Abiding Love, Abounding Grace: That Thing I Do Now

How are ya'll? Have you braved the Winter storms... are you snowed in? We have been fogged in and while we are spoiled around these parts with days and days of sunshine... (nearly 300 per year actually!) - the fog has been a nice companion!

It's mysterious and romantic and it begs for more couch time with a blanket and a(nother) cup of coffee... but I am ready for some blue skies and sunshine! A little warmer temps would be welcomed as well, but I wouldn't dare complain!

Featured today are posts by Don Miller, Ann Voskamp, Amber Haines, Ashley Hales, Shauna Niequist, Emily Freeman, Holley Gerth, Jennifer Lee, a post from right here... and - of course - a video* to wrap it all up! (* A few videos in honor of our Super Bowl bound RePete-ing 'Hawks!)

Happy Reading!
(Ya'll know to click on the authors' names below to read the entire post, yes?)

* This post by Don Miller over at Storyline with Great Parents Do This Well...

"I’ve noticed something about the parents of teens and twenty-somethings who are high functioning and healthy. I’m talking about young adults who you sit and talk to and wonder how they got so wise, self-controlled and winsome. I’ve noticed they all have parents who have a distinct, unique, and rare quality about them.

It’s not a quality you’d expect, but I promise it’s the common denominator."

* This post by Ann Voskamp with Dear You Who Doesn't Want To Do That Hard Thing...
"Brilliant doesn’t matter, if you can’t get out of bed.

Talent doesn’t mean a thing, if you let fear be some terrorist that takes you hostage.

Potential doesn’t add up to anything, if you get addicted to perfectionism because perfectionism is slow death by self.

Listen: Fire your perfectionism and your procrastination will quit too."

* This post from Amber Haines over at The RunaMuck with On Healing and Wholeness: a Resolution and a Marriage Letter...
"Sometimes I forget to cry out, how to enter in, abide, listen. I let concerns gather up like a roar. Sometimes the idea of health seems far away and shape-shifting like a sky that goes dark in a sudden after a scene of setting sun.

What would we have done on our marriage day had someone told us the future? Your children will have struggles beyond your control. Your husband will become an alcoholic. Your wife will slip in and out of a faraway fog.

If that had happened, if someone had told me those pieces of the forthcoming story, I would have walked the aisle anyway, because ours was a foolish love. But to know those pieces of the story wouldn’t have been to know the whole story.

When I wonder of this new year, what new things will come on us as we and our children age, this is what I see: we wade in ashes. Our faith strengthens like muscle as we follow through. We wade in ashes and we rise up gold. Our children are making their way to the sacred. Ozark landscape, a dream, a hand in prayer, a song, a word of scripture, these are leading us through. We know the voice of the Shepherd. Even the dark is not dark to us."

* This post by Ashley Hales with The Abundance Manifesto: the longing for glory and the creative life...
"Afraid of insignificance, we live lives grasping after creativity, chasing beauty, trying to catch up with it. We focus on beauty as an end rather than a means. We’re afraid that if we were really generous with our art (or talent or time — insert here whatever you give to the world) that someone else will get the credit. Someone else will profit. Someone else will run away with the show or hurt us because we’ve been vulnerable and already given so much away.

We’ve given ourselves away and there is nothing left.

But art comes from abundance."

* This post from Shauna Niequist with Use Your Words...
"He told me about friends of his who’d read my books and talked to him about it. And at the beginning and the end of the conversation, he looked straight at me and said these words: I’m so proud of you.

I think sometimes we shy away from words like this, because it’s awkward, or because we don’t want to make things all serious. We don’t say anything because we assume people don’t really care that much what we think, or because we don’t want to seem parental—doesn’t proud sound a little bit like you’re talking to a twelve year old?

Maybe it does. But the self-conscious twelve year old in me was absolutely thrilled to hear that someone I respected so deeply thought I was doing a good job. His words mattered to me."

* This one by Emily Freeman over at Incourage.me with Here’s What Your Soul Needs You to Know...
"If our souls aren’t given a little room to breathe, they will suffocate beneath the heavy pressure of our fast-moving world.

Even if we don’t fully understand the workings of the soul, even if we aren’t able to eloquently define it, we all most likely recognize the evidence of a soul that needs attention — anxiety, loneliness, unexplainable anger, discontent.

So January is nearing an end and maybe that means all those expectations you wrote down are feeling less motivating and more paralyzing.

Instead of being discouraged by that, maybe this overwhelm is your smoke. The discouragement doesn’t arrive to shame you into doing more but to remind you to do less.

Maybe this heaviness is your soul trying to tell you something important.

Maybe you’ve tried hard to systemize your schedule but in the process, you’re suffocating your soul."

* This one by Holley Gerth with Why I Think Jesus Would Be On Facebook...
"I’m typing this in a local coffee shop and the table of four ladies across from me just bowed their heads to pray. And suddenly, I understand–Jesus is the Word and the Spirit is virtual. That means what matters is not how we connect but instead WHO is connecting us. We serve a God who brings us together in deeper ways than what can be defined for geography or proximity. He forms bonds between our hearts and souls that transcend the factual details of our lives. And I can testify firsthand that can happen virtually or face-to-face.

Maybe it’s time to stop trying to decide if one way of connecting is better than another. And instead just focusing on making those happen however we can. There will be seasons of our lives where our relationships may get a lot of in-person, up-close time. And there will be others when our computer screen or smartphone may serve as a door to a room full of the people we truly love. In today’s world, it’s even more likely that we’ll experience a mixture of both.

So let’s chat on phones. And click on computers. And share our hearts over coffee. Whatever it takes to find and keep community.

If Jesus were on earth today I think He would be on Facebook. Why? Because that’s where people are. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. If someone prayerfully and intentionally chooses not to be on social media, I respect that choice. What breaks my heart is when I see folks stand back and criticize those of us who are called to the online space. Please don’t do that: We are like missionaries in a foreign culture. Pray for us like you would someone who is going to Africa even if you know you’re not called to go."

*This post from Jennifer Lee with Be a Doris...
"When we dial out into this noisy world, we need more Dorises to pick up the call. To let us know we’re loved. Out in this wild world, we don’t know who will reject us, fight us, criticize us, belittle us, ignore us, judge us. And some of us are so hard on ourselves, that we don’t need an outside critic. Our worst critic lives deep within.

Someone just… tell us that God loves us.

The world needs more people like you, Doris. The world needs more card-senders, and grace-spenders, and hand-extenders, and relationship-menders.

We need people who are living loved. We need people with hearts so sufficiently full of God’s grace that they can’t help but leak love onto the people around them.

We need people who make love part of their agenda, people who work it into their days, their routines, their phone calls. We need people who are reckless with love.

I want to be one of those people."

* This one from right HERE with How Wonder Just Keeps Showing Up...
"I've written about it around these parts and have talked on facebook and twitter about Wonder... about how he just keeps showing up and taking my breath away!

He is so flirty and mysterious and he makes my knees go weak in how he wants no glory, but he just points me right straight to God and wants to show me how much God loves me... (Turns out, He's crazy about me, ya'll! ...you, too! He's crazy in love with you too, friend! Oh how I hope you believe it!)

Wonder... the very definition of it means astonishment and awe! I will write a post all about my OneLittleWord and what I am learning soon, but today... today, I wanted to invite you to simply invite him in! I am joining in with Kelly and the rest of the Unforced Rhythms community in seeking out Wonder in a bit of our every days...

When we start looking for Wonder... it's ridiculous how quickly he starts coming around and showing off! "

Lastly, we wrap This Thing up with a video because that is how we do and this... well, this is Super Bowl weekend and we are going for a RePete (#GoHawks #WhyNotUs #Again)... There have been all kinds of videos this week - from the media and the fans... so here are just a couple of fun ones to enjoy!

First a couple of fun remakes:
Hawk Town...