Home.

Home. 

One word...One place...

So many meanings...

A place where memories are made, families thrive, joy outlasts, and tears are shed...

A place where you can be yourself, where you learn little lessons, and tackle big moments...

A place where your little self becomes your grown-up self, but a place where you never forget how to be your little-girl self...

A place where pictures are taken, and moments are framed, where you learn how to forgive, and truly how to love...

A place where you share a cup of tea, enjoy meals around the table, and sit in rocking chairs for hours at a time...

A place where big decisions were made, and life paths were decided, a place where you learned to put your faith in the One who knows most of all...
And a place that becomes a reminder that this really isn't our home at all...

A place that has become more than a place...but a piece of who you are and who you want to be...

I am forever thankful for my "home." 

And the blessing of one word, one place, that is now becoming more than a home, but a piece of who I will always be...

The front porch.

The front porch...

To me this place represents so many things... 

So many moments on this porch...so many hours, days, and conversations...

So many prayers, so many books, so many phone calls...

So many late nights, early mornings, and rainy afternoons...

So many summer meals, so many family memories, and so many naps...

So many welcomes, so many goodbyes, so many pictures... 

To me this place represents so many things

That I'm saying "see you later" to and wishing fall to come.

Maybe takes the cake as my favorite place with some of my favorite memories...

He clings to what he knows...

"In the darkness, Jesus doesn't analyze what he doesn't know. He clings to what he knows." 

- Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life.

Wow, that sentence hit home and made me think...he doesn't analyze what he doesn't know, but he clings to what he knows. What would that look like in my life? I think about things A) way too often, B) a lot, and C) very slowly. I overthink, I under think, I analyze, I question, I process, I think and think and think until I have thought myself around in circles and then some... While I think processing is good and healthy and a life without thinking wouldn't get you very far either, I long to be able to say, I don't worry about what I don't know, but cling to what I do know.

On the cross, when Jesus was being crucified, he began to quote Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He meditates on this and maybe set out to say the entire Psalm... To know the Scripture so well, that when the darkest moment in his life came, he held tightly to what he knew, to what he knew gave him life and brought him light, and in the darkness, he didn't question, he didn't analyze, but he placed confident hope in his Father.

I long for my life and for those darkest moments to look like that. I don't analyze what I don't know, but I cling to what I do. "Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd." - Paul E. Miller

If you take the Good Shepherd out of Psalm 23, you are left alone in a world of evil. Miller states, "We are left obsessing over our wants in the valley of the shadow of death, paralyzed by fear in the presence of our enemies." But with the Good Shepherd, we are no longer sheep without a shepherd, we are sheep being led by THE Shepherd. And that alone is enough to cling to... To stop analyzing, and to start abiding...that's my for prayer today.

There's something about walking in an airport...

There's something oddly refreshing about walking in an airport to me. I'm not sure why...maybe it's because my dad is a pilot, or maybe it's my love for traveling, but either way...it can be somewhat serene. Maybe not when you're rushing to make a connection, but usually, at least to me, there is a quaint feeling. I think it's a small metaphor for life -- which can be sad and yet somewhat affirming...everyone is going somewhere. So many different destinations, so many different journeys, so many different ways of getting to where you're going...but everyone is going somewhere. 

And you get to be one person in the midst of an "everybody..." with a destination in sight and enjoying the walking in between...thinking, praying, listening, and watching...so many different people, cultures, families, and lives all being connected through one place...and through that one place, everyone's journeys overlap even for just a moment. There's just something so neat about it...

"When you travel, and when you read, you are not actually alone, but rather surrounded by other worlds entirely, the footsteps and phrases of whole other lives keeping you company as you go."  - Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

Patience While You Drive

Patience while you drive...

I started thinking about this the other day while I was driving with my little sister. We were just "do-daddlin" (a phrase I coined for just running errands or just bebopping around town) and I caught myself more than once comment on/about another person's driving. Either they didn't turn fast enough, or forgot to turn on their blinker, or were driving too slow in front of me, or too fast behind me...the list goes on...but as I was driving with my little sister in the seat next to me, I realized how much my speech definitely didn't match how I normally talk to my friends and family. 

Not that I was saying anything crazy, but just little comments started getting to me...little signs of frustration that I was showing to someone I didn't even know. Little things I said that if they heard me say they would not see Christ in my actions or my words. As my faith deepens and my actions and words take on more weight (as they should as a Christian) I started thinking how this would look different than the world we live in. In Hebrews 10, it talks about that we have been set apart as holy and in 1 Timothy 4, it says, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." Set an example in speech....

In James 3:9-12, it gives warning on this exact thing... "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water." This hits home on so many levels, but one in particular, when we were in Israel, we learned a ton about springs...how they symbolize Living Water, how they provide life, and refresh and nourish...and when I landed on my identity statement as a "refreshing spring of truth..." I realized that the Lord has called me to be that not just when I'm "doing ministry" but also, when I'm in the car with my little sister driving to Kroger.

As I think back to all the times that my same tongue praised Jesus in the morning, then expressed so much frustration toward a person I didn't know...man, it's convicting to me. I don't know if it would hit home for you, but this has been on my heart the past few weeks, and I couldn't help but share. I am so much more aware now of how I respond in my car and on the road. Not that I'm in recovery as road-range addict, far from it, but I am learning and the Lord is teaching me how our little actions matter too. And our speech should always be pleasing and edifying because we were given a responsibility and a calling as people set apart. In 1 Peter 2:9, it states, "But you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Yes. May I declare those praises at every moment, and may I live my life as people belonging to God. 

So here's to praying instead of letting my frustration get the best of me...it's just another picture how I am being refined and molded and I thought I'd share this morning. Hope this encourages you and the Lord uses it how He will in your life, and I'm thankful for the little lessons in life where I get to refocus my heart and thoughts and especially my words...