Lynse Leanne

I wonder what God thinks when we pray again for the first time in a long time…

Is he like the guilt giving person that hears a voice that hasn’t come to church or has been absent for a while and smirk and say, “finally, it’s about time I hear that voice again.”

Or is He the gracious one that hears the voice and His heart leaps for joy at the fact that He gets to hear from you?

You know when you’re in a large group of people and you hear a voice.  Maybe it was a friend that has been away for a while but has returned.  You hear their voice and your ears perk up.  Your heart jumps with excitement.  You aren’t wondering where they have been, you are just excited that you are hearing from them.

That is how I think God is.  No guilt.  No shame.  He is just excited that He gets to hear from you.

What do you think?

This picture was taking in High School…the summer between my Junior and Senior year.

The four of us were inseparable. We did everything together. We met at church…well, i met them at church, they were friends much longer than I was in the picture because we moved between my sophomore and junior year.

There were so many fun memories that we all had together. There were a lot of things we learned about each other, life and ourselves. Together we dealt with big life issues and played…usually in the same day.

These 3 girls made my last 2 years in high school enjoyable. They were the first friends to know my story. They loved me. We loved and still love each other.

- we would sneak out to fork our youth pastors lawn, video tape it, show our parents and then lie about WHEN it was.
- we shared some of our darkest moments.
- we kept up on each others lives through our spybooks.
- we had random photo shoots.
- we snuck in and redesigned Irene’s room, while you were out style.
- we went camping.
- we endured, each Sunday, the bible study we were in and affectionately referred to it as “torture.”
- tattoos before we were 18.
- we drove one early morning to Denver to see Hanson. Sat in the hot sun all day for a 7pm show. And Zac touched our hands. Irene and I cried.

That time in life felt like a movie. We all had different styles, different life stories, different families and different perspectives. But it worked.

We have all gone our separate ways…. Irene has 4 precious kids and an amazing husband who is in the Air Force. Rachel is married to her first love and she’s in nursing school. Becca is living in California and is beautiful as ever. and well, we know where I am.

i know i look back on those days with fond memories. Some fun and hilarious. Some tough and growing experiences. But all memories that have made me the Lynse that i am today.

Do you have those friends that you knew in High School that you still talk with?

today in the ample time i have at the coffee shop i was thinking about being happy and if you can have joy and be unhappy at the same time…and if there is a difference in happiness and joy.

i know that there have been times in my life when i am happy externally…like things are going my way and everything is good. But then the other times in life when i am not too happy and the things around me kind of suck. You know, the times when you’re not happy with your job or the amount of money you have.

on the other hand i know that joy is a fruit of the spirit and you should walk always in the joy that God is the provider and saviour. But does that mean that i always have to be happy?

Anyways my thought is, is there a difference between joy and happiness? Is joy internal and happiness external? Can you have joy inside and be very unhappy with the life around you?

Curious of your thoughts. Is there a difference in joy and happiness? is joy internal and happiness circumstantial?

I think i have found my life’s soap box.  You know, the thing that gets your blood boiling faster than anything else on the entire world.  I say i “found” it, but truthfully, its always been there….but i have just now discovered the line that ties all the things i thought were just floating in the nebulous land of soap boxes.

My soap box: Discounting.  Plain and simple.

I am not talking about the awesome discounts you get when you use coupons or whatever but the discounting of people and their experiences.

In TwentyFourSeven Leadership Academy that I was in for 2 years nearly drilled this concept into my head.  I never really understood the importance of the concept until recent “soul searching”.  We were taught time and time again to not “discount” other students experiences by making off the cuff comments about how bad that sermon was or how much we hated that song or how lame that mission project was.  I never got it cause i was just being sarcastic or voicing my opinion.  Then one day the heart of it was explained to me.  I had a light switch moment. It made sense in my head.

Just because I didn’t like the song or the sermon or the experience or the memories that was being created didn’t mean that everyone felt the same way.  Maybe the song that we sang lead to breakthrough in someones life or the message i was critiquing and stating how “lower shelf” it was and just senseless babble brought freedom to that person.  You never know.  Speaking poorly about an experience that may have meant the world to someone else is discounting it for them.  You are making it a little less special for them.  You are calling doubt and question into play in an experience that could be the catalyst for life change.

Discounted.

This is why comparing stories and testimonies frustrate me so much.  I wrote about it here (we are all right).  Just because my story may be more intense or less intense than yours doesn’t and shouldn’t discount the fact that you are a person with stories and experiences that make you.

You are not me.  You are you.

That’s another form of discounting that can lead a persons voice or perceived voice to be stolen from them.

I had a similar experience a while back where i felt like my feelings and experiences i had been through were being discounted because it was “not as bad or serious” as the person i was being compared to.  My emotions, feelings and experiences were discounted.  They were made less because someone felt that i had no right to have those feelings and emotions.

Discounted.

For me, it caused me to shut down and feel like my voice was taken.  That my feelings and experiences were no longer valid.  That forever i would be compared to _________ and if my thoughts and feelings were not deemed acceptable they should not be shared.

I had allowed myself to be discounted.

I spent a few weeks angry.  Then i was hurt.  Then i was angry again.  And in all of this i stopped updating my blog, i stopped commenting on blogs because i didnt feel like i had a voice to contribute or an opinion that was valued.

I don’t know that i truly understood the concept until that moment.  Until i had experienced being discounted.  The gut wrenching feeling of my feelings being discounted.

I have since spent some time finding my value and voice in things other than blogging and twitter.  I don’t feel discounted anymore.

Through my experience and hurt i discovered my life’s soap box.  The little piece of what i view as injustice that i can fight for.

What’s your life’s soapbox?  What makes your blood boil?

After we moved here in March I threw myself in to the desire to meet new people and make friends and get attached here. I was trying to make it my home. I was making an effort to better mine and Chad’s relationship….and many of you know twitter, facebook and blogging has been something that hasn’t assisted in the bettering of us. so i kind of broke away from it for a bit.

I stopped.
I started a new twitter account for many purposes but mostly to simplify.
I was over the popularity contest that i saw brewing online.

It had become a lot like High School drama and i was getting stressed over it and i didn’t want to be. I didn’t want stress. Twitter, Facebook and blogging had been my stress reliever, it was the place i went like another world that took me away from the stress of my then job. It was my make believe world that i could escape to and find refuge in.

I went through i time when i really wanted to just focus on living in the now. I posted over on Elora’s blog while she was in Africa something that was making my heart beat at the time. I posted about how i had been living life through 140 characters and to a point i think it hindered my experiences. It hindered what i got out of the moment because i wanted to share it with everyone and break this sometimes magical moment that can never be recreated. You can read it here.

The last couple of weeks I have been wrestling with some things in life like who i am. what kind of friend do i want to be. where did i see me in 5 years. where do i see chad and i in 5 years.

And for me personally the best way for me to spend some time hashing things out is to write. I know i am not the most fantastic writer and i use “…” too much and write in run on sentences that make my English teacher friends cringe (sara and elora), but it is in fact my outlet. And i stopped it.

But i want it back. I want to write again. I want to share my happiness. My struggles. My fears. My failures. My successes. I want to share it with you all.

So i want back. I can not promise i will update daily, but i am going to try and update more often. And it may be more raw as i fight some things out inside of me. I hope that you will join me.

buckle up. it could be an interesting ride.