How to leave the safe place

I was five or six when I got my first bike. I wanted to ride it so badly. I can still remember looking longingly at the brand new shiny paint, the awesome banana seat, and the rainbow streamers hanging from the handlebars. In my mind I could see my hair flying, legs pumping as I raced into the freedom

of fast.

But I could also see myself falling. I looked at the pavement and thought about how much it would hurt when I crashed into it. I longed for the freedom yet feared the failures I knew I would face in getting there. And like many things in my life, the fear of getting hurt kept me from going for what I really wanted.

I played it safe. I begged for the training wheels that would keep me upright and let me have the fun without the fear. I probably would have ridden it that way forever. But it wasn’t the same, and I knew it. In my heart I wanted more.

My family wanted more for me too. And they wouldn’t give up trying to get me there, even when I fought against it. Ultimately I learned to ride a bike because my parents wouldn’t let me stay in the easy place. They took the training wheels off and they stood around me as I took off, and then they ran next to me when my wobbly wheels took me terrified down the street. They cheered. They worked harder than I did. And when I fell, they ran and picked me up and hugged me. And put me right back on the bike.

I learned to ride a bike, as I learned so many other things, because they believed in me more than I believed in myself. The people who loved me cheered me on. But more than that, they pushed me beyond my safe place.

Now I am sitting on a college campus in San Diego at a conference that a few months ago I had never even heard of. I am here because of friends and loved ones who believe in me more than I believe in myself. They are pushing me beyond the safe place.

My writing life has faltered just like my early attempts to ride a bike. I’ve stopped and started so many times. I have had a few wobbly successes, and I’ve tasted the joy that comes from chasing a calling and a gift. But my eyes are often on the pavement, and as a result I often end up there. And so I go back to the training wheels, to the safe, comfortable place that doesn’t challenge me too much.

It doesn’t inspire me too much, either. And I doubt that it inspires anyone else.

I still don’t know exactly what caused my friends to decide that I needed to do this. But they did. I am amazed and overwhelmed that they went to such lengths to get me here. I’ll never forget the complete shock of opening that Christmas envelope and reading the words, “You’re going to the Storyline Conference!”

Knowing that my friends love me enough to dream this up, to scrape together the money to put me on a plane and send me to San Diego, makes me feel . . . believed in. It’s like being on a bike, surrounded by a community who says, “We love you and we know you can do it!” And now that I am here, I’m starting to believe them a little bit. With them running next to me, hands extended as I wobble along, I feel like maybe I want to try to go beyond safe. To plunge into the freedom of flying, knowing they will be there to pick me up when I fall.

So many of you are part of this journey. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for reading this blog and sticking with all my inconsistencies and hesitations. Thank you for encouraging me. I feel overwhelmed with the blessing of such love and support. And I feel a responsibility too, in a good way. I think—no, I know—that God is calling me to write. I am not sure yet what or why or how. But you all have helped to confirm this calling.

I hope it will start here, with this blog. I hope God will just take it and use it somehow. Mostly I just want to plunge in and follow Him. I hope you will keep encouraging me, and I hope you will hold me accountable. I don’t want to just add to the noise. I want my words to do for you what you have done for me. I want to help hold you up and cheer you on as you wobble along on your own journey. After all, you have a calling too.

I hope I can be a part of it. Let’s go beyond the safe place and jump into this story all the way.

What God wears

My friend has a tattooed wedding ring.

I always thought that was bold and wonderful. A ring can be removed. A tattoo is permanent. You can't get rid of it without leaving a scar.

A tattooed wedding ring makes a statement. I'm in this for keeps.

What we wear gives us identity, belonging. I'm with him. I'm on that team. I support this cause. You can tell so much about people by the way they dress. Maybe that's why it is so important to us. Our adornments shape our identity.

I never thought much about what God wears. A quick word study reveals that He is clothed in power, majesty, and honor, girded with strength, robed in righteousness.

But God has a tattoo, too. In fact, He has lots of them.

"See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me" (Is 49:16).


That word, inscribed, it means "to cut in, to engrave."

He cuts our name into His hand. I'm in this for keeps, He says.

This statement of God comes in answer to the cry, "The Lord has forgotten me!"

He says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Is. 49:15).

I love to imagine the strong, beautiful hands of God, covered with the names of His children.

He wears us. We are a part of His identity. And He will not forget.

How to enjoy Christmas anyway

There are Christmases where nothing goes as planned. There are Christmases that fill up with busyness without you even knowing how, days and days of tasks that swallow you up so quickly you forget to prepare for Him. There are Christmases of sickness and it’s all you can do to get off the couch, much less lead your family into worship. There are lonely Christmases where you feel invisible and misunderstood and small. There are Christmases that don’t match up to the one in your head, Christmases where your house is a mess and your family is grumpy and you are trying to survive and that’s all.

There are Christmases when you wake up and the big day is two days away and you find yourself wondering what happened. And your heart is crying out for you to stop, come to Him, do what you should have done so long ago, but you wouldn’t, because coming to Him meant coming face to face with your failure. You wanted to bring Christ into your Christmas, but instead you ended up with a Christ-less mess.

And so, two days before His birthday, you stop. You admit defeat. You are too tired to try anymore.

You think about the Jesse Tree stories, the history you have been reading to your kids about all the times God rescued His children, reaching into their messes again and again, saying, “I’m coming, I’m coming!”—and all because He loved them too much not to.

And this is the meaning of Advent—coming. God coming down for us because we couldn’t reach up to Him. He was born right into a mess and held by a terrified teenage girl who had no idea what to do except cling tight to that Baby. And maybe she had worked hard to prepare for Him and had a little place of welcome all ready, a room all clean and tidy. And now here she was in a stable, giving birth in the dirt, and soon she would be running for her life to a foreign land, and that little room must have seemed like a faraway dream.

And that’s the whole point. We made a mess of things right from the very beginning, and from the very beginning He has been coming, coming, and all we have to do is let Him in. Sometimes—always?—that is the hardest thing to do. But He sends stars and angels and wise men from afar to remind us we are part of a bigger story.

And so, one day before the big day, you decide to stop trying so hard and just let Him into the mess. You decide to smile.  You sit at His feet awhile, and you marvel at the beauty of this story that keeps unfolding into all the messes, always.

He just keeps coming. All you have to do is let Him.

Hush of the holy

"I'm actually just looking forward to January."

My friend says this frankly with a smile of weariness. It's only December 8 and the Christmas pressure is just too much. I find myself nodding in understanding.

The Christmas festivities that are meant to be fun pile together into this suffocating to-do list that seems to take on a life of its own, shadowing us with this malevolent promise: if you don't get this list done, your Christmas is a failure. Gifts to shop for and wrap and mail, cards to send, food to make. Parties to plan for and attend, concerts to enjoy, trips to go on, decorations to put up. And in the midst, regular life barrels along at its regular breakneck pace.

And yet we continue, year after year, to plunge into the Christmas craziness. Why? What is it that compels us to create such chaos of our world?

What does it all mean?

A good question.

I love the Christmas chaos, actually. And when I think of why, I see there is this hush beneath it all, this place of wonder and joy.

The hush of the holy.

Advent is a time when the barriers of time and place grow thin. God comes near, we feel His breath, and we touch a little piece of eternity.

That baby in a manger. That virgin mother. Those shepherds standing bewildered beneath a chorus of angels. Wise men traveling across years and continents to worship a tiny child.

God is with us. These things speak of hope and miracles. They remind us of the love that made this world and came among us to rescue it. And for a little while, we slow and we still, and we enter the holy.

Except when we don't.

When the celebrations replace the Child, the holy becomes hectic.

When we stress instead of still, we miss the story.

There is a reason every child loves Christmastime and a reason we want our children to love it. For a little while life becomes less ordinary, and we create reasons to celebrate and be together. We sing special songs. We surround ourselves with meaningful objects and memory-filled traditions. We tell stories in whispers, stay up late, eat more. 

We want a reason to rejoice. 

I think the specialness, the set-apartness, of this time is good and freeing and meaningful. But what is really important during Advent? In the end, what will stay with us? What do I want to remember? What do I want my children to remember?

I want to enter the holy. I want His gift to be the only gift that matters.

I doubt the weariness will go away. I know the chaos will clamor to consume us. But we can choose not to let it. We can choose to let these things usher us to the Christ child, and we can let go of the things that don't.

Slow.

Still.

Enter the holy.

Made of love

I'm writing a story to my kids about the Christmas narrative, starting from the very beginning--at creation. I'm trying to imagine the perspective of an angel looking on as God speaks the words that bring the world into being, and suddenly I'm stunned by a thought. 

The world is made of love. 

Literally. God made us because He just couldn't stand not to (at least that's what I think). He dreamed us up and He so wanted to love us that He just had to create. And His love is so huge and strong and beautiful that the words just came spilling out, like an artist inspired. And here it all is. A whole world made of love. 

What other force could have dreamed of skies spread thick with silver stars, mountains piled up like craggy fortresses, rivers sparkling, life teeming, all of earth yearning upward in this glorious song?

Have you ever stood at the ocean's edge at sunrise, watching that burst of light breaking through where sky and water meet? Have you stood on a mountaintop looking out over wave after wave of frosty peaks?

Every day He declares Himself to us over and over in a million creative ways (Psalm 19). His creation shouts, whispers, sings to us of His love. 

Yes, we made a wreck of it. Yes, we are all dying, and this world is dying with us. But just like a shoot growing from a stump (Isaiah 11), His love is the pulse of life that keeps springing upward no matter how we trample it down. 

He won't be outdone. Circumstances may try to convince you otherwise. But this Christmas, I hope you will breathe in the love your world is made of. I hope you will come to Jesus. 

I hope you see shoots growing from stumps. 


Here is the link to my children's Christmas story--one each day until Christmas!

Jesse Tree Journey: What the Angels Saw

I have done the Jesse Tree stories for the past few Christmases with my kids. This year I wanted to bring the stories a bit more to their level, creating a storyline that would pull all of the Jesse Tree Bible stories together in a fun way. This story is my attempt to do that. I am happy to share it with you!

I incorporate the ornaments with our advent calendar. Each day the kids open the “door” on our calendar and pull out the ornament that is inside. Then we read the story together. There are some great ideas for making your own ornaments on pinterest, or I think you can Google ornaments to purchase. I just printed out paper images and glued them to cardboard—cheap but effective. 

I hope you and your family will enjoy sharing this journey with us. I will post the entries Please be patient as I am writing the story as we go along and I’m not quite sure where it will take me. I’m excited to find out!

I will post the daily entries below. Have fun!

Introduction to the Jesse Tree

December 1: The Plan

How to die, part 2

"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there my servant will be also" (John 12:26).

He has just raised the dead. Raised the dead. He let Lazarus lie in the tomb for four days just to remove all doubt of the miracle's authenticity. Now He has ridden into the city surrounded by adoring followers. His name is everywhere. His disciples spend their days controlling the crowds trying to get to Jesus.

It must be fun, riding that wave of fame and popularity. To be able to say, "Yep, I'm one of His chosen." "Yes, I was there when He raised Lazarus. In fact, I have seen almost all of His miracles."

These disciples have followed Him for three years, and if anything, they have learned He is unpredictable. But He is good. And now He is at the height of power. He is changing all the rules in their world. He's going to save them. He's the answer they have been waiting for. They swear they will follow Him anywhere.

We have the luxury of hindsight. We know that only a few days later, Jesus walks right into death, and almost all of His followers flee in terror.

He shattered their expectations. They did not understand a love that willingly gave itself up to suffering. They could not see beyond the now. They didn't know that sometimes He doesn't meet our expectations because He's going to exceed them in ways we cannot imagine.

He was part of a story so much bigger than their little world. And so were they.

It's easy to follow glamour. It's simple to attach ourselves to success and fame. But Jesus wants servants, not fans, and servants follow into death.

"Where I am, there my servant will be also."

Where is He?

In heaven, yes. And He's promised we will be there with Him. But obviously we are not there yet.

He is here, too. And if we follow, we will be where He is.

Where is He?

With the poor.
With the brokenhearted.
With the captives.
With the mourners.
With the desolate.
With the dying. (Isaiah 61)

If you know the story, you know that most of the disciples came back. They did follow. Right into death. Right into a lost and dying world. Into need. Into sorrow. Into anger and rejection and fear. These few men carried the candle of His hope, and it spread across the whole world.

We're all dying. It's how we die that matters.

We can walk into this death with our candles of hope, following where He is. Or we can cling to a life we are sure to lose. The question is, when we lose our life, what will be left?

It all depends on who we follow.

Thanksgiving

Sky above mountains

pink painted, swirling

impossible blue, shot with

sun's rising rays.

Early morning fire crackle, 

cat on lap, world still, 

listening.

Tousled heads bobbing

down hallway, tiny

arms round neck,

kisses.

Shoes heaped in

piles, toys lying in wait

like land mines,

songs sung loudly and

off-key. Juice spilled

again, chocolate-smeared

faces grinning at jokes

told a hundred times.

Golden hair streaming

as she runs. Giggles

cascading, contagious.

Finding his stories, written

by flashlight at bedtime.

The smell of sawdust

in his hair. Strong hands catching

daughters flying through the air,

building Lego masterpieces, creating

a home.

Breathing

the song of His

story.

Naming and

being named.

Sharing the

struggles shot through with

joy, knowing victorious

Love.