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This world can be a heavy place.
The kind of heavy that presses down and makes it hard to breathe.
We rush to outrun pain and busy ourselves to forget the crushing weight of days and months and years that don’t turn out the way we thought they would. All of us who have lived a little while know it, that pounding of a frenzied heart racing to keep a desperate body moving. And we push on like we’re been chased by time, carrying that airless ache in our chests.
Jesus’ followers
“And what do you do?”
It’s a normal question, a defining question. Tell me what you do with your time, so I can understand who you are.
For a lot of us, if we’re honest, the answer would be, “I wait.”
We wait for the next thing, wait for the kids to be grown, wait for our ship to come in, wait for the right relationships, wait for our dreams to come true and our questions to be answered. And sometimes the waiting drives us a little out of our minds.
We fidget and spin circles, and our impatience drives us so hard against tomorrow that we forget to see today.
We forget to see the truth.
Waiting is close to God’s heart.
We’re born with an instinct to be curled inward, legs pulled up and fists closed tight. It’s what feels natural and comfortable. As we grow, our bodies adapt and learn to function stretched tall and open, but a lot of us keep living in an emotional fetal position. We’re afraid to be seen and known. We’re afraid of pain and loss and not having enough.
Enough protection.
Enough strength.
When an old year slides out like a sigh and another one begins, there’s a natural pause at the cusp of all the newness. A lot of us stop and do some thinking.
What do I want from this new year?
How do I kick off the things that have been tying me down in my health, my finances, my career, my relationships?
How do I find freedom?
She was young. Probably really young.
And probably really scared.
She had never done this before. Mary had never birthed a baby, never groaned hard through such intense pain. There were stable smells, and there was blood, and there were ancient prophecies hanging in the air over it all.
We are gaping empty.
This month — the very first month Grow Box is available — we’ve chosen “kindness” as our theme. Sort of curious, isn’t it? After all, “kindness” isn’t a hot topic, a common blog theme, or a subject that hits with a sassy punch.
So why kindness? ...
Hello there,
I will never forget when my oldest daughter faced her first round of college exams. She was away from home, and she was stressed!
I remember scrambling, store to store, to find the perfect items to offer encouragement...