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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redemption, small scale. (but is there a small scale?)
God can redeem anything. You guys. He really absolutely can. We can have all this head knowledge, right? We can know stuff and say that we know stuff and we can think that we know stuff. And then. Our theology falls painfully short when all the stuff hits the fan. All. The. Stuff. Then we find out in a shameful hurry that our head knowledge just lived up there. It took up no permanent residence in our heart. All head. No heart. All theory. No action. But God is a God who takes bits and pieces that we think are too broken, parts of the whole we think are…
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do. not. despair.
I’m watching my girls play soccer at practice and there’s a parade of legging-clad legs, shin guards, hair flapping. It’s cold for March and their hoods are all up and I know the singular focus of foot to ball and the energy spent is something each of my three daughters on that field need, more than they know. More than I know too. It’s been a normal day. The juggling that is this season. A math lesson interrupted by a work phone call. A conversation about a potential story from the field to the farm to the fromage – yes, it’s a cheese piece. Hang up the…
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weekend thoughts & ramblings like I do
Looking through my recent photos all I really see for the past twenty shots or so are work-related. A delicious dinner party at the new BBQ place. An artist teaching a watercolor class for veterans. Screenshots of kids I don’t know riding bikes on the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Specialty drinks at Rocket Surgery. A milkshake giveaway at our local ice cream shop. A portrait of a local business owner and friend. The sign welcoming people to TR. The FFA group at the local high school meeting our state representative. Dogwood tress in bloom downtown. The kids taking a terrarium class. It’s not a bad gig I’ve got…
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these are the things he will do: Isaiah 42:6
I’ll miss this old front porch. (If I ever actually move from this house.) Today I’m sitting on this porch and reading these verses in the Bible. Isaiah 42. All of it. But especially verse 16. I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them. I’m in love with these words. (Don’t worry Dad, they’re too long for a tattoo.) They’re words so full of the unknown – like my…
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weekend gone awry, right on schedule
The kids are watching Cars Three and I don’t even know how we justify THREE movies about cars that can talk and have feelings and relationships. But then again, I think they’re sort of cute movies. So. You know. Whatever. (I’m so grateful that (for now) my two teenagers and one nearly teen will happily watch a cartoon with their younger siblings even though they also have of late embraced the world of Thor, which is unbelievable to me as well. Not so much the very fit immortal who comes to earth so much as the fact that my kids are old enough to watch those movies is what…
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Five Finds Friday (odd products, good products, a faithful God and a friend who’s doing great things)
Hi February. Nice to see you. Let’s be friends. funny The internet brings us both wonder and horror. Sometimes at the same moment. What. Is. This? fashionable I’m not a big make up wearing kind of human. (Mascara feels like really “going all out” to me.) I have a daughter, however, who is infatuated with make up. It has almost always been true. And now she’s a grown up and she’s making a job out of the art of make up. Anyway, Riley has become a Mary Kay guru and I love my daughter so I’ve been trying out some of…
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the prayer of the every day
It’s not just a phrase or something to say. I say these literal words nearly every morning and almost every evening, lying in my bed before my feet hit the cold painted wooden floor and after I’ve reached up and turned out the lamp. “God, please rescue me from me.” That’s what I say. And this is what I mean: Rescue me from the knee jerk foolish decisions I make. Rescue me from the long pondered lists of pros and cons decisions I make. Rescue me from every time I’m convinced I know best and every time I’m certain I’ve made regrettable choices. Rescue me from me. There’s always…
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Five Finds Friday (quelf the game, oatmeal in the Instant Pot, kind words)
We’re back to school this week. It’s been good to be back to routine but it’s been painfully difficult to get out of bed on these cold mornings. It was also a four day school week and that has me thinking that ALL weeks should be four day school weeks. Can I start a utopian society where people only work for four days a week for about five hours each day? I think we’d all be more productive and just embrace working harder for a short time, knowing you had lots of free time coming. Who wants in on my future society? Happy Friday y’all. funny …
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sing about it ….
I have never been an enthusiastic fan of Christmas carols or Christmas music in general. I don’t have any all consuming reason or compelling story to justify my feelings. It’s just the way it is. This year though, for reasons not entirely understood or analyzed on my part, I have been experiencing bouts of genuine affection for certain classic Christmas songs and hymns. I’ve been hearing and reading their lyrics with different ears and different eyes. Especially the really old songs. It’s kind of as if I have never heard these words before. One, written nearly three hundred years ago, has been on my mind and has been quick…
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parenting.
Maybe it’s been my attempts at doing nightly Advent readings during the month of December. Or the conversations that sneak up on me with my teenagers at bedtime. The way one of my kids looked at me with genuine surprise when I said I enjoyed the singing of all the songs at church each week – the part of the service which he happens to like least. The conversations about what makes us do what we do with my ten year old. The continual lessons in opportunities to serve someone other than yourself that parenting is always presenting. Whatever it is, I have been feeling the weight of the…
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The God Who Sees
El Roi. It means The God Who Sees. A few years ago the kids and I read a book about the different names of God. I’ve particularly remembered this name. There are moments I feel seen. Moments I can sense the “being known”. Through conversation divinely orchestrated. In a situation so obviously brought about by a grand master plan. In a secret tiny care being met even though I never spoke it aloud. At those times it’s as if God is speaking in an audible voice and saying, “There you are. I see you.” And then there are moments I feel unseen. Moments I force myself to repeat the…
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what does repentance look like?
I use to think about it a lot. Repentance. That one word. And all of its connotations. About what it looked like and what it talked like and what it sounded like. I don’t think about it so much any longer. For a whole host of reasons. But the biggest (and the best) reason is this. I don’t need to think about it. A friend reminded me of something, spoke it in a way that my heart could understand. And his words resonated. They stayed. I love particulars. Plans. Lists. How To. A formula and an agenda and a purpose. Give me all of those. A blue print. The…
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alone. married. single. not single.
It’s such a pervasive lie that it almost always sounds and feels like the truth. It is promoted by society and culture, movies, songs, novels and well-meaning friends. This lie that the culture keeps feeding us, keeps shoveling down our throats through our screens and our movies and our words, is that to be fulfilled, to be a success, to be happy, you must have a significant other. A boyfriend. A girlfriend. A husband. A wife. The idea is — you cannot be complete without romantic love. Get a person! Don’t be alone. Happiness is not happiness until it is shared. Soulmates. Better half. Til death do us part. It’s…
