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The First Renovation

The First Renovation

Don’t wait until the toilet overflows to find your true passions like I did. Start now. You don’t need anyone to tell you you are good enough. You are just because that is who you are and what you were created to do. The world needs your passions.

Who Am I

Who Am I

We don’t have to pick up all our broken pieces in order to put ourselves back together. We can leave some on the floor.

Re-Invent Yourself

Re-Invent Yourself

For the past ten years, I have tried to fit my square peg into a round hole. I was a teacher before I chose to stay home almost 15 years ago. I became a teacher because I liked kids and knew it was something I could do; something that could pay the bills. Teaching was never a dream or something I remember doing or wanting to do when I was a kid. What I do remember is being outside all the time. I remember playing and using my imagination. I remember writing and rearranging my room. I remember wanting to be around people and friends more than I wanted to be alone.

So, why do I question myself when the things I want for my life now looks like what I loved back then? Why do I try to be something different than what I always have been? I think I have spent a good part of my life trying to fit into the molds and systems created for me instead of creating space where I actually fit.

I spoke an idea, a dream, out loud to my husband. I realized there are three things that bring me life (besides my husband and boys). I want to do those three things to the fullest (well, to the fullest of what I can do in this season) because they awaken me from the inside out. These three things energize me. They make me feel whole. I finally allowed myself to not only say, but believe, that I am meant to do these three things. I add value to this world when I do. My life has meaning and these three are a huge part of that.

I finally allowed myself not only to say, but believe that I am meant to do these three things.

I am a different person when I give myself time to write. I feel full and most at ease communicating via words on a page. There’s something about the thoughts turning into comprehendible words on a page. It’s like a waltz getting them from my head to the paper. I come alive when I am designing. Renovation and construction Meg isn’t always pretty, but I am energized by the design process. I struggle walking into a space and not see the design brilliance or start designing the room I’m standing in. I feel most at home when I am outside with my hands in the dirt working in my garden with my chickens next to me.

And then it all made sense.

Realizing and accepting that these three things make me who I am took awhile to accept. I tried to be and do things the way the system told me to instead walking in the organic nature of who I am and what I was created for.

I am a writer.

I am an designer.

I am an accidental suburban farmer.

I am worthy.

I do add value.

You add value. You are worthy. You were made to live in the places and spaces before you fully in this season. You are allowed to change your mind and change your path. You are allowed to grow and flourish, try and fail. You were made for this.

Love you.

Mean it.

Meg

Finding Myself

Finding Myself

It has taken me years to finally give up on the search to find the one career path that suits me. Not because I’ve actually found it, but because I finally realized I never will. themessymingling.com I don’t have memories growing up dreaming about what 

When I Felt Seen

When I Felt Seen

Flashback with me. About three years or so ago I had a meeting. I was flipping through old pictures trying to find something in particular when I stumbled upon a picture that reminded me of this day and this meeting. I met with a team 

Freedom to Believe

Freedom to Believe

How I broke free from the American Church and found my faith.

themessymingling.com

I never realized how much the Church had a hold on my faith. Not a particular church. Just the church in general. The ways, the rules, the traditions all seemed to lead me more than Jesus. Did I believe? Absolutely. Did I go to church, serve, and do things with and within the church with good intentions? Of course. Somehow, I got wrapped up in the ways of church and our church structure in the United States more than I sat in the presence of God.

I never realized how much the Church had a hold on my faith. Not a particular church. Just the church in general. The ways, the rules, the traditions all seemed to lead me more than Jesus.

themessymingling.com

There’s a way we do church in America. Different denominations may look a little different from each other. Even though each church may look a little different from one another, there is definitely a way to be a Christian in this country. And boy, did I look the part. I lived it out and I lived it out loud. I always wanted to fit in. I can remember from the time I was a little girl longing to fit in with friends; to be accepted. I never really did, though. I never found myself in that crowd: the one everyone likes and looks to for what we should wear, how we should behave, and how to be the it group. Oh, but how I tried to fit into their mold. I just wanted to belong, but never did.

Little did I know that years later I would realize that fitting in was never a part of the faith equation. We talk a lot about how Jesus didn’t fit in. We like to talk about how he up-ended the “in” crowd of that day. What I find, ironically, is that while we celebrate Jesus’ unique character that blows up the norms of his day, we still flock together in groups all of us wanting to fit in somewhere and to matter.

I remember two distinct moments that prompted my freedom to believe my way without apology. I received a phone call from one of our boys on a mission trip. He had just spent a few days working with a program that fed the homeless. They stocked shelves, organized the warehouse, and fed the homeless. On the second leg of their trip, they attended a large youth conference. And when I say large, picture an arena full. He couldn’t reconcile the fact that they just served people in need yet were spending thousands upon thousands on this conference. I was so proud of him in this moment. He had such a mature awareness of who he was and what he cared about at such a young age (middle school). However, I also knew that if he didn’t “like” this conference, he wouldn’t fit into the American Christian mold of a good Christian youth. Oddly enough, in that moment, I didn’t care what others’ thought. This kid found his faith in a way that many adults never do.

The second moment I knew I may have needed a church sabbatical came on our last visit to church before we went on lockdown for the pandemic. A Children’s pastor came up to me after church with some concerns about another one of my sons. She let me know that he had been questioning the teacher in relation to the Bible story. She continued to “console” me about how one of her kiddos had strayed and that I while I should be aware that he is questioning, I should find comfort in knowing that some kids go through this. I literally needed to pick my mouth up off the floor. While her intentions may have been good in her mind, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Why is it frowned upon that our kids have questions about their faith and what they are learning? I find that mature and incredible. I was proud of my fourth grader for wanting to know more and why and all the things. Bring it. But, I like the mess and many don’t.

Take these two moments, a lockdown, some riots, and a crazy political season and this girl needed a break from the church. I realized I didn’t feel free to have my own unique faith journey. I needed to look and act the way everyone else did in the four walls of (any) church to be a good Christian. It isn’t the church’s fault. It just is what it is. The way we’ve done things for centuries. The ways in which we have interpreted God’s Word and made it true not realizing our own human limitations. This led me to strive to be more like the Church instead of following the ways of Jesus.

I desperately want the freedom to believe and embark on this faith journey my way and in my timing. I want the freedom to look differently than everyone else and not be questioned whether I’m doing it right or not. (And I’m not talking about not having accountability here.) I want to be loved and accepted because of my uniqueness not because me and my family look like all the other families in the four walls of the church I attend.

I desperately want the freedom to believe and embark on this faith journey my way and in my timing. I want the freedom to look differently than everyone else and not be questioned whether I’m doing it right or not. I want to be loved and accepted because of my uniqueness not because me and my family look like all the other families in the four walls of the church I attend.

themessymingling.com

I found the freedom to believe when I took a sabbatical from church: to question, to wonder, to explore, to find church in other ways, to give outside of tithing in a way that truly came from the heart and served others outside the confines of the law of the church land, and it felt so good. I didn’t leave because of anything anyone in church did. If anything, my church friends, and leaders were so loving and kind. I left because my soul needed me to. I couldn’t be who they expected me to be anymore. I was so much more than that. I am more than that.

I have learned, however, that freedom comes with a cost. Freedom cost me to lose people I adored, and I thought adored me. Freedom cost me to be misunderstood and judged. Freedom’s cost meant I was talked about, and narratives were created about me that were not true. That’s okay, though. That cost is part of the messy mingling and taught me more about grace and forgiveness than any Sunday message I’ve heard from the pulpit.

Even though freedom cost me, it gave me more than I could have imagined. More love. More compassion. For myself and for others. More giving, grace, and forgiveness. I gained a wider perspective and let more people in never realizing how many in had left out. I gained the ability to freely search for God in the way my soul needed and was now able to give that same freedom to others.

Man, this freedom feels good. I’ve never felt God more in this place and I am the questioning queen. Don’t be afraid to be free. Don’t fear looking different or allowing yourself to have a different path than the constructs set in place. It’s okay to not be that person. Because the person you are is the one who is free.

Hindsight

Hindsight

People usually look ahead in January, not back. Goals for their future self are set and resolutions made. Many go into a new year wanting to leave the previous year in the dust. I’ve spent the first few days of the new year in hindsight. 

Algorithms, Followings, and Instagram

Algorithms, Followings, and Instagram

679. That’s my number. In the Instagram and social media world, that number is minute, miniscule, unworthy of attention. For me, it signifies freedom. When you try to step into the business of a writing ministry, numbers (unfortunately) matter. We don’t want to succumb to, 

The House: Part One

The House: Part One

Scott and I have been married for 19 years. For about 15 of those years, we have driven around and looked online at properties with land. We knew we always wanted to be on some acreage, but nothing ever felt quite right. I remember being in Scott’s office looking at a property with over one hundred acres in Wyoming. Yes. Wyoming. It was beautiful. But, it wasn’t the one. After seeing those rolling hills and open spaces but not feeling it, I told Scott, we will know-when-we-know-when-we-know.

Flash forward to the summer of 2021. We finished renovating the kitchen and master bathroom in our current home in June. Come July, we were tearing out wood floors and some walls fixing a broken pipe from Snowmaggedon in Texas in February. They finished ripping the floors out on a Friday afternoon (of course). Scott and I looked at the job and both thought, “There is no way we can stay here while they fix this monstrosity.” After a sleepless Saturday night, I woke up motivated to find our family a rental close to the boys’ schools. I told Scott and he asked me if I wanted to go for a drive to look at them that evening. No. No I don’t want to go on a drive. I want to go to bed. But, I decided to trade my sleep for one of our iconic drives.

After we drove by the few rentals I found, I asked Scott to drive us through our favorite neighborhood. We all have one of those: that place you drive through dreaming and scheming of ways to move there. We finished our rental route close to our old house so I didn’t think Scott would make the trek to the coveted neighborhood. But, he did. That’s when we saw it. The house that we would know-when-we-know-when-we-know. We both looked at each other and knew exactly what the other was thinking.

We will know-when-we-know-when-we-know.

themessymingling.com

A few weeks before the drive that changed our lives, I was sitting on my friend and neighbor’s porch watching our boys ride bikes around the park in front of our houses. The sun was setting when our other neighbor/friend came home. We’ve been friends and neighbors for years. Our boys have literally grown up together. At this time, I had absolutely no intention of moving. We had just finished renovating our current house. No way I was going to leave the place where my babies grew into little men and I had given my blood, sweat, and tears getting it exactly the way I wanted it. But, in that moment when the skies turned dark, she said it: “Just keep going until God says stop.” You see, her family was the first one from our pack that had decided to move. She went on a fishing trip in Florida and stumbled upon a home she couldn’t pass up. We were all sad to see one of the Sand Lot crew go. Never in a million years did I think our boys would be the next two to leave.

Just keep going until God says stop.

themessingmingling.com

I took that saying and pocketed it. I knew it was good. About a week after that little neighbor porch sit is when we stumbled upon the house. We pulled up to the for sale sign, looked around, and said, “Hmmmmm.” We pulled the house up on MLS, looked at the interior pictures and said, “Hmmmmmm.” We both knew. I honestly believe we both knew in that moment sitting out front of that house in Scott’s truck on that hot Sunday evening that this would become our house even though it was unbelievable. We both knew and didn’t need to say a word.

We called our realtor on Monday. Walked the house on Tuesday. Made an offer on Wednesday morning. By 10pm Wednesday night, the house was ours.

We hadn’t even thought about putting our other house on the market. We were in the throws of fixing the floors. The whole process was a whirlwind. An “only God” moment. We just kept going until God said stop, but He never did.

Back in December, we tried to buy a similar house about thirty minutes away. It had a little more land, but we would be ripping our boys out of their communities in order to do this. We were beat out with another office and I felt like I had lost the dream: the dream to one day be on some land tending to some animals and a garden. The house we lost felt like something for me finally. I surrendered my life and my career when I decided to stay home 14 years ago. A decision I do not regret and hold onto for the gift that it is. But, if I am being honest, giving your life up for others is hard; probably one of the hardest things I’ve done. It takes daily surrender. Totally worth it. Challenging none-the-less.

Turns out, the house we lost that devastated me set us up for the house that became the we’d-know-when-we-know-when-we-know house. Things we did to prepare our offer on that first property enabled us to do what we did with this house. Funny how God works.

This is the first part of the crazy story. I promise I gets even better, if you can believe that. I want to leave you with this before we head into part two….God prepared me for this place. There were many hurts and disappointments. Moments when I felt hopeless and unseen; my prayers unanswered. I had so many dreams and many of those dreams broken into pieces along the way. I thought this moment would never come. Yet, here I am. Life will most likely not look like the screen play we have in our heads. But, there is always hope because His story is greater than any story we could write on our own.

“And I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13

Love & Blessings,

Meg

You’ve Changed

You’ve Changed

You know what most people don’t like? Change. They say they like it. Some may claim they thrive in change. But honestly, most of us don’t like change. We like structure. We like to know what comes next. We need to know what comes next.