Gosh, it’s noisy y’all.

Pollutants are found from all sides, some come sneakily and some come in swinging, but they all clog up our hearts and minds and ears. They clog our PEACE.

Pandemonium is having its most glorious day, feasting on the unrest, disappointment and despair that have taken up residence in our collective heart over days strung together to form centuries.

My fortieth year of life has been a roaring lion. All the aforementioned noise has hung on and, for a spell, I nearly forgot about my impending birthday. Running on reactive will often push our normal sources of joy to the wayside. But the day comes faithfully, year after a year, and here we are.

Back in March, when the shocking quarantine hushed the world up, I backed myself into a puddle of anxious melancholy that left me curled up in my bed on a random Wednesday. The sun shone outside and beyond my bedroom door, the regular hum of my household continued. I knew I had to rejoin it eventually. So I decided to list off the lessons God’s been faithful to teach me, to help regain my emotional footing. Because only a King would not leave me in my muck, but rather keep tiling the soil of my spirit and teach me new things. That’s an incredible show of unconditional love. Resting my head on a tear-soaked pillow, I quietly whispered them to the silent void of the room. I ended up organically with forty. A sweet mirror of my birthdays, a tiny wink from a good Father who brims with encouragement.

I thought you may want encouragement too. I never want to add to that noisy clash and clang. My heart’s desire is to tip toe softly around weary hearts and leave the sweetest truths I can. If my Lord’s burden is light, I’d like mine to be light too.

Forty nuggets of truth, lessons forged in the fire. Four weeks, ten per week. Wisdom from my God. From Him to me, and to you.

Enjoy, friends.

1. I’m so messed up. Its ugly, folks. Here I sit, in all my mess that manifests in a million different ways, on the regular. The boundaries of my brokenness have proven to be endless. But so have Father’s desires to repair. His song over me is just as limitless as my reckless behavior, and it reminds me that He’s not finished with me yet. Not even close. You might even dare to say He’s only getting started. 
2. You can’t have it all. Some of you ladies are shaking your heads in my direction, a look of equal parts disdain and disappointment across your faces. But I’ve lived long enough to know the truth. You simply cannot have it all. At least not at the same time. Not without tradeoffs. Every decision for means a decision from. Progress in one area often means a reduction in another. So I try to trade wisely. I work full time in ministry and raise babies while being married. They don’t receive an equal portion at every moment. Every day brings another round of asking my Father to reveal how much of the pie each need receives. He’s faithful to help me do the math. And He’s been faithful to release me from the lie that I NEED to have it all.
3. There’s no such thing as women’s work. Y’all, we sure have misrepresented work in the word of God. We have a way of screwing up the very things God meant for our good, don’t we? Crack open your Bible and read a little closer. Look for the women that God describes as skilled in the trades and savvy business owners. Check out the female prophets and church leaders, including one helping to strategize military operations, shoulder to shoulder with men. Meanwhile, look for the men called servants and those cooking in the kitchen, managing their households and intimately involved in child-rearing alongside their wives. It’s all in there. The work is meant for us to accomplish together. Don’t let the culture you live in pigeon-hole you when God has already written the blueprint.
4. You have to choose joy. Because it will NOT choose you. My dear friend shared this nugget with me one day, in the course of casual conversation. She’s one of the wisest gals I know, but I was still stunned at the profound nature of her words. This sweet lady has known the depths of loss and pain. But she knows joy. Because she chooses it. So can I. You can too.
5. Joy may not choose you, but depression will seek you out. The enemy of God uses depression consistently as a distraction because it works so well. I began that battle at the teeny tiny age of 12. And it longs to creep back in every single day. I battle it daily because I know that a victory is already won. Be on guard. Be ready to battle for the renewal of your mind. It’s worth the fight.
6. You will majorly bomb at life sometimes. I’m a domestic loser. For so many stinkin’ years, I felt downright guilty about my lack of prowess in the kitchen. I SUCK at cooking, to say nothing of my abysmal baking skills. Every attempt resulted in failure. Meanwhile, my husband whips up masterpieces in his sleep and taught our daughters to know their way around the kitchen. Then I had a revelation. I’m not meant to excel at every single thing. In fact, sometimes I’m going to absolutely bomb things. I’m gifted in certain areas, as are you. Those are my lanes. I’m no star football player and it’s never once kept me up at night. Why should cooking be any different? Find your giftings and revel in them. Master them. Let go of the rest.
7. You have to make peace with uncertainty. Humanity feels very uncomfortable with the gray areas of life. We’re brought up on fairytales with clear cut parameters. Some people are royalty, others are paupers….there’s usually a bad guy…there’s always a hero…everyone plays their role beautifully and at the end, it’s all tied up with a bow. But the duality of man means that life is rarely certain. We have questions that will never be answered. No one human is ever all good, or all bad. Every one of us is both. Make peace with it.
8. God is in the business of disruption. And it’s good. Even the bad stuff is good. Because disruption creates change, which fosters growth. Growth makes us better than before. Be okay with the never-ending disruptions, because Father is faithful to weave it all together for your good. Promise.
9. “That’s okay.” is a powerful statement. Two small, uncelebrated words that can carry a profound dose of mercy. What if “That’s okay.” became our stock answer to every spilled glass of milk, every steak cooked wrong, every unintentional line cutting, and every time we put our foot in our mouth? What if our friends, family and coworkers came to expect these shows of mercy as the regular posture of our heart? What if we became KNOWN for it?
10. Look for God’s goodness. In 2015, my family suffered through a good ol’ fashioned tragedy. The kind you can never see coming, the type that feels just plain unfair. It was totally brutal, y’all. To calm my restless spirit from flooding my mind with anxious thoughts I tried to stay busy that year, mostly by cleaning every closet in the house. One day, while purging the master bedroom closet, the anxious thoughts won out. I crumpled to the floor in a heap of wailing sobs, my shirt becoming soaked with tears. Anger welled up at the injustice of it all and for a split second, I decided turning on God was an option. “How in the world could a good God allow this?”, I screamed into the stale air as my throat throbbed from the ferociousness of my words. And then I was reminded that GOD was my best chance. In the midst of it all, He was the top choice for restoration and success. No other option presented itself as viable in my desperation. So there on the carpet, with my lap covered in old shoes and hung shirts tickling the back of my neck, I whispered my commitment to speak of His goodness, always. Without fail. In the best and in the worst. I’ve kept my word. In my commitment to speak of His goodness, He has been committed to keep revealing new sources all the time. Watch for it, friends.

See ya next week, friends.