A New Thing

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I’m sick of hesitation. I’m sick of crippling perfectionism. I’m sick of over-analysis. I’m sick of people-pleasing. I’m sick of fear.

I’m craving boldness. I’m longing for intentionality. I’m wanting to feel vibrantly alive and soulfully well.

The fog of this last year is settling. I’m seeing the horizon again. It has felt cloudy and slow. Somehow my life has felt surreal. It has been like a weird dream. That dream where you are both living and watching yourself live at the same time. It has been full of so much good…don’t get me wrong, there have been painfully beautiful moments I would not trade…still…if I’m honest…

I crave feeling fully present and the sparkle and energy of new possibilities. I’m taking a breath and diving deep this year. I am pursuing creativity for the sole purpose of glorifying God who made me in his image, a mini-creator…no critic or self-doubt allowed. I’m going all-in because there is nothing to lose.

…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

I’m going to create. I’m going to paint, write, letter, walk, breathe, hope, and live. I’m going to cultivate spaces for connection, beauty, and rest. I’m going to create in order to live out the gospel..to live out a spirit of power and love and self-control.

I turn 40 this year.

Bring it on. I’m fired up. God is doing a new thing. I’m going His way. My days are His.

Singing His Grace,

Jess

Questions For Reflection:

These are questions for your own reflection and writing that I invite you to use in a journal or, if you feel led, in the comments below. Happy writing!

Q: What are you craving this year? What will you pursue for his Glory? What new thing do you sense God doing in your life?
Writing Music: “Piano Moment”

2020

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This has been a year. We will be marked by this year. We will remember this year. Each of us will carry our own sorrows and celebrations. No person’s experience matches another’s. The outward physical distance and isolation of a pandemic mirror the internal “struggle bubbles” we all find ourselves in. In many ways, our personal experience of 2020 is completely individualized and separate. My experience has been different than my husband’s, than my children’s, than my in-laws’, than my parents’, than my co-workers’, than my students’, than my neighbors’, than my grandparents’. Yet, we have all grieved losses and ached with those who have lost loved ones. And, I am keenly aware that the ache may continue as we navigate the coming weeks.

In a Zoom call with some of my college roommates, dear friends who have known me for two decades, I joked that we will all need some kind of counseling after this year. But, you know…that may not be a joke. This collective experience…this utterly separate and individual experience…needs processing. It may take time. It may be too soon for you to start processing all that this year holds. It may just be the proverbial tip of the iceberg for all of us. Nevertheless, there is hope and truth to be pursued even in the darkest of places.

Writing is my way of processing. So today, I am carving out this little space for that. Nothing fancy. No curated content here. Just some words jotted down that prayerfully lead to hope and healing that is found in a life lived as a sacrifice.

One of my life verses is:

 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1

I love this because you see sacrificial-living doesn’t have to be pretty, or perfect, or whole, or vibrant, or even youthful. We can be broken and weak. Sacrificial-living is by the mercies of God, laying down “self” and choosing God in all things. This is true worship. This is living out our days well, even in 2020.

Here’s to a new day.

Singing His Grace,
Jess

Questions For Reflection:

These are questions for your own reflection and writing that I invite you to use in a journal or, if you feel led, in the comments below. Happy writing!

Q: How and what are you processing at the end of 2020? Do you have a life verse? How might your verse inform what you are facing in 2020?
Writing Music: “Piano Moment”

Wall.

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Today I hit a wall.
That moment where everything comes to a stop.

All the momentum you’ve worked on–The dishes, to the dishwasher, to the cabinets, to the sink, to the dishwasher…the clothes, to the dirty basket, to the washing machine, to the dryer, to the clean basket, to the person…the papers, to the students, to the piles, to the gradebook, to the students…the to-do list…the emails…the packed lunches…

There’s nothing wrong with the momentum. There are things that must be done. The work is good. But sometimes it comes to a crashing halt.

An unkind word, or thoughtless action. Even if it isn’t important.

It throws you off. It slows you down. The tears flow.

How do you keep going? How do you move forward? How do you find the joy again?

You rest. You duck for cover. 

Your instinct is to strive. To lash out. To plant bitterness. To give in.

Or maybe, to “fix it.”

But we can’t always “fix it.” Especially if it is another person. We can’t fix people. We can only love them.

When we hit a wall we must reset. We must stop and remember what is bigger than our little life. What is eternal. What is good. What is true. What is necessary.

We reach for why we are where we are. We have a calling. We have a job. We have a hope. 

Then we sleep. And we start over. With Grace.

Singing His Grace,

Jess

Words.

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I know where they come from.

The Word himself. The Word who became flesh.
Deep calls to deep and a current bubbles and swells.

I sit by the stream. Roots poke out from my toes and plunge into the soil. I push my feet deep in, helping to plant myself by the stream. The roots hit the groundwater deeper than the stream. The current flows against gravity up the veins and into my entire being. I feel the tingle and the cool, like an IV drip, easing my worry, giving hope. The words flow through me.

I began to type the words. Some good. Some simple. Many words were just…well, words.

Then one day they dried up. They sat stagnant for months on end.

Until recently. The words now roll and swirl together, like the current of a mountain stream after a heavy rain.  I don’t know when the words initially began in me or when they dried up, but now they are back. I feel their weight. They’ve been building and stirring in my heart.

I am waiting to articulate them. They slip away through my fingers. I am waiting for them to pool long enough to take a shape.

In the meantime, my roots have been growing. Slowly. Imperceptibly. They’ve grown thicker despite the storms. Two hurricanes swept through, each leaving a mark, but they could not uproot me.

Seasons slip in quietly changing color and light and temperature. The surroundings  change as does my outward appearance, but I stay here by the stream.

What might the source of Words be up to? Will He send words to be scattered into the world like seeds, like rain, like manna?

Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, I choose to remain firmly planted.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Psalm 1:3 & 4

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