These lovely girls have been on my mind a lot this week as I’ve thought about the bloggers on the Compassion trip. The Relevant Conference was the first time we saw each other again since we travelled to the Philippines this past summer. That’s Tsh there, second from the left. What a gift to get to know her better this past year. She had me as a guest on the Simple Mom Podcast this week.

Here’s what you can expect to find:

• Behind the scenes of writing 31 days to change the world  (1:00)
• A bit about time travel and the Philippines (5:30)
• The Relevant Conference (8:00)
• On editors and agents (11:45)
• What it feels like to have a book in bookstores (13:33)
• On writing a book, being a good girl, and marketing your stuff (15:00)
• Photography tips, my favorite lens, free editing software, and the sign of a good photographer (24:45)
• This is the part where I brag a bit on one of my favorite bloggers (38:10)
• The illusion of doing “it all” (40:00)
• And finally, to tie it all up with a bow, the embarrassing contents of my bedside table (47:00)

So if you would like some company while you fold your towels this afternoon, click here to listen to the podcast.

“Every step on your life-journey can be a step of faith. Baby steps of trust are simple for you; you can take them with almost unconscious ease. Giant steps are another matter altogether: leaping across chasms in semidarkeness, scaling cliffs of uncertainty, trudging through the the valley of the shadow of death.”

Sarah Young, Jesus Calling (September 25)

A little more than two weeks ago, I logged into Skype and set up a call with Sara. For about 30 seconds, it was just the two of us – she on her bed in Iowa and me on the coast of South Carolina. I carried my laptop up the stairs to the deck of the beach house, the ocean wide and sparkling behind me. It was a beautiful day.

“It’s so beautiful!” she said, “and so are you! Look at you there…” She paused between the words, needing a breath just to finish that short sentence. I had never spoken with her before that, and I knew my friends who were with me were waiting for me to come back down so they could see her, too. I had a fleeting urge to carry that laptop back to my room and sit with her alone, just to know her and to hear her speak. Joy poured out from the screen and I didn’t expect it. I don’t know why I was surprised by it.

Sara has been sick for a very long time. Due to her illness, she has been homebound for years – even the outside air harmful to her. So she couldn’t come with us on our retreat – one of thousands of places Sara hasn’t been able to go. If anyone had grounds to choose sorrow or bitterness or anger or fear, Sara did.

But Sara chose joy.

And I will never forget her for that. Saturday night, Sara breathed out one last breath of this toxic earth air and breathed in the first sweet, clean, fresh air of heaven. She is free and healed. And she will be missed. Many have written about Sara – many who knew her much better than I did. I’m adding my small voice to the chorus this morning, celebrating her life and her final freedom.

Resort Rentals of Hilton Head Island generously provided beautiful beach front accommodations to enable us to plan and dream together. DaySpring took care of all the incidentals and meals for each of the bloggers. Special thanks to Jessica Gardo from the Hilton Head Island Chamber of Commerce for helping coordinate our trip and for going above and beyond every expectation. As you well know, my family and I have been coming to Hilton Head for over 10 years now, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

May your weekend be filled with touchable friendship, warm togetherness, and deep, genuine laughter. May you set aside the worries, if only for a night, to enjoy the sounds of home and the gift of grace.

We weren’t the only ones in the coffee shop, but we may as well have been. We sat close at the small round table, white mugs between us. Only dating for a few months, the sky was still seven shades brighter than ever and love was ridiculous in a good way. He sought me there in that chair, leaned short across the table, placed his heavy hand on my arm, and spoke magic into the silence – How are you, really?

It was an invitation to honest, a loving dare to risk exposure, a call to intimacy. And I had one of two choices to make: I could tell him, or I could not tell him. Isn’t that always the choice? Let them see or stay hidden. Speak or stay silent. Love or be safe.

That day, I chose visibility. I chose to speak. I chose to love. I answered him, honest and true. I looked him in the eye and gave myself permission to answer his questions. Understanding the art of listening is worth diamonds and gold.

Want to know the secret to making magic? See people. And let them see you.

So That You May Sing With Us @ We are THAT family :: Even though it’s impossible to truly see the world through someone else’s eyes, reading this post from Kristen makes it seem a little more possible. She carries the burden of knowing, and with it, love.

31 Days to Clean @ Like a Warm Cup of Coffee :: I haven’t read this e-book yet, but the cover alone makes me want to. Sarah Mae is the woman behind it, and I have a feeling I’m gonna like it.

Draw Your Story @ Alpha Mom (by Small Notebook) :: This post was written a month ago (10 years blog time), but I just found it and love. it. I’ve already bought a journal for my family and I drew the first page. It was ridiculous, but fun. Yours will be much cooler than mine.

The Great Romance @ (in)courage (by Tsh Oxenreider) :: Beautiful post of how Simple Mom (Tsh) met her husband, Kyle. Amazing.

Next week at Chatting at the Sky :: My babies are off school next week, but instead of taking the week off from writing the blog altogether, I’m trying my hand at a simple, bare-necessities, week-long series and I hope you’ll come back to breathe in slow and deep. I know I need it. Enjoy the weekend, friends.

4pm Update: Jack is out of surgery and all went well! Thank you all for how you so richly blessed this family today. Please keep them in mind as they have a road of recovery ahead.

We throw trash away; we don’t put trash in our pockets. That dream is there because at one time, you saw that it had value. And so you tucked it away for safe-keeping. But doubt and fear have convinced you to keep it hidden, convinced you to rename that dream Wrong. What would it take for you to pull that dream out again, to stop taunting it with cruel names and to simply listen to what it has to say? No filters. No back talk. No eye rolls.

Dare to handle it, to hold it in your hands and consider it with kindness, with compassion, with (dare I say it?) goals. Are there tiny, itty-bitty baby steps you can take toward pursuing it? Can you at least pull it out of your pocket and hold it in your hand? Place it on the desk, maybe? Offer it up to the Dream Giver?

Three years ago, I pulled out a crumpled dream. And I put it in my suitcase and took it with me to a writing conference. At the time, I had zero ideas for a book, zero publications to my name, and zero idea what would come out of it. But the one thing I did have was the smallest shred of courage. I went to She Speaks during the summer of 2008 knowing no one and nothing. Except I had that small bean of an idea that maybe there was a possibility that I might perhaps be a writer a little bit. Maybe.

When I left the conference, I still wasn’t sure what would come of the dream. But I stopped taunting it with names. And I developed a small but respectable amount of reverence for the way God speaks to us through our desires. And I didn’t know it at the time, but She Speaks that summer was my first giant leap toward discovering my message. And the next summer at that same conference, I pitched Grace for the Good Girl to an editor, and that is why I have a book coming out in September.

And it started with a crumpled dream in my back pocket.

This summer, during the weekend of July 22 – 24, I will be back in Concord, NC at this conference I have grown to love. And I will lead a breakout session with my friend and editor, Andrea Doering. There will be opportunities for speakers and writers to develop their craft. Lysa will head the whole thing up with grace and encouragement. Mary DeMuth will talk about fiction and memoir writing and Marybeth Whalen will too, and Renee Swope will be debuting her new book, A Confident Heart. Literary agent Rachelle Gardner will talk about writing book proposals that sell, and our dear Ann Voskamp will be presenting the closing keynote. And there are so many more.

Today through April 2nd, Ann has been given the opportunity to offer a scholarship for one of you to attend She Speaks. I’ll let you visit her place for the details, but might I be a voice of courage for you today? What have you to lose by applying? The simple act of raising your hand could be the very baby step you need to take today, whether you win the scholarship or not. And while you are at it, go ahead and visit Amy Carroll at Next Step Speaker Services, as she is also offering a scholarship through April 3.

Are you feeling a little nudge? A little hope? A little excitement? I hope so. Pull that dream out of your pocket and listen to it sing.

Today, I am headed to Nashville for Blissdom. I will show up with no business cards and no gifts for people and not one pair of new shoes. And also, The Man is coming with me because he has some business to do in Nashville. And so we will show up together and I’ll bring him to the (in)courage beach house party so he can meet all the beauties I’ve talked about for so long. And of course, so they can meet him, my love.

And I will be content to share the same space with so many creative women who inspire courage in me with their big dreams and their beautiful selves. And we will mingle around with lots of chatter and all of our messy insecurities. We talk the real at places like this, once we get through polite and into the night. Talking the real is my favorite. I wish all of you could be there today, showing up with your talent and your happy and all your junk, too – and we could embrace the art of authenticity together. There’s nothing like it.

And also? I still have things to say about the art. Can you believe it? Stay tuned, yes?

For example, Kendra cooks. And it isn’t just about the food, it’s about what the food means for a family. It’s about feeding a soul. And she is so passionate about it, that she wanted to share that passion with people. So she opened her own business and began to teach cooking classes. And she was good at it, and people who took one class usually ended up taking two. Because when Kendra is in the kitchen, she creates. She is free. She makes art. She even started a blog about it.

Then, Kendra had a baby. And it became more difficult to teach the classes. And the business began to feel like a burden a little bit. And so she followed her heart, and she shut it down. And she quit her blog. And you know what?

She still makes art.

Every day, she cooks for her husband and she mothers that baby with love and fulness and hope. She isn’t perfect, she doesn’t always feel loving and creative, but she loves anyway and she makes decisions for her family that are smart. Right now, Kendra’s home is her canvas and her love is her brush. Balk at me if you want to, and call me a rainbow and unicorn lover, but that girl makes art everyday.

And so do you. But do you call it that? It’s not just paint, and it’s not just cooking. For some people, art might look like starting a business. And for others, it may look like shutting one down. Life is art. Don’t you see that by now? Do you trust yourself with the beauty of it? How can you doubt the art in you? How can you live, everyday, in this world packed with miracles, and not see the art? How can you, a miracle yourself with those deep eyes and that gorgeous laugh, how can you say you aren’t an artist? It’s not about art school or making a living with a paintbrush. I mean, it can be that. But it’s more. It’s so much more. See the art today, this day. And live it.

There are 27 million people worldwide whose stories are being held hostage because they are living as victims of the slave trade. Eighty percent of those stories belong to women and children. Today, some sources believe that the 2011 Super Bowl will be the largest human trafficking event in US history. While we eat our bean dip, thousands of men, women and children will be trafficked into Dallas for the purpose of sex and labor trafficking.Writing that sentence breaks my heart, and I know it breaks yours, too.

There are more statistics (and also here) and I know they’re hard to read. It’s only been two years since I learned about how serious this issue is. There is a ministry at my church called Aboltion! that exists to raise awareness, to provide resources for partners already established in this ministry nationwide and around the world, and to pray for freedom for the captives. The only hands and feet God has on earth are ours. And today, I beg you to use yours to pray for freedom for the victims of human trafficking.

You won’t be praying alone. Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, and that is the most important thing about this day – to raise awareness. We have to know about it. It’s the opposite of what I want to know. I want to put my fingers in my ears and sing. But that won’t save those victims. My friends in Abolition tell me that as their network continues to grow, awareness of the issue grows. And awareness and education are two key components to more rescued victims and more prosecuted perpetrators.

As dark and overwhelmingly oppressive as this topic is, there is hope in this world for these victims. I want to leave you with a glimpse of this hope written by Gary Haugen, President and CEO of International Justice Mission. He tells the story of Glenna, a young woman living in the Philippines who was lured away from a group of friends, and physically forced into the waiting taxi of a pimp. She was terrified, and knew that she was about to be sold. But when the taxi arrived at a nearby hotel, the “customer” was actually an undercover police officer partnering with IJM. The pimp had been under surveillance for months, and Glenna was freed before she could be abused.

“Today, Glenna is a happy young wife and mother. She has graduated from IJM Cebu’s job-readiness training program and is grateful for and proud of her new career, working at a local bakery. She is cared for deeply by IJM Cebu’s team — men and women who seek each day to reflect the kind of relentless love their Maker has shown them.”

Would you join with us today and pray for those on the front lines of the rescue missions all over the world? May the Lord multiply their efforts and protect their hearts from darkness. And may he wrap up each victim in his love, and bring them into freedom and safety. Re-write their story, Lord. Bind up their broken hearts, and set the captives free.

If you would like more information on the issue of human trafficking and how you can become an abolitionist, please visit the following sites:

Abolition! – a step-by-step guide outlining how you can become involved

Tiny Hands International , and on twitter @tinyhandsintl

North Carolina: Not For Sale Campaign -North Carolina, and on twitter @Not_For_Sale

United States: Shared Hope, and on twitter @SharedHope

Around the World: International Justice Mission, and on facebook

Love 146

If you are interested in starting an organization like Abolition in your own church, send an email to abolitionministry(at)yahoo(dot)com

Come, Lord Jesus.