For the days when you are so inspired by your art that you see sparks, when tears come just because this life is a miracle, when  you see the beauty in the mundane and ridiculous – know that we need your perspective. And tomorrow, so will you. Write it down.

For the days when you want to throw your laptop in the trash, want to put your art in a safe place, want to hide under a cloak of invisibility and hope no one notices –  know that you have the freedom to hide if you want. But is that really what you want?

For the days when you desperately need a break, when you want silence more than chocolate or sleep, when your soul flails about inside you for a breath – take one. Breathe deep the mystery of Christ, receive his favor of you, be loved.

There is a difference between hiding and resting. When we hide, we are afraid. When we rest, we are wise. It can take time to figure out which one is at work. But once we notice the signs, we’ll know for next time.

It was a pleasure to read your comments yesterday. Out of the many who spoke up, not one person said, No, I am not an artist, I don’t want to be considered an artist, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Pass me a calculator. Maybe it’s just because of the type of people this blog attracts, or maybe those who feel that way simply don’t speak up. Or maybe we’re on to something.

Maybe we know that when we were woven together, He wove art into our beings. He made hands that want to shape both clay and hearts, eyes that long to see beauty even in the midst of chaos, spirits that long for eternity with such desperation that we will stay up way too long and get up way too early just to try to turn a phrase or write a lyric that will capture the smallest glimpse of heaven. We are made with intention, purpose, heart. O Lord, may we receive your making of us so that we may make art with our lives in response.

If you simply haven’t heard me talk enough (and surely you are tired of my voice by now), today is the third and final interview with Bob and Audrey on My New Day in Winnipeg. Our Canadian friends can watch on their TVs later today and the rest of you can watch all three interviews online. They may only be available for a limited time. I’m just glad my high school girls helped me pick out my clothes. Hallelujah and Amen. PS. I’m sure I used that apostrophe wrong in the title. Tell me I didn’t. Amen again.

Unstyled Life by Jules at Pancakes and French Fries:: Having just recently watched my family sort through the many collections of everything from manilla envelopes to Waffle House pins that make up the remnants of my father-in-law’s earthly possessions, this post struck a chord somewhere down deep. She writes beautifully and I am left standing right next to her, shaking my head. For anyone considering the purpose of all our stuff, this post is a must read.

Please Don’t Miss It by Sara Frankl at (in)courage :: She wrote this on her birthday, the last birthday she had on earth. She wrote to us, begging us to see, to open up, to live fully. She wanted us to learn from her life: don’t miss your own. Read it. You won’t soon forget.

The World Needs More Artists by Jeff Goins :: Jeff is a great voice for those of us who work hard at our craft but have trouble with the last five percent. He reminds us that making great art is its own reward and that we have a say in the kind of legacy we want to leave. His blog is one of my favorite new finds of 2011.

We’ve Been Conditioned to Not Make Mistakes by The Nester at Nesting Place :: She reminds us that while home is supposed to be the safest place on earth, some of us manage to make it our biggest source of shame. It’s not supposed to be that way. Read at your own risk.

What is Deployment? by Ashleigh Baker :: Think of honest writing and then go two steps deeper. That is how Ashleigh communicates on her blog. She spent many, many months alone with her two boys as her husband served overseas. And then he came home, and she wrote about it, and it was beautiful, and I still think of it sometimes. So here you go.

Hold Your Fire by Jenny S. Allen :: I met her on Canadian Thanksgiving in a Toronto hotel restaurant, she with my lost luggage and stories so similar to mine it made my head spin. We chatted over pizza until we closed the tired place down and shared nervous laughter over the interviews we had the next morning. And in that magic way that doesn’t happen all that often, a girl from Texas and a girl from North Carolina connected like girls who grew up only miles apart, swimming at the same pool. For any woman who feels a tug and a pull but is terrified of leading, read this post.

Here and There by Shannan Martin at Flower Patch Farm Girl :: She writes about home in ways that make me wish I had one. Not that I don’t have a home, I do. But we moved around so much when I was a kid that the roots she talks about didn’t have time to burrow deep. So I read her words and I know I feel that way about something but I just haven’t figured out what yet. So while this post is one of my favorites of the year, her entire blog is one of my favorite finds ever.

Because God Really Knows How to Meet Needs by Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience :: She wrote this post in November and I’ve thought of it more than I can say since then. Because The Farmer didn’t want to leave his pigs, but he did it anyway. And God has lovely ways of weaving our giftedness and our passion into our service and our worship. That is what he did on a small plot of land in Ecuador. I simply love this story.

These Are Magic Hours by Tara at Pohlkotte Press:: I found this post just a week ago. Tara linked up with Tuesdays Unwrapped and I’m so glad she did. She makes words dance. A taste? “These are the hours that make the years fly, folding us into life with grace and love.”

My Dead Hope by Gary Morland at New Life’n :: Don’t let the title fool you. It’s a post about broken dreams, yes. But it’s also infused with a beautiful, rich, scary hope that weighs even heavier than the dream. If you had goals for this year that never quite came to be, read this before the next year begins. And as a bonus? Gary has an ebook based on this series available for free download any day now – just look for Scary Hope (I’ll let you know when it’s available). And also he’s my dad so you know. There’s that.

Cherry Bomb by Megan Jordan at Velveteen Mind:: Whenever I feel wimpy in my writing I read this post by Megan and it makes me brave. She has a way of bossing without making me defensive, instead it just makes me get to work.

What do you think of these 10 posts {ok it’s 11}? Which ones would you add? (Feel free to share links in the comments, but if you leave more than one link, the blog will think you’re spam and block you). Would love to hear some of your favorite picks of the year.

And to you who have gathered here for yet another year, thank you for writing, for speaking truth into this chaotic world, for making your art, and sharing it with us.

Hope and risk are syrup sticky. They tangle up the soul with fear and thrill and dread and peace. The dread comes when we forget to remember that the truth doesn’t always feel true. Hope is a liar and risk walks with a limp. She doesn’t look brave anymore, she looks wounded. And so we search for our comfort zones and look for a hiding place of safety. We grope for familiar and walk with our heads down low.

I feel it deep, this word return. There is no risk in returning because we have already tasted this home. And so He reminds us to come back to a place where we have been before. He is doing a new thing, but He is still the same as always. Trustworthy. Faithful. Loving and strong. There may still be a fear, but we have it confused. Because there is only one thing scarier than making art with our lives.

Not making art at all.

But living the art doesn’t come out like riding on the back of a unicorn in gold-dipped shoes and galloping softly down a rainbow. It comes with grit. Exposure. Risk. Fear. Humility. And sometimes humiliation. Over the past two years, I have wished so many times that my passion was food. Oh, to write about tomato soup and eating around the table with family and making scones. I visit cooking blogs and make recipes and I feel safe and inspired. But those things don’t make me come alive from the inside out.

Shannan wrote a post yesterday about sitting around with new friends some years ago, answering light-hearted questions about favorite foods and pet peeves. Easy stuff. And then somebody asked what her biggest fear was and she quickly answered, “Being wrong.” Here’s what happened next:

“Everyone stopped talking, the game wasn’t fun anymore, and maybe the world stopped turning for a beat or two. I wanted to reach out and grab those two stupid words and stuff them right back in. I had spent my life being right. Admitting that I was afraid of being wrong was absolutely not right.

Why didn’t I just say “falling backwards off a steep cliff?” Why didn’t I say snakes? Speeding tickets? Slow drains? Camper toilets? … It’s funny how the truth takes new shape when it moves from your secret heart to the wide open air that you breathe. It becomes even bigger. It floats around and catches the light. It becomes a thing.”

Shannan, Flower Patch Farm Girl

It isn’t exactly parallel, but writing Grace for the Good Girl was one long why-didn’t-I-just-say-snakes experience. Why do I have to be passionate about something that is just so personal and exposing? Why do I feel compelled to splay my weaknesses in a book that is now sitting on bookstore shelves, bedside tables, car front seats, couch arms? Why can’t I just write about food? Animals? The weather?

I know the answer and I’m learning to receive it: talking about the grace of God makes me come alive. It’s deep and it’s serious and it’s sometimes heavy. It’s awkward to hold and it’s too long for an elevator pitch and it doesn’t look great in a tagline. It’s hard to market, difficult to summarize, cumbersome to share in the carpool line. But when I look into your eyes and I see you get it too, when we can talk about the secret things and the mystery of this hope of glory — it’s like someone turned on the music.

Have you ever wanted to change your art, to adopt some skill or gift that you think would be easier to live with? What makes it worth it?

***

The blog hop/tour/visitation/review/giveaway fun continues this week with one of my favorite bloggers, Shannan at Flower Patch Farm Girl and one of my favorite authors, Mary DeMuth. They both are giving away copies of the book this week and would love to have you stop by! Check out the blog tour schedule under Grace for the Good Girl in the navigation bar to learn more.

Updated :: Giveaway winners will be announced Tuesday September 6. Still time to enter!

Shaun and I followed Kat up the ladder into the dark, one-room house made of cardboard and tin. Shaun was our team leader and he walked these streets and climbed these ladders in India and Guatemala and Kenya. But Manila was my first undoing and the grief came tsunami heavy. We crowded together in that small space, and the first thing I saw when we got there was toddler AJ asleep on the floor. He was so small and so like my son. I tried to hide my face behind the door, behind my camera, beneath my hand. Kat slipped me a tissue and I willed my body to stop shaking.

We stood silent as the Compassion volunteer sat with AJ’s mama and read from the Bible in Tagalog. I tried to distract myself by looking around the little room. That’s when I saw the matchbox car. My son has the same one. But this one here in the Philippines had no wheels. Grief.

Two days later we spent the day with four of the most vibrant, beautiful, confident young women I’ve yet to meet. They lived in poverty but were wealthy with love, grace, and compassion. They reminded me of girls in our youth group in North Carolina. They were lovely. Hope.

We flew home to the other side of the world. I quickly remembered how to walk in my own shoes again though I was sure they wouldn’t fit. I came home to a full freezer. An anxious seven year old. A basket full of matchbox cars. Cancer.

We had a birthday party and two weeks later, a funeral. Hope and then grief. And in the midst of all the brokenness and joy and living, I now stand torn between their world and mine.

It’s all pain, isn’t it? And the pain brought a tightening in my soul this summer, a folding in on myself in protection and a bit of fear. I wasn’t sure how to continue to process this world with that world and all that’s in between us. Then I started listening to Shaun’s new album. These words, they have brought a loosening within me. This music helps me see. This Third World Symphony brings these two worlds together like the wheel-less car on AJ’s table and those in my son’s basket; like the poverty on the streets of Manila and the death in my own family; like the hope of a bright future for young Filipino girls and also the ones in my small group. Shaun has seen things, and so has his music.

The words on this album remind me that Jesus is present when people are broken. And that it isn’t only all pain. It’s all grace. I wrote a book about grace, but still I forget. Have you watched this video of Shaun and Ann talking about his song, All is Grace? These two don’t just say truth, they believe it.

This album is an extension of that belief. And belief is what we are so desperate for, isn’t it? I don’t often recommend things, but might I recommend this? Shaun has found a way to sing theology. Deep truth. Gospel heart. If you want gentle direction on how to reconcile the third world way over there with our first world right here, begin with this. Come see. Want to hear a sample? Listen as Shaun sings the words on these pictures, the lyrics to Come By Here … (there is a video below – if you’re reading elsewhere you may need to click over)

So thankful to Shaun for staying up way too late and singing for us today. What a gift. Come By Here is track 2 on the album and I have it on repeat. And repeat.

Shaun Groves is a singer/songwriter, an artist, father, husband. He is also a friend. He advocates for children living in poverty around the world by traveling with Compassion International. His is a voice reminding all believers to remember that we weren’t just saved from something, but saved for something. His newest album, Third World Symphony, officially released yesterday. This is the second stop on the tour.

Want to win a copy for yourself? (You do. Trust me.) Leave a comment below and we’ll choose five winners to be announced Tuesday September 6.

“She arrived with her own gifted form, with the shape of her own sacred soul. Biblical faith calls it the image of God in which we are all created.”

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

We had plans for the night but the plans fell through. Still, there was a sitter. When you get to be married for 10 years and you have a sitter, it matters little what you do. We drove downtown with no plan but a camera.

In the past three years, I’ve learned a lot about the way I’m made, how I’m created to worship, what brings me back to my true center. Having a camera around my neck helps me see. I used to be embarrassed about that, worried that I always looked like a tourist even if I was in my own town.

Our life is always speaking, but we rarely have the courage to listen. What are those things, it says, that make you come alive? Good girls are afraid of those questions – afraid because what if those things our life speaks of are not the things I think I’m supposed to be doing? We stay busy should-ing and ought-ing and trying to do life right.

And we’re so busy doing life right that we let it pass right on by.

I remembered that last Friday night when The Man and I had nothing to do but wander. I remembered how our lives speak to us in similar ways. I remembered the slow pace we prefer, the margin we long for, the community we crave.

We passed people from other seasons of life whom we haven’t seen in years. We lingered on the sidewalks. We laughed and connected and took slow steps. I paused to take a picture of a light post. This feels like worship, I thought to myself. God made us to glorify, and  when we slow, laugh, savor, linger, listen, and become – we worship. What else would it be?

You might be a good girl if you think worship is something you do in a building.

***

I’m writing at Bloom (in)courage all week and today, I’ve posted an excerpt there from Chapter 1 of Grace for the Good Girl. The books are, as we speak, shipping to bookstores all over the country. I got a box full just yesterday. Hallelujah.

Today I continue to share snippets of a talk I gave at the She Speaks Conference two weeks ago. The talk was titled From Blog to Book: How I Got Published Without Being Famous. I’m not sharing it point by point because that’s just not how I roll.

“I write about all kinds of things, but I get the most visits when I write about running. Should I have a blog for runners?” She sat in the back and craned her neck to see the speakers up front.

From where I sat, I could barely see her. But I could hear the question behind the question. I turned my head back to the front of the room to the four women on barstools holding microphones. There were about 75 of us that day in October 2008. It was the first Blissdom Conference, an event for bloggers that has now grown to over 700. It’s been nearly 3 years, but I haven’t forgotten that woman.

She asked an important question, one writers have been asking for centuries, though not exactly in those terms. On some level, she was asking this: How can I make sure what I write matters? It didn’t seem like she really wanted to write about runners, but writing for runners seemed to mean she would at least be writing stuff that mattered to someone. And if what she said mattered to someone, then she would get visits. And it if she got visits, then she would keep writing whatever it was that got her visits. And so she wanted to know if she should have a blog for runners.

I don’t remember how the panel answered that question, exactly, but I will answer it now: no one can tell you what to write about. Don’t ask what’s selling. It kind of doesn’t matter. The market wants you, at your very best, showing up and doing what you do.

It doesn’t matter if you’re starting a blog to make money or writing a book proposal to submit to an editor or writing an ebook about how to write an ebook – the same rules apply for everyone. To be clear, these words are for those of us who want to write for an audience. If you just love to write because you love to write and it helps you live better, then by all means, write in whatever way you wish. But if you want us to care what you write about, then think about this:

Write about something. Anything. Just sit in a chair, set a timer, and make yourself write. There is only one guarantee in publishing, and that is you absolutely will not be published if you don’t write. Start somewhere. I recommend you do this privately. No one wants to read a blog post that starts out “I have no idea what to say, so I’m just gonna start writing.”

If you are a writer and you give yourself permission to just start writing, it is my  completely unscientific and undocumented opinion that seeds will come out all over your paper. You may not know what kind of plant they will be yet, but you know those seeds mean something to you. And they will sit there like tiny little shadows of things to come, and you will stare at them and think Now where did you come from? And somewhere inside, that voice will begin to speak.

Write from the voice.  You know the voice. It’s the one that begins to speak when you’re driving down the highway alone or just before you step out of the shower. It’s the one that speaks just as you lay your head down on the pillow, between the busy day and restful sleep. It is the voice that reminds you of your passion, your heart, your message. It may be the voice that tries to convince you to take some time and space to figure out what that passion actually is. You can’t put it in a sentence yet, but you know it’s there. You can’t ignore that voice.

Write what makes you come alive, not what you think will sell. You can spot the passionless artist from the first word that falls flat out of their mouth. You’re no fool. But neither are we. When you try to write things simply because you think it’s what people will want to read, we know. And we don’t want to read it. But if you are excited about something, chances are great that someone else will be excited about it too.

Write bad stuff. John Mayer said this last month to a group of students at Berklee College of Music: “I can’t stress how important it is to write bad songs.” Artists are afraid to write because they fear the writing will be awful. He says it may be awful now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Bad songs aren’t always bad songs, they’re just unfinished good songs. One good phrase is worth a thousand bad ones. But if you didn’t write the thousand, you wouldn’t have found the one. Finish. It.

Write with great faith, even if your idea is small. There is nothing more frustrating for a writer who knows she’s a writer to want to write but fears she has nothing to say. No message, no insight into the world, no direction. I felt this way for many, many, many years. I even stopped writing after I was married, thinking that part of my life was over. When I finally picked up a pen again, I did so in the form of this blog. It was January of 2006 and I had no idea what I was doing. I would only post when an idea showed up that seemed to have some redemptive quality. And even though it’s painful for me to go back and remember where I started from (the ridiculous ellipses! the tiny, tiny photos!), it’s necessary. Because even though I didn’t know exactly where I was headed five years ago, I wrote those little things that resonated with me.

Where are you in your writing journey? Are you still wrestling with calling yourself a writer? Are you a writer who doesn’t know her message? Do you have a story and a message but are afraid to share it?

Coming up next: But I want to write books, not blog posts!

I did this session with Andrea Doering, one of the executive editors with Revell Books. She has years of experience in the industry acquiring both fiction and non-fiction titles. She is a professional, and she is a friend. She is also the editor who acquired my book and who I hope to work with for a long time. Do you want to know one of my favorite things she said to this room filled with writers and bloggers at She Speaks? She said this:

“One question bloggers should not ask themselves is, What does it take to get published? If you have a blog, you are already published. People are reading your work. In fact, if you have 2,000 readers, then you already have more readers than 95% of authors who have books in bookstores.”

Andrea and I gave this same talk last year – but last year she didn’t say this. In fact, I said a lot of things this year I didn’t say last year, either. Want to know why? It’s because things are changing, and they’re changing fast. If you have a blog, my suggestion to you is to treat it with respect and make it the best art you have.

But what if you don’t have 2,000 readers? Maybe you have 30 readers. Do you roll your eyes at those 30 readers? Do you think of your work as valuable even if only 30 people read it? Consider this: what if 30 women showed up in a room to hear you speak. Would you see it differently? Would you roll your eyes at them? No way! You would prepare and plan and maybe even get nervous. And you would look forward to meeting with these 30 people who made the effort to show up and listen. Lysa TerKeurst said something similar to that a few years ago and I haven’t forgotten it.

I have a lot more I could share with you about our session at She Speaks and I’m considering doing that next week. Would you want to hear more? What types of things would you like to hear?

The first five percent was hard – admitting I had an idea that I couldn’t shake, accepting the fact that writing it down would be the only way to get it to stop hovering, knowing all odds were against me and putting hands to keyboard anyway. I spent a lot of time seeking permission during those days of that first five percent. I looked around for someone to affirm me and tell me to do it so that I could argue with them and tell them all the reasons why I shouldn’t or couldn’t. It was a dizzying cycle, the fear.

Once I finally launched a full out pursuit of the art and passed the first five percent, things got easier. There were writing days that began gray and lonely only to turn out bright yellow and full of hope, word count met, concepts complete. And that’s how it went, up and down for a while, but still within a reasonable, predicable pattern. The 90 percent in the middle wasn’t a breeze by any stretch — but there was momentum.

Until this last five percent. The book is written, edited, titled, covered, margined, page numbered, and finished. All completely finished. But the work? The work is not yet done. Because this last 5 percent of the work is the deep down, gutteral, horrifying, thrilling work of letting it go, releasing it out of my hands and into yours. It is the work of belief, of knowing that the God who created the earth and the heavens still speaks today, and sometimes he speaks through us.

Because as difficult as it is to start, it could be equally as difficult to say that you are finished. I want to hold on to the loose ends. I want the freedom to make it better. I want to manage outcomes and to ensure that all will be well with me. I think I might want to be God a little bit.

It isn’t just in this, is it? The last days before the wedding are hurried and crazy and wild with anticipation; the last month before she moves into her dorm is filled with worry and angst and excitement and tears all stirred together in the pot of a mama’s heart; the finishing up of anything requires a great deal more resolve than you’ve had to dig for yet. But we are told that our times are in the hands of another, that we are loved everlasting, and that He has already made all things well with us. There is great comfort there, and I keep coming back to that.

When they leave for church, I open a beer, read the paper, and crank up the stereo. Sometimes with a few beers in me and the music loud, I stand and talk in a loud whisper. I catch myself acting like a teacher, talking and intellectualizing on things in the news, or politics, or sports, or music, or other things my mind randomly latches onto. Sometimes, in some foggy way, I see myself doing this explaining and persuading out in the future. Then I have another beer. I vacuum and wash the dishes so I don’t feel totally useless. I take a nap. They come home from church. This becomes a normal Sunday morning.

He didn’t know why and he couldn’t explain it. But it was in him to speak out. That was 25 years ago. Today, he is an announcer on the radio. A believer in Jesus. A teacher at church. A mentor to couples. A small group leader.

All my life, characters have been following me around, waiting for a starring role in a story I haven’t yet told. Last week while in South Carolina, there they were again, hiding in the Low Country shadows of the oaks with their mossy-grey profiles. Still, not one of those characters are clear to me. It’s as if I’m surrounded by a smokey cloud of faceless witnesses. The fog is thick with story but I can’t see a thing. And so I wait. It isn’t time to tell their stories yet anyway.

Art does that. Sometimes it follows after you so hard and so loud that you look around to see how everyone else is reacting to this most obvious explosion of creativity happening right here in this room. It is bright and tangible and full. But other times, it speaks of future, not yet things to come. It whispers for us to prepare so that it isn’t so surprising when the story shows up one day, demanding you to tell it or to live it, ready or not. The Spirit of the living, loving God speaks into our lives and offers us shadows of things to come, blurry and unclear. But no less real.

He weaves His art into the very fiber of our being, so close that we can’t not have at least some hint of it, even if we are drowning in addiction, blind to the truth, hardened by unforgiveness, paralyzed with fear. My grandfather was a rather unhappy man in his living days. He was an alcoholic too, but his story didn’t end so well. He stopped drinking only a few years before he died and he never grew into his potential. He encouraged me in my writing as a young girl. I think he may have seen something in me that he recognized in himself but couldn’t quite touch. There were shadows of his design, whispers of his giftedness that I’m sure spoke to him in some way, but his demons drowned them out.

Maybe you are drawn to the people and culture of another country but you can’t explain why. You bring your camera to every wedding because you can’t not take pictures of the bride. You write for free and it should feel like a waste, except that it doesn’t and you don’t have an answer for it. You stare at your living room and imagine ways to make it better, and then you do and it changes your mood. It should be silly, except it isn’t.

And so when you hear the whispers, One day, there will be fiction. Children. Teaching. Speaking. Love. Writing … don’t ignore them. It doesn’t mean that things will turn out exactly as you think. They won’t. But I do believe God fully provides for us in the present while at the same time, faintly hints about the future. And sometimes, as He moves in us and around us in the moments of our day, He nudges us in whispers and desire towards something He has for us later.

It’s why an alcoholic who isn’t even a believer can stand in a room and pretend to teach and not know why. It’s not because he had an idea that he would like to try that out one day. It’s because teaching was woven into the fiber of his being when he was knit together in his mother’s womb. We — a people with a full capacity to love and learn and teach and create and live — we did not just happen. We were made by design, and that design is held together by a Person. And his intention for us is beautiful, hopeful, and filled with delight.

What are the whispers of design saying to you today?