5 Minute Friday: Grace

A week ago I braved the voices and read my post in front of a group of amazing writing cheerleaders. My computer, the one with the less than reliable battery, decided to go stone cold dead in the middle of the reading.

Yup, story of my life.

Thanks Julie for handing over the i-Pad to help a sister out.

I just love this community. It was a privilege and joy to gather and write and read and hug and eat chocolate in real life. Truly.

Ok, this week's five minutes!

My five minutes on "Grace"

We share a middle name, but it is her first name that I want to be called of me when all is said and done. My dad's oldest sister, the one whose name is as beautiful as she is. They call her "Grace" and she has been that to anyone that has known her. She has been that to anyone that has been touched with compassion by her tender soul.

I've always favored my dad's side. The angular face, small frame and big, deep eyes. They are markers of the women on his side that bared down and brought into life children and breathed life into the everyday struggles of their families. Hard times cotton mill gals who weren't afraid to give their families every inch of themselves until their souls hung threadbare.

Grace comes in a small unassuming package. These women who struggled along the road of life left a path for me to walk on rutted out from Depression era wherewithal and bootstrap pulling determination.

The woman whose name is Grace? She is a small slip of a woman who grows more and more gaunt taking on a new likeness to her own mother, my grandmother, who was always sour faced with her hair in a tight black bun sitting frail in her upholstered rocker.

Somehow her eyes never fail to shine grace and I wonder what was the difference between her and her mother?

How do we take all that was left behind us and live a better story? 
How do we shine through the ugly until we make the ugly beautiful?

Age has stooped her and she shrinks smaller and smaller with the days. Her ability to remember, recall and recognize growing ever dimmer. Her mind isn't well. Memories are slipping away, time is slipping away and I feel the time growing short.

This woman that has been called "Grace" since she was newly birthed pink flesh is a living grace to me and I can't begin to tell what her life has meant to me, what her life means for my daughter.

When I say "Hand me down grace" I'm talking about the ability to look forward and back simultaneously and see it all as an infinite gift from an infinite God. 

Because of my aunt, the one with the beautiful soul and heart that doesn't forget, I can look both directions and see grace. Grace behind and grace ahead.

Full Circle and Freedom {An Allume Recap}

A year ago at Allume I wore my flannel shirt too many days in a row, lost my voice, and read brave and voiceless in front of 100+ women this story. 

But it's not that story I want to share here today. The story I want to share began on that night in late October of 2012 when I squeaked out words on a page and stood barefoot and bare souled before a bunch of women I hardly knew beyond avatars on a screen. 

This story has been written and scrawled desperately for a year until a day in late October at the same conference a year later God brought it all full circle.

There is so much to tell...

I could tell you about the hugs from friends gathered near from thousands of miles away. I could tell  you about the prayers and tears and real life conversations with women who cheer me on across the miles. I could tell you about my computer dying in front of 100+ women and the "throw it on the ground" moment I had. I could gush about my few days of up to earlies and up way too lates with a couple of my best real life girlfriends who I get to see far too in often.

I really could fill a book with the story that is the Allume community, but I won't.

Instead I will tell you that sometimes you go somewhere thinking that God can do a little bit and then He shows up big. I don't mean sorta big, I mean grand slam kind of big.

A year ago I was a girl who was in fist to fist combat with fear. I had taken it on for the year and I was determined that in 31 Days in the month of October I would explain it away. I would write fear into oblivion and it would never bother me again. Then that didn't happen and the fear battle rages on so I pinned it for another year to the top of the bulletin board of life.

But the year came and almost went and October with the fire and beauty that is the season was suddenly here and so was Allume. I was still wrestling with fear. You see it was only a year ago that I got brave enough to call myself a writer. If you are a writer then you get why that can be a daunting task and title.

God has done so much in my writing this year. I've seen this space grow enormously and for some reason you folks keep coming back and reading and cheering and believing in a big God with me.

It has truly been an incredible year, but the fear was still there under it all leaving words pent up. In fact so pent up that my friend Alia scrawled a prayer in my prayer journal (Thanks The Seed Company!) to that affect somehow knowing through the Spirit that there were words behind a dam within me.

Her prayer combined with about a million other things at Allume were the catalyst for God to release that dam. It feels like a sonic shockwave has gone off in my heart and mind and the words are just there gushing out. All the ways that I was fearful have just leaked right out and you know what is left? 

A spirit of bravery that gets what fear is, an ugly, insidious cancer that keeps us from full Spirit brave living, and gets that anyone that ever did anything big for God had a deep and abiding knowledge of who He is and what He has done. 

Here I stand on that and I've got words to say. Get ready.

You know that little book that I've been working on for about a million years? The one that I keep promising and falling through on? The one that was going to be an e-Book? Yeah, it's meant to be so much more than that and I know it in my bones and have it on some authority that it could be a reality.

Me, the girl who couldn't call herself a writer a year ago, might just actually hold her writing in her hands someday.

The reason that I can come back from a blogging conference and tell this story of freedom from sin and fear is because of a giant God who sees and a conference that is way more than a blogging conference. 

Allume is a place for Christian women who blog to meet with each other and ultimately come face to face with Jesus. 

What other blogging conference would dare challenge us to stop striving for readership? To stop reaching and reaching for more and more influence and just let your influence be your reach? To reach across the street and around the world to make the Gospel hope given open handed to all the prize and not worldly accolades in a comment box?

It is astounding and shocking beauty. It is life in the light. Life lived basking in the Light that is Jesus. I'm walking in the light today, reeling and tired and overwhelmed by grace, but walking.

Thanks Allume organizers, sponsors and every woman who makes up this community.

Oh and to that anonymous person who bought my conference pass. Maybe you knew, maybe you had a God-sized nudge and knew exactly what you were doing when you chose to bless, but just in case you didn't let me tell you that God took your gift and made it much. Who knows, God might just use my words, my little words and your gift, as the catalyst to feed Jesus hope to thousands more.

Can we dream that big?

You are a part of this story. My story. The story Jesus has been writing for us all and the story that He is writing on my own life in all my fear struggling and hope grasping. Thanks be to God.

{There is so much more to share. I promise that it will come out in bits and pieces scattered throughout the next few months. Right now I am going to be putting words to page in a real way. Pray for that process? Thanks dear ones.}

Day 24: Extraordinary Ordinary {Allume and Phase 5 of (in)mercy!}

I wrote last week about women who I adore and think are infusing extraordinary into their ordinary in a million little ways.

An amazing thing happened these past couple of weeks. Phases 1-4 of the (in)mercy project for Mercy House Kenya were fully funded! Yes, you read that right!

I was supposed to be tweeting LIVE from Allume tonight to raise funds for Phase 3 of (in)mercy, but God is so BIG that we blew right past Phase 3.

With that said, we've still got a long way to go! Phase 5: Live Mercy is meant to raise $53,000 to build a second house for Mercy House Kenya.

I'm going to Kenya without leaving home. You can too! {Click to tweet}



So tonight, instead of tweeting LIVE from the Allume conference to raise money for a generator, I'm going to be tweeting to kick-off Phase 5.

Please consider being a part of this final phase of (in)mercy. Le't  live mercy. It will literally change lives, which is the best kind of extraordinary.

Ten Things You Should Know About Me (For my Allume Friends)

This will be my second year at Allume and I'm over the moon excited. Almost deliriously so because this year I will be baby free and rooming with a couple of my sweetest, dearest real life (but sadly long distance) friends.

I'd like to say that I'm totally over last year's newbie cold feet, but well...I'm a work in progress or regress, I'm never sure. You can read about what happened to me at Allume and if I'm honest what I hope won't happen to me again this year...at least the whole random loss of my voice. The cupcake eating, amazing sessions, hanging with amazing blog friends part I hope definitely happens again!

Like I said I'm rooming with two real life friends this year so the whole "Ten Things my Roommate Should Know About Me" post is well, a tad unnecessary. One of my Allume roomies was my roommate for two years before we both got married. She definitely experienced the good, the bad, and the quirky of my personality. The other is a fairly new friend, but she is a gem and can roll with whatever crazy I throw at her.

With that said I thought I might do a "Ten Things You Should Know When You Meet Me" post, so here goes:

1) I always say this so that it doesn't throw you off, but I still understand if you need to blurt out "You are shorter than I thought you would be!" I'm short. Shorter than I look online. Like less than 5' short. I like to claim the "Small but fierce." title at times. This is one of those times.
2) I will have a second cupcake. Don't ask. Don't judge. Just embrace the sugar addict that is me.
3) I cry. A lot. Over things that normal people don't cry over.
4) Words are my kryptonite. It is dangerous for me to be around hundreds of writers at once (see #3)
5) I want you to come up to me. If you see me before I see you then tackle me with a hug, scream my name, throw a paper airplane at me, wave your arms like one of those things on a used car lot. I want to meet YOU! {Imagine me pointing in your direction Uncle Sam style, perhaps a photo will help.}

6) Before you even ask let me make this easy, "Yes, I want to go to the Smilebooth with you."

 

7) Don't be afraid of the amount of colors I wear at once. I'm a fashion outlaw.
8) I may be prone to sitting Indian style (is that offensive these days? political correctness is not my forte, hmmm, maybe I'll have to add that as #11) anywhere at anytime. Ok, not lady-like, but maybe I'm not so much (ok, maybe that is #12).
9) I'm not a night owl. This means that I will still attempt to do the late night thing, but I will get really slap happy which appears on the surface as if I am drunk. I won't be...probably...but consider yourself warned. Silliness will ensue. {Copious amounts of coffee may keep this at bay or make it worse.}
10) I'm an introvert so I will at some point disappear for a bit. Don't worry about me. I'm just recharging.

Bonus: I will do something to embarrass myself at some point. Just nod, smile and help me up if I've fallen down. Cuz, did I mention I'm a bit clumsy...yeah, that.  Also, according to the two pictures in this post I always have my eyes wide open like someone just scared the daylights out of me. I'll try to tone that down.

In all seriousness, really and truly I wish I could meet all of you and hear your stories face to face because I know there is just so much that God wants to do and use us for. Isn't that the stuff of life and why we are all headed to Allume? Because we wanna see how God is going to take a few crazy bloggers and do a big work to make His name known. Sounds like a good time to me.

I'm counting down the days till Allume!

What should I know about you? Give it to me straight. I can take it.

A Story Worth Sharing...Again

A few months back I wrote about how God had taken a small need and used it to answer a big-gaping-hole need in my heart. Today I am over at the Allume blog sharing that story again. I would love if you would stop by to read.

Because the small daily lisped prayers of faith can be answered in ways that assure our faith starved hearts that God can and will show up for us in the big.

Read and be encouraged.

When the Small is Really the Big

The mountains in our lives are mole hills to God, but even the mole hills are not hidden from His gaze. A week ago I was praying hard. I was praying hard for things that I couldn't see. Sometimes you pray for small things when what you are really asking for are enormous, if-God-doesn't-show-up- we-will-not-make-it sized things. 

Our life is full of unexpected right now and there are more questions than answers scattered along this faith road, but still we walk. I had a hope. A hope in the midst of a tight budget that I might return to Allume this year. Last October I gathered with women from all over to talk all things blogging and Jesus. It inspired. It grew my vision. It made me just a bit more fearless. I was hoping to go this October, but we're about strike out into a new God-sized dream and funds are limited to say the least. We're about to ask friends, far and wide, to join in this dream with us financially for the foreseeable future and that is a step of faith that is more than a bit daunting.

While praying for a means of purchasing my ticket for Allume I felt God's nudge. Do you know what I mean? That moment when you know God is saying more than what meets the eye through your circumstance. He gave a nudge to my heart reminding me to not stop short in believing for the small things. I've got to believe Him for ALL things. If I am willing to pray that God would provide for a ticket to a blogging conference then how could I shirk back from believing that He will provide every thing for where my family is headed? The little stuff and the big stuff are all the same to God.

That is why it really shouldn't have come as a surprise when I opened up twitter to see that a friend, an anonymous friend, heard this need. This woman heard it in her heart from the same God, by the same Spirit that speaks to me and loves me and calls me, that she should be the hands and feet of His Son in my life. I'm humbled. Humbled right down to the holy ground that is all of life for anyone who dares to follow Christ. 



I want this person to know, whoever she is, that God used you in a big way. Yes, you bought my ticket to Allume and that is a tremendous gift, but you also showed my weak faith that every step on this journey my family is about to leap into without a net is already taken care of by a God who sees me. A God who even cares whether or not I go to a blogging conference. How much more does He care that we have enough to pay the bills?

In the end all of it is God-sized and the dreams we dream with pursed lips and through blurry eyes filled with tears are heard by the heart of God and some times whispered to others on our behalf. If we believe the small we can believe the big. Rejoice with me sisters. Some of you are walking through impossible circumstances and every little thing seems to require a mountain of faith. Some of you are hoping for your own anonymous Allume ticket. He knows the plans that He has for you. Walk strong in Him, pray even when your words falter, believe that God is for you and will supply every need. His riches are endless.

Thank you sweet anonymous friend. Thanks be to God who shows up big in the seemingly small.