A blue door and an altar of sorts.

This week I painted my kitchen door blue. Then I ghetto frosted the glass with contact paper. It was a seemingly harmless project but it took me a loooooooong time to get around to doing it. And now that it's done I am letting out a deep breath of relief, one that I didn't even know I had been holding for the last few months. I know what you're thinking. What's the big deal? It is just a door. It is just a kitchen. But it is so much more.
This door is freedom. It is joy in the midst of chaos. It is my pile of rocks.

A few nights ago as I stood at the stove whipping up an impromptu request for enchilada casserole, I was overcome with that I've-been-here-before sensation. Just 7 months before, I stood in that very spot, making the same dish. But I did it in a filthy kitchen that I couldn't change until I owned it a month later. I did it on the verge of tears as the electricity flickered and the roaches laughed at me. I did it with a deep heart cry and I found myself cursing the very house that had come to us as a massive blessing. I remember clear as day feeling like my world had turned upside down and swallowed me in the process. And I remember Jesus. His huge arm reaching down and yanking me out of the pit before I could even attempt to start the climb.

I love the New Testament for its freshness, for its grace, for the Gospel. But I love the Old Testament because it is full of rememberance. God's people were always building altars, sometimes as memorials for where He had met them, sometimes as a reminder of what He had promised, sometimes as a marker for where they'd been or where they were going, but always to remember.

It is so easy to get wrapped up in the quickness, the non stop crazy of this life. When we do, we forget that our weeping lasts just for a night, that the promise fulfilled is just around the corner.

Its time to start piling rocks. Its time to stop forgetting. Every time I catch a glimpse of that blue door my heart skips a little. I know where I've been. And I know where I'm going.

Next week will be a week of reveals. Our house isn't finished by any standard, but it sure is feeling like home. Stay tuned....

Holeyness or Holiness?

Anyone who knows me knows that cardigans are my favorite fashion staple. I have an arsenal of 10 or 12 of them that I mix and match faithfully Spring Summer and Fall to ward off the excessive Texas air conditioning. Like all good fashionistas, I have a favorite- a 7 year old grey and white striped AE boyfriend cardi... with a hole in the elbow. The thing about it is that I always forget and wear it anyway. The hole has a way of completely disappearing until it's stretched. It looks all cute and amazing until I slide my arm into the tiny sleeves. And while its slimming form fitting design is part of why I love it, I kick myself every time I realize, which is usually when someone else points it out. :/

True to form, God uses this cardi to speak volumes of Truth to me about my own ugly heart. There are so many "holes" that go unnoticed, tiny snags in my character that no one sees... but only till I'm stretched. Then those things present themselves as blazing badges of honor whether I want them to or not. And I have a choice. Keep ignoring them? Keep letting them shrink back into the threads on good days? Or do I let my Dad mend them? The thing with unmended holes is that they grow. And before you know it, you're exposed to the elements and there's a lot more at stake than your elbow.

I have been in a season of proving, fires large and small coming to purge things from my heart and mind. It has been awful and awesome and hard- but I'm so grateful for the careful attention of my Father. I want the stretching to shed light on things that need to be mended. I want the fire to burn out impurities and leave me refined. I want these ashes to be the remnant of a sweet offering.

This morning I was reading in Isaiah 5, and Father starting wrapping it all up for me. He's talking about a vineyard that He worked and tilled and labored over in hopes of sweet fruit but bitter grapes were all that grew. The passage is about Israel but the ears of my own heart were burning as I read it. Today I'm the vineyard. Today these words are for me. I can't wrap my mind around my Dad toiling over the garden of my life in hopes of sweet growth only to yield bitter fruit. I can't even really put into words the painful twinge in my heart when I think of it. I want God's hopes burning bright in my life, not trampled and left destitute in a barren vineyard.
Is. 5:7 " I tended with care. I had hoped for honesty and for justice, but dishonesty and cries for mercy were all I found."

Ouch. Let it not be so of me.

I hope this finds you stretched and bearing the sweet fruit of a yielded mended heart.  Happy Thursday.

The day my pot holder died.

And also the day that I almost burned down the kitchen- atleast that was one scenario that flashed through my mind as I freeeeeeeaked out.

Yesterday was Wednesday, church day, long day, insane day. It's on this day every week that wild things happen during the day. I'm assuming its just a feeble attempt to keep me off my game for ministry in the evenings. But so far the day was going super smooth. The boys finished school by 11 and I was in the thick of an awesome lunch- sloppy joes and oven baked fries. From scratch. I had just put the buttered buns in the oven to toast when I knelt down to show sweet Jere boy a glimpse of the French fries. He got really excited but not about my fries. He was more interested in the FIRE blazing at the bottom of the oven- the one attached to my pot holder that was also in the bottom of the oven.

What?!? If anyone else had been in the house I would have blamed them. Because there's no possible way that I did something that cool, right? I immediately opened the oven and stared at the flames. Here's where it gets weird. I froze. I had no idea what to do. I grabbed two metal utensils and pulled the burning potholder out of the bottom, letting it rest on the glass- full blaze. I yelled for one of the older boys to help with Jere, just as the smoke detector decided to kick in. And then I really couldn't think. I kept trying to smother it out with a metal spoon with no success. Finally my 10 year old filled a bowl with water and brought it to me, one dunk in the liquid and the fire was out. Ridiculous.

Until this day I would have sworn to you that I totally knew all the right things to do in such a moment. But in my desperation I forgot it- all of it. And then the Holy Spirit started whispering to my heart. "You think you know by you have no idea." That doesn't just apply to MTV celebs. My mind was immediately flooded with memories of Girl Scouts and fire training. Where had all of those street smarts gone?? Why had I turned so lame? There's a difference between wisdom and smarts. Wisdom takes root in your heart- it doesn't matter how much book knowledge you have if you can't draw on it in a practical way.

The same goes for the Word. Wisdom comes by soaking in God's character. It's not enough to memorize the words or read until we're blue in the face. True wisdom comes when we seek God's heart and pray for ours to change, to transform, to pattern after His.

It's so easy to try and put out the "fires" in life with our head smarts. But it's wisdom that we need. It's wisdom and Truth that the world around us craves- even if they don't know it yet.

How many crispy pot holders do you have hanging around? Happy Thursday :)

Picking up the pieces...

... Of one of my dining chairs :/

Three days ago I had one of those awful, crisis- infused days of renovations. I started off the week with high hopes of making huge strides in the kitchen, knocking it out with such speed and awesomeness that I'd have plenty of time to dive into the craft room. it is still a mess of furniture piled in the center of the room with walls and trim begging for primer and paint. Not so. Here it is, Thursday, and not only am I squeezing in a poor excuse of a blogpost, but Im doing so with little to show for my efforts this week.

It played out like this, totally worthy of the reality/ sit com that is my life. I was in the kitchen, scraping the existing vinyl sheet flooring off the ground, because it was lifting and I didn't want to just add to the problem by layering. I hadn't really factored in the amount of time it would take me to scrape the adhesive away, and the amount of upper body strength ( that I most certainly do not have) it would require to pull all of the vinyl out. I was having to move appliances around as I worked, and in my enthusiasm pulled too hard too fast and left some gaping craters in the floor. Argh. This required the purchase of a patching compound before I could lay the new floor. No big deal, except that we are currently down to one car and I spend most days at home with no way to leave. Boom. Enter massive frustration.

In just the next room, my boys are snacking. My 7 year old is feeding my 2 year old an avocado. He is super excited about his very favorite food (also prone to flinging it, thus the help) and keeps climbing onto the table to get closer to the spoon. Despite my best efforts and constant nagging for him to sit on his rear, the inevitable happens. I am drawn from my flooring crisis by a loud crack and a silent baby. I run in shouting 'what happened?' over and over again to find him lying on his back on the chair that is obviously flipped backwards. I scoop him up, hush his now blood-curdling scream, inventory bumps and bruises, and lean over to reposition the chair. That's when the back completely fell out. On top of everything, he broke my chair?!

I moved the chair into the corner of the room and mentally noted that it was "un fixable" and would have to be replaced. Yesterday I finally made time to search the Ikea site for a replacement chair and was less than thrilled to find that my new chair would be another $60 (a huge hit to our reno budget) and that they didn't sell this color anymore. So, I set my mind on repairing it. With some liquid nails and some paint it will be almost as good as new, just a little scarred. And it will always be a reminder of this wacky season of life. That's kind of awesome.

Father instantly turned it into an afternoon devo. How many things, people, situations have I written off as un fixable? When in reality, the effort of repair is part of the process, and totally worth it. And the scar? It always tells a story. Let me be found mending, encouraging, loving, and pressing through. He is telling an incredible story with my life.

Also, when you wonder why I never blog anymore, keep in mind that I'm probably doing something ridiculous- fishing rodents from walls or stepping in drywall mud or falling between the couch and chaise lounge while painting trim. These amazing stories will all be yours to share soon.

Happy Thursday.

the sting of things.

This business of diving back into my blog has been an arduous process. I've been coming up with all sorts of reasons why I can't, but today I ran out of excuses. I'll start by dealing with the elephant in the room.... my complete withdrawal from every single thing that God undeniably purposed me to do. Sewing, crafting, creating, writing, dreaming- you name it, I shelved it. Ugh.

Here's the skinny. I spent a weekend at a ladies retreat and had all sorts of face palm moments. It would take me hours to share all of the crazy cool stuff that Father is showing me about restoration and stillness and purpose, but I can't even go there, not yet. I have to start at the beginning. I have to start with the thing that had me convulsing in my seat, ugly crying for the whole world to watch.

LIES.

The devil's so dumb. We moved back to Texas in October after 15 months of being transplanted to Virginia. I came back with so many lessons under my belt, so many new passions. I also came back with some serious baggage. I was hurt, not surfacey bandaid-able scratches, but deep cuts to the heart. And I was just running around bleeding all over everybody.

Just the other day my boys were watching a nature show about Africa. They love that nonsense. I walked in just in time to see a giant hand-sized wasp. If you're like me, then you feel like anything that has a stinger is the spawn of Satan himself. The tiniest honey bee can send me into arm-flailing screaming fits. So this Satan bug is an Africa tarantula wasp. It kills by injecting it's victim with a paralyzing venom, and subsequently injecting an egg into their stomach area. The egg then hatches and eats the spider alive from the inside out- emerging as a full grown adult. Oh.My.Goodness. Gross.

 I've spent most my 32 years touting an ability to remain unscathed by people and their opinions. Pffft. You don't love people. Crafting is a hobby, a waste of time, God can't use that. You're just a housewife. You spend too much time chasing things that don't matter. Photography isn't important if you're not going to make a job of it. If ministry was important to you, then your kids wouldn't be an issue.  You haven't made any friends here, because you refuse to make this your home. You're moving back because you love Texas more than you love us. You don't know how to hear God's voice. Some of these things are direct quotes. Some of them are just paraphrased versions of what I "heard" in my heart. Whoa. I let these things, these seemingly small rotten things that people said to me... about me, take root in my heart. They were planted deep, and together they hatched as self-doubt, fear, withdrawal, disinterest, and lack of purpose. Even lies bear fruit when you start believing them. I was being eaten alive.

Acts 8:23 For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity....

My first mistake? Entertaining the wasp. I invited him in, close enough to sting. That's not hard to do. You just simply cut yourself off from the truth, stop spending time in God's presence and you step into dangerous territory. My second mistake was letting myself get bitter over it all. How dumb. If you're bound up in lies, or hurtful words, forgive. And then recognize that your best defense against lies is truth. I was very much alive, still connected, still searching, but so paralyzed. It took a moment of stillness, of pulling away from busy-ness and chaos to see what Father had been whispering for months. The noise around me was just too loud for me to hear. I am rejoicing today over God's purposes, over His delight in setting His kids free, and over every single passion that He's spent the last two weeks unearthing and dusting off. He redeems all things. I am pressing in, EVERY day to hear from Him. I am done believing untruths, done returning to hurt feelings, done letting them stir my heart and steer my course. Are you?

Express Yourself.

So I have been editing lots of photos of my boys lately. I have come to the conclusion that while my Matthew is just a tiny clone of my husband allllllll the way, he has my ridiculous facial expressions. He has amazing control of his eyebrows. Anyone who's ever gotten the stank eye from me can tell you he comes by it naturally. He is also extremely loud. We've often joked that he doesn't really have a volume control, and I can't tell you how often every.single.day I have to ask him to use his "inside voice." Everything he does is just crazy expressive. And I LOVE it. Actually, it's one of my favorite things about him.

This got me thinking. What's so bad about being expressive?! Why are people so afraid to be seen and heard? I love that my boys aren't afraid to be different. I love it because just like anything else, outside of a relationship with Jesus, it could be crippling in life. But with Father breathing His plan all over Matthew's little life, it can only bring blessing. As for me, I'm raising three boys that are wildly expressive. They will no doubt be leaving massive impressions on the world as they grow. I hope you will too :)

these taken over a dinner at Chilis, never a dull moment :)

listen closely.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Highschool was full of all sorts of craziness, but mostly all my memories are wrapped up in my best friend, Robbi. She was like another sister to me. We spent lots of time together, went on summer vacations, had frequent sleepovers- the usual girly stuff. It was pretty awesome. We were crazy impressionable and changed ourselves to stay in with current culture. This made for some super awkward phases- grunge, preppy, hippie... we tried it all. One such phase was when she obsessed over dolphins and I obsessed over manatees. Our rooms were clad with posters and stuffed animals. We sported WWF (world wildlife fund, not wrestling) t-shirts and I even had a manatee charm that I wore around my neck. It's sort of comical when I think of it now, but even still I've got a soft spot for those gentle giants being maliciously ate up by the props of boats infringing on their shallow waters.
It was during this time that I learned a valuable life lesson... stay tuned. This is where it gets juicy.

I have always had this thing for tuna fish. It's like a weird comfort food for me. I guess it's from the old campbell's tuna casserole days, I don't know. But even in highschool I loved it. Robbi on the other hand, did not. She would always cringe. And one day, she scolded me with all the reasons why tuna fishing was bad for dolphins. She included details of dolphins stuck in nets and all sorts of horror stories- to which I quickly argued that they had totally fixed that with dolphin-friendly legislation. She wasn't buying it, though. She innocently asked me "What do you think that grey is in the can?!" I was horrified. Was I eating helpless wounded dolphins mixed into my tuna???? I never questioned her, not out right anyway. After all, she said it with such conviction that is had to be true. I didn't eat tuna for months. Until...(dun,dun,dun) until my mom laughed out loud at my disgust and said "Bekah, tuna skin is grey." Cue blushing embarrassment. I hadn't considered that, not for a second. How silly. For the record, Robbi is still one of my most treasured friends, and I've said many many more "cool" things to her than this. We are now much older and wiser than our highschool selves.

The moral of this story? You can't always believe what you hear, even when especially when, it's coming from someone you love immensely. When people we love to pieces tell us things with intense conviction behind their words, it's so easy to swallow the pill without reading the label. Society is getting wild. And people are saying all sorts of things. Make sure you take it all to Jesus and see how He weighs in. You might be surprised at how laughable some of it is.

Hope this finds you checking your sources... Happy Wednesday :)