happy Monday

Elizabeth Bennett {via Jane Austen} is echoing my sentiments today. On yet another beginning to a new week, may you step into the liveliness of the week. May your life-enjoyment come from the knowledge that He is your life and there is no life apart from Him. May you play today with people who make you know who you really are. May you pick up those paints or words or flowers or spices or whatever makes you come alive with creativity. May you delight in the ridiculous, the silly, the smallness of things.

Enjoy your Monday, friends.

grace for the good girl :: chapter 16

Jun1

We’re back with our beloved Grace for the Good Girl book, talking about chapter 16: safe, even in failure. Man, oh man. Story. of. my. life.

“If your life is hidden with Christ in God, then failure loses the power it used to have over you. {p. 193}

“Life is so much further from my control than even I know. This earth, fleshy, eyes-down perspective I live with keeps me living a small story. We cannot release these rights on our own. Without Christ, these rights are all we have. But with him, we can release the right to be perfect and never mess up…we are able to experience strength from weakness, beauty from ashes, and freedom even in the midst of failure.” {p. 195}

And what about this? What if failure isn’t not measuring up, or doing or being wrong? What if failure is simply our unwillingness to depend on Him? {Emily brings these questions up on p. 247}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

1. In what ways might this definition {God’s perspective of} failure frustrate the mask-wearing good girl?

2. What does dependence on Jesus look like as we are affected by the failures of others?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

And finally, this.

being.

May31

The sun shines through the windows and I’m all snuggled down, bottom-deep in my favorite $40 resale store comfy chair. The littles are napping, the air conditioner kicks on, and the day pauses. Steam rises from my vanilla coffee on the table next to me and I take a deep breath.

What do you have to say to me, God?

And I sit. And I wait.

And sometimes, answers come like puzzle pieces, filling in the gaps, making it all make sense.

Other times, there are no answers, no questions to be answered. There is just me be-ing.

It struck me this afternoon that maybe that is the point, after all, isn’t it? To be.

One of my very favorite, close to my heart verses is Acts 17:28.

For in Him, we live and move, and have our being.

If that verse is true, then He is how I’m typing these words. He is how I take the next breath. And the next. And the one after that.

He is the life-sustainer.

If I live and move in Him, if my being is in Him without me doing anything, then He is speaking, whispering, conversing with me all the live-long day.

He speaks through the littles, through the hubby, through creation, through sunshine.

And so it becomes not so much that I have to make it all quiet to hear Him, but that He is in me and unmovable and teh I AM regardless of external noise. Or lack thereof.

He is the unshakable core, the Rock that anchors me down deep into His love-ocean. And if I’m there, I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything to invite Him into what I’m doing.

Oh no. He is so much bigger than that.

I’m already a part of what He is doing, because I live and move in Him. Because He says that I do. That you do. Already.

As Rob Bell says, it all becomes “holy ground” then, doesn’t it? Changing the 8th dirty diaper before lunchtime – holy ground. Putting the 3 year old in time out again – redemptive work. Feeding, folding, sweeping, nursing, answering, loving. If He holds life together and me in it, then we – me joined into the Trinity – do all of these things together, as one.

And He doesn’t want just a little sliver of “quiet time” in the mornings. No, no. He invites us to see Him in all things, as the one holding every detail together. All day, in everything.

Remember that you are being held, every moment of every day.

In Him, you live and move and have your being.

what I’m reading {volume 2}

May28

I love books. I used to read only fiction, used to want to escape every time I opened a book. I still read lots of fiction, but I’ve grown to love other people’s real life stories, what other people have to say about very real issues; about God, about me, about relationships.

Books have become a very real avenue for the Spirit to teach, reach, love on me.

And so. Here’s what I’ve been reading lately. {In no particular order of importance or likability- just the way I stacked them. Which was biggest to smallest because I’m slightly OCD and couldn’t stack them any other way. You understand.}

1. The Misunderstood God by Darin Hufford. The tagline is “The Lies Religion Tells About God”. Umm-hmm. We’re going through this one chapter at a time in my Tuesday night Bible study. Darin takes each verse of the love chapter of 1 Corinthians and shows how we (as a Christian religion) basically believe the complete opposite of who God really is, which is Love.

2. Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. No, I’m not 10 years behind the times. I’m reading it a second time, since it’s been the aforementioned 10 years since I’ve read it. At which time I dropped it in the bathtub while I was reading it. Hence, it is twice as thick as it should be with loud, crinkly pages. But it is still speaking to me about femininity, the woman part of God, and how God uniquely made me as a woman.

3. What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell. Bell stirred up quite the controversy with one of his other books, Love Wins. {Which I just read and which I highly, highly, highly recommend.} So far, this one has snagged me, too. Like how quantum physics proves all sorts of craziness {in a good way} about God.

4. 7 by Jen Hatmaker. I’m a year or two behind on this one, but I finally started reading it. The tagline is “An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess” and it’s how Jen fasted from each of seven cultural excesses for one month at a time. Interesting read so far, and she is hilarious. Like, make you laugh out loud when you’re supposed to be quietly reading in a coffee shop and everyone stares over at you and you instinctively sink lower into your chair.

5. The Shack Revisited by C. Baxter Krueger. We all know how big a fan I am of The Shack. This is the theology behind The Shack and Baxter does an incredible job of explaining theological terms and Greek and Hebrew words and the infinite love of the Trinity. It’s what I always knew to be true in my spirit, but now can see how Scripture completely backs it up!

And that’s that.

What are y’all reading? I am a die-hard bookworm, so keep the suggestions coming.

happy Monday

May27

groundedonthedaily etsy shop via Refeathered on Pinterest

You are, you know. You, whether you’re reading this in a good mood or a bad one, whether you’re on the mountaintop or in the valley, you are lovely.

love•ly (adj.) – 1. charmingly or exquisitely beautiful 2. delightful, highly pleasing

You are lovely. You are exquisitely beautiful. Every inch of your face and arms and eyelashes were woven together by the God who is in you, for you, holding you together. He breathed beauty into you before the foundation of the world and He unfailingly breathes beauty-life into you each second of every day.

You are unquestioningly beautiful.

You are delightful, highly pleasing. You make Him step back, take a good look at you, shake his head with wonder, say, “Isn’t she something?”

He is especially fond of you, as Papa says in The Shack.

You are beautiful because of who you are. Your name is lovely. He calls you beautiful. He whispers lovingly, pats your cheek, holds your hand, and invites you to see your loveliness, too.

On this Monday, this beginning of a new week, may you see your loveliness. May you catch glimpses of how pleasing you are to Him. May you remember that your name is Lovely.

link love

May24

{source} via refeathered on Pinterest

A list of links for you. Because we all need more things to keep us from folding clothes or cleaning the toilet or organizing that closet or other such boring shenanigans.

(12 Things Your Daughter Needs You to Say by Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky (for when you need mom-encouragement and honest-to-goodness truth)

Simple Steps to Safe and Natural Personal Care (and 18 Homemade Beauty Recipes) at Keeper of the Home (for when you need to make something with your hands)

Is God’s Presence Limited to Scripture? by Rachel Held Evans (for when you want to think and ponder)

You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Loved at From Two to One (for when you need this reminder)

The life of a possible pirate by Melanie at the Big Mama Blog (for when you need a good laugh)

Y’all have a ~~good~~ ~~great~~ God-is-in-you weekend.

grace for the good girl :: intro to part 3 and chapter 15

May23

“It isn’t natural to stay broken. I want to shake it better. I want to take it back to the store. That’s the do-it-yourself option, the one where I stay strong and put on a good front and think I can handle things. It’s the one where I try to avoid the messy at any cost. It’s the all-about-me option. And it doesn’t work. Turns out, there is another option. One called trust. And I learn what it is to fall to the ground like a seed, allowing the shell of my self-life to break apart so that the Healer’s life can burst forth.” {p. 180}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

1. There is a difference between closure and healing. In the midst of your broken places, are you searching for a mask, for closure, for control? Or are you desperate for a healer?

2. Jesus will bring us to the edge of self-sufficiency, an uncomfortable place where we have to choose what we will believe. This choice often feels like death: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone…” There may be fear in the dying to those masks we wear, in the letting go of the false securities we have built up and stood upon for so long. But God, through Jesus, has overcome every kind of death, and he promises that “if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). What is the fruit that comes from falling to the ground?

a chair around the campfire

May21

When I was in school, I used to hate Sundays. From 1st grade through college graduation, Sundays were a four-letter word.

Sundays were the last day of a weekend free from the expectations and rules and only-make-A’s of the school week. Sundays were the Day of Dread, the day where I could only over-think what the coming week was bringing. I felt incapable of actually enjoying the day, for fear I would forget something important in the days to come.

School was a rigorous Olympic course and I was the gold medalist. I made sure I was, every time.

And yet. My world was dark, conflicted, a roller coaster of emotion, shame, grit my teeth and do it. I was boxed in by my own impossible standards and self-expectation. Anxiety was the name of my game and I won every time. Perfectionism was my trusty sidekick, who never failed to remind me I couldn’t ever screw up, or else.

Life was not anticipated with joy, excitement, welcome. It was an impossible checklist I crazily tried to complete.

So God, in his unending, never failing love, let me choose my own way and trudge deeper and deeper down that perfectionistic road. Even through the eating disorder it led to. {That story is coming.}

But here’s where it gets good. I had to experience death to have life.

I had to know, without a doubt, that there is no life down that road. I had to die to that independence, that self-choice that buried me in lies and loneliness and fear. And there, when all the consequences of my independence from Love lay broken at my feet, Love took my hand. Love showed me life.

This Love that I’ve come to know, this God who is Love, is the perfection I sought all those years. He is the perfect union of myself hidden in Jesus, hidden in Him. He is the welcome-to-life I’m after. His are the friendly eyes I seek as I walk into new and scary. He is the warm hand grasping mine and letting me know He knows me, and He’s been waiting for me to look up from my treadmill into His peace-eyes, and that He’s all-in with me.

It’s like this: Love pitches a tent, invites me into the campfire circle, and pulls over a cozy camp chair. Beckons me to sit and stay and tell my story. And to listen, listen deep to the Trinity’s voice around the campfire, encouraging me, loving me, filling up my broken ways.

happy monday

May20

source: the lovely words via refeathered on Pinterest

Another week is beginning. More chores, more tasks, more moments, more choices. May you know you have a choice today, to choose to believe you are loved. May you know in your know-er that there is so much more to you than meets your eye. May you choose to know you are lovely. May you be beautiful, radiant, basking in your loveliness all the live-long day. That is the real you, after all.

you are more

May17

She looks at me, her eyes filling up while her body wastes away from intentionally not feeding it, and she whispers, “This is me. This is just who I am now.”

I feel my heart crack in half.

No.

The new mama talks loudly, over the crying newborn, whispers, “I can’t do this. I’m not a good mother.”

No. No, no, no.

Beat up from years of betrayal, she holds worry, anxiety, mistrust heavy in her grip. She whispers, “I’m not enough. I will never be enough.”

No, no, no.

You are so much more.

You are more than an eating disorder. You are more than the food you eat. You are more than your crazy thoughts.

You are more than your clothes, more than your weight, more than your perfectly shaded eyeshadow.

You are more than your manipulating behavior, more than the angry words you say, more than your mommy-yells.

You, sitting right there, looking at your computer screen. You are so much more than all these things.

You are more than the nice girl, more than the fat girl, more than the skinny girl. More than the smart one, the crazy one, the nerdy one.

You are more than a good mom, more than a homeschooler, more than a house-cleaner and diaper-changer.

You are more than your company title, more than the car you drive, more than your earthly authority.

You are more than your labels, your job, the compliments thrown your way.

You are more than the way you cope, survive, exist. You are more than the masks you wear.

You are more than what you think you’re identity is.

You are more than the sum of your parts.

You are hidden with Christ in God. {Colossions 3:3}

You are renewed, made new, a new creation. {2 Corinthians 5:17}

You are united with Him, one with Him. {Romans 6:5}

And so now, a choice. You can choose to keep living on the island of independence from God where you’ve dug your flag deep down into the sand of self-sufficiency and work-hard and do-good.

Or you can believe who you really are.

You are joined with the Spirit.

You work from within Him.

You are participating in His present, real, truer than true reality.

Your position as His in unchangeable, unmovable.

You can choose to join in with whatever the Trinity is doing right this minute.

He is inviting you, pursuing you, love-whispering in your ear, telling you to jump in, that the water’s warm where He is.

You are His. You are loved. You are wanted. Now believe it. You are so much more than the sum of your parts.