God's Pursuit of Me
To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love. - A.W. Tozer
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made for one another.
Relationship. I think we’ve been designed for it. Community. I think it’s where God’s love is most evident. In my life, I know this to be true. Jesus – He’s our rescue, ultimately. But I think His means is through people. Regular old people. The me’s and you’s in our lives. Alone is bad, really. (I don’t mean the afternoon alone without the kids or being single or planning a weekend alone from your customary routine.) I mean, when I spend too much time alone in my own head, rummaging through the past or frantically making lists for the future, I lose all perspective. Alone in my mind, I make…
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at the table.
Sometimes I just love simple beauty the best. A wooden farm table. Big enough to fit our family of eight and some friends too. Scratches and fork marks particularly noticeable on the corner that has seated every Keigley kid plopped in the blue and white booster seat. A green bowl. Bought for me by my mother when I was back in high school and she believed her daughter should have a hope chest. A literal chest filled with dishes and cloth napkins and crystal pitchers. Yellow lemons. A yellow only God could make. Too bright and too much like sunshine to be shaped into a Crayola cylinder. And waiting to…
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question. answer.
“Momma, why don’t we ever eat at Burger King?” some back seat voice politely inquired over the gentle strains of Bach playing on our car’s stellar sound system as our family traveled the highway to yet another culturally enlightening event. Wait. Most of that first sentence was a lie. Can I just start over? “Momma, why don’t we ever eat at Burger King?” some back seat voice screeched over the sounds of the Avett Brothers and the other four mostly shouting children as our family traveled the highway in our shamefully dirty Suburban to the grocery store or to the dumpster or on some other errand our life requires. Before…
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Mosely: Defender of Truth, Lover of Justice
I attended a writer’s conference this weekend. I’m still mulling over my take-away thoughts scrawled in blue ink in my brown moleskin. One of the topics was about discovering your passion as a writer. The key speaker, Marybeth Whalen, advised us to think about what brought us joy as children. “What were you passionate about at six?” she challenged us to consider. And she shared a simple story about a friend of hers who is about to begin a business/ministry targeted to women, using fashion as the hook. And how this woman has a photo of her first grade class where she is a mini fashionista amid the casually dressed…
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behind the scenes
I’ve always been background. Behind the scenes. In college I earned a degree in theatre. (According to my pocket-sized, laminated diploma. Seriously – does anyone else have one of those?) But mostly I fulfilled my theatre requirements through costumes, lighting, sound. Off stage. Behind the curtains. Pre-production. Post-production. And that’s okay. Mostly, I chose that role. Liked that aspect. But sometimes being in the background is so hidden. In the dark. Background. (Exactly.) Unnoticed if you do your job well. A scape goat if you make a mistake. I will admit that every now and then I get a little hungry, a bit greedy, for the spotlight. Center stage. Last curtain…
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free. from the what ifs.
I don’t know if you have bad dreams any longer. Nightmares. But I still do. And a rotten one woke me up recently. And the remnants of it clung to my skin all morning. In the asleep version of my life I had left our children at some childcare facility. It was new to me. I was new to town. And when the time came to pick up the kids, I couldn’t find the building. I couldn’t find our children. It was just a dream but I woke up bogged down in the fear of it all. As a parent, are you ever overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the…
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Blessed Be Your Name
Four years. It has been four years since my sweet mother passed away. And I still miss her. That has never really changed. I know I have written about her before. And I am sure I will write about her again. She was my mom. Her life (and her passing) shape so much of who I am. I am sure that is normal. Right? This week my memory was struck again by a song we sang at church. “Blessed Be Your Name” We sang this song at my mother’s memorial service. And I can still clearly recall watching my dad while we sang. “Blessed be Your name On the road…
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once upon a Sunday morning
The Sunday mornings of our present look nothing like the Sunday mornings of our past. It’s just a church. I know that. Broken people. Imperfect leaders. You know all the phrases. So do I. But every time I am there I cry. I connect. I get a glimpse of what I think church can look like. And she is beautiful. My past experiences with other churches have not been great. Little within the walls of those buildings to motivate me to haul multiple children out of a lazy morning. More dead than alive. And me too. But this place is not the same. And neither am I. Example One of…
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London said . . .
I really loved reading what you guys had to say after yesterday’s post about my flaws and the fears of transparency and how we all are tempted to reveal one face, but live another face. And I won’t deny that I am sitting in a bit of a funk right now. And that always spills out into my writing. (Actually – it more than spills out – this writing is often my exact method of coping, understanding and wading through the highs and lows of what I call living.) I don’t know if I can blame it on my age, my exhaustion, my current season of life or the too…
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another still, small voice.
Does anyone else ever do this? Does anyone else ever battle that still, small voice? No, I don’t mean the still small voice of God. Not that one. (That voice is for embracing, not for battling.) I mean the other voice. The exact opposite, actually. That one that sounds more like, I don’t know, more like myself I guess. Just a really rotten myself. It’s the voice that speaks to you at all the worst moments. At the last minute a friend changes plans the two of you had made. Her reason is completely logical. Her kids are sick or her car is making a weird noise or an unexpected…
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forget. remember. after. more words.
I have a friend who told me that the one word that has spoken to her for a long time now has been remember. And I love that choice. It seems as if I can never be reminded enough. I’ll memorize a certain portion of Scripture. Claim it. Call it to mind for weeks (and longer) over a particular situation. Then I might receive peace or calm. And then forget I ever walked that path. Forget I ever memorized that truth. Forget that God spoke to me and healed me. And I’ll wind up in my own pit with a giant running leap. Again. That’s what I seem to do.…
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what free cannot be.
I knew free was going to be a good word for me this year. When it came to the toss up between free and thrive, I really did feel as if I was making the right choice. I just didn’t know how quickly into this new year the idea of free would come back to mock me. Through work and other opportunities, my husband has a lot of overnight trips planned for the month of January. I think of myself as basically a pretty capable home manager. (In theory and on paper, at least.) I handle days fairly well. (And fairly is a broad term. Leaves lots of room –…
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One Word.
I always find it sort of funny to write “I have a friend” when I have not met the person in real life. (Even though I do have friends whom I have never met in the flesh. Yet.) But I have met this person in real life. At Story. (Even if the meeting was short and I was afraid that Alece did not remember me from our e-mail exchanges. And I maybe acted a bit like a tongue-tied teenager. I mean, that might have been how it went down. Maybe. You know.) Ahem. Alece writes this beautiful raw and compelling blog, Grit & Glory. And she has this lovely idea.…