It’s so easy to race through life totally unaware of God’s perfect and timely protection. And then we experience a moment where the wake-up call is so loud and resonates so deeply that we fall to our knees and life must stop to allow gratitude to flow and God’s mercy to wash over our life anew. Because the glimpse of even one moment outside of God’s watchful eye is too devastating to consider. My life stopped last week. In the blink of an eye...a call that my son was in an accident on the highway, and it involved two semi-trucks. Immediately, fear and dread gripped my heart. A parent is never prepared for these calls, and I knew from my husband’s tone, it was serious. But, as the events unfolded, it became evident that God’s profound protection was at work. Pictures always Continue Reading
We Are Made to Brave Imperfect Motherhood
Before experiencing motherhood for myself, I had this expectation that I was going to be a better mother than my mother ever was. That is if I was ever going to be a mother at all. To be clear, I had a healthy childhood and my mother did a masterful job at caring for all of her children but as far as I could see motherhood was a tiring, messy task, with little to no reward. These thoughts were so deeply ingrained, were it up to me, I would have lived my life to ensure that children were not on my radar. Then I met my husband and began to see the possibilities of love. We were married when I was 22, and I had my first child at 23 which was manageable at first. Then our family of three became a family of four...then five. Somehow I went from not wanting kids at all to parenting Continue Reading
When You Need Freedom from Your Shame Dress
For years, I believed that living without shame was like living without blood...there was just no way I could ever do it. Every morning, I would put my shame on like a dress around my heart. My "shame dress" was heavy and colored with guilt, dishonor, self-reproach, and humiliation. Inside I was a wreck. Yet like a typical shame sufferer, I kept it to myself. The only thing worse than the shame I was carrying was others knowing what was really going on in my heart. What was I so ashamed of? My shame came from my poor relationship with Jesus. You see, I knew that I needed to be seeking Him more, reading more, praying more and feeling more...something. However, I came up empty-handed every time. I could not get the hang of this Christianity thing. Was a relationship with Continue Reading
Our Longing Is His Gift
Last week, there was such an outpouring and common interest in accessing the gift of stillness, particularly when faced with the hard circumstances of life. I described a bit of my own struggle with surrendering to the quiet calm. But there's something more. There's a rich gift waiting for us on the edge of stillness...presence. We were created for presence. We were fashioned out of a desire for fellowship and companionship. We're designed to inhabit and occupy and be. Yet, too often the very gift of presence is only treasured when it no longer exists. How do we practice being, and how do we get to the place of complete contentment? I think the answer lies in learning to embrace the presence of God in our life...in all of our life. And the more we seek out those moments, the Continue Reading