everything He gives

F O U N D

February 12, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

“I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit”

{Psalm 40:1-2}

Morning came so slow. The dark lingered so long. The silence of it all was deafening. We cried out to God, reached for Him, we waited. We didn’t hear Him speak. We asked Him if this would be it, if this would be His time for us to come home. He didn’t answer. We clung to each other, kept each other awake, too afraid to fall asleep and wake to find the other one of us frozen to death. We did math equations and quizzed each to check each other’s lucidity. We both seemed to go in and out of being clear-headed. The weakness we each felt was terrifying: we knew now that we would not be hiking out of this canyon. We slowly acknowledged that we would have to wait for rescue. We prayed and hoped others were already looking for us. We talked about what everyone was probably doing at that very moment. We talked about how hard it would be on mom and dad if we didn’t make it out alive. We wondered if they’d ever find our bodies.

Sometime in the middle of the night, we both began to despair. We were already feeling so labored in our breathing, in our shivering, so weary of the cold. We began to feel like we didn’t have much more time. It was at this point that we began to hear the faintest sound, no, actually we could feel it, too. The faintest hum of a motor. The slightest hint of vibration in the ground. The sound grew louder and then would fade out again. It was a shot of adrenaline! We knew that sound: snowmobiles! They were looking for us. We yelled a few times from a small hole we made in the roof of our snowcave. We yelled when we heard the motor stop. Then we’d hear it again. We clung to that sound. It was the faintest whisper of hope, but it kept us going. It literally sent a surge of warmth through us every time we heard it. We’re going to be okay. It’s only a matter of time now.

Just before dawn, the sound stopped. The weariness set it again. All I wanted was to get off the snow, to get off the constant life-sucking, warmth-sucking ice beneath me. I could feel my skin prickling with freezer burn against the constant wet cold.

The faintest hint of light seemed to filter through the snow above our heads. It seemed to only get colder. I began to fade a bit, whether from sleep-exhaustion, whether from cold, I don’t know.

Sometime around that point we began to hear the distant chop-chop-chop of a helicopter. It was so faint and muffled, and I was in such a fog mentally I couldn’t identify it at all. Jennie began to get excited again, sure that someone was looking for us, and telling me it was a helicopter, but I couldn’t grasp it. I had no idea in that moment what a helicopter was, all I could think of was “cold…. cold… cold.”

We heard the helicopter here and there, sometimes louder, sometimes not at all, and I couldn’t even tell you for how long. I didn’t care at that moment. Then suddenly it was close. Louder, louder, louder and Jennie began yelling, “Martha they’re going to find us! They’re right above us! They need to see us!”

The sound was deafening, and she burst through the roof of the snowcave, waving wildly and screaming at the helicopter that was then circling just a few dozen feet above us, just above the trees, so close we could easily see the pilot + scout smiling down at us, grinning from ear to ear and making hand signals, telling us they’d be right back. Then they flew off.

Within twenty minutes or so, we heard some whistling in the trees, and two men snowshoed into our clearing. We couldn’t stop beaming and laughing. “Do you believe in God? Because He is definitely looking out for you,” one said as he came into the clearing. “YES!” We cried. We talked with them about what happened, as they quickly checked our fingers and toes and looked us over, handing us each a snickers bar to eat. The other rescuer looked down into our small burrow in the snow, our shabby snow cave, and paused. “That’s what saved your lives right there,” he said, as he snapped a couple pictures of it. We then hiked down with them to a bigger clearing that the helicopter could manage to land in, and we jumped in and were whisked away from the wilds and back to civilization. Back to safety, to family, to warmth, to the unexpected surprise of several news agencies waiting to interview us as we stepped off the Flight for Life helicopter at Summit County Hospital.

It was all over.

We managed to come out of it with very mild hypothermia and minor frostbite on our fingers and toes. Helicopter Pilot Pat Mahaney informed us that we were his first live extraction in 25 years of search + rescue. We were shocked. We began to hear the stories from the other side. We told the rescuers how much it meant to us through the night to hear them sweeping the bowl on the snowmobiles, how it seemed to literally keep us alive. They looked at us confused, and said, “No one was searching through the night. We began searching in the afternoon after we received the call (from my brother Andrew), and had to call off the search through the night because of weather conditions. We never used any snowmobiles. In fact, the whole pass road was shut down to any traffic, so you wouldn’t have heard any motorized vehicles.”

We still have no explanation for what we heard. But we both heard it, we felt it through the ground ever so faintly. And it was a big part of what kept us alive and fighting.

We later found out the temperatures dropped that night -21 degrees with windchill. If we had chosen to keep hiking instead of hunkering down in the snow for the night, the story would have ended very differently.

There were many other details we learned from the rescue teams that were searching for us that night that cemented for us the certainty that God’s hand was all over this, that He was working in the smallest of details to ensure our survival.

In the immediate months that followed, life looked different through my eyes. As a teenager, you truly do think you’re invincible, and our experience shattered that. I knew with a certainty that I wasn’t just here by accident, but that God had given me the gift of life again. That He wanted me to know He had a plan for me. He wanted me to know that I was alive on purpose. He wanted to save. Reading back through my journals, I didn’t speak or write much to the whole experience. Only one little blip about feeling it all bottled up inside and not knowing how to process it.

And then today, it’s hard to believe 14 precious, full, lovely years have passed. I have been given all this time. I’m more aware than ever what a gift it is. And these three precious miracles:

“I sought the Lord, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.”

{Psalm 34:4}

L O S T

February 11, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

February 11, 2001.

It looked much like this when we set out that day. The wind was raging wild gusts, threatening to just pluck us off the ridge and send us into oblivion. That’s what drove our decision to hike up the peak behind the bowl, the peak in the background that you see pictured here.

The further we hiked on our usual route around the Loveland Pass bowl on the Continental Divide in Colorado, the more tracked out and ice-crusted we realized it was, so we headed to the peak behind the bowl. It looked fresh and promising and untouched. We wanted a hard workout and we wanted a sweet ride back on our snowboards.

That decision, that little decision could have ended our lives that day. I was sixteen, my sister, Jennie, was twenty.

We rode down that peak after climbing as close to the summit as we dared, given the strong winds. The sun was stretching low across the sky, we had gotten a late start that Sunday. We strapped in to our boards and had a sweet few minutes making our lines down that peak. We soon reached the bottom and realized it was much flatter than it had appeared from the top. We couldn’t ride any further, so we unstrapped to hike back up to the Loveland Pass bowl.

Unfortunately, the snow was much deeper than we had anticipated. We were post-holing up to our waists, sometimes our chests. We quickly realized it would be impossible to hike back up where we had come from against that kind of snow with the equipment we had (which was only our snowboards). So we attempted to follow the slope downward, hoping to meet back up with the Pass road on the other side. The hiking was slow plodding, we were exhausted, wet, hungry + thirsty. We had a few ounces of water between us and our uneaten lunches were waiting for us back in our brother’s car. He and a friend were riding close to where we had parked at the top of Loveland Pass.

The sun slipped behind the peaks and within minutes our situation began to worsen. Temperatures immediately began to drop, and we began to realize we had a long way to go and very little daylight. We had now hiking below treeline and came to a clearing where we were able to look out and get our bearings. We were expecting to see the white peaks on the other side of the Loveland Pass road, believing we were in the trees just above the road. Instead, we saw a tree covered mountain ahead of us, between us and the road. Even fourteen years later, that image is burned in my memory.

Thats when a panicky pit formed in my stomach as the realization hit like a punch: there was no possible way we would make it over that mountain and down the other side in the approximate hour of light we had left.

It was terrifying and devastating. My sister and I were both in tears at this point, but not panicking. We quickly shifted gears. We had a little light left and we needed to make some sort of shelter before it was too dark and cold to do so. We began digging/burrowing a hole down into the snow and making a sort of opening big enough for us to fit in. A snow cave. Jennie had heard about it on some survival movie she had seen.

While she worked on that, I trudged out a large S O S in the snow in the clearing we had stopped in, trembling from the fear as much as from the cold. We stuck our brightly-colored snowboards up in the snow just in case someone would see them. It was strange, but instinctively we already knew we would be needing rescue. We were saying our plan was to get up and keep hiking at first light, but we were scrawling our pleas for help in the snow. We hadn’t had food or water now for about 12 hours and had fully exerted ourselves hiking in the deep conditions. We now realized we had at least another 12 hours of waiting to drink water. We knew our brother and friend, as well as our family would soon realize we were missing (we had planned to meet back up with our brother earlier that afternoon to drive back down to Denver together). We figured they may begin looking for us. We hoped.

The temperatures dropped. Dusk was settling in. All was quiet. Silent. We could barely look at each other for sake of the gravity of our situation, and the weight of the realization of how foolish we had been. We knew once we crawled in that hole in the snow, we were committed. We would be spending the night in our sopping wet gear with no food or water in the frigid February backcountry snow of Colorado.

We crawled in head first. We pulled some branches over the opening of the snowcave and packed snow around the piney fronds until we could basically seal the opening shut. We could see a little light through the snow above our heads but mostly, it was dark.

We were shivering, talking, crying off and on. Talking about our plan for the morning to get up and keep hiking as soon as it was light. We were praying. We were quiet. We worked at staying warm and staying awake. We sang hymns. We cried out to God. We waited. It was dark.

Beauty

February 9, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

Is there a purpose in beauty? Why are we naturally drawn to it, inclined toward it? Why are we moved by it? Science has proven that an infant’s eyes linger longer on a more attractive face, long before socialization would play a role in their preference. In other words, even before we could be “taught” to enjoy beauty, we do. We inherently do. Is this a result of sin? Or is this a part of the image of God stamped on us? Could it be, as N. T. Wright calls it, an echo of a Voice? A beckoning within? Given to us, implanted within us, to draw us toward Something? These questions matter to me because I think often about the way I respond to beauty, the effect it has on me, my enjoyment of it, and the purpose of it all. In my opinion, how we answer these questions may seem inconsequential, but in truth has a great impact on the way we live out our faith before the Lord.

I love these words by N. T. Wright:

“The Christian tradition has said, and indeed sung, that the glory belongs to God the creator. It is his voice we hear echoing off the crags, murmuring in the sunset. It is his power we feel in the crashing of the waves and the roar of the lion. It is his beauty we see reflected in a thousand faces and forms.

And when the cynic reminds us that people fall off crags, get lost after sunset, and are drowned by waves and eaten by lions; when the cynic cautions that faces get old and lined and forms get pudgy and sick–then we Christians do not declare that it was all a mistake. We do not avail ourselves of Plato’s safety hatch and say that the real world is not a thing of space, time, and matter but another world into which we can escape. We say that the present world is the real one, and that it’s in bad shape but expecting to be repaired. We tell, in other words, the story we told in the first chapter: the story of a good Creator longing to put the world back into the good order for which it was designed. We tell the story of a God who does the two things, which, some of the time at least, we know we all want and need: a God who completes what he has begun, a God who comes to the rescue of those who seem lost and enslaved in the world the way it is now.”

{N. T. Wright, Simply Christian}

What do you think? Does beauty matter?

ps. If you haven’t read Simply Christian, it is one book you should definitely read in your lifetime. Period. Probably on my list of top ten books I’ve ever read.

the birthday boy

February 2, 2015February 3, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

Every baby, every life, is a miracle. But this guy? He is a MIRACLE.

He was a fighter from the start. Born three months early, weighing only 3 lbs, he came out screaming. That his lungs were formed enough for him to scream was the first sign that this little guy was going to be a fighter and was probably going to be ok.

He spent weeks in NICU fighting to get the start in life that most full-term babies have, and the next two years fighting one scary illness after another (such as viral meningitis and emergency surgery for an incarcerated hernia) to catch up to the health and growth that full-term babies have.

It seems so much was against him from the beginning, that something wanted to snuff out his existence before it even began. And yet his young parents fought for his life on their knees and in the community of believers, praying him through those first two exhausting scary years. They can attest to a number of miraculous times that God healed Brandon in those first two years of life.

We have an enemy in this life who lives only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Jesus tells us the devil was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). He is pictured by Peter as a roaring lion, roaming about seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). He is an opportunist, a smart + centuries-practiced adversary, an expert in human beings after years of studying and working to wreak havoc and destruction. Like a lion, he would seek the weakest and easiest targets to devour. What is weaker, what is more vulnerable and defenseless than a baby?

In his adolescent years, the enemy of his soul made other attempts to destroy him, to wipe out his joy, his effectiveness, his confidence. He was successful for a season and inflicted some deep wounds. Yet God’s hand was on Brandon’s life and over the course of the 10+ years I’ve known Brandon, I’ve seen God at work in him, pursuing, healing, guiding, restoring. It’s been the privilege of my life to get to peek in on that process, to get to share in it and pray for him, knowing some of his private battles better than anyone else on this planet (as of course, he does the same for me in my own struggles + brokenness).

And now? He’s one of the strongest guys I know. I tease him that his legs are shorter because he was a premie and just grew sort of funny. 🙂 But he really is incredibly strong. I’ve never known anyone like him when it comes to endurance. Being that we’ve led multiple backpacking trips together and have been in some hairy situations, I’ve seen him persevere at great lengths and I’ve never seen him quit. When more is asked of him, I see him consistently rise to the occasion. When all of us are sick at home, typically he is the only one who doesn’t get it. In fact, I can probably count the times he’s been really sick on one hand. I tease him that he had to fight to survive from the beginning and it made him super strong. There is always this part of him that was curious if he could have been a Navy Seal or a Ranger, wondering just what limits his endurance has. He can go without sleep and without food and still be a normal, functioning human being. He does not drink coffee (I know, see? He’s crazy strong). He is the primary one to get up in the night with our kids, and is often up early running long distances, training to run a marathon. I repeat, he doesn’t drink coffee. And not because he’s a snooty purist, he’s the least snobby person I know. He just doesn’t like it.

I am so thankful for him and honestly can’t imagine doing life with anyone else. Sure, we can drive each other crazy sometimes, as only people who passionately love each other can. But we can have a lot of fun together, too. He is such a sweet daddy, imperfect and growing, but his love for his kids runs deep. He has always loved me even when I’ve been unlovable, always willing to give me the best.

So, happy birthday to this dude. Just wanted to tell you a little about how special he is! And a special thanks to his parents for doing such a stellar job raising up such a fine man.

Go on wild adventures

January 29, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

I see my dusty, rusty mountain bike lying forlornly in our garage. It’s crammed behind things like double strollers, a dishwasher we’re trying to sell, a radio flyer wagon + tricycles.

It reminds me of former days.

Days when we had dogs instead of kids.
When we had freedom + spontaneity instead of nap + nursing schedules.
Days when we didn’t have to schedule a babysitter to go on a run or a bike together.
Weekends that were spent entirely outdoors on a snowboard or a bike, looking long into the sunset.. instead of weekends rummaging through massive consignment sales and looking long at piles of laundry.

And yes, Brandon had long hair:

I don’t mean to be too nostalgic.. but let’s face it, I’m a nostalgic type. When we were first married we were fools and moved across the country to Colorado and had the best adventure ever. Just a newly-wed couple on an adventure together. I introduced Brandon to my favorite mountains and got to teach him how to snowboard. We hoped to settle down out there (idiots), but God led us back east not too long later. I’ve often regretted those years, wishing we had been practical, gone and gotten our graduate degrees, saved up for a downpayment for a home (still working on that one).

But, listen. You can’t buy the memories we made. And now that we have three little minis running around?? Let me tell you it will probably be awhile before we get a season like that in our marriage again. It was a blast. It was the gnarliest test of faith for us in SO many ways. We went out there without a clue where we would live or work. We drove a gorgeous dreamy Land Rover across the country and had car problems along the way, toting a heavy trailer with all our (scant) earthly goods behind us. We (read: I) journaled and cried and prayed the whole two (or was it three?) days of traveling. We showed up in Breckenridge, Colorado, my old haunts, and reached out to the body of Christ there and promptly were given a place to stay temporarily till we found a rental.

I cannot tell you all the fun and adventures and heart ache we had in those many months. How God shaped us in so many ways as a couple. It wasn’t all fun at the time, but looking back, it was GREAT fun and I’m so glad we did it.

So.. to you younger girls, maybe to you newly-weds, here’s what I have to say: Go have an adventure with your spouse, if you can. While you’re young. While you have a little time to waste. Don’t be afraid of making impractical decisions, sometimes. Our investment in those early years into having fun together and taking risks together has VASTLY paid off in these years where we are a little more tethered to home and to the mundane. It is a storehouse, a treasure-house of memories and laughter for us. AND it is motivation for us to continue to pursue what we love together and to dream about a future where we can set off on those kinds of adventures again.

Don’t get me wrong. We fasted, prayed, sought counsel. That move was BATHED forward and backward in Scripture and prayer. So don’t get me wrong: Be led of God. PRAY about it. We did, and we were convinced it was what the Lord was calling us to do. At the time, I couldn’t make sense of it. At the time, I thought unless we were heading off overseas for missions, it couldn’t possibly be God’s will. I had no idea that in order for God to prepare us for some of the seasons we are facing now (and, I’m confident, that we will face in the future in the long haul and crazy faith-walk of raising a family together) He needed to take us through some of the faith-tests we experienced there. In a lot of ways we flopped and flailed on that journey of faith, we were hurt and we hurt others.. But even that has not gone to waste. We have learned so much about loving better. If I’m honest, I’m only now starting to make sense of some of what we experienced during that time. I’m only starting to realize God’s infinite wisdom in using what is foolish is man’s sight to accomplish what is mighty in God’s.

It wasn’t practical. Many of our friends went on to grad school and to secure jobs, many of them have homes they own while Brandon and I are still working toward that goal. And I don’t think they made a poor choice and we made a better one. We simply have to trust God’s process with each of us to be unique and different. But I can tell you, in a culture that is wildly practical and tells you to be sure you take all the proper and wise steps (yes, even the Christian culture is guilty of this at times) and only calculated risks, you may not be hearing many voices that are telling you to trust God. To not live in fear of making some missteps along the way. To be wise, to seek counsel, yes, but not to be afraid to take wild risks. To trust God’s leadership when so many are criticizing. To be brave in pursuing God’s voice as the ultimate source of authority in Your life. To not be afraid to be a pioneer.

Maybe for you that means pursuing going overseas when family is telling you it’s too dangerous. Maybe it means looking into that start-up. Maybe it means going back to school. Maybe it means trying for a baby when you don’t have all the finances worked out yet.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not talking about just doing whatever you want and calling it God’s will. I’m talking about that thing you may know deep in your soul that He’s beckoning you to do, but you are pushing down because the practical voices and the fear of stepping out are telling you to resist.

The wildest adventure you can ever go on is the adventure into God’s will. The adventure of trusting Him entirely with your life. Your finances, your education, your location, your future. It is the scariest, most foolhardy, most hilariously terrifying and exhilarating adventure. He is NOT boring, my friend. Walking in obedience to Him has been the wildest ride and craziest joy of my LIFE.

The reality is, all of our journey with Jesus is just one wild adventure after another. Some are more fun than others, some are painful and dang hard. DANG hard. Parenthood is the next big adventure we’re entering into. But now, Brandon and I know each other, we know how we handle the unknown. We learned in that early season of marriage how we each handle adventure and risk and unknown. We fell in love leading adventures together for a backpacking organization, for pete’s sake. God built so much into our hearts and marriage in that season where the adventure was FUN and the risks were relatively small in comparison.

And one day, we will decline and our strength will fail and we will enter the face great adventure, death. And then we will just be carried right into His presence. I mean, come on! What greater joy than to know that all of our earthly experience has great purpose, is leading us onward toward Home, and is going to culminate in seeing HIM.

I adore Him so much because He is so much fun. He loves to give us good gifts. He calls us to seasons of walking through darkness and deep valleys. He beckons us out into spacious places where are souls breathe huge. He leads us in ways we cannot quite fabricate. I promise you, He is so much the better boss of our lives than we could ever hope to be.

Trust Him. Lean in. Listen. Obey.

It’s going to be awesome.

Okay.. enough rambling, I have to wake the kids from their naps. And just in case you were wondering, yes, I’m planning on getting back out on that bike SOON.

Tuesday

January 27, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

I load dishes in the dishwasher, scramble together my current stack of books, bible, journal, computer, shoving them into my hastily emptied diaper bag. Tugging my pink beanie down over my ears, I head out into the cold + dark, smiling at the few scattered snowflakes still floating down.

It’s Tuesday. And I’m hurrying. I only have two hours.

Tuesdays are quickly becoming my favorite. This sweet guy has given me Tuesday evenings all to myself. We talked at the outset of the new year about some of our goals + hopes for this year and I asked him if it would be okay for me take one night a week to invest a bit more intentionally in writing. (Or to just lose myself for a bit in a book without the constant mommy-radar that I have up when I’m home, listening and responding to little cries. Or just to scroll mindlessly around the interweb. OR to take a nap in the car, I don’t know.)

I had said how I felt like I could never turn my brain off. There are certainly times during the day when the kids are sleeping and I have time to get a few things done or relax, but in the back of my mind is the constant awareness that I’m on-call to take care of them if they need me. It’s usually fine, but on occasion, it can wear an introvert right out.

It’s one of the most beautiful things about marriage lately, the way we can be a team. The longer we’ve been married, the more we’ve learned that we all function better as a family if each of us has the opporunity to recharge in the particular ways that we each need. It’s been fun to make a habit of asking each other what we can do to ensure the other spouse rests. Sometimes what gives the soul rest is a good hard run in the quiet wilderness where the only sound is your labored breathing and feet on soft ground. Sometimes for my husband, rest is having time to tinker around in the garage and work on his motorcycle or woodworking projects. It’s important for us to make time to connect with each other and go on dates. It’s important that we make time to be all together as a family. It’s important that we connect with the kids. In the midst of all of that, it’s easy to neglect our own souls. Lately we’ve been working on taking turns holding down the fort so the other person can do something that feeds their soul.

And don’t go thinking that we just have a good marriage. We have been married nine years this May. NINE. It’s no small miracle that we didn’t kill each other the first five, but here we are, not just surviving anymore, but (dare I say it?) thriving. The marriage we have now still needs a lot of work, of course, but it is one we have fought hard for. Any progress we have made has come with a lot of blood, sweat, tears + prayer.

This season with three little ones under 4 years old is a very busy season. In order for us to not burn out, we’re learning we have to be intentional about working hard when it’s time to work, and resting hard when it’s time to rest. Playing when it’s time to play.

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Eccl. 3:1

A time for decaf americanos and words in cozy coffee shops late at night. So, there it is. It’s Tuesday again, and I’m writing a little and just savoring this strange-vaguely-familiar-yet-sort-of-foreign sensation of remembering that I’m still an individual.

So.. here’s to husbands who hold the 2 month old while they give the four and two year old a bath. Here’s to husbands who do all the dishes (even though they hate it), who read scripture and sing bible songs over sleepy children as they tuck them in bed. Here’s to husbands who believe in their wives and speak words of courage over them when they think they have nothing to offer. Here’s to husbands who tell their wives to dream. Here’s to husbands who sacrifice.

I’m so thankful for mine.

A fireman’s birthday

January 26, 2015January 26, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

Back in December before Christmas my littlest man turned 2 years old and we had a little fireman birthday for him. He helped make pancakes in the morning with Daddy, his favorite breakfast lately.

After breakfast we headed off to a nearby fire station to see the real firemen + trucks. It was such a treat! Those guys are so helpful and so willing to teach, and they made our little guy’s birthday so special! Also, they responded to a call while we were there, so the kids got to see the firemen in action (thus the picture below where the firemen left their boots as they jumped into their suits and left).

Also, we’re at my husband’s parent’s house today and I saw this picture of my husband when he was a little dude, wearing a little fireman’s hat:

Pretty cute. Anyway, it was a sweet day with our favorite little boy. We sure do love you, little N!

Favorite Reads of 2014

January 23, 2015January 23, 2015 MarthaKimball4 Comments

Some of my favorite reads from this past year. This stack is missing a few that greatly impacted me this past year, such as Eric Metaxes’ “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prohpet, Spy,” and Jerry Bridges “Transforming Grace.”

I sheepishly admit that I have historically been careful not to venture too far in my book choices into places that would disagree with my firmly held convictions. I have begun to challenge myself to read some things that might intrigue, provoke, and even irritate me. To read some things that I think I will probably disagree with. I have been afraid to do this in the past, not trusting my mind + heart to weed out truth from lie. As my favorite professor from school once counseled me, we can engage in content that may make us squirm because we can trust that God will separate what is wheat from what is chaff.

The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I see that He continually leads us into more spacious places. He always leads us on to greater freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), and that He will increase our awareness of the great freedom already won for us in Christ Jesus.

Some books that made me squirm and were out of my comfort zone to read were Sarah Bessey’s “Jesus Feminist” and also Barbara Brown Taylor’s “An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith” (not pictured above). I have to tell you: I am SO GLAD I picked those two up. I’m not sure I can tell you that I agree with everything written therein, but I can tell you that I am better off for having read and engaged in those two books. Well worth the journey and the squirming. I think I’m finding that when I read things that are outside of my comfort zone, I am reminded of how much bigger God is than I can possibly wrap my arms (or mind) around. I am reminded that it is in the diversity of the body of Christ that His incredible, unfathomable largeness and otherness is expressed. No one denomination has a corner on all Truth, and we are wise to remember that. I am reminded that Christ’s final prayer with His disciples centered around pleading for them to be ONE (John 17).

I have a big stack already waiting for me to dig into in 2015:

And since I am now reviewing books for fun (pushes nerd glasses up bridge of nose) this stack will definitely grow over the year. Of course, I will share the best with you here, as I firmly believe in sharing good resources and in reading, reading, reading. Not just to stuff our heads with knowledge, but because we want to learn, to change, to have a conversation with the community of brothers and sisters of our faith both in the current day and in times past. What a beautiful privilege that is!

This season of being a mother to little ones has taught me that the best things in life must be fought for. The path of least resistance is not the way of Jesus. I have so little time as a momma for reading, and yet I’m passionate about squeezing it in. There is so much I want to learn and have yet to learn! This year I am convicted afresh that my focus needs to be on my marriage and my children. So I’m hoping to fill my shelves (figuratively speaking) with words that build up and strengthen my marriage and my calling as momma first and foremost.

Of course, I’m hoping to squeeze in some fiction as well. Sometimes a momma just needs to get lost in a good story.

What are you hoping to read this year? What books would you recommend?

Longing For More

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

A brand new year unfolds before us. How many of us find ourselves restless, longing for more? The holidays are behind us now, and we are tired of all the activity, the rushing, the memory-making + merry-making, the feasting and the getting.

Now we start again, we re-set, we look into what is both ordinary and fresh at the same time. We’re back to our usual work. Laundry piles, dishes stack, children squabble, bills accrue again. How can we enter into the sameness and the ordinary and yet become different?

What are we so restless for?

Timothy Willard offers us companionship in our restlessness and offers a soul-remedy: God.

The month of January is a clean start, a time when many of us are thinking about change, the changes we want to make to become more of who we desire to be. We go into a new year and bring our old selves into it; but how can we be changed? How can we be transformed?

Scripture tells us we can be transformed by “renewing our minds” (Rom. 12:2). We renew our minds by immersing them in the Truth and abandoning the lies that have taken root there. Willard’s book is just one more weapon in our arsenal to immerse our minds in truth and meditate on it.

In his book, Willard offers us companionship throughout the year with daily readings organized into 52 weeks, each week offering 5 meditations on scripture and short prayers. The readings are fairly concise, leaving you often hungry for further exploration on your own into the scriptures. The weeks are arranged topically, giving you the option of either following allow chronologically or using the book topically as it suits you. The topics are things such as love, joy, confession, family, worship, beauty, forgiveness, faithfulness, etc. Willard arranged the book around the natural rhythms of life, understanding that we experience and relate to God in the ordinary and often mundane activities of our days.

Originally, the readings began as a series of emails written over the course of two years to fellows in an entrepreneurial incubator program for founders of social justice organizations called Praxis. Willard says, “I wrote weekly devotional emails crafted to inspire, challenge, and engender transparency among those in the program. I wanted the writing to reflect the rhythms of daily life but also point to the heavens, to God…Why God rhythms? Because life is anything but formulaic. Though I try to implement systems to help organize my time and relationships, these life buckets tend to mix and gel, clash and explode. I experience life like you do, in the whirlwind of reality’s rhythms. But I do not despise the whirlwind. Instead, I look to its creator, the author of life, the poet of the universe who holds the ebbing and flowing of life like a valley holds its rivers and streams and trees: in the beautiful cadence of balance. The storms interrupt, the rains nourish, the sunlight quickens, the fires purge, and the seasons create of cycle of anticipation. We are always looking to the daffodils, to the picnics, to the harvest parties, to the Christmas trees.”

Willard’s writes as a fellow-sojourner and the readings carry the sense of the dailyness of life, symbiotic with my own feeble heart each day. His writings stir up my affections for Jesus and always leave me longing to dig deeper into God’s Word and to linger in His presence.

Pick up your own copy HERE and visit Timothy Willard’s website HERE.

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I received a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for my honest review. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

A merry Christmas

January 9, 2015January 9, 2015 MarthaKimball1 Comment

I got the flu for New Years. I don’t know, I think that doesn’t bode well for 2015? 🙂 It’s been 8 days now, and I’m starting to come out of the fog and exhaustion. I don’t know if I’ve ever had the flu before but, wow, it’s a doozy.

I’m making a cup of coffee, lighting a candle, and going back through Christmas pictures, our favorite little moments from this year to share with you here.

We had such a lovely Christmas, quiet and simple as it was. We really love being home on Christmas morning and creating our own traditions as a new little family. We are spoiled to have family nearby and we do love to try and see them around Christmas, but Christmas morning is sort of sacred. With two kids’ birthdays the week of Christmas, it’s essential to be really picky-choosy about what we can manage

I so much want our kids to have a happy and cozy home to be in, a place where there is love, laughter, good food, forgiveness and grace, and a lot of the Spirit of Christ. I want to create happy Christmas morning memories like I have of our home growing up. Of course, our Christmas morning was sweet + fun, and also filled with lots of tears and petty fights that had to be settled. You know, the usual.

I made these Eggnog Cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and they were a WIN. Yum.

We got going slowly after that. We don’t want to make the day all about the gifts, the getting, the materialism, but at the same time, we love giving the gifts. There truly is something magical and plain GOOD about a time of year when you just want to shower everyone you love with good things. We’ve seen some lean years in our nearly nine years of marriage, and it was a happy joy this year for both Brandon and I to be able to give each other gifts. We find ourselves around Christmas easily sucked into all the consumerism and wanting to give our kids All The Things, so we tried a little system this year that we heard from some friends. Each of us got four gifts: something to read, something to wear, something you want, and something you need. It really helped us be intentional with our gift-giving and keep ourselves from getting carried away with plastic toys.

After all the opening was done, and naps were had by all, my brother + sis-in-law came over for Christmas dinner. What a sweet thing it is to be together over a meal and celebrate what Christ did for us, leveling all the obstacles, clearing the way for us to come back to God by coming down to earth. Emmanuel, God with us.

Hope so much you had a Merry Christmas, too, and already having a happy start to the New Year! I’ll leave you with this little sequence of pictures, a slice of real life. 😉