What I'm Into {January 2015}

January 30, 2015 Karen Huber

This January was another milestone for our family. After a couple years gone, we moved back to Ireland in early January 2013 and if a recent email to my sister provides any evidence, we're all pretty happy with how things are turning out. We've been Irish residents for four years now, Asher and Ella having spent more than half their lives here. We're planning a birthday party for next month, making plans for next year and settling into this rental house as it becomes ours more and more every day. Still, January is a hard, dark, cold month and even yesterday's freak, glorious snowfall has receded from view, the only hint being random remnants of melting snowmen.

So let's talk Books! TV! Music! And all the things I'm loving this month...

It's a tease

January 24, 2015 Karen Huber

It’s a tease, the wanting to leave. I feel like I have to apologize for it, that I can’t miss it, because we wanted to leave. Because we chose it, fought for it, prayed for it, jumped at it. The longing to go doesn’t place a lesser value on what we left, and it’s a tease thinking going will fulfill the longing.

A Yes Woman

January 21, 2015 Karen Huber

If you had asked me to do anything in our first few years of ministry, I would’ve answered in the affirmative. I wanted to be used, anywhere and in any way, and I was anxious to send news home of all these needs that had been answered through me.

I didn’t feel called to bulletin making, but I was good at it. A lifetime in traditional church combined with entry-level training in graphic design came to good use on the field. It wasn’t my gifting, but I did it… because I could.

I didn’t feel called to teaching a children’s Sunday school class, but I was a young mom and it was my turn in the rotation at our new young church. It wasn’t my gifting, but I did it… because I felt like I had to.

I didn’t feel called to website administration, but if I didn’t do it, who would? It wasn’t my gifting, but…

I'm sharing at Velvet Ashes today about skills, giftings and saying no to some good things.

In which I look forward to failing spectacularly

January 15, 2015 Karen Huber

Last week I unveiled my One Word for 2015 - submit - and the three things I want to focus on this year:

Submit my work and to a writing lifestyle
Submit to the Spirit
Submit in our marriage

The very first thought that popped into my head was: submit my work. I want to be writing more, with intention, thought and research, and I should be submitting it. The next step in a writing lifestyle for me is that I begin to treat my hobby as my (highly flexible, part-time, with a kid on my lap and a jug of milk on my desk) job...

How to Find Counseling Help

January 13, 2015 Karen Huber

Photo by Jiří Wagner on Unsplash — Photo by Jiří Wagner on Unsplash

It’s not the realizing you need a counselor that’s hard. Surprisingly, that’s the easy part, the part keeping you up in the night, the flashing red light in the back of your mind. You can’t ignore it when you know, when you finally reach an...

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