Day 20/ 30 Days of Intention. I choose God.

My intention today yesterday was about going to church. NO NO NO this isn’t about church, so you don’t have to go crazy telling me church isn’t for you and God is a myth.    

This is about choosing, intention choosing versus blind choices.

Yesterday I went to church, 10:00am service.  Intentionally.  It’s not easy for me to get to church.  Four kids must be woken.  Brushed hair because others can see.  Underwear
because God knows.  Breakfast so I can’t hear rumbling stomachs.  I have to wake my husband who I think secretly wishes I wouldn’t wake him.  Sunday is the only day we can sleep in and go to a service later in the day.  Or not.

It chose me.

 I grew up a church goer, but it took a while for me to understand the space in my heart that was fed by God.  The primary concentric social circle of my childhood spun around our family church, always small, never outgrowing the pews meant for 300.  I didn’t choose this relationship;  I felt like it chose me,  long ago under the large shadowy leaves of a cashew tree when my grandfather walked the miles between his home and the nearest town to tell his good news.  Grandpa was a preacher.  So is my father. 

My un-choice. 

I denied my spiritual needs in college, trying to fill them with social interactions and sports.  My connection to God didn’t fade away just because I chose not march up the steps of a church at 9:00 on a Sunday morning.  College was as much about NOT doing things as it was doing other things. 

My concession. 

I met my first husband just before I got my degree.  Holding his hand, I went back to church, not the church I wanted.  Unlike me, he found comfort in somber repetition and a sharp burning of incense in his nostrils.

Then I fell in love.

My choice. 

I found my true spirituality when I was furthest away from my parents’ original plan for me.  My fiancé (Ken- see other blogs about intention) and I were drawn to an old and moldy church in Johnston, Iowa.  The regulars were embarrassed with its crooked hallways and slanted foundation.   We brought our cobbled together family there and got counseling and found the acceptance from God through our honesty with the pastor.  I felt a connection to the early stirrings of my childhood spirituality.  A connection with a God that couldn’t be broken.  Where all things, good or bad added up to something amazing.  There was no impunity or pay backs. 

Facing another un-choice. 

Nothing gold can stay.  After ten years, our children got older in Sunday Schools and church potlucks, squirming in the pews learning to sit still.  I saw things I had fled from in my first un-choice.  Divorces that could never happen to “their family.”  Inquiries how to live next to a gay neighbor and still be loving.  Questions about how much to contribute to make God happen, a tenth of the gross or the net.  Teaching my boys it’s wrong to want a woman.  I didn’t like it and I just stopped.  It was easy.  And unintentional.

I choose my relationship. 

After a while, I could feel an ache.  Something was missing and I couldn’t get it anywhere else.  I wanted to be filled with the familiar and unexplainable hope.  So, a few months ago I found a church.  I woke my family.  We made the drive.  And every Sunday, I have to choose again. 

This was my intention yesterday.  To choose to go- wholly and completely.  To embrace without embarrassment that this is how I am filled.  I woke up and I postponed getting ready.  I played out the conversation with my husband was blocking out the morning light with seven pillows.  I chose to inform him, albeit passive aggressively, to call out to my daughters, loud enough to pierce the layers of cotton and down.  “We’re going to the 10:00am service.  Wake up your brothers.”

We went.  But it was really for me.  I felt filled.  I sang and felt the fullness of my soul threatening to drip from my eyes.  I talked to God.  I let go of the stuff I can’t imagine living without.  I heard something that connected to my greater purpose. And I went home to resume my day.

In the end, intention is about choosing.

• It’s not about letting others make the choice for you.  That can be the way some of your intentions may have started but in the end, you must choose for yourself.
• It’s not about the un-choice.  Un-choosing is not intentional living either.  So I chose NOT to do something because my parents had chosen it for me.
• It’s not about acquiescence either.  Acquiescing is not conscious intention.  I have let a lot of people choose things because they seemed so darn excited about having the choice.
• It’s not about explaining.  Intentional living is proven by your actions.  You don’t have to do a lot of explaining if you are choosing what is best for you.  And what you believe.
• It’s not about appearing.  My intentional choice cannot be about dressing up to look cool.  Again- the closer your intentions are to the healthy choices that feed your soul, the less you will care about appearances.

Intentional living is about conscious choosing that brings your body, mind and spirit into alignment and fully engages YOU.  It’s not about schedules and it’s certainly NOT about living out an existence that looks feels more like a play than a life.  It’s about choosing what you need to be healthy and whole.    You deserve to live intentionally, at least a few minutes each day.  Are you?

If you want more inspiration, watch ordinary people bring life back to everyday life on Life Dare and go to neadinspiration.com.  Do a 30 Day Challenge yourself- just enter your name and e-mail and get started at 30daysofyou.com!