last week, i mentioned something chris had said about living in america but not living an american lifestyle. over the last few months, we have made some drastic changes that have helped us look at needs vs. wants vs. reality differently.

in oklahoma city, we lived in a brand new luxury apartment in downtown. when we moved to nashville, we could have moved into a cottage in the famous downtown franklin (read: trendy and expensive) or into a 1970’s townhome in older west nashville, sight unseen.

we chose the townhome. it’s a few hundred dollars a month cheaper. and it has wood paneling. which i have grown to love.

yet i am still tempted. i am still plagued. with the speaking engagements, and inevitable public appearances that come with widely releasing a book, i feel i must look a certain way. dress a certain way. have my hair a certain way. lose those “last 10 pounds.”

because i feel as if i don’t, people won’t take me seriously.

i am a jeans a tee shirt kind of girl. i don’t always match. on purpose. i love my flip flops. it literally takes a wedding or a funeral to get me dressed up. it really hasn’t mattered much to me…until now.

i have to admit, i’m feeling the pressure.

would it be so terrible to wear my (nice) jeans and my (nice) shirt when i talk to pastors who are old enough to be my dad? will they take me seriously? will my glasses make me look smarter, or be a barrier for eye contact? will they notice that i’m 28? does it matter i’m a girl with nine hours of college credit, and only three of those were a bible class that i barely passed? should i get my nails done?

[welcome to the inside of my mind]

it would be easy for me to drop a grand on a new wardrobe that would make me look like i have my stuff together. i could look really sharp, no doubt. i could hire someone who knows something about how to dress people so i don’t feel so darn self conscious.

but i really don’t think that would truthfully represent me — all of me.

yet i feel the pressure. and i’m struggling with it. i think deep down inside, i know it doesn’t matter. but i so feel that it does…

do you?

last week, i had a great phone call with mike foster, one of my deadly viper cohorts and soon-to-be co-conference speaker when we both speak at ministry com in september.

something we talked about was, of course, the conference, and i confessed my continued trepidation of public speaking.

let me rephrase that: my continued trepidation of the expectations of public speaking.

it’s not that i’m just scared of it…i know it’s not where i’m naturally gifted, and i’m fine with that. i love communicating, but i am much more effective doing it via ink and paper.

i never planned on becoming any kind of public speaker. and something that is taking a little getting used to is the sense of being thrust (almost literally) from a shy girl behind this blog into a perceived expert in front of people who communicate verbally weekly for a living.

there is a huge difference between speaking to a few thousand people on a blog and a few thousand people from a stage.

for one, right now, i’m not wearing make up.

now, everybody says it’s the content that really matters…but as a casual observer of conference feedback, if someone doesn’t nail their session in an epitome of engaging perfection, for the most part, people seem to care more about their presentation than their actual content.

(as an example, i wasn’t there, but heard that patrick lencioni was fairly awkward and uncomfortable presenting at catalyst last year. not one person told me what he talked about, only that he seemed really scattered in his delivery. that’s all i ever heard.)

people expect that when you’re a good writer, you’re a good speaker. that when you’re bold and confident in your presentation online, you’re bold and confident in person. so let me be the first to smash the crud out of that expectation, at least for me, and say the gap between the two is huge.

so, what i can promise?

i can promise that i’ve been working hard and praying hard for months over the few speaking engagements i have. i can promise that i’m not going to pretend to be as engaging or as eloquent as pete or craig or seth or the millions of other speakers i admire. i can promise that i am just going to be me. quiet and a little awkward, but positive that i’ll be doing my best.

and sweating. probably a lot.

los angeles is 1700 miles away from nashville.

this is where people eat.

haiti is 1700 miles from nasvhille.

this is where people eat.

i got this email from brian yesterday, updating us on the food crisis in haiti. it is written by one of the compassion international staff serving there.

The unprecedented rise in the cost of foodstuffs raise concerns in the Haitian community especially those whose daily income is less than $2US. They are all wondering if they will survive at all. Despite the promises made by the Haitian government and the aid programs conducted by the international community, food prices do not stop skyrocketing.

“There is no hope that things are going to be improved; the situation is worsening. The population is silently starving and no one seems to care’’ said angrily a young professional.

brian also sent a list of staple food costs.

it.
blew.
my.
mind.

1 half full-sized bag of rice has gone from $28 US to $35 US.
1 full-sized bag of beans has gone from $54.6 US to $63.6 US.
1 full-sized bag of sugar has gone from $25.3 US to $34.8 US.

i responded to brian and asked if children in compassion international projects were guaranteed food, to which he said every child in every project receives at least one meal a day. some receive two hot meals…and they are working very hard to keep adding projects to the two-meal program.

naiva is one of many children in haiti who need to be sponsored. she has been waiting for more than six months. it’s just $32 a month, and with that, you can know that one more child is getting the food she needs to survive.

click here to sponsor naiva.

if she is already sponsored, you can click here to find another child.

you can also make a donation to the global food crisis fund here.

honestly, it is so difficult for me to understand why this happens. it still makes me feel sad, and angry, and guilty, and motivated, and desperate.

you?

monday, i asked the question, “how do you feel when you go to church?”

the responses were all over the place…”at home”…”worried”…”disgusted”…”excited”

today, the question is…

how does the church feel about you?

there are so many comparisons between physical anatomy and the body of christ in scripture.  and similar to our physical health, we should be striving for harmony and unity amongst all the body’s parts.

when i was twenty six, i had my gallbladder removed.  it stopped functioning and died.  and it was making me incredibly sick. even eating a little bit of food would make me throw up and have tremendous amounts of pain.

but once it was removed, everything started working better.

so…how does the church feel about you? are you functioning and encouraging growth and health? or are you a dead organ that needs to be removed?

fill in the blank:

when i go to church, i feel _________.

Lunesta has become a close companion lately. I go through seasons of insomnia…usually about 3-4 months long, followed by 3-4 months of healthy, non-medically-induced sleep. Currently, I’m about halfway into one of those insomnia cycles.

I decided last night to see if, by chance, I’d be able to fall and stay asleep without the drugs. No such luck. I drifted off into a weird, lucid dream.

In my dream, I was given a choice to do something and the consequences would require me to leave ministry. I’d be disqualified completely. And I remember the battle I was waging in my head.

“If I make this decision, I’ll lose my job.”

“If I make this decision, I’ll never be able to speak into the lives of leaders again.”

After I woke up following a very restless night of tossing and turning, I started thinking through what my dream-self was considering and realized something disturbing.

Not one of those thoughts I had was “If I make this decision, I’ll be disobeying God.”

Now, I realize this was just a dream and the decision I was considering in it was something that would likely never cross my path…and I realize a dream doesn’t represent my full consciousness.

But if it was a real life situation, would I have asked myself the same questions, while neglecting the most important one…How does this affect my relationship with Christ?

It’s easy for me to coast through life and walk a straight line. It’s actually pretty easy for me to be the good girl. But following rules isn’t the most important thing…that should just be an overflow of a lifestyle of obedience.

Why do you make the decisions you make? Are they out of love and obedience, or out of fear for losing your position, your marriage, your ministry?

Just something to chew on.