“If hope is real, then I want to see it. If hope is thing, then I want to deal it. If hope is a seed, then I want to plant it. If hope is a way, I want to walk it. If Hope is person, I want to embrace him.
Then I pause to think. Perhaps because I think about it, maybe I already have? Maybe I can, even, more.
Always. Always, more, Hope. Because that’s where He always leads.”
Always, Hope.
I wanted to become a journalist since I was young. (That and a teacher previously, as many young girls start to dream after watching the kind souls that teach them. ) But writing, “breaking news”, and sharing stories worth noting was my greatest ‘desire’, apart part from loving (and therefore, serving) God.
That desire was laid upon the altar- unexpectedly, voluntarily, as a byproduct of surrendered prayers- and it went up in flames.
Or did it?
After a memorable visit to a friend’s Wednesday night (super cool and real, by the way) youth group the next city over, I found myself suddenly knowing that I needed to go to Bible college. This was about five weeks before upcoming high school graduation, and a well after my decisions to college, a scholarship and awaiting opportunity and connection.
All I could attribute it to was the time we all spent on the floor of the chapel, praying. I was face down, in my hand made bell bottoms, a hippie redux of sorts, only the 90’s version. I was trying to put out if my mind the young man I was interested in, a fellow “hippie” I had met on a missions trip a few of years prior. I prayed with all of my might, as much as I could at the time, laying both myself and my dreams on the altar.
Well God in His wisdom, took me up on the offer. I wanted to go to Bible college, almost completely out of the blue, and all I could blame it on was that surrendered prayer.
It’s interesting looking back , because I knew that I could serve God in journalism. It did t have to be either or. But I didn’t know then what or how it would need to look. I didn’t know that what I would need to do would look the exact opposite, yet somehow still hit the mark. The heart of what I dreamed, the heart of what I wanted, without all of the extra stuff.
I skipped out on my communications degree and joined the ranks of servanthood at a college full of training ministers and hopeful pastors and oversea missionaries and loving children’s workers.
I fit not one mold in particular, but looking back, have perhaps dabbled in a bit of all of them.
Yes, the “dream” of becoming a journalist smoldered on the altar for a year as I took time to so end “a year in the Son”, as they called it.
At a chapel where the speaker spoke on the life of Mary and her willingness to do and be what God said, I stayed behind and prayed. I remember exact row of chairs that I sat in almost if not practically. End of the aisle, more towards the back, but not completely. On the left side. I sat, staring down at my long- skirted lap, my open hands, a pile of books and Bible probably on my lap. I remember being overcome, and with upturned hands echoing Mary’s prayer.
“Be it unto me according to Your Word.”
I didn’t even know what His Word was, exactly, at the time. I probably still don’t in so many ways. But I said it, and I meant it as best that I could.
A few weeks later, I unsurprisingly had a long, slow and yet sudden change of heart. I wouldn’t return to the scholarship that waited for me. I wouldn’t pursue a degree in journalism. My friends cheered. I had no idea what I might become, but I was going to follow Him. I would stay, here at Bible college, and become whatever God wanted.
What, I still don’t know exactly. But, hopefully mostly His.
Yes, I’m a wife, a mom, a writer. A friend, daughter, sister, neighbor. I’m a bit of a coach and a volunteer, and can be found teaching in short bursts, too. I am a pray-er. A singer, though slight off key. An encourager. A child of God.
Yes, I hope, I’m most of all, His. Broken, chipped, blessedly, meandering even at times, but still His. I’m a runner, though not always in the right direction. I’m a rester, a lover, occasionally a fighter, and sometimes a wrestler.
But the consistent thing is, yes, His.
I decided a long long time ago that I would follow Jesus. Even when I got a little lost or mixed up, He never forgot it, my broken promise. He never gave up. Even when I didn’t know that to do or how to get where He was going, He never gave up on me. And He never will.
You, too.
He doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. “What, now?” is as Jesus His question. What next, He asks.
“Together?” He questions, arm outstretched to grab yours.
What did you always want to be? It’s not too late, not really. Not if you’re following the heart that was behind it. It might look different but it probably is still waiting for you to walk in it. It might fit now, “just right.”
I recently saw a post where a friend quoted me. “As long as there is breath, there is hope.” I couldn’t remember saying it exactly, and I don’t know if I copied it or said it exactly like that.
But I thought, “that’s it.”
As long as there’s breath, there is hope. And instead of telling terrible, breaking news stories, I have wanted my whole life to tell good ones. Good ones, true ones, filled with Hope. That are right and beautiful, even if they’re hard. Collected on hard wooden floors, or in soft, unsure chairs of waiting. All gathered together in places of surrender.
Those are the ones are worth telling. Worth listening to, even if it messes up your plans. And I want to be here to help tell them. Yours, mine, all of ours, common threads, with uncommon Hope.
A journalist in the trenches, with one ear to heaven and one ear to the earth. Bringing breaking news of encouragement, not ones t riddled with fear or discouragement.
Thank God I’m not a journalist. Not “theirs” anyway. Because Hope doesn’t sell big or catch a flashy headline as much as fear might appear to. But it’s ironic because isn’t Hope what we really crave? Isn’t good news what every soul needs. It is. So it’s what I want to lead with.
The truth is, if we’re really following Christ- either in the marketplace or out of it- that’s what we’ll lead with too.
If hope is real, then I want to see it.
If hope is thing, then I want to deal it
If hope is a seed, I want to plant it
If hope is a way, I want to walk it
If Hope is person, I want to embrace him.
Then I pause to think.
Perhaps because I think about it, maybe I already have?
And maybe I can, even more, too.
Always.
Because that’s where He always leads.
Hope, always.
Sure, I’ll be a Hope dealer. A journalist of sort. Different, but necessary. Because He is, our Hope in glory, of all that is good. He lives, forever in, and invites us on a journey of eternal hope, forever with Him.
That’s “breaking news.” The sort that’ll make you whole.
I said it out loud this morning as I carried my son in my arms and down the stairs. He’s getting bigger, but he still fits, and for now I can still carry him
So I noted the privilege that it is. To carry him
And the next words came out of my mind and spirit faster than I could reckon to know or understand They’re from an old hymn.
What a privilege to carry ..EVERYTHING TO GOD IN PRAYER.
Friends, I know that it’s heavy. So heavy sometimes. Being a parent, caring for your home, your finances, your family, all of it.
It is heavy. But you don’t have to carry it alone.
The one place we can carry it? Even when we barely feel we can hang on and the loads and lives have gotten bigger and heavier.
The one place we can carry it that is both the shortest distance and to the greatest affect?
It’s to heaven. It’s at the feet of Jesus.
It’s before OUR Father who sees, who knows and who loves so fiercely. For the Holy Spirit who is present, and who longs just to help.
So don’t forget. You are not alone. You are not alone.
You are HIS kid. And your kids? They are His, too.
All that concerns you, and all that concerns them, He cares about too.
Bring them one more carry than you think you possibly can. But not on your own shoulders. Carry them to His loving, gentle hands.
He’s willing to carry us all. We just have to remember, and to ask. 🫶🏻❤️
Am I the only one? I’m rather sure I’m not. I couldn’t be.
Tell me that I’m not the only one.
Who doesn’t exhale when I drop off my kids. But inhales, a rather sharp intake of breath
Like something is piercing me inside, no matter how much I expect it. A reflex of sorts, like a pull on my soul’s inner heart strings. A feeling I cannot fully define or certainly deny. No matter how hard I try.
Even when I know it’s good. Even when I know we both have things to see. Places to go. Tasks to complete. People to love. People to become.
These children of mine. They are not “mine”. But they certainly have my heart. In undefinable ways, they don’t just have my heart. They take a piece of it with them. Everywhere they go.
And I feel it, as it stretch just so. Places I can’t go. I feel myself expand, deflate, and grow.
Like my insides not so long ago to make room for them. That was just the beginning.
And so now does my heart.
I know how this goes. I know it’s all in preparation for greater distances and greater destinies for both of us.
We must keep growing. Or we’ll never know. Where were meant to go, on this hot air balloon ride. This journey of life.
But my heart will never not rise to go with them. Stretch just so. Tuck itself in. With the kiss that I placed on their cheek. Or the note that I sent in their packs. Or the words that I whispered at waking time.
“We love you we love you we love you.”
Together or apart. We will grow and stretch and expand.
When you go, child, it is not a relief or an exhale of any real stress. No not at all. It is a sigh. A stretching.
So that when you do come back I have room to love your expanding self more, too. Room to grow and expand in being myself, too.
It goes on and on. All of this growing.
Rising to meet. Stretching to the breeze. Bending toward the sky. Chasing down the sun. Bringing it all, too.
Growing to expand our hearts. Together or apart. We’re growing, together, in love.
That’s what it’s gotta be. That thing that I feel. A very stretching, swelling, and soaring kind of love.
I walked into September thinking it was fall. But it’s still summer, dear, still summer; It’s still summer, I recall. It’s summer, only different. Only changing, with the leaves.
But isn’t it always? Oh isn’t it, always, even if you don’t please.
I want to park right here and linger, stay this way for just so long. But we can’t, my love, not forever. We’ve got to move along.
Though I’d like you to stay little, I know that would be wrong. You’re not meant to be my prize- my prize is watching you. Your life, it is a song. One that I’ll remeber, And know my whole life long.
So I will sit and listen- Watch as things unfold, In the dazzling way they ought to do. In beauty and in challenge, Watching you be you. I can’t keep you-like the summer, but I keep you in my heart.
Though the autumn winds may start to blow, like they did from the start, you’ll forever be my little one, little big one of my heart.
One of my favorite memories of Montana was also one that was almost comically, full of danger.
We went on a dinosaur dig, which my husband found for our dinosaur-loving six year old. We left the mountains of Glacier Park behind us and drove about an hour and a half to more open, almost desert like badlands of Montana.
We passed Indian reservations, one lone gas station and lots of beautiful open spaces and more rolling hills. We arrived at the headquarters and museum, in a thriving town, home to a whopping 51 people. We got in a dusty old van with a young college paleontologist who drove us another 45 minutes down dusty, gravel roads. As she did, she told us with excitement all about the area, its history and dinosaurs, and all that we’d find, deep into the heart of dinosaur country, in a state that we’d grown to love.
We pulled up, into a ranchers expansive land, where dinosaur bones had been found and excavated, and still more remained.
We stepped out into the wide open, and wild spaces, and the small group of us gathered around the two guides for our instructions. They were going to tell us what we should look for, how to find the actual dinosaur bones. But first, they’d have to start with the safety talk.
“See that butte over there? That’s actually home to the largest concentration of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states. They live and feed there and the surrounding stream and vegetation.”
Why there and not the Rockies we could see off in the distance. From the looks of this butte, it was nothing compared to the great glory of the pine filled mountains we’d left a few hours behind. And why so close to where we were going to be, I had no actual idea either. They had mentioned the bears back at the museum when Ted checked in, and so hearing it now was not exactly a complete surprise. But it still was a surprise generally speaking it was. We had left our two cans of bear spray back at the ranch, thinking that we were also leaving bear country.
Standing there, looking at that butte just a bit of way off, it was hard to believe that we’d actually come closer. The safety talk by our guides assured us that it was unlikely that we’d encounter one. But it was a possibility and we had to be aware, to listen for our guides, and worst case scenario, we’d all jump in the big metal van and drive away.
Gulp.
I looked around. Looked down down at my feet. Wondered what on this dusty earth was going on. I imagined what it might look like to see one here. We knew what to do in general. Might sound easy enough, for one maybe. Multiply that by a family a four including little ones, and it was not something I like to have to imagine.
But the safety talk didn’t stop there. “We’re also in rattlesnake country. And this area is also home to lots of black widow spiders. Stay out of the brush, don’t stick your hands in any holes, and if you hear a rattle, alert one of us right aware.”
Double gulp.
The next part of the talk, I wasn’t listening. It’s not that I didn’t try. They talked all about what to look for in order to find the dinosaur bones. These treasures that we sought. As you looked among the rocks, you should look for this color, this shape, this texture, and a certain porousness (which could be tested by licking your finger and seeing if it stuck.) That part I heard. The rest of the instructions? It was like Charlie Brown’s teacher in peanuts. “Wah wah wah wah.”
All I could think about was grizzly bears, rattlesnakes, and black widow spiders. While everyone was walking about, scanning for treasure, I was scanning the horizon, the bushes, the spaces around us that might hold the danger we were warned about. The kids and everyone else set about looking. It appeared that we all did.
Ted looked at me after a bit and said, “what exactly are we looking for?” “I sure don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. All I could think about was bears and snakes and spiders. Ha!” I knew that he’d chuckle at me, and at my hesitation. It wouldn’t be any news flash for him to see that.
But I was finding it hard to concentrate on the task at hand when there was so much potential, deadly danger all around us. I knew that chances were slight. But still, they were there.
I also know that my husband had excellent judgement and he would never intentionally lead us into any actual danger. If he was truly concerned he would have said so.
But I was left with this potential information and it wasn’t any fun. “Oh you of little faith” is all I could think, really, about myself. You might not know from the outside, I appeared to be doing what everyone else was doing. But inside I was wrestling with imaging the worst, preparing for it and trying not to let it overtake me.
It’s really hard.
I prayed of course. I went through the emotions. I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I watched as my kids found some. I took delight. I didn’t loose heart. I didn’t find any snakes or bears or black windows. (Though our guide found one hiding beneath a bone we were all standing and hovering over.)
We found bones, we did. We walked to another area and found real fragments of broken black dinosaur eggs. Larger fossils had been taken from that area, including a whole nest of eggs. It was pretty wild and neat.
My kids got to keep one of the small dinosaur bone pieces they each found. I found none, of course, so there was that. It was not without joy. No, not at all. It was worth it. But boy, it was a real exhale when we made it back to the car. My kids fell fast asleep, my smile got a lot easier, and I scanned the horizon for bears, only now mentioning out loud that I’d like to actually see one.
It felt a lot like real, everyday life.
We’re on a hunt for something meaningful. We’re surrounded by potential danger. We decide what we focus on, which decides and helps determine what we find.
Some can hear about danger without focusing on it. Some focus only on treasure. Some dance between the two.
Which one are you? I think you know which one I am. I dance. Oh yes I dance. I wish I didn’t. I wish I only could see the good and not ever worry about what might happen.
If only I could trust the Lord even more. Trust His judgement. Trust His ability to rise up and protect us. Just like I trust my husband.
And I do. Oh I do. Especially when I lean in.
In my spirit, I know that there’s good. In my flesh, I wrestle with the worry.
Like a dance where I know and dance with them, both, only differently.
If only I could sign just the one dance card. And when worries hand me their dance card, that I could just hand it right back. That there’s only one I’ll truly dance with.
When I feel foolish, and remember how I’ve danced before, with worries, and how I wrestled there in the open desert, maybe I’ll see now how it was a dance. And how much the better dance partner pursued me. And who I eventually did choose to lean on.
Though fears and worry came and kept coming to tap me on the shoulder- again and again- and invited me to dance, I looked around.
I shook my head only subtly at first, then more firmly. And even as my knees felt like buckling underneath me or I felt weak with worry. Even then, I learned to lean on the shoulders of the One who held me. Of my Love who holds me still, and doesn’t want me to be afraid. Though no evil or danger came near us, I leaned on Him. I know that He kept us safe. And I know that I’m learning with each step to dance, only better. This is training ground. Desert or mountain. To learn to trust.
Though sometimes I’d like to skip right past the worry and get to the exhale. Like the journey home in that “metal box” of a van. All together with my family, danger far behind us. I don’t want to miss the good stuff along the way either. All the discovery we were meant for.
Even someday when I do have to face death and danger I do to cross over to eternity as we all do, I pray and trust that I’ll know then, just as I know now, but maybe even better- that He’s never left me and He won’t stop now. He’ll reign as King and dance with me, forever. Right past all the snakes and spiders and bears. Nothing bothers Him and He knows that He’a got me. I’m still failing and learning how to lean in and dance. But He’s never failed me. He won’t start now.
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
And also 2 Corinthians 12:9 ”Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”
Each time.
I can dance on, because He’s dancing, there right beside me, and strong. Stronger still.
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. 