Dear Kaleid Ladies,
Welcome back! This spring, we are looking through our See Yourself lens, talking about how we live into our purpose, passion, and power as image bearers of God in the world.
Do you remember hearing, “You’re so good at that!”? Do you recall the last time you got lost in the enjoyment of a thing, because the effort involved felt like water flowing downhill? Maybe you recently finished some “work,” only to feel remarkably revitalized or deeply satisfied.
When was that? What happened in your heart? Better yet, what happened in your environment because you showed up, freely or wholeheartedly?
Our Purpose
You have a purpose that looks just like you and only like you, living in love. At Kaleid we say that our purpose is our way of “relating to God, others, and our city in the fullness of our unique humanness.”
It is easy to feel lost in our quest for purpose. We know what it means to ask deep questions like “Why am I here?” or “What life am I am meant to live?” We may not articulate them, but we know what they feel like in our gut. We experience them when life circumstances shift (new parents or empty nesters, can we get a witness?!?). We feel them when we show up in a room and have vague, uncomfortable confusion about how to proceed. We sense them when we lose our bearings vocationally, relationally, or even spiritually.
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Although we may struggle with purpose, letting Jesus lead us toward embracing our unique dignity and accepting our very real limits can help us love out of our beautiful, God-given design.
Awareness of Our Purpose
The idea of “actualizing our purpose” can seem idealistic, but at Kaleid we believe that awareness of how we are made, and particularly awareness of our strengths, helps us to love well in the world in the unique, purposeful way that only we can. The Christian invitation to live for love may be an invitation to surrender and sacrifice, but it’s not an invitation to self-loss. Having a sense of self is a pre-requisite to being able to give of self.
We become aware of the self we have by becoming aware of the design God gave us.
Awareness is a practice. It takes practice. Awareness slows us down as we reflect on moments, hours, and days. It calls us out from hiding behind our busyness, our compulsions, our fears, and even our attachments to others’ identities as more important than our own. Awareness invites deeper trust in God, who made us thoughtfully and lovingly, and who wants us to fully inhabit the part of our world that our unique beauty alone can fill. Awareness cultivates humility and courage, both. As we become aware of our design, we can live from our purpose: we can better relate to God, others, and our city in the fullness of our unique humanness.
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Reflection for Awareness of Your Purpose:
Spend time reflecting:
1. Welcome God, who is already with you and in you, to make you aware of the Spirit’s gentle guidance during this time.
2. Review the last twenty-four hours. Was there a time when you felt particularly alive or energized? If so, what were you doing?
3. Review the last twenty-four hours. Was there a time when you felt particularly empty or disoriented? If so, what was happening?
4. Hold those two experiences up to God’s care and receive what God may be offering.
Now, consider the bigger picture:
1. Name two to three things you LOVE about yourself and how you show up in the world.
2. We tend to lose our purpose in a few ways – by dichotomizing loving God and loving ourselves, by being consumed by others, or by resisting others. Do any of these three purpose-draining realities hit home with you?
3. We tend to recover our purpose in a few ways, too – by knowing ourselves, by welcoming ourselves, and by deploying ourselves. Would one of these three purpose-enhancing realities be helpful to you in this season?
4. Close in prayer, offering back to God both your limits and your beauty.
We are so glad you’re you!
Gratefully,
The Kaleid Team
P.S. - Worth repeating!! We are so excited to be offering a StrengthsFinder workshop with certified coach Elizabeth Payne on Saturday, April 15th! Not only will we have a fantastic guide and an insightful tool to explore our God-given purpose, but we will also explore what it looks like to live out that purpose in our specific life context! AND, it’s a pay-as-you can experience, so please come and invite a friend or two!
AND, our Lent Contemplative Circle is now open for registration! Join us for seven weeks with Psalm 23, where we will pray together, learning postures for our Lenten journey. (Note – we pray together on Wednesday mornings at 6:30 or Thursdays at noon, but we will send YouTube videos of the prayer time each week, as well. So, if you are not able to join us live at one of the two designated times, feel free to sign up so that you can receive each week’s video and follow along at a time convenient for you!