Jul 31, 2019 | The Good Word
Very recently, near my little hometown, our nation’s president came to speak. People gathered, news media teams crowded together and somewhere in the middle of it all, a chant began in unison with three simple words, “Send her back.”
As a homeschooling Mama of four, I typically tend to stay focused on the life right in front of me. I’m not “politically active” and I don’t often take the opportunity to share my opinion about the events in the world surrounding me, because there are so many voices already shouting their opinions, I’m not sure I can add anything of value to the conversation.
But here’s a funny thing about this particular incident: it is more personal to me than I first realized. A text message from my sister woke me up to the question. “How does it make you feel, being an ‘immigrant family’?”
What you might not know about me, if you’re perhaps reading words I’ve written for the first time, is that I married an immigrant. We met at church in Scotland. I was a visiting resident and student — you could say I was a temporary immigrant — from the US, he was an immigrant from South Africa working toward British citizenship. By the time we married, he had British citizenship and I was his immigrant wife — an American alien in the UK.
Thus began the story of two people who began to build a family together, not sure where they were headed but hopeful about making a difference somewhere in this big wide world of ours.
Twelve years later, we are happily married with four children, settled in eastern North Carolina. We moved back to my hometown with a heap of debt, but with encouragement and support from my family, (special thanks to my cousin who gave us a free place to stay when we first landed!) and heaps of prayer, hard work and hustle, we went from hard times to happier days in less than a decade.
A few days before the incident that made headlines from Eastern North Carolina, I was reading a different story about a crowd chanting in unison, in agreement. They were shouting “Give us Barrabas.” Were they a crowd or a mob? And what is the difference? And how would they feel, if they knew what I’m certain of — they traded a murderer for their Savior while they shouted “Crucify Him!’
I don’t have all the answers to the questions of Immigration. I know our nation is flooded, understaffed and underfunded to appropriately handle the problems at our borders.
If the story was different, my husband could have chosen to stay in South Africa, and could today be showing up at the Mexican Border like many other South Africans, seeking asylum as a refugee.
But we are here now, in this story. Raising children, paying taxes, tithing to our church and supporting ministries locally and internationally. Do you know what most immigrants want? They want to eat food every day. Want a safe place to raise their children. To work for a decent paycheck and contribute to their communities.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
What I want to live is this: I am first a Christian, second a wife, third a mother. Somewhere further down the list, maybe after church member — there is the description “American.”
What I want to posit here is this:
If we say we are Christians, our allegiance to Christ has to supersede all other allegiances. So if Christ asks us to welcome the stranger, then welcoming the stranger is an act of obedience to the God we claim to follow, to love, to believe in.
There’s this mind-bending moment in the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 25) where Jesus talks about separating sheep from goats when He returns and inherits the Kingdom that is His to rule. He welcomes the blessed and explains the reason they’re coming into the Kingdom:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in…”
They gave Jesus clothes, looked after Him when He was sick, visited Him in prison.
Wildly enough, the righteous He is welcoming in seem confused and ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you…?”
His response is very simple, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Could this be a higher calling? Could we as Christians find ways to answer this call and welcome the stranger into our lives and our communities?
In 1941, the American government refused visas to many Jews, including the family of Otto Frank. Frank was instead forcing into hiding, with his wife and two daughters. One daughter kept a diary until her family was discovered by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. That daughter — Anne Frank — would be in her 80s today.
And does knowing her story make a difference? Being able to read her diary and know that she was a little girl who wanted to grow up … to have plenty of food to eat .. to survive?
Doesn’t every person have a story?
We look back on World War II today with contempt for the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. But we refused boatloads of refugees — both in the literal sense and in the paperwork sense.
I pray we will not allow fear to force us into making the same mistakes.
A few weeks ago, I shared some thoughts with you about what brave looks like— how there are lots of different ways to be brave and maybe more opportunities in our day to day life to choose to “fear not” than we might at first realize.
What can we do to be brave in response to the world refugee crisis? As a former immigrant, and as the wife of an immigrant, I cannot choose to stay silent.
Here are three ideas for facing the crisis that will affect us all.
1. Refuse to let ignorance be an excuse. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye because the truth is hard to look at. If the roles were reversed, we’d be praying for the world to see our plight! The FAQs at we-welcome.org might be a fantastic place to start.
2. Consider giving or volunteering to help “the least of these.” Organizations like World Relief often have local chapters that might simply ask you to be a friend, help someone move in, or tutor a student starting over in a school in a new country. If you have some skin in the game and begin to understand the stories — remember, every person has a story — you might discover the world is a lot smaller than you think.
3. Pray like you mean it. At the end of 2018 the UNCHR estimated that 70.8 million people were displaced worldwide. Read that number again. It’s more than a fifth of the population of the United States. Pray that God will help us AND our leaders find solutions to this crisis.
God whispered to His people thousands of years ago, “You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” {Ex. 22:21} Look for a stranger to welcome today right where you are, and pray that God will give you privilege of feeding the hungry or giving clothes to those who need them, and discovering that you did those things for Jesus Himself.
xCC
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Are you encouraged today? If so, you can subscribe to receive weekly Love, From Here and never miss a post by clicking right here. I’ll do a happy dance, and you’ll get encouraging words in your inbox every week! Definitely a win/win!
Jul 24, 2019 | The Good Word
Not sure if you know this, but I live on some pretty flat land. I mean, we have a few hills here and there, like the big one in the graveyard we used to call “Dead Man’s Hill” which was about the most fun to ride your bike down pedaling full tilt for a ten year old.
But mostly, around here? Flat. See miles into the distance when there aren’t the tall North Carolina pines in the way flat.
But a few weeks ago, our little crew made a journey into the mountains in southwestern North Carolina. Topography that’s more the speed of my mountain-biking Hero Hubs. Views that I love, where you really can stare for miles over the tops of the trees to the hills beyond the hills beyond the hills in the distance.
The tough thing is usually getting to those views, right?
We decided to take a hike on this most recent adventure — one I only belatedly discovered was labeled ‘strenuous’ on the map. But we chose it because we were certain it would be worth it, to stand and stare at an eighty foot waterfall nestled into the side of the mountain with all the little Collies in tow.
I tried to stay super upbeat to keep the kiddos upbeat, and the enthusiasm super-charged the girls to want to take off running down the trail. Eventually, we were all in a line, going about as fast as our youngest’s little toddler legs would take her. At times, she was putting her hands down to help her balance as she stepped up steps that towered above her sweaty little knees.
It wasn’t an easy climb for our younger kiddos, but we did our best to cheer them on, to encourage them for how great they were doing, how proud they should be of their efforts, how wonderful the reward would be.
Our mountaintop adventure reminded me of this prayer Habbakuk, this prophet in the oldest testament prayed. He’d had this conversation with God where he questioned God about what was happening in his nation. It seemed like maybe God had forgotten or abandoned Israel.
When God answered, he helped Habakkuk reframe his perspective. God helped him to recognize that he was living into a story bigger than himself. He was offered a choice to trust God to keep His promises, even if that first meant the impending destruction of his nation would come to pass.
The whisper in the words seems to say, “I am doing something. Yes, the wicked will have their day… but not forever.” The whisper promises:
“For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.” {Hab. 2:14}
Babylon was not going to hold Israel in captivity forever. God would rise up and set things right. It seemed like maybe Habakkuk’s question changed from “Why does God allow this?” to “Who is this God who will sustain me in the things he allows?”
Habakkuk makes this incredible declaration in the midst of this really, really hard place:
Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines,
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls —
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills.
{Hab. 3:17-19}
Here’s something I don’t recall ever belting out at the top of my lungs so far in this life:
“Even if everything is going totally wrong, Lord, I will rejoice in You!”
“Lord, even if I don’t have food of any kind, and all my efforts are failing, I will joy in You!”
But in order to live into the bigger story, and in order to climb up and get the big perspective that comes from being on the mountaintop? Gosh, maybe that’s exactly what we have to declare.
If we declare our faith in Him no matter what — maybe He helps us get the perspective that even when things don’t seem right right now, even when the steps I’m climbing are up to my thighs and I have to put my hands down to help steady me as I bring up one foot, and then the other, well, gosh, I’ll just keep climbing and trust the Lord to do what He has promised.
There are these beautiful little creatures in South Africa called klipspringers. They are these small, sturdy little antelopes that perhaps measure two feet tall at the shoulder. They walk on the tips of their blunt little, cylindrical hooves, and practically dance their way over rocky terrain. They look like they’re walking on two big thick black toenails on each foot.
I love the thought that God can give us feet like that. Habakkuk trusted for feet like deer’s feet to make him walk on high hills. And I think — God can give us those feet. Not literally (gosh that would be awkward) but He can give us the ability to navigate very difficult terrain on the way to higher ground. And to others, it might look absolutely effortless. It doesn’t mean we aren’t going through hard places. It means somehow, even if we feel we’re in the valley, we trust God is bringing us toward a mountaintop where we can see from His perspective, where we can find hope to declare that we will joy in Him regardless of health or wealth, situation or station.
I whispered it to my kiddos, maybe sometimes it was plain speaking out loud:
“This is hard, but it will be worth it! Let’s keep going! You’ll be so glad you made it to the top!”
I wonder if God whispers something like that to us.
Any place in life worth getting to requires effort on our part — and God? He can make our feet like deer’s feet and give us the strength to keep climbing.
And when it was time to head back down the mountain to rest and that littlest Collie had all but given out? Her Daddy carried her the rest of the way.
xCC
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Are you encouraged today? If so, you can subscribe to receive weekly Love, From Here and never miss a post by clicking right here. I’ll do a happy dance, and you’ll get encouraging words in your inbox every week! Definitely a win/win!
Jul 17, 2019 | The Good Word
I laughed as I hugged a friend at church and the words came out of my mouth: “I think maybe the Lord wants me to be brave.” She was asking me about an upcoming camping trip we’d planned, and I admitted being a little nervous bringing four Collie kiddos (currently 10, 8, 6, and 3) off to sleep in tents and “rough it” a bit, far away from home.
This wonderful woman of faith I’ve had so much respect for for so many years replied, “I think the Lord is encouraging me to be brave these days, too.” She very recently lost her husband of fifty years, and is now figuring out what life looks like in this season without him.
I think my heart skipped a beat, thinking about what brave looks like for her these days, and it made me stop to think: How many of us is the Lord perhaps asking to be brave? It’s not just me. Maybe, is it all of us?
Perhaps you’ve heard before that there are at least 365 instances where we’re encouraged not to fear, or not to be afraid, throughout the Bible.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” {Joshua 1:9}
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” {Isaiah 41:10}
There’s one beautiful verse for every day of our year that calls us to overcome the things we’re afraid of… and choose brave instead.
I remember everything about this one moment, this moment I returned to the little alley where I’d find the doorway and trudge up the stairs to the first apartment I lived in in Edinburgh. I’d moved to Scotland with heaps of hope and loads of prayer, but there was also a part of me that felt this was a sort of sink-or-swim moment in my journey.
I’d just waved goodbye to my big brother who was headed to the airport. He’d joined me on a flight across the pond, navigated an adventure up to Scotland on a train from London, waited with me in the train station for the wonderful letting agent who was willing to meet a foreigner in a train station and help her find her way home. (Thanks again, David!)
We figured out a bit about finding groceries, we’d worked on navigating the bus system, we’d listened to an absolutely hilarious rendition of “Wonderwall” by enthusiastic karaoke singers in a pub, and we’d donned nearly every stitch of clothing in our suitcases when the gas ran out and the night was cold… in July.
And then he headed to the airport, back to work and life in Atlanta, and the bus brought me back to that little alley with dark walls on both sides and the Scottish summer sun, bright and beaming down from overhead. I stood for a moment thinking about this beginning, this new place, and me, there, flatmates still on the way from other places… me, there to learn to live in a new country and build a new life.
Since then, I’ve learned that sometimes brave looks like taking four kids to the library when you just don’t know if you can keep everyone together and you don’t know how they’ll behave and it would be easier to just stay home. Sometimes brave looks like starting a conversation out of thin air to try to welcome someone new in class, at school, at church, at work.
Brave can mean going to the gym when you’re overweight and afraid of what other people will think.
Brave can mean choosing not to do what “all the cool kids” are doing after school.
Sometimes brave is saying yes and sometimes brave is saying no.
But in that naïve, Braveheart-inspired moment in that alley in Edinburgh? Brave looked a bit like fighting back tears, knowing I was standing exactly where God wanted me to stand. Brave was taking a deep breath, looking up to let the sun warm my face, choosing to trust, even if I didn’t know all I needed to know to live in this new place. Brave was saying, yes, I can take this one day at a time.
Brave, in that moment, was running. Running down the alley. Flinging open the door. Running up the two dozen stairs to my first flat in my new home.
I ran to say yes. I ran to say I trust you, Lord. I ran to say I’m going to go bravely into this new thing, I’m going to give it everything I’ve got. I’m not walking afraid.
I’m running brave towards what You have in mind for me.
Is God asking you to be brave somewhere in your race at the moment? Is it time for a brave holding on or a brave letting go? Is it time for a brave yes or a brave no?
If you don’t feel sure, lean in close and listen for His whisper: What seems like a yes to being strong and courageous? What seems like a turning away from discouragement and dismay and running toward the life to the full that God came near to give you? What seems a bit like a little more dying to self and a little more bold, brave living in and to and through and for Christ?
I think we all have a place to step out toward more brave, friends. I pray you’ll stop long enough to let the sun warm your face and hear the voice of God saying “Yes. Yes. This is the brave road not taken.” And then? When you know it’s the way? I pray you’ll run brave, arms wide, right into it.
xCC
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I hope you are encouraged today! If so, you can subscribe to receive weekly Love, From Here and never miss a post by clicking right here. I’ll do a happy dance, and you’ll get encouraging words in your inbox every week! Definitely a win/win!
Jul 10, 2019 | The Good Word
I heard a fantastic story this week in an unexpected place. So full of wisdom and truth inside a simple package was this story, I could not NOT share it with you.
A while back Tim Ferris interviewed a guy named Derek Sivers on his podcast. (This is the aforementioned unexpected place part.) Derek shared some of his backstory: he worked in the circus for a while (fascinating), zoomed through Berkeley School of Music and later made a fortune almost by accident creating a website called CDBaby quite a while ago. Ya know, back when people bought CDs.
But the fascinating story Derek shared had to do with a bike ride he used to take in Santa Monica and it went something like this. Every time Derek went for a bike ride, he huffed and puffed and as Hero Hubs likes to put it ‘put his head down and got to work.’ He pushed as hard as he could with every cycle of the pedal, rode the bike path all the way to the end, and turned around to push as hard as he could back in the other direction. Simply put, homeslice was focusedon his bike ride.
Being the focused individual that he was, he arrived back at his starting point and consistently glanced at his watch to determine that the ride was 43 minutes.
Time after time, Derek took this ride, huffing and puffing there and back again. Unless the day was a particularly windy one, the ride always took about 43 minutes.
Eventually, the routine started to get old and he started to think, I’m not really enjoying this anymore. This should be fun, but it’s just not. He wondered if he needed to look for a new adventure, but decided first to try enjoying the bike ride instead.
On the next cycle, he decided not to huff and puff and blow the house down. He sat up in the saddle. He looked out at the ocean and saw dolphins. He looked up with surprise and saw a pelican (which pooped in his mouth). Perhaps other than the poop, he just “chilled” and, what should come as no surprise, enjoyed the ride this time.
When he got back to his starting point, he looked at his watch and realized the ride had taken 45 minutes, instead of the usual 43.
Yes. Forty-five minutes.
So all that huffing and puffing and hurrying? It only amounted to two minutes’ difference.
His takeaway from the experience was to slow down — not to get so stressed at trying to ‘maximize’ everything. “Be effective… and be happy.”
When I think about my own life, I think about how I occasionally realize I’m trying to stretch my calves or put lotion on my heels (it’s summer and they look scary!) while I’m brushing my teeth. I scurry to add two more things to the washing machine and forget I was filling up the sink to wash the dishes. And — what troubles the most — I don’t take my eyes off the screen I’m looking at to fully engage with the child right beside me.
What if living life to the maximum actually looks like looking at the one thing right in front of you, the one thing you’re really supposed to be doing, and doing that one thing well?
In The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom wrote about the time she spent in a concentration camp, where she was confined to a cell, alone, day in and day out. She watched ants and saved them crumbs. She stared off into the distance and laid alone on her mattress for hours on end. And she thought to herself she would never want to hurry or ‘multitask’ again, trusting she would be free again someday, and — what a privilege — have something to do.
We instead seem to feel confined because we have so much to do.
What does your pace look like these days? Are you rushing from one thing to the next, trying to squeeze every drop out of a moment by scribbling out an email while you wait for a pot to boil on the stove? Are you half-listening to the person on the phone because you’re checking your email at the same time?
Is it possible that you’re living at a frenetic pace for the sake of saving a lousy two minutes? Kneecapping your hours with rush and hurry for the sake of thirty seconds here and sixty seconds there?
Let’s try to slow down together. See the person in front of you. Savor the coffee beside you. Forget an hour ago and an hour from now for the sake of this. very. moment.
You won’t pass this way again, friend. Enjoy your right now while you have it. You might just find the same old bicycle offers you a completely new ride.
xCC
P.S. You can listen to the full Derik Sivers interview on Tim Ferris’ podcast. Warning: It has some potty talk and is not one you’d like want to listen to with your kiddos. It’s episode #125 I think. Also, Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place is available on Amazon. No potty talk there. But definitely some deep and powerful truth-telling.
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Are you encouraged today? If so, you can subscribe to receive weekly Love, From Here and never miss a post by clicking right here. I’ll do a happy dance, and encouraging words will hit your inbox every week! Definitely a win/win!
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Jul 3, 2019 | The Good Word
Lately as I’ve read through Scripture, I’ve started writing down things that stand out to me. It seems like something about that simple act of copying something down makes me think a little bit more about each and every word in the sentence, which is good. I’m a slow learner.
A few days ago, these words from 1 John 1:8-9 struck me:
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Man, do I love the idea that I get a clean slate, right?
Around the Collie house most mornings, Hero Hubs and I are up and dressed and ready to start the day, and the little Collies mosey into our bedroom with messy hair and strong breath and sleepy eyes. I close my Bible and hug and cuddle and those few moments are often some of the sweetest and most lovely of the day. HH and I talked about it recently and he commented, “I just love that every morning is a fresh start and we get to put the day that passed behind us.”
That fresh start really is an amazing feeling. No one has scratched anyone, or taken anyone’s toy, or chased anyone with a spider. The day spreads before us with great possibility.
And I think that fresh and new sparkly clean feeling is what we’re being offered in those words from 1 John.
A couple days after I wrote those words down, I totally messed up. I took offense at a situation I didn’t get to be in control of — pretty much because I didn’t get to have the say-so I thought I should have. In retrospect things were actually going the way they had been previously discussed to go, but I just didn’t like it at the time and was in a bit of a ‘huff.’
After a good post mortem examination on the whole thing, I recognized how I’d chosen to take offense for not getting my way. In the midst of the relational frustrations I caused, I had to turn and turn again to Jesus and be reminded of two things:
One, see those verses above again and remember: If we confess, He forgives. If we think we’re not sinners, we’re totally deceived. We are sinners. We ARE going to mess up. Rather than try to point fingers and blame anyone else, let’s just own it, right? Let’s own our mistakes. Let’s apologize for letting selfishness rather than love and patience and kindness and gentleness and goodness take the reins of our hearts.
We can apologize to God and know that we are forgiven. Know. But what about people?
Reminder number two, in the midst of it all, was found in these verses I love:
You will keep him in perfect peace
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Trust in the Lord forever,
For in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength.
{Isaiah 26:3-4}
Here’s the whisper I hear in all this: First, God forgives. That fresh-first-thing-in-the-morning start is available to you and me. It’s a free gift with purchase… Jesus already made that purchase for you, and you get the gift.
Second, even when we’re struggling with earthly relationships, with our own shortcomings and failings, and with the repercussions of the offenses we’ve caused to our fellow man, there is still a deep and abiding peace available.
Should we apologize and try to make things right? Absolutely.
But the peace available to us is available regardless of how things are going in your earthly relationships. Did you apologize and find the other person was still ticked? That’s okay.
Peace is still yours for the taking. It comes from keeping your heart centered around knowing, knowing, knowing and believing: God is good. He forgives me. He will give me the strength to trust Him even through the rockiest places in every relationship, the hardest seasons of the soul — even the ones where I’ve messed up and brought the trouble on myself.
Yes, it’s true. We’re dummies sometimes. We’re selfish sometimes. We sin and we fail and we fall short.
Take a deep breath. Confess. Know that a kind and faithful God is ready to forgive you. Put Him back at the center. Ask for His help moving forward. Give thanks that He’s on the throne… and we don’t have to be!
xCC
Are you encouraged today? If so, you can subscribe to receive weekly Love, From Here and never miss a post by clicking right here. I’ll do a happy dance, and you’ll get encouraging words in your inbox every week! Definitely a win/win!
Jun 26, 2019 | The Good Word
Funny question: When’s the last time you read something you were afraid to read?
Maybe a book you thought you’d find to hard to deal with — something you thought would poke at some old wounds? Maybe an envelope that came in the mail with a yes or a no in it?
Funny answer: Last year, I read a book I probably would’ve avoided, had the sweet friend of mine who works at the library not handed it to me and said “I think you would love this.”
The book was Daring to Hope, by Kate Majors Davis. She’s the author of Kisses from Katie and she is (in my humble opinion) like a modern-day-mother-Theresa serving orphans in Uganda. This story, in some respects, picks up where her first bestseller Kisses from Katie left off.
If you know the slightest bit of backstory — that I served as a missionary in southern Africa for a couple of years — you might wonder why I was extremely hesitant to open the cover.
Here’s the thing. Even though the Hero Hubs and I felt completely confident that it was absolutely clear that our season in South Africa was coming to a close and it was time to move to the US, even though the Lord just about put road signs in the sky for us to say “This is the way, walk in it…” still, I was afraid I’d just feel plain guilty that I am here… living, breathing and writing in North Carolina, and I am therefore no longer there.
I decided to be brave enough to open the cover and start reading. Instead of condemnation and guilt and shame washing over me, I was embraced by grace, love and… hope.
Katie wrote about her everyday life, and she wrote about what it looked like to be faithful to Jesus, right where she was, doing the things each day that she felt the Lord calling her to do. Baking the bread. Feeding her many children. Caring for the sick in her community.
She wrote:
“As I’m tempted to wallow in guilt over all that I am not for my children, gently He points out that I was never meant to meet all their needs anyway.”
And I said in my heart, “Me, too.”
She wrote:
“This is such a simple truth, yet it strikes my heart in a profound way. To dwell in the place I have been given. To do the things I have been given. To love the people I have been given. This is not mysterious or far reaching, yet this is the truth of a God-ordained life.”
And I said in my heart, “Yes! This is the truth!”
And as the encouraging words unfolded, story by story and page by page, I was reminded something I’ve been telling myself all along: my job is not to do what anyone else is doing.
I think the good and profoundness of these six words only hit me when my neighbor wrote them down on a notecard and put them on her refrigerator: Your Race is in Your Lane.
If God calls me to Uganda or Sri Lanka or Argentina, I will go. But what if He is just asking me to be kind, to love well, and to live my life in my lane right here? Is that any less faithful?
I finally decided I didn’t need to be afraid of anyone else’s story — because my faithfulness will not look like theirs, and it’s not supposed to.
Katie wrote:
“As it turns out, faithfulness was in the ordinary, in the everyday things that do not feel glorious but, in fact, lead us to His feet.”
And when the last page was read, I took a deep breath — relieved. With a sigh and smile and maybe wiping a tear or two, I gave thanks to a God who doesn’t write the same story for everyone to live. He has a million stories up His sleeves. SO many different threads to weave together in the beautiful tapestry He’s unfolding.
Are you maybe comparing your story to someone else’s and feeling like you come up short? Comparing your Mom skills? Your productivity at work or your volunteer hours or your kid’s performance on a sports team?
If so, please hear this and believe it: Your job is not to walk anyone else’s walk. It’s not to talk anyone else’s talk. And it’s not to fulfill anyone else’s calling.
Whether you’re on a farm in Kansas or in a penthouse in Hong Kong, keep on asking:
Please show me what it looks like for me to be faithful today. Lord help me to stay in my lane.
And then my friend, go out and live your extraordinary-ordinary beautifully-unique story — you’re the only one who can live faithfully to the beautiful life God has planned for you.
xCC
You can find Daring to Hope and Kisses from Katie on Amazon.
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Jun 19, 2019 | The Good Word
I love love love it when something I’ve read a dozen times before suddenly explodes like fireworks with new meaning.
Like, re-reading a classic like Pride and Prejudice and suddenly seeing all the prides, all the prejudices, playing out between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett — the themes come to life when you know what’s coming next in the story, right?
I find it even more magical when someone pulls an incredibly simple, yet extremely profound — life-changing — truth out of a passage I know I’ve read from start to finish on numerous occasions.
We had a fantastic guest speaker at church a few weeks ago, and he jumped into 3 John and brought to life something I’d never seen before, that spoke with significant clarity to me, I’m still finding fresh truth in it.
There are a few key points to bring up that will help me pass along the lightbulb moment to you.
Ready?
So. John, who wrote Third John, addresses Gaius, in this very short letter, and he starts by praying prosperity and blessing over Gaius. He addresses him as Beloved three times (and hold onto that thought for a moment) and he encourages Gaius because, basically he’s just totally stoked to hear that Gaius is walking in the truth, and being generous in the way he faithfully serves his church peeps, and even strangers.
John goes on with a few choice words about Diotrephes… but I’ll let you read the passage below to see what his thoughts are there.
Words addressed to Gaius:
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. […] Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well… {3 John 2-3,5-6}
Words about Diotrephes:
I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have preeminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. {3 John 9-10}
John follows that with these remarks:
Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does what is good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. {3 John 11}
So we’ve got this interesting little thing we might call a “character foil” from a literary perspective. There are two characters set side by side, and we get to see a contrast of personalities that makes us better understand them both.
Gaius is welcoming to everybody and is commended and encouraged for it.
Diotrephes longs instead for preeminence and, like the coolest of the cool kids at the ‘cool’ lunch table, he wants to call the shots on who’s in and who’s out. And it sounds like everyone who’s not already in is out.
When John writes Gaius this letter, he repeatedly reminds him of one thing: he is Beloved. And that’s not just like “I really think you’re awesome.” That word should speak to Gaius’ heart and whisper: you are the Beloved of an Almighty God. You are the Beloved of this Jesus that you preach.
Side note: That lovely Greek word for Beloved, is the same word spoken when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and a voice spoke from the clouds, “This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
We get to be called THAT kind of Beloved. Wow.
That’s a side note light bulb, but let me get to the one I promised earlier.
Like Gaius and Diotrephes, we have a choice about how we receive the people who come into our lives, and this is it:
Every person can be a gift. Or, every person can be a threat.
If we feel like Diotrephes, say, maybe we want to stay in control, we are likely to see people as a threat.
When we first started our photography business more than a half a dozen years ago, it was hard not to think of other photographers as a threat. It was hard not to be filled with a mindset like, “There’s not enough pie for everyone. We need to get as much of the pie as we can get.”
But when we began to trust that God was calling us to build our business, we could see more clearly that our part of the story was to be faithful. We connected with other photographers who helped us succeed, and we did our best to help other photographers along the way. We learned to live as the Beloved, and to trust God to open doors for us as He saw fit.
And open doors, He did.
All these years later, we can sense how God has changed our hearts and helped us to have a sense of peace. When it seemed like another photographer was knocking on the door of some of our current clients, maybe even trying to offer similar services at lower prices, it was hard not to get ‘itchy’ and uncomfortable about it.
But over the years, we’ve learned to trust God and to say “There is enough pie to go around. God will take care of us.”
And even this worked together for our good, as our clients asked if we could do those same services for them — and we could, and we are.
This looked like a threat — but God made this person a gift.
As a writer I’ve had a hard time navigating the ropes of the writing world, wanting to lock arms and encourage others, but at the same time feeling “If I push you ahead, will I then be behind? If I help you get to the top, will that put me closer to the bottom?”
But I’m learning to receive fellow writers as gifts. And just this year, in choosing to join a community of writers where I can encourage others and be encouraged, I’ve found life and growth and … you guessed it… gifts, one after another, in the form of friends to walk alongside me on the writing journey, and wisdom I might’ve been too prideful to realize I needed.
Whether it’s the new nurse on your floor at the hospital, the new neighbor who just moved in down the street, the new gal at church who everyone seems to like, or the new business in town that seems to be in direct competition with yours, you can choose how you will receive every person you meet: threat, or gift.
And if, like Gaius, we can find our identity as the Beloved, we can receive any and every person — brother or sister in Christ or absolute stranger — as a gift, deserving of welcome and encouragement, of friendship and love.
You are Beloved, friend. Welcome the gifts around you today!
xCC
Special thanks to Peter Hartwig for being a fantastically encouraging guest speaker and inspiring many of these thoughts for sharing!!
Also note: Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved, is a fantastic, brief and deep read to help you understand what it means to be the Beloved of God.
I highly recommend it!
Are you encouraged today? If so, you can subscribe to receive weekly Love, From Here and never miss a post by clicking right here!
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Psst! Some posts on my site contain affiliate links. When you click on those links to make purchases, I receive compensation at no extra cost to you. I love it when you do that! Thank you for supporting With Love!
Jun 12, 2019 | The Good Word
You know what’s really hard sometimes? Trying to find the good in the seemingly not good.
I want to let you in on a little secret about it.
And as usual explain the secret with a story.
Around the sweet little kiddos at the Collie house, there are lots of dear friends in different circles. The church friends and the homeschool group friends, the new neighborhood friends and the old neighborhood friends… you get the idea.
Now among these friends, there are some in particular that my kiddos visit from time to time. And when they return from playing with those friends at their house, sometimes something just seems off.
The last time, my eldest came home feeling frustrated, but he was unspecific about his frustrations. Arguments started arising surrounding allowances and chores and items on his wish list that he would like to save up his own money to buy, but that his Mom and Dad have made the executive decision he cannotbuy even if he has three times the money he needs to buy them.
Sometimes I try to sit down with the one kid having trouble, and just start gently, slowly asking questions and listening. And sometimes I think when you sit down with someone and try to ask thoughtful questions and really really listen? You can hear things they don’t even realize they’re saying. The message beneath the words, right?
And this time what I really heard beneath the talk about wanting to be able to spend the money on this or that, wanting to do chores and make more money, wanting me to create opportunities for this to happen… what I heard underneath all that was:
I want something, and I think it’s good. You don’t want me to have it, so you are not good.
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
{Read the Whole Story in Genesis 3}
Do you see a bit of a theme developing here?
Maybe that sounds like oversimplification but look at a different story and see if you see this theme here:
Why does the woman eat the fruit? This is the moment. This is the first “not good.”
God created and saw that it was good. God created something else and saw that it was good.
If we believe God is good, we believe He creates good things and He gives good gifts.
In the life of the believer, we can, we should, we must take this a step further and cling to a belief like this:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly. {Psalm 84:11}
I think many of our “not goods” come from believing that God is withholding good things from us. Like Eve in the garden, and like my kid coming home from a friend’s house, we want to say:
I want something, and I think it’s good. You don’t want me to have it, so you are not good.
It is pretty darn hard to be happy when we don’t get what we want, right?
But what do we do about it when we don’t get what we want?
Celebrate car accidents and broken bones? Throw parties when someone dies unexpectedly?
Absolutely not.
But here’s that secret I promised you. If you can choose to believe God is always good, then when something not good comes along, you can take a deep breath and whisper a prayer like:
This seems not good. But God, you are good. And somehow, you can make even this good.
When we choose to trust, and we choose to still believe — even when it’s hard, even when it hurts… especially when it hurts — when we choose to trust, we can find hope to keep us going and anchor our souls.
When we choose to trust in the goodness of God, and to focus on Him, just like Isaiah 26:3 says…He keeps us in perfect peace. We find a peace we never expected in the midst of the hard and the scary and the hurt, because we believe God can and will work things together for our good. And He does not withhold good things.
After sitting on the couch for a while with that sweet child of mine, hearing his heart and getting down into a sense of the real ‘not good,’ I had the opportunity to tell him two things that I wanted him to hear:
1. Your Dad and I love you so much. We are deeply invested in wanting to choose what is best for you. We are careful about what we allow you to have and see and do because we want to keep you safe and we want to do what’s best for you.
2. Please trust us. Even when it seems unfair and you’re not getting your way, I want to ask you to believe that we love you enough to sometimes say yes and sometimes say no. We want what truly is good for you.
I wonder if the Lord would sit us down on the couch to say the same thing? To the thing you’re waiting for, the diagnosis you’re facing, the no you got when you prayed so hard for a yes? Would He say:
1. I love you so much.
2. Please trust Me.
And at the other end of the sofa, when you look back at the Lord who loves you, what will you say in response?
Next time, try whispering this one simple thing:
This seems not good. But God, you are good. And somehow, you can make even this good.
xCC
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I hope you’re encouraged, friend! I write With Love, From Here every Wednesday. Take a moment to subscribe here and you’ll never miss a post!
If you’re walking through some very ‘not good’ I highly recommend Timothy Keller’s book, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering.
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Psst. Some posts on my site contain affiliate links. When you click on those links to make purchases, I receive compensation at no extra cost to you. I love it when you do that! Thank you for supporting With Love!
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