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. 
Coke Evans, a mentor in the 80’s 🙂
Here are 8 choices they taught me to make: Continue reading
My nickname in our family is “Idea Woman”. Often I am mocked with the refrain “God loves you and Laura has a wonderful plan for your life.”
It’s ok. I’ll own it. I can’t help the way my mind works. Ideas just kind of spurt out like fireworks.
While they were growing up, the girls and I used to watch the old movie “The Trouble with Angels” about Haley Mills causing mischief in a catholic boarding school. We often repeat her line, “I have a scathingly brilliant idea!“ with a gleam in our eyes.
All that to say, in the past couple years I’ve been struck by three things that friends have done that seem scathingly brilliant and I want to share them with you. These are not my ideas. I just wish I had thought of them! Continue reading
“She tucked belief right into me.”
A few years ago I read this lovely line written by Ann Voskamp who was talking about a grandmother who called out gifts in her that she was afraid to believe.
In my life, belief has been a synonym for courage. Like a toddler at night, with Mama tucking covers tight, I’ve had many snug courage right into me and our family.
When our youngest daughter, Maggie, graduated from college she accepted an internship with the International Justice Mission. She prepared to leave home and live in Guatemala City for a year.
The transition between college and “the real world” is a scary one. Like jumping off a cliff and hoping you hit the water and remember how to swim. A time of hard decisions and what-if-I-don’t-make-it fears.
To launch Maggie into this new season, we invited a group of women for brunch. Women who had loved her, and prayed for her, and poured into her for many years.
I asked each of them to bring a word for Maggie, accompanied by a blessing, a prayer, encouragement, or advice. Continue reading
One of the amazing blessings of my life is that John serves on the World Vision International Board and I get to tag along as he travels with them. Seeing new places and learning about new cultures is enriching, but I also get to spend time with remarkable, godly people I admire! This week we’ve been in London and Windsor with these friends.
One of the things I notice is the power of a mantra my friend Sharon repeats often: “Words matter.” Too many, too few (a compliment left unshared), life-giving words, words of gratitude or complaint. Our words can be the thermostat that sets the temperature of a conversation. If God is noting the temperature I set with my words, I’m wondering how often it would be set at “foot in mouth”, or “insensitive”, “self-centered”, or “gossipy”.
Sitting at lunch yesterday my friend Helen didn’t just let the conversation drift. She asked the seven women around the table, (all of us new acquaintances) to share what one of our passions is.
After the first person spoke, another woman at the table suggested that we pray for each person after they shared. What could have been nice chit-chat became a lovely, richer time of fellowship because these two women took the opportunity to set the temperature of our conversation, creating a God-honoring environment.
Whether it’s our friends on the board here, or mentors elsewhere, some of the things I’ve observed about Jesus followers who know that words matter are:
What is it that you think makes the difference between conversations that lift our minds and those that lower them?
Years ago, a wise old couple, (picture Mr. and Mrs. Yoda) – ones who have that “non-anxious presence” that is so winsome – impacted us greatly.
Every time we came away from a conversation with them we felt like our eyes, our hearts, our spirits had been lifted to something higher. We came away feeling richer. Sometimes inspired, sometimes challenged. Sometimes with renewed vision. We started referring to these as “kingdom conversations.”
They said they had learned the quality from people before them who always seemed to be able to redirect the focus of a conversation like a boomerang, away from themselves, back to the other person and the work of God. Not in cheesy manufactured way, but it was just part of who they were.
The other day we were with a group of young friends, discussing a new acquaintance who didn’t seem to be very good at the boomerang game. Not a very good question-asker-listener. Instead, this person seemed to be a little self-absorbed (like we all can be).
The other day I was getting my hair cut by Mary who’s cut it for several years. We’ve become friends of sorts (as much as you can when you only talk in the beauty shop every 5 weeks) and have shared quite a bit about our lives. I’m not positive where she is in terms of a relationship with Jesus. I think she believes, but maybe has not chosen to nurture that relationship or be part of a faith community, or think much about faith and how it could impact her life. That said, she’s a really good person. 🙂
Anyway, I was thinking after I left, “If she didn’t know I was a Christ-follower (which she does), would ANYTHING in my tone, actions, or reactions, or the content of what I said to her seem different than any other woman who sits in her chair every day?” I mean, how Jesus-y is reading People magazine and talking about movies for Pete’s sake?
That got me thinking about a woman who was in my life many years ago…an informal mentor who had a huge impact on me. A Jesus-like woman who epitomized the verse “Let your speech be always with grace.” Her name was (and is) Coke (short for Colleen) Evans. It’s probably been 20 years since I’ve seen her. Even more than the impact of her words, I carry with me “snapshots”…memories of times when her posture and her expression and her actions shouted “grace” with surround sound clarity.
Snapshot #1. We were at a huge church party in a private home. People helped themselves to food in a buffet line and then spread throughout the large colonial home. I was having a blast. So many fun people and lively conversations. I had gotten my food and was walking down a hallway when I passed a tiny den. There were only two people in the room sitting on a small couch in deep conversation. One was an extremely unattractive, and socially awkward woman. And sitting next to her was Coke, looking at her with love, hanging on this woman’s every word as if she was the most important woman in the universe.
Like Jesus if He had been at the party.
Snapshot #2. There was a concert at church in the downstairs fellowship hall. As I walked in from the back I noticed the man who was the most bitter, mean-spirited man I knew. And he was a vocal critic of Coke’s husband, the senior pastor. But there she was, full of grace, sitting next to him, and leaning in with love in her eyes, caring for him, and listening with single-minded attention.
Like Jesus, if He had come to the concert.
Here’s what strikes me as I think back about Coke, and ask my own question about any possible Jesus-y difference Mary might notice in me: as much as Coke spoke words of grace, it was more powerful that her whole demeanor was one of loving, gracious attention. When she was with you it was like you were the most important person in her world. She would lean in, look you deep in the eyes, lay a gentle hand on your arm and treat you like you were of infinite worth, even though the rest of world might be ready to write you off. More than her words, Coke had a posture of grace. And that’s what made her different.
Kind of like Jesus.
Today I’m asking myself again, “Is there a difference in my life marked by grace that anyone would notice and think of Jesus?” What about you?
Who’s a “Coke” in your life?
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