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Hello 2020…
I think we ought not wish away days, weeks, months, or years. They are too precious. Maybe, life has always been like this, but I just didn’t have eyes to see it. Maybe life has always been this difficult mix of beauty and loss, sorrow and hope, life and grief.
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Advent week 4: Peace
It’s okay, maybe even better than okay to let Christmas unfold as it is this year. If we let ourselves out of the trap of “spectacular” and just ease toward good enough, we might find that peace is waiting for us.
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Advent week 1: Hope
I’m not really a fan of hope. I like other things better. I can lean into faith, rejoice in love, and revel in peace, but hope is hard for me. Hope requires that I acknowledge that all is not as it should be, or could be. I don’t need hope when everything is right. We don’t hope for things that already are. Share this...FacebookPinterestTwitterLinkedin
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A longing heart…
Advent is a season of preparation for His coming. A time of embracing the darkness, in preparation for the light. This year, I am thinking about the darker places in my life. The places of not now, and not yet. The weary waiting places, where hope has gone flat.
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Receiving…
My strong friends, the ones who meet the needs around them are the first to offer what they have, and the last to ask for what they need. These women (and men) pour themselves out on behalf of others, and they sometimes forget that they need filling too.
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Puzzle pieces…
The grief of that reality has filled in a bit in the past few years. All my good intentions, my vows, and even my sacrifices could not protect them from life, or from me. My hopes slid down my face, as they began their own journeys into the unknown. They were raised with love and brokenness. I think that’s really all we have to give.
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Trusting their fear…
This principle can be a life saver during the “in-between” years of young adulthood. When our children head out in to the wider world, it’s easy for us to see all the dangers and pitfalls around them. We caution, we lecture, we scold, and we wear ourselves out. Often to no avail. It seems that they no longer listen to what we have to say.
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Midlife threshold: Recommit
In that dark time, I realized that my faith had been built on a wide and deep foundation of need. My need. I had come into this relationship empty and broken by grief and loss. The need had seemed unending. And yet, here I was over twenty years later realizing that my need was no longer enough.
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What can be shaken...
This season of turbulence has shaken everything, but what is left is very strong. It feels like a strong wind moved through my life and took everything that was not entirely secure. What is left, feels tested and true.
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Church lady 2.0…
In order to stay, I know I will have to manage my heart and my expectations. I will need to let the church off the hook. She can never fulfill my need, nor live up to my hope. She will continue to stumble and fall, just as I stumble and fall.