The house is a mess. Dishes all over the counter tops (at least they’re cute ones), toys everywhere, papers askew, laundry piled up (yes, the above picture is my actual laundry) and overall “I’m-so-behind-on-life” disarray. It’s depressing just looking at it all. “Didn’t I just get this messed cleaned up?”

When I look around at the mess, I see Mount Everest. I get stuck, I feel depressed, and I have no idea where to begin…or if I even want to. I just feel so…overwhelmed sometimes.

Read the rest over at (in)courage today!

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Love taught me how to live life to the full.

Love brought me under His wing and freed me in two ways. The first freedom came with that wild grace-love that took my sin to the tree and gave me perfection in its place.Nothing compares with being made beautiful for eternity.

The second way love freed me is what brings my words to you today.

Read the whole article at (in)courage here.

“Go ahead, I dare you.”

Like venom, those words struck poison right in my heart. I held the razor blade, inched deeper into the luke warm water, and sobbed. I couldn’t do it. I lost the dare.

She dared me to plunge those razors into my wrist after I threatened I could. My whole teenage spirit hurt desperately; I only wanted her to stop me, to plead for my life, to tell me I was worth more, to show me she loved me. But she was far too smart for me. She knew I wouldn’t do it. Mother’s know these things, don’t you know?

Read the rest on (in)courage today.

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Peeling back the memories…deeper…deeper.

There is a room. It has green in it, sheer curtains maybe. I think I’m in elementary school. This is my babysitter’s house.

We watched Flight of the Navigator and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades; we watched them in the living room. But there was that back room. I can’t remember what happened in the back room, but I can’t forget it either.

I wish I could remember; I wish I had something tangible to point to so I could say, “see, that’s why I’m so messed up, that’s why I have a hard time getting close to you.”

Keep reading… The Back Room, on (in)courage today.

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My friend told me that God is like the ocean.

We may be standing in it up to our neck, feeling each wave, smelling the salt, stretching our fingertips through the undulating water, pushing out as far as they can go, but we have not experienced the ocean.

We have not experienced the fullness of it, or the depth, and if we were to expand and taste a bit more, our experience would be different then what we know of the water up to our neck. If we stretched five feet down the deep waters we would have a new experience, and if we sank to 100 feet down it would all change again, not to mention the width of it all.

It is so vast and mysterious and untamable and surprising.

I have no idea who my God really is.

But He is like the ocean.

And my mind cannot contain the fullness of Him.

He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit….

Psalm 147: 4-5

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angelsshouted for joy?

Read all of the amazing Job 38 here.

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I’m also over at (in)courage today writing about the wounds that leave us feeling locked up.

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“We have not to die; we are dead. What we have to do is to accept our death…” T. Austin-Sparks

The yelling and the fighting and the spill and the stench of another urine mess collide.

My body tenses; my brain hurts. The anger is crawling through my gut and inching to my fast thumping heart. My eyelashes are wet, but suffocated by eye lids that are fiercely trying to dam the oncoming flood. My lips whisper in desperation, “help me God, I can’t be a parent today, it’s just too hard.”

Read the rest on (in)courage today.

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The Addendum

You couldn’t pay me enough money or offer me the most amazing of dream jobs for me to leave home.  As many wise women have told me, “the days are long {sometimes very long}, but the years are short.” I want to capture the days.

I’m talking about that high at (in)courage today…

:)

I always believed in God.

When I was little I had a bible on the floor by my bed.  I would pick it up, open the first page, and start to read. I didn’t understand it and before I even got to the second page the book was closed, laid gently back on my floor.  And I prayed instead.

I talked to the God that I knew in my soul.  I didn’t know His name.  I didn’t know His theology (my parents weren’t Christians).  I just knew.

When my sister was kidnapped by her father and I prayed that she would be found and she was. I knew.

Read the rest of my faith journey on (in)courage today…

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