It was just a regular Tuesday.

Honestly…there wasn’t a thing outstanding about two days ago.  Woke up, made coffee for me, oatmeal for one kid, dumped a bowl of Lucky Charms for the other and then sighed relief that my kids are digging the $2 warm lunches at school this year.

I kissed my man and my boys, sent them out the door to work and school, and then got some work done myself.  A few hours later I left home to sit in carline for my daily 30 minute wait, grabbed the kiddos again, and took them for frozen yogurt as a special for-no-reason treat. The regular Tuesday continued.  Just doing life…nothing bad, nothing outstanding, just daily life happening, you know?

I dropped one kid with a friend while I took the other 45 minutes down the road for an opthamology appointment.  We got a good report from the doc who basically said “looks good, let’s keep on keeping on” and then we hopped in the car to head back home.

Even the traffic felt regular.  It was 5 o’clock, so we were stuck in it.  Which meant that I wasn’t going to get home til 6 and both my kids were starving, so I phoned my husband and said, “Please will you pop some of the frozen chicken nuggets in the oven, steam some frozen peas, and pull off a bunch of grapes so we can feed these munchkins when I walk in the door?”

Much obliged dear husband.

“Hey babe, while they start getting ready for bed, can I go on a run for like 30 minutes?”  I smiled kinda big at my husband with eyebrows raised in a “please” sort of fashion when I got home.  Because afterall, I am climbing Mt Kilimanjaro this spring, and remember, I’m not naturally exercisey.  I have to MAKE myself do it for this!

“Sure. go ahead.  I’ve got this.”

He is the best.

So I ran/walked a couple of miles and then swung back by to take my giant dog Titan for a mile too.  Avery (my other old dog) apparently wanted to come, but I didn’t realize it til 5 houses down when she ran past us having busted out of the electric fence.

“AVERY!!!! COME BACK!”  She was having none of it and kept running. The neighbor I’d just met (whose kids were fascinated by the small horse dog I had easily contained on a leash ) looked at me and might have really seen me in that moment for the nut job that sometimes I think I might be.

I finally caught Avery, who I had to hold by the collar all of 12 inches off of the ground in my right hand while my left hand was probably 36 inches off the ground holding onto Titan.  I hobbled back down the street like the Hunchback of Notre Dame dragging two wildly disproportionately sized dogs with me.

Because….Tuesday.

Once Avery was situated back at home I resumed my walk with Titan for company and Mr Big playing in my ears for a final mile lap and returned home in time for bedtime stories and cuddles.

Totally regular day.

I was sweating like a stuck pig and flung myself breathless onto the bottom bunk with my 5 1/2 year-old for a quick read-through of The Little Engine That Could before flipping off the light.  Standard evening sort of fare around here.

I snuggled him close in the dark and we started talking like we always do.  Little boys, it seems, often get more talkative at bedtime.  But still…this is normal.  This is Tuesday.

“Mommy, I want to ask Jesus into my heart right now.”

And just like that, Tuesday wasn’t so regular anymore.

“Well buddy, why do you think you want to do that?” I asked Him.  Because we talk about these things around here, but he hasn’t much seemed to “get” it before now.  This time though, this time he knew.  He told me why and how and what he wanted Jesus in his life for.

I called my husband down from the top bunk where he was with our older son and our little guy told his daddy what was in his heart.  Then that sweet little boy prayed.  And we prayed with him.  Suddenly, Tuesday wasn’t normal…wasn’t regular…wasn’t mundane or routine or boring.

Despite all I’d seen in Tuesday in my world, I realized that I missed SO MUCH of heaven that was going on behind the scenes.  Because what felt like a regular day to me was a BIG DEAL in the heavenlies.  There were angels hanging streamers and some setting up sound systems.  Maybe Michael and Gabriel laid out a dance floor and a few other  were making cupcakes and pig-in-a-blankets.  Jesus was brushing his beard and fluffing the seat beside of Him to make room for a special new guest.  Because um…PARTY IN HEAVEN Y’ALL….my boy just joined the family!

And as happy tears streamed down my face, I felt a familiar feeling creep up in me again.  I was curious.  About how many times I’m rolling along between oatmeal and playdates, doctors appointments and chasing dogs down the street, and I have absolutely NO CLUE what all God is planning when I’m just stuck in traffic.

For all I know, it’s the party that just changed the course of my life.

Somehow on the phone today with my assistant and friend, Mandy, we got on the topic of kids’ books.  Mandy has a 2 year old boy, and I could hear him asking to read in the background when Mommy finished talking to “miss Wogan.”

I love that little bitty boy stage, and as I pondered it for a minute, out of nowhere I started rattling off a few of my favorite children’s books for boys faster than Mandy could even write them down.

We might have a book problem in our house.  We buy books, are sent books, ask for books for birthdays and holidays.  The old ones have become familiar friends, and these days a fair amount of the new books we get in the mail are written by my actual friends.  One of these days I’ll do a round-up of friends’ books for you, but today, this post was inspired by Mandy and her little man.

I have a 5 year old and a nine year old.  Both boys who are as they say, “all boy.”  We’ve had our fair share of dump trucks and dinosaurs around here and as my 4th grader has become an avid reader himself, we are digging deeper into chapter books these days.  Anyhow…from ages 2-10, I think that you’ll find books in this list that will make everyone smile.  (And you should also note that with little kids’ books…I only recommend the ones that don’t make me want to scratch out my eyeballs to read on repeat night after night.  Because for real…we all have a list of those little kid books too…mercy!)

For the younger crowd…here are some favorites (I’ll do another post with favorites from my 9 year old, but for now, these are ones that we all still enjoy):

All three books across the top row are illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.  He is my favorite.  He and Drew Daywalt teamed up for the two Crayon books (The Day the Crayons Quit is a go-to gift book for me, and The Day the Crayons Came Home just released a few weeks ago and is equally as entertaining.) These books are hysterically clever.  I love books with cleverness.  I don’t get sick of these.  This Moose Belongs to Me is pretty funny too and I just adore the pictures which remind me of our adventures to Canada and Montana.

Next row has Smash Crash which I read once to my 3 year old nephew this summer since it was always one of my boys’ favorites and apparently he has become fully obsessed with it.  It is super cute and just screams BOY with plenty of trucks and mess making.  It has some fun large fold out pages too which are always a bit of a delight.

 Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site is a great book for kids who are into construction vehicles and is a nice one to wind down for bed as all of the vehicles are tucking in for the night as well.  The author Sherri Rinker also wrote another one that is similar in style called Steam Train Dream Train which also makes the regular rotation around here.  You’ve gotta love a book with great pictures, stuff kids like, and also make them consider that NOW is a good time to go to sleep as well.  Yes indeed….NOW is a great time for bed!

The last book pictured in the second row is called Are You a Horse and it is pretty clever.  It helps kids learn by way of elimination and follows a pretty ridiculous cowboy named Roy as he searches for a horse to test out a new saddle.  This one makes my kids chuckle EVERY SINGLE TIME when it gets to the end.  Roy is funny…but as an adult I think that Roy could have used a more stout dose of common sense.  You’ll like this one.

Little Blue Truck is another good one.  This book illustrates really well the importance of paying attention to everyone and treating others with kindness…but it’s not a blatant “be nice” sort of storyline.  I also like that it encourages kindness even to those who have mistreated you.  There are several other Little Blue Truck books now, but this original does remain my favorite.  It comes in a board book, but the story is such that my 5 year old still likes to read it.

Curious George.  It almost seems silly to even have to mention this famous primate, but he has always remained a favorite around here.  I bought a couple of the collections which are wonderful to have for trips since each book contains maybe 8 stories.  Plus, as you know…I sort of have a soft spot for curiosity.

And to round out today’s list I’m including one that I got from my grandmother.  The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy is a sweet book about a little puppy who wants to be adopted by a boy so much but never can seem to find one meant for him.  Spoiler alert…he turns up eventually at a boys home and ends up with 50 boys who adopt him.  I cry every single time we read this and every single time my boys start looking at me a few pages before the end to see if the waterworks have started.  I’m so predictable.  We have the old version from the 1950’s and I love the simple old sketches, but your kids might like the new version with more colorful illustrations too.

Anyhow…those are some of our favorites.  We own every single one of them and of that list I’ll break out my inner packrat and hang on to them all for grandkids one day.  Yes…these are those kind of books.

I’ll have to do this again…it has been fun sharing some of our favorites!  Try them out at the library first if you want to be sure, but I promise…these are books that your family will treasure for years to come!

Now go grab a kiddo and snuggle down to read!

**PS. I haven’t been paid or anything to recommend a single one of these books, but the links are via my amazon affiliate link which hopefully works correctly since this is my first time trying it out.

I’ve never thought that I am very brave.  Bold maybe, but in my mind that is different than brave.  “Brave” to me carries words like “courageous, fearless, and dauntless.”  It makes me think about someone who runs towards a risk or a scary thing with an almost reckless abandon…unconcerned for what it may cost them in the end.

So, by that definition, I’m not brave.  Because I count the costs…to myself…and to others.  And there are always costs to being brave.

Lately though, I’ve been thinking that maybe bravery isn’t so much a fearless pursuit of something, but rather more of a curious uncovering.  Maybe learning to be curious after the things of God in my life suddenly turns me out to be braver in the end.  My curiosity for experiencing the presence of God suddenly outweighs my fear of what lies ahead.

Maybe bravery isn’t about what we are chasing so much as what we are overcoming.

So when my friend Don said the word “Kilimanjaro” and asked what I thought about it, I told him that I didn’t.  I didn’t think about it.  At. All.  Because it’s a ginormous mountain in Africa and I don’t really exercise.

Photo from discoverafrica.com

But then he said something about standing in the gap for women who are victims of war violence around the globe, and suddenly I sensed a stirring in my heart towards overcoming something big on behalf of those women.  Suddenly I started to feel brave. Because just for me…I could care less about a crap ton of exercise to feel like I am going to beast my way up a humongous land mass.  There is a hill in my neighborhood that is pretty big…and according to my fitbit, it gets my heartrate up after just about 2/10ths of a mile.  No way do I sit around thinking about climbing mountains.  I mean really…what on earth for?

Later that day Don sent me an early couple of chapters of a book-in-process called One Million Thumbprints.  I cried my way through it, called him and said “I’m in”…just tell me what to do.  A day later I became friends with Belinda Bauman…the heart behind the movement.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a woman.  It is the rape capital of the world and when a woman named Esperance , who never had the chance to learn to read or write, shared her story of survival with Belinda and Lynn Hybels, it left a mark forever etched in their hearts.  Esperance stamped her thumbprint—her signature, her mark, her identity—on a piece of paper, and said, “Tell the world.”

Thumbprints are small, but powerful identifiers. So, our story…now part of MY story and maybe part of YOUR story… begins with one woman’s thumbprint, and ends with a million.

Her thumbprint is our mandate to put an end to violence against women who experience the devastating affects of war.

Violence against her is violence against us.  

With news of the Syrian Refugee Crisis swirling all around us, the continuing tension in Iraq and the Sudan, and the millions…MILLIONS of women who are suffering in war torn areas around the globe who are victims of violent crimes, I can’t just sit here and do nothing.

image from thedailybeast.com

Violence against women is present in every single war zone in the world. Hundreds of women are raped every day on the frontlines of conflict.

When you break the heart, you break the community. Women invest scarce resources into their families—food, education and basic healthcare for their children. The physical and psychological damage, fear and stigma resulting from sexual violence destroys families and pulls women away from participating in their communities.

Ending violence against women in conflict includes changing community perceptions about sexual violence, putting an end to stigma so that survivors can receive adequate care and restoration.

I’m a lucky one.  I’ve never been raped or treated violently.  I don’t live my life in fear…looking over my shoulder, cowering in corners trying to protect my children.  I’m not that BRAVE.  I’m not that kind of a survivor.  I haven’t had to overcome like this.  But what I do have in this western world I live in is a voice and a curiosity to figure out how I can help.

Esperance didn’t have a voice.  She just had a thumbprint to give permission to someone else to be her voice.  She gave her thumbprint…I give my voice.  And if I don’t use the luxury of voice on behalf of thumbprints like Esperance, then I have to wonder why I have a voice in the first place.

I’m curious about how I can live and matter to women like her.

So there is this climb…of Mount Kilimanjaro…to go first to hear stories in the Congo of women like Esperance and then to overcome something ourselves to stand with them.  We want to use our voices to give voice to their thumbprints and to collect your thumbprints to voice back to them that they are not alone.  We are going to tell their stories and make them part of our own.

 A million thumbprints are a million voices.

We have two singular goals: (1) to raise a million thumbprints to advocate for policy change at the UN, US and other governments to help stop violence against women experiencing the devastation of war, and (2) to raise a million dollars to implement peace building programs to stem the tide of violence against women in some of the world’s worst conflict zones.

I’m climbing for them.  I’m climbing for my voice and your voice and their voices.  I’m part of an online campaign called a Thunderclap to raise awareness of violence against women being used as a weapon of war.   You can learn more about this campaign at www.onemillionthumbprints.org. Thunderclap is a new platform that allows people to pledge a Tweet or Facebook message that is concentrated and unleashed all at the same time.  Think of it as a massive flash mob on social media.  It’s completely safe and will automatically post exactly one message on your behalf.

I turned in my book a couple of weeks ago.  It was a glorious exhale after what has felt quite frankly like one heck of a run to get to that point.

Oh my words…a real, live book!  I can’t even…

You should know that I love what I’ve written, and I think that you will too.  The process of writing it and working through the things God has been teaching me has been hard and beautiful over the past several years. But, I believe that the finished product has changed my life and might change yours too.  It feels weird to say that, but I really do believe in what the Lord has allowed me to share.

Here’s something you don’t know perhaps about what it looks like to have created a work like that…You know, a thing that in so many ways has changed your own life and could change others as well.  It can be hell to get through.

Friends who do this sort of thing tell me that’s normal…to come under spiritual attack when you’re doing something for God that can be used in big ways.  Truthfully, anytime we’re doing something for the Lord, we’d be foolish to think that doesn’t point us out to powers that are against us too.

Not to get too Frank Peretti spiritual warfare-ish on you or anything, but, I want you to know that it has been real for me.  The spiritual warfare.  It’s real, friends.  And not in terms of just disappointments or something petty either.

Every single area of my life has come under attack since I started writing this book.  Every. Single. one. My health, my marriage, my kids, my other work, it has all been targeted.  Relentlessly.

They say that is normal.  But make no mistake, it’s not a comfortable thing to have warfare become so “normal.”

And when the more obvious things haven’t crushed me in the ways they were clearly intended, I see moves into other places of my life…into the yuckiness of my own soul and the sinfulness that is inherent in us all.  Those places might just be more dangerous you know…the less obvious ones.  The places we may not even pay all that much attention to until we notice something icky lurking around in our spirits.

I see the way the enemy sneaks to exploit my own heart, which is still a mess even though Jesus does take up residence there.  Because the thing is that when you’re a target, if you take your eyes off of the prize of Christ for even 2 seconds, that’s all the time that a snake needs to strike you in the heels.

So he strikes in your Achilles…in the places that are tender and wanting.  In the places that you have always worked so hard with the Lord to move beyond, he whispers.  But full healing takes time, and brokenness isn’t restored over night.

I grieve the brokenness that happens in private for people, and I grieve the brokenness that makes its way public for people the Lord has used in mighty ways.  I grieve the way that the enemy endeavors to wipe out faithfulness of God’s people with egregious public sin.  I grieve the way that the church itself crucifies the faithful of years when they misstep and their brokenness and humanity come crashing over them in waves.

Can we stop picking at the logs in other eyes and focus on the specks of our own?  Can we not disqualify the mighty ways people have been used in the past, even when they rub up against their own brokenness for all to see in the present?  I’m not saying we start handing out hall passes all the time for us to wallow in our own sin and to live deceiving one another, but I am saying, can we extend grace instead of crucifying one another?  Can we pray for families we see being wrecked by poor choices instead of chaining them to unforgiveness?  Can we support one another and pray harder when we see the ways that God desires to use those around us?  Can we set aside bitterness and jealousy and selfishness and celebrate successes and pray more fervently when we see larger targets being drawn on the backs of those around us?

Can we hold hands and stand in solidarity over the love of Christ that is so big that entire congragations declare out of overwhelming brokenness and forgiveness that “THIS is the day the Lord has made?!”  Even when this day may feel heavy at its dawn?  Can we stand in that love?  Can we battle for truth and justice and righteousness together without bloodying one another further along the way?

Lets not forget that we have an enemy who is much more relentless and patient than we often give him credit for being.  I hesitate to give him any credit at all because I know my God is bigger regardless, but lets not forget that enemy wants to take us all down.  And sometimes he uses us to take each other down too.  AHHHH….our own depravity is such a sad place without the love of God!

Lets not grow weary of doing good…of loving…of interceeding and standing in gaps for one another.

Make no mistake , our God will relentlessly pursue your heart…but He isn’t the only one who’s after it. Don’t grow weary of doing good…of loving others.  Let’s not allow our fatigue to give the enemy a foothold.  And when we see footholds of others, can we stand in the gap on behalf of them instead of driving new wedges into their broken souls?

I’m under no illusion that turning in a manuscript means that this battle I’m in is through.  For all I know, it could be just the beginning.  Part of me is terrified of that.  Part of me feels battle ready.  All of me knows that the war for my soul will surely not be without bruises or scratches or pitfalls.  In the end, I know who wins the war…because the war for my life was won on a cross.

Lets remember and stand for that on behalf of one another too.

May we be known by our love for one another and by the way we don’t fight with, but FOR our brothers and sisters too.

How about you?  We all come up against opposition.  To each of us God gives a measure of faith, and to walk out that faith will put a target on our backs.  Do you see the ways the enemy comes after you?  Have you fallen into traps before you even recognize they are there?  How has the testing of your faith made you fall, and what did it look like to get back up again? To steal, kill, and destroy…that’s what our enemy comes to do… how does that look in your life?  And when you fall, can you still accept the love of our relentless Lord?  Can you extend that same grace to others?

** I wrote this post probably 10 days ago and have been sitting on it.  I wrote it before the Charleston shooting at Emanuel AME, and before another well respected pastor confessed to a moral failure…and what I keep thinking is that we’re all just one poor choice away from sins that can threaten to destroy lives all around us.  I hope that somewhere in ourselves we can find grace to walk in wisdom, love, and forgiveness to be the hands and feet of Christ that say, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” – Matt 11:28-29

Lord, give us the grace to accept your relentless love and to extend it to others.  Show us how to walk in humility to accept your unending grace.  Ignite in us a passion to never give up on our pursuit of you no matter how many times we fall and are bruised along the way.

(Image from GoogleMaps)

I cross it nearly ever day leaving my house.  It’s the fastest route to the interstate, and is a great cut-through to head towards the opposite side of town.  I avoid traffic when I cross over and then shortcut through the neighborhood that is adjacent to mine.  For sure, it’s the best way for me to get most anywhere.

The bridge is just 5 houses down from mine.  Crossing a lush green golf course that I can’t see very well for the tall fences on either side, passing over it takes me to a completely different space.

We just moved to a new house less than 2 months ago.  I hadn’t even been in this neighborhood before we found this house and am having to learn my way around this different part town.  Nevermind that Greenville has been my home for nearly 20 years, this move has exposed me to unfamiliar areas, and I learn new shortcuts (and sometimes long-cuts) several times per week.

The neighbors tell me that our street used to be a dead end until the builders doing work on the golf course created the bridge to provide easier access to the work they were doing.  Now two neighborhoods are connected, that to be honest, are really super different from one another.

It didn’t take us long to realize the massive economic disparity that separates our respective neighborhoods.  Friends would call on the way to visit for the first time, sounding a little nervous and saying, “um…I think we’re lost.  The GPS says we’re close, but it really doesn’t look like it.”

“Just cross the bridge and we’re just a few houses in,” I’d tell them.  “I promise, you’re in the right place.”

*        *        *

To read the rest of this post, hop on over to Allume!

I’m going to Oxford, England next week.  It was a spur of the moment decision.

I know, trips to England aren’t exactly spur-of-the-moment sort of decisions though are they? At least not for me. Sometimes though, I think a wild hair strikes and it seems as if the stars align.  You have what feels like a pipe-dream sort of idea one day and then you do something nutso and actually book a plane ticket the next.

That’s pretty much what happened.  I’m still kind of pinching myself.

Last week on facebook, I commented on a  beautiful blog post written by my talented friend Chris Willard.  Her husband Tim, a wildly gifted author and past Allume speaker, has become a friend over the past couple of years, and as a result I’ve gotten to know Chris via social media as well. They have been living in Oxford as Tim gets his doctorate in the works of CS Lewis.  Chris wrote about finding our way on a path unknown and I just left a quick note saying how much I loved it and that in some ways it’s so much what I’m writing my book about.  She wrote me back and said “I wish you were here and we could just talk about this all in person.”

I just started thinking and my mind sort of rested in the place of “I wish that too.”

I mentioned it to my husband last Tuesday night at dinner and he said, “Do it!”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Why not.  Do it.”

My parents were planning to take my kids next week anyhow to give me some time to work on my book since the manuscript is due June 1.  Suddenly, as I considered the idea, it really didn’t seem like there was any reason not to do something out of the ordinary.

I texted Chris and Tim that night and tossed out my idea….that even though the “I wish you were here” wasn’t exactly an invitation…what if it really was?  Like…what if I for real came in 2 weeks?

“DO IT!” they both said.

So before lunch on Wednesday, I’d bought a ticket to London.

Lest you think I’m in the habit of such spontaniety, please know that I’m not.  But the thing is, something about doing that completely random thing made me feel so alive.

The past couple of months have sort of eaten me alive if I’m honest.  Moving into our new house was exciting but exhausting, and while the adjustment has been a good one, it still drained me.  We lost a key person on our Allume team and that has piled the work up exponentionally on the rest of us.  Homeschool has been hard to maintain with consistency with all the other goings on, and with my first manuscript due in a little over a month, it has just all been A LOT.

I literally broke out in a rash that the doctor tells me is related to stress.  Awesome….because there’s nothing like a facial rash and $200 worth of creams to make you feel more relaxed! UGH!

Anyhow, I guess I just got to thinking about creating space for myself.  Since I’ve had kids, I have gone on an overnight here and there with friends or with my husband, but I’ve never done anything like this.  I have traveled without my family to speak at conferences or attend meetings, but even if I’ve been by myself, I’ve still been doing work.  I can’t tell you the last time that I’ve done anything to create breathing room for me…maybe never.

I think that most of my life I just haven’t wanted to be alone.  I’m a classic ENFP on a Meyers Briggs and some other test says I’m a sanguine…bubbly, outgoing, people-person.  At the end of the day, this extrovert gains life from being around others.  But life the past few months has been exhausting and I feel like I’ve been a little chewed up and spit out.  And suddenly I realized that I needed to do something for myself….and I don’t need to feel bad or apologize for taking care of me.

So I booked a ticket to England and I’m hoping that the breather will not only create quiet space for me to write, but also just to be.  It’s so easy as a wife and mom and working gal to get lost somewhere in the midst of it all.  We just get tired and sometimes just need to figure out a way to take a breather.  So while this breather I’m taking is completely out of the ordinary and probably not exactly something I’ll be making a habit of doing, I’m pretty thankful for the sabbatical from just very full life.

Would love your prayers as I travel and write next week.  The book is coming along and I’m loving writing it.  Here’s to hoping you all love reading it next Spring when it releases!

Logan

When was the last time you did something for yourself?  What was it?  What have you done that has been most life giving to you in those seasons of exhaustion and overwhelmingness?

The first time I met Melanie three years ago, she answered a silly call that I put out to a crowd full of women to figure out how to fold a program that none of us could seem to figure out.  I said whoever folded it the best would win a prize.  Melanie made it into some origami genius.

Clearly she won the prize.

Then when I saw her later the next day, I mistook her for some girl who had gotten irritated at me for who knows what and I apologized and she looked at me confused and said something to the effect of “NO…I like you.  Rememeber me, I’m origami girl.”

Facepalm Logan.

But somehow despite my weirdness and her weirdness…or maybe because of it, she and I got to be friends.  Mel calls it a “momlationship”…I just call it something I’m thankful for.

So when she met an agent at Allume and then signed to write a book with Zondervan, naturally I have been all high-fivey and “GO MEL!” and “three cheers for momlationships that change our lives.”  And when she sent me a copy of full sized sheets basically glued together in her manuscript, I was pretty over the moon excited to keep cheering and holding her hand in this SUPREMELY exciting space in her life!  Because that’s what friends do…we cheer for one another.

I read her book on the way to sealing the deal for my own…and I teared up and felt understood and even snort laughed on the plane and tried to still seem cool while I was sitting there reading a giant version of a book with cake pops taking bites out of one another on the front.

I tell you about books from time to time around here, but what I want you to know about the books that I share with you is that I’m not just sharing books with you…I’m sharing friends.  And Melanie Dale is a kindred friend I met through hilarious circumstances years ago and hope I get to keep her forever.  I think when you read “Women Are Scary,” you’ll feel the same way.

Here’s what I officially said about her book:

“I found a kindred spirit in the pages of Melanie Dale’s, Women are Scary.  She’s clever and funny and makes me feel more normal in all of the things that I’m certain probably make me weird. She reminds us that making new friends can be hard, feel scary, but is also one of the most rewarding steps onto a limb we’ll ever take. I laughed and cried and laughed some more…and then felt thankful that God gives us community and friendship to walk along this crazy road we call life.”

It’s true….you’ll love it and her too!  And Mel is right when she says, “Maybe small talk isn’t really small. When mamas who shape the future start sharing and laughing…isn’t that world changing?”  I mean who’da thought that origami would be the beginning of a friendship that has impacted both of our lives?!

“Women Are Scary” releases this Tuesday March 24!  Make sure you snag a copy and join us all as we wade through the scary and find relationships that change our lives!  “We aren’t just dating moms to help pass the time while our kids are little. We do life together, so that when life gets hard, we have support.” – Melanie Dale

This time last year I was stuck in Atlanta hoping with all hope that I’d be joining the team I was traveling with to Uganda on a storytelling trip with Sole Hope.  Remember that?  I had passport issues and ended up watching the team leave me there all by myself in the Hartsfield International Airport.  And the 24 hours that followed had us all (myself included) on the edge of our seats while I was just waiting and wondering if I’d get to hop the pond or not?!

Would the Red Sea part and I’d cross the vast waters, or would I be driving the 3 hours back up interstate 85 with all my dreams sitting broken in the front seat beside of me?

I think we know how that story ended.

I wrote a handful of posts while I was there, and I still go back and read them from time to time.  Stories about being available when God calls and finding my religion in a place that could have made me lose it.  Uganda reminded me that some things are so clear we hardly have to think before we act , and how even when we are coming home, we can often feel so far away.

It was a journey that wrecked me and softened me and opened my eyes to Africa and to the world at large in new ways.  And ever since I left last year, I’ve been planning on returning…today in fact.

I meant to be returning today.

But life has a way of throwing curve balls.  And so a trip that I helped put together and was meant to be leading, turned out to be one that it didn’t seem the Lord may have had in the cards for me afterall.

So today I sit in a mostly unpacked office in a new house, working to get our life pieced back together after a whirlwind move, and trying to still homeschool my kids, and write a book.  Today doesn’t look like I thought, and so instead of hopping a plane, I’m sitting here praying hard for my friends who are hopping that pond without me this time.

This time there won’t be waiting and wondering if I’ll be right behind them in person…because my place for right now is here with my family.  Sometimes we have to end up saying no to adventures and life-changers that we are even a part of planning, because the people under our roof need us more than the people elsewhere.  This home here…it’s where my people are, and if I can’t help them take care of the stories they are living when they need me most, then I don’t figure that I have any business telling stories of others much anyhow.

So while I’m just itching to be with this group of storytellers today, I know I’m right where I need to be now.

But I’ll be cheering, and sharing, and following along…because I KNOW that these world-changers and grace-chasers are absolutely worth following along this coming week (and in general for that matter)!  If you want to read more about them, click HERE for their quick bios on Sole Hope’s site.  I’ve listed below links to their individual sites so that you can follow along each of their adventures as they begin a journey that holds redemption and restoration and invites us into it with them!!

Justin Brackett

Rich Butler

Gary S Chapman

Kristy Chowning

Kyle Chowning

Kari Smalley Gibson

Alisha Gordon

Sarah Harmeyer

Jamie Ivey

Wynter Pitts

For more information on how YOU can get involved with Sole Hope, visit www.solehope.org. They are incredible people, serving in the most tangible ways, and loving others well in Uganda!  Host a shoe party, help them open a new clinic to serve the overwhelming need for freedom from foot related disease in Uganda, serve as an advocate, just get involved!  And enjoy this week as this incredible group of people share stories live from Africa!

I had to make a spot to sit on the sofa in my living room this morning.  Even sitting here cross-legged, computer on my lap, my knee is crammed into a tupperware bin of boy clothes that no longer fit one kid and are still too big for the other.  Boxes are piled half the distance to the ceiling all around me, and I keep wishing that I had rolled up the living room rug before covering most of it in boxes.  The movers are totally going to track dirt all over it.

Three weeks ago we were planning on renovating our home.  We have worked for 2 years on plans to do an addition that would give me an office separate from our school room (because the co-space thing isn’t working so well) and would also make space to host guests when they come.  We were adding onto the kitchen and putting in a screened in porch.  Since we bought this house 7 years ago, our plan has been to add on to it.  We spent lots of dollars on architectural plans and with the assessment from one poor appraiser on the completed project valuation, we found out that we would be more or less under water to do the renovation.

Bummer.  Big. Fat. Bummer.

I left that Thursday to go to Colorado to see Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson for the MomHeart Conference just a day after we found out we wouldn’t be renovating.  I was very sad.

That Friday, our contractor messaged about start dates for sub-contractors to begin work on the renovation and also happened to mention in his email that on a personal note, he and his wife loved our neighborhood and wondered if we could keep an ear to the ground to let them know if we heard of anything coming on the market.  My husband emailed back, shared the predicament and said that we realized that we might have to consider moving after all.  (An idea that for the record, I had long since moved on from since I was so excited to stay here and renovate a space that I already love.  And while we have considered moving to land a year ago, I haven’t much wanted to just make an in town move.  I should also note that since I’ve been homeschooling this year, I’m SUPER glad that we didn’t move to the middle of nowhere because my extroverted self might have withered and died in the great space of solitude country living.)

James and his wife came to look at our house the next day…while I was still in Colorado.  I was still sad about not renovating, but told my husband that perhaps if I just looked at a couple of houses, I could wrap my mind around the idea of considering a move. I called my realtor friend Melissa, who is a fantastic realtor in town, and she and I planned to look at a couple of houses on Monday just to help me see what was out there that would suit us.  We looked at 6 houses, three of which we walked in and straight back out of (when you know it’s not right, you know.)

Tuesday, James and his wife came to our house and we sat around the dining room table and wrote a contract to sell our house to them.  I had liked one of the houses that Melissa and I saw on Monday, so we put an offer on it.

And in one week from yesterday, I’m moving to a house that I absolutely love and wasn’t even looking for just less than a month ago.   And it’s painted brick which has always been my favorite.  (Because God is so sweet to even care about painted brick for me….)

Funny thing is that I was trying to figure out how to still manage to stay in our house with the way we are being called to live, and I just couldn’t make it work.  My friend, Chrystal, and I talked about it while I was in Colorado and she encouraged me to just lean into the life that is around me even more than I already was.  I prayed and let go my notions of what life was supposed to be looking like, and 5 days later I was packing.  God is crazy like that.

Because see…there are ways that I could have made it work.  I could have asked Casey to move out so I could use her room for my office…but that felt disobedient to the call we have had for a few years to live “Plus One” in our home.  (If you want to know more about that, watch my keynote from Allume to hear that story and understand my heart for hospitality in our space.)  I could have put my kids in school full-time, but for right now, that isn’t what we feel like is best for them or for our family.  I mean, I could have worked it to make it be what I wanted it to be….but it didn’t feel right.  So I took Chrystal’s advice (and my own that I preach to myself to just be curious) and I leaned in to the unknown.

Four days later we had a contract to sell and to buy and we are moving now in less than a week.

Curious living after God, huh?  (Of course He would have me living this out to maximum capacity while I’m writing a book about it all.)

And in the midst of the moving and writing a book and running Allume, I found myself just a hot mess…amidst stress and emotion and boxes piled high all around my house.

Yesterday I posted this on facebook:

And ya’ll… lot of comments came flooding and I got tons of direct messages about it, and for crying out loud, why do we all pretend that life doesn’t just flat overwhelm us sometimes?!  And why on earth was anyone surprised that I’d have ended up sobbing in my closet?  For real, I got several DM’s from people thanking me for being honest…and that honestly just makes me sad that as women we aren’t supporting one another enough to even have the honesty to have breakdowns.

WE ALL HAVE BREAKDOWNS!

So amidst the chaos that my life currently is, I want to say a couple of things.  One, I totally appreciate and welcome any and all prayers, rememberances, thoughts, and encouragements as I am personally in a GINORMOUS season of transition… (I also welcome chicken pot pie and stew….I mean, I’m just sayin’.)  But the other thing I want to say is this….

I want to be a person and I want you to be people who support one another.  I want to be a part of encouraging vulnerability and mess and breakdowns and picking one another back up when our kids scream terrible things and we have to take away all their toys and we cry on top of laundry baskets and hide in closets, and in cars, under covers piled high and stand alone in showers that wash tears away as fast as they fall.  Can we be normal and give one another the grace to be normal too?

Life is hard, and curiously following God looks like a whole lot of not knowing where we are going and one day planning to add on to your house and 5 days later moving.  Curiously pursuing God might land you in your closet crying because the unknown is scary sometimes. And ya’ll….that is OK!  His mercies are new every morning, his goodness is for those who love and follow Him, and the peace that passes all understanding isn’t actually even needed til all understanding is gone.

I’m with you friends.  I’m for you.  And I’m glad that we can be honest here about fears, failures, joys, successes, and hiding in closets when even though things are exciting in life, they can simultaneously overwhelm too.

So tell me… where do you hide out when it all feels like too much?  And when you’re overwhelmed, I’d love to know specifically what the Lord says to you to encourage your heart?  Lets encourage one another in these spaces of real living, shall we?