All the fun we had with *almost* all the babies together (we missed you so much, Emerson)! Here, some moments from the morning of Philippa’s dedication at our church, as well the kids riding bikes together. Time together is truly the best gift!
family + summer happenings
It’s raining here in these blue mountains and we are all fighting head colds for the past week or so. Momma’s finally been taken down with it and ain’t nobody got time for that. So we are taking it easy the past couple of days, thankful that rainy days make us want to lay low anyway. Listening to quiet melodies, snuggling + movie watching. Right now the kids are outside getting thoroughly wet + muddy, the baby is sleeping. I’m taking this opportunity to catch up on sharing some photos from the last month. My sister + her family from British Columbia were in town earlier in June, as well as my youngest brother + his girlfriend from Charlottesville, so we had a lot of days just being together. It’s funny how when you’re growing up together, you get so annoyed with each other and can’t wait to get out on your own. Then you grow older and wise up and realize these people are some of your very favorite people, some who understand you best, some of your closest friends. These memories together are treasures. So.. prepare to be bombarded with photos as I catch up.
These, from one of our regular picnicking spots up near Mount Pisgah on the parkway. My dad’s family has years of pictures from their own family gatherings there when my dad + his siblings were growing up, then my parents spent many of their dating + early marriage years picnicking there. They spent many summer weekends hauling all five of us kids up there as we were growing up, so I suppose a lot of moments have been shared in that little cove of trees.
On Friendship
We think that making friends is a childhood difficulty, something that kids struggle with when they enter elementary school. Something they struggle with as they continue to grow up surrounded by peers, people of the same age but not necessarily the same makeup and design, personality and passion.
The reality is, making friends continues to be a challenge in each season of life. We enter life transitions and suddenly our circles of peers change, often leaving old friendships feeling unfitting, awkward, stiff. You head off to college and suddenly all of your high school friendships waver. You are the first of your friends to get married and soon find your single girlfriends distancing themselves from you. You have your first baby, caught up in all the dizzying sleepless nights, feeding difficulties, and the steep learning curve of a newborn, and find that suddenly you just need to talk to another mom who “gets it.” Your friendships seem to curve around other women who are in the same season or can at least speak to it.
I’ve found that many friendships, maybe most friendships, seem to come and go, appropriate and fitting for a season before phasing out. Most seem to drift quietly into disuse due to busyness + change. A few end abruptly with bright red aching wounds in their wake. Who of us as women (because I’m quite sure I have no idea how this whole realm works for men) doesn’t ache for something lasting? Something that endures the changes? Something that grows, evolves, adapts? A friend who you can count on in a moment’s notice? A friend who’s seen you weather many storms and happy seasons, a friendship that has years of history? A friend that is safe.
Let’s face it: our husbands can be our best friends in many ways, but we still need our girlfriends. There’s just something different about that bond, something deeply healing to have camaraderie with some girls.
I’ve had some really wonderful girl friends over the years, but two will always stand out above the rest. We have shared 11 years together, seeing one another through all manner of life changes, from changing our majors in college, to marriage, moves across country and back, many job changes for our husbands, community changes, family changes, spiritual growth, and the addition of nine babies between the three of us. We have had seasons where we’ve lived close to one another and life has afforded us more time to be together. We’ve had seasons where we don’t talk for months due to the busyness of raising young families. But always, this commitment to one another, this love for one another undergirds. We try to gather at the very least once a year and have a “girl’s weekend.” My husband laughs because we typically don’t plan much during these weekends, apart from where we are gathering, which nursing babes need to tag along, and our menu. The agenda is talking, catching up, pouring out hearts. And sleeping, too, but we usually stay up way too late for that.
I read Melanie Shankle’s Nobody’s Cuter Than You and thought of my girls, Katie + Mary. Shankle shares about her friendships over the years, the friends that came + went. The way friendships worked at different seasons, the lessons learned. Her memoir on friendship culminates in her finding “Gulley,” her friend of twenty-five years, sharing their story and the way their friendship has become one of the greatest gifts and joys of her life. It is everything a good memoir should be: engrossing, real, relatable, humorous, truth-telling, enriching, inspiring. I rarely laugh out loud reading a book, but this one had me in literal tears a few times. I finished it and immediately wanted to share it with all my favorite people, especially Katie + Mary. I also wanted to read everything else she has written. It causes you to reflect on your own friendships and to return to that old childhood longing again, the one that we think we outgrew when we became “Adults Who Don’t Have Time And Are Too Grown Up To Maintain Relationships.”
The world of women + female friendships can be hard, scary, ugly, and painful. There’s a reason I think we look around and don’t see many older women who have flourishing and enduring female friends. Women can be cruel, harsh, jealous, and unforgiving. Women can cut us to the quick with deadly words coated in saccharine sweetness. Women can go after our husbands. Women can spread our trusted secrets and betray us. Our hearts can only take so much of a beating before we barricade them and swear off any intruders and pretend we’re just fine that way. Shankle’s book made me want to be brave and fight for this precious part of life, these girl friendships. To fight to have them, to fight to be a good friend, to fight to protect my friendships, to fight to value the ladies who share their lives with me and give time to me. And it helped me remember again how important a thing a good friend is as we journey through life. Life is hard. Dang hard. We can maybe be brave and tough and try to stick it out without needing a single soul, but I think should we choose such a path, our hearts may feel “safe” but we will be unspeakably lonely.
* * * * * *
Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! All opinions expressed are my own.
In the Name of Love
“I’d rather not talk about homosexuality again. But the world hasn’t stopped talking about it. And the Bible hasn’t stopped saying what it has always said. So let’s not be shrill and let’s not be silent.” (Kevin DeYoung)
Yesterday was a heavy day, and I’m deeply grieved over the Supreme Court ruling. Though I am not surprised, I am still grieved. I am grieved because even though we can expect an unbelieving world to act unbelievingly, it is still wrong. It is still grievous sin. Even though we can expect unregenerate man to reject God’s ways and love their own, even when we are unsurprised at such things because we ourselves have great familiarity with our own desperately sinful natures, we are still grieved. We who profess Christ, of all people, know that to choose to sin brings suffering.
The night before the Supreme Court ruling, our small group gathered and happened to watch an old David Platt Secret Church series on Family, Marriage, Sex + the Gospel and these two quotes from great former thinkers in the Church stood out starkly to me:
“If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that point at which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the solider is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield [elsewhere] is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
{Martin Luther}“We must ask ourselves where we as evangelicals have been in the battle for truth and morality in our culture. Have we as evangelicals been on the front lines contending for our faith and confronting the moral breakdown over the last forty to sixty years? Most of the evangelical world has not been active in the battle or even been able to see that we are in a battle. The last sixty years have given birth to a moral disaster, and what have we done? Sadly, we must say that the evangelical world has been part of the disaster. More than this, the evangelical response itself has been a disaster. Where is the clear voice speaking to the crucial issues of the day with distinctively Christian biblical answers? With tears we must say it is not there, and a large segment of the evangelical world has become seduced by the world’s spirit of this present age. More than this, we can expect the future to be a further disaster if the evangelical world does not take a stand for biblical truth and morality in the full spectrum of life.”
{Francis Schaeffer, written in the mid 20th century}
Typically in my writing, I stay away from political hot topics like the plague. I cannot and do not respect others in our social-media-saturated culture who capitalize on every political moment in order to be heard and have a moment in the spotlight. I do not write this post in an effort to troll for blog views. I am not even for a second deluded into thinking this will gain me any popularity. But fresh conviction fell on me upon hearing those two quotes above the other evening. In most cases, I tend to stay silent because I don’t want to draw argument, conflict, or hatred. In most cases, I stay silent out of an effort to stay safe. Today, I am mourning that greatly. I have to confess I haven’t done my part to fight against same-sex marriage being legalized in our nation. I don’t hope to correct that now, only to start standing for biblical truth in these extremely important as well as controversial matters.
The Gospel writer, Matthew, recorded these words of Jesus to His followers:
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16)
I have often heard the argument coming from fellow Christians that we need not really engage in this fight for the legalization of same-sex marriage because well, of course non-believers are going to act in such a manner. How can we expect to impose our Christian values and beliefs on people who do not know Jesus and do not desire Him? We don’t live in a theocracy. There’s separation of church + state. While I agree in some measure with this, I am niggled by the words of Jesus above. What, then, does it mean to be salt? Doesn’t salt have a preservative quality? Are we not called in our day to be the very presence of Jesus amongst our people, to fight to preserve God’s design in every way we can? Do we just throw up our hands in defeat because someone doesn’t believe the same way we do? How would we apply this same attitude (of apathy + defeatism) to a different issue, say, abortion? Racism? Gluttony? Sex-Trafficking of children? Lying? Simply because the sin exists, simply because there is a fraction of humanity that wants to condone it and say “live + let live, who am I to tell another what to do?” does not mean we stand by on those issues and stay insulated in our church buildings. We are not surprised by the evil running rampant in the world around us. We are grieved, but we do not despair. We keep running the race, fighting the good fight, as the Apostle Paul says. And what is the good fight? In context of that passage, it is the fight to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. While we wage war against the powers of darkness in our day, we do so with integrity. With great love. With steadfastness. With humility, for pete’s sake. With gentleness. With passion and persuasion. We don’t just allow evil to run wild in our day. We stand firm against it, fighting to preserve not our ideas and notions that our country is a Christian nation (it is not), but fighting to preserve God’s design for mankind.
We’ve all seen the hashtag attached to the celebration of this legal decision: #LoveWins. Love wins.
What is love? Is it just feelings for a person? Strong attachment? Sexual desire? Those things obviously exist in some forms of love, but is that all that love is? I would argue that love is also this: always doing what is in the best interest of the beloved, never doing what injures the beloved. When I love my children, I do what is in the ultimate best interest for them, often at great cost to myself, often sacrificially. As it pertains to the issue of homosexuality, according to the Bible (which is God’s inspired message to mankind) homosexuality is wrong, it is sin (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom. 1:18-32; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10; Jude 7). God designed man and as the Creator, He holds the blueprint for how man is best designed to function. In a similar (yet not completely same) way, parents give birth to a child and know what is best for the child. They are older, wiser. In a normal context, they approach the child in profound love. All decisions they make for that child stem from a place of love. The child may want to do harmful and destructive things, but the parent’s job is to restrain and correct and train the child. The child thinks he knows best for himself. If it were up to him, he would choose to never nap, to eat sugary cookies all day long, to run wild into the busy street. (I mean, have you spent any time around children?) They are precious, but they are also precocious. They are sweet but no one can argue that they are saints. They have immature desires because they are small and young and do not understand the bigger picture. They also have sinful desires simply because they are born with a sinful nature. They don’t understand that their small bodies cannot function well or grow well by eating a diet of sugar cookies and chocolate milk. They can’t understand that sometimes they need a good nap to feel better. That’s why as parents we step in and make decisions for them, in their best interest. In the immediate moment, it is difficult even for the parent who so wants to always please the child and make them happy. But in the ultimate sense, the parent knows the child needs safety, good nutrition, structure, and loving care.
Similarly but in a far superior way, God created mankind and He alone knows how best we function. He knows that sin feels so good to us in the immediate, but that it will always, always lead to destruction: ours and others. He desires to protect us from that. And so His law is for our good. Always, for our best. Always, it is in our best interest. Always, it is in the best interest of the corporate community, the culture as a whole.
Because this is the way God loves us, it is the charge that Christians have as we operate in a world that does not recognize God or desire Him. We don’t flinch, we don’t hold back in the name of tolerance or “love,” we lovingly fight for God’s best for all mankind.
We stand against homosexuality as a sin (as well as every other sin) because it is not in the best interest of any human being to operate outside of the bounds of God’s design. We stand against it, lovingly, with compassion + humility, because the victims of this landmark Supreme Court decision will be our children. They will never remember a world in which same-sex marriage was not normalized or legal, as opposed to God’s design for marriage which is between one man and one woman (Gen. 1:27-28; 2:18-25; Mal. 2:15; Matt. 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9). They will grow up in a world where they are told “whatever you want, however you want, you can have it. It’s okay.” If we are biblical Christians, we know this is not true. That statement is a lie and will lead to great pain for our children.
What we must be telling our children is that there is a way. There is one way. It is narrow. It is unpopular. It will draw hatred. It will draw false-accusation. It will be uncomfortable. It will require laying down your life and picking up the cross of Jesus. But this is the way to life. This is the way to joy, healing, freedom, forgiveness.
“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matt. 16:24-26)
What we must do is fight against the oppression of mankind at every turn. When Jesus was walking on the earth, He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). When Jesus arrived, the kingdom of God came to earth. It arrived, His reign began and will be fulfilled at His second coming. Part of what I have been studying all year long is what the Christian’s role is in “kingdom work” as we live and move and breathe in our world. I certainly am not close to having all the answers on what that looks like, but I do firmly believe that part of our kingdom work is preserving God’s design for the world and for mankind, restoring what is broken, and applying the redemption of Christ to all realms of the created order.
So, how do we do that now? That’s a post for another day but I think we have to work at it faithfully in every avenue, whether social or private, political or in the church. We engage in the conversation. We mourn over the decision of our nation, and we work for reform, while we remain firm and steadfast in loving others, preaching the Gospel unflinchingly in the face of persecution. We teach our children and train them in truth and in defending the faith. We teach our children and train them in love, compassion, reaching out to those who make themselves our enemies.
Yes, love wins. God is love, it is His name. He has won, He will win, His love will always win. Our way is never the way of hatred, but it is to stand firmly and with resolve against whatever causes harm, whatever injures. Whatever desecrates, whatever detracts. His love won me when He sent His Son to die for me even while I was yet a sinner (Rom. 5:8).
I remain hopeful and at rest in the awesome security of God’s sovereignty over even this grievous action.
Related reads that I have found encouraging and helpful:
But What Does the Bible Say? by Kevin DeYoung
So-Called Same-Sex Marriage by John Piper
When Your Faith Survives
The house is quiet. Oh, glorious quiet. The first hints of light are streaking across the sky, the earliest birds beginning their song. Bleary-eyed, I try to gather my wits, my scattered thoughts. I try to focus my mind on the words I’m reading instead of letting them run in and out of my brain like a stream of water while I keep fretting over the days’ concerns.
I hear the faint creak of their door open, the hushed padding of feet over the floor. She always runs when she turns the corner and sees me in that chair, sucking her fingers, hair wild in every direction. Warm legs as soft as silk, long and scrawny, slide under the blanket next to mine. We sit there like that for a long time, me reading quietly (or aloud if she asks) and sipping coffee slow, her sucking fingers and cozied up, skin warming skin.
It’s one of my favorite times of the day, I think it is hers, too.
When I held her for the first time 4 1/2 years ago, my heart burst wide open in love. I know I’ve probably always struggled with fear, but a whole new world of fear opened up to me when I held that impossibly tiny, wrinkly warm little bundle. This kind of love–it’s painful. To love this much is be wide open to a world of unknown hurts.
We had perplexing growth/feeding issues with her from the start. She always seemed okay, never titled “failure to thrive,” but never really thriving either. Since she was my first, I figured a lot of it was normal. Still, the niggling fear that something could be wrong, that something wasn’t quite right kept nagging me. We pursued every medical option that could have been a possibility, never finding anything. I would push the feeling down.
In the dark of night, fears would loom heavy. Please don’t allow any harm to come to her, Lord. Please keep her healthy, help her to grow. Please help her to eat, to have an appetite. (It’s funny how in parenting, you have no idea the battles you will face. Never did I expect to pray so much over a child to eat and have an appetite and to grow.) The desperate and anxious prayers of a mother over her child would roll over and over in my mind as I would try to quell them and get back to sleep.
The feeling that something wasn’t right has never really gone away. My second and third born children have not had any similarities to her eating/vomiting/growth issues. Finally, at her 4 year check-up, we pursued some testing again.
It’s been a little over two weeks since we received her diagnosis: Celiacs disease. Finally it all makes sense. Relief flooded in at the same time as a whole new level of fear. I hung up the phone after receiving the phone call and my fingers flipped through pages desperate:
Sure, in our day, we hear a lot about Celiacs, and the gluten-free diet is a current fad diet. But to hear that my “perfect” little girl has an autoimmune disease–it shook me. That trippy weird slow-realization that falls over you that nothing will ever quite be the same again. A new normal will be found, but life as you knew it is over. Part of me wanted to tell myself I was being a big baby. This is awesome news, this is SO MUCH better than it could have been, there is so much to be thankful for. And all of that is true! Still, we are not ever helped when we push down our true feelings and scold ourselves for feeling that way. No, we are to run to the mercy seat with those feelings. We run to our God, who is a refuge for us and who urges us to come and pour out our hearts to Him, cast all our cares on Him, find mercy + grace in our time of need. We let ourselves feel what we are really feeling about this news/trial/difficulty and we tell Him. We pour it out in the safety of His company, the privacy of His all-knowing, already-knowing presence. We let Him get to our hearts, tend to them. If we don’t do this from the beginning, I think we risk hardening our hearts, cutting them off, and that is ripe ground for the seeds of apathy + bitterness to grow.
So when I was honest with myself, I felt betrayed. We had prayed and prayed that God would work in her body, heal her body. We had pursued multiple tests over the years. We had fought the issue when friends + family were all saying to let it go, that she was fine, just quirky.
What do you do when God allows the thing you have plead with Him never to do?
What do you do with that?
A few days after the diagnosis, we were driving in the quiet rain on our way to church. A flood of words came to me, and I scribbled them as fast as I could into my journal:
Sometimes the greatest gift God can give us is the gift of betraying us. The gift of the bad news. The unsettling, scary diagnosis. Because when our faith survives what we thought our souls could never survive–that is a gift worth more than gold.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
We are afraid of deep waters, resistant, and of course we would be. But our God is a perfect parent–our parent who is more about perfecting us than pampering us.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. (Isaiah 43:2)
He will at various times in our lives lead us through deep waters. How else can He teach us, how else can He allow us to experience His everlasting arms underneath that keep us afloat?
The eternal God is your dwelling place,
and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)
We resist the fiery trial–but it is only in the fire that our faith is really tested, proved, purified. It’s only when we come through the fire that we can know: this ground we stand on is solid. Real. Firm. Unshakeable. The mountains may move and tremble; He remains the same.
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (Psalm 46:1-3)
We cannot hope to be unaffected by the brokenness of this world. We cannot expect not to suffer as His children the same afflictions and hardships common to man.
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt. 5:45)
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)
But He will carry us. He will not change. He is good, unfailing.
Let’s not measure His love for us by the hand He deals us. Look at Christ: what hand did His Father deal Him? He was perfect, sinless. Yet He had nowhere to lay His head. He obeyed perfectly, was perfectly upright; yet He was despised, rejected by men. The very ones He created, the ones He came to rescue hated + betrayed Him, cried out for His blood. He plead with His Father to deny Him the cross, to take away that cup, but the Father did not. And Jesus surrendered to His Father’s will.
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:32)
Let’s not measure His love for us by the hand He deals us. Let’s measure His (immeasurable) love for us in the way He gives Himself to us unfailingly, continually–the way He remains with us. The way He carries us. The way He gives more grace. The way He gives us JESUS–and all the rich inheritance of promises found in Him.
It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. (Deuteronomy 31:8)
No matter what comes–our lives are hidden in Christ. Our future is secure. And it strikes me: this is the bi-focus of the Christian faith. What are bifocals? A pair of glasses containing lenses with two parts with different focal lengths. Our focus in the Christian life must always be bi-focal: at once seeing the present and also looking beyond the present, through it really, to the future. Let us look to our eternal future, our future grace and find strength in this moment of need.
“…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.” (Hebrews 12:2)
Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, ‘Thus saith the Lord.Jesus, Jesus, How I trust Him
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus precious Jesus
Oh for grace to trust Him more.
Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015)
Early yesterday morning, Elisabeth Elliot slipped away from this earth into the fulness of the presence of her Savior, the One she loved so dearly and so well. I didn’t find out until late last night and it greatly affected me. Such a mix of emotions. Somehow a world without her in it feels a little scarier–she was so passionate about holiness, about embracing the costly + sacrificial life Jesus calls us to, about obedience + mission, about giving up all else in eager pursuit of Him. She wasn’t afraid to say what was unpopular in her day, often drawing criticism for being anti-feminist or anti-women. She was committed to say and do whatever she found in Scripture, submitting entirely to God’s authority and upholding His Word, desiring more to obey and bring Him glory than to tickle the ears of her audience.
In her last days, the last ten years, she grew silent as her mind deteriorated under the shadow of dementia. These past few weeks I’ve been reading “Keep a Quiet Heart” and often thinking of her, how revolutionary it must have been in her day to be a published female author, writing from the jungles of Ecuador. How did she do it? How did she juggle being a mother, a widowed mother, and find time to write? How did she literally do it–by hand? Shipping tattered pages likely blotted with sweat and the crumpled creases from a toddler’s hands across miles to an editor? How did she go on to write 28 books over the course of 54 years? I was going to write her a letter to ask her just such questions and found this recent article about her (then) current state. I was profoundly affected by these words:
Elliot stopped giving speeches in 2004 as her health worsened. When she realized she was losing her memory, she put into practice what she had long preached: “From acceptance comes peace.” Her husband said she turned to the Bible for comfort, especially Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
Gren says Elliot has handled dementia just as she did the deaths of her husbands. “She accepted those things, [knowing] they were no surprise to God,” Gren said. “It was something she would rather not have experienced, but she received it.”
Hearing these words, Elliot looked up and nodded, her eyes clear and strong. Then she spoke for the first time during the two-hour interview, nodding vigorously: “Yes.”
Having lost my own grandmother to the slow and dehumanizing effects of dementia/Alzheimers, I am familiar with what Elisabeth Elliot must have faced, and with what courage she faced it. I mourned when I read those words, realizing she was, in essence, already gone, unreachable now. All that I would have access to were her words.
And, oh, what a treasure trove of words. I think of how In the Shadow of the Almighty convicted me in my college years, beckoning me to live a life of great purpose, devotion, ruthless trust in the face of suffering. Passion and Purity helped, convicted, and shaped my dating years and in many ways kept me from much heartache and wasted time. A Path through Suffering and Secure in the Everlasting Arms were two of the most prominent books that shaped me and comforted me in my early years of marriage; she introduced me to the Everlasting Arms that carried me when my dreams seemed shattered, my heart broken. A number of weeks ago I began working slowly (and savoringly) through Keep a Quiet Heart, to which I turned because of how divided, fretful, distracted, busy, and overwhelmed my soul has felt lately in this season of mothering three little ones ages 4 and under. In an age of internet, social media, constant connection, presence, and activity, I have felt the hushing whisper to keep a quiet heart. Throughout some of my most difficult and formative seasons, her role has been that of a trusted and steady guide–much like the rudder on a boat tossed on the wild + stormy seas. Quiet, unseen beneath the surface but firm, fixed, strong, steady, able to keep the weighty and unruly boat back onto its course.
It, for some reason, deeply spurs me on. It reminds me–we only have so long here. We have been given talents, gifts to be faithful with. We have been given a certain allotment of time, a certain tenure on this earth in a particular generation. As Ann Voskamp said recently, “A pail with a pinhole loses as much as the pail pushed right over. A whole life can be lost in minutes wasted… in the small moments missed.” What am I doing with my time here? Am I numbering my days carefully, spending my life on what matters? Whose kingdom am I building? What/who determines my goals?
“It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.”
(Ecclesiastes 7:2)
It is good for us to reflect on Elliot’s life and death, to mark a life well-lived, to celebrate and observe it, to glean from it, to mourn it, to rejoice over her completion and restoration in the presence of God. (“Her God,” I wanted to write, because how personally she loved and knew Him.) I’ve been musing this week over the parable Jesus tells about the kingdom in Matthew 25, what we commonly refer to as “The Parable of the Talents.” These verse struck a new chord with me this morning as my thoughts were fixed on Elliot:
“Take the thousand + give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this ‘play-it-safe’ who won’t go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.” (Matt. 25:28-30 MSG)
She was one of those few that risked the most to invest the most. She was a woman who suffered many things, so many losses, and yet she went forward bravely. I read a comment written by a woman about her last night that has rolled over and over in my mind today: “It was always comforting to know a person like Elisabeth Elliot existed among the moaning and groaning, unsatisfied women of our world.” Yes, that was her. Kind in her ways, but having no time for the whining and complaining of Christ-followers, fretting over their discomforts. She struck me as having the salty preservative quality in her culture that Christians are called to have, being a voice and a presence that called straying, compromising feet back to the narrow path. She makes me want to be a better writer, a better mother, a better lover of Jesus. She makes me want to raise my daughters up to be like her: distinct, set-apart, meek yet strong, influential, uncompromising, loving much, loving widely, living obedient and pure lives.
This woman invested her life and time to pass on the wisdom she has gleaned in her journeying with Jesus and she did so masterfully in the form of the written word. Truly, the family of Christ owes her a debt of gratitude, a debt of honor! How wonderful it is to know she is satisfied and complete, made whole and perfected now in the presence of her Savior, although her presence here will be sorely missed!
Here are some links to some other words about her:
Elisabeth Elliot by the Gospel Coalition
Alzheimer’s, the Brain + the Soul by Tony Reinke via Desiring God Ministries.
Words by Elliot’s husband, Lars Gren, on her website.
Peaches in Paradise by John Piper
Dedicated
We dedicated our darling little Philippa Ruth to the Lord this past Sunday, also dedicating ourselves to bring her up in the training + admonition of the Lord. Making such a public statement of commitment is beautiful, but also difficult. With our firstborn, we did so with innocent pride. Now with our third, we do so fully aware of our complete inability to do the task at hand apart from Christ’s Spirit working in us. We are so thankful for “Christ in us, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Apart from that promise, we truly would be hopeless!
The familiar lines from Psalm 145 rang through my soul that day:
“One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
and all your saints shall bless you!
They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom
and tell of your power,
to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
The Lord is faithful in all his words
and kind in all his works.” {Psalm 145:4-13 ESV}
Little Philippa,
We so hope to show you what a mighty God you have. The One who breathed life into you, the One who formed you in the “secret places” of my womb long before we even knew you were in existence. The One who shaped your very form to be exactly as it is. The One who created you to reflect His image. His works are awesome, child. He is faithful in all His words, kind in all His works. Indeed, His mercy is over all He has made. He is rich in compassion. Unlike your human parents, He is slow to anger. He abounds in love. He has already lavished such great love on you, littlest one, because He has entrusted you to us. The hymn I have sung over you almost every night these past six months that we have held you has been an old one, “When All Thy Mercies, O My God.”
When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I’m lost
In wonder, love, and praise.Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed
Before my infant heart could know
From whom those comforts flowedWhen worn with sickness, oft hast Thou,
With health renewed my face,
And when in sins and sorrows bowed,
Revived my soul with grace.Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I’ll pursue,
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
My favorite line reminds me that He has lavished His love on you FIRST. He first loved you, before your infant heart could know. He first loved you because He entrusted you to a mommy and daddy who are counted amongst His people, a mommy and daddy who are covered in grace, who will sing over you the song of His great love and mercy for ruined sinners such as ourselves. A mommy and daddy who He has first lavished with the Gospel of grace, who in turn plan to ravish your heart with that Gospel.
We praise Him for your precious life and the joy you bring to our family.
We love you so!
Mommy + Daddy
{Photography by Celena Simpson Photography}
Mother’s Day
My soul has felt a bit crowded lately. I’ve realized that I “write” constantly, usually in my head because I often don’t have time to scribble down the thoughts in between dirty diapers that need to be changed and sibling squabbles that need to be mediated. I’ve found that whatever I’m learning, whatever God is teaching me needs to find expression, usually in the form of writing. It’s how I make sense of it, but more than that, it’s part of the process. We come to God thirsty, He pours into our souls, and we fill up, we overflow, we spill over. Writing is how I spill over.
But lately? There hasn’t been much time or space and thus, a crowded soul.
Yesterday was Mother’s Day. It was one of the best days I’ve had in a while, and it was so simple. Breakfast + coffee made for me by my husband and the kids. A bouquet of azaleas picked from the yard. Worship at church with our spiritual family. Then we grabbed a few items for a picnic and headed up to one of my favorite spots on the Blue Ridge Parkway near where we live.
We talked about it on the drive up, my husband and I, that there has always been some part of me that craves getting up on the mountains, in the mountains, yes, but more so up on the very heights of the land. Where the wild whipping wind and the faintest flapping wing of a bird riding the updraft are music to the moment. It was perfect yesterday. Holy ordinary. We captured a few moments, chatted with a few other hikers out enjoying the glorious day. We played and laughed and got a little sun-burned. The landscape was moody and dark with rain clouds one moment, pierced by sun rays the next.
I can’t find words for it, but it just does something for me. So spacious, so abundant, so other-wordly and wild, it feels like my soul can expand and exhale. A perfect little escape for a weary momma with an overcrowded, busy soul.
To all the mommas out there, I hope you had a sweet Mother’s Day, feeling the celebration and the smile of God over you as He so highly esteems your every effort + work of faith!
An Invitation to Savor
There are few people whose voice I want to hear speaking into my every day, but Shauna Niequist is one of them.
I was so thrilled to receive her latest book, which is a daily devotional called Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are. My introduction to Niequist was in reading her last book, Bread & Wine, which has since lived in my kitchen amongst my three most used cookbooks, and it looks like this:
Yes, as you can see, my copy of Bread & Wine is well-loved. And if you aren’t familiar with Shauna Niequist than you must know: the woman loves food, but not just for the sake of food alone, but for the gathering that happens around the table. For the way sharing a meal together cracks our hearts wide open to one another, breaks down stiff walls between each other, thaws out our awkwardness toward one another. The way opening our homes and inviting someone in says, “I see you. I want to know you. I want to give you something my hands have made. I want to share life with you.” Because of her love for good, nourishing food and the power of a meal shared with loved ones, Niequist often incorporates her favorite recipes into her writing.
Savor is no exception! Not only is the book beautifully designed, with hand-lettering by Lindsay Letters accenting the linen cover + each page, but it is also thicker than I expected and has gorgeous navy blue edged pages. Her recipes are sprinkled throughout the book, reminding you that “spiritual living happens not just when we read and pray, but also when we gather with family and friends over dinners and breakfasts and late-night snacks” (back cover), including a wide variety of recipes such as Blueberry Yogurt Breakfast Cake, Wild Rice Salad, Curried Cauliflower, Fregolotta, Thai Beef Salad, and Grilled Peach + Caramel Sundaes. I’ve already been busy cooking out of it, as you can see.
In this devotional, each day begins with a short scripture and a pertinent reflection, encouraging you to savor this life, to savor each day that God has given. Each day finishes with a question for reflection. You know an author is gifted at her craft when her words stay with you months or years afterwards, when those words rattle around in your bones and start to live and grow deep in the soil of your own heart. When that writer communicates the way she sees life so clearly that you can see it, too, and your own vision is transformed. This is how Shauna writes. She will inspire you to move beyond surviving your days to paying attention to them, slowing down, feasting, savoring.
“So read and learn and pray and cook and share. Remember to savor each day, whatever it holds: work and play, coffee and kids, meals and prayers and the good stuff and the hard stuff. Life is all about relationships, and your daily relationship with God is worth savoring in every moment.”
My only complaint is that each day’s reading leaves me wanting more! Shauna’s words are evocative, stirring, and true, and a couple paragraphs is just not enough!
* * * * *
Thanks to HarperCollins Christian Publishing for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Making
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
Lately I’ve been playing around with making things. I think there are a few reasons why I suddenly feel the need to make more art, but one sticks out to me in particular. When you are busy in the work of parenting + homemaking, when this life of laundry, meal making, dishes, discipline, training, playing, errands, and mundane rhythms is your everyday, it can feel sort of endless. The long-haul nature of it can wear on a person who likes to see a finished product or an accomplished goal. The reality is, we cross many things off our lists every day, we finish a lot of menial tasks every day, and that counts for something important and it feels GOOD. Then, little feet jump out of bed in the morning and the tidiness and order gives way to glorious chaos once again. It’s the reality of our work as mothers, bringing some semblance of order from chaos day in and day out.
Beyond the actual work of managing and running a home, the work of raising little people into adulthood is D A U N T I N G. If we look too far ahead, we can feel entirely overwhelmed and underprepared for what lies in the future. The thing about parenthood is, it’s a fairly thankless and inglorious job. More than that, it’s a marathon not a sprint. Not even a cute little 5k. It’s long-haulish. Because of that, we find ourselves parenting to our particular children’s individual needs + bents and we see little glimpses of progress, but more often than not (at least in our home) we slap our proverbial foreheads and think, “How many hundreds of times have I told you this?!?!” (Or maybe we actually say it, if we are having a weak moment.)
It’s such a work of slow returns and slow progress. Surely progress is happening, growth is happening right under our noses, but it’s often as imperceptible as our children’s physical growth.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been craving some crafty projects lately, things that I can start, work on, and F I N I S H and see that I have, in fact, accomplished something. Not only is the work itself soothing and relaxing, but the end product reminds me that I am still able to accomplish something lasting. It reminds me that one day, I will see all the days of labor that melted into weeks, into months, into years produce a great harvest. It even whispers to me that much like my children are, in a sense, the masterpiece my life is working to produce, in the very process of this … God is making a masterpiece out of me. All the intense ways that motherhood presses me–it’s shaping and forming me more into the image He is after, the image of His Son. I am His workmanship, and His goal is for me to grow up into full spiritual maturity.
“…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:13-16)
When we grow weary in the seemingly endless and slow-producing work of parenting, let us remember He is parenting us and we are just as slow and stubborn and forgetful as our darling children. And if it helps to alleviate some stress or to give you that sense of satisfaction that comes from accomplishing + finishing something? Go make something. It could be anything… a batch of cookies, a meal, a card, a bouquet of wildflowers, a hand-sewn or embroidered dress. Enjoy the small steps, the small minutes of working with your hands, producing something, and seeing your effort come to fruition in the end product. And while you’re at it, remember, you are His workmanship, His masterpiece, to the praise of His glorious grace.
(The weaving pictured above was inspired by the lovely Beautiful Mess blog + you can find free tutorials for weaving here. This weaving was my first and I’m already working on another!)
everything He gives 