That Thing I Do Now - Vol 71

Can you even believe that Thanksgiving is NEXT week? This month is just flying by! I pray you are finding Rest... remembering to carve out a little Sabbath in your days... and reading things that feed your soul! (I am here to help with that one!)

Featured today are posts by NJ Rongner, Kris Camealy, Emily Freeman, Deidra Riggs, Jenn Peterson, and Aliza Latta, a post from right here... and - of course - a video!

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

* This one by NJ Rongner over at A Cookie Before Dinner with I'm going to miss this...
"We spent the day playing together. By the end of the day, the house was in shambles. Literally, there were toys everywhere. I started to groan in my head about picking up toys when I realized something.

I’m going to miss this mess."


* This post by Kris Camealy with Fix...

"I don’t know why this story about my friend keeps bobbing around in my head, or why I’m even sharing it now. I’ve held on to it for a long time, unsure of how honest I’m willing to be here about who I’ve been. I don’t know what it has to do with anything except that retelling it (reliving it in my mind) has revealed a bit of disappointing truth about myself.

I want to fix people.

I can’t fix people.

People don’t fit in categories.  Life is a series of outrageous interruptions. Sometimes, grief needs to run it’s course. Even if it’s from old, scabbed over wounds." 

* This post by Emily Freeman over at Chatting at the Sky with When Recovery is Slow and Invisible...
"Fear drives, pushing and shoving. But …

“God can do anything you know–far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” Eph 3:20, Message

Fear pushes and shoves us around, but Love leads deeply and gently within us.

I’m on a long road of embracing my whole, in-Christ, complete person. When I feel pulled apart and fragmented, it helps to remember that’s what fear does. It helps to notice it, call it out, turn away from it towards Love instead. It helps to remember that Love holds all things together even when recovery is slow and invisible."


* This post by Deidra Riggs with The Cat is Out of the Bag - A Behind-the-Scenes Story...
"My book is with the editor. She’ll tweak it and cull it for what I was really trying to say, and she’ll get back to me with advice and suggestions and requirements to make the book something worth spending your time reading. And I will do the work. I am resolute. But more than that, God is for me. He is for me when it comes to the book, and he is for me when it comes to getting to the truth about the beauty of my body and food and the quality of my writing. He is not only for me. He is with me. And the same goes for you. Whatever lies you’ve believed about yourself, God is Truth, and he is for you."

* This post by Jenn Peterson with Is he the one...
"We can make our­selves silly crazy with the ques­tion is he the one? We can search to the ends of the world look­ing for the right one. And we can make our­selves sick ask­ing did I marry the right one.

Let me tell you daugh­ters, there is no right one out there.

There is no guy that will fill up your heart the way that Jesus does.

And you will never fill some man’s heart the way Jesus does.
Let’s just get that out-of-the-way."


* This one by Aliza Latta over at Incourage.me with When the World Feels Neither Glorious nor Free...
"I was shocked and sad and scared after hearing the news. The Starbucks customers whispered updates to me across hushed tables.

The shooter killed a soldier, they said to me. A young twenty-four-year-old man from my own city.

I stepped on a plane to North Carolina the next day. I flew away from Canada as the country cried the prayer that strings together our national anthem, God keep our land glorious and free.

I think of Ottawa and Ferguson and Rwanda.

I wonder what glorious and free looks like when guns fire, and machetes hack away, and bombs explode, blood spilling down rivers and roads and Canadian war memorials.

Spilling down the wood of a cross.

I wonder what glorious and free looks like in a world that is achingly beautiful, and at the same time full of so much pain.

When the solider was shot that terrible day in Ottawa, a few people rushed over to him to try and stop the blood. One of them was a woman who knelt down beside his head whispering over and over and over again, “You are loved. You are brave. You are loved.”

The soldier died hearing the truth we all desperately need to hear."



* This one right HERE with Miracles in the Dark... Let Light Come...
"We pray for God to lighten the load
and light the way and Oh My Goodness,
how He already has, but we forget!  

We forget that God brings Miracles in the Dark... every day...

Miracles happen all around us and within us and we are unaware or unimpressed because we want the miraculous to be big and showy with lots of fanfare. 

But sometimes Miracles come slowly and silently... unfolding and unfurling like a reluctant smile.  It does no good to fight against it, for once we begin to take notice and give thanks one by one, we can't help but find miracles in the dark as we let light come.

Sometimes light comes in with cloud cover and rain, and sometimes it comes in with clear skies and the warmth of the sun.  

But it comes. 

Sometimes it comes in quiet time... when no words are left to pray. And sometimes it comes with the company of friends... kindred hearts and spirits who wrap warmth around us and pour out love.  

But, either way, IT COMES!"

Lastly, we like to wrap This Thing up with  a video... because that's just how we roll...
Sometimes it's a funny, or an invitation to worship, or a book trailer... today - it is this prayer: 

May we never lose our wonder... 

                 

Happy Weekend, my friends!