Hey friend…if I haven’t told you recently.
I am so glad you are here.
Truly grateful.
In fact, we have quite a few new friends (YAY!) that have joined this little “Notes for my Daughters” blog community over the last 2 weeks.
If you are joining us by the invitation from my mentor and friend KariAnne, over at Thistlewood Farms, I would like to take a quick moment to say thank you so much for stopping by, subscribing and saying hello.
It means A LOT to have you join us here.
This baby blog was birthed a little over one year ago. In fact, for those that do not know, I unknowingly launched and published my first blog post the week just before the COVID crisis crossed the invisible threshold of our homes and hearts.
And so?
In the blog posts that followed?
We simply buckled in and rode the waves of every wobbly week together.
I am so glad we have each other.
Total aside…one of the “perks” of having a child who graduated from the back to the front seat of the car last year? (You can read about that exciting milestone and my “two rules” here in this post.)
She takes random photos of you while you are driving and you don’t even realize it until you are scrolling your photos on your phone for pictures to share on the blog and you discover a gem like this one.
I mean…what in the actual heck sweet tween daughter?
Where was I?
Oh yes…needless to say, this little blog community?
Well…we have been through a lot together.
Emotional up’s & downs, sprinkles of encouragement for our hearts, doses of inspiration for our homes, exciting DIY renovations, budget decorating, trash to treasure finds, but mostly?
Honest real conversations about all the emotions tumbling deep inside our heart and bones over the last year.
You see, just before Eve sneakily snapped the above picture of me buckled in and driving…I had decided to turn right out of the lacrosse practice parking lot, in the opposite direction of home.
Why?
Because I caught a glimpse of this.
Just after Eve decided to stealth document me driving, her eyes were opened to a more worthy subject.
Simple…but oh so there.
Worth the turn in the opposite direction.
My message for you this week is simple and sweet friends.
Sometimes the opposite direction from everyone else is the right direction for you.
And?
Stay sticky & slippery.
Huh?
What now?
Allow me to explain.
We were at my daughter’s lacrosse game this past Wednesday evening where my husband is the proud coach of eleven tiny 7 and 8 year olds who run up and down the field wildly wielding lacrosse sticks.
All in attempt to learn the rules of the game and maybe just maybe…catch the flying ball in midair.
At one point during the game, a sweet Dad and friend of mine standing near me on the sidelines, lovingly called to his daughter, “stay sticky!” as a word of encouragement.
He then shared with me that a friend of his in the lacrosse world encourages her team to “stay sticky” while playing defense and “stay slippery” while playing offense.
Brilliant right?
Makes so much sense…especially to the minds of sweet baby lady laxers.
Essentially the goal is help the players understand they want to stay sticky.
Meaning?
Cling close and not let your mark out of your sight while defending your player who is attempting to drive to the goal and score against you.
In offense, you want to stay slippery.
Meaning?
Make dynamic moves to slip away out of the hold of the defender who is marking you and keep moving quickly, dodging in the direction you desire to go…towards the goal.
Here’s the thing.
I got thinking Wednesday evening about this sticky and slippery strategy.
They apply to so much more than tiny tykes learning the strategy of the game….it’s a strategy for life.
Two days ago, I received a facebook message from a friend asking me to re-share and summarize for her a leadership lesson she remembered me sharing on a zoom call for work a few years back.
I replied back to her, expounding the details of my thought that we all carry around with us our own personal subconscious measuring stick of success.
I have written about this measuring stick of success in the past and I feel that it bears repeating with this updated sticky and slippery notion. Especially as the world speeds up it’s spin again and we slip back into all the activities and busy-bee mode.
Stamina is a thing I am finding a bit elusive these days. Maybe you too?
The full blog post including the inspiration birthed from my Mom’s grief share group for my measuring stick exercise can be found here.
Skipping ahead to the end of the lesson?
Only you have the permission to decide and define how to measure your personal version of success.
Picking up someone else’s measuring stick of success is like wearing someone else’s shoes.
They don’t belong to you.
And trying to hold someone else’s measuring stick up to yourself in the mirror to begin measuring your success up against someone else’s life dreams, desires, heart-goals and their version, scope and size of success?
It will send you down the hustle till you collapse corridor.
I recently had to remind my husband of this as he was struggling with the 4-4 record (now 5-4 YAY) of his little lax team.
The measurement of success for this sweet baby team is not defined by the record of wins and losses at the end of a season.
It is simply defined by the measuring stick of…
Did they have fun?
Did they learn?
Did their lacrosse skills improve from the first practice to the last?
The answer to all of those questions is yes, yes and yes!
SUCCESS my dear husband!
The coach inside him knows this.
But the human inside him? He picked up the glitzy measuring stick of a desirable winning season…and anything less than, left him feeling like he wasn’t measuring up…like he was letting people down.
Like many of us at times, we fall down the slippery slope of picking up that worldly measuring stick of lies and measuring our worth and value against a broken system of moving target metrics.
And there is the the hang-up.
We love to stick on the world’s measuring stick of success and hold it up to ourselves in the mirror and only see all the places in which we don’t measure up.
We fall into the trap of staying sticky with the world’s measuring stick…when instead?
That is actually the very thing we need to get slippery with and let slide through our fingers and let go of.
Heather Krout
The world is a sticky place.
It’s easy to attach ourselves to all the pretty and “new” measuring sticks that pop up and taunt us, touting tall tales of of shiny success.
Quick!
Grab your measuring stick and hold it up to yourself because….
If you have this.
Look like this.
Make this salary.
Join this club.
Have this house.
Afford this toy.
Travel to this place.
Have this degree.
Your kid has this.
Is your arm getting heavy from holding up your measuring stick yet?
Mine too..
Let’s get slippery and let it slide out of our hand ok friend?
There is a better way.
Don’t take my word for it…take God’s Word.
“Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.”
Romans 12:3 NLT Emphasis added
Did you catch that?
“Measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.“
Now, that sounds like a measuring stick I want to get sticky with. Maybe you too?
When I turned in the opposite direction from our normal left out of the parking lot, I wound up pulling the car over and my sneaky 12 year old Ansel Adams slid out of her shotgun seat to snap a few more pictures.
It’s easy to stick to all of the fears the world wants us to hold on to tight.
It’s easy to stick to all of the worries that wind us up towards restless nights.
It’s easy to stick to doing things in our own strength because the world will tell us you are weak if we depend on anyone.
It’s easy to stick to our regular left turns out of the parking lots…and miss what is right around the corner…meant for you.
But what if…what if we got slippery instead?
Slip and slide your way right into the embrace of a good God who is waiting to greet you in the opposite direction of where the world will tell us to go to find our worth.
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
Romans 12:1 The Message
Here is one more thing I have learned recently while looking out the window panes of our French doors leading outside to the patio. Only, I could not see the pretty Spring patio I had just decorated last week because the window panes were covered in sticky handprints.
I was immediately struck with this thought:
“Get your handprints off.”
The thought came to me and I knew it was not talking about the tiny handprints clouding my view outside. No, it was talking about my handprints clouding the view of a decision we are wrestling with this week.
God was telling me to let go of it already.
My sticky fingerprints were so IN and ALL OVER this looming decision…that just like the tiny finger prints on my patio door?
My view was blocked.
My vision clouded.
I could not see clearly through all of my own handprints.
When we have our sticky handprints SO IN and ALL OVER something…it’s no wonder that the good God view is blocked.
We make the the path unclear, blurry and hard to see on our own sometimes don’t we?
What if I just loosened my grip up and slipped my hands off of that decision a little or a lot?
Maybe, just maybe, the next right move will become more clear.
Perhaps if we get sticky with God and get slippery with the world’s measuring sticks of success we might all just breathe a little lighter.
And those big decisions we face?
They may just come a little easier without our sticky fingerprints clouding the way, giving us a better chance to see God’s fingerprints pointing us down the right path.
Get Sticky and Slippery friends.
Get sticky with God and get slippery with the world’s measuring stick of success…and all those decisions we are gripping so tight.
Go palms up and let the measuring sticks and stuck decisions slip through your fingers.
Turns out?
WE have a God who is already holding it all together. And?
He is trustworthy.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
Oh and if you need a little stamina booster or help getting your fingerprints off of a situation or decision?
Listen to this song.
Dear God,
Thank you that You are a safe and trustworthy place to stick close to. Help me to remember that you alone hold all things together.
I want to continue to acknowledge that You are my provider. Thank you for sticking close to me even when I slide into the slippery slope of the world’s confusing chorus.
Help me to seek Your still small voice above all the noise and distractions.
In your Precious and mighty name,
Amen.
Living on a prayer,
Heather
Judy Allen says
Oh my goodness! How I need this, daily. Thank you and thank you Kari Ann for linking to you!
Heather Krout says
Hi Judy! Welcome to my blog! Thanks so much for stopping by – so glad to hear you enjoyed the post and thanks to KariAnne for connecting us together! Thank you for being here! XO, Heather
Kimberley Owens says
This is absolutely beautiful.❤️
Heather Krout says
Thank you Kim! Appreciate your kind comment and for being part of my blog community! Appreciate YOU! XO, Heather
Heather Krout says
Thank you for sharing KariAnne! XO, Heather