by kathilipp | Mar 19, 2018 | Clutter Free, Fear, God |
It’s March 27, 2017
Due to an emergency, Kathi is unable to do her scheduled Facebook LIVE with the Clutter Free Bible Study group and asks if I’ll fill in.
“If you don’t have any areas of clutter struggle any more, ” she says as only the Queen of Positivity can, “maybe you can tell them about your past challenges.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something!” I assure her, glancing guiltily around my office.
During the Facebook LIVE, I show everyone my greatest clutter struggle: the many ways I preserve my ideas.
- A shelf lined with 2 inch binders labeled “Blog Post Ideas #1” … “Blog Post Ideas #2” … “Blog Post Ideas #3″…
- File boxes full of hanging file-folders stuffed with notes from in-process book proposals and retreat messages.
- Stacks of printed drafts (I live in terror of losing digital data, so I hav a printing compulsion) from the months when Kathi and I were writing Overwhelmed: 1st draft, 2nd draft, 10th draft.
- Notebooks from the various writing and speaking conferences I’d been to, dating back before 2010.
“They’re all so beautifully organized and labeled, Cheri!” someone comments.
“Aren’t they?” I agree.
“Which is exactly what has allowed me to justify keeping all this stuff. After all, if it’s color-coded, labeled, and organized in binders, certainly it’s not clutter…right?!?”
My sarcasm evokes laughter, and then we all fall silent in communal conviction.
Just because our stuff looks good does not mean we should keep it.
What Size is Your Plate?
In Overwhelmed, Kathi describes each person’s individual capacity in terms of “the size of your plate.”
Most women have dinner plates—an average capacity for activity and productivity.
A few have turkey platters and can accomplish 2-3 times as much as most people.
I, on the other hand, have a small plate. As a highly sensitive person, I am extra easily overwhelmed.
“Does all this stuff in my office match up with a small plate person?” I ask the Clutter Free Bible Study group members.
No way, they all agree.
All the binders and boxes and stacks match someone with a turkey platter.
A hard truth hits me, smack dab in the middle of Facebook LIVE:
Hanging onto so much stuff is a form of greed stemming from distrust.
Protecting my precious ideas is me saying, “God, I don’t trust you to remind me of what’s important.”
And ultimately, hoarding my ideas is my way of trying to stretch my plate.
I never wanted a small plate. I’ve always wanted a turkey platter. So I’ve surrounded myself with “evidence” that “proves” my preferred truth.
It’s my way of saying, “Look! I have all this! If I have so much, I must have a really big plate!”
Bottom line: I’m keeping an office full of stuff so that I can prove God wrong.
<gulp>
Learning to Trust God
After the Facebook LIVE I look around my office with new eyes.
I’ve worked so hard to protect all my precious ideas, but I have far too many to use.
I need to trust God to choose.
I need to believe that God will help me remember the ideas I need when the time comes. Or trust that He’ll give me something new.
Either way, it’s time to quit pretending I have a bigger plate than I do.
I need to accept the size of my plate and let most of this stuff go.
My stuff needs to match the truth about who God created me to be.
__________________________
Cheri Gregory is a teacher, speaker, author, and Certified Personality Trainer. Her passion is helping women break free from destructive expectations. She writes and speaks from the conviction that “how to” works best in partnership with “heart, too.”
Cheri is the co-author, with Kathi Lipp, of The Cure for the “Perfect” Life and the upcoming Overwhelmed.
Cheri has been “wife of my youth” to Daniel, her opposite personality, for twenty-eight years and is “Mom” to Annemarie (25) and Jonathon (23), also opposite personalities.
Cheri blogs about perfectionism, people-pleasing, highly sensitive people, and hope at www.cherigregory.com.
by kathilipp | Jan 16, 2018 | God, Identity, Podcast |
In this episode Kathi chats with Kristen Kill, author of Finding Selah, The Simple Practice of Peace When you Need it Most. After the birth of her oldest daughter, before post-partum depression was widely diagnosed, Kristen remembers the fog that surrounded her. Rather than cry out to God, she retreated, tiptoeing around God, afraid to speak.
Kristen shares the need for us to create a space of rest, a space of quiet in our lives so we can re-sync with Jesus throughout our day.
Join us for this thoughtful episode and be encouraged!
FREE DOWNLOAD
Kristen has generously offered a Free Download Print by Rachel Jacobson from Portland, OR for our listeners. Click here to download.
WIN!
Three giveaway copies of the book to 3 random people who comment the answer to this question in the comments section below: “How today are you going to create just a place of selah in your life?”
Kristen Kill is a woman transformed by the delight of God. A contributing editor at The Better Mom, and co-host of At Home, a popular podcast with Sally Clarkson, Kristen is passionate about encouraging women who feel stretched thin with the truth that, even in the tension, God is singing over them with love.
After spending the last seven years in the hustle of New York City, Kristen and her husband, Josh, are learning to go slow as they raise their five kids in the Pacific Northwest. Her days are filled with homeschooling, walking her slightly anxious hound dog, and putting off the cleaning for one more day.
Find Kristen writing at kristenkill.com and follow her on Instagram @kristenkill.
by kathilipp | Dec 7, 2017 | God, Hope |
Hi friends! Yesterday I got to sit down with Author Pam Farrel and talk about Hope. We all need hope in a world where it’s sometimes very difficult to see the good. I admitted to you in yesterday’s post and in our conversation that I haven’t been a fan of the adult coloring trend. Here more about that and get a pick me in the video below.
What I really want you to know about is the awesome giveaway we are doing. I am giving away 5 of Pam’s new book, Discovering Hope in the Psalms, plus a super fun Quiet Time pack filled with all of my favorite things to have with me when I am doing quiet time with the Lord including:
• Discovering Hope in the Psalms
• This beautiful Study Bible for Women
• A set of colored pencils for exploring God through creativity
• My favorite cup for hot and cold drinks Hydro Flask
• My very favorite pen, the Uniball Air Micro
• An assortment of teas (to keep those creative juices flowing).
Enter below!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
by kathilipp | Dec 6, 2017 | Bible Study, God |
I have resisted the whole adult coloring book trend for the past couple of years. I was never much of a coloring book person as a child, plus the fact that I’ve never had what one might call “artistic skills”. (Whenever I made a big swing and a miss at an artistic endeavor, my mom would always sweetly say, “You have other talents.”)
So when my publisher asked if I wanted to blog about a new Bible study/coloring book, I resisted. What if it brought back all my childhood trauma of not being able to stay within the lines? What if my coloring was so bad that you all judged me and openly mocked me in the comment section of the blog? (These are real thoughts I have as I lie awake at night.)
But looking at Discovering Hope in the Psalms, three things made me change my mind:
1. My Bible study routine was feeling a little stale and I needed to kick it up. This seemed like a great way to mix it up.
2. One of the authors, Pam Farrell, is one of my favorite people on the planet. Getting to spend a little bit of time with her each morning is a good thing.
3. The title intrigued me: Discovering Hope in the Psalms. I’ll be honest with you – I was in desperate need of a little hope with some of the circumstances going on in my life.
So, I thought, “What could it hurt?” Plus, if my coloring was really so bad as to shame my family, I didn’t have to show you in the pictures I took.
Here’s what’s I love about this study:
1. While there are coloring elements, they are only a part of this amazing Bible study. (Whew!)
2. This is a legit Bible study, not just some pretty pages with a verse thrown in here or there. This goes deep, but in an accessible way. I’m getting to know the Psalms in a whole, new, fresh way, like never before. I’m loving it.
3. This whole study encourages you to explore God and the Psalms through the arts- not just coloring – but through spoken word, cooking and other creative pursuits.
If you are in a place in your life (and your quiet time) where you need to hear from God in a fresh way, I want to encourage you to change up your quiet time routine. Here are some ways Discovering Hope in the Psalms helped me:
• Breaking my quiet time routine by trying a new format for Bible study.
• Experience God in a fresh and new way.
• Get permission to be artistic. Experiencing God not just in his word, but throughout the day in artistic ways through song, art, cooking and reading helped expand my view of Him.
• Reading someone else’s story of struggle helps me understand God in my own struggle. The short stories in this book helped me see how the Psalms applied to Pam’s life and my own.
WIN!
I’m going to give six of you a chance to go through this study for yourself. If you want to experience God in a new and fresh way, I encourage you to take a look at Discovering Hope in the Psalms. And for six of you, you will get the chance to go deeper! I have five copies to give away, plus, for one of my readers, I’m going to send you my entire quiet time kit including:
• Discovering Hope in the Psalms
• This beautiful Study Bible for Women
• A set of colored pencils for exploring God through creativity
• My favorite cup for hot and cold drinks Hydro Flask
• My very favorite pen, the Uniball Air Micro
• An assortment of teas (to keep those creative juices flowing)
This post is sponsored by Harvest House Publishers, but all the views expressed are mine and only mine…
For your chance to win, enter below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
*Giveaway Disclaimer
Cheri Gregory is a teacher, speaker, author, and Certified Personality Trainer. Her passion is helping women break free from destructive expectations. She writes and speaks from the conviction that “how to” works best in partnership with “heart, too.”
