Tag Archives: God

where does my worth come from? {psalm 139, rewritten} (guest post by becky strahle)

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It’s funny how God puts people in your life to help you along the way.  A conversation with a friend, a forwarded email and a decision to pursue an assignment really opened my eyes to some beauty this week.

I’ve been struggling a bit with self worth.  Where does my worth come from? Why do I feel like I’m on a constant roller coaster of acceptance of who I am??  My favorite scripture passage of all time is Psalms 139.  My assignment is to read it every day this week and rewrite it in my own words. Maybe you should too.  This is my interpretation.

You know me so well Lord.  You know what I’m going to do before I do it!  You see my struggle, my anxious thoughts.  You put me on the right course by placing your hand on my head.

No matter where I end up you are already there.  You keep me from falling, you keep me from that hole.  You are right there every step…protecting me.  Helicoptering my every move…ready to scoop me up if necessary.

You love me so much that you had a plan for me before I was even conceived.  You watched me take shape.  You orchestrated the whole thing…giving breath and life to my being.  You know me inside and out.  You are my Creator and I am your beloved creation…utterly yours.

Because of that fact you think about me all the time.  You want the best for my life and countlessly check in on my daily walk.

Because of your devotion to me shouldn’t I despise sin and those in opposition to you?  Shouldn’t I defend you at all costs??

More than anything I want my life to be pleasing to you.  Use me Lord.  Show me what needs to change…the things that make you unhappy and reveal to me your perfect plan…your unwavering path for my every footstep.  This is my prayer.

a love letter to my body: you are more

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Dear Body,

I hear you rooting around in the darkness, searching for your sippy cup and you find it, and I’m so proud of you, taking care of yourself, in your playpen by the window.

We’re sharing a room together this week, at camp, and you’re over there, too, in the toddler bed beneath your Thomas the Train blanket, and when I held you today I nearly cried for the way you’re growing in leg and in vocabulary.

And I turn in the darkness, find you silhouetted next to me in the arc of a German nose and high cheekbones and you’re pulling at the covers, and I tuck them tenderly around your toes.

Because you are more than a size 34-B, more than a 31” waist, more than the five-foot-nine-inches that fill out your second-hand clothes. You are a size that fits 11-month onesies and 2T Spiderman shirts and a men’s pair of flannel pajamas.

You are your grandmother in your son’s earlobes, your father in your infant’s lips. You are the love in your husband’s eye, the longing in his hands, in his legs, in the neck that reminds you of the tree in his parent’s backyard where he inscribed your initials.


(For more, won’t you follow me here, to She Loves Magazine, where I’m humbled to be a new contributing writer? Love you, friends. Thank you for all of your support and love this week… it’s meant so much to me.)

She learned that from me (Guest Post by Kim Van Brunt)

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She — the girl closer than my skin, the one I love as deep as an ocean and higher than the mountaintops and everything big and bold and bright — she is so much like me that I ache.

Feelings hurt, she explodes back into the house, taking it out on anyone, anything, screaming to diffuse some of the pain twisting her heart.

She learned that from me.

Proud of the outfit she put together, she marches into the van for school, sparkly sequined hat and all, and then just before we pull up to school drop-off she pulls the hat off, casts it aside, smooths her hair, wary.

She learned that from me.

Asking tentatively, because she’s already put it on, if she can wear eyeshadow today because “I want to look pretty today, mama,” and my heart breaks open and I even get a little angry as I repeat “You are ALWAYS pretty, honey,” and not today.

She learned that from me.

And just tonight, when I encouraged her to eat her last bites of dinner because she’s growing and I don’t want her to be hungry later, she says she needs to lose weight because her tummy sticks out too much.

My heart drops completely through the floor, my protective instincts rear up and I want to defend her from this lie, from whoever told her this, from the evil lurking, from the cynicism and pain that’s already knocking at her door — and then I realize that it’s me. It’s me she needs protection from. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my desire to drop these extra 20 pounds in her presence, because I’m fairly careful, but even if I didn’t say those words, I know:

She learned that from me.

And it all crystallizes: I cannot give her what I do not have. What I do have, I pass on to her whether I mean to or not.

The hardest part? Is that the solution can’t be motivated by her. I have to cultivate self-love and self-compassion from within, and it has to be directed within. She can inspire it, but it can’t be about her. How easy that would be — I would scale that mountain in a day if I knew it was for her. But for it to really be genuine and true, it has to be for me. For me, in me, so that it can naturally flow out of me.

So that when I see her show such amazing empathy for people around her, I can say

She learned that from me.

When she becomes bolder in her choices and surer of her own likes, I’ll guess that maybe

She learned that from me.

When she cares about health because of a respectful relationship with her body and with food, oh how I long to be able to say

She learned that from me.

This — this learning self-love because I cannot afford to be selfish about not caring anymore — this is one of the hardest things I will ever do. But I’m inspired by the love I have for her, and pushed on by the love I see in all of their eyes, love for me, acceptance of me, embracing of me, and I know I’m on step one of a marathon, but I will keep going,

And then the perseverance, the hope and leaning into the pain —

She can learn that from me, too.

Kim Van Brunt blogs regularly at kimvanbrunt.com.

Shed the Guilt, Because You are Enough (Guest Post by Shelly Miller @ Redemption’s Beauty)

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Image

H bends over in the parking lot as we leave Dillard’s and picks up the brand new dollar bill lying on the pavement. We’re the only people standing there, so we keep it, even though it feels awkward. And right when he holds it up between his thumb and index finger, I remember the dream I had the night before. I collect money laying around in a crowded room full of people who never saw it for themselves.

It’s one of several dreams I’ve had this week. Each dream is the preface for a story that unfolds later in the day or week. I notice it because I took some intentional time to be quiet and listen, journaling what He whispers in the stillness. My notes become a sacred echo that prayer isn’t a one-sided conversation.

I’m desperate to hear Him because the room in my head, it’s over-crowded with thoughts vociferous with guilt that sound like, “you aren’t measuring up.”  A sign that in listening to the voices of others, I’ve become deaf to His.

I wear guilt like pulling a tired coat from a tall armoire, the family name engraved in the wood above the mirror. A nice tweed for guilt about parenting; not doing  enough, engaging enough, disciplining enough, or being fun enough.   A hounds tooth fitted for marriage guilt accusing me of not being sexy enough, thoughtful enough, or supportive enough. 

 And there is the all-weather trench for not serving my community enough, volunteering at church and school enough, cultivating friendships enough, and keeping things tidy enough. I have one of those in every color. I can’t fit another hanger on the rod it’s so crowded.

Wearing a coat in the scorching heat of a July sun becomes a heavy nuisance. So hot, I can’t wait to shed it, even if it means being exposed.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

That moment of freedom from the voices that hold me captive, sweating inside that coat with GUILT sewn into the collar, is better than a thousand moments elsewhere.

I’ve stood in the center of the merry-go-round wearing the salmon trench with the big buttons while guilt pushed me around so fast I couldn’t hear the truth anymore.

 Have you taken a ride on this merry-go-round too? When the truth is a faint whisper, barely audible amidst accusing voices. It’s time to step off and sit in silence free from guilt’s dizzying trance. 

H pulls the dollar bill out of his pocket to buy me a bottle of water. I’m feeling dehydrated in Costco. He says, “You know this water is a gift, we’re not paying for it.” I smile in the remembrance of freedom that comes in hearing Him. And I can almost see Jesus smiling back at me. He’s holding my coat. He’ll hold yours too.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17

Shelly has two teens, a pastor husband, a trusty camera, and writing life on an island. You can read more about her stories of redemption at http://www.redemptionsbeauty.com.

in which i renew my vows, online

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you’ve always saved me, in your own quiet Christ-like way.

“i don’t ever want our house to be without children,” i tell you. “even when we’re old, so long as we have beds, we have children,” and you nod and you smile.

but just hours earlier i’d been the one on the phone, calling our foster sons’ mom, leaving a message saying we couldn’t do it anymore. weeping into the receiver saying it was causing too much stress and i couldn’t see the light.

then you called her back, while i was in the shower, saying “don’t worry, emily didn’t mean that, she’s just feeling sad. i know she still wants to take care of your children. just give her time.”

and, after i got out of the shower, and you prayed for me, i called her back, and left another message, not knowing you already had, saying, “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean what i said. i was just stressed. please forgive me. we are more than happy to take care of your children.”

and the heat of this july the same as that one: when we stood under that trellis in my parent’s backyard and said “for better or for worse, till death…”

and you didn’t know that meant three years of anorexia. you didn’t know how close i’d come to death. you didn’t know i’d change my mind after getting married about wanting children. all you knew was forgiveness.

it’s not been perfect. you’re not perfect. i’m most certainly not, as my poor cooking attests to but our lives are being made perfect, with every kiss goodnight, with every child we make, with every child we help, with every prayer we utter together, it’s the hardest, and most holy, of offerings. and i do, i do, i do.


so with that, and all i’ve learned, i vow the following:

1. i will never forsake you, not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually and mentally. i will never “tune” you out or ignore you, or make fun of you, or gossip about you.

2. i will respect you in heart, and in my word, and in deed. i will not treat you like a child. instead, i will treat you like a man. i will say, “i appreciate you” instead of “good job” and “thank you for taking care of me,” instead of “i can do it by myself.”

3. i will let you enter your cave when you arrive home from work, i will give you space in which to dwell, i will not pester you until you return, emotionally and spiritually, to me, each day. allowing you to rest.

4. i will not demand of you what you cannot give. i will ask my friends, and my God, to fill the places that you cannot.

5. i will laugh at more of your jokes.

6. i will kiss you more, in public.

7. i will submit to you. this is so hard for me, but i will, because i know that on judgment day, God will ask me if i did this, and then he will ask you if you listened to God. my job is to listen to you, and yours, is to listen to God.

8. i will trust that you love me, even when we’re arguing, or you’ve hurt my feelings.

9. i will always be excited to see you, and not just because you help me with the kids. i will be the smitten girl you fell for in bible school.

10. i will nurse you back to health when you’re sick, even when it’s just a cold, and i will stop making fun of you for needing me, when in fact it’s this very needing each other that nurses this marriage. this one-ness.

for you save me, babe, in your own quiet way. and for that, i thank you.

(happy ninth anniversary, trenton nathan wierenga)

(to pre-order my book, chasing silhouettes: how to help a loved one battling an eating disorder, please click here)

Blessed Are Those Who Don’t Do It All (Guest Post by Cara Sexton)

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In past seasons of my life, I filled notebooks with goals, to-do’s, strategies and techniques for getting things together. From a fundamental place inside of me came the constant, relentless message: Be Better.
I wanted to be better at everything and somewhere inside I believed that every other woman out there was accomplishing all the things I couldn’t manage, an entire lifestyle of doing it all with grace and effortlessness. I saw myself as failing in some level at just about everything, not only everything in my life but everything in the world if you counted all the things I wasn’t doing. (And I counted.)
If I spent five hours cleaning the kitchen, I felt bad about the state of the pantry. If the house was neatly picked up, the carpet stains screamed loudly at me every time I walked into the room. If I’d baked a fabulous dessert for my family, I berated myself for the mediocre dinner they were served just prior.
But somewhere along the line, something within me broke and I saw that part of myself from outside eyes, like an out-of-body experience. I learned to be kinder to my heart and treat her like a friend of mine and not just an abused little girl who couldn’t live up to anything. This was all unfolded, I’m sure, as my depth of understanding unfolded about grace, about the God who loves so purely and completely that His heart for me cannot be changed by any amount of my goodness or lack thereof.
At some point, I stumbled on peace and self-forgiveness.
I started a Things I Don’t Do list in my head and began to check off, one by one, the things that would creep up on me and tell me lies. I thought hard about the things that tormented me and decided whether I really needed to make space for them in my life, whether I really did believe my call was to be better in that area. Sometimes the answer was yes. Sometimes, I added them to the TIDD list, and breathed a little easier.
The Things I Don’t Do are mostly good things. They are things that may be sacred and creative and might beautifully enhance another person’s life. But for me, they are things that would take the space I have to give the other things in my life, the ones that give me life and joy and serve a higher purpose than to simply be better. As I have let things go, I have learned that with less effort to be everything and more effort to be the uniquely created me, I am a little bit better by proxy, and that is the ironic-flavored icing on the cake.
Here is a portion of my list:
I don’t go to the gym. My body is not perfect or even necessarily pretty but it is the body that has bore three children and held tightly to a dozen more. It sags in areas it shouldn’t and bulges in places I wish it didn’t and has erupted in a terrible case of adult acne, but its scars and stretch marks reflect its purpose. I love to see old Bibles, worn from years of use and tears, notes scribbled in the margins and pages bent back. I’m beginning to see my body in this way too, an open book, a love story, in which my life is written slowly into laugh lines and chipped nails, tan lines and chronic illness and chapped lips and birthmarks, calluses and tattoos and scabbed-over wounds that I am beginning to love. My exercise comes in the form of wrestling t-shirts over squirmy kid heads and games of hide-and-seek, hiking to waterfalls and the thousand leg-lunges I do every single day while picking up Matchbox cars. I don’t count calories and I eat more chocolate than is good for me but I’ve decided I’m basically okay in my size 11 jeans because this body has been awfully good to live in despite its many flaws.
I don’t garden. I grow children well, pets poorly, and I kill most other living things. I admire and respect those who find gardening to be a spiritual experience, but for me it is dirt and thorns and grub worms, and it takes all the beauty and mystery out of nature. If I manage to keep alive a rose bush, I resent it for the creative time lost in its cultivation and therefore, gardening makes the TIDD list.
I’m not on the PTA. I’m not the room mother or the field trip chaperone or the teacher’s aide. I care deeply about my children’s educational experiences but this is not the outlet for that, for me. I admire that there are others who are so much more patient, more talented, more gifted with teaching children and I give them space to be positive influences in my kids’ lives, too.
I don’t pair socks. Laundry is serious business around here and I spend way more of my life than I care to in the act of cleaning and putting away clothing. We have a Sexton Sock Basket, and when I fold laundry, all socks go in the bin. When someone needs a pair, they Scuba dive for two that pass for matching, and we all live happily ever after, the end. Most people are seriously horrified by this. What kind of mother doesn’t even match their kids’ socks? Let me tell you. This kind of mother. The kind that has living room campouts with them for the heck of it and throws unbirthday parties every once in awhile and decorates a living room birthday tree for the special kid of honor. The kind who has decided to make other things a bigger deal than socks and does so without apology.
There are scores of other things I don’t do. I don’t eat organic or change my refrigerator filter as often as it needs it. I don’t do play-dates or mom’s group or homeschool (anymore). I don’t cloth diaper. I don’t vacuum every day or run marathons or cook from scratch or iron or dry clean. I am not against any of these things. They’re good. They’re great, even. They’re just not great for me, right now.
I am not totally guiltless over all of these things yet, but I’m getting there. The Things I Do list (I have one of those too) is getting shorter and shorter in quantity, but fuller and fuller in quality and I’m learning to see that as the better thing.
You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

(Matthew 5:5 MSG)

***
(please visit my friend Cara, here. and don’t forget to pre-order your copy of Chasing Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder, with Dr. Gregory Jantz, here.)

On seeing myself with the right eyes (Guest Post by Holly)

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I just want things to be normal.

At least, that’s what I think when I’m most vulnerable and scared and down.
Like when I’ve taken refuge in our teeny shower stall a little too long and I’m burning lava hot yet I don’t want to step out of the rushing water that drowns out the droning in my ears, in my house, in my life. I reluctantly step out and slowly turn, stealing a glance at the clouded mirror that hides my image behind a wall of wet.
I don’t see me.
I stand there, naked and dripping, huddling my body around a towel, willing it to heal my deepest darkness.
But still, I don’t see me.

Slowly, the mirror begins to drip, revealing jagged blurry pieces of my face, like exaggerated tear marks in negative.
I lurch towards the glass and hastily wipe it down, unable to stand the distortion.

And I see me.

Wet, stringy hair and a face that won’t let go of its adolescent skin, despite it’s aging eyes and I know, perhaps now more ever, that I will never really see me, will I?

Because these eyes need correcting, in so many more ways than one, and if left alone, they can’t see rightly.

So I turn away…there’s always this great turning away…and I rush to put on my clothes because I feel too vulnerable if I don’t.

And then I sink onto the bed and remind myself to breathe into one moment, then the next.
And I sigh.

And then I remember…

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
-Antoine de Saint Exuperay

And I ask, how does one see with their heart?

(thank you, Holly, for this powerful post… )

the shirts we wear (guest post by duane scott)

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In some states, if caught driving under the influence of alcohol, a person is required to wear a blazing orange vest and pick up trash in ditches.  On their vest, the words are printed:

I AM A DRUNK DRIVER

Cars pass, people stare.  One night’s bad decisions are worn as clothes for the world to see.  I’m reading this in the newspaper, wrinkles appearing on my forehead, because I think it’s a bit harsh.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think driving drunk needs consequences; serious ones even.  But to have your past mistakes pasted across your back for the sheer purpose of embarrassment, it’s just…

“It’s the same thing you do,” heaven bends low and whispers. God’s guiding hands settle on my shoulders.

I close my eyes.

It’s morning now, this very morning, and I’m playing the day over again in my mind, like a film projected on my eyelids.

I see myself.  The way I stumbled out of bed, forgetting to tell God good-morning.  Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I step into my jeans.  I’m late for work now and I don’t want to wake my wife with the light so I reach blindly into the drawer, grabbing a t-shirt.  Slipping it over my head as I walk to the bathroom, I flip on the overhead light to brush my teeth and convince snarled hair to lay low.

Earlier this morning, I never saw it.  But now, in my mind, I notice the words stamped on my wrinkled t-shirt.  They read:

I AM UNNOTICED

I AM FORGOTTEN

I AM UNLOVED

I wear these shirts.  Daily.  In my hurry to rush toward my normal day in my normal life,  I forget that “I am His beloved.”

Imagine this.  Your alarm rings.  And God smiles. Why? One of His favorite people are waking to the day He created, to the Grace He has given through the night.  And then this.  You rush away, never even nodding in the direction of God or even smiling back.

It’s sad, really.

Because the truth is you are noticed.  He created you uniquely to be “you” and every hair on your head is counted.  You aren’t forgotten.  In fact, God created a home just for you and someday, He’d like to be your neighbor.  You are loved.  It has been said a scroll, stretched side to side in the heavens, could not contain enough words to describe the love He has for His children.

The shirts. They look tattered now, lying there in the laundry.

(Thank you for this powerful truth, Duane. Readers, please visit my friend, Duane Scott, at his blog, here)

*To pre-order my book, Chasing Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder (Foreword by Dr. Gregory Jantz) please click here.*

when all you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough (plus book giveaway!)

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i first wrote about christian hosoi when i was newly married.

i was associate editor of a small newspaper, living with trent in a tiny bunaglow in the city with an apple tree in the backyard and a loft in which i painted and i was deep in the relapse of anorexia. at work, i sat in a swivel chair drinking nine cups of coffee and shivering because i could never get warm.

and all i wanted was to be full.

and i wrote about hosoi. how he was a phenomenal skateboarder who became rich at a young age and began smoking weed younger still.

his dad taught him how to roll his first joint at age eight, and he flew high as a kite for the next two decades, calling himself Christ and becoming a rock-star of skateboarding until he crashed hard into crystal meth. and meth became his God and landed him in jail, and it’s in prison that he owned up to his name and became a Christian.

and i was flying high on anorexia and both Christian and i thought by doing something hard enough, fast enough, we’d find it. fulfillment.

but we don’t find God. God finds us. we just need to stop running so he can.

and it’s hard to stand still in a world that spins. but listen to what hosoi says (in a book i’m giving away today): “i won everything i set out to win, had every girl i ever wanted, had friends and businesses and great parties, and all the money i could spend, and i still wasn’t satisfied.”

the day i began to eat again, i stopped starving the spirit out of my life. when i swallowed peanut butter and steak and honey on rye it was like swallowing God himself, because the most physical act, if consecrated, can become spiritual.

like biking to work, when you could drive. like hugging your child when you want to drink your coffee. like sitting on the back steps and watching the sunrise in your pajamas. like making homemade bread.

these things take time. the world says time is money. so, to offer that back to God? priceless.

sometimes i think we try to earn God. we try to be the best mom or the best skateboarder or the best preacher or the best soccer coach, but we can’t earn what grace has bought.

and all God wants is to walk with us. like he did in heaven.

but in order to walk with God we need to slow down. because God has all the time in the world. and he likes to savor his creation.

(want this book? let me know what success means to you, in the comments below. and don’t forget to link up! xo)

“a rabbi once asked a prominent member of his congregation, ‘whenever I see you, you’re always in a hurry. tell me, where are you running all the time?’

the man answered, ‘i’m running after success, i’m running after fulfillment, i’m running after the reward for all my hard work.’

the rabbi responded, ‘that’s a good answer if you assume that all those blessings are somewhere ahead of you, trying to elude you, and if you run fast enough, you may catch up with them. but isn’t it possible that those blessings are behind you, that they are looking for you, and the more you run, the harder you make it for them to find you?’”

~rabbi harold s. kushner’s story (from ‘when all you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough)

(*please don’t forget to pre-order Chasing Silhouettes! thank you!)

How to be beautiful (Guest post by Jennifer Dougan)

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A song on Sunday sent me into snake ponderings.

The worship song surged around me in the church pew and I lifted my writhing three year old onto my hip. Unaccustomed to being with us in the service, he was a whirl of energy and motion. Hanging off the chair with one hand and shoulder draped off the edge, he had peered at the floor. Spinning over he cuddled onto his sister’s lap, squeezing her arms for a hug. A grey sandaled shoe jabbed into my side, and I quickly readjusted my shirt.

It wasn’t his writhings that turned my mind to snakes, though. The worship song that we stood and sang back to God said wonderingly,

“You make beautiful things, beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things, beautiful things out of us.”
…
“You make me new, you are making me new.
You make me new, you are making us new.”

My oldest son has an eighteen inch garter snake that he found and tamed. Now the snake often coils comfortably up his arm as he walks the house, or hangs harmlessly around my seventeen year old’s neck as he corrects his math problems.

“Did you know,” my dad said, “that a snake is nearly blind right before it sheds its skin? With eyes that are clouded and dull, it is fearful and aggressive. Feeling vulnerable, it will often strike at the hand bringing it food too.”

My son built a reptile habitat in a glass aquarium, with cedar wood chips and an overturned log.

In order to rid itself of the old skin that is constraining it and hindering it, the snake has to be intentional. It can’t hole up in a safe dark corner, with dull, clouded eyes. Rather the snake has to purposely lean into the hard places between the log and the glass window, and push through the rough patches, intentionally poking into and through dark places. It’s the pressure and the pulling that tug off the dead to reveal beauty below.

We’re standing in the pews and singing and I’m holding my three-year-old in my arms and he’s writhing, and I picture my oldest’s newly-gleaming snake. Pearlescent emerald and gleaming amber striped down the snake’s back, leaving behind a faded, transparent wraith in the aquarium.

I sang “You make me new, you are making me new. You make things new…..

“You make beautiful things, ….

And I realize it’s me that God has been pressing through the tight places, poking into the dark corners, and leaning me into the rough patches to tear off the old, revealing beauty below.

How do we be beautiful? We lean into the rough places. We dare to walk with our Creator through the dark corners, through the tight spaces that’ll pull off the old and make all things new.

You make beautiful things out of the dust
you make beautiful things out of us

(thank you, Jennifer, for this stirring post. please visit Jennifer here at her lovely website)