You don’t have to justify your life.

I am in my bedroom, about to lay my head on the pillow, thinking about how this was just one more day that felt like so little had gotten accomplished. Or, perhaps, my expectations were warped in the first place? What did I really believe I could get done?

You don’t have to justify your life.

When I hear the Father’s words in my heart, I am disorientated, desperate for recalibration: Productivity. Expectation. Accomplishment. Time.

Father, yes, for most of my life, I have been sacrificing the miracle of the present for the future’s ever-elusive false promise of achievement. The gift of a moment lost when, for the sake of the future, time is something to conquer, manipulate, and control. The cost I’ve paid? Peace. Contentment. Love. To engage with God, I need, of course, to be where He is. I need to be right here….

Stop thinking.

My son shares with us what his rowing teammate sitting behind him says to him as they move their shell through the early morning waters of Marina del Ray.

Stop thinking.

Over the phone after practice he translates: Let yourself be present for the moment; be mindful of your movements but not self-critical. This will help you be more aware of where you are, whom you are with, what is yours for you to do.

Stop thinking.

He is emotional on the phone when he tells us those words’ impact—words delivered to him with kindness and encouragement, not judgment. For he is, he would tell you, in his head a lot. I can relate to the ache of being self-conscious, feeling anxious about whether or not I am the person I am supposed to be.

It is evening light, I think, that I'm chasing. Or that I'm desiring to enter into. I can't tell. But I'm hungry for rest. For restoration. This I know.I listen to these wise and beautiful words as I walk. And I remember to breathe in the holiness of this moment. The beauty of quiet on California suburban streets, tree branches burdened with once-green leaves now aflame. A stillness that settles upon me but feels fleeting too.I am missing God. I know it. I am afraid, I think, that time is going by so fast, and I am just not spending it the way that will bring God joy, the way that will make my heart satisfied.I feel my heart pull toward Him, begging for answers: "Is it okay to be hungry for You? I am eager for your presence to overwhelm me in the night. I lay my head down and fear that I am most surely not a good friend, a good wife, a good mom, a good daughter. And it is becoming too late."On these nights, on this night, I can feel hope slipping away. I watch it leaving, a bright spot blanketed by ingratitude, selfishness, pride. I watch it go, covered by blackness. And I stay in the dark.And I don't even care.I think I don't even care. Read More . . .

We lean in closer. We need to hear it again. "You are loved. I will love you outrageously all the days of your life."Graham Cooke declares it. He declares it with the Voice of truth singing loud and strong: "You can only love Me as much as you love yourself. So my love comes to set you free from yourself, to set you free from how you see yourself, to set you free from the smallness of your own thinking about yourself."Our Father comes and frees us from the smallness of our own thinking because of the abuse, the self-contempt, the despair, the shame, the pride, the fear.The six of us sit in a circle around the small portable speaker placed on the ottoman in the center of the room. We are hungry, searching. We are missing God. We are tired and want to lay ourselves down.We gather, the six of us, because the lies have come again. Silently. Stealthily. They have crept in, and we didn't even see them. But they are tangible. They are dark. We can feel them on our skin, our minds, our hearts. Read More . . .

“You are stronger than you know.”She hears the words and wants to throw them back in his face. She wants to yell, spit, run.“What do you know?” she thinks. “How can you tell me I am strong when I struggle to maintain a job, or look put together, or be the mother my kids need me to be?“She can hardly believe the response, “What defines ‘success,’ my love?”“I do. I define success. My success” she tells him. And then she runs. She doesn’t want to hear him anymore.So she runs far away, as far away as she can. Deep into the place where she’s convinced she can’t be seen. The place that is deeper and further away than any physical location on a map. It is the place in her heart, deep inside her, where she tucks herself away.“No one. Not one person can find me here,” she insists. “Not unless I want to be found.” Read More . . .

“I am lost,” is what she says. But she is stronger than she knows.She is beautiful but doesn’t believe it yet. Rather, she is convinced of a lie: there is no hope for her; she can never be found.Who would look for her? Who would come for the daughter who flounders, doubting her role, her purpose? How can she find her way?Who will hear the questions she whispers in the night?I am restless, God. How do I get more of You?Where are You when it is eight o’clock and my patience is gone and I’m wondering how to keep loving people while feeling completely spent?How do I pray to You when I don’t know the words?When did that lie come in, God—the lie that I’m not enough?These are the questions of the women of Breathing Eden. Do you ask these questions, too? Read More . . .

She told me she had to stop reading. The lies were too real, too close.The ebook, 10 Ways to Ignore God, the little book I never meant to write, makes people squirm. I know.Ignore God? Why would anyone want to do that?