One Step at a Time

One Step at a Time

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God doesn’t expect you to be perfect. He doesn’t expect me to be perfect. This is great news, because I make a lot of mistakes. I say the wrong thing, I act out of selfishness, I tear down others to build myself up. The gospel isn’t only for those who have it all together, who make big moves, and who dream big dreams. The gospel is also for those of us who are afraid, feel unsure, and aren’t courageous in the slightest. As we’ll see in the story of Zacchaeus, one step of faith at a time is all it takes to draw closer to Jesus:

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”

Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”
Luke 19:1-10 (NLT)

As these verses tell us, Zacchaeus was desperate for a glimpse of Jesus. Sure, he was culturally known as a sinner because of his chosen career as a tax collector, but that didn’t stop him from taking a brave step to be closer to Jesus. This story demonstrates to readers that the good news of the gospel is for everyone, including outcasts and sinners. As he lumbered up the tree in his dusty tunic, he didn’t expect to be noticed for this act. He didn’t do it to be seen but to see the Son of Man. His small step toward God — climbing a sycamore tree — changed his life forever. Zacchaeus receives the gift of salvation after later hosting Jesus in his home, but it all started by climbing a tree.

Today, what if moving one step closer to Jesus looked like doing something out of the ordinary to see Him more clearly? You never know what repercussions that first step of faith might have. There is salvation, beauty, and healing in your story.

Even if you don’t see it just yet, take one step of faith. You never know where it might lead.

Let’s pray: Lord, thank You for the reminder of Your life and faithfulness through the story of Zacchaeus. Please open my eyes today to how You are working in my story. Help me to be bold in taking one step closer to You. Thank You that I do not have to be perfect in this life; I just have to rely on You. Holy Spirit, be near me as I look for ways to draw closer to You. Amen.

This article was written by Ellen Wildman as featured in Everyday Faith Magazine.

Did you know DaySpring has a magazine? It’s true! And the brand new summer issue just hit newsstands!

From cover to cover in each issue of Everyday Faith magazine, you will find stories and articles to inspire hope and encouragement and to remind you that you are His. In this summer issue, you’ll find tips for summer roads trips, a summer book club pick, stories of hope during difficult times, and ideas about how to live your faith this year. There are tear-out prayer cards, scannable QR codes for freebies, and an exclusive Summer Downtime Planning Calendar tear-out tucked inside!

These pages are full of the best kind of hope and encouragement — truth from God’s Word!

You care about your faith — that’s why you’re here today! — and Everyday Faith magazine will help you know and share God’s love in fresh, true, and inspiring ways. This article by Ellen is just one of many featured throughout Everyday Faith magazine, which, by the way, is perfect for tucking into your purse, bringing to the beach, and sharing with a friend.

And to help you do just that, we’re giving away FIVE sets of magazines — one for each winner and one for each of them to give to a friend! Leave a comment telling us whom you’d gift a copy to, and we’ll draw five winners.

Giveaway open to US addresses only and will close on 6/27/22 at 11:59pm CST. 

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Passing Notes: a Lesson in God’s Love for Us

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It seemed like yet another, increasingly common, back-and-forth frustration between me and my daughter. I couldn’t help but sigh in exhaustion, wanting to discount, in this case, the emotions surrounding a child not finding her Chiefs shirt for “Red Day” at school. She shouted up and down the hallway throwing insults at anyone who walked by. My husband was at a meeting, and I had a sore throat and aching bones from some sort of quick but debilitating virus. I got frustrated and yell-whispered from my bed with a scratchy voice, “Honey, I’m sick, and I physically can’t help you find the shirt. I don’t have the energy to argue with you, so you’re going to have to find your shirt in the laundry on your own.”

She said under her breath, “I hate you.”

I never understood this sort of interaction between parent and child when I would watch television shows or movies in elementary school. I was not allowed under any circumstances to verbalize that I hated my parents even if my emotions felt so loud that I did think it. Growing up, everything did feel so big and so awful that sometimes I projected what I felt on others, including those who loved me the most. I can see that now. But as those words left her mouth in that moment, I must have winced. My eyes showed hurt. We both felt the pain of her words unleashed, watching, almost visibly, the arrows move from her mouth and land into my heart. 

“You’re frustrated, and I know you don’t mean that. But you’re grounded tomorrow so you have some space to think about your words.” She stomped away loudly. A good half an hour later with her face hidden by a pillow, she showed up at my door. And while her words hurt me, I almost wanted to laugh at her journey through the long hallway blinded by a decorative twelve-by-twelve soft cotton shield. She stormed in and threw a note on my bed. 

I am stupid and a bad kid you don’t want, it said in sloppy handwriting. 

Ah, I knew this feeling. When I’ve been wrong and felt shame for acting out, I’ve said similar things: I am so bad I cannot be redeemed. I am so messed up that now I will be rejected. I am so far beyond, you don’t want me now. And don’t I do this with God? Don’t I struggle with the same shame when coming to Him — or when deciding not to come to Him — because I think He’ll reject me based on my performance, on being able to control my emotions and actions just so?

Watching her agony, my heart was endeared to her. This was not about a lost shirt; this was about worthiness. 

Being a parent is tedious work. If we’re not listening or watching, we can inadvertently discount really harmful thoughts and let our children believe they’re abandoned in their shame. I pulled a note from the poet Kate Baer, who crosses words out from hateful letters she receives and corrects them with love.

My new crossed-out, fixed version of my daughter’s note read, “I am stupid stupendous! And a bad kid you don’t want!”

Then I passed the fixed note back to her room via an interconnected web of other children who were waiting to see how I would respond to the Tasmanian devil outburst. Not a minute later, she came to my door, laid her head on the frame, and whispered defeatedly, “I’m sorry.”

I said, “Do I love you more when you obey me? Less when you don’t? Or do I love you the same either way?” This was a softball. She laughed, “Always the same.” She walked back to her room with her face unhidden, her shoulders a little higher. We had rehearsed this phrase for moments like these, when you can’t believe the goodness you’re being shown, especially when you might not deserve it. 

The next morning, when I was scrounging for a sharpie in her room, I found the crossed-out, edited-by-me note by her pillow, and it made me tear up. I figured she’d thrown it away in her anger, but no, she clung to it. She needed to reread my love for her, my reframing of her shame, the assurance of forgiveness.

In the Bible, David made a huge mistake and was tempted to live in shame because of it. But he writes this in Psalm 103:12-13, 

 As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

I do this same cycle with God — of feeling shame, repenting, fighting to believe He loves me beyond performance, and holding fast to my true identity. And what a tender way to remember that I am just like my daughter in that tendency. We’re all very much eleven-year-olds who need to know that we’re wanted, loved, adored, worthy, and good. If we can somehow let that child inside of us know the true remedy for our shame is God’s love, maybe we too could walk a little lighter, a little less hidden, with our shoulders a little higher. What a free way to live that would be!

Listen to today’s article below or wherever you stream podcasts!

All I Wanted Was Chips and Guacamole but I Couldn’t Leave My House

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I craved chips and creamy, tangy guacamole. But after watching the news coverage about the mass shooting of thirteen people, including eleven African-Americans in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, I couldn’t bring myself to drive to the store to pick up the ingredients. Like a mobile app that freezes on a screen, my mind got stuck on the thought that perhaps one of the victims, who was African-American like me, made the decision to run out for chips and avocados — and that decision cost their lives.

After the initial shock and sadness for the victims, I worked to normalize my thoughts and emotions. I put down my phone and took some deep breaths. Stretching my arms and bending my knees to push the blood around my body, I also forced rational thoughts to flow through my mind. I reminded myself that Buffalo was hours away and the odds of a copycat crime in my neighborhood were low. I was determined to prove that someone’s hateful actions couldn’t intimidate me or control my behavior. Snatching up my keys and grabbing my wallet, I coached myself through the steps of walking through my door and driving the ten minutes to the store. I proposed that I could speed up my trip by only squeezing three avocados instead of my usual twenty. Race-based anxiety, you aren’t going to win. I can do this!

Nope.

I took a few steps and stopped. I couldn’t move any closer to my door. The anxious thumping of my heartbeat was too loud. I also felt the mental tug-of-war between knowing the low likelihood that I was in danger that day and knowing the reality that too many people who look like me have died doing the equivalent of going out for chips and avocados.

I slumped in my chair, stuck, frustrated, confused. Can you relate? If so, how do we get unstuck from anxious thoughts even though there may be a real basis for our fear? These days, I’m thinking of friends who are watching their loved ones deal with serious medical conditions and other loved ones navigating tricky relational challenges with real risks and uncertain outcomes.

In the Old Testament, David began as King Saul’s favored warrior. David revered Saul but soon had to run for his life because Saul was on the hunt to kill him. There’s a point at which David holes up in a cave to hide from Saul (1 Samuel 22). It was a literal and spiritually dark time in David’s life. He later wrote Psalm 142 to capture his mental tug-of-war between fear, frustration, and faith.

All David wanted was to honor God, fight for his king, and live with his family. No matter how simple David’s desires, his reality was complicated. I love that David admits to being overwhelmed, which many of us can relate to.

It’s frustrating when we are struggling and afraid, especially when answers allude us or change seems slow to come. As a believer who is a person of color, it’s been a lifelong journey to learn how to trust God to meet me in the places of racial anxiety and ask for His help. Until something racially changes in our country, I don’t want to get stuck in an emotional and mental tug-of-war every time there’s a racial incident. Chances are, you’ve got a recurring pop-up of anxiety in your life where there’s a tug-of-war between fear, frustration, and faith, too. Thankfully, no matter our problem or pain, God specializes in bringing His children to freedom and out of stuck places. You may not be able to change your circumstances, but you don’t have to be stuck in your suffering.

As the tug-of-war continued throughout the day, I kept inviting God to dislodge whatever was keeping my thoughts stuck. It sounded a lot like: “God, I know that You’ll move me through this. My fears are real, but I choose to give You the final say.” This prayer wasn’t a quick fix, but it was a slow, sure thing. Each time I offered that prayer, I could feel God tugging me closer to Him and away from the life-sucking stuck of that looping, anxious thought.

In Psalm 142, David tackled his fear and frustration in a similar manner. He didn’t receive that instant spiritual band-aid that we tend to look for when life gets uncomfortable. While David bounced back and forth between fear, frustration, and faith, he persevered, and eventually, God worked through David’s faith to pull him out of his stuck place, even though he was still physically living in the cave.

You are my place of refuge. You are all I really want in life.
Psalm 142:5 (NLT)

This is our declaration today: In our stuck places, God will free us. Anxious thoughts can cause tough tug-of-wars at times, but we always have God’s power to pull us through.

To learn more about how to walk through anxiety, check out Barb’s Winning the Worry Battle: Life Lessons from the Book of Joshua book – now available as an audiobook!

Listen to today’s article below or wherever you stream podcasts!

The Fellowship of the Lonely

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I didn’t expect the loneliness.

When the world shut down and people drew sides, when wars raged at home and halfway across the world, I didn’t expect the unrelenting losses to simultaneously deliver a deeper layer of loneliness.

Normally, I’m not someone who needs a lot of time or conversation with friends. It’s true that I love people and enjoy being with people — but in small groups and small increments, allowing for plenty of solitude in between. The older I get, the more I need silence, wide-open and unscheduled spaces to be present with my own thoughts. Perhaps this is merely a result of the fact that I don’t get much of it. With six kids, the majority of whom need a lot of attention and constant conversation, moments of solitude and quiet are rare. Thus my love of and need for both.

Still, the loneliness came, even for someone like me. And the weight of it crushed. This surprised me, in both its presence and intensity. What exactly was I lonely for? Was it loneliness for companionship? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I didn’t feel a need to call up a friend or meet someone for coffee. I wasn’t likely to host a dinner party or join a neighborhood bunco group. And heaven knows I had more than enough Zoom meetings.

The loneliness wasn’t so much for companionship as it was for comfort. In this season of protracted suffering, first one year and then two going on three, relief remains consistently out of reach. About the time we think things might get better, another gut punch. More losses, more insecurity, more unknowns. Over and over again, we’ve picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and tried to muscle our way through, only to have the circumstantial rug pulled out from beneath us again.

The result? Suffering. Grief. And, yes, loneliness.

Do you feel it, too?

Regardless of the source, suffering creates an otherness, even when we are all suffering together. Pain — whether emotional, physical, or spiritual — acts as a prison, isolating and eclipsing. It convinces us we are alone in our grief, separated by our pain. And the resulting loneliness only adds to the weight of our suffering.

David understood this, I think. Thus the reason he poured out his lament before his God:

My eyes are ever on the Lord,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.

Relieve the troubles of my heart
and free me from my anguish.
Psalm 25:15-17 (NIV)

“I am lonely and afflicted . . . ” he said. This great king of Israel, this warrior who mightily took down giants and fought vast armies in the name of His God, dared to publicly admit his loneliness.

Perhaps that is the secret. Because in David’s courage, I find a little of my own. And perhaps that is what God has wanted for us all along — to share in our collective loneliness and, thus, find relief in it.

Today, I cannot solve your pain or cure your suffering. I can do nothing to change your circumstances or ease your losses. But this is what you and I can do: We can create a small fellowship of shared grief, a place where we’re safe to admit our loneliness and need right here, in the presence of each other and the Father who loves us all. We can choose to see each other, as we are, and allow a little space in this corner of the internet to not be alone in it.

I’ll go first.

I’m tired, friends. This life I’m living often requires more strength than I have left to give. It is hard, and some days I want to quit. Even worse, the weariness of it all sometimes leaves me drowning in loneliness.

How about you? Will you join me here? Will you add your voice to mine, so we can cry out to our one, true Refuge together?

Come, Lord Jesus. Our eyes are ever on You, for only You can free us from our anguish.

Listen to today’s article below or wherever you stream podcasts!

Courage Is the Practice of Risking to Trust

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We often expect God to be a parent who scolds us rather than a shepherd who soothes us. We come to God in the pages of Scripture and the hard parts of our stories carrying apprehension of judgment rather than the anticipation of kindness.

In the early months of getting sick, I spent most of my time in bed. I was a junior in college whose landscape for living had suddenly shrunk to the size of one dorm room. I felt like God had forced me to lie down, as though my ambition and busyness were sins for which I needed punishment and discipline. The traditional English translation of Psalm 23:2 is “he makes me lie down,” which certainly sounds akin to putting a toddler in timeout.

I was plied with others’ platitudes and crushed by a theology of cause and effect; if I was sick, surely it had to be some hidden sin in my heart that needed punishment. So I prayed and prayed, begging God to let me get out of bed.

My prayers were a loop of longing and loss. God, heal me. Tell me what I need to repent of, and I will. God, help me find out what’s wrong with my body. God, give me answers. God, do you even hear me? Father, heal me. Eventually, I would run out of words and stare out the window instead, peering over the edge of Lookout Mountain and its forests and boulders, pining for the day I could climb out of bed and climb its stone face again instead.

It was on one of those lengthy days of longing that I realized I was waiting for the wrong thing.

Suffering was silencing me. I needed words to wrap around my wounds. I needed speech to break the silence of the violence of the autoimmune civil war raging inside my body.

I found my voice again in the words of the psalms.

The day my longing found lament, my prayers for healing became prayers to see God.

I had opened my Bible to Psalm 27, where I encountered a saint as hard up as me. David, who wrote both Psalm 27 and Psalm 23, knew what it was like to have an enemy, knew how it felt to be afraid, and knew how much it hurt to wonder if you are heard. Yet in his haunting fears, he told himself to trust.

By the time I got to the end of the psalm, I was stunned into a better story. 

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

All those days looking out the window, I had been waiting on God to heal me. But the psalm showed me that what I was really waiting for was God. I was being led through one of the darkest valleys of my life, facing more suffering than I imagined I could endure. I thought I was waiting to be rescued. God was waiting for me to see that He was already with me. Hearing my cries. Moved by my pain. Ready to meet me with mercy for the season ahead.

The interpretation of “he makes me lie down” in Psalm 23 can lead us into a story of either punishment or peace. And the translation history of this passage tells a different story than the common English translation leads us to expect. The Greek translation of the Old Testament uses the word kataskenoo in this passage, which can be translated as “rest” or “settle down.” The Arabic text in the London Polygot (1657) similarly translates this as ahallani, which means “he settles me down.” Many scholars prefer to translate this line of Psalm 23 as “he settles me down,” noting how the more forceful language creates unnecessary problems and expectations.

I thought God was a shepherd who made me lie down. I needed to encounter God as a shepherd who settled me down.

That day, I started realizing that to be strong and let my heart take courage, I needed to wait on the Lord not as the one who was punishing me with pain and expecting me to be stoic about it but as the Shepherd coming to care for me. 

I needed to encounter my emotions not as signs of failure but as cries for connection.

I needed to change the goal of my waiting. I had to shift the aim of my anticipation.

There is a Shepherd who stands with scars still on His hands, who is always reaching toward you in every moment of your stress, because He has been where you are and knows the way home.

As we pay attention to ourselves as people Jesus already loves and is already seeking, we will experience our stress differently. Our sensations don’t have to tell the same old story. We can practice anticipating the Shepherd’s presence — even when we fear we have been left alone.

And the beautiful thing about a practice is you do not have to do it perfectly. You can begin right where you are. In your fear. In your overwhelm. In your stress. You can stumble and struggle while building trust that you are being strengthened.

Courage isn’t the opposite of fear. Courage is the practice of risking to trust that we have a Good Shepherd who is with us always — no matter what.

—

How can we cultivate courage when fear overshadows our lives? How do we hear the Voice of Love when hate and harm shout loudly? When therapist, author, and (in)courage contributor K.J. Ramsey stepped through her own wilderness of spiritual abuse and religious trauma, she discovered that courage is not the absence of anxiety but the practice of trusting we will be held and loved no matter what.

Her latest book, The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love, offers an honest path to finding that there is still a Good Shepherd who is always following you. Braiding contemplative storytelling, theological reflection, and practical neuroscience, The Lord Is My Courage walks through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase, exploring the landscape of our fear, trauma, and faith and revealing a route into connection and joy that meets you right where you are.

The Lord is My Courage is now available! Pick up your copy today wherever books are sold, and leave a comment below for a chance to WIN a copy!

Then join K.J. and (in)courage community manager Becky Keife for a chat all about The Lord Is My Courage! Tune in tomorrow, 6/22/22, on our Facebook page at 11am CST for their conversation.

Giveaway open to US addresses only and closes on 6/24/22 at 11:59pm CST.

 

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Marriage Is a Partnership, Not a Competition

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A few years ago, my husband and I had the opportunity to celebrate a big anniversary in Hawaii, not only in style but at a budget price. A friend who works for an airline offered us buddy passes, saving us hundreds of dollars in airfare, and by agreeing to attend a timeshare presentation, we stayed at a luxury resort for a fraction of the usual cost.

It was both serene and surreal. We spent a week in tropical paradise, although the trip got off to a rocky start — at least it did for me.

Our first flight was from Atlanta to Los Angeles. We sat at the gate, eyes glued to the monitor, hoping and praying there would be two available seats — and there were! But as we walked down the aisle of the plane, the last people to board before takeoff, a flight attendant stopped my husband and led him back toward the front of the plane.

I panicked. Surely they hadn’t over-calculated the number of available seats? But just as I sat down in the last seat in the back of the plane, I got a quick text from my husband saying not to worry and that he was still on board.

I offered up a prayer of gratitude. We got seats for our flight and were safely on our way.

Once we landed and reunited and my husband told me what had happened, things suddenly didn’t seem quite so sunny. The airline had a special club for its best customers and one of those million milers had been on our flight. Since he was on a trip with his family and wanted to sit with them, he gave up his coveted million miler member seat and all the perks that went with it — to my husband.

While I had sat cramped in the back, munching on my small bag of complimentary pretzels, he had stretched his legs and enjoyed a veritable feast in first class. He had photographed everything to show me, but I was too annoyed to be happy for him. Really? He flew cross country in first class in the front row, and I flew in the last seat in the back. Our experience couldn’t have been more dissimilar.

I knew I had to shake it off and get a better attitude or it would ruin my mood. Thankfully I did, and now it’s one of the travel stories we love to share from our trip.

I would like to say this was an isolated incident, the one time I offered jealousy a seat at our table (or on our airplane), but it wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last. It’s easy for me to get caught up in my feelings and forget marriage is meant to be a partnership, never a competition. As spouses, we should always have each other’s best interests at heart.

1 Corinthians 13:4-6 says, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

If you feel a prick from your own conscience, don’t worry; you and I are not alone. The Lord knows human nature can interfere with our best intentions. His instruction can be easier to understand than to follow.

Loving our husbands won’t always be easy. If you find yourself in a place where you are displeased with your spouse more than you are delighted by him, if you’re more likely to compete with him than commiserate with him (Do you debate which of you had the worse night’s sleep or sorer muscles? Do you try to win every disagreement? Are you jealous of him when things go his way instead of yours?), or when you simply know you aren’t loving him the way God intended in marriage, take heart.

Embrace the promise of a new day and a new attitude. Ask the Lord to help you love your husband when he’s less than lovable (and vice versa). Rejoice in each other’s successes because when one wins, you both win. You’re on the same team, called to love one another well. 

Listen to today’s article below or wherever you stream podcasts!

For When You Need a Father’s Hug

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I want to tell you about the time when I was a bride for a day and how I wore white to walk down an aisle between picnic tables under a pavilion in the park.

It was a simple wedding with bagged lunches and tables filled with baskets of candy and Korean treats. I remember the wind blowing through sheets of sheer curtains and my bouquet of flowers, stuffed with roses and blue thistles.

The night before, I sat in the hotel room with my bridesmaids — those friends who became sisters — making memories forever seared into the heart, no matter the many miles between.

There we were, stuffing gift bags for guests and thinking over last-minute details for the big day to come. There was a moment, in all of our laughter, when the room grew small and everything seemed to move in slow motion. There was laughter and chatter, friendship and fun, but I needed something beyond that moment — something that only a father could give.

I slipped outside the room and stepped into the hallway of the hotel. Then I knocked, ever so gently, on the door across from me. It swung open.

“Just needed a Dad hug is all,” I said, falling into the arms of my father.

The moment lasted all but a few minutes. Even so, it was everything I needed for that day and to be carried into the next. This magical memory of my wedding, of having my dad within arms reach and not 1,851.2 miles southwest in San Antonio where he lived, reminds me of the fragility of family. It reminds me just how many of us are missing pieces from the puzzle of our lives. Mothers who move to different states, children who chase professional pursuits in other cities and countries, grandparents who’ve gone off to live how and where they’ve always dreamed, fathers who — for whatever reason — are far from us.

Sometimes, these missing pieces — these people — can be gathered. Sometimes we can travel through time and space to see them. But, sometimes, the pieces — our people — can’t be put back together again. It could be distance. It could be death. It could be danger. It could be disagreement.

It reminds me when Jesus told His disciples — those best friends who became brothers — how He’d soon be leaving them and how the Holy Spirit would come and be with them in His stead (John 14:15-31). And, goodness, am I ever so desperate to be reminded of the Holy Spirit who came — and still comes — to tangibly fulfill the felt needs of those who follow in His footsteps.

The truth is that there is not one day in all of the Gregorian calendar, Chinese calendar, Jewish calendar — or any calendar for that matter — that gives time and space enough for the vast nuances that come with being human. New Year’s Eve will always fold out and be forgotten, Independence Day will always remind us of the ways we are not yet fully free. Mother’s Day will not always bring the depth of rest that mothers crave, and Father’s Day will not always fulfill our hearts to feel the love of a father.

And I know that the words on this screen cannot touch you in all the whole and hurting places that coexist within you. These words cannot replace the love of those fathers that should have been there all along, protecting and teaching their children how to tie their shoes and change their tires.

But the Holy Spirit can touch you — the Holy Spirit can reach deep into every hidden place you hold within your heart. The Holy Spirit can meet you in the chasms on the calendar — the gaping holes in which you are waiting to see and sense love show up on a day like today.

The Holy Spirit is present, even while you are in pain, and He holds space for your heart, like a hug wrapping you up in the arms of a loving father. He whispers:

I am not a distant God. I am closer than your skin, thicker than the air you breathe. My love is louder than your loneliness. I am with you — in the surgeries, in the emergencies, in the celebrations, and in every mundane moment in-between. I am holding out My hand to you with more than a hug for you. I promise you My presence.

The words from one of my favorite worship songs go, “There is a God who loves me, who wraps me in His arms.” (This song is available and beautiful to listen to in both English and Spanish.) As you move and love and celebrate and cry through this weekend, may you embrace this truth: You are held in the arms of your Heavenly Father, and His love is a hug for you. 

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I’m a Stranger in My Own Skin These Days

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I glanced across the room and my eyes could sense her tension. Laughing, smiling women filled the round tables scattered thoughtfully throughout the church room, but my new friend’s body stayed barricaded against the back wall, her feet cemented with uncertainty. While I rushed to see what was wrong, I knew it wasn’t soon enough. I could read her face as she wondered why she agreed to come to this gathering. Eyes moist with the onset of newly formed tears and alone in a supposedly safe space that promised connection and community, her perceived rejection felt palpable.

There’s nothing more lonely than walking into a room of women (make it doubly lonely if they’re Christians), scanning the whole place, and then realizing that no one has saved you a seat. She was living her worst friendship nightmare. I’d invited her to be part of my planned event, and I felt responsible. I cautiously put my arm around her, not quite certain on how to proceed.

There we stood — two, fifty-something-year-old women thrown back into the same realities we battled back in high school of being the new girl, the uncool girl, the stranger, the uninvited guest who stood on the outskirts waiting to be welcomed in.

“Jen, I really don’t want to be here right now,” she whispered.

“I understand, but let’s go find a seat together.”

As a gatherer of people, as well as a lonely woman who’s currently struggling through this threatening territory, I’ll never forget that moment. Even now, I can feel the heaviness we bore — the same load of loneliness and isolation that thousands of women carry. In fact, my eyes well up with tears as I type this because while I know we are not meant to do life alone, to carry burdens in silence nor celebrate solo, what happens when you desire friendships, but it seems like everyone has them but you?

I’ve always been the cheerleader of all things hospitality, and I passionately believe in the life-giving power and gift of a simple invitation, but I’ve been a stranger in my own skin these days and I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I want to understand this lonely season I’m camped in, so as my soul is parched, I reach for the only source of Living Water.

I find part of my answer in Leviticus19:33-34. There’s a reason God impresses the importance of showing love to strangers throughout the Old Testament. He commands:

And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

The Israelites were intimately acquainted with what it felt like to be a stranger, a foreigner, and to literally be held hostage. I can’t imagine the despair they experienced followed by sweet release. Once chained and enslaved in Egypt, they experienced freedom and God’s merciful rescue. And when they didn’t have a home as they wandered through the wilderness, God provided food and shelter (Exodus 16-17).

Over and over, I’m reminded of His goodness and how God wanted the Israelites to remember their own desperate loneliness and struggles in Egypt so they could empathize and create a safe space for others to be welcomed.

Another reason God calls them to care for the foreigner is to model for all the surrounding nations what a relationship with God looks like and who God is. They were to show that God wants to and would welcome the stranger into a relationship with Him.

This is at the core of who God is: He is the One who made a home for us, a welcome amidst our loneliness. As I’m trudging through a hard friendship season, I’m holding on to that truth. It’s not a quick-fix tutorial on how to create instant community and connection; that’s a much longer and often laborious process. But it is foundational to why I’m convicted to keep reaching out even when it feels like I’m on the outside looking in.

We are strangers and wanderers holding the hope of the gospel to invite and welcome. Won’t you join me?

If you’re walking through a lonely season, I wish I could welcome you to my table for some tea or coffee and be a balm to each other’s soul, but the next best thing I’d be honored to do is to hold that close in the comments.

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I Dread Watering My Plants but I Do It to Hold On to Hope

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During the height of the pandemic, when every rhythm and routine of all our lives were tossed around and thrown out, I was desperate for simple, repetitive acts to keep me grounded and sane. So I clung to the two things everyone else seemed to gravitate toward: baking bread and cultivating indoor plants.

So many essays and sermons could be written on the meaningful process of bread-making, but it’s becoming a plant parent that’s got me pondering these days.

It all began with a snake plant from my sister-in-law. It was easy, low maintenance, and it added just the right amount of happy green to the kitchen where it hung. It grew with each watering, and over time, it even sprouted its own little baby snake plant to its side. Proud doesn’t begin to describe the joy I felt.

As death and loss and grief divided and conquered our weary hearts, I began to invest in more plants: a neon pothos plant for the living room, a golden one for the bedroom, a waxy emerald peperomia for the bathroom, a baby zz for my son’s desk, and a heart leaf fern for my daughter’s. I wanted to fill every corner of the house with as many plants as possible, as if I could fight off death with more life.

Years seemed to pass by as the pandemic wore on, but each new leaf on my plants had me clapping with delight. Every day, I’d spritz them with water, say nice things to them, and wipe down their leaves. Every month, I’d gather them into the shower to give them a bath, and all of it filled me with happiness, no matter how brief.

But then winter came. The watering schedule became unstable. The soil wasn’t drying out as evenly or as quickly as it had been. Plants that had once thrived started to shrivel up one yellowing leaf at a time. Tiny mites began to show up, gnats started to form and buzz around the house, and one by one, my plants began to die.

With shame and yet relief, I left some outside on the curb to get picked up by someone else who could better love them. Others just ended up in the trash bin. Then, over time, I started to dread caring for them altogether. I’d watch the pothos leaves lose their vigor, and only when I knew the plant would die otherwise, I would water it. I recently found my resilient snake plant had turned yellow, and when I tried to pull off one of the yellowing stalks, the whole plant came apart from its roots. I had overwatered it after neglecting it, and now it was gone forever.

Hoping these last several years has felt a bit like caring for my plants. There have been times when hope seemed alive and well — or at least, easier — when gatherings at the table were filled with laughter and light conversation, when cheering each other on wasn’t predicated on whether we agreed on everything or not, or, maybe, when ignorance blinded us to the real pain others who have different lives, different skin tones, different abilities and limited access experience.

But when we can’t seem to catch our breath after a tragedy before another one hits, when death clings to us wave after wave of this virus, when finding community feels fraught and the future bleak, the easier kind of hope feels more wishful than real.

Most days now, hope looks less like laughter and light conversation and more like lament and crying out, “How long, Lord, how long?”

There have been many moments when I don’t even want to hope. It feels safer to stay cynical about the world and about people. I tell myself, “It’s better to expect the worst, so don’t hope for the best.” I try to convince myself it makes me stronger, keeps me protected, but my heart calluses over.

In the margins of my cynicism, I’m learning that hope is a practice of staying tender, of still believing — believing God does hear our cries and truly cares, believing healing and change are possible, even now. Hope is staying tender while everyone shouts and fights and straining to see the humanity in us all. Hope is telling your tensed-up body that it’s okay to hope, to dream, to try again.

There are now patches of emptiness throughout our house where plants used to live, their pot saucers like gravestones marking their absence. I continue to dread watering the ones that remain, but every time I see their leaves perk up afterwards, hope shimmers — because they’re still here, still green, still receiving what I can give them when I can give it. Hope is watering my plants even when I don’t feel like it because the practice of doing it anyway will keep my heart tender. It may not be much, but it might be enough to keep me going, to keep me hoping.

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Tips for Overcoming Bible Study Overwhelm

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There are a few things that are true about me:

One, I’ve seen Friends way too many times.

Two, I have an unhealthy love for Air Jordans.

Three, once you get me talking about the Biblical narrative and the importance of knowing Scripture, I can’t stop.

Believe it or not, that last thing about me hasn’t always been true. In reality, I’ve really only grown in my knowledge and love for the Word over the past few years, despite spending my entire life in the church. Part of the reason I didn’t understand the Bible was that it wasn’t really taught to me, outside of verse memorization and Sunday School stories. The other big reason I didn’t understand Scripture was that it always seemed so overwhelming to study.

The truth is that studying the Bible can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. There are many methods of study, but before you determine the best way to go about it, it’s important to recognize why we study the Bible. There are many reasons to study Scripture, but here are four of the most important to me:

1. Studying Scripture reveals who God is.

The Bible was written for many reasons, but the number one reason studying the Bible is important is that it teaches us who God is. It breaks down the attributes and identity of God throughout the entire book. We learn He provides, He keeps His promises, He protects us, He is our foundation, He is gracious, and the list goes on. We are shown these traits through different historical events, and digging into the Bible helps us know and understand the Lord better.

2. Studying Scripture shows us why we need Christ.

The main point of the gospel is that God sent His Son, Jesus, to come to the world as a man, live a perfect life, and die as the final sacrifice in order for us to be righteous. A lot of the time, however, that’s the extent of the teaching we get on why Jesus’ sacrifice was important.

At a basic level, yes, God sent His Son to die for us because sin was brought into the world. Through the rest of the Old Testament, however, you see so many different instances of a cycle of sin, punishment, repentance, and forgiveness. Not only do these instances teach us who God is, they show us how badly we need another way to redemption. The more we learn about why we need Jesus, the more we understand the sacrifice He gave.

3. Studying Scripture teaches us how to live like Christ.

As Christians, we are called to live like Jesus (1 John 2:6, Galatians 2:20, John 3:30). It’s important to pursue a Christ-like life because it’s our actions that point others to Him. What better way to learn how to act like Christ than to study the book that was God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17)?

While we see Jesus all over the Old Testament, even back to Genesis (Genesis 1:26), some of the more obvious information about how Jesus lived is in the New Testament. We see His life in the Gospels, and the letters of the New Testament show us how other men and women lived out the gospel in their own lives. From these experiences, we see what it looks like to live a life that reflects Christ.

Personally, I find Paul’s letters to be very helpful. He gives some excellent and practical ways to be like Christ in his letters, and he acknowledges the struggles we go through as humans.

4. Studying Scripture strengthens our relationship with the Lord.

Just like close friendships require communication and attention, so does your relationship with the Lord. And it starts with spending time in His Word.

If you’re not regularly reading your Bible, I encourage you to start. You don’t have to jump into daily study if you haven’t opened your Bible in weeks. Start with something you can manage and go from there. In my experience, the more I studied the Bible the more I wanted to study the Bible. What was once a “I didn’t even bring my Bible to church on Sundays” reading habit turned into a daily reading habit that I make time for and enjoy doing.

I won’t lie to you: it isn’t always easy. Whether you’re busy or you’re struggling to understand the passage you’re reading, it can be hard sometimes. But you know what? It’s so worth it!

—

If you want to learn more about studying Scripture, are looking for something to guide you in biblical study, or are seeking a Scripture-based devotional to use, Whatever Is True and Lovely is exactly what you’re looking for! By providing practical Bible study tips and favorite journaling techniques in Whatever Is True and Lovely: a DaySpring Devotional Guide, author Carrie Cristancho shares how to make meaningful connections with God’s Word. Your life will be transformed as you dive into Scripture and start seeing the goodness of God at every turn.

Whatever is True and Lovely is now available! Pick up your copy today, and leave a comment below for a chance to WIN a copy!

Then join Carrie and (in)courage community manager Becky Keife for a chat all about Whatever is True and Lovely! Tune in tomorrow, 6/15/22, on our Facebook page at 11am CST for their conversation.

Giveaway open to US addresses only and closes on 6/17/22 at 11:59pm CST.

 

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Your Belonging Doesn’t Have to Be Bound to Being Right

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I used to mark the boundary lines between who belonged and who might not. I used to treat beliefs like the currency of community. Sure, I was tolerant and read widely. But when it came down to it, I subtly traded dignity and holy doubt for the dollars of belonging in the evangelical, reformed world. 

And in all that boundary-marking and belief-spouting, I was actually becoming boxed into a religious community that only let part of me — and everyone — belong. 

It took years for my husband and me to be honest with ourselves that working for a church that asked for more and more of our certainty, compliance, energy, and loyalty was making us less healthy and less whole. Having to be right bullied us and so many others into being less than beloved.  

We decided that losing our livelihood and belonging in that local body of believers was worth gaining the belonging of being healthy in body and soul. I don’t know your church story, but I know mine broke my heart in half. 

Four years ago in June, while the afternoon sun stretched across a cloudless sky, we hit send on our resignation letter to the church’s leadership. It was our eighth wedding anniversary.

Yesterday we worshiped alongside our friends at the cathedral downtown in preparation as their son’s godparents for his upcoming baptism, which will be the same day as our wedding anniversary. By the time you’re reading this, we will have stood by Jamie’s side under the massive buttresses of the cathedral’s nave and together with his priest and parents named that he is God’s own child, sealed with a belonging and belovedness that no one can take away.

On our wedding anniversary four years ago, we trusted through tears that even though we were leaving a church behind, God was not leaving us behind. 

This year, I get to see and name that in all the long, lonely days since that June, Goodness and Love have been chasing us. Harm tried to hound us into believing we didn’t belong in the church unless we kept giving the currency of our belief and loyalty to powerful people who didn’t give us respect and safety in return. Goodness and Love have chased us farther than Harm ever could.

Yesterday, after receiving the bread and wine, I sat back in wonder at how the expanse of the cathedral echoed the broadening expanse in myself.

My belonging is no longer bound to being right.

My belonging in the Body of Christ is no longer confined to the small box of some White men’s ideals of what a Brown man in Israel said and did over two thousand years ago. 

My belonging and well-being are bound up in the broken, risen, and reigning body of Jesus Christ, by whose Spirit I hear the Father’s words at Christ’s baptism as mine: “You are my beloved child. With you, I am well pleased.”

While religious people build barriers to belonging — demanding certainty where there is mystery and compliance where Scripture isn’t black and white — baptism brings the bar for belonging remarkably low. Our belonging is less contingent on certainty of beliefs or conformity to religious norms than on being brought forward and blessed with water we couldn’t obtain ourselves. Baptism brings us low, to waters that remind us we belong because we were born and we are loved because we exist.
— K.J. Ramsey, The Lord Is My Courage

We can detach from the dollar signs of a belonging that is based on more beliefs than the Nicene Creed. We can untangle ourselves from the cords of consumerism that reduce our place among God’s people to our utility. We can burst out of the boxes that attempt to confine human bodies as things to control, use, or condemn. 

Today, the church is bigger than I once dreamed. She is local and global. She is brutal and beautiful. She is found in cathedrals and across coffee tables. She is both less and more than I was ever taught.

With the taste of communion still on my lips, I joined my voice in unison along with the saints by my side to confess the mystery of belonging, echoing 1 Corinthians 10:17, “We who are many are one body, because we all share in one bread, one cup.”

Each week as I receive communion from the outstretched, still-scarred hands of Jesus Christ through priests, friends, and in the interior sanctuary of my soul, I am broadened to trust that there is a belonging in the Body that will not brutalize our bodies and souls. 

May this broadening be yours as well.

Goodness and Love are still seeking you, in the places you might not expect, among the people you might have previously judged. There is a belonging that is better than being right and a belovedness that is yours no matter how many times you’ve gotten things wrong. 

May the hope of Christ’s kindness stretch over all your scars. Our story is not done.

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Two Kinds of Expectations and Why Only One Sets Our Hearts Free

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True confession: I’m a recovering expectations junkie. Give me a standard, and I’ll try to meet it. Show me how to earn a gold star, and I’ll go for it. This tendency has its perks. It pushes me to get a lot done, for example. But it also has a dark side. No matter how hard I try, it’s impossible to meet every expectation. Can you relate?

God is gently teaching me a new way to live: not trying to meet demands but embracing grace, not reaching but receiving, not striving but letting myself be loved. As my heart is getting freer, my relationships are unexpectedly getting better too.

On a recent episode of the More Than Small Talk podcast, I shared how my favorite song, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, has unexpectedly been part of helping me think differently about expectations.

First, when I listen to it, I hear a musical, modern version of Paul’s words in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from God’s love — no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no river wide enough.

This song also reflects how I want to show up in the world for my people. The singer talks about the day he set the person he loves free. I tell my co-hosts Jennifer and Suzie, “When I listen to that, it reminds me to set my people free from the expectations I have for them.”

I want to be free from expectations, yet I still create them for others. We are all expectation factories. I expect things from you. You expect things from me. But this tendency is out of alignment with God’s design. God is calling us only and always to help each other become more of who He created us to be and to live out the calling He has for our lives.

I say to Jennifer and Suzie, “There are two kinds of expectations: We can expect from the people in our lives, or we can expect for the people in our lives.”

Expecting from means I have standards I want you to live up to, even though I may never say them out loud. Expecting from sounds like:

I think you should . . .
I thought you would . . .
Why didn’t you . . . ?

When our expectations aren’t met, we get disappointed or even disillusioned with the people in our lives.

Expecting for means I am setting you free from what I want from you and instead wholeheartedly cheering for you as you become who God made you to be. Expecting for sounds like:

I’m so excited to see what God has in store for you.
I like how you’re different than me.
How can I love and support you right now?

Sometimes we justify our expectations of others by telling ourselves being hard on those we love is just a way to help them improve. But it turns out that isn’t true.

Psychologists have discovered something called “The Michelangelo Effect.” Legend goes that when someone asked Michelangelo how he brought forth his famous David statue from an ordinary block of rock, he responded that he simply chipped away everything that wasn’t David. In the Michelangelo Effect, having people (especially those closest to us) consistently believe in us, cheer us on, and find the good in us actually transforms us.

Professor Aaron Ben Ze’ev says, “Just as Michelangelo saw his process of sculpting as releasing the ideal forms hidden in the marble, close partners sculpt one another to bring each individual nearer to the ideal self, thus bringing out the best in each other. In such relationships, we see personal growth and flourishing reflected in statements like: ‘I’m a better person when I’m with her.'”

Expecting for instead of from means we offer encouragement instead of criticism, cheers instead of nagging, belief instead of disappointment.

How do we live this out? The next time we find ourselves about to criticize someone in our lives, we can pause and pray, “God, help me see this person as You do.” The heart of God can show us the “David” in the moments our human eyes can only see an ordinary block of rock.

Sometimes the person we most need to see differently is ourselves (especially if you’re a recovering expectations junkie like me). Rather than focusing on our flaws, God reminds us we’re welcome as we are right now. Instead of placing demands on us, He invites us into intimacy with Him. In place of expectations, He’s ready and willing to give us abundant grace.

There still ain’t no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no river wide enough to keep His love from getting to us — and He’ll help us pass it on to each other too.

Listen to more encouragement from Holley through her weekly podcast, More Than Small Talk, that has almost one million downloads.

 

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Wind up or Unwind with Jesus, but Don’t Get Wound Up

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I meet with a spiritual director every month. She’s a Jesus-loving woman who sits down with me and helps me sort through all of the wild trails that have been blazed over the last few weeks, clearing a path forward and challenging and encouraging me in my walk with Jesus. She’s known me for years and as a result can tell where my mind is going sometimes before even I can.

When I met with her recently, it was a normal afternoon, and I felt there wouldn’t be much to report to her. It wasn’t quite a dry patch but more of a plateau that I felt in my heart. My relationship with God was fine, but nothing major or notable seemed to be going on — or so I thought.

Then, as we sat down and dug in, I felt in my gut a whole lot of things rising to the surface. There was anxiety and insecurity and anger and sadness and confusion that had been bubbling for a long while without me even knowing, and I found myself getting, well, wound up. I was a flurry of emotions, and suddenly when I thought about my career or my writing or my relationships, it was more of a tsunami than a simple wave to ride. Everything felt overwhelming and in my effort to try and make sense of it, I was getting more and more stuck. What do I do next? What am I supposed to be doing now? Am I in the right place? Is my calling something else?

The questions kept winding me up tighter and tighter until she gently asked me to take some deep breaths and spend time in prayer.

Ten minutes later, I let out a sigh and said, “What I need is a windup or to unwind with Jesus — not to get wound up.”

The image that came to mind is that of a pitcher in a baseball game. They do not haphazardly throw a ball, but rather they move their bodies intentionally to create forward motion and pitch the ball where it needs to go. We call it The Windup. In a similar way, I found myself desiring to be intentional in my efforts with Jesus and leaning into whatever it was He had for me. But I almost missed it because I wasn’t winding up; I was getting wound up. I was running myself ragged rather than abiding with Jesus. I was trying to solve every step rather than taking the next step on purpose.

I wasn’t giving myself space to unwind either — to sit down and rest with God, allowing His voice to fill the quiet places. I longed to just sit with Him and let the fears and concerns go for a moment.

So often, we live in the place of getting wound up instead of listening to the call to unwind (or abide with Jesus like John 5:14 encourages) or wind up (or set our hearts on Jesus with intentionality like Colossians 3:2 says). We think we’re doing what’s good for our hearts, but maybe we’re asking the wrong questions or going into a quiet time with a laundry list of things to rant about. And certainly, Jesus can handle our rants. But perhaps when we pause to pray and make room to be intentional, we can hear God better than when we wind ourselves up for no real reason.

Jesus can carry us, friend. Go find Him, wind up and unwind.

 

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Three Life-giving Ways to Encourage Those We Love Most

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The sign for an all-women’s gym near my home always snatches my attention when I drive by:

Strong Girls Lift Each Other.

The words of that bright pink sign usually send my thoughts scampering down bunny trails (but hardly about anything related to fitness or personal training). What does it mean to be strong? Why should I, and how can I, uplift the women in my life?

If you’re anything like me, you have a hard time brushing off the harsh, thoughtless words from people you care about or forgetting hurtful actions by friends. And while you might have come to grasp that “hurt people hurt people,” it is painful to be left out, forgotten, or on the receiving end of a verbal assault, even if you know it comes from a place of insecurity, envy, or plain old lack of consideration. Unkind and especially mean-spirited words or deeds may not draw blood but they still cut deep. Even exchanges with strangers — an impatient waiter, a rude cashier, the less-than-helpful DMV clerk — can leave you frustrated or furious if you aren’t thinking beyond yourself.

In the fractured and polarized world we find ourselves in, it’s helpful to remember the dog-eared sentiment attributed to Reverend John Watson: “Let us be kind to one another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle.” Those battles can range from personal offenses and cross words to crippled relationships, illness, financial hardship, or job insecurity. People are lugging around a ton of invisible baggage, and I’m convinced we can help lighten the load.

What if we approached every encounter with our family, friends, and neighbors as if we had the power to make it better?

What Jesus has done for us through His life, death, and resurrection makes it possible. The power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us transforms us to be like Christ. We’re different as a result, and we’re able to live out what is asked of us in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 to “encourage one another and build one another up.”

Darlings, encouragement is a secret power. Have you ever thought about that? It can mend a bruised heart, disarm hostility, and diffuse tension. Sometimes kindness is all a person needs to feel better. A kindhearted word of encouragement has the potential to brighten someone’s day.

When my daughter was younger, she and her friends would have a “Power Hour” where, one by one, they’d take turns affirming one another, speaking words of encouragement to counter all the junk and negativity that would find themselves into their teenage heads and hearts. More recently, I was among a group of friends, and time was set aside to speak truth and encouragement over one another. No matter what we brought into that room, each of us left that space buoyed by the precious words poured into us. As we lifted each other up, we were building muscle, becoming stronger in ways that would carry us back into places that aren’t always so kind.

When we encourage one another, we reflect the heart of Jesus and honor God. These are three of the most life-giving ways others have encouraged me and what I try to do likewise:

  1. Tell them how you see Jesus in them. I cannot overstate how powerful this is to hear. We receive a million negative messages a day — some are self-inflicted — and the positive affirmation of someone seeing Christ’s qualities in us makes us want to be even more like Him.
  2. Give them the freedom to share their struggles, pain, and insecurities without trying to fix what’s broken. Have you ever seen listening as encouragement? It is. And it’s not passive either. Listening without offering remedy requires restraint. Allowing someone to pour out their heart and loving them without feeling the need to judge or fix them is one of the kindest, most unselfish things you can offer.
  3. Celebrate their joys and successes wholeheartedly. Someone else’s gains don’t mean you’ve lost, but if we’re honest, sometimes it feels that way. When people are wholeheartedly for you, you know it, but we also know when people are half-heartedly for us, don’t we? By centering on the one who has reason to celebrate, we resist the temptation to focus on ourselves and believe lies of scarcity that simply aren’t true.

Women whose strength is in the Lord can empower others by encouraging them.

What is one way you’re inspired to lift each other up today?

 

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God Meets Me Through the Ocean Waves

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My one request for my forty-fifth birthday was to go to the ocean. 

My husband Shawn and my three daughters took me to a little beach town along the central coast of California called Cambria. I didn’t realize until we arrived that this was the same town my late husband Ericlee took me for my birthday almost twenty years ago. 

The memories flooded back. We were barely married a month when Ericlee told me to pack a weekend bag because he had a surprise for me. We drove three hours and checked into the same quaint lodge near the coast.

Suddenly, I was a twenty-something married girl again, walking along the ocean hand-in-hand with my love. We had our whole lives ahead of us. We made footprints in the sand and dreamed of what our lives might be like in twenty years when we had kids, ministry, and full careers. I never imagined he would graduate to heaven ten years later.

Not long after he died, I went to the beach, and while my young daughters built sand castles, I watched the waves for hours. The rushing waters flowing in and out brought me surprising comfort. God welcomed my tears, my questions, and my fears as I burrowed my toes in the sand and wondered what my future would hold. 

The ocean has been my place of refuge since I was a young girl, when I would sit before the crashing waves and write poetry. Maybe it’s my Polynesian/Pacific Islander heritage or the fact that our family would make a point of going to the beach when we traveled for family vacations. The ocean has always been a place of grounding, a place where I feel most at home and closest to God. 

Psalm 19:1 tells us the heavens declare the glory of God, but I believe the ocean is part of that same symphony too. Somehow I always get lost in the swirl of colors — the dance of the deep navy swell with the turquoise waters before the ocean lifts her head to kiss the azure sky and melt back into the arms of the sapphire blue horizon. 

God meets us in the nuanced glory of the water and waves. 

The ocean speaks of God’s awesome power. The prophet Jeremiah reminds us: “This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the Lord Almighty is his name” (Jeremiah 31:35 NIV). This prophecy reminds us that God is the one who controls creation. He can stir up the waters and harness tsunamis because He created it all in the first place.

I can’t help but think about that story in the New Testament when Jesus was taking a nap in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. When a wild storm rears its ugly head on the water, the disciples wake Him trembling with fear.

Jesus responds, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then He gets up and rebukes the wind and waves, and suddenly there’s a great calm (Matthew 8:26 NLT). Jesus demonstrates His power over nature right after He heals several people.

God is at once the masterful Creator, our loving Father, the ultimate Judge, and our caring Shepherd. 

Back on the shore in Cambria for my forty-fifth birthday, I marveled at the ways God had met me through the years at the ocean and how my dreams had unfolded. My daughters, who are now ten, thirteen, and sixteen, napped and read books with me. They are ocean girls too — at home in the salty air and dancing in the waves. 

In many ways, I’m living the life I dreamed of twenty years ago, but the waters I had to navigate to get here were nothing like I’d imagined. 

God speaks in whispers, through the wind, and through the waves, and I’m deeply grateful for the ways God calls me to remember these moments and experience His presence every time I return to the ocean.

Friend, do you have a special place or a part of nature that helps you connect with God? Please share in the comments below!

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The Gift — and Superpower — of Being an Empath

by

On a whim one Saturday afternoon, my husband and I decided to go see a movie — something we hadn’t done together in months. As we settled into our seats, I was already primed to thoroughly enjoy the experience. Between the excitement of a rare date night and my anticipation for a movie I’d looked forward to watching for months, odds were that I was going to have a good time.

What I didn’t expect, though, was how much more I would enjoy the movie because of the woman sitting next to me.

Right as the previews were starting, an older couple sat in the seats to my left. As each trailer wrapped up, the woman whispered loudly to the man next to her, “Do you want to see that one?” I’ll admit I started feeling nervous she might ruin the evening by talking through the movie, but I’m glad to say I didn’t need to worry.

Instead, my fellow movie-goer elevated the whole night by gasping in excitement and surprise and laughing loud and hard at every single joke. She had the best time, and I could almost feel her delight radiating in my direction. Sitting next to someone who so thoroughly enjoyed the movie made me like the movie that much more.

That evening has stuck with me and has come to mind several times since. And each time, I’ve felt thankful. I often pick up and absorb other people’s emotions, but it’s not always such a positive experience. As an empath (someone who detects and sometimes even takes on other people’s emotions more often and more intensely than others), I’ve at times found myself consumed by the negative emotions someone else is experiencing and unable to easily recalibrate my own feelings.

Having such little control over my emotions has actually been a source of shame for me — so much so that I’ve never talked or written about being an empath because I’ve believed it somehow made me weak. I remember reading once that it’s better to be a thermostat than a thermometer, that a woman following Jesus will set the temperature for the people around her, creating a calm, joyful, peaceful, content atmosphere rather than reacting to what’s going on around her and being tossed about by the whims of emotion.

In other words, somewhere along the way, I learned it was less godly to be influenced by feelings — and it seemed reasonable to assume that went doubly for feelings that weren’t even my own.

Maybe you’re reading this and wondering where on earth I got those ideas. Of course you can have lots of feelings! What a weird thing to feel bad about!

Or perhaps you don’t relate to someone experiencing intense emotions on a pretty regular basis. Wow, that must be exhausting to be so up and down all the time!

But for those who’ve ever felt ashamed of being too emotional or for getting too invested in someone else’s gladness or grief, I want to share what God’s been showing me.

As I’ve started learning more about empathy and being an empath, I’m realizing that this way that God has made me can’t be bad. He created me and you; therefore, all of our “wonderfully complex” (Psalm 139:14 NLT) and unique traits are His workmanship. Maybe, in fact, an ability to sense other people’s emotions and to feel them deeply is a gift.

When I go to Scripture for clarity about this, I find lots of reminders to stay rooted in and focused on God. He is our foundation, the thing that keeps us from truly spinning out of control. Yes, may it be so! But even while we abide in Him and build our lives on Him, instructions for loving others repeatedly require us to get our whole hearts (and our emotions) involved.

Both Ephesians 4:32 and 1 Peter 3:8 urge us to be tenderhearted with one another, and Colossians 3:12 says we must have compassionate hearts. We’re reminded in 1 Corinthians 12:26 that when one member of the body of Christ (the Church) suffers, all suffer. And Romans 12:15 puts it plainly: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

If that’s not a reason to embrace and practice empathy, I don’t know what is!

Rather than feeling guilty for being overly sensitive or too emotional, I’m seeing now that being perceptive and responsive can allow us to connect deeply with people and quickly desire to help when they’re in need. God can work through our empathy to make us safe spaces for people with heavy burdens. And being a real touchy thermostat, who’s also grounded in hope in the Lord, means we can pick up on cues that others may overlook and have the opportunity to care for those who may be neglected.

Feeling all my feelings — and sometimes yours too — is my superpower. What’s yours? How has God used empathy (or whatever your superpower is) to help you love others well?

 

Listen to today’s article at the player below or wherever you stream podcasts.