I’ll admit it, I am a sucker for resolutions. It could be a lifetime of sports and goal-setting drilled in to me, it could be the “help me help you” tendencies of my INFJ-ness, or it could very well be that I came out of the womb leaning a bit too far to the people-pleasing side and being an achiever helped me accomplish just that (and yes, I’m working hard on the shadow-side of all that neediness). But taken all together, I love having a list of things to set my eyes on, and I super love checking things off of those lists.

I am in full agreement with Socrates when he said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” The discipline of introspection, and then the conviction and repentance that follows for me, has been such a big piece of my life in the last decade – as a writer in the last seven years, but much more so as a wife, a mom, and a follower of Christ. My days begin with the space to think. They just have to for me – in the quiet, before anyone else is up, working around thoughts in my head about scripture, about Jesus, about words and meanings, about my children and my husband and whether or not I am stewarding these things in a manner that is honoring to God and reflective of who this is all for anyway. Examining who I actually am and how I actually live, holding that up to who I want to be, and then submitting that to the guidance and direction of God’s Word is a pattern of sanctification that I want on repeat in the cadence of my days.

Because usually, when that’s happening, I see how badly I am missing the mark.

The gospel becomes even more beautiful when you really see that.

*****

I have been going through this goal-planner again this year, and one of the things you are asked to do is choose a word for the year. I wrote down about a dozen to start with, things like diligence, joy, learn, family, and trustworthy. And then the word consistent came to mind, and I could not let it go.

Consistent means to be marked by harmony, regularity or steady continuity. It is a characteristic given to someone or something that is free from variation or contradiction, showing steady conformity to character, profession, belief, or custom. And consistent is everything I want to be.

When I get real introspective, and real honest, and I take apart the big pieces of my life, I can see just how in-consistent I really am. My mood - and my actions to follow - can shift and change a few dozen times a day based on things like social media (do people like me?), how Cannon did at therapy (do people see how hard we are working?), whether or not a friend got back to me (am I important to her?), and other big, life-altering (ha!) things like that. I love my husband inconsistently, usually showing him respect and displaying affection well for him when I am having a particularly good day myself. I parent my children inconsistently, again, usually doing the hard work of teaching and disciplining well and getting on the floor to play with them when I am having a particularly good day myself. And I celebrate others inconsistently –  would it shock you to know that I usually do that much better when I am having a particularly good day myself?

I’m seeing the pattern, and here is what it is teaching me: when my consistency is built around me and my day, it will be anything but marked by steady continuity.

But if the consistency of my life is built around the only One that never changes, I think I’ll have a fighting chance. Jesus has to be my steady. And the gospel has to be the thermostat of my marriage, my parenting, and the way I love others.

Consistent means to me that I am not a walking contradiction, saying one thing but living out another. It means that I am the same person to everyone; whether she is like me or not, whether he is easy to love or not, whether she can give me anything in return or not. The partiality of the world we live in is feeling further and further from a kingdom-mindset to me all the time – perhaps that is because it is? It means that what someone sees on social media is what they will see in real life. It means that my husband will not have to guess how loved he is going to be on a particular day. It means that my children will remember their mom as someone who was the same to them in the public eyes of the church lobby and the private hallways of our home at night. And it means the work I do in this world will reflect the only investments that will always, always bring a good return: God’s Word, and God’s people.

So this year, my prayer and goal is that the mark of my life is consistency. That my joy is contingent on the unchanging good news of the gospel and not the trending good or bad news of any particular day. That others know what they can expect from me. That my heart never loses the awe that I am saved by grace and not by merit. And that I am unwavering in my pursuit of seeing and savoring the goodness and glory of God in my every day, walking around, mothering and errand-running, cleaning and writing, bill-paying and diaper-changing life. 

When I was in elementary school, I remember so clearly dreaming about being in middle school: about what it would be like to have my own locker and what pictures and Teen Bop cutouts I would sneak in there. My private school teachers would be quick to confiscate and punish any visible heartthrobs taped up inside, but my friends and I had plans to be elusive and come on, was J.T.T. not worth that risk in 1997? My eleven-year old self could hardly imagine anything better than my own combination lock and the décor of my choosing and I thought “seventh grade, yes, seventh grade will be the year it’s really good.”

And seventh grade came and went and like many unsure-but-faking-it freshmen, I went in to high school dressed in my best with a little green Clinique eye make-up to accessorize. I watched in awe as the juniors and seniors held hands with their boyfriends and donned their car keys at lunch as they headed off campus or home for the day. “What would it be like to have a boyfriend and a car?!” I wondered on the daily. I had a significant case of acne and two baby teeth that held on until I was fourteen before they were finally pulled, so the boyfriend would have to wait a few years, but I still spent many a passing periods daydreaming about the possibilities of my social status and thought, “senior year, yes, senior year will be the year that it’s really good.”

And senior year came and went, with both a car—that I loved for fourteen years until a broken engine forced me to trade it in— and a boyfriend—that I thought-I-loved for fourteen months until a broken heart taught us both a valuable lesson in giving too much of yourself away too early. But with my sights set clearly on the warm desert of Arizona and a campus bigger and bursting with more energy than my little mind could handle, college became the next stop on my list of elusive check points. “I’ll finally learn how to do my hair and wear make-up! I’ll meet my future husband! I’ll be an All-American soccer player! College, yes, college will be the years that it’s really good.”

And my college years came and went, without a doubt some of the richest of my life, but I still didn’t know how to do my makeup like the sorority girls (lofty goal, I know, but I sure envied them strolling down Palm Walk in the center of campus), I never met the guy, and a dozen knee surgeries ended my soccer career far earlier than I was ready.

I think it’s clear where this is all going.

My life has always been a what’s next kind of life. The bright lights of college faded and I longed for graduate school to find more. Then many of my friends started getting married and a few started having babies and all of a sudden an invisible timer got switched on in my mind, one that not only anticipated the next season of life but rushed it. “Marriage, children, a home, yes, when I have those things, then that’s when it will be really good.”

And “those years” are where I find myself today, and they are really good. But this tendency to look ahead and not around is still a frequent visitor I entertain, wondering what it will be like when my body will be mine again, when my time will be a little more free, when my home will be a little less of a disaster, when our finances won’t be quite so tight. I look ahead and have a dangerous inclination to think “yes, those will be the years that it’s really good.”

Here is the problem I am finding: when I say “those will be the years that it’s really good,” I am not even sure what it is. What exactly is going to be really good? My social status, my makeup, my life? When I look back on all of those years I can see that I eventually got— in some way, shape, or form—everything I ever wanted. The soccer career did not shape out the way I planned, marriage is very different than planning a wedding, and being a mom has brought challenges I never even dreamed of undertaking. But almost all of what I looked forward to is now right in front of me. (I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know I even have a little bit of a clue about makeup, because Jesus loves me and sent friends to intervene on the ten-year run the green Clinique was making.)

So why on earth am I still looking forward?

I think it can only be because I have bought the lie today is not enough.

And that is what I know has to change. It, whatever it is, does not exist just beyond the grasp of what I’ve been given. This past year has truly taught me that the thing I am really longing for is heaven, and I will not ever find that here on earth. But the only thing that can satisfy our hearts until then is the pursuit of God’s glory, and I can most certainly find that today in all that I do: in the ways that I speak, in the posture of my heart, and in the delight I take in my actual life. Today is my good life.

So that is what this year is about for me: today. Beautiful today, with whatever it brings. This is the year I will stop seeing today as a placeholder for tomorrow, or next year, or when my kids can put their own shoes on or, God-willing, when my son might speak more. I have dreams about what I hope to build with all of my ‘todays’ and what I pray might happen in one of my coming ‘tomorrows’, but I cannot continue to hold these things at the expense of living my ‘todays,’ because I’m missing it, I’m missing the good life I’ve already been given. Today is what we have, and today has all we need to accomplish the purpose we were created for: glory. Not ours, but His.

So here is to today, this day, to the breathing and writing and loving and holding and giving we will do today. Lord, would you make it all worthy of the honor that will be all yours, someday.

"Above all, the great God with approval or disapproval beholds the transactions of this day; he sees what motives govern you and will proclaim them before the assembled universe. Oh solemn and affecting thought! The work before you is great and requires great searching of the heart, great self-diffidence and self-abasement. How necessary that you feel your dependence on God; you cannot perform any part of your work without his help. Under a sense of weakness go to Him for help...

Although the work is too great for you, yet let such considerations as these revive your desponding heart. Because the cause is good, better than life, you may well give up all for it... The campaign is short; the reward is great, and being found faithful, you will receive a crown of glory that fades not away."  -Lemuel Haynes, 1818

The lure of the blank calendar, it tempts me with possibilities every single year. This is the year I will be more, be different, be better, I think. And because I cannot resist the temptation offered by a package of new sharpie pens and a completely clean planner, I dive in to New Year’s dreaming and goal-setting and word-choosing like the best of them. I consider myself a connoisseur of list-making, actually: those of you who share in my joy of ‘checking boxes’ will understand that. And this year, perhaps more than any other, and I know with so many of you, I am desperate for new.

Desperate: having an urgent need; eager, impatient, fraught, forlorn. It sounds a bit dramatic when I put it like that, but in some ways it is an accurate representation of my heart.

__________

Just after Thanksgiving my little family drove to the base of Mt. Spokane and cut down our own Christmas Tree for the first time. It was cold and damp and gray outside, and I had to grab Cannon by the hood of his jacket no less than five times before he took himself for a jaunt into the woods, but we absolutely loved it. There was a bonfire and candy canes and the smell of fresh pine everywhere. We found the perfect tree for the corner of our living room, cut it down and then watched the staff get it ready to travel home.

Just before they wrapped our tree, a young man placed the base in a small box-looking machine, stepped back and turned it on. With wide eyes and a bit of confusion, Harper watched this machine shake our tree relentlessly, buzzing and humming as thousands of little pine needles fell to the ground around it.

“What is he doing, mommy?”

“Oh Harper, that machine is actually helping our tree. It’s going to make all the pine needles that aren’t healthy fall off, so that what we take home is a beautiful, strong tree!”

“Why is it so loud?”

“Well, it has to shake pretty hard to do its job. But once it is done, our tree will be fresh and ready to decorate!”

“Oh,” she said in relief, believing me when I told her what was happening to our tree was good, even though it looked intense.

I think I know a little bit how that tree felt, because this has been the year God took my faith, gently held it out for me to look at, and gave it a good, hard, much-needed shaking.      

And as much as I want to run to something new, something with potential rather than memories I cannot change, I know that God didn’t do all that shaking just for me to move on even though I so want to. I want to move on. I want to stop crying and feeling fragile when I pride myself on being faithful. I want to get back to genuine joy. I even want to write about something different, something that isn't born from the curveball life threw at us this year. I want to stop feeling like I am putting one foot in front of the other simply doing what I am supposed to do and start feeling like I am running my race with the energy and purpose a Christ-follower should have.

But sometimes, it’s not as easy as that. Sometimes, we just need to slow down, then take a good look at all the things that fell off of our heart during the shaking: the pride, the self-sufficiency, the correlation between my works and my blessings that I absolutely believed existed. The life that I wanted was also one that I thought was honoring God; but it was, in all honestly, equally honoring to me. And that life, with those motivations, that is what is left on the ground right around me.

__________

For 30 years, I have had a strong faith in Jesus, one I believe is grounded in as much logic as faith can have, but made true only by the work of the Holy Spirit in me. My belief in Jesus has, for as long as I can remember, been real and deep and even meaning-making for me. It is how I have always seen the world and three decades and many naysayers offering perspectives to the contrary later, I still cannot make sense of the world any other way but His. And yet, my faith has been the faith of someone on the balcony, not the faith of someone traveling down the road.

Sure, I’ve given my thoughts, offered my opinions on the best way to get there- wherever the destination might have been- even shared truths meant to motivate and encourage travelers. But I’ve done it from the balcony. I have talked about God being good, but it’s been from a personal place where it was really easy to believe that. I've never been one to ignore the pain and plight of so much of the world, but I never had to bring that pain and plight home. This year, I have, and I feel a whole lot more like a traveler. I still talk about God being good, but I have to watch a little boy hurt himself in my care and actually believe it; we have to face a very unpredictable and very unnerving future and say "but God, you are still good."

The balcony was not a bad place to be, but being a traveler is what finally shook all that wasn’t real off of my faith.

A year ago I would have offered you a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of me.

Today I know I have nothing to offer, I'm just sharing what I’m learning as I travel.

__________
 

A few days ago I went to leave a message for a group of friends about why I could not commit to something, and without warning the tears just started falling. It is in moments like these that I realize I might not be done being shaken. When my friend asks at gymnastics class how we are, or when a phone call across the country to my best friend goes from easy catching up to deep sorrow about a hard week in seconds. My unbelief gives me away in moments like this. I am shamefully prideful and still, at times, feel paper thin. I never know when I will be able to talk about our life and Cannon’s journey in a manner of fact way or when I won’t be able to get a sentence out before I’m choking up. But I do know this: we are not moving on from this year as much as we are moving in to what this year taught us. And in the midst of a complicated diagnosis that very much complicated our life, that lesson can be summed up pretty easily: God is faithful forever, perfect in love, and sovereign over us. 

My prayer is that I would walk in to a New Year knowing that my faith may have been shaken, but my soul isn't stirred. Jesus won it long ago and he will keep it until the end. I'll fail a thousand more times at doing this life well, but He won't. Maybe I'm not desperate for new so much as I am desperate for Him. 

Faith: the only resolution I have this year

The past few months have been a season of serious self-reflection for me— perhaps the deepest I have gone in searching for the things that make me come alive.  It started with a book club that became, quite unexpectedly, the catalyst to a number of intentional changes in my life.  Then came an opportunity for leadership I thought I was ready for, but found out in the face of it that I was anything but ready.  It did, however, force me through several weeks of desperate prayer and many coffee dates with people willing to listen to me cry, and in that sweet humility was a beautiful moment of reckoning: we can accomplish nothing of lasting value without Jesus and very little without each other; an invaluable lesson to learn for many reasons. 

And finally there was David Platt, whose influence always seems to be a part of the biggest seasons of reorientation in my life (I’m still recovering from my 2011 encounter with Radical, but that’s another story entirely).  Alex and I sat in the living room of our good friends, Dave and Kelly, with popcorn and coke and sparkling cider, and for six hours listened to David Platt teaching us how to study our Bible (#Christiansgonewild!)  But y’all, I’m telling you, it was amazing.  And six hours and a journal full of notes later, God’s word started to become precious to me again; in a way that it hadn’t been in several years.  The longing for scripture I buried under marriage and children and sleep and the excuse that weaves its way in to all of our lives, a busy schedule, had slowly been crawling its way back to the surface for months; but the time with trusted friends and an incredible Bible teacher came in and in one swing cleared everything still in the way to the side. For a girl who grew up being told to read her Bible, who attended church faithfully, who had all the right boxes under good Christian girl checked, I thought I had this idea of faith down.  But I have no idea.  I have truly been reading my Bible for what feels like the first time in my life the past few months.  Thank you, Jesus, for that grace.

“If Jesus didn’t think he could handle life without knowing scripture inside and out, what makes you think you can?” –Tim Keller

There is a story in the book of Matthew that Jesus, after coming down from the mountain with a few trusted friends, joins his other disciples in town where a man had been searching for healing for his son.  As Jesus arrives, the man pleads with him for help, telling this Rabbi that his disciples were unable to change the horrible state of seizing his son was in.  In his grace, Jesus heals the young boy, and the disciples immediately wonder why they were unable to.  Jesus’ response: you did not have enough faith.

“For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” –Matthew 17:20

Stories that bring us right up close to this word—faith— are found all throughout the gospels and in the entirety of scripture.  Peter could walk on water until his faith started to waver.  A Samaritan woman begged Jesus for even the “crumbs” of his grace and power while another woman longed only to touch the hem of his garment, and both were commended for their great faith.  And Jesus withheld healing and miraculous works in his own hometown because they did not have faith.  Not because they lacked understanding, but because they lacked faith.

I have done the planning, set the goals, quite a few of them, in fact; and even began sorting through the things that need a “yes” and others that need a “no” for this coming year.  I love that a new year provides us all with the space to do that with an imaginary blank sheet—amazing how motivating one turn of the calendar can be!  But nothing I hope to accomplish in this year, nothing I want to become, nothing I want to make happen, carries more intention than learning what it means to have faith.  Real faith.

Because my marriage needs a faith in Jesus and the selfless servanthood he modeled every day of his life.

My babies need a mom so saturated in faith that they see me living the gospel for them every single day.

My writing needs a foundation of faith so grand that it can actually accomplish the purpose God may have for it.  Maybe that is just for me, my own growth and accountability, and a record for my family.  And y’all, I am more than ok with that.

My friendships need the intention of a faithful friend.  My home needs the fresh air that faith brings in to the room.  My hopes for justice in the world and speaking for the marginalized need faith that God can and will change the painful trajectory so many lives are on. 

There is not one area of my life that does not need faith.  And that means that more than anything, I need faith.  What I have is a somewhat educated rhetoric and a big enough Christian vocabulary to talk, at least on a surface level, about God; but something is missing.  It is the thing that jumps out at me on every page of scripture right now, and what I want more than anything, that mustard seed of faith. 

Right this moment, I am looking down at my youngest baby sleeping soundly, and I am begging God to show Alex and me how to live a life of great faith right in front of them.  These people in my own home, they are my most important life’s work.  Listening to Jordi breathe and watching his eyes dream the way only a newborn can do… moments like this remind me of who I want to be the most.  And that is the journey I want God to take me on this year.

Some seasons are for building great things, others are for repenting, learning, listening, and waiting.  The latter is where I am, and I’m there confidently, knowing that the work of all great things of eternal value begins in the quiet of time and space with the Creator.  God needs to build my faith before He will build anything else in, through, or around me.

"God gives us the vision, then takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way.  Every vision will be made real if we have the patience." -Oswald Chambers

Happy New Year, dear friends.  May this be the year God does a profound, miraculous work of faith in all of us.

____________________

In an effort to give my best to this fight for faith, I will be taking, as much as is possible, a sabbatical, if you will, from social media.  This year is my “valley” year, as the poetic Oswald Chambers puts it.  My marriage and my family need more from me than they have been getting.  My teaching job needs new intention.  My writing needs a right motivation.  I need to be a woman who lives to be unseen in order to make God seen.  I hope and plan to write more than ever through the journey this year, but social media elevates my idol of approval more than anything, and I need the discipline of clearing that away for a time. 

See you here, on the blog?