Category Archives: Archives + Other

Lost & Found

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Sometimes you have to lose something to really understand just how valuable it is. It’s so easy to take things for granted, so easy to complain and grow dissatisfied with what we have. And then, when it’s taken away, we realize just how much we actually had to be thankful for.

Twice recently I’ve had something that was very important to me taken away. One of those things was later restored but not before I learned through heartache and tears to be thankful for what I had in the first place. The other thing has not been restored and I don’t know if it ever will be. What I do know is that losing these things taught me more than having them ever could.

Heartache is a terrible and brilliant teacher. I have learned much from the good things in my life, much more from the hard things. Perhaps it’s the desire to never go through such things again that moves us and makes us grow and change amid trouble.

In those moments when the things I loved and wanted were lost (and I’m not talking about material things, by the way) all I wanted was for life to go back to the way it was before that moment. I saw how good I had it, how much I had to be thankful for, and would have given anything to put it all back together as it was.

But even though I can’t change the way things are, I can learn and grow from the trouble—and really, it would be a waste not to.

This loss has humbled me; it has made me more thankful for what I had and what I still have. I hope these lessons stick. I hope I don’t have to learn the same hard lesson the same hard way.

I have much to be thankful for, a big beautiful life to live. God, help me never to forget.

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you
learn.” C.S. Lewis

I Fell Asleep Under the Stars

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We pack our things and run away to wide open spaces. We zip along from Massachusetts to Vermont. The people grow fewer and the trees multiply in number and variety and I always think it looks like God poured a packet of mixed seeds along the landscape and now trees and wild flowers pop up in colorful abundance.

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We set up camp and sleep outdoors and it feels good to be close to the earth.

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We sit under the trees and the sky and breathe in the outside air. The campfire smoke swirls around in our lungs and we are alive in this wild, outdoor space.

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We gather around campfires and relax in the warmth of the mesmerizing flames.

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We swim in the cold mountain water and tip toe along the river bed filling our pockets with river glass.

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We ride bikes and stretch our legs and souls—shaking off the dust of life lived away from the woods.

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I caught these sneaky little ninjas poking around my tent…

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…And I couldn’t seem to shake the little savages….but as it turns out—I really, really love them.

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God kissed the sky and it blushed pink at his touch.

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And the sun set on our outdoor adventure for one more year and we all fell asleep under the starlit sky that seemed poked through with the light from another world.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Thoreau, Walden Pond

Don’t Look Back

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Sometimes I look back at who I was a year ago or five years ago and I’m embarrassed by some of the things I said or did. The advent of social media doesn’t help either because now if my memory fails me, Facebook and even this blog will be here to remind me of my less than stellar self. Super.

Sometimes I want to gather up everyone who knew me before right now and apologize for all the stupid thing I ever said or did. I feel this urgency to explain to people that I’m different now, that I’m sorry and I’ve changed.

This is great except I’ll probably look back ten years from now at the person I am today and want to apologize all over again.

You see, if I’m moving in the right direction then hopefully I’m always growing and changing from who I am today into a more loving, mature person tomorrow. That’s a good thing. The bad thing is looking back and remembering who I was at a different place in the story. But what I’m trying to remember is this: There’s no need to be ashamed of who you were yesterday if you are becoming a better person today.

Yes, I’m sorry for some of the things I said or did in the past and I do hope people know that. But at the same time I’m glad to be aware of what I did wrong because hopefully that means I’ve learned and grown and am not still making the same mistakes today.

So don’t be ashamed of who you were; be proud of who you are becoming. If you can’t be proud of who you are becoming, then worry about that instead of the past.

“…But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

A Beautiful Mess

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I used to think everything in life had to be just so to be happy. But I’ve started to see just how jumbled up and messy life really is. Life is often both beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time. I would like life to be organized into tidy little boxes—the good stuff goes over here, the bad stuff stands alone over there. But that’s not how it usually works.

One night Darren and I were at the old house we’re remodeling. The sky was clear and the stars were sparkling over the fields without the obstruction of city lights to hide them. We pulled a piano bench out in the yard and sat there together under the stars dreaming and planning our life in this new place. We looked up at the sky and took in the stars that we so rarely get to see. While we sat there, chins up looking and dreaming, the most beautiful shooting star I have ever seen zipped by with a trail of flame behind it that you could actually see. I gasped out loud; I was so startled and delighted by it.

That moment with Darren on the piano bench under the stars was perfect. It’s a memory I’ll hold in my heart forever about a time when we were young and we were weaving our lives and dreams together.

But even as beautiful as that moment with Darren was, it’s a sad memory in my heart too. That same day my cousin’s little teenage daughter was killed in a car accident. On that same beautiful night under the stars, I remember pacing the driveway in the dark aching inside and praying for my cousin and my aunt and uncle. I couldn’t comprehend their pain and I couldn’t understand why so much hurt exists in the world.

That moment and that memory will always be bittersweet. It will always be one of my favorite memories with Darren and it will always remind me of my cousin and all she is going through; there is no way to separate the two.

That’s how life is—it’s beautiful and it’s heart breaking. What I’m starting to see is this: Life does not have to be perfectly happy or completely beautiful to be good. Life is a smattering of the good and the bad. It’s messy and complicated and beautiful all at the same time. And that’s okay.

Stuff I Know About Life

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When you’re a teenager, you know everything about life. Then you get a little older and start to think maybe you don’t know anything about life. Then you get a little older still and learn a few lessons the hard way and start to realize you do very much know a few things about life—not everything like when you were younger, but some things for certain.

Here’s what I know:

I know it takes a lot of time and work to build trust and just a moment to destroy it. Respect the position people give you in their heart and life and think before you do something stupid that could destroy everything you’ve built. It takes years to get to know someone and really learn how to love them. It takes seconds to throw everything away. Little things have the power to break down big things.

I know my perspective is not the only, nor necessarily, the right perspective.  The world is huge and diverse. People are influenced by vastly different lifestyles and circumstances. It’s not fair to believe my particular lifestyle or circumstances give me the knowledge and authority to assume I’m right about everything and everyone. Yes, I hold to my beliefs and live according to what I believe is right. But in that I try to remember that I’m still learning and growing and so is everyone else. Besides, if we were all the same, the world would be profoundly boring.

I know compromise is not a bad word. Compromise is simply a gracious way of getting what you want and helping others get what they want too. Demanding that everything be done your way every time doesn’t make you powerful or put you in control, it makes you a jerk who will soon be doing everything your way…alone. If you want to be in any kind of successful relationship (work, marriage, friendship, family) then you will have to learn to give some and take some. Sometimes it’s right to speak up and have things your way when it really matters; sometimes it’s best to shut up and get Chinese instead of Mexican for dinner because people matter more than your particular preferences.

I know loving someone fully and truly is worth the heartache and risk. You can’t get close to someone and put your heart on the line without the near certainty of getting hurt somewhere along the way. But being close to someone and building a trusting, loving relationship is worth the bumps and scrapes. People aren’t perfect; they will hurt you. But people are also exactly what life is about and they are worth loving with abandon.

I know I have to take risks to accomplish my dreams and goals. Life is a series of stepping-stones. Moving from the safe and familiar into the unknown and uncertain is scary. But you cannot move forward or accomplish your goals by standing still in the same safe place. Life requires risk and fear and the occasional failure; that is how we grow. I have learned more from the stuff I screwed up than from anything I did right. So embrace the possibility of messing up and use your mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow. Push through the fear and do it scared.

I know life does not come to those who wait, it belongs to those who take it. If you are standing around waiting for instructions or inspiration, I’ve got some bad news for you. Life happens in the moving and the making and the people who are doing what they want are just that—doing. So figure out what it is you want to do and get busy. Don’t be afraid to try, to stop and start again, to make mistakes along the way. Fear only the time wasted not doing whatever it is you are here to do.

I know money and things can make me happy but they cannot satisfy me. People sometimes say that money can’t make you happy; I disagree. I think money can make you very happy. Money can give you freedom, choices, and opportunity. Money can buy you whatever it is you want. But here’s the thing, there’s a difference between the happiness that comes from having stuff and the peace and satisfaction that have nothing to do with material things. Don’t mistake the two. Peace and satisfaction are soulful and immaterial; they are a choice and a mindset, not a particular house or cell phone.

I know to be a little bit cautious and cynical towards the media and anybody trying to sell me something. This is not to say you go around assuming the worst about everyone and everything. But I think it’s only smart and reasonable to take caution when anyone is trying to persuade you or gain something from you. The media is trying to sell you something—a lifestyle, a worldview, a product— so don’t mindlessly believe everything they say. Think for yourself about your values and beliefs and make choices based on that, not marketing.

I know for everything I want, there is something else I can’t have. The idea that anyone can have it all is unrealistic. No one has enough time or energy for everything. So you must learn to prioritize and choose. You must put down this to pick up that or you will burn out and lose out on everything in your life. It is important to discern what matters most to you and to let go of the things that distract from your priorities.

I know saying less is saying more. The world is very loud these days and there are ever-increasing ways to share your thoughts and opinions with everyone the world over. But here’s the thing, no one wants to know what you think about everything all the time. If you speak less, people will listen more when you do speak up about the things that matter most to you.

I know the people I surround myself with will deeply influence me. The people we spend time with and listen to will have a deep impact on what we value and who we become. This isn’t a bad thing unless you surround yourself with people who are toxic. The right people can fill your life with truth, inspiration, and hope. The wrong people can slowly turn you into someone you don’t like. You are not above the influence of those around you. It is also important to know that you are influencing the people in your life too. Are you helping them or hurting them?

I know I don’t know everything and what I think I know might change :] I don’t ever want to stop learning and growing and sometimes that will mean letting go of things I thought I knew…and that’s okay.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” -Rumi

Sweet Love

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“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

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“If you’d never been born, then you might be an Isn’t!
An Isn’t has no fun at all. No, he disn’t.”

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“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”

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Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So… get on your way!”

All quotes by the fabulous Dr. Seuss

Our Real Lives

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Sometimes, as much as I love blogging, the whole thing feels a little less than genuine to me. I obviously only share parts of myself here with you. I try to be open and honest in this space but you can only get so much of the whole picture from the occasional words and pictures I share.

I also try to be positive on my blog because honestly, who wants to read about someone else’s problems all day? I want this space to be beautiful and inspiring so I only share those things that I hope you will connect with and be inspired by. But in so doing I leave out a lot of the truth and always feel like a little bit of a fraud.

This is challenging because I find myself reading my favorite blogs and sometimes I get a little discouraged thinking other people have so much more going for them than I ever will. I look at all their pretty pictures and eat up stories of their adventures and I start to think I must be a complete loser compared to them.

But the truth is these people I admire are only sharing a part of themselves with me—just like I only share a part of myself with you. However beautiful anyone’s life may look, we all have problems, hurts, discouragements, and a whole world of history that has made us who we are.

I have to remind myself of that when I read about other people’s lives online.

I enjoy social media—Facebook, blogs, Pinterest… It’s all good in its place but it’s important to remember how much more there is behind all the pretty pictures and words. There is a lot more going on in my life than I can ever share with you here. But I still want to share with you what I can. I want to tell you my stories and show you my pictures—even if these stories and pictures only give you a glimpse and not the whole story.

There are lots of good things going on in my life right now. As I shared with you not long ago, Darren and I just bought an old house we are remodeling and we are so excited about moving out into the country.

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Earlier this week we planted a big vegetable garden and the other night we pulled an old piano bench outside and sat under the stars planning and dreaming of life in this new place. While we were sitting there the most incredible shooting star I have ever seen zipped by with a trail of flame behind it…I actually gasped out loud—it was that amazing.

In just a few days we leave for Europe. Europe! We have been saving for years and now we finally get to take off and see Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, and England! Holy moly kids…I can’t even tell you how excited I am.

I look forward to sharing all these little adventures with you here over the summer. But in doing so I just wanted to remind you (and myself) that these are just pieces of our lives. The rest of my life involves sitting at a desk doing paperwork, cleaning the house, cooking, grocery shopping, bill paying, blah blah blah. I don’t sit here and tell you about the day-to-day because that would bore me to tears and I don’t want to do the same to you. But the laundry and the paperwork…that is very much my real life whether I share it here or not.

Life is good but it isn’t good every second of every day and it isn’t just pretty pictures and big adventures. Life is beautiful and messy and so much more than the individual parts we share. That’s it. That’s all. Love Kari :]

Laugh Together, Cry Together

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We are asked to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep; easier said than done.

It’s difficult to relate to people who are going through vastly different circumstances than we are. It’s hard to know exactly what to say or do when everything in my life is good and someone I care about is just trying to keep their head above the deep waters. It’s difficult to be happy for other people when our own hearts are breaking.

How can I connect and relate when my life is so different? Does someone struggling even want to talk to someone who’s breezing by? I know from times of struggle just how annoying and patronizing it can be to have someone who’s doing just fine stop by and say, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay. I know what you’re going through.”

Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Either way, looking at your pretty little life doesn’t make me want to tell you about my problems.

And yet that is exactly what we’re asked to do: We’re asked to enter into each other’s lives—bright and beautiful, dark and ugly—all of it without regard to what’s going down in our own lives at the time.

We’re asked to rejoice with those who rejoice—even when our heart are bleak and weary.

We’re asked to weep with those weep—even when we have great joy we want to share.

We’re asked to go beyond ourselves and find our way into the beautiful mess of each other’s lives.  We’re asked to be there for each other when everything is right and when everything is wrong. We’re asked to empathize and understand the joy and sorrow all around us in the lives of those we love.

I’m trying to learn how to do this, how to set my own life and circumstances aside and enter into the array of beauty and sorrow that paints each of our stories.

Understanding and Respecting Our Differences

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I was talking with one of my unmarried friends the other day and she mentioned something interesting to me. She was a little frustrated because she finds people assume she has lots and lots of free time just because she’s single. People at work say things like, “Oh, you can take care of this office party because you don’t have anything going on. I would help, but I’m so busy with the wife and kids!” People at church do the same thing—ask her to take on lots of extra activities and responsibilities because they assume as a single girl, she has lots of free time that married people don’t have. But the funny thing is, as a single girl working and providing for herself leaves very little free time at all.

Even though Darren and I both work full-time, being married give us the advantage of being able to split responsibilities. Every morning Darren makes breakfast and packs lunch; I always make dinner. Darren takes care of the bills while I do the laundry and we both go grocery shopping together. Neither one of us has to do everything around the house because we are able to split and share our household responsibilities; my single friend doesn’t have that luxury. She works full-time plus manages all her other responsibilities without help.

Her words resonated with me because I get frustrated by a similar problem when I talk to parents. I’ve had several moms say things to me about how nice it must be having so much free time and not having anything to do. Once when I was talking to a mom friend about how busy and tiring life is, she got irritated and asked me what I even had to do without kids. Um, other than work all day every day and cook and clean and everything else? Nothing, I have nothing to do at all ;] Now I do understand that my busyness is very different from a mom’s busyness. I may work all day and have plenty to take care of when I get home, but I don’t have kids pulling on me or needing all my time and attention.

The thing that bothers me though is that people assume your life is easy just because it’s different from theirs. I wish we would stop judging and comparing our different lives and respect the various roads we are each on. Assuming we are busier or have it harder than someone else isn’t helpful; it’s judgmental and belittling. How would a stay-at-home mom feel if I told her I thought her life was so easy because she gets to stay home and do whatever she wants all day? That isn’t fair. I don’t know what life demands from her and it isn’t fair to assume she is lazing around just because her job is different from my job. Neither is it fair to assume that someone without children is lazy and selfish just because they don’t have kids to care for.

Talking to my friend reminded me to be sensitive to the different roads we are each on. It reminded me to be thankful for the help I have in my marriage and to be considerate of the time and needs of people who don’t share life with a partner. It reminded me too that even though people say stupid stuff to me sometimes, I’m sure I’ve said stupid stuff to other people too—stuff I didn’t even think about because my life is so different from theirs and I didn’t realize what responsibilities were weighing on them. It reminded me to be less sensitive and more gracious when careless words are said but also to be even more careful about my own words and the things I assume.

I hope we can all learn to be more considerate and respectful of each other and stop trying to prove that we are better or doing more just because we are doing something differently.

Setting Sun

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“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’

Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.”

{Rumi}