A surprising email reminding me to come back to this!

The other day I received an email that someone commented on a blog I wrote six years ago! It was so unexpected. The more interesting thing is that I’ve been thinking about getting back to my Blog because I’ve now been a columnist for two years! It was just a little whisper of a thought that I hadn’t yet given my full attention to.

I love writing. It has kept me from giving up on dreams many times. So I’ve decided to let this person’s comment be a gentle nudge to get back to sharing on my website. I’ve also started a YouTube channel, Living In The Rest. Living In The Rest is also the name of my retreat business (I host retreats and help others plan personal and organizational retreats).

My YouTube channel will focus on my Theme For The Year philosophy, which helps me live in the rest of God. My themes are always decided after a long time of praying, thinking, reading, and reflecting on the previous year(s). I’ll write more about that over the coming months.

Happy Holidays!

Velshonna Luckey's Journey To Pendulum Consulting, LLC

“Leap of Faith in Action”

Velshonna Luckey, a native of Detroit, Michigan, joined the University of Notre Dame in 2002, where she first worked for the TRiO Upward Bound Program.  In 2006, she started at the Robinson Community Learning Center (RCLC), the University of Notre Dame’s community center.  When she joined the team, she was asked to expand their work with children and improve student participation.  As a compassionate community member she began building relationships with the students and their parents.  She quickly became known for her loving yet, no nonsense approach to helping families dream big and believe their dedication and hard work would help to create great success for the RCLC and their individual lives.  It has been said that her passion for life is contagious and many of the people who challenged her high standards and relentless dedication the most, have become her greatest supporters. 

Velshonna graduated from Central Michigan University in 1995 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration.  In 2009 she earned a Master’s of Science in Management from Indiana Wesleyan University and a certification in Non-Profit Executive Leadership from the University of Notre Dame.  In 2011 Velshonna received the Presidential Values Award from the University of Notre Dame.  This award recognizes employees whose performance reflects the University’s core values of integrity, accountability, teamwork, leadership in mission and leadership in excellence.  In 2014, she received the Indiana Torchbearer Award, from the Indiana Commission for Women.  This award recognizes women who “become true beacons of light in their community and their stories of courage, perseverance and compassion create a lasting legacy of inspiration”.  In 2016, Velshonna became an Executive Journey Fellow, which is funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc. The fellows attend a series of residential retreats “designed to create new ways of thinking about and practicing youth work within existing systems”.  Fellows are awarded individual renewal scholarships, are supported by fellow youth workers around the state of Indiana; this support helps reduce turnover within a field that is known for high turnover.

Velshonna and her husband, Mark, became legal guardians of their two nieces in 2004. They have been married for more than twenty-two years.  Both, Velshonna & Mark believe raising their nieces was one of the most rewarding opportunities of their life. 

Living in the Rest, Inc. began in 2008 and has been an avenue to introduce many women to personal & prayer retreat practices.

Year of Launch:  In April of 2018, Velshonna Luckey resigned from her position of twelve years as the youth development program director at the University of Notre Dame’s Robinson Community Learning Center.  After months of consideration, Velshonna realized instead of looking for a new position, she really wanted to take a year sabbatical to write and travel but wanted to do something to keep her engaged in the work she’d come to love. During her days of consideration, she remembered a conversation with a successful young man she once mentored, while he was a student at the University of Notre Dame. During one of their conversations, he said  “Mrs. Velshonna you should really consider consulting. You have a unique way in which you engage youth and there are many organizations that would benefit from what you have to offer”. 

The morning of July 15, 2018, Velshonna spoke with her husband and shared her idea of becoming a consultant. Her husband was very supportive and a month later, using the name given by her husband, Pendulum Consulting, LLC began.

Keep Going

Changing isn’t easy; heck some days it feels downright impossible! And spending a year to create new patterns in my life brought some unexpected grief and stress. Someone told me, "there is no good or bad stress; your body/brain only knows it as stress and has to deal with it".

In order to make room for the new, this sabbatical has brought, I had to make a lot of adjustments. I had to be willing to face fears, try lots of new things, ignore the critics, walk away from the familiar and be willing to break some unhealthy patterns. Thankfully I’ve been intentional about my Year of Sabbath. I knew God wanted to do some new things in me and for me. I just didn’t expect I would have to completely let go or make major adjustments in, but because I’ve paced myself and given myself to be “present”, I’ve been able to grow through the challenges change has brought me.

I like norms, I always have; in the past, I called my self a mainstay. (Mainstay - a person or thing on which something else is based or depends.) Even in creating change, I would always approach change with great consistency. But this Year of Sabbath or Sabbatical Living brought my life a totally new “right side up” and it’s made me, at times, thoroughly uncomfortable! Ten months of creating and making room for "living my best life" has meant a lot of changing, embracing and challenging myself. It has required quite a bit of new ways of behaving, engaging and adjustment to how and what I think of who I am.

In May, I wanted to end my Year of Sabbath early. I was simply tired of learning, tired of challenging myself, tired of seeing how people can be. I was tired of the fear I was constantly pressing through. April was AMAZING and I thought, “Ok this is good. It can’t get any better than this and I need to walk out all I’ve learned. I’m good now”. Yes, I actually said, “I’m good now” like I was controlling things. As I thought about it for a few days, I realized I was tired and really wanted to settle into a new normal and match my new life with a lot of my old thinking. And I worried that my budget couldn't handle the continuation of my sabbatical plans... But I heard the Holy Spirit, "you've come too far to quit". I prayed and talked to my sweetie and he agreed that I had to keep going. So I prayed about what the last three months of my Year of Sabbath should consist of.

In early June, I spent a lot of time sitting quietly and waiting to hear or see how I should wrap of my Year of Sabbath. It was in that time of reflection I realized just how far I’d come in my ability to navigate my own emotions and fears. I was no longer a worrier, I didn’t have that nagging feeling that the bottom was going to fall out of everything and I was peacefully sleeping through the night. And a memory from my 20’s came to me one morning and I knew it was a gift to help me remember how long I’ve been a resilient woman (I’ll write about this in another blog).

I loved looking back over my trips and seeing how much I’d grown in making travel plans and packing. The ease helped me see just how far I’d come. I use to have major travel anxiety, even purchasing a flight made me worry and now I was booking flights and making overnight arrangements as easy as I scheduled my weekly work meetings. Speaking of work, the support I received from our CEO was one of the greatest gifts; she has supported my sabbatical living from the time I started in January 2019. When I’ve felt bad for missing a meeting or something, she reassured me that things would be fine and she was right; work is going very well.

As each month passed, something new, challenging and amazing has come to my life or my husband’s: a new trip opportunity, home renovation gone well, meeting new people who are inspired by my sabbatical, getting a new consulting client and so much more. I am very grateful I've not abandoned my Year of Sabbath. For the last two months, I've incorporated a consecration to help me make sure my focus is constantly in the direction of trusting, looking to God and not leaning on my own understanding. Above all, I want to please the Lord and be all I'm meant to be while here on earth. And I'm really thankful for His faithfulness to give me clarity and peace on this wonderful journey.

The Sabbath According to Velshonna

Here is my attempt to answer “what is a Sabbatical?”. It’s taken me a minute to get this out, because I went back to work Jan 16th, I had to finish working with my clients who purchased my New Year Special (which was a great success) and I needed time to establish a healthy rhythm for my new career. It’s been amazing and I hope to share more about what I’m up to soon.

The Sabbath

One of the dictionary definitions for the Sabbath is: a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday.

Keeping the Sabbath is one of the 10 commandments (Exodus 20) and Jesus said He was the Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6). Jesus also said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Growing up, I’d heard all the things Jesus did on the Sabbath that frustrated the Jewish scholars of his time, but I’d never been taught “The Sabbath was made for man…” That scripture really perplexed me. I sat for hours trying to understand why something so important, the Sabbath, was neglected in my faith experience.

I was taught to do for God, to give to God and how to work for God. But I was also taught to have a relationship with the Lord, but never realize the gift the Sabbath was truly meant to be to help me grow in that relationship, until I received a book from my dear friend Nicole Williams. She knew I’d been studying the Sabbath for about a year and gave me THE REST OF GOD: Restoring Your Soul By Restoring SABBATH by Mark Buchanan (March 2015). In reading I came to appreciate why God wanted us to rest every six days. My workaholic nature was truly being disrupted.

All through scripture we are asked to come to God, call on Him, listen and accept His wisdom. I was doing this, but I was not living it day in and day out. I would spend time with God and then go do life (to the max). I prayed often, but I was always going, going, going, which would lead me to a weakened immune system, then being forced to “rest” to recover from being sick. Then the cycle would repeat. Mark Buchanan writes:

The apostle Paul says we’re only clay pots - dust mixed with water passed through fire. Hard, yes, but brittle too. Knowing this, God gave us the gift of Sabbath - not just as a day, but as an orientation to a way of seeing and knowing. Sabbath-keeping is a form of mending… Keep Sabbath, or else break too easily… Keep it, otherwise our dustiness consumes us, becomes us, and we end up able to hold exactly nothing.

…Sabbath imparts the rest of God - actually physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God - the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness.

WOW!! And that was only page 2! The book propelled me into a new way of thinking about God’s concern for my frailty.

There are many ways people keep the Sabbath, but for me it’s all about spending time with Daddy God and understanding that He wants me to be well cared for. This was something I chose to embrace when I decided to create my own Year of Sabbath Living. I knew I need great refreshing and some deep healing (physically and spiritually). I had developed a self-care practice, but I knew I needed more. As I studied I learned how much God loves and cares about us. I wanted to know more about this gift of love that Mark Buchanan highlighted in his book.

I began to see God as a loving father; I had never taken the time to know what that really meant. I wanted to know the loving side of my heavenly father. This was a real foreign concept, because my daddy didn’t know how to think pass himself to care for us girls well (I’m the middle of five girls). Most of those I called my spiritual fathers saw how self-sufficient I was, so they never played a fatherly role I hoped they would... But the deep feeling of “needing to be cared for” was a direct conflict to my natural “take care of things” way of being; something my husband is still baffled about. Studying the Sabbath led me to the very thing I was hoping the men in my life could provide and I had to accept that God wanted me to learn to rest and care for myself. The idea of choosing to be a Sabbath-Keeper was a great gift. In my decision to create a weekly Sabbath, I walked right into the loving arms of the Trinity. And through this, I learned to be ok with being very self-sufficient, while also accepting peoples lack of understanding that I needed the very love and care I gave away so freely. My finding a Sabbath rhythm, allowed me to find my voice to speak of my needs with the awareness that people may not be able to understand. But yet, in accepting my neediness, I realized the truth of the scripture: “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”! It took me months to fully understand that God truly cares about my weariness, simply because He loves me. The very thing that once perplexed me the most about the Sabbath has become my greatest gift.

What is the Sabbath according to Velshonna? A time to stop, everything if I choose to, to rest and spend time with God (in play, reflection, worship, conversation, etc.). For me it also means connecting with a peace I didn’t know it was ok for me to have.

Why a Year of Sabbath? I was unsure what to do next and realized I was burnt out from all my doing. I wanted to make sure that even in going back to work I would approach it with a Sabbath mindset and not my old workaholic way. I also connected the Sabbath to elevating my self-care travel experiences, because I wanted to give definition to my travel plans, making sure it was intentional and aligned with my professional and personal goals to be more peaceful.

How to become a Sabbath-Keeper? Study - become a good student and learn about all the good that comes from keeping the Sabbath. Define your why… Why do you want to learn about the Sabbath? Are you willing to make it holy? Holy in my world is to dedicate something to God for the betterment of my well-being. Find the time: consider starting with a half day of no work and then add an hour each week. AND download the YouVersion Bible app and start a devotional about the Sabbath.

Through my studies and devotional readings, I learned that God really does care about how I’m living, the way I’m feeling and my neediness. Though there are many times I have to learn to stop being whiny and get about what really matters ; ) That comes with the territory of becoming a mature believer in Christ.

My decision to keep the Sabbath and create a Year of Sabbath has brought many blessings. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely been worth it. So many amazing opportunities have come my way and I’m very grateful for all I’ve come to experience in my walk with the Lord.

Coming Soon "What is a Sabbatical"?

Since resigning from my job and deciding to take a Year of Sabbath/a Sabbatical, I’ve been asked a number of times “What is a sabbatical”? I spent almost two years studying the sabbath, but never imagined it would such a great resource for my time of transition.

After the decision to leave the RCLC, the diligent research, note taking, self-reflective journaling, I did in 2015 through 2016 has become such a wonderful gift to me. This was proof that NO God inspired study will go to waste. That’s one of the best things about a life well lived for Christ! “All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord…” (Rom. 8:28).

Over the next week, I will comb through some of my notes and offer a bullet point blog to give a good understanding of “what is a sabbatical?” according to Velshonna 😘😉.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

I’ve heard and said “LIVE YOUR DREAMS” a thousand times. Most of the time I was saying this because it was my personal wish… I never wanted to look up and I had stop trying or stop reaching. Even if I never fully see my dream come to life, I didn’t want to lose the hope that “dreams really do come true”.

BUT to be honest, the rally cry of “LIVE YOUR DREAMS” is a scary thing to actually do! It comes with all types of @!%#$ stuff you must fight thru! And even if you’ve previously been successful, going after a new dream can evoke all types of things that will make you think, “didn’t I fight this battle before?”. And i'm not even referring to the unkind things people say or the sarcastic comments you have to laugh thru just to keep from going off. I'm thinking about one's self talk! 

I don't know about you, but even with me knowing I'm a bad-ass & a force to be reckoned with, I still got some jacked up doubts & unworthy feelings that creep up. Now listen closely, my dreams are pretty self-less; I literally only want to HELP OTHERS! The truth is, in some way I thought my desire to help others would somehow protect me from some internal fights, but ummm nope!  That internal stuff still shows up. You know that stuff that says, "what are you doing? We were just fine staying in our comfort zone! We knew what was coming... We had a system, a rhythm to life, a nice HUMMMM! Now you got us out here trying to figure out new things & taking on new challenges at our age..." 🤦🏽‍♀️😱

After a while I just start laughing hard 🤣 at myself & at the fears that speak of the past like everything was perfect. It reminds me of the complaining children of Israel when they remembered the "...leeks, onions & garlic" making no reference to the slavery that came along with the "free" food (Numbers 11:4-6). Human nature - well my human nature, freaks out a little when faced with the unknown. Sometimes even when things are going well, worry creeps in.

Laughter is good for the soul & if we can learn to laugh at ourselves and KEEP GOING we just might realize our dreams!  Thankfully that has been my journey. Here are a few personal testimonies:

In 2014 I was terrorized by these same internal fears about traveling. My father passed December 2013 (my mom had passed February 2012), and having no parents in the earth, I decided it was time to “start living”. To this day, I don’t know why traveling caused such serious panic/anxiety attacks. I wasn’t afraid of flying or any of the typical traveling fears. My husband was worried if I’d be ok traveling alone and I was really worried for myself, but I kept planning trips. As I type this, I realize it may have simply been stepping into the unknown. I was always going places I’d never been to before. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

In 2002, I had to ignore this same song & dance when we decided to move to South Bend. (another unknown). And in 2017, when I first started to think about leaving my job, these ideas rehearsed themselves on the main stage of my mind. And just a week ago, in the face of some really amazing successes, here they come again! BUT I'M STRONGER! I was doing push ups in my mind, body & spirit. I knew they were coming so I had my weapons at hand!

What weapons you may ask? 
1. Great friends I can call at any moment
2. PRAYER & THANKSGIVING 
3. Morning Devotionals (scripture reading) 
4. Laughter & Fun (sometimes with a glass of wine or cocktail)
5. A journal to write in and to refer to when I need to be reminded of the amazing things God has done 
6. Travel!!!!
7. Reflect on the hopes and dreams written out! (I created a vision box)

What are your list of weapons? What will you pull on when things come to stop you from achieving your goals? Hey you got to be ready for your enemy! If you're smart, you'll get to learning your own cycles of fear & worry. You must learn to deal with the things that want to distract you from all the good you're meant to be in the earth. 

I want to help others & encourage people to do things they don't think are possible. I hope to lighten the load of burdens that good people carry and encourage people to walk free and then go out to help others. I really want to help people take off their capes of overachieving & perfectionism just long enough to heal & be refreshed, so their light doesn't burn out prematurely. And I want to be cute & have fun doing it!

So yes let's LIVE OUR DREAMS, but be ready to laugh when the internal & external voices come to question if you're ready. Say this to yourself "I know you think you're protecting me, but I'm going to be ok. I might fall, trip & skin my knee, but I’ve got this. I was born to be or do this". Then say a quick prayer of thanksgiving, "Lord Thank You for bringing me this far! Thank you for letting me see this new day. Give me your peace, wisdom & grace. And I look forward to the journey that's ahead, for I know you are with me".

Happy Holidays Everyone!  Be blessed and enjoy this season of love, kindness & giving. If you're feeling alone or grieving, please reach out - let people know. There are great people in this world who will help you. 💚
#liveyourdreams #dontquit #selfcare #faith #believe

My Sabbatical Began

My year of Sabbath Living.  An UNEXPECTED, but much needed adventure.

I was ready for a change.  I knew it was time to move on.  I thought it would be the traditional/normal “leave one job and find the next”.  After resigning I helped my company plan for my replacement (I loved my job & the organization) and then started to apply for new jobs.  The more I wrote cover letters, met with community members, talked with mentors, prayed and imagined what would be next for me – the more I realized this would be far from a normal transition.  And one day I thought of one of my favorite songs “What would I do if I were brave?” by Jana Stanfield (link to her song).  I thought long and hard… I expanded the question and asked, “If I had no fear, what would I do for at least a year?”  And the answer was “take a sabbatical to travel and write”.  This blog is about my journey during this remarkable leap of faith!