Just Life – Page 15

[Five Minute Friday] Break

On Wednesday, as I was sitting in the teacher training seminar, I took a look at my fellow teacher trainees. A colleague leaned over and whispered, “Is it just me or do we look more exhausted each week?”
He was right.
Dark small eyes glanced back at me. Bored and incredibly tired expressions on their faces, many of us worked really hard to not fall asleep during pedagogy class.
We’re exhausted and in desperate need of a break.

Do you know this feeling? Your body is exhausted, your mind is tired.
You just need a break.

If we take a closer look at the word “break” we find it’s actually a very active verb.
Breaks don’t come upon us, we need to take them.
Break up the routine you’re in, the spinning wheel you can’t get out of.
The clusters and circles you’re stuck in.
Break with the thought patterns you entertain every day. The worries and questions tormenting your soul.
Break free from things and people holding you back.
Break through to rest. Peace of body, soul, and mind.
We need it desperately. Every day.

Often it doesn’t take much to have a break.
Give yourself time to get ready in the morning.
Enjoy your breakfast. Food in general is good. 🙂
Don’t work through your break time at work.
Take a walk.
Meet a friend for coffee and allow them to encourage you.
Read a book. No notes, just for you and for fun.
Listen to a piece of music, really listen. Let the instruments and the lyrics sink in and resonate with the strings of your soul.
Be still. Seek silence. Seek Him who promised to bind you wounds and refresh your empty soul.

It doesn’t take much to have a break.
But it does take your first step. Break is an active verb.
Where can you take a break today?

Want to make break a routine in your life? Then join me at Shelley Miller’s Sabbath Society – for all those who are all in for Sabbath, God’s desginated break for us.

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Taking a break from work and writing for fun – this is Five Minute Friday over at Kate Motaung‘s place. There’s also a great video interview with my friend Liz over there today! Why don’t you join us?

[Five Minute Friday] Real

I like to play jokes on people.
Nothing really bad, just teasing. Telling little stories and seeing their unbelieving faces and their “really” expressions.
Some fall for it, they believe the fake story I just told them. Others don’t, they go deeper and ask for the real thing, the truth.

In a world of fake IDs, fake relationships and fake products, the realty is hard to find.
Many argue there isn’t actually a reality, everything is constructed.
But what if realness is there – buried deep inside of us and often found in unexpected places.

A student struggling with depression is real.
People in Syria living in the rubble of what used to be their homes are real.
Christians all over the world fearing for their lives because of their faith are real.
A Christian couple in your church getting a divorce is real.
A spouse yelling at you and not understanding every single one of your problems is real.
A friend letting you down or telling you something unexpected is real.
An experience of failure making you aware of your own weaknesses is real.

Being real doesn’t mean being perfect.
It often actually means real pain, struggles, breakups, failure, tough relationships.

What if being real meant being raw?
Authentic?
With all its edges and cliffs and struggles?

A real diamond is raw at first.
It looks like a stone and nothing fancy.
Only the chisel of a skilled master and life’s changes bring out the true beauty.
A raw stone turns into a real diamond.

Being real means being raw stones, nothing fancy or glamorous.
It means pain and struggles and disappointments.
But through courage and honesty we discover a bit more of our rawness.
And all along I hope we experience the chisel of our master to carve us more into diamonds.
Real treasures he already sees in us.

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Linking up with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. Five Minutes of flat writing on one prompt. Sharing with other wonderful writers. Come and join us!

Growth

I fight.
I struggle with the new reality called my life.
I wrestle with the challenges thrown at me day after day that often seem overwhelming.
My mind knows I have to push through, towards the surface, towards the light.
But sometimes I’d rather not.

Sometimes I feel like a seed in the ground.
I’ve been planted for a reason.
I’m expected to gro.
Life has taken good care of me, watered and prodded me from time to time.
Now it’s time to grow.

Yet the soil is comfortable and familiar.
I know my way around, I know the people surrounding me.
I know how to behave.
I know I am me.

I just don’t want to change.
Don’t want to evolve.
Don’t want to go through the painful process of birthing seomthing new.
Why not stay a seed forever?

Because I would regret it.
I would miss out.
I would never see what’s above the ground.
I would never get to delight in the beautiful blowers around me.
I would never discover the strength and beatuy that’s been planted in me all along.
I would never get to discover new and surprising sides on me.

Only if I push through, only if I wait for roots to thicken, for seeds to break open, for some of the old things to die – I will also harvest the beautiful new life that comes from growth.
It’s time to grow.

And so I wait.
So I push.
So I focus on the light above that’s to come and the vision of new life ahead of me.

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Linking up with Karen Beth and her writing group today. Thankful for prompt words that keep my mind spinning, my words coming together, and my fingers on the keyboard dancing!

[Five Minute Friday] Plan

I try. I try really hard.
I think and plan and think and evaluate some more.
I neglect old plans and come up with new ones.
I rethink every idea I have and I am careful to not miss anything.

And yet, nothing goes as planned.
Time is too short, material is missing, students come up with their own, unique ideas.
I have not taught a single lesson the way I had planned it.

And that is totally fine.

Working with people is never a full-proof thing.
You can’t choose to invest in people without taking a risk.
You can’t program others like you would program a computer.
You can give a certain input, but you can never be sure about the outcome.
Everyone working outside an office might be familiar with that.

We’re all little planners.
We plan our day. When to get up, when to do what, when to meet friends.
We plan our months and years. When to visit relatives, when to go on vacation.
We ultimately plan our lives. When to get married. When to have kids. Where to live and how to pay off mortgages.

We experience success, happiness, and fulfilled plans.
But I guess I’ve never met a person who hasn’t also experienced defeat, disappointment, and loss.
Plans fail. Every day, in every life.

And that is fine as well.
Because at the end of the day it’s not about the plan.
It’s about the interruptions and my attitude towards them.
They might change my plans, give them a different direction, bring something or someone to life we’d have never expected.
That’s what makes life rich and beautiful.

So how interruptible are your plans today?

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On Fridays I plan to link up with Kate Motaung and a fabulous group of writers for Five Minute Friday. One prompt. Five minutes of writing. No editing. Come and join us!

I feel like I’m not myself anymore

I feel like I’m not myself anymore.
My life has been taken over by someone, something else.
The way I eat, work, and interact is dictated by the outside.
I don’t know when I last got enough sleep.
When I didn’t have to worry about the loads of work in front of me. Emails in my inbox pile up – messages from dear friends waiting for an update, and all I can give them is a “I’ll get back to you as soon as things calm down.”
But when is that?

My kitchen looks like a battlefield, I stumble through it in the morning to make a cup of coffee and hope there’s still some food left in the fridge.
I don’t even want to get started on the rest of the apartment.
Piles and piles of paper, clothes, pens.
The air smells of heavy thinking.
I look at this mess everyday and think, “I really need to get some order into this.”
And yet, time runs by far too quickly and I have no energy left to pick up a single sheet of paper.
I want to meet up with friends and share my struggles, but often I feel like I have no ounce of emotional strength left in me to carry a conversation.

I feel like a grandma when I see my roommate go to a party at 9.30 pm and I start getting ready for bed.

What happened?
Well, I started working.
Welcome to the life of a new teacher.

I haven’t moved, I still speak German, I still surrounded by many familiar things and faces.
And yet, I feel as if I had entered a new culture.
The land of adulthood and working.
The land where clocks ring early and demand full-on responsibility.
A whole new world of terms, people, schedules.
And it takes time to learn them.
There are courses to prepare you for birth, marriage, driving…but why does no one ever

prepare you for work and all the changes it brings to your life?

Another transition.
Not geographically, but mentally, cognitively, and emotionally.
My sense of time, sleep, work, and social life has been uprooted and replanted into a new environment.

There’s the honeymoon phase.
I do enjoy new experiences, like meeting friendly colleagues, entertaining students, teaching epiphanies, and earning some money along the way.
There’s the depression phase I wrestle with at the moment.
The overwhelming feeling of defeat, exhaustion, and hopelessness.
The impression of being lost in your day’s schedule, tasks, and identity that no longer seem to be your own.
The inability to manage my life around this new omnipresent force called school.

And eventually, hopefully, there will be the readjustment phase.
When my roots are firmly replanted on this new soil of adult work life.
When I find the right balance between work and social life.
When I learn to say no to things so that I have time to enjoy the things and people I have said yes to. When life has found a new routine and I can carve out space to let in joy, peace, and people again. When I discover a new sense of anticipation for what will come next.
When I listen into myself and find that I am still there. I might have been lost for a while, but my identity – my self – has always been there after all.

[Five Minute Friday] Open

My life is like a prison sometimes. I feel trapped in my day-to-day routine. I just function, but true life has left me.
My mind is like a prison sometimes. I mull the same thoughts and questions over and over, but there’s no answer that makes the spinning stop.
My soul is like a prison sometimes. Worries and fear of the unknown creep up and won’t let me sleep. The more I worry the bigger these forces become and tear me apart.

It’s so easy to become closed off.
Stuck in my own doings and pereceptions and worries.
Hidden from the world and other people.

How can you be a door opener
for other people?

But there is a door.
Only recently when I reflected upon this busy, busy year I had with final exams and studying 24-7, without any time for friends but a lot to worry about – only then did I realize I had a few doors along the way.
Or rather, door openers.

People like J.
Whenever I felt overwhelmed with questions and deadlines and my own emotions, there was J.
We would cook together or have coffee and she would listen.
And then speak firm and encouraging words.
She listened to my questions and pointed me towards answers.
She opened my perspective for more.
She restored a bit of hope where I had lost it.

J is a door opener.

Interesting enough, this year roles are reversed.
She’s stuck with exams and drowning in books.
She is overwhelmed with questions about the future.
She might also feel like in prison sometimes.
The other day we had lunch and talked a bit how much I appreciated her role in my life. And then she said, “but don’t you know that you’re my J?”

This touched something inside of me because that’s who I want to be.
I want to be someone’s J.
A friend who shares life with you.
A listener.
An encourager.
A thinker.
A “sit still and wait” person.
A perspective changer.
A hope restorer.
A door opener.

*Yes, there were other people in the last year, too, and I can’t thank them enough for being Js in my life! If you’re reading this, please know how much I appreciate you!

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Friday is writing time!Kate Motaung‘s Five Minute Friday party!
Five minutes to give it a go at

[Five Minute Friday] When

No matter how much you plan a lesson, a day, or a life – something will always go wrong.
Isn’t this the attitude we often have towards life?
Well, what if things interrupt our plans, but in a very positive, surprising way?
Especially when you least expect it.

Today is my first day of the holidays.
It was quite a delight walking out of the school yesterday and feel the knowledge flood me: You’re off for an entire week. You can sleep and rest.
With these high spirits I walked downtown.
At a traffic light I ran into a friend I had met in my first semester and hadn’t seen in quite a few years.
I thought I would just say hello and then move on.

I was wrong.

We started talking about what we’ve been up to for the last few years and a superficial chat quickly turned into a time of sharing about challenges and faith questions.
We ended up going for coffee and a few minutes turned into a few hours.
We left the café, smiling and incredibly blessed.

I didn’t expect to run into that friend yesterday.
I hadn’t planned to spend hours in a coffee shop hearing his life story.
And yet I am so glad I did.

What if life isn’t about perfect plans and anticipating all the negative possibilities?
I guess life is more about our willingness to be interruptible.
To be open for the people and things that come across our way each day.
Because when we least expect it we will meet blessings in disguise.
These kinds of interruptions won’t destroy our timetables – they’ll enrich our souls in ways no planned event ever could.

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Friday means writing party over at Kate Motaung‘s place! One prompt. Five minutes of flat writing. No editing. But loads of encouragement from fellow writers!

[Five Minute Friday] Keep

Things had to change.
After five years of studying theory at uni, it was time to put knowledge into practice.
So I started a new job a few weeks ago. Actually, my first job ever. I am a teacher at a school nearby and the next 1.5 years I’ll be in training. People will watch and evaluate my teaching, there will be lots of late nights preparing and many early mornings.
I had heard quite a bit of rumors and horror stories about these years.
“You won’t have a life during this time.”
“You’ll just live for school.”

So obviously I wasn’t that thrilled when I had to get up at 5.30 am for the first time in many years.
I would cut all my extra curricular activities, no more social work.
I would limit my relationships because I wouldn’t have time for people.
I have to be an adult now. But is that really what it’s like?

Shortly after I started working I met a friend for lunch and she said something that stuck with me:
“Don’t stop living. Keep the things in your life that keep you alive.”

I guess we all know situations that drain our energy.
You might live through such a phase of life right now.
You only go from day to day.
You function, but you don’t live.
And slowly by slowly you realize joy has left the house called your heart.

Don’t cut off everything.
Yes, life is not just about fun and easy going.
Yes, there are times that really challenge us and take our energy.
But keep going.
Keep the things and people in your life that push you forward.
That touch something inside of you, below the surface.
In German, we have a verb for that: “beleben” – it gives life to you.

Keep life inside of you.
This might mean a good night’s sleep.
A coffee date with a friend.
Reading an encouraging and exciting book.
Going for a run.
In my case this means lots of cooking.
Playing music in a band.
Leading worship at church.
Practicing my administrational skills at organizing congresses.

Find what gives life to you.
Small things everyday, bigger things once in a while.
Don’t just function.
Live!

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Friday means five minute of free writing over at Kate Motaung‘s place – come and join us!

[Five Minute Friday] Wait

I pounded on the door.

Desperate to be let in.

My head full of questions, my heart like a restless sea of worry.

What is going to happen? What does the future hold for me?

Answer me, Lord.

Finishing a phase in life and transitioning into the next is not easy.

Stepping into new things in life feels like standing at the edge and wondering what would happen if I took the plunge.

The next steps are not mapped out clearly in front of me. All I can do is wait.

I don’t want to wait.

Waiting seems to be a natural part of life.

Waiting for the bus. Waiting for a friend who’s late. Waiting for summer. Waiting for the cake in the oven to be done.
Waiting for a better life to start. Waiting for the crisis to be over. Waiting for a spouse. Waiting for a child.

We often don’t want to wait, yet we have no way to change it.

We want to have the answer now. We want things now,

But what if it’s not really about the waiting to be over? What if the waiting is the essential thing?

Waiting time is never wasted time.

Waiting develops us in ways often unseen: endurance, patience with others and ourselves, an inner perspective.

Waiting prepares the canvas onto which our future is painted – brush stroke after brush stroke.

Waiting strengthens the foundation we can later build on.

Waiting sharpens our character for the trials to come.

Waiting redirects our perspective.

We become aware of our own dependence and neediness.

We open up ourselves to the help of others.

We find the Lord who is working in our waiting and who’ll open up doors we never ever pounded on.

What are you waiting for? And how are you waiting?

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It’s another Friday and over at Kate Motaung’s place we gather for a fabulous five minutes of writing. One prompt. Just write. No edit. Share and be inspired!

[Five Minute Friday] Share

It’s 6.30 am and my alarm clock won’t let me sleep any longer.
Time to get up and go to work.
I don’t feel ready for that.

The sky is dark, dawn is slowly creeping up.
I look out the window and see the neighboring houses covered in white.
Snow.
My mood drops, my smile turns into a grimly look, and I think “O no.”
I am not a fan of snow and the cold, but that’s a different story.
I walk into the bathroom to splash a bit of water into this sleepy face.
I make coffee.
All the while I feel a mood change taking place inside of me.
From hopeful to pessimistic.
From happy to moody.
Slightly aggressive.
And the day hasn’t even fully begun yet.

As I consider my feelings this morning I have to ask myself the uncomfortable question: What do I share today?
Do I want to pass on these feelings and attitudes to the people I meet today?
What do YOU share today?
How will people meet you on the street, at work, at uni today?
What will they take away from a conversation with you? A “Oh, she was really something today”, or “I feel encouraged because of her”?
What will you like and share on facebook or twitter? Yet another animal video or something that might speak to someone else?

I don’t know how your morning looked like.
But I know that the world’s already full enough of grumpy, hopeless people.
Share some difference today.
A smile.
A word of encouragement.
A bit of perspective in the midst of pessimism.

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One prompt. Five minutes of writing, no editing. That’s Five Minute Friday at Kate Motaung‘s place. It’s always a joy to share encouragement and stories with the other writers, come join us!