I hear my 3 year old through whimpers and whines, “I no like waiting. Waiting is hard.”

“I know,” I sigh.

It is hard for a toddler, and it’s hard for us adults. But waiting is inevitable, isn’t it?

We are waiting for an answer to prayer.
We are waiting for provision.
We are waiting for God to promote us.
We are waiting for our dreams to come to life, or a life to come to us.

While we wait, we still journey. Life goes on, and we must go on. We are in-between where we were and where we want to be, and it’s how we journey that’s most important. And in that journey, my friend, is where God does His best work in us. So what are we to do while we we wait? This…

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Let God have His way in you. Tweet this?

Our wait is the time that our selfishness is being worked out of us, as the motives of our hearts are being refined. It’s where the prayers we prayed of “Less of me and more of You, God,” are being answered, and our faith is being approved. There are trials while we wait, and sometimes the wait is the trial.

Sadly, many times the wait is laced with the darkness of disappointments. I often think of Joseph in Egypt. His dark abyss was a prison, yet God brought him from the prison to Pharaoh’s palace, in one day, so he could help save a nation. (Gen 41) God has called us and knows our end from our beginning. His timing is perfect. Perhaps, what we consider a disappointment is a divine-appointment, a set up for the greatness God has for us.

Your faith approved is worth more than gold, friend. “…for a little while you may be distressed by trials and suffer temptations, so that the genuineness of your faith may be tested, your faith which is infinitely more precious than the perishable gold which is tested and purified by fire.” (1 Pet 1:6-7 AMP)

Embrace the season with faithfulness. Tweet this?

As we are walking out our days, and working diligently to pursue our dreams we get caught in the in-between tension in our hearts. While we are living for the “future-us,” we are called be faithful as the “present-us,” and to  our spouses, our children, family, friends, readers we already have. Unbeknownst to us, we can live subtly devaluing our opportunities and those around, not appreciating the significance they bring to our life in this moment. And the truth of it is, the present moment is all we really have.

When we are anxious for the next step, we may despair over where we are instead of yielding to the time of waiting for all it’s wondrous clouds by day and fire by night God provides for the journey. It’s a balance, isn’t it, like a holy equilibrium? May God find us with genuine gratitude and praise for what the day brings, while still having faith and hope for what He may have for tomorrow.

“Give yourself permission to enjoy fully the things you have, the person you are, and the life you are currently living while continuing to harbor the dreams that keep you growing and stretching into the future.” — Priscilla Shirer

Focus on honoring God by offering your gifts, skills, talents and abilities to the task at hand in this moment for His glory. Your faithfulness to Him is proved in the monotony. Be completely available for Jesus. You are the image of God right where you are.

Make God the prize you are waiting for. Tweet this?

Times of waiting can bring uncertainty and doubt, but these times are invaluable ones in the valley where we draw near to God and He draws near to us, and where God becomes our everything, again.

“God births dreams in us and the allows the desire to move us; it is in the pursuit of our dreams that we encounter tragedy and meet the deeper desires that only loss and heartache can reveal. What deeper desire of our beings does God call us to discover? It is no other love and no other one but Him.” — Dan B. Allender

When you desire God more, hunger and thirst after Him more, delight in Him with all of your being, until there is nothing you want more than God. When you are able to say with all your heart, with complete sincerity, and utter surrender, “It doesn’t matter if I never see what my heart longs for, because there is nothing I want more than You. You are my portion, Lord, and You are all I need.” Then you will see, when you least expect it, God will bring the very thing your heart desires into your life.

My prayer for you.

I pray as you go through the place you rather not be on the way to the place your heart is already connected to, walk closely with Him, not ahead or behind, but with Him hearing His Voice and thoughts about where you are. He’s with you now in the journey, not at the destination — changing you from glory to glory. “Faithful is He Who is calling you, and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it.” (1 Thess 5:24 AMP)

Trusting Him,

Michele-Lyn

living a life surrendered

Will you share this post with someone who needs encouragement in the in-between? And will you share in comments, what is hardest about the time of waiting?

Dear Allume family,

Today’s post is really more of an announcement for you to know, and also an invitation for you to sow into one of our own. I’m writing primarily to let you know of an organizational change that has been made within Allume.  Because we want to honor you, our community, we felt that it was important to let you know rather than to just let you wonder or speculate. We also appreciate your prayers over our team and over the conference.

We would like to honor Jessica Heights and the role that she has played within Allume over the past 3 years.  She is one of the 3 original co-founders of the conference, and as we all have come to know her more and love her over the years, it is widely recognized that she has been a smiling face and welcoming presence at each year’s conference.  Many even say she has been Allume’s very own Miss Congeniality.

In order to focus more fully on personal matters outside of the conference, Jessica is moving away from her responsibilities and roles within Allume and the Conference.  The hole she leaves is great, and we ask that you would join us in honoring her, praying for her, and encouraging her.

Please know that we love Jessica, and are all in agreement that this is best for her and for the conference.  This is not something we expect the community to take lightly, and in order to honor Jessica, we would like to ask that as a community, we join together to speak blessing over her and not pry into her personal matters. Please be in prayer for us as we move forward as I’m sure you can know that she leaves quite a hole.

If you have been impacted by Jessica in any way over the years, we’d love to bless her with a slew of encouraging words and scriptures in the comments section below.  Thanks friends for your love and support of Allume and your kind words over our sweet friend.  We are so grateful for your contribution to this conference, the community, and most importantly to the Kingdom.

Loads of blessings on you each,
Logan and Sarah Mae

photo credit

I like to look good.  Not in a fashionable sense, per se, but in an “I’m a good person sort of way.”  My children have taught me that no matter how hard I try I will never have it all together, but that doesn’t keep me from trying.  I’ve struggled with this for years and more recently found myself lying to cover up bad decisions I was making.  Even though it was the furthest thing from my conscious mind I had allowed myself to become like the Pharisees in Matthew 23.  I looked great on the outside, but inside, I was dying.

The choice to follow Jesus is not just the initial choice to admit, believe, and confess–it is also the daily, momentary choice to choose rightly.  Not choose easy.  Not choose convenience.  Choose right.  Choose truth.  Choose life.  No matter how many bad/wrong choices you’ve made you can always choose in this very moment to do what’s right.

From one girl who desperately needs Jesus to help her choose right in THIS moment to another here are a few things that help me forgo the easy and choose Jesus.

1) Wise Counsel - It is so important to have wise and Godly counsel on your side.  These are the people with whom you can be completely honest and who you know will be completely honest back with you.  In my life, I had gotten to a point where I was avoiding these people/didn’t want to tell them all the nitty gritty details because I knew they would call me out on it.  If you find yourself isolating from the wise counsel in your life, I urge you to instead run to them.  Share with them.

2) Make scripture easily accessible - this can be done by not only reading the Bible regularly, but also putting scripture where you will see it.  For some of us that may mean sticking post-it notes throughout our houses.  For others it may mean writing in a journal.  I typed some pertinent scriptures out in the “notes” section of my iPhone, took a screenshot, and set it as my lock screen on my iPhone so every time I turn on the phone I see scripture.

3) Come clean - be honest.  There was some nitty gritty truth I had to face.  I had to tell close friends that yes, I had lied.  I was a hypocrite.  I put looking good above being honest and in doing so I brought shame, but you know what?  The minute I said I was sorry, the moment I turned the other direction…forgiveness was there.

That’s the same for you, friend.  This Allume community, we’re about real light living.  That means that we forgive, we embrace, and most of all, we stay.  We are here.  However public or private your issues we are here and we are cheering you on in your deliverance.

Here is one of my all time favorite quotes via the wonderfully insightful, C. S. Lewis:

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists of being put back on the right road.  A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.  Evil can be undone, but it can not ‘develop’ into good.  Time does not heal it.” –p. VIII, The Great Divorce

When you’ve had to say you’re sorry and turn around from a bad decision, what helped you?  What steps did you take to get right again?

They sit, these sisters, clasping tea in hands, telling me the story I know. The story of silence, the story of keeping it all hidden, pretending everything is okay.

They sit and share the wounds of the darkness, love muddled in attempt to keep things clean, organized, simple. The problem with pushing down truth is that truth cannot be hidden forever. And there is a cost to silence that is more bitter than the initial pain itself.

Repercussions to silence are felt in new ways–all for the fear of letting light shine.

Avoiding conversations about the tough stuff may mean avoiding the potential mess that occurs when hearts are spilled open, raw. But avoidance–choosing silence–opens the door to believing lies, to making agreements about things that aren’t true.

Do you, friend, have a memory when you, as a child, tried to put together the pieces to a situation you didn’t fully understand? Do you feel the burden of silence, of things unspoken, of relationships strained?

We are made for relationship. We are made for community. We are made to share stories and let His light shine on the places of pain, of fear, of pride.

My friend leans forward. We must unearth truth, she says. We must unearth lies that need to be surrendered. We must unearth wounds pushed deep into hard, dark ground.

I squirm in my chair and my heart leaps with recognition. Yes, I understand this.  This invitation to unearth–seeking to discover lies of my past–makes me both excited and afraid.

For I remember. I’ve been here before.

Unearthing creates turmoil in the dark places, underground. The roots have been established, wound their way through shadowless dark. Silence plants the message: deal with your burden on your own; figure it out; ignore it; time will make it all go away.

Over the years, the yearning for truth is squelched, pushed down, too far. And the darkness receives it, swallows it whole.

There the lies are nourished, fed by the years of handling the silence on our own. And there, the agreement is made:  I don’t have a voice, I am alone, I need to figure this out by myself, the cries of my heart don’t matter, I am not good enough.

The silence makes its insidious crawl, pushing its way from the deep recesses where it is further watered and new sprouts shaped. It curls upward and winds it way along the surface of the ground, a vine snaking in shadow, away from the chance of life outside.

And that is when the unearthing must come. The vine must get pulled up by the roots because it prefers lurking in darkness and fears brightness of light.

“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5) .

“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Dear sisters, you are not meant to be silent. Your wounds are not invisible, forgotten, uncared for. Your voice, when you call His name, reaches to the heavens (Psalm 10:17).  His love for you cannot be contained.  The silent scars you bear are not invisible to Him, are not silent to Him, are not unnoticed by Him. He calls your name and cradles you close, knocking, asking if it is okay for Him to lift you up, to unearth the pain you bear (Luke 11:10). He promises to take that burden from you, carry it Himself, longing to remind you that He did it already, when He hung on a cross for you.

His voice called your name, breaking the silence of death with His death. His last cry to His Father was for you, as He chose, in His love for you, to suffer and die.  He allowed His body to lay cold, in the earth, alone, so that you can be unearthed, dear one, and rise with Him.

Let the Father unearth you like He unearthed His Son.  He redeems the darkness.  He makes everything light.

^“Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12).

As writers, as sisters, as daughters, as friends, we are called to bring light to darkness. We are called to give voice to truth and trust that He sets the captives–of silence–free.

I’d stepped inside for just a moment, just long enough to grab the pot of macaroni and cheese off of the stove–when I heard the shouting on the patio. Ugly words flying like fiery arrows across the iron table, wounds splitting in the fray.

I grabbed his arm firm, and leaned in close enough–eye to eye. I hushed him, and sent him immediately in the house. His head hung and my heart beat wild in my chest.

His showing was hideous. But it hit me even harder that day because I’m still trying to get over another painful display of words that I witnessed, only that one wasn’t in my back yard–it was in my online neighborhood, and that’s still too close for comfort.

There’s something that happens online–in comment boxes, and on social media. I’ve seen it in blog posts and status updates, in 140 character tweets. Poor stewardship of words. You’ve seen it too. I’ve done it. It’s ugly and it hurts.

We justify our poor choice of language by claiming that we are merely “speaking the truth in love” but the truth is that, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so these careless words–supposedly spoken out of love, are revealed for their true identity.

It can be easy in this online world to forget that attached to that tiny, motionless avatar, is a real living person, with feelings and a soul. Maybe they know Jesus. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they don’t know your brand of Jesus. Maybe they don’t share your politics. And with every difference, we find it a little easier to vomit stones in their direction, while we attempt to cover the mess under the blanket of Christian love.

Sisters, God has given us the gift (and it is a gift) of language, and like all of our gifts, we are called to use them wisely–for His glory. We are called to good stewardship of our words:

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

1 Peter 4:10 NIV

I’ve watched the body cut and rip at each other, attacking motives and character, when someone disagrees with our point of view. I have my own opinions about how I think things ought to be, and sometimes, I don’t see eye to eye with you.

Sometimes, all I have are ugly, sinful, hurtful words, and so I have to click away. I confess. I repent, I grieve my own sinful attitudes…

Because I have to choose–love or hate.

We don’t have to tear at the very fiber of those we disagree with, just because we disagree with them.

There’s a difference between civil dialogue and character assassination thinly disguised as discussion. <–Tweet this

***

Inside, I cornered my child by the stove. With a hand on his shoulder, I repeated his hurtful words to him, I asked him how he thought they sounded. His tears spilled and I fought hard to hold my own back.

“Your need to be right and have things your way, doesn’t trump the need to show love to her”. 

He won’t look at me, and I get it. Shame weighs a lot. We bow our heads together and I hold him. I’m thinking about his sister half torn on that patio and my online sister half shredded by the ugly words and accusations hurled in the name of  ”love”.

Disagreement doesn’t come with permission to gnaw at the soul of another member of the body. We are called to be good stewards of our words. 

Everyone knows it’s not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. But sometimes, I think we’re trying to carry too many baskets — especially when it comes to social media.

There’s always a new social media network. Something to try, something to learn. A new opportunity to get lots of followers and rise to the top of the crowd.

But sometimes, we spread ourselves too thin. In trying to be everywhere, we are nowhere. And the eggs break just as quickly when they hit the ground, whether we are carrying them all in one basket or spread out into more baskets than we can hold.

I love Twitter. Facebook is where my grandma is, so I’m not leaving it any time soon. Pinterest is pretty and easy to organize. And I know Google Plus is  a necessary evil for bloggers.

But I forget to use Delicious. I tried Tumblr to see if it was a more social version of a bookmark and quote site, but I never remember to use it. Instagram is fun but without a smart phone it’s a three-step-process to a #latergram if I’m not at home with tablet in hand. And Digg? StumbleUpon? Never even used them.

Whenever I start forgetting to post to a social network, I know it’s lost the social aspect. And when I stop visiting anywhere but private Facebook groups, I know I’ve spread myself too thin.

It’s then I remember the tried and true advice of those with more followers than I: find a few social media networks you love, and become good at them. You and I are each only one person. Unless we have a team of bloggers working with us, or a good social media manager behind us, we can only do so much.

And it’s when I pull back and enjoy the process of just hanging out on my favorite social media networks that I actually see fruit from my time spent there. It’s when I view social media as a place to connect with my friends rather than an item on my to do list that the benefits can be seen — and in more than just numbers.

Tips

• Choose one day a week to hang out on less popular social networks (for me it’s Google Plus and Tumblr). You don’t have to be on any given social media network every hour of every day to have a presence there.
• Ask questions on Facebook. Get to know your followers there again.
• Use scheduler apps like Buffer for Twitter and Facebook’s built-in schedule feature so that you can be there without being there all the time.
• Use plugins like Tweetily (to Tweet old posts) and Jetpack’s “Publicize” (to Tweet new posts) to automate your blog’s presence on Twitter (just don’t spam your followers!) so that you don’t have to worry about your blog when you get on Twitter, you can just be you.
• Don’t just Tweet and Retweet — remember how much fun it was to have conversations on Twitter?
• Stay off Pinterest.com and just pin from the sites you visit to avoid the Pinterest time trap.

How do you keep a handle on your social media involvement?

Tweetables:

• Sometimes, we spread ourselves too thin on social media. In trying to be everywhere, we are nowhere. (Click to Tweet)
• Whenever I start forgetting to post to a social network, I know it’s lost the social aspect. (Click to Tweet)
• How do you keep a handle on your social media involvement? (Click to Tweet)

Photo Credit: Kateri Fahey of Dandelion Haven

 
Don’t place your trust solely in him. Or her. Or them. Because they — like you and me — are mere humans. And do you know what humans do? We fail.

I read Jesus’ words last week and they struck a deep chord. He had just started His earthly ministry, performing signs and wonders. And after seeing the miracles, people believed in Him.

“But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” John 2:24-25

Do you hear what He’s saying? Yes, people put their trust in Him. I mean, He was turning water into top-shelf wine. But He didn’t put His trust in people. Why? Because He “knew all people…(and) knew what was in man.”

Never in the Bible does it say to put our trust in people. Never. Love people, yes. Forgive people, continually. Pray for people, always. But trust? Never. And it’s because people are people. We’re weak and selfish and prone to wander.

When we place our trust in people — depending on them to give us life and hope — we’ll inevitably fall to disappointment. That’s why Jesus didn’t put His trust in man. Not even His most beloved disciples. He put His trust solely in the Father.

His eyes were dead set on the will of the Father. His gaze was continually pointed to the Father. He didn’t look at humans in search of fulfillment with cheesy phrases like “you. complete. me.” No. Because He knew what was in man. And woman.

Personally, I put my hope and trust in men — eventually my husband –in search of security and meaningful love for far too long. And though God gifts us with earthly, blessed, necessary relationships, people can never completely fill us. People will fail us. Just like we’ll fail them.

So when it comes to trust, we’re supposed to put it in one place and one place alone. We put our trust in God.

Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.
Jeremiah 17:5-8

God is the forever faithful One. He’s the One who sees the beginning from the end and knows how to make every detail work out for the good of those who love Him. He’s the One who never ever leaves or forsakes His children. He alone is always trustworthy.

And here’s the beauty. When we put our trust in Him, rather than the people or circumstances in our physical world, it frees us to love others without expectation. It frees us to forgive and bless. Because we’re not depending on people to be our Source of life. We’re depending on the life-giver. And that, my friend, is true freedom.

 
How have you seen that passage from Jeremiah above play out in your own life? (i.e., trusting in things or people vs. trusting in God regardless)