Telling the truth about ourselves can be hard. The wisest people I’ve known have comfortably admitted that they’re not as self-aware as they think they are, and that’s what gives way for growth.

It’s growing season for me.

Recently, I received feedback from several colleagues on what it’s like to be on the other side of me. The past two weeks have allowed me to hear their summaries of me and ask for examples. Today, I had another opportunity over lunch to learn how I come across to others. I have concluded that the people closest to me believe strongly that I am always frustrated. Often upset. Regularly angry. Most accurately–that I lack joy in anything they can see. And the evidence shows that they see quite a lot.

I’ll confess that I find this severely devastating.

I’ve always thought that I’ve approached life with extreme effort and that my endeavors should count for something. Good intentions, at the very least. Until last week, I was unaware of just how my desire for structure and order produced visible irritation. What is becoming clearer is that where my work is concerned, internally and externally, fruit is hard for others to find.

Not impossible. But challenging to identify in every day interactions.

What is most confusing for me is that the emotions I feel versus the emotions others perceive continuously misalign. I don’t mean to blow routine feedback out of proportion and completely collapse in on myself. What I am trying to do is make sure I’m not listening to my own narration of events more closely than the people who consistently experience me in various forms. I’d like to ensure I stop proving Einstein’s definition of insanity right.

So the question becomes one of how. As someone who said yes to walking with Jesus 21 years ago, I have recurrently wondered what “choosing joy” truly means in practice and why it is so difficult to achieve. If I feel any spiritual failure deeply, it is this one.

Driving home earlier, I remembered Griffin singing as he played in the kitchen last night. “Receive joyyyyyyy! Receive joy!” He pulled out lyrics from the bridge of a treasured song.

Receive it.

Receive joy.

That implies that it’s being given to me. I don’t have to search for it. I only need to change my posture from closed to unfolded. Head up. Palms open.

When I am told things about myself that ruins the image I wish others had of me.
Head up. Palms open.

When I work incredibly hard to implement solutions to the feedback and I still come up short.
Head up. Palms open.

When I have a positive outlook on my day, but no one notices the change in my spirit.
Head up. Palms open.

What if the practice of better posture is the thing that produces the joy? What if the compound effect of being a gracious receiver of whatever comes my way eventually is lasting joy?

I don’t have any other ideas yet on how to bring about transformational change. Maybe that’s the entire point. To not fight for control. To start by receiving what’s being extended to me as a tool for growth. Surely, there’s a joy to be found in gaining wisdom. At the very least, gratitude.

So Lord, thank you for the people who were willing to share the truth about me, to me. Thank you for what I am learning in this pruning season. Help me to hold it up to the light of your correction with confidence that you’ll lead me into transformational change. That you’ll produce the fruit in me. Help me become a faithful receiver. Amen.

Take care & take heart,

If I had one fatal flaw, it would undoubtedly be my ability to manage expectations. I suspect I will be practicing how to reasonably set expectations my entire life, but weeks like this last one make it feel like I’m only getting started.

Holidays are built on anticipation. And once they arrive, strategic management becomes a laughable endeavor. At least in my experience. Parenting a six and four-year-old has been an exercise in patience and endurance this year. I’m learning I can coach their character, but I cannot control their reactions. Opening gifts once again this week taught me that.

The other thing about holidays is that it brings family together, some you can go all year without seeing. November and December have been full of gatherings like that. The funny thing about expectations is that I often don’t realize how high I’ve set them until I’m disappointed by what is not met. I’d like to think I keep a positive outlook on life, like a wishful thinker. It’s my sunny disposition that lands me in a despondent state, post-expectations.

Somewhere the parents who raised me are laughing in amused disagreement.

What’s more likely is that I didn’t anticipate things not going as I pictured, even though what I had in mind seemed simple enough. For days in a row, I had the chance to be with the same people all day, every day. People I see quarterly, some less often than that. It’s rare we’re all together, and this year, I’ve made tremendous efforts even at a distance to take an interest in several of them.

For one, I read a thousand pages of their favorite book this fall. We don’t have much in common and I was daring to create common ground. For a few others, I spent hours listening to their social content in an effort to learn more about them. I said yes to time throughout the year with one, at the expense of my clear conscience. Others I wrote to, and tried to ask pointed questions that showed I cared.

My motivation for relationally walking across the room towards these people in my life started from inspiration. Months ago I offered myself to the Lord, to be used to shine a light in their lives. Somewhere along the way, I think I had selfishly hoped that they’d maybe take an interest in me, too. I learned this week that that hope was too great of an expectation.

They say presence is a present and I tried to gift that by not being on my phone, by being available to the moment. Sitting in uncomfortable silence to my unreturned questions for the group was good for me. Trying to share my thoughts they couldn’t connect with or witty jokes they didn’t get was humbling. Managing the tension between being quiet and putting myself out there was worth practicing.

For fear of exaggeration, I’ll say that I do not recall being asked one intentional question about myself, though they may have. Real conversational connection in a digital age is challenging. Games and activities are either a gateway to them or a poor substitute for them. I experienced the latter. But I do think I tried to meet people where they were at this week. It was all I could do.

I gave of myself by purposely participating. I continued to ask the Lord to give me more of his love to reflect and extend. And if I was given a redo, I’d do it all again. My proximity to those who do not believe or practice their belief is under God’s sovereignty now. The quiet prayers they didn’t know I was praying each day was energy well spent.

By the end of the week, my human flesh was flailing. I know I was getting easily offended by things and paid too much attention to what didn’t come to fruition. Exhaustion and unmet expectations aren’t a healthy mix. I went to bed last night grieving the thought that if life circumstances hadn’t brought us together, I wouldn’t want to be friends with the people I spent the week with. And they wouldn’t choose me either. In a backwards way, naming reality helped me get to sleep.

Today though, I woke up with new thoughts. Better thoughts.

Jesus takes delight when I place all of my expectations on him. The cross proves to me over and over again that he can handle it. When I ask him, he helps me hold my hopes for my days loosely. It takes incredible practice and honestly, I’m weary too often of how well I can trust him with my relationships. But I won’t stop learning. And as I was getting ready in the mirror this morning, I sensed him saying,

“Natalie, I AM your greatest expectation. My will for you will never disappoint. You can place all your hopes in me.”

So that’s what I’m clinging to: great expectations for Jesus to keep revealing who he is to me. May you and I expect the best from time spent with him.

Take care & take heart.
With high hopes,

Four months ago, we moved from Wisconsin to back home where I grew up. It’s been both a dream and an adjustment after 8 years away. The house we bought took close to three weeks to fix up, and during that time, we lived with my parents. We’d put twelve-hour days in on the house, and I’d bring my work to do while walls of paint dried.

One morning, I began my quiet drive to the house as the sun was coming up. I passed our new church with anticipation, where Hunter would be working in the coming weeks. After several minutes, I saw the church I grew up in, then the entrance to the Baptist camp where I had worked for three years during summers home from college. Before that, I was a camper and eventually a counselor for years. Church potlucks were held in the dining hall there. Nelsen family gatherings were hosted a time or two on those grounds.

I drove beyond the camp and came upon Lake Springfield Christian Assembly, where I attended two summers as a pre-teen. As a newlywed, I drove to LSCA every Friday morning before dawn to attend Gather, a time for women to be in the quiet, together, and with God. The ordinary and the pivotal moments of my spiritual formation had happened at all of these places, in different seasons.

Further on, to my right I passed the lane where my friend Kate lived. Kate’s house always smelled like the coziest parts of Fall to me and was a place of belonging during seasons of change. My creativity was encouraged and adventure was always to be pursued at Kate’s house on the lake. Kate’s mom was warm and kind. She was the kind of woman who loved and savored every season of motherhood, and she always had a camera. Kate was quiet and she made me laugh. We were all happy at Kate’s house and I have albums to show for it.

Beyond the lake was the high school I did not attend, but spent many Friday nights at its football games. My youth group friends all went there, and sometimes I wished I had too. But they welcomed me as their own and that will always mean something. By the time I pulled into my new driveway, I was overwhelmed at the history one ten-minute drive can hold. I am who I am because of the time I once spent in all of these places. I’m home. Even now, I still can’t believe it.

The evidence of God revealing himself to me in the big and small places of my upbringing is found along Iron Bridge Road. My faith was formed walking through the woods and overlooking the lake with friends. And it’s still being formed. Kate doesn’t live on Idlewilde anymore. I haven’t been to those old campgrounds in a decade. Moving home fills me with gratitude for where I came from and what shaped me and it also reminds me that I’m a beginner again.

Friendships here are new. Getting to know people is a process. Discovering places of belonging is not always obvious or instant. Uncovering depth in relationships requires saying “yes” to showing up over and over. If I learned anything from my time in Wisconsin it’s that sometimes finding people that get you in all your forms is rare. Mileage with people sometimes has to be made before you can get to that point. But what a gift it is when you do. And for whatever time you have together.

It’s a funny feeling to see the nostalgia and newness in the same place. To miss the past and the friends that made it memorable. Yet knowing the best days are also ahead. To long for what has not been felt or experienced yet. Life is not always so linear. It’s complex and it’s nuanced. Good takes time.

When I think of walking with Jesus, I think of the patience he has for all my intricacies and walking contradictions. Man, have I been an elaborate mess in this season trying to lead my heart well through all the change. I think about the thirty years Jesus spent on Earth before his three years of public ministry and the Creation story that made his human life possible. I think about practicing the presence of God as Brother Lawrence did and the investment Jesus made in a relationship with me first. Good takes time.

Four months is a short amount of time to measure progress in starting a new chapter. Multiple times a week I make that ten-minute drive and I’m reminded that what the Lord did once, he can do again. Friendships will form. Faith will be fostered. All I need to know for now is that the Jesus I walk with is good. And his goodness transcends my human understanding of his time.

Take care & take heart,