Five-Minute Friday: Again

January 25, 2013 by · 8 Comments

Today I’m linking up with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama for Five-Minute Friday.

Join me!

The rules: Write for five minutes. No editing, revising, overthinking, or backtracking. Just write.

Today’s Topic: Again

I pick her up by her armpits and swing her high in the air.

The goal is as high as my muscles can handle…and probably even more to achieve the loudest, most exuberant, overjoyed, squeal possible.

It’s a new game we started about a month ago, and she really can’t get enough of it.

When I’ve given her a few good swings and gotten those little feet way up over my head, I give my muscles a break.

But this sweet, two-year old girl? Doesn’t always understand the word, rest. :)

Again! Again! More, mommy!

If my muscles aren’t completely dying, I’ll usually indulge her pleas a few more times before I need her to give me an honest break.

Even though she’ll still beg me to swing her up into the air again.

One more time. Always one more time. 😉

Sometimes I think about my relationship with God and how I am such the same way with Him.

He asks worship. A life of obedience. Simple praise.

He doesn’t ask for it once…He asks for it Again. And Again. And Again.

As He should.

And often…I will excuse myself with the simple fact that I’m too tired to read my Bible and spend quality time with Him…the kind that has been lacking during my busy day. It’s ok to miss today, I tell myself. I’ll do better tomorrow.

But it isn’t a once, whenever-I-feel-like-it kind of thing…It’s. Daily. Obedience. Worship. Praise.

It’s an again and again and again thing…regardless of how I’m feeling, regardless of my circumstances.

Father, I pray I’ll do better. Today.

Five Minute Friday

Sig

Filed Under: being mommy, Five Minute Friday, just life, Maelie, what I'm learning, where I am

Five-Minute Friday: Cherished

January 18, 2013 by · 14 Comments

Today I’m linking up with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama for Five-Minute Friday.

Join me!

The rules: Write for five minutes. No editing, revising, overthinking, or backtracking. Just write.

Today’s Topic: Cherished

Buried up to what felt like my neck in dirty dishes this afternoon, I sighed as I looked down into the sink to see several of Maelie’s play dishes from her Little Tykes kitchen.

Sigh again.

A moment of frustration for me definitely…I completely wanted to just sit down. Fighting the flu/sinus/cold stuff going around, doing anything extra wasn’t really on my agenda for the day.

But since her dishes were already in the sink…along with the rest of the ones that were actually dirty, well…there was no choice.

So I held in my impatience and washed her dishes…letting them dry in the draining rack.

Oh, thank you, Mommy. Thank you for washing my dishes!

Those few words uttered from my daughter just melted my heart into a puddle. By taking the time to let my daughter know that I would make what was important to her important to me, she knew that she was cherished.

And she is…so completely cherished…I just sometimes forget to show her that.

I love how my Father does the same thing for me…for all of His children. (Well, minus the frustration and impatience part. ;))

He sees what is important to us, what we hold dear…and He cares for us because we’re cherished in His eyes.

Today was a moment of humility for this mama…I realized that I so easily get wrapped up in my own thoughts and desires and life…and I forget about the little girl running around at my feet…the one who is already growing up way too quickly.

May I take each and every opportunity I am given to let her know she is cherished.

Five Minute Friday

Sig

Filed Under: being mommy, blessings, Five Minute Friday, just life, Maelie, what I'm learning, where I am

My God-Sized Dream: Finding Balance

January 15, 2013 by · 12 Comments

Hi, friends.

I’m gonna start by repeating myself. :)

I am just so, so incredibly thankful to God and blessed to be part of the God-Sized Dream team. Each day I am encouraged, inspired, and challenged to grow closer to my Father by these amazing women. I just love them…and hearing about what God is doing in their hearts  and how their dreams are coming true is just the best.

Ok, on to book-writing. :)

I’ve shared the dream. To take my Indo stories…the blessings and the tough stuff, the best moments and the things that made me cry, all of them…and put them into one place.

My book.

I’m already calling it that…even if I don’t have a publisher yet. :)

I’ve been going through Holley Gerth‘s e-book short, The Do-What-You-Can-Plan: 21 Days to Making Any Area of Your Life Better.

To tell you that this book has been a blessing is an understatement. I feel like God is using it to give me clarity, focus…and amazing hope and expectation for what He is going to do in my heart and life.

I’ve known He wanted me to write the book for awhile now, and in my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-pretty-much-every-day, dive-in-headfirst, mind…I guess I figured I’d just sit down and tap out the words…and Voila!

Book.

That’s proven harder than I anticipated. Maybe we’ll just call it a reality check for someone who tends to live with her head bobbing in the clouds. :)

Holley stresses over and over in this book…small steps. One thing at a time. It will happen.

I SO needed to hear that…and hear it over and over and over. (Can I blame it on the ENFP in me? ;))

So twoish weeks ago I sat down and started to write out the small steps…the shorter-term goals…I felt were necessary to reaching my goal. I was desperately needing to find some type of balance…because I’m not just writing a book. I’m also a wife and a full-time mommy…I love my husband and daughter, and they deserve the best from me…not my “left over” time.

So here are the goals I came up with…one step at a time. (I only had to technically share one or two, but hey…I’m an overachiever. Or, I just like to talk. :))

1. Write out a plan for the book. My book is divided into three sections. Seventeen shorter chapters per section. I needed a plan or outline…some way to put it on paper so I could see where I was heading, to keep track of progress, and to actually see my chapter ideas. I’m finding that, due to the length a book should be…I will probably need to add a few chapters. I don’t think coming up with ideas for that will be hard, so I’m encouraged. And I’ve (mostly) finished this part.

2. Have a somewhat-flexible writing schedule…aka: certain days/certain things. It is extremely out of character for me to even use the word schedule. 😉 But listing out what I should be doing on each day has helped me find balance. Balance between being a wife/mommy and a dreamer who’s reaching for a goal. For example…today’s Tuesday. :) My goals are to work on my post for the G-SD team, spend some time reading and commenting on friends’ blog posts and goals, spend lots of time with Mae, catch up on cleaning/laundry, make dinner, and work out tonight. No book allowed on Tuesdays, and it’s good. (Maybe I’ll share my schedule with you in another post. :))

3. Connect with my prayer buddy on a regular basis. This one isn’t too hard since we text almost daily, and I have chances to talk with her throughout the week. While I don’t want to overwhelm her (she has a life, too!) prayer is an important part of this journey, one that I sometimes put on the back burner. The truth is, it’s an amazing blessing to have a friend (and even, friends) who will pray me through this journey.

4. Surrender daily. Along with prayer, I’ve realized that each word I write needs to be surrendered to my Father…I want to give Him all of my book and all of my dream. This isn’t about me keeping a tight clench on the pieces of it I think I can handle on my own. It’s about letting go and trusting that He’ll bring something beautiful in His time.

Progress is slow on some of these, but I feel like I’m finding balance…something that has often been lacking in my daily life.

And since I should probably save something for next week, I’ll stop there. :)

Definitely smiling today…God is so Good, isn’t He?

And if you’d like to read more about what God is doing in the lives of other dreamers, hop on over here and check out the linkup! Truly, there are some incredibly beautiful stories here that God is writing. :)

God-Sized Dreams

Sig

Filed Under: adventures, being mommy, blessings, encouragement, friends, God-Sized Dreams, Indonesia, just life, Maelie, prayer, Tobin, what I'm learning, where I am, writing

My First Vlog!

January 13, 2013 by · 10 Comments

Was feeling brave tonight…so, I did a vlog. (Video bLOG…the term was pretty new to me, too. ;))

Honestly…pushing the publish button is kinda scary. But, admittedly, so was talking to a camera, knowing that I needed to get it all in one take. 😉

Here ya go…tonight, you get my words in a different form…complete with lots of facial expressions because that’s just me. :)

Hope you enjoy…and thanks for stopping by!

Jan 13 Vlog from Mel Schroeder on Vimeo.

Sig

Filed Under: God-Sized Dreams, just life, Tobin, vlogs, what I'm learning, where I am, writing

My God-Sized Dream…in Words

January 8, 2013 by · 22 Comments

It’s a gorgeous January morning.

For me, gorgeous means sunshine and NO snow, though if some of my friends were to read this, they’d be writing out an IOU for one snowball to the face.

Well, when there’s actually enough snow to THROW said snowball. 😉

I’ve got my coffee, too…always a prerequisite when I’m about to write something deep.

Deep, it is.

Big, too.

I’ve always been honest in this space; therefore, if you’re a frequent reader, the news that I’ve got a God-Sized Dream brewing in my heart and soul isn’t new.

And by now, you probably know that one of my deep desires is to publish a book and share the stories God has placed in my heart.

Eight years ago (goodness, has it really been that LONG?!) my husband and I were preparing to make a big move to the other side of the world. God had placed the burden in our hearts to serve in an international school, possibly even a Christian school, and He flung the doors wide open for that dream to come true in 2005.

We sold it all, said some tearful goodbyes, and moved to Indonesia.

It was five years of…everything.

Wonderful…the kind of wonderful that still makes my heart sing when I think of the people we grew to love and the ways He changed hearts and lives. So amazing.

Challenging…the kind that makes me sometimes-wish I could go back but then brings me to a place of trust because God can still work through imperfections. Thank You, Father, for that.

Life-Changing…I still think about it every day. Most days we talk about it. And once in awhile I’ll even write about it on my blog.

Just Hilarious…I’ve always been that girl; the one who doesn’t need to seek out adventure because it just finds her, and life in Indonesia was no exception. (Trust me…this book is worth reading just for the story about me using a squatty potty for the first time. Really. It’s a kick…I can’t believe I’m putting it in print. :D)

When we returned to the U.S. in 2010 to begin our family and put down some roots in a new place, I started to write.

Really write.

I need to process the change from life in Indonesia to life in Illinois, the transition from being a couple to a couple with a new baby girl, and, quite honestly, what it was like to go grocery shopping in a store that had a thousand kinds of salad dressing.

And as I began to write, it wasn’t long before a dream started to creep in.

That dream turned from creeping in to planting itself deep within my heart.

And that brings me to today.

Today I am writing it down, reliving each story, and it’s an insanely wonderful place to be.

It has taken me the better part of two and a half years to finally be able to express the many, many emotions that still emerge when I visit the Indonesia part of our lives.

My God-Sized Dream, right now, is to take this collection of stories and experiences and turn them into a…memoir? (Just being honest with you…I am not a fan of that word. I think it’s corny. Help, please? ;))

Stories that will make my readers laugh out loud, let a few tears drip, love a little more deeply, and see the goodness of God in a life that is continually in progress.

I would love to see my stories in print, and each day I’m getting a little closer to that.

That’s my dream. :)

I am so, so thankful to God for the paths He allows us to travel.

Each one never ends up looking quite like I think it will, but He is always there, always guiding me, always next to me holding my hand…and this book-writing journey is no exception.

I am so incredibly blessed to be a part of the God-Sized Dream Team…a team of women who are also busy dreaming and doing and trusting. They’re amazing…every single one of them, and I’m so thankful that God has given me the opportunity to join them as we all pursue our dreams together! It’s gonna be a ton of fun to watch what He does through all of us!

And thanks to each of YOU for joining me…it means the world to me that you are here.

Love to you, friends!

God-Sized DreamsAnd be sure to stop back every Tuesday…I’ll be sharing more each week about my dream and what He’s doing. :)

Sig

Filed Under: adventures, blessings, God-Sized Dreams, Indonesia, travel, what I'm learning, where I am, writing

Five-Minute Friday: Opportunity

January 4, 2013 by · 7 Comments

It’s back! (insert slightly-cheesy, but oh-so-HAPPY grin)

😀

Today I’m linking up with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama for Five-Minute Friday.

Join me!

The rules: Write for five minutes. No editing, revising, overthinking, or backtracking. Just write.

Today’s Topic: Opportunity

Each day is a new opportunity, especially with a sweet, sometimes-more-than-slightly-mischievous, toddler running around at my feet.

She is a sponge…and she soaks it all up, whether I want that for her or not.

And, together, we try to take each opportunity that comes our way for learning, teaching, changing, growing.

But lately, well…she’s two.

Those five previously written words probably speak volumes to most of you. 😉

She’s two, and sometimes taking opportunities is…hard.

That temper tantrum is often easier to ignore than to correct, and the same goes for other various misbehaving moments that generally occur within a normal day.

Often, rather than taking the opportunity to show her what she should be doing, I ignore or use the dreaded time-out…forgetting that those little eyes are watching me. Learning.

Too much, too quickly.

And then I stop and remember…

The greatest opportunities often come from the greatest challenges, not from the easiest ones.

On the easy days, I coast…and there’s no reason to go outside of my limits to reach for something else.

It’s on those difficult, sometimes-just-plain-hard, days that the biggest opportunities…for blessing, for sharpening, for growth…arise.

And so I stop in my tracks as I watch her getting frustrated again over something that seems small and insignificant to me.

But not necessarily to her.

I kneel down on her level, grasp her hands, look into her eyes, and take the opportunity to show her that I love her and that I’m on her side.

And that I always will be.

Five Minute Friday

Sig

Filed Under: being mommy, blessings, encouragement, Five Minute Friday, just life, Maelie, what I'm learning, where I am

2013: Dream

January 1, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Happy 2013!

If you popped over for my list of 13 in 2013 ;), I hate to disappoint you, but there’s not one.

It isn’t that I don’t believe in setting goals or having things to work toward. There are plenty of things I’d like to see happen this year. I just didn’t write them all down.

At least yet.

I’m trying to find more balance this year…and I’ll admit that I’m definitely in process.

We all are…all the time, but for some reason I just feel like I’m really in process right now.

I’ve decided that’s a good thing. :)

2013 is the year I get to write my book. Honestly, I’ve already written a good portion of it, but this is the year where it goes somewhere. That is, if God wants it to. And so a lot of my spare time…you know those moments between chasing a toddler and painting with watercolors and sticking stickers and rocking baby dolls…will be spent with words.

I wrote my life statement for the God-Sized Dream Team today.

Hmmm…

It was no small task. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time on one sentence. And between the scribbles and notes, I managed to come up with what I believe God is asking of me this year.

I believe God has created and called me to encourage and inspire others through words, stories, and lessons learned from the unexpected adventures that come from a journey of walking by faith.

At this time in my life, I feel that sentence best depicts the purpose of my book.

God gave me (us) an experience like no other when He opened the door for us to spend five years in Indonesia. That doesn’t make our experience, or our lives for that matter, any better than anyone’s, but those years did leave me with a few things.

Perspective.

Insight.

Heart lessons.

Laughter.

Deeper love.

…and more.

And my purpose in writing is to share some of what He taught me through the grit and the grace that abounded during those years.

And still continues today.

In trying to choose a word for 2013, I went through several.

I thought I was going to choose Rooted, a word that God continually seems to bring to my mind and my heart.

In the end, though, I chose Dream.

God has given me an incredibly opportunity to really pursue the dream of writing a book this year. He’s given me amazing friends and prayer support and a team of women who are each pursuing a dream as well.

Today is the first day of 2013, and again, as I do each day, I am giving my dream to God. I can plan all I want, write all I want, submit my book to as many publishers as I want…but in the end?

What happens is up to Him.

I trust Him and I’m blessed beyond words for the opportunity to

DREAM.

Will you come along for the journey?

And, today, my sweet friend, Holley Gerth, launched an e-book called The “Do-What-You-Can” Plan: 21 Days to Making Any Area of Your Life Better. It’s fantastic…I’m going through it right now. And today…JUST TODAY…the Kindle version is free! Head on over here for your free copy!


Sig

Filed Under: adventures, barefoot, blessings, encouragement, goals, God-Sized Dreams, Indonesia, just life, what I'm learning, where I am, writing

Those 12

December 31, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

This post should probably be otherwise titled, That Post When I Reflect Too Much.

However, I want you to actually read it. 😉

Exactly 364 days ago, I set some goals, which you can read here. (Or you can just scroll down, too.)

Time to see how I did! (And to look forward to all that 2013 holds…which I very much hope includes some brown and tan paint over some purple walls. Do I get bonus points for choosing the colors at least?)

Spoiler…oops. Sorry about that. 😉

Here we go!

1. Start…and finish…the canvas painting for Maelie’s room. Check. No drama here. I just painted it one Sunday afternoon, hung it on her wall that night, and that was that. :)

2. Redecorate our front living room. (The purple needs to go! Soon.) Well, friends, the purple still needs to go. We actually bought the paint in October, but between life and more life, the living room is still an unfortunate shade of purple.

3. Start an Etsy store so I can sell my jewelry. Ok, so I’m not selling jewelry. But selling hats on Etsy counts, right? 😉 

4. Take some kind of lessons…guitar, voice, djembe…still deciding, but leaning toward djembe. I went with guitar and started in April. It’s good…am learning a lot and even played a real bar chord, though it wasn’t pretty. :) 

5. Complete a marathon. (Edit…1/2 marathon.) Didn’t happen. Though a half marathon is on the list for this May, and then we’ll see. I don’t have any plans to run a full marathon yet…to be honest, though I love running, four hours straight of running does not really sound even remotely enjoyable. I think I need my marathon-running friends to give me a little push here. :)

6. Run a 5k in less than 30 minutes. This actually happened several times during the year, which was a boost. I broke 30 for the first time in May and am now running my regular 5k around 28:00 flat, give or take. My fastest clocked one was around 27:15…factor in a few stops for cars that don’t yield to pedestrians (or runners). I’ll take it. :) Would still love to hit the 26’s…we’ll see. :)

7. Continue blogging at least three times a week once January 24th has passed. Yep, got that one covered. :)

8. (Re)Learn how to sew and make a bag out of some of my Indonesian batik I still have. Nope. I thought about pulling out the sewing machine several times but never actually did it. I love to teach myself new things, but sewing scares me.

9. Finish the rough draft of my book, Lessons From Indo: On Life, Love, and Squatty Potties, and submit it to at least one publisher. Am late on this one, but the plan is to be done by May. Extremely grateful for the chance to be part of the God-Sized Dream Team…these women are such an encouragement as I navigate something that is really new. It’s one thing to write a blog…it’s a completely foreign place to write a book. Really praying it will happen in 2013!

10. Continue developing discipline in my life by spending time in God’s Word each day…whether two minutes or two hours. This one could be a post all on it’s own. I’m not sure why I even set this goal because for me, it was unattainable. Don’t misunderstand me…I love my Father and His Word. But, honestly, I didn’t read the Bible every day. I don’t know if that makes me a bad Christian or just an honest one. Maybe I’ll hash this one out more later. :)

11. Guest write for another blog at least once. (The Patch doesn’t count.) I didn’t pursue this one like I should have…I found myself most content just writing at my own place and linking up other places, which provided some new bloggy friends. To me, that’s worth it. :) But I do have a guest post coming out next month on (in)courage…not sure of the date but will let you all know when it’s up! This one, in particular, was really a blessing because one of the editors wrote and asked me if they could use something I’d written. I must be doing something right. Thank you, God. :)

12. Go on an actual vacation with Tobin (and no Mae) to celebrate our 10th. We stomped our feet (well, not really) through Marbella, Spain; Tangier, Morocco; and Paris, France. It was a crazy adventure, as all trips we take together seem to be. We missed Maelie, but it was good time to spend together, and we had a really memorable time. Spain gave us our time to relax, Morocco was an insanely crazy adventure that left me dying to go back and explore more, and Paris was a dream come true, complete with bread. (We even kissed under the Eiffel Tower!) 

It was a wonderful 2012, though not everything turned out as I had first pictured. In many ways, it was better.

Here’s to a wonderful 2013!

Blessings to each of you, and thanks for being part of my barefoot journey!

God is so Good.

Sig

Filed Under: adventures, blessings, family, goals, just life, Maelie, remembering, running, Tobin, travel, what I'm learning, where I am, writing

Collisions

December 30, 2012 by · 2 Comments

Is it bad to tell you that for the last week writing has been about the last thing I’ve wanted to do?

I especially felt guilty about that as I’d read the blogs of friends…they were all so inspiring and beautiful as each writer managed to take something profound from the birth of Jesus and apply it to life now.

I mean, it’s Christmas, after all. That’s when bloggers are supposed to pull out their best writing.

Not me.

And I suppose it’s not that way for everyone. It’s just how I feel. How I felt as I labored, literally, over each word in the last week, trying to pull beautiful out of seemingly nowhere.

And as I opened my laptop tonight, part of me just wanted to go to bed and do some more non-writing.

Which, I guess, is the opposite of writing.

Which makes me a genius for figuring that out? 😉

At any rate, yeah.

Life is just a strange collision right now.

In some ways, that’s not a diversion from the normal of life. There are always ups and downs, joys and sorrows, things that make me laugh and others that make me cry, times of being surrounded and times of loneliness.

I usually have no problem processing those things, but for some reason, it feels almost impossible to scribble out anything worth reading lately.

That’s why I post pictures like this one. Hey, when you have a cute little princess dancing for the camera, who needs words? 😉

But if I’m being honest, life is a mix of crazy confusion and big blessing right now.

I’m supposed to be in the thick of book-writing right now, and instead I’m wading through a swamp of doubt and fear and insecurity.

To be blunt…it sucks.

Not only does it just suck…but it’s suckING me down, slowly.

I’m questioning purpose, the right to dream, and if I’ve actually got what it takes to follow through. It’s discouraging, at-times depressing, and just feels…wrong.

It feels wrong to be even feeling those things when there are so many blessings surrounding me.

Because there really are.

Friends, family, community, church, sisters and dreamers…all good things. And there are so many more.

I know I am blessed, but I am also reminded that any journey toward a goal isn’t without challenges.

Most of you know that I’m writing a book with the goal of being finished by May. (I’m shooting for much sooner, but well see. :)) I could use prayer.

Prayer for focus…that I will keep my eyes on what I’ve set out to accomplish. And that I’ll keep them on my Father and what He’s asking me to do.

Prayer for balance…because I’m still a wife and mommy, and those two titles take precedence over “writer” each and every moment, as they should.

Prayer for wisdom…that God will guide my words and help me to speak Truth without being culturally offensive. (This is a big fear of mine because some of my writing deals with life in another culture.)

Prayer for love…that each word will be just that.

Thanks for reading my collision of words tonight. Blessings to you all as you close out 2012…can you believe it?! Time just zips by.

Love this quote I found today…maybe it will add some inspiration to your day, too. :)

Sig

Filed Under: adventures, being mommy, blessings, encouragement, family, friends, goals, God-Sized Dreams, just life, Maelie, prayer, Tobin, what I'm learning, where I am, writing

What She Treasured

December 23, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

I have to admit that often, especially around this time of year, the passage from Luke 2 tends to become habitual routine.

I hear it read and will mentally recite the words along with the speaker, allowing them to scatter to the far corners of my brain rather than collect in the center of my heart.

You know, where I could ponder them. Treasure them. Let them fully sink in as they were, and still are, intended.

As I heard the oh-so-familiar but no-less-beautiful account of the birth of my Savior recited once again last week, I was reminded of that girl.

You know, Mary.

Though her circumstances deemed her a woman by all accounts, she was a girl. A girl handed some things that I’m not sure anyone else on the planet would have handled so graciously or obediently.

And so I had to go back and read about her again.

Mary listened. She obeyed. She did those with a heart for her Father with complete trust. That amazes me.

But I also think about how she experienced so much that was completely out of the ordinary. Not only was she a virgin giving birth, but she gave birth to a King. How overwhelmed, awestruck, in disbelief, and inadequate…she must have felt sometimes.

Yet she cradled the King in her arms and continued her faithful obedience to the path God had planned for her.

And in all of that, she took time to ponder those things and treasure them in her heart.

So I was thinking about all of this during the sermon this morning, and it stayed with me throughout the day.

I think about what God asks of me. Some days, it’s easy to be joyful and obedient. Other days not so much…because what He’s asking me to do, I don’t want to take and TREASURE or PONDER.

At times I would rather pitch them out the window.

And I’ll argue with Him.

God, I’m not the one who’s wrong! Why should I be the one to apologize?

Ok, God…I’m not really understanding this latest medical issue. Why me?

God, no. This wasn’t what I’d planned. My timing is better.

Instead of just taking my situations and what they bring…and pondering them and treasuring them as what He’s planned for me.

When I thought back to Mary again, I was pretty much blown away. (again ;)) She took it all…trusting that God had His very best for her…and treasured it.

Wow.

Father, forgive the many times I don’t trust. Lack faith. Refuse to believe You are good. I have so much to learn. May each mountaintop, valley, circumstance, and situation bring an opportunity to praise You…and may I take each one and ponder it. Treasure it.

Sig

Filed Under: blessings, church, encouragement, what I'm learning, where I am
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