Hey Y'all! Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
May you find rest for your souls, and a little down time to unwind... room to breath, and plans to play... and, of course, always a chunk of reading time set aside! After all... that is why we are here, right?
Featured today are posts by Lisha Epperson, Missy Stone, Robin Dance, Donald Miller, Ashley Larkin, Jen Hatmaker, Lori Harris, a post from right here... and - of course - a video to wrap it all up!
May you find rest for your souls, and a little down time to unwind... room to breath, and plans to play... and, of course, always a chunk of reading time set aside! After all... that is why we are here, right?
Happy Reading! (Ya'll know to click on the authors' names below to read the entire post, yes?)
* This one by Lisha Epperson over at More To Be with Life with a Tween Girl...
"Walking into her room told the tale of our tween age / middle age angst.
I’m in a season of letting go. I want spare, clean . . . space.
She seems to thrive on clutter.
I’ve developed a reverence for time that makes it sacred.
And she, well she’s barely aware of it.
Time is for wasting and there are never enough hours for sleep. She, of the Taylor Swift generation, could sleep all day. She of the rolling eyes and slumped shoulder attitude. It’s hard to know how to reach her. She’s sensitive and fragile and everything in my natural mind says stay far away. My spirit however says something different.
I want her to cling to the Christ she sees in me.
No matter how far she tries to push me away. My spirit says keep close."
* This post from Missy Stone over at Jessica Leigh Hoover's place with Learning to Pray...
"He already knows our wants, and our needs. Maybe prayer is more for us?
Maybe it is a chance for me to tell Him I am scared and I need Him to remind me His mercies are new every morning.
We may feel He is far away, but He is there. He may act in ways we do not understand, or in the timing we expect, but He hears us, and He shows us reminders of His faithfulness along the way.
Maybe I’m not praying incorrectly.
Maybe I am just growing in my understanding of what prayer is all about."
* This post by Robin Dance over at GraceTable with The Ministry of Countenance and True Hospitality...
"Our countenance reveals who we are, and a radiant countenance can reveal Whose we are.
The difference between forcing a smile and something birthed in our interior places (when God removes our stony, stubborn hearts and replaces them with tender, responsive hearts (Ezekiel 36:26, NLT)) is ev-er-y-thing.
Those of us who know God, who have been
Our pastor once offered this simple definition for wisdom: seeing our lives, the world and circumstance through God’s eyes. How I long to gain the kind of Ecclesiastical wisdom that “puts light in my eyes and gives gentleness to my words and manners.” (Ecclesiastes 8:1 MSG)
A ministry of countenance is less about what we say or do (though these things are important) and more about how we speak and respond..."
* This post by Donald Miller over at Storyline with Why Feeling Sorry For Yourself Makes You Destined to Fail...
“When a person goes to the gym to work out, they aren’t building up their muscles.
They are tearing them down. No kidding. When you lift weights, you are doing damage to your muscles. The reason your muscles grow, then, is because your body goes into repair the damaged muscles, and makes them bigger so the next time you lift that much weight, you wont get hurt.
So then you just lift more weights, and your body gets stronger and stronger.
It’s like that with our emotions, too. Once we experience something hard, it tears us down.It really does hurt, doesn’t it?
We screw up and embarrass ourselves or we lose a job and don’t have any money. But honestly, there is nothing bad that can happen to us that won’t return a greater blessing if we let it. We will always come out stronger.
And believe me, life is going to throw a lot of pain at you.
What self-pity does, though, is it stops us from gaining that emotional muscle. It’s almost like we can either have the blessing of a stronger character, or the immediate gratification of self pity. But not both.
People who wallow in self-pity, never grow strong in character.”
* This post from Ashley Larkin with The pelicans (an anniversary poem)...
"Sea foam sizzles and waves rumble,
and both call me right to the edges
because I feel no choice but to see life
in contrasting metaphor,
how Love is thunder and a settling
into sands, gentle dance of bubbles in glass"
(Click over to read the whole poem... it's simply beautiful!)
* This post by Jen Hatmaker with Our Parenting Yes's and No's...
"A few weeks ago, our oldest son jacked up his truck AGAIN while “mudding” with his friends. This is maybe a Texas thing, I think. It involves teen boys, trucks, empty fields, and general frontal lobe underdevelopment. There were a handful of details I’ll omit, but we ended up getting a “story” instead of the truth.
In the inevitable confrontation, Brandon and I both played the heavy because the parenting book I read ten years ago cautioned against triangulation. But between our son’s obvious emotional distress and our relief that the “story” involved a muddy road instead of, say, drug paraphernalia, we both started losing steam midway through the lecture.
At one point too late in the game, Brandon looked sternly at our son and declared: “Do you know what a truck is for? TRANSPORTATION!” and I got the giggles so bad I had to hide in the kitchen. Once composed as presiding judge, I asked: “Do we look like two parents who are going to pay for your joyrides indefinitely?” and he looked at us so intently, as if the contours of our faces might confirm or deny the query, that Brandon almost snorted. Having exhausted our severity, we sent him to his room and dissolved in fits of laughter.
You know what I didn’t understand about parenting? No one knows what they are doing."
"When I meet with people, I’m reminded of two things, every time. One, we’re all the same, created in the image of God with a purpose that we usually cannot put our finger on. And two, we’re all in dire need of the body of Christ to come alongside us and remind us of who we are in Christ while acknowledging our unique place in the body.
Recently, I sat with some precious women who deflected every encouraging word that was spoken to them with some variation of the sentence: It’s all Jesus.
I love the way you sing. It’s all Jesus.
You’re such a good friend. You’re always quick to step in and serve. It’s all Jesus.
Thanks for that teaching on XYZ. Your words ministered to my soul. It’s all Jesus.
All I could think was Of course it’s all Jesus. Everything is all Jesus. We’re just trying to tell you that we recognize the Jesus in you and how He is making much of Himself through your unique gifts.
What I realized midway through the It’s All Jesus Monologues was that this entire table of women had somehow been conned into believing that if she received encouragement for any good that others saw in her life, she was stealing God’s glory and forgetting who deserved all the credit..."
* This one from right HERE with On Friendships... How They Hold Us and How They Can Heal...
"Friendships are His idea.
Friendships and Family... Community, as a whole.
He is our example in each of them.
I believe our culture is so busy... so over-scheduled... We get caught up in this technological, gadgety wifi world, and yet we are disconnected in more ways than one yet we are longing for connections!
Friendships can hold us... and they can heal us... but we must be intentional with them. We must carve out an hour and make a call or pencil in a coffee date or a walk... a movie or lunch.
Invest your time, your heart, your life...
The Bible tells us that a man who has friends must himself be friendly...
Can I encourage you to be friendly... to invite and invest... to open you heart and your home... to taste and see that the Lord is good, and that oh so often, He is good to us
THROUGH friendships!"
I’m in a season of letting go. I want spare, clean . . . space.
She seems to thrive on clutter.
I’ve developed a reverence for time that makes it sacred.
And she, well she’s barely aware of it.
Time is for wasting and there are never enough hours for sleep. She, of the Taylor Swift generation, could sleep all day. She of the rolling eyes and slumped shoulder attitude. It’s hard to know how to reach her. She’s sensitive and fragile and everything in my natural mind says stay far away. My spirit however says something different.
I want her to cling to the Christ she sees in me.
No matter how far she tries to push me away. My spirit says keep close."
* This post from Missy Stone over at Jessica Leigh Hoover's place with Learning to Pray...
"He already knows our wants, and our needs. Maybe prayer is more for us?
Maybe it is a chance for me to tell Him I am scared and I need Him to remind me His mercies are new every morning.
We may feel He is far away, but He is there. He may act in ways we do not understand, or in the timing we expect, but He hears us, and He shows us reminders of His faithfulness along the way.
Maybe I’m not praying incorrectly.
Maybe I am just growing in my understanding of what prayer is all about."
"Our countenance reveals who we are, and a radiant countenance can reveal Whose we are.
The difference between forcing a smile and something birthed in our interior places (when God removes our stony, stubborn hearts and replaces them with tender, responsive hearts (Ezekiel 36:26, NLT)) is ev-er-y-thing.
Those of us who know God, who have been
Our pastor once offered this simple definition for wisdom: seeing our lives, the world and circumstance through God’s eyes. How I long to gain the kind of Ecclesiastical wisdom that “puts light in my eyes and gives gentleness to my words and manners.” (Ecclesiastes 8:1 MSG)
A ministry of countenance is less about what we say or do (though these things are important) and more about how we speak and respond..."
* This post by Donald Miller over at Storyline with Why Feeling Sorry For Yourself Makes You Destined to Fail...
“When a person goes to the gym to work out, they aren’t building up their muscles.
They are tearing them down. No kidding. When you lift weights, you are doing damage to your muscles. The reason your muscles grow, then, is because your body goes into repair the damaged muscles, and makes them bigger so the next time you lift that much weight, you wont get hurt.
So then you just lift more weights, and your body gets stronger and stronger.
It’s like that with our emotions, too. Once we experience something hard, it tears us down.It really does hurt, doesn’t it?
We screw up and embarrass ourselves or we lose a job and don’t have any money. But honestly, there is nothing bad that can happen to us that won’t return a greater blessing if we let it. We will always come out stronger.
And believe me, life is going to throw a lot of pain at you.
What self-pity does, though, is it stops us from gaining that emotional muscle. It’s almost like we can either have the blessing of a stronger character, or the immediate gratification of self pity. But not both.
People who wallow in self-pity, never grow strong in character.”
* This post from Ashley Larkin with The pelicans (an anniversary poem)...
"Sea foam sizzles and waves rumble,
and both call me right to the edges
because I feel no choice but to see life
in contrasting metaphor,
how Love is thunder and a settling
into sands, gentle dance of bubbles in glass"
(Click over to read the whole poem... it's simply beautiful!)
* This post by Jen Hatmaker with Our Parenting Yes's and No's...
"A few weeks ago, our oldest son jacked up his truck AGAIN while “mudding” with his friends. This is maybe a Texas thing, I think. It involves teen boys, trucks, empty fields, and general frontal lobe underdevelopment. There were a handful of details I’ll omit, but we ended up getting a “story” instead of the truth.
In the inevitable confrontation, Brandon and I both played the heavy because the parenting book I read ten years ago cautioned against triangulation. But between our son’s obvious emotional distress and our relief that the “story” involved a muddy road instead of, say, drug paraphernalia, we both started losing steam midway through the lecture.
At one point too late in the game, Brandon looked sternly at our son and declared: “Do you know what a truck is for? TRANSPORTATION!” and I got the giggles so bad I had to hide in the kitchen. Once composed as presiding judge, I asked: “Do we look like two parents who are going to pay for your joyrides indefinitely?” and he looked at us so intently, as if the contours of our faces might confirm or deny the query, that Brandon almost snorted. Having exhausted our severity, we sent him to his room and dissolved in fits of laughter.
You know what I didn’t understand about parenting? No one knows what they are doing."
"When I meet with people, I’m reminded of two things, every time. One, we’re all the same, created in the image of God with a purpose that we usually cannot put our finger on. And two, we’re all in dire need of the body of Christ to come alongside us and remind us of who we are in Christ while acknowledging our unique place in the body.
Recently, I sat with some precious women who deflected every encouraging word that was spoken to them with some variation of the sentence: It’s all Jesus.
I love the way you sing. It’s all Jesus.
You’re such a good friend. You’re always quick to step in and serve. It’s all Jesus.
Thanks for that teaching on XYZ. Your words ministered to my soul. It’s all Jesus.
All I could think was Of course it’s all Jesus. Everything is all Jesus. We’re just trying to tell you that we recognize the Jesus in you and how He is making much of Himself through your unique gifts.
What I realized midway through the It’s All Jesus Monologues was that this entire table of women had somehow been conned into believing that if she received encouragement for any good that others saw in her life, she was stealing God’s glory and forgetting who deserved all the credit..."
* This one from right HERE with On Friendships... How They Hold Us and How They Can Heal...
"Friendships are His idea.
Friendships and Family... Community, as a whole.
He is our example in each of them.
I believe our culture is so busy... so over-scheduled... We get caught up in this technological, gadgety wifi world, and yet we are disconnected in more ways than one yet we are longing for connections!
Friendships can hold us... and they can heal us... but we must be intentional with them. We must carve out an hour and make a call or pencil in a coffee date or a walk... a movie or lunch.
Invest your time, your heart, your life...
The Bible tells us that a man who has friends must himself be friendly...
Can I encourage you to be friendly... to invite and invest... to open you heart and your home... to taste and see that the Lord is good, and that oh so often, He is good to us
THROUGH friendships!"
Lastly, we close This Thing up with a video each week and sometimes it is funny and sometimes it is worship... this time it's a Jimmy Fallon and Jamie Foxx - because, of course!
Thank you to all of our men and women who serve. 'Thank you' seems so small... still, it comes from our hearts! Thank you for your service and your sacrifice. May you be loved and honored over Memorial Day weekend and on every day.
Happy Weekend!
Happy Weekend!
Thanks for leading me to more goodness this week friend!
ReplyDeleteGirl... you can't even know how much I adore that you always comment! These weekend posts get a bit of traffic, but the comments have always been pretty silent! Thanks for encouraging me to keep at it... for reminding me that some of these posts have in fact been missed, and they really do need to be pointed out because they are so great! So thankful for you, my friend!
DeleteThanks for offering some great *reading material* this weekend. And, I am a huge fan of Jimmy Fallon! He just makes me laugh. I watched the first part of this show, and then fell asleep! So I enjoyed watching the musical impressions! Did you see when Jimmy had Neil Young on his show? Jimmy started singing, and then Neil joined him in a duet. It was epic!
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend - and yes, joining you in being so grateful for those who have given, and still give, so much in service to our country.
GOD BLESS!
You are so very welcome, Sharon! I hope you were able to read through them and enjoyed them! I too ADORE Jimmy Fallon! And yes - LOVED when he sang with Neil Young! You could barely tell them apart! He is so talented and just has so much joy... and who couldn't use a bit more of that, right? Hope you enjoyed a nice (long) weekend, my friend!
DeleteI loved this reminder of the different varieties of prayer and it's value. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAlesha
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a blessed week!
Delete