God Grows a Blog, God Grows it All

{I'm taking my annual blog break December 20th-January 3rd. I'll be back to kick the year off with my favorite group of writer's for the first Five Minute Friday of 2014!

It's a time for me to refocus and to just relax into life with my family over the holiday. I hope you'll do the same. I hope you'll quiet the noise and take some time to be. 

Be with Jesus who came to be with you. 
Be with the friends and family that God has given you right before your eyes. 

I'm grateful for each of you that take time to read my scribbles in this place. Wherever God takes my word offerings know that you are the dearest of readers to me. I can't wait to share more in 2014. For now here are a few words (and some playlists!) to leave you with as we close the book on 2013.}

Cease striving. I read it in between the lines as I ponder Advent.

It's no accident that our calendar puts this celebration of Christ's coming at the end of the year. A mere week before we start another trip around the sun we sit elbow to elbow in church with candles balanced so that melting wax doesn't scorch our skin to remember the Son who dared to trip around the sun with us in human flesh.

And I can feel the pull when I look at January 1st looming just ahead. The way that I think every year that I have to be more and do more. The words that I write? They burn a hole in my soul some days. They have burned their way from brain, to fingers, to screen and some times it can feel so futile to write post after post to the few that read.

Here is the truth about it all.

God grows a blog. God grows a soul. God grows it all. 

God is a master gardener and He can grow as much as He wants in fallow ground.

I think it was Jennie Allen who said that she has never met a writer who knew exactly what they did to make their words take flight and soar to the top of the bestseller. They all say that they really couldn't explain it. They all say it is God-sized.

What is your dream? What is that thing that you think no one sees even though you pour your heart and soul out and into it? 

Keep doing that. Keep doing the art that makes your soul full and trust that God will take it where it needs to go. 

I know that platform matters. I know that in this world where everyone is a writer or artist or creating something it can seem like there isn't room for more. But might I just say that there isn't room for more, but there is room for you. 

I'm happy to make space on my bench.
I'm happy to scoot over so that you can do your art right next to me.

And if you get that book deal or make that cover art or sing that hit song or sale a billion e-books or get that amazing job or birth a beautiful baby or tackle that pile of laundry or adopt Ugandan orphans or kill all those dust bunnies for good or take cookies to the neighbors or buy your dream house or clean out the attic or whatever it is that you put your hands too...I'm going to be cheering and believing that God grows blogs and souls and He dares to do it any day of the year.

This year I'm embracing God's ability to make much out of little. 

I'm going to keep believing that I don't need thousands of devoted readers. I just need one God who can take my little and make it His much. I want to encourage us all to embrace this truth and then stand on this side of the sun once again a year from now and worship the God who did it all.

{Oh, I almost forgot. Two! Count them two! Playlists for Christmas! Enjoy and allow the gift of music to draw your heart deeper into Christ's coming and promise to come again.}

In the Bleak Midwinter                                         Christmas Shake


{One last thing. I'm finishing up Dressember and I'd love to raise a little more for the work of the International Justice Mission. You can follow the final days of the project on my instagram feed and read more about how you can take part in ad"dress"ing issue of injustice globally.}

My Little to Give {A Dressember Update}

I'll never forget how unaffected she seemed by it all.

Maybe it was because I wasn't a mother yet or maybe it was just because I've lived a pretty privileged life in the suburbs of the American South. I was horrified. I was mad. I was...speechless.

And maybe in that moment that was the only thing we had in common. Our voices had been stolen by the thief that is sin in a broken and busted world.

Her daughter, only nine years old, had been used and abused in her own home.

The place that she thought she was safe became a place where should would never feel safe again. And on a continent that has known the use and abuse of power and rape as an act of war there is no assurance that justice will be served.

In the space of that silence, between my anger and her resignation to what had happened, we both knew that fact. 

I thought long and hard about how this mother standing in front of me probably had suffered the same at some point. She was a member of the generation that grew up through a very uncivil war. A war in which women suffered greatly at the hands of horrendous violence.

There are places dotting this globe and even in our own American cities where the sexual exploitation and bonded servitude of men, women and children is common. There are places where people believe that this is how life is and should be and that there is no way out because all too often there is no way out. No justice to be found.

We can live our lives without acknowledging the scary facts or we can open our eyes and find our voices and in so doing find the voice of millions who have been silenced. 

I once heard a woman recount a story of staying in an upscale hotel in a major city in America. She retold her experience with a detectable shake in her voice. She cautiously observed a young man and woman and it didn't settle well in her soul.

The man was constantly on his cell phone and shifty eyed. The girl, a tiny slip of a thing, seemed nervous and shy. She searched the girl's face for a sign that she was in trouble, but when noticed the man moved close to the girl and whispered something that made her gaze purposefully at the floor.

That was the end of it, but year later she hasn't been able to shake the feeling that she should have done something. That she should have called someone. But who?

It can feel helpless. We hear the statistics:

• Each year, nearly 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade. (UNICEF)
• 27 million men, women and children are held as slaves. (Kevin Bales, Disposable People)
• 1 in 5 women is a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. (U. N. Development Fund for Women)

I've been wearing dresses for two weeks straight and it can all seem insignificant.

{A few of my dress selections- view all #Dressember pics on my instagram account}

What do my December fashion choices have to do with a mother's daughter's stolen innocence or a young woman suspiciously loitering around a hotel? 

I'll tell you what.

I believe in beauty. I believe that God created women with unique beauty and our femininity is a wonderful gift. <--------- Click Here to Tweet This!

For millions of women their femininity and the very fact that they are women acts as a curse. They are seen as expendable and thousands each year slip into the sex trade industry. 

No matter what this broken world says. Women have value. Our unique beauty as women is a treasure to be valued and celebrated. I'm celebrating this month for the women that can't.

The International Justice Mission (IJM) is addressing issues of injustice the world over. They are on the ground working with those who have suffered horribly as modern slaves. They are among the most oppressed, widows, orphans, children, and they are making a true difference in lives.

What we do with our days is what we do with our lives. 

If for one month I can wear a dress and raise awareness of the issue for my Liberian sister whose daughter will live with the scars her life long and the woman whose story I've only heard recounted by a sister who wishes she could have done more than I am on my way to days well used and a life well lived.

I'm wearing dresses to raise awareness and to also raise just a wee bit of money for IJM. $50. That's it. That is just over $1 a day for the month of December. 

Who among my readers will make that happen? 

I want to give my sweet mama friend a voice. I want her to know that yes, this happened to her daughter, but there is a woman a world away that is going to cling to grace and do her best to see that it doesn't happen to her granddaughter.

It might be little, but it is my little to give. I found my voice. It's time to give her one too.

There are more organizations and ways that you can educate yourself and become involved in addressing the issue of sexual exploitation and the global industry that is the human slave trade.

Learn, Shop, Support
International Justice Mission (Shop their Holiday catalog!)
The Exodus Road
Freeset Global 
Free the Girls

If you are ever suspicious a situation might be an issue of human trafficking you can call or text BeFree to the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888

Dressember for Justice

I'm a fan of dresses so this little endeavor isn't terribly out of character for me, but for the month of December along with women from all over the world we are dubbing it "Dressember". We're wearing a dress a day for thirty one days to raise funds and draw attention to the mission of  International Justice Mission (IJM).

Here is what IJM is about:

International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that brings rescue to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local officials to secure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to ensure that public justice systems - police, courts and laws - effectively protect the poor.

I'll be posting proof of my Dressember on instagram and twitter so be sure to follow this little adventure. 

My goal is to raise $50 during the month of December. That is just a little more than $1 a day for the entire month. Would you be a small part of this endeavor? It isn't much, but then again we are celebrating a baby who was to be our Savior. Talk about a little made much.

It's not too late to take part in this movement. Head on over to the Dressember site and join me!

A Way to Build Community and Change the World

It all started a couple of months back when Lisa-Jo decided to have a laundry day for Africa. I thought long and hard about how so many of us feel like we are stuck and only have enough time, energy, and resources to tend the few feet of world around us.

Some days I'm not even sure that I have that.

It is easy to feel guilty. We feel guilty that we wipe runny noses, but haven't done a single thing to wipe out poverty. We feel like our bags of Goodwill donations and our dented cans aren't really making a dent in the whole scope of things and we would love a way to do a little bit more from where we are at.

Then I thought...why can't we? What if we made it a part of our everyday? What if we could find community with other women and make space to reach out beyond our every day?

Osheta Moore articulated so beautifully this guilt in a recent post that she wrote to all of us. She wrote it to all of us who are living in the suburbs, or in small mountain towns (like myself) and who think our sphere of influence is just too small. She wrote it to those of us who would theoretically love to move to the inner city or address issues of human trafficking, but just feel like we can't uproot or change course in this season of our life.

Her words were the newest piece in the puzzle that God has been putting together in my heart. 

I've got some ideas. They are ideas that I think can build community right where we are and change our world in small ways.

We're a month away from the start of another trip around the sun and I want this trip to be a bit different. I want it to be focused and purposeful and full of Gospel living and doing that changes me and my world from the inside out.

I'm thinking that I'm not the only one feeling this pull, feeling the gravity of life pulling at us and struggling to rise above and make this year about more than the average. 

I'm starting it out a bit early. I'm joining up to support the International Justice Mission through the Dressember project (more info to come) for the month of December. I'm also hosting a Girl's Night In&Out Christmas shoe cutting party for Sole Hope.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to unveil the whole plan for 2014. I hope that this community of women will link arms with me and begin to see our lives, our towns, our reach in today's world, our sphere of influence past our mailboxes, our calling as women, wives, mamas, grandmas, sisters, Jesus followers in a totally new way.

Sisters, this ain't about guilt. It ain't about wondering what more we could be doing. It's about doing what we can from where we are and investing in one another in the process.

You in?