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Being Brave Everyday
There was a time in my life when I did things people considered really brave. Like moving to the other side of the world or jumping out of a plane or going on vacation to a foreign country by myself. Then I got married, got a normal job, and starting having kids. I didn’t feel like anything I was doing was very brave. Life felt routine and boring. And I just wanted to sit around and watch Netflix all day because I had lost my way in the midst of the ordinary.
Maybe you find yourself in the same situation. Maybe you wake up everyday and look around at the normal, mundane tasks you have to accomplish and wonder or dream about the day you can do something brave again. But here is what I am realizing more and more each day. Being brave doesn’t always look like big, grand gestures such as moving across the globe. Oftentimes being brave can look like inviting your neighbors over for dinner, or teaching your children to be kind to the kids at school, or asking a friend for help when you are struggling. Being brave can look like being nice to the lady at the grocery store or helping the mom struggling with two tiny kids (that’s always me).
We are living in a day where being brave can simply mean going against the status quo. Where it can mean coffee with a friend instead of scrolling Instagram for hours on end. It means calling out the brave in our communities and among our friends. It means celebrating the everyday, normal, brave things we do. Whether those things are potty training or taking new jobs or having dinner with your neighbors or being kind to the server who appears to have had a bad day.
So rather than binge watch another episode of your latest Netflix show or spend another hour scrolling through social media, let’s all work on being brave today. Let’s call it out when we see it, celebrate it, and refuse to allow brave to be only something other people do. It’s not about moving across the world, it’s about taking the first step. Who knows, maybe that first step will lead you across the world, but maybe it will just lead you across the street.
Photo by Christian Stahl on Unsplash
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Reckless Love
Luke 15 may be one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible. The chapter opens with a whole bunch of sinners hanging around Jesus to hear His words. This scene causes the Pharisees (read religious people) to grumble under their breath about how Jesus hangs out with the “rough crowd.” They think it’s an absolute abomination Jesus is hanging out with them.Jesus, catching the vibe they were giving off, launches into a series of stories, the first of which references a shepherd. A shepherd who loses one of his sheep and leaves the 99 to go find the lost sheep. When he finds the lost sheep, he throws a huge party in celebration.
Honestly, I have read this story a hundred times and all of a sudden this past week the weight of it hit me. Jesus is a Savior who leaves the 99 to go desperately searching for the one. For the one who got lost, who got stuck, who wandered away, or who was taken away. For whatever reason the one went missing, Jesus goes looking. He spent his life on earth seeking out the lost, the broken, the downtrodden. And he was often called reckless and a drunkard and a sinner. The religious of His day assumed Jesus had no clue the ramifications of His actions and could not understand why this teacher of the law spent so much time with “those people.”
It can be so easy to look around and see “those people.” We can point them out of the crowd and label them hopeless or wayward or worthless. And yet, we are “those people.” We are all in desperate need of Jesus to come and find us. This week as I mediated on those words of Jesus, I felt it even more. The reality of them puts me in the place of sheep who wandered away. And Jesus was willing to do whatever it look to bring me home.
Jesus’ love is reckless in His search for the lost. There is no one He won’t seek out and He starts with us. When we sit in the weight of that reality, it changes how we view the world. See, I am in desperate need of Jesus and His love. When I feel as though I am too lost or too broken or too screwed up to make anything out of the mess of my life, He comes in and seeks me out. He shows up and throws a celebration. This is the good news. When we are at our worst, He is at His best. He leaves the rest to find the one. And no one is ever too lost for His reckless pursuit. Let’s remember as we celebrate a Risen Savior this weekend the impact of a Savior who loves and pursues the lost. The reckless love of Jesus truly changes everything.
Photo by Hugues de BUYER-MIMEURE on Unsplash
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Here’s to 5 More Years
A few weeks ago, my husband and I were driving when I mentioned I want to draft up a 5 year plan for our family. I am very Type A and I like to have things mapped out. Plus we had been looking at making some big changes and I just wanted to talk about what we wanted for our future. My husband laughed and mentioned how crazy the last four years had been-how could we plan 5 years down the road?!?
I didn’t immediately want to give up the idea, but it did get me thinking about the last four years of our married life. Which is the entire total of our married life. Four years ago we were drinking green beer and toasting to life together. In those moments, I am not sure either of us had any idea what the next four years would hold.
1 nonprofit started.
2 babies.
2 houses.
2 new cars.
2 trips to California.
5 job changes.
In the midst of it all, there have been times of absolute bliss and times where I think we both considered strangling the other person. We have laughed, cried, yelled, and danced. We have walked through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together. There have been good days and bad days and days I don’t ever want to end and days I don’t ever want to repeat.
And while there was a loose plan four years ago, it was nothing even close to reality so my dear husband was probably right in remarking trying to map out a five year plan would be near impossible.
But since I am not ready to totally give up, I think this is a five year plan we can both get behind.
5 more years of love, laughter, and making memories. 5 years of singing “Old MacDonald” 100x only to sing it once more. 5 years of house projects in which we often disagree and mostly hate the process, but totally end up with outcomes we love. 5 years of changes we face together as a family, as best friends, as two imperfect people who love and respect each other. 5 more years of growing closer to each other, to God, and to our community. 5 more years of saying yes to people, adventures, and experiences.
The reality is I have no idea what the next 5 years will bring and I have no doubt it will be different than anything we can imagine today. When you marry someone who has a habit of saying “yes” to God as we both do, life is always an adventure. What I am confident of as we celebrate four years of being married is life so far has brought us closer to each other, to God, and to our community and given us so much joy, hope, and love. The last four years have been a whirlwind of change and growth and I am so ready to see what the next four, five, and forever years bring us.
I love you babe!
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
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He Shall Be Your Peace
10 days past my due date, I sat in a local coffee shop working on my Advent study. I had given up on work because I had just about given up on being pregnant. Plus I was pretty sure if I heard “your still here?!” one more time, I might punch someone. The central verse of the day came from Micah 5:5 which begins “And He shall be your peace.” For some reason, the verse stood out to me. I had been praying over a word for 2018 and in that moment, I felt like I had found my word.
Little did I know just a few hours from then, I would need to cling to those words stronger than I ever had before. Giving up on work proved to be a good idea because later that day, my water broke and a VERY short time later, our second son was born. My labor and delivery was quick and exhausting. As soon as he was born, a team of nurses and doctors crowded around him. I kept asking is he ok? why isn’t he crying? can I see him? I was in sheer panic. The fear I felt in those few minutes is still palpable. They whisked him away to the NICU and I was left exhausted, alone, and with very few answers to the myriad of questions in my mind. I hadn’t gotten to see him or hold him or hear him. The baby I had carried for 9 long months (plus an extra 10 days) was in a moment no longer in my care.
Several hours later, circa 2am, a doctor came in with a long list of possible scary conditions our sweet baby boy might have and all I wanted to do was see him. My mama instincts wanted to punch this doctor and I am fairly certain if it were not for my husband, I very well may have. When I finally did get to see my precious baby, he was connected to all sorts of tubes and machines. I couldn’t hold him, I couldn’t feed him, I felt utterly helpless. And then I remembered those words- “He shall be your peace.” I grabbed those words and clung onto them. They were my lifeline. As I prayed and cried and prayed some more, I knew my peace had to come from Jesus. It wouldn’t come from the doctors or the nurses or my own abilities to protect him.
We were sent home eight days later with a precious baby boy who for the time being has zero complications. No one can predict what may happen in the future, but each time fear and worry starts to creep in, I return to the word I felt called to for this year-Peace.
In the midst of the unknown-peace.
In the middle of changes-peace.
In the face of adversity-peace.
When I sit and rock my sweet baby boy, I often think back to those few moments when I was overcome by fear and exhaustion, so scared something was terribly wrong. I would love to say in those moments I felt an overwhelming peace, but I am learning peace is something you often have to ask for rather than simply expecting it to show up. When we finally had a minute alone after all the doctors and nurses left that night, we sat and prayed for our precious baby and peace came rushing over me. While those 8 days were some of the hardest in my life, they were full of peace and community and love and prayer. They were a defining chapter in our marriage and our lives. And they continue to serve as a reminder of how much we need peace far above our understanding in our lives.
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The Last 24 Hours
If you want to emulate Christ, you must know Christ. And so often, I think the American church has got it all wrong. I don’t think it is fair or right to point fingers and there are many Christians and churches who are doing it right. Ultimately, I think each of us must evaluate our own lives in light of the life of Christ. Are we seeking to live like He did? As I have blogged about quite a bit recently, the idea of hospitality and serving others seems to continue to be a theme God is pressing into my soul. I think it is because for so many years I have been so busy with so much, I have forgotten we are to be busy with a who, not a what. We are to be seeking Christ, not seeking tasks, projects, notches on a resume, or shiny awards.
The other day, one sentence in the book I was reading stopped me in my tracks. The author was talking about the last hours of Christ’s life and how He spent those last precious hours. He had the unique advantage of knowing He was going to die. We do not know when death will come. A study of the last hours of Christ’s life reveal what was important to Him and this is what caused me to stop. To evaluate. To think. To consider my own life in light of His.
The night before Christ was crucified, He broke bread with his closest friends. He didn’t travel to an exotic locale, He didn’t check one more thing off His bucket list, He didn’t make some grand spectacle out of his last hours. He simply shared a meal around the table with those He loved. What a beautiful picture and humbling reminder this was for me. In light of the fact I have no clue how long my time on earth will be, how am I living out this principle? Am I spending my precious time with people? Am I inviting in those I love to eat around the table? Am I taking time for small moments? For ordinary events that I may never be able to write on a resume or put on an award application?
People were most important to Jesus. He spent time with them, He cared for their souls, and during His last moments before a brutal death, He fed them a meal, washed their feet, and comforted their souls. This is the life we are called to friends. This is the good work.
But why oh why is it so hard? I will be the first to admit my schedule gets out of control. I have a toddler at home and a husband who works a lot so a clean house happens for about .5 hours a week. Some nights our “dinner” consists of sandwiches, leftovers, or eggs and toast because this momma is exhausted. But in studying Jesus’ last hours, I realized I so often miss the point. He didn’t expect perfection out of people. He met them in their brokenness, in their hurt, in their moments of need and shame and despair. He didn’t come to them in a spiffy business suit looking like he stepped off the cover of a magazine. He came to them with open arms and invited them in. He invited them to a messy life, to a hard life, to a life of sacrifice, and joy, and hope, and peace. And with His last moments, He spent time around the table eating, drinking, and serving.
This is the good work we are called to do in this broken world. It is not to have perfect houses or perfect kids or perfect resumes. It is to spend our time sharing our brokenness with those around us. It is to open our messy homes and say come on over. It is to nourish the body and soul with food and hope. It is to love. And I believe in doing this, we will see a world transformed once again by the message of hope and love Jesus brings to us all.
Photo by Chelsea Francis on Unsplash
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A Hug and A Quick Chat
A few years ago, one of my dearest friends-we will call her M- moved to California. Her husband got a dream job and it was the right move for their family, but man, was it tough on me. We went to visit them shortly after they moved and a few weeks ago they were back in town for the first time since they left. (thankfully they have family here so every once in awhile they might come visit!)
We snagged a few minutes to chat over my lunch before they left town again and it was water to my soul. And a reminder of why I miss her so very much. M is one of those people who just dives right in and ask the tough questions. None of this tip-toeing around “how is your day” type of stuff. She wants to know how your marriage is, how being a mom is, how your walk with God is going. She wants to truly know your heart and what is going on in the deepest corners of it. Perhaps beyond her ability to ask questions and be transparent with her life was her willingness to just be there. I have memories of countless hours spent just hanging out at her house in the middle of her 3 then, now 5 kids, chaos often ensuing around us. No matter, we would keep talking even if it was in stops and starts with interruptions to get water, a snack, mediate an argument, or put kids to bed.
A hug and a quick chat before she and her family headed back to the west coast both filled a void and increased an ache in my heart. While I love my millennial peers for so many reasons, I think we have lost the art of simply being together in community. It seems to often have to be an ordeal. Plans have to be made in advance because we are so busy, we fret about our houses’ cleanliness (or lack thereof), we need a reason-lunch, brunch, etc, or we just get so busy building our careers, resumes, communities, and social profiles, we just don’t have time to be. And even when we are together, transparency is often lacking. Every once in awhile in my circles, I will catch a glimpse of it, but often I find myself stuffing thoughts back inside because I don’t want to be the one whose marriage isn’t great or who isn’t always sure about this whole mom thing.
But the hour chat was the motivation I needed to clear my schedule, text or call, make the invite, and spend more time building relationships and less time building my resume. There will always be a meeting to attend, a cause to support, a fundraiser to give towards, but on the days when life is crumbling apart, it won’t be the organization or cause dropping by with a hot meal or a shoulder to cry on.
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One Room At a Time-The Living Room
Almost immediately after my husband and I bought our first house, we started dreaming about our next one. It was not a matter of discontentment, we loved our house, but we are dreamers and started putting together our ideal forever home. In hindsight, having this list was the motivation we needed to look at our now current (and hopefully forever) home.
One of the items on the top of my list was a living room and a family room. I wanted a space without a TV when you walked in the house. We are not huge TV watchers anyways, in fact, we have been in our current house almost 6 months and the TV has yet to be hung on a wall. So creating a space where the focus would be on relationships and fellowship, not staring at a giant screen was really important to me.
The house we now own fit my requirement perfectly. You walk in the front door to a living room, kitchen, and dining area. Off the back of the house is a large, rectangular family room mostly secluded from the front of the house. I instantly fell in love and starting dreaming about this space. Perhaps because it needed the least amount of work, the living room was one of the rooms we have tackled early on in the process of turning our foreclosed farmhouse into our dream home.
Designing and decorating this room taught me a few lessons about turning a space into a home.
- Perhaps the biggest thing I have learned along the way is you have to make the space your own. I had an entire Pinterest board full of stark white rooms with muted grays and blacks. After we had almost the entire downstairs painted basically white, I realized stark white and clean lines just really aren’t our style. We want to live in our house, not take pictures of it for Pinterest. This meant toning down the white walls, white trim, and white ceilings with bold mustard yellow chairs and a wall full of various knick knacks we have collected.
- Read the reviews. I spent weeks searching for two small chairs to put in the living room. I wanted them to be chairs you would sit in to chat and have a cup of tea, not chairs you would lounge in to watch a movie. Even still, I didn’t want my guests to have a backache from sitting in my living room. I probably read 100’s of reviews of chairs online. I would find some I loved (and which fit in our budget) only to find they had terrible reviews. After weeks of searching, I finally found the perfect chair with great reviews and they were budget friendly. I love them. My two-year also loves to try to jump off the back of them, but alas, he is two and this goes with the territory.
- Use what you have. The portrait wall I included in the pictures below came almost entirely from items I had hung in various locations in our old house. Sometimes things just don’t fit in one space, but look amazing in another. I also never realized how much I gravitated towards yellows and blues until I laid it all out and saw almost everything matched. You don’t need an interior designer or a large budget to redo a room, it may just take moving a picture from one spot to the next.
This room is so far my favorite in the house. I love sitting on the little couch in the evenings and reading to H or having a conversation with J. I am looking forward to the weather cooling off and curling up with a blanket and a cup of tea. And perhaps most of all, it was momentum to keep going as we work to turn this house into our home.
Original Room
Wall Paint- Sherwin Williams Snowfall
Chairs- Joss and Main
Rug-Overstock
Table- Honeysuckle Finds (my favorite local shop!)
Everything else came from our old house:)
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Big Hospitality
The other day I was driving, just minding my own business and listening to the latest audiobook I had downloaded when BAM! out the blue I was sitting in my car, tears rolling down my face, wondering why in the world I ever thought listening to audiobooks was better than the mindless music on the radio. The book I am listening to is on friendship, apropos for the season of life I find myself in-both desperately needing community and desperately wanting to sit alone with my thoughts and without anyone clamoring for something. This specific chapter was on hospitality and I feel the need to listen to it 100 more times. I don’t often purchase the books I listen to, but this one is probably going to make the list.
The reason it hit me so hard is because I have felt this pull towards perfection since we moved. This pull to get my house in order before we invite people inside. We bought this house to invite people in and to build community. I have let things like paint colors and unopened boxes get in the way of opening our home. I have let dirty dishes and less than spotless floors and counters keep me from saying “come on over.” I have let Pinterest dictate what my house should look like instead of letting people inside.
Perhaps bigger, I have let the desire to present a completely put together self dictate my hospitality. Clean house, clean kid, well-thought out, healthy meals on appropriate dishware, and hair and make-up and clothes just so. I have let the pressure to act like I have this whole working mom-wife-community activist thing figured out. When the bigger reality is, what I desperately need is someone to come eat less-than-stellar food and chat while I fold the endless piles of laundry. Or someone to sit on my porch and drink a cup of tea while I ignore the corners of my house collecting dog hair and cobwebs. I mean, isn’t this what we all desire? Isn’t this perhaps the biggest tragedy of our busy lives? The loss of the habit of just showing up, uninvited and unannounced.
I have also let fine dictate my vocabulary. The author talked about how as women we need to give up fine from our vocabulary because none of us are ever really fine. We may be good or stressed or struggling or feeling like we are super mom for .2 seconds, but we aren’t really ever just fine. And we will never find deep, meaning connection in fine. We only find deep connection in the raw, honest moments.
So while my house project list is still endless, my focus for this season is on relationships and hospitality. We could also use a little more of both of those in our lives.
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This Moment
Blog writing comes in fits and starts for me. I get super gung-ho about it and write all the time or I barely post for months on end. This is not the best way to grow a blog or gain followers I realize and a lot of it comes down to my own insecurities. I get stuck in a rut feeling like I have nothing to say or contribute so I simply stop. Any writer will tell you this is something you absolutely cannot do. Over the past few months, I have done a lot of thinking, soul-searching, and self-development. I realized I was living from a scarcity mentality meaning if I saw someone else with the slice of pie I wanted, I assumed it meant there wasn’t any pie left for me. And then I just gave up. Until this week happened. After some heartbreak both on the national level and on a pretty personal level, I decided to dust off the blog (figuratively speaking of course) and start writing. It is therapeutic for me and perhaps someone else needs to hear these words today.Friend, there is room in this space for all our voices. And perhaps in this moment, there is an even greater need for voices of hope and light and love to contribute to the conversation. The world needs to know hope exists. Love exists. People do still care for their neighbors and communities. Good still exists in this world. For me, today, this realization hit me at home as I sat at our kitchen counter eating breakfast with my precious baby boy.
This morning I woke up my one-year old for the last time. Tomorrow he will wake up a two-year old. And as I have followed the loss of a precious two-year old this week, I have been sobered by the reality we are only given this moment. Life can change in a split second. I hugged him a little tighter this morning, kissed him a little longer, and let him eat my avocado for breakfast because he has this cute little dance he does when he asks for one. As I watched him across the table and thought about the world he is growing up in, I prayed he would grow to be a light and beacon of love and hope. I prayed we would grow as a family to love our neighbors and open our doors to those in need. And in the moment, I saw a little boy who knows nothing but love. I saw my sweet baby who had to say I love you to me, his dad, and his G (his affectionate name for his grandma) last night before he could go to bed. I saw a child who does not know hate or difference or cruelty. And I felt a weight of responsibility as I navigate parenting him and raising him to treat those around him with love, with respect, and with compassion.
I don’t know where you are today. I don’t know what thoughts are running through your mind or what demons you are battling. I wish I could sit across the table from you over a cup of tea and talk about life. We need each other. We cannot do this alone and we cannot overcome hate and darkness by ourselves. But in this moment, I believe if we gather together, with our friends, our families, our communities, we can spread hope. We can share love. And we can change history for our children and grandchildren. Your voice matters. My voice matters. And we have to keep speaking.
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Be a Cheerleader, not a Competitor
Ever notice how sometimes themes tend to run through your life? Lately, a theme of running in your own lane has been weaving its way through several areas of my life. A few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to attend Q Conference in Nashville with a group from my city. Honestly, any other conference I go to from now on will be judged against Q. It was hands down one of the best conferences I have attended. Perhaps because over a period of 2.5 days, we heard approximately 50 different speakers. Talk about information overload! I am still trying to process it all.
Annie F. Downs gave a short talk the first morning and it hit me like a ton of bricks. She talked about how so often we live our lives like we are playing Chutes and Ladders instead of like we are playing Solitaire. When we see someone else roll the dice and get to climb up the ladder we are jealous or envious and if we were honest, when we see others slide down the slide, perhaps there is a moment of where we think we aren’t doing terrible after all. We spend a lot of time and energy comparing everyone else’s lives to our own. We watch them succeed or fail and judge our own progress against theirs.
The thing is, as Annie said, our hands don’t look like everyone else’s. We were given a unique set of gifts and talents and entrusted with passions and skills. God has put a call on each of our lives only we can fulfill. And He knew what He was doing. (this hit me straight in the face). When we spend our time comparing or wishing our lives looked like so and so, we are doubting God’s perfect call on our own life. Perhaps we question why others have success and ours seems ever elusive.
For me, I struggled so much with watching other people seem to be living out their passion and doing things they love while I felt left out and left behind. This is not the life God has called us to live. We walked out of the room after Annie’s chat and were each given a card to remind us to play our own game. As I have been mulling over the card and her talk, I have come to a couple major aha moments.
- We are called for such a time as this. If you have ever listened to Ann Voskamp speak, you have probably heard her refer to the Esther generation and how we were called for such a time as this. As Christian women, I believe God has called us to the work of love and reconciliation and restoration. This has to start with us. We have to stop competing against each other and start cheering each other on. We have to be agents of love in our families, our friend groups, our churches, and our communities. We have to stand up and say enough. My call is my call and your call is your call and guess what, there is enough room in this world for both.
- Her success does not mean my failure. This has been a tough one for me. It’s so easy to view life like a pie with finite slices. If she gets a slice, it feels like there is less for me. But the thing is, there is an endless number of pies. Instead of viewing others’ success as taking up some of ours, lets celebrate each other. Let us encourage and cheer and support and motivate. For much of the last couple years, I have felt so stuck. Unsure of what was next or what to do with the dreams in my heart. And then Annie told us to do the best with the life we have been given and it was like a light-bulb. I have felt stuck because I have been watching others tackle their dreams and felt like I was getting left behind. When God was simply asking me to put my dreams in His hands and trust He had a perfect plan for my life.
- We all need cheerleaders. After Annie’s talk, we were supposed to talk with the people we came with about what we felt our lanes were-where or what was God calling us? I told the two ladies I was with where I feel God is leading me and they were both so supportive. When we got home, one of them texted me and said ok, what now? How do we move forward? It was a moment I realized, we all need cheerleaders in our lives. And we all need to be cheerleaders in the lives of those around us. I mean, can you imagine what life would be like if we were all cheering each other on as we pursue our dreams? My dreams aren’t a threat to hers nor are hers to mine. Together we can encourage, cheer, and motivate each other towards the life God is calling us to live.
How can we do the best with the life we have been given? I believe it starts with running our own race and cheering on those around us instead of viewing them as competitors. I believe it starts with vulnerability and community and understanding the world is full of pies, waiting for us all to partake. It happens when we become cheerleaders to each others’ dreams. So friend, join me in cheering on those around you and enjoying pie all around!
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