You guys! I feel so cool right now. 🙂 This is my first time being able to join in with Ginny Sheller’s weekly Yarn Along! Ginny is a homeschooling, homesteading momma of seven, and a big-time reader + knitter. Basically, I have fallen in love with knitting via her blog and have been itching to learn. I’ve had a couple of attempts, but it finally clicked when I spent some time with a friend recently who taught me.
I’ve been working on this free pattern, making a little hat for Philippa and basically working on just my stockinette stitch. I think I’m about done + ready to bind off. Will post a picture of the finished product soon. And I’m officially addicted! Brandon thinks I’ve finally reached old lady status, but I really can see why people love to knit. So, if you have any free favorite knitting patterns for beginners that you’ve loved, please let me know in the comment section below!
Also, I’ve been reading this new release, Never Broken: Songs are Only Half the Story, by Jewel. Her music really spoke to me when I was younger, and I read all her poetry and was encouraged in my own poetry and song writing at the time. It’s been interesting reading more of her background and story, and at times it’s been hard and depressing. She experienced a way more difficult childhood than I had known or imagined, abused + neglected by her parents and basically left to fend by herself in the harsh Alaskan wilds. I have been saddened to see what she had to overcome, and yet surprised at how well she endured it, and how graciously and intelligently she writes her story. Also, sometimes we think people who have “made it” so successfully in their field, in her case selling millions of albums, have arrived there by chance, probably one day being “discovered” and everything going on smoothly from there. Reading her book reminds me that it is a ton of work, constant “trying again,” often overcoming difficult criticism and misunderstanding to continue to offer your art to the world. I’m not quite done with it, just the last few chapters left now. I’ve enjoyed it but I’m ready to move on to some other books I’ve put on hold!
“The discovery of God lies in the daily + the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find him at all. Ours is to be a symphonic piety in which all the activities of work and play and family and worship and sex and sleep are the holy habitats of the eternal.”
Richard Foster, Prayer
“Small things don’t always turn into big things. But all things begin small, especially in the kingdom of God. Acorns become oak tress. Embryos become President. Life starts with a breath. Love starts with hello.
Tuesday reminds me to accept the beauty of smallness, hiddenness, and the secret work of Christ in the deepest part of who I am. I want to let him come out of me in any way he wants, no matter how it may seem to me–whether that be in one big way or in a million little ways.
While I stay small in the presence of Christ, I’m aware of his invitation to me, to stand on tiptoe and see, as my dad often says, beyond what is to what could be. And this doesn’t mean I am to dream big and amazing things for God. Rather, it means I am to believe in a big and amazing God, period. I can trust him to be himself even as I dare to be myself.
And maybe as I do that, I’ll realize that starting small isn’ t a means to a bigger end, rather I start small because it’s what I am. And this is good and right and holy. Who would despise the day of small things?
As citizens of an invisible kingdom, we refuse to take our living cues from a world that say to build, grow, measure, and rush to keep up. Instead we take our cues from the new hope alive within us, from the life of Christ who has made our hearts his home. We’ll stop trying to keep up with the fast-moving world and, instead, we’ll settle down and keep company with the small moments of our lives.
We’ll pay attention to them, listen to what they have to teach us, not rush by them as if they are unimportant. We know better than that by now. We know the way these small moments link arms with one another to form the timelines of our lives. Moments: the keys to the kingdom. We know how we approach, consider, react, and exist within these small moments are indicators of how we approach, react, and exist in our whole lives. We can’t afford to miss them.”
Yes, that’s right. For those of you who don’t know, that’s The Nester‘s white barn!!! I’m glad I took pictures because otherwise I might be tempted to believe this was just a beautiful dream. I won two tickets (for me + 1 friend) to this party at Myquillyn’s house/barn to celebrate the release of Emily Freeman‘s 4th book, Simply Tuesday. What an incredible and surreal experience this was! I wanted to take a hundred pictures but I also wanted to a.) not be weird and b.) savor this experience to the full.
My friend, Katie, and I relished the chance to pull away from our kiddos and make the drive from the mountains of Asheville, NC to… well, IKEA first + foremost. I mean, if you have to drive anywhere near Charlotte, NC you had best get yourself to Ikea! It was so much fun shopping with my friend and having time to talk and catch up without six little children running wild around us. We drove on from Charlotte to Midland, NC, driving farther and farther from the bustle and hustle of the noisy city + big interstates to the quiet and small country roads. Already we were feeling a welcome to “celebrate our smallness.” We pulled onto the property, marked only by a small wooden arrow with a breath of flowers and white letters spelling, “Barn.” Giggly and giddy we were joking about how actually sort of crazy strange this was and maybe we should just turn around and head home. We parked on the lawn in front of the Nester’s house, quietly freaking out in the car (especially when I saw Annie Downs just hanging out by the parking sign), directed to our spot by the Nester’s husband and sons.
It took a lot of brave to step out of the car into this evening. As much as I have been impacted and literally changed by Emily Freeman’s words in her last book, A Million Little Ways, as eager as I was to celebrate this new release and engage in the content, it is scary for an introvert to go to this kind of thing. Right away walking up to the Barn, Emily was there, chatting with guests. Her kiddos and husband were walking around. I think Myquillyn was the first to greet us and welcome us, pointing out bathrooms to us. We told her we couldn’t believe how brave she is to open her home to total strangers like this, and she happily told us how everyone they’ve met off of the internet has been wonderful. (You guys, they are the real deal. Just exactly how they seem to be on the internet. Isn’t that the best?!)
This is the moment when I started to feel my nerves melt away: when Emily greeted us with such exuberant and real joy, told us what to expect for the evening, and prayed over the meal we would share together, praying because “we all love Jesus here.” A breath of relief.. yes, we are all family here. There is already this “knowing” between us, this love of words, this love of our Savior. This desire for His kingdom come.
The Nester’s farmhouse.. dreamy and just like she shows it to be in her pictures (I don’t know why that always surprises us).
Dinner provided by this food truck, Small Potatoes, because of course. Small.
I’m thankful the photographer friend of Emily’s floating around that evening offered to snap this shot of Katie and I!
We gathered outside amongst cicadas and lightning bugs and strings of lights. Then Emily picked up her book and began to read about the Kingdom, about sitting in the presence of Christ in our smallness. This was the moment when I felt at home, when my soul began to smile and sing. Somehow in the odd peculiarity of it all, these are my people, this is my place.
Music fell over us from fingers strumming guitars, voices singing out about ordinary Tuesdays and the collision of the Kingdom of God with earth.
Then we lined up to meet Emily + have her sign our books as the light faded and night settled upon us. This was such a sweet moment, just a quiet and simple moment and yet heavy with meaning for me. Emily’s words were the ones that really set me free to dream and to live more artfully in all that I do. I told her this as we met and as she signed my book. Just a brief moment in time when you want to fill 30 seconds with a million words of thanks.
Then the awkward moment when Emily asked if we wanted to get our picture with her and I said “No, it’s okay.” I mean, really?! What is wrong with me?!! (Laughing) If you’re reading this Emily, YES I wanted a picture but I for some reason didn’t think anyone was nearby to take it and I thought it might be too dark? Sorry for the awkward moment.
(Yes, I asked her to sign AMLW because my copy of Simply Tuesday hadn’t arrived yet.)
For more info about Emily’s latest book (I am reading it currently and you won’t be disappointed!) click here for some videos and more info: http://emilypfreeman.com/simply-tuesday/
Also if you’re on Instagram, check out the happiest hashtag on the internet #itssimplytuesday, where fellow journeyers celebrate the small moments of our Tuesdays.
Thank you to Emily Freeman + Myquillyn for giving us such a wonderful evening, for sharing your gifts so generously with us! It was truly incredible to meet you both.
I devoured this book in the span of a few days. I won’t soon forget it and I won’t let it slip out of my fingers, either. Some books you finish and pass on. This is one to hold onto. This is one to linger over. This is one to read again, to muse over her words. It is at once memoir, liturgy, story, and song. It is doctrine and it is poetry. It is the story of one life interrupted and rescued by the grace of God, it is the journey of grace intersecting all things, the piecing back together of broken pieces into a masterpiece.
Amber Haines, with the voice of a poet and theologian, shares her story of “chasing desire + finding the broken way home.” How many of us cannot immediately find our place within those words? How many of us have not also run and found ourselves overtaken in the best way possible by the best love imaginable?
She begins with her running and her rebellion, shows how God met her, the “girl child from Alabama with mud in her fingernails,” on the linoleum floor:
“The first of many births I would witness was my own. I was born into light. I would have waited on that linoleum floor until I starved, waited there to be raised from the dead, or be made dead, whichever. I can’t explain the difference in what was happening in my head and in my heart and in my body. It was all taking new form. I didn’t lie down so that when I stood up I might believe. I lay down to die because I was done with moving about in a body that had no life. The fact that the presence of God was so obvious, like Road-to-Damascus obvious, was absolutely shocking to me. I had never felt so pursued or so loved, and love is what got me up off the floor. As my eyes came open to something so simple as love, that God loves me, I was overcome with new desire: more than for a warm body–for skin on skin; more than for the taste of home–biscuits and gravy on a family morning; and more than for any drug to numb my pain. I didn’t know who I was, filling with such delight, the allure of God. His meeting me on the floor was my release from being bogged down in self-awareness and loathing. He released me from feeling required to entice love, to always make an offering. I became aware of God. He was not only the one who hovered in the fog but also the one who loved me first.” (Haines)
She shares the journey: her marriage, the brokenness that threatened it. The children, the giving birth that almost brought death. The church, the exultant joy, the plunging despair. Abortion and affair, addiction and anxiety. The places Haiti and Tuscany both found in her heart, the odd juxtaposition, the beautiful juxtaposition. All the ways of finding home in a world where we are right to be homesick, where we see glimpses and shadows and hints of glory, but always find ourselves still somewhat out of sorts, still not yet home. And yet Home all along, because the kingdom is here. Already, but not yet fully.
I admire Haines’ vulnerability and honesty as she shares her story, which is quite different from my own, and yet I find similar threads of discovery and understanding between us. I so greatly appreciate her courage in sharing her story, the rawness and rebellion, as well as the redemption. Some aspects of her theology were difficult for me to ascertain, especially in the beginning of her book when she came off a bit cynical + critical about the church and even seemed to call into question the role of the Scriptures. Her writing is peppered with Scripture, however, and it was helpful to read her book in its entirety to see the peace she makes with the Church and the healing she finds.
You can see in Haines’ story the unfolding and unfurling of a soul as it is newborn, hungry for hind milk, tossed upon the bosom of the Church, entering wide-eyed and trusting, and finding over time the hypocrisy and hurt that the Church can engender.
I bristled a bit at this because we live in such a church culture where believers are calling the role of the church and the necessity of the Scriptures into question. I would always err on the side of upholding the Scriptures and the role of the local organized church. However, I think Haines’ experience is not uncommon, and I think the way the Lord leads and guides her through seasons of wounding and healing in regard to the Church is good reading. If you hang in with her story, you will see her “grow up” in her relationship with the Church and find redemption even there. Many wrestle with what it looks like to be in a community of believers because it is so imperfect and difficult. Many will empathize with her words, and my hope would be that they, too, will come back to the centrality of the Scriptures and the church in God’s kingdom work. I love her words about the Kingdom maybe the best of all, probably because the concept of the Kingdom of God is what I have been studying and learning about all year.
It is memoir primarily, not a theological treatise, and so I can appreciate the working out of her faith in the midst of a very real and messy life. The way we grow and change, the way we mature and heal and grow up more and more into the full stature of Christ as we walk with Him. I enjoyed her writing style, which is a more poetic style akin to Ann Voskamp’s. And I think many of us will find in her story our own stories of howling wild in the hollow places and finding the One who alone can fill the hollow.
Here’ s a little book trailer, too!
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Thanks to Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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.
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Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! All opinions expressed are my own.
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!
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Thanks to HarperCollins Christian Publishing for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Well, I bit off a bit more than I could chew. I’m terribly behind in posting reviews on the last few books I received so I’m going to lump them together here.
This book was a fun read, something easy and encouraging, a great way to wind down before bed. It is a compilation of writings on various topics such as purpose, surrender, trust, + worship, written by some of today’s most popular writers and bloggers. Some of the contributors were old favorites of mine such as Tsh Oxenreider, Ann Voskamp, Lisa-Jo Baker, Emily Freeman. Others such as Kristen Strong, Kayla Aimee, Bonnie Gray, Leeana Tankersley, Maggie Whitley, + Deidra Riggs, were new to me. There were many other contributors, each offering a short meditation or reflection on the topic, along with a scripture. Since it was a compilation of writers writing on a variety of topics, I would classify it as more inspirational rather than instructional.
Some of my favorite features are the accompanying photographs and the brevity of the chapters, as well as the fact that it’s arranged topically so you can flip through it to whatever interests you.
(Thank you to Revell Publishing for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.)
I was drawn to this book…. for a friend. Ha. Just kidding. Yes, I admit it: I’m a worrier. Rubietta is a new author to me, though as an author of fifteen books, she is certainly not new to the writing scene. I was initially struck and refreshed by her writing, which was poetic + depthy. She writes this book to share her own story of moving from worry to delight and encouraging readers to do the same, and yet her style is such that you are drawn in and lost in her words. It reads gently, more like a memoir than a self-help book. Probably my favorite feature is how she ends each chapter in an application section with scripture, some provoking questions, and then prayer, called Votum, and a response from God, sung back over us, a Benedictus, all written by Rubietta herself.
She covers how to delight even in our most anxious seasons, the dailyness of God’s presence, the way worry boxes us in when God invites us to live in wide open spaces, how our tears are tools, and our difficulties are gifts that give us empathy. Truly beautiful. One not to miss.
A little excerpt for you:
“I quit reading fiction–too frivolous if people are perishing. No more cracking jokes. Somewhere along the journey I stopped laughing, lost all perspective and balance. Everything seemed overly important, everything an issue, whether it was paying two cents too much for a gallon of milk or gasoline (Good Christian Women save money, and furrow our brows while doing so) or being two minutes late for a commitment.
But all this seriousness is killing me. It’s killing my heart, probably literally, but also figuratively. Joie de vivre–joy of living, of life–is not a reality, only a fun French phrase. Isn’t the root of such dreadful seriousness…worry? And isn’t worry a misunderstanding of the God who carries the whole world in his hands?…
Forgoing delight is like an emotional vow of poverty, based on a poor understanding of God. Will God love us more if we live our devout and holy life without cracking a smile or having our heart turn somersaults over the sunset or the erratic path of a butterfly? As though God were a great big Curmudgeon in the Sky, with furrowed brows and a tight fist. This isn’t God the Abba-Daddy, this is God the judgmental, finger-pointing, shaming miser. But looking around, where’s the evidence of a God like that on this globe? Enormous generosity blossoms from the earth, drips from heaven, appears at the lip of the world every single morning and every single evening. Unfailingly generous, it seems to me, is this God we love and serve and maybe try to keep a safe distance from.”
(Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for a free copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.)
Oh, friends. This one is a good one! A great one. Clarkson is a trusted source of wisdom, a biblically grounded woman with a heart heavily inclined toward discipleship, a seasoned mother of adult children, a gifted and engaging writer. Sitting with this book feels much like sitting with Clarkson in a cabin in the snowy Colorado mountains over a cup of steaming tea as she reaches hands across the table and takes your hand and implores + encourages you to own your life. We live in an age of incredible distraction. All of our technology has afforded us unprecedented levels of busyness. As women, we need a call to live lives of great intention + purpose, lives grounded in scripture where we find our identity, our worth, and the very reason for our existence. Clarkson’s book is just such a siren call, reminding, encouraging, exhorting, all the while pouring out from her own deep well of lessons learned and life lived. What will your legacy be? Are you living today with your legacy in mind? Are you living carried to and fro by the whims of your circumstances? Maybe you would be helped by Clarkson’s book. I certainly have been! Rather than heaping on further guilt or a heavier burden to carry, Clarkson writes in such a way as to inspire and gently instruct and gives courage that we really can fulfill the purposes God has for us individually while we walk out our time here.
A little excerpt for you:
“My counsel to all those crying out for help: in order to move from chaos to order, we must each make plan that will move us away from a never-ending flurry of activities toward God’s design for our lives. That plan begins by identifying the drainers and sources of chaos that steal our spiritual and emotional energy. To move forward, in other words, we must first recognize what is holding us back…Often there is a subtle confusion about how life ‘got’ this way. Nonstop activity is a cultural badge of honor that supposedly means a person is making progress. Busyness falsely promises productivity. Frankly, our culture encourages us to take on more and more, and busyness and distraction can be addicting. Yet we are drifting further from the life God designed us to live. Surely this is not the abundant life God promised. Is there a better way to find purpose and satisfaction?”
(Thank you to Tyndale Publishers for a free copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.)
Happy reading, folks! As always, I love to hear from you: what you’ve been reading and enjoying lately?
This little board book for children is absolutely LOVELY. I’m always looking for ways to teach my children God’s Word and to bring Scripture to life for them. The illustrations are truly stunning, and this book has been lying around the house for a few weeks now, with the kids constantly poring back over the magical yet life-like drawings. This book aims to break down the story of Creation found in Genesis 1-2, illustrating how God formed all that we see from nothing, culminating in His creation of mankind, the crowning glory of His creative work. The artwork and text is engaging for young readers (intended for ages 4-8) and also agrees with the biblical account, which is, of course, important to us! I love the way the illustrator imaginatively depicted God’s person in each of the pictures, whether as a form of light or as a hand hidden within the illustration, displaying Him as intimately involved with the work of creating.
A boardbook edition of the popular Let There Be Light, the story of Creation from Nobel Peace Prize winner, bestselling author, and cultural icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu paired with Nancy Tillman, the phenomenally successful New York Times bestselling children’s author/illustrator of On the Night You Were Born.
I would highly recommend it as a delightful read, and as a tool for teaching the concept of Creation in an easy-to-break-down and understand way to your children! To pick up a copy of your own, click HERE.
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I received a complimentary copy of this book from HarperCollins Christian Publishing in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
“The glory of God is man fully alive.”
St. Irenaeus
It was the first hike we’d been on in awhile and it was fresh air to my soul. I had had a hard labor with my second born and also a very slow recovery. I was fully wrapped up in my newfound role as “Mommy” to my two precious little ones, and the days were full. But on that hike, I remember hearing a quiet whisper in my soul, like the whistling whisper in the pines: “Remember who you are.”
I snapped a picture of our chacos, my husband and I, to remember. We met leading backpacking trips for an outdoor program, but we had spent little time nurturing that part of our hearts since having kids.
Fast forward a few months…
It was “that” time of day again. You know what I’m talking about, if you have little ones. The bewitching hour, the 5 o’clock melt down. I was hurrying to get dinner on the table, while my three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son squabbled and whined around my feet. I was pregnant with our third, and it had been a long day. One of those days where you are literally counting the minutes until your husband gets home. And banking on the fact that when he walks in the door, you are beelining it to the bathroom for a quiet moment. Or twenty.
Hot steam from the oven rising in my face, waves of nausea rolling over me as my body was telling me dinner needed to be ready soon, and of course, the phone rings. My husband calling, saying he would be late again. The realization sinks in that I’ll be wrangling these two wild ones into the bath and pajamas and bed on my own again, another night. In that moment, it’s hard to hold back the tears. But I surrender to the inevitable and get back to work.
A few hours later when my husband is finally home and we’re catching up about the day, he’s asking me if he can go on a sailing trip that weekend with his dad and that’s when I sort of have a break down. Alone again with the kids? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I adore my children! But the hard thing sometimes about being a mother is your job doesn’t end at 5pm. You don’t get to leave the office and come home. You are always on-call. Even in my sleep, there’s a part of me that’s listening for anything out of the ordinary, listening for that child who might need me.
That’s when I had a break down of sorts. That’s when I realized things were just sort of out of balance. With my husband training for a marathon, he was leaving for long runs early in the morning, sometimes as early as 4 am, and then sometimes not getting home until the kids were already in bed. I felt like a single parent some days. But as soon as I felt the words, “I need a break!” rising like a scream in my soul, I felt something even stronger rise up: guilt. A break from my kids? What kind of mother says that?
I didn’t begrudge my husband for what he needed to do and for the responsibilities he was juggling. I just began to realize I needed to start protecting a little bit of time for myself to get away and turn off the constant “ON” button in my brain.
When all this began pouring out in a hot mess of tears, my sweet husband was more than happy to accommodate. He agreed, it was important for me to have some time to step away and just do what would reenergize me. We began working some things into our schedule, and he was persistent in asking me if I needed some getaway time on the weekends. At first, I continued to feel guilty taking this time, whether it was just to grocery shopping without the kids, or go out for a cup of coffee with a friend.
I couldn’t shake this sense that I really needed to be there for everything. Like it was wrong for me to not be there every night to tuck them into bed, or to not be there when they got up from their naps. I couldn’t shake the sense that I felt like I needed to “please everyone to the point of emptiness” (Fringe Hours, p. 41). But we pressed on.
With practice came more freedom. It became easier to let go, to see that my kids really enjoy having some time alone just with Daddy. It was amazing to see how a little time away refreshed and reenergized me to jump back in to my tasks at home. It felt like I was coming alive again, enjoying my family more instead of being irritated at everyone for always asking for more.
You see, I believe Jesus teaches us that we are to serve from a place of overflow, not emptiness. We are to be so filled up in Him first, and then from that place, we pour out to others what He has given to us (Luke 6:45, John 4:14). Even Jesus, in His perfection, pulled away frequently from all others to a quiet place alone with His Father for refreshment. If the Son of God needed to refresh Himself in order to best serve the world, how much more do we?
This is why I think Jessica Turner’s book, The Fringe Hours will be a wonderful help to many women who find themselves worn down, weary, never making time for themselves, and often drowning beneath the effort to please everyone to the point of emptiness.
I can’t tell you how many friends have talked with me about this particular struggle, the struggle to find time to do the things they love. Many believe that we simply have to forego those hobbies or passions during this season of motherhood, and while I agree that different seasons of life allow for different freedoms, “we must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please” (Fringe Hours, p. 45). I think sometimes we wrongly assume that Christ’s call for us to serve others means we should be haggard, depleted, always giving and never resting. I think sometimes we think the more worn out we are, the holier we must be, and we wear our exhaustion like a badge. God made us whole people, with a body, a mind, a heart, a soul. We are to tend to these aspects of our being out of reverence to Him and as part of worship to Him (Romans 12:1).
What are we teaching our daughters? I look at my now 4-year old girl and I wonder what her mother looks like in her young eyes. Does she look like an empty shell of a woman, always bedraggled, wearing yoga pants, exhausted, and slaving away over chores or running the kids around to various activities? Or does she see a woman who is enjoying life while being a momma? A woman who is still herself, still loves the things she always loved, makes time to play guitar, to hang out with girlfriends, to pursue creativity, making things with her hands? Does she see a woman who is bubbling over with life? A woman who is fully invested as her mom, but still has passions and ambitions? Or does she just see a tired, irritable woman?
Jessica Turner, the lovely lady behind the popular lifestyle blog The Mom Creative, didn’t just write this book from her own intuitions about women and how they use their time. She surveyed over 2,000 women and conducted research, and then drew from her findings to write this book. The Fringe Hours is meant to help women take back pockets of time that they already have and utilize them in order to pursue the things they love.
This book is super practical with tons of tips and ideas for how to better manage your time and also to discover creative ways to fit your passions into your day. For example, research shows that every person waits on average 45-60 minutes per day. Jessica discusses ideas like planning ahead and keeping a book with you, a needlework project you’re working on for a friend, or notecards to write encouraging words to a loved one while you wait. She discusses barriers to self-care such as guilt, comparison, and self-imposed pressures. She helps you identify some of your old passions and gives many ideas to encourage you to continue pursuing those things, even if it looks entirely different in your current season of life. She also discusses ways we can identify areas in our lives that need more attention
One of my favorite features of the book was that it was interactive with journaling sections peppered throughout each chapter, causing me to respond and record my reactions and goals as I read.
If you find yourself sort of drowning beneath the waves of busyness in your life, this book will be a great help and advocate for you to spend your time well and invest in what truly matters so that, ultimately, you can better glorify God.
Here’s a little trailer from Jessica! Also, you can find out more about the book + read the first chapter HERE.
I’m so excited to be a part of Jessica Turner‘s launch team for her forthcoming book (February 17th, you guys!!) The Fringe Hours.
According to Jessica,
“Fringe hours are those little pockets of time throughout the day that often go underused or are wasted altogether… Literally a limited or appointed piece of time that is found in the margins of a day.”
“Activities and passions pursued during the fringe hours make a life more beautiful and the participant feel more alive and more uniquely herself.”
I’ll write more on the book soon, but for now, I just wanted to share some of what I’ve been enjoying in my fringe hours! It’s been a really great reminder to me that we have to take care of ourselves + our own souls before we have much to give to anyone else. I’ve been way more intentional lately in my fringe hours (or moments) each day to think about choosing what will most refresh me. Somedays that has been staying up late to read or to write. Some days it has been getting outside and going for a trail run in the brisk cold air. Some days it’s taking time to snap + edit pics of my sweet babes.
What do you do in your fringe hours? Do you make a point to refresh and rest your soul by doing what you love and what makes you come alive?
Also, if you’re interested in winning a free + signed copy of Jessica Turner’s book, check out this giveaway on her blog!
everything He gives 