Category Archives: Invitations to Rest and Stillness

Fierce Presence

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I’m beyond excited to be across the country at a writing conference, so I won’t write this week on Father’s House and The Whole Language. Instead I’m sharing an invitation to spiritual intimacy.

Fierce Presence

I have separation anxiety with God. I’m sure He’s in this for the long haul, but faith in my ability to mess up often outpaces faith in Him to keep showing up. Somehow I got the idea that Jesus’s faithfulness is contingent on mine. Or at the very least, my salvation is contingent on my faithfulness.

It’s possible I reversed good news and heard bad news. I got gravel in my filter. When “Perfect love casts out fear” goes through my filter, it comes out, “If you fear, God is not in you.” When “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” goes through my filter, I hear, “If you could only master an awareness of God, you’d have perfect peace.” Verse after verse mocks me, standing sentry to the heart of God, announcing that if I have fear or discontent I don’t belong there.

Who spread the lie that God is available only in goodness? That He is best found in happy marriages and productive members of society? If that is true, then every time I have a bad day—or worse, a week or a month or a year—I am no longer a vessel. I’m on the naughty list. I sleep in the attic with the others who don’t get it.

Love that heals is weaponized against me, suggesting that when I am not healing it is because I am not in Love. Rather than an invitation to healing, I hear condemnation for not being good enough at getting healed.

But what if I don’t have to faithfully choose Love? Maybe it chooses me. Maybe it gives me the room with an ocean view, extra fuzzy blankets, and a hot tub. It includes breakfast in bed and free parking, pool access and complimentary snacks. Love always embraces first. And second. And third. It is welcoming, and it is gentle with my insecurities.

Yet Love is as fierce as it is gentle. It knows how to walk through death and divorce, addiction and abuse, scarcity and loneliness, depression and anxiety. This Love that has tenderly pried my white-knuckled hands free and taught me to rest is the same Love that hung naked on a cross. It is not afraid of anything, yet it is not offended or repelled by the presence of fear.

I’m beginning to be persuaded, along with Paul, that nothing can separate me from the love of God.

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 NKJV

Powerful words. But I get thrown off when I realize I don’t know what a principality is, and I’m not sure how height or depth are interfering with Love. I’ve also not had a lot of angels trying to come between me and God. Rather, I get jumpy when I make mistakes or feel depressed or snap too much at the people I love. So I wrote a personalized version of Romans 8:38-39:

I am persuaded that neither anxiety nor depression, nor anger nor arrogance nor mistakes, nor ignorance nor knowledge, nor tantrums nor passivity, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.

The voice whispering that anxiety or fear will separate me from Love is the voice of a specter, of that which seemed real to me before I became real. Maybe Love sees fear and anxiety and depression and says, “I embrace you in this,” and it says, “This isn’t the final word.” Maybe that’s what the verses are for. Love is not afraid to hold the tension of hope—the space between what is and what will be—and it holds that tension both peacefully and fiercely.

This fierce presence provides the faithfulness I thought I had to come up with on my own. God’s ability to show up always outpaces my ability to mess up. I am faithfully and fiercely loved, separation anxiety and all.

Photo by Josh Willink: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-carrying-a-baby-286625/

Righteous Rest

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Righteous Rest

Reflections – week 4

Welcome to the fourth week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House, and The Whole Language. Gregory Boyle, author of The Whole Language, founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention and rehab program in the world. The Whole Language is his third book, and my favorite. Boyle frequently refers to “mysticism,” and if—like me—you’re not sure what that is, I invite you to just roll with it. Thank you for journeying with me.

Dead

I have a tenuous relationship with metaphors around the cross of Jesus—bridge, sacrifice, torn veil. I’m also unsure why we’re excited about a symbol of brutal, torturous death. We don’t wear miniature gold guillotines or electric chairs on delicate chains around our necks. But even if I can get past crucifixion pedantry, I still have questions. Did Jesus die as me or for me? Did He take punishment, or natural consequences, or did He simply enter into human suffering? Did He free all humanity, or only those who confess His name? Do I reap the reward of what He accomplished today, or only in the afterlife?

The authors of Father’s House believe that Jesus died as me, and while I don’t share their certainty, I love where they go from there: “The old you, the you that is still trying to measure up, died.”1 Now that is good news. Performing me is dead. Striving me is dead. Ashamed me is dead. The apostle Paul believed we were crucified with Christ, and exclaimed, “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power!”2 Having spent the last decade imprisoned by my own self, the possibility of leaving that behind is tremendously appealing.

The New Testament talks about the “old” and the “new” person. I like to think of them as a fake self and a real self. I was a facade. Now I am genuine. This moving into righteousness is not a move from bad to good, but a move from fragmented to whole, death to life. Behavior is always and only a side note. Good behavior centers me on shaky ground; bad behavior centers me on shaky ground. When I mess up, and when I have it all together, I need to be reminded that it’s not about behavior. “Righteous” is not a tally sheet, it’s a birth certificate.

Righteousness is Mysticism is Connectedness

Week #4 in Father’s House is all about righteousness, and the belief that “I am as righteous as Jesus Christ.”3 I want to short-circuit the voice in my heart and head that believes it’s all about behavior. I want to confuse, divert, or undermine my pesky inner parole officer. I have been imprisoned by my humanness, convinced I can only get out on good behavior, so each reminder in the Lesson Four video teaching is hope:

– Righteousness is not a verb, it’s a noun

– Righteousness is simply received, not achieved

– Righteousness is not dependent on my obedience

– Righteousness is about who I trust, not what I do

– Righteousness is received by faith, not by feeling

Righteousness ushers in a whole new way of seeing. Gregory Boyle writes, “The world will focus on outcomes or behavior or success. Mysticism glances just above what the world has in its sights. It puts judgment on check. It develops a warmth for everything that comes its way and rests in the center of it. When we are whole, that’s what we see in others.”4 Then we all warm up around the radiant heat of connectedness.

Boyle continues, “This culture of mystical tenderness holds every soul in high regard. …high performance is not the goal, but rather, a surrender to healing is. Then everyone finds this gentle road and practices, with each other, the pathway home.”5

Papa God is relentless in His passionate devotion to my wholeness and healing. When I soak in this—in the crazy truth that I am righteous—transformation is loosed, I live from a seat of rest, and I begin tapping into my heart’s desires instead of listening to my inner parole officer. I become confident in God’s presence to do the impossible with and through me, to invite everyone home.6

Righteous Conviction

In John 16:8, Jesus says the Spirit “will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment” (NKJV). Day Two reading in Father’s House shocks me: “This [John 16:8] is the only time in the entire New Testament that there is mention of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin… and it is in response to those who do not believe in Him! As a believer, this says He wants to convict you of something completely different: your righteousness. Holy Spirit knows that reminding you of who you are, the righteousness of God in Christ, empowers you…”7

So the voice inside of me that points out how much I fall short is NOT the Holy Spirit, or any part of God? Why am I listening to it? Instead, I may hear a voice that convicts me of righteousness, a voice that notices all the beautiful things in me and says that is who I truly am. This voice looks for goodness and finds it. This voice spends its time bringing to light righteousness (not sin).

Embodied Healing

Another analogy I’m not fond of is the “robe of righteousness.” Robes are not attractive, they don’t keep my feet warm, and they are not all-day wear (except when it’s cold in the house and I wear my robe over my clothes). It’s quite possible royal robes were more common than bath robes in Jesus’ day, but having no experience with royal robes I’m not sure how to relate. Also, a robe can be taken on and off, and I’m not keen on transient righteousness. But, because I’m just a wee bit compelled to follow directions, I explored my thoughts about a robe of righteousness, as instructed in Father’s House. To my surprise, I found a thought that fits me.Skin is the largest organ of the human body. Clothing is intimate. It makes sense that God would draw near to me in a way that touches my skin. Touch keeps me present. It draws me out of my head and into my body, and God knows I need all the help I can get to stay present in my body.

Our bodies carry pain, and sometimes we divorce ourselves to get away from the pain. We do a thousand things to survive, many of which we don’t even realize we’re doing. It takes time to sort this out and let love into the picture. The folks Gregory Boyle connects with carry unimaginable amounts of pain and trauma. Extravagant tenderness creates space for that pain to be seen. “When you enter the program,” a homie said, “you need to bring your pain with you.”8 Connection and healing happen when we allow our wound to be seen, and then to be touched. Boyle suggests that “Healing takes a lifetime but surrender to this moment can carry you.”9 Love creates the space to surrender to this moment, to stay present to ourselves. “To be nurtured is to be reverent for what is happening to you.”10 Grace is reverence for pain.

Rest and Love

Striving to be “good” takes a boatload of energy. I remember when my oldest daughter began full-time schooling in first grade. She came home from school each day totally spent, and often spiraled into tantrums, tears, and yelling matches with me (I’m a superb yeller). She spent every ounce of her energy to behave well, learn well, and get along with others at school, and when she came home there was nothing left. I, too, have “melted down” over and over because I empty myself in my attempts to perform well, and to be “good.”

Papa God, Jesus, and Spirit are a whole new paradigm—a home where behavior is beside the point, a distraction from the real deal. Trying to become whole is a tiring pursuit. Knowing I’m already whole is energizing. Resting in righteousness creates a foundation for love. “The mystic’s quest is to be on the lookout for the hidden wholeness in everyone,”11 including me.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 65
2Romans 6:6 TPT
3Father’s House, page 66
4The Whole Language, page 51
5The Whole Language, page 53
6Father’s House, Session Four video teaching and activation, pages 66-68
7Father’s House, page 71
8The Whole Language, page 54
9Father’s House, page 53
10Father’s House, page 50
11The Whole Language, page 55

Tell My Body I’m Innocent

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Tell My Body I’m Innocent

Reflections – week 3

Welcome to the third week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language. This is week three of eight. I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

Forgiven Future

“I am fully forgiven forever.”1 This is key #3 in Father’s House.

The exercises in the workbook are designed to walk me through past grievances, but I find myself feeling more guilt and shame for my potential to mess up, than for past behaviors. I feel like a walking liability, a mistake waiting to happen, impatience and selfishness and bitterness piled up on an over-filled plate, waiting to get bumped and spill everywhere.

I believe that forgiveness from God is complete. It doesn’t happen when or because I ask for it. It’s done for all people for all time, and my invitation is simply to accept awareness of it. But I realize I have not allowed this to permeate my present and my future. I see everything in front of me through the filter of my imperfection. And I believe my capacity to act without love means I deserve a diminished life. Father’s House declares, “In Papa’s House your past doesn’t stand a chance.”2 Could I believe that in Papa’s house my future doesn’t stand a chance?

The ability to walk forward is not only dependent on being untied from the past, but also on a clear way ahead. Papa doesn’t expect me to walk embarrassed, afraid, tentative—advancing slowly to improve the chance of catching myself when I trip. I have believed I must hold back because getting things right is more important than anything else. But if my future is forgiven and I am “innocent and pure forever,”3 I can’t possibly make things any more “right” than they already are.

I can walk with confidence, run with abandon, knowing that tripping is expected. God isn’t surprised when I make mistakes or protect my ego or forget to love. All of this is understood and received into His expansiveness. He is not keeping track. He is not expecting perfection. He is not asking me to go back to the starting line and try again. He is not putting his hand up and requiring me to kneel and beg forgiveness before I go on.

I have tried to avoid forgiveness by getting things right. I have believed that if I need to think about forgiveness, something has gone wrong. But Jesus didn’t shy away from forgiveness. He gave it out left and right, and not because people were asking for it. He never suggested we should be trying to not need to be forgiven. Perfection—“rightness”—is a distraction, a black hole, handcuffs.

Tension

A few months ago I began to notice tension in my body. The tension wasn’t new, but my notice was. I first became aware of it when I was lying in bed. I noticed I could allow my scalp and forehead and cheeks and shoulders and arms and back and legs and feet to relax. Five minutes later, I would become aware of the tension again, and again I could relax. After a day or two, I realized the tension was always there, but when I took notice of it I could release it. I don’t know what prompted this awareness, but it became an ongoing invitation to rest. Perhaps it was a result of internalizing freedom in Father’s House, knowing “It is finished”—what Jesus completed is my starting point and my resting place. I belong in Papa’s house. I’m exactly where I need to be. I sit in Papa’s house calm and light, because I’m no longer juggling while climbing stairs and holding my breath.

Holding

Children who have been abused often speak of a moment in their healing when they realize that the abuse was not their fault, not their destiny, not normal, not what they deserved. It becomes something that happened to them, but it is no longer their secret identity, the truth of who they are, or the predictor of who they will be.

Gregory Boyle tells the story of a kid named Sharky, whose father continued to find and terrorize the family, despite restraining orders. One day Sharky came home to find his father hiding there, waiting to interrogate him. When he couldn’t take any more, he ran to a neighbor’s house and called his mom, who arranged a meeting place. When they both arrive, “She just holds him there, in the gym bleachers, as he sobs all the more and her only message is this: ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that.’” Many years later, Sharky is alone in a prison cell, and “comes a message from God… a singular expression of tenderness. God holding a sobbing Sharky and saying only this: ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that.’ Sharky tells me later that this has become the notion of God that holds him still. It fills him enough to say finally to his own father, ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.’ The Tender One… is sorry that we go through what we do.”4 He is holding us in the bleachers. He is speaking the truth that neither “abuser” nor “abused” is our identity, releasing us to healing and wholeness.

Innocent

“Father God doesn’t just consider you forgiven,” write the authors of Father’s House, “but He sees you as completely innocent—as though you had never sinned.”5 I don’t know what this means. It can’t mean I’m perfect. It can’t mean I’m not human. It can’t mean I don’t need to heal. Surely God sees my wounds, because He touches them and restores health. Ultimately, I think innocence is about intimacy. Innocence is, “There is nothing between you and Father God, for He sees you as holy, flawless, and restored,”6—forever. Innocence is an invitation to uncouple from shame. “Shame and intimacy will never share a seat at the same table. You have to let go of one to have the other.”7

Gregory Boyle writes, “Unshakeable goodness is our royal nature.” When we see this, he says, “We then undertake the search for innocence in the other. We cease to find the guilty party. We no longer divide into camps: Heroes and Villains. We end up only seeing heroes. We look for the unchangeable goodness that’s always there in the other… In this, we find the unbearable beauty of our own life.”8

Intimacy seems fragile to me, a rare treasure—not something that can be promised forever. But God Of The Impossible is promising infinite intimacy, and He is suggesting that innocence and intimacy are inextricably connected. Nothing between us.

Rest

My innocence, and the innocence of every human being, is an invitation to rest. Boyle writes, “It will always be less exhausting to love than to find fault. When we see fault, we immediately believe that something has to be done about it. But love knows that nothing is ever needed.”9 I no longer need to find fault. Instead, I find goodness. There is nothing left to fix, and my muscles relax in gratitude. I am not a tripping hazard. I am forgiven, innocent, whole. I breathe this in and release “fixing” so I can see love. Everywhere, and in everyone, love.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 46
2Father’s House, activation #3
3Ibid
4The Whole Language, pages 23, 24
5Father’s House, page 46
6Colossians 1:22 TPT, emphasis mine
7Father’s House, page 50
8The Whole Language, pages 40, 41
9The Whole Language, page 41

On Being Dead (Part 2)

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June 20, 2022

God, I am so tired of thinking I am bigger than You, and my ability to mess things up is bigger than You. That is a lie and I am choking in its grip. Please show me how big You are. Please, uproot the lie. Show me how small I am. I cling to Your feet. I don’t need You to be what I think You are. Lord, please make me willing to be inhabited by Your Spirit and to release control. The story of Jacob’s wrestle in the night comes to mind. (see Genesis 32:24-30)

I’m asking for a miracle. I’m asking because I know that thinking I’m bigger than You is a fabrication. A sleight of hand. Please take me out from under the spell. Show me how the trick works so that I am no longer captured by it. Take me back to the garden, to the lie, and reverse the damage. You have crushed the serpent’s head, and along with it crushed the lie that You are holding out on me; that You have limited me and excluded me from Your fullness. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” You say.

I’m so sorry that we wanted “to know good and evil.” I am drawn to that tree, that struggle. You remind me of another tree, another struggle, “On a hill far away.” Lord, I receive Your death in me. I receive the silence of the tomb. It’s a long silence, really. The silence of a world in awe at what they have seen. A silence void of struggle, void of taunting, certainly void of trying. It is the moment of silence after a stunning victory before the crowd comes to life and erupts with noise and elation.

The tomb is a quiet place, a place of mystery, a place we respectfully allow darkness and silence. A place where stillness is not a practice, but the truest reality. I lie dead. I have gone from confused delirium to perfect, unruffled peace. Every muscle that was trying so hard to hold me together has now relaxed. Resurrection is not on my mind, because nothing is on my mind. That’s the beauty of being dead. The rushing is suddenly and decisively irrelevant. Not even snoring disturbs this silence. A dead person doesn’t sin, doesn’t worry, doesn’t know anything.

Lord here I am, passed out in the tomb with You, knowing nothing. I can do nothing. My senses have stopped signaling my brain. There is no input, no output. Only silence and stillness. Even breathing has ceased. I am in a holy place of waiting, a sleep of death that will feel the same whether it is one minute or one hundred years. This is the only way to wait without fretting—in death. Death is also where decay occurs—the return of life to the soil, from which new life will arise. Dust I am. This is how I know silence. Death silences the endless chatter, and it is God’s gift to me, though my heart still beats.

“I am crucified with Christ; therefore I no longer live.” (Galatians 2:20) It seems I have tried to be born again without dying. I have wanted to skip over death to resurrection, not realizing how I long for death. Quiet. No expectations. I might have known that in God’s hands even death is a gift. As I permit myself to engage with death, I find treasure: grace, humor, peace.

Nobody expects anything of a dead person. I am gloriously, peacefully dead. Dead people aren’t really good at anything, except maybe lying still. I suppose if their eyelids were open they could win any staring contest.

Also, the band name “Grateful Dead” has taken on a whole new meaning.

The nice thing about being the dead person is that there is no sense of loss. I cannot grieve, because I cannot do anything. I need not try to be still, nor try to move. I need not expect perfection, nor hope for predictability. I cannot hold onto life. It is behind me and beyond me and it animates me only when I am not in this passageway of death.

Trust. Humility. These things I have longed for are here in the tomb.

Perhaps Jesus called death “sleep” because He knew it was the only way for humans to Rest In Peace. Death is not a fitful slumber. It is the child who has fallen asleep in his mother’s arms in a waiting room, every muscle relaxed, dead to the passage of time and to the noise of a coffee machine and crying children and ringing phones.

Like Barbara Brown Tayler, I love the question, “What is saving you right now?” Death is saving me right now. Today I am in the grave. Neither crucifixion nor resurrection are on my mind. Maybe “grave circumstances” aren’t so bad. “Grave” and “grace” are closer than I thought. My tired heart has stopped beating and it lies still in the mystery of death.

Only Jesus. Always Jesus. Beautifully Jesus. Safely Jesus. I will Rest In Peace with You, the only one who can lay down Your life and take it up again.

Still

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“Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.” Psalm 37:7a

Stillness and I do not have a good relationship. I am a girl who does. While this has benefited me in the workplace, church volunteer positions, and even friend groups, it can be a real thorn in the side of my relationship with God.

I grew up in a home where hard work, productivity, and efficiency were highly valued. Our family rhythms were built largely around work, with rest and play languishing on the sidelines. More than fifteen years after moving out, I am less a slave to productivity, but still a product of my upbringing. As I sit here writing on the porch swing, a hot cup of tea beside me, I can feel the tension of the un-done things, but I also know the pleasure of taking this time to breathe the fresh air, feel the keys beneath my fingers, and enjoy writing and sipping tea (actually, I tend to let my tea cool and then chug since that is more efficient).

Over the last couple of years I have courageously cleared my schedule and said no to many things I would have said yes to before. I have come to enjoy a day with nothing on the calendar (this was previously terrifying). While I am tremendously grateful for this journey away from doing for the sake of doing, sometimes I am not sure what I am moving toward. Often I feel even the unscheduled days rush by without me in them. I have created space, but I don’t know how to live in it. I don’t know how to be still.

As I wrestled this past week with my monthly allotment of female hormones – which often send me back to the comfort of being productive – God invited me to be still. The word “invited” is intentional, because for do-ers like me, advice or requests ruin intimacy. I will run off to perform and miss the opportunity to connect. Jesus knows me, and He speaks words of invitation to my trembling, ready-to-please soul, that allow me to be still: “Let Me be your provider. My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. 12:9) You don’t need your kids and husband and other people around you to keep you happy, or your performance to be your reward. Bring everything to Me. Let Me be your provider. Be still. Wait on Me. Give thanks. Hold fast. Find contentment in watching me provide.”

There is something about believing God will provide that frees me to be present. If He is providing, then I don’t have to get everything right. If He is providing, worrying and planning can step down from their positions as chairman and CEO in my brain. If He is providing, I can be still. Stillness is still a discovery for me. Sometimes it is sitting in the quiet of the morning, in front of an open window, listening to the leaves rustling and the birds chirping. Sometimes it is recognizing my brokenness and talking to Jesus about it. Sometimes it is singing “He’s got the whole world in His hands,” and replacing “whole world” with whatever it is that is worrying me. Often is remembering that He loves me. For no good reason, really. And He even likes me. There is something restful about being loved and liked.

Maybe faith is letting God be God. He loves me crazy. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. (Psalm 50:10) What makes me think I need to exercise or manipulate Him? My part is to thank Him, praise Him, worship Him, watch Him, and be still. Still so I can feel the wind of His Spirit whisper against my heart. Still so I can hear His voice. Still so I can watch my children playing. Still so I can sit beside my husband and not be doing something. Still so the intensity of God’s love for me rises above the intensity of the unrelenting problem-solving and rabbit-trailing and ugly-worrying going on in my head. Still so I will know when He begins to move. Still because it is the strongest stand I can take against wearing the rags I have earned by my own righteousness. (Isaiah 64:6) Still because sometimes the Lord wants me to have a front-row seat as He fights the battle for me. Still because I don’t need to catch up with God. He is right here. Still because if God isn’t using both hands to hold me strong from my flailing performance of doing and striving, maybe He can do something else for me. Still because running ahead is lonely. Still because squirming and fighting is getting tiresome. Still because He is God and I am not, and what a relief!

Stillness may be the antidote to my perfectionism. Even the voices that scold me for not being present in the spaces in my life must be silenced by stillness. Stillness allows me to feel, but not to be overwhelmed by my feelings. It allows me a measure of comfort in the tension of living life in a broken body in a broken world. It invites me to hope in the good things my Provider has spread before me. It allows me to be as I am. Stillness in the presence of God is safe and holy and intimate.

Today I Can Breathe

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Today I can breathe deep because when tonight comes God will not love me any more or less than He does this morning.

“God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.”

-Philip Yancey, in his book “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”

Today I can breathe deep because God is in charge and I am not.

“He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands…”

-traditional American spiritual

Today I can breathe deep because God is bigger.

“…Just a whisper of your voice can tame the seas
So who am I to try to take the lead
Still I run ahead and think I’m strong enough
When you’re the one who made me from the dust

When did I forget that you’ve always been the king of the world?
I try to take life back right out of the hands of the king of the world
How could I make you so small
When you’re the one who holds it all
When did I forget that you’ve always been the king of the world…”

-from the song “King of the World” sung by Natalie Grant

Today I can breathe deep because I am already victorious and righteous in Christ.

“The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.”

-Romans 8:11, Holy Bible, New Living Translation

Today I can breathe deep because it’s not about me. Even if I get everything wrong today, I am still loved and God is still at work.

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
to those who search for him.
So it is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.”

-Lamentations 3:22-26, Holy Bible, New Living Translation

Today I can breathe deep because grace multiplies.

“The struggling of fleshly efforts won’t deliver anyone, but God’s grace never fails. If you have big problems, remember that His grace is always sufficient to meet every weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). God does not just offer us grace, but He offers us grace, grace, and more grace. His supply is bountiful; no matter how much we use there is always plenty more.”

Joyce Meyer, in her book ” If Not for the Grace of God”

Today I can breathe deep because I am enough.

“No matter how much I get done, or is left undone, at the end of the day I am enough.”

-Brené Brown

Today I can breathe deep because God will never leave me or forsake me (Deut. 31:6). I will never at any moment be alone.

“I’ve heard a thousand stories of what they think you’re like
But I’ve heard the tender whispers of love in the dead of night
And you tell me that you’re pleased
And that I’m never alone.
You’re a good good father
It’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are
And I’m loved by you
It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am…”
      -from the song “Good Good Father” sung by Chris Tomlin

Slow

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Lord let me let you love me slow. Sometimes I think about how slowly the world wakes up. The contrast between alarm clocks and bright lights and the twittering birds and slow lighting of the sky. It takes an hour for the sun to rise and to set. It’s a reminder to me that You are not in a hurry. Neither are you in a hurry for me to become perfect. You are content to commune with me in my brokenness. You seek intimacy with me rather than perfection from me. So let me embrace the slow knowing, the gentle turning, of my broken spirit to Your wholeness.