A Few of My Favorite Things...that are green.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, and the first day of spring, I wanted to share some favorite green things with you all. Each has a different kind of significance to me in this season of my life. Happy reading and Happy Spring!

1. Succulents-These beautiful plants have been making me so happy these days! I have been on such a kick that I have built a routine around them. Each week, I go to Trader Joes, the happiest of little natural grocery stores, and purchase one little succulent plant. These plants come in different color pots and in all different varieties, and it is my goal to own one of each. :)


Personal significance: They make my room look pretty, and I have something to look forward to at the end of each week. Routine can add happiness to your life if you make the right kind of routine!

Practical significance:These hearty plants are known for their easy-care and dependability. Their retention of water in their leaves gives them their thickness and "succulent" nature--perfect for those of us who like plants, but are afraid we will kill them. :)

Spiritual Significance: These plants often thrive in arid and dry, desert climates. For those who have read my previous post on Waiting , you will know that I find its very good for us to stay with the Man who has the "water" (His words and promises) when we are walking through a desert, store up that life and newness in our souls. You are good examples, succulent plants!


2. Green lights- We all love them. It's what we are often hoping for, and while we are waiting for it, we can often find ourselves talking to the air while sitting in our cars (like that is going to make it change faster). Green lights. Gotta love them.

Personal Significance: I get a lot of satisfaction out of the fact that I grew up in a "one-stoplight" town and what a big deal it was when we got a second one :). And I have a distinct ritual of trying to guess when the light will turn green, and often pretend that when it changes, it was my individual power that changed it :)

Practical Significance: Though I too struggle with being patient at times at lights, they do help to maintain some order in our world, and lets face it, it allows for moments of reflection and interactions with other drivers in the midst of our busy lives (even if you are trying really hard to not catch eyes with the person next to you, which you know we all do at some points).
Spiritual Significance: I have felt that in this time of my life, God has been teaching me a lot about Permission. Permission to chase after my dreams and desires, and know that He trusts me and supports me. I love Bill Johnson's quote, "With God, the light is green until it turns red". We have permission and He loves to empower us!

3. Sustainability- Although this is not actually a "thing" as in an object, it does make me think about all sorts of green things, like gardening and rainforests and the life, and it is becoming one of my favorite buzz words in this season . Maybe its the spring time, or just the fact that I really love the sound of it, but sustainability is something that can be seen as our way to "touch a future" we may never actually see...pretty exciting stuff!
Personal Significance: I have always been attracted to things that carry and promote "life." This is why I want to be a midwife and deliver babies, want to plant a garden, and enjoy eating all my leafy greens. Yum salads! Sustainability is an important part of sharing life--it ensures that people around us and beyond us can experience and receive the benefits of our life.

Practical Significance: If its not sustainable, it will come to an end.

Spiritual Significance: While spending time with sweet friends in Oklahoma, I have observed something from their community here. They want to build and create a structure of living life and doing "church" that is sustainable and replicable. This includes things like creating networks of strong relationships, helping one another, prayer, service, and perseverance. I know that this is something that I want to continue to see nurtured in my life and community, and that we as the boy of Christ can return to a focus of love and relationships. Love is incredibly sustainable...the Bible says it never fails. I Corinthians 3:16

Happy Spring!

What are a few of your favorite green things???

Waiting...Part 2

I started to think of Abraham in the Bible, a man who God made a big promise to. God told him that he would be a father of nations, that his children would be greater in number than the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore...He told him all that while for the past 80 years, him and his wife had been completely barren, not even having even one child of their own. Every night, Abraham could walk outside, look at the stars, and remember that promise...while his real circumstances looked completely different than what he was promised, and what he hoped for. He could have stopped hoping, he could have thrown in the towel, but instead, he kept doing what he had been doing for 80 years--try to have a child.

Waiting does not mean, "do nothing". There are times when God tells you to specifically do nothing, but then there are times when he tells you to wait. Many people hide their disappointment or their impatience by turning their waiting time into apathetic wanderings and grumblings. They do nothing, hoping that soon things will change. Waiting is not doing nothing.
In the words of a sweet friend of mine, "Waiting is a time to build the structure, that then God can come and inhabit". You are building the framework for what God wants to do in and through your life, and in the waiting, you are learning to trust. "Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!" (Psalms 27:14)

When we don't feel like waiting, when we start to feel like we are in a desert, like nothing is going to happen, we want to grab hold of the wheel and take charge. We don't trust. Abraham and Sarah did have an "uh-oh" moment in their waiting process. They didn't trust, and they sowed into creating an Ishmael instead of an Issac (sowing into a rival to the promise, aka partnering with hopelessness). But when they submitted to their waiting process, God counted it as righteousness, and they gave birth to their first child, Isaac, the first of their promised star-lit sky.We all know that God's promise to Abraham came true (shoot, you and I are sons and daughters of Abraham according to the Bible! ). So when you are in a "desert" spot, in one of those "waiting" in-between spaces in your life, don't decide to go off and take matters into your own hands. Its always better to trust. When walking through a desert, its always better to stay with the guy who has the water.

For those of you in your waiting, looking at your star-lit sky, but not yet seeing what God has promised you, keep building that place that God can come inhabit. The more I ponder this idea of waiting, the more I am beginning to embrace it, because my heart can feel how influential it is in growing my trust towards the One who is perfectly faithful. Let the words that He spoke to Abraham comfort your heart, "Don't be afraid. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." (Genesis 15:1).

Go out tonight, look at the stars, and say to yourself, "His promises still exist."

" Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the LORD [is] a God of justice; Blessed [are] all those who wait for Him." Isaiah 30:18

Waiting...Part 1

That fragile place between hope and disappointment, faith and despair...maybe its called Waiting.

Many of us find ourselves in this place in our lives. Where the things we hope for, dream of, want to be and do, just aren't----yet. Just like the dashes I placed before the word "yet", we often can find ourselves hitting what I call an "in-between place." Waiting. You feel closer than ever to what should be, you're in the growing moments towards certain climaxes in your life or you have a promise or desire for things to be different, and depending on the day, you feel as close to it or as far from it as your can possibly imagine. The in-between places.

As I have watched movies over the past few months, a reoccurring thought, which turned into a question, which has morphed into revelation as I've watched. I began to notice myself getting to the end of a movie, looking at the story that it told, and feeling something missing, something lacking. I wanted to know what the characters felt when the scene ended, when they had to live with themselves after they made that decision, when they had those things going on with their family etc....?? What is the the rest of the story?

As much as they can tell us stories, inspire us, teach us things about life, and entertain us, movies don't show us the whole story. Think about it. Movies play out scene by scene, telling their stories, working with all the good elements of story: climax, conflict, character development etc., but they can only show a scene at a time. Take a movie about a love story for instance: there will be a scene where the lovers meet, a scene where they talk for the first time, a scene where they encounter some conflict in their story, a scene where they work to overcome conflict, and eventually a scene where they overcome the conflict, and we hope, finally kiss (that is if you a romantic person like myself).

But have you ever stopped to think about what happens immediately after the scene cuts?? There they are, the lovers, in the process of falling in love, but you only see the peak moments, the moments where lots happens to develop the story, because that is all that a movie really has time to show you in a 1 and 1/2 hour slot of time. What occurs in those places between scenes? When do those people really get to know each other? When do they talk about their families, their fears, their dreams, their small flaws? All these things are what really make a relationship work, what falling in love really means--getting to know each other. They happen in the in and out, everyday, all day, living together, in a process of time and intentionality, a learning to love. You don't see all those moments in movies. The in-between moments.

What I feel like this has done to the way we see our lives is that we have failed to value the moments of our lives that seem less glamorous, much slower, and not as outwardly significant. (Lets be honest, we want stories that look like those on the screen, but they only show us a fraction of what our stories really consist of). Our stories have a lot of in-between places. And it's often in these places we are the most susceptible to want to throw in the towel, speed up the process, or take charge of writing our own stories. We don't like the waiting. (Another thing our instant gratification culture has engraved in us, but I don't want to go into that too much right now).

But it is in the waiting, in that special place, that you are being formed, shaped, and created.
In the waiting, you are BECOMING what hope has promised you.