In the midst of grief, it seems odd that there is still beauty in the world. Sometimes blue skies and the sun and flowers and laughter all seem to exist in vain. How can the world keep turning when it feels like it stopped? How can beauty exist amongst so much pain? I’ve grappled with this more than I care to think about. We live in a broken world, one full of sorrow and pain. God doesn’t promise us a life free from these things, but He does promise two things: 1) He’s right there with us in the midst, He never leaves our side, and 2) For those whose hope is in Jesus, we can look forward to a Heaven where there is no more sorrow and pain.
I’ve learned that grief, while incredibly difficult, is the result of love. And love is the greatest thing that will remain, now and forever. I’d rather be found in love.
“The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.” Psalm 121:5&6
God is with us every second of every day and knows our hearts. He will never, ever leave our side. And therein lies our hope.
I’m still coming back down to normal from last week, but as I continue to look back, I am simply in awe of how God provides for us. It’s not my medical story to tell, but I can’t help but praise Him for how it all played out. It was so very obviously orchestrated that I can’t help but get chills every time I talk about it.
Basically, my mom got really sick two Sunday ago, but we thought it was strep and we would go to the ER to get some antibiotics and be on our way. Through a series of things and people and decisions that were obviously put there by God, a scary diagnosis and a stay at the hospital in Lexington happened exactly the way they were supposed to. An ER doctor who happen to know that her voice sounded a certain way and ordered a CT scan. The same ER doctor who was humble enough to know that he couldn’t treat her and she needed a specialist. Sweet nurses, jovial EMTs who lightened the otherwise very dark mood and ambulance ride to Lexington. A room at UKs ER when so many others lined the hallways. The fact that pediatric ENT was on rotation that weekend and my mom ended up seeing the same doctor who did our daughter’s ear tubes. A nurse who fell in love with my momma and claimed her as her own since she didn’t have a good relationship with her own parents, and who even asked if it was okay to hug her as her shift ended. You all, the situation was scary, but I FULLY believe it happened exactly the way it was supposed to. God was watching out for my momma and working it out in the best way with every step.
I had a realization after all of this was over – I just kept thinking about how bad it could have been if this decision hadn’t been made or that person hadn’t been there at that time… and I realized why God allows us to think of the what-ifs. So often, my what-ifs spiral me into anxiety. I so often think about all the bad things that could happen and spend my time worrying about every possible outcome. But God taught me such a beautiful lesson through this whole ordeal – sometimes the what-ifs allow us to see God working. If mom had made a different decision, we might not have seen that doctor who knew what to look for, we might have not met people we were supposed to, we might have caught it too late, honestly, the outcome could have been really bad. In times like these, I now understand why we have the ability to think of the what-ifs, because it makes us realize what all God has done for us, and how He’s working even when we don’t see it.
My sweet people.
Also, I need to talk about my absolute gem of a husband. While I was off at the hospital, he held down the fort. He did the bedtime things, made meals, took sweet girl to VBS, took her to her ENT appointment (literally the day mom was admitted, sweet girl had an ear tube checkup AT THE SAME HOSPITAL), brought me fresh clothes and coffee, did the dishes, and all the parenting things. He was wonderful. The picture in the post is when we were leaving the hospital after I had been up for almost 48 hours straight and after sweet girl’s ear tube appointment. My sister had come to stay with mom and these favorite people of mine came to get me for some lunch and a nap. Those few days were rough and scary and exhausting, but I had my people and my God with me every step of the way. I’m glad it’s over and we’re getting back to normal. And it’s weird, but all I am able to feel about it is thankfulness.
I’ve been really bad about blogging lately. I only wrote this because, yet again, it started out as an Instagram post and I got too long winded for their caption word limit. Anyway, I wrote this almost two weeks ago and I’m just now getting around to finishing it…
The stomach bug got sweet girl at the beginning of this week. It’s been rough. She’s already tiny (not dangerously so, don’t worry) and had just started finally gaining weight after being sick for what felt like most of fall and winter. Since November, she’s had some sort of viral bug, multiple colds, covid, and an ear infection. Now this.
Her room is usually the cleanest, most organized room in the house. When I feel like we’re living in chaos, I can usually go in there and instantly feel better. Well, between having to wash and change her bedding and blankets constantly, keeping the trash can close, her having small spurts of energy and wanting to read only to have to take a nap on my chest in the chair again… it’s A MESS. I walked in there earlier to grab something and thought, “This is an accurate representation of my brain right now.” I feel so restless. I feel like change is coming. I feel like I’ve got a million different things going on. I feel like a mess. But just like the fact that her room won’t always look like this, I won’t always feel like this. I know change is coming. I know God has plans for me, for my family… exciting, scary, wonderful plans. I just have to keep going, and to keep leaning into Him in the waiting.
The other day, I wrote out in the note pages of my planner, a plan. If you know me, you know I’ve never been a super goal-oriented person. Growing up in school, I was that annoying kid that all the teachers loved. I got good grades, I was quiet, I loved to help, and I never got in trouble. I was also that annoying kid that didn’t have to work too hard to get good grades. Most subjects came easily to me. But I absolutely dreaded when we would have career day or writing prompts about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I would always end up saying something like ballerina (although I had less than zero athletic ability, that’s nice and girly, right?) or doctor (because even at a really young age, I knew the grownups thought that was a good job because you get paid a lot.) I always agonized over these things, making up absolutely untrue reasons for my “aspirations.” I learned really early on how to say exactly what was expected of me and how to “B.S.” my way through schoolwork. It served me very well, even through college, haha. The point is, I’ve never been a big dreamer. They would go through this whole list of careers that we could choose from, and none of them sounded like they were for me. It sounds a little shallow as I type this out, but I can remember spending hours and hours pouring over my mom’s Good Housekeeping and Family Circle magazines. I just thought that was how life was supposed to be. Pristine home, home cooked meals, fun activities planned for the kids, family vacations, the works. I loved my family, and from the looks of things in those magazines, that was how you showed people you loved them: by buying the trendiest plaid couch or refreshing the drapes. Y’all, I know how this sounds. I know every feminist everywhere is probably crying right now, but I don’t care. I grew up watching shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and so many more. The only thing that ever really appealed to me was being a wife and a mother. That’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. I know some people read that and immediately rolled their eyes. Some people have probably stopped reading by now, but hear me out. I’m not saying that any of those other professions are worse or better than what I wanted to do. I’m not saying that what I wanted was for everyone, because I’m not that naive, I know everyone is different. But for me, that was it. And growing up in the 90’s, I caught on pretty quickly that being a wife and a mother was not considered “a real job.” My mom has sold Avon for decades. When my sister and I were kids, she was a full time mom and an entrepreneur. But people still had the nerve to often dump responsibilities on her because “she has more time, she doesn’t work.” Um, excuse me? I take offense to this now as someone who stays home with a little and works from home. It’s HARD. It’s TIME CONSUMING. It’s absolutely EXHAUSTING. And just because my schedule may be a little more flexible than some does not mean I don’t have a job. I’m off topic here… anyway. It was obvious to me, even as a child, that I couldn’t express my dream of wanting to be a wife and mother without teachers trying to convince me that something else was better. So I just never voiced that dream. In middle school, we had job shadowing. We were supposed to go shadow someone who had the career we thought we wanted. This, of course, caused me anxiety, but I finally decided to shadow my aunt who was an office administrator at our local university. When I told my teacher who I was shadowing, she said (in the most condescending tone I might have ever heard), “You want to be a secretary?” 13 year old me felt anger for my aunt toward this teacher. I’m not sure I ever told my aunt about that interaction. But you know what? I did like working in her office. I liked organizing and straightening papers. The tiny teacher’s helper in me found it to be satisfying work. What in the world was so wrong with being a secretary?
Anyway, all this to say, the only dream I’ve ever had about my life so far was that I wanted to get married and I wanted to have kids. I remember planning it all out in a journal when I was like 10 or 11. I had each room in my future house designed and color schemes picked out (obviously my tastes have changed a bit and we didn’t in fact paint our bathroom lime green.) I had baby names picked out. I cared about this more than most anything, and I actually documented that dream. I planned for that dream. I hoped and prayed over that dream. And now, as cheesy and ridiculous as it may sound, I’m living my dream. I’m married to my absolute best friend and we have the sweetest daughter. And it may not look like a picture from a 90s magazine (or a current magazine or Pinterest or whatever for that matter), but it’s ours and it’s a dream come true. Never have I ever written out anything else in such hope. Never have I sat down and planned anything else so carefully. Until the other day.
A little (vague, because I’m not mentally prepared to be specific yet) backstory. There is something in my life that molded and shaped me more than I would have thought, especially in my teenage years. I’ve halfway joked for years about something related to that or thought that maybe in a different lifetime I would have done x, y, z. As the years have gone on, my circumstances have changed, I’ve grown and learned and lived, and that joke has become more of an aspiration that has seemed not very attainable at all. But quite recently, it keeps creeping into my mind. I’d love to do it, but I’d be scared, I don’t know where to start, I’d have to learn so many new things, it would be a huge commitment… The other day, I couldn’t concentrate on my work, so I sat down and just wrote the words at the top of the page. I looked at it for a moment, and then started writing furiously. I wrote down vague ideas and specific aesthetics. I wrote down goals. I just kept writing. When I finally stopped writing, I read over it and was more than a lot nervous about a) what I had actually written, and b) the manic state that I seemed to be in for a minute. I sat there and stared at the page, astounded that the words on that page had come out of my hand. Then I started to pray, confused about what had just happened. I literally said to God, “This scares the crap out of me. Is this actually something I can be praying over? Is this actually a thing?” And I immediately heard a “Yes!” What? I don’t know. This happened last week and I’m still processing it. But, you guys, it has to be important. I’m not a dreamer. I’m still that annoying, shy, quiet third grader who doesn’t rock the boat and has “simple” aspirations. I don’t do “big dreams,” so this is so out of character for me. It’s gotta be a God thing. And it’s going to be good. And terrifying.
Um, hi. It’s been a really long time since I made a post. Like, almost three months. I’ve not really had anything to say. I’ve been claiming to be “busy,” but now that I think about it, that’s not really true. Work is pretty slow and I’m in “catch up on background work mode,” which most days actually looks like “it’s nothing too urgent so I’ll play with my daughter instead mode.” I’ve been trying to just be more present, to keep my priorities straight, to put people before stuff, to live in the moment. But I’ve also not been going to the Word every day and as much I try not to base the quality of my faith on quantity of time in the word, I can’t help feeling guilty. I feel like if I’m going to be speaking to you on matters of faith, mine should probably be pretty solid. But honestly, my faith is a little shaky right now and it is all my fault. And I know it. So, I’ve felt like I didn’t “deserve” to come to you all. I know that’s not good either. I know I should lean on my friends and family in Christ during times like these. We all struggle. I know. I’ve told other people the exact same spiel. Uuuggghh. Accountability is hard. And I literally said to my husband the other night that I feel like exactly zero people care about what I have to say. Why would they? I’m just me. But then the very next day, God gently reminded me through someone I don’t even know that no matter how many people He puts in front of me, whether it’s thousands or just a handful, they are my calling. And so I must be obedient.
Anyway, even though the last few months haven’t necessarily been that busy, they’ve been hard. My husband had an especially frustrating and mentally exhausting time at work for a few weeks in there. I’ve been trying to be there for him, to be supportive. Something has to change. You all, we both feel like we’re supposed to work together. I know I’ve talked about this before, but it feels like it’s right around the corner. We’re both dragging our feet about it because we’re both a little scared, and we haven’t really gone to God about it together like I feel like we should. Pray for us, y’all. Change, even change that I want, absolutely terrifies me. All I know is that we both want to put family first, and the way things are right now, that makes it so hard to do. I’m so exhausted from feeling guilty about who is going to get the best of me on any given day. I feel like someone, whether it’s my husband or my daughter or my mom or my bosses or my friends or other family, always gets “end-of-my-rope stretched-too-thin” me. And that’s not fair to anyone. I feel like I’m in survival mode.
My husband and I went to a concert to celebrate our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We drove to Florence, KY and stayed at the hotel where we stayed on our wedding night. (Neither of us really remembered the hotel very much even when we got there, haha. We were so tired on our wedding night and had to be at the airport the next day. It was all a blur.) We made a dinner reservation at The Melting Pot because we used to celebrate there all the time, but our local one closed. We had a wonderful fondue dinner and dessert, and I drank coffee after dinner because the opening act at the concert wasn’t going to start until 8 PM and mama had to stay awake. We drove to the venue and when we entered they were very strict about checking IDs and vaccination cards. That made me feel better. But, it wasn’t a socially distanced show, so the seats were full. I told my husband I was glad that we didn’t get lower arena seats, because they were all first come first serve and everyone was crowded around the stage. Luckily, two seats were empty in our row, so we got an empty seat on each side of us. But there were people directly behind and in front of us. I was a bit overwhelmed. I hadn’t been in a crowd like that for probably over two years. The only thing that made me feel better was that it was an amphitheater, so we had [a tiny bit of] fresh air blowing through the whole time. But it was such a good show. If you’ve never heard of Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, look them up. It’s such a unique, vintage sound. And they put on a great show that was only the slightest bit rowdy, haha. We were pooped when we made it back to the hotel. The next morning we ate breakfast, checked out, then spent the afternoon at IKEA. We bought way more than we went for, but oh well… I got to eat Swedish meatballs.
On the way home I was talking to my husband about how much I appreciate these trips. This is the third little getaway that we’ve been able to have over the last year with just the two of us and I’m so thankful that we are blessed to be able to do so. We were walking through IKEA and I kept saying how much I missed our daughter. The same kid who the day before had me smiling through gritted teeth so that I wouldn’t lose my cool, I was missing terribly after less than 24 hours. These resets are so good for my soul. The time (truly) alone with my husband is so good for our relationship, not only as husband and wife, but also as friends. The time away from my daughter gets me out of the everyday and gives me perspective. The break in the monotony (as much as I actually like monotony) nourishes my body more than you can imagine. Just being somewhere different, seeing different places, even just for a day, is so refreshing to me. I love exploring with my husband – it’s one of my absolute favorite things. By myself? Not so much. At some point, traffic was terrible (if you live in Cincinnati or have visited, like, ever, you know that they are always working on the road somewhere), he looked at me and asked, “You up for an adventure?” He likes to find back ways to get where we’re going and sometimes they work and sometimes we get lost for a while. I smiled at him and said, “Will you be there?” He said, “Well, of course,” and I said, “Always.” I will always be down for an adventure with that man. ❤
As much as I love these trips, and as good as they are for my soul, I had a thought today. Sure, road trips, time away, concerts, good food, they can make me feel better for a while. But where do I turn when I’m in the trenches of everyday life? How do I fill my cup when I’m tired, when I’ve fought with my toddler all day, when the laundry hasn’t been folded and put away for longer than I care to admit? How do I get refreshed when there’s no getaway or vacation? God is there. He’s there all the time. His promises to me are the same as they were that day while I was riding in the car with my husband, and the same as they will be tomorrow as I’m filling up the dishwasher. God’s love for me is there. God’s peace is given to me freely every single day. God’s refuge and renewal is available to me every single second of my life. You all, do we really grasp that? I don’t think we do, or we wouldn’t strive so hard for “the next thing.” Life is hard enough as it is. Why do we insist on making it harder by trying to do things on our own?
Y’all, let’s be so incredibly thankful for the small (and big things) in this life that give our bodies and minds a reset, but let’s be infinitely more grateful for the One who can give our souls a supernatural peace and rest. Without Him, we are absolutely nothing.
When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:22-25
I’ve got about a million things to do today before we leave on a mini-vacation next week. I honestly was not planning to get very deep in the word today… God had other, much better plans. I hurredly and out of sheer obligation said, “I’ll give you a few minutes,” and He said, “How about more than that?” Ugh, my priorities. I’m so sorry, Lord. Anyway, I really liked the definition of hope in verses 24 and 25, but it doesn’t make much sense without some context. Plus, in verse 22 where it talks about us all collectively groaning? I felt that deep in my soul. Life is so very hard for all of us, and we’re all constantly battling something. To me, it’s so comforting to know that even the first Christians to receive the Holy Spirit felt the weight of it all. But I love what else it says – it’s the hope of something better to come that keeps us going, the same hope that saved us; God’s promises sustain us. The God that we’ve never physically seen gives us the strength to keep waiting. We wait patiently for the Lord because He was first patient with us. Our reward is not fully received this side of heaven. It’s not about this life so much. Our focus, our hope, our strength, rests in the unseen and eternal. The way this works is so beautiful to me. We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly. This is hope.
We hope because we believe God is who He says He is, and because we believe He is faithful to fulfill His promises. That led me to ask myself: What are we doing in the waiting? Praising, telling others, loving, caring for others, praying, learning? Or are we allowing ourselves to be distracted, wallowing in our hardships, being prideful and selfish? Do we make our hope look like something to want or do we push others away with our actions? Some things to ponder for sure, and some I definitely need to work on. I pray we all go into the new week with a renewed hope, waiting eagerly, even if we’re groaning inwardly, enduring because of our hope in Christ ❤
I wrote this last week and wanted to share. Since we’ve been back from our vacation, I’ve been in a funk. I don’t know if it’s post-vacation blues, or a fear of what could come of all the times we were in public this past week, or the fact that I had to come home and jump right back into work for a couple of days. I’ve had this feeling of impending doom, and I’ve felt physically blah. I’ve been irritable, short-tempered, and tense. I’m just not myself. I don’t know what that’s about, but I need it to stop. While we were gone, a husband and wife in our town were shot and killed. If you didn’t know them personally, you at least knew who they were. They were special to a lot of people. I have a family member and several acquaintances who were very close to them. They speak very highly of these people’s faith, love, and hospitality. It hurts my heart that our little town is going through this. And I think it shook me a bit – we don’t live very far from where it happened. If we had been here, would I have been driving by? My “what ifs” have been spiraling. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. I don’t know. Prayers for me and for you this week as we all groan inwardly as we wait patiently on the Lord. We can endure because of His strength through the Holy Spirit in us.
But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you… For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:44, 46-48
THIS. IS. SO. GOOD. And relevant. What makes us stand out as Christians? How do people see that we follow Jesus? What makes us different? This is it. This should be it. So many times, over the past year especially, I’ve seen my fellow Christians, even people I know and love from our own church family, just absolutely hating on other people: putting them down, judging, saying they “deserve” some hardship or struggle because of something they say or do or believe. I’ve written about this kind of thing before, long before COVID, but this pandemic, this crisis that could have brought us closer together, that could have been our time to shine a light in a dark world, instead divided us; it brought out a really ugly, dismissive, prideful side of people (mainly people who claim to be Christians) that absolutely breaks my heart. When people look to us at a time like this (or any time really) and see us acting no differently (or maybe even worse) than the rest of the world, why would they want what we have? If that’s what it means to follow Christ, what’s so great about it?
If the world doesn’t see supernatural, unconditional love in us, they won’t see Jesus. That last verse is scary. How the heck can we be perfect? We can’t, and God knows that. Otherwise we wouldn’t need Jesus. And that’s why He sent us the Holy Spirit. His love is perfected in our weakness. (1 John 4:12)
This passage is so powerful to me because these are Jesus’ words. Jesus himself is calling us out, calling us to a higher standard, and calling us to LOVE BETTER.
I’m going to be really honest for a second, because this has been on my heart a lot lately. All this “treat yo self” crap is just that. Crap. Yes, we need to refuel ourselves, eat right, exercise, spend time in the Word and in prayer, rest if that’s what our souls are needing. But as Christians we are literally called to go outside of our comfort zone. We are called to put others before ourselves. And you know what? That’s exactly the opposite of what the world tells us we “deserve.” Dismissing others’ feelings, opinions, desires because they don’t “make us happy” is a worldly point of view. It hurts others, and it hurts us. What if no one ever challenged what I thought? What if I lived blissfully in my own little bubble while people around me are hurting, maybe even because of something I’ve done? You all, I just can’t even properly find the words for this right now. If you’re tired, by all means, pour into yourself. But, pour Jesus into your cup. Pour His majesty in nature, His word, His forgiveness, His grace in there. Not self-help books, the world’s words, or anything else that the world offers. Those things are like salt water, and will leave you more thirsty than when you started. I’m preaching to the choir. Right now, I’m in a horrible cycle of doing just what I’ve been talking about. I keep looking for spiritual strength in all the places except the one place I can actually get it: Jesus’ arms.
I say to the Lord, “You are my God; I have no good apart from you.” Psalm 16:2
No good apart from the Lord. That is a big truth to take hold of. Nothing in this life is good without Him, and absolutely NOTHING can take His place: not money, not a house, not a better job, not a spouse, not a child, not that trip to Target (hey, me 👋), not that new outfit or haircut, not a TV show, not music. Some of those are a little hard to swallow, but anything and everything that distracts us from the love of the Lord is not good, even if it isn’t inherently bad. Most distractions Satan throws at us aren’t. And it’s so easy to fall into thinking, “If I only had [insert whatever you want here], I’d be happy.” But ask anyone who’s actually gotten what they’ve wanted, there’s always something else that comes along to take its place. If we’re always waiting around for that next thing that we think will “make us happy,” we will miss the joy that God has for us – right here, right now. As Solomon frequently says in Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity.” All is shallow, all will leave us empty. The only purpose of this life is to love God and keep His commandments. I think that’s where people get hung up a lot of the time. We don’t want to give up our stuff, even if it is making us miserable. We don’t want to give up our control, even though we don’t know what the heck we’re doing. We ask ourselves what if what we want to do is different than what God wants us to do? We get stuck on what we’re “giving up” to follow God. But one of the beautiful things about God is that He truly cares for us. He wants us to have joy, which is way better than temporary happiness. We’re trudging through life with a worldly perspective when we’ve been given the power to walk on top of it with a heavenly focus. He can fulfill desires we didn’t even know we had if we just surrender to Him. There is NO GOOD apart from Him. NONE.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8
Grace. Do we really believe that we are worthy of it? Every moment we have is another second of God’s grace. Every breath we breathe is a gift of grace from our Creator. First of all, the verse above hits home, because it really boils down to the fact that God gives us grace so that we can have what we need and then give the rest away. He gives us what we need and then some. Am I accepting that grace and then sharing it with others or just stuck on the fact that I don’t deserve it? I’ve been working on showing grace to others as part of living out a better example of love, but I can’t show others grace if I don’t fully appreciate my own. God spoke to me this morning about someone else I’ve been forgetting to extend grace to: myself. I’m my harshest critic; I’d say that’s true for a lot of people. I have very high expectations for myself, but very low motivation most of the time. That usually results in some major self-loathing. It’s not pretty, and it’s not what God wants for me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been on the wrong side of the fine line between humility and self-deprecating. It hurts my heart to know that seven year old me wrote in her journals about how ugly she was because she had moles, and how disgusting she was because she had an accident at school. I saw myself as disgusting. And I still do sometimes. The world teaches us to be really good at nit picking our flaws, because it’s easier to sell us a product to fix them if we are already obsessing over them. It’s scary how early this seeps into our daily thinking. When I worked at the daycare (have I mentioned this before? I worked at a daycare for eight years), I saw young kids worried about eating too much or that they wore a bigger size than their friends; I saw little faces already convinced that they needed makeup to look pretty; I saw fat-shaming and name calling and pure ugliness in these kids sometimes. I’ve also known young people whose parents have offered to pay for plastic surgery for their child because of a superficial flaw that the parent saw. This world is a mess: we are selfish, we are vain, we are lustful, we are hateful, we are prideful. How in the world can we deserve grace? I’ll let you in on a little secret – we don’t. But God gives it to us anyway. And not only that, He uses our sins to point others to His glory. The other morning, baby girl and I read the story of Moses and the burning bush in her Bible story book. At the end of the story, it said something like, “Moses was special to God, you are special to Him too.” My sweet three year old looked up from her breakfast at me and said, “Mama, but I’m not special to God because sometimes I’m mean.” Oh my heart. That about killed me. I talked to her about how God loves us even when we are mean and hard to love. I told her that was called grace, and that’s why God is so good to us. No one else could love us like that. You all, a THREE YEAR OLD saw that she wasn’t worthy of God’s love. Why does it take adults so long to get it?
Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more… Romans 5:20
Being convicted of our sins is painful, even my tiny girl saw a glimpse of that. God’s law is there to show us when we’re not living the way we’ve been called to live. We are supposed to feel the guilt and shame, but only so we can see the grace that is extended to us. We aren’t supposed to wallow in it, we aren’t made to live in that state of mind. But without first seeing why we need grace, the gift wouldn’t mean anything to us. I love when I see the word “but” in the bible, it usually means God is about to show up in a big way and do something only He can do. No one else, ever, could show us the grace and mercy and love that God shows us. No one could even come close. But we are called to try, to strive to love each other like sweet Jesus loves us. Last summer, I decided to do something about my less than healthy lifestyle. I started out by walking around the block with my mom and daughter, then slowly worked in some intermittent jogging. By the fall, I could run/ jog all the way around our neighborhood once. It is only a half mile, but I got to where I could go around twice and not want to pass out. I’ve NEVER been a runner. I can’t breathe correctly when I run, and my lungs feel like they are on fire. I hurt my knee at some point and had to stick to walking for a few weeks, but I stuck with it. I was so proud of the discipline I had about it – I ran 4-5 times a week. Now, I didn’t eat any better than I ever had, I might have even eaten worse, so I wasn’t losing any weight, but I could tell I was toning myself. My clothes fit differently and my posture was better. I had more energy. I felt better. Then Thanksgiving came along and we didn’t go as often. Then December came and there were colder days and Christmas candy and goodies and I didn’t go at all. Now here we are in February and I’m pretty sure it’s been like two months since I’ve been out to run. And… I’ve been eating my feelings. A lot. I’ve gained like eleven pounds. And I was already heavier than I had been in several years. I now weigh the same as I did when I was nine months pregnant with my daughter, and it makes me feel awful. I feel huge. But I have to give myself grace. 2020 was hard on everyone, and our family was put through the ringer. Life is weird, change is hard, and we’re all just trying to cope. I’m not saying that this is the way it always needs to be, because it’s not. If I continue living the way I am, it will become downright unhealthy. But, I have to give myself grace. I can’t beat myself up over the way I look right now. What I can do is recognize that this isn’t sustainable, take that grace I so often forget I can have, and use it as motivation to do better. The last thing I want to do is let my daughter think it’s okay to put herself down. I don’t ever want to set that example. What I do want her to realize is that we all struggle sometimes, and that’s okay. We’re all a little mean sometimes, but we are still special to God and He loves us anyway. So, that’s why we keep trying, pushing, striving to do better. Because we are given grace.
These are a few of my journal entries from the past week, and when I put them all together it was obvious that God was speaking love into my heart; not just that He loves me, but that I need to love others in that same way.
By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 13:35
I know I visit this verse a lot, but I feel like it is so very important – especially in the divided world we live in. In his bible study on this verse, Jim asked us to think about how we relate to each other. When we meet someone new, a common question is, “what do you do?” and we usually answer that in regards to our work. But why do we do that? For most people, our work is a very small part of our identity. He points out that unless we wear a uniform or name tag, it’s impossible to tell for sure what kind of job we have without asking. My favorite thing he said was, “Our love for others should be as noticeable as a name tag or a uniform.” Yeah. I’m convicted by this. What in the world does this kind of love look like? How could people see that? But then I’m reminded that Jesus already showed us what it looked like. He was our example. He tells us to love each other as He loves us. He tells us to be patient, kind, not boastful, envious, arrogant, or rude. (See 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.) We all need that reminder. 1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” The prophesy part is another spiritual realization for another day, but these words: PURSUE LOVE, they are it. If we want to be close to God, we need to pursue love. God is love. The closer we get to Him, the easier it will be to love.
This is my motto for this week. I want to do better at living out the definition of love; and not just seeking God and His love, but pursuing it, chasing after Him daily with my whole heart.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
This is one of the most famous passages in the bible – “the love passage,” that is frequently read at weddings. As I was reading it in reference to my last entry, I was convicted – more than that, God spoke directly to my heart. It got me thinking: we are called to follow Jesus’ example; Jesus is God; God is love… see where I’m going with this? There’s no denying that, as Christians, our goal is to strive to be an embodiment of the love described in this passage; and not just in romantic relationships, but ALL relationships, especially our relationships with other Christians. Then I had another thought – no wonder the world doesn’t like us. We mess this up A LOT, and we look like hypocrites. In the past year, we’ve let politics and a pandemic and other worldly things divide us. We’ve been downright ugly. Why would anybody want to follow Jesus if this is what it looks like? It’s funny how something strikes me in application to people or Christians as a whole at first, but God always ends up pointing me in the direction of my own heart. Yeah, collectively, Christians have issues, but the solution starts in each individual’s heart. In my heart. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that “patient and kind” are the first two virtues listed. I had a serious heart-to-heart with myself over this. My patience? Needs A LOT of work. My kindness? It’s usually conditional and rooted in convenience. I started thinking about all the instances throughout any given day that I have a chance to practice my patience: with my daughter (that feels like every second of every day), with my bosses, with myself, with my expectations, with people on social media, with my waiting on God to move. I decided the other day that Ineeded to be a better living example of this passage to my daughter especially – it’s vital, important work that God has given me to do. And don’t you know that as soon as I comitted to this, satan started working through my tiny girl to absolutely tear me apart. For like a day and a half I was miserable. I had lost my temper more times than I could count, I had yelled, I had overreacted. Last night after having to go back in her room at bedtime for the millionth time, I came out and just cried. I felt like a big failure. Then I opened my bible and dove into this “love passage.” God doesn’t tell us that living like this will be easy, but it’s so important. And while we’re talking about things I need to work on, it mentions that love is not irritable… yeah, I allow myself to get irritated at the smallest things. I get irritated with other people – especially on social media. I think I need a refresher course in the whole “slow to anger” thing. Also, as I read, I thought, “okay, I’m not resentful, moving on!” But the truth is, I am resentful. There are certain people that I feel a certain way about just because of something they did or said, even a long time ago. I do really try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I learned a long time ago that slapping forever labels on people because of one instance or one conversation is so dangerous. People change, people grow, just as I have. But I know I still have so much more growing to do in this department. I guess the biggest question I have about all this is what does it actually look like to bear, believe, and endure all things? Enduring is the easiest concept for me to understand – loving even though it’s hard, loving forever. And I guess bearing all things means helping each other carry whatever we are going through, no matter how hard. Okay, so, love believes all things. What does that mean? It seems so vague. We believe all God’s promises in regards to another person? We believe in the other person and never give up on them? Hmmm. I guess I need to think about what Jesus believes in regards to us: He believes we are worthy of love and salvation. He believes in giving us free will so that we can choose to love Him on our own. He believes that we are worthy of the responsibility of being His hands and feet.
So after diving deeper into “the love passage”, the next day, I saw it again. One of my favorite bloggers to follow, Amy Weatherly, posted the same passage with a very similar sentiment. I thanked her for the spiritual reinforcement. I don’t know her, and she probably has absolutely no idea who I am, but God used her to speak to me, to remind me of this week’s pursuit of love. Then today, someone on my Facebook posted a verse from this passage. I instantly stopped scrolling and knew that I was seeing exactly what I needed to see. I have a feeling that this pursuit of love is not just going to be this week’s theme. God seems to give me “themes”to work on in every season. Over the last few years He’s given me trust, faith, focus, and goodness to work on, just to name a few. I think this is going to be one of the big ones. I pray that my mind and heart are ready to receive the instruction He’s giving me. I pray that I go into the upcoming week with these instructions on my heart.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13
This verse is in a section of my Bible titled, “Jesus, the hope of Jews and Gentiles.” Jesus is the hope for EVERYONE. How do we, in a world full of hate and sickness and pride, have hope? I like how this verse specifies that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, because our human selves surely can’t do it on our own. It’s so easy to look around and see all the broken, hurting people in this world and get discouraged. It’s so easy to dismiss everything, throw our hands into the air, and say, “Well, the world has gone to pot!” and sit here waiting for Jesus to return. But, that’s the part that stirs me – we can’t hunker down just yet. God hasn’t given up on us, so we can’t give up on others. What are we doing about the hurt around us? Placing blame? Being apathetic? Pretending it doesn’t exist? Just “minding our own business”? As Christians, we are called to do much more: Go, make disciples, feed the hungry, clothe the needy, fight for those who can’t stand up for themselves, comfort the brokenhearted, teach, build up, and so much more. We can’t do that if we’re over in a corner pouting about the state of the world.
The definition of Hope: “To cherish or desire with anticipation; trust; to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment.” There’s a difference between worldly hope and the kind of hope God offers. One is wishful thinking and the other is trust. I can hope as hard as I want that it snows tomorrow, but ultimately the weather is going to do what it does. But, if I have hope in God’s promises, He is always faithful to fulfill them. I can wait in expecation; it’s a sure thing.That’s how we can have joy and peace, and why nothing of this world can satisfy us. How do we abound in hope? To me, that means we receive the hope we need in God through Jesus’ work on the cross and through the Holy Spirit in us. But it doesn’t stop there. Then we spread that hope to others by being Jesus’ hands and feet, by being a city on a hill. I feel like we can only truly abound in hope when we are sharing it with others. Admittedly, I have not been back to church since the pandemic started. I have really been trying to keep my family safe, but I’ve also just not been in a good mental state to go. My life was turned upside down in March (my family suffered a great loss), and I still haven’t been able to wrap my head around being back around so many people. I had a full blown anxiety attack outside of the grocery store the other night that resulted in me freaking out and throwing my face mask into the back of my husband’s truck. Mentally, I’m not doing great. My husband has continued to go to church, and the other day I asked him what our church was doing as far as outreach during this time. His response broke my heart, “Nothing really.” Now, don’t get me wrong, our church does do some great things for our community, including gathering food for baskets for families that need extra help at Christmas, and they have an ongoing relationship with several outside ministries. BUT, we are in a pandemic. Needs have been so much greater lately. People who are stuck at home for health reasons or whatever need the church to come to them. And I’ve seen other churches stepping up to fill that need, and other needs as well. But some aren’t so much. And that hurts my heart. I have prayed for God to lead me where I need to go, and show me how to help.
Side note, this is the first blog post typed on my new tablet with my new keyboard my husband got me for Christmas. Yay!
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