And all the people said amen

There is an infant carrier in the back seat of my car.  We've set up a crib and we found these adorable little Converse socks.

Change is coming.  Come March, life as we know it will never be the same.  See, there's this little boy ...

We haven't met him yet, but we have heard his heart beat.  We watch and wait to see or feel the slightest move and smile giddy when it comes.  His name is Jaxson.  He is wanted.  He is loved.  He is my grandson.

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. - Psalm 139:13,14

Last March, on my daughter's 16th birthday, I posted this story for her.  It begins with the meaning of her middle name, Jenae:

'God has been gracious'

It follows her from birth through her growing up years being told exactly that - God is gracious.  The story ends with Celine Jenae as a mother rocking her own baby and telling of God's grace.  How could I have known that almost exactly a year later my girl would indeed be rocking her own child?

We may have been caught off guard, but God was not.  He knew that Jaxson would be a part of Celine's story from the beginning.  God has plans for her little boy.

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. - Psalm 139:16

Although we have had challenges over the past several months, there have also been gifts ...

- Love and support from family and friends
- The kindness of people around us
- The sweetness of our relationship as mother and daughter during this season
- Watching my girl experience God's grace
- The resources for young mothers in our area - they have been wonderful!
- I have to say it again - friends.  Thank You, Jesus for the women You have placed in my life!

There are so many things to write about.  All the feelings.  Sometime.  We are still walking through it and the truth is, this is my daughter's story.  When she is ready.

Meanwhile, would you say a prayer for our family when we come to mind?  Please pray especially for Celine as she navigates motherhood while finishing high school.   

By the way, Celine told me that she looked up the meaning of the name Jaxson.

Scottish:  'God has been gracious'

 Amen.

It's a Jungle Out There

The past several months have felt as messy as the flower bed in our front yard had become.  I sighed at the overgrown bed of weeds in the front yard as Scotty and I sipped our coffee on the patio.  The green elephant ears that once stood tall with bright red blooms were now dry and half eaten by pests.  The flower pots that once grew basil and lavender were hidden in a jungle of overgrown wild grass and stickers.  Kinda like life some days.  Sticky.  Dry.  Tired.  Overwhelming.

 

  

I put my headphones on and spent the morning watering the ground to soften the dirt.  It was just me, my thoughts and my music.  Sometimes you have to shut out all the noise and water the dry, thirsty soil of your heart.  I spent the time praying and drenching myself in music that reminded me that God is always good and I am never forsaken.  A few hours later, the flower bed looked clean and fresh and my heart was a little lighter.

The circumstances I have found myself in have humbled me deeply and have brought me to my knees.  Sometimes life doesn't turn out as expected and we are forced to adjust our sails.  There have been hard-getting-out-of-bed days and I-can't/don't-want-to-do-it-anymore days.  Then there have been days that I have found myself so deeply grateful for the people God has placed in my life during this season.  I want those days to happen more often.  It is a choice, you know.

  

 

It hasn't been all bad.  In the middle of stormy waters some pretty awesome things have happened, like a vacation and seeing our son and an amazing gift for my mom.

When you have a blog about faith and grace and encouragement, what do you do when you're the one needing the grace and encouragement?  When what you write is about what's happening in your life but what is happening is all consuming and exhausting, and you are not quite ready to write about it yet ... what then?

That's when I step back and stay quiet.  But here's the thing - I miss you.  I miss writing.  So here I am popping in to tell you that although there is a lot going on - I'm okay.  Really.  I know where my hope is.  I know that joy is just around the corner.  I'll write more later.  Promise.

The words may be few in the coming months, but I'll be popping in here and there - maybe for a five-minute Friday or when I have a burst of thought that I can't keep in.  Let's keep our hearts and eyes and ears open.  There are so many who are going through a difficult time.  Let's be kind and lift one another up in prayer, okay?

Love ya!

- Liv

Five-Minute Friday: See

I've lived in Arizona my whole life but I have never been to the Grand Canyon.  The pictures I've seen are beautiful.  Everyone I know who has been there says that the pictures don't do it justice.  You just have to be there.  I won't know it's true awesomeness or feel that same sense of wonder until I see it myself.

Photo Credit

I went on a missions trip to Jamaica once.  We were working at a children's home that sits at the top of the Blue Mountains.  I will never forget the refreshing mountain air, cool and pure.  Birds of Paradise, ferns, Hibiscus and other unfamiliar tropical flowers lined the mountains ledge.  Beyond was the city of Kingston, and beyond still, the ocean.  The colors of water and sky blended in the distance and it was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began.  Each evening, billowing clouds would roll by and the sky was set ablaze with a radiant sunset.  Unless you have made the winding fourteen mile trek up that mountain, you will not fully know what I mean in spite of my best attempt at describing it.  You have to see it for yourself.

 

I feel the same way about God and grace.  I wish I could paint with words in a way that you can see and understand who He is.  But words are not enough.  A person cannot fully know the beauty and feel the awe of who God is unless they have experienced Him for themselves. I want others to know grace for more than just a word.  If you don't know God, can I invite you to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8)?  If you haven't experienced His grace, can I invite you to come a little closer and get to know Him better?  And when you have, then you will understand this awe and this love that I feel for an amazing God.  Then you will see exactly what I mean.

I've joined other writers for Five-Minute Friday at lisajobaker.com

Resolve

 

We are one week into the New Year - often about the time my new resolve starts to fall apart.  This year My brother, Grabe (Gabe) and sister, Mocha (Monica) were visiting, and the five of us were children again -  loud and teasing and harassing one another.  We were complete.

We cooked together and played Uno and Take Two and talked and laughed about things that only makes sense to five kids who grew up in the same house.  There was no time for grown-up stuff like reflecting on the past year and making goals for 2014.  And it's a good thing too, because 2014 hasn't started off well in the would-be goal department.  My mom and sisters and I made a WHOLE BUNCH of cookies. Honey cookies to be exact. ... and we ate them.  ALL.  We did, however go for a run together BEFORE we baked, so it's totally OK, right?

I also caught something yucky from an unnamed individual, so any goal of getting back to working out consistently hasn't started off well either.  Looks like I will be carrying the a fore mentioned cookies with me a bit longer.  Not only that, but since I have been feeling ick, my house also looks ick.  The Christmas tree is still up and shedding.  I fear that if I so much as breathe at it, all the needles will fall into a pokey pile and nothing will be left but branches.

There are of course things that I am hoping to accomplish this year.  I do want to be more intentional about the important things.  I am not one who scoffs at making New Year's resolutions.  I am a list maker, after all, and I do like to make goals.  I just want to have goals ... with grace.  I am mostly very hard on myself when I don't feel I'm measuring up.  My recent mantra has been to do what I can, when I can, with what I have.  I also am trying to learn to hold my plans loosely, but by all means, have a plan or nothing will get done!

My usual goals for the New Year probably look a lot like yours.  Manage my time better, find a good routine for keeping the house clean, lose weight, etc. They are pretty much the same every year.  I've noticed something, though.  I have spent a lot of time beating myself up for not sticking with my resolutions, when it didn't always have so much to do with my resolve as it did with the season of life I was in.  When the kids were small I felt like I was falling short when it came to housekeeping and exercise.  Of course I was!  Sleepless nights and littles will do that to you!  Seems to me I've had my self expectations in the wrong place.  Since the kids are older I feel that I have a decent routine that keeps the house clean most of the time.  Scotty helps out a lot.  I am blessed in that way.  But we've been married for over 20 years.  It's taken us a long time to find something that works.  Sort of.  Most of the time. 

We are all learning as we go along.  When I was a little girl I thought one day when I was older, like 20 I would just know everything and be a proper adult. Ha!  I'm never gonna have it all together.  I will have times when I am doing well in the exercising department and then I'll get sick or get busy and I'll have to start over again.  Grace.  I will have times when I will follow my housekeeping routine and plan menus and make dinner most nights.  And then I'll have PMS or get reeled in by a TV series and I'll fall behind on it all.  Grace.  There will be great times with family and we will make memories and make it a point to spend time together.  And then schedules will change and we will put other things first.  Grace.  There is always Grace.  Let's not make it "all or nothing".  So this is what I'm preaching to myself: continue to pick yourself back up, renew your resolve on January 8th or June 1, or whatever day it may be.  Do what you can, when you can, with what you have.  Keep falling forward and continue to fight for what is important to you. 

Five-Minute Friday: Fight

Starting off the New Year with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five Minute Friday!



This year I want to fight.

Knock-out. Drag down. FIGHT.  Kicking and screaming. 

I WANT TO FIGHT FOR WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME.

And maybe I have fought my whole life.  But I want to be more intentional about it, because I only get to do this life once and I am tired of just doing what I have to do over what I want to do. 

I have to go to work.  And cook dinner.  Ugh.  There are a lot of urgent things that need to be done.  Like paying the bills and laundry and dishes and grocery shopping. 

But what I want to do are the things that make me feel alive.  Like running and writing.  Laughing and loving and worshiping.  And all of those things are part of my life now,

BUT I WANT MORE.

More time to do what I love.  It is a struggle to make time to read and write.  Sometimes I'm just too tired to think or to articulate and sort the knotted ball of thread that tangles all of these thoughts up in my head.  And it's a struggle to get up on these cold, dark mornings to run.

More of God.  I want my times with Him to be more intimate.  I want my relationship with Him to be more than behaving, because I have learned to do that well.  I already know how to do church and how to do good.  I want to accept His invitation to know His constant peace and presence over the striving to meet expectations - mostly the ones I hold over myself.  And I want to fight to stay alive and awake to the everyday graces He has given me.

I want to fight for my children and my family.  To say no to good things so that I can have what I want: MORE TIME FOR MY FAMILY.  Time to tell my son how proud I am to be his mom and to teach my daughter about love and life and God.  Time to tell my mom how much I appreciate her and time to make more memories.

And I want to fight for Scotty.  I want to be the one person in his life who will love him unconditionally.   We have fought too many battles to just get comfortable and allow our marriage to be crippled by 'just ordinary'.   I love this song by Warren Barfield.

"Love is not a fight, but it's something worth fighting for."

Scotty has been and always will be worth fighting for.

I understand that these here are fighting words because anything worth having is going to take hard work.  And it's worth the fight to stay awake and to live alive and to stay in love.

What about you?   What are you fighting for?

I Will Never Be Good Enough

 

What am I thinking?!?  The blinding white screen mocks me and the cursor taunts me to type something meaningful.  I feel like a deer in head lights.  So this is stage fright.  Days of rehearsing my lines, nervous excitement and then...nothing.  I know the script, but my voice refuses to make a sound.  I am suddenly overcome with a sense of inadequacy.

 

Then again, maybe it isn't so sudden.  I've lived much of my life feeling inadequate.  It's my sixth sense.  I'm not smart enough, tall enough, spiritual enough. I AM NOT ENOUGH.  I don't have any deep wisdom or insight.  Quite frankly, I'm sort of a mess.  I worry too much about what people think, I'm moody and inconsistent with my routines, can never find my phone, and these days my family is lucky if I get dinner on the table.  I am not enough to be my husband's only happiness, teach my children everything about life, and even though I won't try to, if you stick around long enough, I will disappoint you. 

Enter: Grace

Unmerited favor.  In other words, favor I didn't earn, so I don't deserve it. 
Synonyms for favor include approval, blessing, a gift, fondness, like, love, ok.

I am not enough, but it's ok.

Do you know that God is not disappointed in you?  He can't be, because He had no expectations of you being perfect in the first place.  HE  STILL LOVES YOU.  Not only does He love you , He adores you. 

"...While we were still unlovely, Christ died for us" - Romans 5:8
 

He knows that we can never live up to perfection.  BUT His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).  IT is enough.

 

Do you believe it?  Do you have the audacity to say "I am God's favorite"?  With God, it has never been about performance or good behavior. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT RELATIONSHIP.   When I feel someone is mad at me or disappointed in me, I distance myself.  In fact, I become defensive and angry.  But when I know I am loved and accepted, my behavior changes.  I love back.  I won't try to, but I will mess up.  Yet, grace will still be there.  It's outrageous. 

So let's just stop.

Let's stop performing.

Let's stop trying to be good enough.

Stop working so hard to gain God's approval.

It's OK to not have it all together.  Let's keep it real.  There is always grace.

The real story is that there are tons of bloggers out there who are smarter, wiser, and are better writers than I am.  Maybe I will have only 3 readers (shout out to The Sisterhood!), or maybe I'll reach just a handful of people in my little corner of the blog world.  Still, I'll keep writing.  And if what I have to say is relevant to you, grab a cup of coffee, come on over to this space and we'll keep reminding eachother to live inside the grace of today.


What about you?  Do you struggle with inadequacy?  What are your thoughts on grace?