Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dear Dutch,

Happy 13th birthday. I know I’ve told you this before, but I never dreamed you would become so awesome! I just mean when you were little and wandering around in your Lightening McQueen underwear I never dreamed you would become a tall, handsome, smart, witty, funny, kind, generous, delightful young man who I SO enjoy being with!

I appreciate the ways that you help me so much. When you take care of the chickens, take out the garbage and recycling, help me with Justice, carry in groceries for me, all of these things SO help me. I can’t thank you enough, and I’m so proud of the way that you serve others. I appreciate how you help with set-up at church, and you do a great job running the slides for worship. You are capable and quick-witted, and you’ve become a huge help at church. You’re also so capable with Justice, which helps me so much. We really couldn’t do our Sunday mornings without you, Son. Thank you.

I also admire the way that you play and get along so well with your friends. [names] look up to so much. I love that you don’t treat them as younger, or look down on them, but you have a great way of entering in to whatever they’re into or bringing them into your world in ways that are appropriate for them. Truly, that is one of the most admirable things about you—you naturally adjust and are able to engage with people from 8-year-olds to 80-year-olds! 

I’m so grateful for your hard work as you’ve begun FCCT school this year. I really never dreamed you’d do this well! I’ve been so pleased at how you do your homework and tests each week without being asked! Wow! You’re a homeschool mama’s dream. Of course I don’t get to see how you act in class but your teachers say you are a delight to have in class, so I’m trusting that you are. Keep being a delight! 

I’m also proud of the way that you’ve grown in your kindness to Heidi. I’ve often seen you compromise or defer to her, and that is a sign of maturity. You’ve also begun to show some self-control in NOT saying every “funny” comment to her that comes to mind, and not blurting out corrections of Daddy in church. You’re growing in your understanding of appropriateness, context, and timing. Keep it up, Son! 

I’ve prayed so many prayers for you over the years and will continue. I thank God often for Brant Hansen—in so many ways he is an answer to my prayers over the year, and I’m so grateful you have a godly role model in him. I wholeheartedly approve! My prayers now continue: I pray you will be pure in mind and action, that you will fear the Lord and desire to never sin against Him (Gen. 39:9). I pray you will always use your strength to be a protector of the weak, a provider for anyone in need around you. I pray you will, even in your strength and courage, be always mindful of the weak or hurt or needy around you. I pray you will always seek to protect and care for the women in your life. And I pray you will always use your knowledge and skills to make the world a better place, even if just by sharing that knowledge with those around you.

Dutch, I’m so proud of you. Thank you for being the best son I could ever ask for (shhh, don’t tell Justice! I’m sure he’ll be awesome too.) Please know you can always talk to me, or at me. I pray God gives me a long life so I can watch you and learn from you for years to come. Above all, Son, stay humble. As you walk in humility, God will give you grace, and you will succeed in life by His grace. 

I love you,

Mom

Happy Monday, friends! This week only (12/9-12/15) we’re offering Sacred Mundane for the same price we offer it at conferences and retreats (half-off or more from Amazon’s price) with free shipping. This will get it to you in time for Christmas in case you want to bless someone with a bit of encouragement (even if that someone is yourself!). As always, 100% of my proceeds go to women and children through World Vision. So it’s a gift that blesses both ways! https://squareup.com/store/sacred-mundane

Can we intentionally forget something?

I know for certain I can forget things without the slightest bit of intention! It happens every day. But I also know that when I really need to, I can set my mind so purposefully that I won’t forget what’s most important.

Take travel, for instance. When we’re flying with the kids, I’m on my game. Passports and ID in a zipped pocket with boarding passes. Snacks and waterbottles within reach. Electronics charged.

I can focus my mind so that I won’t forget.

I never forget the things I know I can’t live without.

But does it work the other way around?

Can I be just as intentionally TO forget something? Or perhaps the question you’re asking, Why would I want to do that in the first place?

I was struck last week by a simple sentence in Hebrews 10:

I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.

Heb 10:17

I tend to associate forgetfulness with a loss of brain function. Like, anything that’s forgotten is an indication of mental deterioration. But clearly God’s not choosing to be dumber. He’s not deteriorating in the slightest.

He’s choosing to forget what has already been forgiven.

Can we do that?

I’m really asking the question. Do you think that we, who are made in the image of God, can intentionally choose to forget what has already been forgiven? What do you think?

I think we can try. I think we might be surprised how effective our brains are at losing sight of whatever we refuse to give attention to.

Whatever you ignore, you forget.

When Paul exhorts us, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things,” he’s giving us a powerful way to rewire our brains and intentionally focus our attention.

All that rotten, corrupt, twisted, perverse, base stuff out there? Forget it.

In my journal yesterday I wrote, “What do I do with the stuff that drives me crazy?

It was a real question.

And I know I’m walking a fine line here and I’m not saying you just ignore stuff.

But I am saying, maybe just a little bit: Ignore stuff. *smile*

I’m saying that it probably wouldn’t hurt to exercise our made-in-God’s-image-ness and follow His example and practice refusing to call to mind those things that have already been covered by the blood of Jesus. Those things that aren’t excellent and praiseworthy.

Strangely enough, I have found that I can intentionally ignore the things in my house that drive me crazy, and that over time, they don’t bother me anymore.

But again, our minds aren’t a vacuum. I must replace all that discouraging data with other data:

If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

Heb. 10:26-27

That’s a terrifying verse, and I certainly don’t know how all this works. But do know that if I KNOW a truth, but intentionally ignore it, so that I can live however I want…I’m in danger.

Lord, help us REMEMBER TRUTH. Help us seek truth and cherish it and hold fast to it and NEVER FORGET what has been revealed to us, by Your grace. Let us lose the hyper-focus on all that makes us miserable and help us hyper-focus on all that YOU HAVE DONE for us.

I wonder what all our brains are capable of, as we yield them fully to God’s commands. It’s clear that “suppressing truth” (intentionally ignoring) leads to delusion, deception, and darkening (Romans 1). Then it seems to follow that focusing, with all our attention, on the truth of God, might help our minds more than anything.

Father, turn our eyes off worthless things, keep us from revisiting whatever would be best forgotten. Guide us into your truth and help us never forget who You are. {Thanks for reading.}

“Don’t have expectations.”

I’ve heard this, and said this, so many times. It’s an easy-answer that’s true but sometimes difficult to put into practice. We hit on it a little bit in the last post–we experience disappointment, or frustration, joylessness to be sure, when we shift from serving others to being served.

Often, when we experience disappointment, we chide ourselves (or are chided by others), “Remember, don’t have expectations.”

And that’s fine, but honestly, when I really seek to put this into practice, I’m like, “Wait a minute. How does one not have ANY expectations?”

I mean, part of having a brain is that we formulate hypotheses, we speculate, we plan, we think through things in the future. This is, I’d argue, a rather healthy part of cognition. When we schedule a trip, or an event, or even make plans for the weekend, there has to be SOME level of expectation. Inasmuch as you are planning, coordinating, thinking ahead, you are naturally creating some level of expectation.

In Sacred Mundane we talk about Expectancy vs. Expectation, and that has been an enormously helpful distinction for me, with regards to trusting God in difficult circumstances.

But just in terms of vacations, events, holidays, even things like birthdays or special days, it seems to be that the simple instruction, “Don’t have expectations” isn’t very helpful. Why?

Because your mind can’t just be a vacuum. You can’t just eliminate expectations and leave blank space rattling around in there. In fact, the more you focus on, “I won’t have expectations, I won’t have expectations, I won’t have expectations” the more you’ll focus on expectations! Or at least the more you’ll focus on self!

A better game-plan? Have big expectations!

Expect to whole-heartedly serve others, at every turn.

Expect to pour out your energy in loving, serving, giving, thanking, and being a blessing to whoever is in front you, for the sake of pleasing your King. Expect, on some level: There will be difficulty during this __[fill in the blank with the day/event/holiday/season___] and I fully expect God to meet my every need as I rely on Him and enable me to love and serve those around me.

As long as I’m focused on eliminating my expectations, or trying not to be disappointed, or trying to not “get my hopes up” or trying to insulate myself from pain, the focus is still on me.

Any way I slice it it’s still me focusing on me.

It’s so much more fun and effective to displace those self-centered expectations. There’s just no room for them when we fill our minds and hearts so full with focused energy to bless others. We aren’t even thinking about our expectations anymore because we aren’t thinking about “OUR” anything!

This may have zero application for you this holiday season. Maybe you, like me, have a genuinely joyful family and you’re just grateful to be together Awesome. But if the holidays do sometimes stir up any level of expectation or disappointment or sting or hurt or whatever, maybe this is a good game plan for you too. Hope it can be helpful. {Happy December. Thank you so much for reading.}

Hello, friends! I’m sorry I haven’t been writing much around here lately. We’re in a busy season, but I do have a story of God’s faithfulness to share with you soon. Hoping to write about it tonight. For today, I wanted to pass along this praise, of how good God has been to us as we journey through the homeschool process. Even if you don’t homeschool, there are so many ways that it’s JUST SO HARD to trust the process, to be patient, to wait, to stay the course. I hope this can be encouraging to you. More soon… Thanks for reading. Read the rest over at Simple Homeschool…

Even now, though I don’t know his name, my eyes fill with tears thinking of him. He doesn’t know that he gained himself a prayer warrior last night.

Sixty-seven youth, aged 8-18 filed into the building for auditions for the Christian Youth Theater’s upcoming performance of Mary Poppins. Widely varying abilities, all shapes and sizes, each one would take his or her turn on stage, all alone, standing on the X in front of the six artistic judges. Each one would sing, some would say a few lines.

All would show tremendous courage.

This was my first experience watching youth auditions, and my eyes welled up with tears more than once. I was so incredibly inspired by the courage each kid demonstrated and truly stunned by the level of talent displayed. These kids can SING! One girl sang I Have Confidence from The Sound of Music and it sounded straight-up Julie Andrews–amazing!

But the very best auditioner of the whole night, the one who brought me to full-tears, the one who showed the most valiant display of courage that maybe I have ever witnessed, the biggest win of the night…

…was a little boy who never even made it to the song.

As he stood up I could barely even see his head, he was very small. Within seconds, as he made his way toward the front, we could all see his state. His dark head bowed low, eyes straight down at his feet, shoulders hunched over. His dark-skinned arms folded tightly in on his chest, his hands wringing back in forth in obvious agitation.

We held our breath. I leaned forward in my seat. Everything in me came alive in attention. Come on, champ. You can do this.

He shuffled his way to the front, he tried to look up at the judges. He tried to remember what to say.

The coordinator smiled kindly and offered, “What’s your name?” He mumbled something no one could hear. She smiled. “Great. What song are you singing?” He mumbled something else no one could hear.

I leaned forward and smiled, fighting back tears, desperately trying to impart some trace of courage into his precious soul.

It was silent.

His fear was palpable.

And then the music began.

Wild panic filled his eyes. I swallowed hard. Please, Jesus. Please.

He stood, stricken, for a few agonizing moments.

And then he fled, in a dead run, off the stage.

We all exhaled.

Oh God. I wanted to leap from my seat and run and find him and swoop him up and hide him in my arms. I wanted to somehow impart to his soul that he is precious. That he was the most brave person of the whole night. That the God of the Universe was so incredibly proud of him and that he had value and worth and he was a PRIZE. That he was a STAR.

The audience applauded, just as we did for every performer. Oh Jesus let him know the applause of heaven. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him in the back, tucked into the arms of his light-skinned Mama. I thanked God for her, I wanted to hold HER, as I knew she probably needed to curl up onto someone’s arms just as much as he did.

She showed as much courage as anyone. A little later I saw her slip quietly out the back door, holding her sweet boy’s hand. Oh Jesus please bless her.

The rest of the night went smoothly. As the girls and I got into our car, we talked about that little boy, how he was the most brave of all. On the drive home, we prayed over him.

I prayed that he would grow to be a mighty man of God, that God would do astounding things in his life and that someday he would look back at this day, the day that felt like a fail, and he would know that it was a WIN. That just going up on that stage was a death-blow to the enemy of fear, and just because he didn’t make it to the song, IT WAS STILL A WIN.

Oh friend–Do you know this? Do you know that just the fact that you are doing [fill in the blank], that is a WIN? EVERY step of obedience, EVERY courageous act, EVERY time you say yes to Jesus and you do that thing that scares you half to death, that is a win! Even if you run off stage at the last minute. Even if you end up in a puddle of tears. May you hear the applause of heaven!

And, may we have compassion enough to recognize that what may be easy for us may take tremendous courage for those around us. May we set aside our preoccupation with strength, beauty, success, achievement, and celebrate the quiet courage that it sometime takes to just show up.

Cheering for you. Thanks for reading.

“Get your house ready.”

That was one of the four clear directives God gave me when the Renew ladies began the year with a fast. I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, honestly, so I sort of ignored it. It didn’t seem nearly as important as praying, reading the Word, and ditching schadenfreude.

But just a few months later, the same idea surfaced again. Not one, not two, but four friends had different dreams, all in one week’s time, that had to do with being prepared. For what, it wasn’t clear, but for me personally it brought back to mind the orders that I had ignored from a months before. I took some specific steps to put things in place, but wasn’t sure what else it meant.

Fast forward to our 16th anniversary. Anniversaries are always a great time to evaluate and talk honestly about where you are and how you need to grow as individuals and as a family. One thing that surfaced, rather dramatically, was how overwhelmed I felt with hosting and keeping up our home, on top of all the other things I was juggling. I was praying about whether to rearrange our budget so I could hire a housecleaner, but having someone come in twice a month and scrub my toilet still didn’t seem like it would solve the bigger issue of overwhelm I was feeling.

Thankfully, my husband is a godly, humble, wise man. He listened to me and cared for me. He heard my genuine cry for help. And though he wasn’t sure what to do, he was willing to do whatever it would take to help me.

I’m chuckling to myself because all this sounds very dramatic and then I’m going to tell you that the FlyLady changed our lives and that shining your sink and swishing your toilet is the path to freedom. Haha—it sounds ridiculous! Bear with me.

Chances are, most of you have already discovered this secret—a few simple habits, done every single day, can change the course of your life.

Something inside reminded me about FlyLady, an online gal who helps you overcome CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) and gain simple habits that will help you bless your family and your home. I downloaded her app and resolved to do exactly what she told me, no questions asked.

Jeff, bless his soul, also downloaded her app and resolved to do his part as well. It takes a REAL MAN to be willing to put the FlyLady app on his phone!

Day by day, I did what she said, and I. Was. Shocked.

No more overwhelm. No more chaos. No more spending my entire Monday getting ready for Prayer Meeting/Dinner and then my entire Tuesday cleaning up afterwards. The next Monday I found myself with two free hours before anyone arrived. Food was made, my house was clean, the kids were occupied. I SAT DOWN AND READ A BOOK FOR TWO HOURS, PEOPLE.

I found myself so excited to have people over because I wasn’t dreading all the housework that needed to be done.

Now, you might be thinking, “No one cares if your house is clean, just have people over and don’t worry about it.”

I get that. I really do. I have never stressed about having the perfect house. I have NEVER not had someone over just because my house wasn’t clean. I’m so over that. But can I just be honest? It IS stressful when my bathroom is disgusting and the kids rooms are a disaster and my kitchen drawers are full of filth and I’m having twenty people over for dinner, and quite frankly true freedom, at least for me, isn’t “just don’t worry about it.”

Personally, I find joy and peace when things are ordered, reasonably clean (home-clean, not museum-clean), and I can focus on loving people.

The other huge difference I noticed was that during the first eight days of following FlyLady, we were able to have Family Night time with our big kids after Justice was in bed, for eight days in a row! (After that we had family in town which was fun too!)

We were able to have 1-2 hours of quality time with our big kids every single night. Why? Because everything was already in order. There was no martyr-mommy scurrying around the house trying to get some sort of order in place before the next day. There weren’t piles everywhere. We had finished our tasks, things were in place, and we were FREE to be with each other. Yes, please!

So what does all this have to do with one’s heart? Well, I was trying to put my finger on why this method was so much more successful for me than others. And I realized this:

Before, I cleaned by sight. Now, I cleaned by habit.

Here’s what I mean: before, I would clean things when they looked dirty. (Note: when they looked dirty to me.) In my opinion, it was silly to clean something that didn’t need cleaning. But there’s a subtle arrogance in that philosophy. It assumes that MY perspective is authoritative, and it maintains that only the things that BOTHER ME are worth dealing with.

If dirt doesn’t bother me, then who cares?

What if my guests care?

What if God cares?

Part of embracing a lifestyle of hospitality is recognizing our homes are not our own. They don’t exist only for us. They are meant to be missional outposts, given to us a refuge from the storm, for our families and those around us.

As I obeyed the FlyLady, I learned that I needed to do have certain habits in order to KEEP things clean.

Instead of reacting to dirt, I was preventing it.

Instead of looking for dirt, I was looking to the one who knows better than me about how to keep my house clean. I was humbling myself by recognizing that she knows better than me and if I really want her help I need to do what she says, regardless of what my eyes see.

Do you see where I’m going?

It was painfully clear, through this whole month, that this was just a picture of so much more going on in our hearts.

How often do I really do the work to get my heart clean before God? Do I do it when things get dirty? When my sin gets grubby enough that it starts to bother me? When it’s so visible that it’s embarrassing? When it starts getting in the way of my interactions with others?

Or do I deal with the issues in my heart before I even notice them?

Do I want to live life reacting to my sin, or rather do what God says daily in order to prevent it?

Do I want to spend my life looking for sin, or do I want to spend my life looking to God by cultivating the daily habits of Scripture, prayer, repentance, confession.

Here’s what surprised me most: Staying on top of things, via daily habits, actually requires LESS TIME overall. It’s actually easier, in the long run, to stay on top of things.

The same is true with sin.

The world tells me, “Don’t worry about cleaning your house! Just be authentic! Let people see your dirt! Don’t be ashamed of dirt!”

I know it’s just an over-reaction to the hyper-image-conscious plague of Pinterest, but let’s avoid both ditches.

The world also tells us, “Embrace yourself, just the way you are! Don’t let anyone judge you! Be authentic. Whatever you choose is right! You don’t need to clean yourself up at all!”

And yes, this is an over-reaction to performance-based moralistic religion that’s all about keeping up appearances.

But let’s avoid both ditches.

The truth is, I want a clean heart. Whether you see it, know it, or care about it; I long for a clean heart. Why? Because it’s what I was made for. God made me for freedom. He made me for LIFE. He knows that if I live my life bogged down by invisible sin-dirt I’ll never experience the joy of being free, being CLEAN.

He made a way on the cross, and He makes a way for me daily to come to Him in humble repentance and let Him clean up my heart.

Thank you, FlyLady for helping me learn to clean. Thank you, Jesus for saving my soul.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Psalm 51:10