Category: Thoughtful Thursday

Framing the Fragments (Guest Post for Message in A Mason Jar)

Today I’m sharing about a dear friend, whose honesty and steady listening has marked my life and my painting. Join me at Darcy Wiley’s beautiful blog, Message in A Mason Jar. (psst- while you’re there, you can enter to win a print of the watercolor Nest!)

She lives in faraway Texas now, but these little-ones-playing-wildly-in-the-background days we talk on the phone nearly as much as we did in junior high.

It was autumn when she told me, gently: “I love your work, I really do. But it lacks some of the tension and messy brokenness that makes your story yours.”

I wasn’t expecting so much honesty, but wounds from a friend can be trusted, and few people know (and love) me so well as this particular one. She knows I draw little birds and acorns, favorite lines of Christmas hymns and a whole series of eggs, all expectant, full of April hope. These are the pictures I want to hang on my fridge, to call me towards home and invite me in to a place of daily abiding.

I shuffle around her words, awkwardly mumble something about not adorning my walls with images of a bleeding heart twice flattened by a Mack truck.  And this wise friend, she didn’t pull her words back or defend them at all. She just let those words sit a while….

{Click here to continue reading at Message in a Mason Jar. Don’t forget to enter to win the print Darcy’s giving away while you’re there!}

On Marking the Days {A New Year Post}

When I was a child, and her own mother was dying, my grandmother would invite me to sit next to the hospice bed, my little feet dangling. She’d hand me the latest copy of Ideals magazine, and ask me to read the printed poems and prose to my great-grandmother’s fading ears.

I am grown now, and just before Christmas my daughter came home from school with her first collection of Kindergarten poems. A generation has passed, and this week I sat heart-heavy next to my grandmother’s bed with only whispers of I love you, longing to cement the lines of her face and sweetness of her smile into my mind’s eye, wishing I’d brought an old book of poems.

It is a new year and I have no resolutions or great aspirations, not even a simple one word for the year. These days, I don’t so much mark my time with calendars pages or liturgical schedules. I am simply leaning into the seasons: the wintering months where dormant dreams sleep and the awakening hope of someday spring, the heat of long summer nights followed by the decadent descent of all that autumn glory, again, again, again. And the rhythm of this created world holds the melody of my days and years.

I count the seasons by early sunsets and snow-buried gardens, the hope of song birds’ return, and the quiet heartache on the anniversary of the last day I saw my sister laugh in this life. Days and months are marked by memories that ground me in my story: that first, very long date exactly one decade ago, where we talked India and art over an order of steaming chai and an apple sliced up, peanut butter on the side.

I am not old, but already my days are filled with remembering: life beginnings and last embraces, little mittened hands held on winter walks to school and anniversaries of all kinds. I ache with remembering, sit with it – feet dangling, let it draw me back to the One writing all these days before one of them came to be.

On Quiet Stacks of Dishes

It’s dark out by the time I get to the dishes. I’ve dropped my phone into a pot of hot, soapy water more than once, but that doesn’t usually stop me from making good use of this still standing time.

When I ask my three year old to pick up her little ponies, she cannot fathom a way to complete the task without company and some make-believe scenario, usually a funny little song: she is my clone. I call a friend while I scrub dishes, listen to podcasts as I fold laundry, check my email on the sly while we work puzzles.

Three weeks of sick kids and sick self feels like forty years in the desert, and I justify the constant background noise with my extroversion’s aversion to isolation. But when the kids are tucked in and my phone disappears somewhere upstairs, it’s just me and the dishes in the kitchen. I realize how long it’s been since I savored any quiet at all.

I’m not running to community, I’m running from silence.

For thirty minutes I empty the dishwasher, scour butter burned onto stainless steal, stack cookie sheets and pyrex. And I don’t find an epiphany among soap suds, but the quiet does wash over me, let the deep buried thoughts rise to the surface. I exhale. Even extroverts need quiet.

This morning, I shuffle into the kitchen desperate for the coffee he brews in love each morning.

On the counter I find the mountain of air-dried dishes, stacked like a pile of stones in the desert to mark a moment. I sit and savor coffee slow from my cracked, broken mug, then read lines that breathe life, from Scripture not screens.

And I may circle this desert longer than I like, but I will mark the moments grace seeps in and rescues me from harried myself. I will make space for silence and stack the dishes and laundry and the love right in front of me.

I’ve got dishes to put away, puzzles to piece together here.

Of Apple Crisp and Comfort

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God… 2 Corinithians 1

I stand in the kitchen and peel apples. Slice them up and put them to bed with butter, cinnamon, sugar.

Outside it is dark and cold. In the kitchen it is quiet, and I am alone.

Two years ago, in late winter my sister died; it was nearly spring when we buried her. But it’s when summer dwindles and the leaves begin to golden, this is when I catch the ache rising in my throat. After all, it was in fall, that year, that I really began to unravel.

I see now that this was a carefully timed gift: that the soul-thawing happened then, while the leaves danced their way to death, their going down to decay all laden with glory.

Everyday at school pick-up I see a dad who once wrote something kind about my sister; everyday, picking up his son. I wonder how he knew her. I stop cutting apples, get lost in the weight of it, let it pull me right down to the usual-sticky, now cinnamon-dusted tile.

This whole world is replete with joy and grief; a simple tension-setting holds this precious commodity of life.

Down here, I remember the gift of getting low. I think about that fall two years ago that marked the end of my good show. I suspect no one but me was really surprised to discover my soul was bare as winter branches.

There’s nothing glorious about a crying woman in a messy kitchen with a half-made apple crisp, and perhaps sticky tiles hold more plain reality than metaphor. But there’s something very good about coming to the end of yourself, admitting how much you need the grace you measure and pour and serve.

It was against the backdrop of that hard fall, two years ago, when hope dwindled and all the good truth I’d built my world around began to ring hollow, that I discovered I was in need. The ugly judgement and shaky trust-less-ness in the foundations of my soul were exposed.

It’s been two autumns, two hard and good years, and my heart has healed a bit, is healing. I thank Jesus for time and therapy and a husband who really hears me, for old hymns and watercolor paint, for a sweet community and even the space to spill words here. These things have been mercy, and hope is growing, slow and sure. I could hum all day of the Redeemer, faithful even when I could see no light at all. I could and I do.

But if blessed are the hungry and the poor and the meek and the weepers, how does one hold high the banner of healing and wholeness while keeping her heart vulnerable and surrendered? I don’t want to stay in the cold bathwater of grief, but I cannot afford to live like I am not in desperate need, hopelessly broken but for the grace of God.

But for the grace of God.

I wipe away the cinnamon, and for days I feast on little glass bowls comfort, a perfect apple crisp, my mother’s recipe. Everywhere I go golden leaves cascade, go low to make soil fertile through their death.

This whole world is replete with joy and grief; a simple tension-setting holds this precious commodity of life.

Today I will make another apple crisp. Friends will gather after kids are tucked in and we will eat it hot out of the oven, together. We will speak and we will listen, share the fruit of this grief and a hot mug of comfort.

Comfort. It will season the conversations with the ones I love, hold the tears and the silence, let the laughter roll out right alongside sorrow. It is teaching me to go listen, to go low, to see again.

Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us… 2 Corinthians 1

Dear Me {a Graceful post}

Today I’m joining Emily P. Freeman and others to celebrate the release of her book, Graceful, by writing a letter to my sixteen year old self. I’ve read Emily’s first book, and have a feeling I’ll love this one too. You can learn more and see the beautiful trailer here.

Oh, Annie Banannie.

If I could go back in time and hand you this letter, deliver it at your dramatically bemoaned sixteenth birthday, there would be just one thing I’d tell you. Because if I told you much – about Africa or heartache or the good, strong man you’ll marry, if I told you about a sister buried already, or how you’ll move back to the one zip code you swore you never would – your sweet little head might just explode. So let’s keep this simple.
Sometime right around now, you’re going to spend half an hour talking to a woman on your best friend’s back porch. At a party. And after a while, your friend, who knows you so well, will pop her head out, tell you that her aunt is deaf and only reads lips in Italian. You’ll linger a little while anyway.

And the reality that you could easily spend half an hour talking to someone without even perceiving that she doesn’t speak your language, hear your words, won’t set in for years. You could learn a lot from that woman.

A decade and a half later, you still love to talk. And write. But, self, if I could tuck one secret into the back pocket of those Gap jeans you stole from your sister’s closet, it would be this:

Learn to listen.

Listen to the ones who love you most. Listen for the love, because it’s deeper and wider than you can grasp.

And listen to that quiet girl on the bus.

Listen for the stories that require silence as a prologue.

Listen to conversations you have nothing to add to. Presence is an art, too.

Listen for the words that don’t come easy, the ones that don’t come at all.

Listen in silence.

Listen to the Word.

And listen to the world – all its wild beauty and heartache and brokenness.

Then listen to the Word some more.

And oh, listen to your own heart. Not the shiny, bright one you wear on your sleeve and collect imaginary Pioneer Girl badges for. Not the one that draws illustrated lists of ideal qualities in a husband. (Hint: He won’t play the guitar, but he will love you, patient and fierce.) Listen to the lonely, hard places you’re so desperately afraid of – the places you try to cover up with wordiness, sarcasm, competition, and all-around attempts at awesomeness. Don’t let those whispers cement in your heart; let them into the Light. You won’t get your badges taken away, promise.

And if you’re quiet, oh Annie, if you’re quiet, you’ll realize who it is that’s truly hearing impaired, dear one. You will hear what we’re all sin-sick and deaf to, desperately trying to decipher on the lips of every  moment:

You’ll hear grace, girl.

A thousand times over.

Grace.

Grace.

Grace.

In the beauty and the heartache and the tensions: grace. In the mysteries and the waiting and the simple, unchanging truths: grace. And, girl, you don’t know how bad you need the grace you evangelize everyone about. It will set you free; it is setting you free.

So blow out your candles and swim with your friends, live it up in your quirky, sentimental way: go on and sing “I am sixteen, going on seventeen” every day this year, for fear you’ll never be able to sing it truthfully ever, ever again.

And then go ask your sister how she’s doing. Listen to your grandmother’s story about the bikini that went missing in the Delaware river, because soon enough she’ll loose those stories the same way she lost her skinny-dipping sister’s swimsuit. Listen to the ruckus of a house full of voices you’ve heard every day of your life, and listen to the quiet stillness in the night, the peepers croaking in the back woods. Listen to — oh, right… ahem… I’ll quiet down now.

Thank you for grace,
Annie

{What would you say to your sixteen year old self? I’d love to hear. Or if you blog, write a post and link up tomorrow at Chatting at the Sky. Also, if my eighty-six year old self is out there, could you drop me a line? I’ve got a few questions here. Thanks.}

To the Sea and Smallness

Days ago, I was sinking in all the expected chaos of the week, when we decided on a spontaneous trip to the beach. The occasion was my thirty-first birthday, sandwiched between a wearisome week peppered with poison ivy and a wonderfully exhausting three days of ballet recitals, the arrival of much-loved house guests and a three year old birthday party, directly followed by pink-eye and fevers.

And on that particular day, it didn’t really matter that we were driving hours just to soak in the salty air for a measly afternoon, or that there were mountains of laundry left to fold and grass to be mowed, or that we left so late in the day that we had to worry about evening rush hour, instead of the morning one.
It was worth every second of late afternoon salty sand between the toes goodness. 

When I was a child, our family returned to the ocean like sea turtles to their mother-beach. Year after year, we traveled for two long days: to the same little row of houses, the same salty air and happy, clean stretch of sand on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Something about returning, year after year, blazed the ocean into my mind as a symbol of rest, retreat, renewal.

Even now, the ocean is a lullaby for my soul. There are few things as timeless and unchanged as the ocean, predictably moving with tides and seasons; yet as unknowable and dangerous as it comforting. Her reckless beauty and pounding power quiet me, her rhythmic rolling waves and sun-baked sand draw me in, surf gently tickling toes until I’m in too deep, pummeled back to shore. It strikes me as soon as we arrive, what I love most about the ocean:

At the sea, I feel very, very small. And this is exactly as it should be.

Our shadows elongate, dance with the surf, as the sun sinks away somewhere behind us, and we don’t even notice because we are facing the water.

The girls collect broken bits of sea shells to carry home, but this, the smallness, this is what I want to tuck away when I return to the hum drum of laundry and the long nights with sick kids and the unexpected insecurity that creeps in like a mosquito from some holey screen in this old house.

At the edge of the sea, I know that I am a grain of sand compared to the vast ocean of God’s glory. It is not difficult here, to remember that no magnum opus or platform, no achievement or vocation will increase my value or make me more or less. I am a grain of sand, counted and valued, small and significant. We linger as long as we can, and I am grateful just to bask here, to remain and abide in this place.

I think, again of the words of Jesus that have been rolling around in my mind like well worn sea glass ricocheting in the surf:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
   for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
   for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
   for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

My youngest chases a sea-bird and believes, earnestly, she might catch him.
And she is small, albeit rarely meek, unafraid to mourn, quick to cry out when she is hungry, or curl up in my lap when she needs mercy. And this is worth pursuing: the growing small and stooping lower, admitting hunger and poverty of spirit, the making peace and offering mercy.

And many, maybe all, of these mysteries grate against my sense of self and my sin-sick tendencies, and many days I live chasing the opposite.  But this, basking in the oceans of the powerful, comforting Presence of Jesus and His upside down kingdom, this is how I long to spend my days.

So I chase birds with my little one. And we’re quiet, quite hushed, as we drive home, away from the beach and onto the highway.

Three Gifts of Hope

I’m sharing the second half of my talk on Hope Springs Eternal that I shared at a local gathering a few weeks ago. For the first half, click here…

In her death, my sister gave me the gift of a faith shaken, and the slow awakening to a God bigger than my ability to comprehend, full of mystery. There is rest in simply knowing the One who knows the unknowable.

Her death, and my inability to handle it, revealed broken places that He yearned to heal, parts of myself I did not know had died, and the opportunity for new life after years of dormancy. Character was developed in the suffering, and the hope I have in Christ has become less of an idea and more of a reality, an “anchor for my soul, firm and secure.” (Hebrews 6.19)

In closing I want to share three gifts I discovered in the midst of those dark days.
I call them gifts because this is less of a three step plan, and more a slow discovery – a story still unfolding, and I’m sure many of you could add to this list, sharing the gifts that birthed hope in your darkest days.

The first of these gifts was (is) discovering the necessity of remaining GROUNDED in the Word.
Nothing breathes hope into us like the  living and active Word of God. It is trustworthy and Spirit-breathed. When we are tossed about by suffering, it is a firm foundation, truth when doubt and fear and our own hearts deceive us.

The word hope is found more in the book of Psalms than any other portion of Scripture, and most often, it is in the context of great struggle, written about with raw honesty.

Psalm 130

¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
² Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

³ If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

⁵ I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
⁶ I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

⁷ Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
⁸ He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

Hebrews 10:23 exhorts us to “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” Returning to the truth of scripture allows us to measure our present circumstances, both the beautiful and the sin-sick and broken, by the measuring stick of a Great and Loving God, rather than our own emotions.

Sisters, remain grounded in the Scripture. We hear this advice again and again because it is true. Abide in Him, soak in the Word, friends. Return to your first love.
The Second gift was discovering the discipline of cultivating GRATITUDE.
Living a life of gratitude, giving thanks in all things, is a command of scripture. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 we read “give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (So if you’ve been struggling to discern God’s will for you today, you can check that one off!)

I have been dearly impacted by Ann Voskamp and her book, One Thousand Gifts. In it, she writes about the ability of gratitude to slow down our racing hearts and racing lives, to reset our focus onto the author of life.

I referenced earlier Henri Nouwen’s encouragement to wait patiently, and he too, references the way slowing and seeing God’s goodness even in the midst of suffering births hope. In the same text that I read earlier, he goes on to say that

Waiting patiently is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the full, and letting the seeds that are sown in the ground on which we stand grow into strong plants. Waiting patiently always means paying attention to what is happening right before our eyes and seeing there the first rays of God’s glorious coming. -Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Gratitude, turning in thanks and praise, turns our eyes from our very real and present trials to a very real and present God, the giver of hope, the anchor for our souls.

And lastly, as we remain grounded in the Word, and as we cultivate gratitude,
we discover the third gift: GROWING together in suffering and hope

The experience of walking through this life, in pleasant times and times of suffering, and experiencing the deep abiding presence of Jesus in the midst of it, is one of the profound mysteries of our faith, and one meant to be shared. As we allow others to minister to us in our pain, and as we share our stories of suffering and of hope, we testify to work of Jesus in our lives.  And in Revelation 12:11 we read: “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”

Encouraging and boldly, lovingly speaking truth to each other, as well as sitting quietly and letting a sister work through the messy process of grief and healing, not rushing her to the right answers but letting the Spirit lead: these things build strong bonds and allow us to live out Jesus’ cry in John 17, that we would be one.

I am not suggesting that you must share every detail of every hardship with everyone. But I am suggesting that we are called to bear each others’ burdens, to confess sins to each other, to encourage and exhort each other. And it is difficult to do those things if we are isolated, hiding from vulnerability and from each other.
For those of you whose are in the midst of suffering, would you consider opening your heart to a trusted sister, perhaps someone across the table, or across the room here today? And you, with the story of hope, messy details and all, would you share your story with a younger woman, an older woman? Wrap her under you arm and breathe hope into her weary bones?

As believers, we have the hope of glory as an anchor for our souls. The God who created us loves us, has called us, is making us new, taking our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh, redeeming our bodies and preparing a place for us at His table. Our hope is real, and it is being revealed, on the mountaintops of faith, and in the darkest valleys.

Sisters, we must remain grounded in His Word. We must cultivate gratitude in our hearts. We must grow together in suffering, and in hope.

Tell me, friends, what have you learned about hope in the hard places? What gifts have you discovered in the shadows? I’d love to hear, really.

Hope Springs Eternal

Hope Springs Eternal: I wrote it on a chalkboard, and I themed my artwork around the old adage that’s rolled off the lips of three generations of women in my family, at least. And this weekend I had the opportunity to share with two beautiful gatherings of women about the gift of hope, and the unlikely places I’ve discovered it. I’m sharing the transcript here for you, too.

Spring seems an appropriate time to talk about hope, and after a long snow-less winter, or any kind of winter, really, a day that can start with open windows and the scent of lilac wafting in feels full with promise.

I have known hope as a spring budding, a bird alighting, and I am familiar with hope as a marker of our faith as Christians.  Throughout scripture we are exhorted to put our hope in God (Psalm 42.5), in His word (Psalm 119.74), in His unfailing love (Psalm 147.11).  We are told that Christ in us is the hope of glory (Colossians 1.27) , and that at the end of the day, there is faith, hope and love, love being the greatest of these (I Corinthians 13.13).
But the truth is, the lush beauty of spring, the life pulsing out of the dirt and the blossoms unfurling, they are here, in part, because of the hard cold of winter. The beauty we see now was beneath the soil in stark December. Under the lifeless dirt of February, life was being sustained, and growth is bursting forth now because of the cold, the dark, the quiet.

Dormancy is necessary.

And just like we can’t talk about spring blossoms without the reality of dormancy and germination and pruning and deadheading, we cannot speak of hope without mentioning it’s dark underbelly.

In Romans 8, Paul talks about the hope in which we were saved, the promise of our adoption as children of God, and the redemption of our bodies.  He says: “Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?”

It’s simple logic, and we all know it deep down.
We hope for light because there is darkness.
We hope for more because there is not enough.
We hope for peace because there is conflict, war.
We hope for healing because there is sickness, death.

Hope is only possible against the backdrop of longing, the reality of grief, the heaviness of loss.

Romans 8 goes on to tell us: “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

In Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen asks:

How do we wait for God? We wait with patience. But patience does not passivity. Waiting patiently is not like waiting for the bus to come, the rain to stop, or the sun to rise. It is an active waiting in which we live the present moment to the full in order to find there the signs of the One we are waiting for. The word patience comes from the Latin patior which means “to suffer”.

Scripture promises that suffering, the underbelly of hope, will be part of our journey.

Romans 5 says that:

Since we have been justified through faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
into this grace in which we now stand.
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings
because we know that
suffering produces perseverance;
perseverance, character;
and character, hope.

The suffering itself is a means by which hope is revealed in us.

I have witnessed this in my own heart, the hope growing out of the heartache, in the grief of loosing my sister, and the slow healing.  {Click here  to continue reading…}

A Canvas and a Cross

I’ve always thought in pictures. It’s how I work out problems, make life decisions, hang shelves in the laundry room. And most of my doodles involve little pennant banners and dandelions and small beautiful wonders. But not this day.

In my mind’s eye I can still see the blue ink on faded loose leaf lines I sketched during some forgotten college lecture: a woman’s body bowed low, clinging desperately to a wooden beam – the cross of Christ.

And while it was not my typical subject, it was not an altogether startling image in the midst of my college experience. With a required minor in Bible and a campus pulsing with passionate conversation and messy spiritual experimentation, I was steeped in the language and lyrics of faith.

But this fictional woman, all crumpled and desperate, I could not get her out of my head. All day, in and out of classes, in graphite and ink, on the margins of three-ring-bound pages, and cafeteria napkins, I worked out the angles of her limbs, the severe arch of her naked feet. I could not shake her, and the more I attempted to do justice to the image blazing in my mind, the more it consumed me.

All my small life I had made blueprints and prototypes in sketches and drawings, and they were my ideas, fleshed out. But it had not occurred to me that doodles and images held the power to shape me, too.

All day she haunted me, this woman, tight fisted, her weary body wrapped right around the cross. She left me no choice.

I had no canvas, just a drawer full of acrylic paint. So I tore the bed sheet right off my lofted twin in that tiny Christie Hall single, and I duct taped it right up on the wall.

And as I wild painted that beam, I reached out my hand and touched the paint, still wet. And I shuddered at the crudeness of the cross.

And I painted His feet. Right onto the cross: it was I who painted them, it was my doing and I had confessed my guilt a million times but never felt the anguish sear my heart, not like that night in my dorm room.

When I painted the nail, I heard the thunder of a hammer.
And when I dipped my brush into crimson paint, and let it bleed down the sheet, seep right through the cotton and onto the wall, it was then that I crumpled, a heap of tears, paint stained and heart-broken.

And I don’t know how long I stayed there, but I do know that when I looked up, at that image, I saw the cross, the feet, the nail, the blood. And I saw the great space I’d left to complete the image. And a voice whispered these words straight to my soul:

Child, you are not meant to paint a woman at the foot of the cross. You are meant to be a woman at the foot of the cross.

That was a decade ago, but I come back to that sheet and those words again and again.

When I long for purpose, and my life feels small and insignificant, I come back, and remember the source of my identity as a child, bought with a price I cannot fathom.

When I long for smallness, and this pulsing life seems too much, I come home to this truth, and I find comfort hiding in the cross of Christ and His greatness.

When my heart is full of judgement, and I am confident I comprehend precisely how the rest of my family, my community, my church, this whole world should function – I come back to these words, and remember there is only one who has the right to judge, and it is certainly not me. And it’s only in the cross that I can love at all.

When I compare myself to others, when I fail, and fail again, I come here and remember that I am being made new.

And you too, friend, are offered new life, a life hid in the cross, a life infused with the hope and power and glory that burst from the tomb just three days later.

Because the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and there is space enough for all who will receive him, here on the canvas of God’s love.

On Coming Home to Discipleship

Hours over tea, walks through woods, and afternoons of folding laundry together.  It was in these mundane places, over Lo Mein on a Styrofoam plate, and pesto chicken in the tiniest house in Park Ridge, garbed in college hoodies and insecurity, that my heart found a voice of hope, grace to question, the comfort of being known.

I can picture their faces: Wendy, who took an awkward junior higher under her wing; Jen, Amy, and Wanda who made time for a college student on a busy campus; then Linda, Nancy investing in a young woman, a new mom. Each walked the road I longed to call my own, not flawlessly, but with a vulnerability and an invitation to sojourn together.  Some of these relationships developed effortlessly, others were purposefully pursued and scheduled.

These women, in different stages and seasons, each gave me a gift that I’m still unwrapping today. They discipled me. They gave the gift of their intentional presence, hours in conversation, offering perspective, pointing me, again and again, to Jesus – to His Word, teaching me to pray by practicing it with me.
I have been on the receiving end. And I have given, too, of my heart and time, for other young women. And the process, the beauty of transformation unfurling in the lives of those I’ve been privileged to journey alongside, it has brought joy, and sometimes heartache, and it has changed me.

Discipleship.  It is at the core of the Christian experience, a grace offered along our pilgrimage on the narrow way – this strange experience of living as free and fully loved people, longing to know, really know, the God who is beyond comprehension, and learning to abide in Him.

And I find today, with a life full of friends and endless books and blog posts available, with challenges and encouragement abounding, that discipleship is the place I am aching to return to. Discipleship is where the gritty growth really happens. And it is a hole in my life right now.  I heard this interview last week, and it has been ruminating in my mind, causing me to think about the gift of discipleship:

How often do I long to embrace a calling and look to climb ladders and build platforms, when really, I need to go lower, to break open the hard places and walk under the wisdom and grace and truth-telling of a one who has also set her heart on pilgrimage, someone I rub shoulders with in real life, who loves because Jesus commands and invests because she longs to see the image of Christ revealed.

Oh, how I need that intentional relationship, centered on transformation, where vulnerability and honesty pave the way for the hard, beautiful labor of spiritual formation. And while seasons of solitude and silence provide a unique, and sometimes necessary catalyst for growth, this work of discipleship, like community, calls us to acknowledge our weakness and need for another. It flies in the face of our celebrity culture and distracted lifestyle.

And I suspect even when wrinkles deep reveal years of laughter, and my hair is white as snow, I will be found, even then, as I am today: in need of accountability and challenge, of a grace filled place where wisdom can speak to my pride, and failures are brought directly to the cross. I do not want to see the day I isolate myself from the wisdom and tenderness of women who’ve walked this road and can breathe encouragement and truth right into my soul, not today, not ever.

So, how ’bout it, friends? Maybe today is the day to begin to pray for a woman who has walked this road with faithful heart, to  learn from her, maybe read a book and hash through it together? Maybe today we yield to this sweet grace? What do you think?