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8/27/2018 1 Comment golden hour(s)my mom & sisters & i am wholeheartedly convinced the best hour to be at the ocean is during “golden hour,” or at around five o’clock when the sun starts to cool down & turn a deep orange & the waves seem to hush & crash slower & the sand settles as families funnel off the beach for dinner & the seagulls soar above us, content & indifferent. we crave this hour & all that comes with it & when it does come, we celebrate its every moment.
& this got me thinking : what if we pursued every hour of our lives as golden hour? what if we saw every day as not just another day, but as a sequence of golden hours that are constantly unfolding radiance & a peculiar kind of beauty that is unique only to this day? what if we saw each of our hours today through the lens of gold & as an invitation to live spent & courageous & always, always hopeful? what if we dared to see the magic in it all? i’m still in the space of figuring out exactly what i mean by this & how to live it out practically, but i think it starts by using our minutes to reflect on how we want to be remembered & live forward from that. i want to be the kind of person who points out the tie-dyed sky to a stranger in the parking lot & the kind of person who stops to admire a little girl twirling her dress around in a coffee shop, then tells her how beautiful & smart & courageous she is & the kind of person who thanks the man who puts my shopping cart away after he put away hundreds before mine & the kind of person who believes the best in people & the kind of person who lives like light, every golden hour of this day. because today is here & it’s happening regardless & i’ve had to tell myself that a dozen times just in the past week because otherwise i’d let frustration & discontentment drown out my gratitude & sometimes i found it already had, but there’s always a second chance to begin again & i’d rather choose to see every hour as golden instead of as anything less than that. i want us all to believe that there’s treasure right here in front of our eyes & it’s right now that holds a rare grace that’s just waiting to be basked in. life is full of golden glow, but i also know that some (if not most) hours are downright hard & not so golden & i think it’s ok to admit that & be in that space for however long we need to be & recognize we’re not alone in it & tell each other that. we shouldn’t call our dark hours what they’re not, but i also believe we can always find the golden shards poking through our dark hours, like seashells glistening under soft sand & the golden hour sky, revealing that regardless of what we face, there’s always a grace to discover in the midst of it.
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8/11/2018 0 Comments limit-lessas i’ve thought about it, i guess part of what drives me to write words is an urge to try to reclaim some images of each other & of God & of the world that fuel hope & love & joy & all those words that are often hard to come by, hard to muster. i write to share & i write to discover & i write to learn more about this pursuit of the best in life & trust that something will come of it. i write because i need a permanent reminder that God really does reveal His character & His image in everything, like in the lady at the spice store who never stopped smiling at me & the guy carrying a dozen roses downtown & the girl on a bike i drove past who was dancing to her music without a care, just loving life.
i write because i heard a message the other day & the woman begged her audience to read God’s word & bask in His love & my instant internal reaction was, “i really, really want to, but what if God’s voice in His word sounds mean to me sometimes” & then i paused & dug underneath my gut & what i found were dozens of images & interactions & sayings & pictures of who i was told God was & some were helpful & some felt hurtful & most felt dangerous & i learned another lesson that day : when we tell each other who God is, it will either be extremely helpful or extremely damaging or somewhere in between, but it will nevertheless almost always impact our pursuit of Him. i’m not saying that the truth about God is never uncomfortable, or that it’s never confrontational, or that the Bible is there to make us feel good about ourselves when we feel down, or give us a pat on the back when our self-esteem is low. this isn’t a post rallying for a watered down version of the gospel — in fact, i wasn’t planning on writing about this at all, but it’s a message that’s heavy on me because so many of us are weighed down & held back by shame & guilt & often what’s underneath that is that at some point in our lives, we were given a damaging image of who God is from someone who may have meant well, but that image didn’t drive us to Him & free us, instead, it shackled us even more. it’s kinda ironic that i’m writing this because here i am about to risk giving you yet another image of God & trusting that it’s who He is & serving as another voice in the world & asking you to keep reading. but i’m a writer & a follower of God & so it’s also kinda why i’m here. here it is : God is limit-less in His love for you. i will never hear this message enough : “who else makes the offer ‘come as you are, broken & battered into my love’? in every other domain of your life it’s ‘earn, achieve, accomplish, go.’ only Christ says, ‘come to me & i will give you rest.’ we are not a religion that requires us to do, do, do. we are a religion that Christ has done.” (from matt chandler - a gospel reminder) His love is constantly wooing you through the kind cashier & the hummingbird dancing & the quiet mornings & the candle burning & the crowded dinner table & the everything around you. a sweet sign in a small store reminded me yesterday that to believe that you’re loved makes you brave. & one of the best things about knowing His love for you is limit-less, is that you know that you also are limit-less in the ways you can love others & love the world. with your today, you are — we are — limit-less in the amount of love we can give, the amount of times we can be for each other, the` amount of kindness we can demonstrate, the amount of sacrifice we can give without expecting a return, the amount of times we can show up & be about each other instead of ourselves. because being a person who is about being about other people is one who exudes the limit-less love of the God who says “before you were loved by anyone, you were Mine.” i believe that’s the truth & i believe that’s one image of God worth holding onto & one worth giving away. 8/6/2018 0 Comments soft and ofteni think at our core, we all just want to be wanted — want to know there’s someone noticing, someone applauding, someone smiling, someone admiring. & i think one of the things we need to be reminded of most often is not only that we’re seen & heard, but that we’re known & wanted.
i know this sounds cliche, but it’s true & i’m gonna write it anyways : we’re all a part of a grand love story that takes place every single day. & that story involves me & you & the gentle & good God & the sunrise & the trees & the birds & the weeds & the clouds & the leaves & the person next to you & the person away from you & every thing in front of you. i’m convinced that whatever “here” looks like for you & for me, it’s all just one big explosion of His unconditional & unwavering love — all just splinters of His infinite creativity that is constantly wooing us closer to Himself. if we slow our pace & pay attention, i believe we’ll know in our core not only that we want to be wanted, but we’ll know that we are. & wanted not only by the ones who show us what love is, but by the One who is Love Himself, the One who is constantly moving & shaping & whispering to us soft & often through whatever is right in front of us. & i’ll be the first to admit the amount of time i waste unaware & discontent & dismissive to what & who’s around me. but as one of my favorite authors put it, this whole world is one giant oasis begging us to drink of grace. so i will & i have & i know that the well of grace will never dry up or let down those who’ve tasted its freedom. every moment is an invitation to begin again. to look around. to drink of grace once more. & i wrote a short poem to remind us that we’re in this together & to slow down & pay attention to His whispers that come, soft & often, that tell us in a thousand different ways, a thousand times a day : “you are seen & you are heard & you are known & you are wanted.” if you’ll spend today seeking the magic in a child’s closed eyes & in grocery lines & in a single firefly, you’ll be ok. if you’ll pause to press your heart’s beat against another’s pain & leave it there until you remember that it’s for these moments you were made, you’ll be ok. if you’ll memorize the depth of laughter & the length of a smile & the breadth of a memory, you’ll be ok. if you’ll give in to make more room & build up the heart in front of you & stay patient when it’s hardest & always point out kindness, you’ll be ok. if you’ll find the grace given today & the beauty buried in whatever’s here & train your eyes & ears to hear Him whisper soft & often that it’s you He wants, then even in the chaos, you’ll be ok. this life is
a thousand miles on foot & it is a single heart's beat & it is a diamond fought for & it is a treasure given & it is one step forward & two steps back. there are weeks i wish i could scratch out & days i wish i could do over & moments i wish God would let me breathe in just once more. there are days i chase down all the wrong things & wear down my soul & there are days i chase down all the good things, but demand they fix everything in me, yet in my wild pursuit, wherever i run, grace waits. so here i am, drenched in grace, not knowing much but knowing this : that life is a dance : it is one step forward & two steps back. & as we dance, i'm confident of this : we will break things & lose our balance & let each other down & make bold & brutal mistakes & simply be human, but by grace we will also learn from the past & create beautiful things & all in all, become more & more like light. so, with each week we wish we could scratch out & with each day we wish we could do over & with each moment we wish God would let us breathe in just once more, may we remember that on the days we thought we had it right & on the days we know we didn't, the King is still smiling & He's always been because in it all, we are healing & we are learning how to dance in the King's open palm one step forward & two steps back. |
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