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My husband Justin says, “The more you trust God, the more...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:00:00 -0400

My husband Justin says, “The more you trust God, the more generously you’ll give. And the more generously you give, the more you will trust God” and I know he’s right because I’ve lived the truth alongside him.

When we didn’t have any left over and we gave anyway and everything worked out.

When Christmas was going to be tight for us but tighter for someone else and so we helped out.

When we felt stupid giving back the money we’d just been given but did it anyway.

Every time Justin and I have chosen to give, we’ve been 100 percent certain it was the right choice. Nobody ever regrets generosity.

Tonight my small group read in Proverbs, “Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf… A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”

Last week I found this website (maybe you’ve seen it): ilikegiving.com. Awesomeness.

It’s full of stories of people who decided to live with open hands. And the stories are so, so good.

This one, “I Like Car” posted above, makes me cry every time I watch it.

Enjoy!

On Trying to Be a Vulnerable Mother

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:00:12 -0400

“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”

― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

I believe in the power of authenticity and vulnerability. I believe in it as a writer. I believe in it as a wife. I believe in it as a friend. And I believe in it as a mother.

That last one can sometimes be tricky…

I want to be respected by my kids, obeyed and looked up to. I want to inspire confidence. I sometimes want to be Mom, Great and Powerful, and so maybe it’s not the best idea to let them peek behind the curtain.

What does vulnerability look like with your dependents?

Today it looked like apologizing for changing plans and acknowledging that yes, Eve was right, I said we’d go to the park and now we were not going to the park and the reason was that mommy had spent too much time on the computer.

It also looked like admitting that yes, sometimes mommy and daddy eat unhealthy food when the kids go to sleep.

Yesterday I laid in bed with the girls and we talked about Mommy’s weaknesses. I doubt I picked the topic—preschoolers are notorious critics—but I’m sure I welcomed it (or tried to), because I’m trying to be authentic. Because I’m not perfect and my kids know it and we might as well talk about it. So we did.

I told them I’m easily distracted and I forget things. I told them I’d promised to send a blog reader a book more than a month ago and I hadn’t yet. Even though I had notes to myself all over the house and even though I write it on my hand in permanent marker once a week. London chimed in and said I was definitely forgetful, reminding me of the time I forgot to send birthday cookies to her school three days in a row and how by the time I did send cookies nobody remembered whose birthday it had been and the cookies were decorated like Christmas cookies.

Right, I said. I do things like that.

Then I said sometimes it’s hard for me to play pretend with them because I get distracted and can’t remember which character I am, and they nodded and agreed that I’m terrible at pretend.

I said, “Those are some of the things I’m bad at. I will try to remember important things and not be distracted, but no matter what, that will always be hard for me.”

They nodded. “Mhmm.”

And then, because authenticity isn’t self-deprecation, I invited my kids to praise me. I said, “But what is Mommy good at?”

London said writing, though she’s never actually heard any of my stuff. She is impressed that my picture is on the computer screen with words beside it.

Eve said, “Being our mommy.” And I said, “Thank you, Eve. I agree.” And I tickled her until she giggled.

6 Not-About-God Books To Get You Thinking About God

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:43:00 -0400

I love an about-God book as much as the next God-loving gal. I also love, love, love reading a book that isn’t so much about God and yet finding God on every other page.

Since it’s summer and you might be looking for a book to read beside an ocean, a pool or a sprinkler, I figured I’d make a list.

Here are six books you might like if you want to encounter God in an unexpected and enlightening way:

#1 Candide by Voltaire

Candide is the funniest, strangest, and most delightful 250-year-old French novella. It’s short and epic. Reading it, you can’t help but re-evaluate the the way you see the universe. You also might laugh so hard sweet tea comes out your nose.

#2 The Flavor Bible by Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg

This is a cooking resource for the kitchen creative. It’s basically a culinary matchmaker, explaining the basic properties of ingredients and listing potential complimentary partners. Every time I pull out this book I’m reminded of God’s creativity, playfulness, and lavish love.

#3 Wonder by R.J Palacio

Here’s a book for your middle schooler. Okay, I read it and I don’t have a middle schooler. I suppose you could read it, too. :) Wonder is a great book about kindness and difference, about choosing to proactively love the difficult to love. You’ll see God in August Pullman’s face.

#4 Tinkers by Paul Harding

This is a book about dying. Just a heads up in case you were looking for something perky (The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood it is not). Man, this book is beautiful—so rich and layered and perfectly-composed I couldn’t help but read most of it aloud. It’s one of those re-orienting, soul-scraping books that’ll have you talking to God with every turn of the page.

#5 The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

Here’s the feel good book on the list. I read this true story in New York with an agnostic friend and both of us saw God in it. It’s light-soaked.

#6 Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems

Y’all, this book is hilarious. It’s a picture book depicting what the Goldilocks story might have looked like had the bears been dinosaurs. Ha! Anyway, it’s in the moral of the story where I see God. It’s totally something He’d say.

Any thoughts from you guys? Suggest a not-about God (but God-soaked) book in the comments!

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 08:00:11 -0400

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

I cannot list the good gifts my father has given me—too, too many—gifts so much better than bread and fish (though he gave me those, too). He gave the gift of unconditional love, of confidence in my beauty and brains, of loyalty to my mother and commitment to God.

These days, excellent Papa that he is, he spews love like water from a fire hydrant, soaking my girls in attention and delight. I wade in the puddles, gifted in seeing my girls so lavishly loved.

Those are the gifts my dad—my human being dad—gives to his daughter. How much more my Father in heaven…

I Belong to You. You Belong to Me. (OR What I Learned About Submission from Watching West Wing)

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:07:00 -0400

This week I’m volunteering at my church’s Champs Camp. It’s basically VBS meets sports camp with the purpose of reaching our community for Christ. We’re so serious about reaching unchurched kids we don’t even allow our kids to come (unless their parent is volunteering). Camp runs from Monday to Thursday, 9 to 2:30.

It is exhausting. At the end of the day I drive straight to McDonald’s and buy a large, icy diet coke, which I inhale. Today I bought two.

I appreciate Champs Camp. I love getting to know the kids. I love our crazy dance parties. I love beating a ten year old boy in knock out. And I love hearing stories about kids who’ve convinced their parents to come to church on Sunday for the first time in a long time.

But if I’m being honest, Champs Camp isn’t exactly my cup of tea. It’s a lot of silly and a lot of keeping track of name-tags, water bottles, who’s in the bathroom… and a lot of interacting with people. For an introvert, Champs Camp is a challenge. For a distracted, forgetful introvert, it’s like boot camp (assuming you’re not in shape for boot camp and boot camp involves cheers and crafts and lots of loud songs about Jesus). What I’m trying to say is, for me, it’s hard and occasionally unpleasant.

But I volunteer anyway. I volunteer because I serve at the pleasure of Robin Marrs.

More on that in a minute…

These days my husband and I can’t get enough West Wing. We had our first taste a few months back, and—praise be to Netflix—we’ve now consumed five seasons. I almost jumped ship following the disappointing departure of Sam Seaborne, but then that thing happened with Zoey and it seemed inappropriate to leave my friends in their time of need.

Anyway, a few seasons back all the characters started saying this phrase. You’d hear it every time a person was called upon to do or say something they didn’t want to do or say. They’d put up a fight, lose the argument, and then say, sometimes with resolve, sometimes with angst, “I serve at the pleasure of the president.”

I’ve taken to saying it in my head when Justin asks if I would maybe, please wash a load of whites.

I planned today to write a post about serving at the pleasure of the Lord, about how serving at God’s pleasure is better than serving at man’s pleasure because God is perfect and because His pleasure is your good.

Paul says, ”For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In lovehe predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”

I think that post would have been good, because it’s true and convicting, but I think this one will be better because it’s equally true and, for me, ten times as convicting.

While we do whole-heartedly and absolutely commit our lives to serving the Lord, we’re also called upon to “serve at the pleasure” of God’s people.

Back to Champs Camp…

If it were up to me, Champs Camp probably wouldn’t happen. Not because I don’t think it’s good, but because, as we’ve already pointed out, it’s not my thing. It’s Robin Marrs’s thing. She’s our children’s minister. She loves kids. She loves Jesus. She organizes with style and grace. She loves Champs Camp.

And I love her. So I volunteer for Champs Camp.

Sure part of me is thinking “Do you know how many words I could have written today?” but I tell that part to shut up. Because I serve at the pleasure of Robin Marrs.

In case it’s not clear, we’re talking about submission, about subjecting your own preferences and wishes to the preferences and wishes of someone else.

Submission is what makes church work; it’s the secret sauce in unity and cooperation and love.

Paul writes in Romans, “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about yourself—what improvements need to be made on your house, what kind of education your kids are getting, where you’ll spend your vacation or how you’ll spend your bonus check. I care a lot about what makes me happy.

And that makes a lot of sense if my life is mine.

But it’s not.

When we’re a part of a body, what’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine:

If someone at your church loses everything in a fire, your couch is her couch.

If a crying baby needs to be held in the nursery, your arms are his arms.

If the elders ask you to give more generously, your money is their money.

If a widow needs a friend, your time is her time.

And if a friend plans an event to reach a bunch of people with God’s love, your week is her week.

It’s like that song, “I belong to you, You belong to me…”

Submission says, “I serve at the pleasure of the body.”

In an hour or so I’ll head to Champs Camp. I’ll arrive at a building full of people, many of whom are perky morning people. There will be much smile-screaming. I may have to walk through a human tunnel. I will likely turn in circles as I hop on one foot with my tongue stuck out. I will probably be doused with water.

And I will love it. Not because I love screaming and water balloons and ridiculous kids’ songs (I don’t really). I’ll love it because my brothers and sisters love it and because I love my brothers and sisters and because I “belong to all the others.”

Heaven is...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:00:27 -0400

I teach the Bible to third graders. It is an honor. They see God with fresher, keener eyes.

A few weeks ago I listened to them tell me about Heaven. I loved the smiles on their faces and the excitement in their eyes. I especially loved these picture words from the oh-so-innocent, doe-eyed Ella Fox. I loved them so much I decided to print them as is, word for perfect word.

She said, all at once, without (it seemed) a single breath:

Miss Jennifer, I drew a picture of Heaven, well three pictures, but they’re one picture and they’re on the wall at my house.

In the first picture my aunt and granny are walking on a really long red carpet and there are doors all along the carpet and a name on every door and my aunt says to my granny, “Let’s get coffee.”

The second picture is of a long, long, long table with silver plates on it and big silver cups, goblets, and food piled high and everybody has a chair like a throne and the table is in a giant room with a skylight.

The third picture is of my grandfather putting up a tent outside and Skippy is running around the tent barking [she giggles] and the sun is shining and there are flowers everywhere.

I hung on every one of these words as she said them, smiling so big my face hurt later, tears dripping down my cheeks.

I think, should I draw a picture of Heaven, mine would look a lot like Ella’s.

Heaven is coffee with people we love. Heaven is your name known and printed on a door to a room prepared just for you. Heaven is a feast with fancy flatware, everything soaked in special. Heaven is sitting at one table. Heaven is silliness and sunshine and reunion.

What about for you? Fill in the blank: Heaven is _____________________.

Do You Wish God Would Give You More?

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:00:00 -0400

In Joshua 17 we find Joshua assigning land to the twelve tribes of Israel, portioning out Canaan like a giant milk and honey pie, some pieces bigger than others, some with more icing, some with more crust, a few with burned edges.

In this particular chapter, Manasseh confronts Joshua about their too-small piece. They say, “Why have you given us only one allotment and one portion for an inheritance? We are a numerous people, and the Lord has blessed us abundantly.”

Joshua responds by offering some unclaimed forrest land currently inhabited by Canaanites.

Manasseh balks at the offer, says they don’t have the means to take the land.

But Joshua doesn’t budge. He says, “You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”

I think of this story every time I survey the map of my inheritance and find it lacking, when I ask God to give me more of something—more money, more talent, more patience, more wisdom.

Sometimes God says, “Sure.” Most of the time God says, “Fight for it.”

I like the first answer better.

Tonight I’m asking God for more, and I know He’s gonna tell me to fight for it.

[Sigh.]

Can I be honest with you? Sometimes I’m not sure it’s worth it. Fighting can be exhausting and boring and painful. I get pushed outside my comfort zone. I hurt. I whine.

Today a friend of mine said, “I don’t really want to go back to school, I just want the job.” And I laughed because that’s ridiculous and because that’s exactly how I feel all the time.

What I love about this passage isn’t that God tells Manasseh to fight for the gift (that’s the hard part), but that God tells them, “You can do it.”

You see, Manasseh doesn’t get a handout because they don’t need one. God has gifted them with all they require—you are numerous and very powerful—so He asks them to use what they’ve been given.

And this where it gets tricky for you and I.

Sometimes I pray for wisdom but avoid the wise people positioned around me.

Sometimes I pray for peace but cram my schedule like I’m playing Tetris.

Sometimes I pray I’d get a book published but don’t put in the hours to actually write the book.

Sometimes I pray I’d win a million dollar sweepstakes (yeah, I know…) while simultaneously squandering the money I have.

I ask God for more when He’s already given me the resources to get it, resources I’d see if I weren’t so lazy or cowardly, small-visioned or short-sighted.

My prayer is that you and I would do a better job than Manasseh did, that we’d “clear the land” so that “its farthest limits” would be ours.

Let’s stop waiting for a handout and start picking a fight.

I Don't Know. But I Do Know.

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:00:04 -0400

A couple weeks ago Justin taught a Bible class about Abraham sacrificing Isaac. As the class talked through our understanding of faith—what it looks like, when it’s called for—Justin wrote these words in black marker on the whiteboard:

I don’t know. But I do know.

And immediately that became my favorite definition of faith.

Because so many times I’ve experienced this tension of not-knowing and knowing, both…

When I decided to follow Christ not knowing where that would take me or what it might cost, but knowing He loved me and knowing I loved Him.

When my brother died and I had a hundred unanswered, grief-soaked questions and full trust in God’s ability to answer them.

When my husband asked me to marry him and I knew he was exactly the man I wanted to be with forever and had no idea what forever would look like.

When we moved to Brooklyn to do God’s work, work I know I was called to do, and then the funding ran out a day after the positive pregnancy test and I sat on a bench and prayed by skyline light, “I know you have something up Your sleeve. I just wish I could see what it is.”

When I held my daughter for the first time and thought, “I am going to be a great mom” and wondered “Am I going to be a terrible mom?” at the very same moment.

I like this definition of faith because it acknowledges that faith happens in the fog. Faith is not sight, and faith is not blindness. It’s the weird way we see when we live in the liminal, one eye on the seen, one on the unseen.

We see more but we know there’s so much more to see.

I’m thinking about faith tonight because once again I’m swimming in brackish waters, wondering, wandering and waiting. Faith is hard, tiring. My eyes ache from the constant squinting.

In Hebrews I read about past men and women of faith, about Abraham who sacrificed his son and about Rahab who hid God’s spies. I read their stories and feel a kinship. The text says, “They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance…”

On Easter my kids and I sit in the back yard in the dark waiting for dawn. They crane their necks and stand on tiptoe, fidgety and sometimes whiney. Sometimes, when the morning is cold, they campaign to go back inside. But I convince them to hold out, and when the first shades of blue and pink light the dark, they jump up and down and cheer.

That’s what I think of when I think about faith and welcoming the promises “from a distance.”

The trusting can be tiring, all that wading through the thick uncertain, but we wait anyway and when the unseen appears, even barely, tracing the horizon in light, we welcome it, smiles broad and knowing.

See God. In A Person.

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 08:00:00 -0400

I’m sitting here at my computer debating whether or not to write this post. I have a long column of reasons to avoid it (1. sappy, 2. self-indulgent, 3. irrelevant…) And one strong reason to go ahead: What I want to write about is the single most powerful, touchable and meaningful manifestation of the love, truth, and comfort of God in my life.

If this blog is about scouting God and if I’m going to tell you where I see Him, how could I avoid writing about this.

So here goes: I see God in Justin Gerhardt.

Justin is the best example of unconditional love I know. When I read “Husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church” I know what that looks like and I know Christ better because I do.

Here’s what I want to do in this post: I want to tell you every single way I’ve seen God in my husband in the past, I don’t know, let’s say week. But I’m not going to do that. Because the list is too long and because the list is mine.

See, God doesn’t show up for you in the form of Justin Gerhardt. Maybe sometimes if you listen to his sermons online. Maybe often, if you’re his friend. But still, Justin isn’t your pipeline. He’s mine. God put him right up next to me and filled Him with Spirit so the Spirit would slosh and I’d be covered in love.

So often (like 34 times a day) I look at Justin and I thank God. Not for perfection. For presence.

I decided to write this post because I realized two things:

1. Some of you have a person like this in your life, someone God is using to shape you and grow you and fill you and love you. And I wanted to remind you to thank God. And to appreciate your person.

2. Some of you don’t have someone like this (or don’t think you have someone like this) in your life.

I’m sitting here looking at that last sentence, and I’m crying. Not figuratively. Literally. I look ridiculous. I’m crying because I don’t even know you and I want, more than almost anything, for you to have a Justin.

I want you to have a meaningful and intimate relationship with a person who will treat you like God would treat you if He were a person.

I want you to sit on the couch with somebody and not worry what they think of you.

I want you to know what it feels like to really, really hurt somebody and watch them forgive you.

I want you to find a voice who’ll speak wisdom and truth into your messed up, lied-to life.

I want you to see God. In a person.

I can’t make a person magically appear on your doorstep. I did just pray for you, that you’d find one. But my guess is most of you don’t need to find one. You need to see the one already in the room.

I sat down tonight with Justin and read him the beginning of this post and we smiled and cried a little bit and laughed at how God works. We laughed because of what a mess Justin is. We laughed because we’re both so broken and we know that on paper and still we see God so clearly in one another.

Justin said to me, “You see God in me, because you’re looking for God.”

And I think probably he’s right. I see God because I’m looking AND I see God because He’s there.

My advice? Look for God, really look, and you’ll likely find Him in a person, in a person who wants a relationship with you, a person who wants to be close to you, a person who wants to treat you well. That person might be your dad. It might be a mentor. It might be a friend. It might be your kid. And it might be your spouse.

There are beautiful busted people in your life, people God perfectly positioned for your blessing. Get up close to your person. Let the Spirit slosh all over you. Be filled. Be challenged. Be loved.

Not Too Big

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Today I baked blueberry, lemon-glazed donut muffins for my husband. Because he loves them, and because I love him. They are exactly as good as they sound. And like all truly good things, they are hard.

First you mix two types of sugar. You zest four lemons and rub the zest into the sugars to make your own lemon-flavored, white/brown sugar.

That’s step one.

So I’d been working on these donut muffins for about forty minutes. Earlier I’d been to the grocery store, bought baking powder and two packs of blueberries and whatever else, and I’d finally convinced both my kids to embrace the magic of “quiet time.” Things were going well.

And then I realized I didn’t have enough flour. I needed five cups of flour, and I was sure, assessing the mostly empty bag, it couldn’t hold more than three. I checked the pantry. I checked the fridge—you never know. Nothing.

If you have small children you can testify, this is a major dilemma. Getting both of them extricated from their zombie, quiet-time zone and into clothes and into the car and into the grocery store… It wasn’t happening.

So I took a deep breath and started measuring my flour. I poured two cups into my two-cups-big measuring cup. Two. Another deep breath. Pour… Two more cups. Four.

Surely the bag is empty. Except it’s not. I pour again. I shake every tiny particle of flour from the paper bag into my measuring cup, and, lo and behold, I have exactly one more cup. Five cups of flour from a three cup bag.

Miracle.

Okay. Do I believe God miraculously multiplied the flour in my bag so that Justin would have birthday donut muffins? I can’t say.

But I’m not ruling it out.

Do you know why? Because my God’s that big.

Every so often I’ll hear a friend tell a story like my donut muffin story and she’ll say “Praise God!” and I’ll see somebody else in the circle roll their eyes. And I know what they’re thinking, ‘cause I thought it, too: Doesn’t God have bigger things to do?

The answer is Yes. Yes, God has bigger things to do. And He’s doing them.

That doesn’t mean He didn’t do this, too.

God is big enough to care about whatever God wants to care about. Caring about my donut muffins doesn’t prevent Him from bringing peace to Syria.

Because He’s God. And He’s big. And, if He likes, He can watch me bake like a mother watches her precious child, invested in my happiness, helping me when I need help, all the while world-ruling from His Heavenly throne, welcoming a symphony of major and minor prayers, overseeing a million daily sunsets, and plotting world peace.

God is not diminished in the multiplication of a mother’s flour. He’s multiplied.

I see God in sharing. Saturday, my friends the Bogues threw a...

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 08:00:19 -0400

I see God in sharing.

Saturday, my friends the Bogues threw a party. They bought pizzas and inflated their giant water slide/bouncy house/castle o’ joy. They filled a bucket with ice and popsicles, and we sat on their porch eating frozen fudge, laughing and listening, talking, too.

If that had been it, the bouncy house and the food and the friends, we’d have called it a smashing success. But that wasn’t it.

Natalie and Matthew have two kids, Katie Grace and Luke. Katie Grace will be in first grade next year. Luke is four (They’re the oh-so-precious kiddos in the top left box above). Katie Grace and Luke, like so many children, had a toy problem—too, too many. The toys filled a playroom. And spilled into their bedrooms. And found their way into the kitchen. The whole house was being overrun.

Natalie and Matthew decided something needed to done—to reclaim the house and, better, to reclaim their kids’ hearts. So, they sat down with their offspring and had a serious talk about the dolls and cars and action figures and blocks and books and whatnots. A couple days later, Katie Grace and Luke had decided to give away seventy percent of their toys.

And so they threw a party. A toy giveaway party. With pizza and a water-slide.

The toys were separated into bags, grouped into categories, the batteries all replaced. Parents did the “toy-shopping” inside while the kids ran wet and wild outside. It was delightful. And just so Jesus-y.

Jesus loves sharing. AND He’s a fan of parties. He’d have loved this (He loved this), right?

I see God in two kids handing out toys, watching their friends giggle with bubbling joy. I see God in seven pizzas, paid for by the same people giving the toys away, the same people who opened their house, the same people who paid the water bill on the all-day water slide.

I see God in sharing. In so much sharing.

The Extraordinary Ordinary: A Case Study

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 08:00:14 -0400

Paul says, “To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God] will give eternal life.”

I want to paint this verse in five inch letters on my bedroom wall. Because sometimes I forget that well-doing, ordinary doing well, is the path to immortality, my extraordinary destiny.

Today is the last post in our series on the extraordinary ordinary. It’s possible I’ve already said enough, but I don’t feel like we’re done without one, concrete, fleshed-out example, and I have just the example to share.

Meet my friend, Belinda Curtis:

Recently I sat in Belinda’s living room and we talked about death.

She said, “I’m not afraid to die.”

I’ve heard people say that before, people diseased and aging, but the shake in their voices and the nervous in their wrung hands gives them away. I’ve heard twenty-somethings say it, too, as they crane their necks to catch a glimpse of death, so seemingly distant and innocuous.

Belinda said, “I’m not afraid,” her voice unwavering. She said, “My thinking has been, ‘Bring it on.’” She said it bravely, staring in the face of a thick and fast-approaching darkness.

Belinda was diagnosed with brain cancer a year and a half ago. She says it’s the kind with the tentacles that reach down into the brain, the kind her doctor says is “the most efficient way to die.” Chemo and radiation haven’t helped. Hospice has stepped in to care for her.

Barring a miracle, Belinda will die. Likely soon.

And she’s fine with that.

I visited her on a Saturday to interview her. My questions were mostly about dying—about cancer and saying goodbye and the certain uncertainty of the afterlife. I knew she would be courageous and wise.

What I realized quickly was that Belinda was far less interested in dying than in living. Dying, the process, was exhausting and terrible and unfair. It had robbed her of experiences she wanted—traveling, ministering, having grandchildren. Death, the end result, would be great for her and painful for the people she loves.

That’s all there was to say about it.

Living, though, she had a lot to say about that.

Belinda’s my example of extraordinary ordinary because there’s nothing more ordinary than dying. And because even in the face of death, Belinda’s trying to be and do well.

As soon as we sat down, she started talking about getting “ready” for Heaven. She’s had this song lyric stuck in her head, “Make me for thy rest more ready,” and while she isn’t certain what it means, so far she’s decided it means living now, exhausting herself in service.

She says she sees no reason to rest before she rests. She said, matter-of-factly, ”I’d rather pass on than go on living with no purpose and not be productive.”

The other day, she wrote this note to herself:

“I will live this day as fully alive as I can.”

Belinda is showing up.

For her, showing up looks like this:

Reaching out to the Hospice nurses. Every day Belinda musters the strength to talk to her nurses. She asks about their marriages and their kids. She listens and then asks if she can pray for them, and they almost always say yes. She’s surprised at how much they tell her and how thankful they are for her prayers. She does meaningful work as she speaks words over these women, opening the gates of Heaven in their names.

Mentoring young mothers. These days Belinda can’t invite anyone over for dinner. She can’t babysit for overwhelmed moms or speak to them at the women’s events she once headlined. What she can do is invite young mothers to come sit in her living room. She sits patiently and listens as they unload and untangle and decompress. Then, she offers all the wisdom she can articulate.

She told me, “I’m trying to help others through difficult times.”

It’s not easy though. She’s so tired, always tired. She feels like every day she wakes up with the flu. When I left my interview, Belinda went to sleep. She slept most of the day before I came. It took weeks of coordinating with her husband Tim for me to find a day to see her; she can only accept one visit per day and then only on good days.

But Belinda refuses to let the fatigue stand in the way of her work: ”I keep praying God will give me the strength I need to do what’s in front of me.” She says, “He always does.”

I sat there, in my comfy chair facing her wheelchair, my wandering eyes landing on greeting cards from church friends heaped in big baskets, on pictures of her beautiful family on the walls, and I wondered not so much if I would die like this (although her strength and faith are striking) but mostly if I was living like this, so fully, so extraordinarily.

At one point in our time together Belinda sighed and said, ”[God’s] clearly not finished with me yet.” And she’s right. He’s not.

So she is patient in well-doing, showing up every day, praying for hurting marriages and listening to tired mothers, and in so doing seeking glory and honor and immortality.

Want to Be Awesome? It's Easier (and Harder) Than You Think

Fri, 31 May 2013 08:00:14 -0400

Blaise Pascal said, “Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”

I messaged my friend Brad to see what he thought, and Brad said, “You know… I think I agree with Pascal.”

For years Brad’s been making stuff—writing musicals, creating camps and events and environments. He started a non-profit. He makes videos and gives talks and generally inspires people. He always has a new idea, and he almost never fails to make his ideas real. That’s the way I remember him back in college—always creative, always working.

I don’t know if Brad wanted to be “extraordinary.” I do know he wanted to make a difference. And I know he kept plugging along, every day, making stuff. A lot of it ordinary. Most of it small. He worked as a youth minister for a while, then He took a job in a tiny town at an oh-so-small college.

This year one of his projects went viral. You probably know Brad. He’s the adult behind Kid President. His “Pep Talk” video has received more than 23 million views. He’s been on television. A few months ago, he met Barack Obama in the oval office.

I asked Brad about being extraordinary and he said he really just feels ordinary. He said it “seems that God revels in the ordinary things because he doesn’t see them that way.”

I’m a stay-at home mom. If you told high-school-senior Jennifer that—that her 32 year old self was a mom, basically unpublished and most certainly not famous—she’d need to sit down for a minute. She had BIG plans, and they did not include laundry.

But, alas, that’s what I do. Today, for example, I…

Cleaned coffee granules out of the seams in my sink
Peeled a sticker off the inside of the dryer
Made toast
Played phone tag with a realtor
Examined a mysterious sore on my kid’s pet rat (and)
Argued with my four year old about the necessity of underwear

Mine is an ordinary life.

Lately I’m realizing everybody’s is.

Katie Davis moved from Tennessee to Africa after high school and adopted fourteen girls in need of a home. Her example is undeniably extraordinary. She writes in her book Kisses from Katie:

“Sometimes it hits me like a brick to the head: My life is kind of insane. I am twenty-two years old; I have fourteen children, eleven of whom are currently being home-schooled… Most days, though, bumping along these red dirt roads in my sixteen-passenger van full of singing (or screaming) children, neighbors, and occasionally our pet monkey, seems completely normal—so much so that I have a hard time writing about it. To me, there is nothing very spectacular about this everyday craziness; it is just the result of following Jesus into the impossible, doing the little I can and trusting Him to do the rest.”

Katie’s life looks a lot like mine. She does laundry and makes lunch and teaches her daughters to read. We like to picture extraordinary people as having glamorous, always-amazing lives. But Katie’s isn’t. Brad’s isn’t either. Their lives, upon close inspection, look mostly ordinary.

My friend Matthew was baptized last night. It was the celebration of the year at Round Rock. We were beside ourselves with joy. I actually laughed out loud when, after Justin asked “Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God…” Matthew said, “I do.” Extraordinary.

This morning he and Justin sat across a table from one another and Matthew said, “So what now? What do I do?” And Justin said, “You show up.”

And that’s it, right?

Kid President exists because Brad Montague kept showing up. Because he kept making stuff, doing what he felt like God wanted him to do. One day, Brad made something “ordinary” and God did something extraordinary with it.

Katie is in Africa today doing incredible work because she heard God call and she showed up, and now every morning she rolls out of bed, makes breakfast, and decides to show up again. And again. And again.

For the longest time I spent my days waiting for something big to happen (I was convinced I was going to win Pepsi’s “billion dollar summer”).

I spent my twenties dreaming of the glamorous life I’d live as a writer. I actually said out loud to another person, “All I have to do is write one book that sells a million copies.”

Now-a-days I don’t think in terms of a million copies. I think about showing up. I think about writing one helpful post. I think about having one meaningful conversation with my daughter. I think about about making one healthy and delicious lunch.

Every one of these acts seems so ordinary, but it’s in those sorts of everyday triumphs that God works. We show up and God does, too.

The Apostle Paul writes, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands.” I read that and think, “Easy for you to say, Mr. Extraordinary.” But then I think longer, about how many nights Paul spent sleeping on a boat or days he spent walking—just walking—about how his life looked a lot like my preacher husband’s—listening to God, teaching stubborn people, resolving conflict, bearing the burdens of a community. Paul’s was a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other life, almost never glamorous, often monotonous. Day in and day out, he showed up, and God used him.

I heard Donald Miller say once that you never know when God is going to use you. He said all you can do is be awesome.

Kid President says pretty much the same thing.

But by “be awesome,” they don’t mean be famous or flashy or viral; they mean, “Be who God made you to be. Do what God made you to do. And do it as well as you’re able.”

Show up. And God’ll show up, too.

Thank you to Jodi and Eric Posadas who showed up tonight to watch my kids so I could finish this post. And to new-christian Matthew who showed up with pulp-free orange juice because I’m sick and need vitamin C. Way to be awesome!

"Be Extraordinary," My Foot.

Wed, 29 May 2013 08:00:25 -0400

Tonight I made a #whitepeopleproblems joke to a friend who isn’t white. He kindly corrected me—#firstworldproblems—as I tried to walk away from the mess I made with my mouth.

Before I made said slightly-racist joke, I ate two servings of chocolate cheesecake. At dinner I ate two baskets of chips. I ate while I talked to my husband about hard things, self-medicating with salted, salsa-ed goodness.

Before that, at the gym, I thought judgmental thoughts about good friends for no good reason at all and fantasized about making more money.

I’ve had a banner day. “Be extraordinary,” my foot.

Here’s the thing about “extraordinary”: I can’t do it. I want to be extraordinary and I try to be extraordinary but it’s just not in me.

I need help. And I need grace.

Every so often (key word: often) I will be ordinary. I will binge on episodes of West Wing. I will take pictures of my kids instead of being present with my kids. I will see a friend’s new kitchen and covet. I don’t want to do it. But I will, because my people, us humans, are ordinary. We’ve been that way for a long, long time.

It’s late, my disappointing day behind me, and I’m reading Romans chapter 8 and feeling hope. I read that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” I read, too that God is working in man, even now, making him in the image of Christ. I watch as creation groans, waiting to be liberated with us from our “bondage to decay.” I am reminded that the “Spirit helps us in our weakness” and that God, GOD, is for me. By the end of the chapter I feel like shouting, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us!”

And all of a sudden I’m feeling extraordinary again. Not because I am. But because He is and I’m His.

Be Extraordinary.

Tue, 28 May 2013 08:00:30 -0400

Every year I buy a handful of graduation cards, some for the graduates at my church, some for the graduates at churches I attended when the graduate was seven years old and pig-tailed and my favorite—I’ve had so many favorites. I buy the cards and I sit at a table and stare into the blank middles and try to think what an eighteen year old needs to hear.

Commencement speakers will tell them to DO and BE and GO. Change the world. Make something new. Follow your dreams. Be awesome.

I like that. I’d say that, too, but I wonder if these kids—excuse me, young adults—know what awesome is.

Is it 2,000 likes on Instagram? Is it 10,000 followers on Twitter? Is it a hot girlfriend or a job with benefits or a nice house?

You know how sometimes you read something and it stays with you in this remarkable and inexplicable way and you find yourself writing it out on index cards and quoting it to friends and thinking about it when you have to make hard decisions? That’s how it was for me with this:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie…The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.  But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to be meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.

My husband and I usually give seniors this book as a gift—it’s Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. We find a blank page at the front and write, “Tell a better story.” And we mean, Be extraordinary.

A friend emailed me recently. She said, “Sometimes things just feel so stagnant, like everyone around us is ‘going through the motions.’” She said sometimes she and her husband feel crazy for wanting more.

“Are we?” she asked.

If I were writing a commencement speech for my friends, us thirty some-things neck deep in debt, arms full of kids, days full of work, I’d probably use this quote from Uta Hagen:

“We must overcome the notion that we must be regular… it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.”

I read those words, and I wonder what it is about regular we like so much.

Because regular looks like this:

The average American is $130,000 in debt.
The average American cheats on his spouse. According to the Washington Post, “it appears that cheating is as common as fidelity.”
The average American woman owns 27 pairs of shoes.
The average American man viewed pornography this week. (The average American Christian man did too.)
The average American tells a lie (and a half) every day.
The average American spends 6.9 hours a month on Facebook and 40 hours per week watching television.

If that’s regular, are we crazy for wanting more? Or crazy for not wanting more?

So back to the card. And the commencement speech for thirty-somethings. If I had to say something, I’d begin with this: Be extraordinary.

I began writing this post with the word “extraordinary” on my tongue and the question in my mind, “Am I called to be extraordinary?” And now, hours into thinking and writing and deleting, I can’t help but answer “Yes.”

Sometimes we hear “extraordinary” and we think heroic or famous or genius. But extraordinary just means remarkable. And remarkable just means different, different enough that people notice and “remark.” An extraordinary person stands out.

You should stand out. What’s around you isn’t worth being.

In the Bible, God calls that “holy.” And that’s the second thing I would say (which is really the same as the first): Be holy.

Holiness sounds boring and its reputation is bad. We say “You’re so holier than thou,” and it’s not a good thing we mean. We think holy people think they’re better than us and we dislike them for it.

But Moses says, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” Paul greets almost every church to which he writes, “holy people” of God. Because holy is expected, assumed of a people made different, extraordinary by the washing blood of Christ.

But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation…

We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all…

Like it or not, holy is our calling card. We were made, remade to be different.

Some of that difference is inescapable because “once for all” we’ve been made holy. We can no more scrub the holy scent out of our clothes than we can scrub the color off of our skin. But some part of holy is avoidable, because the epistle writers remind us again and again to BE holy, to run after holiness, to catch it by the shoulders and never let go.

Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…

Holiness is transformation, never conformation. It turns “regular” on its head.

Holy looks like financial freedom, letting money serve us instead of our serving it.
Holy looks like commitment and loyalty, unfailing love.
Holy looks like simplicity and generosity, refusing to hoard more and more when others live with so much less.
Holy looks like victory over addiction, refusal to be crippled by pornography or alcohol or food.
Holy looks like telling the truth when no one else does.
Holy looks like disconnecting the media IV and living life on purpose.

Holy looks like changing lives and making the invisible visible and healing the hurting and feeding the hungry and speaking truth and living love out loud. Holy ushers eternity into time. Holiness is big and exciting and mountain-summiting, marathon-running, battle-winning epic.

Be holy. Stand out.

So that as you live your remarkable life, your holiness shouts and calls and draws others to the one who is and makes Holy:

And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

Tomorrow’s Post: The Extraordinary Ordinary (or Everyday Awesome)

This is the “God is Like…” bulletin board from my third grade...

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:11:00 -0400

This is the “God is Like…” bulletin board from my third grade Bible class. We studied the parables together and they flourished in the act of comparison. I gave them Pixie Sticks for every addition to the board. They added much, well.
Today I’m thinking of what God is like over coffee with my artist Mother-in-law: He’s a painter.
I’m thinking of what God is like as I dress for a funeral, pouring rain outside my window: He’s shelter.
I’m thinking of what God is like as I prepare to teach the final spring Bible class to six precious third graders: He’s a superhero and a rock and a shepherd and a cushion. :)

Six Weeks Pregnant: Learning to Let God

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:00:17 -0400

Today’s post is the first in what’s to be a recurring feature on the blog. I’m calling it “Field Notes Friday.” Catchy, right? Twice a month on Fridays, we’ll listen to someone {who is not me} share their experience scouting God.

This week, Bethany Welborn shares her answer to the question, “Where have you seen God in your pregnancy?” I expected a beautiful answer from this thoughtful girl. What I got was challenging, exciting, and provocative. I had no idea she had this story to tell. I love it.

Bethany’s one of my favorite young writers. Her heart is gold. Better than gold—whatever is better than gold. Chocolate? She blogs at http://bethdawn.tumblr.com/. Right now her blog is full of celebrity chef pictures from some cooking conference she attended. Don’t get jealous, just keep scrolling and you’ll find something good to eat, I mean, read. :)

Now, listen up:

Sometimes, you feel the heat of the burning bush before your eyes get to see it, before your bare feet bear witness to the holiness of the God-sighting moment.

I was feeling the heat, the dry, desert oppression, as October was making her fiery orange-red debut. The pressing in my heart was building, and it seemed like everywhere I looked, I caught smoky glimpses of what God was asking. At the time, our church family was reading through Psalms together, and one Sunday morning when the sermon focused on Psalm 127…
the Spirit spoke, and I was undone.

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the guards stand watch in vain.
In vain you rise early
    and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
    for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
    when they contend with their opponents in court.

~

Are we truly letting Him build our home?

You see…Bryan and I were already weirdies when it came to how we were choosing to “plan” our family. When we got married three years ago, we decided on an alternate method of birth control (aka, not The Pill), and in doing so raised quite a few eyebrows and sparked several conversations with concerned friends and family members. We didn’t think that being on The Pill was a sinful or wrong decision, but in the midst of all the questions - some of them our own - we knew that God was asking us to do things a little differently.

So fast forward to October 2012. Can I just be baldly, unattractively, humbly honest with you when I say that when God spoke again about the whole birth control issue…I was annoyed? We’ve already gone so far to obey You in this, I thought. Isn’t it enough?

But I couldn’t ignore the way my heart hurt every time Bryan and I ~~discussed~~ fought about our birth control, our ideas for the future, and our “ideal timeline” for starting a family. Tears always came, but resolution never did. Aren’t lives and marriages supposed to work this way? According to well-educated decisions, responsible goal-setting, smart financial-planning, and common-sense reasoning? Well, it wasn’t working. It all felt wrong. It felt like suffocating.

And then, in a crazy-simple and Spirit-speaking-loud sermon about Psalms, God asked me to stop.

Stop doing whatever qualifies as vain labor - consulting the blueprint apart from seeking Me.

Stop trying to make your plans work if I have not divinely authored them.

Stop standing watch against loss and change and uncertainty. Stand watch against self-sufficiency instead.

Stop deifying your ideas of security over my promises to provide.

and…if stopping birth control completely is what it will take for you, your marriage, your family to really just trust Me?

Then stop that, too.

It wasn’t until then that we felt the uncomfortable heat of what He was asking. He wasn’t asking us to start a family - that almost would have been easier, because that would have meant we could still call the shots to some degree. No…He was asking us to let. Him. build.

Let. Him. bless.

Whether that meant children now, children later, or children never - He wanted our hands open, ready to receive that which He deemed best to give. And that? That was really hard.

In the stifling heat of such a calling, I gave way to gnawing fear. And the fear didn’t run out of reasons to disobey.

You’ve only been together for three years…do you really think your young marriage can handle a baby?

Your college loans seem insurmountable as it is. How exactly will you make ends meet once you are living off of one income, and supporting a little one?

You are just now settling into some kind of routine normalcy. Can you handle the stress of yet another life-upheaval?

And on and on the logical, common-sense, anyone-would-understand justifications went.

And hotter and hotter the bush around the corner burned, beckoning us, nagging us, holy smoke seeping into our pores until we finally, exhaustedly, pushed our tired eyes to see past the flame and into the heart of where God wanted us.

We sought the counsel of dear Spirit-filled friends, partially hoping to be let off the hook, validated and soothed into thinking that we were being too radical, too irresponsible, too whatever. Their prayerful response after an emotional two-hour conversation? “If that is what God has asked you do to, you don’t have much of a choice. You have to obey, and trust Him with the rest.” Let Him build. Let Him bless.

Exactly one week after that conversation,

after the giving-in,

after the “we’re listening, Lord,”

after the hands palm up and the praying on our knees,

I took the test on a whim and the blue line appeared.

I was already 6 weeks pregnant.

…as in, 6-weeks-ago-when-we-were-still-on-birth-control-and-still-thought-we-were-in-control. Before we submitted, before we stopped, before we started asking Him to lead and move and do what He was wanting to do…He already had.

My world tilted, and the compassionate, commanding voice in the bush made a little more sense, and I just had to laugh at the crazy wonder of it all.

So the original question here is, how and where have I scouted God throughout this wild adventure called pregnancy?

Well, such a dramatic, “do you trust Me now?” beginning definitely paved the way to embark on the Great Search, to pull out the binoculars and pray for eyes that see, and to take ridiculous joy in scouting Him out.

We most definitely saw Him in the circumstances I just told you about surrounding our baby’s conception - and still, 8 months later, shake our heads and marvel when we talk about it. Since when do birth-control conversations become a platform from which to spy God’s miraculous presence? Since October of last year, that’s when.

We have seen Him in the choosing of our little one’s name. For someone like me who can hardly make a decision about what to wear in the morning, her name came unnaturally quickly and easily: Briony Faith. Briony means “vine”…yep, as in John 15 and Jesus saying over and over again to abide in Him, “for apart from Me you can do nothing.” As your precious daughter grows and your blessed life keeps you guessing, remember to let Me build, and let Me bless. Her name serves as our altar to God’s faithfulness in this, His blazing reassurance that yes, He knows what His best, and He takes delight when we radically abide in Him.

What has that divine delight looked like? In the past 8 months…
…it’s looked like my mom’s eyes filling with joy-tears when she learned that her first granddaughter is on the way.
…it’s looked like pink helium balloons escaping from a cardboard box, to the sound of our friends’ happy cheers of surprise.
…it’s looked like Bryan’s hand resting expectantly on my belly, as he feels Briony jump and kick in response to her Daddy’s voice.
…it’s looked like a can of yellow paint, ready to drench our office walls with a cheery baby-welcome.

What has that divine delight sounded like?
…it’s sounded like a strong, racing, 10-week-old heartbeat at our first ultrasound appointment.
…it’s sounded like my not-so-successfully-muffled screams of joy when some of our dearest friends shared that they, too, are expecting a daughter just two weeks after us.
…it’s sounded like a sister-friend from church, asking if I would like to take all of her 6-year-old daughters’ baby clothes (12 trash bags worth), because she’s just been waiting for the right person to give them to.

What has that divine delight felt like?
…it’s felt like my man and I experiencing the richest season yet in our marriage, even in the midst of so much change and challenge.
…it’s felt like calming, storm-quelling peace that is bigger than student loan bills and childbirth anxieties.
…it’s felt like the overwhelming realization that Jesus Himself came to earth in this same, mysterious way, and that His flips and rolls in Mary’s belly would have brought the same soaring, secretive, intimate joy that Briony’s do in me.

Oh my. It’s almost too much God-beauty for this hormonal mama’s heart to bear.

Who would have thought that the heat could shine so bright?

Extraordinary vs Ordinary: A Holy Cage Match

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:00:16 -0400

My friend Bryson recently spent a week reading women’s blogs and perusing Pinterest doing “research” for a project at work. I’m sure he learned whatever it was he was trying to learn (in addition, I suppose, to pennant-making and gluten-free cupcake baking). He also learned this, which he shared on Twitter:

“Today’s blog research theory: Some people want their lives to be as intricate and exciting as a novel. Every day.”

I read that and wondered, “Do I?”

He tweeted that days ago, and would you believe I’m still trying to figure out an answer?

I watched Dead Poets Society in middle school; Mr. Keating was my favorite teacher. In my mind, he seems more real than most of my actual teachers, of whom I remember only a handful. I can see him standing on that desk “to see differently.” I see him scrawling the sentence, “I sound my barbaric yawp” on the chalkboard. I loved this. I love this.

I watched the Carpe Diem speech today on YouTube. “Make your lives extraordinary.” And as he whispered those words into waiting ears, my ears itched and my fingers, too. And now I’m writing. Because I want to seize the day. And because he’s stirred me to thinking about extraordinary again.

Who wouldn’t want to be extraordinary?

Turns out, lots of people. At least, that’s what they’re saying.

Blaise Pascal wrote, “Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”

Anne Voskamp writes in her author’s bio: “The life you want is really as close as giving thanks to God. Slow down and taste and see, see that the Lord is good. Life is not an emergency—it’s holy, ordinary, amazing grace.”

That feels true. And completely at odds with the carpe diem, hurry-to-greatness, make like extraordinary in Dead Poets.

Which one is right?

Either life must be made extraordinary or it is extraordinary and we simply open our eyes to the fact. It’s an “either,” right?

Next week, I’m planning to devote every post to sorting out this tension (and the tangents the sorting requires).

I want to know, Should I shoot for extraordinary or celebrate being ordinary?

To prepare, I want to ask you some questions. Answer one of them, answer all of them, just be sure to answer. PLEASE share your thoughts in the comments.

What does extraordinary look like to you? What kinds of people/moments/places do you think of when you hear the word “extraordinary”?
Do you feel pressure to be “extraordinary” in a way that frustrates you?
What does it mean to celebrate ordinary life? What’s valuable in it? Is it the same as celebrating “brokenness”?

I have more questions than answers right now, but I’m happily praying and thinking and writing AND anticipating your replies!

Editing With God

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:00:00 -0400

I have a tattoo. Not too many people know that about me. It’s smallish and white (you can hardly see it) and on my right wrist. It looks like a scar. It says “ποίημα,” the Greek word most often translated “workmanship” in Ephesians 2:10:

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand so that we would walk in them.”

I wear this word for a hundred reasons: Because I’m God’s. Because I’m valuable and planned and purposed. Because the idea of me is ancient. Because I have work to do.

Today I’m thinking about reason #16b: Because the word is, transliterated, “poiema” and because that is the word from which we get our English word “poem.” Maybe you’ve heard that. It’s beautiful to think of yourself as God’s poem.

I like it for the beauty of it.

But I like it for another reason, too.

French critic Paul Valery famously said, “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”

Tonight I’ve spent four hours re-writing an article for New Wineskins Magazine. It’s about lament, how to grieve publicly in community. This idea, the speaking of it, is a slippery thing. Words are amphibious by nature.

I have a vision of what this article should be and say, but for a week now the words have wandered away from me. They’re not right. And so I push and pull, subtract and add, trying to make what I see in my head match what I type on the page. In other words, I edit.

I think good writers are good writers and great writers are great editors. To make something better is is almost as miraculous as making it in the first place.

Here is where we get back to the tattoo and where we see God, too.

To say we are a poem, a master work of any sort, is to say we are edited. Something planned and shaped, never finished, always being made better, more beautiful.

When I edit, I look at my tattoo and I remember that God and I are editing in tandem—me shaping and re-shaping sentences, Him molding and scraping and adding to me. The delight of that, of doing the God-work of editing through which God will work in and for His glory while God works on me, well, that’s the kind of thing that inspires a painful and permanent, so-far-unregretted tattoo.

Camping: An Advertisement

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:00:25 -0400

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.” -John Muir

Today, it is my goal to convince you to go camping. Of course, if John Muir hasn’t succeeded in the three sentences above I’m not sure what more I can do. Alas, I’ll try…

Last weekend my husband and I set out on a grand adventure—the first camping trip of our with-children life. We waited to go camping until our kids could sleep through the night, manage their bladders and capably express themselves should they need to say, for instance, “A long black snake just bit me.” Or as London actually said last Friday, staring at a spider crawling on her hand, “Is this spider poisonous?”

Finally certain our girls were ready for the challenging delight of camping, we packed them into the truck alongside our as-yet-unopened tent, some borrowed sleeping bags, and a box of vegetables (not sure most people take quite so many vegetables camping). When we arrived at our campsite, I felt like a kid again; Damp leaves and lake water smelled like freedom.

When I was a girl my family camped at Juniper Springs in Ocala, Florida. Sometimes we’d camp three out of four weekends in the spring. Because we knew the campgrounds and because my parents were generous (and quiet-starved) my brother and I were given free reign. We rode our bikes for miles. We hiked the trails. We “discovered” small springs. We caught lizards. I remember so clearly riding my bike on a narrow trail, the jar of crossing thick tree roots, the quick, constant crunch of rocks and mulch under my tires. I remember feeling free—wild and strong.

I felt free this past weekend. My girls did, too. You could see it in their twinkling eyes as they danced on the rocks, twilight painting their lean little bodies—two fairies, flying down flower flanked trails… We made smores and sang songs around our campfire and told scary stories.

But this is not the time for reminiscing. I promised I’d convince you to go camping, and I suppose you will need arguments for that. Maybe you’d be fine with stories, but I have points, too; so hear them:

1. You should camp because nature is true.

If truth is “what is,” and that’s as good a definition of truth as I’ve found, nature is truth. Trees are true. Lakes are true. Fire ants, true. When you camp, you leave behind the lying billboards and the lying television and the lying tabloids. You leave behind the lie that work is most important and the lie that a perfectly clean house makes you a better person and the lie that your flat iron is your savior. When you camp, you step out of a man-made world of brick and plastic, fabricated steel, wi-fi and cable and into a God-made world of wood, water, and air.

This week I pushed off a rock with my bare, unpainted toes and propelled myself into the freezing cold lake. My fingertips broke the liquid plane and I plunged like a missile until I was immersed, wrapped in the so-cold water. I felt that moment with every single nerve ending in my body. Every goose bump on my skin attested to it: This is true.

The Apostle Paul said to the Phillipians, “Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” When I’m camping, I can’t help it. I’m surrounded by such things.

2. You should camp because camp-life is simpler.

I didn’t call my car insurance company or the electric company or Texas Tollways during my camping trip. In fact, I kept the phone in the car. I didn’t respond to emails or try to figure out what was wrong with the air conditioning or debate whether or not to cut my bangs in the mirror. Because I didn’t have a computer or air conditioning or a mirror. Every time I go camping I’m reminded that I prefer a simpler life. And I’m reminded that my life doesn’t have to be as complicated as I’ve made it.

When we camp, my husband and I camp simply: One tent, a lantern. We cook over the fire. It’s not the only way to camp, but I like it because it reminds me how little I actually need. Turns out I don’t need my own bathroom or fitted sheets or bookshelves or matching dishes. More than that, it clears away the clutter and helps me see. With fewer distractions calling out for my attention, I can be still and listen for the still, small voice of God.

Paul says in I Thessalonians, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands.” Washing one skillet and a wooden cutting board under a dripping faucet, looking out over a sun-kissed lake, I want a quiet life and this simple work; I find space in it, silence, room to find and meditate on the presence of God.

Looking back at my two points, I’d say camping’s selling feature is that it offers an unobstructed view of God. Simplicity dispels the obstructions, and nature provides the views.

On the way to Inks Lake (where we went camped), the girls asked Justin to play camping songs. You’d be surprised how few songs there are about camping. We found a few though; this was one of them. I love the line, ”Every day I’m camping.”

No matter how much I might like to, I can’t spend the rest of my life beside a tent on Inks Lake. I can strive for more truth and more simplicity. I can tear down distractions, turn off the noise, and look around. That’s a sort of sustainable, everyday camping.

I should also, of course, literally camp. I should drive away from my house and my job and my instagram account and my creeping-too-high grass and sit silent surrounded by beauty.

As John Muir writes, “Break clear away, once in awhile, climb a mountain, spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

I can’t help but think of Jesus at the Jordan, washed in a wild river by a wild man in the wilderness. And of me diving into Inks Lake, immersed.