That Thing I Do Now - Vol 60

Happy Weekend, Everyone! Can you even believe we are in SEPTEMBER already? Gah... every time, I feel old - but still - time is just slipping by so quickly!

Ya'll... you can't even know! Last week into this week was... just hard.  It caused me to be unplugged and MIA a bit more than usual which was both good and necessary! And yet... you know how I love you and how I would never leave you empty handed, with (gasp!) nothing to read! So here ya go:



Happy Reading!

Enjoy! (Ya'll know to click on the authors' names to read their whole posts, yes?)

* This one by Jennie Allen with My Husband "Left the Ministry"...
"Oh friends, we complicate following God. We make wobbly towers trying to make a name for ourselves out of our careers and our roles and our titles. When we contain Jesus, and all we must do is spread out and fill the earth with Him.

When you lay down the need to prove something, when you have no name to defend, when you have no identity but that of the son of the Living God… you get dangerous.

And what you do pales compared to how you love.

Some will build God’s kingdom through building companies and some through building churches and some through leading kindergarten classrooms and some through leading non-profits and some through loving families and some through loving coworkers.

Go spread out and fill the earth."


* This one by Lisha Epperson over at See Speak Hear Mama with Thinking About 50: Manifesto for a Midlife Mama...
"But I’ve been thinking about aging and how at this point in my life…when I feel confident enough to literally soar….the world around me treats me as if all that’s left is preparation for departure. I’m thinking about how the world even the church, silences middle-aged women. No longer a babe and not yet a revered “mother of the church”, we midlife mamas get stripped of  our mojo. And that’s not cool with me.

I’m praying about how we can change that."


* This post by The Nester (Myquillyn Smith) over at A Holy Experience with When You're Tired of Being a "Stuff Manager" & Want to Enjoy Living...

"Hello. Nice to meet you!

What do I do? Oh, I’m a Stuff Manager.

No, I don’t really like it but, isn’t that what everyone does?

My daily routine involves looking through my stuff, putting stuff away, organizing stuff, feeling guilty because I haven’t organized other stuff, fussing at my kids because their stuff isn’t put away, wading through misplaced stuff in our garage, piling up stuff I’m tired of so we can sell it, packing away stuff I’m really tired of to give it away, asking my husband where he put his stuff, sorting, washing, and drying our stuff —

And then dreaming about more stuff that I want and the bigger house I “need” because my precious stuff won’t fit in our current house–I guess it’s too small.

I never planned on being a stuff manager, it just kind of happened and now that’s my job.

Oh, no, I don’t get paid for it. I just do it because I think I have no other choice.

I have a whole other job that I get paid for and I use most of that money to buy more stuff. I’m training my kids to be stuff managers too.

What? Why are you looking at me like that?" 

* This post by Jamie Wright over at Jamie the Very Worst Missionary with 39 Things (plus a Giveaway!)...
"I do take pretty good care of myself. When I'm not eating Cheez-its and warm glazed-donut icecream sandwiches, I'm eating greek yogurt and grilled chicken and kale salad and all that healthy crap. Plus, I work out! I mean, sometimes. So, my guess is that, if I take it easy, eat right, exercise, and don't try to be a hero, I could live for several more decades. Several. Like three or four, maybe even five.

That's worth celebrating, right? That's not sad at all. I'll only be 39. That's great news. *blows limp party horn* I'M ONLY HALFWAY TO DEAD, EVERYBODY!

This year, instead of pondering how and when all this fun will come to an end, I'm gonna focus on ways to make the years last... or if they're not gonna last, to at least make them good.

I'm turning 39 on September 16th, so this month I'm gonna post 39 things (ideas, habits, books, foods, favorites, secrets, links, laughs, and giveaways – a bunch of giveaways! -) that have enriched or improved my life over the last 39 years. I'm gonna share 39 things I want to carry into my next 39 years (and maybe a few thoughts about things I don't)."


* This post by Jennifer Lee with How One Small Act Can Change Someone's World...
"Small is the new big, which is good news for any of us who think that our small acts of obedience don’t amount to a whole lot.

Like Mother Teresa, Paula reminds us of this truth: it really is the little things.

 You want to make a difference today? Go ahead, think small.

Send your kid’s teacher a note of thanks. Bake cookies for your church janitor. Listen to the dreams of the woman who lives at the end of the cul de sac. Stop your car at the curb, and help your elderly neighbor pick up sticks. Send the note, and don’t fret if you write it on the card upside-down. Make the call. Pray your prayers. It matters. It really matters. "

* This post by Shauna Niequist over at IF:Gathering with On Prayer & the Table & my friend Margaret...
"I’ve learned by now that when Margaret is praying for something, that something is happening. I’ve known her well for six years. What I mean by known well is that the amount of time we’ve spent around the table together is somewhere in the thousands of hours. We’ve traveled together, cried together, visited one another in the hospital. We’ve texted, laughed, cried, taken road trips. She’s a cake baker, a lover of good paper, a thoughtful gift giver, and she is a woman who prays. And she’s teaching me.

When she prays at our table, she always begins the same way: ‘Hey God, it’s us.” Wherever my life takes me, fifty years from now I’ll still remember this season and this house and the stretch of time when Margaret began our Thursday night dinners with those intimate, beautiful words..."


* This post by Lisa-Jo Baker with A Life and Death To-Do List...
"I knew a woman who was diagnosed with leukemia the year she turned 40.

She died two years later.

I turned 40 last week.

And that woman was my mother.

If I had two years left to live what would I do with them?
If my days were numbered and my breath all counted out, what would be on my life and death to-do list?

Would I waste it on comparing someone else’s life to mine?

Or would I spend it lavishing delight on the ways God builds His Kingdom through my sisters.

I hope I’d have them all over for tea. Every other Tuesday."


* This post by Sarah Bessey with I know. I'm Sorry. I hope I was kind...
"These are just two seasons of my life:  I also had my anti-institutional church season, my I’m-not-a-Christian-season, my agnostic season, my angry feminist season, my new-wanna-be-theologian season, my screw-it-let’s-knit-things-season, my I’m-a-new-mother-and-I-know-everything-now season. I have had seasons for my marriage, for my work, for my processing, for my mothering, for my relationships, for my writing, and so of course, I’ve had them for my journey with Christ. I imagine I’ll have a dozen more seasons. Sometimes I cycle through a dozen Sarahs in a day. I’ll look back on the me-right-now with wiser eyes someday, I’m under no illusions.

Now I feel tender-hearted when I look back at my own self in those seasons. And I feel tender-hearted towards all the people who were there with me, all of us doing the best we could do with what we had.

I’m redeeming it. I am reclaiming.

In God, we live and move and have our being, and God was in and amongst the movements because he was moving in the people there, and now I see outside and in and among, and above all, for us, for us all."

* This one right HERE where I talk about What I Learned This Summer...
"What I Learned over the Summer... 10 Random Things That I Have Learned. 

OK... so, before I dive right in and remind myself tell you what I have learned, I need to be real for a moment.  These posts are almost always among my favorite because they are fun and quirky and full of joy and I have to say that this last week... this past Summer... it's been hard, ya'll. And heavy. And in some ways it feels like I have not learned One. New. Thing. ...but in other ways it feels like I am learning just how much I don't know and that... well, that is almost always a great place to start, right?"

And lastly... the video... because that's just how we wrap this thing up! 

Jeremy Riddle & Steffany Gretzinger                                         

Oh yes... and this: 

Darren Wilsons' newest documentary movie is premiering SATURDAY and you can watch it for free. It is titled "Holy Ghost" - and it was not scripted or preplanned... it was truly Holy Spirit led! 

Click HERE to watch it on Sept 6th at 11am (PST) on iBethel.tv  (It will be available to view for 48hours after the Premiere!)

Happy Weekend, ya'll!