2015 - All Things New

The last few years have each held a theme for me, something that I've tried to focus on during the year, a specific area where I need to grow and allow the Lord to work in me.  You can check out the last few here.

This year is going to be quite the year in my life.  It's going to be a year full of beginnings and adventures and a lot of firsts.  And those are things I know are coming down the pipeline.  Who can guess what else the Lord has in store that I don't know about yet!  In light of all the beginnings on the horizon, this year is new.

2015 - All Things New

There are lots of very tangible new things happening in my life this year.  Probably the biggest and most significant is that I'm getting married in nine weeks.  This is the biggest new adventure I've ever undertaken, and I can't wait to take it on with my fiancé!  It still seems a bit surreal a lot of the time, but I am blown away by the Lord's blessings on our lives and the gift he has given to each of us in each other.  We're very excited about our new life together, but we're certain it won't come without challenges.  New things present new hardships that we don't always get to see coming.  I've never been a wife before, so I'll have to navigate lots of new waters over the coming months and years.

Along with the new adventure of marriage, a lot of other changes will follow suit.  I'll be moving to a new place to live.  I've been at ChezMK for over six and a half years now - longer than I've ever lived anywhere before, so going somewhere else is going to be a big change!  We're still picking out a place to live, so it's fun to dream about what the new place will be like.  I'll get to rearrange furniture! (One of my favorite things to do!)  I'll get to have a dining room table!  Lots of little newnesses will come along with having a new home.

Along with a new home will come a new roommate (my soon-to-be husband, of course). But I've shared my home with my current wonderful roommate for so long!  Miranda has been a huge blessing to me and one of the biggest reasons I've enjoyed my post-college years so much.  Her friendship has been (and surely will continue to be) invaluable, but there will be a new chapter of our post-roommate relationship beginning in a few weeks.  We won't get to have the same lazy Saturday mornings where I roll out of bed and put baked oatmeal in the oven for our breakfast or make sweet tea runs to Chickfila together (as often).  We won't share a Christmas tree or host MND together.  But we'll still get to join each other for morning runs and have lunch dates and throw themed parties together! Our friendship will take on a new pace and feel, and hopefully it will be no less of a source of sweetness in our lives.

These are just a couple specific news that are happening in my life this year.  There will certainly be others, but the idea is the same.  Lots of changes are coming down the pipeline.  I love variety and change and new adventures, but they can be a bit scary and overwhelming at times, too.  These are the words of scripture I have been playing over and over in my mind as I've thought about All Things New and the changes coming in my life this year.  

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17 

The new beginnings of this year remind me of the newness we have in Christ.  When he draws us to himself, he gives new life.  He has wonderful plans for us.  We get to leave the past behind and run forward into the fullness of life the Lord desires for us.  This requires us to embrace forgiveness and trust the Lord's best for us.  I sometimes struggle with forgiving myself, so I tend to hold on to guilt and shame which keeps me from the best of the new, full life the Lord offers.  So sometimes really living in the newness of Christ is hard for me.  I want to get better at that.

This year, as I face so many new beginnings, I also want to fully embrace the new life Christ offers, trusting him at his word that he forgives and forgets has an abundance of joy to offer me!

Will 2015 be a year of new for you, too?

Continue

One Year

I recently came across this on Pinterest.

Could this be any more true in my life?

A year ago today, a chapter ended that I didn't want to end.  I didn't see how there was going to be a happy ending if that chapter was over.  I knew it could happen, but I just didn't see how just yet.

I am so thankful for time.  For perspective.  For healing. 

Fast forward from that day one year ago to today.  I am immeasurably thankful that chapter is over.  Because I didn't know it then, but there was a much more amazing story to be written in my life, and last year's chapter had to end so this one could begin.  

Days like today are such a good reminder to me that the Lord is ultimately in control and truly does have a bigger and better plan than we can see.  Even now I'm sure I don't know what seeds are being planted today in order that they might blossom beautifully in the days to come.  Either way, I can trust the heartbreaks, joys, disappointments, and celebrations in life to the God of both individual moments and the whole picture.  He has a plan for the highest highs and the lowest lows and is weaving them together in our lives for his glory.  How I respond to them is the only part I can control, and how I choose to face each day can bring even more glory to him.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 (ESV) says this:

 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a great reminder that the Lord is always at work, fulfilling his plan for me that he will be glorified!

So how was this time last year different for you?  Can you see how the Lord was writing a beautiful story in your life? Are you choosing to glorify the Lord in the midst of whatever it is you're facing today, looking forward to being able to see the bigger picture as time goes on and perspective changes?

Continue

Two Years at LBM!

A couple months ago, I sat down with Patricia Spangler from Missions Radio to share about my work with Living Bread.  It was a privilege to tell her about how I transitioned into this position and how it's been a blessing to me to serve with this ministry!  You can listen to this brief interview here!  I didn't realize it's timeliness right away, it was released within a day or two of my two year anniversary at Living Bread!

As this anniversary passed (as did the four-year anniversary of my first trip to Brazil), I remain amazed at how the Lord has brought me to this place and how he continues to remind me that he is sovereign over every aspect of my life!  Despite whatever challenges may come my way, he is in control and has a plan.  He cares about the details.  He wants me to trust him with even the smallest things that I allow to fill my mind with worry and stress.  

At the moment, I'm in the middle of a painstakingly long and discouraging process of car selling/buying.  I have finally been able to sell the car I had and am now in the process of trying to find another vehicle.  If my tone doesn't communicate well in writing, let me just tell you that car issues are among my least favorite kind of trouble in the whole world.  Despite my distain for these things, I am constantly being reminded that God has a plan, even for my troublesome car situation.  He will provide just the right vehicle that will meet my needs and in just the right timing.  I just have to be faithful and trust him throughout this process.  I don't know how it will be resolved, but I am looking forward to finding out!  

Such is the truth I am learning to apply to this scenario and everything else in my life and ministry: trusting him for financial provision, relational wisdom and guidance, discernment for day-to-day decision-making.  If I had all the answers, I'm sure I would be convinced that I don't need the Lord's guidance.  Au contraire.  I am not even close to having everything figured out, and I am abundantly thankful that I don't have to.  

So, two years later, I'm still trusting the Lord that this is where he wants me to be and trusting him to provide all I need for each day and thankful for the opportunities he has given me to be part of his kingdom work!

From my first trip to Brazil in July 2010

From my 2011 trip - This little girl's family isn't at our church any more, and I miss her sweet face!

From our 2012 trip - Tracy is one of our pastor's daughter and is such a precious child! 

This is from our most recent trip in March 2014.  Getting to love on kids when we visit is great, but knowing that they are being consistently cared for because there is a church right in their neighborhood is even better.

In other ministry news... It continues to be an exciting year for Living Bread, our 10th anniversary year!  Right now our founders, Patrick and Bárbara Hubbard, are in Thailand working with our leadership there to serve the poor and finalize our plan of ministry.  Later this week, Patrick will travel to Kenya to make some initial contacts with potential leadership team members.  Please keep them in your prayers as he travels to Kenya and their whole family returns home next week!

Continue

Keep Walking

I have a wonderful friend who I meet every week to talk together, encourage each other, and challenge each other.  We usually try to add a little structure to our weekly meetings by reading through a book together.  We've gone through all kinds of reads together, and right now we're tackling Believing God by Beth Moore.  One of the chapters I read for our meeting today really resonated with me, so I thought I'd share a little about it here.  Maybe it will have an impact on you, too.

The chapter is called "Believing God When Routine Follows Revelation."  Sometimes we have big moments with God.  But usually we don't.  Most of our lives are made up with the "normal" times in between the A HA! moments.  Most of the time we just have to keep going with what we know we should do without any major indicators we're on the right track, just trusting that we are being faithful and that it will ultimately be rewarded.  While talking about Joshua leading God's people in their fight against Jericho by walking (seemingly for no reason) over and over around the city walls, Beth says:

Sometimes God requires us to follow a fair amount of repetition for a considerable amount of time until He deems a season complete.  Then all of the sudden He seems to do something profound or miraculous, and we can't figure out what changed.

We may not see any value in the repetitive walking around the wall, but there is value in it because God told them to do it.  The great thing about this specific example from Joshua is that God told the Israelites the outcome.  He gave them a seven-day plan to follow with the guarantee that if they followed the plan, they would win the battle and overtake the city.  Unfortunately, however, we don't usually get such a prescriptive outline from the Lord about the battles we face.  We don't get the timeline for when we'll have this need met or that longing fulfilled.  We just have to trust that we need to do what the Lord has called us to do right here, right now, and he will take care of knocking down the wall that is in the way.  To this Beth says:

God often directs us to keep walking around that Jericho day after day, repeating the same fundamental steps while nothing seems to happen.  Oh, it will.  We must never stop believing it will.  But in the meantime, we've got to keep walking and keep circling no matter how many times we've done it before and no matter how many times we're yet to do it.

She goes on to discuss that regularity and repetition are not bad things but are important fundamentals of our faith.  Nor do they require that creativity and passion are set aside.  She explains:

God likes order.  He likes repetition.  A God of fundamentals, He brings up the sun every morning and the moon every evening, but His creativity within that order is gorgeously displayed in the changing sunsets and sunrises surrounding them.  The same is true for us.  Faithfulness in our Christian walk requires order, some black-and-white fundamentals, but within that order is glorious room for color and creativity.

Being faithful can seem mundane or tiresome at times, but it is always worth it.  The reward may be just around the next corner or may not be revealed on this side of eternity, but it will be rewarded.  Remember these words from Galatians 6:9 (ESV)

Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

I needed this truth today.

Continue

How I Got Here

Recently, I was asked if I had a ministry bio/testimony.  I didn't really have anything already written up, so I took some time over the past few days to put this together.  Here's a bit of my background and how I came to be where I am today.

My story is anything but normal.  But I don’t think I would have it any other way. 

I was born to a missionary family in Lipa City, Philippines.  My parents were in language school at the time, studying Tagalog in order to serve Filipinos at a mission hospital where my dad would serve as a practitioner and an administrator. (Oh the stories we shared around our dinner table of the adventures of practicing medicine in a third world country!)  I had two older brothers, Stephen and Peter, who were four and two when I was born.  My little brother Paul would be born on our next furlough in the States when I was three.

My earliest memories are in the Philippines, and I had (and still have) a very positive perception of our family’s experience there.  I remember running around and playing with my brothers and other playmates until Mom rang the bell for dinner.  I remember pilling into our truck and driving across the island to a church where my dad would preach on the weekends.  I remember all kinds of run-ins with local wildlife like monkeys and cobras.  I remember going to school in our one room schoolhouse where all four of us were taught together by either my mom or one of the short-term teachers who came from the States.

Our family on furlough in 1990, shortly before my little brother was born.

From the very beginning, I saw my parents living by faith.  I didn’t really understand what that meant and couldn’t have verbalized it if you’d asked me because it was just our way of life.  If we had a need, we trusted that the Lord would meet it in one way or another.  And we saw God come through for us over and over again.  When we traveled to our supporting churches on our furloughs, the song that played behind my parents’ slide show was “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”  This was their theme song, and now I understand why.  They trusted the Lord and saw his great faithfulness in their lives more times than we can count.  Ultimately, it was this trust in the Lord and total commitment to his work that lead me to give my heart to Christ and continue to live a life dedicated to God’s plan for me.

In the summer of 1991 on our trip back to the Philippines from our furlough in Rochester, New York, we stayed in Manila at a missionary guesthouse for a few days before making the rest of the trek home to the island of Palawan where we lived in Roxas.  I can distinctly remember playing with my older brother Peter at the house; we were standing on opposite ends of a stairway (He was at the top, and I was at the bottom.), tossing a ball back and forth.  Seemingly out of the blue, he asked me if I would go to heaven when I died.  I didn’t have the slightest idea and didn’t know what he was talking about, so he proceeded to share with me how God sacrificed his Son to die on the cross for my sins so that I could spend eternity with Him.  I accepted Christ into my heart that day.  I didn’t even come close to understanding completely the ramifications of that decision, but that day marks the beginning of my journey with the Lord. 

Our family stayed in the Philippines for a four-year term and a one-year term (with a one-year furlough between) after that stopover in Manila.  We returned to the States permanently in 1997 when I was 10 years old.  Because my dad decided to go back to school for a master’s degree in rural health care, we moved to a small town in West Virginia (a requirement for his degree program).  It was there, in Welch, West Virginia, where we first attended public school.  I was in sixth grade and distinctly remember thinking the day we learned about exponents in math class, “Wow! This is the only thing we’ve ‘learned’ this year that I didn’t already know!”  Needless to say, that year was more of a growing opportunity socially than academically.

The completion of Dad’s degree brought new job opportunity and place to live for our family.  We ended up in the western Pennsylvania town of Clarion.  We’d visited Clarion several times growing up because my great aunt and uncle lived there, so it was neat to move to a quasi-familiar place.  The house where we lived there was the first my parents had ever bought, after almost 20 years of marriage.  We were moving there to settle for the first time in my life.  At this point, my brothers were going into 12^th, 10^th, and 4^th grades, and I was headed into 8^th grade. 

Our time in Pennsylvania was a huge growing chapter for me.  This was the first place where I went to the same school for two sequential years (I actually went to Clarion Area Junior Senior High School from 8^th grade until high school graduation.  Unbelievable!) and had the opportunity to put down any sort of roots in to friendships or a physical place.  This was also a place where I grew into my faith more than ever before.  It was here that I had to make the decision of whether I was truly going to follow Christ myself or if I was going to give up on my parents’ views as I became capable of making my own way in the world.  Ultimately, Dad and Mom’s Jesus became my Jesus as I built intentional relationships with friends and mentors, got involved in ministry at my church, and learned more and more about what it means to follow Christ.  Not that future years wouldn’t present challenges and opportunities growth, but these years held such significant foundation-challenging and –reinforcing situations and decisions that I will always maintain them as the years my faith became my own and my walk with Christ diverted from just following my parents’ footsteps.

My college years took me to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia where I continued to grow through the challenges of school, my family moving away from our Pennsylvania home I loved so dearly, a break-up with my college boyfriend, and learning how to be a grown-up and living on my own.  Also during the college years, I had to start making and acting on decisions about what I wanted to do with my life vocationally.  Having grown up around ministry and have been involved in different kinds of ministry throughout high school and college, I decided that’s what I would want to do.  However, my parents, being experienced with ministry, encouraged me not to get a ministry-related degree because you can do ministry no matter what degree is listed on your diploma.  So instead of getting a ministry degree, I worked toward the more marketable education degree.

After completing my degree in Elementary Education, I didn’t really want to enter the field of education.  An opportunity opened up for me to work at the University, so I accepted the position and stayed in Lynchburg.  This wasn’t my original plan of going to school, finishing, and moving away to start a new adventure.  But clearly, the Lord had a plan for me to stay here.  I didn’t know what that plan was for a while, but within a couple years, I learned a little bit more of why I stayed in Lynchburg instead of moving away.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the Lord used that position to help me ultimately end up in the ministry position where I find myself now.  It was there as I worked in an academic department where I was encouraged to pursue my master’s degree in Human Services (tuition fees being one of the benefits of my employment at the university) and teach online.  This provided a means for me to pay off my student loans more quickly than I would have otherwise.  The Lord was laying the groundwork for me to be able to transition into ministry in the years to come.

In May of 2010 I finished my master’s degree.  I wondered if this would be a good time to transition into a ministry role.  But I loved my job.  I had been promoted to an academic coordinator position and thoroughly enjoyed what I did and the people with whom I worked.  I prayed that if the Lord wanted me to transition to something else that he would provide the right opportunity and change my attachment to my job and release me from my current position.  Little did I know, he was doing just that.

That summer, I traveled with Living Bread Ministries on a short-term mission trip to Brazil.  I wasn’t extremely familiar with Living Bread, so while we were on our trip, I observed different aspects of the ministry.  I also spent time getting to know the founders of the ministry, Patrick and Bárbara Hubbard.  Shortly after the trip, the Hubbards approached me about coming on staff with the ministry.  The idea sounded wonderful, but there seemed to be a few obstacles in the way.  I still loved my job and couldn’t see myself just quitting a job that I enjoyed so much.  Also, Living Bread is completely support-based, so my position would require me to raise support.  Because I still had student loan debt, I didn’t feel comfortable asking people to support my ministry and help me pay off my education.  I continued to pray that if the Lord wanted me to transition into a ministry role, he would put all the pieces in place for that to happen.

Over the next two years, all those pieces fell into place.  I was able to completely pay off my student loans.  Some things changed in my job situation that landed me in a different position at the university. Though I still enjoyed my role very much, I didn’t have the same level of attachment to what I was doing.  So, when the time came for me to leave, I didn’t have nearly as much hesitation to putting in my notice. 

June 30, 2012 was my last day on staff at Liberty University.  I began working full-time as Administrative Coordinator for Living Bread Ministries in July.

Over the last two years, I have continued to love my role with Living Bread and the opportunities it has provided.  Though I am still working to raise full-time support so I am not as dependent on supplemental income, the Lord has always provided and met my needs. 

My transition to Living Bread was not without challenges and adjustments.  I thought my biggest challenge would be going from working in a busy office environment with lots of people all day to a home office environment where some days I work by myself during the day.  This did take some getting used to, but my biggest challenge was the newfound flexibility I had in my schedule.  I wasn’t married to an eight to five, Monday through Friday workweek.  Instead, I could plan my days differently and use my flexibility to meet others’ needs.

Despite the ups and downs of transitions and new beginnings, the Lord has been faithful to me through all the adventures he has brought my way.  I never thought I would be in Lynchburg 10 years, but I have been.  I never thought I would be able to enjoy working with a missions organization right here in my home town and still have the opportunity to travel overseas, but I do.  I never thought the Lord would take me so far from what I thought my life would look like and still be so content with his provision and his timing, but I am.   

My story is anything but normal.  But I don’t think I would have it any other way.

Continue

April Showers

Happy April!

I don't do April Fool's Day, so sorry to disappoint.  Nothing funny or clever here this morning!

It's hard to believe 2014 is already a quarter over, but I am looking forward to this month for several reasons including but not limited to:

• It's my birthday month.
• I'm going to become a legit aunt this month.
• It's getting warm and that means spring.
• April showers bring May flowers.
• I like flowers.
• I've decided to read the whole New Testament this month.

I realize it's not such a huge feat, but I'm really looking forward to it.  My Bible reading has been lacking focus for the past couple months, so I decided to do something to kick start me into a better routine.  

There are 260 chapters in the New Testament, so I'm reading 9 chapters each day except Sundays when I'll read 7.  That will leave me with only 7 chapters on the last day of April, too.  

Today's chapters (Matthew 1-9) were full of rich teaching (This section includes the sermon on the mount), and this was one of the verses that stood out most to me.

I'd love to hear about how you like to read the Bible and if you have some kind of plan that you use.  Would you share your ideas with me?  I have a kind of short attention span; I like to try different things, so I'd love your suggestions!

Bring on the April showers in anticipation of May's flowers!

Continue

2014 - Immanuel, God with Us

This past Christmas was an interesting one for several reasons.  Certainly, it was a joyous time of celebrations with family and friends.  Yet at times, in the midst of these celebrations, I felt a tinge of loneliness.  While praying through this loneliness during a season that's supposed to be all smiles and warm, fuzzy happiness, God whispered in my ear, "I came."  I came for you.  I came for you when you felt alone.  

In the midst of the loneliness of the world in sin and in need of a Savior, God showed up in person.  He came to fill the longing in our hearts and the sadness in our souls.  He is the ultimate cure for the loneliness of mankind.  He continues to be with us day in and day out along the journey of life.  This year, I want to live in light of his presence.  Immanuel, God with us.  He came.  When we needed him most, he stepped in.

I think the implications of this truth on my life are many, but I want to focus on a couple specifically this year.  The first implication of God's omnipresence on which I want to set my heart is his constant companionship.   

Throughout the Bible, there are many times when God promises to be there for us and not to leave us on our own:

It is the Lord who goes before you.  He will be with you; he will never leave you or forsake you.  Do not fear or be dismayed. Deuteronomy 31:8

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20

No matter what I may face, I will never have to face it alone.  Sometimes I may feel alone, but God's word says otherwise:  I am never alone.  As I walk through days that might seem filled with loneliness or filled with community, I can always have confidence in the Lord's presence.  

The second implication of Immanuel on which I want to focus this year is the accountability of the Lord's presence.  Having a consistent awareness to God's presence in my life should hold me to a higher standard of conduct and a greater desire for personal holiness.  Would I make the same choices if I was keenly aware of Christ's presence in the room?  Would I do what I do if Jesus was watching?  Well, he is watching, and I need to live in light of this presence.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Psalm 139:2-3

Nothing escapes the Lord's awareness and his knowledge.  He knows the choices I make; he is there watching me make them.  This makes me desire to live in a way that will honor his presence in my life.

So, this year, I want to find comfort and conviction in his presence because he came.

Immanuel, God with us.  God with me.

Continue

Wait on the Lord

Hard things happen, things we don't always understand or can't control.  These words from Psalm 37 have been a special blessing to me over the last few weeks as I have faced some hard things.  

This is a beautiful reminder to stay committed to the Lord, trusting him that his purposes are being fulfilled despite my limited understanding.  I love the promise of the Lord's steadfast love in the midst of challenges; I never have to face anything on my own!

It's also a good reminder not to try to manipulate a situation to turn out the way you want it, but instead to trust the Lord and let him work it out.  The temptation is to be impatient, to get angry, to worry.  But we are called to trust, delight, commit, be still, wait patiently, fret not, refrain from anger.  And wait on the Lord.  

Continue

Lesson Learned....or Being Learned

So, I have less than a week to get a July post on the books, so here goes!

This summer has been one of lots of learning for me, so it's good for me to sit down for a few minutes and process what I'm learning and how I can apply what I'm learning beyond "huh - that's cool" to "wow - that was really a turning point."  Here's a less-than-all-inclusive list of the life lessons in my primer these days.

I'm bad at my job.  I suppose this is a bit subjective, and the ultimate determination of it might be my boss's call more than mine.  But here's the skinny:  I know I could be a lot better at my job.  I could invest my time, energy, and skills more effectively to promote and further the ministry for which I work.  I think maybe that's my issue...I see it like a job, like something to check off my list, instead of a calling to serve the Lord with the best of me.  So I'm learning to give of myself more than is required to check a task off my list and really invest with my heart into a cause that matters.

I don't like going to the gym.  But I'm going anyway.  I have never been one for much physical exertion, and if I'm going to exert myself physically, I want it to be doing something fun like catching waves at the beach or playing tennis not something mundane like running on a treadmill or lifting.  Blech.  But it's good for me.  It's good for me to do something I'm not particularly fond of, and it's good for me to start healthy habits now that will hopefully allow me to enjoy a long, healthy life.  So I'm learning to do things that are not fun in the present that will bring about a worthwhile gain in the future.

I don't know how to be a good girlfriend.  Let's be honest.  It's been a while since I was in a legit relationship with a guy.  Now I'm blessed with a wonderful man who I get to call my own, but I have to learn how to do this right.  It takes more than staring at his ridiculously handsome face across a dinner table or holding his hand as we walk around an amusement park.  It takes intentionality to build a relationship worth having.  It takes me getting out of my I've-been-single-and-on-my-own-for-a-long-time mindset and learning how to have a now-I-get-to-have-someone-else-to-consider thought process.  And he's more than worth it.  So I'm learning to let go of parts of my selfish independence for the sake of investing in another person who matters.

What lessons has this summer thrown your way?  Have you stopped to think about how you're applying them?

Continue

You've Got a Friend in Me

I shared lunch with a great friends this week (as I do most weeks).  It made me thankful for the friendships I enjoy.  

I am blessed with an amazing group of people with whom I get to do life.  When I stop and think about it, I am spoiled to have so many friends who I would consider close, with whom I am confortable to share my life whether they are living in my house with me (shout out to my wonderful roommate!), down the road, in a different state, or a different time zone.

I find myself appreciating the relationships around me most when I approach them with intentionality. If I plan to have lunch with a friend and make sure that we don't just shoot the breeze and talk about the weather but really talk about what is going on in our lives and how we're struggling or what successes we've enjoyed, it makes our time together seem so much sweeter.  I feel like I have invested in our relationship instead of just having someone come over to eat.  I could have people who are just "lunch buddies" all day long.  But when I care enough to share my heart or ask them about theirs, real relationship happens.  And that's what it's all about. 

I'm a big proponent of discipleship.  And I think that largely means intentional relationship.  I have a friend who is older than me and further along in life than me with whom I meet every week (with few exceptions, we've been doing this for six years and some change).  We usually drink coffee and sit in her living room (or on her porch now that the weather's nice!) and share about our lives.  We often do a Bible study together or go through a book together, but mostly we just talk.  We talk about what challenges we're facing or what wins we've experienced.  I've learned from her as she's married and a mom and in a different stage of life than me.  We take time out of our lives to meet every week. To be intentional.  And it's worth it.  

So, I try to do the same thing with people who are  younger than me, who are in a different stage of life than me, but in the opposite way.  Maybe they're still in school or living with their parents or brand new to loving Jesus.  Maybe they can learn from me, but I've found that often I'm still the one learning.  

All this to say, I'm learning more and more how life is made so much sweeter when you share it with other people on purpose.  In fact, I'm meeting a new friend for coffee this afternoon.  Then catching up with some old ones later tonight.  I am one friend-blessed girl!

Just a handful of the wonderful people I get to call friends.  Love them.

Continue

Come on Over!

It's one of my favorite phrases. I like saying it, and I like hearing it.  I love spending time with people I love.  I especially love spending time in their homes or having them spend time in my home.  Someone's home says a lot about them, so sharing these environments help you know people better.  My closest friends are the ones with whom I feel most at home, and I hope they feel at home with me.

I think this has a lot to do with the ministry of hospitality, which I feel like is a topic that I have come across over and over lately.  I've found that when there is a theme that becomes recurring in my life, I need to push pause and pay it some mind.  

I think this recurring concept of hospitality is related to my border-line obsession with the concept of home.  I love home.  I love my home (all of them).  I love visiting other people's homes.  I want a big house someday to make into a home.  

I've lived in a bunch of different places, so all of them have become home to some extent.  Clarion, Pennsylvania was the first place where I got to really settle down long enough to love a place and the people there, so it gets home status.  My parents live in Fort Myers, Florida, and if "Home is where your mom is," then it gets called home.  I have lived in Lynchburg, Virginia since I was a freshman in college (with the exceptions of a few summers), and now I've lived in the same house here for going on five years (shout out to ChezMK!), so this place is home.  Saying "I'm going home" could easily indication me going to any one of these three locations.

ChezMK - Home with my wonderful roommate

I have dreams of a future home.  Something I really, really want is a house.  A big, old farm house that I get to make my own and share with people I love.  And decorate it really cute and comfortable.  With lots of white furniture.  And tons of pictures.  And my little brother's paintings.  And my mom's quilts.  And plenty of purple.  But not too much.  And at least one window seat.  And sunshine in the windows.  With white, flowing curtains.  And a big dining room table.  With lots of chairs.  And a china cabinet full of white dishes that don't match.  And a front porch.  With rocking chairs.  And a porch swing.  I haven't thought about this or anything. 

All that to say, the place you call home matters.  But what you do with it matters more.  Home is an opportunity for ministry, the ministry of hospitality.  When we show hospitality, we have a chance to live the Gospel.  John Piper says:

Our homes need to be open.  Because our hearts are open.  And our hearts are open because God's heart is open to us.

As a lady, I think I have a unique opportunity to show hospitality. At least, I should make it a priority to ensure that my home is a welcoming place for guests.  Not just because I'm a girl but because I love Jesus.  Maybe it's just a little easier because I'm a girl.  In her book on biblical femininity Radical Womanhood, Carolyn McCulley says, as she discusses how our culture debates a woman's role at home:

The point of being a keeper at home is to provide a haven for a godly family to thrive, to offer hospitality to fellow Christians and non-Christians alike, and to provide a place for the church to meet. (p. 104)

She goes on to say:

No one will find fulfillment in the latest applications or gadgets that run a home. Nor will one find lasting fulfillment in attempting to decorate and entertain like the lastest hospitality doyenne.  Material goods and self-glorifying domestic perfection are definitely not the heart of the home.  The heart of the home is found in the relationships nurtured there and the comfort offered to one another--comfort we have first received from God, the Father of compassion, and then share with one another. (p. 115)

Ouch.  I can often get caught up in the desire for domestic perfection that I can forget that what I have in hostessing is an opportunity to love like Jesus loves not show off my latest crock pot recipe or apron-wearing cuteness.  It's less about a perfect-smelling candle or appropriately coordinating serving dishes than it is about sharing the comfort of home with people I love.  

I'm abundantly thankful for the people who continuously open their homes to me and the chances I have to open my home to others.  I desire to be someone who not only welcomes people into her home, but also takes advantage of these times to serve as Gospel-ministry.  

So, come on over! 

Continue