The One Where I Choose A Word 2017 edition

Although I've continued to choose a word or a phrase to focus my thoughts on during the year, like making a resolution, I haven't updated the word or my thoughts in subsequent years.

2014 - Trust

2015-  Progress (not perfection)
2016 - Hope and Worth

On an odd day in December as I read The Greatest Gift and listened to Pandora a familiar favorite, what I consider to be a comfort song.  Hope Now by Addison Road played.

If everything comes down to love

Then just what am I afraid of

When I call out your name

Something inside awakes in my soul

How quickly I forget I'm Yours

I'm not my own

I've been carried by You
All my life 

Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow

When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free 

When my life is like a storm

Rising water all I want is the shore
You say I'll be okay

And make it through the rain
You are, my shelter from the storm

I'm not my own
I've been carried by You
All my life

Everything rides on hope now

Everything rides on faith somehow

When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free 

You've become my heart's desire
I will sing your praises higher 

Cause your love sets me free
Your love sets me free
Your love sets me free

I needed that comfort on that odd day.  It was the salve for wounds that still require healing, scabbed over places not exactly closed.   In that moment, there was hope.  Hope now.  And it's true, everything rides on it.

Day 19 of The Greatest Gift has some poignant words that got right to the point, to the heart of the matter of the things that matter.

"We lose every single person we love. There is never another way.  Think about that too long and you find it hard to breathe.... Fear is always this wild flee ahead.

Olives fail.  People fail.  Dreams fail.  You feel like you fail.  A thousand things mount.  Somedays it's hard not to panic.  You can feel it - we are driven by the fear of failure.  For all our frenzied running around, could it be that we are actually fleeing - trying to escape all the fears? All this pain? All this failure?  We all live in these lives of quiet terror.  Of soundless, hidden grief.  You could just bow your head in the quiet and weep for all that isn't.  For all that you aren't.

In the barrenness of winter, Habakkuk offers this gift to always carry close:  rejoicing in the Lord happens while we still struggle in the now.   Struggling and rejoicing are not two chronological steps, one following the other, but two concurrent movements, one fluid with the other." (Chapter 19, Page 188-189, Ann Voskamp)  

and hope now plays in the background, if I listen closely, it has always played in the background of my life.

There is hope, now.  Hope in the now, in the present, for the future, for this life.  

HOPE.   A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable.   Hope differs from a wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired or the possibility of possessing it.  Hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety.

Worth or Worthy

A few friends and I are reading Savor by Shauna Niequist.  It's a 365 devotional type book with recipes.  Recipes, Y'all!!  The type of recipes I refer to as "food of love".   Anyway, it begins with an entry January 1st; this paragraph jumped off the page at me.

"You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of the super and the natural."

Worth.  Know it.  Know your worth.  Your desirability, excellence, importance, the weight of your intrinsic value, worthiness.

WORTH.   Value, that quality of a thing (a person) which renders it useful or which will produce an equivalent good in some other thing (or person).    Excellence. Dignity.  Value.  

The One Where I {link up) for Five Minute Friday - Grateful

If you've heard me say it once  you've heard me say it forty times: #1000gifts.

Take the joy dare. 

Slow down to see the miracles. Because there's a little something special in every day.

I've written my three things sporadically over the past eight months, started on my birthday.  At first I wrote them faithfully, but then I didn't do it as often.  But I do it.  Every month is new I start up again.  :)

Here is a spattering of my #1000gifts

1. Life
2. Birthdays
3. Health
4. Pumpkin Lattes
5. Cake
6. Rain
7. End of Summer
8. Dishes
9. Laundry
10. Ezra 4

100. Fire
101. Burning Desire
102. Burned Dinner
103. Burning Bush
104. Sun
105. Muscles
106. Shared
107. Saved
108. Surrendered
109. Sweet Sweat
110. Leave It On The Pavement
I stopped counting in my journal and began on Instagram.  I really need to go back to the journal....

Three Things Hard:
Trust
Submission
Acceptance

Three Things Rising Up:
1. The sun with new mercy
2. The sun with new mercy
3. The sun with new mercy

Three gifts Stacked, Stashed, Stilled:
1. Dishes put away by the teenager
2. Chocolate
3. Quiet house in the morning... to go with my coffee

It's hard for me be to grateful, it really is.  Isn't that the jest of the garden.... of original sin..... ingratitude.  I'm ungrateful, for the smallest things... for the people around me who I love and adore (but they get on my nerves),  the fridge full of food (yet I can't find anything to eat), the music blasting on my stereo (and with Sirius XM, there's nothing good to listen to).

Todays Prompt Is: Three Gifts In The Dark

1. Sleep.  Must.Have.More! Yet grateful for good night's sleep!
2. RRC Track Workout.  I get up at 4AM to run in the dark on Tuesday.  I'm grateful for my running club that offers this kind of workout for my very low membership fee!
3. Stars.  You can't see stars unless it's dark.  There's beauty in that, both when you're looking and the stars and when it's dark in your life.  Look to the Morning Star! 

I've got to get better:  In counting my blessings. (and I don't mean stuff)In getting to 1000 gifts.  In slowing down to see the miracle.  So many things can go wrong in the course of a day, a week, a month... a life....  So many things that really in the scheme of things don't really matter.  What I was upset about last month, who can remember?  What about last year at this time?  Who knows? 

It's time to slow down to see the miracle, choose joy, pass joy onto others, teach our children to live with gratitude, not entitlement.  It starts with us.  It starts with me, the ungrateful.

The One Where I'm Wrecked #IFGathering Day One Session Two

I'm sure I missed a few things like the phenomenal poem The Esther Generation. It was so mind blowing that I didn't write any of it down.

The persons name who spoke first in the session two, it was probably Jennie Allen, but I didn't make mention in my notes.  It just says Session 2:

Hebrews 11:39 - 12:3
Proverbs 29:18
Jeremiah 9:23-24

Be honest in your faith to God because Jesus can handle that.   You are given permission to own where you are.

After the death of Lazarus, Mary comes to Jesus with doubts, with questions, crying.  Jesus doesn't have answers to her questions, He Weeps With Her!

Psalm 88:9-13
Psalm 13: 1-6
Ephesians 5: 1-2
Psalm 141: 1-2

Ann Voskamp:

Christianity: The Short Version

In Palestine it becomes fellowship
In Greece it becomes philosophy
In Italy it becomes an institution
In America is becomes and enterprise.

Like a business.
When Christianity comes to America is becomes a Business?

And we are The Body of Christ.

If a Body becomes a business doesn't it become about prostitution?  What IF: The Body has become about transactional prostitution than about authentic passion?

Prostitution is about pretend passion, it's only a transactional model to get what you want.  Prostitution is about a guarantee upfront.

Performing is a form of prostitution.

Are you happy to love Christ based on His Return? Is there No Patience to wait for heavenly rewards? Are you living like Jesus is Beautiful or Useful?

And we've been walking around with measuring sticks for too long!  We measure The Body among itself! We measure ourself against Christ! We measure each other!

Everything isn't a marker to make me feel behind or ahead!

We measure our lives like this:

If so n sos life is a mess (compared to mine): Then I'm confident of my worthiness
If so n sos life is monumental (compared to mine): Then I cut you down to size

The world isn't a forest of measuring sticks!  When you walk through life with a measuring stick, a comparison stick, your eyes get so small that you never see Jesus!

Ask any mom, measuring sticks always become weapons!  And against The Body, a weapon so self harm!  This measuring and competing and cutting it's suicide to The Body!

Comparison robs you of joy!  But more than that comparison makes you a thug that cuts your own body!

They don't make a scale that could ever measure value, worth, or the weight of a soul!  Jesus isn't about scales because none of us is a size!  Souls defy measure.  You can't measure souls.  You can only love souls.

Come suffer with the broken, with those who have been measured all their life and we'll break the measuring stick together.

Be so moved by His Grace that we move In Grace to the world!  Let His thick passion cover all our flaws, emotions, sins and brokenness

Remember the passion that stretched out on the cross and said STOP performing for love! STOP trying to earn love! STOP trying to measure up!

Leave this Transactional Business in Christianity behind!

We break all the measuring sticks because Christ broke the bread.  As the sisterhood that is broken and made whole, we make all those broken measuring sticks into a table.

The One Where I'm #wrecked after IF:Gathering {Session 1-A}

That was the theme for me this weekend.

Wrecked


Ever since I found Jen Hatmaker through my running buddy Sarah, and found Ann Voskamp though a Jen Hatmaker's comment "I wonder what Ann Voskamp would do?" I ended up spending a lot of time on their blogs, reading their books, reading books and blogs they suggest.  Friends I don't know where in the Inter-Web world I've been that I hadn't known about these ladies.

I've read She Reads Truth for a year,  I started last year with Fresh Start and I read all year!  I formed a bond with the ladies of SRT.  Well I formed it with them…. I'm pretty sure they think I'm a stalker! Pretty Sure of that! I email them, I tweet them, I follow them, I like them.  If they have a stack of books, I have a stack.   Anyway.

Those ladies led me to more resources, resources that tell me You Are Normal.  We All Struggle.  Some Days Parenting Just Sucks.The.Life.Out.Of.You.  Perfection Is Unattainable.  Fix Your Eyes On Jesus.  Find One Word Instead Of A New Year To Do List, It Is All Gonna Be Okay.  And not in an I'm Okay, You're Okay kind of way, but in a real and authentic way.

I say all of that to day, one day while reading a blog, we'll give Jen Hatmaker credit. I read about IF:Gathering.  I see a lot of ladies I admire will be there, ladies I don't know or heard of, and one I held in my arms when she was born.

I read the blog, I longed to be in Austin.  Oh don't I always.  But totally wanted to be there for this.  I only know one person who will be there and well she's speaking.  It's too far out to make plans, who knows what will come our way by then.  Hope it's really good!

I follow along more and Whaaaaaaatttttt….. A Live Stream!! A. LIVE.STREAM!  Put that on my calendar.  Talk to my girlfriends.  Get ladies together.  This will be fun!

As it got closer, I just felt this anticipation come over me.  Alysa Bajenaru said it best: "There has been something stirring in me for a few years… I'm tired of comfortable Christianity, frustrated with how my faith is portrayed in social media…. I crave authenticity, messy authenticity….. Real people having real conversations.  And I'm not the only one."

Indeed, she's not the only one.

A tweet from her later that day, Strip away that which usually defines me and get to the core of how I really am I have been feeling RESTLESS!!  I am ready to be brave, ready to be bold, ready to run the race Jesus has marked out for me.  Run the messy race of authentic faith.

DITTO!  Ditto to it all!

I'll just write my notes out.  Maybe later this week I'll be able to process more of it.

Day One:

Jennie Allen

I was built to run races for God, eyes fixed on Jesus, but I was missing it.

Hebrews 11:1  Faith is the Substance!
Jesus says two things:
Repent!
Believe!

Repent, confess, be honest, broken, throw off your sin, don't miss this moment!

We have prayed for a movement of God, that women who are afraid, scared, in bondage, would be set free! That you would run your race. Because this is our time, this is our leg of the race! By Faith!
RUN!

It's okay to be terrified, just obey!  Quit with the comparisons and just do what you are called to do!  Throw off all the junk and live like God is Real!

My biggest fear is that we would walk away and do a bunch of great stuff.  A great movement of God isn't doing a bunch of great stuff.  a great movement of God is 10,000 women all around the world on their knees depending and coming to God in brokenness.

By faith, we could be a generate that wasn't fancy, wasn't perfect, but we lived like our God was real!

Get back in the race! We are all human and we are all jacked up, just fix your eyes on Jesus!

Christine Caine:

The wilderness did not denote freedom, but deliverance.  It was for freedom that Christ set us free, but many of us settle for deliverance!

It was an eleven day journey to freedom that too FORTY YEARS because of fear, doubt, murmuring, grumbling and complaining!  It's time to lay aside the weight and the sins that ensnare us - the unforgivness and jealousy and bitterness and anger.  If we set these aside, some of the injustices of the world would be solved overnight!

Redefine your comfort zone, because wherever you go you are with the Great Comforter!  Just as he was in the wilderness! A pillar of fire at night, a cloud by day!

You came out of Egypt, but Egypt is still in you.  But God want to get Egypt out of your so we can walk into the Promised Land free!  Go from Deliverance To Freedom!! The wilderness is where you shake off Egypt!

A generation came out of bondage and slavery.  But they died in the desert! That generation is Gone!! You have to have our own "cutting away"

LET US lay aside the weight…
A weight could be anything, it could be good, but holding you back.
An anchor.
A thought.
Culture.
Tradition.

The Weight of:
Opinion
Entitlement


The day after they ate of the promised land, the manna stopped.  Because God is doing a new thing!  Don't become so used to the systems of God that you don't need Him!! The manna Ceases!! Don't get stuck in the past!

You allow the past to define you like the Gospel isn't True!! When you owe it to the next generation to get free!  We either believe in this Gospel or we don't!

The most potent force on the planet is not a missile or the atomic bomb! The most important force on the plant is the Blood of Christ.  It sets people free!

Many of us prefer the comfort of victimhood over what it takes to be free!! Time to move on girls, get a new problem!!

God starts with impossible!  A Virgin, A Stable, A Cross, A Risen Savior! It's all Crazy, so believe the impossible anyway!

If you want to see the promises of God worked out in your life, then you must believe the truth of God's word over your circumstances.  Yet most of us base our lives on the facts, and that's why we never go into the Promised Land, why we never walk in freedom.

Let's build our lives on the truth of God's Word, not the facts of our circumstances.

Sue Davis and Shauna NeiQuist:

Table People

Stop
Gather
This Time Matters

Toast - raise a glass says I see you.  You matter.
Prayer - every good thing we have is from God.

Where ever you are BE ALL THERE especially at the dinner table.  Acts 2:46 They worshipped together, they ate meals at home, with glad and sincere hearts.


Once a Month IF:Table
6 Women from all walks of life, some you know well, some you don't (you count as 1 so you can 5 other women)
4 Questions about God (see the website….information coming soon)
2 Hours  (Present not perfection)

Revival Starts At Home!

The One Where I Dare You

I follow Ann Voskamp's blog and have read her books.  The Greatest Gift was a life changer for me.  I like her blog, I read it daily.

On her blog I read about The Joy Dare and I encourage you to take the dare!  Take some pictures! Find your heart in the moments of thankfulness, even in the mundane, even in the chaos, even in the stress, even in joy, even in sadness.  Be. Thankful!

Take.  The.  Dare.

The One Where I Follow Along

 

 

So me and my fellow bloggers have spent the past 25 days being thankful. And it will continue for 5 more days. For me it's not the random, thankfulness. My family, my friends, my belongings. I don't know where I've been that I just heard of Ann Voskamp this year and her amazing book One Thousand Gifts, but it happened.

 

I thought, yea I'd like to read this book. It looked good. It's not fiction and well y'all know that I'm not like my other blogging girls, I don't read much. I'm not in a book club, oh my, the thought of a book club makes me stressed out. Reading with a time limit.... I seriously might be breaking out in hives right.now!

 

Anyway, I found her blog from another blog, and saw her book and then read some reviews. Because I'm not an avid reader. I'm excited to say I've read two books this year! So I read the reviews to, ya know, sway me from reading her book. But I saw her book at HPB one day and got all giddy I set out to read it. Eeeeek... 5 more days of November left and I'm not finish and she has another book out that I want to read in December!

 

Anyway, it's a great book about living in the moment. Right now. What can you find to be grateful for, where you are in the mundane. In Dinner and Dishes and Diapers. In the hard, In things seen out your window, In things Sweet, Salty and Sipped, In things Handmade, Held and Happy, In things Silent, In things Golden, In Things Ugly, In things Beautiful, In All Things....

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice Always Pray Without Ceasing Give Thanks In All Circumstances

One Thousand Gifts

It's not too late to begin.... I'm only to 200!

The First Thanksgiving

 

This is about Blogs I Follow, aside from fitness/running blogs. Since this month is about Thankfulness. I want to take this time to give thanks for these ladies who I don't know in person, feel like I've known my whole life. Laugh with, Cry with. If I'm honest, Laugh at, Envy just a tad, they write beautifully, witty, inspiring, they write the words that are in my head!

I have a board on Pinterst called Following....Blogs Worth Reading. I have these ladies:

Ann VosKamp
Jen Hatmaker
Amanda Williams

 

Jen Hatmaker I "met" through my Triple S Blogger Sarah. She posted a link on Facebook, I read it and fell in love with her! Her openness, her hilarity, her spiciness. I don't remember which blog exactly Sarah posted that I latched onto, but I liked her on Facebook and well, I've enjoyed the journey ever since.

 

This blog is where I found Ann VosKamp. And had to find out what she meant by "what would Ann VosKamp do"?

 

She and Ann are part of a thing coming up in February that I'm soooo excited for called:

 

The IF Gathering If God is real, then what?

If you're read here a while and if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that I'm on Instagram. Probably more than the other two mediums. That's how I found Amanda. I'm not sure exactly how I found She Reads Truth. I think I was looking for a devotional to read and looked up under the New tab on YouVersion and saw She Reads Truth. Maybe I saw something on Instagram. I dunno. It's been nearly a year. January 2013 I did my first SRT Study. Wow. Everyone is so... So Good. Speaks right to the heart of the matter. It's like sitting down with a girlfriend.

 

Anyway, on Instagram in September I started seeing all these #31days hashtags and talk of blogs and this exciting buzz about blogging about 1 topic for 31 days. I'm sure I've always known Amanda has a blog. I mean really in this day and age, doesn't everyone have a blog. I mean I have two! Really more than that but I'm trying to consolidate my blogs into one ....er.... two places. Not all my topics are running worthy and I have another blog for that.... those thoughts or craziness!

 

Amanda posted her blog and I fell into a must.have.more! Wish.she.was.my.neighbor! We.would.drink.lots.of.coffee! Kind of thing. Love her blog. She seriously hits it. And it's really just her life, but I feel like I'm living it with her. I'll be honest, I didn't at first think I'd have much in common with her (she has small people, twins infact. I have teenagers, well that's the main difference, we're in difference seasons), except SheReadsTruth (duh?! how did I just figure out she's a writer at SRT) and coffee. Oh but isn't that enough! Yes, yes it is!

 

 

Her topic was 31 Secrets Moms Keep, hmmmm, sounded good. Some of her posts were funny, Some where insightful, Most were down to the bones honest.

 

Posts like:

Prayer
Grace
Hugs
Tired
You Inspire Us
There's A Club
The Monster
Therapy
The Truth

There you have it.... my thankful Pin Up! I'm thankful for these ladies, who speak truth, help me laugh, feel normal that I'm oh so not normal and encourage me to keep on the journey. Life like running is a journey. There are easy days, hard days, days of sprints, long days, days you don't want to repeat, days you wish would go on forever! It's in the journey you figure out who are you, what you're pace is, where you need to be challenged, and what techniques don't work for you.

 

Enjoy The Journey. Count Your Blessings, They are gifts. It's No Secret, Motherhood is Hard. Find Your Spicy, Don't Look Back (or at the Sweet)