What Notes {and Words} Do You Keep?

August 18, 2011 By 3 Comments

Spiral Notebook

My friends and I didn’t pass notes during middle school.

Instead, we passed entire notebooks. Sharing a notebook with a friend – and passing it back and forth all day long – was all the rage.

It makes sense, really. First of all, it demanded exclusivity, the currency of junior high drama. But the benefits didn’t end there. We could write longer letters, we could refer back to previous notes if needed to win an argument, and handing a notebook to a classmate was much less conspicuous than handing off a piece of notebook paper folded into a heart.

What doesn’t make sense is keeping more than a dozen of these notebooks well past graduation. From college.

Besides being weird and immature, holding onto those notebooks wasn’t good for my heart. While some of them were inconsequential and painless to revisit, others contained words that hurt then – and hurt now.

It’s been many years since I ruthlessly cleaned out my cedar chest full of schoolgirl memories. I tossed those spiral-bound books in the trash with abandon (and, okay, just a twinge of sentimental regret). It hasn’t been quite as many years since I threw away another shoebox full of cards and notes from my adolescent days, but it was still quite a while ago.

And yet, some of the words linger.

To read the rest of this post, visit (in)courage.

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How to Follow When You’re Called to Stay

June 8, 2011 By 2 Comments

stop

I was raised in a traditional, small-town church. The congregation sat in pews and our pastor stood behind a pulpit. The choir wore robes, and service was always over before noon. There were no raised hands during worship, mainly because we were singing hymns and accompanied by an organ.

Every once in a while, though, we got all crazy and sang a song that wasn’t in the hymnal. Well, it was in the hymnal, but it was photocopied and taped into the front cover.

Oh, how I loved those few non-hymnal songs! When we sang them, I didn’t do anything crazy like tap my foot, although I did dare to close my eyes. And I’ll never forget the feeling that would sweep over me as we sang one in particular.

Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

Each time we sang that song, I belted it out, meaning every word. Standing there, in my small church in my small town, I vowed to go wherever God would send me.

To read the rest of my post, please visit me at (in)courage.

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Dressing Up My Walls with Red Letter Words

May 7, 2011 By 8 Comments

Jeremiah 29:11

For the first four years we lived in our house, we had a bookshelf in our living room. On top of the bookshelf were a couple picture frames and a lamp. I had my books arranged according to color, and the whole thing looked just perfect.

Then we had a baby. And that baby had books and lots of large toys – and no bookshelf. So we boxed up our books, moved the bookshelf into the nursery and began the nursery sprawl with a playhouse, then table and chairs, taking over that entire section of the living room.

After we took that little card table and chairs to my parents’ house at Christmas, it never made it back into the house. And I realized: I have a completely blank wall in my living room.

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to fill the space, but then I saw a Facebook post from Red Letter Words about their latest three-print set. It had one of my very favorite verses (Jeremiah 29:11) printed over three square tiles that came in black or chocolate – and I loved it!

Kind of long story a tiny bit shorter . . . Those prints are now on my living room wall, and I can’t stop looking at them! I debated between the brown and the black, and I’m happy to say that going with my husband’s preference – brown – was brilliant. They just look so great, with my dark brown leather couches and ottoman and tan walls. Love, love, love.

And we’ve just bought a white cube storage thing for my daughter’s room, so as soon as I can convince my husband to put it together, I’m getting my bookshelf back, too. Yes, it’s possible that I’ll once again have a grown-up living room.

If you haven’t heard of Red Letter Words, let me introduce you! Dee Kasberger, the artist and designer behind this lovely faith-inspired art, is one of my longest-running sponsors and (more importantly) is kind, generous and talented! She’s a wife and mom of four who began creating her modern wall art in 2004.

She says, “I was decorating my home and wanted wall art with an “erased chalkboard” look, but it was hard to find. I wanted something modern and casual but with a vintage touch and something that could complement my family photos and help to tell our story. So I decided to make my own art …”

Jeremiah 29:11

“[I believe] in truth and beauty. To me, everything is made more beautiful when it’s comfortable. There’s nothing in my home that’s so precious it’s untouchable. Maybe you’re the same way.”

Dee launched Red Letter Words in 2008 as a line of modern wall art featuring a clean, bold, vintage-modern typeface on a distressed background. The designs incorporate either verses of Scripture or the names of beloved travel locales. Many pieces are reminiscent of the look of subway panels. She also offers custom designs based on your favorite scripture, poem, travel destination, or any other combination of words that speaks to your heart. Most recently, Dee created a line of wall art, picture frames and magnets for Demdaco, called Urban Soul, which is available at many retailers including DaySpring.

[Note: I got the quotes and bio directly from Dee's website.]

You can see more of Dee’s creations and order your own awesome artwork at Red Letter Words’ website or Etsy shop. And you can learn more and get to know my talented friend on Twitter and Facebook.

Last, but far from least, you can order products from Dee’s Urban Soul line from DaySpring – and during the month of May, you can use the coupon code MAY20 for 20% off! Check out the chocolate wall art that features the fruits of the spirit, the charcoal 5×7 frame with the verse from Joshua about “as for me and my household…” or, my favorite, this great magnetic board with clips that features an “I can do everything through Him” theme!

Do you have any blank walls in your house? Have you ever created your own art because you had an idea and couldn’t find what you had in mind?

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In which the wilderness smacks me in the face

May 3, 2011 By 14 Comments

Simpson Desert

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what God is saying to me about a particular problem or situation. And other times, it’s like he’s smacking me in the face.

It’s not quite as mean as it sounds. I can be a little dense, so it’s actually pretty helpful.

Which is why, when one of the speakers at the Orange Conference began talking about the wilderness, I only groaned a little.

See, it started with Stuff Christians Like. That Jon Acuff started writing about how being stuck in a place far from your calling or your dream or your goals is like the Israelites being stuck in the wilderness. And I ate it up with a spoon. (Really, I haven’t stopped, since he wrote a book about pretty much that exact thing, and I pre-ordered it the minute it appeared on Amazon.)

Then, my friend Brittany and I decided to start a Bible study together, and the Priscilla Shirer study we chose turned out to be all about the wilderness.

So is it any surprise that Jeff Manion, senior teaching pastor at Ada Bible Church and author of The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions, spoke about the wilderness last week?

Well, no. I mean, he did write a book about it.

The more surprising thing is that it took me this long to see the pattern of what God just might be telling me. I’m still processing what this message means for my own life. But for now, I wanted to share with you some of the best bits of Jeff’s sermon.

If you’re not familiar with the story of the Israelites in the wilderness, here’s a quick rundown. The Israelites were in slavery in Egypt until Moses broke them out. On their way to the promised land (the one flowing with milk and honey), they got real whiny and rebellious. God provided for them like nobody’s business and was incredibly patient. But they just couldn’t get it together. And so God let them wander in the desert for years and years.

Based on this story, Jeff explained that the wilderness – or the land between, as he calls it – “is fertile ground for transformational growth. It’s also the place where faith goes to die.” He said, your heart is in danger when you go through the wilderness, and the choices we make in the land between may determine the people we become.

More specifically – and this is the one that got tweeted out like crazy – When you get hurt at 25, how you respond decides what kind of 45-year-old you will become. (Because, if you’re hurt and you don’t work through it, you’ll end up bitter and ugly.)

Wow . . . that one is still working on me.

Like I said, I’m still processing all this, but I couldn’t wait to share it with you. So, what do you think about this idea that our decisions while in the wilderness are critical? Are you in the wilderness – the land between – right now? Do you think your heart is in danger, that your current decisions could determine what kind of person you turn into twenty years from now?

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A Remarkable Faith :: Prayer

April 14, 2011 By 4 Comments

This is the sixth week of exploring our Remarkable Faith, a series where we are reflecting on our most memorable moments in our faith walks. And I’m cheating a little bit. Thanks to a bad choice involving Google Images, I’ve gotten some highly persistent and irritating malware on my laptop. So while I’m fighting my crashing, popping up, and generally annoying computer, I’m going to link to a post I wrote several months ago for (in)courage.

A prayer that’s stuck in my memory is one that happened when I was 15. In the shower. It kind of gave new meaning to God knowing the number of hairs on my head. But more importantly, it led me to a more genuine faith. Read the post here. (I hope you’ll click over. I promise it’s worth the read.)

If this is your first time reading a post about Remarkable Faith, you can read about the series here. I hope you’ll link up when you have something to say! And if you don’t have a blog but would like to share, please, talk to us in the comments.

Has one prayer stuck in your memory and shaped your beliefs or spiritual walk? Do you have a remarkable faith?

If you write about this on your blog, please link up! (And remember, use the URL for your specific post, and include a link back to Giving Up on Perfect in your post so others can link up, too!)

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