Prisoners of Hope

My nieces were taking a bath, dumping water on each others' heads and then telling on each other; filling cups with bubbles and pretending it was lemonade; and just generally taking advantage of the bathroom acoustics by squealing as loudly as possible.

I sat on the toilet seat, flipping through the kids Bible my sister-in-law reads to the girls before bed. It's a big, illustrated Bible that retells the familiar Bible stories in simple kid-fashion. I was mostly looking at the pictures and not really paying much attention to the words (in simple kid-fashion).

Then I turned the page to this.














It's the space between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

400 years pass, to be exact.

Four hundred years.

I sat there and stared at the words for a while. Then I closed the book and finished up bath time with a rousing rendition of "this is the way we wash our hair" (in C major).

A few days later I was reading Zechariah. It's one of the last books in the Old Testament, right before that 400-year space between the Testaments. Those last few books of the OT are nothing but prophecy after prophecy and I admit that sometimes I get bogged down with it all...until they start talking about Jesus.

On this particular day I was reading in Zechariah 9 about Jesus coming to us, "humble and...mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey," and I was thinking about the scene in Mark 11 when Jesus really does ride in mounted on a colt, when I read Zechariah 9:12.

"Return to your stronghold, O prisoner of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double."

O prisoner of hope.

My eyes hovered over those words and I read them over and over again. Prisoner of hope. O, prisoner of hope.

I thought about the people of the Bible in the space between the Old and New Testaments. I thought about the long silence of God and how very hopeless it must have felt at times, to feel far from God and to want to hear just one word from Him that would reassure them He is still coming. Just one word to let them know He still sees them. Just one word for them to hold onto, to sustain them, to comfort them.

I know because I've felt like that this year. It hasn't been 400 years but it has been long, and silent, and frustrating. And I have felt that darkening chasm of hopelessness open wide right before my feet so that all I'd have to do is step into it and I would be swallowed.

But I am a prisoner of hope.

I am tied to the promises God has made so that, even when there is silence, I still know He has spoken.

I am tied to what I know of the character of God so that, even when there is silence, I still know who He is.

I don't know why God chose 400 years before He sent Jesus to redeem His people, and I don't know why He chooses to make some of our own seasons of struggle so long. But I do know that even after those 400 years, He still kept His promise. He sent the Messiah. He was faithful.

They were prisoners of hope as they waited for Jesus, and we are prisoners of hope now, because we have Him.

He came as a man and He left us His Spirit. He is with us, and even when there is silence, He is still with us.

I don't know what season you are in right now, and I don't know how long you've been in it or when it will end. But God sees you. He has already come, and He is coming again, and He is with us now. No matter how long it takes, God is always faithful, always good, always true. Hold onto Him. Even in the silence, He is working.

Return to your stronghold, O prisoner of hope; He will restore you.

"Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him." - Proverbs 30:5 

"The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works." - Psalm 145:13

"I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope." - Psalm 130:5 

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." - Hebrews 10:23

Winter Survival Tips

It's snowing a lot, everyone.

And it's cold.

For some reason, even though they're covered in fur, cats seem to crave warmth even more than humans. Which is why I decided to observe my cat, Penelope (aka Penny Lopes aka Penny aka Muffin Top), to find out the best ways to keep warm this winter. And because I know you, World, need to stay warm, too, I've decided to share with you what I've observed.

Eh-heh-heh-hem.

The Top 10 Best Ways to Keep Warm This Winter (from Penelope):

1. Become one with fire. In cat world, giving someone your belly means giving him your trust. Here Penelope demonstrates relinquishing herself to the flame in hopes that fire will be her best ally this winter. She's a brave and crafty politician.

2. Use electric blankets. Leave just enough space for your nose holes to take in oxygen, but otherwise cover every possible exposed surface.

3. Cats like a little more booty to hold at night. What's warmer than another living creature? If you don't have a spouse to cuddle with, try a sibling or a household pet (but not a goldfish). Penelope often chooses my bum (as pictured here).

4. Use warm liquids. Here Penny has snuggled into the sink after I'd been running warm water. I usually choose to drink hot tea or coffee instead, but if you can fit into the sink and you find that that works for you, I will not judge you. Winter makes us do crazy things.

5. Work. Movement helps elevate your body temperature. Or, if you have a desk job, like Penelope does I guess, try usurping the heat from your computer by napping on its keyboard.

6. Use heating pads. Heating pads work best when you can snag one that somebody else was using but left behind to go to the bathroom. Here Penelope capitalized on her cute-and-fluffiness to retain what she'd stolen. (SHE'S SO FLUFFY.)

7. Treat every blanket like it's your blanket. If you pass up an opportunity to lie on a blanket, you might never see another blanket. Take every chance you get. That blanket is there for you.

8. Gift yo'self. If the cold becomes too unbearable, you can try giftbasketting yourself to someone in the south. Here Penelope lacked the proper postage to make it to Florida, so she took a nap.

9. Read a good book. Something about adventure or romance or comedy or mystery takes the edge off of winter and makes you feel all toasty inside. Penelope prefers to read the Bible, but sometimes she gets a little too toasty and takes a nap.

10. Enjoy the beauty. Yes, it's cold, but it is also lovely. Enjoy it from the warmth of your own kitchen basket if you can't work up the courage to go outside.

Happy winter, everyone!

saddle up your horses

“August is a transitioning month for Wisconsin,” the man at church said. He was standing in my office and I was looking out my window, telling him I was already beginning to smell fall.

No, no, no, no, no. It is not allowed to be winter yet. It hasn’t even really been summer yet! It is not allowed to be winter yet. Not yet. No.

No.

I’ve been mulling over his words the past couple of weeks, chewing on them like a cow on verbal cud. August is a transitioning month. My teacher friends are starting work again. My school-aged friends are starting school again. The kids who are still 11 in my mind are posting pictures on Facebook of their college orientations. How did they become college students?

The past six months I’ve been living with my parents in the village of Glenbeulah, Wisconsin, population 463. Since I’ve been here they’ve opened this promising new establishment:

Good ol' Rusty's Oil & Tire (great name for an auto place). I walk past it sometimes with my finger on 911’s speed dial in case someone reaches out of the door and tries to snatch me.

I’ve also gotten to spend time with this family:

Aren’t they lovely? I gave my niece Annabelle her first swimming (AKA “kick the water like you’re a mermaid”) lesson and have already taught her how to blow raspberries and give zerbers and copy everything everyone says like an annoying echo. Emmalynn is still a little young to learn bad habits, but I’m working on it. I have a nephew on the way, too. I want them to name him JohnMcClane (no spaces or hyphens) but they probably won’t.

Over the past few months I’ve also learned a bit about myself:

1) I can eat ice cream for dinner many consecutive days before I feel convicted about it.

2) I hate mosquitoes so passionately I am willing to torch an entire community because sometimes lives must be lost in order to protect future lives.

3) My ability to make rational decisions diminishes incrementally the longer I go without seeing the sun.

3a) My gummy vitamin intake increases radically the longer I go without seeing the sun.

4) I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

I'll be 27 in September, and sometimes I envy my friends. You know, the ones who have homes and stable jobs and spouses and children and matching mugs and furniture and cars that have airbags and at least an idea of what the next few years of their lives will look like.

I have no idea what the next few years of my life will look like. I think this is fairly common for 20-somethings. I can't tell you how many 20-something friends I know who have moved back home to live with their parents after a turn of events. God bless parents who welcome back their 20-somethings with grace and spare rooms. And to my 20-something friends who are still trying to figure out their lives: Be encouraged! You are not alone.

Sometimes I think that instead of asking kids what they want to "be" when they grow up, we should ask them what they love. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. But I know I love the church. I know I love words. I know I love people. I know I love Jesus.

Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. – Luke 5:27-28 NLT

When people ask me what my plans are or what my goal is, I don't know. I'm pretty sure Levi couldn't have answered that either when he left everything. He probably would've said, "I'm just following Jesus."

That's the only real goal I have, too.

And that's when I don't mind so much that none of my mugs have a theme and the only furniture I own is what my dad has picked out of other people’s trash. That's when I'm okay with moving, picking up and leaving, and trying something new, because with my God, I can do anything. I can go anywhere, lose everything, start over, face any situation, any challenge, with my God.

My God is my companion, and He is my partner. And I'll go with Him wherever.

Which makes it difficult, sometimes, when I have things in my life I don’t want to leave. Like my family. And a good job at a church. And good relationships and friendships. I start to question what it really means to follow Jesus. If God isn’t really making it clear where He wants me in the future, wouldn’t it be okay if I just made my own future? Isn’t our main goal in life to bring glory to God? Does it really matter how we bring glory to God?

Have you ever felt a tug, a pull, a nudge, a thought, a desire, that you just can't shake? Like that one birthday candle you just can't blow out, and it keeps burning and reigniting no matter how much slobber you spray on it? My desire to be in the church is like that slobbery, stubborn birthday candle. I try to make up different futures for myself but they never ignite like when I think about being in the church. 

“Your greatest fulfillment in life will come when you discover your unique gifts and abilities and use them to edify others and glorify the LORD." - Neil T. Anderson

I have never felt quite as much like I am doing what God has created me to do than when I am emptying myself into the local church. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried.

So, in keeping with August’s theme of transitions, I’m transitioning, too. I'm moving back to beautiful Kentucky, to the great city of Louisville, to intern in the communications department of Sojourn Community Church. I will get to write. I will get attend their leadership school. I will get to be a part of creative planning. I will get to attend workshops and conferences. I will get to further develop my unique gifts and abilities in order to edify others and glorify the Lord.

Burn, little slobber candle, burn.

This is where I need your help.

The internship is unpaid, which means I will have to raise support and find a part-time job. Because of some generous people in my life, I'll only have to raise $6,000 for the next year of my internship. If 60 people gave $100, that'd cover the whole shebang!

I've never had to raise money before. I don't like asking for money. I don't know anybody who really does. It makes me feel uncomfortable...and weird. But I do need your help. I can't do this on my own. I'm so thankful for those of you who have already given, in more ways than one. Your generosity and thoughtfulness humbles me.

To join in supporting me financially, click here. 

I would also love your support through prayers and encouragement. Your words mean so much to me!

All of that being said, I'm so, so grateful for this opportunity to serve the people of Louisville with such a wonderful church. I will keep y'all updated!

ONLY TEN MORE DAYS.

I wish hair like this was still in style:

God's Provision, pt II

This is the month that my life changed in a lot of big ways last year. Job changes and church changes and relationship changes and city & state changes. Enough change for a whole lifetime, thanks. I think I'll resign from changing and become a statue.

It's been a year, and I think that even amidst my wondering "how long, O Lord?" I've always thought it wouldn't be too long. I've always had this idea in my mind that, once I figured out what God was trying to teach me in one season, He'd move me into the next season. I'd end up at my destination and look back and say, "It was all leading to this!"

But I've learned a lot in the last year, and my season remains.

Yes, most of the fluctuation has ceased (thank You, Jesus). I have a job and I live with my family and things seem to have finally settled down for a little while. The part of physical bewilderment around every turn has ended.

But the part where I'm still not sure what my purpose is or why that had to happen or what I am supposed to do and where I'm supposed to go from here, the part where I've been stripped of everything and it feels like I've taken 50 steps backwards with no known reason why...that part of the season I'm still in. I still have no answers and no real direction. I still feel like I'm in a wasteland of sorts, very far away from (and sometimes unsure if there even is) a "destination." I still deal with shadows and echoes of pain and loss.

So I write this post because my most-read post last year was one about God not providing. I don't know where you are, you who read that post last year. Maybe you're out of that season, or beyond it, or just beginning it, or still in the middle of it. Wherever you are, I wanted to touch base with you.

I emailed my friend Justin with lots of facts about my current life, like random puzzle pieces dumped onto the table in hopes that maybe he could piece some things together and give me at least an idea of the picture they're supposed to make, so that I could make sense of what I'm living.

No pressure.

Instead, and thankfully, Justin said this:

It may seem like everything you've come through looks like it's not the right fit - but it may not be the right fit because God needs to change your shape instead of the situation. God changing you is more important than God using you....We can't discount the fact that God puts us in remarkably frustrating situations sometimes not to change them, but to change us. Surrender in these situations looks something like, "God, I surrender to a season, that while I might not be able to change the circumstance, I will allow you to let it change me."

I have been praying that prayer a lot. A lot.

Because during the first part of this season it was all I could do just to endure, to simply hold on for dear life and pray I make it through. But now that I've endured and had quite enough of this season and am ready for the next one and am ready for it now, I find I must surrender.

The new Bethel album has a song called "It is Well." They sing, "Through it all, it is well." I listened to the first half of the song and admitted to the Lord, "I have not thought much of this last year has been 'well,' Lord."

But then I realized that singing "it is well" does not mean "I am happy with this." God doesn't ask you to be "happy" when He leads you through suffering and difficult times.

Instead, I think "it is well" is a prayer of surrender. The same as "so be it" or "not my will, but Yours."

Even if everything I don't want to happen, happens, it is well.
Even if I am somewhere I don't want to be for longer than I want to be there, it is well.
Even if I don't know where You're taking me and You will only light one step at a time (or sometimes just ask me to hold Your hand through the dark), it is well.
Even if I have no idea when this season will end, or if it ever will, or what the purpose of it is, it is well.
If you want to change me, transform me, break me, and reshape me, it is well.

The second half of that Bethel song goes like this:

Let go, my soul,
and trust in Him
the waves and wind
still know His name

So this part II of my "what if God doesn't provide?" question from so many months ago is not a "be encouraged, friends, because I have arrived and God provided and He'll do the same for you!" post. 'Cause I haven't arrived. I'm still very much adrift at sea.

But be encouraged, friends, because the waves and wind still know His name.

Be encouraged, friends, because there is no one more trustworthy to be surrendered to.

And be encouraged, friends, because this is what the Lord speaks over me, and He speaks it over you, too:

I'm not done.
This isn't a mistake. 
You didn't mess anything up. 
And you aren't messed up.
Nothing is beyond My redemption. 
I've known from the beginning where I want you to be and what it'd take to get you there. 
I'm working on it. 
I'm not done.

the ten lepers & me

This is a picture I have hanging above my computer, as a reminder.

Those are my feet. They were sticking out of a car window last May.

Six weeks earlier, they were propped up on my chair while I lay on the floor next to my desk. Easter weekend was over. Our three services of the morning had just concluded, which had followed a Saturday night service which had followed a Saturday Easter festival which had followed a Good Friday service.

My back hurt.

In the other room, a couple of pastors were gathering their things to head home. Without mentioning the past 48 hours, they began talking about the message series starting next weekend.

I stared at the ceiling.

The biggest, longest, greatest, most exciting, and most exhausting weekend of the year had hardly finished before we were already discussing next weekend.

No time to bask in the joy of what had just happened in our community and church.

No time to rest from the hours and hours and hours of work that went into setting the stage for it to happen.

In Luke 17, Jesus heals ten people who have leprosy. Every single one of them walks away but one. One man who was healed of leprosy comes back and thanks Jesus for healing him.

Jesus responds in verse 18, "Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?"

A couple of weeks ago I sat with my roommate, Kim, in our box-filled apartment on one of my last nights there. I was in the middle of packing up my life and moving.

"What a year!" Kim said.
I rolled my eyes in agreement as I thought of all the crap over the past 12 months.
Then Kim said, "Let's talk about how far you've come in a year."

A-ha.

You often hear ministry leaders talk about "celebrating wins." What went well? Where was success? It seems to me that it's much easier to talk about what went terribly, what we need to do better, how we need to prepare for what's next. And all those things are very, very important.

But so is celebrating wins.

Whereas my mind automatically sifted through what went terribly, my roommate wanted to celebrate the wins. She was being like the one healed man while I was being like the nine who walked away.

Because celebrating wins is returning to give glory to God. 

It isn't complimenting ourselves or puffing up our egos. It isn't being idealistic or unrealistic or any other istic. It isn't ignoring the crap or overlooking the mistakes. Celebrating wins is recognizing what God has done. Acknowledging how He has worked. Being thankful and grateful. Keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.

It's something that I want to do much more of. I want to celebrate the wins in my life. I want to celebrate the wins in my work. I want to return to give glory to God.

Because sometimes I think God celebrates what He does in our lives more than we do.

Things I've Learned in 2013

How to process events, thoughts, and emotions with the Lord. He knows your heart better than anyone (Psalm 33:15) and is the greatest Counselor and Comforter in helping you work through what needs to be worked through. The greatest peace I have felt this year has come not when I have had answers, but in the lonely moments when I've poured my heart out to a seemingly empty space, only to feel afterward that God has taken all of my spewed-out words, put them in order in His little book, wrapped His big arms around me, and said, "I know; I understand; I see; I've got it; I will help you; trust me."

How to give others the same grace God gives me. God is so faithful to work deeply and gently in our hearts (Ephesians 3:20-21). I've experience this beyond measure this year. And when I am tempted to look at others and ask, "How could they do that?" God reminds me of all the times this year that I have wished to receive grace from others and haven't. He reminds me of how patient He has been with me (and He has been patient, my friends). And He asks me to trust that He will work in their hearts as deeply and gently and patiently as He has worked in mine (Romans 14:4). My only responsibility is to love, too, let Him do what He will in His own time, and allow Him to keep working in me.

How to keep a tender heart amidst loss. This has been one of the hardest lessons of all. Hardening your heart to avoid pain is a much more appealing option. It gives you a sense of control and confidence. I like both of those things! But hardening your heart to avoid pain hardens your heart to be met by God, too. And in being met by God, you are given a deeper, unshakable confidence in the Lord that has nothing to do with control and everything to do with surrender. And the ironic thing? Freedom comes in surrender. (Warning, however: Keeping a tender heart also means you may cry at ridiculous times, like when you see a dead chipmunk on the sidewalk, or when you pass a broken highway sign, or when watching Edward Scissorhands.)

How to find Jesus as my place of safety and protection. I must've repeated Psalm 91:2 hundreds of times over the course of September. "You are my place of safety and protection; you are my God and I trust you." A "place" should be something tangible, like a house or a church or a city; something you can see on a map. But God shows me that He is a place. This supernatural, undefinable place that we can hide in and find rest in and run to (Psalm 32:7, Proverbs 18:10). This place that He actually asks us to set aside all achievements and accomplishments before we enter into. The only place we are defined apart from our successes and failures (Jennie Allen*).

How to be defined apart from my successes and failures. Applying for jobs and going on interviews and writing up countless cover letters is nothing but selling yourself, talking yourself up, and trying to prove you are something and someone and valuable and an asset. But God has used this season of barrenness to show me how valuable I am with nothing. When I present Him with all that I have and ask, "Does this make me somebody?" Desperately hoping He approves of my efforts, because I try so hard, He pushes it all aside, pulls me onto His lap, and says, "I make you somebody. You are mine."

How to let things die with hope. Lots of things have died around me this year. I have battled a lot of hopelessness and fear. I have tried hoping that things will get better. I have tried hoping that people will act a certain way. I have tried hoping that I won't lose one more thing. But hoping in all those things makes my hope a very fragile thing that is easily broken, and I am left reeling in wreckage all over again. So instead, I hope that God will make me new. I hope that God will keep doing a work in me and making me more like Jesus. I hope that God will use what little I have to glorify Himself and build His Kingdom and bring people to Him. And that kind of hope never disappoints, because God is true to all He promises (Romans 5:5, Psalm 119:114), and He makes things new (Romans 12:1-2). You cannot control what dies around you, but you can control how much you allow God to grow within you.

I will still fail and forget and make mistakes. But I am thankful for, beyond thankful for, sometimes breathless at, God's grace, nearness, love, and ever-faithfulness, that picks me up and helps me try again.

So that is what I do.

"Who is to say what is good or bad anymore? Not till heaven will we know. From his eternal perspective, it's tolerable to allow our temporary dreams to fall apart. But we seize more of God when he seizes us through our broken dreams. He is wildly unpredictable, and learning to question and accept his ways is part of the journey of following an unsafe, invisible God. He calls the shots on what happens to us in this short stint here. He calls them, whether we want to let him or not. Our faith must remain greater than our pain and our fears." - Jennie Allen

* Readings throughout this season:
Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul by Jennie Allen
Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson
Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley
Until the Day Breaks by Dana Candler

why God gives good things

I have not been able to stop listening to, singing, and thinking about this song since I first heard it four weeks ago. It was at the end of a season I never thought would end - which is silly, I guess, because seasons always end and I should know that by now.

I am still trying to figure out what comes next, but yesterday God let me in on a little secret that has kind of ravished the way I think about His plans for me. Because here's what the song says:

All Your plans are for Your glory
Yes, we can know You are good

If all His plans were for our glory, they'd be contingent on our performance, behavior, and worthiness.

But GUESS WHAT: His plans are for His glory, and He is always worthy, so His plans will always be good.

He plans things for the good of His name, to bring glory to Himself.

HEY. (This is me trying to figure out how to tell you how revolutionary this news is.) God will never plan evil or bad things for you, because He will never be untrue to who He is, and He will never bring evil or bad to Himself. He is pure. He is good. He is holy. And WE get the promise of good things because HE is good.

Am I talking in circles?

God is good. It is who He is. And it is more comforting to me to know that He will always plan good things for me because He wants to bring glory to His name, than if I were to believe that He plans good things for me because I deserve them. Because I don't deserve them. And I would much rather trust in a God who is worthy of glory than in my own feeble efforts to do good things.

I hope it brings comfort to you, too.

Our purpose is to bring glory to God. So if He's taking you from here to there, it must be because you will bring Him more glory there than you will here. - my friend Katie

Praise in Pain

To those of you in pain, I've learned something pretty important.

Time does not heal.

Entering another relationship does not heal.

Finding new friends, throwing yourself into work, picking up a new hobby - does not heal.

Perhaps all those things are aids, just as NyQuil doesn't take my cold away, but I hate facing a sick night without the temporary relief it brings.

I am sad and hurting. God, save me and protect me. I will praise God in a song and will honor him by giving thanks. - Psalm 69:29-30 NCV

Praising God in pain does not change the situation, it changes you.

Praising God in pain acknowledges that God is good, God is faithful, God is wise, and God is strong, despite the circumstances.

Praising God in pain professes that you trust Him; it affirms that your hope is in Him and Him alone. And hope in God is the only hope that will never disappoint (Isaiah 49:23).

Praising God in pain reveals a deeper level of gratitude, one that is built on who God is, not on everything that is going right in your life. 

A heart that is grateful is much quicker to heal than a heart that is bitter.

Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. - 1 Peter 1:6-7 MSG

to you who wait

Yesterday a man at church told me, "You're missing your calling."

He had the best intentions, and he meant it as a compliment, and I am not so insecure that I believed him and changed my vocation to Circuit Rider, henceforth.

But his words have hung around the fringes of my thoughts the past 24 hours.

Just because I am not doing right now what perhaps I will ultimately be doing, does not mean that, right now, I'm not exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Sometimes I think we are in too much of a hurry to get to the Promised Land that we miss the preparation time in the wilderness.

But preparation time is just as much of a calling as destination is.

Maybe God's calling on your life right now feels like wilderness. 

Just because you're not called to live in the Promised Land right now doesn't mean that where you are is not still your calling.

Don't rush what God is building in you in the wilderness to get to the Promised Land prematurely.

And don't mistake the Promised Land as the only "calling of God," so that you feel as though you are missing something until you get there. Being obedient is a pretty high calling, and if you're obeying right where you are, then you're fulfilling your calling whether you're in a desert or swimming in milk and honey.

The Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the Lord your God has been with you and you have lacked nothing. - Deuteronomy 2:7 NLT

Soon, but Not Yet

New seasons. Aren't you glad we have them?

Soon it will be autumn. Soon there will be football. Soon there will be pumpkin cupcakes. Soon I will snuggle into bed and wake up in the dark and drink tea while wrapped in an afghan.

But summer has been full: Of days lying beside the pool in warm, easy sunshine; of early morning runs through still-sleeping neighborhoods and just-awoken sprinklers; of homemade fruit smoothies with blackberry seeds stuck in my teeth.

I'm thankful for new seasons. I'm thankful for newness.

The same is true in life. There are seasons, and sometimes I'm very happy to see that the one I am in is ending, and a new one's beginning. Not immediately; perhaps it starts with just a sniff of air that smells more like crisp leaves than mown grass, or a sky that looks a little clearer and colder than rippling and blazing hot.

But these [just] glimpses of newness give me hope to finish out the season I'm in. It's okay that the sweat will still run down my legs, for now, because soon I know I will be wearing sweatshirts and Sketchers and homemade knitted socks.

Soon, but not yet.

In the meantime, let God do what He does in the season that's right for it. Let Him bloom the flowers when it's right for them to bloom. Let Him wither the fig tree when it's right for it to wither. Sometimes He puts you in the fire, but to walk through it in your own strength simply leaves you charred at the end of the day. He doesn't desire charring, but refining; transforming; renewing; always with hope that this season won't last forever, and a new season is coming.

And He gives us seasons because no one knows better what is needed to grow you than the One who created you.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." - Lamentations 3:22-24 ESV