Some years I make bucket lists. Filled blank pages with beautiful wishes for summer. Each new day, pick your own adventure, capture the moments, make the memories. That’s so good, and we should be doing those things. Life should be savored and enjoyed. But I don’t want to make a list and I don’t want to follow it. I really don’t. I just want to ride the wave of summer and see where it takes me. I want to trust a more invisible hand that’s already writing my story.
Most of the best things in my life have come unplanned, and I would like to not merely keep it that way, I’d like to increase that. Because God has been faithful, more faithful than I’ve asked or deserved. He’s orchestrated days and times and seasons, friendships I could t have planned, and adventures I could never dream. Why should this summer should be any different?
What about some the planning and decisions? I’ll know what to do when we get there. We as a collective family will figure it out. I have to trust that we will know when to sleep late and run later, when to snuggle and read, or when we need to hop in the car and adventure, time for fun and maybe a little chaos.
I’ll know we’ll know. I trust that. We have have never been alone, anyway. We’ve always had the kindest and most gentle guide.
A few times I doubt. I thought about what someone would say about things, one way or another. I stand at a crossroad, I contemplated, hesitated, vacillated.You know what happened? Everything worked out eventually, one way or another. But I wasted a lot of time and effort trying to figure things out. And I forgot to simply ask for direction from God..
I’m tired of planning or overthinking and second guessing. Sometimes it comes so natural, my feet are bobbing on the surface and I’m riding a river of trust. Other times I’m at a fork in the waterway, and as I start to flow towards one, I second guess, I wonder, I worry. I grab for the nearest tree branch and hang on for dear life. I fret over the options for too long, and time like a current passes me by. Then a choice is taken by default, and I’ll never know what would have been otherwise
But I still can overthink it. I can wonder, especially when things go wrong, why it had to go this way. Why I had to go this way. I replay the reasons I had weighed, the end results I had calculated, the faces that had come to mind, the presumed responses I had measured. And sometimes they feel most irrelevant and unimportant now.
When I overthink I’m usually thinking about a hundred other things or people. I’m tuning out my own intuition and failing to trust that I have an inner helper and an inner guide. It’s not that want to live without care or consideration for others. But I should remember and understand that the Lord is living in me, and He is my hope that I won’t drown, not my grasp on the river’s winding paths. When I feel the need to figure it out with my intellect and reasoning alone, when I’m dragging my feet in distrust and fear. I’m weighing this whole thing down.
The thing is, I don’t have to figure it all out. My understanding is not a condition for success. My mental gymnastics are not a requirement. In fact they’re usually a hindrance. Even if things work out, all that exercising and worrying and wondering does this at the very least: it makes it more difficult for me to be at peace. If I’m trying to figure out all of my options or feel out what is the best for so long, sometimes it’s because I’m thinking of everyone else but forgetting the Lord.
(Like this piece for instance. When I sat down to write, I didn’t intend to write this. It makes me pause for a second, I’m tempted to overthink it, worry how it might be taken, wonder what others might say. But then I remember that I’m asking to be guided and I can trust that it’s happening. Especially since I know Who I’m asking. I trust that it’s for someone or some purpose. I can’t hold on so tightly even to the words that I write or the things that I may ever build. Because I’m building it for someone else. Not for myself, and He’s someone that I can trust. So I kick up my heels, let go of the other “things”, hang on to Him, and release it.)
Right now, I want nothing more than to do what he wants. I want to kick up my feet and ride the waves this summer. I don’t want to be carried away by my own desires or in any selfish way. But I want to be carried along by His Spirit. I want to stay connected and grounded in Him, but I don’t want to stay where I am or the way that I am. I wanna kick up my heels, let go of the resistance and trust Him. I want to trust that greater is He that is in me, He’s working all things together for my good. I don’t need to stress over the details I just need to keep looking to him and ask him. Remember that I don’t need to over complicate the listening part, I just need to keep going. Hear the Voice behind me saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” I can trust Him. More than I trust myself to get it right
So I’m trusting the empty space more, the blank pages, the empty notebooks of summer. I’m going to keep checking in with the Father and trust Him. Trust that He’s in everything, the unplanned, the uncaptioned, uncaptured, unforced. I will not be rushed or forced, by some (my own) invisible hand of obligation.
I will be led by the spirit that is freedom. Guided by a hand of love, that sometimes feels invisible, but becomes more visible as I keep walking. In His right hand, it is filled with treasures. He has made known to me the paths of Life.
I will open the moments unexpected, the unplanned things I will embrace the pauses, see the unexpected blessings. I will watch smiles erupt and bags fill with fruits of opportunity, the ripe, hanging fruit, that’s ready by the handfuls.
I will seek peace more that I settle for clarity. I will pursue that which feels right more than that which sounds right. I will be guided, not by force but with ease, with love. More unconcerned than troubled. More happy and calm than worried.
Buckets will be filled. But not by my planning alone. Buckets will be filled right where we are, and wherever we go. By a loving and gracious God. Who loves to fill our life with goodness, who fills us up with good things. Keeping my eyes on Him, we’ll be filled to overflowing. Trusting that even when we might think we got it wrong, or things seem to go wrong, that HE who sits in heaven still laughs. It was Him that I heard whispering in my ear, “this is the way, walk in it.” And even IF I got it wrong, He’s unconcerned. About all of these things that would trouble me. He’s got it, and He’s got me.
He is with me, and He is faithful. He works it out, anyway. My scheming and trying don’t ever accomplish near as much as I think that anyway. It’s Him. His faithfulness. Everything will work out because that’s what He does. He works all things together for good. And it is God who works in you birth to will and to act for His good pleasure. (Phil 2:13)
So settle in. Surrender to the Holy Spirit. It’s Him working. So you can kick up your feet and trust Him. He’s got you AND He’s working it out. No matter what happens, He won’t let you go.
I’m throwing out my bucket, throwing up my hands, and I’m going to enjoy this ride. Because that’s what happens when you trust someone like God. You get to be surprised, and that includes sometimes by your own response. It’s time to enjoy this ride of life a little more. Tell me, what’s not to love about a summer of surprises, all of them moving in and motivated by the flow of His Love and grace.
What does it mean to be an ally? Do I need one in this world? Do I need to be one? I keep hearing the word echo like some holy grail.
Ally; to unite formally, as by treaty, league, marriage, or the like
To be noted, the word ‘ally’ forms the basis for the word allegiance. Interesting. And, well, when you put it that way….it sounds more serious and less like some passing fad to aspire to.
It causes me to think. What side am I on? I may be asked all day long, am I team peanut butter or team jelly? Team stay or go, team yes or team no? Team left or team right?
In most areas of life you could probably take a stance one way or another. But seriously, whose team should I be on? Which if my neighbors is more right about the state of the world, or the state of more local affairs? My head starts to ache and my heart starts to pull, back and forth, or firmly one way. Either way, it takes its toll. I weigh the options, maybe count the cost. I decide with firm vigor, or by quiet default.
But what about this consideration? What if Jesus was my one and true ally? He’s the friend that sticks closer than a brother, but what if I actually chose Him, again and again. What would that look like? To choose him more than any man or idea. Truly, Jesus.
What would that look like? What would it look like if I really let myself be Christ’s ally in all ways and in all things?
Maybe it would look less like drawing my own lines in the sand, and more like falling in line with ones He already drew.
Maybe it would look less like taking sides, and making teams, and more like being decidedly and firmly on His.
Maybe it would mean consulting Jesus for His opinions more than consulting my neighbor for his.
Maybe it would look more like loving the orphans and widows, seeing the rejected, feeding the homeless and the spiritually hungry as well those who are physically, and less like loving the world or systems that break them.
More like telling the truth and less like telling lies or excuses.
It would look like unity with the Father and His Divine character, and less like unity with any one man. Not following a path or way of my own engineering, or sticking to my own ideas, or ideals or those structures are built by man.
I’m not talking about compromise. I’m talking about no compromise, and holding to the truth that is Jesus. That has always been Jesus.
Where I give Him my ashes and let Him make them something beautiful. Not where I cling to the ashes and ask Him call them beautiful, or somehow change the definitions.
Letting Jesus by my ally means finding His righteousness and seeking forgiveness for anything in me that doesn’t reflect it.
It would look like being married more to Him than anyone or anything else, including myself. Not just to the world or even the church as it looks now, but straight and directly to Him.
It would look like being connected deeply, daily, and personally to our precious Savior, and like being the bride that we are supposed to be- with many talents and different callings. But united in this one purpose: to see His name glorified on the earth.
You don’t need to know or ask or seek what anyone else thinks about your life, your decisions, or your thoughts more than Him. Don’t just ask others. Ask the Lord.
I mean we can talk about anything, if you want or need to. I’m here to listen and love the way Christ ask us to. And I’ll try to be an ally to the Jesus that loves you more than I do. I’ll listen to you and what you’re saying, but I’ll also really try to keep an ear to Heaven and see what it is that God is saying, too.
I’ll love you the ways He tells me, as best as I ever can. It’s not my job to point out your weaknesses or failures or anyone else’s, either. It’s my job to help carry you to Jesus, in spite of or because of, and certainly with all of those things. It is my job to help point you closer, or even sometimes to help carry you, ever closer to Jesus.
It’s my job to do that personally for myself, too. One that I fail at often. God help us, to remember and return.
For we tend to judge one another in order to distract from our own faults, anyway. I have plenty of my own shortcomings and failings. I need to keep asking Jesus to consult and help me all about my own. For these imperfections, these fault lines, they just keep showing up. So I’m going to keep crawling up on the altar myself.
Care to join me?
Why don’t we both go talk to Jesus. Ask Him what He really thinks. About us. About our situation. About our interactions . About all of it. Let Jesus be our ally. Ask Him for His opinion, for His Lordship, without clinging to whatever it is I’m holding. To just one thing or the other. But to cling more tightly to Him, in Love and commitment. And then to hold others loving in our other hand, in an attempt to lovingly help reunite them with their very loving savior, at every turn. Leading myself first and then others towards Christ.
We all might be surprised with what happens next. But in a very good kind of way.. Let’s ask Him to reveal Himself to us, His love, His truth. I don’t know His time schedule, and when it will happen that He shows us certain things. But I know He can do it, and when we ask Him, He will. Let’s let him. As much as I love you friend, let’s both let Jesus be our One, true and forever ally.
He knows what and how and where and when to do it, all.
If we’re both really trying to line up with Jesus, I think we’ll find that we’re already on the same team. I want to be with Him, wherever He’s going. I know that He’s Good enough to lead us and love us there, throughout all of this life. And on to the next.
The word influence is a relatively neutral term, and it probably means different things to different people, and generations. Many years into the past, you might parents talking in serious tones to their teenagers, voicing concern over one friend or another. “I’m not sure they are a good influence on you.” For many currently, when we hear the word ‘influence’, it sounds like a job title, reserved for the elite. It’s a beautiful blogger on Instagram, a public personality, someone with a platform, a voice, and a “following”.
Influence is a powerful thing, though it is not a term reserved for those who have ad revenue, sit on a board or a corner office somewhere, have a microphone, or even seem to be the most popular among us. Truly, we are all influencers, and being influenced, all the time.
We are influenced by what we see and hear every day.
We take in stimuli all day, we process it, we emulate it or dismiss it, and we do this all day long.
Think of all of the things that you notice. In your own life it’s, the dog needs a haircut, your kid needs a hug, your eyebrows need waxing. You love the way the sun comes in the window, you hear a song in the background. You take in and process information all day. You categorize things as important or less than important. That’s a library of information right there.
Then there’s information outside of your home. Whether it’s the way someone mows their lawn, how they return the grocery cart or say hello to the checkout girl, what you saw in the store window, how someone dressed for school drop off, the type of candles that were lit when your friend stopped over, how your friend spends their free time, what she said online, or what they do with their Sunday. It’s all coming at you all day.
Most of these thoughts are passing, and usually, we are not obsessed with one another. (Or hopefully we aren’t, and in the healthiest circumstance, we aren’t. Hopefully we’re not judging,, or trying to make ourselves better than anyone else. That would deserve an entire different discussion!) Let’s assume for now that you’re just trying to build a happy and healthy life- emotionally, spiritually and physically.
You still pick up information and ideas all day long, physical ones as well as mental and emotional. We see what people post about, care about, think about. We hear a song, read a magazine (I think those are still a thing!), talk to a neighbor. Then we respond, and it’s usually according to what we already value or desire. But even those things- our values and desires- can be influenced and shifted by what we see and hear!
Think of all of the things we have picked up over the years, all of the stimuli. We are influence a lot, both consciously and unconsciously. We take it all in, process it, and categorize the information according to what we think, and according to what has already influenced us. It’s like every piece of information is a string weaves itself into our belief system, and then influences us further as they create a framework for our lives. It can be very hard to unravel that thread.
With the advent of social media and carry around computers (📱 ) this has been greatly enhanced. We are being influenced by other people all day, every day. We can be influenced in any number of directions based on what it is that we take in. Which is why I am becoming increasingly aware of what it is I’m watching or looking at. It is. So. Much. Stimuli.
Make sure what influencing you is worth your attention. Fill your life with the best of the good stuff.
Whether we realize it or not we are influencing probably more than we know.
We have incredible power to influence things, to create change , to inspire. Even when it looks like no one is watching, somehow, sometime, it will be noticed by someone, even if you don’t notice that it’s noticed. You’re leaving a mark on this world with your actions. The way you mow your lawn or the shirt that you wear or the thing you say. You are creating a piece of information, adding value to what you choose, good or bad. You are communicating something to the world.
What are you communicating? What do you place the greatest value on? What matters most? To what do you give (or chuck) the most important things like your time, money, and attention?
Even before those “ influencers” were named as such, they were probably influencing. People liked to see what they were doing, they would get new or good ideas from them, they were probably a go-to for whatever their area of expertise is. Fashion, home, life, parenting, the list goes on. But Those influencers? They’re being influenced too. People allow themselves to be influenced and that influence created feedback which influences the ‘influence’ . By likes and shared and by the products they showcase and the marketing team that’s behind them. What a tangled web it is that we weave!
Those authors you read, they’re being influenced. Those singers and songwriters? Influenced. All influencers are also influenced by something. Somewhere, someone is motivated by somebody’s bottom line.
The question then, is whose bottom line will be the one that is going to motivate you?
What and who is influencing us?
There was a day this past fall, I was mulling over an online conversation. I was especially at the time, tending to tread lightly. I want to influence with heart and not a hammer. One conversation was sticking with me, I was feeling troubled. I had been bolder and maybe more direct than I had been. I could feel the rebuttals, I mulled over the opposite perspectives. I don’t remember the conversation now, but I still remember the faces I was thinking of.
I remember exactly where I was sitting in my car, when I had this conversation with the Lord. “I’m thinking too much about them, and about the results of what I say, aren’t I.” (As a former people pleaser, I continue to is work to not be influenced by anyone else’s reaction to my obedience or to what I know is right. My aim is not to please them, but to lovingly do what Jesus is asking me .)
I heard so firmly in my ear, “You’re not thinking long enough. I think Eternal .” I broke down and sobbed. Eternal. Tell me, what’s more important than that.
If I am only saying and doing what will get someone’s immediate attention or affirmation, what am I even doing? I am being influenced by them, instead of being influenced by what is most important. Even if it is happening in a ‘good’ bubble of influence., if I am motivated to or by a certain response, it’s still people pleasing. But you and I both know what a tempest this life can be, especially when we’re tossed about by everything that other people are feeling or saying.
Jesus said, “I only do what I see the Father doing.”
Listen, I know that sounds like a very tall order. This is where I might lose some of you. That’s fine. We all get to choose. We all have to choose what we’re most influenced by.
Personally, I want to make sure I’m being influenced, not only by the good stuff, but the best stuff. By God Himself. Him who IS perfect, who already loves me, and who can show me how to love my neighbor. Because He already does.
I want to start being influenced from a deeper place, by a constant God.
Then secondly, by people that are truly being influenced by Him as well.
As a blogger, you’re often told to write with the reader in mind. And I do. I think of you often. But I can’t be true to my calling if I’m only writing based on what you may feel or think after you’re done writing this. I have to write with a more eternal protective in mind. I have to write what is true, not just what feel good on any given day. That I believe is the most loving. Because it’s not about me or how much you like my writing or anything I have to say. It’s about how much purpose and healing can come from the words. How much eternal good can come from my life and my sphere of influence.
Yours too.
The times I feel tossed about, I know it’s not coming from Him. It’s coming from me or my desire to be pleasing to any man, anyone but Him. He is easier to please than we think. Because He is constant. He already know you by name, He already loves you.
I want to be influenced most by that place of radical love, real understanding, and acceptance, and I only want to influence from there. I want to others to find it, too.
Be influenced, today friend. Find that place in God.
Moms sometimes keep the strangest things. Locks of hair, pacifiers, baby teeth. It makes for funny discoveries and family jokes. But if you pause to think about it, is it any wonder?
Is it any wonder?
I recently pulled open the freezer and saw the last 2 batches of breastmilk sitting there. A few years later, I’m surprised every time I see them. Surprised that I did that, and surprised I still have them. I held on to the small frozen batch of miraculous milk. And I of course put it back in the freezer, to remember for another time. A token to the season of sleepless nights and fuzzy heads and growing way too fast babies, and being able to provide for them.
Like anything we might collect, it’s a reminder. A reminder that through a grand series of miracles, we were able to participate in some of the most amazing things- creation, new life, birth, growth.
Most of what moms do can’t be kept or measured, just given away.
This is a journey without miles markers. Without trophies. In a society that values accolades and beauty, there’s little of that to show for motherhood. If you’re doing it well, especially.
You can work all day and could hardly even tell you were there. (Unless you weren’t. ) Late night feedings and warm hugs. Dust that settles as fast as it’s wiped, laundry that doesn’t stay clean. Escorts to the bathroom and late night talks, disasters avoided. presents unwrapped, sandwich crusts discarded. Prayers she muttered that only heaven hears. While loving most of it, a mom can still look around and wonder, by the look of things, what it is she has done.
She gave. Everything that can’t be measured. She gave of herself.
Mommas are endless givers, from the moment they become one. Even the ones you might not think are. From the moment you begin your arrival, whichever way you come, moms start letting go. Letting go of pride. Letting go of plans. Letting go of how things used to be.
The way things rearranged forever, the stretch and crack of opening ribs, hearts. midsections, entire lives. The skin that won’t ever stretch tight again, not without a surgeons knife. The scars on a mom’s once-beautiful midsections. She let go of what was more beautiful to everyone else in order to hold on to something more beautiful, to her at least. And heaven.
It changed almost everything. But it was worth the price of admission. We now have a front row seat to these lives growing. We barely blink. Of her breath and bones, midsection and heart alike, life has bloomed. This is everything right here. Where dreams are born, where dreams are blooming. Where character is formed. Where character is sharpened. Where babies grow and patience does too. Where they crack open sometimes and we almost crack sometimes, too.
It left her bloodied and scarred. But not really broken. Only sometimes it seemed that way. (Maybe just a little cracked. But how else would the wine come pouring out so fully?)
But then, like a Phoenix. A flower. A zenith. She rises again.
And as you grow, she’s letting go even more. Letting go of pieces of you. Of pieces of her. But don’t worry. She’s becoming, too. Becoming more beautiful, more sacred, even while more scarred. Sacrificially somehow, being made more whole. The most beautiful scars, the ones worth holding onto, are the scars left by the sacrifice of love.
Some people call it the toughest job. The worst job. The dumbest job. It has to be one of the holiest. Holy, as defined in this way: ‘‘Living or undertaken with highly moral or spiritual purpose; saintly.’ The work of all parents, fathers too, are so important it can be a most holy work. But there’s something about what moms do that is so personal, it feels almost sacred.
WE are not holy (every mom knows. The hours are too long, some days too exhausting.) But the work is holy. And it is most holy when we remember as such. A 24/7/365 responsibility, inviting another human into your most personal spaces, to raise and care for.
We are not saviors, only called to love like One. To introduce them to Him. To be hands and feet and arms open wide in the middle of the night, an open hearts to listen to your worries and dreams, for length days.
It’s is a refinery. A wine press for the ages. It’s the pouring out of wine that only makes the next batch even better. She’s been poured out like wine, drunk from like a river, held a sacred life in the breadth of her arms. Not for personal gain, but a loving sacrifice.
The opposite of the old adage, she lost the whole world and gained her soul. We thought we’d be helping shape to them. The constant growing and rearranging is ours, too.
All of this letting go, she’s been collecting sacred beauty that no man can see, deep in her heart. God sees. God knows. She just wants to remember sometimes, too.
So, it’s no wonder she’ll hold on to the breatsmilk or the pacifier. Sometimes when the kids aren’t around, she might want something to hold on to. To remember. To remember how far you’ve both come.
Do you ever feel like no one sees or notices the good that you’re trying to do? The positive change you’re trying to accomplish? Me too. All of us do at some time or another. CEO to struggling artist, pastor, mother, parent, and friend. Humanitarian, policemen, poets and kings. We all have this in common: we struggle to feel like we’re really seen, appreciated, and hope against hope, maybe even understood for what it is we’re trying to do.
Not too long ago this was me, and human nature being what it is, probably will be again. Sinking into the end of the bed, barely able to think, I started reading the bedtime story to my kids. My shoulders were heavy with disappointment and my mind was heavy with self-doubt. I showed up there, but so imperfectly. I already felt like I was over-“performing” and under delivering
As I read the story aloud- a mouse with little stature and little significance- my own tired ears started to perk up. This mouse seemed so familiar. While doing everything he could, using every resources he had, working fervently to do something important and meaningful, he was coming up seemingly empty. He was trying to play some music on a ratty ol’ makeshift instrument. No one around him seemed to see or care, or even kind of understand. Some even scoffed. That very evening, that blessed(ish) moment, I felt exactly like that mouse. Haven’t you?
Feeling the weight of my heavy shoulders and the ones I saw mirrored on the paper, I turned a heavy page.
That little unimportant mouse was somber and sullen. Undeterred, but unsettled. Until that is, the king came rolling into town. The one everyone was waiting for. But everybody else missed it. They were too busy. Preparing. Primping. Criticizing.
The king rolled right by unnoticed. The only one that happened to find him was the mouse. Before he knew it, he found himself alone and before the baby king. Ready and not ready, all at once. But he did have a song to play. (Yes, it was a newer take on the drummer boy. And something about it being such a tiny insignificant creature made it hit home even more.)
The crowds were gone and all that mattered was this: the mouse in front of the king, with a song to play. The mere thought of the crowds and scoffers was almost laughable now.
But, wasn’t it always? By now I was sobbing. Of course. Of course of course. It doesn’t matter what the others had to say or not say. It didn’t matter anything about the crowd at all, really. At the end of the day, he played, I play, you play, we all play for an audience of One.
You played your heart out. Music or not. And nobody seemed to notice or care. But truth is, the One who really matters already sees.
“Audience of One” Courting the Extraordinary
This king doesn’t care what your size is or what kind of instrument you use. He looks past the details, he sees the effort, and HE knows your heart. That, my friend, is all that really matters.
We’re trying so much to communicate our hearts by our actions. But truth is, the One who really matters already sees.
We should do whatever it is that we do, not for the masses, nor to please any crowd. But because it beats in our heart, because it’s what we were made to do. And whether you or I understand it yet or not, we don’t do it for them, or for even for us.
You’re not meant to play to the crowd.
Even if you’re trying to help, the crowd is not supposed to be your aim. Which if you think about it, is quite freeing. The crowd is fickle, and harsh. They will love you as long as it serves them. They can become a slave master even before you realize it. They will never be as pleased as we would hope, at least not for long, and certainly not forever. One day you’ll be standing before a king and they’ll be long forgotten.
As we tucked my daughter into bed recently, we said a not uncommon phrase (and it would have been said to our son too, but he was already asleep.) “We’re proud of you.” Her one word question was new. “Why?” I knew the answer right away, and knew it must be clear. (As a “recovering” people pleaser, I feel acutely the importance of differentiating. God helps us not be or raise people whose worth is attached to performance.)
“Those nice things- helping out, being kind to your sibling, sharing from your piggy bank. Those are good things. But just doing them doesn’t matter quite so much. It matters most when it shows and reflects the goodness that’s in your heart,” we told her. We were trying to explain why we were proud of her, which extends BEYOND juts what she does, into the core of WHO she is, which can be reflected in actions. Like our son, too, who delights to pick us wildflowers ;and weeds) for no other reason, than because he loves. He sees their beauty, and wants to share.
I think that God looks at us and the things we do kind of like that, too. What matters more is not just what we do, but why and how we do it. Even if it’s imperfect or we make mistakes, Hr can see right past that to what matters more- our hearts. We can take a hundred good deeds and tie them up in a pretty bow, but it’s the heart that really counts. He doesn’t want us just to go through the motions and check the boxes, to “do the right thing.”
He wants us to “be” the right thing. To be filled with love. To be expressions of who He is, in us. The most beautiful acts might be simple, but when they come from that place of love, where God dwells with us, they are music to His ears.
It’s moving from a place of love instead of towards it. Accepting His love instead of thinking that I need to create it.
So, even if nobody seems to notice or nobody seems to care, it will not go unnoticed, your heart will not be unseen. No seed sown in love is ever wasted. No act of love is ever wasted, no matter how small or seemingly unnoticed. It never is wasted.
What you’re doing is for an audience of One. And trust me when I say, His love can make a garden and He is much more forgiving than the crowd. He understands what the others don’t. He sees your worth, he values the effort that you give.
So don’t do play to the crowd. Play for Him. Sow seeds of love, and live for Him.
Hey, I'm Courtney, a pretty ordinary girl who thinks we've all been called to an extraordinary life and love story with God. I'm passionate about family, faith, motherhood, and the adventure of every day. I write lots of words, mostly because I can’t help it- and I think it's one of the things I was born to do. I hope that something I write encourages you, to walk in your own unique purpose and calling, set free to love and give it away, starting wherever you are today. That's what Courting the Extraordinary is all about. Finding the good all around you, and giving it away. Finding, too, the God of all goodness who wants to walk with you.
I love quiet mornings, coffee, prayer and “work” before sunrise. Quality time with my family is my jam. I can be found grinning ear to ear when we're out on an adventure. Whether that's in our own backyard or exploring someplace new all-together, I’ll for sure note something beautiful about nature aloud-and maybe repeatedly, ha!. Life is a beautiful, precious gift, and an adventurous path to travel! We might as well learn how to love.
Hey, I'm Courtney, a pretty ordinary girl who thinks we've all been called to an extraordinary life and love story with God. I'm passionate about family, faith, motherhood, and the adventure of every day. I write lots of words, mostly because I can’t help it- and I think it's one of the things I was born to do. I hope that something I write encourages you, to walk in your own unique purpose and calling, set free to love and give it away, starting wherever you are today. That's what Courting the Extraordinary is all about. Finding the good all around you, and giving it away. Finding, too, the God of all goodness who wants to walk with you.
I love quiet mornings, coffee, prayer and “work” before sunrise. Quality time with my family is my jam. I can be found grinning ear to ear when we're out on an adventure. Whether that's in our own backyard or exploring someplace new all-together, I’ll for sure note something beautiful about nature aloud-and maybe repeatedly, ha!. Life is a beautiful, precious gift, and an adventurous path to travel! We might as well learn how to love.