Happy Sunday, friends!
I'm wondering when is the last time you did something just because?
Can you remember the last time you had a weekend with no plans? Or you took the afternoon off just to sit outside or read a book or stare at the birds? Or can you remember the last time you canceled plans (even very good plans) because you knew you couldn't do one more thing?
To the "yes" answer to any of these questions takes us to our word of the week: human.
Human: our soul connected to our body, brain, conscience, consciousness, memory, mind, spirit, soul and subconscious on planet earth.
As we unpack this definitions we realize this: to be a human is to have limitations.
Limitations in time (we don't live on earth forever).
Limitations in reach (there are some barriers we just can't cross).
Limitations in energy (we all must sleep). And so many more!
But the way you and I act sometimes it is as if the word super is in front of "human."
With our invisible capes on, we push through long days and don't eat well. We skip doctors appointments that we should have made weeks ago. We say "Next year I'll retire." (And then we don't!) As a result, the most authentic human parts of us are lost. (Deep sigh)
Let me tell you this. Last year I started a new full-time job. It's a position I never could have imagined taking in a place I never could have imagined living, but how much I love it all! In my role as minister of First Christian Church and in this town called Athens, GA, I feel like I got an invitation: to be minister but also be human.
So these days, I feel like I'm different kind of leader than I've ever been. I don't keep my life or my family's life to myself (maybe that I would have tried to been years ago), but I'm just me. And we're just us. What joy it is be human.
Here's what I've learned: living fully human gives the world gifts that it needs the most. Not only joy, but vulnerability, authenticity and kindness!
How can you be more human this week?
Laugh. Cry. Take a nap. Go out with a friend to lunch and tell the truth. Eat a salad. Eat a cookie. Forget the time lost in a book or show. Breathe. And know that God adores you just as you are.
God loved humans in fact so much that he sent you LOVE to lead the way . . .
XO
Elizabeth
