For When the Unknown Future Feels Overwhelming

.Reading time 3 minutes.

We want to know it all, Lord. 
Every upcoming event, answer, result. We feel like it would just be best if it was all revealed.

But You know our limits better than we do. You know what our fragile minds and delicate hearts can handle.

You also know that our desire for knowledge is actually our desperate human attempt for control.

Free us from our control freak tendencies.
Help us understand that the unknowns are in much Better Hands.

It can just be so scary, so anxiety-producing, to not know what is coming or how it will all turn out.

Free us from our worries and anxieties.
Help us trust that You, the Creator of all things, know what You are doing.

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Not Yet

.Reading time 9 minutes.

It’s been over a year since I have posted anything on this blog. It hasn’t been a year since I have written; there are probably 5-10 unfinished potential posts laying around on my laptop or in a journal or a note on my phone. I have lots of incomplete thoughts or wonderings, without a whole lot of resolution, which resonates with this season of life in a way. In that year I have birthed a baby and watched him conquer a whole year of life. It should leave a person feeling pretty accomplished, and sometimes it does, but it also leaves me with lots of things not quite complete.

And here we are in a new year, with new hopes and bright outlooks. I try and make things perfect before I share them, and maybe that isn’t the right way to go about it. Sometimes you just have to start, just have to put it out there, in all the raw and imperfectness, to move towards something you’ll be proud of. “Nothing to it but to do it,” as my husband would say.

So here’s to 2024 – a year that I have definite, specific hopes for, but will surely surprise me along the way. I have chosen “yet” as my word for the year. I used it in regular conversation and was struck by it, like inspiration landing right on my shoulder.

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Walk Slow With Me

.Reading time 7 minutes.

At almost nine months pregnant, a lot of things look different in my life. I was processing this with my counselor, and I shared that one of the most interesting things is how slow I have to walk. I cannot keep the pace that everyone else is going at, which feels like an accurate picture of life in general. It is fascinating to experience how challenging it is for people to slow down to my pace, or the many times they don’t even realize they’ve left me behind. Often when people do let me set the speed, observers will comment on how slowly we are walking. “Why do you guys walk so slow?” I respond, “Me. I’m the reason,” and watch their faces turn red immediately. 

But this struck me as a metaphor for the reality we are living in – why do we feel like we have to move so quickly? One of my favorite things about walks with my husband is that it is never rushed. We are never power walking, we are enjoying time together at a leisurely pace. But culturally we view life as some kind of race, always moving at lightning speed from thing to thing, juggling way more than we are actually capable of carrying.

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Stop Caring So Much

.Reading time 9 minutes.

I have been thinking a lot recently about overthinking (I know). I caught myself multiple times one morning saying to myself, “…but I’m probably reading into it.” I realized I was giving a lot of mental energy and brain space to how I imagined people were feeling about me or perceiving me, without a whole lot of proof of what was actually true. 

I read some inspiring Pinterest quote later on that said something to the effect of: Unless someone tells me there is a problem, I’m going to assume things are fine. I shouldn’t be wasting time creating problems that might not even be there. My counselor tells me I have a tendency towards “catastrophic thinking” which surely doesn’t help me in this area, but we are working on it.

Because here is the thing. No matter how perceptive or intuitive I am, I might be wrong. I might think someone is upset with me because their text was shorter than it usually is, or imagine that someone isn’t happy about something because they didn’t talk to me about it, but I could be making it all up. What a waste! 

And no matter if I am right or wrong, I don’t have the capacity to be carrying all of that if someone isn’t going to bring it to me themselves. It gets us nowhere, and it’s heavy. I’m not strong enough to carry all of that around all the time.

If this upcoming season of parenthood is teaching me one thing, it is that I have limits and they are beautiful.

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Peace, Be Still

.Reading time 6 minutes.

A coworker this week brought us back to Mark 4, where the disciples are on the boat in the storm with Jesus while He is taking a nap. I felt myself so easily fall into this story, identifying with the disciples shaking Jesus awake, fear in their eyes, asking Him to just do something. The dialogue in this story felt so relevant to where I am now; the disciples wake Jesus and say, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (ESV) I have said a lot of things like that to Jesus in the past year or so. My main attitude towards Him could maybe be summed up by “do you not care…” followed by many specific or general areas in which He is, by my standards, failing me. 

But then Jesus responds to them (and to me), in classic Jesus fashion, by handling the storm and then by saying to them: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 

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A Liturgy for Big Decisions

.Reading time 4 minutes.

We come before you, Lord, standing at the edge of a big decision. It feels daunting, not knowing where we will land. There are so many ways the road could part; we can feel the paralysis of making a wrong choice. We pause to ask for clarity and direction. We lay down our hurry, and […]

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Finding Hope in the Silence

.Reading time 7 minutes.

I’m not sure where you’re at, but for me this season has felt unending and lacking movement. I find myself asking not just, “What are you doing, Lord?” but also, “Why aren’t you doing anything?” A good friend has articulated recently feeling like God is about to do some big things, but nothing is yet clear and He still seems hidden.

Cue the Christmas story. We imagine it all beginning with Mary with the animals, giving birth to her baby on an itchy pile of hay. But it really begins so much earlier than this, and we learn for ourselves how to pay attention to what God might be doing by looking back at the years leading up to Jesus in the manger.

When we look at Scripture, we flip just one page to transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament, while in reality there are 400 years of silence and space in between the two. 400 years of seemingly nothing from God. No words, no direction, no clarity. And then, suddenly, a baby. This is not the plan that anyone would have imagined. This is not the way we would have pictured God coming out of 400 years of silence. Surely You are preparing something…epic? I’m beginning to realize that I’m believing that God is doing nothing in my life because I have a very specific idea and area of my life where I want and expect Him to be working.

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A Liturgy for a Long Season

.Reading time 3 minutes.

We come before you, Lord, in the midst of a long season.

It seems unending, like we may never find our way out.

We don’t know what to do with the monotony, the rising stress, the same questions that we’ve been asking for what feels like forever.

We echo the Psalmist in his cry: How long, O Lord? 

Caught in the same space, the same struggle, the same waiting—we wonder if You are paying attention or if You have forgotten us.

Help us rely on Your character, trusting in who we have seen You to be in our lives.

May we be people of steady faithfulness. 

Help us demonstrate “long obedience in the same direction.” 

We know from experience that no season lasts forever. Comfort us as we wait for the change, the turning of leaves and opening of doors.

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A Liturgy For A New Season

.Reading time 4 minutes.

We come before you, Lord, at the start of a new season.

So many unknowns are before us. 

We have so many questions, hopes, and fears that remain unanswered. We entrust each one to Your hands.

It is tempting, God, to start imagining all the things that could go wrong prematurely. We grasp at control by ruminating on all the worst case scenarios. 

Help us release our fear and uncertainty, and learn to trust You in each present moment.

There is so much to come; so many potential challenges:

Hardships that may rattle us.

Problems we won’t know how to solve.

Hopes dashed, hearts broken.

And also:

Friends we haven’t met yet.

Joy and excitement over learning and growing. 

Hopes met, and love discovered.

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Holding Hope

.Reading time 6 minutes.

This week I had the opportunity to share some vulnerable things with my staff. We had a meeting with the head of our division and he shared something he had learned years ago: you can choose not to let people into your hard seasons, but then you also cut them out of experiencing the good that might come later — the miracle, the healing, the celebration. It was convicting to me, as I would like to hide the hard things and only talk about them once the solution has already come. But inviting people into our mess gives them a beautiful opportunity to hold hope for us. 

A mentor recently shared this idea with me, as I shared what I was learning about frustrating things that people say to you when you’re grieving, particularly overly hopeful “you’ll get through it! God’s got this!” kinds of things. She said, “sometimes all you need is for people to hold hope for you silently.” If we don’t let people into our hard seasons though, they won’t really be able to do this for us.

My boss pointed out something beautiful about practicing vulnerability. While it can feel like you are handing someone a burden to hold, instead you are giving them the opportunity to hold hope for you. Hope that the hard season will come to an end, that the broken thing will be redeemed, that healing will come, that faith will return. We don’t always need to outwardly tell people we are hoping this for them, particularly when they might feel entirely hopeless. We need to let people be exactly where they are, and hold hope for them to come around to a certain outcome.

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