Tag: grace (Page 3 of 6)

Soul Food on a Bad Day

October 16, 2015 /

Awhile ago I wrote that I read and really liked Jen Hatmaker’s new book, For the Love. Full disclosure, there are a couple of chapters I didn’t care for, but mostly I think Jen’s hysterical and brilliant, and I read anything she writes. So this week when John asked if we could host a working dinner at our house with a consultant from out of town, I said “Sure.” and I decided I’d try THREE new recipes, including Jen’s recipe for Beef Bourguignon included in the book.

Big. Mistake.

I was also trying to squeeze in making soup for a friend with sick kids.

No, I’m not the brightest bulb on the string.

Add to this the fact that I’ve been sick and the number of guests John said were coming kept changing. I set the table three different times.

Let’s just say I was not my usual delightful self on Tuesday.

And then John showed up with these from my FAVORITE flower shop that I’ve ruthlessly trained him to go to gently hinted that I like. 🙂

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A picture of GRACE!!!  Soul food, sister!

And then a call from daughter #1 in D.C. at the exact moment I couldn’t do anything more. Grace upon Grace! More soul food that filled me up with joy.

These graces made me want to be gracier towards others too. Especially cranky pants who might be having a bad day. The next day I read this in Mark Batterson’s IF:

Goethe said, “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can be and should be, and he will become as he can be and should be.” 

No one modeled that better than Jesus.

The Pharisees treated people as they were. Jesus treated people as they could be.

Anyway, in addition to sharing some pictures of grace I want to share a couple of other things. That Beef Bourguignon from Jen? Well, in addition to being impossible to spell, it was a BUCKETLOAD of work and I really didn’t think it was worth it. I actually think my go-to 4 Hour Stew recipe is better and soooooo much easier! So in case you don’t have it, here you go and you’re welcome!

In a large baking dish (preferably with a tight lid) put:

2 lb. beef stew meat cut in chunks

1 medium onion in chunks

1 stalk celery sliced

6 carrots cubed

Blend together: 1 t. salt, 2 Tb. sugar, 2 Tb. tapioca

Sprinkle this over your meat and veggies.

Add 1 can of peas and spread on can of tomato soup over all.

Cover and bake @250 for 4 hours. Serve over biscuits or potatoes or whatever you want. Ta da! Serves 6

While you’re enjoying your stew, here’s some more soul food for when it seems like peace is elusive and you want to be hopeful, but also honest about your feelings…After hearing them in D.C. last week I downloaded The Brilliance new album, Brother which I love, love, love. The title track, Brother, is powerful, but this is my favorite.

Lastly, one more picture of soul food or grace or whatever you want to call it…Several years ago we got a puppy that we loved, but had to give away because of our travel schedule. The great thing is that she went to an awesome family who asks us to take care of her when they are out of town – WIN-WIN!!

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The joy of her this week made me think of an old video that most of you have probably seen, but if you haven’t you need to.  Happy Friday! 🙂

3 Times Not to Let it Go

September 16, 2015 /

The other day John was acting…you know…clueless and insensitive as men do sometimes. (Women never do that, right?)

Anyway, it was late and I was going up to bed. But my feelings were hurt.

Now at this point I had a decision to make. Was this a minor thing that could be blanketed in grace and forgotten, or was it something that would affect our relationship going forward if I didn’t address it?

Whether it’s in a marriage or friendship or work relationship, I think we face this tension often.

  • You have a friend who arranges to meet at you 6:00 and calls to cancel at 5:58.
  • You come downstairs feeling pretty good and your husband (thinking he’s paying you a compliment) says “Honey you look autumnal!” (I happen to have some first-had experience with this one. Men, let me just warn you, don’t do it. Your wife will hear, “You look like a pumpkin!”)
  • You’re struggling with infertility and have a friend who is constantly complaining about her kids.
  • An acquaintance moans to you about her weight when she clearly weighs a number you haven’t seen on the scale since you were 13.

Proverbs 19:11 says:

‘Good sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense’.

When we’re dinged, our go-to is supposed to be grace, right? We’re forgiven, so we need to be forgiving. Let it go. Let it goooooo.

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But there are times when we need to be brave and talk out the offense with the offender.

I can think of 3 times that we shouldn’t let an offense slide: Continue reading

8 Valuable Choices I Learned From Mentor Moms

June 6, 2015 /

When my kids were tinies I realized quickly that I needed all the help I could get. I was hungry for ANY lifeline when I was drowning in a sea of uncertainty about ALL OF THE PARENTING THINGS. Fortunately I had some wise, godly moms who were a season, or two or three ahead of me and shared some valuable lessons. IMG_0175 Coke Evans, a mentor in the 80’s 🙂

Here are 8 choices they taught me to make: Continue reading

When Life is Loud and Crazy and You’re Doing All of the Things

March 20, 2015 /

Confession: I went running on a tiny island in the Bahamas this morning and I felt guilty that we have generous friends who have lent us their home here, and we can take the time to enjoy it in this season of our lives.  And as I am running feeling all the guilty feelings, here’s what I’m thinking…

I’m wondering how many of you read the post on Wednesday about doing good, and you sighed deep, and your shoulders slumped, and you Just. Felt. Tired. Even more tired maybe than usual. Because for you it’s a season of weariness.

  • You’re a single 20-something working two jobs while trying to put yourself through grad school.
  • You’re a business owner with huge responsibilities to bring in revenue, and cast vision, and lead your staff well.
  • You’re a married mom working outside the home and raising kids while trying to keep your marriage alive.
  • You’re homeschooling 4 kids and volunteering as a coach or a deacon or a leader in some capacity.
  • You’re a single mom juggling job, daycare, car-pooling, finances, house repairs and….

You’re stretched to the max.

You read the post and wanted to throw something at the screen and yell, “I don’t need a kick in the pants! I need a latte and a massage!” Continue reading

Saints and Sinners and What Matters

February 25, 2015 /

We flew to Atlanta Monday morning for the memorial service of a dear friend. A saint and a sinner like all of us, but also a man who has left a powerful kingdom legacy that inspires thousands.

It’s been a weird, hard, mystical journey that we have participated in from afar the past 9 months as Steve died “well”; honest about the pain and even fear, of letting go, but also the joy of reaching out to heaven – the next leg of the eternal life he began with Jesus here on this earth.

We left Minneapolis at 14 below zero and deplaned in a tropical 46 degrees. As we drove to the hilly, pine-forested suburb of Peachtree, I was amazed by the gift of purply pansies, crocuses, and yellow jonquils, defiantly triumphing over February. A courageous picture of the life we were celebrating.IMG_3856

I sat in the classic white, sanctuary before the service, buzzing with people of faith, converging from states coast to coast, greeting each other. Bound together by Jesus and grace. Hard to imagine more prestigious national ministry leaders gathered in one place.

I felt inspired, strengthened, sobered by the privilege of standing together before our God, singing lustily “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God our Father…”

Side by side stood book writers, soul winners, slave rescuers, well diggers, good news bringers, and advisors to presidents.
Prophets, pastors, and professors with voices raised together in worship. The room was filled with so many we know, love, have served with… Scattered throughout the sanctuary were friends who have fertilized and cultivated our small faith.

There were others too, who have impacted us differently: a pastor removed from ministry for a “moral failing”, another divorced and remarried, his ex-wife also present. Across the room, a ministry leader who deeply wounded me, and a supremely confident, sharp-witted woman with whom I feel small and intimidated. Continue reading

Awkward Encounters of the Communion Kind

December 10, 2014 /

Sunday John and I preached together.  And then I served communion.  We were supposed to serve it together, but he was sick, and in addition to squirting Purell on his (and my) hands every other minute, I told him it would not be an example of God’s grace for him to infect a thousand people by doling out germy communion bread.

We love serving communion.  And communion is only possible because we have Christmas and the cross first.photo-82

Serving communion is a remarkable, visual experience, made more powerful because we know the stories of so many of the people in our faith community who approach us, starving for grace, thirsty for assurance of forgiveness.

Sunday was no different.  All generations, every manner of humanity, walked forward to the front of the sanctuary to take bread and dip it in the cup.

I looked deep into the eyes of husbands and wives we know are struggling to love each other, Continue reading

That Wedding When I was Tempted to go all Norma Rae

October 22, 2014 /

A few weeks ago my husband John had to restrain me from totally losing it and making a scene at a wedding.  I was FURIOUS.  Fist-clenching, face-scrunching, steam coming out my ears furious.

“Why?”, you ask.  “What could possibly provoke near violence at a wedding?” Continue reading

Defining the Relationship

May 12, 2014 /

As I write this we’re in London with some of our closest friends, heading to a board meeting where our husbands will work, and the wives will continue to play. We pray for them and drink tea.  Or wine.  It’s an arrangement I’m partial to.  

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Anyway, I wrote this post (below) a week or so ago and as I read back over it this morning before hitting “publish”, I think it is true, and hopefully helpful, but like most things, it’s certainly not the whole story.

We are blessed beyond belief with the relationships God has given us.  If they are healthy, they ebb and flow.  We weep together in one season and laugh together in another.  Sometimes those seasons are one and the same.  We give and take, rant and chatter and share vulnerably.  We listen, and pray.  A lot.  We gather around a table or show up to help each other move or we write a note. We are all resourceful, important, trainable, nice, draining people…and somehow in the midst of doing life together we are changed.  We are iron sharpening iron and I am so grateful that God has given us all to each other.

It seems like there’s been a recurring theme in a bunch of my conversations lately.  It’s the DTR theme, and I don’t mean in the dating sense of the word. Continue reading

Brave Knights, and a Trustworthy King (for young parents)

May 5, 2014 /

Not infrequently, husband John and I will be part of conversations with our daughters like the following one.  It’s about Maggie’s summer internship in Northern Uganda where the Lord’s Resistance Army has forced children to be soldiers.  She’ll be working with those who have been brutalized but have escaped…
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The other day after he read this husband John asked me (rhetorically), “How does this keep HAPPENING??!”

Others also ask us this too (although it sounds more like: “How did you raise your daughters?”)  The primary answer is: “With a LOT of mistakes and loads of God’s GRACE.”

Both our daughters, and we, will continue to mess up as we try to follow Jesus, but we also trust that God will pick us up when we stumble,  Here’s what we tried to teach them as they were growing up… Continue reading

To All Those Who Didn’t Show

April 21, 2014 /

I wrote yesterday about the waiting on the Fool’s Bench at Easter.

As it turned out, I didn’t sit.  I stood near the door to church in the Great Room, craning my neck, looking over the shoulder of anyone I was talking to, hoping to see the shaved bald head of my next-door-neighbor and his blond wife walk in.

I prayed and prayed.  I saved seats at two (count ’em, two!) services, which did NOT endear me to those who did come and were tackling others for a spot, practically paying hard cash money so they could sit inside the sanctuary instead of in the overflow rooms.

It didn’t happen.  Yes, the other friend did show at an earlier service and I pray that she felt totally hogswaggled by the enormity of God’s love for her, but it’s hard not to focus on the ones who didn’t come.  photo-109

I’ve been thinking about them…All the friends and neighbors and co-workers and prodigal family members you invited to church this Sunday.  Or last.  Or any one of a bazillion times. Continue reading

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