Author: Lyndsay Taylor

Well, no big thing, just SUMMER!!! That’s what’s up in the Taylor household 🙂 and even though I don’t feel like writing a big in-depth blog about the things closest to my heart at the moment, I can at least write about what is…you know…UP.

The garden is fun-We have a few tomatoes, one cucumber so far, lots of pretty pumpkin leaves, a few little green peppers…Um, I am realizing my garden gets very little sunshine. Wha-wha. So I may be doing a few containers of tomatoes and peppers next year and then planting only shade-loving veggies next year. All that to say, thank God for Aldi’s…and friends with good gardens. I do still love just getting in the garden and weeding and seeing little things grow though.

Big break from homeschool-This year we decided to be ALL OUT during the summer and ALL IN the rest of the year. We’ll see how that goes, I say with one eyebrow raised. Seriously though, I have gotten excited about planning out our curriculum and hours, and Yemi is already so excited that I have begun to do an hour of Kindergarten each day. But Selah, she is most definitely ALL OUT until August 13th. We are going to try a 4 day school week this year, Tues-Fri, because of my part time jobs. Then on Saturdays we can do any extra projects and creative things we may not have had time for during the week.

The part time jobs-Yes, this honestly will be what I remember about Summer ’13. Seriously, I have taken on a little more than I should have, and yet I am grateful for the opportunity. Mondays I am working as a health coach at my doctor’s office (LOVE IT!); I am learning a lot and will be beginning a certificate program in Holistic Nutrition online soon. Tuesdays I put in about 6 hours planning, praying, and practicing for worship at my church which meets in Louisville (journeylouisville.org). I am growing in this as well, and enjoying what God is doing there! Wednesdays and Thursdays I am teaching guitar and voice classes to kids, and I have 2 more weeks of this. It has been so cool to see Selah’s musical talents take off this summer, as she has attended my classes with her friends! She is song writing, playing guitar really well, and is much more enthusiastic about piano lessons.

Reading-Finally. I have a tendency, always have, to read 5 books at a time. So my five this summer were/are: Mansfield Park (Read it, check! Weird ending, check!) Trim Healthy Mama (Learned a ton about nutrition, check! New recipes for sugar free desserts, check!) Let Go by Fenelon (Soul searching, check!) Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning (Stopping every two pages to process, check!) and last but not least, The Book of Galatians (Ready to engage in our summer sermon series, check!)

Well…that’s good for now. Everyone is doing well and honestly I just feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Maybe later will post some pics from summer fun and talk about what I think our homeschool will look like this coming year. 🙂

It is amazing how God uses the saints as vessels for His Spirit to dwell and bring messages to others! I am reached personally yet again by Fenelon, a Christian in the 17th century (!) and I want to share this with you today because it is the Lord speaking directly to my frazzled mind.

“When it comes to accomplishing things for God, you will find that high aspirations, enthusiastic feelings, careful planning, and being able to express yourself well are not worth very much. The important thing is absolute surrender to God. You can do anything He wants you to do if you are walking in the light of full surrender.

Living in this blessed way involves a continual death which is known to very few, but it is in this position that you can be really effective for God. A single word spoken to another person from this restful, abandoned position will do more to change circumstances than all our most eager and carefully planned schemes…Only one word perhaps–but it enlightens, persuades, blesses, and moves to action.”

I am learning the obedient action of praying before and during each task, especially those that involve others, because like that old joke says, “My attitudes and behaviors were perfect today…until I got out of bed.” I am downright saintly until I am pushed and prodded by people, voices, demands, tiredness, hunger, heat, cold, whatever (it doesn’t take much!) So, before I am meeting someone for health coaching, or while I am singing, or before I begin (and certainly during) homeschool, even before sitting down with my husband to talk…I am learning the beauty of leaning in hard on the Lord and letting Him know that I know I will only have as much to give as He personally gives me in those moments. To say, “Oh, Lord, I know- I deeply know- that this is all You” is a peaceful place of submission and dependence.

In quietness and rest is our strength. In the peaceful abandon of our own spirits to the Lord, we have a deep reservoir in which to draw for that one word that may sustain a friend…not our word, but the Lord’s. And as most of my blog entries end, this brings us back to personally staying in His presence and carefully removing that which makes us frazzled and disconnected. I think it is the work of our lives, our true job, to remain peaceful in the palm of His hand. Some of us have busier schedules than others, some of us don’t have much to juggle; but wherever He has placed us, I know that He will make it possible to practice His presence and lean into Him for each interaction we have with others, and in this way, we are vessels to speak His words without even realizing it. This is my aim and my heart’s desire…

I am that girl who both loves and struggles with certain things. I have several of those “love-hate” relationships in my life. For example, I love to write, but often when I go to write about something, it feels like I am staring down the face of a mountain. I love to run, but it’s more about how I feel afterwards than during the actual experience. And lastly, I love the topic of nutrition and holistic wellness, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my fair share of struggling with the knowledge I obtain! It’s a lifelong game of tug-o-war, pulling between what I am genuinely passionate about, or what I genuinely know I need to do, and the fear of failure (or sometimes just laziness) that tugs the other way!

When it comes to nutrition, I’ve found that many people I know feel the same way. We care about nutrition, we believe food matters to our health–some believe this to a greater extent than others–but there is a challenge there to find the right path, get on it, and stay on it. Three years ago when I was diagnosed with Adrenal Fatigue, I thought I was a healthy eater. I was raised to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, only whole grains and whole wheat products, the only liquid I consumed was water, and I went on a walk most days of the week. But I had acid reflux, I was overweight, I had headaches almost every day, and I hate to say it, but I was losing handfuls of hair daily! When my blood work came back, my cholesterol was high and several other numbers were not showing the insides of a healthy woman. I had to learn (and I admit I took the slow path) what my body needed. But eventually, after trying the path of least resistance with no results a few times, I got to my goal weight, almost every number on the blood work got back where it belonged, and I eventually became sugar and wheat free which eliminated even more of my health symptoms.

And because of that, because of the journey I have been on to greater health in this crazy-perspective-on-food kind of world, I am excited to begin training as a Health Coach! Under the mentorship of my Nurse Practitioner, Shelley Roby, in Elizabethtown, I’m beginning to some of see her patients (and others outside of her practice) to help them get on an eating and exercise plan. A large part of this experience will be not only suggesting pairing nutrient dense foods in the right amounts throughout the day, but partnering with these clients, encouraging them on their journey to wellness. I am not a medical professional, and will only be offering information that clients could obtain themselves from a variety of sources if they wanted to do their own research. A Health Coach is to a Nutritionist what a Life Coach is to a Licensed Therapist. I will suggest and encourage all-natural and balanced plans, with foods that can be locally bought on clients’ varying budgets…and I will help them stick with those plans as they encounter the hurdles that inevitably will come.

To begin with, each client that I meet with will fill out a Health Questionnaire which gives me information on their current lifestyle in regard to food, exercise, rest, etc. Then we’ll talk through what I call “Green Light Foods” and “Red Light Foods”. As the client shares with me what they like to eat from the Green list, we’ll make a list of sample meals and what a perfect day of eating (and being satisfied!) will look like. Items from the Red list will be avoided as much as possible, but we’ll talk about alternatives to many of these “foods”. We’ll discuss what these foods (both good and bad) do for you, and why your physical and even emotional health depends on you making good choices. We’ll make a plan for exercise and splurges, and also everyone will have the accountability of a food journal to turn into me weekly by email. We’ll meet together as necessary, and also correspond by email often.

Feeding ourselves seems like something we should have figured out at the age of 3, right? But this ever important task is more than just filling our tank with calories and making it from day to day. Food makes the difference between rising and shining, or just dragging from event to event. It makes the difference between being able to think clearly or be foggy-headed, living in a body you like or constantly feeling ashamed.  Who knows what medicines will be tossed out and what sizes we will easily slip into when we eat the way the systems of our bodies need us to, as opposed to being enslaved to traditions, cravings, and addictions.

You can email me at journeywell@lyndsaytaylor.com if you’d like to have a consultation and begin partnering with me on this journey to wellness! Everyone has different needs, desires, and paces in which to travel, and I would love to walk with you for awhile. I really believe I can help you know what to do…and actually do it! And you will know that I am doing it right there with you, because this is a lifelong challenge!

I have always liked Matthew 11:25-30, and here’s the couple of verses in that passage most of us have heard, maybe even memorized: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” I liked it, but I couldn’t say I got a lot out of it personally. But this week, I asked for understanding…

I’m sure this just scrapes the surface, but there are three literally life-changing truths in this that pertain to me and you! How could Jesus say the yoke upon Him was easy and His burden was light? What does being gentle and humble have to do with it? How could He say having that same yoke upon us would bring rest to our souls? What the heck is a yoke anyway?

A yoke is a steering mechanism in short, put on animals, as they do their tasks in the fields or on their journey. A burden is whatever that animal may be carrying for their masters. We learn in Hebrews that although Jesus was perfect and never sinned, He was learning obedience to the Father all the while, through His trials. His “yoke” was the Father’s constant guidance and authority over His life throughout all the situations He was in. The yoke upon Jesus (put on and steered by His Father) led Him to the cross. And yet Jesus says it was “easy”, and invites us to the same relationship of Father/Son, Master/Yoke Carrier, promising rest if we will learn this from Him.

So what can I learn from Jesus here? Here are the three answers I find:
1) Jesus knew His Father’s heart. He was all up in His business! He knew the bottom line His Father was looking for in gaining the hearts of the world He created…and Jesus was on board. He truly wanted what His Dad wanted, and they were on the same team. So even in the agony that yoke brought Him, it would have been more agonizing, more of a burden, to have lost sight of all He had in His identity as the Son of God! The same is so true for us. This life is short! This is our chance, while we wait for His return, to be about His business–and that comes in varying forms of personal obedience. No preacher can tell you His business for your life…it begins with making God’s heart (His Word, communication with Him, practicing His presence, learning obedience through difficulties) your #1 priority. Of all the WWJD statements we could assume upon Jesus, we know for a fact His #1 priority was keeping in line with the Father’s heart, and that was a JOY to Him.

2) Why else could He say His yoke was easy and His burden light? Because He was gentle. He made the choice time after time after time to not resist the Lord’s will. He allowed the guidance of His Father to happen without pulling in another direction or figuring out another way, choosing submission, and in this way, He lived His life to the fullest of what it was supposed to be. Have you ever seen a child use all their energy fighting against the thing that would have allowed them to have a wonderful day? A healthy meal, a seat in a comfy stroller, a life jacket so they could play in deep water for hours! May I say most of us, including me, are not used to being gentle under God’s yoke on us, if we’ve even allowed His yoke to be upon us in the first place! We have our plans, our own ways we want our lives to turn out. When we think of living life to the fullest, are these the qualifications for that title?:
-Dying at 33 years old
-Being misunderstood by 99% of the people who knew us
-Being executed as a criminal
-Your life ending before your own mother’s
-Having no money, no home, nothing to pass on to anybody of material resources
-No spouse, no children
…And this was God’s Plan A for His Beloved Son!

Why do we expect the complete opposite? Why do we buck when God allows suffering, expecting and sometimes demanding He do something different for His children?

We can trust Him. We can be gentle under His leadership of our lives. He didn’t make mistakes with His Son and He will not make mistakes with us. Everything the enemy intends for evil in our lives, God can turn around for glorious good if we will relax under His movements.

3) And one last thought about how He could call this yoke easy and this way of life restful–He was humble. In Philippians 2:5-11 we remember what humility really means. Jesus’ example of humility that we can follow is that He knew His place, or I should say places. At the exact same time, Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” and knew He was a member of the Trinity! And for us, we cannot live our lives thinking God owes us anything, we can’t live with this chip on our shoulder like we are waiting for God to give us special treatment, but at the exact same time, we are called to remember we are co-heirs with Christ, with a heavenly destiny, and a Father who thinks of us constantly, brimming over with love and care! Recognizing that all we have and all we are is a gift that we didn’t deserve…that’s a first step to humility. Recognizing that God gets to interpret His promises toward us–He alone has that right–brings peace. We can spend our lives shaking an angry fist to the heavens because we don’t understand His ways, or we can choose humility and say, “Who am I to understand it all, who am I that You would share your thoughts with me?” Maybe Jesus isn’t saying you have to be gentle and humble and take His yoke upon you, maybe He was just saying do this if you want rest and peace? I believe in some good wrestling with God…and I believe it’s only healthy if it’s a short term sport!

This resting doesn’t mean I have no opinion of my own, and it doesn’t mean I am in such amazing contact with the Father that I know everything I do all day was His will! But there is a sense of ease in trusting, learning gentleness when unexpected messes come my way, learning humility when my hopes are dashed, and believing the end goal of my life is following in line with God’s end goal, even if it doesn’t look like I would have planned.

We aren’t on our own down here. He never asked us to figure out what to do and then do it on our own strength. He gives us a recipe for rest…and this recipe strips everything from us…but that everything was killing us. He invites us to come.

Hey friends! I am celebrating Mother’s Day Week by putting up some fun videos on YouTube! So far, I have recorded “If I Could” so I hope you’ll listen and share it with some moms in your life. 🙂 I think every parent can relate to the hopes and prayers of this song. On Friday, I’ll be posting on YouTube a song that I also believe every mom can relate to…More to come about that! 🙂 Also, there is “In the Waiting”, the song I wrote for Yemi about our journey to adopt her; that is on the YouTube channel already, and I’d like to get the kids involved in a little recording of “Beautiful Mess” sometime this week as well! Yay!

Here’s a link to the “lyndsaytaylormusic” channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LyndsayTaylorMusic

My sweet Yemi, who will turn 5 years old at the end of July-and my dear Selah, almost age 8.

Things have been a little busy and juggling isn’t really my thing…

But here I am anyway. Several things have converged at the same time, for a season. We had a Sister Bridge Leadership Team meeting to discuss things for the Fall Season, which I’m very excited about. And (drum roll), I get to go to Africa this summer to meet and lead worship for the Timbali Women’s Retreat! I’m so excited. Can’t believe I get to go! Joanna and I started work on our new EP, Beloved, which is going to be a great album to help His Bride just gaze and linger and enjoy and be enjoyed. Along with that is trying to be a good steward of the investment I’ve made in my previous CDs. Since I don’t sing in concert much, it’s a challenge to sell CDs, so I am using social media some (YouTube, FB, etc) to try to get the word out about my stuff. I hope it hasn’t been annoying. Some people didn’t know I had a 3rd CD out, and it’s been out a year. Publicity just comes with the “being an indie artist” thing, but it’s worth it! I love being able to make my own music. I’m so appreciative of those who support me! Homeschool is still going strong, we aren’t stopping for the summer, but rather having a year with flexible days off throughout. Journey is going well, and our theme of “Water=Life” has been so cool, as we study Jesus as the Living Water and paralleled to that how we can be His hands and feet to bring living, clean water to communities that need it. Our worship team has grown and that’s been FUN! And we’ve been swimming a lot; the girls are taking lessons; and we get to go to the beach in 2 weeks! YAY!

My health has been better, as I’ve been getting good amounts of sleep, and am still wheat and sugar free. I’ve lost 17 pounds, and that is a huge surprising praise. It is a job taking good care of myself, but of course one of my most important ones. At the same time, I’m getting to take care of my family, because while I don’t like food being such an important part of my life, it simply is. My whole family is off wheat and sugar, and keeping the kids full is a challenge! They have SO much energy on this diet, and such an appetite. Yemi’s “potty problems” have almost entirely went away, and Jack is losing weight. It’s worth the work of preparing food all day!

About the multi-tasking… I just want to stay relaxed and not allow the juggling to first of all, take me from my top priorities, and second of all, to become a stress. None of these things are stressful in themselves. They are a gift that I don’t want to turn into a burden…but I have the tendency to do so! The Lord is so good, because every time I come to Him He gently reminds me to keep my “durn hands off!” Haha! 🙂 Seriously, though, all these things I have mentioned are things I feel called to be a part of, but not things I am called to worry about! Also, they are not things I need to get prideful or over involved in, and I have to keep a constant check to make sure I am not operating out of wrong motives.

It is awesome to feel like I can look at this list of things God has me involved in and truthfully say I could walk away from it in an instant if He wants me to. Years ago, these things would have been my identity. But He has changed all of that!! My top priorities are not any of these things, they are extras, and they have to be treated as such! My walk with Jesus is not the same thing as my ministry with the church or missions or music, anymore than my cooking and preparing food for Jack is the same thing as a loving intimate marriage!

To be with Jesus, communing all day. To give special attention to my husband. To love and guide my children. To take care of myself as the Lord has given me wisdom and resources to do so. These can be the hardest things…being busy is sometimes easier! But these are what I come back to. If these aren’t happening, it’s time to cut some ties…

Tonight as I was putting Yemi to bed, she of course called me back in her room for one last something.

She asked: “Mom, what if at school somebody doesn’t like me and thinks I’m stupid?”
I said: “Well, that doesn’t feel good, but you can just say to yourself, ‘There are lots of people who do like me and Jesus does not think I’m stupid, so I’m happy no matter what they think!'”
She said: “But I don’t want people to not like me.”
I said: “I know how that feels, Yemi, and it’s not fun. But it does happen like that sometimes, and we have to just love those people and love ourselves, too.”
She said: “So if someone’s being mean to me, I can just go somewhere else… but before I do, I’ll say to them, ‘I don’t like that, but I love you’ and I’ll kiss them on their head and go!”

Yes! Wow. I think she gets it. I pray she really does do this, and I pray we ALL do!

As children formed by God’s hand in our mother’s womb–in His image even–we never have reason to let someone’s cruel or insensitive words or feelings toward us get under our skin. If we are full to the brim of what He says about us, then we can honestly need no input from others…and when we get it, we don’t absorb it. We don’t have to receive it. I’m learning that when people are jerks, for lack of a better word, they have a problem, not me…so we can joyfully pray, offer grace, give the kind of love we’ve been given from God…and walk away unaffected. Easier said than done? Yes. And we’ll be tested often! But this is a goal to work towards I think.

Maybe we’ll think of Yemi’s kiss on the head to a class bully, then run off to carelessly play, the next time we have the chance to be offended.

There are certain times in life we remember better than others. A once in a lifetime vacation we remember a little better than day trips to the zoo. An outfit or pair of shoes we begged our parents for we remember better than humdrum school clothes. Sometimes we remember a gift because it was wrapped in a box that was 10x too big or we remember a surprise party better than a simple little one we planned. To remember something, we have to go through a series of strong emotions, we have to be awakened by a little bit of both agony and sheer joy! Think about a time you had a serious illness and were healed, or someone you love passed away, or when someone new came into your family–you can remember details about that season of your life whereas typically you would have no idea what you were doing that week. When things stand out of the ordinary, we remember it and we find ourselves telling and retelling the story.

I think that’s a little bit of what God was up to when He delivered the Israelites out of Egypt in the epic story of Moses, Pharoah, and the Crossing of the Red Sea. He has a crazy strategy; He plans a true saga! (That has to be right because look how many movies have been made about it!) The flies, the blood, the gnats, the sons, the magicians, the staff, the snake, Moses and his stuttering tongue, Aaron and his apparent eloquence…none of these things even mattered! They were just pawns in God’s hand to play out a story, a story that God wanted to stamp into the history of this book called God’s Fanatical Love For the People of Israel. (Yep, I just called God a fanatic!) In Exodus 10:1-2, God lays it out plainly. He makes it clear He has never for one moment been in a submissive posture as this story unfolds. He orchestrated it–even down to the details of Pharoah’s stubborn hardened heart–to give Israel a chance to see in the uncut, unedited form Who He Is. So that they would never forget. So that they would keep telling this over the top story to their children and their children’s children, forever and ever, amen. It’s like a great engagement story or “when I knew he would be my future husband” story…those moments that lead to a depth of relationship. He wanted them to know Him.

God will do whatever He’s gotta do for His own to know Him and come close, and we can know whatever He does is gonna be memorable. And the very cool part about Him is that anyone who will come into the fold is welcome, becoming an instantaneous loved one, equally valuable and protected as He demonstrates in all of these chapters and these specific verses (Ex. 11:7, Ex. 12:13, Ex. 14:13-14, Ex. 14:25) Did God play favorites in this story of the Israelites and Egyptians? Of course He did. If there is a fold, there will be those in the fold and those out of it. I don’t particularly like that, but its still true. So what is my amazing, philosophical, theological response? Get in the fold, enjoy being His favorite, and be a living invitation to everyone around you!

In our lives now, what would happen if we viewed everything that comes our way as part of an illustrious memorable story God is writing to teach us of His character and to make us more like Him? It’s funny how we can see that happening in other people’s lives but not our own sometimes. That mean person at the store, that low number in the checking account, that sickness, that plan falling through, that disappointment, that injustice. That decades long issue that you can’t seem to shake. I am positive that we can find the activity of God right here, right now, sitting in our laps, written in our journals, poured out loud in our prayers…whatever we’re thinking about, going through, working through, there it is! There is God writing your history, with something in mind that will ultimately give Him glory and help us know Him deeply if we will relax under His authority.

I have felt like God has been whispering the word “receiving” in my ear for several months now. It’s been sort of the theme of the year so far…And I want to unpack that a little in my blog today. What is so special about this word that I keep misspelling every time I write it?