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Pruning: John 15

Have you ever pruned a tree or seen a bush pruned back? In the moment, those bare branches look like they might not make it. But later on, in the next season of growth, the leaves and fruit on the branch show a new level of health.

We know John 15 talks about connection to Jesus, and His Father the Vinedresser- a connection where we are invited to remain in Him and because of remaining in Him, we bear the fruit of the Spirit. Through connection to Jesus in our core being, our outward being shows Him and His character…but why the pruning away, why is this a concept integral to the connection and the fruit bearing?

Sure, we understand sin would need to be pruned off; light can have no place with darkness. But pruning in the life of a believer goes so much further and deeper…

I think of times in Scripture where God used a little bit, just the right amount, to accomplish His purpose. One example is Gideon and his army that God kept cutting back to relatively nothing! And they overwhelmingly prevailed against their enemy.

In my life, God has done some pruning. I didn’t realize that’s what it was. But I see now that much of the pain of 2023 for me was God’s careful knife. Yes, it had to hurt. Pieces of dreams, expectations, even memories had to be carved right out of me. This might not make sense to anyone who is not living in Christ (Colossians 3), but I had to break up with my love affair of my one life, my one story.

As wonderful as my life is, I had to die to what I have not achieved and never will. I had to die to the lies I could choose to believe about myself based on those failures. I had to die to what my body felt like and looked like and could and couldn’t do. I had to die to the resentment that comes up when I see injustice around the world; I had to die to allowing myself to entertain the lies of the enemy about God’s love and power. I had to die to what I wanted my family to be and do. As I said, as wonderful as my life and my family are, I had to die to how my children “turn out” and what my marriage even looks like. Every time a disappointment comes along, whether on a small scale where I die to self because I see it is not mine to control, or on a big scale where I humble myself before God and say again, “You are God and I am not; I trust You as your child, not your wanna be hotshot world changer”, I am being pruned.

And why?

Because Jesus doesn’t carry that stuff on His branches. He does not serve two masters. He is 100% in. His thoughts are not torn between self and the Father. His love is selfless; His wisdom, flawless. His patience and understanding are…so unlike me. Hence the pruning…it is to not just teach us about Jesus, but actually transform us to be more like Jesus!!!

I have to lose these connections to my self and my life in order to live out the rest of John 15, the connection to Him, whereby I find my actual, simplified, clear, and authentic Life.

Can we consider our pain as pruning? Can we see how it is separating us from the love of our own rights and lives; can we see how it is ridding us of the addiction we have to comfort and control and the ideal everything?

This is painful but it is so good. For the believer, He may well be the one holding the knife but it is only in response to our prayers of asking to be more like Jesus and less like the world. And the one who holds the knife is simultaneously holding the Living Water and the Balm of Gilead and oil of gladness…beauty for ashes. He won’t leave that space empty, will we let Him fill it with Himself?

This is what abiding is.

Come Lord Jesus. Abide with us in our tears. Take away what is taking our focus off of You and Your purposes here. Help us believe there is good reason to simplify our loves and pour all we are on You. Help us know we don’t need to keep adding on, but rather that You are in the process of subtraction, yet true wholeness. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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and the truth will set you free

I am really good at listening to people and helping them clarify what matters most to them, asking questions, reminding them of the foundation of their true self and the choices they get to make for their life. In fact, I was joking this week about how I am now, as a Mental Health Coach/Spiritual Mentor, being asked to do what I have probably been doing (without invitation) to my friends for years – for which I say, I’m sorry and thank you for putting up with me! I just care so much, I feel worthless if I can’t ask clarifying questions and encourage an action plan! But when it comes to being able to do those things for myself, and seeing the truth and letting it set me free, I am really a work in progress.

For example: Let’s talk about the “worthless” piece I mentioned in the paragraph above real quick. I’m joking but still there’s a bit of truth in there. We can feel worthless if we aren’t using our gifts because God did intend for us to be living our lives interdependently blessing others—but our worth comes long before and stays long after any such service.

That’s why I’m writing today.

I feel thoroughly and completely overwhelmed, exhausted, and wiped out. For months now, my body has felt shaky, I wake up in pain (although it doesn’t last long, praise God), and my mind is chasing something I can’t grab ahold of. I told my daughter yesterday that I feel like I’m in a box that the walls and ceiling are closing in on. She asked me if Jesus was in the box with me. In my mind, no, He wasn’t. I’m in a grieving process that doesn’t even involve someone dying. I’m grieving because I’m finally awake to how I really feel about the first half of my life.

I don’t do sad. I don’t really tolerate, haven’t had time for, sadness. But in order to have peace about my second half of life, I’m going to make peace with my first half. The disappointments. The rejections. The decisions. The things I thought were in my control but really never were and never will be. The pain people cause themselves that affect me every day. The realization that relationships have always mattered most and yet that’s the part of life I have been the worst at.

I strive too hard in every way. I want to do everything I think of, but am then spread too thin. I want to use all my gifts at one time, and then I really don’t excel at any of them. A wise friend said, “Find your lane and then run only in it.” I have never wanted that reality to be more true in my life as I do right now.

We serve from where we are and where we have been. When I coach, mentor, share scripture, and pray with women, I get the privilege of being my truest self—regrets, realness, real time growth in my own self. I don’t feel ashamed of this at all. We can’t wait until we are there to help others along. Like exercise, you don’t ever get strength and then say, “I’m done now. I’m strong and lean. I don’t have to do this anymore.” In two weeks, the muscle has deteriorated if not in use and you’re back to the drawing board. What we learn becomes a part of our life that we continue to practice. For me, that practice is grace, because it’s the thing that comes the least easily to me.

So, what am I saying?

I need to grieve, and I need to learn again how to enjoy my friends and my family, and spend lots of time in silence in nature and in the Word of God…yet I still believe I’m supposed to stay in the game, in the middle of the recovery time, the “game” being serving the body of Christ and loving His Church. But I need to do it differently, and Jesus offers a better way.

In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus knows our lives have to go on in a cadence of rest and work, Sabbath and doing. The frenzy that is the real problem is ON THE INSIDE. He says:

”Take My yoke (this is a heavy wooden device laid across the shoulders of animals pulling a wagon or large farming tool) 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 imagine a field and Jesus has a yoke on His shoulders that isn’t a burden to Him in the least. He is full of joy and fervor. He also knows when to take a break. He has perfect peace in His soul because He doesn’t live with obligations and stress and expectations, He just lives. He knows what is His to do and He does it in love. He doesn’t take on more than He is supposed to and He says, Hey, there is space on this yoke for you to plow this field with me and learn how to be in the game with joy, which is your strength. Learn how to be in the game with grace, and not control…

The place I have come to in my heart today is this: I must let go of all the expectations I had of what a successful life would look like, and acknowledge I can’t do it. I can’t please that inner critic. I just don’t have it in me. And that leaves room now for the truth, for the thing I know God has been saying when I have asked Him what do you want me to know and what do you want me to do?

It is enough

to live a life

of grace.

To receive it, to give it, to hold every feeling up to the standard of God’s kind and generous grace.

I truly do repent of trying to be and do more than just this.

Who I am is just who I am, not who I “should” be.

This is the truth that sets us free!

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How the Enneagram Can Be a Helpful Tool

Hi! Happy Wednesday! Man, I have been on the struggle bus for several weeks. Today and yesterday are the first days in WEEKS that I have actually WANTED to be anywhere besides my bed. So, if I saw you in those weeks, just know I made it happen by the grace of God! He is so awesome, and He did help me persevere. I hope that little season is over; that would be wonderful. It has a lot to do with sleep. Anyway…

I’m writing today because this morning at coffee we chatted a bit about the Enneagram and it got me all excited! The Enneagram is a personality tool that points me more toward God, my need for Him, my need and understanding of others, and being able to see not only how all of us (different as we are) are created in His image but also how much more we can bear His likeness if we can learn to identify and shed the false self.

What do I mean by false self? Read on ❤️

The most important point of this tool, to me, is to begin to understand that stressful life situations and self awareness as we were growing up led us to think we had to do or be certain things in order to be acceptable and presentable. To love ourselves, to be loved by others, to be loved by God, we need to ________. People point toward our certain attributes, calling them good or bad, and we face rejections and losses. In these times, we learn what is needed to try to bring equilibrium or better feelings to ourselves and others, all in the name of not wanting more stress, pain, and rejection to occur. Thus, our ego and our self defenses are born, and this false self (who I “should be”) shows up in different ways in different people.

I’m not an expert but I am considering going through the coach training for the Enneagram with Jeff and Beth McCord. They are also offering this training through the American Assoc of Christian Counselors! As I read and learn in some spare time about the Enneagram, and when it comes up with mental health coaching clients, I am constantly amazed at how quickly the Enneagram and this understanding of personality, motives, sin, and deep need sets us free. It sets us free because if our “Enneagram number” is a tiny part of the definition of our false self, how we decided we better show up in the world to be acceptable, then this number helps us see where we are not receiving Jesus and His grace. Our number does not define us, it defines and clarifies to us when, where, and how we are trying so hard to be -honestly- able to live well without Jesus.

Yeah. That’s pretty serious, right?

So I’m going to give a super brief run-down of one thing about each number. This is what I think each number could potentially be thinking and wanting, so much so that it makes life and peace with themselves, others, and God harder than it has to be- all because we are trying to protect our fearful fragile inner self, whom God already loves, cherishes, sees, wants to hold close, and wants to protect for us!

The point of this blog post is not to argue for the Enneagram, it is to see how we, in all our many ways, put our own selves in a position to block the way of God’s grace…He has come to set us free from everything that stands in the way of connection with Him. Perhaps you will see that one or more of these describe your inmost, deeply rooted feeling. If you feel like “I am nothing if I don’t do this particular thing”, that’s a really good indication to look more into that number so you can see yourself and then see how God wants to intervene and set you free!

1- Reformer- I need to make a difference and do what is morally right, unselfish, and “best” in order to be acceptable.

2- Helper- I need to serve sacrificially, noticing and meeting needs in order to be acceptable.

3- Performer- I need to have achievements and show something for myself at the end of the day to be acceptable.

4- Romantic- I need to have unique, memorable, and creative ideas, conversations, and relationships to be acceptable.

5- Investigator- I need to know all of the information, details, and options to make the most wise decisions to be acceptable.

6- Protector- I need to think through and be prepared for all possible negative outcomes, warning and providing for people, to be acceptable.

7- Enthusiast- I need to move past all negative or boring things in order to live an experiential, thriving, adventurous life to be acceptable.

8- Challenger- I need to make things happen, speaking up for myself and others, whatever it takes, in order to feel acceptable.

9- Peacemaker- I need to keep any conflicting feelings or thoughts to myself, going with the flow always, in order to be acceptable.

Are these terrible traits? No. But they are traits, motives, and yearnings that we are trying to achieve on our own if not redeemed by Jesus, powered by Him, and surrendered to Him. When these desires become impossible to achieve for different reasons, we feel guilty, angry, resentful, sad, discontent, and frustrated with whatever and whoever gets in our way. Whatever creates these emotions in me is something I personally want to be aware of! I pray that knowing these things about ourselves will help us see that, because of Christ alone, we are already acceptable! We can be vulnerable and we can open up with others about our weaknesses, because we are already good, with nothing to prove. Our traits and motives can become ways we are actually more like Jesus, rather than ways we try to stake a claim in our own righteousness or happiness.

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How To Deal Now

It’s easy to write about God’s faithfulness after the battle is won, isn’t it? But what about when you’re in the middle of it? What about when all you can see is how you feel and how you’re messing up and what you wish you could handle better? What about when you don’t see what God could possibly be doing? What about when you’re torn between caring about your own mess and a much bigger mess worldwide?

The wars in Ethiopia, Ukraine, and Israel do the same thing to our psyche as the pandemic: they make us see what was always true, that nothing is sure and our control is an illusion and our normal daily life is a GIFT. All of that, the tension of these sentences, is a trap laden with guilt, fear, and a sense of responsibility. We struggle to have room for pain, loss, and processing in our lives but we are desperate for that space. We struggle to make room for prayer, too; we have never been more desperate and in need of being with the One who holds it all in His hands, Who grieves, Who sees the big picture, Who also speaks and leads, comforts and dwells with the lowest!

Would you agree that we as a culture, at least here in North America, do not know how to cope with disturbance and distress?

We are frustrated, saddened, and inconvenienced by our own struggles and others’ as well. The need either wakes us up or makes us want to hide in bed. We sometimes grab onto coping mechanisms or notice more erratic thoughts and behaviors because a sense of “I don’t know what even matters anymore” takes over. (And our teens and the next gen are feeling this even more than we are.)

But thank God, after painting that picture of my real internal struggle, I do actually have something positive to say here, brothers and sisters! I want to share some practices that are helping me live where I am in the moment, in gratitude and connection to God, but also allowing deep caring of which we all want to be capable.

1- We must acknowledge and accept that tragedies, and our inability to do a lot about them, are having an effect on our body and mind. We need to notice when thoughts like “you shouldn’t feel this way” or “your stuff isn’t even that bad” run through our minds. We have to accept weakness, accept that we don’t love how we feel, accept that struggles are affecting us, and also accept that we cannot fully fix what is broken about ourselves or others’ situations. It’s ok. We accept our place. We calm; we choose to be still and know that HE is God.

2- We bring our real self to Jesus. Why do we think we need to be strong all the time? Why?-when the very gospel is grace! Apply that grace to every shortcoming and everything about yourself that you wish was more or better or enough. Apply that grace to every soul around the world today, knowing that when they call on God in whatever language, whatever tongue, they will feel His presence! Hallelujah! Grace upon grace! It is ours and theirs in Christ Jesus. He delights in our receiving it way more than He would delight in our striving to not need grace! He is the Strong one; we are allowed to be shaky, unsettled, needy. Matt. 11:28-Come to Me, all you who are weary and I will give you rest. We can bring our sadness to Jesus as well as our weakness; we can bring our anger, our fears, and our numbness, too. He can truly and completely handle it. He loves His children, He loves us all.

3- We need to get the heck off of social media, constant news, talking heads, and video reports, as well as just brain-numbing scrolling through things that don’t matter. There are news sources to grab basic info: we can use them for that purpose and then stay off our phones or use our phones to connect to people we know and love! Take a break from the normal places you scroll or at least minimize it to one or two 30-min blocks a day and spend time with people in your home, church, neighborhood, and community.

4- I am going to get out my smallest Bible and carry it around instead of my phone. I’m not kidding. From what I hear and internally feel, if there was ever a time to do this, it is now. Our rock solid Hope is in Jesus and His Words, but if we aren’t dwelling on them, it’s a gold mine buried underground! We need to be changing the reel in our mind with His truth. His Word is the antidote to fear, guilt, and chaos. He tells us what matters and why. His Word narrows things down and simplifies what we are to be focused on and fighting for.

5- We really must pray, not just talk about or think about praying. Really do cast your cares and others’ cares on the Lord, really do raise your voices, knowing He hears. Really do intercede on behalf of brothers and sisters around the world. Really do read prayer emails from boots on the ground ministries (like Global Catalytic, City Serve, Embracing Hope Ethiopia, and so many more). Really do spend time talking to Father God, knowing Brother Jesus intercedes on our behalf and Holy Spirit leads, guides, comforts, and sends.

6- This one will sound a little shocking (if you know me well) but I’m going to say it: Enjoy your life. We have got to enjoy our lives! We do not need to buy more or do more, we need to enjoy what we have and be thankful and content. But what resources and assets do you have right now that you don’t even enjoy? People, games, art supplies, time, skills; don’t feel guilty to LIVE. God has you where you are. Right now, whatever we have, whoever we are with, let’s enjoy them. Let’s thank God for them. Let’s be generous and grateful. Let’s show the greatest respect for mankind that we can, and that is to celebrate freedom and the dignity of human life, living an example of contentment and gratitude and painting a picture of how it should be in a safe and loving world.

7- Let’s make sure to ask God how He wants us to give. Not if, but how, when, where, and to whom. “It’s Your’s, God, where shall I send it? I’m Your’s, God, where shall You send me? Make me a vessel of Your love and light, Lord. I lay all that I am before You, for such a time as this. I am not much but what I am is Your’s. Live through me.”

8- Praise the Lord, let His praise be on our lips regardless of our feelings or a dark cloud we may feel we are under. It’s ok and normal to feel like we are carrying a grief, shaken by things we don’t understand or aren’t even experiencing ourselves!! It is normal to feel off, tired, sad, out of it…and while we accept that, bring that to the Lord, stay in the Word (rather than constant barrage of the world), pray, and give, we also choose to lift Him high. When we praise Him, we are changed and I believe when we praise Him, things change!!! Pound the enemy with the praise of King Jesus who WILL COME AGAIN, who does see and hear and act, and who is present on the scene.

This is my hope for every human heart. That the same God who comforts and conforms me is available to ALL who will call on Him in their darkest night.

It’s okay to admit the night is dark and that we are affected greatly by it. It’s okay to not feel or be awesome in the shaking. Why? Because it was never our faithfulness or work or ability on display-it was God’s.

God is faithful. GOD is faithful! And He always will be.


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Parenting Drama

Just a few thoughts today about parenting. I may be feeling a little extra today, just warning! 🤪

As I have shared before, it’s utterly ridiculous that I have written a book on parenting—therefore I do not claim that I have! My claim is that I have written a book on connection, teaching emotional intelligence, compassion for the growing brain, and all from the vantage point of a mom who has messed up in all of the above…enough to write a whole training manual on it!

I don’t mean to be dramatic but sometimes…y’all. Sometimes I really don’t know what my next step needs to be as a mom and if I am getting it all wrong, just fundamentally wrong! Sometimes I need a week to decide how to respond to something my kids have done because I do care how they feel and I do care if they will carry my voice in their head (in a negative way) yet at the same time my husband and I do have to be responsible and respond.

This week, I had the luxury of two days to figure out how to respond to this:

My almost 12 and almost 13 year old daughters, who aren’t allowed to eat in their room, had hidden 2 dishes with food still on them in their closet shelves which are full of toys, games, etc. This particular problem was new, but the heart behind it was not…laziness, hiding things, being sneaky, and disregard for rules, (let alone mice and roaches).

I was really thankful they had just left for two days when I found the dishes and food, because having to deal with things like this tends to feel like it sets us back in our attachment. I’m just being honest. Anyone else out there feel this?

In the time I had, this is what came to mind:

Some people in my life tell me, “Oh, they’re just kids. Don’t be too hard on them” (for things like having to be told multiple times to check their chore chart, hiding junk under their bed and saying they cleaned, or making excuses for not staying with their sibling at a public event when explicitly told to). But then sometimes those same people say, “Gotta let those kids start to do more adult things” (like stay home alone, have computer/tv time without adult supervision, or walk around with friends at a ballgame) “and it’s good for them to have opportunities to sink or swim.”

And I agree with both. But you know what? I’m feeling like there is too much of both and not enough of a third option, a third option that would actually put the weight of responsibility on the right party: the kids who are longing to do adult things but won’t/can’t even follow simple cleaning instructions or won’t/can’t meet you at a certain time to get back together at an event.

I’m honestly just kind of tired of it. Jesus, take the wheel! I want to stop giving privileges to my kids if they haven’t gotten the basics yet. That’s coming from a negative space because I’m tired and just being brutally honest, but this morning, after 2 days away from them, I was (by God’s amazing grace) actually able to approach it from a positive space!! I told them I wasn’t going to punish them and I wasn’t even mad, but that because of what I found (and actually shared 3 or 4 other small instances that were all adding up to the same ending), I needed them to know that these are things that make me see I need to be more involved in checking in and checking up on everything I ask them to do. I shared with them my vision of how I felt things could be if they would be more mindful of their choices and more trustworthy. I told them that how much I check in and check up and verify the truth was going to be based on what kind of behavior I see, and if that felt like I was treating them too childishly then they need to up their game!

I told them that this is how I am going to know what more mature responsibilities and opportunities they could have. Why why why would I give a young teen a phone or a debit card or even necessarily believe them when they have a conflict with someone if we are still dealing with library books shoved under furniture?

The time between being a kid and being an adult is hard. It needs a lot of grace and training. I told the girls that they are showing me they need lots of grace and training, and that honestly, this is okay…but I guess where I am heading with all this is that they need to correlate this “grace and training” to a ramp toward getting those privileges they long for. They can be frustrated all they want but we can’t jump to D and E if we haven’t nailed A,B, and C. I guess we just needed to clarify where we are. And they needed to know they get to have a lot of say in that location; they can move us into territory anytime now!

Where are you in all this? Do you feel sometimes like the kids dictate how things go in your house? Do you re-do things for your kids? Do they get privileges while at the same time you are having to ask them to get up and finish something they started? Who is the one actually suffering from the consequences of their choices? Just some good things to consider…I’m sure considering them over here!

I’m praying that through grace, training, and consistency— always connection over correction, but still, correction!— they will see the equation that hard work and honesty pay off, and there is not going to be a consolation prize or a participation trophy in life, jobs, relationships, and character. We have to put in the time to make a home, education, extracurricular, health, and relationships work well, all of us, adults and kids!

With lots of forgiveness and communication, we can do it…and hopefully they will, too ❤️

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Secrets of the Health Universe 😉

Despite my bold title, I’ll just say here are some things I have discovered through years of various fatigue, autoimmune, weight, and sleep issues. I hope they help someone out there!

1- I have found that eating snack-size meals every 3 hours is best for me. All the food groups are included, except gluten causes me to have terrible acid reflux so I don’t eat gluten. My plan here is that if my needs are met, I won’t binge or overeat, and it’s true. Snack-size is like what fits in one or maybe two palms: ¼ c of granola, or a banana with a ¼ c of nuts, a protein shake, or 2 eggs. I find my metabolism is revved with this plan, and I just don’t think about food very much as I am never hungry/hangry. This has eliminated the guilt from overeating or what I call “storm-eating”! If I do eat a large meal sometime, it is no big deal because the next time I eat I’ll be back to my mini-meals and it all works out. Also, my metabolism is revved with lifting weights. Because of my back, I am only using 5 lb weights but seeing all the benefits I used to see before surgery even with much heavier weights. Always have weights in your workouts and get a good sweat every day!! Mini-meals every 3-4 hours and working out 30-40 min a day with both cardio and weights WILL change your body, period! At least 5 days a week. 😃

2- Shakeology vegan protein shakes have changed my life. They already have all the probiotics, prebiotics, and enzymes I need so I don’t have to buy or add anymore. They also have the antioxidant and adaptogens I need for stress management, much like you would find in cortisol manager supplements. My adrenals are happy. The fact is that nutrition is feeding our actual cells, and our cells make up our body and our life. We have to think about eating for our cellular level. We need a lot of living food, like fruits, veggies, meat, nuts, whole grains and not dead things that have been sitting on shelves for weeks after processing. While nutrition is vital, digestion and absorption is even more so, that’s why the pro/prebiotics/enzymes are so important. On that same topic, sugar messes up the bacteria balance in your gut (which is now called the second brain!)…as well as causing inflammation and insulin resistance, which leads to heart disease and diabetes. No, thank you. ❤️

3- You gotta sleep. Maybe you’ve gotta sleep more than other people; it’s okay! But really, think about how much sleep you are getting and probably you need more. You shouldn’t need coffee every morning or sugar mid-day, and if you use these things when tired, your adrenals pay for it. When we give our bodies substitutes for what they really need, we are crippling them and their natural ability to work well. P.S.Naps are very Christlike. 😂

4- Lastly, inflammation in your body means things like pain, swelling, infection, allergic reactions, itching – and these outward symptoms are just a glimpse of the chaos going on inside our blood vessels, our histamine levels, our cells, etc. Whether or not we have high levels of inflammation matters on a heart and lung level, and autoimmune disorders/inflammation go hand in hand. There are alot of cool things people are doing to help their inflammation levels, but one thing I know for sure is this small list of supplements. Because of Shakeology I don’t need many supplements, if any, but when I was in pain because of my back (which resulted in a microdiscectomy) I took Boswellia, vitamin C, and Omega 3s/Fish oil. Here’s my testimony: The surgeon made me go supplement free for 2 weeks before surgery. I couldn’t take anything. Those 2 weeks are when I was truly in stiff, terrible pain. By the night before surgery, I could not sit, lay, stand, anything, without pain. I had had no idea what a blessing those supplements had been! Now I know that if I have stiffness or those weird hotspot feelings in my leg or even bad allergies (I have some high markers for autoimmune disorders but have not been diagnosed) I can immediately begin taking this regimen of anti-inflammatory supplements. Also, for stiffness or sore muscles, I cannot recommend a quick foam rolling session after each exercise session!

5- It’s so important to change the narrative, the self-talk, and truly think about what you’re thinking about! We need to preach truth of God’s Word to ourselves, and reframe our circumstances with faith, gratitude, and praise. As children of God, we have to see our sins as things holding us back from a full wonderful life, rather than what we can get away with…! We need to know we are not meant to walk in guilt, shame, regret, and feeling less than, but instead that we are more than conquerors and if God is for us, who can be against us? We need to let go of obligations and responsibilities that were never ours, and we need to only do what He says matters and believe what only He says about us! 

These are all things we can gradually try and gradually change. When you begin to feel better, it gives you strength and excitement to do more. Although there are seasons of pain and difficulty, I really do believe that God wants us to thrive even in the middle of them. Find what gives you joy and endurance, and then share with others your “secrets”!!!

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Desires v. Promises

Something I love to do is listen to podcasts. One of my favorite more light-hearted ones is the Candace Cameron Bure podcast! As a child “of the 80s and 90s”, it is fun to see her all grown up, loving Jesus, sharing her testimony and life honestly with us! (If you don’t know, she was on Full House and now a new version of the show.)

Candace has a new guest for this season on her podcast: Bianca Juarez Olthoff. They were talking just this week about the difference between desires and promises, as someone had written in asking how to know if something we want is really something God has promised us! This question (and answer) really matters! Bianca explained that desires may be from God, or they may not, like a woman wanting a child is a desire. But a promise is more specific, like Sarah & Abraham wanting a child and God promising against all odds that they would have one. Also, we often want things that are very good, but we have to be careful to only “claim” and stand on actual promises of God that are in His Word. (That is my opinion, anyway.)

The promises of God are plentiful…I think there’s a good chance we could stay busy mentally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, forever, just seeking out what His promises are to us today and looking to Him to fulfill them! That would be a much better pastime than the jealousy, discontent, frustration, and rat race that we unfortunately fall into when our life is instead based on just hopes, dreams, and desires – things we want to accomplish, be known for, possess.

But does that mean we can’t have hopes, dreams, and desires? 

Absolutely not. It means we learn the difference between desires and promises, and we prioritize them with a heart of surrender to God. After all, as believers we actually are here on earth to fulfill His purposes, not ours. (Yes, that hurts my feelings, too. But it’s better this way, I promise!)

So I just want to write a few things that I feel like God put on my heart to share about this topic, questions actually, that might help us think and prioritize and perhaps find a real sense of peace right where we are.

-What are the desires I am clinging to or working toward? 

-Are these promises from God or just desires that He may or may not have promised the fulfillment of?

-What scriptures back up my belief that these are His promises?

-Are these promises for my earthly lifetime or possibly my heavenly eternity?

-What desires do I need to surrender to Him, trading them in (in their importance to me or just altogether letting go of them) for the actual promises God has made me in His Word?

-How do I feel about some of my desires maybe not ever being fulfilled? Be honest with the Lord. He really does care!

-What promises am I going to really cling to and keep praying back to God, thanking Him and waiting for the fruition of them?

This can be the difference between a joyful, content life and a complaining, disappointed, critical one. The same set of circumstances could happen to two different people but one could learn to live their life leaning into His promises with faith that delights His heart and the other could choose to live their life leaning into their desires with striving and frustration, missing out. 

Thank You, Jesus, for how You transform us by the renewing of our minds! (Romans 12:2)

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Belonging & Behavior, Part 2

Last week, I unraveled my thoughts about both OT and NT characters seeing (or missing) their chance to simply belong to God – be chosen, be beloved, be enough in His sight, be His. 

Ezekiel said yes; the masses of Israelites said no.

Mary said yes; most of the Pharisees said no. 

This is how I am challenged right now and here is what I pray becomes crystal clear in the Belonging & Behavior connection training book, which is an adoptive parenting book with a whole other layer of truth built in~

God is inviting people into His family and that belonging piece is not just a step up into a more important level (like how we act). No, belonging is our roots, it’s our trunk, it’s our branches! It’s almost everything. It’s who we are! It’s how we survive in this environment! He knew we would need, more than we realize, to be in the family with Him! And when it really has soaked in that this fellowship is real, that this goodness is true, that we have a Provider, Protector, Father, Counselor, Ever-Present-Help in times of trouble, then…we begin to reflect the good heart with which we have been communing. 

His family has certain ways they act because they have been dwelling with perfect Love. Just like in any family, the members branch out and look different, but in God’s family, all those differences are still going to point to the same beautiful, good, true things about who He is and what He does. Their behavior is the fruit. The bearing of fruit, the harvest, never comes before the planting season! This is where we go wrong when we focus on the rules of what we are doing or not doing, rather than focus on knowing Jesus personally and dwelling with Him in a relationship. 

Sometimes we need to stop and see that our behavior problems are really belonging problems…and oh how the Father would love to help us with that! Soaking in His love, we are changed. 

Like I said last week, it is repeated dozens of times in the OT that God was saying: “I want you to be My people and I want to be Your God.” And God went on multiple times to also say the following, which I think is absolutely worth mentioning…these are Family Basics, per Yahweh. This is how we act when we are His.

We will:

•Be generous to the poor and foreigner, whether that is spiritually, emotionally, or financially poor. They are in our midst for a reason. This shows we know the “Family of God” basics; this shows we know we lack nothing and can give what He gives us away without fear of lack. Giving shows we know our roots, deep in abundance with Father God. 

•Keep the Sabbath, meaning rest and don’t do what you normally do. Don’t catch up or get ahead. Literally, cease! Regroup. Recharge. Give your mouth a break from idle words. Meditate on the beauty of the Lord. Give over to Him all that makes you strive, signifying a release of all our own man-made goodness and accomplishment. This shows we trust our Provider and that we put Him above our abilities, our reputation, and anything we could build for ourselves. Resting shows that who we are comes from the work of Jesus, not us, and that the world will go on without us. It’s more than sacrifice, it is a practice of humility. 

•Know He alone is God. Regardless of past hurts or fears, He is on the throne. He is sovereign. His Word is true. He alone is God, meaning we are not…that takes the load off responsibilities that were never ours in the first place. 

Lord,

We are a tribe that longs to know You and look more like You, our Leader, our Author, our Father. But we are in an atmosphere that makes it feel so complicated as we parent, work long hours, pay for things, and deal with things that don’t seem to matter much in the Kingdom! Show us how to live here, as Yours.

Amen.

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Belonging & Behavior, Part 1

It has always been a dream of mine to write and publish a book, and last week, I crossed the finish line of that idea; thank You, Jesus! I had been working off and on for four years to write a book about how adoptive families connect, based on our experience and what we learned – both before our adoptions, and during the “hot mess” years! Ultimately, we learned a lot that paralleled the love of Father God and His invitation into the Family!

Lately I have been reading Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a prophet, whom God called to do many crazy things to show the Israelites who He was and what He was after. When you read Ezekiel, you see that while God brings new and creative visual lessons to His people, the bottom line of all these lessons is the same. Yes, He was echoing through these books that the people were horrible, belligerent sinners. But why didn’t the sin of the Philistines or the Edomites cause Him the same grief? Because God’s priority was His family: “I want you to know that I am God, your God, and that you are a people, My people.” He was upset about their behavior, He called out certain actions – but He just kept saying in all of His decisions: “Then they will know I am God.” It reminds me of Ps. 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God…”

Again, and again, and again. In Isaiah, or Lamentations, or Exodus, or just about all the Samuels, Kings, and Chronicles, God is warning: I will punish you to bring you back to Me and teach you what you really need; I will make you see that I had a special position and place for you which was the best plan for you; I will make you sorry so that you will understand and never stray again! And eventually, He lets a great number of them die, be exiled, etc, never to return to their promised land because of their consistent choice to sin and not be His people. While He left a remnant, as He promised, His warnings did come to pass. 

And in all this, the thing that keeps standing out to me is that, in my opinion and from what I can see across the Word, God’s greatest desire was simply: “a people”. A people that belonged to Him. A people that were proud to be His. A people that reflected His heart and His ways. A people who enjoyed knowing that He was God and happy they did not have to be. A people at peace, knowing that while they lived in a foreign dark world, they had a secret identity and connection to the King of a much better and more important Kingdom.

And yet that was the one thing they did not do, the one thing they refused to be. The Jews rejected this belonging. 

In the New Testament, we see that Pharisees and Sadducees were finally some Jews that had their acts together. They weren’t going to hurt the reputation of their God! They weren’t going to get punishments like their ancestors had, no way! They finally had a grip on what God wanted out of them…or so they thought. Unfortunately, they had it backwards! It was a different version of the story, but still sin and still separation from God. They couldn’t care less if they belonged to God; they really just belonged to their law books, their religion, and their self-righteousness. They had their act, and I believe they believed it was enough, I really do. But they were missing the fact that God wanted their behavior to flow from their joy of belonging to Him – in humble awe calling Him their God, in humble awe praising Him for saving them because they couldn’t possibly be near Him without mercy, and in humble awe obeying Him through serving others. This is not what the leaders in Jesus’ time on earth lived like. That’s why He judged them more harshly than the drunks and the prostitutes.

The religious leaders rewrote the story of what God wanted from them…or at least they tried to.

We make things complicated sometimes.

The question to be asking is, truly, am I thinking and living and enjoying Him…like a child of God, beloved and secure?

Lord,

Help us recognize the value, the priceless value, of belonging to You, of being Yours! Lord, the gift and the beauty of this…Thank You.

amen.

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Saying Hello

It is always hard to say goodbye to an era, to a season you were highly invested in. There’s a loss and it deserves time, and I believe time is healing. But time itself is not enough…

How do we move on, really, in wholeness and peace and new motivation?

For me, the loss is relatively quite small. It’s the end of my homeschooling era. It’s the end of my “family years” with Selah. It’s entering mid-life, leaving behind the skin and body (and sometimes brain) of a younger me.

Others have more grievous losses, like the death of a child, a major job transition, or a health scare or long term disability.

We know in our heightened focus on mental and emotional health that we can’t shove all this down. We can’t just keep busy until we forget. We can’t self-medicate with idols like overeating and numbing out.

We have to make room for it.

Some ideas for that are to write in a lament journal, just taking time to write when the sadness or confusion hits; prayers written to God who does grieve with us. Sometimes we need to take time off to caress our senses with beauty outdoors, friendships, and things we enjoy- as opposed to bingeing Netflix and ice cream. Sometimes we need to talk with someone regularly who will ask questions to make our minds wake up and sweep out the places we don’t want to go inside, finding fears and core beliefs that drive our thoughts, then feelings, then words and actions.

Healing, letting go, and moving on is an actual journey…a process…and like any good journey or process, there is an end. We are created to be resilient and heal! Skin, neural pathways, feelings- they don’t stay the same. When damaged, they can be renewed. Our hearts, our hurts, our disappointments, our memories can also be renewed and restored through the power and healing of Jesus. He can do it anyway He chooses- in an instant, or through a long journey. But just like Joseph, we can know that the timing has purpose. It is making us, molding us, and we can willingly go with that current or never see that God is there driving a current at all.

So the key is surrender. The key is surrender to an awareness of a bigger picture, of a great big God, of others in need, and of the short time we have here to run in the path He has for us. The key is surrendering not only to God’s work in our story, but surrendering to being a part of His story.

When we left Selah at college, knowing I was entrusting her to God like never before, there was this moment in worship where the lyrics were:

“Oh Christ be magnified~on the altar of my life~oh Christ be magnified in me.”

And I realized, my life being laid down—my surrender—day by day as a parent, and in the other ways I try to trust and obey Him, is for no other reason than to be a willing part of His story.

So, now it’s time to say hello not to the next chapter in my life or my family’s life, but to the page of the seemingly unseen story my life is a part of. Do I have choices, do I have feelings? Yes and yes! But I choose to get excited about His story over mine. The memory of Lyndsay Taylor on the earth will at some point be long gone; but what Jesus did through my simple, transparent, messy life surrendered to Him will actually remain!

I’m going to close with this thought. When we pray for God’s will to be done in our lives, what is our motivation? Is it to see a life that at the end we can say we “did right”; are we praying this in hopes of it all going fairly well?

Or do we pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” to surrender to our smallness, praying that the reality of our lives – whatever He allows – will make a clear way for others to see Him?

God ~ You areJehovah Rapha, Healer ~ You are Jehovah Jireh, Provider ~ please bring joy into our processes and pain, as we surrender them to Your purposes, for Your glory and Kingdom plans in the world!
Amen.