A Worshipful Life

“Look at this!”

“Uh huh, cool.”

“Mom. Mooooom! You didn’t see!”

I look up, because he’s right, I didn’t see. I was just saying something to appease him for a moment while I finished reading an article. My thumb has frozen over the screen, and I put it to the side so I can really see him, not see him secondhand over the illumination of my phone. He does it again: he shows me how he can balance on one foot. It really isn’t amazing, but to him, it absolutely is. And I tell him so.

He’s my son. He wants my approval because he is my son. He wants my praise and attention, and he has been fighting for it his whole life because wherever I am, there my phone is also.

In my pocket lie hundreds of thousands of people and their soapboxes. It’s my contact with the outside world when I feel overwhelmed with pregnancy and motherhood as I send a text out to asking for prayer. It’s my note keeper and calendar, my venture in being a writer. It is my escape, like a numbing lidocaine after a hard day. I seek not to feel, so I scroll and get blasted with the emotions of everyone else. It isn’t an escape at all. It’s only a false sense of relief that my life isn’t as hard as everyone else’s.

Working, mothering, housekeeping, growing a human is all hard enough on it’s own. I am tired. And you know what I can’t bring myself to do on a daily basis? Get on my knees. Put the Word on my lips. Praise the God I love.

You know what I can do, what I do instead? Scroll. Read my newsfeed. Worship the god of information and push away the God of redemption. The reflection in the mirror starts turning somber, disappointed again and again by a world that will never be perfected, and discouraged by our inability to shut up. We become the teachers Paul writes about, spreading some form of our own Gospel and Truth that Jesus doesn’t want the world to hear.

And we yell. We fight. We argue. We see disaster, cringe, then rally, but it’s never enough. We keep reading. We keep being outraged. We keep feeling like the world is an absolute failure, and we’ll never be able to fix it.

We aren’t the hands and feet of Jesus. We’re all just a bunch of mouths, spewing our interpretations of Christ.

Maybe the world would be better if we weren’t so interested in being heard. Maybe the Gospel would really do the work if we stopped trying to argue about it and change it. Maybe if we disconnected from the thousands and thousands in our pocket and started listening to the ones right next to us, we might not be a bunch of mouths. We might start doing the work.

I was driving home the other night while the sun was setting. The word “worship” came to mind, and I started to toss it around in my head. What kind of woman would I be if my knees were perpetually to the earth, doing every action with my hands, feet, and the words of my mouth in constant worship? What would that look like?

I didn’t expect it to rattle me. Thinking about this stuff doesn’t normally bring me to tears, but I felt them hot behind my eyes. It was like God swept up this thought in my head and this simple little word and said, “Sweet girl, you were made for that. This world is awful, terrible, difficult, and grim. You will see strife. Worship still. Get your knees to that earth. Every detail of your life, make it into praise. Imagine the outcome.”

What kind of people would we be?

As I’m typing this, my two youngest are performing a song right in front of me. Loudly and terribly. They want me to stop writing because they want my attention. My praise. They want me to hear them and smile. So I will. I will stop worshiping a god who never loved me back, who produces a somber woman, and who can never free me.

Here’s to being the hands and feet, no longer just mouthpieces. Here’s to being loud when it’s necessary but primarily silent so we can listen. Here’s to disconnecting from what doesn’t serve God and giving the people in front of us the attention they deserve.

Here’s to making every detail a form of praise.

The Legacy We Leave

I remember only a few parts of my first day of kindergarten. I remember walking to the bus stop with my brothers. We sat down, my brothers sitting close to their friends, and me sitting quietly next to someone I didn’t know. And that’s it. That was 20 years ago.

Tomorrow I get to walk my firstborn down to the bus stop for his first day of kindergarten.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “It goes so fast,” or have been told to enjoy the moments we have with them. I tend to ignore it after a while. But the past week? They weren’t joking, you guys. This all would probably be a bit easier if I weren’t 28 weeks pregnant and crazy hormonal. But this is hard. This feels like the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long time.

As I’m sweeping my son in my arms for the next 18 hours before he leaves for school, I’m also acutely aware of all the stuff happening around us. All the world and its chaos. All the posts we’ve been sharing the past few days of, “This is not what Jesus is about.” I agree. The Church is not racism, white supremacy, bigotry, or any of it. We are not that. And while the posts are great, I’m hoping we’re less talk. Far less talk. So much so that we shut up and go out and do the hard work ourselves.

I’m sending my son out into the world tomorrow, and he won’t have me to hold his hand. He always holds my hand when we walk together. My other boys aren’t like that. They’ll run ahead. But Liam always finds his way back to me. He always grabs my hand and holds on tight, waiting for me to lead him.

Tomorrow he will go without me, without my hand, and slowly edge into becoming a person who isn’t so attached to me. I’ll let him go, and I’ll return to my home and remember where the rest of our nation and world is at today. How broken and frustrated people are. And how the next generation is at my feet.

The change isn’t in this post or whatever I share on Facebook or Twitter. The change isn’t in following other Christians who say it better than me. The change is in the way my feet are walking. The things I teach my kids. The way I tell them to treat people who look and act in a way that they don’t know.

You want the world to change? Be it.

I’ve always written about the woman and mom I want to be. I want to leave a legacy for my sons that reminds them how imperfect we all are and how perfect and good God is. And yet, we do our best to love people–all people–because that’s what was done for us.

Now is the time to be her: the woman who isn’t afraid. Who feels like she’s losing her baby, but trusting that God has got him in His hands. She walks in grace and love and knows she is called to act higher. She isn’t intimidated by race. She isn’t afraid to be told she’s grown up privileged. She is teachable, moldable, and incredibly imperfect.

I am her. I am struggling to be her. But I will fight nonetheless to be better, for the sake of the disciples at my feet. And where I fail, I point to Jesus. Where I mess up, I will admit it. And where I am weak, I remind them that it is Jesus who makes me strong.

I am reminded of 1 John 4:18. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

No fear in love. Given perfect love by a perfect God. He drives out our fears. He makes us whole.

It is the legacy we must leave. You want change? Be it.

Prune, Restore & Improve

Frequently, when I seem to be in a rut, I ask others for prayer. In anxiety, stress, frustration, fear, I often seek others for their prayers before I ever force my knees to the earth.

A couple of weeks ago I was challenged to change my ways. Rather than seeking out the faith of others, I would put my own faith into play.

At the beginning of this year, my husband and I both agreed that this year felt catalytic, as if something were coming on the horizon we probably wouldn’t be prepared for. Maybe it was the news of a little girl coming into our lives come November. Maybe it’s the growth we’ve seen in work. But none of those things (although wonderful and good) seemed to be the “thing” we were awaiting.

I get this way about life. I set my mind to the idea that circumstances, situations, our current dealing of life will come to a head, and then things will change. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it takes us stepping up to the plate.

I felt a serious pressing. The Holy Spirit was not going to allow us to walk through our life and this year as though it was just a passing. Just something to endure. God wanted change from me. And I was ever so hesitant.

So He pressed.

The “thing” I’ve been waiting for in this year? It isn’t there. The catalyst in this year is within ourselves, changing the way we think about our life, our purpose, our work, and our goals. Rather than inflate ourselves, God is asking of us, “Is all this for Me? Is the Kingdom getting major glory, or are you just satisfied with everything you have?”

When frustrations hit, I’m not going out of my way seeking the prayer of others. Not that I don’t want or need it, but God wants to hear from me. And I’m getting on my knees a lot more frequently, praying, “Improve me. Show me how to be better. Fix the sin in me. Show me how to walk out my set apart life and give you all the glory for it.”

He’s pressing us in these last five months of 2017. He’s challenging the way we talk. The priorities we seek. The conversations we have, and even the way we serve, love, and treat others. He’s pressing in, pruning off the parts to get us out of the rut of satisfaction in the world rather than in Him.

I often return to the day three years ago when I knelt in front of my bathtub with tears streaming down my face. Evan was beginning freelance, and I was pregnant with a baby I was not prepared for. It was God and I, not anyone else actively praying on my behalf in that bathroom. It felt like hell and heaven colliding, and I didn’t have any solid ground to stand on except for His commands. I prayed until my tears stopped. I remember the words coming out of my mouth sounding like pleas and fears mixed together. I knew I needed nothing more than His reassurance that our lives were never outside of His palm.

In the relatively short life I’ve lived so far, God has been kind to me. He has always heard me. He has always given what I needed and never what I didn’t. He has withheld, and He has sustained. If I’ve learned anything, it is that He must become more.

Sometimes I wake up, and the devil is waiting outside my bedroom door. He tells me my house is too small, our paychecks too little, and our life sub-par. Even worse, sometimes he tells me that there’s no need to grow, there’s no need for change, and there’s no reason to be teachable.

But the Lord. He presses.

So I wake, and I walk out the door demanding the devil to leave with Jesus’ name on my lips. I ask for improvement in the little things and small steps in the big things. I ask for less of me, more of Him. I ask for the Word to stop being a book and instead become fresh water. Over and over, I pray until He invades the parts of me I hide and the places I fear the world to see.

The thing of 2017? It is the Lord changing us and us being a people who responds.

Prune us, Jesus. Restore us, Jesus. Improve us, Jesus. All for Your glory.

Grow, Build, & Work

From him (Christ) the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:16, emphasis added

Last week, I tested my parenting and bravery by waving goodbye to my husband as he ventured off with a bunch of middle school kids to Ohio. He was gone for a week. And truthfully, the time with my boys was sweeter than I expected. Trying at times, but it gave me a surprising reassurance that I’m actually meant to be their mom. (Some days, I can hardly believe it.)

It was a trip I wanted to go on, but I knew that it wasn’t meant to be. God was sweet with me; instead of jealousy sweeping in and reminding me what I was missing, gentle peace washed over with reminders like, “Your work isn’t this, at least not right now.”

For a few weeks, I’ve battled this. My work feels like a thousand different things, and yet, none of it feels like the real work. I let fear well up in my heart because I think, What if all of this “work” is for naught?

I swore to myself as a new mom that I wouldn’t be an absent mom. I was only 21, and my idea of motherhood was shortsighted. I was truly only thinking of my boy, not myself, or God’s work. I believed God’s work was only what I could see in front of me. Hardly what I could see within me.

But that was then. Now, the “work for the Lord”? Whatever it is, I’m in. I want to be in. I want to be fully sold-out to the work of the Kingdom, not fully closed off because I fear for what I’ll lose in my absence.

We are joined and held together by supporting one another. Paul lays it out pretty clear in Ephesians 4. I wasn’t even reading in Ephesians when I came across this. It was in the middle of my impatience and frustration while my husband was serving in another state, and I knew I was starving for fresh water. So I opened the Bible to Ephesians 4, and I read with no agenda.

I’ve been in lots of places of “the work”. I’ve been in the forefront, on the ground, and right in the action. I’ve been on the seeming outskirts, feeling useless and unseen. I’ve done things that demand more faith than I feel I have, and I’ve taken on tasks that feel like badges when they’re completed. I’ve envisioned myself as the ultimate servant and squirmed when my idleness plagues me.

Most of all, I have almost always thought that my role, in order to be worthy, needed to be big, grand, and robust in order for God to recognize me.

It’s much more complicated than that. Beautifully so.

Last week, my role was to send someone I love to do the work and pray persistently on their behalf. It was to joyfully and patiently support. The thought of it made me squirm for weeks prior. But God changed things, and I was most surprised when He changed me.

Some days, my role is to pray steadfast for my sisters. Just this week at church, I saw multiple women I hold dear, and I got to pray for them throughout the week. Just because. Not because God gave me a list, not even so I could tell them. Simply because my role is to be their sister, to love them well, and to uphold them to God.

Other days, my role is to simply be a mom. To be presently pregnant and prepare every meal and watch them do silly stuff outside. It’s a big task, and I don’t always do it joyfully. But if it’s one role that I get to fill, even if for a moment, I can’t neglect the importance of it.

Some days, my role is to write. For marketing purposes, sometimes here, other times just to get the words out of my head. I get to be a writer. And I love that God saw that dream in me when I was young and brought it to fruition.

My roles, my work, my present place is ever-changing and continually important. And if I neglect any of it without His direction? I could be hindering the growth of the body of Christ. Whoa. No pressure, huh? We are woefully imperfect, and He knows that. He’s expecting us to depend on Him, not the other way around.

We must do our work today. Whatever it is. Even if it’s being completely unnoticed. Even if you’d prefer not to. Even if it hurts, your sin is in the way, or you think you simply can’t. Even if the work doesn’t feel like work at all, and we feel like we’ve been benched for far too long. We do it anyways. We remain present anyways, nestled in His Spirit, awaiting His perfect time. Not for our name. Not for our legacy. We do what we do so the Kingdom grows larger, and the people who greet us in heaven is only a vaster crowd.

Know that. Know that your work is important and valuable. Imagine a Church where ever ligament (each of us) does its part. There isn’t much that can stop the Lord, amen?

Good & Faithful: The Mission of Motherhood

I’ve been looking in the rearview mirror of my minivan, right into my sons eyes. I love him so much it hurts, know what I mean? So much so that we fight daily.

The rearview mirror in my minivan gives me the perfect view of my oldest son. He didn’t used to sit back there. He used to sit right behind my seat in a carseat that his baby sister will sit in come November.

But he sits back there now, often preoccupied with something else, most times making some noise that seems like it shouldn’t be able to come from a five-year-old’s mouth. He drives me crazy and drives me to yelling some days. We fight and argue because I’m stubborn and because he wants to be his own person. Parenting is legitimately not for the faint-of-heart.

The rearview mirror is so irritatingly metaphorical. I look in that little piece of glass and see a son who made me a mom and who I might cry over later. I cried over him when he squirmed in my arms. I cried over him when he threw a fit on my kitchen floor. I cried over him when he hugged me tight after we both said we were sorry a few days ago. My love changes, and parenting morphs into a bigger, beautiful growth in my heart.

It gets easier, and it doesn’t get easier. It gets more complicated and important and less hands-on and more of letting go. It’s so frustrating and wonderful.

I’m not the same person I used to be. I’m never going to be the person I used to be. That’s what my son has done for me. It’s terrifying, isn’t it? The thought of one simple person who you love more than all things in life changing you–forever.

All of my sons have done this to me. They’ve made me weep and laugh and cheer, and I don’t tire of loving them. I tire of being their mom, though. I tire of being the one they need at all times. The promise of them one day needing me for nothing makes it easier and simultaneously harder. Yet I wake, everyday, and I see his face in the rearview mirror and remember how not long ago, he sat behind me, smaller than the seat he inhabited.

I started this work seven years ago. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me, “At least you’ll be young and full of energy when they’re grown!” I would definitely be rich. I’ve grown up with these boys, and it’s true, I’ll still be young when they’re adults. One day I’ll look in the rearview mirror, and they’ll be gone.

For now, I’ll stare at him a little longer in the rearview mirror. I’ll remember the way his face looks when we fought, when we hugged, when I told him I was proud.

And when we look back, may we say it was complicated and wonderful. Difficult and beautiful. May we look in their eyes and remember just how much they changed us and made us better. May He call us Good and faithful servants until the end.

The Fight to Believe the God Who Loves

They say your bedroom should be a place set aside, a place uncluttered, so that when we lay down to sleep, we aren’t distracted by work, to-do lists, people. We can rest.

My life is not a perfect world, so more often than not, the sanctuary of rest that is called my bedroom is not always that place. There’s a desk in there, because there’s no where else to put it. There’s piles of laundry some days. There’s my phone, right next to my pillow every night, charging.

Maybe this is true of you, too, but I know what to expect when I close my eyes every night or when I slowly (or abruptly, depending on if my boys are awake before me) wake up in the morning: A lot of battles happen in the night, lying in my bed, waiting for me when I’m looking for rest.

Just this morning, the thought arrived, “Do you even have close friends?”

I don’t think about those thoughts throughout the day. They aren’t my biggest concerns. They’re my hidden fears that keep me awake some nights or awaken me early in the morning. It doesn’t mean they’re true; it means the devil knows my weakness.

The battle will probably never cease. I will fight every night to remember the God who loves, because I am prone to disbelief in the vulnerability of the night.

Do you feel that way, too?

In the past few days, God has been pulling back layers to show me where I have fallen short pretty consistently over the past few years. You know how that feels? Almost like pulling off bandaids. Revealing weaknesses feels like revealing wounds; I’m often falling short in areas where I’ve hurt in the past.

And I lay in bed at night, and the devil says to me, “Look, you really aren’t that great,” and I am prone to believe him.

But it isn’t true! I don’t have to believe him! I don’t have to believe a fallen angel who thought he could win over an omniscient God. I get to believe in my Creator. I get to close my eyes as my head hits the pillows and say things like,

“Daddy, today was hard. Thanks for giving me this day to fight anyways.”
“Daddy, I don’t think I can. But You think otherwise, don’t You?”
“Daddy, do you think I am good enough? Make that truth an active truth within me.”

It’s a hard fight. One that I need scripture for. One that I need prayer for. One that I need to cover in a lot of grace, because you know what? I cannot win. The good news? HE ALREADY HAS.

He already has. Amen? He already has. I need to repeat it every hour. I cannot forget. He has already won. I am on the winning side. The keys to salvation are in His hands, not mine.

So we wake. We sleep. We lay our heads down on our pillows surrounded by a distracted world, but we have a whole lot of “get to’s”. Getting to believe otherwise, when the devil wants us to believe a lie. Getting to say things to a God who loves us regardless of how we feel. Getting to rise with the sun, prepared to stand on the side that has already won.

The devil knows where we are weak. And yet. And yet! Christ’s power is made perfect in our weaknesses.

There’s the good news: He’s already won.

Like Vines: IT’S A GIRL

“It’s a girl.”

I was laying there while the technician rolled over my belly with the ultrasound probe, my hands on my forehead, my mouth hanging open. She typed it onto the screen while she highlighted exactly how she knew. I waited for the tears to come, because hadn’t I told a myriad of people I would surely cry if I found out it was a girl? But they only filled my eyes a little bit. All I could do was laugh.

I’m a mom of boys. I’ve always been a mom of boys. I don’t know anything but the incredibly weird, gross, and hilarious life of mothering little men.

When I first realized that this was really my life (believe me, it was obvious, but the weight of it didn’t hit me until my second son was well into his little life), I took it really seriously. I prayed over my boys often. I wrote them letters. I fought in my own soul the battle of being a woman who was courageous enough to raise men of greater caliber than ever seen before.

So a few days ago, walking into an ultrasound with three boys in tow, I expected nothing but more of the wonderful same. I expected an addition to my parade of little men, following in my wake, learning from my own messy mistakes and triumphs.

But, there’s a baby girl growing in there. A sweet, triumphant, dignified little girl.

Before I knew it, I was changed. The second I knew of her, saw her profile on that ultrasound screen, the dynamic shift of mothering happened. The Gospel has never been more real to me than it has in parenthood. It truly takes all of me–even, no especially, the worst in me–to disciple these people.

A few weeks ago, an older woman came up to our family while we were eating breakfast on vacation. She told us, “Your family is beautiful, and your boys are so well-behaved.” I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the kindness of strangers. But you know what I’m beginning to appreciate more and more? The boldness of women like her, willing to tell another woman she is doing well.

It happens to me all the time. I’m walking through a store, and I see a mom just like me, and I just want to hug her and tell her just how good she is doing. It doesn’t matter if she knows God at the moment; all that matters is that I know her. I know what it’s like to be her. To have little people running beside, behind, and all around us.

There have been hundreds of times when the question, “How do you do it?” is asked of me. And I don’t know, but the most honest answer I can find is, “I just do. I believe what God says about me. I believe that I’m never alone in it, even when I feel like the worst mom in the universe. I just do, because these sweet ones were entrusted to me for such a time as this.”

By the way? This little girl, although bringing me more joy and laughter every day, brings me that feeling reminiscent of being a mom for the first time. Believe me, I’m buying every bow I can get my hands on. But I’m just like you, just as unsure of how exactly I will, but trusting that I can.

Before I know it, she’ll be here. She’ll be shaking my world, moving mountains in my own soul (after rearranging my organs). And I’ll be walking on this path of new motherhood that I wasn’t expecting.

This path is hard. Holy. A pruning. It’s the Gospel, alive and active in my own world, right before my eyes, growing like vines all over the place.