Celebrating in the Midst
We must approach celebration as a spiritual discipline, a rebellious act of worship we practice on the good days, the hard days, and the ordinary days. When we’ve spent time earnestly rehearsing a spiritual response, it becomes a part of who we truly are. With the ingrained discipline of sacred celebration, we can live and respond from a place of truth, rather than a place of regret or despair.
Calling & Limitations
Limitations don’t have to be losses; they can be the avenues to our flourishing. This is particularly true if we stay focused and creative within their boundaries, if we care for and cherish what’s inside them.
Sacred Tears
Yes friend, the Lord has purpose you for. There may not be healing on this earth but there will be fruit. There is a deep longing in each to understand who we are and why we exist, and, for some of us, our suffering is the very vehicle to this understanding. Your purpose will look different than mine, but it will absolutely impact other people because God created us first for himself and then for each other.
Maybe They’ve Never Seen Someone Without Feet
At just ten years old, Jude offered the antidote to shame to a crowd of four hundred misty-eyed people, most of whom were older than he and many of whom have typical bodies. Through the unexpected teacher of pain, Jude has learned what most of us will never fully understand: we were all made in the image of God, and we don’t have to be ashamed.
Eyes to See
I used to believe that on Earth, most of us received an equal distribution of pain; we all had a comparable storm to endure. But after two storms in my first quarter of a century—my dad’s suicide and a seventeen-hour brain surgery—I started to wonder if maybe this wasn’t true. Maybe pain didn’t play fair.
Luxury Problems
None of us can control much, but we can control our response in life. Each unexpected moment presents us with that opportunity to focus on the bitterness or the blessing.
For What Didn’t Happen
He has permitted certain pains, but He has spared you from far more than you could ever begin to comprehend, neither as a punishment nor as a reward but as a means in which to more fully understand His grace.
What You Get When You Choose Gratitude
This rhythm of thanking God even in the loss of expectation begins to retrain our minds to recognize Him sometimes withholding not just the things we desire but blessedly, the things we most fear.
Naming the Good
It is our choice, perhaps our duty even, to see this good and to call it by name. We must tell each other the story, from the grandiose themes to the name of the smallest beloved one, and in so doing we make manifest the story of hope that is within us all, and it is good.
The Thorns
Since we know the end of the story, we can confidently endure, moreover embrace, the depth of suffering guaranteed in our own days. It is impossible to live in the joy of new life if we don't first internalize just how far we've been taken away from death.
Returning to El Matador
Whatever mountain you may need to climb up or valley you may need to descend into, you should do it. The path will likely be worn and steep but the precious time spent there will be well worth the journey.
Survival Guide: Lisa & Eric Barlow
Life isn't over. It took me some time to figure that out, and there were moments when I had wished it was. Looking at it now, I realize that we have been able to fulfill so many of our dreams, it has just looked different than we had planned.
An Abundance of Hope
As we suffer, we learn to depend, again, not on our own work, but on the work of Christ, and thus, we persevere, our focus shifts from ourselves to the reality of hope beyond.
The Good/Hard Life
When we choose to embrace the stories we’re living and release the stories we wished for, we can know in our deepest places that this good story is being written a God who can’t write any other kind of story.
Joyful Rebellion
What if we could see celebration as a form of worship—a necessary, life-giving acknowledgement of God's goodness?