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Back on the grid

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Lex's World, Social Hiatus

So I didn’t plan to leave the blog unattended that long…it just kind of got rolled in…

This week marks the end of a year long social media hiatus. This has been a great year to pause and think through intentionality and purpose. To be honest, I have not missed my social accounts in the slightest.

photo-1441448770220-76743f9e6af6The most common response I received from people asking about the hiatus was, “What about all the invites to things you’re missing?” My first thought was, “What invites? I haven’t gotten any.”…thankfully I had the restraint not to voice that. Fact of the matter is, I was usually asked this at some social function where the host had graciously extended me an invite via phone or email rather than over Facebook.

But really, I don’t feel like my social life suffered much. I certainly went to less functions because I felt obligated to go to the baby shower of the girl I shared a crayon with that one time in third grade…Instead, I spent moments with friends. Friends who I hadn’t made an actual effort with in a while because, well, it took actual effort. Friends who understood why I was doing what I was doing. I got to pursue relationships that meant more than just witty comments or clicking a heart on things they shared. I got to rediscover the beauty of an hour-long phone call, or driving to see a college roommate, or asking the real questions because I had time and the space for that.

I got to share actual life without feeling the pressure to prove I had been, had done, had seen, had heard. I just got to be. Can I tell you how freeing it is to stand through a concert without taking a video of your favorite song. To just listen and take in without being hindered by the screen between you and the artist. (I mean really, is there any point?)

This year has been nothing out of the ordinary, but I know it has been lived. If squandered, it was only done on watching Parks and Rec in a week. (Because Netflix wasn’t part of the hiatus but probably should have been…)

I’m excited to unpack with you what I’ve taken from this past year and unfold what God has in store for the year to come.

Here’s to a new journey.
Back on the Grid title (1)

A Triumphant Entry Into Longing

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Lex's World, Singleness, Spirituality

I wasn’t really prepared for what I walked into in yesterday’s Palm Sunday service.

I mean, I was. It’s been relatively the same service each year since I’ve attended this church. And not in a bad way.

The cast of the Easter play the church puts on every year reenact the triumphal entry with the kids in the front. There’s always the little girl mesmerized by the people in the audience who haven’t been out there in all the rehearsals. There are the little boys who wap each other with their palm branches and their mothers can’t get to them until the lights go down, so their reveling in the freedom.

 

It was beautiful to observe the reenactment of the joy of Israel. The celebration of their long awaited messiah arrived at last! But paring that with the tragedy of what was to come.

They would reject God because he had not come in the way they thought. He would be condemned and killed to atone for the sin of the world but then rise again in glory.

And yet the people of God missed this. So often I miss this.

See, on walking into the service,  I became hyper aware of all the young families sitting around me. And also heavily aware of my longing for my own family one day.

I think in the feeling of longing, we’re tempted into our own pity party. I could have sat there questioning why. Why wasn’t I dating anyone? Why were so many people around me getting married? Why couldn’t I be one of them?

In the asking of ‘Why,’ the answer I tend to always gravitate towards tends to be that God is holding out on me. That God is not good.

My Eve-and-Israel heart spirals into discontent and bitterness starts to grow. I reject the beautiful character of God and totally miss what he may be trying to do in my life and the lives of those around me.

Sitting in the service, my heart was being pulled into what could be, but I was being called into a greater narrative.

And perhaps this was exaggeratedly pronounced yesterday morning. But in entering into that tension, I was entering into a beautiful time experiencing the character of God with his people.

I’ve said before that longing is an invitation to experience what we truly long for.

Yes, I may long for a family and someone to share the joys and struggles of that with. Yes, I want to give as well as feel that kind of love. But I’m being invited into a deeper and more beautiful love. All my needs have and will be met by the larger story I am beckoned into.

I can let my own longing try to feed itself, or I can look to the source that satisfies all hunger.

And that is the point of the passion week we are entering into. We mourn how sin and the desire for things to be our own way separated us from God. We celebrate how he came to fill the unmet longings and bring us into relationship with Him.

May you seek fulfillment in Jesus in this passion week.

A Year in Social Wilderness

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Lex's World, Social Hiatus

I know things from Bohemia have been pretty silent and I should probably apologize for that and unpack what’s going on here.

At the close of last year, I was finding myself distracted, disappointed, and disquieted. I was desperately in need of rest and I really had no idea where to find it. I would spend time in the word, but that time would barely sustain me and I had no idea what the problem was.

Until I was confronted with my view of God.

I was attending a conference in Atlanta and found myself sobbing next to my bed in the hotel taking in the knowledge that the Almighty wants my attention.

And you’re probably reading this going, “Duh, Lex,” but really, this struck me at my core.

There have been so many times in the last few years I have been scrolling through Facebook feeling discontent because my life isn’t as glamorous or godly or phenomenal as my “friends” lives appear in the news-feed. And I scoff at the life I have been given and strive to make it appear to be more. More exotic, more fabulous, more… in my control.

In the midst of that striving, my time with God lacks quality because I’m not there. Because I am half-heatedly praying for Him to make my life my version of great all while scheming to make my little patch of ordinary look extraordinary to the online world.

The Almighty God wants to spend time with me and I am trying to just fit him in.

I ignore the creator of the universe because I just don’t have the time for him.

And this struck me in a very tender place and the only thing I could manage to do after the conference that night was to wander back to my hotel room and bow before Him on the floor of my hotel room and cry.

So what does this have to do with the lack of online presence?

Currently I am a month into a year long hiatus from my personal social media accounts… ironic for a social media marketer…(Obviously, I will be keeping up with accounts for work, but my personal channels will continue to be silent for the year.) I’m spending my twenty-third year without use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest… and LinkdIn for that matter, but let’s be honest, who uses LinkdIn?

I want to make time and space for the Lord and the interests he has given me to pursue. I want to remove the temptation to wallow in my discontent that is stirred up by my time online. I want to push past my tendency to relate on a shallow level through and only virtual presence.

After the Israelites were delivered from Egypt, God guides them in the wilderness, explaining what it is to be his Holy people and who he is as their God. He forms them in the space of the wilderness and that is what I am seeking in this year: space and silence for the sake of formation.

This is not a fast, but a break to restructure the way I live my life and the view I have of God.

This is not something I expect other people to stick to. I struggle with discontent and that is intensified through Facebook and Pinterest. I do not see other people struggling in the same way so please understand that if you are using social media, I am not writing this to condemn you in anyway.

I’m writing this to apologize for my lack of posting as of late and to explain how this will work moving forward.

I will continue blogging throughout this year, but it will be reduced to bi-weekly posting. I will spend one post a month describing what this year off the social media grid is stirring in me and another discussing whatever is on my mind per usual.

This will be the last post I promote via my social channels, so from here on out, if you’d like to share one of these posts with friends on your own channels, I definitely encourage it. If you’d like to comment, please do! I try to respond to comments on a post within twenty-four hours… though I make no promises.

I am excited to see what this year will bring as I enter into this adventure with the Lord. I have already been able to pick up my writing more and spend time reading and meditating.

The wilderness is quiet, but that is not a bad thing at this point.

I’ll keep you updated as the journey continues.

Your Gift is Not Broken

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Breathe Conference, Writing Thoughts

So most likely you had an experience involving a gift in the past week. You tore into the paper and revealed some new something that someone who cares about you chose for you with care. It was a great moment. You’ve been using it all week.

And it probably wasn’t broken when you received it.

I mean, at least in my experience- unless it’s a white elephant gift exchange – you don’t usually unwrap a Christmas gift, look at the giver and say, “Thank you!… Now you’re sure this isn’t broken?”… At least I hope you don’t.

I’ve talked about my involvement with the Breathe conference in a few previous posts. This past year, I sat in a session by the fabulous Tracy Groot and was given a gem of a thought that I’ve been chewing on for the past couple months:

“God has not given you a broken gift.”

Think about the power of that statement. But before you even do that, think about how you view the gifts God has given you.

If you’re like me, you may have been told you are gifted in a certain area, or even many areas, but you don’t quite believe it. I’m not a prodigy. I’m not famous. I’m not perfect. So my “gift” isn’t super great or anything. It just kind of is.

We act as if the gifts given from God are the ugly Christmas sweater great aunt Pearl made us… The one we’ll never use, tucked back in the crevasse of the closet.

But get this: God is the giver of good and perfect gifts! (Matthew 7:10-12)

To discount the work and the passions he has given is to discount the gifts he gives.

For me, I am not a perfect writer. By any means. (If you’ve stuck around Bohemia long enough, I’m sure you’ve noticed.) But I have a gift and a calling and I must be faithful to that because it is not a broken gift despite my brokenness. It is a gift I have been given to cultivate and grow in.

What gifts have you been given? Have you been believing the lie that that gift is broken? What does it mean for you to dwell in the truth that you have been given a good and perfect gift?

Christmas: The Heritage of Longing

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Lex's World, Singleness, Spirituality

I love and hate Christmas.

I feel like most single women can echo the sentiment.

It’s wonderful to spend the time with family, to decorate the house, to enjoy the homecoming of friends you haven’t seen in a while. Candlelight services, caroling, advent. It’s a wonderful time of year.

And then there is also the awkward time spent with family, the stress of hosting get-togethers, crazy malls. The forgetting of the meaning of this season.

And I don’t mean the world forgetting to stop and celebrate Christ’s birth. We live in a fallen world where Christ’s sovereignty is denied on an hourly basis. Of course I don’t expect the general population to celebrate Christ’s birth.

 I mean what we forget within the body of Christ.

See, part of what makes Christmas a hard time of year for me is the longing. I long to share romantic Christmas dates with someone special. I long to have a family of my own to make Christmas memories with. I at least just long to say yes when the “are you seeing someone?” brigade intrudes on holiday gatherings.

It’s easy to let the unmet longing shade the season of hope and joy, but I think to ignore the longing is to miss something important in this season.

Because Christmas is a celebration of longing.

The world was in desperate need of the messiah and the longing for his presence throughout the Old Testament is unmistakable. In Christ’s coming to earth, that longing was met and through his death, fulfilled.

In this season of advent, we now long for Christ’s return.

I was reminded by a friend earlier this month that God has given each of us specific longings and needs to draw us in to him. We try to fill those longings with relationships, or status, or possessions, but of course that doesn’t work.

Having a boyfriend, or husband and family would not ease this hunger in my soul this season. Not really.

Because there is still great longing in me for what will not be met on this side of heaven. And so often I misdiagnose that longing and loneliness I feel to be that of a relationship with a man rather than my need for unbroken relationship with God.

But that longing is why we celebrate this season. We look forward to having this longing met in the second coming of our king. And we give thanks for the first coming and the sacrifice that makes our longing able to be met.

We are descendants in a heritage of longing. We are beautiful beggars waiting for our hunger to be satisfied.

This season is an invitation to face our longings head on and seek the truth of what we really desire.

So this is my challenge as we head into this week. As you experience the longing, loneliness, or discontentment of your holiday season, look at the feeling in light of advent. In light of the anticipation and desire of what is before us.

Rest in the knowledge that your longing will one day be met.

Until then, may you find joy and peace this Christmas season.

The Investment of Waiting

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Singleness

Last week I threw out the question of what it means to wait actively. I don’t think it’s really quite fair for me to ask you a question and not answer it myself.

So what is active waiting in my world?

After wrestling with the concept this week and some really great conversations over coffee, I came to this conclusion: Waiting is not the word. Waiting still seems to imply a sitting still, a holding of breath for something.

James 5 uses the metaphor of the farmer waiting for his crops. The Greek word used, ekdechomai, implies waiting with expectation. (That’s right, I whipped out the concordance on this one.) The farmer isn’t just waiting for whatever to happen. He is waiting for fruit. He does what it takes to ready the field and prepare for the harvest.

The farmer invests in his work.

So what does this mean for little ol’ me?

Lately, I’ve been wrestling with the purpose of my singleness and where the boundary lines have fallen for me. I’ve also recently been a part of some great conversations on the needs and future of ministry for single young adults. Great things that stir in me a passion and desire to see growth; a longing for God to awake hunger for Him in the hearts of people in this stage of life.

And what is one thing that singles are told time and time again? Especially single women?

Wait.

“Wait on God.” “Good things come to those who wait.” And then my personal favorite, “True love waits.”

But what does that mean? Are we supposed to sit around and do nothing while we wait for godly prince charming to stride in with his Toms-clad feet and Greek New Testament and whisk me away to a mission field in Asia?

Geeze, I certainly hope not.

I have observed a lot of women, who have been told for years to wait, grow frustrated, disillusioned, and bitter. What they have been told to sit and wait patiently for not come. I feel that tension myself,

So what do we do? Ya know, when there’s not much you can do.

We invest. We invest in where we are and what God is doing in us and in our communities. We seek out the input of older wiser counsel. We seek contentment while still pursuing growth. We serve.

So what does this mean for me personally? I want to start to build community with both women and men and provide context for thoughtful conversation. Essentially, I want to open my home for gatherings and encourage deeper discussion through thoughtful, others-focused questions.

I want to continue to study the word and become more firmly rooted in my identity through truth.

I want to explore the gifts I have been given further. I want to write like crazy and learn more about marketing.

I want growth. I want to see God bring it about in my life and want to watch it happen in the lives around me.

And, yes, this may be an idealistic rant of a hopeless romantic, but it is a rant I offer up to the father to do with whatever he sees fit.

We have been placed where we are in life for good reason, whether we see that or not.

So we can allow our discontentment to fester into bitterness. We can allow are hearts to harden as what we may want does not arrive in our timing. If that’s the case, we’re not really usable for God’s purpose.

Or we can enter into the adventure with God, wrestling with the tension of where we’ve been placed and where we wish we were. We can encounter him on a deeper level as we seek in invest in the stage he has intentionally placed us.

I would love to hear any more of your thoughts if you’ve been wrestling with the what it means to wait. Comment and join the discussion.

Get Active… And Wait

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Waiting

Today’s post is going to be fairly quick.

I’ve got a few projects in the works, but those are still cookin’. In the mean time, I’d love to share some thought fodder.

I just finished a study in James yesterday, and last week, I was wrestling through the last half of the fifth chapter. He discusses patience in waiting for the Lord being like that of a farmer waiting for the harvest.

Be patient, therefore, brothers,until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

The thing that struck me about the waiting of a farmer is that it is active. He must prepare the field and tend the plants and the soil throughout the season. He can’t just plant the seeds and let it go. He won’t have fruit that way.

So what about me? How am I patient as the farmer is patient? How am I establishing my heart for the coming of the Lord? I’m still trying to think about this and as we are in the second week of advent, I think this is a valid discussion to start. So tell me what you think:

  • What does it mean for you to actively wait in your current season and stage of life?
  • How are you establishing your heart?
  • What does it even mean to ‘establish your heart?’

Have your own questions? Throw them out there! I’d love to hear them as well as your thoughts.

Reflections on Movember: Masculinity and Respect

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Lex's World

When I was in college, Movember was a HUGE deal. Most of us ladies met it with a groan because now regularly good-looking guys were going to be less so for a whole month…and then finals followed, so there was just more bad facial hair and we had to leave for Christmas break with terrible mental pictures of our guy friends and boy friends and their terrible facial hair.

I have a theory that no-shave-November has taken a back-seat to the wildly popular no-shave-ever that’s going around.
And really, facial hair on guys can be really great. I myself am quite partial to some nice scruff on the jaw.
Still, when a guy in my social circle attempts to grow facial hair for the first time, I find that his attempt is met with groans and eye rolls from most of the female population.
So this got me thinking… because I took a month off from blogging and had some time to think…about masculinity… and femininity… and the relationship between the two.
So, yes, I have scoffed at a bro’s attempted to grow a mustache before. (And yes, I am slightly creeped out by mustache’s a la carte.) But as I think about it, I’ve scoffed at guys for a lot of reasons…most of them not justified.
There has been a lot written about the extended adolescence of young adult men in our culture. We worry about what this means for the future of the family dynamic, but, as a woman, have I examined how I am reinforcing the behavior in the men in my life?
Some close friends of mine where having some car trouble a few weeks ago. As a young married couple, they aren’t in a financial state to just go out and buy a new vehicle… they also aren’t quite in a state to get it repaired. So what does this leave them with? DIY, of course!
Her husband doesn’t have a lot of experience with car maintenance, so he did some reading and watched a couple videos after he’d identified the problem. He told us he was pretty sure he could fix the problem.
So our response? “Yeah, right!” “Are you sure? We could just spend the extra and have someone who know’s what their doing take care of it.”
To his ears, our statements probably sounded more like, “You’re incapable,” and “Nice try, junior! Let’s have a real man handle the problem.”
Not exactly affirming the responsibility he wanted to take and the work and research he had done to feel prepared to tackle the project.
So often when my male peers try to take on a “manly” behavior such as a home improvement project, or growing facial hair, or logging (it’s manly, right?), me and my girlfriends give them a hard time. We roll our eyes, we scoff, we give them a doubtful glance. We belittle their risks and attempts to outwardly demonstrate their masculinity. We emasculate them without really thinking about what we’re doing.
This makes me sad. And sorry.
If we as women want the men in our lives to act like men, perhaps we should affirm their attempts to show that masculinity. That can be in the growing of facial hair or the attempt (a successful one at that!) to repair a car. It can be in any way he may be trying to risk and prove himself.
Is it that hard to give a “good job,” or “I believe in you,” or “sweet man-beard!” to our brothers, friends, co-workers, boyfriends, fathers, or bro-on-the-street? Genuine encouragement may be out of vogue in this day of sarcasm and “irony” but I think what men and women are really desiring from one another, romantically or no, is honest encouragement and heartfelt thoughts.
Perhaps if we took the time to show small bits of respect to the boys in our lives, we might see more men-in-the-making.

NaNoWriMo and Priorities

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Writing Thoughts

Happy November!

If you’re like me, you weren’t sure you were going to make it this far, but here we are.

Last week, I promised to tell you what’s up so here’s the biz:

For the first time in a while, not a lot is up. Things have slowed down with my marketing business so I can have a better balance of work and play in light of my new job.

Since my schedule has been so jam-packed with work for the last two months, I haven’t really had the time to invest in the relationships I need to or even take in what’s been going on in my life.

In light of some recent circumstances and big changes, I would like to reorient myself and sort through some things with God.

Something that’s also been pushed to the back of the closet is my novel. Last month, I was so convicted that if I am really called to be writing this book, then I better sit my butt down for more than five seconds and finish the thing. I am excited to get back to the novel and have been starting to think through next steps. It’s exciting and a little frightening and I am ready for the adventure.

As such, I’m taking this month to connect with some close friends, take a couple trips, read, think, pray and write like it’s goin’ out of style. With these things being a priority, I am not going to be blogging for the month of November.

I’m not a NaNoWriMo person. I’m not crazy. But I would like to participate in the festivities by taking time this month to invest in my art.

People and art. Those are two of my favorite things in life and I am thrilled to be involved with them both once again.

I already have some great things in mind for December, so please check in again at that point.

Have a wonderful November!

Sometimes There’s Just a Lot Going On

Posted on by Lex De Weese in Uncategorized

Hey there!

I’m sorry I don’t have a sufficient post for you right now.

I usually try to write my posts a few weeks in advance, but time just got away from me and there are some things I’m trying to sort through in my personal life as well as my writing life.

I’ll clue you in a bit more next Monday, but for now I recommend you take the time you would spend reading this post and spend it in silence.

Count the gifts you’ve experienced today and hold them in gratitude before the father.

Be blessed today.

I’ll touch base next week.

xo,
           –Lex