When you’re not good at asking for help (ok, because I am not good at asking for help), sometimes my “question” comes out more like, “My basement sure is a disaster” when what I meant was “Could you find it somewhere in the deepest depths of your huge, benevolent heart to help a sister out and get me over this huge overwhelm of discouragement whenever I’m bombarded by the visual chaos in my basement?”
I had the privilege to butterfly-sit for a friend last week. She was leaving for vacation and afraid the two chrysalises would hatch before she returned. She showed up on my doorstep and delivered two tiny butterfly boxes. All I had to do was hang them by the window, watch the miracle unfold, and release them. The two opaque, mint-colored…
I’ve recently grappled with the definition of safety: mine vs God’s. And it makes me really uneasy when I consider how dangerous real safety might be. I mean, I know the story of what happened to Jesus and he’s the one I’m claiming to follow. Where exactly are we going, God? Being free from fear and harm, and feeling certain…
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill My garden is doing this with or without me. If you are a real gardener, I imagine you might scoff at my garden plot. It’s not impressive – just a small strip of malnourished dirt that wraps around the back of…
Fear ensures I am a constant work in progress. I’d rather be a looker upper than a fixer upper, but I’m afraid I’m both. (Like how I used “afraid” there? You can groan now.) I haven’t trusted God perfectly, but thankfully, that qualifies me to be a recipient of perfect grace. I’m so grateful Jesus came to call the sick,…
I marveled something so small, which I’d considered soft light, shone with such intensity it needed relocating to remoter darkness.
I woke up with a sense of dread carried over from the previous day. It hung over me like Eeyore’s rain cloud. As I lay in bed, not wanting to get up, all I could think was I’m stuck. Stuck in fear. Staying in bed was a dead end. I had to have enough faith to walk out the bedroom door and live this day. Wasn’t that the lesson God taught me…
I realized WE are the light of the world – God’s children. And I thought about matches. They don’t light until struck. And I wondered if the struggles that have struck us are God’s tool to shine more brightly through us. If our God is a consuming fire, and He is in us, we have nothing to fear: He will…
Click to read Part 1: What I (Don’t) Want to Be When I Grow Up Dear Younger Me, You know those non-dreams you so courageously penned in your Bible? The ones you’re petrified someone will see? You’re not less than; you rock! It’s ok not to care about careers. (It’s also ok TO care about careers.) The thing is? It’s…
I always hated the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I felt ashamed; I blushed, stammered. Choked out something I thought might pass for non-fiction. (Which made me feel worse since I knew lying was wrong.) The truth? I didn’t want to be anything; I had no ambitions. How do you tell people that? I…
