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Recent Posts . . .
Worship Might Be Dancing in the Streets, or Something Else Too
We do these things in the dark, sometimes. Before our heart awakens, drumming against our chest. Then we know we are setting out into a new space---wide open space with God.We are made to love certain things. You may have an affinity for sewing, or singing, running, or keeping a calm head under pressure. You may love time by yourself to think, or maybe you just can't get enough of a crowd around you, the voices of others infusing you with energy and inspiration. Or, again, maybe you love both, sometimes.Because of the particular things you love to do, and the particular way in which you love to do them, you see the world differently from those around you. You have had unique experiences, wounds, life lessons, and adventures that no one else has. And for this reason, the way you worship God with your life is going to look different from anyone else.What does worship look like for you? What visual do you have in your mind when you even hear the word?When I think of worship I think of David dancing, with exuberance and unselfconsciousness, before God.David was unashamed. He was unreserved. He was all in and responded to the love he felt for his Father. He couldn't imagine holding anything back. . . . Read More . . .
When I Didn't Know We Can Hear God Speak
She stands at the stage up in front, microphone in hand. She talks to a room full of women sitting around circular tables in the fellowship hall of our church. Paper plates sit piled with scones and sliced fruit. Styrofoam cups hold coffee. Strollers line the back of the room. Many women hold babies in their laps. My kids are in the church childcare, and I lean forward, curious to hear each word she says.She says she hears from God. She doesn't say I can do it too.After she talks for forty minutes about the challenge of raising kids and following God with our whole lives, she spends the next ten minutes doing something I have never seen before. She tells us that God, during her talk, has been whispering to her about certain people in the room. God has given her messages to tell these women. And she is going to tell us, right here, right now, with microphone in hand, specifically what He has said.I about fall out of my folding chair. Read More . . .
When We Pray, Bright and Beautiful One
There are jewels dangling above the grass. Golden, shimmering in light. I see them when I look up, my hands on the ground, nails filled with wet brown dirt.I am pulling weeds from tufts of grass. Dandelions are about to sprout, and I pull up the plants by their roots. My daughter knows to not blow any white dandelion puff, as wild and beautiful as it is, anywhere near our front or back yard. I'm kind of crazy about this.And now I'm bent down, hands in dirt, pulling up unwanted plants from our yard. Tiny clover and tall rye grass and those sneaky dandelion plants that make me mutinous and determined to pull out each and every one. Sunlight blankets my bare neck. And I look up and see green leaves hanging, sparkly magic dangling, love notes against blue sky. These leaves are wanted; I've decided they are beautiful, desired. While I pull up these other weeds, unwanted and clever, from my poor little grass patch of yard.Father, what do You deem beautiful, worthy, holy? How do we pray to You? How do we recognize the beauty You see? Read More . . .
Sisters In the Circle Where Jesus Is
There you are, on the other side of the world, a sister decades younger, and we are connected. I feel your strength, even here. And in this circle, I am strengthened too.We send each other stories, emails. We explain heartbreak, words typed on blank white and sent to each other's computers thousands of miles away. We can't do this alone--hold each other close, listen to one another's story and not feel overwhelmed--without Jesus.We can't love each other well unless we choose to see Jesus in the middle of everything we say. Read More . . .
How to Fight on Monday Morning
This Monday can feel heavy, a weight we carry. It is the expectation to not expect anything good. But we push through.We push through because we remember these days are not supposed to be easy.We push through because in the difficulty, the doubt, we choose to remember we are not alone.We choose to remember the God of Joshua, who went before and conquered armies and fulfilled every promise.We choose to remember the God of Eve and Adam in the garden, who walked with his daughter and son and delighted in being with them.We choose to remember the God of Moses and Elijah, who calls each of us by name. Read More . . .
She Wants to Pray for You
On that night when the rain poured down in my little California bungalow, and I was tucked inside, so happy to be home and warm and dry, I wrote a post over at Loop's page on Facebook, asking if Loop devotional readers would want to have a place to get to know one another, share their hearts with one another, and pray. And nearly two hundred women said yes.
Want Spiritual Freedom? Let's Do This
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?
What We Learn from Getting Mad at God
I sat on the patio steps outside my bedroom door, thinking up all the ways I wanted to ignore God.And I started to list them, one through ten.I told God, right there on those steps, each way I could ignore Him--not love Him--if I chose to.And I felt Him listening. And I kept crying, because the words I was forming to Him just felt so awful, so false.
Look up, my darling, look up.
When I hear Him, this space I’m in, at this plain wooden table, this window with the cobwebs at the corner of the metal screen, this soft rumble of washing machine, this smell of wet dog near my feet, I study the room, looking for clues for what is different.
All is different? No, all is the same.