He’s been teaching me these past many months the art of letting go. Letting go of the old in order to embrace the new. Letting go of what is not working so that He can bring to me what will. Letting go of trying to fix it or work it out on my own, instead allowing Him to bring His perfect will and plans into my life.

Letting go of the old ideas that are not based on the THE living word of God, letting go of the soul-draining stuff that tries to graft itself into my mind instead.

Someone from a great classic piece of literature said something like this, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” What a weight that would be to bear. I’m grateful to know that I don’t have to helm my own ship, chart my own course, and keep my finger to the wind constantly.

There is great peace that comes with letting go.

For a control-oriented person like me, letting go is never easy. Letting go of my children, letting go of carefully laid plans, letting go of relationnships, letting go of failures…

But I’ve found that there is almost always a direct compensation for letting go. He is always faithful to fill me with new hopes, new ideas, new dreams and – more importantly – fresh faith, fresh vision, fresh excitement.

Letting go means getting to free-fall back into the all powerful and loving arms of God and RESTING. Resting like David, who in Psalm 131 wrote,

“I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

I have a grateful heart today. I came across this poem a while back and it seems to fit perfectly with my quieted thoughts.

As children bring their broken toys
With tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God,
Because He was my friend.
But then instead of leaving Him,
In peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help,
With ways that were my own.
At last, I snatched them back and cried,
“How can you be so slow?”
“My child,” He said, “What could I do?
“You never did let go.

- Author Unknown

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”  ~ Hans Hofmann

“Hey!” Kendall walked into the kitchen. It was the twinkle in her eyes more than her excited tone that captured my attention. “Can you come here for a minute?”

I dried my hands on a towel and then followed her into the living room. She walked to the hutch which now housed the collection of salt and pepper shakers I had inherited from my grandmother. I thought for sure she must have more questions about them. She reached one tiny hand out but – instead of fingering one of the sets in fascination like she had earlier – she pointed to the round tin with the letters S I M P L I F Y stenciled on the side that sat tucked out of the way on the bottom shelf.

“Did you know – ” Her voice lowered to a bare hush “- that there’s change in there?”

I did know, but often forgot.

I had picked up the tin at a little store in Jefferson last year during our annual cousins trip. Mike and I had just entered Phase I of our “Big Adventure” and the message on this can was a ready reminder that everything we might be sacrificing in the short term was going to pay large dividends in the long term.

We placed it on this shelf and had gotten into the habit of dropping all of our spare change into it. A few quarters here, the occasional dime found in the sofa or dryer, and the bevy of pennies which never fail to accumulate in the change holder of my pocketbook.

Over the course of many months it had become quite a nice change cache. One that we rarely thought about, except when dropping in that weeks’ collection. But for a curious six-year old…well, she thought she’d just hit some serious pay dirt.

Kendall’s words still linger with me – even now, almost a full year later.

There’s change in here.

The irony isn’t lost to me.

Mike and I have made a very deliberate choice to live the simple life. Not just A simple life, but THE simple life. Making daily choices that bring us closer to our ultimate goal. This exists for us in the physical and in the spiritual.

Physically, we’re working toward a place we want to create for us and for our families. A place that will be the legacy we hand down to our kids, and watch their kids enjoy it as well. It’s where we’ll gather for holiday dinners, where we’ll gather for much-needed recuperation, and it is especially where we’ll meet to slow down the busyness that is this life and savor the small things. This is the place where we plan to grow old together, sipping early morning coffee on a back deck and hosting large, loud family weekend dinners in our outdoor living area. It will be the hub of happiness and hope, where love is the constant that bonds us all.

But this place of simplicity is also a real place in our hearts. A destination that we both seek with hungry hearts and thirsty spirits. It is the place of sanctity and rejuenvation that we find when we draw close to the Master, when we seek and find His will for our lives. It is in these moments that I breathe the most deeply, drawing in all that is REAL, all that is TRUE. Complications melt away, worries are abated, and my heart undergoes much needed change.

The plan is in place, physically and spiritually,  and we’re taking daily, constant steps that are drawing us closer and closer to this exciting, ultimate goal. But sometimes - in the midst of THE RIGHT NOW – when the issues of work and the busyness and craziness that come with our schedules rears up…I forget.

I forget that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

I forget that life really is simple, and that it is us who insist on making it complicated.

I forget that we will  have succeeded in life when all we really want is only what we really need.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. (Hosea 10:12 KJV)

There is change in here!

I know this, and don’t want to forget. This morning it is fresh on my mind and newly imprinted on my heart.

Change resides in simplicity. Simplicity seeks the heart of  Him. That is what I am in pursuit of.

Not that I deserved the blessings – never, ever will that be the case. But maybe I felt that, by receiving them, I’d reached some sort of apex. A finish line, of sorts.

That’s how I used to think. Now I know differently.

Blessings are not what bring fulfillment to this life. If you don’t believe this, think back over the blessings in your life. The new house? It’s beautiful, wonderful, exactly what you’d dreamed of.

But at the end of the day, when you lay down to sleep, it’s still a house. With responsibilities, chores, and pressures built right in. And eventually your family will outgrow even the new house, and you’ll want a larger, nicer one.

A promotion? It’s what we all want, what we work so diligently toward. But again, it’s a job, and as with any job, there are multi-faceted issues that make it seem less than a blessing on many days. And one day, even that dream job will appear stale, and you’ll find it no longer satisfies.

We always want more.

The same is true with our spiritual blessings. Just beyond blessings, lies another place. A place we don’t like to talk of much, let alone visit.

Brokenness.

When we reach that point, that’s where we truly meet Him. Whether walking upright, or crawling in on our hands and knees, we stumble into His presence and find the true will of God. Those are the moments we realize we are in His perfect will.

It may not always be the most comfortable spot to be. It may not be the place of importance or stature we thought we wanted.

It may take us outside personal comfort zones and force us into situations that are foreign and unfamiliar. But it’s in those places we find new levels of relationship with God. Blessings are a sign He loves us. In spite of all our faults, our failures, our inadequacies, He loves us still.

But brokenness is a sign we’ve tapped into a new realm of relationship.

“So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” ~ Jeremiah 18: 3-4

Think of Abraham. Isaac, the son of his old age, was nothing short of a blessing straight from God. But as Isaac lay on the altar of sacrifice, Abraham was brought to a place of brokenness.

The blessing was no longer enough. It was only after that time of brokenness that Abraham was brought into a new realm of relationship with God.

And what about Job? No one would ever dispute that blessings were abundant in Job’s life. If blessings were a sign of favor, well, Job certainly had favor.

But it was only after losing these blessings, and coming to a place of brokenness, that Job was at last lifted to a new realm. A place he would never have reached had it not been for brokenness.

Brokenness leaves us transparent, needy, and vulnerable.

It also leaves us in a place to be reshaped, remolded, and fashioned into vessels He can truly use.

“Can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand?” ~ Jeremiah 18:6

Beyond the blessings…

Sometimes they are the very thing you didn’t even know you needed.

I sat in the airport terminal a couple of weeks ago, my heart literally torn, struggling to be in two places at once. We were about to board a plane for a long anticipated trip when I received word that my best friend’s brother had just passed away.

The past few days had been spent with Cheryl and—though I knew the prognosis was grave—I had somehow hoped I’d be back and able to be at her side when the end came. Instead I was miles away in body, even though my heart was right beside her and her precious family.

News like this prompts all kinds of thoughts, but especially the deep ones, the ones we sometimes internalize because facing them proves too hard. I realized the pain that Cheryl and her siblings faced at that moment was an agony that I just couldn’t imagine.

Almost without thinking, I began to text my own brother, sharing the news and—afterwards—odds and ends about a lot of nothing. Right before I boarded the plane for Dublin though, I received one last text from Kevin.  I’ll never be the same after it.

I’m sorry to be saying this in a text instead of in person. But I love you. We don’t have six siblings. You are the only sister I’ll ever have and even though I don’t say it enough, I love you.

He was saying the very words that had been rolling around in my heart for the past week. All the times we’d talked about ‘nothing’ was really my way of just making contact with him. Watching Cheryl and her family face a premature good-bye was propelling me to search my own heart and my own relationships. It was a reminder to take hold of each day, each moment, and to love those dear to my heart with a fierce intensity. Tomorrow is not promised.

“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” James 4:14

Why is it that it is the hardest thing to say the simplest words? Or maybe—it’s just never easy to say the hard things, the things that touch our hearts the deepest and cause us to feel the most emotion. And yet this day was a reminder that it is only those simple sentiments that really amount to any substance at all. Give me someone who’ll speak to my heart instead of my head any day of the week. Those folks are far with few between and they are the real players on the stage of  my life.

I saved the message and read it several more times while away. I pray that I can find ways and words to let Kevin know much more often—as well as the others that I love—that they are treasures today. Tomorrow is not promised, but today is a day to love and to love deeply.

I’m thankful for the gift of my brother–my childhood playmate who is truly one of my best grown-up friends today. I’m thankful for the gift of his words on a day when I needed to hear them.

It was a gift in an unexpected package.

A gift I didn’t even know I needed, but surely…certainly…did.

And then there are those other milestones. The ones that don’t necessarily get earmarked as “special” until much later, when our minds revisit them and we smile in memory. They may be words spoken, moments shared, or just a meeting of the mind.

We had a few of those milestones this past week. Four of the “littles” in our life came to spend a week and we heaped up a great big pile of those “other” milestones. The sights and sounds of four cousins sharing laughs and projects made us look at one another and smile, knowing we were earmarking yet another moment that we’d revisit later.

This morning, as I think back over the past seven days, and all the many small moments that added up to create one gigantic good time for all, I can’t help but think how God must smile a gentle smile each and every time we do or say or behave in a way that touches His heart.

The times we delight in the nature around us, the moments we step outside of ourselves and do for others, and—maybe most importantly of all—the days we stop everything else and look only to Him…these are milestones in the eyes of God.

It’s all too easy to become so caught up in the fast-paced way of life. We tend to want it all, and we usually want it now. Yet the best things in life have always been at our disposal, if only we have the eyes with which to view them. Loving relationships with those entrusted to our care, time spent engaged in the important things and not just the urgent things, and the ability to see past ourselves and our own needs in order to fulfill His word.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”   ~Mark 12:30-31

I watched the four cousins this past week and observed that the times they laughed the hardest and smiled the biggest were those moments when they were doing for one another. Making a get-well sign for Kendall, practicing with their teammate for the kareoke competition, cheering for Carter at his championship baseball game, reaching out to take a nearby hand as they ran along the banks of the lake at sunset.

These four created milestones. I feel certain they are moments of time that will forever be earmarked as treasured memories. What they may never know is how watching them create those moments also earmarked our own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They served as a reminder to slow down and savor the small things.

Life is full of the major celebrations that mark passages of our life.

But it’s the small celebrations of life that mark our growth in Him.

Soul food.

The gathering together of like-minded girlfriends who, for all of our vast differences and interests, are forever bonded by years of tried and tested friendship. Years that have brought changes, presented challenges, and caused us to up our game just a few more times than we might have liked. One friend coined us her “inner circle”  – because she found strength within our group that allowed her to be all she needed in the other roles in her life.

As years have passed, we’ve all taken our turns needing that inner circle. We promise to catch each other, and we do our best. Sometimes we mess up. But sometimes we hit it out of the ballpark. We’re a work in progress, always changing, growing, learning from the experiences life is granting us. Along the way new friends join in, and its the strength of the old friends that reaches out, embraces, and gladly widens the circle. Because we’ve all discovered something. Friendship is best when multiplied.

“The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.” – Proverbs 27:9

Soul food.

Time with the women in my life who teach me more and more with every passing year about this thing called friendship. Women who are amazing mothers, loving wives, and staunch caregivers who all radiate beautiful auras around our friendship circle. Women who have diverse backgrounds and common values. Women who love God, their families, and each other. In that order.

Friday evening my friends will begin to arrive for the weekend and I can hardly wait. I have a whole plethora of things I want them to experience during these two days in my new country home. The quietness of our back deck, uniquely surrounded by deep woods, a wide expanse of meadow, and the occasional glimpse of cows or deer. The quaintness of my new town, with its delightful antique shops and a tea room with just enough nooks and crannies to feel as though it were made for a group of girlfriends to giggle and catch up in. And – last but certainly not least – the deep tranquility my soul is finding in the simple life.

While I have a carefully planned itinerary for the weekend, I’ve hosted enough parties and get-togethers to know that nothing ever goes quite as planned. That’s exactly what makes these times so wonderfully special. You just never know when one story will spark another, and then that story creates spontaneous laughter that could end in either snorting or sobbing. Either way, emotions will have been tapped and that amazing thing called sisterhood will once again have arrived and wrapped her willowy arms around us all.

Soul food.

Friendship is a gift from God. True friendship, the kind that sticks around when the going gets tough. The kind that loves even when it may not always like. The kind that is a part of our very innermost being and makes us feel like a bit of a better human being simply for having experienced it. If love makes the world go ’round, then surely friendship is the seatbelt that keeps you safe on the ride.

So while this weekend may, in fact, turn out to not resemble the vision I have for it in my mind, I know it will be everything it needs to be. Years from now my friends may not remember the backyard dinner I prepared for them. They may not recall the exact stories told, who started what, or even when and why we got together. But I pray that they will remember that there was laughter, and lots of it. They’ll recall the warmth of the conversations, the hilarity of being honest and real. And they’ll remember the love of the inner circle.

They’ll remember the soul food that was served.

I can hardly wait!

“Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.”  ~ Romans 6:13

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in my garden lately. And – as Easter has drawn closer – I’ve found myself comparing the new life in the ground before me to the new life we find in Jesus. As I tend my garden I realize that my heart needs tending every bit as much as the ground I kneel on.

New life – new beginnings – brings promise. What is not always seen at first is that the Promise needs room to work.

This is my first time to give gardening a go and – I have to say – I find it challenges me every bit as much as it inspires me. I very carefully planted row after row of all the things I could imagine seeing on our family dinner table over the course of the spring and summer. Succulent melons, squash in every variety, juicy tomatoes, vibrant red and yellow peppers, aromatic herbs…

When everything was in the ground – staked, labeled, and ready to go – I stood at dusk and watered the plot of land that would soon bring forth the bounty for my table. The smell of freshly tilled earth mixed with the deep red clay of East Texas was enough to make me close my eyes, breath in deeply, and smile with deep-down pleasure.

It was going to be good.

My idealism over how well my garden would grow was quickly squelched at the appearance of …weeds. Hidden at first, they began to slowly break through the soil, as though peeking around to make sure they could creep in, undetected. They seemed so harmless, in fact, that I walked away those first few days, still certain that nothing could deter the promise of a full harvest.

It took a few days, but then I began to notice how the weeds seemed to be growing stronger while my plants began to show signs of battle and fatigue. The healthy, luscious leaves of my vegetables began to droop and wilt with the effort to maintain life. The herbs – so full of aroma – began to bend into the wind, as though giving up in defeat.

It took this awareness – this knowledge that something was invading and seeking to destroy what I had so painstakingly placed in the earth – for me to take action. I went to my knees, prepared to do battle myself, wrangling the weeds, cutting them off at the source of their power, kicking them out of the boundaries of all I held dear.

Life is like that, isn’t it?

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” ~ 2Cr 5:17

We lovingly plant the garden of our life, heaping mounds of fresh love and devotion to the many hopes and dreams we place in the soil of our hearts. We water them with prayers and with tears of thanksgiving and praise.

It is going to be good.

But then the weeds creep in, slowly at first, as though peeking around to make sure they are undetected. Busyness, sickness, responsibilties…things that seem harmless at first. So we walk away, confident that nothing will deter the promise of a full harvest of the heart.

The seemingly harmless soon leaves us helpless though, if left on our own. The healthy, luscious leaves of our soul  begin to droop and wilt with the effort to maintain the rigors of life. The sweet aroma of life begins to wan – and we start to bend into the wind.

We go to our knees and do battle in the only way we can. We pull out the creeping vines that tangle with our thoughts and hopes. We prepare to do battle, wrangling the weeds, cutting them off at the source of their power, kicking them out of the boundaries of all we hold dear. We secure faith, and then water it to make sure it can begin to grow again. We take a moment and remember that new beginnings and fresh starts can only come when properly tended.

This Easter I am remembering my Savior – the ultimate Gardner – and the painstaking way he tends to my heart and cares for my life. Beneath His hands, I am a plant with a hope and a dream and a promise of continuous new life in Him. As His plant though, I must yield to the pruning of my soul. I must submit to the tending that must occur to allow room for new growth.

The Promise comes when tended.

“He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.” ~ Titus 3:5

His name is Walter. You  know, the faceless guy who gives you minute-by-minute driving directions. The same one that announces, “You missed your exit. One moment. Redirecting.” Walter and I had made several trips together before this night, and he’d not given me any reason to doubt him before now.

Yet—as darkness settled down amongst the trees on either side of this narrow county road—heaviness settled on my shoulders. The beauty from the sunset quickly lost its glow for me as I realized I was alone on back roads that were strange to me. And growing stranger by the minute.

Walter broke into my thoughts, causing me to jump at the sound of his voice. “Turn left in 800 yards.”

I swallowed hard, glancing around me. I wasn’t at all sure that Walter was right this time.

Trees—tall and close together—were all I could see on either side of me. There were none of the telltale markers I’d been assured I would see.

I fought against the pounding in my heart and the uncertainty that taunted my mind.

At 800 yards…I turned. Walter had told me too, after all…

I drove on—in blind faith—for another three or four miles. Just as I was about to succumb to the fear and the anxiety, I began to catch glimpses of those markers. And then I heard Walter’s voice again.

“You have reached your destination.”

This jaunt down an unfamiliar country road  so closely parallels my journey through life at times. Just when I feel surrounded by unsurmountable obstacles, just when I feel isolated and alone, just when I feel I have lost my way…

I hear His voice.

Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. – Psalm 37:3

I may not always see the way clearly. I may not always maintain confidence in my path. I may not even make the trip without doubt or without fear.

My job is to continue the journey.

His voice has never given me any reason to doubt His direction before.

Blind faith tells me I will one day hear these sweet words…

“You have reached your destination.”

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -Elizabeth Stone

There was a time when I thought this road called Motherhood would one day become breezy.

One day when ear infections and the middle-of-the-night stomach flu were a thing of the past. One day when homework no longer required my assistance and lunches no longer needed packing. One day when they’d shop for their own clothes and purchase the extras with – could it be – their own money.

Now I know differently.

There are no breezy sections on this Motherhood Road.

Whether our children are two, twenty-two, or forty-two, we feel their pain in a way that is so exquisite that there is yet to be a word created that would aptly describe it. It takes us to the very brink of all we think we can feel or think or experience…and then the very next day it surprises us all over again in completely new ways.

It has been said that pain is the best teacher in the world. And while a part of me really wants to balk at this, particularly in the case of motherhood, I find that I still agree with it.

The pain of motherhood – of loving this extension of yourself so much that your heart bleeds when they hurt – teaches us about what is good and right and truly important in this world. More and more these days, I am reminded of what is no longer fundamentally important to me. Instead I cling to what I know.

And I know that my purpose is to love and to nurture and to find joy in the simple things.

The lesson that’s been on my plate lately – the same one I’ve had to repeat several times – has been one on acceptance. Accepting what is and letting go of preconceived expectations and even plans and goals I may have had for my children. What I’m learning is that in letting go I am receiving something so rich and so full that my mother’s heart almost can’t contain it all.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. - Psalm 139:16

 I am receiving the fullness of joy that comes with true peace of mind.

And that’s pretty breezy, let me tell ya!

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” II Timothy 1:7

When I think about some of the women who have made the largest impact on my life, I find that these women quite often had a gentleness about them. A gentleness that I desperately would want to emulate. I can’t say the number of times that I would try to do just that, only to have my own personality rise to the surface again and again…and again.

I finally realized that I needed to embrace the ME that God created me to be. It wasn’t until I began to fall deeper and deeper into Him that I finally learned that this gentleness that I so wanted for myself was not merely a “personality” trait. It was an inherent trait that was a gift from God.

It’s not something that can be emulated. It’s not something that can even really be learned. It is simply something that is gifted gradually, as you learn more, trust more, give in more…to Him.

I read these words this morning, “A quiet and gentle spirit is a heart free from fear.”

I had to read it several times and think about it. And then read it a few more times. That is a powerful statement and, the more I read it, the more God opened up my understanding of it.

I’ve always wanted that gentleness for myself.

But I’ve always struggled with the fear factor.

Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of letting someone down, of dropping an important ball. Fear of the unexpected. Fear of the future. Fear of the past. Fear of my accomplishments.

In hindsight, it’s fear that has made me occasionally do some of those kind of crazy things. Fear speaks without thinking. Fear freaks out. It wanders on its own for solutions and explanations. It races to “fix things,” or at least searches for a way to figure them out.

Fear fusses and fidgets, messes and obsesses.

This morning my heart is repentant and I kneel before Him with an all-new understanding of both, fear and gentleness. I’ll try to remember from now on to fear in only these ways:

• Protected: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them:” (Psalm 34:7)
• Given wisdom: “Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose” (Psalm 25:12, NLT)
• A friend of God: “Friendship with the Lord is reserved for those who fear Him. With them He shares the secrets of His convenant.” (Psalm 25:14, NLT)
• Secure in God’s love: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:11)
• Provided for by God: “Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.” (Psalm 34:9)
• Satisfied: “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; he will not be visited with evil” (Proverbs 19:23, NKJV)

I want a lot, spiritually speaking. If I were to make a wish-list for all that I desire in this realm, I’d be hard-pressed to know what I want most. But I do know that somewhere very close to the top of that list would be this gentleness that is bred only by being rooted and secure in Him. In times of stress or lonely drought, I want to exercise faith, not fear. I want to radiate peace and joy.

I want a fearless beauty.