Come on. You know you want to.  Wouldn’t anything less be an insult to the Artist who made you?

{And if you can’t say it out loud yet, use lipstick.}

Hey Beautiful,

You are a masterpiece. In the God Gallery, you are the only one of you. The Master Artist has written in the corner of your canvas like this: 1/1. That’s right: no duplicates available.

*****

“The King is enthralled by your beauty.”
~ Psalm 45:11

*****

“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
~ Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Dedicated to the beautiful Megan Willome, a friend who helps others discover their real beauty, in the middle of their imperfections. Happy birthday, friend. Thank you for helping me see.

The girls and I drive down our snow-packed country lane at 5 miles per hour.

For one-third of a mile, I tarry along that stretch of gravel, steering between the creaking bones of undressed trees — all of them swaying under winter’s breath.

And the girls and I, we pray.

We talk to God about the things that trouble us, and the things that astound us. Over the years, we’ve prayed for loose teeth and lost cats; longer recesses and easier tests. We’ve prayed for new kids who sit alone at lunch, and old friends who seem to have forgotten we exist when birthday invitations go out.

We’ve prayed for broken hearts and mended friendships. We pray blessings on their days, and Light upon their paths. And we thank God for the big and the little miracles, sometimes with our tears.

And,  if there’s time before bus No. 44 crests that hill, the girls ask, “Mommy, can we pray for you?” As they get older, it happens more. They have begun to sense that there is blessing in praying over someone you love.

So they lay their little hands on my shoulders, and they lay tender words out like a silk ribbon of a song. They have a sixth-sense — a Spirit sense, I think — about what a mom needs.

They know, for instance, that I have half-dozen writing projects sitting on my desk, and that I don’t want to send any of those words out into the world until they are “just right.” And they also know that if I wait that long — until the words are perfect — that I’ll never let a single sentence fly from the nest.

My daughter Lydia — firstborn heiress to my DNA — prays the words over me. And her words … they floor me: “Dear God, help my mom realize that creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.”

I don’t know where she heard it — art class, maybe? — but I’m undone.  A lump in my throat rises. I reach a hand up to my shoulder, and set it on top of hers.

And I choke out the words, “Amen.”

I pat her hand, and I whisper it … my Amen. 

(Photos of daughter, and her art…)

Posting also with Emily …

Have you stopped by for Wednesday’s God-Bumps & God-Incidences? Want to join the chorus of words for our God? Grab a button by clicking here, attach it to your post, then tell us your story. (Don’t forget to link up below.)

It’s a cinch to laugh deep in moments like these: When you’re tripping over your flippered feet, and the snorkel masks transform your family into underwater bug-eyed invaders, and you each have a single antenna growing out of your head. It’s impossible to miss the playfulness of the world when you’re face-planted in the ocean, eyes wide to the wonder hidden below.

These are the moments when you realize that deeper intimacy with God
is right below the surface,
just around the corner,
and somewhere on the the other side of a to-do list.

Sure, we can imagine God as Comforter or Savior, as Healer or Protector. Perhaps we can even imagine crawling up on the Father’s lap, where He’ll wrap His strong arms around our weary spirits. But can we imagine God as playmate?  Can we imagine Him as the Father who tosses His child with joy into the air?

Yes, we can play with the Prince of Peace.  We can laugh with the Lion of Judah. We can explore the playfulness of God, even in the mundane days, long after the snorkels are packed away.

Deeper intimacy is found with the Father right here, on the playground of his creative world.

Marilyn Meberg wrote this week: “Pain is not God’s fault, but he created a solution anyway.” The solution, she says, is laughter.

Mark Roberts, in his Sunday devotion, wrote: “Work stands at the center of our purpose for living. But, God also created play.”

Maybe this is why children were always trying to get nearer to Jesus. God is not boring. 

Our world is a vast and magical playground of jumping dolphins, spray-blowing whales, frolicking baby deer. And just the other day, the neighbor’s pot-bellied pig, with his wrinkled nose, was peeking through my front window.

The Bible says to have a child-like faith. I’m only beginning to scratch the depths of what that might mean for me.

 ||

Each week, my friend Laura Boggess hosts “Playdates with God” at her blog. She opens our eyes to a God of joy, of delight … and of playfulness. I join her on the journey this week.

But it all looks so fuzzy up ahead. And where is Heaven anyway?

Maybe the Good Lord knows my heart couldn’t handle it if He showed it all at once. So he gives us enchanting glimpses, in those delicious moments when invisible hands peel back the curtains of Heaven.

It happens quite by surprise, I think. It comes in a beautiful dream. Or when you look out your front window one morning to see that a million snowflakes magically gathered on the front step overnight. You steal otherwordly glimpses when you drive up over a hill, and on the crest, you can see for miles. And it feels like you’re flying, and you want to drive with the top down. In January.

We see then, even if only through a glass, darkly.

Heaven comes down in that sweet moment when you curl up next to your baby girl by lamplight, and you keep watch until she starts to exhale in measured, warm breaths. Just watching her sleep makes you feel more awake then you’ve felt all day.

And you pray right then, that the Lord might look with favor upon your girl with eyelashes resting on pink cheeks. You pray He might grant her one of those dreams — a private vision of what awaits. You pray for the grandest of dreams and the most enchanting of moments — treasures you can hold onto when the ugly rancor of the world closes in around you. It’s a beauty you can hold in your hand, even if only for a moment, before it melts away.

 
Writing in community with Lisa-Jo, who encourages us to write for Five Minutes on the topic she assigns. This week’s word: VIVID.

“In God’s Heart
I am . . . ?

We asked the question, and you answered.

The result?

One night of fun for the girls and I, painting life-changing truths on canvas.

God-Bumps?
Oh … yeah.

We are more than our mistakes and our missteps;
we are more than our problems or our pasts.

We … are …  HIS.

Here is our video, putting your words to the canvas.

Song: Forgiven by Sanctus Real

Words: These are your one-word answers to the question. You were kind enough to leave them here in the comment box, over at the Getting Down With Jesus Facebook page, and in emails. Thank you for your affirming words! We couldn’t fit them all into the video, so I let the girls choose which ones to paint. But we read all of them out loud!

Inspiration: Holley Gerth, who asked the question first.

Email subscribers: Can’t see the video? Click over here for a look.

GOD-BUMPS & GOD-INCIDENCES (Hosted here Each Wednesday)

Your turn, friends. What has God been up to in your life this week? What are some of the God-Things that make you go Hmmmm? Share your God-Bumps and God-incidences here.

Grab a button over here, add it to your story, then link up below. Then, pay a visit to someone who linked before you. They’ll be glad you did. And I’ll bet you’ll be glad, too.

But sometimes, my heart forgets to inform my brain of my good intentions.

That’s what had happened that morning. The phone rang, and it was Sandy. She’s one of those rare souls in my life whose whole being seems fully directed toward the spontaneous act, the random lunch, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants whim.

I let the phone ring four times before answering, because you never know what you might agree to when Sandy calls. But I answered, and sure enough, she had another idea.

I’m sharing the rest of the story with the good people over at Faith Radio today. You can read it by clicking here…

***

Before you leave,  I have a favor to ask you. Can you drop me a single word in the comment box? I’m looking for words that answer this question: “In God’s Heart I Am …”

Or share your thoughts over on my Facebook page, found here.

This week, the girls will paint those words — your words! — on a canvas. We’ll hang the painting between their bedroom doors, as a reminder of who they are in Christ. I’ll share their finished product with you later in the week!

Our painting project was inspired by this video, which I found through Author Holley Gerth.

The video was inspired by Holley’s book  ”God’s Heart for You.”  I have not read the book, but was touched by this sweet video. If you’re having trouble seeing the video, you can find it on YouTube by clicking here:

I am writing in community with my sweet friend Laura, who hosts a weekly “Playdates with God” series.

Your Turn: “In God’s Heart I Am …”

I would just rather spend the morning in bed.

Getting out of my blanket-cocoon is an act of sheer will, an every-day  miracle.

To me, the alarm clock is a pebble in my shoe. Indeed, it is a fingernail on the chalkboard of my day. The cheery voices on the radio station are like that sparkly confetti that bursts out of greeting cards onto the lap of some hapless soul.

“Five … more … minutes,” I grumble to my husband. He laughs at my predictable pre-dawn routine.

He shakes my shoulder, jabs me gently in the ribs, then bounds out of bed, like a kid on Christmas morning. The nerve...

Half-asleep, I hear him in the kitchen, making the first pot of coffee. Water rattles the pipes. He flips the switch on the wall — and Thwock! — we have instant flames in the fireplace.

The smell of coffee drifts through the house to the bedroom, coaxing me to stir.  Slowly, I wake to a brand-new day — this one, right here, which holds a surprise yet to be unwrapped.

Before my feet hit carpet, I ask the same question I’ve asked for several years: “What are we doing today, Lord?”

It’s how I want to live the day — awake to things on God’s to-do list.

But first, an act of God: He pulls me to my feet. And didn’t someone once say that every journey begins with a single first step?

So by the grace of a holy and benevolent — and humorous!–God (you should see my morning hair), my feet hit the floor. And I take this step, my first step, a grand and glorious movement toward AWAKE.

I’ve got 40 candles on my cake over at TheHighCalling.org today. Join me there? (Click here…)

We write in community every Wednesday about the God-Things that make you go, “Hmmm…”

Some call them coincidences. We call them God-incidences. And those goosebumps you get sometimes when you know the Holy Spirit is at work? Yep. They’re God-Bumps.

Want to join the chorus of words for our God? Pick either button, found here, attach it to your post, and tell your story. Then, link up with the weekly post on the Getting Down With Jesus home page!

I think it was during the second-grade. It’s grainy on the playback. But I remember that is was one of those warm, late-winter days when the whole class had stripped off their coats. Three girls — who had just one day earlier declared that we’d be “friends forever” — huddled under the coat pile. That giant, colorful knot of arms and zippers heaved upward with their giggling and writhing.

I’d seen the girls dive under,  so I skipped across the asphalt to play along. They must have seen me coming, too, because they started a sing-songy chorus — a serenade to tell me I was a geek. I was ugly.

And I was crushed.

I remember standing there, shoulders slumped, thinking how cowardly they were: to refuse to show their faces.

And then I ran. I ran for the evergreen trees at the back of the playground, ran for a haven, a safe spot to cry, where no one could see me.

***

I’m grown up now, and I’m not scared anymore.  I have canopied grace-places to dream and grow and cry.

I don’t have to hide under the evergreens anymore. 

But I hear it from friends. They say they they are still afraid.

I spoke at a MOPS meeting last week about accepting ourselves, as-is.

“We might have reached the point in our lives where we can accept who we are in Christ,” I said, “but we still believe that others disapprove of our pasts, our parenting, our clothes, our home, our (you-fill-in-the-blank).”

I saw it in their eyes when I stood at the podium. I saw the walking wounded. So for a moment, I spoke to the rest of us, who might have inflicted that injury:

“What if we each found a way to love one more person today? What if we made a refuge where someone else could be real … really real? What if our default response was grace?”

***

One woman wrote me later that day to say that she fears being judged by other women because of her past.

Another said she feels like she’s been shunned by women who are jealous of her, instead of genuinely happy.

Another mother had received a gift card in the mail from an anonymous donor. The well-meaning donor included a note that mentioned how the woman’s child was dressed at church. The donor wrote that she hoped the money might be helpful.  The mother, while grateful for the generosity, cried when she read the note.

***

What if I remembered that Jesus came for sinners — for people with messed-up marriages and flailing dreams and naughty kids and hangovers? What if I remember that he came for the megachurch pastor, and the beer-swilling tavern owner?

What if I remembered that He came for me, that His grace saved a wretch like me?

How would that change my response to the hurting woman next door? 

A prayer:

 Father, help me find ways to create safe places for women to truly breathe.

And Lord, if I see a friend hovering under the evergreens, give me the nudge to sit beside her.

Writing in community with Michelle today:

May all that you see

– and all that you hear –

remind you that a Great Big God

is right there with you.

 ”Listen to it!
Listen to his thunder,
the rolling, rumbling thunder
of his voice.”

– Job 37:1 (The Message)

In community with Deidra today …