It can be awkward, fighting fear.The times when your mind is too full and your heart is too aching and--when it is time to speak--tears come instead.The noise is loud now, yes? The invitations to do and go and respond feel all too much?I know.I feel it too.

It was days after the launch of Breathing Eden, when my soul was weary, that I began listening to God's whispers.The house dark, a blanket pulled across my shoulders, I sat on the floor, reading Scripture, asking Him what it is He thinks about Advent, this season of both awaiting the birth of Christ and celebrating Christ who has already come.I wondered what God might say if we asked Him how we should celebrate, how we should prepare our hearts, how we can be present with Jesus in this busy season? So I asked Him, and I waited for answers. And like I did with Loop, I wrote it down.Loop AdventAnd these four letters are Loop Advent, four beautiful devotionals, one to read during each of the four weeks of Advent. And there are four unique 8 x 10 art prints inspired by His words--to print out on watercolor paper or card stock, too.I love what the words in Loop Advent say . . . Read More . . .

We grasp hands and lean back, digging our toes as deep as we can into wet sand.We are sure to topple over, I think. And I dig my toes in deeper, lock my knees, stabilize my legs. My daughter clings to me with the silliness and joy that gives her her nickname, "Golden Light." And the waves crash against our legs and the sea water splashes into our open, smiling mouths. We stand side by side, heads back, delighted by our ability to not fall despite the surf's resolute heaving of itself onto shore.This is the best. I don't want to miss it.So I don't take many photos, just a few. And then I put the camera and the phone away, tucking them into my running shoes near the sand castle we built higher up the beach.To look and to see, to listen and to hear, I have to fight against every distraction, every obstacle threatening my awareness of love, joy, beauty. I struggle with the tension of wanting to remember moments like this--the moments I am aware of as holy, filled with love and God's presence and glory. And it is my heart that needs to remember, needs to see, hear, be.A phone, an Instagram feed, a Facebook post, a journal description--none of this can adequately capture what it is God is doing in us, this moment. This moment.Wake up. Read More . . .

It is empty space I need more than anything. Not another latte. Not a list of things to do. Jesus, will you come into this space? Will You convince my heart it is big enough for You?You see, I trick myself into thinking it is good for my heart to crowd out the Savior who restores me. This happens because it is so easy to say yes to the next thing to do. But I can only give from what He gives me. Anything else--it is not love; it is not good.What you see when you are not just doingI can live in my head a lot.I fill my mind with information, thinking that more knowledge is what will make me more something somehow, or more responsible, or more productive. But what does it mean to be more? What good is more if this more is not from God? What value is anything if what is achieved is done with us not holding fast to our Savior's hand?Jesus, hold fast to this hand.The best ideas come from a soul restored--don't you agree? My true heart, the one that knows how to love, exists in the broad space, the wide-open space of my heart where the Holy Spirit resides within me.Do you agree? For I think you know this too. Will you join me in letting go of the things--unique to each of us--that are in the way of us being fully present with God?What are those things, Jesus? Read More . . .

We are upstairs in my father-in-law’s house, in the bedroom quarters our family shares during our little house’s remodel.We have the laptop set up on a cardboard box on top of the bedside table so we can easily see the screen. We sit side by side on chairs borrowed from the kitchen table, watching this couple’s faces over Skype. They are kind, wise, gentle. But strong. They nudge us forward intentionally, inviting us to listen carefully for Jesus’ words to our hearts.When Justin and I gather with our mentors over Skype, they invite the four of us to listen together, asking what Jesus wants to say. For me, I hear silence. Nothing. Not a mental picture. Not a thought–no sentence or idea. But I am not distressed about this. I am not anxious.But I must be depleted of energy, or distracted. And I tell them this. For I hesitate to ask Holy Spirit to use my imagination, like I usually do. I struggle for energy, desire, to say yes to Jesus’ invitation to be in the presence of the Father. I am not sure I want to listen to any invitation Jesus might have to make.But I sit. Seemingly empty. In quiet.But it is not dark here.And I am not alone.I wait. I let the openness of my heart be enough. It is all I have, right now, to give.But I have a feeling my soul knows what it is Jesus is saying. So I wait. And I become aware of the barrenness surrounding me. For I am seeing now–I see myself in a gray, depleted, washed out place of no water, no green, no life.I look up.“I am in a desert place,” I say aloud. Read More . . .

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 . . .

It was my friend Judy, over coffee at Cafe Barrone, who offered the first encouragement.We sat outside, drinking lattes from porcelain mugs. We were talking about writing and story. About the hard stuff of parenting and marriage. Of being known and messing up. Of connection and isolation. Of future dreams and gratitude for the now.I was in the middle of writing a series on my blog called Voice: A Journey Toward Life in 31 Conversations. And Judy said it could be more than just a series on a blog.Here is how I described Voice to my readers on my old blog page two years ago:"I wonder if you’re a lot like me. I wonder if you’re busy, with a calendar that is filled. I wonder if you want to live a life more fully surrendered to God but are intimidated by what a life of prayer is supposed to look like—particularly, what it may look like to have regular conversations with God.Come participate in a back and forth conversation—a woman’s prayers and heart cries to God, and His responses back, as she listens and writes them down.In the midst of a culture of busyness and to-do lists and trying to prove oneself and get ahead, can a busy woman's regular conversations with God—her prayers and her listening to Him—be the key to claiming the life God has always intended for her to live?"A journey toward life. I still like how that sounds. And when my husband, Justin, a few months later, who had heard me talk about this blog series but never knew the title of it, comes into the bedroom where I sit, laptop in my lap, and tells me he was praying and says, "I feel like God impressed upon my heart something about you writing and some project called 'Voice.' What is that?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.It felt too good to be true. Too beautiful. . . Read More and enter the giveaway! . . .

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 . . .

I have a confession to make.The moment I judged the woman who walked into the house, the woman whom I had not yet met but had judged in my heart before I even said a word, was just one of the moments I forgot the truth of who I am. Have you ever done this? Judged a person due to your own insecurity, your own lack of confidence?Yeah, me too. . . Read More . . .