Tag: lifetransition

The Thread — Part 4: What Comes Next?

The Thread — Part 4: What Comes Next?

Posted on by mrsmonarch

NOTE: Hi Everyone! 

Just so we’re all on the same page, this article is the final piece to a 4 part series . Since each lesson builds upon what the previous article laid out, I hope you’ll go back to “Look for the Thread” (part 1), “How Hidden Beliefs Shape the Way We See the World” (part 2), and “Question Your Motivation” (part 3) before moving forward. These can be found on the right-hand column of the BTBAB homepage. 

Today’s Message: 


When you can’t change your circumstances, you can still begin changing what they have taught you to believe about yourself. 

 

We’ve spent the last three weeks looking for the threads which have been woven together to create the fabric of our lives. 

We started with what happened—and the meaning we gave to it. 

In week two, we examined the lens those interpretations and beliefs can create.

Last week, we went underneath our patterns and asked a harder question:

What is this behavior really getting me?

And now, here at week four—and the end of this mini-series— we’ve arrived at the question I think is hardest of all:

What do I do with what I’ve discovered?

Because this is where I don’t want to give you a ten-step plan.

I don’t want to tell you to simply leave a difficult marriage. 

Quit an unfulfilling job. 

Set the boundary.

Start over.

Take your power back.

Become confident.

Build the new life.

Yes— Sometimes those things are exactly what needs to happen.

And sometimes they simply aren’t possible today.

Maybe you don’t have the money.

Maybe there are children involved.

Maybe you’re financially dependent.

Maybe you’re caring for someone else.

Maybe you’re afraid.

Maybe you have nowhere to go.

Maybe you’re still trying to understand what is actually happening and you’re wrestling with grief. 

Maybe you have very few options that the outside world would consider reasonable.

And if that’s where you are, I don’t want to add another burden to your shoulders by suggesting that your inability to change your circumstances means you’re failing to change.

Because it doesn’t.

Maybe Transformation Isn’t Always “Changing Your Life” the way the world defines it. 

 

Transformation does not always begin with changing your circumstances. Sometimes it begins with changing what those circumstances have taught you to believe about yourself.

There may be things about your circumstances you cannot change today.

That does not mean there is nothing you can begin changing today.

If you can’t leave today, that doesn’t mean you have no agency.

You may be able to begin questioning the lie that you’re crazy.

You may be able to stop interpreting someone else’s betrayal as evidence that you’re unlovable.

You may be able to recognize:

“This is happening to me, but this is not who I am.”

You may be able to stop apologizing for having feelings.

You may be able to begin trusting your own perception again.

You may be able to whisper:

“Something about this isn’t right.”

even if you aren’t yet able to do anything about it.

Those are movements.

Tiny movements.

But movements nonetheless.

Sometimes the First Step Is Simply Listening to Yourself Again

I think this may be one of the most important places we can begin.

Because chronic invalidation can do something devastating to a person.

If someone repeatedly tells you:

You’re imagining things.

You’re too sensitive.

You’re crazy.

That didn’t happen.

You’re remembering it wrong.

You’re the problem.

Eventually, you can stop trusting your own internal compass.

You can become so accustomed to questioning yourself that you begin arguing with your own experience before anyone else even has the opportunity.

So perhaps the first question isn’t:

“What action should I take?”

Perhaps it’s:

“What am I actually experiencing?”

And then:

“Can I tell myself the truth about it without immediately arguing with myself?”

That is huge.

Not diagnosing the other person.

Not making a grand declaration.

Not pretending we know every fact of someone else’s situation.

Just reclaiming the right to say:

“This hurts.”

“This isn’t okay with me.”

“I feel afraid.”

“I feel betrayed.”

“I don’t understand why this keeps happening.”

“Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

That’s not weakness.

That’s awareness.

And sometimes awareness is the beginning of transformation.

Seeing Yourself Is Not the Same as Fixing Yourself

Notice what we’re not saying.

We’re not saying:

Fix yourself.

We’re saying:

See yourself.

Know yourself.

Tell yourself the truth.

Separate your worth from what is happening around you.

Take the next honest step.

Because sometimes the circumstances around you are genuinely painful.

Sometimes someone else’s choices are genuinely wrong.

Sometimes someone is lying.

Sometimes someone is betraying you.

Sometimes someone is disregarding your boundaries.

Sometimes someone is treating you in a way you never deserved.

And your first job isn’t to figure out how to make that person behave differently.

You may not be able to.

Your first job may simply be to stop allowing their behavior to become the voice that tells you who you are.

And What About God?

This is where I want to say something very clearly, especially to the woman who has been praying and praying and still doesn’t see the circumstances changing.

You may be asking:

“What am I doing wrong?”

“Why hasn’t God changed this?”

“Am I not praying hard enough?”

“Don’t I trust Him enough?”

No.

Your suffering is not proof that you have failed God.

Your unanswered prayer is not evidence that you don’t have enough faith.

Your difficult circumstances are not necessarily a spiritual report card.

And Scripture itself gives us permission to say:

“God, this hurts.”

That’s lament.

The Bible doesn’t sanitize suffering.

David asks, “How long?”

Job speaks honestly from his pain.

Habakkuk looks at injustice and asks how long it will continue.

And Jesus Himself weeps.

Lament is not unbelief.

Lament is what faith sounds like when faith is hurting.

There is room in faith for:

“God, I know You are there, and I don’t understand this.”

“I love You, and I’m angry.”

“I believe, and I’m exhausted.”

“I’m praying, and I’m still hurting.”

There is room for all of that.

You do not have to add spiritual shame to the pain you’re already carrying.

You don’t have to pretend:

“I’m fine. God is good. Everything happens for a reason. I’m just going to trust harder.”

You can tell God the truth.

Perhaps that is itself a tiny step toward transformation:

telling the truth in God’s presence instead of performing okay-ness for Him.

Agency Is Not the Same as Control

There is another distinction I think we desperately need to make.

Agency is not control.

You may not control:

  • whether someone tells the truth
  • whether someone respects your boundary
  • whether someone apologizes
  • whether someone changes
  • whether someone chooses faithfulness
  • whether someone treats you fairly
  • whether your circumstances resolve quickly

But you may slowly begin recognizing:

What is mine to carry?

What is not mine?

What have I begun believing about myself because of what someone else has done?

What tiny choice is actually available to me today?

That last question may be more powerful than it sounds.

Because the answer doesn’t have to be dramatic.

Maybe today the choice is simply:

“I will not call myself worthless because someone treated me as though I were.”

Maybe tomorrow:

“I’m going to write down what happened so I stop second-guessing myself.”

Another day:

“I’m going to tell one safe person the truth.”

Another:

“I’m going to spend ten minutes thinking about what I actually want instead of what everyone else wants from me.”

Another:

“I’m going to pray honestly instead of pretending I’m okay.”

Those things don’t necessarily change the marriage.

They don’t immediately change the bank account.

They don’t make the betrayal disappear.

But they can begin changing something deeply important:

the woman’s relationship with herself.

And that matters.

What Someone Does to You Is Not Who You Are

This brings us back to the thread we’ve been following all along.

Maybe the thread says:

I’m not enough.

Maybe it says:

I’m too much.

Maybe it says:

I’m unlovable.

Maybe it says:

I must have done something to deserve this.

Maybe it says:

If I were prettier, kinder, thinner, smarter, more submissive, more successful, more patient, more spiritual… maybe this wouldn’t be happening.

But what if we began pulling that thread apart?

What if we began separating what someone did from who we are?

Someone else’s betrayal does not make you unworthy.

Someone else’s dishonesty does not make you stupid.

Someone else’s rejection does not make you unlovable.

Someone else’s cruelty does not prove you deserved it.

Someone else’s inability to love you well does not mean you were impossible to love.

And your current circumstances do not get to become the final narrator of your identity.

Even when you cannot yet change your circumstances, you are not powerless to begin changing the story those circumstances are telling you about who you are.

That may be where transformation begins.

Not with a dramatic exit.

Not with a perfect plan.

Not with everything suddenly making sense.

Sometimes it begins with one sentence.

One truth.

One tiny refusal to believe the lie anymore.

You Don’t Have to Know What Comes Next

I think sometimes we believe we can’t move forward until we know where we’re going.

But what if you don’t?

What if you genuinely don’t know what comes next?

What if you’re still in the middle of the story?

What if all you can see is the next few feet?

Then perhaps you don’t need a ten-year plan.

You need the next honest step.

And sometimes that step is very, very small.

That’s okay.

You don’t have to untangle your whole life today.

You don’t have to become someone new overnight.

You don’t have to prove that you’re strong.

You don’t have to make a decision simply because someone else thinks you should.

You don’t have to know how your story ends before you can begin changing how you live inside the part you’re in.

And this is where I think we can finally return to the question we’ve been carrying through this entire series:

Does this thread still belong in the life I’m weaving?

Maybe the answer is yes.

Maybe something about that thread still serves you.

Maybe it needs to be strengthened.

Maybe it needs to be loosened.

Maybe it needs to be redirected.

Maybe it needs to be cut.

Maybe it needs to be replaced.

And sometimes, perhaps, it needs to be redeemed rather than discarded.

But you don’t have to answer all of those questions today.

Maybe This Is Where We Begin

Not with a happy ending.

Not with a solution.

Not with a bow.

A beginning.

Because now you can see.

You can see the thread.

You can recognize the lens.

You can question the pattern.

You can begin separating your worth from someone else’s behavior.

You can acknowledge what hurts without blaming yourself for hurting.

You can begin noticing where you have agency—even when your circumstances are limited.

You can tell the truth.

You can grieve.

You can lament.

You can take tiny steps.

And maybe the woman reading this cannot change her life this week.

Maybe she can’t leave.

Maybe she can’t fix the marriage.

Maybe she can’t make someone tell the truth.

Maybe she can’t make the circumstances change.

But maybe…

she can change one sentence she says to herself.

Maybe she can stop believing one lie.

Maybe she can name one truth.

Maybe she can recognize one thing that isn’t hers to carry.

Maybe she can give herself permission to lament.

Maybe she can take one honest step.

And maybe, for today…

that’s enough.

Because sometimes transformation isn’t about becoming strong enough to leave the hard place.

Sometimes it’s about becoming grounded enough to remember who you are while you’re still in it.

That doesn’t mean you have to stay there forever.

It doesn’t mean your circumstances don’t matter.

It doesn’t mean you should accept what is hurting you.

It means that you can begin becoming whole before your circumstances become whole.

And perhaps the woman who feels completely stuck needs to hear this most of all:

You are not powerless simply because you cannot change everything today.

You can still begin.

One truth.

One breath.

One boundary.

One honest prayer.

One moment of trusting your own perception.

One refusal to let someone else’s behavior tell you what you’re worth.

One tiny thing.

That’s enough soil for a seed.

And maybe that seed is where the next part of your story begins.

You are still becoming.

Not because you aren’t enough.

But because there is still life to be woven.

And perhaps now…

you get to choose the threads. 

 

Until Next Time, 

The Hidden Beliefs Shaping Who You Are: Look for the Threads

The Hidden Beliefs Shaping Who You Are: Look for the Threads

Posted on by mrsmonarch

There is a phrase I have said more times than I can count.

Maybe you have said it too.

“I’m fine.”

Sometimes I actually am.

But there have been plenty of times when “I’m fine” meant something else entirely.

It meant:

I’m not fine at all.

I don’t know how to talk about this.

I don’t have time to fall apart.

I don’t know if this is a safe place to unpack it.

If I start talking about it, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.

Please don’t ask me again.

And sometimes, if I’m really honest, it has meant:

“If I can convince you I’m fine, maybe I can convince myself.”

I don’t think most of us do this because we’re trying to deceive anyone.

I think we do it because we’re trying to keep functioning.

We have things to do. People who need us. Jobs to finish. Meals to make. Messages to answer. Responsibilities to carry.

So we develop little phrases, little habits, little ways of moving through the world that help us keep going when something underneath us is hurting.

“I don’t care.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“I can handle it.”

“I’m just tired.”

“That’s just how I am.”

“I don’t need anybody.”

“I’ll deal with it later.”

Sometimes those things are true.

But sometimes they are cover stories.

And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what might be underneath them.

Not because I want to diagnose us.

Not because I think every difficult experience from childhood is secretly some enormous trauma.

And certainly not because I think we need to spend the rest of our lives digging around in the past.

Quite the opposite.

I think there may be enormous value in becoming curious about the things we have been carrying without realizing we were carrying them.

Because before we start talking about growth, perhaps we need to know what we’re growing from.

You Can’t Grow an Acre in a Flowerpot

Our culture is absolutely fascinated with growth.

Be better.

Think better.

Eat better.

Exercise more.

Set boundaries.

Build confidence.

Become your best self.

Heal your inner child.

Raise your standards.

Change your mindset.

Set goals.

Get disciplined.

And some of that advice is genuinely good.

But I’ve been thinking about something:

You can’t grow an acre’s worth of garden in a ceramic pot on your porch.

Not without first considering the soil.

What’s already in it?

What’s growing there?

What has taken root?

What’s depleted it?

What’s been buried?

What has been watered?

What has been neglected?

What has been growing quietly beneath the surface while you were busy trying to plant something new?

I think our inner lives work much the same way.

Before we start throwing seeds of self-improvement into the soil, perhaps we should stop and take inventory.

Not because something is wrong with us.

Because where we begin matters.

I Remember Being Picked Last

I can still remember being in third grade, standing on the school playground while teams were being chosen for kickball.

The power players were chosen first.

Then came everybody else.

I was the second-to-last kid chosen.

And even then, I wasn’t really chosen because somebody wanted me on their team. There was one other girl left, and apparently I was considered the slightly less risky liability.

I remember the feeling.

Pick me.

The embarrassment of standing there while name after name was called.

The quiet humiliation of being passed over.

And the painful realization that nobody seemed particularly excited to have me.

I wasn’t sitting there thinking about childhood development or self-esteem.

I was a little girl.

I just knew it hurt.

And I don’t know exactly what that moment contributed to the woman I became.

Maybe it contributed something.

Maybe it didn’t.

Maybe it was one tiny thread among many.

That’s actually the point.

Not every formative experience is huge.

It doesn’t have to be catastrophic.

It doesn’t have to qualify as trauma.

It doesn’t even have to be something we remember clearly.

Sometimes it’s a comment.

A comparison.

A rejection.

A moment of embarrassment.

A time we felt invisible.

A time we were praised only when we performed well.

A time we learned that someone else’s happiness seemed more important than our own feelings.

A time we needed comfort and didn’t know how to ask for it.

Sometimes it’s one event.

Sometimes it’s a hundred little ones.

And sometimes those experiences begin weaving themselves together.

Look for the Threads

Think about a blanket.

When you’re wrapped up in one, you don’t see thousands of individual threads.

You feel warmth.

You feel comfort.

You feel protected.

But the blanket is nothing more than a vast collection of individual threads woven together.

Our lives are like that.

A moment happens.

We experience it.

We interpret it.

We decide what it means.

Then another experience comes along.

And another.

And another.

Sometimes the experiences aren’t even objectively the same.

But they feel the same.

And somewhere inside us something whispers:

“See? There it is again.”

I wasn’t chosen.

See? There it is again.

I’m being overlooked.

See? There it is again.

Someone else was preferred.

See? There it is again.

I’m disappointing somebody.

See? There it is again.

I’m not enough.

And eventually, those individual experiences can become woven together so tightly that we stop seeing them as individual threads at all.

They become part of the blanket.

Part of the way we see ourselves.

Part of the way we interpret other people.

Part of the way we make decisions.

Part of the way we protect ourselves.

Sometimes even part of what we call “just who I am.”

What If Today’s Reaction Isn’t Entirely About Today?

Have you ever had a reaction that surprised even you?

Something happens and suddenly you’re way more hurt than you think you should be.

A comment.

A rejection.

Someone else’s silence.

A friend’s choice.

A spouse’s behavior.

A criticism.

Being left out.

Feeling ignored.

And you find yourself thinking:

“Why is this affecting me this much?”

Instead of immediately telling yourself you’re overreacting, what if you became curious?

Ask:

Is my reaction entirely about what is happening right now?

Maybe it is.

But maybe today’s event has touched an old thread.

Ask yourself:

Have I felt this particular feeling before?

When?

Where?

With whom?

What was happening?

And then, perhaps the hardest question:

What did younger me decide about herself the other times she felt this way?

Maybe she decided:

I’m not important.

I’m not pretty enough.

I’m too much.

I’m not enough.

I have to work harder to be chosen.

I can’t depend on people.

My needs are inconvenient.

If I make everybody happy, they’ll stay.

If I’m useful, I’ll be valuable.

If I never need anything, nobody can disappoint me.

We may not consciously remember making these decisions.

Children don’t usually sit down and formulate beliefs about themselves.

They experience something and try to make sense of it with the information they have.

And sometimes the explanation they come up with follows them into adulthood.

This Isn’t About Blaming the Past

I want to be very careful here.

We’re not building a courtroom.

We’re not trying to find somebody to blame for every insecurity we have ever experienced.

And we’re not going to turn ordinary childhood moments into diagnoses.

We’re investigating.

That’s different.

Because something can have affected you without being the single cause of everything you struggle with.

Someone else’s choices can hurt you without becoming their permanent ownership of your identity.

And a childhood experience can matter without needing to be labeled catastrophic.

We’re simply becoming curious about the threads.

Because sometimes today’s reaction isn’t entirely about today.

Sometimes today’s moment is touching something that has been woven into us for a very long time.

And We Don’t Have to Pull the Whole Blanket Apart

That’s important, too.

We’re not going backward so we can live there.

We’re going backward just far enough to understand what came forward with us.

We’re not digging through our past because we’re broken.

We’re digging because what we don’t understand can quietly continue to influence us.

And eventually, what we have never examined can begin to feel like identity.

That’s just who I am.

I’m just sensitive.

I’m just a perfectionist.

I’m just independent.

I’m just a worrier.

I’m just not good with conflict.

But what if some of those things aren’t simply personality?

What if some of them are learned responses?

What if some of them began as protection?

What if something that protected us then is quietly imprisoning us now?

I don’t know.

And neither do you.

Not yet.

That’s why we’re going to investigate.

So This Week, Just Notice

I don’t want to give you a neat little three-step plan for fixing your life.

Life doesn’t work that way.

Neither does healing.

Instead, I want to invite you to become curious.

Maybe this week isn’t about figuring yourself out.

Maybe it’s simply about noticing.

Pay attention to the phrases you reach for when you’re overwhelmed.

Pay attention to the moments when your reaction seems bigger than the circumstance.

Pay attention to the feelings that seem strangely familiar.

Pay attention when something happens and a little voice inside you says:

“See? There it is again.”

You don’t have to figure out what it means yet.

You don’t have to force a memory.

You don’t have to decide that you’ve discovered the one event responsible for everything that has ever happened to you.

Just notice.

Maybe write it down.

And if something keeps tugging at your attention, let yourself become curious about it.

Because sometimes the first step toward healing isn’t changing anything.

Sometimes it’s finally seeing what is there.

Find One Thread

Maybe you have a phrase.

Maybe you have a reaction you don’t understand.

Maybe you have a feeling that seems strangely familiar.

Maybe you have a memory from childhood that you’ve never considered important.

Maybe you have absolutely no idea where to begin.

That’s okay.

We’re not looking for drama. We’re looking for patterns.

So don’t try to pull your entire blanket apart.

Just find one thread.

Hold it gently.

Look at it without judgment.

Wonder where it might lead.

Because we’re going to spend some time together over the next several weeks learning what to do with the things we uncover.

We’re going to look at the beliefs hiding underneath our coping mechanisms.

We’re going to examine what those beliefs have been doing in our relationships, our choices, our boundaries, our self-image, our striving, and even our attempts at self-improvement.

And eventually, we’re going to ask whether some of the things we have been trying so hard to change aren’t actually the things that need changing at all.

Maybe what needs changing is why we’re doing them.

Maybe the goal isn’t to become someone else.

Maybe it’s to become whole.

But we can’t begin to understand that until we know what we’re carrying.

So this week, don’t fix anything.

Don’t judge anything.

Don’t unravel the whole blanket.

Just look for the threads.

And if you find one…

write it down.

Because…

We’re going to need that thread. 🦋

 

Until Next Time, 


 

Will I Allow You to Become

Will I Allow You to Become

Posted on by mrsmonarch

Last week, we focused on: 

“Will you allow me to become…”

 a different version of myself….

To allow old versions that are embarrassing or no longer accurate to slough away…

Can you know me better than anyone… including all my flaws and fears… and yet still encourage me to keep striving for that fresh, unblemished version of myself that I’m fighting to become? 

This week, we are shifting perspectives and asking: 

“Will I allow you to become?”

Those are not the same question.

The second one is much harder!

Because suddenly I’m the one being asked to loosen my grip.

Here’s the thing:

We all want grace…

until someone else’s growth inconveniences us.

That’s uncomfortable to admit.

We love the idea of redemption— when it’s our story.

We’re much more cautious when it’s someone else’s.

Why?

I don’t think it’s because we’re bad people.

I think it’s because someone else’s change threatens the emotional map we’ve built of our world.

Human beings crave predictability.

We don’t just love people…

We learn them.

We learn their reactions.

Their habits.

Their weaknesses.

Their strengths.

We know how conversations usually go.

We know what they’ll order at a restaurant.

We know which buttons not to push.

We know who they are.

Or at least…

we think we do.

Then one day they begin changing.

The recovering alcoholic says,
“I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

The quiet wife finds her voice.

The workaholic father retires and wants to learn to paint.

The adult child stops needing our advice.

The anxious friend becomes confident.

The people-pleaser begins saying no.

And suddenly…

our map no longer matches the territory.

That feels disorienting.

Not because their change is wrong…

but because our certainty has been taken away.

I also think there’s another emotion underneath it that we rarely admit.

If you change…

What does that require of me?

That’s the scary part.

Because if you’ve become healthier…

I may have to become healthier, too.

If you’ve learned better boundaries…

I can’t keep benefiting from your lack of them.

If you’ve healed…

I can no longer define you by your wounds.

If you’ve forgiven…

I may have to face the ways I’ve stayed bitter.

Someone else’s growth has a funny way of exposing where we’ve stopped growing ourselves.

That’s uncomfortable.

Sometimes it’s easier to insist,

“People don’t really change.”

Than to accept that they have…and ask why we haven’t.

Then there’s fear. It might sound like: 

“Maybe they’ll outgrow me.”

I think that fear is far more common than people realize.

Not just in marriage.

In Friendships.

With Parents.

In our Churches.

Even in workplaces.

When someone begins changing, the people around them often wonder,

“Will there still be room for me?”

It’s almost childlike.

“If you become someone new… will you still choose me?”

That’s a vulnerable question.

Sometimes we unconsciously resist another person’s growth because we’re afraid we’ll lose our place in their life.

Ironically…

trying to hold someone still is often the very thing that pushes them away.

Here’s another thought I haven’t shared before.

I think there are two very different ways to know someone.

One says,

“I know exactly who you are.”

The other says,

“I’m excited to keep discovering who you’re becoming.”

The first creates certainty. And, humans crave certainly! 

But the second creates intimacy. 

Those sound like the similar things.

They’re not.

Certainty says,

“I’ve finished reading your story.”

Intimacy says,

“I can’t wait for the next chapter.”

Consider the whole foundation of Built To Be A Butterfly.

Imagine if the caterpillar had people standing around saying,

“Stop pretending.

You’ll always crawl.

That’s who you’ve always been.

(And even worse) It’s what God created you to be!”

The cocoon would look ridiculous to anyone who only believed past evidence.

Transformation almost always looks unbelievable…

until it’s complete!

Maybe that’s why Scripture is filled with renamed people.

Abram became Abraham.

Sarai became Sarah.

Jacob became Israel.

Simon became Peter.

Saul became Paul.

God seemed strangely unwilling to let people remain known only by the evidence of who they’d been.

He kept introducing them according to who they were becoming.

What if…

that’s one of the ways we’re called to love each other?

Now— that said— my family of origin was terribly, irreparably fractured by the demons of mental illness, addiction and manipulation. 

I have learned the hard way that not every claimed change is genuine.

Sometimes people say they’ve changed while continuing the same harmful behavior, under the guise of “change”. 

So, Wisdom matters.

Trust is rebuilt over time.

Forgiveness doesn’t erase discernment!

But…

when genuine transformation is happening…

love should probably be the first to notice it.

Not the last.

Who in your life have you remembered so well that you’ve forgotten to notice who they’re becoming? Perhaps the greatest gift we can give the people we love isn’t holding on to who they were… but remaining curious about who God is still shaping them to be.

Is it the husband who has spent years trying to become gentler?

The adult daughter you’ve secretly continued mothering like she’s still sixteen?

The son who finally found his footing?

The friend who isn’t as fragile as she used to be?

Your parents… whose own hearts have softened with age?

We often think transformation is an individual act.

It isn’t.

Transformation is relational.

Every time one person changes, everyone who loves them is invited to change, too.

That’s why becoming is so beautiful.

And that’s also why it’s so costly.

Because God doesn’t only ask us to become new creations.

Sometimes He asks us to believe that someone else has become one, too.

And that may require its own kind of faith.

Until Next Time– 
Keep Becoming! 

 

☕ Join The Porch

If you found us through social media, Pinterest or Google, and this post encouraged you today, I’d love to invite you to Join us on “The Porch”, a members only on-line community who get emails like this every Tuesday and Friday evenings.

“The Porch” is exactly what your mind dreams up when it’s allowed to think of quieter, slower days. It’s a “place” we are building in cyberspace— that allows us to “gather” whenever our schedule allows, shut out the world and simple BE REFRESHED.

A 10-minute pit stop— twice a week— where I share encouragement, faith-filled reflections and honest conversations about the journey of becoming.

Pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, and stay awhile.

[Join The Porch]

And– For those who live life on the GO— You can now listen to the audio version of Built To Be A Butterfly posts FREE on Spotify! 

Will You Allow Me to Become Someone You Haven't Met Yet?

Will You Allow Me to Become Someone You Haven’t Met Yet?

Posted on by mrsmonarch