During my adolescent years, my mother worked for Trans World Airlines (TWA) in reservations. It was the era of wearing your best dress on board the airplane, not your pajamas. The era when children visited the cockpit, had awkward conversations with the pilots and received wing pins as a souvenir. I even remember getting a ColorForms set to pass the time from the stewardess who looked like a Miss America contestant.

I know revealing all this probably dates me. But I hope you’ll continue reading anyway.

Even though flights were discounted for us, my mother was a working single parent with little time or extra money for travel. Vacation for me meant car trips with my grandparents to places in the Midwest, like Silver Dollar City and Lake of the Ozarks. Before those places became the poster for tacky tourist clichés.

One year, my mother asked, “If you could pick anywhere, where would you like to take a summer vacation with me?”

I said Arizona.

She brought home pamphlets and brochures on Tucson and Phoenix.

We ended up going to Disneyland in California instead.

I don’t know why I said Arizona, except that saguaro’s and the barrenness of the desert seemed intriguing. So completely different than lying on a beach towel in the grass, slathered in baby oil, suffocated by humidity.

What I didn’t know when I said Arizona is that I would meet my husband there years later. That my kid’s birth certificates would say they were born in Phoenix.

God places destiny in our heart and often we can’t comprehend it. But God is faithful to lead us there, one day at a time.

As you enter the holiday weekend, may you embrace the unknowns beyond your carefully crafted plans. Revel in the knowledge that He designed the journey with you in mind; trust that He is leading you to destiny, one day at a time. Even when you don’t have all the answers.

Happy Sabbath Friends!

The post Embracing the Unknown – Week 20 appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

I stood on the concrete floor of the Royal Albert Hall, five rows from the stage, turning slowly like the ballerina on a child’s jewelry box taking it all in. Next to a folded seat draped with my damp trench coat, I watched people file into four stories of seats from the crowded city streets of London. Willing my mind to record it like a video camera of remembrance.

God’s presence was palpable.

Back home, I’d been so absorbed in finding time to write, connecting with people online and worrying about my children’s future, that I missed seeing Jesus’ perspective on the world. He was giving me a binocular view of unity and the way he loves mankind from the diversity of the Body of Christ.

But more than that, I realized I was avoiding the uncomfortable truth that sin has left an ugly indelible mark on the world. Not intentional avoidance, but one slow drive around my well-manicured neighborhood, one click on the garage door of my comfort zone at a time.

He’s longing for us to be carriers of Hope to a world living with the absence of hope. And there isn’t just one way to do that.

I stood up during a break and asked the woman seated in front of me if she needed prayer. She nodded to the affirmative, so I prayed for what she requested: more of the Holy Spirit’s power in her life. The sky didn’t crack open and she didn’t leap over seats, but we felt the presence of God as we bowed our heads to humbly ask.

The next day I stepped away from my seat, walked around a galley of people to the row behind me and prayed for a woman who stood in response to the need for healing in her neck. The muscles so tight she couldn’t move her head around while driving to see if the road was clear to pass. A young woman and I prayed over her together and after a few moments, she could move her neck without pain.

Last weekend, I sat in a different kind of theater with my family, waiting for the new Star Trek movie to appear on the screen. As the lights dimmed, the putrid smell of alcohol and cigarettes permeated the air around us. H leaned over and remarked that the person behind us was so inebriated that the smell was leaking from his pores.

I thought about moving to another seat.

I thought about how I don’t like going to the theater anymore. I prefer watching movies on my couch with a blanket draped over me; eating popcorn from my own bowl, instead of a cardboard box.

I thought about how uncomfortable the seats are, how I have to swing my legs over to the left or right because the person in front of me leans too far back in their swanky theater seat, invading my personal space.

I thought about how loud the plastic wrapping sounds on the candy people were opening behind me, how when you are drunk you aren’t considering other people.

And then suddenly, I thought about how I sat crumpled up in the Royal Albert Hall just a few days ago, seated around people I didn’t know, listening to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury say, “The key moment for Christians is when we realize what Christ did for us, not what we do for Him.”

So I repented of my hypocrisy and prayed for the person behind me as I watched Klingons threaten someone’s life from the Enterprise.  He didn’t stand up and ask for prayer but I boldly asked the Lord to heal him. Deliver him of his addiction and let him know he is loved in a tangible way.

We are carriers of hope. There is more than one way to deliver it.  More than one way that He’ll remind us of why we are here. God isn’t limited by venue, language barriers, cultural differences, faith backgrounds or our sin when it comes to showing His endless love and transforming power to mankind.

It is not what we do for God, but what He does for us that changes everything.

Linking with Jennifer for Tell His Story.

The post When You Get Over Yourself, Repent of Hypocrisy, and Give God Room appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

“How are you,” I ask.  She looks up from wiping the sink, into the mirror to get a look at me. Then she leans her whole body sideways, finishes swiping the white enamel canoe shaped sink until the bowl is spotless.  She smiles and says she is fine. I linger because I sense something more.

Her round cheeks permanently flush, like someone wiped their finger stained with lipstick across them. Her skin is so pale it nearly matches the color of the thin white blouse she wears, making her blue eyes noticeable.

“It’s almost time to go home,” she says.

I turn around with dripping hands looking for the towels and empathize, “You must be counting the minutes then.”

She pulls herself up, moves over to the next sink in the trio and tells me she will be going to the hospital to visit her granddaughter when she gets off.

I hesitate, look in the mirror on the opposite wall and realize we’re the only ones in the bathroom at the Delta Club now. Just outside the door the room is full of travelers speaking different languages. Sitting with their luggage at white plastic tables, eating plates of carrots and salmon sandwiches shaped like rectangles. Somehow, it feels like I’ve entered a sacred portal.

I ask Jesus what He has in mind for these moments that I’m alone in the restroom with an airport employee.

“Oh, she must be quite sick,” I respond.

In less than a minute, I learn that her granddaughter is sixteen, her name is Courtney, and the doctors think she suffers from appendicitis. Except that there are signs of internal bleeding too. She can’t even hold water down.

I tell her I have a seventeen year old daughter and can imagine she must be worried sick. “That sounds serious,” I say.

She makes eye contact with me.

“I’ll pray for your Courtney,” I tell her. She looks down, fiddles with the wet paper towel she is using to clean and mumbles something quietly, then starts wiping the third sink, the one I just used.

“Thank you for praying,” she says sheepishly.

It only takes a minute to be vulnerable and lead someone to the presence of God.  I think about how many times I’ve asked someone that question, “How are you?”, and didn’t wait long enough to hear the answer. Or God speaking.

We’re all longing for someone to listen. Because very few of us are just fine.

So, how are you?

Linking with Michelle, Laura, Jen and Heather.

The post Listen to What They Aren’t Saying appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

Crossing my booted legs, I wait in the high back burgundy chair near the elevator; watch the glass doors slide open and shut. People scurry into the hotel lobby carrying luggage, shopping bags and umbrellas; arms wrapped around their waist holding in the warmth. I wonder if I will recognize their faces, if our conversation will be easy or awkward.

Emma found my blog through the Facebook ticker.  A mutual friend “liked” an update for a new post on my blog. Curious, she clicked over. It wasn’t until she “liked” my Writer page and I messaged her, that I discovered she and her best friend Jane were reading regularly. They co-author their own blog and actively participate in the Sabbath Society.

To say that their correspondence with me is a blessing would be a trite understatement.

On this day, Emma travelled three hours to meet up with Jane and make their way into London together on the tube. They both took the day off work to meet me. When they told me that, I put my hand on my chest, closed my eyes and willed the tears away. Humbled.

They teach me that vulnerability knows no boundaries in a screen or cultural differences. It opens the door to relationship. And that is why I blog, why I started the Sabbath Society.

As they step into the lobby, scarves wrapped around their necks, our eyes meet and we immediately embrace with smiles all around. We huddle around a tiny table in the corner of the hotel gathering space, pouring tea and catching up like old friends on holiday oblivious to time. And continue conversation with commas and few periods, over lunch in a French restaurant, walking side by side through crowded streets, swaying on the underground, and following the blue dot on Jane’s phone to my favorite bookstore when we corporately admit to being directionally challenged.

Sometimes I lose my way. I get lost among crowded rooms of writers elbowing their way through social media and platform building and forget why God asked me to write.

Until someone tells me that my words are their main source of spiritual direction (outside of the Bible) and I want to fall to my knees on cobblestones with the pigeons in the fear of God. Who am I Lord?

He brought me together with two friends who live on the other side of the world to remind me that we are created to worship. Life is not about what we do for Him, but what He has done for us.

May you know today that your vulnerability isn’t wasted.  Know that you don’t need to fit in to the right place for God to find you. He wants to be your companion on the journey, not the greeter at the arrival gate.

Happy Sabbath Friends!

Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. Psalm 102:18-22

The post How Vulnerability Opens the Gift of Relationship – Week #19 appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

H and I hold hands along the foot path, stopping every few feet to capture what is new to us. There is something beautiful about misted color and the wisdom of trees holding time in the hollows of their trunks. Vines twist upward, gnarl around her branches creating a holy haven for fowl in winter.

The unmanicured canopy of creation, it lays out like a pile of pixie sticks falling exquisitely random and untouched by human hands.

Canal boats drift steady, snoring sleepily between banks flush with green moss and upside down teacups hanging from stems like crooks of tiny folded umbrellas.

We’ll remember our twenty-third wedding anniversary in England. The quiet Sabbath stroll we took down the lane, next to a meadow of dandelions. Where we realized we’ve been on a grand adventure with God at the helm since we said, “I do”.

And it’s been a good ride. I’m leaning in. And waiting.

May you look back today and realize that God is and always has been with you, in the silence and grief, in the adrenaline rush of joy fulfilled, the promise of tomorrow, and in the hope of future dreams. He redeems the weeds and makes them beautiful.

Happy Sabbath Friends!

Click on the tab “Sabbath Society” to learn more about the sisterhood.

The post Surrendering to Sabbath – Week 18 appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

I have a hard time letting go. It’s why I wrote about it for 31 Days.

I find myself thinking I need to twist and turn and conform to some better version of me. Usually in the afterglow of feeling confident. It’s a place I seem to return to often, a conversation with myself like the lines of a play I’ve memorized all my life. My intonation and voice never quit good enough. To me.

H and I wind our way into the center of city life on the wrong side of the road. The chaos and nonconformity makes me feel at home and strangely significant, uniquely fitted among the messy and broken fragments of life.

We walk pressed together under the canopy of an umbrella H holds over us, rain spitting from heaven. But I want to feel it, cold and wet on my face.

The gold chain of my purse hangs diagonal over my black overcoat, white polka dot scarf loosely wrapped around my neck. Rows of black bowler hats idle in front of Harrods waiting to be haled for their paycheck. But we keep walking the familiar path we traveled the same week last May.

Choose the square table for two in the large plate glass window, next to the family speaking English with heavy accents. The family behind us speaks French. Or is it Italian?

“You sit facing the window,” H says, “so you can watch people.”

We order gnocchi and stems of chianti, sipping and savoring time. And suddenly, someone nearby screams a sneeze at an unusually high decibel. And the entire restaurant breaks out in corporate laughter.

Perhaps we find ourselves best in the comfort of what isn’t home.

Joining the Five Minute Friday community at Lisa-Jo’s with a snatch of time from our journey through England this week. Pictures from Oxford and surrounding villages. The word prompt is Comfort.

The post Taking Comfort in Nonconformity appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

“You know the reason we all know each other,” I ask during our lazy afternoon conversation, bare feet propped up on the coffee table. “Because we were all brave and said yes to living outside our comfort zone.”

We’re six sprawled out in chairs and couches huddled tightly in the living room at Hope Cottage, basking in the afterglow of Sunday dinner, fighting sleepiness to linger long in conversation. Seven years pass since we did this last time. Our family stopped through England for respite on our way home from Rwanda.

Eyebrows collectively arch, like a dash or an ellipsis in our conversation. Then suddenly, nods of agreement become contagious. I didn’t realize it until that moment. How our life choices in response to the unseen, unplanned, and uncharted opportunities in life yield the gift of enduring friendships with people scattered across the globe.

Twenty years ago, we met for the first time on a quiet, starry night in Colorado as they stepped off the train, tired newlyweds with attractive British accents. Now we sit together laughing in their parents living room about my inappropriate use of the word yard to refer to their lush garden.

We each walked away from predictable paychecks, the security of social ties, and the familiarity of family and perceived future success to be missionaries living on the mercy of kindness. Or as full-time missionaries say, “We lived on support.”

And we learned that trust means believing that miracles are tangible for everyone, not just the chosen few. It’s what I thought of when I read Margaret’s words:

Too many of us play and pray it safe. We allow our aspirations to stay in our heads, our goals to remain barely outside our grasp. Life becomes a series of unrealized hopes and dreams. Rather than engage in the fullness of life, we remain on the sidelines and pass up uncounted opportunities. Our fears become greater than the hope of the One who came to bring us abundant life.

Perhaps this epiphany on the day H and I celebrate our twenty-third wedding anniversary is a greater gift than the silver plated trinkets tradition says that we should get. Risking reputation and security to follow Christ isn’t planned or predictable and it doesn’t produce preconceived outcomes. It’s like swimming upstream while rain pellets blind your path to shore. You aren’t certain how you’ll get there but when you stand on shore and have a look around, you realize the journey was worth it. The beauty He has waiting at the destination is nothing you could’ve imagined or conjured up on you own.

Being brave for Christ is like standing on the banks of bountiful blessings you didn’t even know were yours until you chose to risk; walk right into fear of the unknown with a flicker of trust dangling from your hands to Light the way.

Even if you stumble, you may find your dream expanding into something even more enchanting than you ever imagined. ~Margaret Feinberg, Wonderstruck

Rare sunlight streams in through the solarium. It’s been eighteen months of wet and cloudy they tell us. Perhaps we’ve carried the sun from the beach in our suitcases and opened it up in England. Pink blooms on the trees multiply in three days, weighing branches down over the thick green carpet in the garden.

We laugh until tears run down my cheeks and I’m holding my stomach. And I’m wonderstruck by it all, the way He makes life beautiful.

Are you willing to risk? When God asks will you say yes?

This is the last installment and link-up for the book club Duane and I are hosting on Wonderstruck by Margaret Feinberg. I hope you have enjoyed the book, discussion and the stories on each of the chapters over the past few Wednesdays. Thank you for joining us.

Linking with Jennifer for Tell His Story and Emily at Imperfect Prose.

The post How Being Brave Changes Your Life appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

My bags are packed with socks and scarves, and lots of layers for indecisive May in England. And we’re cousins, the weather and I, when it comes to books.

Because sometimes a trip isn’t as much about the change of pace and new scenery as the gift of empty time in the wait to get there. That time when I can’t do anything except read. And that’s where my indecisiveness hovers over the wings of the plane.

Which book should I choose first?

I’ve just finished Wonderstruck, Love Does and the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

I’m taking a journal, oh yes leather and a pen, to write down all the stories swirling in my mind. It sits right next to my Kindle, loaded with Thin Places, Free Fall to Fly, and God in the Yard. The new smell of pages in The Light Between Oceans awaits the christening of dark chocolate smudges and brown drip circles from Starbucks and Diet Coke.

Because when I read fiction, I need to feel the glossy cover and flip pages between my fingers.

Reading, it’s the gift I give myself during Sabbath. Because words change me.

“Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?”   ~ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

So what are you reading? What would you put in your carry-on knowing you have a window of eight hours of unscheduled time?

Click on the What I Read tab to find more good reads. The books below are from my favorite bookstore in London: Persephone Books.

Inspired reading around the web this week:

A Circuitous Route – Beautiful poetry by Elizabeth Marshall

On Dreaming and the Good of Contradictions – Ashley Larkin expresses how I feel about my retreat experience last weekend.

God in the Yard – Jody is slowing for Sabbath through the words of a book that is transforming her one word at a time. (and I have it now on my Kindle)

Why You Shouldn’t Read This Blog – because everything Margaret Feinberg writes is full of love and wisdom.

What Heaven Will Be Like – get some tissues and be prepared for God to meet you in this beautiful piece of writing by my dear friend Duane at Scribing the Journey.

Happy Sabbath Friends!

The post Surrendering to Sabbath – Week 17 appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

Sometimes I feel like it’s all hanging by a thread. Just one tug in the wrong direction and life, it might just all unravel. Best laid plans once worn snuggly around your neck can suddenly become a single strand of fuzzy remembrance. What did my life look like before all this? It’s what I hear myself say, as I back onto the driveway and watch the slow descent of the garage door.

I have forty-five minutes to drive to a doctor’s appointment one hour away; in the car I’ve delayed maintaining. An appointment I made before I knew I’d be travelling to England. Before I knew my daughter would be sick and her car held hostage by a mechanic. Before my mother-in- law agreed to fly from Phoenix and land in the opposite direction.

My suitcase lays open on the chaise lounge in my bedroom, its emptiness heckles me from a distance. I removed its dirty socks and Dayspring trinkets but the smell of joy lingers in the pockets from the trip I took last week.

As I pull onto the highway, the road zips open and evergreens unfold like a children’s pop-up book. My leather van seat is an empty bench at a quiet museum; the horizon, a fine painting hanging on walls of clouded sky.

I can’t stop and I don’t have my camera. But I’m framing each piece of landscape in my mind.

Of ivy hanging on crumbling pylons, water logged tree statues, stark and naked, their bony knees stuck in still waters hued in morning sun. Tuscany’s lavender wild cousins carpeting both sides of pavement, waving southern in the wind. Birds soaring overhead like paper airplanes thrown from the tops of tall buildings, gliding and unaware of time.

Suddenly, I’m breathing slow and thankful for this quiet and solitude. I’m thankful for doctors and praying for those that don’t have access to one. I’m thankful that I’ll celebrate twenty-three years of marriage in a place that feels oddly like home, though I’ve never lived there. I’m thankful that my daughter doesn’t want to miss her chem lab, even if her head rests on the glass the entire way to school. For morning prayers together when she’s usually scurrying off  alone. And for my mother in law, who makes it possible for me to experience a few days of bliss.

What I thought was hanging by a thread is actually a tapestry cupped in His hands. I just needed a few moments of silence to see it. To recognize the handprints of God.

Through praise and thanksgiving, we reflect on the transcendent nature of God – the reality that he is above all. As we look up toward God, we also can’t help but be reminded of our smallness. This shift in perspective softens our hearts, inviting us once again to lean into God’s goodness, to look up for his salvation. ~Margaret Feinberg, Wonderstruck, Chapter 009

When has God redeemed hardship in your life and transformed it into a moment of gratitude?

Today Duane Scott and I are co-hosting a book club and discussion on Wonderstruck by Margaret Feinberg. Link up your posts on finding the wonder of God in the everyday (they’ll show up on both our sites) and join the discussion in the comments and on our Facebook page throughout the week, Redemptions Beauty Book Club.

BOOK CLUB SCHEDULE

May 1: Chapter 008-009

May 8: Chapter 010-Final Thoughts

Linking with Emily for Imperfect Prose and Jennifer for Tell His Story.

The post Hanging By A Thread appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.

I grew up thinking I wasn’t enough. Holding the consolation prize of my circumstances, wearing the banner around my waist declaring in big, bold letters, “IF ONLY.”

If only you were raised by two parents who loved each other instead of one who needs to be parented just as much as you do. Then maybe you would be, well, better.

If only you didn’t live on the back side of poverty, you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about all the things you can’t remember learning in school. Then maybe you wouldn’t feel so small in dinner table discussions with your children.

If only you had someone to help you through school, you would’ve felt less like an elderly teenager. Less awkward about being playful as an adult.

But Jesus doesn’t utter the words, “If only.” He says, “You’re enough.”

He says you’re enough at the invitation to lead women when you thought you were hiding behind your husband. When you think his eloquence and delivery are all that is needed Jesus gently says, “Yes, but now you have words to deliver too.”

He says you’re enough when he gives you two children, their seeds the very handprint of God. When you question like Moses, “What, me a mother,” God insists that He trusts you. “Yes, I’ve given you what you need for this job.”

He says you’re enough through your best friend, in the middle of the day random conversation. When she says she wants to pour cold water over your head to help you see yourself the way others do. “Can you think of a man you trust or respect more than your husband, and he actually chose you,” she says simply and with wisdom. Her words like an old room with a new view.

Her words wake me up. I sit confounded on the unmade bed. Pull off the worn and frayed, holey sash and discard my smudged consolation prize. I thought I’d stepped up, accepted my planned destination of honorable mention while Jesus was standing there holding first prize. Patiently waiting until this moment when joy and revelation collide.

Somehow I knew it and believed it for you. And then forgot it’s meant for me too: Christ is all that matters and he lives in all of us. (Colossians 3:11)

Once we struggled to find our significance and our happiness and our security in what we were in relation to other people—we’re Jews, we’re Greeks, we’re circumcised, we’re free, we’re American, we’re rich, we’re smart, we’re strong, we’re pretty, we’re witty, we’re cool. But then we sloughed off that old self. We put on the new self. And the core essence of the new self is that CHRIST IS ALL. “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives” (Galatians 2:20). ~John Piper

I stepped on the plane and swallowed myself, bringing home souvenirs of Christ.  Opened my suitcase and passed out significance, satisfaction, and fulfillment to my family while sitting on the couch. They were certain I’d carried those treasures all along. I found them hidden in the the pockets of my presumption.

We’re all cracked and broken in need of being made new. In community, we rub off rough edges; the lies we wear like a banner. And we love each other into seeing truth.

You and I, we’re never the consolation prize tethered or stuck by our “If onlys”. And dreams, they unfold slowly, like petals of revelation grasped on this precipice.

In community, we rise and take our place, shed the weight of skewed imagination. And remember He says, “You’re enough.”

Linking in community with BibleDude.net, Laura , Michelle, Jen and Heather.

The post When You Think You’re Not Enough appeared first on Redemptions Beauty.