I like the fray

May 152013
 

I was sitting next to her, the lifeguard at the pool where my kids swim. She put her finger on my knee and pulled on the piece of string that is hanging off the hole in my jeans. “Doesn’t that bother you?” She asked.

“No. I don’t even notice it.”

Because I don’t.

I don’t mind the fray, and in fact, I kind of like it.

I like that torn piece with the strings dangling; I think it gives my jeans some character.

I like the fray.

I like you. And I like loose ends and missing puzzle pieces.

Life is splotchy art, and I think it’s interesting and curious and painful and beautiful.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” -Oscar Wilde

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 Posted on:May 15, 2013  Life & Faith 9 Responses »

One Way to Pray For Yourself

Apr 082013
 

I’m not very objective when I pray for myself.

“God, I am so stuck, and I’m terrible at this or that and can you please help me, and take away the ugly and help me not be such a loser.”

Last night as I was reflecting on some sin issues I’m dealing with, I thought I would try praying for myself the way I might pray for someone else. Praying for “Sarah Mae” helped me to be able to separate myself from all the negative junk I see and feel and heap on myself, and instead pray for “her” as someone who is loved and beautiful and good enough and righteous because of Jesus, and made in the image of the living God. I could pray for “her” objectively. I felt encouraged by praying for myself in this way because it helped me to gain perspective in how easily it is to pray as though I’m unlovable and too much of a wreck and just pitiful (which I sometimes am). But we don’t pray for others that way, which is interesting, and enlightening.

Today, if you’re finding yourself beat up or feeling crummy or if you just need some objectivity, try praying for yourself as though you were a dear friend, or one of your children. Wrap yourself in prayers of love and light and intercession.

Grace to you today,

SM

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 Posted on:April 8, 2013  Life & Faith 24 Responses »

When You Give Up, and You Break, You’ve Made It

Jan 292013
 

“I don’t want to be a servant, I want to be a Caroline.” So says the three year old wonder-child who humbles me as a parent and makes me think deeper about life.

I want to be a Caroline.

That’s confidence, isn’t it? And freedom? I love that about my girl; she hasn’t learned yet to try and be anything but who she is. She doesn’t know that one day she’ll feel the pressure to be good enough, to be holy enough, to be quiet enough, or wise enough or all the “enough’s” that fill our head and make us neurotic about who we are and how we should live.

The “enough’s” make me tired.

And I think they make a lot of us are real tired, because in all the enough’s we begin to lose ourselves in order to be something else…something better…something expected…so far from who we really are that when we  fall apart, we just give up.

We stop trying. We think, “why bother, I will never change.”

And the lie sinks deep and we believe it for so long, and man it hurts.

But here comes the upside, the so unbelievably bright side…

Read the rest of this article over at Ann Voskamp’s blog, A Holy Experience

…

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 Posted on:January 29, 2013  Life & Faith 1 Response »