In true Olivia fashion, I am staying up late to finish an article I’ve BEEN KNOWN was due. It’s been in the back of my mind..familiarity and intimacy rolling around in my mind here and there. I’ve read the wisdom of my sisters here thus far this month and gleaned great insight from them on this topic. I just didn’t really seem to have a direction in mind yet..


I didn’t know what I would be lead to write on as it pertains to familiarity//intimacy and I maybe could’ve guessed it would come as I swept the floor of my kitchen (literally sweep my floors all day long and mostly love it because I hear the Lord so clearly during this monotonous chore) but I’ve gotta say that the Scripture that popped into my mind while sweeping the other afternoon seemed a bit out there. 


I mean, imagine just going about your business, cleaning up your kitchen for about the 73rd time that day, and all of a sudden you think to yourself: “..holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:5)


Okay..?? 


Well, the good news is: that certainly didn’t come from me. The bad news? I’m procrastinating, praying: Lord, how can I possibly tackle this scripture well?! 


More good news, though: I think the ‘How’ here is the key. 


So this somewhat stunning description in 2 Timothy 3 sums up a rather long line of characteristics of people that will be plentiful in the hard times to come: 


Lovers of self 
Lovers of money
Boastful
Proud
Demeaning 
Disobedient to parents
Ungrateful
Unholy
Unloving 
Irreconcilable 
Slanderers 
Without self-control 
Brutal 
Without love for what is good
Traitors 
Reckless 
Conceited
Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God


These traits all seem to be quite antithetical to those of the fruit of the Spirit and in fact seem to resemble the works of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19-21. 


And look at this parallel between the two passages here: 


“The works of the flesh are obvious..” Gal 5:19a


“..their foolishness will be clear to all..” 2 Tim 3:9


And all of these descriptors in 2 Timothy 3 are wrapped up with that kind of haunting characteristic: “holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.” 


So- in order to avoid this and to avoid “resisting the truth”, being “corrupt in mind and worthless in regard to the faith” 2 Tim 3:8b (btw-ouch!) is it that we must remain in intimacy with the Holy Spirit? 


There’s this book written by Michael Reeves that I cannot recommend enough, titled Delighting in the Trinity. I kind of wish I could copy/paste the whole chapter on the Holy Spirit and call it a day here because this man’s writing is so intellectual and yet dripping with an awe-inspiring beauty- but I will restrain myself and instead begin with this excerpt: 


“What we love and enjoy is foundationally important. It is far more significant than our outward behavior, for it is our desires that drive our behavior. We do what we want. The Father, Son and Spirit love and enjoy each other and, created in their image, we were made to love and enjoy them. Blindly and foolishly, though, we have all turned to love and enjoy other things- things that in reality are completely unable to satisfy. But the Spirit’s first work is to set our desires in order, to open our eyes and give us the Father’s own relish for the Son, and the Son’s own enjoyment of the Father.” 


Okay, okay, one more:


“The Spirit of the Father and the Son would never be interested in merely empowering us to “do good”. His desire (which is the desire of the Father and the Son) is to bring us to such a hearty enjoyment of God through Christ that we delight to know him, that we delight in all his ways, and that therefore we want to do as he wants and we hate the thought of ever grieving him.” 


Okay, so just now I realized I missed a word in that last quotation and assumed I meant to type that the Spirit’s desire is to bring us to a hearty knowledge of God through Christ. But nope, it was enjoyment. Enjoyment! 


The Spirit enables us to enjoy God through Jesus and He enables us to delight in the Lord! To delight in the Lord, to truly desire Him above all and to delight in following Him, obeying Him, in order that we may please Him and not grieve Him. 


And so if we are enjoying intimacy with the Holy Spirit, who is actually enabling us to share the enjoyment the Father has in the Son and the delight the Son has in the Father, wouldn’t it remain that we will end up looking nothing like that long list above from 2 Timothy 3? 


Wouldn’t it mean that we walk less and less in the flesh and we bear more and more fruit of the Spirit? 


And wouldn’t all of that mean that, remaining in that gift of intimacy with the Holy Spirit, there is no way we would end up having a mere appearance of godliness?! Because we wouldn’t actually be denying the power of the Spirit that produces true godliness but instead walking in it?! 


A couple of weeks ago, I was wiping down the kitchen table (I’m telling you, I am very exciting!) and, okay, honestly, I was doing my best to make the paper towels in my hand go the distance. And so I’m wiping, scrubbing and folding those towels and I suddenly thought, “Do I actually care if this table is clean or am I just aiming to make it look that way?” 


In other words, what is my desire here? 


Completely unlikely- but if this table were to be examined closely, swabbed maybe, would it be found clean or would there be a bunch of junk beyond what the eye can see?  


And so- what about us?! I mean, “Who perceives his unintentional sins?” 


But by the Spirit, we can pray the next part of that psalm, “Cleanse me from my hidden faults.” Psalm 19:12 


And Psalm 19:13: “Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins; do not let them rule me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed from blatant rebellion.” (Emphasis added) 


The Spirit transforms. He cleanses. He beautifies. He gives us new life and new hearts. 


Today..right here, right now, we can ask Him for a deeper intimacy with Him, with eyes to see Him and ears to hear Him. 


We can invite Him in to search our hearts and to create in us clean hearts. 


We can ask Him to transform our desires and to soften our hearts. 


We can ask Him for the ability to walk in obedience, to delight in obedience, even. To please the Lord and to yield to His Holy Spirit immediately and always. 


And we can rejoice because He is the only One who can truly transform us, with a work that goes deeper than any outward ‘cleanness’ ever could. 


“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 


Thank You, Holy Spirit. May we walk intimately with You all the days of our lives. ​

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Yada. Yada. Yada. 


I’m sure you’ve heard it before. A phrase used to finish sentences about things that are so familiar to us that we don’t even need to hear the rest of the story. It replaces words such as:
 so on; and so forth, etc., etcetera, blah blah blah. 


Merriam-Webster defines it as ‘boring or empty talk’. There was even a sitcom years ago that devoted an entire episode around those three little words. 


Yada, yada, yada.


If we’re all familiar with what or who is being talked about then why bother filling in the blanks with real words? Am I right? Well, maybe not. 


It’s been said that familiarity breeds contempt, but I say familiarity breeds assumption. We are so familiar with something or someone we assume we know the rest of the story, or we assume we know the intent behind a friend or family member’s actions. We assume to know someone’s heart in a serious matter. After all, when we hang around someone long enough we become familiar with them. But familiarity does not necessarily give us insight into a person’s heart. 


When Jesus began to teach in the synagogue in his own hometown, many who were familiar with him, who had watched him grow up, and knew his family assumed he could not and should not be doing the things he was doing and took offense at him. Listen to what they had to say about him:
    
    “Where did this man get these things?”  they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sister’s here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”  -Mark 6:2b-6


I’m sure they went on talking about Jesus and how he couldn’t possibly be who He proclaimed to be. “After all…he comes from a simple family, we know the family,  isn’t he that carpenter? We know him, he’s one of us, who does he think he is…yada, yada, yada.” Because of their familiarity with Jesus their assumptions brought about their contempt.


But maybe familiarity was not as much of the problem as the fact that there was nothing beyond that. No true intimate knowledge of who this Jesus was. There was no ‘Yada’.  Not the yada, yada kind in the sitcoms. I’m talking about the Old Testament Yada. 


While we flippantly use this word to mean basically, “drab, boring, not worth even repeating,  yeah, I already know this”, God had a much different meaning. He first used this word in Genesis 4:1, which says, “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.”  That word lay was the Hebrew word yada. That’s right. Bet you’ll think twice the next time you might be tempted to finish a sentence with Yada! Yada! Yada! 


So wait, it’s more than you might think. Yada meant, “to know, to be known, to be deeply respected.” Yes, it is often used throughout the Old Testament to describe the act of sexuality between husband and wife, in the context of the holy covenant of marriage.  In Dannah Gresh’ book, The Secret of the Lord, she describes it this way, “It speaks of spiritual and emotional connection. It is the act of being naked emotionally and spiritually before a person. It is the ultimate act of laying all your secrets out to be known.”  So as you can see this word goes far beyond the mere act of sex. There are other places in scripture that speak of sex using the English word, lay…as in Lot’s daughter’s who made the really bad decision to get their dad drunk and have sex with him in order to carry on their family’s name…seeing as how their mom had turned into a pillar of salt. But the word lay in this case(Genesis 19:33), is not yada, but sakab, which means “to exchange bodily emissions.”  Yuck and gross! Absolutely no intimacy in this act. This was not sex as God designed. This was not intimacy.


God’s design for sex involves true intimacy…to know and be known spiritually, emotionally, and physically by your spouse. My husband knows me better than anyone else. We’ve been married 38 years now and we’ve experienced all the ups and downs of married life…and then some. And yes, we are familiar with each other’s ways…and that can sometimes cause problems. Because…assumptions. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that he knows my faults, my imperfections, and most of my deepest darkest secrets, he still loves me. He doesn’t put me down in order to lift himself up in other’s eyes. He respects me. He sees every side of me. He sees me. We have learned to love and respect one another and that allows us to experience true intimacy with joy. This is yada! 


Yada! It has even more meaning when we are talking about our relationship with God. We find this word, yada, throughout the entire Old Testament. It is used nearly 900 times!! Here’s just a few of the ways it is used. 


“He knows [yada] the secrets of the heart.” -Psalm 44:21


“Search me, O God, and know [yada] my heart.” -Psalm 139:23


“O Lord, you have searched me and you know [yada] me.” -Psalm 139:1 


Even though my husband knows me better than any other person on the planet…God knows me even more intimately. When we slow down the word intimacy we get something that sounds like “into me see.”  God sees into the depths of my very soul. Yada implies a desire to know more. An intentional knowing. I believe the deepest desire of the human heart is to be known, to be seen. Nothing hidden. Our deepest longings known. All laid bare in the secret places of the heart. God can be trusted with all of that. 


But here’s the thing. We were created in His image and because of that I believe that God desires that same intimacy with us.  We have that in common with God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Crazy right? He desires to be known by me and by you! He created us to experience yada with Him. 


God walked intimately with Adam and Eve in the garden right up until that fateful day when they chose Satan’s lies over God’s true word. God knew they would fall, but He already had a plan…that’s how much He loves us. 


We have only to accept His plan. His son. Jesus. The work that Jesus did in His sacrificial death on the cross…the act  of redemption in 'buying back' our very heart, soul, and spirit…covering the sin in our lives with His life's blood so that we could be forgiven and restored not to religion, but to a very real and intimate relationship with God and to a life of real and lasting joy. Yada! Yada! Yada!


That’s how much He wants to be known. Let’s not disappoint Him. 


Blessings,
Gay

Today my husband and I celebrate 13 years of marriage. Wow. 13 years. I simply can not believe I am old enough to say that despite my oldest’s constant reminders of my “maturity” LOL. 

13 years of laughs, tears, struggles, victory, patience and perseverance. 13 years of career changes, ministry, moves, and family life. I look back on our life together and I smile. Don’t get me wrong, our life was and is not always rainbows and cinnamon rolls. We have had times where we felt like giving up. Where we felt like giving in. Yet we chose to stay. There are things that we have gone through that we would not wish on anyone, and even still we would not change a thing. 

Every step God has used. Every step God has redeemed. 

I’m a doer. It is very easy and sometimes even typical for me to fill up my (our) day with stuff to accomplish or do. Sometimes it’s as simple as getting chores done or our Goer (RV) ready, or taking the kids to a local fun center or jump place, going over to a friend or family members house.  My love language is acts of service so for me doing the “to-do list” is a way that I receive love, especially if we are doing it together.

But…

My husband and my children’s love languages are so far from accomplishing a “task” together that for them it leaves them exhausted, overworked and maybe even a little unloved at times. I cannot effectively show them love unless I begin speaking and acting in their love languages. 

Back a few years ago, my husband and I were in marriage counseling, (yes, that’s right, it is not a dirty word) and I have never forgotten the words our counselor told us. He asked each of us ‘How much do you love your spouse?’ Of course our automatic reply was ‘With all that I have, my whole heart.’ You know what he told us?!? “No, actually you don’t. You simply love them the most you know how.” 

(Insert mind-blown emoji) That simple statement brought with it so much hope and peace and assurance. I could love more and feel more loved? That was a thing? We had room to not only heal, but to grow even closer still? To know each other more intimately?

Can I let you in on a little secret? Spoiler alert: We could not have done it on our own. We had to make a conscious effort to each seek God in our individual lives and you know what happened? In seeking God we drew closer to each other. All these years later we have found that sometimes we need to slow down. Sometimes we need to stop doing the daily tasks and choose to see each other. More than just unload how our day was after dinner.

We have to ask the hard questions and seek the uncomfortable answers and allow each other the time to do just that.

Please don’t hear what I am not saying, I do not believe that all the familiar is a bad thing. Familiar can be amazing. My husband is my person and as such he knows me like nobody else. He sees my crazy. He sees my sorrow. He sees my joy. And I let him see it because I feel safe with him. And still there is always so much more for us. There is always a deeper level of intimacy to be had, whether with your spouse, your children, or your Heavenly Father. We just have to look for it and then be willing to receive it.

God built us for godly-relationships. We were made to be known, truly known. We were made in the image of a triune God. The same God who knew everyday of our lives before we were ever born. We were never meant to be alone. We don’t have to look very far in the Bible to find that out.

Regardless of where you are at in your walk in life today, whether you are a wife, a mother, a daughter and friend I pray that you take the time to invest. Invest in your relationship with God. Invest in your relationships with the people that God has placed in your life. 


Love you Sis! 

Alexandria


P.S.
Y’all pray for my husband, because under my nice put together face is probably the most obnoxious person you have ever met. 13 YEARS!!!

My husband, Josh, and I have been married for 11 years now. We’ve lost some of that fresh, bubbly, butterfly-inducing romance. We have three kids (8, 6, almost 2) so we are tired all the time. We both work full-time and homeschool our 2 oldest boys. We are both very active in our church, in bible studies, and try hard to stay connected to our friends on a regular basis. 

It’s really normal that the longer you are in a relationship, the more familiar you become with your spouse, the more the infatuation and butterflies fade away. Some of us can kind of resent that shift in the relationship and then begin to pull away from our spouse. We feel hurt that maybe they aren’t quite the same as when we were dating… 


“You used to stay up all night just to talk to me - even when you had to work the next day!”

“You used to snuggle me on the couch all the time!”

“You used to dance with me in the kitchen…”

“You used to tell me how beautiful I am every day…”


Or sometimes, we mistake that the lack of butterflies means we are falling out of love with each other. We start looking for a way out or another person to make us feel that way again. 

The other day, I was kind of noticing how “blah” things have been in our marriage. We are so focused on our kids, on our work, on our ministries, that at the end of the day we are both too tired to connect heart-to-heart most nights of the week. I pulled out my phone for whatever reason and went through my photos. I began to see photo after photo of my husband doing what he loves to do most - be a dad. There were pictures of him holding our baby up near our tree so she could touch snow for the first time, pictures of him playing in the water with our kids at the beach, building sand castles, snuggling sleeping babies, being silly with our boys, the two of us out at a restaurant together, teaching our boys the value of hard work by cleaning gutters in the back yard or power washing the house or raking leaves. It was photo after photo of my man in his happy place.

I found my eyes welling up with tears and my heart filling up with butterflies again. I sent him a text while he was at work to let him know how much I loved him and couldn’t wait for him to get home. The focus of my day shifted from all the things I “had to do” to waiting for my darling man to come home to me. 

I got to thinking the other day in the car about this shift from infatuation to familiarity and the Lord brought to my attention that familiarity is what makes way for intimacy. Intimacy is knowing someone inside and out. It is knowing the secret places of someone’s heart. It is that unique and private relationship with someone - something only the two of you have together. 

You can’t get to true intimacy without going through the familiar. 

Isn’t it that way with the Lord too? We are saved by Jesus and we are on fire, crazy in love, passionate believers, then something happens. It can take some time, but as we become more familiar with God, oftentimes we become a little lazy in our relationship with Him. We let the busyness of work, family, church-life, and other things crowd in His space in our heart and at the end of the day, on most days, we are too tired to even connect heart-to-heart with the Lord. 

This moment is when we need to pull out our spiritual photographs, those snap-shot moments of precious time seeing the Lord doing what he loves most… working in your life. Look at that miracle baby, that restored marriage, that prodigal child coming home, that moment when you had no money for food and a check came in the mail, that time when you were going through crisis and friends showed up to clean your house and bring you a meal, when you couldn’t make rent and someone paid it for you, when you became a gentler spirit through the Word of God, the Sunday morning when it felt like the pastor was speaking directly to your heart, your moment of salvation by Jesus, the quiet moments of loneliness when the Lord came and sat with you, the grief you didn’t have to walk through alone, the friendships that came when you needed them most, the patience and grace shown to you when you didn’t deserve it… 

These are all snap-shot moments in my life. These are all my photos of the Lord. And when I take the time, in my weariness, to sit down and remind myself of these memories, my eyes start welling up with tears, my heart fills with passion, and I want to lean into the Lord more instead of being resentful of our changed relationship or thinking his love for me has faded. 

Familiarizing myself with the Lord is what makes way for more intimacy with Him. 

So, my sweet sister, remind yourself of the goodness of God today. Pull out those snap-shot moments of the Lord working in your life and let your heart fill with passion, your eyes well up, and lean into His heart more today.

​Alerts, we get them all the time. Whether we set them or they are naturally set, it is inevitable that we will have some kind of an alarm or alert that goes off during the day. You may have just one, the one for waking up, or you may have many, one for every shift in your day. Your dog or cat will alert you when they want to eat, play, go outside, and so forth. Your kid will alert you of a diaper changing, when they need to eat, or that a project was due yesterday. I have an apple watch and try to keep up with closing all of my fitness rings or goals everyday. If I am sitting for too long I get a notification that it is Time to Stand. When I saw that the other day I really felt impressed that the Lord was identifying a need within the body of Christ. He is saying to you, “Time to Stand.”


Some of you might struggle with standing, due to being out of alignment. You need some adjusting. When you are in need of a chiropractic alignment your first appointment with the chiropractor sets the tone for the kind of adjustments as well as the frequency. Once you have had some adjustments made because of  muscle memory, sometimes the adjustments can make you feel worse than you did before you had work done to your body. Give it some time and future tweaking, your body will fall right into place and be the best it can be. Much like a chiropractor helps to get you in alignment, the Holy Spirit brings alignment to you. The adjustments are corrections, you might need minor correction and other times you need major correction. Have you met with the Father for the plan? Are you following through with the plan? Or are you ashamed to be the vessel the Lord works through? You must check in frequently with the Holy Spirit. If you fail to meet with him, you can still get by and do the work, but not to the capacity the Father has called you to. You might even think that you are doing the will of the Father. Have you stopped to consider that maybe you were meant for more or to do something else? 


So what does this correction look like? The Lord is not short of creative ways to reach us. Consider the account of Baalam, found in Numbers 22:21-39. Baalam thought that he was going to do the right thing, but God was angry because initially He told him not to go with the men to curse the Israelites. God allowed Baalam to go with the condition that he would “...still do only what I tell you.” On his way Baalam could not see the weaponized angel of the Lord on the, but his faithful donkey could. Baalam was so mad about his donkey’s disobedience that he beat her 3 times. Then the Lord opened up the mouth of the Donkey and they carried on a conversation. Once that was done, Baalam’s eyes were open and knew exactly why his beloved animal dared not move forward. God’s correction to Baalam helped him to see that God was the one in charge and to really be aware of how important it was to say only what God told him. Because Baalam obeyed, it showed the king of Moab, Balak, and those surrounding the Israelites that God is the one who blesses His people. All glory to Him! When you are on the road towards your destiny, it may not be the path that God intended for you to go on, but because of pressure from others or your own desires, He allows you to go, but with condition. You must be careful to do all that He says to do. God’s glory from your obedience is much greater than what any earthly man might try to honor and buy you with. 


Much like the way we correct our children, because we know our children, our discipline is done out of love. We know that if we yell at our toddler who is about to cross the street, they might not like the correction at first, but in the end you saved your child’s life. Some correction may hurt at first, but I would much rather suffer a little than to suffer a lasting consequence. If you allow yourself some honest feedback and time in the Word, in worship, or in prayer then you can learn to receive the small adjustments the Lord brings to your life. The Lord knows how to correct you and because God loves you, he will allow correction to come. Come into alignment with His word showing that your are a good steward of what belongs to the Lord; you will then see the moving of the Lord on your behalf. When you are in alignment, Jesus is first! Now it’s time to Stand! Stand for Jesus. Stand for your family! “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” Joshua 24:15. Stand for what is right! Proverbs 3:12 says, “For those whom the Lord loves He corrects, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” Be encouraged that the Lord loves you.

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We got home from a two week road trip that was riddled with high temperatures and sudden thunderstorms. We were camping in a tent, so this made this rather difficult from time to time with all the setting up the tent, taking down the tent, cooking food, and entertaining the five and two year old girls (they are our daughters, not some random kids we picked up). When we got home, we originally had planned a week of relaxation, cleaning, and repacking because we were off on a two week mission trip to northeast Brazil (to the city of Caucaia). Instead, there had been a death in the family and so we washed clothes, repacked, and headed out of town again for a few days. After the funeral, we came back home and had about two days before heading to Brazil. We hadn’t packed anything! 
​
We had to pack VBS supplies, gifts for friends, ministry items, bug spray, clothes...did I mention bug spray? The utter disarray of my living room, laundry area, kitchen table, and bedroom were stressing me out. I found myself walking in circles and not really accomplishing anything. Meanwhile, my husband was putting items in ziplock bags and distributing them between suitcases. He was trying to bring organization to all the crazy that was going on. Somehow, mostly due to my husband’s efforts, we got it all packed into four suitcases that weighed just under the maximum and got to bed at a decent time. This scenario happens in life so often. Things are chaotic, unaligned, crazy, wild, bonkers! And then suddenly it all just falls into alignment. And sometimes it falls apart. 

When we are working “according to His purpose” (Roman 8:28) we are going to find out that things, no matter how crazy they might become, will fall into place. Now, they might not fall into the place you thought they would, but they will fall into the place they are supposed to. This seemed to prove itself true time and time again during this mission trip to Brazil. It is a lesson that I have to keep learning because I am just not getting it! As good mission leaders we make a plan. What we are doing each day. Who is in charge of what meals. Who is leading the team devotionals and sharing time. What supplies we need to accomplish our ministry goals. We have a plan. Insert 12 other people and this little thing we call “life” and somehow these plans turn into more disorder than anything else. But you know what? It all works out. Everyone gets enough food. We all sleep some. Devotionals and share times happen. Ministry happens in places and in forms we didn’t plan and it is beautiful and authentic. Lives are changed. 
​
It’s like we could hand God this tangled up ball of junk we found in our pockets that we have been collecting for a while and he can make it into a beautiful work of art. And each time I just stand back and think, “Wow! How did He do that?” 

I don’t want to minimize the pain that disarray can bring. When your children seem like they are running away from truth and Godliness as fast as they can. When your marriage might be on the brink of disaster. When mental health issues are weighing down on you so heavily that just getting up is cause for celebration. When loss and pain are breaking down the doors to your home. These things are serious. God sees them and he hears you. He loves you and he wants to bring you through these times. And your testimony of triumph in these times will be an amazing tool to bring others through similar paths. 
​
Disarray isn’t always a bad thing though. Even the hardest times can be a beautiful mess that untangles in its own time. It can stress us out and confuse us, but it can also cause us to depend on each other and God. It can point us in a direction that we never thought we could or would go. And on the other side, where we find alignment with Him, we also find a beauty and peace that surprises us each and every time. 
​
So, if you are sitting in a big ole pile of crazy right now, try to enjoy the mess. Make a mud pie. Smear it all around. Take a big whiff of it. Throw your head back and laugh loudly at Satan and tell him “not this time!”. Don’t let it turn you into a monster that is striving for impossible perfection. Then make sure that your goals are to His glory and find rest in the fact that it will all align itself with His help. Think of it as the shackles of bondage being broken, because that is exactly what it can be. Let the promises of scripture speak to your heart. Let them give you peace. Allow them to re-connect you with His purpose and alignment will come.

Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”

Philippians 4:7 “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I stumbled upon this interesting graphic as I scrolled through Facebook the other day. This cognitive neuroscientist I follow shared this image of feelings before you talk about them vs after you talk about them. The feelings before were all of these lines (noodles? spaghetti brain, anyone?) of all different colors all tangled up. The feelings after were neatly categorized by color and labeled: fear, sorrow, anger, etc. 

And I loved that image and the caption she wrote to go along with it. She pointed out that we often "avoid talking because we think we will be a burden, or because we think we have to have a solution to talk about a problem.." and encouraged readers to talk through big or tangled feelings or thoughts "even if you don't have the right words or understand what's going on." [Dr. Caroline Leaf, Facebook] 

I'm not exactly a verbal processor normally, but I recently found myself so overwhelmed and confused even by many thoughts, information that's come at me, opinions, and on and on that have been swirling around in my head. And as I quietly contemplated all of the things that were coming at me and that I was examining and praying over, it was like the things just compounded. Like, I would have moments of clarity and peace with the Lord. Shutting off social media helped me to walk undistracted. But.. it was like I couldn't even put my finger on what was going on inside because everything was just a big tangled mess. It was really heavy; at times, straight up oppressive. 

It was the lens through which I was viewing everything, which is kind of like walking around with fingerprints smudged all over your glasses. You can see but there's this thing in the way or always in your peripheral. It's hindering your vision and how you go about your day. 

So the Lord, I'm convinced, arranged for me to be walking with a specific group of women in this season of wrestling. I found myself word vomiting and sobbing all over the place; like all of the stuff I'd been holding in spilled up out of me. And it was just a mess; just a tangled string of words as I fumbled to find the words to explain the warfare that had been coming at my mind and amplified by fear and probably by keeping it to myself and trying to figure it out on my own. 

There was the relief of finally having all of these things out in the open, however tender and vulnerable I felt. And then.. oh, then, there came a massive dismantling: 'Here's what's true and here are the lies that need to go. Where is this one coming from? What happened over here?' as they seemed to hold all of these threads in their hands, sorting and sifting through the mess with me. 

Man, sometimes we miss stuff. We're too close to what's going on. We're just muddling through. We need our sisters in Christ to come alongside us to help us look at what we're walking through with a clear lens and a few steps back from it all. We need wise and seasoned and prayerful friends to not only help identify lies believed and point out truth overlooked; we need these sisters to pray with us and over us, ushering us right into the throne room when maybe lately it's felt like we've been crawling there on our own. 

I can't tell you how thankful I am that God provided these women as an answer to many, many cries of desperation. I know that He guided me and sustained me as I sought His will and His Word but I can't help but feel like He intentionally chose these friends to answer my prayer for clarity. 

How beautiful when the Body operates as intended. This is only a small glimpse of that: women following hard after Jesus, devoting their lives to the work set before them, emptying themselves and making themselves available to the needs around them. Kingdom-minded women, submitting themselves to the transforming of their minds and the conforming of their desires to those of the Lord's. Small and yet mighty acts of submission and vulnerability and obedience. 


We need these relationships; wow, can they serve as another step in the laying down of our self-sufficiency and self-absorption as they fill very real needs perceived with eyes wide open. 

And I found that when the noise of my circumstances threatened to drown out the truth, their collective pointing to Jesus quieted all of the noise and brought Him to the forefront. These friends helped turn my mental and spiritual disarray into alignment with the Lord and what He says is true. 

What a gift. 

How about you, sis? Have you ever not asked for help because you were afraid of being a burden? Have you ever been so overwhelmed by what you were walking through that you just didn't even know where you would begin?  What steps could you take today, to either reach out for help in your time of need or to reach out to a friend who is walking through a hard season?

If you currently are without a 'tribe' in this season- will you let us be just that for you right now? Will you let us know how we can rally around you and pray over you in whatever you're facing? It would be a privilege- certainly not a burden. 

May any and all confusion and disarray be untangled and reconfigured completely so that you may walk freely in alignment with the Lord. ​

There were two runners in a race. Each runner was given the instructions of where to finish farther down the beach. The runners were informed that they would not be judged on how quickly they got to the finish line, but rather they would be judged on who’s line of footprints were the straightest from starting point to finish line. 


If you grew up in the mid-nineties to early 2000’s you are sure to have seen or heard this very illustration at some point and know how it ends. 


The starting gun shot goes off, runner one carefully takes a gentle step on to the sand with her left foot followed by a precise step of her right foot placed toe to heel making sure to be in alignment with her left foot. Then again, another step being careful to stay as straight as possible and continued down the beach to the finish line in the same fashion. Cautiously, placing one foot in front of the other painfully aware of how straight her footprints were going to be all the while determining her next step by the alignment of the previous steps, looking up occasionally and aiming for the finish line accordingly.


Runner number two, hears the starting gun shot and without hesitation looks up, locks eyes with her target, the finish line, and runs… 


At the end of the story we come to find out that the runner who carefully and precisely measured her steps ended up swerving and weaving all over the beach before she made it to the finish line. Her line looked more like a traveling snake than a line at all. She was so focused on the tiny steps she lost track of the big picture. She would lose sight of her final destination and instead measured her success from each individual step. 


But runner 2…
She was so focused on her destination, her finish line that her path was completely straight… 


Have you ever heard the phrase “If you aim for nowhere, nowhere is where you will go.”?


I love that illustration of the runners above. I believe that it brings so much clarity and hope to my soul when I remember it. I don’t know about you, but there are definitely times throughout my life I can look back (sometimes I don’t have to look very far, ha) where I may have been a little to focused on the “things” around me and not had my eyes so perfectly locked with Jesus. I allowed the busyness, chaos or just plain life around me distract me from the very things I knew God was wanting me to focus on. Those things were not inherently bad, sometimes those “things” were my family, my business, my volunteer hours or time spent at church, cleaning, cooking, kids activities, you name it. The problem wasn’t so much what I was doing, it was that I had allowed myself to drift my focus from where it should have been, over to the checklist of my to-dos.  I was too focused on those single steps in my life when I should have just lifted my eyes and stayed focused on my target, my Jesus. 


Have you ever known those people that even with all chaos, crazy schedules or even the unknown surrounding them, they are still at total peace? You know the ones I mean, they are genuinely at peace, not shaken or stirred easily. Maybe there has even been a time in your life where that was you. If that was ever you, I would like to invite you to look back and ask yourself, ‘Where was my focus?’ 


How many times do we get so wrapped up in making sure that those individual tasks are accomplished, correct and completed that we miss our mark and have to  back track and redirect ourselves?
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How many times do we seek and ask God what He would like us to be doing, He gives us a direction and then off we go. Often times we get so focused on being a human doing instead of being a human being? Um, guilty…


You know the really amazing things about those two runners? They both still made it to the finish line. They both ended up where they were supposed to be. There was no shame in the first runner having to realign to make it to the end. They did it. 


That is the amazing thing about God our Father is He is always ready to help us realign when we look up. In fact, I believe He is calling out, trying to get us to look up to help us to know to realign ourselves. There is no shame. No guilt. Just love.


Is there something you need to look up from today? Do you feel the Father trying to get you attention today? Look up sis. Keep going. You can trust Him. Look up.


Love you!


Alexandria

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Sometimes we need to trim something dead from our life in order to grow and thrive. 

The other day my daughter Caroline and I went to get our hair cut. My hair was a frazzled mess of split ends, and we could barely get a comb through hers without a lot of screeches, “ow’s!” + tears… It was time for a trim. 

Caroline has this long, beautiful, red hair that has only been cut a handful of times in her 7 years of life. She has asked us to cut it short several times before, but we have said “no, not until you’re older” pretty much every time without thinking twice. (Why is cutting our children’s hair so emotional for us parents??) 
So, this day we went in to get our cuts and they took Caroline back first, then me, with another stylist. I could see Caroline a few chairs over, but over the course of the haircut and chatting with my stylist, I stopped watching to see how Caroline’s trim was going…until she was done and came over to see me. Well…. that “trim” that she was supposed to get somehow turned into about 5 inches….and my baby girl with the long locks of gorgeous red hair now had a much shorter cut and looked about 2 years older. 

I wasn’t ready, y’all. 

But the smile beaming on her freckled cheeks told me that she was delighted with this new ‘do, despite any of my own reservations about it. So, I beamed right back and told her how beautiful she looked. 

As the day continued, I noticed a little more pep in her step and as she bounced around the house. Her freshly snipped locks bounced with her, and she seemed lighter, freer, more her true self…not a little girl weighed down by a thick, hot, burdensome weight of unnecessary hair on her head. She even played soccer better! She was more alive. She had needed that haircut. 

Can you relate to Caroline? 

Sometimes there are areas of our lives that need a good cut, maybe even a whole new makeover, when a little trim just will not do. 

That toxic friendship that thrives on gossip and wine O’ clock? That romantic relationship not rooted in the Lord. That job God told you not to take, but those benefits were too good to turn down and now you have no peace, time for your family, or time for the ministry He called you to. How about that business venture that makes you feel like you are “doing something” more than “just being a stay-at-home-mom?” Hmmm…. That one stung a little. 

In John 15 I find these words of Jesus refreshing to my soul. 

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” -John 15:1-3 

Did you catch that? 

He cuts off the dead parts, and then He prunes us where we are ALREADY producing fruit, so that we will produce MORE. Have you ever been told that if you want to grow your hair out long, you need to cut off the dead ends first? It sounds counter-productive at first, right? Why would I cut something that I want to grow? 

Why? Because it is holding you back from your true potential. It is keeping you from walking in the freedom Christ died to give you. It is keeping you from increasing your fruitfulness. It is DEAD WEIGHT. 

For us to get back on track to the good and the glory God has planned for our life, we must let Him cut-away certain things that are not bearing fruit. This refining process is not pretty, or without hardship. In fact, it can be quite painful. But eventually, we are able to see the full perspective, and God’s hand in it. We see how losing that friendship, job, or whatever needed pruning from our lives led to healthier relationships, more fulfilling jobs, and more opportunity to serve a better purpose for the Kingdom. 

Jesus goes on to say this: “You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:3-5 NLT 

Without direct connection to Jesus, we cannot produce new fruit. He is our Source. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Staying connected to Him produces perseverance, character, hope, purity of heart, cleansing of hands a transformed mind, and a life more abundant than we can ever dream of or imagine. That’s great news, right? But wait, there’s more… 

One of my favorite passages in the Bible comes from 1 Peter 1 and it says this: 
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So, when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the entire world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him, and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:3-9. 

What an incredible promise! Our inheritance of living hope in Christ Jesus is unshakable. We can have confident expectation in a perfect, face-to-face union with the Maker and Lover of our souls - secured for us by Christ’s sacrifice and culminating in our one-day arrival in glory. We can rejoice in these trials knowing that the reward for trusting Him will be the salvation of souls, an eternity of rejoicing with glorious, inexpressible joy! Can you even fathom what that feels like? 

Be encouraged today, sweet friends. You can be certain. In fact, you can bet your life on it, that He will use every situation to produce more fruit than you could ever imagine, for your good and His glory. 
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And that’s even better than a fresh haircut.