To All Who Mother Motherless

There are a hundred ways to lose a mother. 

Cancer, car accidents, cocaine habits...

Depression, disability, distance...

My mother died when I was twelve. A man crossed the solid yellow lines and crashed her van onto the side of the road. Her loss is as much a part of me as the double helixes of DNA that make me curly headed and fair skinned.

I'm writing to you because I want you to know that you are welcome in this place and you are far from alone in the journey. I hear it from so many of you and I can see the tears that have trailed your cheeks stained. You carry a heavy weight because your mama couldn't bare fully the weight of motherhood. 

If I could see your soul it would likely look hollowed out, malnourished in all the motherless places. Years of living motherless can leave you hungry to know the curve of a mothers love, the way it can wrap itself around the bare places of your heart.

Some of you are like me. You lost your mama to circumstance or illness and you wish with all your heart that she could be here, by your side, a phone call away during those midnight feedings.
 
Others of you have mothers who made the choice to quit when you needed her most. She walked out and kept walking despite your cries and desperate need. I believe it all aches the same. No loss is more or less and the hurt, regardless of how it happened, can debilitate us. The ache can whisper into our hearts and minds that we are lacking in every way.

Let me cup your face in my hands and look deep in your eyes for a moment because there is something you deeply need to hear. It is something that I have deeply needed to hear.

Your ability to mother the children God has given you has nothing to do with how you were or were not mothered. 

I know it feels differently. I know in those moments when the baby is crying, the toddler is wailing, the teen slammed the door (again) and you disagree with your husband that it can seem the world is imploding and you're the one to blame because you weren't mothered well. I know sweet sister. I know that ache and I know the thousands of tears that you've cried because you thought you were getting it ALL wrong.

Let me whisper truth into your soul. That is a lie. 

God says He has given us everything we need for life and Godliness and that He will supply all your needs according to His riches. He is rich in grace for the motherless among us. He says once you were without hope but now He has given you a hope and future. He has placed you in a family.

You get to be the mama and you get to be a part of God's rewriting of the story.

Your past? The generations of women in your family that mothered with a limp? Women who struggled along and gave grief when they should have heaped grace? The cycle ends with you. 

There is a fire that burns bright for those of us who have lived motherless.

Motherless women have a passion unparalleled to mother well.

I know you feel it. You can be at a loss most of the time about the "how-to's" of motherhood but you rarely are at a loss about the gravity of your calling.

We are women who celebrate most bravely the big accomplishments and tiny victories of the everyday. We are mama bears who wrestle cubs into bed and read an extra story because we're utterly convinced it matters.  

In Christ we mother whole even with a hole in our hearts. That's the beauty of redemption. Redemption doesn't erase the scars it simply gives them meaning. It gives their story depth so that when we recount the tale to our sons and daughters we can share a different ending.

Motherhood begins long before the labor pains. We learn the lay of the land from the women before us but when we hold those precious ones to our chest our story takes on a life of it's own. Live that story in confident hope God will meet you in the middle and fill in all the gaps and cracks.

And if you're ever feeling alone in the midnight of motherhood just wave a hand. I'll be there and together we'll remember the truth. We are whole in Christ. Whole to mother fully though our own mothers failed us. Whole to risk failure to change the future.

Are you feeling the ache today? Leave your tears and hurts in the comments and we'll take it to Jesus together.

The Whole Truth

Sometimes you have to be bold and say it out loud. You have to say what happened to you or what you experienced even through blinked back tears and when you have no idea how it will come out.

Three weeks ago I miscarried our second child.

I’ll be honest, I’ve not wanted to be a blogger who wrote about having a miscarriage- not that anyone “wants” to have the experience and write about it. Please know that I am grateful for those of you who have written about that experience, but {and please hear the grace in this} I didn’t want to be that writer. It isn’t a story I wanted to tell.

My mom had miscarriages. She isn’t here to ask about them, but I do know that they were before she had my brother or myself. I’m blessed I have a healthy daughter a gloriously ordinary first pregnancy and no previous miscarriages, but I think that somewhere in my soul I knew that I would walk this road. Maybe I’m walking this road for someone else who is going to walk it behind me.

The first thing that I said to my husband when I realized that we were probably losing the baby was that I dreaded telling people. Most of our family knew about our impending addition and we’d slowly started sharing the news with an ever widening circle of friends. Some of you are hearing this for the first time and for that I am sorry. Grace?

It wasn’t that I was afraid of what people would say. I know that we are loved and that tenderness and sympathy would be in heavy supply from all. I’ve been scarred by tea and sympathy from losing too many in my life. I have an aversion to it. Kyle gently reminded me that I didn’t have to tell anyone.

I’d almost decided not too.

My reluctance to tell this part of my story has to do with my own struggle with grief. I’ve realized that I fear being the girl who lost her {fill in the blank}. Growing up I was the girl who lost her parents and this has reminded me that I still worry about that being the way people one dimensionally see me.

Truth be told I don’t have to sit here and write this story out for everyone who stumbles on my blog to read, but as I’ve mulled over this new part of my story I knew that it wouldn’t be authentic to hide it. I’m not afraid of the ugly pieces of my story because I know that those are not irredeemable pieces for God.

Let me say that I am okay. The recovery has been very manageable and we’ve been cared for well. Yes, it stinks that we lost a baby. I’ve sob-soaked a t-shirt or two of my husbands in recent weeks. I’m dealing with my emotions {alone time, Scripture, chocolate, girl time, good books, Zumba class and retail therapy help} and I’ve been shored up by a few sisters who have walked with me through this in the most tender way.

I’ve wrestled with the right emotions in the midst of it all. I was between 9-10 weeks when it happened so it was still early. My connection to the baby was not super strong at that point and so the loss doesn’t feel as great. In some ways I wish that it did because that is the way that I think I should feel, but don’t.

That was scary to write because that bumps up against all kinds of insecurity I harbor about being a good mom. Should I be more emotional? I did just lose a child. Will someone think that I don’t value life or personhood because my child was only 10 weeks old when I miscarried and I’m not overly distraught about what happened? These are questions that swirl as I type.

I’d say the biggest thing for me right now is the fears that are creeping around the edges of life as we think about the future. What ifs are a huge trigger for my anxiety and I’m having to press forward in letting that go and believing that all is grace whether we have another child or another miscarriage.

Sorry for being a serious Debbie-downer right before Mother’s Day. I tried to not hit “publish” but it felt unauthentic. Someone out there is walking this path right now and I hope that you can see me a few steps ahead waving and telling you that it is ok to not know how you feel and to keep walking any way.

Every woman who has carried a child, no matter how long or how short, knows that our children break parts of us off. They split us open and down the middle and we’re never quite the same once their lives have touched ours. Even if it is an ever so light touch.

Let’s be sad for a second together. Let the weight of it sink in. Let the tears fall free. Don’t fight it or question it. I promise to sit with you for as long as you need.

I don’t have anything revolutionary or mind-blowing to say about this experience. I’m still processing it and the half dozen other things that have blindsided us these past few weeks- April was a doozy of a month.

All I know is that I want to share in this space my real in every way. I’ve made a point to always do that and even though these aren’t the words I wanted to add to my story in April of 2014 they are evidently the ones that God wanted to add. Not the words of a cruel unfeeling God, but the words of a master storyteller honing His craft in my life for my good and His glory.

Thanks for cupping this story in your hands gently.

{Feel free to share your own miscarriage/loss stories in the comments. Whisper them in an email handmedowngrace(at)gmail(dot)com if you aren’t brave enough to say them out loud. I’d love to hear your sweet words of encouragement- keep it light and lovely though. I need some happy up in here.}

A bit of happy to add…

The giveaway for The Vintage Honey Shop teething necklace is still going on and I’d love for you to enter. Seriously, it would knock my socks off to give a piece of beauty to you. You. Yes, YOU! Go enter!

+ Mother’s Day, HELLO! Break out the breakfast in bed and day off of dishes!

Catch up on this weeks reads…

This week has been full of great posts:

Why We Can Say “Yes” In Our Mess {Kristen Welch’s Rhinestone Jesus is now available!}

Mother’s Day Redeemed {For all of the motherless daughters out there}

100 Way You Know You’re A Mom {A Guest Post by Lisa-Jo Baker!}

Learning to Share {+ a giveaway from The Vintage Honey Shop}

What I'm So Afraid Of

This week we've been getting up close and personal with the things that frighten us most over in the Velvet Ashes community. Today we take a real leap and take off the mask of being just fine.

We aren't the only one's doing it.

A few weeks ago Glennon Melton of Momastery asked a few well-known writers/faces to be real about what they fear the most. The result was a series entitled "Sacred Scared". We're doing something similar over in The Grove at Velvet Ashes and we invite you to do the same. So here is me make-up-less and as real as it gets.

"I'm afraid that I'll always fail at everything I do because I'm just not good enough."

There are a few things in my life that I am super proud of. Things that I worked hard at and accomplished with great effort. But for every one thing that I have accomplished there are a dozen things that I've avoided because I thought I wasn't good enough, smart enough, creative enough, {insert other adjective enough} and I was convinced that I shouldn't try for fear of failure.

I still do that. If it seems too hard you probably won't find Jess working at it because she's already counted herself out. If it seems impossible then I've probably already done everything to make that self-fulfilling prophesy come true. 

I am terrified of failure. 

This carries over into every area of my life.

Motherhood? Yeah, I'm constantly thinking that I am failing and that I don't have a clue what I'm doing. Most days I spend it pretty convinced of that fact.

Writing? I've convinced myself over and over again that anything I have to say can and will be said better by someone else. I shrink away from the challenge of writing things that are significant because I'm afraid that I am undeniably insignificant.

For some risk is a challenge met with hard work and determination. My only determination in life has been to avoid the risk of failure. If I don't try I can't fail.

I know all the Sunday School answers and all the bumper sticker parts of Scripture to slap on this struggle, but it is something I come back to again and again. It holds me back. It has paralyzed me in many ways and relationships.

I have a real problem with that voice in my head that tells me that I am not worthy of good things. The voice in my head likes to make me think that I am only worthy of failure and the broken bits of life. It makes me think that I will lose or fail at anything I put my hands too. 

I recognize this, but it continues to be a very real struggle.

I don't know if it ever won't be. I just know that I have to start trying and that I'm going to have to try scared if I am going to try at all.

Embrace and Let Go

We all know the feeling. The lurch in your stomach when you feel like who you are just isn't who you should be. That drop in your gut when you realize that what you have looks like a piddly sum next to her new this or nicer that. The pressure that you just feel like you fail miserably at living up too.

It can be awfully easy to live under a weight of fear, comparison and discontent and not even realize it. The only thing that a weight like that can do is crush you. It will crush you with fear and compound itself with insecurity and maybe no one else sees it but believe me when I say it will keep you from living fully God's vision for your life.

For two years I've wrestled fear until I realized that I was only Jacob's daughter, a thousand times removed, in a grudge match with God. Wrestling needlessly for the blessing when He had already given it full and free.

It was back in September- before Allume and God's big nudge to keep doing this writing thing. I had begun to feel God truly beginning to make a dent in my fearful heart. Under all the hardened fear of the "what ifs" He was unearthing the soft pliable truth of the "what could be's" and in the midst of it all He gave me a word for this coming year.

Embrace. 

It was a whisper. A whisper that I only heard because I'd been listening closer than ever to the sound of His voice.

It sounded a bit like this...

Stop worrying about who you are or who people think you are and just embrace who I made you to be. You get this one life to fling your arms around wide and I've given you everything you need so stop running scared, turn around, open the arms and heart and embrace it all.

The ugly.
The hard.
The work ahead.
The beauty.
The loss.
The quirky sense of humor.
The busted expectations.
The worn out.
The grace.

Embrace grace and you'll never hold tight to fear. 

And there it was. The permission I'd been looking for from underneath the crushing weight of fear. Embrace it all and you'll find you're embracing me, the God with us, the God for us, the God who cannot fail.

Sisters, this may be my "One Word" for 2014 but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is a word for us all.

I confess that I have no clue, at least not fully, how this word is going to turn my (or your's, maybe?) world upside down this year, but I'm certain that it will. I have a few ideas. The first is an idea so big that I wanted to share it with as many people as I could so I'll be over at (in)courage near the end of January to tell everyone about it.

I don't see "embrace" as a word for women who appear to be living small lives huddled in isolation. No, "embrace" is a call to me and all of us to take hold of who God is making us to be and to live it without fear.

The thing is, in order to embrace all of God's promises, we have to let go of some lies. The lie that we're enough or that we can do it all or perhaps worse even, she can do it all.

It is a Kingdom of paradoxes. Grab hold of God. Embrace Jesus. Let go of the rest.
Embrace and let go.

2014 here we come.

I'd love to hear some more of your words for 2014! Share them in the comments or over on my facebook page!

My One Word for 2014

{I'm back a bit early from my blog break with my "One Word" for 2014!}
Two years ago I made my "One Word" for the year "Fearless". I had no idea at the time that the ramifications of that choice would stretch into every area of my life as God challenged me to lean into Him and let go of the hand of fear.

Fear had a firm grasp and after a year of "Fearless" it was still gripping my hand and pulling me along as I scraped to get away. I tried to choose another word. I wanted "Love" or "Joy" or another sunny sounding word to be my mantra for the year. Instead I found myself scrawling a new notecard with "Fearless" and pinning it over my desk.

I felt like a failure. I felt like there must be something I missed that was keeping me bound by fear.

The truth was that I had missed something. I had missed Jesus.

Photo Credit: rishibando via Compfight cc 

Two years and a heck of a fist fight with fear later and I'm  unveiling my "One Word" for 2014 over at Velvet Ashes today! Curiosity got your goat? Go on over and take a peek! 

I'll be back on tomorrow with more on what this "One Word" means for the year ahead. 

Q: Do you have "One Word" for the year? Let's hear them! 

Brave Husbands and a Brave Choice

Airport shot heading to Kenya one month ago.

He looks up at me and says it again, the thing that he has said to me a thousand times.

"Just tell me if it is too much. Tell me if something needs to change. You are my first ministry."

He's says it so plainly and I envy his ability to be direct. I'm the girl who chases words down. I hunt them and find that they are all too often elusive in my daily life and relationships.

The words spin out of control in my head and never seem to make it out of my mouth the same way they come out of my pen.

I swallow the fear and push down the words.

I want to tell him that it is all too much. I want to tell him that I want a nice neat life where everything is known and controlled and where he stays put.

This girl with wanderlust turned a woman who lives fearful. 

I used to be the girl that wanted to see the world and then I got scared of everything, of the way a plane banks and steals my sense of control.

But he still hangs hard onto his wandering heart and that has taken him to North Korea and all over the African continent to fill empty cups with water and Gospel hope. I've done my fair share of adventuring, but I stay home more often than not these days with a toddler and a fort to hold down.

I don't tell him "no" and he keeps going and pushing and watching God bless the work of our hands and the ministry we've committed too. 

You see, I don't not pour out the fear because I'm afraid. No, I don't pour it out because Jesus poured out His blood and calls me to more.

I'm not saying that we should bury feelings or suppress the truth. I'm saying that sometimes we have to choose to step forward into big things without excuses. We can't look behind us and plow the ground in front of us. If some else's grass is greener then we are only left to assume that they let God tend and grow it.

When our husbands are called to something brave we have a few choices.

We can block them at every turn and live small fearful lives. 

When you quench the Spirit your husband's spirit will be squelched.  Don't think that you can live in the sin of fear (and it IS sin sister, it IS) and see your life and those you love flourish. It won't happen. It will choke you and everyone you love and it is the rock hard ground that illogically breeds the hearty seed of resentment.

We can say "yes" but live the "no".

You can look into your husbands eyes and sob out "yes" and then you can wake up every morning and live the "no" in ways that prevent him from stepping out boldly. You can withhold prayers, your support, your self all while speaking empty words of solidarity. We have to carry our cross without carrying a chip on our shoulders.

or...

We can tell the truth, that it scares us pale and breathless, but instead of living "no" we can cling to Jesus and live the "yes". Even if you are scared say "yes" and live "yes".

When we hit our knees fear hits a wall.

That wall is Jesus and He is the perfect love that perfects us and kicks fear to the curb. If we're scared of our calling then maybe we don't know the sound of the Saviors voice that beckons us forward. 

He looks at my eyes and he can see the fear that swims in their green depths and he knows that it can damn near drown me at times. He knows that his calling, OUR calling, tests my faith on every front and he isn't insensitive to the thorn in my side. 

But sister, if you married him and you believe that God has called you to whatever it is...a ministry, a job change, a business idea, a crazy God-sized dream...well, then God called you too. He called you both and that might look different on any given day, but you are both called to the same obedience.

When he looks at you and asks if you are with him say "yes" and live the "yes". 

Find your place in your husband's calling and live it full and fearless. Believe you have a place in his calling.

My husband is the bravest man I know. He's walked away more than once from the security of normalcy. He has done the uncomfortable, the uncertain, the unpredictable. I've watched. I've lived all of the choices and the one I come back to is the "yes" and "yes".

If you want a marriage that thrives say "yes" and live the "yes". 

My husband has made me more brave and with every "yes" fear dies a bit and we live our calling, together, just a little bit more.

{I'm posting this to welcome home my brave and bold husband from a three week stint in Kenya. I'm so blessed to be living the "yes" with him.}

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.}

Unsurpised by Fear

Motherhood is often about doing the hard stuff, the thankless work, the up all night with no tangible rewards work. When our children need us we put aside self and our own needs to put their needs first.

We push down fear and we push down anxiety, but there are times when all of the fear bubbles to the surface and overflows into every nook and cranny of our lives; marriage and motherhood included.

When fear starts pressing on our hearts and minds we shouldn't be surprised. God certainly isn't. We live in a fear prone world. A world in which we even incite ourselves to fear via scary movies and the evening news.

We've got to be able to be honest with ourselves about our fears and the way they affect our ability to live Godly lives in this present world as wives, mothers and women of the Word.

Even though there is plenty to fear it doesn't mean that it is okay for us to let fear be our comfort zone. I know there are times when I have allowed fear to be the thing I am most comfortable with. Rather than doing the hard work of clinging to the cross I cling to my fears because that is what seems more natural.

If we hide fear we will find that we are not hiding in Jesus. We will find that we are actually trying to live life in our own strength while we grapple secretly with fear that is trying to drown us.

The Psalmist puts it so beautifully and the implications for our lives are enormously powerful. We are a fear prone people and motherhood inclines us only to further fear.

God knows that. God isn't surprised by our fears. Not. One. Bit.

He is a fear prepared God.

Take your fear and run into His strong tower. Don't rely on your three little pigs style stick house. Run to the fortress that is our God and find rest and safety.

Ask yourself the hard questions. What is lighting your path? In what are you looking for salvation?  What are you clinging to? Is fear a stronghold or is the Lord your strength?

{What are your fears? Write the down if you haven't already. No matter how ugly, dark or unmentionable they seem. Identify the places where you are fighting fear in your own strength. Claim the truth of Psalm 27:1.}

Did you miss last weeks "Fearless Motherhood" post? Give it a read. 

5 Minute Friday: She

A wonderful thing happens each Friday over at Lisa Jo's and here on my lil' blog. A gaggle of writers let their hair down and their words run wild for five glorious minutes. Read. Join us. Enjoy every word flung free.

My 5 Minutes on "She"

She's learning the art of manipulation. She wails for half an hour- a fit of rage against sleep. I finally sneak in to soothe and the crying immediately ceases and her arms fling skyward with a cry of "Daaaaddddyyyy!" It is sweet and frustrating and I suppress laughter and a bit of anger over the whole mess.

The way a girl can bat lashes and coo sweet to get what she wants. I nod knowing, but I cringe. These are the things that travel with us from when we are little girls until we are grown women. The way that we learn to live and pseudo-love and use people for our own benefit.

It can seem innocent, but it doesn't grow roots of Godliness.

I had an older woman once give a group of my girlfriends from high school a lecture on manipulation. She said that it was a gift that we could use as women to make the world, our husbands really, do what we wanted. I remember shifting in my seat uncomfortably with a knot in my stomach that told me something just wasn't quite right with that thinking.

I still shift in my seat uncomfortably because I know that I've used it to my benefit and that it is a godless tool or rather a tool in which the only god is me.

I want more for my daughter. She is made,by God, for so much more. 




Would you join me again today? You could win some real beauty. Every Friday in September I'm writing on what it means to be "Stitched Together in Love" as a Christ follower and each post comes with a chance to win a piece of handmade goodness. My friend Joanna is giving something away today!

5 Ways to Hold Your Children Together in a Broken World

She climbed right up on the table on hands and knees to cup a sweaty mason jar brimming with sweet Southern nectar. She gulps big and I turn around just in time to see glass turned up. I scoop her up and put her down on the ground. All thirty inches of a child who knows no fear of heights or hurts. I'm the only one that saw visions of an imminent fall and broken glass. She knows only freedom to roam safe within the walls of our home.

I'm a mama less than eighteen months old. I'm prone, so very prone, to fears of all things big and small. Big fears that storms will come and winds will blow us over or disease will wipe us out in the prime of our life leaving wee girls alone. Small fears that plans will alter and disagreements will happen and I will be left alone. Alone with my thoughts, alone with my fears, alone. Somehow my fears always end with me alone.

Isn't that all of our fears? That we will end up alone with no advocate, with no one to stand in the gap for us?

I watch her eyes dart from me to her daddy and back again. She is searching our eyes for fear. She is searching our faces for signs that she should fear. I kneel down to her level and tell her to be brave. I tell her that we are standing right here and she is never as alone as a heart can feel.

I talk to a woman in the evening years of life. The years when our eyes turn homeward a bit more and the idea of staying here in this ragged bent and broken world starts to lose it's luster. I realize that the world only gets more broken the longer you stay.

How do you teach your children to walk straight in a broken and bent world? 


She is small now and I can shade her eyes from the hurt and horror that is the daily newsfeed. I can shelter her from Oklahoma tornadoes and from people in bondage around the world, but at some point the brokenness will break in and break her and the only way that she can hold together is in Christ.

He holds us together till the end and maybe the end comes at the hands of wicked cancer or at the hands of a tsunami or even at the hands of another human just lookin' for some cash for a fix. All I know is that in Christ no matter how the brokenness breaks us God has made a plan to make us whole and better than new for all eternity. We've got to learn to live that not just mentally ascent to it by singing a round of "In the Sweet By and By" at grandma's funeral.

We have to break the spell of the brokenness by believing that winter will not last forever and a King has come, will come and break it for all eternity. 

5 Ways to Model Wholeness in a Broken World: 

• Serve- Acknowledge the brokenness by being a means of grace to the suffering among us. Get your hands dirty serving in your community or in another country. 

• Share- Make your kids aware that this is a broken world, but that there is one solution; Christ. Teach them to share that truth with everyone they meet through words, deeds and joy.

• Give Thanks- Make gratitude the posture of your own heart and train your children to do the same. 

• Live without fear- Bad things may happen, will happen, but God says perfect love (which He gives us!) casts out fear. You can live without fear and you can teach your kids to do the same. You can't raise a child and hold them back at the same time. 

•  Make your home a haven- Your home can be a haven from fear for both your kids and your community. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just swing open the doors and invite folks into your imperfect life to share grace. 

My Solo (in)RL

{In which I tell you about (in)RL using my own story}

Three weeks ago we moved to a new town.

I wrote last week about my longing for friendship. I cracked the door so that you could see that I hate all of this new kid stuff and just want friends that are old, worn in and comfortable.

The move really messed up my plans for (in)RL. I had thought about how much I would love to gather a big bunch of ladies into my home for mugs of goodness and cat-head sized cupcakes and chocolate...lots of chocolate. Instead the move found me in a small mountain town {read as not an (in)RL meetup for a couple of hours} with not a familiar soul in sight.

{In my defense I invited one lady, but despite my best efforts no dice...}

I'm not complaining about the move. I'm more than blessed and happy to have made this long awaited move, but after more than my fair share of moves the newness of being new has gotten, well...a bit old. So when the (in)RL weekend rolled around I realized I'd be flying solo it was not exactly what I had envisioned.

But just like everything God is always ahead of the curve...working in my own heart...

I wept through the opening video full of faces that I adore and hearts that I adore even more.

{Oh, and I got to be the "Pass the chocolate poster" so that pretty much made the whole event for me. Thanks to whoever made that fortuitous choice.}

The theme was about the challenges of staying in community. That has been a huge challenge logistically for me- explains my current predicament. {sigh}

{a bit of context for my (in)RL insights}

Last week the wee girl and I ventured out to our first round of toddler time at the local library. I viewed it as potential to make a few connections with other women in the local community. I psyched myself up with the reminder that the women I was about to meet are just like me even if on the surface we look different- Mamas trying to survive and needing to know they aren't alone in the fight.

I saw it on a few of their faces. They needed someone to see them.

I left the group with a couple of new acquaintances and an overall sense that there might really be some potential connections. This was a big step for me.

You see I'm not shy, but all the new girl stuff gives me icky feelings right in the pit of my stomach and can bring all of my ugly insecurities bubbling to the surface. I'm somewhat of an introvert- actually I'm a hybrid introvert and extrovert- an ambivert if you will. It's a thing, trust me.

I've always been really aware of my need for community with other women, but in the past I have sat back and waited for community to come to me. I pursued only when pursued. I realized something last week and (in)RL only fanned the flames of this epiphany.

In Christ I can pursue community without fear. I can look at the women that walk across my path and I can run right up to them and put my arm around them and say, "How are you doing?" and not worry about my own insecurity.

I loved what my friend Anna said in the (in)couragers video (Anna, forgive the paraphrase will ya?). She said that being an (in)courager has made her more brave in relationships. She's the one calling on the phone and pursuing community with other women when in the past she didn't do that.

Me either girl, me either! 

I realized that my role as an (in)courager {In which I get to virtually wrap my arms around a big group of new mamas and encourage them big} has opened my eyes and heart in a new way to other women.

The amazing Lisa-Jo in a video with lovely Ann said something {again really bad paraphrasing from poorly taken notes} that because of Christ we don't have to feel like we owe one another anything in community. I loved this thought. I felt so encouraged by the idea that I can open my arms up wide to every sister I meet not because I have so much to give them, but because Christ has given me so much.

But the staying stuff...that is the hard stuff, right?

Stacey Thacker, blogger and (in)courager extraordinaire, talked about a friend she had as a young mom and what she said when Stacey's family moved away. She said that it is much harder to be the one staying. As someone who recently moved I couldn't help thinking of the women in the church we just left.

They are doing the hard work of staying.

Yeah, I'm here in my new town and unfamiliar surroundings. The temptation is to feel self-pity when really I have been given an opportunity. I'm here blazing a trail of new relationships, but they are there still trudging through the nitty gritty of daily life with one another and it isn't always pretty. 

Oh no, it is not always pretty. It is not always mugs of goodness and cat-head sized cupcakes.

It reminded me of years ago when I was a part of a ministry that really centered on community I found myself knee deep in the mud of real community and it was hard. It showed me a lot of my sin and uncovered some things that weren't so pretty about my heart. Staying in community with other believers might just expose some ugly places and it might just hurt.

I'm left with a question.

Do I want to build that here? Do I want to step out of my front door and into someone else's life when it may very well get ugly. Do I want to chant inwardly as I walk toward another woman that we are all the same- souls in need of the Light of Christ, broken women in need of the community that only Christ can bring.

The answer that (in)RL inspired, the answer that the heart of the Gospel requires is, "YES!"

Next year I hope my living room is full of beautifully broken women. I hope that this year is an Ebenezer stone on the road to that day. I believe wholeheartedly that it is.

The Truth About the Way Through Fear

Don't think for a second that bravery is not being scared.

Bravery is being shaking, quaking in your boots scared and walking forward anyway.

Here is the truth, the very hard and honest truth. One day it will all be over. There will be no more seconds on the clock or second chances to live without a regret littering the way.
 
The only way to the other side is to walk straight through and every step might be drowning in fear, but moving forward is the only way. 

Once I was on a backpacking excursion through the canyon lands of Utah. I wasn't feeling well and we'd been out for two weeks and were lost. The day was just too much and I sat down. I sat down right in the middle of the trail at dusk and I cried big alligator tears.

Evil wins the victory if we sit down where we are and sisters, brothers, I have been guilty, more than I would like to admit, of sitting down in the middle of the trail and refusing to get up.

Here is another very honest, raw and real truth- Good can exist side by side with the bad and if we refuse to move forward because we are afraid of the hard, the hurt, the helplessness that we risk feeling then we might very well be rejecting the full, holy and heartening good that is just ahead, over the vista that looks so far away.

The rain outside is pouring down and I hardly know a soul in our new town. The insurance has stopped and the bank account will get one more paycheck from my husband's former employer before we are left with what is in it. This is where the fear mounts and the question remains.

Will we keep walking forward? 

My temptation is to sit down right where I am and just weep hard the fears and frights that are tapping on my shoulder. The only thing that can make me rise right up out of fear is to turn up the voice of Jesus louder than the whispers of my fearful heart.

The voice of Jesus gently calls me forward. His Word is more truth than any one soul can bare. It is the most raw and real of all truths that the broken and bruised is new and whole in His light. 

One day when all of this is over- all this faith walking and blind jumping after a God whose promises are always calling us forward- I'm going to brush these fears away like old dried up cobwebs and know deep in my soul that all that I worried would've, could've, should've didn't happen because God never once let us go.

We can walk fearless because there is nothing, not one thing that this world can do to us, that God hasn't already finished, paid for in full.

I've been blow away this morning by the response to this post. It seems like God is whispering to a lot of folks' heart. If you wrote about fighting fear today add your link below. Let's turn this God whisper into a holy roar of truth.

His Faithfulness Precedes Him

I’m standing on this side of things hoped for, but yet unseen.  We’ve moved in and out of thecountry and across town more times than I can count over the course of our seven year marriage and we’re about to pick up roots one more time and move to a new town and a new calling. 

I don’t have the slightest doubt that this is what we are supposed to do. We’re leaning hard into Him for the big stuff, the God-sized stuff. 

I’m beginning to think it is all God-sized stuff.

A year and a half ago we moved back from the coast of West Africa. My belly was bulging with a wee one on the way, my husband had no job and we had nowhere to live. I remember that summer wrestling with anxiety over where we would sleep, where this little one would sleep, where we would call home.   

In the end my husband found a job in a new city and started it the week after Labor Day that year. We found a rental house that was affordable and more than we needed. All the big stuff was covered. God showed up in a big way for us. 

Still I had anxiety about life in general. I knew no one except some family that lived in the same city, but an hour away. An hour isn’t exactly within “Can I borrow a cup of sugar?” distance.  We began to hunt for a church. In the past this has been a frustrating task so we braced for awkward worship experiences, meet and greets and the inevitable getting to know you stuff. 

I hate “icebreakers”. Can I get an “Amen!”? 

What we didn’t realize is that God had already gone before us. We found a church within a couple of weeks and one of the pastors turned out to be an old friend. Still as a woman, particularly an expectant mama, I longed for someone who already knew me to put their arm around me and let me know that they saw me and were praying for me. 

Assurance came wrapped as a gift. 

A friend who I had never met gave me a baby gift. Did you catch that? A friend who I had never met gave me a baby gift. We were visiting a church small group for the first time and she had heard that I was pregnant. I now know this friend to be a crafting ninja and one of the kindest, sweetest, most giving women I know, but at the time I was shocked and surprised that she had a beautifully wrapped handmade gift for me the first time we met. 

That gift was more than a gift. It was a hug straight from God. It was the evidence of things that I had not seen in the midst of anxiety and fear. It was evidence that God goes before us into every circumstance and makes a way for the big and the small. 

A few weeks ago I had an emergency doctor’s appointment and I sent out a text to a group of local friends looking for someone to watch my now wild girl. Women that I never imagined being a part of my life a year and a half ago responded in unison to meet this need. God arranged for them to meet my need long before the moment the need was felt. 

I am confident that He is doing the same for you friend. He doesn’t play favorites. 

For women who are grounded in one place and doing life together- make sure you look around at those coming into your circles. You might be an answer to prayer. You might be the radical kindness that a newbie is in need of to make them feel at home, to make them feel like they belong in a new place.

A year and a half later and God’s call is taking us to another set of “new” everything. New home, new community, new church, new ministry. I’m standing on this side of faith and I’m scared that I won’t make any friends in the new town. 

I’m afraid that I won’t have anyone to watch my daughter when I have a doctor’s appointment. 

I’m tempted toward anxiety over a million things outside of my direct control. Some of you are sharing my shoes. You have moved to a new town away from community and family, your husband is without a job, you are a new mama and you feel isolated and alone. There are a million different versions of my shared story. 

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and God promises that He is always on the other side of life’s question marks with more than enough answers to our heart cries. Some of those answers come with faces and handmade gifts. 

I have no idea what my new community will be like. It might be hard from beginning to end, but undoubtedly God is there. He goes before us. His faithfulness precedes Him and makes it safe to follow His lead. 

The Move and An Opportunity to Bless

I can't find which end is up right now. This big, brave move that we're about to make seems stuck in slow motion and buried in boxes in need of sorting. Friends, I'm going to be MIA for the next week. Partly because of all the moving business and partly because we're cutting our internet off in a couple of days. All of it is scary- including the internet-less situation.

This is the stuff that this blog is made of. The stuff that God is re-making my fearful heart out of. Fearlessness and faith all rolled into one ball of life and lived out for you to read on the screen.

Thanks for reading and right now if you wouldn't mind would you pray for me? Pray that I can love my family well and that all of this anxiousness would be turned to joy and praise for a God who revels in showing up big for us.In the meantime let me tell you about some amazing friends of ours who are doing some thing big and brave themselves.

The Clarks are a family of six (4 boys including a set of twins!) already and are going to folding into their family a beautiful little girl through the ministry of adoption. They are selling raffle tickets for a chance to win something amazing from Thirty One Gifts! I can't begin to share with you about this family. They work for Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters- a camp ministry that engages teens as well as men and women of all ages to live radical lives of faith for Christ (it is also where me and the husband met and married!)- where they teach students how to share the Gospel and grow in faith through the ministry of service.

It would really bless my socks off and encourage my heart if you would click over and enter the raffle with a $10 donation. This family loves Jesus and your small investment will place this little girl that God already ordained for their family in their home to be wrapped in His loving arms.

Who doesn't want to be a part of that?

Off to do some more packing, sigh...Thanks for every single tweet of encouragement and facebook message along the way!

What Brave Looks Like

My husband walked into his office yesterday and turned in his notice. Two short weeks from now he will no longer be employed in a "secure" job. A couple of weeks from now our medical insurance will stop and the bills will keep going. No, he doesn't have a better job offer that he has accepted. At least not a job offer that the world would call better. Yes, we know that the economy isn't good. Yes, we know that we have a child and that to the world this is an irresponsible and foolish move. We're aware of the upside down approach to life we're taking. We've counted the cost and well... 

We just think that God is bigger.

I would be lying if I didn't feel a bit of a lurch in my stomach over the whole grand adventure. This year of fearless is putting my will to the test in enormous ways. How badly do I want to live fearlessly? How badly do I want God-shaped bravery to consume my life? We're talking big, God-sized stuff, but again, isn't all of this life God-sized stuff if we're honest? Isn't the reason that we can walk into each moment with confidence because God is there in each moment and has been since before time?

This is a dream that we've been holding close for a few years now. The realization of a dream that was birthed in West Africa and has been growing through hard days and the even harder soil of our hearts here on the East Coast of the U.S. of A. We let go of the American dream the last time we quit jobs and packed five bulging suitcases for Liberian shores. We traded the idea of white picket fences and apple pie for zinc-roofed shanties and rice with greens and that trade changed us to our soul's core. It shouldn't have surprised us that the idea of coming home and settling into business as usual was not as easy as it had once been, not even possible. The vestiges of the American dream were decorating the corners of our hearts like macrame and wood paneling. It just had to go. What has replaced it is a desire to do life differently, to live life on the edges of faith, hope and love and to trust Him with every ounce of it. 

I'm guilty of wanting God's will to come wrapped in a tidy little box. A box with set parameters and crisp dimensions makes me feel safe and secure about the future, a future that I think I have some (imaginary) semblance of control over, but reality is that I want to dream big dreams. I want to dream God-sized dreams. Dreams that are so big that they will fail unless God shows up big. This dream, we've held close and dared to keep dreaming when it seemed impossible, is becoming a reality and God is going to have to show up big for it to work.

I know that someone is reading this and wondering how we can walk into the uncertain with any hope that we won't be broke and land ourselves in the poor house in six months. All I can say is that God promises and He NEVER goes back on a promise. God doesn't forsake His children and those counted righteous by His Son will never be found begging for bread. Some of you are shaking your heads and saying, "I'd never be able to step out with such faith." This move, this radical stepping out in faith, has nothing to do with us. Folks, we reached the end of our rope a long time ago. The rope was frayed and broken and we decided that God's rope even if it doesn't look long enough or strong enough at times is the better choice. We reached the end of our reaching for security and even though we don't know what the future holds we aren't looking back. We're only straining forward toward the cross and toward a God who glories to show up in gigantic ways for the sake of His great name.

We've been taught to think that brave is when you do something hard or risky and reap a reward for yourself or someone else. I don't know if our reward for this bit of faith bravery will be seen on this side of heaven. I don't know if we'll ever have anything to "show" for this life lived trusting desperately in a God who does not fail. We're just a little family with a God-sized dream. A little family that has decided that the American dream is far too small for us. Brave often looks like blind faith, even foolish, and today it looks like my husband quitting his job because He believes in a great big Gospel and a great big God.

We only look brave because we're trusting a God who is too big to fail.

Visit our family blog for more information on where we're going, what we're doing and how you can be a part of making "things hoped for" a reality for the ministry ahead.