Fruit Tree Shake Down after the Storm

God,

It's been a fruit-tree-shake-down-after-the-storm kind of last few weeks for me. The two weeks prior to this week were the messy ugly storm.  I was thrown into the raw place of new leadership opportunities and felt as though I was being eaten alive by my novice, naive mind. In the storm, I wondered, am I really cut out for this?  Is this where, I'm supposed to be? But I hunkered down the hatches and kept moving; one painful, vulnerable, fearful step and experience after another.  As Glennon Melton says, " I just kept showing up trying to do the next right thing."

And you know what I found? Even sometimes when we feel something is the right thing, it will not always be the right thing for everyone. And that's okay.  This week, I learned that sometimes when I try so hard to create a safe environment for everyone by nipping gossip before it gets out of hand, without realizing it I had unintentionally shamed and isolated the person who had started it.  So in creating a safe environment for many, I unintentionally made it unsafe for one. Is that good or bad? I don't know there is an answer to that. What I do know is that I am learning. I am soaking in my blunders to learn how to love and lead better.
God, thanks for preparing me over the last years to lean into the hurtful, painful, or vulnerable moments in life and grow from them. Thanks for people I do and don't personally know who have influenced the way I think about the world. While I may never influence millions of people, its my prayer that I would use the small sphere of influence I do have to encourage and promote growth and self-reflection in others.

So this week was the fruit shake down after the storm. Prior to a storm, we hardly notice the fruit and goodness tucked in the branches of a tree.  However, after a storm, the fruit comes down and we start to collect it and enjoy it and celebrate it...but most importantly....we share it.  So this week, I've been reflecting over the storm. I've been processing the growth and wisdom that I'm gaining as a result of these storms. I feel rejuvenated and hopeful that the next time the storm comes (as it always does), I will have the peace of mind of knowing that fruit is always easier to access once we get through the storm. And I can always anticipate that there is never a storm in which you are not by my side helping to guide me to find the fruit that needs collected and shared.

God, thanks for wise people who have followed you in sharing their fruit with others. The last few weeks the words of Brene Brown, Glennon Melton, and Bob Goff have brought perspective in my life. Thanks for the ways you are using their influence to encourage me and so many others to take steps of faith and to learn more about ourselves in the process.

God, I don't have a huge sphere of influence but I do have a small one. Can you help me be an influencer who inspires others to be the best version of themselves within whatever sphere of influence I am in? My dream is that I always role model what I believe in my deepest core;

- WORDS matter. What a crazy, amazing responsibility we have as humans!!! How we speak about someone, is just as important as what we say to them.  When we speak unkindly about someone, we are really just telling the world that we are insecure about our own junk--so we have to escape by highlighting someone elses. But what if we owned our own junk and spoke truthfully and vulnerably about our own stuff. So if someone is bugging us because they aren't changing in the way we would like...what if instead of saying, "He just doesn't care"...I said..." I'm feeling frustrated because I am trying to take responsibility for someone else's life change and it isn't working. Maybe it's never really been my responsibility anyway?
Isn't that the real issue?  I feel like before we can begin to throw stones at anyone else, we have to first take an introspective dive into the deep well of our own hearts. The place where our true hurt, pain, anger, and fear live. Let's get real about that.
The way we speak about others has so much power to change and influence the ways others view themselves and others. If we treat people as hopeless and not capable of change--that's how they will view themselves and that's the fruit they will bear.  But I've seen time and time again through the work we do at Care Connections, that when we treat people as people who have a story worth telling--they rise to the occasion.  If we speak words of self-hatred or self-condemnation through our thoughts, we live out lives that downplay the gifts of how we are uniquely and intricately wired. As a youth leader, one of the girls in my group was pretty quiet the first few weeks. I decided to have a conversation with her. What I said to her was, "I've noticed you've really been listening intently to others in group...which I love about you. But I'm kind of grieving a bit. I think you have a lot to share, and when you don't...we miss out on the gift of knowing you." It was incredible how the next week, she opened up for the first time in group and wow'd us all with amazing, mature, wisdom.

--EVEN more, PEOPLE MATTER.
I love my job because I get to take on the role of a learner everyday. I get to meet amazing people who have lives that are filled with struggle, resilience, and hope.  The universal theme that I've seen most transformational, is that people just want to know that their life matters. That their life has purpose and meaning.  I am an eager student of the theories of Viktor Frankl. He talks about man's deepest desire is for meaning, and while I'm still relatively young in my career, I have found incredible truth in that truth.

- Generally speaking, ASSUME THE BEST.
I find that I'm at my best when I'm assuming the best about others. Brene Brown talks about assuming that everyone is just doing the best they can.  I would hope that's the graceful approach others would have towards me, so I will choose to treat other people that way first.

- "I'd rather choose to practice my values, than simply professing them." I have never met Brene Brown, but when I read her books and her ideas, I imagine her as a kindred spirit. When I hear what she says, it resonates somewhere deep where I internally say, "Yes! Yes! You get it...you get me."  I've spent a lot of my life feeling misunderstood because of how I view people and the world. But this woman, she gets it.  So I may never meet her, but I have been deeply influenced by her. God---can you make me that type of person?  The type of person that lives out what she believes and speaks to be true.


Lord-- I have no idea what the future holds for me. But I do know, 5 years ago I would have never imagined that I was even capable of living the adventure you have me on now. If this is all you have for me, I'm thankful to continue on. If you continue to have other things, lead me.  So, as I approach my 28th year in 21 days...I pray that my future adventures would allow me to lead in a way that models the truths above that I so desperately believe with all my heart.


You're the best God.  Thanks for choosing a divine nobody like me to shape and mold everyday.

In awe of you,

Audrey