Story is something I just cannot seem to live without.  I just recently finished binge-watching my favorite spy show.  I love it to the point that its characters often become like fictional friends.  This happens for me when I read books, too.  I am currently rereading the Anne Of Green Gables series right now, and I am visiting old friends as I do. I have missed them and the bewitching beauty of L.M. Montgomery’s prose.
         This preoccupation with story may seem odd to many and familiar to others.  All I know is that life can be very difficult this side of heaven, but story helps.  It helps me remember that Good will one day triumph over Evil, even though I have moments of doubt and fear.  Story reminds me that there is a future Eden coming, too, and that I am not fully home yet.  Ultimately, God’s gift of story reminds me of the fullness of Him.
         As I walk softly on this earth, the weight of evil, the power of free will, and the kingdom of darkness that is at work here can weigh me down in ways in which there are no sufficient words to describe.  Walking with questions to God about Job-like friends and circumstances, seeing the sicknesses that plunder many of daily life and sometimes actual life, hearing of stories that speak of hard, unspeakable things, aching with the sinful flesh I inhabit—these all are the often wordless burdens of suffering we carry.  In our losses and weaknesses, we are left with the Spirit’s groans.  “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)
        One of God’s answers to us in these times is the gift of story.  All story in its best moments and hopes are pointing us to Him.  Stories are told with words, images, and sound, and I have found all mediums of His mercy through story to be so healing.
          So, I watch, listen, read, and wonder. 
         I watch gritty shows where there is fallout because I live with that fallout daily.  Seeing the hard is tough, but it also lets me know I’m not crazy.  Much uncertainty and darkness does live in our existence.  But, the best realistic visions still have a remnant of Good triumphing to some degree over Evil, even if it is only the person experiencing the Evil not succumbing to it while all else around her crumbles. 
​          I watch or read these stark stories to remember not to give up, for the thread of justice will one day be a river. (Amos 5:24)  And, I remember that He will not give up until all of creation is reconciled to Himself. (Col. 1:20)
        I also read stories like Anne Of Green Gables that have quotes such as this describing the beauty of a hearth-fire, “Anne was….gazing into that joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood.” (238). When I hear beauty described so acutely, I can see it and feel the warmth of those golden, summer rays hitting my soul.  In these moments, I find His Beauty breaking through the veil between this world and the one beyond.  I, also, hear it in music, behold it in nature’s majesty, and love to read it in words like these that drip with wonder and grace.
          Beauty speaks to me and lets me know that there is something beyond the harshness of life.  Wonder glistens with truth, and I cannot look away.  One day (if we are in Christ), the magic we glimpse here—the effortless and wordless beauty of His creatures, creation, and Story—will inhabit our souls completely.  I need this reminder, too—that there is much more to come!
          And, then there is the ultimate Story that I swim in daily—His Story.  It, too, is full of both the unflinching reality of the world we live in with all its horrors and sin as well as glimpses of pure wonder that take our breath away with their grace, joy, and all that is to come.  Christianity lives in the “both/and” reality of what the world is and what is coming.  It tells the truth about the world and its broken followers, but it is always reminding us of the Kingdom to come with its amazing, triumphant, yet servant King—Jesus, whose name literally means, “God saves.”
       Jesus is woven in every story of the Bible and is writing Himself in our own story if we let Him.  Sometimes, I am good at that and invite Him in, but there are rooms of fear and sin that I struggle to open to Him still.  I am a work in progress that won’t be finished until I see Him face-to-face, but His Story will eventually be written in every corner of my being, wrapping every atom of my existence in His righteousness and glory. 
         So, I persist in my love of story—seeing His great Story behind every good one.  As you listen, read, and remember, seek out stories that remind you of Him, too.  May we be found in the amazing tale He is weaving, living out our callings and His love to one another.  And, as we do, we will be living signs of the Story to come!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

       I have been wondering lately about truth and grace and our overexposed but also wonderfully-shared society.  What did you think about that sentence?  Yeah, I am confused, too, but it encompasses the wild complexities of living in this age.
     With the advent of social media, the non-stop news cycle, expanded visual formats for every screen, we are living in a wild, media-driven world.  Social media is just one part of our visual world, and it is one that I both love and abhor. 
     One blessing of social media is connectedness.  I love seeing friends near and far, getting to witness their lives in peace and hope and struggle and walking with them in that.  I, also, love having a platform to share about where God has brought me and have others journey with me.  These are all healthy and positive, adding to my wholeness and being.
     Still, there is the hard, and one of those for me is being tempted to miss being present.  Sometimes, I can be worried about posting while I am in the moment of living.  When that happens, I really am not present.  When I give into that pressure, I so miss out.  Ultimately, I don’t want to “live” online because that leads to disconnection with the people right before my very eyes.  And, I do not want to miss them!
     Another struggle in social media-land is that I can easily start to live falsely in this world.  It can become one of constructs, and in that, too, I can stumble.  In my worst moments, I lose sight of reality and focus on perception.  Full disclosure, I am a recovering perfectionistic, first-born pleaser.  So, I can take a deep dive off the truth-train in this constructed world if I’m not careful. 
     I think the lesson for me is not to lose touch with reality, actual reality, in the midst of the crazy times we live in.  Checking in with my motives are paramount to living truthfully.  I have to ask myself-- am I posting because I’m feeling insecure and have a need to show everyone that we are a “good” family and/or that I’m a “good/successful” person?  Or, am I sharing because I am grateful for the amazing moments He has given us in this life?  The answer to these questions makes every difference. 
     So, in the spirit of transparency, I want you to know that I have a wonderful family, but we are also a mess.  We are flawed, selfish people who squabble and fuss at one another sometimes.  We also have tons of fun together and great connectedness.  We are a bundle of joy and hard, sass and gentleness and everything in-between. 
     I get, though, that we don’t usually share the nitty gritty of our sinfulness because it would be awkward for everyone else observing it!  So, because of practicality and emotional appropriateness, we end up sharing the good moments usually.  And, I think that is generally okay as long as we know that all the other stuff in our lives is going on, too. 
     Staying real is so essential, but it is hard.  It takes deliberate intentionality and work to remain grounded in truth-- the truth that we all live in and contribute to the sinful, amazing, challenging, and beautiful world we inhabit.
     When we live in reality, our postings will remain genuine because we know who we are and who we aren’t.  None of us is perfect and life is crazy-hard and wonderful all at the same time.  When we have this perspective, our happy postings remind us of the wonderful that God has graciously given us as sustenance to our weary souls.
     So, joy in the gift of social media, but tell yourself the truth about it.  Like everything, it can be used for good or ill.  Technology is not evil or good inherently.  Just like everything, it is tainted by the Fall, and the people who employ it are fallen, as well.  We bring our brokenness to it, but we can also bring the healing and redemption of Jesus, as well. 
     May we be people who are living in truth, not constructs-- letting go of fake affirmation and choosing to dwell in the known truth of His unending love.  As we do, we will follow our Savior, walking in His steps and not our own. 

      Besides suffering, one of the hardest callings we have is to wait.  Though I often stubbornly resist, when I do wait, I see Him able to move more freely and powerfully in my life.  Even so, I still find the discipline of waiting to be a constant struggle. 
     Myriad forces hinder our waiting.  In our everyday lives, we are accustomed to getting things quickly—we have running water, microwaves, instant access to information, etc.  And, in our inner worlds, we are also similarly expectant.  If we work hard enough, we believe we can achieve our dreams.  In a way, we sometimes are convinced we deserve to get things easily because we have lived with these conveniences and seen such successes in our lives. 
     Then, we face something that is not easily accessible or that we cannot work into fulfillment.  We begin to realize that life does not always work out in the ways we envision, even when we try hard.  Sometimes, we do get what we want quickly, but often, He gives us what we need…slowly. 
     And, it is the slowly that really hurts.  It hurts because we often want what we want at whatever cost, even if it costs us His leading and covering.  
    To wait means to surrender, and surrendering is an achingly difficult business.  The relinquishing of our plans and our pride is akin to losing a limb.  It is life-altering.  When we lay ourselves down in this way, we are forever marked.
     The struggle began, just like almost everything, in the Garden.  Eve had a trust problem first.  She did not believe God’s plans were truly good for her.  So, she decided not to wait on God but manufacture good on her own.  She, so often like us, did not like the slow of God’s holy work in her life.  I am just like Eve too often.  
     This past year, I had a situation happen in which I wanted to share a perspective with someone about a sensitive cultural situation.  I felt the need to do it, and I did it, but I had not waited.  I had not prayed enough before I moved—I just went.  
     My husband often humorously calls me a “rhino” because I get this fierce focus and just will plow anything (and sadly sometimes anyone) down that gets in my way.  This dogged quality can be a blessing when operating under the Spirit’s direction.  He made me with a spirit that does not stop or give up, but it is His to use, not mine.  When I use it in my power, it can become a battering ram that leaves hurt in its wake.  The “rhino” in me struggles mightily to wait for wisdom, wait for prayer, wait for Him.
     So, when this situation happened, I had to circle back, apologize, and humble myself before God and the person because I had not waited.  The issue I brought up respectfully is not one I regret or would take back, but I should have waited and had Him direct me in the right timing of it.
     In the slowing and surrendering, even in my sin, He began to work.  I had allowed Him the sacred space of leading my life.  My goal, though, is to do that more on the front end of situations and not the back end.  I want to walk with Him humbly, slowly, quietly, while listening intently, so that I know when it is I need to stand meekly and when to be quiet.  
     As I look in Scripture, I see the discipline of waiting woven throughout the Old and the New Testaments.  The Psalmist often encourages his listeners to wait on the Lord—the word “wait” is mentioned 23 times in the Psalms.   And, Isaiah wrote of it often.  Listen to Isaiah in the 64th chapter, verse 4, “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.”  And, in the New Testament, we are “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…” (Titus 2:13)  
     The posture of waiting is written all over His pages, but it is a mold into which we often must be poured, for we do not take its shape easily.  God is eager to meet us in our waiting, but the rub is to wait first so that we can be met!
     So, in this fast, accessible world we live in, may we stop, listen, beseech, submit…wait.  I humbly invite you and myself to increase the rhythm of waiting in our souls, for “they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

Grace has left our culture with a swiftness and totality that takes my very breath away.  There is hardly any margin, mercy, or grace to be found. The art of disagreeing agreeably seems a lost and alien art.  Now, contempt has come calling, and we have drunk of it deeply. 
 
The stakes are truly high without grace.  Being candid with those whom you disagree can cost you something very tangible like your job and, even worse, the intangible yet invaluable good--your reputation.  One “wrong” statement or opinion can forever alter your present and future.  The very integrity I have tried so hard to live can be rendered moot by one interaction, one simple opinion fraying it completely. 
 
The Bible says that “a good name is more desirable than great riches.” (Proverbs 22:1)  But, how do we deal with a vitriolic culture that can wreck your name because you view the world differently than it does?  The coldness of our world scares me completely.  As David says in Psalm 69, “Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.” (20)
 
Sadly, another level of malice is often layered to our disagreements.  If one is on “the wrong side of an issue,“ many people often declare the person with the other viewpoint to be “evil,” as well as ignorant, spreading further malice.  When I think of someone who is evil, I think of the Devil, Hitler, Stalin, terrorists.  Sadly, we are calling our neighbors, friends, church members, fellow citizens with this same term just because we disagree.  And, it is utterly suffocating. 
 
I humbly argue that contempt is the true evil here.  For, when we feel contempt, we secretly believe in our soul that we are “better” than others, more enlightened, etc.  While stroking our egos, we secretly wish others could be like us— so rational, intelligent, and advanced.  Oxford Living Dictionary gives this definition for contempt—“The feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration.”  How aptly this describes our culture right now when we disagree; we are so swift to completely render others “worthless.”
 
Sadly, most of us choose not to do the hard work of truly, vitally disagreeing with someone while keeping his/her motives and humanity in check.  It is much easier to write off people as “quacks” than to hear their hearts, even if you think their conclusions are fundamentally, ethically, morally, and even egregiously wrong.
 
Being a Christian is helping me challenge this tendency in myself.  Because of my beliefs, I think all humans are made in God’s image—the Imago Dei, and this belief catches me in my contempt.  When I remember we are made in His image, it is harder to hate, harder to dismiss, harder to compartmentalize someone into a “bad” category.  Even my “enemies” in ideology are stamped with the divine. 
 
What does this mean for me?  Right now, it means that I have decided not to put myself out there politically/ideologically in the social media realm.  That could certainly change, but for now, it helps me practice what I preach— to dialogue with humans face-to-face or one-on-one regarding these hard issues, forcing me to surrender contempt as I stare into someone’s eyes, smile, and frown. 
 
But, I am not running, so if you want to know my view on abortion, immigration, refugees and vetting, President Trump, Democrats, Republicans, theology, marriage and gender issues, or just anything in general, please email me so that we can have a personal chat.  I will gladly tell you all these things in relationship but not on social media where it is too easy for me to hide and not look into your eyes.  We must see each other as human during these hard, vital, crazy, emotional, but, hopefully, respectful conversations/debates.

I ask you to join with me in fighting this contempt that so easily creeps into our insecure and vain souls.  No matter how you feel led to share your opinions to the world, I pray you would lay down your contempt as you do it.  I am trying right along with you, battling often on my knees to do this very thing. 
 
May humility be the cloak we wear and grace be the fragrance we leave when we share our opinions.
 
 
 

                Prayer is always, always changing me, but there has been a certain prayer crawling through my soul lately, challenging some of the small spaces in my spirit.  In Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung’s book, Glittering Vices, she introduced me to a word I have never known—pusillanimity, which means “smallness of soul.” (9)  What a profound phrase that encapsulates the deepest battles of who we are fighting to be. 
              The shapes of my soul’s smallness are many.  As I look at the vices in that book, I pretty much can find them all in the back corners and darker rooms of my soul.  But, there is one that God has been really working on lately—its name is envy.
                 This is one of those vices that embarrasses me most because as someone who hates pettiness, this sin unmistakably reeks of it.  Yet, it lives in me.  And, as De Young writes, “The bottom line for the envious is how they stack up against others, because they measure their self-worth comparatively.” (44)  This is so true.  Sometimes, when I look at others in admiration, it turns to envy, and I feel comparison’s gong ringing through my soul.  It is then that I can cross over into sin’s darkness.
               So, I have begun to pray on my knees to fight this darkness when it comes.  The prayer I pray is for His glory to abound more and more, especially in others.  I ask that His work in them to be great so that He may be glorified even more.  As I do, I begin to hunger for His glory above all else, rejoicing in His movement everywhere and in everyone instead of worrying about myself.  As John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (3:30) 
                It is a hard prayer, for my selfishness breathes just as strongly as Eve’s did in her garden.  But, as I submit, I am tasting His freedom.  It is a posture I am growing in, and I don’t always do it perfectly or as sincerely as I want.  Still, it is changing me, nonetheless, this wanting more of God and more for others than myself.
                   So, when envy comes to call, what will we do?  When we see someone more successful at our field in worldly terms, when we see God’s unmistakable voice in another and wish for it in ours, when we see someone who has a more “perfect” family than ours, when we look at those who are the great influencers and wonder about our own place in the world, what response will we have? 
                   I pray you will join me in praying that God will be glorified and abound more and more in everyone we see.   And, may we not compare ourselves to others but rejoice in the God-reflection that is in us each.  As De Young says, “From a secure sense of God’s love and life-giving power, untainted by the envier’s conditional and comparative lens, we can see the right way to follow Paul’s admonition to ‘in humility regard others as better than yourselves.’” (57) 
                 Matthew records these words from Jesus—“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (16:24-25)  As we carry our own crosses and watch others carry theirs, my hope is that we would not tarry over them--how big or small they are, what a wide or narrow road they walk, or if theirs has less splinters than ours.  Instead, may we be found simply and faithfully carrying our cross while wholeheartedly encouraging and rejoicing with others as they carry theirs. 
                  And, as our personal kingdoms fall away, our anxious, worried grip of insecurity will loosen.  We will, then, be able to revel and rest in the God-ness we find in His people—shouting our joy at His movement in them!!  The painful, beautiful practice of humility will lead us into rejoicing at His amazing movement through us all—gasping at the grace of God that He even allows us to be part of His workings here on earth.  God, grant us mercy upon mercies to do just this. Hallelujah and hallelujah.

The second son he [Joseph] named Ephraim and said, “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”  Gen. 41:52

I was sitting in a Beth Moore Bible study when God rattled me with this verse.  It has been inside of me before, but it hadn’t been in my soul lately.  Since then, it hasn’t really left.

I think why this struck me so powerfully is because of how painful suffering truly is.  The pain we encounter personally and through others contends against this verse’s truth, trying to tamp it out and swallow it whole.  We often wonder like David did in Psalm 13 if God has forgotten us because the hardship is so great.  We wonder how anyone can survive this world and its brokenness.

 When Jesus faced the darkest night of His soul, He humbly asked that it might pass but then went on to pray the most amazing, costly, holy prayer I have ever heard—“not My will, but Thine be done.”  (Luke 22:42)  In so doing, He showed us how much He trusted His Father’s faithfulness to carry Him through the gaping evil coming after Him.  In the midst of His trial, He opened Himself up in complete vulnerability to the capable hands of His Father.  

But during our suffering, we typically can be found in fetal positions trying desperately to banish any and every hurt from our lives.  It is very hard for us to be vulnerable and open to even God during these times.  The idea of letting Him work in our pain causes us to sweat our own drops of blood.

I have been in some rather wicked lands of suffering just like you have.  That is one thing that unites us all—we live together in this brokenness.  We all bear the burden of Adam and Eve’s taste of sin in the Garden.  Though God’s common grace upholds us all and reveals so much of His beauty still, we all share a common table of sin and its fallout—a world with sickness, death, and temptation. 

Nevertheless (such a faith-filled word), He has not left us at that table.  Redemption sprang forth right after that loss in our Garden.  As He tenderly clothed his wayward children, His restoration had begun.  And over time, He called out a people to show His grace and reveal His mercy and truth, lighting up the whole world with His witness through them.  As He promised to Abraham, the entire earth would be blessed because of the people coming through him (Gen. 12:3); God wanted to redeem not just the Israelites but all people from the very beginning.

Measure upon measure of redemption—the law, the covenants, nature itself with its cycle of  death and resurrection among myriad other graces of restoration— have come.  But, none compare to His Son.  Immanuel—God with us—Who came to be the Lamb for our Passover.  Now, those of us in Christ have been passed over; death can no longer hold us because it did not hold Him.  This is how much God can do through suffering—conquer sin, vanquish death—literally save… the… world.

In the end, we have to face whether we are willing to open ourselves up to our Father, just as Jesus did, to bear fruit in the midst of our own wanderings and devastated lands.  Are we willing to let everything be redeemed— or are there pockets in our spirits we are not willing to open up to His work?  Are we able to trust that His redemptive power is big enough for every evil—internal and external-- we encounter? 

As I have wrestled with this, I want to journey in a way that lets Him rain havoc in my darknesses—both the ones I harbor and the ones with which the Evil One attacks me.  May Yahweh God plow, till, and transform every darkness, planting seeds of hope, redemption, restoration, and peace where once there was stronghold, sin, attack, siege.  May we follow our example and Savior, Jesus— learning, yielding, and allowing Yahweh to bear in us the fragrant, costly fruit that can be reaped in the crucible of every trial. 

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10-11)

 

 

And, so it begins—this blog of mine!  Let me amend that-- I hope it is truly His more than mine! I know I won’t be channeling His words, of course, but I pray that His Spirit will guide and direct me in all my ways as I begin this way of sharing.

And, for any of you that join me that are not followers of Jesus, welcome.  I talk about Him a lot because He is just so a part of who I am; I cannot separate us.  I ask you to come as you are, as well, and let us journey and share the ways of our lives.

I have not always been comfortable entering the blog space world because I didn’t know if I had much to say that was not already being said.  Still, I simply feel called to enter the conversation about life and reality in a more public way. 

I have an insatiable hunger to know God, know other people’s souls, and to interact with the world regarding truth, reality, ideas and such.  I cannot stop trying to understand God, the world, other people, my kiddos, the Cosmos, the Middle East, politics, how to be a better Mama and friend, and the list goes on!!!! 

Thus, I am an idea wrestler.  I cannot stop wrestling with ideas and their fruits.  Ideas are what make everything happen in the world—every human is living out a set of ideas, be they true or not.  What we believe, we act out in our daily life.  Ideas are so very, very important; we need to understand the ones we live by and what ideas those around us live by.

Here is to a lifetime of wrestling. J