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?

They’re knocking at my door.  Standing on the doorstep, rapping and tapping at first from outside…in the world around me. Lately they come banging with wadded fist on the entry to my own house.

“Little pig, little pig, let me in”

I stand on the other side of the division separating me from the huffing and puffing…standing and wondering which house I’m living in.

The culture wars are blowing on my house.

 I find myself in the midst of my own home, that I know is built on solid ground, but I wonder what I’m made of.  Am I straw?  Am I sticks?  Am I bricks?  What kind of house do I live in when I know that the cornerstone of it all is Jesus.

A prominent evangelical church on the east coast made a decision that kicks a big rock into the culture wars on marriage and the gender/sexuality questions that rage around us.  And I find myself wondering where I fall.

A writer and speaker I respect and personally know wrote a post last year on these culture wars and on where she stands in them, and I shared it around the interwebs because I agree.  I agree on the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.  But the truth is that other than a few heres and theres in my life, I haven’t had much actual skin in this game.

But now I do.

And when friendships and marriages are wrecked with questions on sexuality, and they happen in my house…inside my inner circles…and I watch a battle raging after a soul torn between decisions and questions of  identity, I find myself aching all over.  Grieving and longing for heaven to come and Jesus to make sense of all the struggle in this world.

If I say that I think it’s pursuit of sin, an intentional turning away from statutes of God to live the way he…or she… or you… may think you’re created, then the world says that I’m a bigot and a hater.

But all I can think of too is that for all of us who follow Jesus, we are all called to a dying to self anyway.  I die to myself in so many ways over and over again.

But when I say that I love my friend in the midst of the struggle, despite the rage I feel about the infidelities and hurtful choices made that impact family, friends, and life all around, somehow there are people who will tell me that I’m condoning wrongdoing and pardoning sin.  And I still find myself with a knife to my throat.

I know what I believe to be true…but I also know that life hands us all struggles that tear at our identity…that huff and puff and threaten to blow the house down around us.

Grace covers all, but a pursuit of holiness is pleasing and honoring to the Lord.  The same Lord who died to cover my struggles and poor choices and indiscretions asks me to pursue a holiness that cannot be achieved in my own strength.

And in a zillion ways I know that I crap on that holy pursuit my own flesh too.  The skin in this game isn’t just about who we choose to love, it’s about the flesh that we all walk around in.

 ^“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” – Gal. 5:16-17

I love so big and wide and deep my sisters and brothers who are caught in the middle feeling unloved, shunned, or rejected by some and misunderstood by others.  I see other brothers and sisters standing on either side… pulling the arms of those in the middle in opposite directions.  And all I can think is that Jesus hung there, arms outstretched, reaching to either side of himself saying, “this is my body broken for you…do this to remember me.”  And in a final groan exhaled, “Father, forgive them.”

And I see bodies breaking all over.  And I see The Body tearing itself apart too.

Father, forgive us.

Noone wins this war.  And my house is built on the rock… which says love enormously…and pursue holiness…and I’m just trying to figure out what that means that I’m made of.

Straw? Sticks?  Bricks?

I know I’m not alone.

So much has happened in the past month.  It has been enough to make my head spin.  It has spun and whirled and the Christmas season has come and gone, and to be honest, I felt flown right through the month of December.

And some parts of the season stuck firm and deep in my bones, and some parts of the life around me have felt like a cutting of flesh…painful and hard.  Marriages around us breaking, death of loved ones coming too soon, sorting through my own depravity…all tempered in with the hard has been some beautiful good too.

I always find it strange how the good and the bad can walk so near…never touching one another, but walking on either side of me.  It’s the tension of living with the righteousness of Christ, accessing the goodness of God.  The good and the evil simultaneously happening around us while one foot steps in front of the other through this fallen world.

One cannot remove from us the experience of the other.  The good is no less good because of the bad nearby.  And the bad, though horribly bad….carries a hope of redemption and restoration through Christ.

His mercies are new every morning.  There is fresh glory in His face with each new dawn.

So we remain curious after God.  Because we don’t know what each new day may bring.  We don’t know what new glory may be revealed in or through or around us.  So we put one foot in front of the other…and we peer around bends and look into cracked doors of opportunity, and we stay curious after the things of the Lord.  It’s the way we must learn to walk.

And in my own curiosity after the Lord, I now find myself in a place I’d never even considered…

I’m writing a book!

A real, live book…with pages and a binding and words not printed off of my own desk jet or input into a wordpress blog post.  Words that will be printed by David C Cook Publishers in 2016, and written over the next few months.  (Well, some words are already written, but I have to finish the book!)  And I have cried and cried over the sheer kindness of the Lord to allow me to do this.  It wasn’t even a dream that I ever had…it just happened along the way in this curious journey after God that I’ve been on over the last several years.

I made a quick little video a few months ago with my book proposal, and while so much remains to be seen in editorial cuts and pastes…you can get the general idea from it.  So for now…it’s called Curious Faith, and I invite you to journey with me as we see what the Lord can do when we follow along after Him.

Sitting at my sister’s kitchen table in New Jersey, I stare the French bulldog perched on the edge of the sofa straight in the face.

“One, two, three, four….. seventeen, nineteen, thirty-seven, TWENTY”

Sounds emanate from the adjoining room as a wild game of hide-and-go-seek fills my ears, and I find myself  both distracted from writing and simultaneously filled to the brim with a grateful heart.

“Henry is in the kitty litter!!!”

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Read the rest of this post over at Allume today!

One of the things that I love about blogging is that this space can be a place where I get to share exciting things with you and cheer on my friends too!

Sarah Mae has become my dearest friend over the past several years and I just love her to pieces and am totally for her and the things that God is doing in and through her!  Today I invited her here to share about a SUPER cool book club that she is beginning this winter (we are talking about doing some of this with Allume too) and also to tell you about a killer bundle of classic Christian books…stuff like Tozer, Lewis, Spurgeon, and SO MANY MORE that she is able to offer through some neat partnerships!  She is the real deal and I love this girl like crazy!  So check it out and snag the book deal while you can because it runs out Sunday!

Good morning, friends! I’m writing to you today because I have a few fun things to share! First up is that I put together an eBook of all my motherhood articles from the last few years. I did this because several of you have said you would like to have the collection in a book format. Ta-da! Done! It’s also nice because if you want to read it on Kindle or pass it along to a friend, you can. I’ve called it simply, A Motherhood Collection.

More details on A Motherhood Collection in just a minute! The next thing I want to tell you about is that there is a new Christian Living Bundle available that is absolutely amazing. I have told you all about other bundles in the past, but I’m telling you right now, this is the best one there is (in my opinion) for this reason: CHRISTIAN CLASSICS! We’re talking Tozer, Pink, Spurgeon, Murray, Moody, Bunyan, and more! The fact that those gems are in this bundle is reason enough to get it. Here, take a look for yourself:

Although there are TONS of other incredible eBooks in this bundle, quite frankly, you can just stop right here and know that getting all these classics is worth it all.

Plus, I’m having a book club…read on!

No really, just go ahead get it (IT’S THE CLASSICS!):

For all of you who want to see the other books in the collection immediately, CLICK HERE.

Before I share a few honorable mentions of other eBooks in the bundle, let me give you some quick details…

The Details:

What: 75 eBooks plus eCourses (Yes, there are all kinds of books in this collection, but most importantly, CHRISTIAN CLASSICS!) Cost of all the eBooks/courses: $1,140+ Cost of the collection: $34.95 (96% off) When: Wednesday, November 5th at 8am EST until 11:59pm EST Monday, November 10th. Where: You can purchase the bundle HERE (at 8am EST)! Bonuses: $160 worth of bonus goodies Guarantee: You have 30 days to decide if you think the bundle is worth it, and if you don’t, you get a full refund

Honorable Mentions (or, what caught my eye):

A full musical adaptation of the Bible, MP3 version!

See all the eBooks and courses and bonuses HERE!

Whew! Still with me? Great! Now onto what I’m really looking forward to: The Christian Classics Club!

Have you ever wanted to read up on the Christian Classics of our faith, but just haven’t done it yet? Me, too. Hence, I declare 2015 the year of the classics! And it’s the perfect time to begin thinking about which classics you want to read because you can get so many of them RIGHT HERE! I haven’t decided on all the books I’m going to pick yet, but I can tell you for sure I will be reading A.W. Tozer’s, Fellowship of the Burning Heart, The Holy Spirit & Power by John Wesley, and The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink. For more details on this study, CLICK HERE and stay tuned! Oh, and get that bundle so you are ready (it’s only available for 6 days!)!

Paypal Accepted

Now, back to A Motherhood Collection! For the next 6 days, during the bundle sale, as a gift to my readers you can get it for FREE when you purchase the bundle here! Just send me your bundle receipt to sarahmaewrites (at) gmail.com with the subject: MOTHERHOOD Last, but not least, want to read all these eBooks on your Kindle? It’s so easy! Click HERE to learn how! Good grief, I just gave you a ton of information! But, it’s good stuff, yes? 🙂 Now come back tomorrow because I have a GIVEAWAY! Love to you! SM Disclosure: I have included affiliate links in this post. Read the fine print about this bundle and read the answers to frequently asked questions about the bundle. Sarah Mae www.sarahmae.com www.desperatemom.com

I entered Allume in this posture…arms wide out, eyes closed, heart to heaven…and I have to be honest and say I’m feeling pretty much the same way here on the other side of it.

For well over a year I spent hours, days, weeks, and months investing in speakers, sponsorship partners, attendees, and the Allume team, and I just hoped and prayed that in the end that it would matter to people, and would be a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

The past few days as I’ve tried to process all that happened, I find myself arms wide and face to heaven again.  I am overwhelmed by all that God did.  The way He moved, invited, and changed hearts all around me.  I’m astounded that He allows me to sow into his children in this way…into his sons and daughters…into His Kingdom.

“But Lord,” I’ve cried over and over until I’m tired of hearing and saying it myself… “Who am I?”

“You’re my daughter…same as all the women who come…no different…I just want to know if you’ll do this if I ask you.”

“Yes…”  I’ve said it aloud to the air, whispered quiet in the heavens, wrestled deep in my soul.  “Yes Lord… I don’t know what you want, or how I can help you, but I’ll do what you ask.  Please just tell me what to do… I have no interest in just manufacturing another event.  I only want this if it means we all get more of you.”

And it wasn’t.  It wasn’t another event.

Allume was a convening of souls… a meeting of kindreds…a splaying out of our innards for the King of Kings, and an invitation set forth for Him to come and invade all we think we are and to transform all we think we are not.

We are masterpieces of the ultimate creative… the opus magnum of a heavenly composer…we are his workmanship, and He invited us to join Him at His table this past weekend at Allume.

Months ago, the Lord gave us Revelation 3:20 for this year’s conference…”Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

We listened. He knocked. We opened and invited Him in… and we communed with Him for days.

A life of invitation begins in the soil of a heart cultivated by the love of the Father, and oh how he loved on us this weekend.

And so still, I stand humbled…arms wide in awe of the one who spread His arms open for us.  My own heart stretched out as He reaches and beckons us to partake in the ultimate invitation He extends of His own life.

What other posture is there but this?

Allume is 2 weeks from today.  The official day it begins anyhow.  For the team and me, this one weekend has been over a year in the making.  I imagine that for God, it’s been in the making longer than that.  And that fact alone makes me super excited.

We stole away this past weekend.  I had too much work to really leave, but I left anyhow because I knew it was the last chance my family would get this month.  I always love to steal away to the mountains…it does something for my soul.  Time with dear friends does something for my soul.  Slowing down and having tea while we watch our kids roll down a hill 57 times does something for my soul too.  And no matter how many things we have on our plates at any given time, that soul care bit….it matters big… lest we drop all the plates and end up in a soppy, crying mess on the floor somewhere.

I know I keep saying it, but I miss blogging frequently. Pouring into relationships and running Allume well matters to me much, and when time is short, sadly these days (the past year if I’m honest), my blog is the first thing to scoot over to make room for margin.  Margin is part of soul care.

I want you to know though that I’ve been writing!  And ya’ll, I’m working on a book!!!  I have worked for months on a proposal (which for the record is WAYYYY harder than I’d have ever thought) and I finalized it with my literary agents this past week!  So now… there are pieces of me in official writing samples out there, and some giant prayers that if the Lord wants these words out there (and I believe he does), then it’s a let’s-see-what-happens as my agent shares it with several publishing houses.

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I had a breakthrough moment in the past month.

I went to see my sister who had a new baby at the end of the summer.  A sweet little girl.  My first niece.  My parent’s first granddaughter. Baby Virginia…or Deejeena as my 2 year old nephew says.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t a tad nervous to go.  Of course I was excited to see my sister and her family, and snuggle a new baby, but I was nervous too that I’d feel jealous of that perfectly healthy little girl.  Remember when my Fisher died?  It’s been 2 1/2 years, but that baby girl still has footprints on my heart, and I was nervous that all those feelings of wanting would come rushing back and eat me up in sad jealousy.

I prayed alot before I went.  I was scared that holding that baby would open up a hole in my heart that grew larger with every subsequent loss of my pregnancies.  A hole that I just ask the Lord to fill because no other biological baby will now.  We made the choice to take that possibility off the table when my husband had “the procedure.”  You know the one.  I cried when we walked out of the doctor’s office and it had only taken 17 minutes to remove that option from our plates.  But the hemming and hawwing and emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on with the baby train the past few years has done a number on us all and we needed to be done.  My doctors said I needed to be done.  If I tried again, it’d be dangerous for me and a baby.  And I have a husband and 2 living children here who need me too.

So all to say, I was nervous about getting to see Baby Deejeena….even mixed with all the butterflies of excitement.

But I had a moment while I was there.

And holding that sweet baby, I felt sad that my time with nursing my own babies was over, but I also felt good too.  And I wasn’t expecting to feel that.  I felt ok that I’m in a new season, but in this season, as my sister was worn out from mothering a newborn and a 2 year old, I could make her a boatload of chicken pot pies for her freezer.  I could help her rearrange 2 bedrooms that she’s been meaning to get to but hasn’t had the time or energy.  I can write a book, or go to Africa.  I can be home now with my boys doing homeschool, and that new season in itself brings joys.  I can encourage new moms and other women walking through things that I’m on the other side of now.

Of course, saying goodbye to a season is hard.  And I’m sure the tiny pangs will still come up here and there in dealing with the realization that in some ways my life isn’t at all what I’d expected.  But at the same time, realizing that my life isn’t what all I expected is an exciting thing too.  In so many ways, there are so many good things that my good God wants to keep a secret from me.  He likes to surprise us.  He loves to restore us.

And holding Baby Deejeena….well, he just reminded me that so often the very best gifts are the ones we can’t do a thing to manufacture ourselves.

Wonderful are your works; 

my soul knows it very well. 

My frame was not hidden from you, 

when I was being made in secret, 

intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; 

in your book were written, every one of them, 

the days that were formed for me, 

when as yet there was none of them. – Ps 139:14-16

I’m still being made in secret with the Lord, and his eyes still see all of my days.  His works are wonderful, and I’m curious to see what this unexpected life of mine holds.