chatting at the sky

Do you mentor the next generation? Let’s meet.

January 5, 2012

Lately I’ve been getting several emails from those of you who have read Grace for the Good Girl and either say “I wish I had this book when I was in high school!” or are looking for something similar to read with the high school students you work with. Many of you already know GFTGG (my next book will have a shorter title, amen) was originally intended to be a high school book. Instead, my publisher asked if I could write it for women first and then have a teen/youth/student version a year later. (Does anyone else kind of hate the words teen/youth/young women?)

It can be a lonely road, walking through life with this next generation. They leave before you know if you’ve had any impact at all. My small group is in their junior year right now and I’m already grieving their graduation that is still a year and a half away.

I know many of you reading also work with students in some capacity and some of you are going at it alone without fellow adult leaders around. I would love to meet you and also make it easy for you to connect with one another. If you consider yourself a mentor to the next generation, might you be willing to link up below so we can find you? Here is what you can do:

Scroll to the bottom of this post and either link to your “About Me” page OR a post you’ve written about working with/loving on/pulling out your hair because of high school students (this post could be a past post or you could write a new one. I’m not picky.) The idea is so we can easily find you and quickly know what your role is. So in the links below, where it says “Name”, put in what your role is. For example “emily small group leader” or “emily the youth pastor wife” or “emily desperate for advice” or whatever. I’ll leave these links open for a week so you can have time to come back and add if you can’t do it today.

And in the meantime, here’s a video from a weekend I had with my small group at the lake a few weeks ago. It’s one minute long and it is random and ridiculous. Meanwhile, my book for these high school girls will release in September. I’ll keep you posted with the details.

And if you’re reading but don’t have a blog, feel free to leave a comment here. You may have a question or a need for curriculum or ideas – I may not have answers, but surely someone reading will. I know I’ve sprung a linky on you (sprung a linky?) so I don’t expect a ton of linkage. But would love to meet some of you!

scary hope

January 3, 2012

“Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Romans 8:24-25

Yesterday I invited you to share some of the things you are focusing on in your homes, blogs, businesses or relationships. Many of you mentioned both something you hope for and some way it scares you: introverts making plans to open up; writers wanting to write more; mothers longing to release their tight grip of control. Some of you have hope that can’t be articulated with words but you know the familiar simmer of hope and scary in your heart.

If you’ve read my book or this blog for any amount of time, then you know that my dad is an alcoholic. He says he drank three quarts of beer a day for fourteen years. It’s important for me to follow that sentence with this one: he has been sober for over twenty years, loves Jesus, and has good sense. But the use and abuse of alcohol is part of our family history, for better or worse.

It seems to me the people most qualified to talk about hope are the ones who have been hopeless and lived to tell about it. Dad knows hopeless. Yet, he lives. And now he’s telling about it.

Back in October he wrote 31 Days of Scary Hope. Now, he has expanded and refined that series into a free ebook. It’s called Scary Hope: Courage and a kick to hug hope, face fear, and get going. I’ve read it. Twice. Both times, I cried at different parts. Not because it was sad, but because it was true.

Hope, wonderful hope! The bright sun in the morning, the ring of twelve-string guitars, fresh red strawberries, sleeping puppies, giggling babies, inspiring choruses that never end, and the way the air smells giddy on a surprising warm afternoon in March after a long frozen winter. That’s how your dream of fulfilled hope feels, only better. But first, the scary. Do you really want change? You know you have a longing, a hope. Maybe you don’t even know exactly what it looks like. But you yearn and you dream for something beyond your reach. You have the hope, but do you want the change?

Gary Morland, Scary Hope

If you can’t quite articulate your hope yet, might I recommend Scary Hope? Dad is a storyteller, a noticer, and an encourager. His words help me see things. And as a bonus for you who may be or know an alcoholic, you can read the first two chapters of his story, From Beer to Eternity, at the end of Scary Hope.

my Mom and Dad

I’m really excited about this book, not just because of what it says but because of what it represents to me personally. My parents do not come from a long line of believers. They come from brokenness, addiction, and fear. And yet. They put their trust in a God who takes great delight in making beauty out of ash, so now we have a new heritage as a family. God is doing a new thing and because of this scary hope, I have a different and redeemed story to hand to my children and to my grandchildren. And so can you.

It takes just a few seconds to download the PDF of Scary Hope for free and read it on your computer. It may be about an hour to read. I just realized I’ve called him Dad this whole post. His name is Gary and you can read his blog or follow him on twitter @garedog919. And also? How cool is it that my dad, my sister and I have blogs? Useless trivia – which one of us do you think was the first to start one?

Filed Under a reader 37 Comments

how to come home

January 2, 2012

My oldest daughter (and when I say oldest, I mean by 3 minutes) told me last week that if she ever has two girls and a boy she will name them Chevon, Sabine, and Jeddel. We don’t know anyone with those names and I don’t think she’s read them in any books or seen them on TV, though I could be wrong. But she is eight and loves to read and thinks up stories as easily as she breathes. So for her to think about her someday children’s names is quite perfectly normal, however unique they may be.

We spent five days in Chicago last week – it was the first time our kids have been to a big city. They’ve been to Charlotte countless times, but never uptown or anywhere close to the buildings. I’m sure they have sore necks for all the time they spent looking straight up while we walked. On one hand, it was a gift to be there – to buy birthday gifts for our girls, to stand in line for deep dish pizza, to gaze through windows of four story shops. But there is another hand, one on which I heavily lean, and that is where I noticed how easily I was swept along with the crowd of people. There was no space to make a decision, to turn around, to take a photo or choose to walk more slowly. There is one pace and one direction on those sidewalks. Even I grew impatient when someone compromised it.

I realize these fast-walking people are most likely not the city people at all, but people like me from North Carolina and Pennsylvania and Arkansas. Visitors. And we all arrived in that place from our various pockets of the country and hustled past the blind man on the corner of Michigan and Superior, the kids stared and the grownups pretended not to see. And I wanted to run screaming to the cameras that were surely hidden in the light posts, Okay! We get it! We are all totally and completely messed up down here. I give up. We lose. At the same time, I longed to bring our dog and my curtains to Lincoln Park and move right in. I wanted to embrace the city life and find my own place among these bustling, Starbucks people. I wanted to bring mini hotdogs wrapped in crescents to the brownstone two blocks over on New Years Eve.And while I was there, I was my own Sabine. I imagined myself making different choices in life and this shadow, other-me lived in the city, did city-ish things, had a life that was both mine and not mine. Her children knew how to ride the train, the noise was normal, and life was big. I wonder what that would be like?In a way I don’t have to wonder. 2011 was the sidewalk on Michigan avenue. Thrilling. Heartbreaking. Fast-paced. Both frantically loud and painfully beautiful. This past month has been a gift at the end of that sidewalk. After many months of breathing out, I have taken a deep breath in. I am amazed at how desperately I needed it.

This month marks six years of Chatting at the Sky. Thank you for coming back again. I am tempted to say Welcome to this new year! But that implies a bigness that I’m not comfortable with. So instead, I imagine we are not the ones doing the welcoming. Rather, we are welcomed into the new year, ushered into it, invited forward to a place we have not yet been.

As every introvert, home-body knows, the best part of a trip is coming home. I left my imaginary Sabine-self with the Chicago skyline to live her imaginary life and came home with my family to our quiet cul-de-sac, our white house with the black shutters, and our ridiculous dog. I have come home, in so many real and imaginary ways. I am certain you’ll see more Chicago photos in the coming days and weeks, as I was thrilled with the scenes each ever-loving minute and took way too many photos. It’s as it should be.I’d love to hear from you today. What would you like to see in this space this year? How can I best serve you? Or if not that, what is something you are working on this year in your space, be it a blog, your home, your business, your relationships? I’d love to hear your ideas and inspirations.

Tagged rest Filed Under breathe 80 Comments

10 Favorite Blog Posts of 2011

December 27, 2011

While my family and I are gallivanting around this week, I want to share with you my own personal picks for the 10 Favorite Blog Posts of 2011. (When you capitalize things, it makes them Super Official). I have nothing to offer these 10, no award or certificate or badge or banner. But great writing deserves some attention. All of these posts have moved me, some even months after I read them. Of the many lovely and soulful posts I’ve read this year, here are 10 that seem to have lingered for various reasons (listed in no particular order).

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.

Tagged art Filed Under inspired 19 Comments

let earth receive her King

December 24, 2011

“In opting to celebrate His birthday in Bethlehem in such low-key fashion, Jesus revealed himself free from public opinion, from fear of what others might say or think. Jesus is the incarnation of the Father’s freedom. Paradoxically, while the freedom of Jesus is contagious for some, in others it arouses defensiveness. They have set their faces against freedom, against surprise, against novelty.”

Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb

Maybe it’s why we cheer for the underdog, why we are attracted to humility in others, why we long for simplicity in the midst of this crowded, competitive world. It’s because love came down as an unlikely hero — small, scrawny, helpless, needy. And in coming that way, he declared freedom from the world’s expectations before he could even open his eyes. How can a King be a baby? How can God be a man and God?

Maybe all of life is really about coming back to the stable, learning to believe that because God came as a baby, then the last ones are first, the weak ones are strong, and all of heaven hangs upside down. May we set our face toward the freedom that comes from living like it’s true. May we believe with our lives that all of these things we so desperately seek – worth, attention, love, belonging – are found in Him. And He has come, and we are free.

Merry Christmas, friends. Repeat the sounding joy.

Tagged thankfulness Filed Under faith 17 Comments

if your Christmas feels upside down

December 21, 2011

Is this Christmas season filled with a heaviness you can’t shake? A loss you still can’t believe you feel? Empty hands you grasp desperately to fill? Whether this is your first Christmas without someone you love or the last Christmas before a big change, Grief doesn’t take off for the holidays. In fact, sometimes it seems he works over time. We’re having this conversation over at (in)courage today and I can’t help but notice the hope and depth of insight coming through in the comments section. If you are walking a bit upside down this week, I want to invite you to join in the conversation and hopefully, be encouraged that you are not alone.

Tagged faith Filed Under (in)courage 7 Comments

tuesdays unwrapped :: the last one

December 20, 2011

It sounds simple: go outside, step into the quiet, if just for a few minutes, and see what rises to the surface. But we can’t do that! It’s almost Christmas! We must do that. It’s almost Christmas. This is perhaps one of the most frustrating disciplines I’ve faced lately. Mainly because what rises to the surface is not very spiritual sounding. It isn’t profound, deep, or even very interesting. I’m tired. My hair is dirty. That leaf looks like a puppy. But I keep walking, avoiding on purpose the temptation to critique myself. Just keep walking.

Things don’t change. Problems are not solved. Angels are not singing. Rainbows are not bursting from clouds. There is no light shining like a halo around me. Simply, I am quiet. And that is it’s own miracle. With the rhythm of walking, breathing, being with God and what is true about me, there is a slight and almost imperceptible shift. My frantic movements are not so frantic now. I see things I would have missed.

We tend to pray with words because we aren’t brave enough to pray from our groaning soul ache. And so we chatter away with our Dear God, just…and we miss him in the middle of all. this. noise. He’s still there, though. He doesn’t roll his eyes or cross his arms or tap his foot with impatience. He hears all the chattering and he sees what lies beneath it. Even in the noise, He gathers us up and pours Himself out.

I come home after my walk, cheeks red from the wind, camera filled up with images of hope, soul breathing more deeply. I spent the time listening, but I can’t tell you what I heard, exactly. The language of the soul doesn’t always translate well into English. Instead, I lean my weight heavy into Him, longing to live in the quiet even in the midst of the noise. I know that may not be possible, not the way I hope. But this walk was a gift for reasons I’m not really sure of yet. And for that I am thankful.

We would love to read about your Tuesday walk by inviting you to add your link below. Be sure to include the permalink to your Tuesday post. If you need help to link up, this page will hopefully answer all of your questions. Be sure to link back here to Chatting at the Sky so that others can find our community. If you wrote a regular Tuesdays Unwrapped post, by all means still link up! I’m delighted you are here and so thankful for this community. What a gift these Tuesdays have been. The links will be open to add until Thursday evening.

Tagged rest Filed Under Tuesdays Unwrapped 35 Comments