075 - A Vision For This Season

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Show Notes:

I feel like I could easily tell you the vision of who I want to be at the end of my life, or even 10 years from now. Or I can make a strong vision for my business or work, where it's going in the next three to five years.

But this year, 2020, is a struggle.

It has given us all a really unique challenge, and I think the hardest part of all is that it's just so hard to catch a vision for what this year or even 2021 should look like, because it's impossible to make any plans. We feel like in all the plans we make, the rug just keeps getting pulled out from underneath our feet.

Today, I want to encourage and kind of pause and coach you through a few exercises and questions that will hopefully help bring clarity to this year, to exactly where you are, and show you that it's not just important to cast vision for your life or your work years down the road, but it's important to have a vision for the current season of life that you are in, and dare I say it, even for 2020.

For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!

Our work and our play—and everything in between—has been affected this year.

Some days, I feel like working well and playing well is a total joke because we're just struggling to get by, and it's hard to have a healthy soul and a fulfilling life and all these wonderful things I talk about in the intro of this podcast, when a lot of our normal rhythms and routines and expectations are taken from us. And I feel it, I'm sure you feel it, it's a struggle.

Even now as we're approaching the school year at the time of this podcast release and recording, and we're getting into the school year, I mean, it has changed five times in the last couple of weeks leading up to it:

Do they wear face masks?

Do they not?

Are we having remote learning?

Are we having in person learning?

Is it going to be half and half virtual?

What is happening?

No one knows, it's just crazy. And I think all of us were holding onto so much hope of some normalcy in the fall. At least those of us who are parents and with schools getting back into session, we were just hoping that it would be normal. And it's kind of not, again, and we don't really know what to do with it.

And I think it's easy to sink into these cycles of defeat.

What I want to do today, for me just as much as for you, is to start with where we are right now, today, with the information we have today and cast a new vision for this season. Not even for the rest of this year, just this season, the next three months.

What do we want the next three months of our lives to look like?

Who do we want to be?

How do we want to show up in this season of life?

So I'm going to do this with you because I think that I need it too. And I just want to give a little bit of background. I recently spoke at this conference called Making Things Happen, and my friend, Katelyn James, who is, she's a dear friend. She was the very first guest I ever had on this podcast. I can't remember the episode but I'll be sure to find it and link to it in the show notes. She shared at the conference as well, she was a speaker, and she shared about her story that she also shared on this podcast, that you can go listen to about losing her second baby.

He was a boy, a precious little boy named James, and he was diagnosed while she was pregnant with Down's Syndrome and a lot of complications from that, and they basically said that he just had a few more weeks to live, and he ended up being an almost full term baby. I think she went to 38 weeks, which really is full term, it's just miraculous, and instantly passed away in her arms when she had him. And she and her husband, Michael, celebrated his life beautifully. They mourned him, obviously, and loved that baby more than anybody I've ever seen.

And when they got his diagnosis they went to relationship coaching (it's like counseling) and she was telling the story just this week, at MTH, and she's telling her story and she said, "We went to have this session with our relationship coach, and it was like, how do I do this? How do I carry this baby? What do I do? How do I get through this, this pain and this loss? I feel like I'm just surviving and waiting on this baby to pass away." Every day she thought, “This is it.” Because the weeks that he was given to live turn into months and months, and she couldn't believe it.

And their coach said to them, "You have to have a vision for the end of his life. You have to have a vision for the duration of your pregnancy. You have to have a vision for how this is going to play out. How do you want to show up in this?"

So they talked about it, and through so many tears, of course, just looked at each other and said, "I want to love him as much as we can while we have him."

And that defined her vision for that season of her life: to pray over him, to listen to his heartbeat, to thank God for his life every day that they had him. And they did, every day to the very end.

And then her coach said, "You guys need to have a vision for the day that he's born. You need to talk about that vision and work through that." And they did. They went into the hospital with a full-on birth plan, to the point that her nurses were like, "We have never seen a mom and a dad value a baby's life so much, especially a baby with this many complications. We've never seen this." I mean, with tears in their eyes, they were so moved by the way that they loved and cared for this baby. All the days that they had him in Katelyn's womb, and also when he passed away in their arms they loved him. They grieved him. They followed through with their birth plan in the hospital.

And it has affected, I mean, it has affected hundreds of thousands of people. His life has just, it's incredible. But I'll link to the podcast episode so you can hear it. I think the way that her story impacted me the most, this week as I heard it again, is she said, "You can make a vision for the season that you're in, even if the season that you're in is extremely difficult, and heartbreaking and hard. You can still have a vision for it. You can still explain, or say or write down how you want things to look."

So, now, you and I are walking through 2020.

(And as you're listening, I have no idea what you have gone through this year. I have no idea the losses that you've experienced. I don't know what you're walking through.)

BUT if Katelyn and Michael can write down and express a vision for how they want to lose a child, I think that you and I can write down a vision for how we want to live out our days in this difficult year in 2020.

Maybe not even until the end of the year, maybe it's just for the next few months. Maybe it's just this quarter. But the impact that she left on me is that you can write out a vision of how you want your life to be played out and how you want to show up even in the difficult seasons of life.

And so today, my question for you is:

What vision do you have for the rest of 2020?

What vision do you have for the season of life that you are in?

Even with all the unknowns. So first thing I want you to do is go back to neutral. Go back to neutral. We're not starting at January 1st, 2020, we're starting right here today. Whatever day it is that you are listening to this podcast episode, this is when you start. Go back to neutral, knowing what you know now. Knowing that there's a pandemic. Knowing that your school of your children may or may not be closed or open, or in session or virtual, or whatever it is. You just go with what you know now, and let's go back to neutral.

What does work look like for you right now?

What does it practically look like for you?

And are you happy with that?

Are you happy with the amount of time that you are giving to your work?

What’s your work set up: working at home, working in person, working virtually? What are you happy with and what are you not?

What does home life look like for you right now?

Is it a place of stress or peace, or maybe some of both?

What changes do you need to make to get your home life at a place of peace and rest, and a place where people can be nourished and loved?

Let's start with what you know, what you are already working with and go from there. What does your life look like? And what changes do you need to make?

Secondly, what do you want?

Really, for this season of your life in 2020, what do you want?

What schedule do you want?

How much drive time do you want?

This is something I'm wrestling with, and what we've decided is we're going to try this and then we'll be totally fine to change our minds if we need to. Because I've got one child at one school two days a week, another child at another school. Well actually, our next two children at the same school but on different days. Anyway, it's possibly too much drive time for me to be comfortable with, I'm going to try it and see.

But what do we want our days to look like?

So, what do you want your schedule to look like?

What do you really want the rest of this year?

Do you want to be home more?

Do you want to try homeschooling?

Do you want to pick up a new hobby?

Do you want to use this time and turn it on its head and do something fun with it, and adventurous? And stop living in the fear or the, I'm going to say downtrodden-ness. (Downtrodden-ness, I don't know why that word came into my head.)

Do you want to live in the sadness of it all?

The grief of all of the loss?

Or do you want to just acknowledge it and say: “this is what it is, let's make the most of it”?

What do you want?

Finally, who do you want to be in 2020?

How do you want to be remembered?

How do you want to feel?

How do you want to show up the rest of this year?

And what do you need to do to get there?

I want to encourage you just to write down. You might want to listen to this episode again and just kind of journal the answers to a lot of these questions.

But I want to challenge you at the end to write it down in one sentence, your vision for 2020. Boil it down to one sentence. And then take that sentence, put it on a Post-it note or a sheet of paper, something on your fridge or on your bathroom mirror. Keep your vision for 2020 in front of you.

And if you have a hard time with this, get on your knees, ask the Lord to give you a fresh vision for this year. Even if this year is hard, and you know the things that you are facing are extremely hard, you can still write a vision for 2020. You can still write a vision for this season no matter how hard it is. Start from neutral. Start over. Go with what you know, and write down a vision of how you want to show up in this season of your life.

2020 is not over yet.

Work & Play Cornerstore

This is where I share a book I'm loving and a thing I'm loving. I'll get a small commission from anything bought through these links which will help me continue to bring this podcast to you every week. But the price is totally normal for you, which is a win-win for both of us. So stay tuned to the Work and Play Cornerstore features at the end of every episode.

Today, I'm going to be adding the Christian classic, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, as well as this little cup holder tray for my double BOB stroller to the Cornerstore. Listen, I feel like The Purpose Driven Life is an oldie but a goodie. I remember reading it when it was really big. I think I was in middle school or high school when it first came out. But man, what a better time to revisit a classic book like this than in 2020, when we feel like: What is our purpose?? So, definitely recommend that read.

Also this little caddy, this drink/cup holder/phone holder caddy for my double BOB stroller has been just awesome. My friend Kate put it on her Instagram stories, and I saw it and I bought it, and was like, "Oh yes, this is what I need." I live for these walks with my double BOB, with all the kids piled in. Sorry if you don't have a double BOB stroller, this is really the best thing for it. But it goes all the way across, and there's so many cup holders and little pockets for your phone.

I'm going to close with an anonymous quote that says,

Appreciate where you are in your journey. Even if it's not where you want to be, every season serves a purpose.

I believe that about 2020, and I'm believing it for you. The season that we are in is going to serve a greater purpose. Let's take hold of the vision for 2020, even if it's not where you want to be, knowing that every season serves a purpose.

Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time.

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