Are You Listening?
In a world that is so loud, are you listening?
Tag: love
I’m Not Responsible
I received a text from a friend filled with concern. She saw some things a mutual friend was doing and it broke her heart. She knew life wasn’t found it that space but didn’t know what do. Have you ever been there? Have you ever …
Raising Puppies is Like Raising Kids Which is Like Finding Grace
I was walking the dogs the other day when I noticed something. I told my four month old Boxador puppies to sit. I make them sit at each corner before we cross the street. I am trying to teach them that I am the lead and some self-control. One of the puppies sat on command. The other, well, he needed a few reminders and a little push on his back side. Just like my boys, the puppies need a few reminders and a whole lot of patience.
Training these dogs and raising these kids reminds me of my faith.
Raising puppies is like raising kids which is like finding grace.
Takes stamina
Patience
Commitment
Failure
Picking back up after failure
Recovering from failure
Doesn’t happen overnight
Grace isn’t a chase. It’s a discovery. Instead of taking the lead in our lives, we chase grace as if it is always one step ahead. Grace is ours the moment we believe. There is no chase.
We tend to chase our kids and our puppies, too. Most of the time, we are running after them helping to right their wrongs instead of taking the lead knowing we are the one in charge. Exhausted and worn out, we give up too soon. This leads us to more stress down the road because we did stay the course when raising these crazies got hard.
We do the same with grace. Instead of living in confidence in the grace we receive, we give up. We believe the lie that we aren’t worthy or we are too tired and we walk away from grace. And when we walk away from grace, we walk away from our faith.
Grace is not a chase. Grace is a journey of discovery. A discovery of how much you are loved.
No matter how many times my puppies chew something up or don’t sit when I tell them to, I still love them. Same with my kids. No matter how many times they veer off the road, I see them sleeping and I fall in love all over again. My love never leaves them. My grace is always available.
The same is true for God’s grace to us. Always available. No need to chase.
Stop running. Stand confidently in the grace you were gifted the moment you believed. When Jesus said, “It is finished” in John 19:28-30 he gave that victory to you. Now, you can rest in His grace no matter where you find yourself.
Grace isn’t a chase. It isn’t something to earn. Grace is a gift freely given from the cross to you. Take it. Rest. Find peace. Be loved.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
I watched Passion of the Christ with my kids. Here’s how it went…a throwback
I got the crazy idea to watch The Passion of the Christ with my boys on this Good Friday. From the moment I saw the film, I knew I wanted my children to see it and I didn’t even have any kids when the movie first came out. We can never know the brevity of the sacrifice Jesus made for us. This movie gives us a small glimpse into that reality and that’s what I wanted my kids to see: reality. Not some fairy tale.
Bloom
I ran into a friend in the shaving cream aisle at Target. We hadn’t seen each other in quite some time and started to catch up. She was overwhelmingly exhausted due to motherhood. I, being on the other side of motherhood, was able to tell her it wasn’t always going to be this way. And what better place to talk our motherhood whoas out then with a Starbucks and red cart? Am I right?!?!
When I got home, I had a vision. I remembered what I felt like when I was in the throws of motherhood. At one point, I had an infant, one year old, and four year old. Even though I loved being a mom, I felt depleted and exhausted most days. I got the vision of a tree in the winter. The branches are stark. The tree is barren. Nothing is blooming. Then, all of a sudden, as spring nears, a bloom bops through. And another bloom. And another until the tree is full of wondrous colors.
The tree is me. I felt stark and barren when the boys were little giving my everything to them. I was depleted. As the boys got older, I began to rediscover myself. All of a sudden, one bloom popped out. Then another. And another until my tree was full again.
Motherhood is magical. It is also exhausting. We tend to neglect and reject ourselves in order to care for these precious souls entrusted to us. At some point, though, our barren trees need to bloom again. That won’t happen unless you’re willing to water it.
It is time we stop neglecting and rejecting ourselves.
Our trees will remain desolate as long as we neglect and reject ourselves. For some reason, we have convinced ourselves that sacrificing all of us is what motherhood (and life) is about. I am here to tell you that you are no good to those kiddos (or anyone for that matter) if you don’t love yourself.
“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Ephesians 1:4-5
God loved you before he created the world. Can you believe that? He wanted you to be a part of his family because it made him happy. No matter how depleted, exhausted, unworthy, or depressed you may feel today, know that the God of the universe loved you so much that he thought of you before he placed on star in the skies. He loves you so much that he created you to be a part of his family because it makes him happy.
You are worthy to bloom. You were never meant to stay in a barren season. There is something in you that he created that brings him great joy. Stop neglecting and rejecting yourself and find that thing.
You are worthy of more.
It is time your barren tree starts to bloom. There is too much beauty within you to be withheld.
Bloom.
Stop neglecting and rejecting yourself and bloom.
We need you to bloom.
Love & Blessings,
Meg
Thanksgiving Top 10
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as …
Nope. He sure didn’t.
“God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17 God did not come down to JUDGE the world. He came down to LOVE the world. God. He’s a tough one to figure out. …
Tribal
Later as they were eating, Jesus appeared to the eleven and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned”.… Mark 16:14-16
We are tribal. We live in our safe little tribes. As much as we would like to deny it, we live, work, eat, and breath with like-minded people. We gravitate towards those that look like us, talk like us, and act like us. We do it without even realizing it. We surround ourselves with the comfort of knowing what to expect from people; the people we allow into our lives and into our space.
Being tribal is not a bad thing. Jesus was tribal. He went out into the world proclaiming the Gospel to all people but retired for the day with his people. He had his tribe and he rested there. We need our safe landing. We need our people who know the deepest darkest parts of us and still love us. We need to walk through life with people who walk similarly. We also need to learn to link arms with those who look and live differently.
Jesus told all of us in Mark to tell his story to everyone. Go out and talk about Jesus to anyone and everyone. We know these verses. I knew these verses before I ever cracked open a Bible. What I notice about this declaration is that while Jesus told us to go and tell the world about him, he didn’t tell us how other than to love Mark 12:30-31 . He didn’t tell the Catholics to go or the Baptists. He didn’t tell the non-denominational believer to be the one to go. He just told us to go. All of us.
We have gotten so comfortable in our tribes, so convinced that our tribe is the only way, that the power we have in linking arms and going to all the world to tell about Jesus has eroded. Our authority is being chipped away by the strength of influence of division. The focus has shifted from go to stay and protect the tribe.
What if we linked arms with other tribes and went together? What if we understood that everyone’s journey to Jesus is going to look a little different and that is okay? That attending a different denomination or adhering to a different way of thought doesn’t keep you from Jesus but, instead, moves you towards him.
We are all trying to do our best to figure this Jesus out. We are all wrestling with our interpretations of the Bible. But, at the end of it all, we can agree that Jesus is what matters. Why can’t we stand together on that principal alone? We do we allow our tribal ways to infiltrate our foundation?
Jesus didn’t tell one tribe, or way of thought, to go. He told us all to go. He didn’t tell us to preach our way of thought. He told us to love. That’s it. We’ve over-complicated a very simple message.
You are loved.
You are valued.
You were made for more.
Let’s link arms and go. Let’s stick with our tribes yet love our neighbor and go together. Let’s love the heck out of this world even though when I look at you and you look at me we look different and disagree on a few things.
Let’s go.
Let’s go together.
Later as they were eating, Jesus appeared to the eleven and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned”.… Mark 16:14-16
Love & Blessings,
Meg
