But you go back, and back, and back, and gradually start to become familiar with the steps, and the way they are put together, and how to read cues from a partner… and then you brave the first dance social.

Now this is like that first dance class with nerves on steroids. Anyone could be here. The most skilled dancers, polished partners, gorgeous women, and what does one wear to a dance social when the Mennonite socials of childhood were usually work bees and eviscerating chickens?
It’s ok, probably you’ll sit there all night anyway, you console yourself, because no one knows you or will ask you to dance.

But then, someone does! Oh. The nerves! The excitement! A boy asked you to dance! And hey, that was fun. Maybe classes did some good after all. Mistakes happen, yes, but everyone is gracious.

Fast forward 10 months and a handful of socials later, you attend and men are scarce leaving you sitting more than dancing. As you sit, the best dancer of them all comes up and says, “would you like to dance?” and stretches out his hand in the traditional gesture.

“I would love to.”

And so you sweep onto the floor in a breathtaking whirl, twists and spins. It’s almost beyond your skill level but this is more fun than anything you’ve ever done in your life. The tension is right. The moves are synced.

“New move!” he says, before catching you off guard while both of you duck and spin through woven arms.

Then the music stops: a dramatic pause. You both stop two seconds. He looks at your eyes, and you instinctively know that he is cuing for extra footwork. In a split second your right foot and his left extend, and draw back to frame together. The dance continues.

Euphoria. You have only seen this done on polished dance floors, and now have done it with no prior practice, no one has told you how to do this. It is like magic.

The look on his face, and his words of approval are sunshine.

The instructor is impressed.

Truly a golden moment.

L. Raine

Hi you,

Couldn’t figure out what to wear this morning, eh? It’s been a rough week/month/year/s and you’re considering staying in pajamas all day or, if you have a job and have to, wear whatever takes least effort.

We’ve all been there. No one is going to see me so it doesn’t matter, and plus, the inside is more important anyway, right? But what if the inside is falling apart? What about when you’re in the middle of a tricky or downright hellish season in life and it’s hard to care? The first thing that we usually want to skip is our appearance. But it’s the last thing we should neglect.

Surviving while Prepping for Thriving

Human minds have a wonderful way of flipping the coin to expose another side, while conveniently forgetting that it is still the same coin. It’s still you with the messy bun and leggings, and it’s still you on date night with the lovely makeup and LBD. Each is as real as the other. You are a multi-faceted human being. You will experience many things. We feel like hell inside sometimes, and the difficulty is making little choices in that time when all we want to do is lie in the mud.

You can’t stake your identity there. It may be something that is happening to you, but it isn’t YOU. If you believe that you are what is happening to you, then may Heaven grant you much mercy because the misery will never end.

WHO YOU ARE IS GREATER THAN WHERE YOU ARE

This. This is why I’m passionate about making the effort to take care of yourself. In difficult or good times of life it is of vast important to get up, get dressed, and laugh at the days to come. Solomon never once said to do this because that’s how you feel, he just said that a woman clothed in strength and dignity does this. She chooses to be strong. I’ve mentioned this recently but I loved a quote from a mom of 8 kids, a TV host, and author who said “I just do it with all the strength in the world and it works out.”

She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she is beautiful.

Here is my challenge to you, whether life is easy or hard right now. Carve out a little time every morning, five minutes if that’s what you can get, and do something that makes you feel alive and lovely. Perhaps for you it is to shower, to style your hair, or wear a touch of blush and lipstick, or to manicure your nails. Whatever it is don’t compromise. Little things are very important.

Because who you are is different from where you are, and taking time for the little moments of self-care will help you to realize the truth that the difficult times will pass and you will come out on top: strong and laughing.

Hi you,

As you’re reading this I’m close to pulling up to my grandma’s front door, ready to visit what is affectionately called “The Burky Corner.” We’ve called it that since forever (which is what time feels like as a kid) because grandma, several uncles, and one aunt all live within a mile of each other there. As a kid we had crazy amounts of fun tramping the property. There was a creek full of tadpoles, fields, woods, barns, animals, and peach pie reposing in some fridge somewhere for us to hunt down. It was wonderful.

We were all part of some plain church or another and all lived pretty much all the same. We ate the same kinds of things, wore the same kinds of clothing, and felt confidence in the fact that we all looked the same. When we left it was hard to find either confidence or personal style. That had always been decided for us. It took awhile to figure things out; when you come from a plain background you are taught to be presentable within church rules, and once away from the rules, scratch the old cranium and say “what is this, fashion, you speak of?”

It’s confusing, and if there’s one thing I’ve been hearing from women coming out of restricted backgrounds it is that the process looks daunting and overwhelming. Most of us really have no clue where to start.

I’ve been finding my way, and I’d love to chat about a couple of the things that really helped me.

1. CONFIDENCE FIRST

One of the most important and difficult things to learn is to throw away beauty ideals of other people and finding one’s own. For me, I knew that if I didn’t build my confidence on character and hope and values I would only ever be a shell to decorate. I have no regrets about this decision. The foundation must be strong or the first gorgeous photo of a Victoria’s Secret Angel will knock all your security out from under you. There’s no way to compete.

But there’s no need to compete if you truly value your own worth and beauty as beginning in character. You will find your own confidence there and you will learn to look deeper on other women; there must be the belief that there is something greater than the external to ever be truly confident. Once this is in place, you are in a good place to start learning the style that will express your inner self. Otherwise, it is easy to end up as a mere mannequinn.

2. BUILD THE STRUCTURE

This will be the second hardest, but also rewarding bit. This is where you build your wardrobe with staples that will always make you feel like you have something to wear; the clothing that you will re-wear five times in a week vs. pulling out something you really don’t want to wear. This is what my list looks like:

• Pencil skirt
• Dark-colored skinny jeans
• At least 2–3 versatile dresses, that can be dressed up or down.
• A few neutral tee shirts (mine are usually grey, cream, or something like a taupe color)
• Ankle boots for winter
• Pretty, comfortable sandals for summer
• Trench coat
• Black leather moto jacket
• Silk scarf
• Little Black Dress

These are my basics and they usually look quite boring. That’s ok by me because I see this as the foundation of the wardrobe. Here is where minimalists stop. I take it one step further.

3. DECORATE

This part is so much fun. It’s where you add that funky necklace, the hoop earrings, the quirky hat, the wild, floral dress, or the velvet red blazer. It’s simply colors, textures, and patterns that bring you a flash of happiness to wear. For example, I have a yellow cardigan I love better than french fries. It doesn’t go with everything and I care not the slightest. It makes me joyful to wear it because it’s cheery and imperturbable. It says, “what ho! Away ennui! Begone doldrums! The sun is out!” Another matter of joy to me is graphic tees. I like weird brands and quirky humor. It satisfies the goofy part of my personality.

This part is all about your personal expression. You have your boring basics, that you must have in any wardrobe, and with this section of your wardrobe everything becomes fun, new, and interesting. We need both stability and spontaneity to satisfy our artistic sides.

Create your own style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

— Anna Wintour

Hi you,

It’s hard to know when you’re doing too much, eh?

Well… no. Usually we know too well when we feel harried or stressed. What is much harder is deciding beforehand what will overload us. We may not have known that what we perceived as a simple yes or favor to someone would turn into a thrice the time and twice the stress than we anticipated.

I have begun a new line of thinking. In general, it is probably better to say no just a little sooner than you think you would need to. The thinking behind this is simple: you are building a margin into your life. If we account for every minute then we end up as the revered veterinarian of the early decades of the 20th century: sweating and cursing at the jostling animals that won’t cooperate with our schedule.

Of course, we’re not dealing with animals, mostly. We have to learn the arts of the social human being, the business profession, the church community, humanitarian aid, and of course, ourselves.

There are exceptions; illnesses, crisis, wars, etc. We can’t keep out these things all the time. But there is a difference between:

1. Survival Mode

2. Thrive Mode

Don’t you too often feel like you’re in survival mode? I do. Events and to-do’s sweep me up and carry me off in a powerful current when learning the the power of simple no would suffice.

Are you in survival mode because circumstances are really crappy right now? Or are you in survival mode because you can’t say no?

If the former, batten the hatches and hunker low to ride out. Don’t worry about letting the edges of things slip to be repaired later. Survival is key. If you eat and stay reasonably clean and sustain life you are doing well.

If the latter, I wonder, wouldn’t it be better to build the essentials of your week and month — things you know you want or need in your life — and then decide how much of the superfluous or extra-curricular can go into it. For example:

Sleeping → Eating → Working → Self and family care → Education → Social → Entertainment → etc

That’s just a sample, of course, but if you see something higher up the food chain suffering for a lesser choice then consider saying no to that. It’s not worth the extra TV episode if you’ll lose out on sleep that will in turn affect your appetite, work, self and family, and ultimately, drive you back to losing yourself in more entertainment.

It’s also not worth becoming a slave to your own expectations of how life should look. I personally think sometimes life gets really messy just to prove to me that I can’t make it all perfect. Sometimes I have to say no to perfectionism, sometimes to recognizing when I’m trying too hard, sometimes to social events, sometimes to a TV episode. No’s are a fundamental part of life, and when used well, liberating. Working hard is a good thing, but don’t burden yourself with optimism that can’t be supported by a real life.

We can’t do it all.

Think about it. Would it free you to say no more often?

Apr 24

Hi you,

Did you know it’s possible to miss someone you’ve never met? To look across a crowded room at the coffee shop and feel like every person there is somehow a friend through camaraderie? To meet a stranger’s eyes in the grocery line at the store and wish you could get to know this person deeply?

There are things which I think about when it rains. Because with the cobweb in the corner of the window to keep you company, someone to keep your toes warm, and hot tea at hand the world is quite cozy and comfortable and as it should be.

It was a good weekend. Friendships were sweet and laughter unalloyed. The coffee was mellow, and the rain sweeping in sheets across the different windows of Friday-Sunday whispered melancholy to me. I love to feel a bit melancholy as long as it doesn’t shift to darkness.

We discussed love this weekend; what does it mean? As an idealist masquerading as a realist with a closet romantic streak it’s a topic I tend to keep low key. But it means a great deal to me. It’s one area of my life I cannot quite bring to rational heel. It won’t obey me. It keeps on being wild and tender, messy and sweet, and thoughtful.

Of course we also discussed romantic love, because what else are 3 INFJ’s (and 1 ESFJ) to do? One thought that love was falling, eternally, for another person. One thought that love is a choice, and yet another that love was persevering in life and growing old together. Well, we all thought that. Love was decided eventually to be many things. It was the flight, the fall, the choice, the baby crying, the new house, the valuing of one person above others, and eventually, the knowledge that with this person, you could, and did, weather together.

Love is trust. As I sat at one of the many coffee shops and talks of the weekend, friendships seemed especially rich to me. By the same token, it frightened me indescribably. Such power as we place in the hands of one another when we open our hearts to friendships, to boyfriends and girlfriends, to our children, as husband and wife, and to One Who has taught us all what love and friendships really mean.

Here is what our little group of friends decided love really means.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love, never fails. The greatest is love.

“ And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great. Job 2:13”

It is not my road, but yet it is my road, because I am walking with them in friendship. It is my pain. It isn’t my pain or hurt or betrayal in the most direct sense, but the legitimacy of their feelings in some part become mine. So what is it about someone else’s pain that immobilizes me? It is beyond my control what has happened to them, yet to grapple with the question of ‘why not me’ is sometimes the hardest thing to face in friendship. It isn’t my pain. It is my pain. The legitimacy of this grips me and shames me, and in great sympathy I do nothing while the tears of the saints fall. What can I say? Perhaps nothing, because I would not add to pain with thoughtless words.

Yet to leave anyone comfortless during crisis goes against the greatest commandment I know of: love. What is this kind of compassion? Where words are not superfluous or clash and bang with all the indelicacy of brass or cymbals. In the great struggle of someone else’s grief or pain what can I possibly play to resolve the dissonance of someone’s life driven apart when it cannot be resolved but must continue to play its movement to the score of a greater composition?

What can be sung when the music is beyond words? When what we know becomes swallowed in a great picture so far away from our humanity that our vision blurs with tears and our voices falter in sympathy?

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. ”

— Psalm 56:8

I don’t know, and it feels unpolished to mesh together a blog post about spring and painful questions with no answers on this grey, cloudy and chilly day, but life is sometimes like that. Answers aren’t always pat to the psychological moment and wrapped in airy boxes with a yellow ribbon on top. Sometimes spring retreats for a little while behind a thick blanket of grey heaviness, sometimes writers are at a loss for words and struggle to communicate, and sometimes we remember that pain is not comfortable. It is not predictable, and the music will keep on playing while we sit playing an accompaniment that does not match and wonder why we are here. Sometimes we are left playing the solo we never wanted.

Yet out of all this emerges one great beauty, because we are not alone as God orchestrates us but all together in one grand piece that is full of the most epic music we could imagine. Even during the worst parts there is a promise of the best is yet to come, and the darkness can’t endure. It doesn’t take away pain, but we know it can’t last, and this is where we must stand together, as friends, as fellow heirs in this promise.

“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.”

— Isaiah 25.8

And so we hope and believe.

Selah