Happy Valentine's Day! His unqualified love for imperfect me.

“It amazes me what this little girl will crawl over and through to get to you” my husband chuckled as my eight month old daughter made her way to me across the field of toss pillows, laundry baskets, and dining room chairs. A sweet thought, but my heart sank.

“Lord, what I WON’T crawl over and through to get to you” a tiny voice in my head retorted. “Lord, I’ve put you in a convenient box and I open it up when dinner is cooked, laundry is folded, and my post-it list of thank you notes is finished.”

“But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29).

My daughter seeks me with all of her soul. I watch her eyes and she is intently focused on me. Only me. Her eyes don’t wander, they don’t reflect a distant stare. They lock on me and no obstacle will block her from coming. I sustain her, I fulfill her, I provide for her every need.

He sustains us, He fulfills us, He provides for our every need.

Friends, our love for Him should be that simple.  He wants us to desperately, easily, and innately seek him.  Every moment I look in my daughter’s face I am reminded of His love for me.  His unqualified love for imperfect me.

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God for the living God.” Psalm 42 1-2 ESV

There’s nothing complicated about this relationship. The deer doesn’t schedule a time to quench his thirst. The deer doesn’t prepare herself and her habitat to approach the stream.

But most importantly, He keeps pouring grace.

But here is where it gets good. What about when we don’t approach him easily? When we focus on our to-do list first? He opens His arms wider, He calls to us louder, He gently points all things in our life back to Him.

His grace is un-ending. Every morning is new. Lord, may we remember we are your daughters (and sons). You sustain us, you fulfill us, you provide for our every need. I pray that we crawl over vacuums, recipes, empty gas tanks, grocery carts, and laundry piles with our eyes and hearts solely fixed on you.

What is blocking you from being in constant communion with the Lord? What do you stand to lose if you crawl over these things?  Friends, we know what we have to gain.

Happy Valentine's Day <3 

2016 Word of the Year: Intention

While I originally intended to publish this post on the first of the year...stuff happens, aka other posts I wrote and instead of following my rule of adding them to my schedule I just published immediately. It's a work in progres.....

My "word of the year" in 2015 was surrender. December 29th, 2014 was full of excitement and fear. I had just seen my daughter's chubby cheeks on a 3D ultrasound and while one of the best days ever, it also made my fear of delivering her that much more real. (Do. not. worry. I will not be sharing any labor details or words that will make any one squeam. That's just not my thing.)

What could I honestly do to ease the fear and worry of everything that came along with childbirth and sheesh, raising a child? Surrender. 

Doing nothing meant doing everything.

Surrendering my fear and worries to Jesus. As I meditated on this word and His Word throughout 2015 I came to understand that surrendering was the best way to show His glory in my circumstances. Not writing more blog posts, not attending more birthing classes, just surrendering.

Surrending was me reminding myself that I know His Word is true. Surrendering didn't mean I trusted that He would hand me a pain-free and complication free situation. And it was this truth that made surrendering difficult. It was me surrending to his sovereignty. Recognizing that no matter what the circumstances I could walk boldy into them knowing that He is sovereign over our family's life.

This would have never been my first instinct. In fact my exaggerated fear of labor was totally used by the Lord to draw me closer to Him. Because honestly, what else could I do? I practiced breathing exercises...a few times..., I tried to do some pre-natal yoga....a few times...I read a lot of horror stories on the Bump and other places...a lot of times..., there just honestly wasn't anything no matter how far into the depths of google I got that would ease my worries or guarantee me a pain free or complication free process. The only thing I could trust in is that the God of all created my body perfectly to handle this situation.

Funny that I preface that sentence with "the only thing" instead of "the best thing."

But anyway, surrendering to His sovereignty, His perfect plan, His living and active Word, His truth...nothing but amazing things came from that. And that is the most detail you'll get into my delivery experience.


But I want a life of surrender, not just surrendering to my absolute fears. And I'm working on it day by day.

Now I'm moving towards a year of intention. Intentional choices in all aspects of life. Because when you are truly living a life of surrender to the Lord you recognize the importance, or maybe a better word is potential, of each moment.

We have a lot of changes coming up this year for our family and all the more reason to make the most of our time and create strong foundations as we move into this next chapter!

I'm particularly seeking to be more intentional in:
...social media activity
...relationships with friends
...moments with Lydia
...moments with my husband
...business decisions
...scheduling time to be creative
...budgeting and meal planning

Last year I really did stick with my word and I'm hoping I do this year as well!

Want to order your word of the year or one little word on a chalkboard to display as a physical reminder? You can here! Custom colors and custom word. :) 

Great Commissioned Moments - She Shares Truth

I'm writing my first "assignment" from the She Reads Truth devotional series. We're asked to think about what holds us back from being available for commissioned moments and to share any that we've experienced. Well, my blog post will focus more on the "holding back" than the sharing. (Insert nervous laugh.)

Mark 16: 14-20 talks about the "great commission" and asks us to "Go into the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." (v15)

Now when I read that it makes my stomach hurt and get a little nervous. I don't want to be a overbearing weirdo and I get anxious in general about a lot of things even though I'm mostly pretty outgoing.  The thing is, the Lord knows this. He knows every secret in my heart and he also meets me (and all of us) exactly where we are.

In general I think I'm not available for commissioned moments because I over-think and over-analyze every interaction I have with someone and I'm very concerned about making sure they are happy and feel comfortable. Sometimes sharing the word of God (in love of course) can cause conviction and make someone feel uncomfortable. That's the part that makes me anxious.

But again, the Lord knows all of this, he knows every detail of our being and every secret of our heart. He knows exactly how I feel about this. It was through our recent adoption journey that the Lord opened the doors and kindly pushed me through them to get better in this aspect of my life. When we decided to start the adoption process nothing about it made sense. Logistically - we're away from our family, living on law school loans, my husband is a full time student and my job was a nightmare of stress. And personally - it wasn't because we couldn't have biological kids. We started this process because we really truly felt the Lord called us to do it. One of the reasons we pretty much knew it was the Lord was because nothing else about it made sense and walking in blind faith is a scary, but amazing opportunity. 

So, that being said, when people would ask about the adoption and why we decided to adopt (which is always everyone's first question) we really had absolutely no other answer than we felt called to do this by the Lord. Well, for many of our friends who had never heard us utter such words before I'm not sure what they thought. But I know that the Lord provided a huge number of moments through this story for us to share at work, at our new church, to our friends, family, etc. And  when my stomach would hurt to say it because I didn't want an unbelieving co-worker or friend to feel uncomfortable the Lord gave me the strength to say it and then go on to explain it. 

Now I'd be lying if I said it went perfectly all the time. So, for instance one time I believe I said "well, you know it's just like, you know, like, what we're supposed to do, ya know? YA FEEL ME?!" Ha! I didn't say it exactly like that but pretty darn close. And man what a terrible feeling in my stomach when I walked away thinking - man, I just had the opportunity to share my faith and also the truth (instead of my half-hearted lie) with someone and I didn't. And you know what? Instead of feeling anxious that I made someone uncomfortable I felt more anxious that I didn't give them the opportunity to hear and that was my selfish choice. So after that things started to turn around. But I'm still not perfect, and never will be. 

It's amazing to talk about this experience with my friends who are believers, but when you attempt to explain why you are doing something seemingly irrational to a non-believer and they stare at you with a blank look and then physically look uncomfortable, that's hard friends. 

Currently we're still being pushed in this direction as in the recent months we've felt that this is no longer the direction the Lord wants us to go right now. He has revealed some amazing wisdom to us and also opened doors for us to partner with organizations who help keep families together and reunite families in Ethiopia. Explaining now to our friends, some of whom never understood in the first place, that now we are placing this on hold is even more difficult! But at the same time it allows us to explain that we're becoming more familiar with the Lord's voice, that the Lord used this process so far to do amazing things and that now that we know what it feels like to hear him give direction in our lives we are waiting for what is next. 

#shesharestruth