times when we think a door has been closed and, instead of misinterpreting the circumstances, God wants us to kick it down. Or perhaps just sit outside of it long enough until somebody tells us we can come in.  Love Does, by Bob Goff

Listen to what God keeps bringing to your attention, what he interrupts your thoughts and your days with. In those things you will recognize his leading.  Undaunted, by Christine Caine

Realizing our inability to earn righteousness isn’t meant to be a rat wheel to run on. The depravity of man is only the realization of the hollow, the need. Depravity should only imply that we can be filled with God. I wish I had known.  Wild in the Hollow, by Amber C Haines

You gotta cue the eagle. I discovered that, in moments when I was stumbling, if I called on the Lord and strengthened myself in the name that’s above every name – the name of Jesus- I could arise from a heap on the floor with renewed power. The Holy Spirit would energize me and give me what it took to keep peddling through the pain.  Through the Eyes of Lion, by Levi Lusko

By Sasha Katz

 

 

Thinking Through January – Defining Yourself

On By sashakatzIn FemmeFuel by Sasha Katz1 Comment

By Sasha Katz

Defining yourself is complicated. Drafting a few sentence bio is torture to me. I know exactly who I am, but it is near impossible for me to get it down in a handful of words. I look at other bios. I see things like mother to 4, wife to a hottie, truth seeker, Jesus follower. Some use quotes, some create mantras, some ask you to buy their books, all in a line or two. Frankly, I don’t know what makes sense.

The idea of you coming across me somewhere on the web or social media sounds like an opportunity for community. The idea of us knowing one another through words and similar cares and concerns is a good thing. I like transparency, friendship and being spoken into – – as much as I like to share what God has tucked into my heart and soul.

But then I think, what do you really want to know about me? I think about my hats, my identities. Do I name them for you to describe me? Mom, wife, writer, lawyer, friend, daughter, sister. I suppose that is literally how I could define me. But, I am finding, as I get grown up, that the hats don’t do much except define. I am way beyond the hats and I am tired of square boxes. Scratch the mom, lawyer, writer, friend chant.

I’m scratching writer because I mostly find pleasure in sharing my thoughts in a way that keeps my insides feeling free. I’m not publishing books or looking for editors. Writer doesn’t seem to fit. I don’t think I can stick with wife either. The term leaves out the whole experience of being a wife. Those four words are just so limited and leave far too many questions in the margins. What kind of wife am I? What kind of marriage do I have? What exactly do I want you to know when I say wife? Other than I am not single? Scratch it.

In as much as I am a lawyer, my crazy days are mainly due to the fact that I am a business owner and mother at the same time. Lawyer sometimes actually feels irrelevant as I navigate these two repelling magnets. On top of that, I’m not the average mold lawyer. I hate disputes (unless there is real injustice involved). I sweat through the battles I fight for my clients. And, while I really do love a lot of the lawyer work I do, I will be forever questioning the time I lose with my children every day. Lawyer is off my list.

Rather than list the things that define me, I think I am or hope to be the following: I like listening, looking into the eyes of a soul, seeing what is on the inside. Offering what I can. Helping the water wash over, leading to pure, peaceful places. The place where there is the serenity of winter, but the atmosphere makes you warm. Like the covering of a soft down comforter. Like a rest that lasts a thousand years. And, when you start to move again, the warmth and the peace and the serenity move with you.

That is no bio. But I leave it with you anyway. I pray that you travel sweet today. That the wind moves with you and that you are warm on the inside.

The Yellow Brick Road

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Sometimes things can look very nice on the outside, but they are, in fact, a mess on the inside.  Sometimes, we are making progress on the inside, but you really can’t tell on the outside quite yet.  Still looking rather messy.  And, sometimes you are a hot mess both on the inside and the outside.  It just depends.

The last few weeks, I’ve been working very hard to cover many bases, at work and at home.  In the midst of working hard, I am battling some anxiety.  Just when I level the anxiety, I realize that I am experiencing super high energy, which I assume is adrenaline.  I am basically going from high anxiety to high energy.  I really don’t know what that looks like on the outside.  Mainly because I am preoccupied with tending to the inside (and the circumstances).  But truly, I had the sense that I still looked pretty good on the outside.

It was either the fact that I forgot my make-up bag under my desk at work or I truly looked weathered, but three friends who would know the difference reached out to me with the same message.  You are not yourself.  You’re troubled or preoccupied with something.  I can hear it in your voice.  Yes, yes, yes, this I know.  But I didn’t think anyone else did.

Like you, I don’t have a lot of answers.  I have guts when I need to.  I cry when the Spirit touches me.  I try to have a heart after God’s own heart all of the time.  I dig my feet in the firm hold of faith when the horizon is looking bleak.  I ask for help.  I let go of having all of the answers.  I just do the stuff I know He calls me to in the best way I can.

My faith tells me that if I both hold tight and take action when He calls me to, the ending will be the result He had in mind.  We can’t argue with the result He had in mind.  Because it is always good.  Not often easy or what we had in mind. But always good and usually better than what you and I could have come up with on our own.

Like you, I don’t have a lot of answers.  But I had a moment of clarity this weekend.  My horizon is looking bleak lately.  I figured that if God painted a picture of my circumstances, and if I’m honest, maybe even me, it would look like the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma.  My version of what a war torn community looks like.  Trees down, grey coloring.  Silence all around you.

In my moment of clarity, God showed me the Emerald City and the Yellow Brick Road and the pack of friends walking and singing along the way to their Beautiful Destination.  He let me know that He sees the flower patches along my road.  He sees the friendships being made along the path.  He sees that, in community, I’m moving along the path to the Emerald City.  He sees what, right now, I cannot see.

And, now, thankfully, I can see what He sees.  He sees what my world is looking like on the outside, but in His wisdom, has shown me what He sees on the inside.  In our human ways, we can’t always judge what the inside or the outside really looks like.  Some days, the inside and outside don’t match, sometimes they do and sometimes they shouldn’t.  I’m just glad that we serve a God that always sees, always believes in us and always shows us the way down His Yellow Brick Road.

JOURNEY THROUGH OCTOBER: CONQUERING FEAR – Giving up Friday

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~week four~

In the summer of 2014, God made a request to me.  He put it on my heart to spend every Friday with Him in the summer months.  This meant putting aside other things, taking off work and being faithful for a season.

For those of you who know this story of my life, you know that I didn’t take off one single Friday that summer.  After confessing what I missed, I haven’t thought a lot about June, July and August of 2014.  I did take off this past Friday though.  A friend of mine traveled very far to spend a week with me.  As a result, my thoughts of the summer past came back to me.

Over that week with my friend, there were many days that I did things I normally do not do.  We sat at the beach and talked about the details of our lives that get missed when there is distance between two friends.  We smiled about age that continues to creep up on us.  We talked about the complications of love and relationships.  We ate out and shopped some.  We shared dreams, aspirations and hurdles.  We walked arm in arm in the warm sun and finally said our goodbyes for another six or more months.

As I headed back to normal life.  Having missed a few mornings and nights with my kids and husband.  Having missed some time at work.  After getting one good night of sleep back in my bed, I reflected on time spent with her.  I saw a few things differently.  It’s good to see beyond your own views.  I had some renewed enthusiasm for my daily grind.  Being away makes home better.  I said goodbye looking forward to next time.  Time spent with a good friend is good for the soul.

I see very clearly now what God was saying to me that summer.  He wanted to speak into my life so I could see a few things differently.  He wanted to renew me so that I could be a better woman.  He wanted to spend time with me because that is what friends do.  It would have been good for my soul.

I’m going to leave you with a call to action as I wrote it in the fall of 2014.  I am not sure that I could have meant it more than when I wrote it one year ago.  What is different now?  The call to action is lathered in love, quality time and friendship even more so now than then.

So, all of this about me, to say to you, that I am sure that there is something you are holding on to.  I am sure of that because we are not in heaven.  You have a lot of excuses like I do. Some come across as very justified, but they are not.  I know for a fact that you are braver than me and can let go of the thing, go do the thing, step out into the thing . . . before the thing expires.  You don’t need to wait anymore to do the thing you are supposed to do.  Please do it.  And, after you do, tell me all about it.  I’ll be encouraged to the thing He calls me to do.  At the very next redemptive opportunity. 

My Friend Matthew

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Matthew is a friend that pulls me close.  He helps me see the grand imperfection in God’s beloved followers throughout time.  Matthew pulls me into the deep irony and connection taking place between unlikely pairs impacting the course of history.  Judah and Tamar.  Salmon and Rahab.  Ruth and Boaz.  Bathsheba and Uriah, and then David.  Joseph and Mary.  All of this intended imperfection points us to our perfect Savior Jesus.

What I am learning as a person:  I am learning that God uses our humanness to work out His godliness.    As we see the time and care He has taken to call us and know us, we fall deeper in love with Him.  His friendship brings out the miracles in us.

Verse:  Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit.  Psalm 32:1-2.

Deep Thought: Think about the reason we know that a man or woman can be after God’s own heart.  There once was a woman named Ruth who had an idea to travel to an unknown land.  She had the thought to cling to a God who she understood to be connected to a people and a place.  In this new place, she found herself in need of a way to make ends meet, so she started working.  While she was faithfully working, she didn’t expect to cross paths with Boaz.  After some time and a chance to fall in love, she had the idea to propose to him in the darkness of early morning light.  And, as the story is often told, she eventually becomes the great, great grandmother of King David, a man after God’s own heart.  Every single day, God gives us thoughts and ideas.  Every single day, we have the chance to intentionally move with Him, cling to Him, exercise faithfulness, fall in love and become a man or woman after God’s own heart.    

Quote: Embrace the mysterious, invisible work of Christ even when it seems like nothing is happening.  You are an image bearer and you have a job to do –  whether you see the results or whether you don’t.  A Million Little Ways By Emily P. Freeman

Book(s)/Blog(s)/People that Shape Me: The Book of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament, is shaping me again, after many years.  It is the truth told after 400 years of biblical silence.  Most likely by Matthew, a disciple of Jesus.  He wrote to the Jewish people with the intention for them to catch that Jesus was in fact Messiah.  He writes to me refreshing my belief in healing. Matthew reminds me that my life can be marked by His ability to do miracles in and around me.  And, he softens my soul as I remember how very imperfect I will need to be for Him to shine brightly in my life.

My Prayer to You: My prayers to you and for you are unending.  I ache for us to have more of Him.  I desire nothing more than for us to be used in our imperfection to bless others and to glorify Him.  He does not fight nor shout; He does not raise His voice. He does not crush the weak, or quench the smallest hope. But His name is the hope of all the world.