That Thing I Do Now - Vol 88

Hey Sweet Friends, Happy Spring!

How are you? I hope your weekend is unfolding to be both all you want and all you need it to be! May you enter in to a bit of Sabbath Rest and enjoy some breathing room, along with a bit of productivity (if that is what you crave!)

Featured today are posts by Lori Harris, Kristen Strong, Glennon Doyle, Cadence Turpin, Tony Kriz, Amber Haines, a post from right here... and - of course - a video to wrap it all up! 

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

* This post by Lori Harris over at GraceTable with The Thin Line...

"“I can’t feed them in the summer anymore,” I hear her say to the Man.  The mama is talking, and from my piece of sidewalk, I can hear every word.  “They’re getting older and I just can’t do it.”

I shuffle my feet and busy myself with my baby and I sigh another heavy sigh.   The awkward, in-need-of-things conversations still make me feel queasy and inadequate and uncomfortable so I retreat to some place inside myself, etching across my mind the things I hear and see and smell.

Well, we can’t feed them all summer either, I think to myself.  I’ve already fed them two meals this week.

I swat mosquitoes and watch the Man enter into the places I’ve not yet learned to go.  He’s good at compassion and kind words and all the things I’m not.

After long, hard minutes pass and the sparklers are spent, the mama and the Man run out of words.

And I gather my babies and run home, my heart cracking under the pressure of poverty that now had names and faces."

Lori also wrote this post on her own blog that is well worth the read, plus - you know, a Giveaway!

(And this one... with the best taco recipe ever!)

* This one by Kristen Strong over at Incourage with If You Think Who You Are and What You Do Are Nothin’ Special...
"I stand up from my bench and descend down those plain ol’, nothin’ special concrete steps from the hotel grounds to my car. Before I turn toward the front of the hotel, I glance over my shoulder and then see what was there the whole time: decorative tile on the stairs.

I couldn’t find them before because I was staring at them from the wrong perspective.

All the nothin’ special, letdown moments really do hold something good all their own. We just need to keep walking through them in faith. If we stop short, we’ll miss them. But if we keep going, we will one day turn around and see that hidden within them is something beautiful." 


* This post by Glennon Doyle over at Storyline with Why Parenting Means Practicing Grace... 
"So I picked my bashed toes up off the ground, limped out of my room and found both my girls huddled and crying in the hallway. And I looked them right in the eye and said: Do you SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FIGHT LIKE THIS? BAD things happen. I got HURT.

And they looked at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen because their mommy was hurt and it was all their fault. And I looked back at them with the saddest eyes because my girls were hurt and it was all my fault. And I should have grabbed them right then and there.

But I couldn’t say sorry yet.

I just couldn’t. I was so tired. I just wanted everybody to feel as bad as I did for a little bit longer.

So I went back to my room and shut the door and sat on the floor and held my foot and rocked back and forth there for a while. My toes didn’t even hurt anymore. I just held them in case my husband Craig walked in. He needed to think I was hurt badly. I needed a good excuse.

And Craig did walk in a few moments later, holding a frozen bag of broccoli. And he sat down on the floor next to me and silently held the frozen broccoli on top of my foot. I’m pretty sure he knew I wasn’t hurt all that bad. But still.

The broccoli was grace."


* This post from Cadence Turpin with Why It’s More Important You Slow Down than Hurry Up... 
"The first signs of spring weather always remind me baseball season is right around the corner. And let me tell you, I love baseball.

I don’t typically watch on TV, because I think being in a ballpark is half of what’s to love about baseball. When I find myself sitting cozy in the cheap seats, with a Coca-Cola in one hand and a hotdog in the other, it somehow feels like time slows down. All the feelings of being rushed or thoughts about pending to-dos seem to float out of the top of the stadium.

But the majority of my life moves fast.

And seems to be picking up speed all the time.

A consistent finding in studies on new technology is that people buy into new technology hoping to save time on miscellaneous tasks, but then try to get more miscellaneous tasks done with the time they’ve saved and consequently create more full, fast-paced, busy, distracted lives than ever before.

So the reality has become this: Saving time is common. Spending it restfully is not.

We’re all saving time.

But often we’re just filling it with more busyness. Society seems to only be picking up pace, and not many of us know how or when to create space to slow down. And we’re exhausted."


* This post from Tony Kriz on Reed College Confession Booth… A Full Confession...
"A decade ago, Donald Miller wrote our story… he wrote about a Confession Booth at Reed College. When Don wrote it, the entire story consisted of only a few paragraphs and it started a social movement that no one could have predicted.

Over the years I have been asked many times to write a more full telling of that beloved story. This is the first time I have had the courage to print it.

Enjoy…"  (Seriously... I couldn't pick just one line from the story - you have to click over and read the whole thing!)


* This post by Amber Haines is actually Part 2 in a 2 part story... I encourage you to read them both!  It's titled, Appointment by the Mediterranean Sea...
"I let a thief in the night give me a lesson on waking up, so as I stepped into the morning light, I said, “I thank you God for this most amazing day, [for the] blue true dream of sky.” I couldn’t see the sea from my hotel, but I knew that to get to the police station to file a report, I had to walk toward the sea and hang an hour-long left along the coast. I prayed and could feel the open expanse beyond the buildings, as if the moon pulled me to shore.

If disappointments are invitations to see God’s appointments, then surely I would do something great that day. This is what I thought, and then I turned right as I felt the breeze tunnel at me in the street. The Mediterranean Sea was just ahead."

* This one from right HERE with Keepin' it REAL...
"I believe we are called to be Authentic... to be real in the good times and in the hard times, in all those times that are blurry-in-the-in-between, and in the little-bit-of-both-at-the-same-time times, too!

That is just real life, right?

It's rarely all of anything... it's always a glorious mix, but when we hide away, back away, pretend to be fine or pray to be invisible... well, that is never God's heart for you and that is not His idea of living an abundant life, free of fear, worry and doubt! 

That is not so much living a life of being "only strong and very courageous"...

If you are like me, those days are not always so consistent.

No, I tend to fall under being Mostly Strong and Kinda Courageous... 

or Sometimes Strong, and a Little Courageous... 

But that is just evidence of my giving in to faltering... to self doubt and hesitation and I keep telling those guys that I am trying to quit them!"

Lastly, we close This Thing up with a video each week, and sometimes it may be a worship song, or a funny, (or Jimmy Fallon! What?) but we like to end our time together here with a little something uplifting. Enjoy this  new Book Trailer for Nobody's Cuter Than You, by Melanie Shankle:

                                        

Have a great weekend, friends!