I am a slinky...

OK, not really. But I’m aspiring to be a slinky. That is my goal. Right now I’m more like a Jenga tower.

This confuses you? Me too. Allow me to (attempt to) explain through pictures!

My life is like Jenga pieces:

Each block represents a different piece of my life. There is my public life. My private life. My life as a mom. My life as a wife. My life as a girl who gets irritated and wants to say mean things to the checker at the grocery store. My life as an aspiring writer. My life as a speaker/teacher. My life as a worshiper. My life as a housewife/maid/cook…. As you can see there are many pieces of me. For a while now I’ve spent lots of time and energy trying to figure out which part of me fits into which block. Does the funny interaction with the kids get filed under “mom” only? Or can it also be filed under “radio host” or “blogger”? And how do I make sure that the irritable girl never gets filed under “public life” or “worshiper”. I tell you its exhausting trying to keep everything categorized.

Lately I’ve been feeling like it’s time to bridge the gap between “public” and “private”. After all, I keep praying for God to allow my life to be effective. And how can I be effective for His kingdom if I’m worried about categorizing my life and filtering every part of me. So, I thought maybe I should build a tower.

I attempted to stack the pieces up. Instead of being spread out everywhere and trying to keep certain things “separate” I tried to bring everything together into one cohesive unit. There’s only one problem with stacking blocks. Especially when someone as clumsy as me is involved.

Inevitably, something will happen to upset the delicate balance of block stacking.

And when that happens…

You’re left with a big mess.

So maybe the tower isn’t such a good idea after all.

Thankfully God likes to send people into my life that are smarter than me. Recently I had an amazing conversation with someone who told me that God wanted me to be a…

That’s right a slinky.

Here’s the thing with slinkys.

They are made up of many parts:

But they are all connected:

Slinkys aren’t fragile.

You can stretch them:

Twist them:

And hold them:

You can even drop them:

And they’ll always bounce back.

Slinkys are fluid:

In motion:

Always changing.

Yet staying the same.

This is my slinky. It sits on my desk. Surrounded by pieces of me. My computer, my family, my calendar, my memory verse. It sits there as a reminder. A reminder of who God made me to be.

A multi-layered, transparent, flexible, fun, and whole woman.

My name is Keri. And I am a slinky.

Wanna play?