My First Mother’s Day

I hope all you moms had a great Mother’s Day. It was my first, and it was great. We couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. We had a great time cooking out, playing croquet, and visiting.

Maggie, Myla’s cousin, waking up from her nap in the sun.

Myla wasn’t quite ready to be awake yet.

Maggie wasn’t sure why Myla wouldn’t crawl around with her, so she took the party to her instead.

Your feet look like mine!

Maggie working on more teeth.

My precious Myla.

I am very blessed to have a great mom and a great mother-in-law in addition to all the women in my life who have had such a positive, godly influence. Thanks and love to all of you!

 

Heroes and Sidekicks

“I’ll be the puny little kid and you can be the pumped-up crime fighter.”

“You can be Batman. I’ll be Robin! He is my favorite.” Said no one. Ever.

As kids, we want to be the ones out front leading the way in every adventure we take. We want to be Batman, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Joan of Arc (just me??), Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone”, the quarterback–pretty much ANYONE who is in the lead.  

Everyone knows it’s not cool to be a sidekick because:
1. They usually die at some point.
2. They don’t get the cool weapons.
3. They never get the credit for whatever awesome thing the hero did, even though they worked JUST as hard.

But somewhere in our transition to adulthood, we become okay with being the sidekick. We buy a house, a minivan, sit at a desk all day, and spend little to no time in a ditch at the park pretending to hold the front in a post-apocalypse war against zombies.

It’s necessary. We have to grow up, but unfortunately, we seem to be okay taking the sidekick route when it comes to our relationship with God, too.

It’s becoming evident to me in my own life that I don’t often want to take the lead in my relationship with God. I look to people–those “heroes” of the faith–to lead me. I expect them to go out and find those awesome depths of God so that I can follow them. I’ve become the sidekick in this adventure that God meant for me to take the lead on. I haven’t met many adults who see their relationship with God as an adventure at all. It seems like we’ve benched ourselves in our own story.

We go to church and listen to a sermon that someone else wrote during their time spent with God.  We sing worship songs that God put on someone else’s heart. 
Church is good! God made us to be a part of a community of believers. But if that’s the only way we get to know God, eventually we will find that we don’t really know Him at all.

Best case scenario, we will just go through the motions. Church will become a tradition-ridden obligation instead of a community of thriving believers encouraging one another and serving God from the overflow.
Worst case scenario, one of our heroes will fail because they are human, causing us to question God and His character. We will lose faith in God and look for a differnt leader because we haven’t been following God at all. We’ve been following a person, just like us in every way.

I really don’t believe that God created “heroes in the faith” and “regular people.” We may not all be called to lead congregations or preach or write books or be international missionaries or record worship music, but we are ALL called to seek Him and get to know Him for ourselves.

In Acts 17:11, the people who lived in Berea get a little shout out. It says that they were open-minded and loved to listen to Paul and Silas preach, but afterward they always went and read the scriptures themselves to make sure that what Paul and Silas said was in line with what God said. They weren’t following Paul–they were following God. They wanted to know what God said for themselves instead of just taking Paul’s word for it.

I love wisdom, and I love getting wisdom from other people. What it comes down to is that you and I are responsible for our relationship with God. If I don’t feel like I know Him very well, it’s not my pastor’s fault. It’s my fault. If I’m believing lies and getting worn out by the time Saturday comes around, the problem is not that I haven’t been to church in 6 days. The problem is that I don’t spend one-on-one time getting to know God for myself.

I hope I’m communicating this right. Church is GREAT. Pastors, worship leaders, mentors, books, songs–all GREAT! But none of them can replace what we will discover when we seek God ourselves. If we’re not getting to know God on our own, we become life-suckers at church–just there for the spiritual hand-out before we head into our work week.

I’ll confess to you that my biggest fear in seeking God is that He won’t answer me–when I invest time in getting to know Him, that I will somehow be let down. The truth is this: God isn’t hiding Himself from us ordinary, everyday people. I honestly can’t recall a time I’ve been disappointed when seeking Him out–so what’s my problem?

He promises, “In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I WILL be found by you.” (Jeremiah 29:12-14a, emphasis mine)

He says I don’t HAVE because I don’t ASK. I’m not FINDING because I’m not SEEKING. (Matthew 7:7-8) It’s so simple! If I ask Him to show Himself to me, He will. If I seek Him out, I will find Him.

God doesn’t want the extent of my relationship with Him to rely on someone else’s relationship with Him. He is all mine. He is waiting for me to come looking.

I have so much to learn. I just wanted to share with you in case you know what I’m talking about.

Here is my goal: to know that when I meet God face-to-face the first time, I will recognize Him because I’ve spent my whole life getting to know Him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGumE9nkP3o&ob=av2e

Have fun on your adventure with God. He hasn’t even begun to blow your mind.

Love. It’s like this….

I adore my little girl. She is precious and beautiful and smart–and even if she wasn’t I’m sure I’d still think she was. She is so tiny and helpless. Taking care of her is my joy. I don’t hate spit up or crying spells or getting up at 3am or dirty diapers or hauling around extra outfits and wipes or leaving a place early because she is sleepy and needs a bath.
I don’t hate any of it.

Everything about her is captivating. Her bright blue eyes. Her tiny fingers. Her sweet smile and dimpled knees. The way she laughs. Even the way she fusses. 

When she is sick, I want to be the one to give her medicine and cuddle her until she falls asleep. When she is afraid, I want to be the one she comes running to. As she grows, I want to be the one to teach her what an elephant looks like and how to spell her name. When she is sleepy, I want to read her books of far away places and help fill her imagination with beautiful things. When she is lonely, I want her to come looking for me. When she is in danger, I will be the one to put my life on the line for her. When she is bullied, I will protect her.

I want to see the world the way she sees it. When she is sad or concerned, I want to be the one to listen intently to whatever is on her heart. When she is angry, I want to be the one she asks for advice. When she is being selfish, I will be the one to tell her. When she needs discipline, I will be the one who loves her enough to give it. When she looks at me, I want a smile to be the first expression on her face. When she hears my voice, I want her to think of comfort and peace and love. I want her to know that every bit of correction that passes my lips is given out of love for her. I want it to be obvious to her that I believe in her more than anyone else and I will always be there to walk with her through the hard things. When she makes bad decisions, I’ll be the one who helps her get through it.

When she cries, I cry. When she laughs, I laugh. All of her triumphs and discoveries are sweeter to me than my own. The thought of her hurting or feeling trapped literally fills me with rage.

Nothing she could do would make me love her less.

And as I’m sitting here, holding my little girl, overwhelmed by love to the point of tears, I suddenly realize that this is a tiny glimpse of how God feels about me.

He adores me. He thinks I’m precious and beautiful and smart. I am tiny and helpless and high maintenance, but He loves taking care of me. He loves my blue eyes. The way my nose wrinkles up when I laugh. My stretch marks and laugh lines. 
When I’m sick or afraid or tired or lonely or sad or concerned or selfish or rebellious, He is there. He loves me more than anyone and will always be there for me. He protects me and corrects me. He longs for me to smile when I look to Him and be comforted when I hear His voice. He disciplines me because He knows what is best for me. He knows exactly what it will take to turn me into a strong, loving woman. He is fierce in His defense of me. When I cry, He cries with me. When I laugh, He is overjoyed. When I overcome temptation or learn something new, He celebrates with me. When I make bad decisions, He gets me through them.

Nothing I can do would make Him love me less.

I cannot begin to fathom or understand the way God loves us, but I am so incredibly thankful that He gives us little glimpses through our relationships here on earth. I adore my baby girl–and I am a selfish, sinful individual.
God is perfect. His love makes mine look pathetic.

I hope that you realize how precious you are to your Creator.
His love for you is absolute perfection.
And there is nothing you could do to make Him love you less.

The 100% True Account of How Super Selfish and Demanding I Am and How God Loves Me Anyway

They say the truth hurts.

They’re right.

This is going to hurt.

Me.

Not you.

This is NOT going to hurt you.

But if honesty makes you uncomfortable, this is NOT the place for you.

Sorry.

What do we do when God says “No”?
Because He does say “no”. All the time.
Sometimes He says ”no” because we are asking for something we don’t need–something unnecessary.
Sometimes He says “no” because we are asking for something that is bad for us–something we may not even realize is harmful.
Sometimes He says “no” because the timing isn’t right and He wants us to wait.

But what do we do when He says “no” to something we really need? Something it hurts not to have? Something without which our life becomes very, very hard?

What do we do then?

I recently got to find out what I do when God tells me “no.”
It wasn’t nice.

I’ve always been a spiritual optimist.
That verse about “asking and receiving”–I take it very literally.  
If I have a need, God will provide, right? That’s what the Bible says so I know it’s true. (John 16:24)

What I know now is that His provision doesn’t always look the way I think it should.

In this particular situation, I started out with this optimism.
If I kept asking, God would give me what I wanted.

But the months passed and He didn’t.

Something started to fester in me.
An ungratefulness.
A loss of faith.
And hope.
And pretty much every good thing God had been growing in me.

A month and a half ago, my heart was in a scary place.
I had begged God for nearly a year for this thing that I needed.
It wasn’t just for me–my family needed it, too.
The ways things looked, we were doing everything right. We serve God–A LOT.

If you would have asked me, I would have told you that our service didn’t indebt Him to us in any way at all.
We serve Him because we love Him.

Unfortunately, it soon became evident that this wasn’t what I actually believed.

When people would say, “I’ll pray that God will provide this for you!”
I started thinking, “Don’t waste your time. He doesn’t want to give it to me.”
When people would say, “God is faithful, just be patient!”
I wanted to poke them in the eye.

This was the first time in my life I had ever felt this way.
This one need had me completely wrapped up in myself and what I thought was best.

How long did I have to wait? Life was getting hard and God wasn’t answering me.

I came to a point where I was truly angry with God.
I had to sacrifice some things that were very important to me because He had failed to answer me in the way that I wanted.
I didn’t want to spend time with Him.
I didn’t want to talk with Him.
I thought He was withholding something I needed simply because He could.

There I was. On a youth trip. Mentoring God’s young people. Full of resentment toward God because He was ignoring me.

I had subconsciously fostered the attitude that if I served Him, He would give me what I wanted.
I had made “sacrifices” to do what He wanted me to do with my life.  
Didn’t I deserve this one thing after everything I’d done for Him?

If you’re judging me, I understand.
Believe me when I say that no one judges me more harshly than I judge myself.

But then there’s God.
In His incredible mercy and unwavering love for an obviously deluded lowlife like me, He brought me to a place where I had to look myself in the eye and acknowledge what I saw.

I was ugly.
Revolting, even.
And rebellious.

I had a decision to make:
Was I going to let this go and trust that the God Who created me really knows what is best for me?
Or I was going to hang onto this proud sense of entitlement I has secretly been harboring?

I didn’t want to let go. I wanted Him to answer my prayer. Give me what I wanted. Was it really too much to ask?

It was a battle.
A battle I had been losing for months. 

That day last month, through two and a half hours of worship at a youth event I was supposed to be chaperoning, God prevailed.

I wanted Him.

I wanted to serve Him.

And I knew that He owed me absolutely nothing.

I would sacrifice all for Him and expect nothing in return.

What could He possibly add to the beautiful way He rescued me from the sin that held me captive?

Job put it beautifully: “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him…” (Job 13:15 KJV)

Once God defeated that ugly part of my flesh, He started to slowly answer my prayer.
I realized He had been answering other prayers all along–I had ASKED Him to help me trust Him more.
That’s what He was doing.
God’s answer is always ”yes” when we ask Him to make us more like Him.

But regardless of what God says to us, we cannot tell Him “no.”
He will win.
We can’t harden our hearts toward Him because He doesn’t give us what we ask for.
It’s heart-breaking when you finally realize how awful you’ve been to the One Who loves you so much

Things are still difficult. God is slowly resolving this particular problem. And that’s fine.

His timing is perfect.
I actually believe that now.

And meanwhile, He is completing this work that He started in me years and years ago.
Every day He is making me more like His Son.

He owes me nothing.

I owe Him everything.

And next time He says “no,” I hope and pray that my first and only response will be to trust Him fully.

(Almost) Three Months!

The other day my baby girl and I went for a walk in the park.

I had my camera.

I went a little crazy.

If you saw her, you would take a billion photos, too.

Anyway…here she is. Drool on her face and all.

Isn’t she adorable? Yeah, I knew you’d think so.

{love}

P.S. Only sharing 4 photos took an immense amount of self-control on my part, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Bright-eyed and Bushy-tailed

I don’t know where this phrase came from… “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” My mom used to say it all the time so maybe it’s a southern thing. In case you are not familiar with the phrase, it refers to someone who is wide awake. In context: “It was 2am and she was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!”

This is the image that comes to my mind:

Does he sleep? At all? Ever?

When I was younger–think high school–I was definitely an early bird. And a night owl. I was conflicted.
I worked as a barista all through high school. When I opened, I would have to be at work by 4:30-5:30am. On weekdays I had a zero hour choir class at 7:15am. Because I switched high schools so much, I spent part of my junior year taking a full load of classes at school and several online classes trying to catch up on credits so I could graduate–this turned into waking up at 5am to work on classes before I left for school in the morning.

Did all of these early mornings encourage me to go to bed early? No. Somehow, I’d stay up until 1 or 2am and still be able to wake up in the morning—bright-eyed and bushy tailed!

I don’t know what happened to me, but I can NOT do this anymore.

After I graduated high school, I did a one year internship with a ministry in Texas. We all worked long hours and were continually exhausted. I became the girl who hit the snooze button 15 times before getting out of bed. I had 4 roommates, so this didn’t make me popular in the mornings. If someone had to wake me up, they stood at least 5 feet away to avoid getting snooze-button slapped. Where did the “bright-eyed, bushy-tailed” morning girl go? I don’t know, but someone sucked the sunshine out of her.

Then I got married. My husband is naturally a morning person. We went to bed at the same time, so I’d wake up when he woke up. It was amazing. I had time to make breakfast and do my hair. I wasn’t rushing out the door to work. It was fantastic.

Then we had a baby.

She is beautiful. And perfect. And angelic.

And exhausting.

She was sleeping through the night for a while, but she recently started teething. Now she wakes up at least once a night for a snack or a cuddle. I adore her and don’t mind waking up in the middle of the night.

It’s the waking up in the morning that I hate.

Taylor attempted to wake me up a few days ago. There were tears, sweat, blood. I was so stubborn that he finally just rolled over and said, “Fine. Go back to sleep.” Poor guy.
Of course, after a shower and some coffee, I displayed the appropriate amount of remorse for being so contrary.

So evidently I am now Mr. Hyde in the mornings–no more bright eyes. 
I know I have a problem. I wanna change.  But I’m just…so…tired….zzzzzzz.

Jeeze.
Thank God for caffeine.

Blown Away

So, Saturday night my hubby, baby girl, and I spent the evening with some friends of ours–huddled in their basement. I don’t know if you’ve seen on the news, but we had quite the weekend here in Kansas. The tornado that did the most damage here in Wichita passed just a few miles north of our house. My workplace was out of power until late yesterday (which resulted in two lovely days off with my little one).

Thankfully, no one died here in Kansas. However, I was very sad to hear of those who lost loved ones in Oklahoma. As a western girl (think Nevada, California, Idaho–mountains and deserts kind of western) this was my first real experience with a tornado. There is an entire neighborhood here that has suffered a lot of damage. It breaks my heart. There is nothing like seeing places you are familiar with completely changed by a storm. I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about.

There are many people who no longer have homes or whose jobs are suspended until their workplaces can be repaired. They will have trouble feeding their families and making ends meet. Please send up a quick prayer for all of them. If you can help, do it! Remember the parable in Matthew 26: 31-46. Jesus says that when we help someone out it’s as though we are helping him. I know y’all are out there busy being His hands and feet today. I’m gonna go see what I can do to help… 

|Love|

 

 

Love!

Three years ago today I married my best friend. We have been through so much since then!

And now that we’ve added this precious face to our family, it is so exciting to see what a great father he is.

Marriage is hard. Every moment you love your spouse and choose them above yourself definitely deserves to be celebrated. 
I love looking back at the things we have overcome together. The best years of this adventure are ahead of us! 

I love you, babe.
Thanks for loving me.
I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you.

Myla and Maggie’s First Easter

Myla and her cousin Maggie are only 5 months apart. Before too long they will be making all kinds of trouble together! As it is, we had fun dressing them in matching Easter dresses. I find myself with free hands less and less, so Taylor took most of these pics. Thanks, babe!

Pretty dresses!

Maggie will be walking soon!

Maggie hunting for eggs.

Found one!

Maggie and her bucket.

Myla thought the sun was way too bright.

Maggie didn't care about the sun...the eggs were way cooler.

Maggie's baby blues.

Myla finally adjusted to the sun a bit.

My pretty little blue-eyed girl.

We’re looking forward to next year when they’ll both be running around causing trouble. So many exciting things to look forward to! I hope you all had a lovely Easter!

SAHMs, Blogs, & Dreams

In case y’all didn’t know, I had a baby a couple months ago. Crazy, right? She is already 10 weeks old!

For all of you ladies who have had kids, you know how my past few months have been. There’s been a lot of adjusting (I use that word a lot…it’s…flexible–like I’m learning to be). A lot of spit up. A lot of late nights and early mornings. A lot of milestones. A lot of joy. Babies grow faster than normal people so you literally have to watch them every moment or else they will completely change and you’ll miss it. No lie.

I was fortunate to grow up in a home with a stay-at-home-mom. It seems like stay-at-home-moms were way more common when I was little. As it has become rare, it has also become trendy. Anyone else notice the spike in SAHM blogs? Or the fact that they have their own abbreviation? SAHM–like an exclusive club! It’s now considered super-awesome to coupon and use cloth diapers and make 50 freezer meals in one day. Maybe it’s an age thing…when I was a kid being a stay-at-home-mom sounded like the WORST. The first moment I saw my little girl’s face that totally changed. To all you hip SAHMs, more power to you. I hope to join you someday. Keep up with those hilarious “guess what my kid did today?” blogs. We working moms love them. And hate you. All at once.

There are moms who love to work and love their jobs and shudder at the thought of staying home all the time–and that’s awesome, too. Good for you.

I like my job. It’s fine. But the first chance I get to join the trendy SAHM movement, you can bet your sweet self I will.

Even though my husband and I have been very careful as far as debt goes, living in a one income household scares me to death. How do people do that? There are so many people stuck in mediocre jobs that they hate just so they can have the “American Dream”. I don’t hate my job, but there are definitely other things I would rather do.

So, I got to thinking…what would my dream job be? 

I’ve heard it said like this, “What would you do if you knew there was no possibility of failure?”

Honestly, I’d want to be a full-time mom…

And I want to write and lead worship…for a living.

Can it be done?
I mean, who does that?

There are all these questions that come with this…Like, do I write about things that people want to read about? What do people want to read about? Do I write about things I want to write about and just hope someone likes it? (Risky!) As far as leading worship–I’ve been doing it consistently for nine years. It doesn’t pay the bills, but I love love love it. I could do it everyday for the rest of my life and be a very happy girl.

Jon Acuff (www.jonacuff.com) says you can make a living doing what you love. He went from a job he hated to doing something he is passionate about for a living–that’s pretty impressive…and incredibly rare.

I want to be a writer and a worship leader and be able to completely throw myself into it–but that’s so scary. It would be way easier to stay in this reliable job that I don’t hate for the rest of my life…but I know when I’m old and gray I’d be very disappointed that I didn’t do the things I’m passionate about.

What I really need in my life is balance. When I’m with my family, I want to be fully there. When I’m writing, I want to be fully there. When I’m leading worship, spending time with God, working, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, working out–whatever it is, I want to be fully there.

For now I’m doing all those things as much as my time allows me. I lead worship at church about twice a week. I write as much as I can. I savor every minute I get to spend with my little family.
God keeps reminding me that if I have to be faithful to do these things with the little time I have before I’ll be able to do them as much as I want. (Matthew 25:23, 1 Peter 4:10)

Learning is big for me right now. I have SO much to learn about everything. I’m not ready yet, but I’m working towards it.
At least now my goals are clear.
Be a mom/wife.
Be a writer.
Be a worship leader.
Be a mentor.
Be God’s.

What is your dream job? Are you doing it? Are you working towards it?