|
Dear Friends, I want to share a few words I’ve been singing this week. Below that, a few thoughts. You are the feast in the morning Sometimes in our zeal we develop a dissatisfaction with “normal” in our lives. We pass this discontent off as desire for greatness in God, deep things of Him, there must be more! Sometimes we mistake stress as proof of walking the narrow way of Christ, and we squint into the distance to find Him, missing what’s right under our noses. I know. I’ve done it. But the Holy Spirit has this way of calming the crashing seas of the heart, bringing the noise to a decrescendo. He puts a hand on our frantic hearts and hushes our well meaning cries to be heard and to find Him. We learn that He does want to be found: right here. Many things will happen in my home this summer. Trips to the zoo, basketball, walks with the family, cleaning the house, writing, singing the Bible, dancing, kicking the boys outside and locking the door behind them (that one’s for the boy moms), church touring… And through every last bit of it my aim is to sustain what He has begun in me these last months—a heart wide open to God, right here. A friend of mine recently called this “the feast of normalcy”. I love that. It’s a feast spread before us every moment by the Good Shepherd Himself. It’s where we trade urgent, urgent, urgent for holy, holy, holy. It’s highly spiritual as much as it is deeply tangible. We can breathe again. He tends to us here, present with us. We feast on the life He puts before us: the hundred small ways He shows us something of Himself, the many opportunities to love Him back. Not often grandiose, not meant to be shouted from the street corners. Hardly noticed except by Him. Every moment, every task, every relationship, everything ordinary is made sacred by His presence right here. What a feast. –Anna P.S. Some of you are living in war-torn areas right now, others of you are walking through grief… perhaps trips to the zoo or any talk of “normal” feels foreign. What does “the feast of normalcy” look like when life is turning sideways? I got thoughts. Next week. |
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Hi Friends, We pretend to be experts, you and I. We pretend to be vinedressers. We offer to Him what we are sure is treasure, and we sweep what looks to be rubbish under the rug. We take up the pruning sheers. We are a mess, and we know it. So we cut and we slice and we prune till we can stand back and feel pride, as though we have established some sense of order. But maybe we have not established order. Maybe we have merely cut off all that was growing. There’s one vinedresser, and He’s our...
Hi Friends, Have you ever noticed how quickly we decide what matters? Who’s successful. Who’s influential. Whose life is “making an impact.” We see the titles, the platform… and without even realizing it, we start assigning value. But God does something completely different. He takes what seems valuable in the eyes of man and turns it on its head. His ways are so very different than ours. Turns out, He put the most valuable thing of all completely out of sight. It doesn’t matter if you are...
Hi Friends, Last night I stepped out onto the back deck. To be honest, I was escaping the thunderous noise (oh the noise!) of three boys who felt bedtime looming and were attempting to squeeze just a few more minutes of play out the day. I stepped out into what has been one of the first warm evenings of the year, heard the birds singing in the forest beyond our yard, and I had what felt like an involuntary reaction. It felt like when the doctor hits your knee just right and you get surprised...