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Showing posts with the label grace

Mom: I Always Knew I’d Miss You . . .

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Mom, I guess I did know when I stood on this same porch all those years ago, and I took commemorative photos in the yard July 25, 1990, I would never live at this address or in the same town as you for the rest of my life.  I guess I had somehow thought I’d counted the cost of spreading my wings and taking flight. Your 23 plus years preceding that moment — of loving me, teaching me, chiding me, disciplining me, laughing with me, and guiding me had attempted to prepare me for whatever I’d face once I stepped off that porch as a full time resident of your home. I guess I thought I was ready for the many years of phone calls, cards you learned to make yourself, occasional surprise care packages, short visits to wherever I’d moved to next, and the ever-heart-in-my-throat moments with my bladder fairly bursting as I always made those last 100 or so miles to your house at breakneck speed, because I couldn't bear to make another potty stop when I knew the Louisville

LIGHT: Day Two of hope*writers New Year Writing Challenge

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Light. I struggle with feeling anything but light. From as far back as I can remember, someone in my family has had a poor relationship with food. I grew up in a household of diets and closets full of all the seasonal clothes in addition to all the sizes for every season. My parents each had their own self-image battles that ran the opposite ends of the weight spectrum.  The number of times I saw anyone stop and admire the reflection in the mirror amounted to a handful in the 22 + years I primarily resided with my dear parents.  My self esteem and relationship with my own reflection was shaped by what was modeled for me. I saw the critical eye of my parents, internalized their statements to and about themselves, listened to their judgments, and I deduced a number of things that ultimately shaped my thinking about myself for the rest of my life: I said too much ( I was sassy from word one ) I ate too much ( I got to a point of hating the feeling of being full )

Thursday Thanks Tank

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( a time to intentionally redirect my gaze and give testimony to the ways God blesses me) Good Thursday morning, all! Some weeks feel like a blip between Sunday and Thursday. This is one of those weeks where I'm not quite sure where the time slipped away, but I definitely feel like the speed was accelerated. Let's dive right in to how God is filling my tank: Provision and sources of income that could only come from Him. Relying on the Lord strengthens my faith and gives me reasons to intentionally take my hands off my circumstances. Dog sitting for my daughter. The year-plus without Shelby has been heart-wrenching at times, and having Ava here fills a void for a small window. Painting and setting up an online store for my art. It's a learning curve, but the results will be exciting on so many levels. More to come on that front! Processing opportunities and decisions with my dearest bosom friend. There is nothing like hoping and dreaming with so

Sufficient

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SUFFICIENT ___________________________________________________ As with so many issues of the Christian life, I deal with the different way God and I tend to think. I find the verse above a comfort at first glance.  I like the part about "sufficient" but my finite mind and sometimes oftentimes stubborn heart wrestle with what God means by sufficient versus what I deem sufficient.  What if He doesn't think I need what I think I need? What if He thinks I can subsist and be content on a way different amount than I think I can? What if His determination of sufficient doesn't add up when it comes to the commitments I've already made? What if His numbers aren't the same as my numbers and those of the cumulative amount of my current bills? What then?  Again . . . what then? Does that mean He is not being sufficient? Does that mean He doesn't care about me?  Does that mean . . . He's forgotten me?  Let's read on

Thursday Thanks Tank

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( a time to intentionally redirect my gaze and give testimony to the ways God blesses me) I spoke briefly last Thursday about the sacrifice of praise.  "Through him then let us continually  of fer up a  sacrifice of   praise  to God, that is, the fruit  of  lips that acknowledge his name." Hebrews 13:15 ESV I am keenly aware of the way I currently look on paper. How the numbers DO NOT add up. How my month is exceeding my wealth financially. I have gotten more "no's" than the one "yes" I have longed to hear. Yet in all this, I know that I know God is still Who He says He is. God can STILL do what He says He can do. I am still who He says I am. His Word is STILL alive and active in me, my life, and in that of those lives around me who believe in Him, too.  So, though at moments throughout ALL of the last few days, weeks, and yes, months now since I have been employed in a full time fashion, I have felt slayed, abandoned, is

Grace upon Grace

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"For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." John 1:16 (ESV) From His fullness. God gives out of His abundance. We receive grace upon grace. Unmerited favor. I don't deserve it and neither do you. I can't do anything for it. I can't be enough, do enough, give enough, or offer Him anything, because He doesn't need anything. God is not losing anything to give to me out of His abundance. He has no lack. As He gives, there is no less of Him to offer. He is pleased to give to me, His beloved. My job? To receive. To accept the "grace upon grace" He so freely offers from the very fullness of what He always is. My Jesus is always the same. Scripture affirms this: "Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever." Hebrews 13:8 That sounds easy in theory. He offers freely. Freely I receive it. In other areas of my life a free thing is as uncomplicated as finding cash lying on the sidewalk. Would I ever just pass by