The entire thing is He loved me first. And even wh The entire thing is He loved me first. And even when our surroundings are burning or when all we see is rubble, there is an unseen Kingdom to serve, a Family to be part of, and a powerful Love to give and receive. 

Every week it seems I’m inspired by a comment a friend and pastor made years ago — “Don’t be afraid to talk to someone about the truth of Jesus. Think of it as joining a conversation God might already be having with that person.” 

May we be conduits of that strong, courageous, welcoming, comforting, healing, transforming, sustaining, peacemaking, eternal Love. Or as Bernice King said, “Love puts in work.”
Call it ‘a Sunday stroll in Appling.’ Call it ‘a Sunday stroll in Appling.’
“God is always coming to you in the sacrament of “God is always coming to you in the sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude.” Evelyn Underhill 

Such brokenness we see, such pain, such fear. Attend to Jesus — Lord, Savior, King — with all your honest thoughts and feelings, and let His power and love change you. Let Him form and re-form you into a help for the hurting, a bright spot for those in the dark, a presence for others to rest in. A ‘little Christ’ on the earth.

 ^ what I’m rehearsing to myself
Living life with the Holy Spirit — “you fulfil Living life with the Holy Spirit — “you fulfill the will of God through the inner influence of His Spirit instead of the outer influence of the law of God” (David Guzik).

This took me probably 15 years of following Jesus to grasp. It felt too easy, my willpower was my measuring stick, and the freedom was terrifying. 

But alas, God’s way is the best way, and there is no substitute for the Holy Spirit. I can’t muster spiritual fruit, but His goal, thankfully and marvelously, is vineyards and vineyards.

May we surrender this work to Him.
“The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must en “The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.” Parker J. Palmer
I pose to you what the Holy Spirit posed to me rec I pose to you what the Holy Spirit posed to me recently: What if you made choices out of fear of missing out on God instead of fear of missing out on what others deem significant?

In all honesty, FOMO sneaks up on me not along paths of a friend’s travel adventures or home decor or even if friends hang out without me. My FOMO animal comes in the form of popular and effective Christian voices. Because of technology and social media, I have access, though not complete (because we’re not actual friends), to their lives and ministry, their work and the personality they choose to share online. While a good thing in many ways, it stops being good when it becomes an avalanche I can’t keep up with but am afraid to stop.

// new blog post: FOMO on God //
zoom zoom zoom zoom
Like Anna plays in my presence, like she comes to Like Anna plays in my presence, 
like she comes to me when she gets hurt,
like she wants to be held when she’s sick,
like she unashamedly + honestly feels any and every range of emotion with me, 
like she never corrects or censors or judges herself before coming to me, 
like she trusts me to love and care and accept her always... 
so it can be and is for me with God my Father. 

What a delightful way to be with Him! Don’t hold back — disappointment, confusion, happiness, sadness, longings. Give Him access to you, as you are right now, and find rest and love for your soul.
Just a girl bumping her New Years’ goal of wakin Just a girl bumping her New Years’ goal of waking up early to February as she reaches her 10th day of coronavirus quarantine.

I’ll keep the details to myself, but I do have to acknowledge the generosity and availability and kindness of our family and friends. They’ve brought us meals, groceries, medicine, and @maghjohnson, IN MICHIGAN, sent us a Door Dash gift card for a pizza. I could cry over the love. @audreyhealy5 @kgmartin521 @ansley.c.evans @nm_wilson @klb418

Also, even though today was the first day I had the energy to walk it, I’ve never been more thankful for our long driveway. Sunshine is the JAM. 

To everyone who has had COVID or will get it, our experience will of course be different, but— solitary, friends, solidarity. And grace upon grace.
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faith · 04/01/2019

what I’m learning about God in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy

As a person who desires to know and love God, no matter how clumsy or athletic the walking is, as changes happen in life and in us, we are bound to see new facets of God. Would you agree?

Pregnancy is no different. And while I know from friends’ testimonies that each pregnancy and child is different, your first pregnancy throws you into a tornado of new, unfamiliar, wonderful, weird things. (Side note: I learned recently that anything that seems super odd actually isn’t in pregnancy, a.k.a tailbone pain that will have you limping if you’ve been sitting for too long. Who knew?)

I’m in my 21st week of being pregnant with our first child, a girl, and what I’m learning is that knowledge of God and belief in that knowledge is a lifeline like no other. There is great magnitude in understanding God as One who is the perfect mixture of sovereignty and compassion.

He is sovereign. Glorious. In control. Creator. Sustainer.

He is compassionate. Merciful. Attentive. Good. Generous.

One side is might and power. The other side is tenderness and love.

At about 7 weeks, I remember anxiety swirling. I’m not in control of anything happening in there. Anything can happen. What if I miscarry? What if something happens before we get to the first trimester appointment? What if we find out something serious at the 20 week appointment? or any appointment after that? And then, the kicker, if something I deem scary and bad happens, will I believe the same about God as I do in this moment, when everything is sweet?

My journal reads: Father, I trust you in my fear. With all the possibilities. With everything that is outside my control with this baby. What do you think about this? How do you see me? our baby? Clear my mind of everything but your voice. Help me believe you. And borrowing from Isaiah 33, I know you are the stability of these days, these minutes, no matter what comes. Only you.

I’ve never audibly heard the voice of God, but I am trying to practice stillness and listening in prayer, writing anything that comes to mind. After those lines are these statements:

My presence is all around you and my presence is love.

Don’t trust your body or circumstances to be right. Trust me.

I am your God and I am your baby’s God. Don’t be afraid.

In a matter of words, I’ve been confronted these first 20 weeks with what I believe about God. He’s high and lifted up. He’s mighty and glorious. He is to be feared and worshipped. He is holy and in control. His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. He’s the creator and sustainer of the world. He’s going to surprise us. He will take His time teaching us as we hurt, as we struggle. But He will bring us the most joy.

But in His might and glory and sovereignty, He is tender and kind and compassionate and nearer even than my next breath. His love is unconditional. He is faithful when I am faithless. His grace is sufficient. As we wait on Him, He is working for our good.

What does this mean for today? for tomorrow?

It means the reality of life’s uncertainties will be more challenging than we ever thought, but because of God, better than we could ever imagine. Weird, right. Regardless of my feelings, or what I’m seeing with my eyes, He can be trusted. As things happen as I hope they will, or as they don’t, He can be embraced as the One who cares for me (and this baby) perfectly.

These last few weeks have also confronted me with how I prioritize my life with God. Satan and the world attempt to overwhelm me with all the ways I’m not enough, or in control, and if I allow it, I could sink into the quicksand of fear and doubt. Knowing God in a deep, intimate, experiential way is the only way I’ll survive the suffering, challenges, and sanctifying seasons to come. This is my fight of faith: to believe God even if my humanity and the world and the Enemy scream otherwise.

At 21 weeks pregnant, what I find myself most needing, almost desperately, is an enduring confidence in the unchanging nature and character of God. I must live from a foundation of knowing He works all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11), joys or challenges, and His heart is for me.

I’ll never arrive, and I have a LONG way to go, but like I’m learning to do, I pray our daughter comes to desire God as her everything.

You need to hear what God says, and to experience that he does what he says. You need to feel the weight and significance of what he is about. He never lies. He never disappoints (though he wisely sets about to disappoint our false hopes). Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you need fear no evil, for he is with you. Goodness and mercy will follow you. This is what he is doing. God’s voice speaks deeper than what hurts, brighter than what is dark, more enduring than what is lost, truer than what happened. David Powlison

In: faith · Tagged: pregnancy

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  1. Beverly says

    04/01/2019 at 6:06 pm

    I love you… and this… all of this.

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The entire thing is He loved me first. And even wh The entire thing is He loved me first. And even when our surroundings are burning or when all we see is rubble, there is an unseen Kingdom to serve, a Family to be part of, and a powerful Love to give and receive. 

Every week it seems I’m inspired by a comment a friend and pastor made years ago — “Don’t be afraid to talk to someone about the truth of Jesus. Think of it as joining a conversation God might already be having with that person.” 

May we be conduits of that strong, courageous, welcoming, comforting, healing, transforming, sustaining, peacemaking, eternal Love. Or as Bernice King said, “Love puts in work.”
Call it ‘a Sunday stroll in Appling.’ Call it ‘a Sunday stroll in Appling.’
“God is always coming to you in the sacrament of “God is always coming to you in the sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude.” Evelyn Underhill 

Such brokenness we see, such pain, such fear. Attend to Jesus — Lord, Savior, King — with all your honest thoughts and feelings, and let His power and love change you. Let Him form and re-form you into a help for the hurting, a bright spot for those in the dark, a presence for others to rest in. A ‘little Christ’ on the earth.

 ^ what I’m rehearsing to myself
Living life with the Holy Spirit — “you fulfil Living life with the Holy Spirit — “you fulfill the will of God through the inner influence of His Spirit instead of the outer influence of the law of God” (David Guzik).

This took me probably 15 years of following Jesus to grasp. It felt too easy, my willpower was my measuring stick, and the freedom was terrifying. 

But alas, God’s way is the best way, and there is no substitute for the Holy Spirit. I can’t muster spiritual fruit, but His goal, thankfully and marvelously, is vineyards and vineyards.

May we surrender this work to Him.
“The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must en “The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.” Parker J. Palmer
I pose to you what the Holy Spirit posed to me rec I pose to you what the Holy Spirit posed to me recently: What if you made choices out of fear of missing out on God instead of fear of missing out on what others deem significant?

In all honesty, FOMO sneaks up on me not along paths of a friend’s travel adventures or home decor or even if friends hang out without me. My FOMO animal comes in the form of popular and effective Christian voices. Because of technology and social media, I have access, though not complete (because we’re not actual friends), to their lives and ministry, their work and the personality they choose to share online. While a good thing in many ways, it stops being good when it becomes an avalanche I can’t keep up with but am afraid to stop.

// new blog post: FOMO on God //
zoom zoom zoom zoom
Like Anna plays in my presence, like she comes to Like Anna plays in my presence, 
like she comes to me when she gets hurt,
like she wants to be held when she’s sick,
like she unashamedly + honestly feels any and every range of emotion with me, 
like she never corrects or censors or judges herself before coming to me, 
like she trusts me to love and care and accept her always... 
so it can be and is for me with God my Father. 

What a delightful way to be with Him! Don’t hold back — disappointment, confusion, happiness, sadness, longings. Give Him access to you, as you are right now, and find rest and love for your soul.
Just a girl bumping her New Years’ goal of wakin Just a girl bumping her New Years’ goal of waking up early to February as she reaches her 10th day of coronavirus quarantine.

I’ll keep the details to myself, but I do have to acknowledge the generosity and availability and kindness of our family and friends. They’ve brought us meals, groceries, medicine, and @maghjohnson, IN MICHIGAN, sent us a Door Dash gift card for a pizza. I could cry over the love. @audreyhealy5 @kgmartin521 @ansley.c.evans @nm_wilson @klb418

Also, even though today was the first day I had the energy to walk it, I’ve never been more thankful for our long driveway. Sunshine is the JAM. 

To everyone who has had COVID or will get it, our experience will of course be different, but— solitary, friends, solidarity. And grace upon grace.
Supplies of water, sustenance and shade in the wil Supplies of water, sustenance and shade in the wilderness are impossible without God. Miracles of change and help.

“The poor and the needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I will answer them. I am the Lord, the God of Israel. 

I will not abandon them. I will open rivers on the barren heights, and springs in the middle of the plains. I will turn the desert into a pool and dry land into springs. I will plant cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive trees in the wilderness. I will put juniper, elm, and cypress trees together in the desert. 

So that all may see and know, consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.” Isaiah‬ ‭41:17-20‬ ‭CSB 

It is the Spirit of God who changes hearts.
It is the truth of God that transforms + renews minds.
It is the Son of God who leads the way.
It is the love of God that heals and calls. 
It is the power of God that does the impossible.
It is the presence of God that makes a difference.

So I pray. Faithful to what + who He puts before me. Trusting Him to be faithful in being God.

So we pray.

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