Terribly Interesting

It's a gray day here. Gray days cause a quiet hush to fall on the land. They feel like tears. They aren't sad tears per se. I call them tears of presence. When a time of quiet comes and I can hear the gentle voice of the Lord, my eyes tend to water. It's a washing away of sorts. That meek and wild voice of God destroys old things and propagates new ones simply by speaking. Even though the exact words that he is saying are not always understood by us, we feel it. It reverberates deep within. The holy hush falls upon us and we are changed. I heard Makoto Fujimura say that our churches will need new wine skins for our new wine after this pandemic. The world will be different. We will all be different. We will seek the Lord more desperately. I think we will all need new wine skins to hold the fermented fruit of this season. God has drawn us away from the business of life and invited us into his quiet, contemplative presence. That has changed us. We are remembering to enjo...

I have been wanting to go to Bob Goff's  Dream Big  seminar for years, but the $3500 price tag was a huge deterrent to me. When I saw that he was opening up an online version for $200 during our quarantine, I immediately purchased it. I have to tell you that I am so glad I did it this way.  He tells you that if you go through the questions too quickly to do them again because you haven't thought deeply enough about your answers. Friends, I have spent three weeks in the introduction and I have cried quite a bit. I wasn't expecting this at all. I thought I'd go through this and formulate a plan to best help homeless people in my community and maybe learn to be more hospitable to those around me. I've never been a person who wants to follow their dreams or dream big. I just like to follow Jesus around. He's doing crazy stuff and it is absolutely wild to be in cahoots with Him.  Here's what I didn't expect: When asked what my dream was, I had t...

On Friday I was on a ladder scraping paint off the back of our house. The rain started coming down, but I was tucked under the eaves so I stayed a few more minutes. I stood there thinking about all of the musicians that had died recently. We lost Kenny Rogers, Joe Diffie, and Bill Withers. As I was thinking of them, as loud as a person can hear internal words, I heard these words,  "Grief is a gift."  It prompted me to think about losing my two brothers. The grief of losing my brother Mike truly changed my life because I wanted to change how I loved people. When you tuck into the Lord with heavy things, He creates beauty that could have never been there before. The words kept repeating in my head like a drum during all of this. Grief is a gift. Grief is a gift. Grief is a gift. Never in a million years could I have imagined that Denbigh would lose his brother Michael the next day to a tragic accident. It's a terrible thing to have in common with someone. We have...

The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a completely fascinating story of the woman who stepped up to build the Brooklyn Bridge when her father-in-law was killed and her husband took ill. I cannot remember having heard this story and the extraordinary lengths that Emily Roebling went to in order to see this vision to completion. In a day in time when women did not have jobs and wore huge dresses unsuitable for work, Emily took on an unimaginable challenge. She dealt with the business side of things as well as actual oversight of the job sight. She faced so much ridicule for being a woman, but amazingly prevailed. You'll have to read the story. There is some fiction added into this story. The author added a story with PT Barnum, one of the richest men in New York at the time, and his emotional affair with Emily. There is no basis for this. Looking at her life, she seemed like such a devoted woman. I wonder if this addition to her story w...

  Human(kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together by Ashlee Eiland My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love kindness. The concept behind this book is to showcase kindness and lack thereof in a memoir, short story style. She shows us how racism has effected her personally. Her style is Melanie Shankle meets LaTasha Morrison. Her stories of her kind grandma and the kindness she encountered growing up are great encouragements. You can see clearly how small things and words can give people hope for the rest of their lives. One thing I enjoyed reading was when she was involved in a homeless ministry. She sat down and ate McDonald's with a man who had very little to say to her and was thankful. Later on we see her angry at a woman trying to buy her dinner because she was black. That made me think about how I receive people. Do I receive some people well because I think I am helping them and others not so well because I think they are conde...

 Hey y'all, I've been stripping paint for about 5 or 6 hours a day. I am about halfway through the back of the house. It's quite a challenge. It's a huge mess. It's a huge mess! I'm hoping to finish scraping by the end of next week so that we can open the pool. We need to change out the liner after a beloved guest accidentally ripped it. How are y'all doing at social isolating? I read a post by Makoto Fujimura about how artists are inherently self-distancing and it is easier for us to cope right now. He is amazing. Watch this. Nihonga Slow Art from Windrider Productions on Vimeo . The part of this that is breaking my heart is seeing all of the people losing jobs, the sickness, the homeless going without food, The beauty is seeing people be kind and intentional. People are finding each other again. I am praying that the hurt, the pain, the loss, and the beauty lead people safely to the arms of Jesus.  I am working on a personalized, guided prayer ...

This may be my favorite of Marie Kondo's books. It may be because it met me right where I am at or the fact that it goes far beyond the act of tidying. Marie quietly leads us to not only honor ourselves and our spaces, but also how to honor others. Instead of going into work with cluttered hearts and minds, we can bring clear thoughts, and even, you guessed it, joy. I appreciate Marie. Her words have helped me release a lot of clutter and get to know what I actually love. It seems that our external clutter is often tied to things we need to release internally. She tackles, desks, offices, work hours, and meetings. Our responsibility in these things greatly needs to be addressed. Her co-writer also helps us tidy our digital life. This has been a huge challenge to me to learn how to tackle things daily and store things properly. Marie shared how she was afraid of going into television because people can be so cruel. Someone told her that she should do what she felt led to do ...