Dear friend,

 

This morning I shared on Instagram:

 

"We are living in the reality of prayers prayed long ago, faith poured into the Father’s hands before we could see. The trials of a decade, once “billows that roll”, now lap like gentle waves on the sand. The Sabbath I resisted for so many years has become a lifestyle. Somehow, our prayers were answered as we obeyed, and in obedience our eyes were opened to the gifts of God.

Baby goats were born this week, early in the morning in a foggy field. We ran barefoot in the dew to catch them, towel their tiny heads and warm them in the barn.

Nine little girls danced on our grass this week, dresses twirling in golden hour. Addie turned eight. And beneath a bending apple tree she blew out candles on a cake my friend made. Their mothers watched from the patio and I thought: I get to raise babies with these women, these women who love God and others.

We shot off fireworks this week. No other reason than we wanted to — tapping feet to music, watching the sun go down as the trees turn brilliant red and orange, our children running wild under the willow. And all of it, all of it, says His name. All of it speaks His love."

At the height of my idolatry of production (culminating in chronic illness and the breaking of my leg in 2019) I could not stop to appreciate the presence of God in daily life. There is a phrase from Rudyard Kipling's “If” that used to run like a refrain in my mind:

 

 

So I filled the unforgiving minute. I ran the distance. And I even “earned the earth” in my own meager way. But Kipling's call is not the call of Christ, is it?

 

“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:34-36)

 

Yours is the earth… and all that is in it.

Gain the whole world… and forfeit your soul.

 

I was basing my life on a message contrary to the faith I claimed to hold. The tension between who God made me to be and how I was living destroyed me from the inside out. The pace of my life, the choices I made, the lack of respect I had for my time and body – it all culminated in two autoimmune diseases and a wheelchair for three months. Did God break my leg or give me the diseases? No. My own fallen choices made in fallen “wisdom" resulted in my pain. But through that pain God never left me, and through that pain God healed something within me I had heretofore left untouched.

 

I had to learn Sabbath; to let the Savior be my rest. I had to learn to stop earning and open my eyes to the joy already earned. That lesson was taught through three months on a sofa and five years of a skin disease.

 

God's way – the “ruthless elimination of hurry”, as John Mark Comer puts it – taught me minutes are anything but unforgiving, and that twenty four hours spent with Him accomplishes more than I could run in sixty seconds. And best of all? 

 

Mine is the earth and everything that's in it – because I am the daughter of the Living God.

 

 

 

 

This book was sent to me by a friend and it's a Bronte classic I've never read. I'm only in chapter three and already sucked in!!! It has vibes of both Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. 

 

 

This is Jay Sklar's latest work and I am THRILLED to have it. I used his Tyndale commentary in the writing of The Law of Grace, and this is much more in-depth!

 

 

This is one I pick up and put down because I use it for reference. It is a very thorough treatment of the destiny of infants and children who die without professing Christ (not having the ability to do so). 

 

 

Still working through this one. I have found it rather odd how many people find it controversial… unless there's something I haven't gotten to yet, none of it seems that alarming to me. It's simply about living in close Christian community with discipline, grounded in God's word, offering beauty and truth to the world without being IN the world. 

 

Other bookish updates: I quit Circe; it was no longer compelling and I would rather read the real Greek myths (I have started giving myself permission to quit books). I started Little Women again, a fave of mine; and am introducing the girls to Anne of Green Gables via the Yoto.