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…

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.

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…}

Many of you know that two years ago, in the midst of our relocation to my hometown, my oldest sister passed away, unexpectedly and tragically.

Two years have passed and I still struggle with the fact that I will never know the hows and whys of her last moments, only the date her body was discovered, and the finality of her death.   In the months following this loss, in a new home, with two small children and no new church family or close friends nearby, I discovered an ache and a grief I had not known.

I have stood before many of you and spoken and written of God’s goodness, and His love, but in those dark, isolated days following Jeannie’s death it was my own voice that taunted me. All those words and lessons and heart-cries about the God who is always about the work of making new, restoring and redeeming: they blew up in my face.

Because death is pretty final, and there was no redemption story here. And that grated against all my understanding, my deepest hope, the very foundation I’d laid my life upon.

And I made it through the difficult words of well-meaning folks and I made it through the eulogy, and I spoke the truth that seemed to mock me: I said it through tears, that her life was complicated, but Jesus’ relentless love for her was constant. And I longed to believe.

But I spent every night for I don’t know how long, slipping out of bed, so my husband could sleep, only to wake him with my uncontrollable sobbing. Those months were the darkest of my life. Quiet, full of silent ache. I kept it bottled up inside, until I couldn’t keep it up, couldn’t stand the tension of a heart desperately clinging to hope in a God who redeems, and mocking itself for doing so at the same time.

I was curled in a ball in the corner of the upstairs bathroom the night I caved. When I admitted I just couldn’t work it out, that her death and the ache that now lived inside of me was too much to reconcile, I thought my world would split apart.

But, friends, the opposite happened. Not in that moment, and not by any certain magical formula. But months later, I would sit, weeping again, always the tears, and tell a friend how the very redemption that I had shaken my hand at heaven and demanded, a glimmer of that redemption was unfurling right in the midst of my brokenness. The words shocked me as they rolled off my tongue, and rung true to my core…

{Next week I’ll share rest of my little talk: three gifts I discovered during those difficult months, that planted hope in my heart. Read it here.}

*portions of this transcript were originally written & posted on my dear friend Lindsey’s blog. You can check it out here.

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.

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?

And as the printables and theories and practical advice floated around, I began to wonder if I was missing out on something.  I certainly don’t have a lack of need for change.  We don’t live in chaos here (at least not everyday…) but I could certainly use some fine tuning: in our basement, our schedules, my muscles and the state of my floors, the lack of laundry system and our life goals, to name a few.

As I sat through a recent gathering where an experienced mom shared her plethora a systems and theories on organization for the home, and as I read Tsh’s advice for setting attainable goals (and the best way to achieve them) and Ann’s perspective, I wondered how much of this has to do with personality.  On the Myers Briggs’ scale (which a new friend, Kamille explains amazingly, here), I’m a raging ENFP – pretty extreme in all the categories (extroverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving). I’m no expert in personality theory, so I may be totally off here, but I would guess that some of the amazing women pumping out the practical advice and insane lists for successful resolutions are probably pretty strong in either the sensing and judging categories of the Myers Briggs personality type.

You see, when I’m thinking about goals and projects, I circle around ideas, draw them out, visually – whether in pictures of word maps.  I make ven diagrams and turn them into flowers and fill them with our schedules for the week, and draw pictures of what I’d love a finished room to look like, and then watch it become that over time, rather than making bulleted lists and checking them off.

So when it came to a New Year’s resolution(s) I spent a few weeks pondering it, and came back to a single focus that I’ve been circling around for years: learning to abide. I know, it totally flies in the face of measurable goals, and I’m processing through what it looks like, practically, to establish rhythms that make space and facilitate growth in this, and how those rhythms might influence my daily schedule and home and relationships – and I suppose that’s where it gets more practical.

But a concept like abide, this is the kind of thing I can soak into and explore.  And I may, really, I must, do some practical things to make this resolution a reality, but I have learned that my goals must be rooted in essence and intuition, more perception than practical for them to take root in my life. And I suspect this is true of others, but not all.

I’m wondering if our approach to resolutions, and possibly our effectiveness in carrying them out have a good deal to do with personality type, how we process information and goals. Maybe this is why some of us are swept up with the idea of a one word resolution, or a picture, and others by lists and planning.  And I am so thankful for the organizers and the sensors out there, the best friends and bloggers, the sisters and husband who offer a perspective and a plan completely different from my own, and for things like Pinterest that let me reap a harvest of their best ideas, tailored and filed in pictures for my visual brain.

So, today I’m soaking in the sweet smell of firewood burning out there in the crisp air, and coming home happily to enjoy the hundred year old radiators that make this drafty house warm. What a crazy, beautiful world – where we’re all so different, and we can learn and grow and stretch muscles we didn’t know existed.  How about you?  How do you make goals and resolutions? I’d love to hear!

Note: This post totally grew out of an article I read and comment I left on (in)courage Bloom Book Club, where Tsh from Simple Mom is talking about her new book, 52 Bites. This Intuitive Feeler is very much looking forward to purchasing it, and gleaning from her wisdom!

And our Christmas was full of wonder, because its easy to come by when you’re two and five, and these little ones brimming over with their child-faith, they draw me right in to it. I think about last Christmas, a year ago, and the healing that has transpired here, and I am hushed by His goodness in it all.

But mixed in with the wonder and the meditations, our Christmas was not without the stench that no doubt marked the stable that first holy night. Only the foul festering here was not so much malodorous, but rather a soul stench emanating from within me: the creeping up of fear and control, of pungent sarcasm and defensiveness, the stink of an old self and the ache of this broken world with its bruised relationships.

And as long as I have breath I will wrestle with this stench. But Christmas, it doesn’t hide the stink of the stable, Christmas celebrates His coming right smack into the dark ugly of it. And I am indebted to those who walk this road with me, and point me back to the One who forgives and makes new, who came to give life, and who offers it today.

And in our little church, I am discovering the beauty of liturgy and the rhythm of the church calendar, and I am surprised to learn that Advent is the beginning of the church calendar. And isn’t this how we begin a new year: with hope, full of expectation, and yes, waiting on the One who writes our stories and numbers our days? And why would I, why do I start anywhere else but here: raw anticipation, deep hope and expectation that Jesus will come right here – into the mess and frailty of this broken life, of this weary heart, of this very moment?

And this is my prayer for this new year, that a cadence and rhythm would develop in these days, that I would learn to daily quiet this heart and hear His voice, His coming in the midst of stench and wonder unfurling altogether here.

I am so thankful for each of you who journey with me and read these words and share your hearts, in email and in comments.  I pray that as you look to the new year, His peace & grace, His rest and very Presence will fill your hearts, your homes. Merry Christmas, friends, and Happy New Year!

Less than two weeks till Christmas and somehow we still have that teepee in our dining room, and the only tree making merry here is the Ficus we inherited from my in-laws when they moved down south.

We are usually all over the Christmasifying of our abode, but the last two months have been a little crazy here. Today I find myself unpacking from a week of travel, living with a half hung garland messily wrapped around the banister and a candle-less advent wreath, that, truthfully, we’ve only used once. And this year it hasn’t really mattered. The conversations in our home and the meditations of this heart have been centered around the manger, and I’m honestly considering just throwing a string of white lights on the Ficus and calling it done.

And I’m thinking, in the midst of this mixed up house here, where fall leaves and jingle bells linger together and bristle the lines of separate but equal seasonal decor, that sometimes we work real hard to get it all right, to celebrate correctly, to make everything count and mean something.

I grew up in a home where Christmas was celebrated lavishly. The sheer quantity of gifts and cookies (I’m talking dozens of dozens!) and people through our doors during all those merry years drove memories deep, spoke right to the heart of the beauty of lavish love, extravagant giving, warm hospitality. And I remember  the prodigal’s father, offering all he had to celebrate, and of heart of a woman who offered an extravagant gift  at Jesus’ feet, of her costly worship. I think of three wise souls, waiting and watchful for the new King coming, who searched far and labored hard and brought costly gifts, and of how in our home, our gifts (both material and those of time and energy) were expressions both costly and beautiful, to celebrate His coming.

When we visit my in-laws, I fall in love with the simple ways they gather around a tree, and the hymns and carols spring up, laughter roars, time goes slow, small gifts exchanged here and there, last year the gift of goat, given to a family whose names we’ll never know. There is intentionality and focus, a centering down. And the heart of it all reminds me of the shepherds, confronted with glory come down right in the midst of them, leaving their flocks and entering in to the very presence of the Humble King, and this is how we celebrate together.

As we seek to raise our children now, to sojourn through this life with grace and integrity, the pendulum has swung back and forth in my heart. And I have held high the ideals of simplicity and scoffed at lavish expressions like a grace grinch, not recognizing the way those very gifts have shaped me. And I have longed for a formula, some simple solution to take all the magnitude of the Word Made Flesh and translate it flawlessly into Pinterest-worthy crafts and activities, that drive home the fullness of God into gingerbread and Advent readings. And it sounds ridiculous when I write it out here, but, really this is what I’ve wanted.

And something cracks open in me when my sister says it: when she tells me they’re going big this Christmas, letting go of the limiting of gifts and attempts to make small something that bursts big with celebration in their hearts. I sense that lavish love longing to pour out, to make memories and teach truth by living it out well, full of joy.

And its a beautiful thing that there is no formula to celebrate a perfect Christmas.  My sister, she tells me straight, that there was a time when high holy days were laid out in stone, and directions were clear, and not one could keep that law perfectly.  And that is why we celebrate the God made Flesh coming to fulfill what we couldn’t.

And you can make fourteen dozen cookies and welcome neighbors and family and strangers into your well-prepared homes, and it can be all for your glory or desperately, beautifully for His. And you can buy all the fair trade gifts or give only to those in grave need, and store up judgement and anger in your heart at those who fail to see the need, or you can do the same in humility and forbearance, moved by compassion and the leading of His Spirit. And the externals, the giving gifts and making ready, it can all be an act of pride or it can all be graceful whisper of humble worship.

Because the Word Made Flesh looks at the heart, and meets us in our mangers and messy stables. And we can worship with extravagance and we can worship in hidden humility, and the Spirit who divides bone and marrow will quiet us with His love, bring us to repentance, and offer us the gift of coming before Him this Christmas, just as we are, when we come.

This Christmas, I am comforted that I serve this Humble King who came down low in a manger, who gave both wise men and shepherds value, and welcomed them into His presence.  O, come, let us adore Him.

Twas the night before advent… and the procrastinator who lives in this house was up past midnight, stapling twine to broken frame, creating something out of the random supplies that cause drawers to jam and husband eyebrows to escalate in equal parts confusion and wonder.

And the stapler that’s traveled to college and classroom and found a home now on the counter in the mudroom spits its last staple on the last piece of yarn: just enough, no more, no less.

The past few years we’ve incorporated a beautiful tradition from my husband’s family.  For each of the four Sundays preceding Christmas, we gather in the evening, light a candle and read scripture, a Christmas story, sing quiet hymns and carols that tell of the God who formed the world being formed in a womb, the Word made flesh.

As our kids grow (and perhaps, more honestly, as I grasp for something centered, quiet here in the midst of much noise) I long to make each day fixed on this beautiful story.  So this year, inspired by Tsh’s calendar, and the scripture and corresponding crafts and ideas from Amanda, I make this, out of found paper and last staples.

And the printer’s not working, and it’s late, and they only open one day at a time – so I draw the candle – a clue to today’s sweet reflection, and hang 24 empty days.

And perhaps that’s just it.  That we need have only just enough, that we move forward, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time. And I’m pretty sure we won’t make all 24 crafts, but we are beginning, and today little eyes grew wide at the beauty of light coming to darkness.

And tonight, this grown-up heart, full of darkness – of fear and frustration and worry and judgement, was quieted by the light burning steady, exposing the deep dark of brokenness and selfish center of it all.  Quietly, without fancy or fanfare, the empty dark is filled by light, in this heart, this home, this world.  So I light a candle, and scribble out day 2, and move on to laundry, this first day.

I laugh today, when I see my face here.  And I own that I am likely the one fussing with glasses, which are fitted poorly and keep sloping to the left – not an altogether inaccurate portrait of the off-kilter balance of my life in this particular season. And I laugh at the title, How to Give Thanks Like an Artist, because artist is a word much more familiar than writer or blogger – the terms of use most common that weekend.

It was three weeks ago now, that I had the unexpected privilege of attending a conference called Relevant, and the writing group emily p. freeman talks about in her post, those thirty minutes were, as she says, indeed a gift.  And the slices of stories shared, in that sweet circle, and all that weekend, and on blogs all over and in grocery lines and at the library – these stories do liberate and lead and encourage us further up, further in.

Somehow, though, in the midst of such sweetness and the thunder of sisters applauding the stories- really the Author (although, admittedly, we do sometimes get a bit confused)… and even after the emphasis on the value of each narrative, each piece of art, even after all that I hang here, in the tension of sharing free and unhindered, and the desire to create in the secret, for the audience of one, and letting it seep out, slow and natural, into the organic places in my very down to earth life in a little neighborhood, with strangers and family and friends right here, in real life.  It’s a mystery to me.

And so I clamor out words when they can’t be contained, but truly, I revel all the more in processing over coffee, with a person who can mirror back and challenge and refine, oh, so much more than I’ve discovered through a screen.  Perhaps it’s the season of life, where little ones pressing needs seem to enrapture and demand my attention and presence fully, or moving to a new neighborhood and desiring community that can stop by unexpected, when words aren’t planned and edited.  Or, perhaps its the raging extrovert in me, or the fact that verbal processing requires two, at least, or maybe being raised in a bustling house of sisters trained me to crave the real life contact.

Relevant threw this brewing conflict into my face. As I listened to Tsh talk about the pleasure of God, and serving in the places that our passions and skills intersect, I heard a collective “Amen, sister” in the air, a resounding “yes” to having found that sweet spot in writing and blogging. The fact that it isn’t so much, for me, in this season, sat uneasy.  Yet as the weekend unfolded, and friends listened deep and processed late into the night, I found some relief in the midst of the tension.

The voice I heard in the silence the weekend afforded, and echoed over and over again from microphones and across dinner tables and from those two a.m. conversations with new friends, that voice spoke a message that has been burned into this heart, again and again.

I don’t know how else to put it, than to simply say I came away from the weekend hushed by the love of God.  I was reminded that above all, I am called to abide, to dwell, to make my home in Christ.  It wasn’t just the weekend, it was the mercy of God unfurling all around, the weeks and conversations leading up to it, the abounding grace in how it all worked out for me to go last minute – the timing I couldn’t have planned.  It was an intersection of hunger and anointed women, sharing their stories, pointing me back to the Artist, the Author of all life, the perfecter of my faith.

I heard the same message reverberating all around: this isn’t about you, just share your story with humility and honesty. Let the emptiness sing, let the full places bubble over, and stop trying to figure it all out and control it. And something loosened up in me.  This fear that I had to perfectly represent my faith, or the Author of my faith, this idea that things needed to be tied up in neat little packages to be of worth, somehow the delusion lost its strength in the face of so many women living in the tension of the beautiful mess that is life this side of heaven.

And while I may not know where this writing is going or if blogging will become a sweet spot or fizzle out for other passions to grow in other arenas of my life, I am feeling pretty good about living in the “Who Knows?” because, really I know the One who does, and being fully known draws me into desire to simply be with Him, fully present, and follow one foot in front of the other.  To abide.  To dwell.

Tell me, do you struggle in the tension between real life and this online reality?  How have you made peace with it?

My eldest is enthralled with butterflies, really metamorphosis: the process that regardless of how many non-fiction, scientific drawing and photograph laden books we check out of library still evokes a heap of wonder, from her and from me, both. And I see it in her, that she is growing, and changing, and I feel it in me too. Seasons change and we mourn summer even as we curse the humidity, and autumn beckons us forward.

Earlier this fall, I received such a sweet respite from all the daily litanies here, as I headed out of town for a weekend away. For years my Mother in law has been committed to lifting her children up in prayer, as an active leader in the prayer movement known as Moms in Touch. In the spring I discovered the beauty and the power of praying scripture over my daughters – as I joined a small group of women in praying for our children and their school. And in September, I heeded the call to “Come To Me” at a regional Moms in Touch retreat, the first of many across the nation.

I went expecting to learn lots about Moms in Touch, and came home personally, deeply refreshed. Over the course of the weekend, Moms in Touch founder Fern Nichols fleshed out the four movements of prayer a typical group walks through during an hour of intentional prayer: praise, confession, thanksgiving, and intercession.  Each of Fern’s sessions was deeply moving, particularly as we experienced them together in prayer.  But, I have to say, the morning spent delving into confession rocked my world.

Not that Fern said anything I hadn’t heard before.  But she spoke truth: plain, hard, gospel truth.  Really, she exposed the reality of our hearts, in light of the truth of God’s always loving, totally trustworthy, holy nature. And then she gave us an hour to spend in silence. SILENCE. It was beautiful.

It got me to thinking about metamorphosis, and transformation, life cycles.  I’m seeing this beautiful tension: this cycle of praise – the eucharesteo – exposing the ugliness and brokenness, pressing me to repentance, freeing me to praise again.  It’s such a gift, this repentance: that our Maker knows our frailty, that my weaknesses and constant returning back to my own controlling and selfish presets are no surprise, that he’s already prescribed the washing of my feet, the drawing back in with kindness. A beautiful, costly gift – this gift of repentance, that I so often glaze over, acknowledging my sin, but not quite confessing.  Not letting it’s weight soak in, consequently forfeiting the experience of it’s weight melting away, taking wing and disappearing altogether.

Living in this constant cycle – of praise, of repentance, of thanksgiving – frees me not just for my sake, but for the sake of others too.  The less I’m trying to keep up performances, keep it together, the more I’m willing to trade my failing and comparing for the reality of His costly grace, acknowledging that I am deeply loved because of who God is and what He has done, the more free I become to love others, out of His deep love. Repentance paves the way for vulnerability with God, with others.

This day, as monarchs rest here in their migration, as cycles of golden leaves scatter soaked in cold fall rain, I’m mindful of these life cycles, all around us: the brilliant and beautiful – leaves all ablaze, the difficult, painful processes that give birth to new life, and the unseen cycles of repentance and grace.