When You Enter the Promised Land

Remember.

The Bible is full of charges for us to remember. Moses speaks to his Israelite people before they arrive in the promised land and he tells them specifically to remember. Remember the Lord, remember what He has done, remember to love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Remembering must be a lifestyle. 

teach it to your children. 

repeat it again and again. 

talk when you sit in your home. 

when you walk. 

when you are going to bed. 

when you are getting up.  

tie them on your hands and wear on your forehead as reminders. 

write them on your doorposts. 

Write it on your hearts. 

Because when you enter the promised land // when your trial is over, when you make it out of your cave, when your sadness and darkness and fear is over, when the Lord brings you into the land he swore to give you, with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of good things that you did not fill, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, when you eat and are full //

do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of slavery. 

It is a call to see the riches and goodness of where you are and remember who got you there. 

I think remembering is one of our best tools. I think it's tied so closely with our hearts. In Ephesians 6 when we put our armor on, I think the helmet of salvation that we cloak our minds with whispers remember. 

Remembering frees us in moments of crisis. It centers us in moments of disorientation. It relieves us in moments of burden. Remembering stills us in moments of fear. It fuels us in moments of gratitude. It gives hope for today and for the journey tomorrow. 

What helps you remember?

• Cement dates and times in mind and in heart, to draw attention when anniversaries arrive and important dates come. Dates of your freedom, dates of answered prayers. 
• Screenshot encouraging text messages and pictures (I do this LIKE A BOSS) and save them to a folder. Scroll through them to remember.
• Write, write, write. Then go back and read, read, read. 

This week is a big week of remembering for me. A big week of celebrating. I've been face first in old journals, just breathing in remembrance. It's got a sweet fragrance. 

Gracious + Kind

I watch New Girl like it's my job. 

I come from the camp of people who like to have the TV on most of the time // while cleaning, cooking, eating, sleeping. I like to watch things I've already seen, so I can only pay attention halfway. 

I'm into New Girl. I'm on the third time through season two. 

It's alarming to me how both 1) the show portrays behavior. 2) how accurate that behavior really is. 

Awkward situations make people act in strange ways. Nick and Jess are in the throes of trying to figure out the terms of their friendship/maybe more than just a friendship. It's painful to watch at times, because all they need to do is look each other in the eye and be brave and tell the truth. But they skirt the topic, cause pain to one another, and prolong the in-between. 

I think THIS CANNOT BE REAL LIFE. 

oh, it's sometimes real life. 

This post could go one of two ways. It could tell you how I've lived a Nick/Jess life and how that tension nearly buried me alive. How it look a long time for me to live bravely because I was afraid of a lot of things. How the truth made me anxious, especially if it wasn't reciprocated, and so I generally hid from it. 

But I want this post to say something different. 

I want this post to tell you that you have a choice. 

You have a choice in the way things happen to you. You have a choice to be defeated or to stand tall and firm. You have a choice to own what happens to you, and to believe it all works for His glory. You have a choice to put on Armor and to believe it holds you fast. 

You have a choice to treat people with respect. You have a choice to be kind and to speak life and to offer encouragement. You have a choice to laugh in the face of fear or awkwardness or uncertainty. You have the choice to not cause pain, but to be a balm to someone's soul. You have the choice to swing someone's day towards wholeness. You have a choice to bring heaven here to earth. 

You have the choice to be brave and to live as the King's son and daughter that you are. 

Life happens fast. It really does. There's the Ferris Bueller quote that says life passes by and there are the moms who say their teens were just babies yesterday and there are the comments that life is fleeting, but y'all it is just that. We can't waste it, because time is precious. There is no pressure, but there is value in our time and there is value in what we do. 

A wise friend said this to me once, "we are witnesses of the coming re-creation of heaven and earth. witnesses of God's industry to restore that which has been ruined. without our witness, our testimony, how can people hear & know that Jesus is making all things new?"

And it changed the way I lived. 

What will change the way you live?

I urge you to live graciously. I urge you to live kindly. I wake up every morning and go to bed every night pleading for the same thing // Lord, help me to be gracious and kind. I urge you to change your story if you need to. I urge you to make today the day and lean hard into Christ. I urge you to get down on your knees and cry out loud to the One who has never left you or forsaken you. 

We get to live this life! Let His great Love fuel you. 

A Letter for Those Who Feel like Fear May be Winning

Dear Friends. 

Fear can lap at your heels like a threatening current, bite at your ankles like something wild, crowd above your head like a swarm of bees. Fear is notorious for taking you under, swallowing you whole, leaving you alone and in pain. Fear is no friend. 

There are the days when fear doesn't want to die, and it comes around and revisits like an old, unwanted friend. It'll sit in your head and try to make its way down to your heart. It'll attempt to get comfortable in the places where it thinks you don't notice. Fear hasn't won any battle, but Fear doesn't know that. And so it sometimes stays. 

But hear me when I say this // fear won't always feel so stifling. The closer you draw to Truth, the weirder and dumber fear sounds. I promise you this - YOU WILL BE ABLE TO LAUGH IN THE FACE OF FEAR. 

Fear will never win. 

What I've discovered to be true is what comes in the act of naming fears. There's a real power in the vulnerability and the trust of speaking your fears out loud that sends them trembling. So, speak them to your friends. Speak them to your corner. Speak them to your counselor, your Life group leader, your boss, your spouse, your co workers. It'll lift something, it'll free something, it'll join people in your journey. Speaking it is facing it and Fear doesn't like when you face it. 

My dear friend once asked me, "what are you afraid of?" And days into weeks after I spoke out loud and named it, I realized it was freedom that was hovering over me now. I wasn't afraid anymore. 

So, take heart. 

Lift up your head. 

There is great hope. 

There is a God who is fearless in His pursuit of you. Who is right there with you. It's a part of His character to turn all things to good, even and especially the hard graces. 

And days from now, weeks from now, years from now, you'll be able to see the asset, the value, of this wonderful story He was and is telling through your life. It will blow you away. 

Fear can't take that from you. 

Lift up your head. 

xoxoxo

Speak to your Soul

People talk about their safe places. Where's your place that you feel safe, connected to God? My counselor always tells me to find that place to spend time just being with the Lord. Not necessarily reading or talking or praying, she says, but just a presence with Him.

If you know me long enough, you know about my spot. 

My friends know that if they're coming over to my place and it's a nice day outside, don't even bother coming to the front door. Just walk around back to my spot. I'll be there. 

I've done a lot of searching out there, a lot of wrestling. I've spent entire days out there, I've eaten meals out there. I have cried sweet tears out there, I have laughed and felt the deepest of joy out there. I've done some good listening. I've even hauled living room furniture out there because people are over and I just don't want to go inside. 

Another safe place is with my people.

There's a family that has lived life alongside me for a majority of the past four years. Their home is a safe place for me. It's there that I've had rich conversations by the fire, deep laughter over a cup of tea, sweet encouraging prayer. I find it no coincidence that during the past year, I've had some of my richest moments with the Lord while spending weekends alone at their house while they've been on vacation. There's an expectancy there, a presence of the Lord for me there. My soul rests there because I am safe there. 

Where does your soul rest?

I read a blog post recently by John Ortberg on how to care for the most important part of you. He says that these days, we're always talking about self care and how there are a lot of books written about the importance of self-talk. People are always talking to themselves. 

But in the Bible, he says, people talk to their souls. 

The next time you get angry or upset or dissatisfied or afraid, instead speak to your soul - soul, why are you so afraid? Why are you so angry? O my soul, why are you downcast?

Ortberg writes that in the soul exists the presence of God and when we speak to our souls, it naturally turns to prayer because God is there. You are the keeper of your soul, he writes, but just its keeper and not its captain. The more we focus on our selves, we neglect our souls. The soul is like an inner stream of water that gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other area of life.

I like that.

In my recent quest for defining self care, maybe it's been more about soul care. Maybe in moments of confusion and desperation in this season of disorientation, maybe it's my soul that has needed the most care. On top of speaking truth to myself, maybe I need to speak deep to my soul.

My dear friend and I went out to lunch the other day and I shared a little bit about my season (to which she spoke the two most powerful words in the English language - me too). And we were both baffled and intrigued about the idea of rest. What is rest, how do we rest? Because resting cannot possibly mean a physical rest. It cannot possibly mean lying down and taking a nap. It cannot possibly mean getting a pedicure (holla) or taking a day off. It includes all these things, that is for sure, but these are just symptoms. A response to what it truly is.

Maybe it's a presence of the Lord kind of thing.
A speaking to our souls.
A being safe and resting there.
A deep calls to deep, like Psalm 42 says. 

Where the Story Begins

Everything is connected. 

It's hard to tell where any story begins. 

My 7th grade Life group and I are reading the story of Esther, and I'm reminded of the same reality there. I love that her story starts with the queen just before her, Queen Vashti. Because if Queen Vashti hadn't refused the king and been dismissed from her queenship in a such an abrupt manner, Esther would not have gained access to the kingdom for such a time as this.

What we think is the hard start of the story of our journey, it's so fun to keep looking back and back and back to see how all things worked together. How if that hadn't happened, than that wouldn't have come to fruition, and if that person hadn't asked you to do that or if that opportunity hadn't come about or if that pain hadn't hurt, then this story wouldn't be what it is. 

I like to think of it as the power of asset. 

Each moment, each door closed, each door opened, each opportunity, each pain (AMEN), we end up on the other side better than we were before. It starts us off on the next leg of our journey more free and more whole.

It's a crazy comfort to think that God is weaving this giant story in all of us. That at the end, our lives won't be disconnected experiences along the way BUT ONE BIG STORY of how He made us new in the time we were given. Each point isn't isolated, but breathes life into the next. Our learnings, well, they prompt more learnings. And I think, the me that is here now wouldn't be able to live this if I wasn't the me that I am. Because the me I was before hadn't learned yet what this me needs now. It's all asset talking. 

So, it's hard to find a real beginning. 

Two years ago?

When I moved to Fort Mill?

When I was in college?

My childhood?

My soul friend told me once that past is prologue.

She actually posed it this way - "please keep living this story and fighting this fight because what if this was the low point? what if this was the middle ground? if past really IS prologue? I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT'S NEXT. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE NEXT CHAPTER. you are in for one great adventure."

And it filled me with hope inside and reminded me of the Last Battle, where it says that all their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth had ever read; which goes on for ever; in which every chapter is better than the one before. 

To imagine the divine writing of a story that has only just begun. 

God is continuously at work, and maybe that's where our true beginning is. 

Can you imagine what is to come!? 

Freedom Friday

I don't have a great work/life balance. 

It's because I love my job so much. My job is both natural and challenging, fun and difficult, makes me laugh, makes me cry. I am passionate about what I do because I work with an amazing team made of the most amazing people and we do amazing work. I experience real joy at work because I am growing at work, both personally and professionally. 

I don't see my job as "work" BECAUSE I LOVE WHAT I DO. 

But then, sometimes, I work all the time.

My good friend told me the other day, "if you don't tell your job what to do, your job will tell you what to do." (y'all, my boss told me that. my boss. I told you how great my work environment is, didn't I? preach). 

So I took his advice, packed up shop, put iPhone on do not disturb, and headed to the beach with some Life group friends for the day. It was spontaneous and impromptu, the way those kind of vacations should be. We were going to do nothing but sit, with toes in the sand. 

 

Except we got there. 

and it was freezing. and windy. 

sand blowing everywhere. 

it. was. freezing.

straight up yoga pants and sweaters

So we walked to Poe's (best place to eat in the whole wide world) and we re-evaluated. We had planned to sit on the sand on day and read and think about nothing at all because we all needed to take a deep breath. now what?

What if we adjusted instead and treated this day like an adventure? 

What if we did things we had always wanted to do, no matter convenience or time?

What if we treated this day for what it really was // a Freedom Friday?

What if we really dove into our circumstances with neither worry, fear, or disappointment?

What if we made memories, as Tim Riggins would say? 

Our first stop was Cypress Gardens. We got in a boat and rowed our way through a water trail out on the swamps. It was like make-believe, a place out of a fairy tale. 

 

I almost can't use words to describe it, it was that beautiful. 

There were cypress and tupelo trees coming straight out of the water. There were lily pads everywhere. We saw one alligator .. and one was absolutely enough for me. There were bridges to float under and narrow passages to squeeze through. There was a stillness and a tranquility that couldn't be made by man. 

To say we had the time of our lives would be an understatement. 

        

We laughed so hard trying to steer the boat. We screamed at the sight of a potential alligator. I was so tense at one point, I was ready to jump out of my skin. So many laughs, so much relief. We gasped at the beauty of the scenery. We each acknowledged the peace and the beauty, the serenity and the unadulterated pure joy we were all experiencing. 

         

      It was so beautiful and beyond compare. It was beautiful because we were face first in the creation that God made and said was good. And it was beautiful because I was experiencing it with the creation that God made and said was very good. My friends, His people. 

          

 And then this happened.

We headed to a nearby monastery next (yes, I wanted to check out a monastery). As we drove up, it was like a plantation, the long road with its majestic overhanging trees. And then once we entered, we were allowed to just wander free. It had a stillness, a calm, an almost pensive pause. I wandered down long, expansive roads with wooden carvings of Jesus as a baby and then Jesus on the cross. I spent time in the gardens and by the ponds. It was peace. 

I could have stayed out there forever. 

We had a staff prayer recently where we spent time in centering prayer and set our minds on encountering Jesus. It was very powerful for me, and being at the monastery walking those roads felt a little bit like that experience. 

with Jesus. 

peace. 

At each stop, I could feel myself getting lighter and lighter.

 

Then we felt like eating ice cream, and so this is what we had for dinner. 

treat.
yo.
self.

be.
free.

On the way home, we listened to Mumford & Sons and Dixie Chicks. We talked about why life is sometimes hard, but oftentimes rich. We made what ifs, which for this Life group has always been something sweet and good and special. We laughed, a lot a lot. 

Thankful for days like this one to laugh and to love, to take a deep breath and live, for friends and the joy they bring. 

I am thankful that FUN IS A SOURCE OF ENCOURAGEMENT. 

Constant

I live in extremes. 
This is either the best food I've ever had or the best conversation and I'm so happy and the BEST DAY EVER... or it's the worst and could this day please end and I'm so discouraged and I don't know how I got here or there and what is this. 

I'm convinced it was the way I was made. 

I am a passionate thinker, I am a feeler, Lord help me I am emotional (cue the empathy). With most things, I am all in, I am filled with passion about EVERYTHING. I have a hard time being middle of the road. Sometimes it's weird and exhausting. I'm sad, SO I'LL WEEP AND THINK ABOUT HOW BROKEN THE WORLD IS AND ASK TO BE LEFT ALONE. But is there a such thing as just being.. sad? 

Emotions and feelings change and confuse us. The world was ending yesterday, but today I feel free? Well, which one is it?
That's the problem with feelings.
Emotions are insecure. They're full of instability. If we based our identity on what we felt, we'd never be able to put our feet on solid ground. What would be our firm foundation? 

I'm glad God is unchanging. 
I'm glad our Savior is a God that remains the same. His love is just as beautiful and encompassing as it always has been and always will be. I'm grateful that Jesus is not and has never been a Savior of confusion, but He's the One of perfect peace. We don't have to worry about God going off the deep end. He is constant and unwavering. 

The Bible describes God as a Rock, our firm foundation, a Fortress. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. We can build our house on solid ground. We can trust a God who's never failed and won't start now.