Staying Safe

 

It has been a LONG healing journey for me. While there have been ups and downs and breaks, it has been about 2.5 years of learning how to change the way I am thinking. Each time I think, "I'm done!" the Lord seems to do something else. I keep reminding myself, he is doing this for me not to me. 

There was grieving that needed to be done. Things I had to release. Forgiveness I had to give. I had no idea that He wanted to go so far beyond that with me. He wanted me to also forgive myself. And he wanted to change the way I think. He doesn't want me to stay in prison.

I had no idea how I thought until He began to make it clear to me. My thinking was never about trusting God. It was about predicting every possible scenario to keep myself safe. Now, every single time I tense up or freak up or get defensive, I say, "What is that, Wendi?" and I look into why I am behaving the way I am. There is always a reason and it has nothing to do with other people and everything to do with me. 

Safety. That's what my body is looking for. The only thing is, the lack of safety isn't really that at all! I am fearing relationships and people. None of those will kill me. I am safe in Jesus. 

And so I am learning how to trust in Jesus fully. And I am also learning how to change the nature of my mind and the thoughts that rattle around inside there. When a thought about someone being mad at me comes in and threatens to tip me over, I remind myself of truth. I am disciplining my thoughts and my mind and learning to walk intimately with Jesus. 

I sometimes wonder why God decided to do this with me NOW? Why didn't He do this decades earlier? I really don't have an answer to that. I also sometimes ask Him, "Why me?" Why did he choose ME to do this work? Why do other people continue to live fairly normally (albeit I am realizing, most people aren't living normally -- nearly everyone is surviving with their own coping mechanisms), and I, had to get my legs taken out from under me? 

I am not sure about any of these questions or any of the answers. I do feel that the Lord is calling me, like Jonah, to go into Ninevah. He wants me to speak truth to people and to not be afraid. He wants me to stand alongside people and understand their pain. I could never have understood the depth of pain people can experience before February of 2024. Now I feel it. Now I understand it. 

Solomon asked God for wisdom. If I could ask God for one thing, it would be PEACE. I want the peace of Jesus that passes all understanding. I want that more than anything else in the entire world. I want to sit at His feet and truly understand who He is and how He made me. 

He made me exactly like I am. He knew the life and story I would have. And He is in charge of the path that I am on. He has a great plan. I believe it involves helping people get out of their destructive habits so they can find freedom in Him.

But whatever the plan, I want to follow it. 

I am a new person. A new mom. A new wife. A new daughter. A new niece. A new everything. A new person. A new friend. I'm still a bit muted and not quite as gregarious as I once was. I hope that will come back. But I have also come to realize that the Wendi I was won't come back. Because she wasn't real. She was a person who had found ways to cope with her pain. This new Wendi will be the REAL Wendi. 

I'm excited to meet her. 

He wants ALL of me

I really had no concept of suffering. 

I spent the majority of the first decades of my life believing that suffering meant I was sinning. That I was doing something wrong. I wasn't praying right. I wasn't trusting right. I wasn't following the formula. 

The truth is: THERE IS NO FORMULA except that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. 

That's it. 

But suffering? 

We should expect it. 

I've been thoroughly enjoying studying with an incredible group of women online. This is my third year with BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). This year, we are studying "Exile and Return" and jumping around to many different periods of exile throughout the Old Testament. 

This week it was Nehemiah. 

I had no idea how much I could get from a book of the Bible I'd really never given a second thought too. 

A quick summary: Nehemiah, the cup-bearer to the King, approaches his throne asking if he can go and help the Israelites rebuild the wall. Despite opposition, Nehemiah fasts, prays, and ultimately puts aside his fear and trusts the Lord. 

Oh to put aside my fear!

We all have fear in our life. What is your's? I have a few different general themes, but it has been in the last few months that I have fleshed out the biggest lie I have spent decades believing: 

I must be strong. I must PREVENT bad things from happening. Because if a bad thing happens, I will be on my own to figure out what to do. 

Lies. 

All lies. 

But a lie that I absolutely have built my life around. 

Don't let anyone, ever, not like you. Never be unwanted! Be kind. Never be completely honest. Tell people what they want to hear because heaven-forbid someone doesn't like you. How could you possibly handle that, Wendi? Someone not liking you is ... DEATH! So prevent it. Avoid it. Run from it. 

More lies!!

What if instead I believed: I can handle it?

I did a double-session of EMDR this last week. The day after, I had that moment of clarity I have longed for as my brain attempts to make new meanings and create new pathways. My counselor Kim has been telling me this for two years, but suddenly, I sort of believed it: 

I CAN DO HARD THINGS!

God's purposes are greater than the work he gives us to do! He may give us a task solely to face the obstacles that come along with it. His true purpose is to transform us -- but that can be costly. What area of costly faith are you facing right now? What related fears might you need to bring before God? Are you willing to ask him to align your heart? 

Carrying our cross puts to death our personal desires, wishes, conveniences, and wants in favor of God's will. I want people to like me. I never want to hurt or upset anyone. But in the end, am I more worried about what someone else thinks of me? Or am I more worried about what God thinks of me. 

Yes, Jesus. It is time. I am forty-eight years old. It is time for me to FINALLY say, "Jesus, YOU are the most important thing in my life. ONLY YOU."

Oh, he's been asking me to do this my whole life, and I would think, "I mostly got it." I cannot tell you how many times I would quietly feel God telling me not to worry what someone thought. Or I would have a friend say, "Wendi, what they think shouldn't bother you this much?" And I would nod and sort of agree, but then I would go into "fix-it-mode." Fix-it, Wendi! No way you can sit in this. You can't handle that. FIX!

But I didn't. Not truly. Not ever. In the end, my fear of man was ALWAYS stronger than my devotion to the Lord.

What about you? It may not be people-pleasing. What is the thing in your life that sits in front of Jesus? I ask you. I beg of you. See my story. Don't require the Lord to bring you to a place of ultimate low before you willingly say, "I put you FIRST!" 

God will actually move the heart of others to complete his purpose for us. Woah. This means that he may actually harden someone's heart to be upset at me in order to complete his purpose. This means that he may have someone fire you to make sure your job isn't your security. He may cause the loss in your life to bring about the ultimate surrender. 

I never used to believe this. I believed that good things were from God and bad things were from Satan. However, the Bible doesn't say this at all. While we know Satan is real, and he absolutely brings adversity against us, we also know that God will discipline us. 

Hebrews 12:10–11: “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

James 1:2–4: “Consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."

Romans 5:3–4: “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” 

Deuteronomy 8:2: “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness… to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart.”

Peter 1:6-7: “Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith… may result in praise, glory and honor.”

Honestly, just writing those scriptures out makes me have a bit of a stomachache. I don't want this to be true. And I want so badly to go back in time and learn this before I had to face the last two years of my life. Before God had to wake me up to the lie I had built my entire life around. 

Wendi believed she could power her way through anything. She could perseverate long enough to solve any situation. She could help people eliminate pain. She could fix hard situations. She didn't want to sit in pain with people. She wanted to make their pain GO AWAY because she had no idea what to do with pain. It didn't fit into her formula. Pain was BAD. 

Oh, but what if PAIN was actually good? What if it grew you?

God doesn't act on our time. Serving and following Jesus is costly because of our desires which will ultimately conflict with His will. Obstacles are opportunities for transformation! Instead of falling into despair, can you fall into prayer instead?!

HE ALLOWS DIFFICULTIES IN OUR LIFE!

Oh, how I wish this wasn't true because then I could just rebuke Satan and pray away the difficulty. Instead, I now see that sometimes, the difficulty is from the Lord. He is saying, "I need you to see me. I need you to put me first. I need you to change the direction of your life because I need you."

I have no doubt that the Lord is calling me to a new place. A different place. A place where He is my #1. I wish so badly that I could have discovered this two decades ago. Why do I have to be nearing 50? Why couldn't I have seen this at 30? 

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I simply was not ready. Maybe I pushed Him away. 

But He has my attention now because I am simply unable to function without leaning on Him. This depression/anxiety/collapse is too big for me. I have not been able to just power through. (Trust me! I have tried!)

My counselor keeps saying to me: You have to stop trying to make meaning out of every dip and low spot. You just have to ride the waves. 

But I didn't know how to do that because for me, everything was a problem to be solved. If I can think enough, I can solve the problem. I can figure it out. I, Wendi, can get out of this situation.

Just like Nehemiah went with fear before the King ... What area of costly faith are you facing right now? What related fears might you need to bring before God? What do you need to surrender to Him? 

For Wendi there are many areas, but the biggest one is my fear of man. 

Lord Jesus, I surrender. I absolutely give up. I have tried it my way. I have tried to live for you while continuing to put what other people think and feel first. I can talk my way out of it. I can get them to like me. I can convince them that I am a good person. I can apologize profusely. I can beg. I can grovel. Anything to not sit in discomfort. 

Or I can say: not my will Lord Jesus, but your will be done. 

If that means someone decides to shut me out of their life forever? So be it. Because in the end, JESUS is my audience of 1. Outside of my Heavenly Father and my husband and children, anyone else must take a back seat to HIM! And, even of course, those humans are behind God in priority in my life. They must be!

God's activity in our life inspires believers to follow Him despite the cost. When opposition to God's will arises, it gives us opportunity to trust in the Lord. 

Dear Jesus, please help me to fully trust you!

May I be like the sheep in our pastures -- trusting the Lord to give them their next food. Not worried about anything except the thing right in front of them. Dear Jesus, allow me to be like a sheep. Allow me to reside and trust you FULLY.

Refining

From my dear friend Meredith: 

 

I thought of you this morning cleaning the paint off the paint pan and it made me think of an analogy of what you are going through so I thought I would shoot a video for you to see and hope that it encourages you. The black paint is the trauma, the sin, the bad stuff in our life, minds, and hearts. We try to contain it in our hearts and minds, and so it looks contained on the pan. Then when we start to deal with it, face it, scrub it off, God rains down his amazing grace and refining presence in our lives and hearts. BUT!!!. Things get messier looking for a while. It actually seems worse, darker, more pervasive, overwhelming, and chaotic. BUT!! It’s all part of his refining process. He’s cleaning away the dark the entire time (represented by my finger). He sees what he’s doing, but we just feel the chaos in the moment. And eventually one day, we are completely refined, clean, healed, and made new.❤️🥰

The cross doesn't cancel human emotion

Hey everyone, 

Let's stop spiritually bypassing people's sadness as though it makes the power of the cross ineffective. 

It's weird. 

Jesus wept is the shortest verse in the Bible, yet its meaning screams so loud.

God wanted us to know that pain matters,

presence matters, 

and love doesn't skip over suffering.

It sits in it. 

In so many Christian spaces, we've learned to bypass sadness with scripture and slap "God's got a plan!" over the heartbreak of another as though a band aide could really care for a bullet wound. 

But disconnection dressed in spirituality is not comfort. 

It's not faith to pretend that you're not sad. It's not weakness to acknowledge grief, disappointment, or trauma. 

And it's definitely not holy to pressure someone into suppressing what Jesus himself made space for. 

Jesus didn't rush people out of pain. 

He entered it. 

Holy doesn't mean happy all the time.

The cross doesn't cancel human emotion.

It redeems it. 

The Power of the Cross isn't diminished by tears. 

It was actually born in them. 

(I did not write this. Taken from Instagram)

The Jesus I Never Knew

 

I am reading the book THE JESUS I NEVER KNEW with my 10th graders.

Each chapter, we all pull something out that really speaks to us. Here's one of the things that jumped out at me. And keep in mind, this was written the year I graduated from High School (1995!)

"A political movement by nature draws lines, makes distinctions, pronounces judgment; in contrast, Jesus' love cuts across lines, transcends distinctions, and dispenses grace. Regardless of the merits of a given issue -- whether a pro-life lobby out of the Right or a peace-and-justice lobby out of the Left -- political movements risk pulling onto themselves the mantle of power that smothers love. From Jesus I learn that, whatever activism I get involved in, it must not drive out love and humility, or otherwise I betray the kingdom of heaven."

WOW!

Here's another quote that really spoke to me:

"For this reason, I must say in an aside, I worry about the recent surge of power among U.S. Christians, who seem to be focusing more and more on political means. Once Christians were ignored or scorned; now they are courted by ever savvy politician. Evangelicals especially are identified with a certain political stance, so much so that the news media uses the terms "evangelical" and "religious right" interchangeably. When I ask a stranger, "What is an evangelical Christian?" I get an answer something like this: "Someone who supports family values and opposes homosexual rights and abortion.

"This trend troubles me because the gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform. The issues that confront Christians in a secular society must be faced and addressed and legislated, and a democracy gives Christians ever right to express themselves. But we dare not invest so much in the kingdom of this world that we neglect our main task of introducing people to a different kind of kingdom, one based solely on God's grace and forgiveness. Passing laws to enforce morality serves a necessary function, to dam up evil, built it never solves human problems. If a century from now all the historians can say about evangelics of the 1990s is that they stood for family values, then we will have failed the mission Jesus gave us to accomplish: the communicated God's reconciling love to sinners."

We Bought a Farm: Having Oxen

• “Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; But much increase comes by the strength of an ox." – Proverbs 14:4

Today, kicked my butt. 

• Our "puppy", Raven got into the girl's new playhouse and destroyed a bunch of the girls toys.
• Due to a miscommunication, she got in there a second time. 
• A wild animal (Bear? Coyote?) ate the head off of one of our bottle-fed lambs. It was awful.
• Raven is in heat but shouldn't be bred during her first heat. So we have to keep Ritter away from her. Easy enough, except he managed to get spooked by shooting and climb OUT of our outdoor kennel through a hot tin the fence he should have never been able to fit through.
• We had to repair the fence. 

And that's just the farming side. Honestly, the kid side felt nearly as bad. Lots of bad behavior. Complaining. Disrespect. Frustrations. Arguments. 

Did I tell you John is working three 12-hours shifts in a row? That he had to squeeze an entire month of work into three weeks in order to take the vacation with us?

And then a farming friend shared the scripture I posted above with me. And it really hit home. Things happen on the farm because our farm is ALIVE. Our house is crazy because there are CHILDREN in it. Life is hard because we are living it. And it's real. Animals die. Children misbehave. But without these dogs, we'd lose the joy of raising Australian Shepherds. And without the sheep, we couldn't manage our pastures or eat delicious meat. Without my children? Well, enough said. 

To those of you who had a day like I did, remember. It's crazy because there ARE oxen! What a great thing.

 

Dear Father, I Need You

Dear Father, I need You,

Your strength my heart to mend.

I want to, fly higher,

Every new day again.

Man versus himself

Man versus machine

Man versus the world

Mankind versus me

The struggles go on

The wisdom I lack

The burdens keep piling

Up on my back

So hard to breathe

To take the next step

The mountain is high

I wade in the depths

Yearning for grace

And hoping for peace

Dear God increase

Healing hands, of God

have mercy

on our unclean souls,

once again.

Jesus Christ,

light of the world,

burning bright,

within our hearts forever.

Freedom,

means love without condition,

Without a beginning or an end.

Here's my heart,

let it be forever Yours.

Only You can make every new day seem so new.

- Reese Roper

More of You, Less of Me

I am reprinting a Blog post from a Rochelle Holmes. The Holmes family shares a very special section of my heart and is our "Florida Family." This piece she wrote really resonated with me, and I wanted to share it on my Blog. To read this article on Rochelle's Blog, please click here. 

I have realized in the recent weeks, that it’s really hard to have less of me when I am consumed with well, me. Consumed with my own circumstance, problems, joys, highs, lows, etc, etc... This “more of You, less of me” prayer is something I have religiously recited over and over, as if simply saying the words will make it come true.

Recently, I was going through a certain situation, and my husband simply said, “How has your personal time been with the Lord lately?” Immediately I became defensive and found it my duty to remind him just of how busy I am. I quickly rattled off everything I do from morning until night, and tried to convince him [and me] that I have simply been too busy to spend real time in His presence. If I already didn’t realize how terrible that sentence is, writing it out only exacerbates it. Really—you should try it. Write out those awful things you say. It only makes you realize how ridiculous it is!

As soon as I said it, I knew there was zero Holy Spirit in that sentence. And like a loving but convicting husband responds, he simply said, “no.” He was able to empathize with everything else in my current season, but this one he could not co-sign on. He reminded me, ever so gently, “Your relationship with the Lord is your responsibility.” Let’s read that again slowly. Your relationship with the Lord is your responsibility. Yes! And, ouch! As painful as it was to be corrected, it was equally true. That sentence prompted a beautiful new journey of more of Him, less of me.

You see, I had gotten absolutely consumed with my day to day. My priorities were completely off. Work, ministry, family—everything had taken the place of my greatest priority—Jesus. His presence. He must be everything. I had forgotten that for a moment. And in that, I had forgotten who I was. What his promises were. I had forgotten everything. Matthew 6:33 tells us, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (NLT). Oh how I had forgotten! I actually don’t need to strive and chase things down, I just need to seek Him first—then everything else comes. Everything.

Have you ever found yourself seeking good things? Family, relationships, social media (this one can be good or bad!), a calling, a ministry, serving, leading, building community, and the list goes on and on. It’s so hard to see that something is a little off when the object of your affection is actually so good. It’s not sinful. It’s not anything bad. But it’s not the most excellent way. The Lord doesn’t want us to give up these things, but He does want to be above them. In fact, this Christian life requires that He is above them. It’s the only way. His presence over everything.

So, how do we say no to all these things that war for our attention every single day? Maybe no is not the right word. Rather, how do we say, “not yet” to those things that war for our attention every day? We make Him first. In all things. We meet with Him first in the mornings. We talk to Him about our day. We surrender our days to His plan while declaring the Word over our day. Over our lives. We pray, daily. We worship, daily. We read His word. Every. Single. Day. We discipline ourselves to be with Him every day, and we make Him everything. He is the center of our lives. Without Him, we have nothing. With Him, we have everything. 

I’ve eliminated the noise, the distractions. I try not to reach for my phone in every empty space. I listen to what He might be saying. I try not to spend time scrolling through social media multiple times a day to see what other people are doing. Now, I take time to see what He is doing. What He is up to. What Heaven is doing right here in this earth. I take time to drive in silence and listen. I read. I listen to podcasts, to worship. I fill up my soul and my spirit with Him, so when I’m with Him and when I’m with others, I am spilling over with Him. More of Him, way less of me.

When I love Him well, I can love myself well, and I can love others well. When He is at the top, His rightful place, I am the best mother, the best wife, the best employee, the best servant, the best leader, the best friend, the best neighbor, the best acquaintance. Not because I am spending my days pursuing greatness, but because I am spending my days pursuing the Great One. Friends, I challenge you to stop what you’re doing and evaluate where He is in your life. What a crucial task. Stop and see how your priorities need to be re-evaluated so that He is first, in all things in your life. Seek Him first, everything else will come.

Things to think about:

What is currently holding you back from God being first in your life?

How can you re-prioritize Him in your life this next week? How can you (and the things in your life) become less so that you can increase pursuing His presence more?

His presence is so satisfying. How can you maintain a consistency of being with Him so you are always filled, and always refreshed?

John 3:30-31

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. He has come from above and is greater than anyone else. We are of this earth, and we speak of earthly things, but he has come from heaven and is greater than anyone else.”

-Rochelle

Sin Ripples

 "There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable." Mark Twain

If you think you can sin and that the sin you commit will only affect YOU, think again.

Don't get me wrong. As I write about this, do not misinterpret what I am saying.

I know that I sin. I know that I have done evil. I know that my sin affects others. What I do affects others every single day. I am selfish. I am jealous. I am manipulative. I lose my temper. I will not even begin to say I do not sin or that anyone else's sin is worse than mine.

But when you are physically impacted by someone else's choices, it really resonates deeply. 

I am sitting here exhausted beyond belief right now. My husband is working his tale off. My in-laws have had to change their entire plans this winter. All because some adults in our life decided that their sin would only affect them. Or they didn't care. I don't know which. I don't know what they were thinking. I am not sure how you can make the choices they did without realizing the rippling affect it would have. 

But they made them. Because someone my husband worked with made the choice he did, John had to pick up five extra shifts this month. My Abigail is crying today because she feels she hasn't seen her Daddy. And I'm crying because I am yelling because I feel alone and like I am doing life completely solo.

Sin ripples.

None of us should forget that.

 

Don't forget their soul!

"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education." Theodore Roosevelt

I wrote a piece for The Glorious Table a few months back entitled: Are You Parenting with the Big Picture in Mind?

I want to remind us all that the most important part of our children is their SOUL. That is the part we should be nurturing more than ever. 

Below I share a video of our last homeschooling day before the Christmas break. (Yes! We take breaks too!) Our eldest six kiddos are doing some drawing while going through and doing their "Letter of the week" memory verses.


Our youngest kiddos use the verses I linked to above. For our older kiddos, we do the full verse, making it more challenging. Check it out:

I love the A-B-C nature of these verses because they can be brought to mind easily. I, myself, have laid in bed on particularly troubling days and simply begun reciting verses from A to Z! It's easy to do. (We do one each week and then each week, we try to recite up to the point we are at which is what we are doing in the video below.)

Don't forget their souls folks! Don't forget their SOUL!

 

Quick, can you sum up your life purpose in one phrase?

 

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Research suggests that if you can sum up your life in just one phrase, you can live a good seven years longer. 

I thought about it, and I realized I can do this quite easily: 

My purpose: To honor God and love to all people and give everything God tells me to give to whoever he tells me to give it all the while teaching my children the same ... where the green grass grows.

The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen." 

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

I've been sad lately. My heart has been burdened. I have about a half dozen different people/families in my life right now dealing with very challenging circumstances. These are not minor things. These are big things. Life-changing things. Things that will change the course of their life considerably. These things are too private to share, but my heart has simply broken watching what pain is inflicted on people I love due to sin in our world. 

I stumbled upon this quote (above) and it really spoke to me. It spoke to me not only for the grief in my own life, but also in an encouragement to these wonderful people in my life battling immeasurable grief right now. Each of these individuals has an intense personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I know that through HIM, they can come out better, stronger, and closer to Christ than they ever imagined.

The Word of God is filled with scriptures offering comfort to those grieving. Here are just two that I am praying over these very special people in my life:

"For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard." Psalm 22:24

"The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit."  Psalm 34:18

You may not be one of the people on my heart, but I am sure there are many of you reading this who are grieving for themselves or someone else. Cling to HIM. He is present in your time of need.

Don't lose hope!

Psalm 46:1-3 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Today is election day in the USA.

Here's the truth as I see it:

• I voted. 
• It's a privilege. 
• So do it!

But in the end, remember, MAN cannot save us. Strive to tell people about Jesus and that he died for their sins. Remember continually that this life is but a vapor but eternity is forever. 

Psalm 146:3 tells us to not put our hope in human beings. They cannot save us. Only Jesus can. Love your neighbor. Give to the poor. Treat everyone as an equal. Be kind. Listen. Hope. 

This doesn't mean you should give up. Support the causes you believe in. Vote. Pray.

And don't lose hope. 

I decided a few years ago that I would no longer talk about politics with people. Instead I would talk Jesus with people. 

Can I get an Amen?

A Life Renovation

A weekly post from my childhood to grown-up friend Carrie ~ 

sharing her awesome life and her desire to have community while doing it!

Decisions, decisions. Our lives are the result of constant decision making, so what governs you? 

Fear? Hope? 

Over the past 5 years specifically, it seems that both of these have had a hand in governing me. As a result I have taken a sledge hammer to my life, demolishing everything that seemed like a solid foundation; the concrete walls, the strong roof, the solid exterior—it’s all gone. The renovation of my life has come and it has definitely uncovered much more than I expected. 

When you’re getting ready to deconstruct something it can be exhilarating or daunting. Very rarely is it emotionless. I am at the start of a deconstruction, whose end is not in sight, and I am settled in that. So let’s talk about what that has looked like for me. 

Metaphorically speaking, my house (my life) was built. I was ready to furnish the inside, pick out the beautiful decor, sit back and enjoy the fruit of my 26 years of labor. My furnishings included a few kids, a great job where I made enough to live generously, a rock star marriage, and an amazing community. A noble desire it was.

When the tools arrived on my front porch, I brought them inside, set them aside, and didn’t think much of them. Then, little by the little, the tools began to be used. A hammer to the wall here, a door off the hinge there, a broken appliance, a water leak, and before I knew it, I was living in a house I didn’t even recognize. Cracked, broken, dirty, and unlivable. But where was I supposed to go? I LIVED IN THIS HOUSE. As far as I knew, I loved this house. And it was everything I wanted, until it wasn’t. 

Over time, the residence of my soul needed to be gutted. These beliefs that I held onto dearly were not proving themselves to be true. Not because they weren’t—rather, because I wasn’t. They were truth because they had been told to me, not because I had experienced them. So began the gutting… And here’s a few of those truths:

• Just have faith and it will happen. 
• Give your money here, and you’ll benefit there.
• Marriage is great. Hahahaha. (This one makes me laugh.) 

Stay with me, here, I am not being cynical. Remember, some of my foundation was built on these truths. And they were truth because “I said so,” and I needed them to be truth because “I experienced so." 

“Just have faith and it will happen,” is easier said than done. I feel like faith gets a bad rep in religious circles. It’s easy to tell someone to have faith when they need encouragement and you don’t know what else to say. But coming from a girl who has sat at the base of a mountain that seems impossible to scale for 10 years, please don’t tell me to have faith, because it implies that I don’t. Instead, tell me that I am strong enough. Tell me that no matter what, this doesn’t define me. Tell me that it neither adds or subtracts from my value. Tell me those things, or stay silent. Experientially, here is why this is a truth to me now: Because having faith is not about scaling the mountain. Whether I sit at the base or make it to the peak, my satisfaction is stable. 

(Side Note: I know money is a touchy subject, so if talking about money makes you uncomfortable you should skip the next paragraph. 🙂 I get it, no big deal!) 

I was raised in church and like everything else, especially non-profits, they need our support. I love that. I love supporting good people who are doing good work, including the church. However, the “give your money here and you will benefit there” concept in recent years has been hard for me to accept, if I am just being honest. So here is where I am at experientially: I feel better when I am generous. I know I am not that great on my own, and I am grateful for all the opportunities I have to make money, so giving a portion of that away is in part my way of saying thank you.

Marriage is great! Haha this is a funny one. Let’s start here: Marriage is great, just not on its own. Here is my experiential truth: Getting to live life with a significant other is seriously a gift. Marriage gives the gift of intimacy. Real closeness. You get to be known in a way that no other relationship can offer. At the same time, you get to be known—good and not so good. Marriage without accountability and community is not great. Isolation in marriage is not great. Facades in marriage are not great. The breakdown of who you really are in proximity to another human who loves and cares for you is great. How you accept love and belonging, which marriage brings out, is great. Marriage - Union - Covenant - Commitment - alone is hard. In the context of community, marriage is great. 

So let’s trek back to this Life Renovation. I say I am only at the beginning because I don’t want this process to stop. I want to continually demo the areas of my life that are moldy, cracked, and the likes thereof. So if you too find yourself in a life renovation, congrats and keep going. If you want to begin to break down the walls and jack hammer the floors, begin to ask yourself the why’s. Why do I believe that? Do I know (experience) it? And lastly, if you have no desire to renovate your life, I get that. It’s not easy. I would simply encourage you to live in a way that is always kind and generous—those are really good foundations to stand on. 

Follow the yes. Wade in the peace. Halt in the no. 

Carrie

Headed Down A Dimly Lit Road of Uncertainty

A weekly post from my childhood to grown-up friend Carrie ~ 

sharing her awesome life and her desire to have community while doing it!

Happy TribeLife Tuesday! 

Let’s talk today on something I have strayed away from for a myriad of reasons. Each one of you who join us here, on the blog, are our tribe and I am always wanting to make sure that I share my world authentically and accurately and that I manage my influence carefully. It is my desire that in this tribe I steward myself well as well as the content I publish. Which bring us to today, there is so much divisiveness in our culture without the willingness to understand. It seems as though the stories that are getting the most attention are less than flattering of mankind. The lack of empathy due to principle is inhuman. So I have made it a point to work hard at prioritizing people over all the other things; that connection would be the #1 goal, even in the middle of disagreement. So let’s jump into this. 

In October of 2017, exactly one year ago this month, I took a leap. Well not just me, but my husband and me. For about 10 months I felt this change coming but had no idea what it was and honestly I was wondrously intimidated. This tent of unsettledness became my home and it was… well it just was. Have you ever been there? Where you can feel change coming but you have no idea what it is? 

That is where I lived and really still live a lot of my time there. We left our full time jobs and went on the hunt for purpose. For our Life’s Calling. We untethered ourselves from everything we knew, everything that was safe and comfortable and headed down the dimly lit road of uncertainty. What a thrilling and scary and hard and growing dark path it has been. 

It’s on this path where we have 2 options: hope or anxiety. Hope that someone bigger than us is watching out for us, or anxiety of the unknown. I chose a little of both to be honest in the beginning and still do sometimes. I would weave in and out of each emotion (and believe me, the anxiousness was much more taxing that the hope). But in order to hope I had to make a conscious decision to negate the feeling of anxiety to tell my mind and heart that this will work for good. A life lesson I learned from a dear friend. 

I continue to see a pattern in our life: R I S K. It seems like the opportunity to stretch presents itself pretty often to us. I could not risk like we have and will continue to, if it were all up to me. Thats too much pressure. 

So let’s go back to that someone bigger than you or me. I’m a firm believer that I would be super lame and probably try and play it real safe if I were navigating this life on my own—but I'm not. I have the big guy upstairs, God, and He really does have my back. I see it all the time. I love God fiercely and in my loving Him I can’t help but love humanity, even in their sometimes meanness. But this is the weight I wrestle with at times. I would never want my beliefs to deter someone from getting to know me or vice versa. Alas, I have landed where I wanted to get to: God, people, empathy. 

I love that people have different views than me and different life practices than I do. It’s a beautiful addition to living. So I would like to implore you today to find someone different than you and get to know them. Put down the spikes of judgement that are so easily thrown from behind the curtain of distance and get up close. Ask questions. Be kind. These are the things that change the world quite literally. 

I hope you leave this page inspired today. 

Sincerely,

Carrie

Review: Teach Sunday School

I want to introduce you to Teach Sunday School. They gave me the opportunity to review Books of the Bible At-a-Glance. With 66 books (40 authors!) the Bible can feel overwhelming. The idea behind this product is to make the Bible feel much more "digestible" for the young and old alike. Want PLACEMENT? Want CONTEXT? These cards will help you do and get just that.


Each book of the Bible has a one-page "cheat sheet." This means there are 66 pages (plus a table of contents and separation pages between the Old and New Testament) in this document. I decided to print them all out, hole punch them, and put them in a binder that any of us could use whenever we wanted. Here is a picture of the book I made. (Aren't I the craftiest thing ever?! Ha ha!)

Each of the cards looks like the one below with things like book number, author, date written, claims to fame, famous stories included, most famous verses, and important points about the book.

You can see that each of the cards looks identical (below). I personally chose not to print mine in color just to save ink, but you can obviously do color if you so choose:

So what can you do with these cards? I brainstormed with my cousin's wife (whom I am homeschooling with) and we came up with a ton of different ways. During our short review, we simply let the kids flip through them, asked them to study one, and read through them. But we really think you could use these very well in your homeschooling community. Some of our ideas included:

• Actually having your child learn one card a week. They are going to be quizzed on anything on that card and have to study it and learn about it. I actually think this is probably the most appropriate use for a homeschool environment. You purchase the package, print them out, put them in a binder like I did and then use them as part of your Bible curriculum for the year.
• Play a game using the cards with multiple students. Have them compete against each other answering questions about a certain book that they studied. I think this would work really well in the homeschool community we have set up here at our house. With so many kids close in age we could have a real contest to learn the details behind the stories. 
• If you were using this with a Sunday School class you could possibly laminate them and have each kid take turns studying different pages. Lots of potential with how you could integrate them with a church for sure.
• Simply using the sheets in conjunction with your own Bible study. You can have them on hand to refer to and put a book you are reading in context. If I am being honest, I think that this is the least likely option as there is already a lot of this in most Bibles people use. Most Bibles provide an "introductory page" before each chapter which includes a lot of the information that is on each of these sheets. However, I do think the way they are laid out in this guide is much more user friendly.

You can purchase the entire packet and then download it as many times as you need it. You have unlimited rights to reprint for a single church or a single household use. There is a completely money back guarantee. And the cost of the product is only $9. I hope you take the time to view Teach Sunday School's Books of the Bible At-a-Glance. You can also check them out at: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.