Marian Vischer

Homes Updates: Anatomy of a Gallery Wall



I am not really a home blogger. But I am a bona fide home hacker and I do love to be inspired by the beauty of my surroundings. And I just happen to have a blog which means that sometimes I see fit to interrupt my irregularly scheduled posts about kids and failure and making friends with mess to show you my most recent home hacks.

Enter this post on “gallery walls.”

Oh how I love them! I always have. My first gallery wall was way back in 2002. I’d traveled abroad by then and I desperately wanted to display photos and art from my travels. When we moved into our current home 7 1/2 years ago, I replicated much of what was in our old house and for the most part, it has remained unchanged since then. 

I may be a compulsive rearranger but when I get my walls a certain way and love it, I do not change a thing.

But new paint inspired some much-needed change. {See the earlier post this week on new paint and our dresser-turned-entertainment-center.} I painted all the shelves and some of my frames white. I mixed in new photos and art. And it just. kept. growing. My gallery wall is now so expansive that I’m thinking about charging admission.

Here’s the great room gallery wall BEFORE:


{Oh and here it is after I had to move the settee to make room for our homeschool desks a few years ago.}





And here’s the great room gallery wall AFTER:




I know, that’s a lot of stuff on the wall. Maybe too much. But it makes me smile and it’s terribly sentimental and I really, really love it. 

{Now that I’m no longer homeschooling, that long desk had become a landing strip for clutter and laundry so I removed half of her. I’ll show you where the other half went in another post.}

So this post is all about what I’ve learned after assembling a few gallery walls over the years. I know, a “bullet point post” is not my usual fare. Nonetheless, I’ll share with you some tips that may be useful if you want to create a gallery wall of your own. I’m anything but an expert. Take or leave whatever you like.

1. Make it personal. There’s nothing wrong with buying cute, mass-produced art from Hobby Lobby. Truly there’s not. I’ve gotten a few things like that over the years but recently realized that I’ve given all of it away or sold it in yard sales. In the end, I guess I prefer what’s “real” or sentimental or crafted by an actual artist, even if that artist is my amateur kid painter. 

I have four pieces of kid art on this wall. And I’m just crazy about all of them. 

Two pieces of art are watercolors by street artists in Prague, given to me by my sister who visited there during the year she lived in Munich. They are beautiful, miniature works of art and I have always adored watercolors. I’ve had these for years and love them just as much as I always have. 




I have three “artifacts” that are super special. One of them is a teapot that belonged to my husband’s grandmother, gifted to me by his grandfather. Both of them are in Heaven now and gifts like the teapot are sweet reminders of them. 



Another is a gorgeous Anthropologie teapot gifted to me by Lily for my birthday a few years ago. The last is a hanging piece of pottery crafted by a local South Carolina artisan and given to me by my dear sister last year. 





I also copied, pasted, and printed out this “Prayer for the Home” that I saw on Edie’s blog, Life in Grace, a really long time ago. It’s so beautiful. 




I thought it was perfect and wanted to have it in our place too. I wrapped some scrapbook paper around a matte and put it in a clear frame. 


 2. Choose your favorite photos. I have ten photos on this wall. That’s quite a lot but they’re a sweet, eclectic representation of our family. Having fewer but larger photos would also work beautifully. I’d love to have several larger canvas pieces around the house at some point but with an open floor plan, there’s a shortage of walls and therefore a shortage of gallery space. 

Photos are such an easy, inexpensive way to change things up. Take 20 minutes to upload and print several of your favorite photos that are sitting in obscurity on your hard-drive. Then grab some cheap, chunky frames from a discount store {or from your attic} and you’re good to go. 

I don’t know why I put simple things off like that. I’m amazed at how easy and quick it is to add photo updates to our space; I always wish I’d done it sooner. 


3. Mix art and photos and “artifacts.” It just works. Too many like things can feel matchy-matchy. Mixing is up is fun and interesting. That’s all there is too it. 


4. Add architectural elements. Shelves and cubes and giant chunky frames add substance and dimension. 




5. Group tiny things inside larger frames or on shelves. Scale is important. Our house is small but this room is huge. It comprises two-thirds of our house. Small picture frames and tchotchkes sitting on end tables or tacked to the wall with nothing around them end up adding to the clutter and getting swallowed up by the space. But let’s face it, most of us have lovely things we want to display that are smaller than an 11 x 14 frame.  

For this wall, I found that grouping my smaller frames inside one giant frame feels cohesive instead of cluttered. 




6. Crop. This is something I’ve just discovered. My daughter has gobs of art and because she’s a perfectionist, she hates most of it. Thankfully, I have salvaged some precious pieces from the trash. This monarch butterfly, one of her “earlier works,” was painted on a much larger piece of paper. I cut out just the butterfly and framed it. Made all the difference. 




This waterlily painting was a half-hearted attempt at Monet. It was her first draft and she tried to trash it. The paint ran and the colors mixed too much and she thought it was a wreck. But I thought the colors were beautiful and I told her it was simply an impressionist version of impressionism. Once again, I cut out a small piece of it and showcased it in a thrift-store frame. She still doesn’t love it…but I do. 




7. Copy. Inspiration is everywhere. Grab your old magazines, get on Pinterest, do a search for “gallery walls.” See something in a friend’s home a snap a picture. You don’t have to replicate it identically but you can use similar sizes, shapes, combinations, layouts and colors. 

lifeingrace BHG photo shoot/gallery wall

#art #wall

cork walls

!

Here’s a great post on artwork wall groupings that is full of all sorts of beautiful and vastly different gallery walls. 

There is no need to reinvent the wheel, people. Remember, you don’t have to be inventive to still be creative. 

Find something you like and make it your own. You’ll feel like a creative genius when you’re done. 

Years ago I had a friend who sent her husband to take a picture of our gallery wall and replicated it with her own pieces at home. It totally worked and she loved it. “Imitation is the finest form of flattery.”



8. Don’t over-think it. Just experiment. 

The “bones” of this wall {the shelves, some of the larger pieces} stayed the same. I held stuff up and moved things around and put countless tiny nail holes in my wall. 

My friend came over to look at and said, “I love it. It’s balanced even though it’s not symmetrical. And it’s interesting. There’s so much you want to look at!” That was exactly the vibe I was going for. This same friend is doing a gallery wall of her own. She cut out paper shapes of frames and such and tacked them to the wall. She’s moved them around and played with the design until she finds what she likes. That works too and is probably the “right” way of doing a project like this.

Unfortunately I am ten shades of impatient and tend to just use what I have, eyeball things, and grab the hammer. 


9. Pick one to three frame finishes and stick with those. This isn’t a “rule.” There are no rules. 

Actually I’ve seen gallery walls with all sorts of different frames and finishes and it works. But because I’m an amateur, I’ve found that sticking with one to three of the same color frames brings it together a bit. In my case, I used black, white, and a bit of faded, splotchy gold. 

Here’s my other, smaller gallery wall as you leave the living room and walk down the hallway. Everything is white. I love this too and if you want a less eclectic, more traditional look, go with all the same finish on your shelves and frames. 




{Here’s that same wall with the old wall color and black frames. Ugh. Why do wall colors photograph so strangely?}




10. Enlist help. I know what some of you are thinking: “I’m just no good at this sort of thing.” In the words of Tim Gunn, you feel like you just can’t “make it work.”

I hear you. And let’s face it, some people just see the world through a more creative, free-spirited lens. They can put things together in ways others would never imagine. Chances are you have one of those friends. Ask him or her to help you. 

I’m no professional but I love beauty and home. I love to lend a hand and help a friend make her space beautiful too. I’ve also been known to enlist my own artistic friends when I feel stuck. 

Tell your artsy friend that you’ll watch her kids or buy her a frappuccino while she hacks up your wall. Win, win. 

And just to keep it real. Here is how the gallery wall has evolved just while I’ve been sitting her typing out this post.


Apparently I have a tiny creative genius of my own, which brings me to tip number….


11. A fort is the perfect addition to any space. 

………………………….


So there you have it. What do you think, are you a fan of the gallery wall trend? Any tips of the trade you can share with the rest of us? Should we have a gallery wall linky party?


{Other Recent Home Update Posts}







Home Updates: Dresser Turned Entertainment Center

dresser to ET title

We’ve made a few changes around here these last couple of months. I’m not going to show you all at once. {Because that would require getting too much of my house picked up at the same time.}

My husband’s parents visited over Spring Break and because I was sick and my son got the flu, our local sightseeing plans were cancelled. Instead, they painted my foyer and great room, which includes the kitchen. I’m still giddy about it.{The color: Comfort Gray by Sherwin Williams. I had Lowe’s color-match it.}

Fresh color on the walls ushered in some other fresh updates. My favorite is a “new” piece of furniture for our TV.We’ve lived in this house 7 1/2 years and the TV wall has gone from this (Pier One pine armoire):

To this (our bookshelf / nightstands on loan until we could find something else):

 

To this (IKEA Expedit unit that I thought was right but ended up being all wrong):

 

To this (a repurposed white dresser that gave me a less obtrusive look but that I couldn’t quite get right):

 

And finally, to this. Tada!

 

Talk about the evolution of a space! Sometimes you have to find out what you don’t like in order to figure out what you do.

The Pier One armoire was fine but didn’t fit our new TV. I sold it on Craigslist and used our nightstands in the meantime to hold the TV. The giant IKEA unit looked much smaller in the store than it did in our living room. Let’s face it, when a store is the size of a small country, everything looks smaller than it really is. I sold it to my neighbor and had been patiently waiting for a replacement ever since.

A friend of mine gave me an old dresser that I repainted but despite ridiculous amounts of sanding, I couldn’t get some of the bubbled wood sanded flat. I experimented with a number of failed drawer coverings. Burlap, painted burlap, modge-podged patterned papers….all of them epic DIY fails.{Exhibit A: #modgepodgeisthedevil}

 

Finally I moved the solid but bubbled dresser to my boys’ closet {as they were in desperate need of some storage} because at long last I found the perfect piece at a local consignment store.Love at first sight. {She looked less orange in real life.} Here she is in the store:

Drexel, 1974. Great condition. Perfect storage. Fairly priced. Obviously, I had to paint her.

White may be “boring” and what I always end up painting my stuff but maybe that’s because it’s fresh and looks good with everything. Plus, the bronzey bling on the drawers and corners makes her glam instead of “meh.”

DVDs, games, and controllers are neatly tucked away in the drawers and this middle cabinet is the perfect size for the PS3.

Also? My boys figured out that they can apparently still work the PS3 via remote with the middle door closed. Good thing my husband realized what they were up to or this post would have been titled, “How a DIY Project Burned Down My House.” It was 100 degrees in there.

After I finished this project and felt oh so happy about things, I discovered this little gem in my home ideas notebook. It’s a binder I’ve had for years and even with the advent of Pinterest, I still rip pages out of magazines and file them away. A year ago I filed this page but had forgotten about it:

How about that? The wall color is almost the same as mine and the style of that dresser is eerily similar as well. I have a shiny turquoise lamp in my living room and my favorite accent color is that bright yellow. It was fun to see that this piece I’d been waiting for was meant to be, a true fit for my style, form and function. Sometimes it’s reassuring to know that what you picked is actually what you like. Now, if only I had the talent and motivation to hack that gorgeous painting.

/////

{Other Recent Home Updates Posts}

The Upside of Failure

 
 
Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.
 
                                     ~Winston Churchill
 
 
………………………………
 


Isn’t it funny how we desperately avoid that which makes us real and touchable and recklessly open to grace? The older I get, the less I’m captivated by great and righteous people and the more I’m drawn to the ones who don’t get it right but keep going anyway. Brokenness can be the loveliest thing. 

It’s a human thing to avoid failure. No one aspires to loser-dom. We don’t begin each day hoping we’ll careen into a ditch or get fired or flunk a final exam or spew careless words that hurt those we love the most. Nor should we. 

But for most of us, the prospect or the painful reality of failure, of not meeting our own expectations, of not meeting others’ expectations, of falling short in some miniscule or monumental way–it’s not something we cope with all that well. 

We all approach failure differently, depending on our personalities and experiences. Some refuse to even try, paralyzed by the sheer possibility of falling short. Others try harder and harder, convinced that if they simply amp up the effort, they’ll yield perfection. Some float into escapism in ways that bring temporary relief but long-term grief. 

And then there are those who, when whipped by failure, simply take hold of the whip for themselves and begin the punitive penance of self-flagellation. Mental anguish and condemning thoughts have their way and the shame spiral often turns into a vicious cycle of renewed effort followed by familiar defeat. 

For years I’ve known about Grace. I sang its songs and could spout its doctrine. But I did not run headlong into Grace when I felt wrecked by my own failure. Instead, I’d pick up the whip. I’d try harder. I’d give up altogether. {I gave equal opportunity to my coping mechanisms.} 

Grace was an abstraction.

And it still would be, if not for failure. I’ve failed in so many ways where I thought I wouldn’t, found I’m simply not inherently capable in endeavors that have felt hugely important. I have sins and pitfalls that will not die, struggles that lie dormant for many seasons and then rear their ugly heads when I least expect it.

Life would be simpler if we only had our own failures to contend with. But because we live in relationship with others, we do battle with their failures too. Loved ones who owe us their fidelity and provision and protection sometimes fall short. Children and spouses, parents and siblings, friends and colleagues–they’re prone to disappoint us, to anger us, to follow their own selfish paths and leave us in the wake. 

There are rules in relationships and sometimes the rules get broken. What then? 

Well, that’s probably best saved for a different post so let me just get back what the good Mr. Churchill said about failure, that it’s not fatal. {And believe it or not, that can apply to our relationships too.}

He’s not the first to speak such counter-cultural “nonsense.” I’ve heard and read Bible stories my entire life but lately I’ve been nearly dumbstruck by the sheer loser-ness of those who Jesus chose to use. I’m seeing their frailty with new eyes and it’s kind of amazing. 

What about Peter for example, the disciple who triple denied Jesus? 

In the Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning asks: 

What future would have awaited Peter if he had had to depend on my patience, understanding, and compassion? Instead of a shrug, sneer, slap, or curse, Jesus responded with the subtlest and most gracious compliment imaginable. He named Peter the leader of the faith community and entrusted him with the authority to preach the Good News in the power of the Spirit. 

We forget that Jesus told Peter he was the one on whom He’d build his church. And Jesus told him this before his shameful string of denials. Do you get that? Jesus granted Peter “greatness” knowing that he would soon demonstrate tremendous betrayal. He knew who Peter was, knew his capacity for self-interest and its resulting failure. But He loved him anyway. He’d called him long before. 

Peter got scared. He acted impulsively. He screwed up and immediately regretted it. We are not so different and those we love are not so different either. 

So what would happen if we began to embrace failure with openness and gratitude? Yes, there are difficult and beautiful lessons learned in the trenches but more importantly, it’s our brokenness, our inability, our failure, our imperfection, that leads us to grace and that draws others into that same saving, life-giving grace. 

I daresay that Peter’s ministry had more currency and conviction because he knew what he was talking about. He’d experienced the lavish, undeserved, unconditional love of Christ for himself and it changed him. 

Failure can give way to freedom. It doesn’t make sense but it’s true. 

Let us not forget that it was the prodigal son who experienced the lavish love and elaborate feast. Meanwhile the law-abiding older brother refused the goodness and merriment surrounding the sinner who stumbled home and into the arms of the faithful, forgiving father. 

The failing prodigal found freedom. The self-righteous rule-follower remained enslaved. 

So what would have happened if Peter had stayed down, if he’d been so gripped by his stupid failure that he refused to ever try again, if he’d succumbed to voices of condemnation and a defeated life? If he’d said to his friend and savior, I’m sorry but I’m a hopeless case; you’ll just have to find someone else?

We’ll never know and that’s a good thing. The world was changed because he said Yes. He refused to be defined by his failure. Jesus had already blessed him, called him “the rock” on whom He would build his church. That’s pretty high praise for a soon-to-be repeat offender.  

This is where the courage comes in. I’m learning that courage isn’t about relying on our strong track record, our bravery, or our adequacy. It’s about showing up. It’s recognizing that failure isn’t fatal. 

Courage has more to do with how we handle failure and not an inherent ability to avoid it altogether. 

Courage thirstily gulps down grace and lavishly passes around the cup to others. 

Courage falls down but gets back up. 

Courage doesn’t always feel up to the invitation, but accepts it anyway.

For those who are in Christ, courage isn’t about resting on our faithfulness but about leaning hard into His. 

If you’re feeling a bit defeated today, there is such good news… 

You’re not the sum total of your success or your failure. Receive the grace that is yours. Take courage in knowing how much you are loved. Embrace the freedom you were made for.  

When Coffee Spills All Over Your Sunday Morning



If I could summarize the path I’ve been on for the past eighteen months in just one word, it would be this: acceptance. Sure, it’s also been about rest and simplicity and letting go. But I think acceptance trumps everything else. 

Truthfully I’ve been on this path for much longer than that, fighting forces and realities beyond my control with all the might I could muster. 

I’ve written on this topic more than I realized. You may be sick of reading about it actually. But the junk we wrestle has a way of coming to the surface doesn’t it? I’ll probably quit writing about it when I quit wrestling with it so if you want to bow out now, I don’t blame you. 

Acceptance has influenced major life and family decisions. Putting my kids in public school after nearly five years of homeschooling–that boiled doing to accepting who I was and who I wasn’t, what my circumstances were and what they were not. I’d gotten to the point where I was no longer capable of maintaining a healthy marriage, family, and home. I was unraveling in all sorts of unpleasant ways and we had to make a change. It’s been the best thing for everyone. 

Acceptance has influenced the daily grind and extra endeavors. There are things I no longer attempt, ways in which I receive help from my husband and others because I have certain limitations. And there are things to which I say yes, not because I’m all that brave or confident but because I’m learning that I’m wired with certain attributes and God intends to use them. 

Acceptance has influenced my relationships with those I love most. Accepting my husband and my children {and other dear ones} for who they are and not for who I want them to be? It’s everything. 

Last week my book study group discussed this issue of gentleness toward ourselves and its myriad implications. The particular quote from our book is this: 

Gentleness toward ourselves constitutes the core of our gentleness with others. When the compassion of Christ is interiorized and appropriated to self…the breakthrough into a compassionate stance toward others occurs. 

Historically I have not been gentle to those I love the most. Oh I may not always rant and rave and stomp about the house spouting insults and condemnation. {Though that has certainly happened a time or ten.} But I can seethe and nurse resentment like nobody’s business. As hard as I can be on others, however, I happen to be cruelest with myself. 

Just when I think I’m beginning to understand all this grace business, I have a day of epic relapse and I wonder if I’ll ever be ever to accept myself, screw-ups and all. I become so frustrated by my inability to overcome certain failures, serial failures that just won’t go away, serial flaws that time and effort will just not erase…I have a meltdown and it is uglier than you can imagine. 

My most recent meltdown occurred Sunday. Church day. Which is always convenient and awesome. 

Before we could even get out the door, my mess-ups were too many to number. Mess-ups that affected the whole family and sabotaged our ability to make it to Sunday School. There were tears and self-loathing and ugly expletives, all of them mine. 

And to top off all of this Sunday morning stress, I knocked over a full, steaming travel mug of coffee on the way out the door and did you know that knocking over coffee when you’re in a hurry somehow triples the volume of coffee? Did you also know that the force with which the coffee is toppled is directly proportionate to the distance the coffee splatters will travel? 

Imagine this tranquil Sunday morning scene…

The family is waiting in the van. The daughter is pouty that she’s been rushed and that her hair is “dumb.” The boys are fighting. One boy doesn’t want to go to Sunday School altogether. And then there’s me, the frantic mom who’s just trying to get a family out the door and is it too much to ask for poor ol’ mom to just have a mug of liquid alertness and sanity to sip on the way to church and why oh why when I am tired and hormonal and already consumed with my loser-ness do I have to knock hot coffee all the way to kingdom come and how did it drip down into the silverware drawer that was closed and into the cupboard of clean plastic-ware inside a door that was also closed and splatter to the outer reaches of my kitchen’s radius? 

It was as if Satan himself had conspired against me. I scrambled to the door, the tears freely flowing at this point, and mouthed to my husband: I spilled coffee everywhere. Please help me. 

You may think I was being a bit hard on myself. Everyone accidentally spills stuff. But really, it wasn’t that. The spilled coffee was simply the last straw. And truthfully, if I hadn’t been in such a hurry I wouldn’t have needed my coffee to go. I could trace the coffee to a million ways in which I’d failed before 9 am, failures that were ridiculously familiar and frequent and unshakable. 

The whole way to church I was consumed with comparison and defeat. The voice in my head took one crazy morning and went global with it; I was drinking from a fire hose of condemnation, literally choking on a deluge of shame and defeat. 

I wanted to go back home and I probably should have. My sweet husband looked at me as angry tears streamed down my face in the church parking lot. Unfortunately he is no stranger to such ugly, irrational scenes. He said this: You know, one of the beauties of the Gospel is that we’re free from comparing ourselves to others. 

I will not tell you what I said in response because this is a family blog and my words were not G rated. They were not even PG-13 rated. It was a day in which I could not glimpse or grasp an ounce of beauty, fists clenched tight against grace, acceptance, and gentleness. I’d succumbed to the shame spiral and I was unyielding in my stubborn misery.

The resolution of my Sunday morning mess is still working itself out but here’s what I’m forced to reckon with today. As much as I write about acceptance, about receiving your own life, as much as I believe it and desire it and would encourage you to drink from the overflowing cup of grace if you sat across from me with your own tear-streaked face, my default is still and may forever be performance.

Only God can change the way in which I’m hard-wired. And He is. I’m better than I used to be but days like Sunday show me I’m only one small step away from going off the cliff on any given day. Grace alone is the only thing that keeps me from permanent residence in the Valley of Defeat.  

Every day we have to do what our mamas told us way back when we were littles: When you fall down child, wipe yourself off and get back up. It’s true. But somehow, little heretics that we were, we added something to our mamas’ gospel: Get back up and try harder. 

If we believe in Grace and the One who is Grace, we know that it’s actually not about trying harder at all. It’s about rest, the opposite of try-hard. It’s about breathing this prayer in and out, day in and day out:

I’m sorry I’m so consumed with my big self. Shame and self-loathing are actually pride. Refusing your love is also pride. Grant me humility, peace, and freedom. And thank you, thank you, for forgiveness. Help me to quit trying harder and to simply rest. To rest in what You’ve done for me. To rest in your promise to finish the work You began. To rest in the truth that You love me as I am and not as I should be. 

Or something like that. 

I’m still sort of in a failure funk. I’m not even fully repentant. {I blame busy-ness and distraction. They’re always convenient scapegoats.} Grace and performance feel like an internal tug-of-war, sometimes more than others. But there’s grace enough to at least listen to the Truth, to write about it today, to think on it, to catch just a glimpse of that “beauty” my husband spoke of in the Sunday parking lot.

I accept that it’s all still working itself out, that I am loved wherever I am on the spectrum of my own expectations. And in the seemingly backwards way that God works, being loved so unconditionally in the midst of such messiness gently stirs my hardened heart and pushes my gaze upward instead of inward. 

Tug-of-war and all, I know I am loved as I am. I accept this beautiful Truth and I yield myself to be changed by the mysterious power of it. And today, that is enough. Every day, that is enough.

Life as a Ragamuffin




I can’t get stuff right. 


Yesterday my dad’s birthday came and went and I remembered at 5:40 this morning, a day late. That would be barely excusable except that it’s the second year in a row I’ve remembered his birthday exactly one day too late. 

There was a glitch with my e-mails and since March 27th the techie powers-that-be have not sent my bellsouth e-mails to my gmail account so there’s all this stuff I’ve missed, time-sensitive information…to which I never replied. Obviously. Now I just look like an idiot. Or apathetic. Or a slacker. Or all of the above. 

I didn’t send in enough money for my daughter’s field trip and my first words to her yesterday were snappy ones. Various members of my family do not have clean underwear at the beginning of the week. I tell them that they should let me know before they’re completely out. They assume that a 4-foot high mountain of laundry is signal enough. 

I’ve been spending too much time wanting stuff that I can’t have and not appreciating all that I do have, doing battle with idols of the heart and not loving very well and feeling a tad bit entitled to certain realities.

God, I’m such a mess, I thought to myself this morning. 

First thing Saturday I found out that I lost a friend and a mentor, one I’ve never met in real life. The world lost one of its best evangelists on Grace. Brennan Manning spent decades of his life speaking and writing about the lavish and limitless love of Jesus. 

His books are among my favorites. I’ve read and re-read a couple of them and just ordered another one this morning. As a matter of fact, I’m feebly facilitating a small group study of The Ragamuffin Gospel this semester and it has me wondering if I’ll ever not need this good news for the “bedraggled, beat-up and burnt out.” It’s doubtful. 

And that’s okay. 

Manning’s final book was published in 2011. His memoir, All is Grace, is apparently part chronicle and part confession. He discusses his ongoing struggle with alcoholism, loneliness, self-hatred and marriage. Yes, even in the latter years of his life. He remained a ragamuffin in desperate need of grace until his dying day. 

Don’t misunderstand. He didn’t sin so that grace may increase; he was simply a man whose brokenness sometimes got the better of him. Just like me. Just like you.

My first reaction to that is a bristly one. I’m uncomfortable with the notion that someone so intimately connected with God, so knowledgable of his Word, so in pursuit of Christ could still stumble and struggle.

And if I’m painfully honest, I’m forced to admit that I long for the promise of near-perfection here on this earth. I want the assurance that I won’t still dance with certain sins and that my loved ones won’t relapse and that we’ll all just eventually get our junk together. 

Accepting our mess, our loved ones’ messes, our “professional Christians'” messes, it’s counter-intuitive. I’m not talking about a blasé, “whatever“ kind of acceptance. Our mess cost a perfect man his life; there’s nothing flippant about that. But because of what Jesus did, I’m free to really live and really love and really forgive and and really trust and really receive love. I don’t have to crucify myself or others over every infraction because the world crucified Christ and He accepted it. 

Refusing to bask in the glorious riches of His death and resurrection is like buying one’s dream home and living in the cellar. What a waste. 

And what a denial of who we are and what He did to save us. He knew we’d have trouble. He knew we’d be trouble. He knew forgiveness would need to abound and that’s why He said seventy times seven, that’s how much you can forgive. And we can. We can because He did and his resurrection power pulses within all of us who believe in Him. 

Running as ragamuffins into the loving arms of Jesus is our only hope. We can fall down and start over as many times as it takes. His arms remain open, ready to receive us, mess and all. 

His arms received our dear friend last Friday and I wept, I really did, as I imagined him finally, safely in the arms of Abba. His feeble body, aged mind, and weakened spirit made perfect. Finally perfect. 

God promises that He loves us too much to leave us as we are but that’s not a promise of perfection. It’s a promise of presence. His presence, alive and at work in us. He accompanies my messed up self through all the foibles and follies and forgettings of today and tomorrow and every day after that. 

I’m not the person I once was yet I’m so far from the person I long to be. He loves me anyway with an everlasting, unchanging, unconditional love. 

His grace stretches like a canopy across my life, covering the good, the shameful, the redeemed, and the not yet. 

I lie beneath it, thankful that its length and breadth never ends and knowing that it is enough.

……………………………

A tribute to a life of Grace.

Spring Flings & the Flu, Far-off Places & Freshly-Painted Spaces


Happy Spring dear friends! I’ve been jotting down post ideas and deep thoughts and I’ve got all sorts of ramblings simmering in the hopper. 


But. Today I’m paying bills and catching up on laundry and trying to put my painted home back together. 


Instead of deep thoughts, I bring you my life for the past two weeks:

My big ol’ family gathered at my parents’ place for March Madness {aka March Fatness, due to the overabundance of calories consumed.} 

We feasted and wore only elastic waistbands and watched a lot of basketball. My brother made the best banana pudding the world has ever known. 

And then I got sick. {But not from the banana pudding.} A little cold turned into something bigger and I went to the doctor a week ago. Unfortunately the cough medicine that was supposed to help me sleep had the opposite effect. I was as wired as a 4th of July firecracker and missed two entire nights of sleep before we figured out the culprit. Fun. Is what that was. 

All of this went down while my husband’s parents were visiting us from Michigan for the week. Happy Easter! Here’s the flu to go with your chocolate bunny!

Sick or not, I will forever have a weakness for new Easter duds.



My in-laws are awesome and we had big plans to head to the mountains and enjoy a nice hotel stay while the kids frolicked in a heated pool and the ladies visited the Biltmore Estate. But with my sick self and our middle kid who decided that Spring Break was a fine time to contract the flu, we were home-bound. 

So guess what The Man and his super-amazing parents did? They painted the great room and kitchen, something we’ve been wanting to do for over a year. 


This room comprises two-thirds of our home and would have taken The Man and me a year to paint. But the three of them taped and trimmed and painted their little hearts out while I did little more than convalesce. 

It still feels like Christmas to me and I am tickled beyond measure by the results. 

{I’m tweaking the decor here and there and will surely be blogging these fun little changes. Stay tuned.}

I was well enough by mid-week to enjoy a date night with my husband while his parents babysat. First stop? The new Anthropologie that opened not so far away. 


I wanted to hide under one of their Parisian, vintagey, overpriced, swoon-worthy sofas until the store had closed and then pretend I lived there. And that I owned all of the clothes. And dishes. And purses. And perfume. Total eye-candy, that store. And they have the most fun books!



So, where am I in this story? My in-laws left last Thursday and I was well enough to pack my bags and leave Friday morning for a trip to the beach with my mom.



We planned this trip a couple of months ago and I’d been giddy with anticipation. She had a conference to attend and she invited me along as her travel companion and because she thought I could use the rest. 

Instead of attending the conference, I indulged in some much-needed R & R. It was such a sweet time, just my mom and me. 




We talked and laughed and shopped and lounged and ate yummy food. I read and walked on the beach and got to watch whatever I wanted on TV. I’m still amazed I came back.



Reality and the regular grind feel like a clunky adjustment this morning. I haven’t cooked in a week and a half and I’ve eaten out more during that time than I normally do in a year. Despite being sick, God has been sweet to bestow such loveliness, kindness, and generosity upon me. I don’t deserve his goodness.  

{And let’s be honest, freshly-painted walls make Monday-morning reality so much lovelier. Thank you Nana & Papa!}

Oh and it’s a HUGE night for the family! Huge. I’m married to the biggest Michigan fan south of the Mason Dixon Line. Our oldest son is the second biggest fan. 

Exhibit A: My front door.



Exhibit B: The main wall of my living room.



Exhibit C: “Go Blue” popcorn. 


That’s only the beginning. There is Michigan paraphernalia all over the place. 

All together now: GO BLUE!!!! 

…………………………

I hope your Spring is going swell and that you’re enjoying some fresh changes of your own. What’s been happening in your neck of the woods?

Real Easter & Seeing Beyond a Flannelgraph Jesus



When I was growing up, Easter was about a new dress and shiny white shoes and sometimes a hat. In my early years, my mom slaved over a big Sunday dinner that surely included her mile-high homemade biscuits. I don’t remember what else we ate, just the biscuits. When I was older we splurged on a fancy Easter buffet at an upscale hotel. It was the culinary highlight of the year. 


I’ll be honest. Getting to waltz from table to table all dressed up in our Easter best and eat as much as we wanted–it meant more to me than church and the resurrection and all that. I would never have admitted it then but it’s true. Easter was pageantry and special-occasion food and those fizzy dye tablets dissolving in vinegar and hunting for plastic eggs in our backyard. 

Now I’m 39 with kids of my own. My daughter thinks it’s not Easter unless she has a new dress {which we haven’t gotten yet.} I no longer care whether I have a new frock or not. I’d rather spend my money on a pair of comfortable shoes I can wear every day. {I’ve become a “sensible grown-up” and this is mildly terrifying.}

We’ll dye eggs and fill baskets and probably have something special for lunch, which isn’t hard to do since we normally have sandwiches and chips for Sunday lunch. Yes, our splurge is the chips. How far I’ve fallen. I did not inherit my mother’s knack for mile-high biscuits nor did I inherit her Sunday fortitude in the kitchen. I’m tired by Sunday and therefore choose not to cook. 

Easter’s significance is a melange of nostalgia, tradition, and celebration. It evokes certain feelings and memories and expectations. And I love that. 

But Easter glitz and layers of crinoline cannot obscure the reality that we have trouble in this world. A lot of it. I know trouble. C.S. Lewis wrote a biography called Surprised by Joy. I could write my own called Surprised by Trouble. 

Thankfully that wouldn’t be the only book I’d write. Because here’s what I know right now on this Good Friday. The world around me is full of trouble and even my own little kingdom teeters back and forth. It would be far more appropriate to wear sackcloth and ashes on Easter Sunday than a pastel dress and shiny heels. 

But the trouble I face in this world is not permanent and I don’t endure it alone. You’ve heard that before and so have I. In fact, I’d heard it so much that it had become an abstraction. All of it. Jesus, his death, the tomb, the resurrection. It may have well been a flannelgraph narrative for all the functionality it really had in my life. That’s the sad truth. 

When trouble comes, you’ve got some options. You can deny it, fight it, climb down into a pit, self-medicate your way through it, face it with a bullet-point strategy, or Pollyanna through your days even though you’re dying on the inside. I’ve probably experimented with all of these approaches on one level or another.

Or…

You can tap into this resource that’s too good to be true except that it is true. I know because I’m actually learning to live out of that resource and it’s no flannelgraph Jesus. It’s a feeble start but it’s real. We can let the world turn us into victims of its trouble or we can fling ourselves into that arms of a Savior that promises to be our everything. 

Our help in times of trouble.

Our refuge in times of danger and attack.

Our friend all of the time.

Our Counselor and our comforter.

Our strength when we are weak.

Our grace when we want to hold a grudge. 

Our compassion when we’d rather condemn. 

Our peace when life’s a storm.

It took trouble for these things to become living, breathing reality in my life. As I’ve said before, it’s good to make friends with mess. 

And these things He promises to be for us? They have been living, breathing reality in my life not just in recent years but specifically this very week. You can be in the trenches of trouble and simultaneously in the trenches of grace. It seems like they should be mutually exclusive but they’re not.

I’ve listened to a sermon by Tim Keller a couple of times in the past week or so. It’s called Peace and he talks about how everything, all of our peace, comes down to the cross: 

On the cross He {Jesus} got all the consequences of what we have done and this is one of them and can’t you see it? Do you see Jesus Christ just walking through the crucifixion and saying, ‘I’m just keeping my mind centered on God. I’m okay. I’m content in whatever circumstance I’m in.’ Jesus didn’t say that. No. Because He wasn’t! Why? Because He lost all of his peace! He cries, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ In fact, we’re told that He died with a cry. He died screaming… 

Jesus lost all of his peace so that you could have eternal peace. And looking at that is what’ll get you through. That’s what will make him lovely.


Jesus entered into the trouble of this world and He allowed the trouble of this world to be heaped upon Him, the perfect and completely innocent Son of God, to the point of death. 

Because of this we can make our way through our troubled days in this troubled world alongside and because of Someone who overcame the trouble. 

And that’s why Good Friday is so good even though it was also terribly bad. 

For years I’d been trying to get all of this to really mean something, to care more about Christ and what He did more than I cared about foil-wrapped chocolates and a new outfit. 

Now it finally does. Why? Because out of sheer desperation and dependance, I’m holding the hand of the One who leads me like a shepherd through the trouble of this world. It’s experience to me instead of abstraction, actual heart change instead of behavior modification, reality and not just ancient story. 

It’s a promise fulfilled already in this very day and one that will continue to unfold throughout my days, like the petals of the daffodils in my yard each spring. They dare to burst forth, unfold, and hold their heads high. Even though they’re surrounded by the weeds of my unkept flower beds and may well fall victim to my five-year-old’s cowboy boots. 

Beneath the traditions and fake Easter grass and Sunday pastel parade, there is Truth that changes you and me and our relationships with one another and this whole wide world. 

It’s real. 

Happy Easter weekend my sweet friends. I pray that the glorious beauty and power of Christ’s risen life in you will be more real and radiant than it’s ever been before.   

Eat. Read. Love.


I’m all tapped out of meaningful stuff to write. ‘Tis the weight of life and its responsibilities. It’s still messy, just in case you’re wondering. 


And so I shift gears and share with you the simple objects of my affection these days. Everyday indulgences have a way of soothing my soul and unfurrowing my brow. 


Eat:

My friend, Kelly, introduced me to the pita pizza a few weeks ago and it’s revolutionized lunchtime for me and my littlest guy. 




Get yourself a package of quality pitas. I use whole wheat but use whatever you like. Spread on tomato sauce. Top with your favorite pizza items and add cheese. I bake ours at 400 degrees directly on the rack for about 10 minutes. It’s a nice change from PB & Js. 

I blame Pinterest for my latest snack obsession: Marshmallow caramel popcorn. 

 I can’t find the source but here’s the easy recipe: 

1/2 c. brown sugar; 1/2 c. butter; 9-10 marshmallows; 12 c. popcorn. Microwave brown sugar and butter for 2 minutes. Add marshmallows. Microwave until melted, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Pour over popcorn.

I started making it for our family movie nights and then it became an after school snack and I may or may not be guilty of making it when there’s not even a kid in sight. It’s a tad habit-forming.


This soup. 



I mentioned it in the “mess post” but it deserves another shout out. Flower Patch Farmgirl always has the best recipes at her place. This cheesy vegetable soup was a hit with 4 1/2 out of 5 members of my family. “1/2” because my oldest guy said he almost liked it. Around here, 4 1/2 out of 5 is considered success.


Read:

Per usual with me, I’ve got an eclectic mix of books littering my nightstand and my van and my coffee table. But let me just mention two of them for now. 

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. Her memoir on faith has me laughing, crying, nodding, and wishing all of us who call ourselves Christians could just step outside our stuffy boxes and breathe in the beauty, grace, authenticity, and freedom that is Anne’s journey. This book is raw and real and tragic and so very beautiful. Also? Her conversion experience involves the F-word. I love her. 

Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo. I’m still in the early stages of this book so I can’t give a report yet. Have any of you read anything by him? I started watching interviews with various authors about a month ago and one of them recommended this book because the characters are so good. But now I can’t remember who recommended it. It was either Anne Lamott or Kate DiCamillo {who I also double heart love.} 

Oh and the older kids and I finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this week. Finally. We have big plans to watch the movie and can’t wait to jump into Book 5. 

And here are a couple of books that I look forward to reading. {By two more ladies I love but have actually met in real life.}

The first one is Spiritual Formation: A Primer and it’s written by Richella Parham, a writer and a blogger at Imparting Grace and someone I’m honored to call a friend. It just came out and you can easily get your hands on it here. 

The second one isn’t released yet but you can pre-order it on amazon. A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live  by Emily Freeman. Just order it okay? Emily wrote Grace for the Good Girl and Graceful. I have them both. I’m tapping my foot with anticipation over her next one, which is quite a departure from her previous books. She blogs at Chatting at the Sky.  


Love:

The Man have spent our not-so-long southern winter on the sofa watching great TV together. And now we’re out of stuff to watch…which is sad, but probably for the best now that spring is springing. We loved / hated every moment of Downtown Abbey, along with the rest of the free world. 

In between episodes we watched The Last Enemy, also a BBC series, and it was pretty good. It’s all about a hypothetical UK in which Big Brother is tracking everyone. It’s full of conspiracy and unexpected turns and a love triangle. The guy who plays Sherlock is the main character. The only thing I didn’t like was the eerie, 80s, space-agey kind of background music. Totally threw me off but I’m kind of weird like that.

Then we watched both seasons of Luther. You guessed it, another BBC series. We love Luther. But I recommend it with a serious caveat. It’s dark. I can only watch dark if there’s the faintest hope of redemption and light and there is with this show … though in some episodes you have to squint kind of hard to see it. He’s a British cop who investigates murders while dealing with his own personal demons; he’s a fantastic character. And he’s brilliant, but not in a nerdy, uptight Sherlock sort of way. In fact, he’s quite the opposite. I hear they’re making a third season and since it’s on BBC’s timeline, we’ll probably get it see it in 2019. 

I’d love some good TV series recommendations. What are ya’ll watching out there?


Other stuff I’m loving right now: 

My 5-year-old’s prayers {Jesus, please help me learn to read. Help me not to wet my pull-up at night…but thank you that you love me even if I do.}

This necklace I made out of junk thrift-store jewelry. 




The beads are wooden and it has 3 chunky turquoise stones. It’s fun and lightweight and feels like spring. 


This wine. 




It’s perfect. Lily introduced me to it and we always love the same food and drink. Always.

And last but not least, I’m loving that I’ll get to hang out with my whole family this weekend…all 22 of us. I’m the oldest of four kids and it’s still weird for me that my younger siblings are all grown and married and have the same number of kids as me. 



Technically, we’re all hanging out together because it’s March Madness and we’re kind of a basketball-loving family. But my brother, the one who’s the baker, has renamed it March Fatness. His dessert list for the weekend: Cream Cheese Coffeecake, Golden “Eggs,” Boston Cream Pie Cake, Candy Bar Cookies, Bale Bars, Banana Pudding, and the Helga Cake.




I feel that we may need to set up a colonic tent by the end of the weekend. I’m getting bloated just typing out that list of decadent goodness. 

{Oh and here’s a random bit of trivia: “Ferris Bueller” turned 51 today. I think my forehead just grew another wrinkle.} 


………………………………………


Happy eating, reading, loving, and basketballing to you and yours this weekend! Anything you’re especially loving right now?

Making Friends With Mess




I would die of shame if you came to my house right now.

But because y’all tell me that you love it when I show pictures of my dirty home and I’m feeling extra generous today, here’s a gift: photos of my crazy house. You’re welcome.

The garage looks like it threw up into my kitchen. 



Stacks of folded laundry have been patiently waiting to be put away but the boys’ closet is so full of wadded-up clothes that putting the laundry in the drawers means first clearing a path through a mountain of dirty clothes and super-hero costumes. 



Dishes and dirty pots continue to breed in the kitchen even though I run the dishwasher every day. 




The hallway is lined with stuff to put….somewhere. 



The driveway and side yard have been littered for four days with junk from the garage that my littlest guy configured into a bakery. 


{I mean, this is clearly and obviously a bakery.}


My lamp broke. Again.



And my threadbare sofa cushion finally ripped. 



Much of this mess is kind of my fault.

I decided to clean out the garage a couple of days ago and what I thought would take a few hours is actually going to take a few days. Story of my life. At 5:00 yesterday, dinner came ’round like she always does, mocking me with her demanding daily-ness. I was covered in garage dust, had not a single clear spot on my counter, and felt the weariness of the day begin to wash over me. My husband was teaching late so I was shouldering the evening’s responsibilities by myself. I considered the very messy, disorganized state of affairs and briefly contemplated running away.

Much as it pained me, I left the undone garage for the next day, rolled up my sleeves, and jumped into dinner prep. I stacked up all the dirty, soaking dishes and got busy, knowing that cooking would only add to the mess but also knowing that my kids needed dinner and that my hard-working husband would be starving when he got home. 

In the midst of so much chaos and undone-ness, I was making more mess…but I was also choosing life. Real life. 

Mess is my enemy. My Myers-Briggs type is INFJ. That “J” means that I’m a fan of order. It means my orientation to the outer world is one of structure and decidedness. Sure, I have a rogue spontaneous and creative streak that threatens to keep the order at bay on any given day but generally speaking, I “need” a certain level of environmental peace to be able think and work and breathe.

But yesterday? There was not an ounce of order to be found anywhere. I felt the familiar anxiety rise up from within and I knew I had a choice: I can give in to the freak-out and run around like a lunatic subduing my tiny world so that I can make dinner in a more peaceful environment OR I can just make the soup in the midst of too much mess, do what I can about the dirty dishes, still read to the kids before bed and know that I’ll slowly but surely catch up on the rest throughout the week. And if life interrupts and I don’t get to the rest of the mess like I want to, well, so be it. That’s why God made wine. 

As surely and quickly as I processed these thoughts and resolved to soldier on, I realized that the wildfire mess spreading throughout my home mirrored the deeper stuff of hope and perseverance and choosing life even when it’s falling apart. I considered these things as I stirred the loveliest soup in my dirty kitchen.

Mess, both the literal kind and the less tangible kind, has always felt like the worst kind of adversary. Much as I hate to admit it, I’m a recovering perfectionist, a lover of order, a pursuer of the ideal, a romantic dreamer, a chaser of expectation. When I was younger, I really thought that all of my big sparkly dreams would come true. I did. And I figured that if I just did all of the right things and worked really hard and married the right person, we’d live in the Kingdom of Perfect happily ever after.

But Mess came calling again and again. Despite my best efforts to clean him up, smother him with a cute throw pillow, deny that he existed, and fist-fight him out of my life, Mess kept walking through the back door, dirtying up my house and toying with my life and blasting my little Kingdom of Perfect to smithereens before I could even finish building it. The nerve.

Over many years and through a myriad of unbelievable circumstances I could have never predicted, I gradually befriended Mess. I’ve learned that he’s not the enemy. Without Mess, I’d still be chasing Perfect and kicking Grace to the curb.

I’d think I was better than I really am.

I’d believe that my sweet life had everything to do with my sweet effort and stellar performance.

I’d disdain addicts and squanderers and cheaters and anyone who just couldn’t get it together.

I’d have no use for those who’d made epic fails.

I’d have no reason to receive grace and forgiveness for my own epic fails. 

Mess has taught me that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between any of us. 

Mess has shown me that I can’t get it together. {And also? Why is “getting it together” the goal? I don’t even like people who have it all together.} 

Mess has reminded me that Jesus did not come for those who are well; He came to heal and befriend and live among the sick and lowly {that’s code for messy people.} And in case you’re wondering, I’m in the latter group. 

Mess has grown compassion where there used to be self-righteousness, has allowed me to enter into the dark and embarrassing places in others’ lives because I’ve been there and it takes one to know one.

Mess continues to teach me that the worst circumstances may ironically give way to a better life. Not a perfect life, but a real one. A redeemed one. 

It’s a crossroads I seem to return to time and again. I can wait until things are all better and tidied up before I really start to live. Or I can survey my very imperfect life like I survey the ridiculous disarray of my house…

And as it turns out, one can make a beautiful and delicious pot of soup in a really messy kitchen.




…………………………………..


If your own life is looking particularly messy at the moment, here are some related posts from the last couple of years about living real in the midst of mess:



{Fourteen Months Later} Rest, Giving Up, and Receiving My Own Life



Fourteen months ago I submitted to a sabbatical of sorts, an unknown number of months devoted to the “task” of resting, healing, and receiving Grace. I called it “The Year of Simplicity.” 

We put our kids in public school after nearly five years of homeschooling. I resolved to say No more than Yes. My husband has been good and kind about enforcing margin and boundaries. He shows me lots of grace for my lack of accomplishment. 

In fact, I seem to be the only one who’s really concerned with the “lack.” 

Many months later, it still feels indulgent to write about it. And more often than not, it still feels indulgent to live it. Some days I feel like I don’t need the rest anymore so I plow ahead, taking full advantage of that day’s energy and feeling like a normal person again and wanting to pat myself on the back for productivity on a “good day.” 

After all that I’ve learned, my default is still to equate personal worth with personal output. Where is the grace in that? I’ve said it before: Exhaustion is a bully.

Usually a day or two or three after one of those productive days, I crash. Overpowered by unexplainable exhaustion and its accompanying discouragement, I get the bare minimum done and wonder how someone can be so consistently inconsistent. 

A few weeks ago I saw my doctor. My newest charts show that I’m getting better, but I still have a long way to go before I’m “there.” She encouraged me to be patient, to take heart that there is measurable improvement. And I feel it, I do. It’s just hard to wait. 

I realize that I write in vague terms here on the blog. That’s just the way it has to be. We all have our stories and though mine could certainly be far worse and tragic, it’s safe to say that it’s been a rough two years. In all honesty, it’s been a rough seven years, with some acute crises along the way that threatened to undo me altogether. 

Details aside, here’s what I know: Cumulative emotional stress will eventually have its say. You can only keep truckin’ for so long before you run out of gas and find yourself broken down on the side of the road. For me, that broken-down day came in December of 2011. Life since then has felt like one extended pit-stop. {Stop the world. I just used a Nascar metaphor.}

Some people receive grace and are less prone to guilt than others. I envy them. Sometimes I have to bury my head in the sand in order to avoid the good messages that my own brain twists into condemning lies. Look what she’s doing with her life; she’s not making any excuses. 

And then guilt spirals into shame and shame sucks out the precious little anything I had left. 

We all do life differently and even though we’re called, as Christians, to shine light into the dark and downtrodden places of our world, there are seasons in which our own light is burning so dimly, we simply have to retreat, if only for a time. 

I remind myself that God doesn’t need us to accomplish his good in the world; He’s all-sufficient. But He invites us into sacred, beautiful, messy kingdom work for our good and for his glory. For some crazy reason, He chooses to use us. 

On my good days, I’m inspired when I see what this looks like in the lives of others even if it looks nothing like that in my own life. But on my loser days, I’m more guilt-ridden than inspired. I tell God that if He’d just help me out a little and fix what I want Him to fix, I could do so much good in the world.

Instead, He shows me that my struggles and ongoing redemption are exactly the good He’s ordained for me and for my family, for now, in our own little corner of the universe.

After seventeen plus years of marriage, I’m learning {so slowly} what it looks like to love my husband and to receive his love for me. We are very much in the trenches of rebuilding and let me tell you, it’s work. Emotionally-draining, spiritually-taxing work. Day after day of that will tire you out physically as well. For so long, I didn’t make the emotional / physical connection. {Please, just take my word for it. If you’re in a really emotionally-draining season, prepare to be physically tired and arrange your life accordingly.}

After twelve years of motherhood, I’m realizing {also very slowly} what it looks like to mother each child with grace and love and freedom. And that is also work. 

My days are simpler than they’ve been in the past but they’re richer in a way too. Sure there’s the laundry, the grocery-shopping, the taxi-ing. But so very organically and sweetly, God is allowing my quiet life to intersect with the lives of other broken and struggling women. In living rooms and coffee shops, via e-mails and blog posts, Grace is doing its upside-down, inside-out, backwards thing. Beauty out of ashes. Community out of brokenness. Encouragement out of suffering. Healing out of scars. Fruitfulness out of rest. 

It’s just…happening. I’ve done nothing to orchestrate it. I only say Yes and receive it. 

I recently scribbled this in my notes of The Ragamuffin Gospel: 

Is the Gospel of Grace the difference between receiving versus doing? Is the Christian life more passive than active? Responding to His lead instead of driving along as one would in an old carriage, beating life with the whip of law and control and expectation rather than knowing we are uniquely led by a loving God?


I’m no theologian but I’m discovering that great fruitfulness and freedom can be born out of giving up. And if anyone has professionalized giving up, surely it is me. 

On days when I wish I could measure my productivity and have a bit of my old self back, it’s steadying to survey the larger picture, to see that God is working and moving even when I feel like I barely am. 

You can’t rush rest. You can’t Red Bull your way into a functional person. You can’t rebuild in a month or even fourteen of them what slowly decayed and crumbled over many years. You can’t live someone else’s life or adopt their M.O. 

You can only receive yours.