Emily T. Wierenga

The ancient cry of mothers (when little ones suffer)

2013-05-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Lucas George is just over a month old and he was born with two major heart defects. His heart is now beating on its own, which is a miracle, but up until recently, he could not keep any food down.

He was chubby when he was born.

And his mother--Trent's sister--stays by his side night and day and we feel it: the ancient sorrow of motherhood that is our terrible joy, terrible, because we want to save these children who suffer, because it feels as though we've held every child in our womb. And joy, because we have seen the face of God in them.

When Aiden looked at Lucas' photo he said, "Poor baby Lucas. He looks so sad."

No child should have to suffer, and it's something that keeps me awake at night, and it's what led me to take in Joey and Jin for 11 months last year and now, to keep taking them in, every third weekend, so their mother can have a break.

It's what makes me want to move to Haiti when I hear that parents there are making them mud-cakes so they don't feel their hunger pains and it's what keeps me believing in eternity. Because there has to be something better than this.

This weekend Joey stood out on our lawn, the sun shining down on him and the snow nearly gone. The boys were kicking balls and slashing sticks and sliding face first down the playground equipment, and Joey, in all of his five-year-old-ness, stood in the middle of the lawn and cried out, "Thank you Lord."

And again when we were walking back to the house he said, "Thank you Lord, for saving my heart."

Joey, who has known more pain and hurt and sorrow than any five-year-old should have to know.

And Aiden heard him, and repeated him.

Aiden hasn't known much pain in his life. But he was inspired by Joey's crying out. It's those who've suffered whose stories make us believe in Jesus.

Sorrow precedes praise.

As Mother Teresa says, “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”

I think of how safe our children are, within our wombs. How protected. But if they were to remain in there forever, they would never get to stand in the sunlight on a soggy lawn, geese flying across the fields and cry out, "Thank you, Lord."

For saving my heart.

Lucas' heart has been saved. By doctors, and by Jesus, and because of this, and for more than this, we sing Hosanna.

(Since writing this post, my nephew Lucas has come home and he is well and happy and healthy... we are praising God from whom all blessings flow)

The Love Dare: 1 Corinthians 13 as a Letter to Myself (by Christy McFerren)

2013-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Jesus gave us, as the second greatest of his commands, to love one another as we love ourselves. We esteem this command, as paired with its antecedent, above all other mandates found in the biblical texts—and rightfully so, as Jesus installed it as such.

And with that, we have wrestled and strained, advanced and regressed, won and lost in this posture toward those we call neighbor.

If you’re like me, the two dangling words “as yourself” have earned honorable mention… on occasion… in my contemplation of these words of Christ. But in the relentlessly law-loving lens through which I perceive even these commands, I have not often given much pause to consider what a scriptural application of love… toward myself… might look like.

***

When he married me, he dared not color outside the lines.

“To offer a vow of the most trustworthy definition of love to you is all I venture to be held to. If I can half keep my understanding of God’s definition, in its clarity and superiority, I believe it will have pleased you, and, prayerfully God as well. I need not add to this.”

And as we exchanged vows that November evening, 1 Corinthians, the thirteenth chapter, was bound about us as man and wife.

***

“We study so we can pray. The study of theology and the practice of contemplative prayer flow from the one and the same act of divine faith whereby we accept the Truth about God. For the priest, contemplative study provides the inexhaustible and irreplaceable source of everything that he does. No short cuts are available. No one is exempt. The Church developed a Latin adage to capture this basic truth of priestly formation. Nemo potest dare quod non habet. You can't give what you do not have.

[...]

For the Catholic priest, especially the diocesan priest, the separation of study and prayer brings catastrophic results. No one more than the priest needs the experience of contemplative study. The reason is the Headship that the Church confides to the priest. The priest is not ordained to see about the practical details of programs and everyday activities. He is ordained to preach from the abundance of his heart.”

—Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P.

Full text here

***

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; ¹⁰for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

***

To proclaim these personhood-making excellencies… to pour from my heart the riches of His merciful love… to walk circumspectly as a priest among priests… who ministers freely from the abundance of my heart… that which I have because it was freely given to me… to hear that it was well done, a command well-kept… a simple vow, simply honored… yes… to these things… I aspire.

Nemo potest dare quod non habet.

You can't give what you do not have.

And so, I must love myself.

Love is Patient

I will wait for my own heart to be enveloped by the fullness of grace which changes her into what her mind knows to be right. When she fails, I will forgive her, while gently urging her forward.

Love is Kind

When she is bombarded with words traveling harsh vectors, whispering about the curves of her frame or the struggle in her art or the far climb it is still yet to reach her ideals, I will shield my heart, and remind her that upon her the Father has whispered, “this is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”

It Does not Envy

When her eyes wander in comparison to the gifts and talents of another daughter, or another son, or even a more glorious aspect of her former self if times have been harder of late… I will still her… catch her breath, and remind her that godliness with contentment is greater gain than the reaching for what can’t be had today.

It Does Not Boast, It Is Not Proud

When she is being who she is, and it is acknowledged in the gates… when she accomplishes a hard-won victory… or when the benevolence of God is evident by her radiance, I will teach her that it’s safer to keep small, to give gratitude, to urgently cry for meekness for her safe-keeping. And when a brother or sister finds the day of acclaim, she will not overreact, neither toward comparison nor congratulation, but staying sincere, giving honor for merit she will rejoice appropriately without idol-making or inferiority haunting her chambers.

It Does Not Dishonor Others

And when she finds in her own self, “others,” parts of her which have not yet seen the light of transforming mercies, I will not allow her one moment of shame, but bring her boldly to Grace’s throne… for introductions and long relationships to commence, in which Patience guides the day.

It is Not Self-Seeking

She will love herself by implanting and then embracing with quiet satisfaction the notion that in every strand of her life lies the seed of service to others. If any strand be found wanting, she will contemplate its necessity and function, and if it does not make her a better lover of God or other or self, she will remove it.

It is Not Easily Angered

When she stumbles, aware or unaware, speaking careless word, or performing careless deed… trampling herself or her beloved underfoot, I will catch her, and offer honest and restorative words to her in circumspection, contemplation, and consideration of her gentle soul. She will not mete out anger against herself, but only pour out its libations for the cause of Christ and His liberties, when it can be directed clearly at the offending evil and not herself.

It Keeps no record of Wrongs

My heart will silence the voice who loves to splash shame upon her cheeks at the recall of a lapse in judgment. She will agree with Christ that her sins are remembered no more forever. She will walk with dignity and purpose, sound of mind.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the Truth

When Holy Spirit whispers and the winds of change rustle the pages, she will heed it, not loving the current narrative more than what He does when He makes all things perfect in their Time.

It Always Protects

She will keep guarded, for she is the wellspring of life. From her, all the goodness I can offer to those I love flows, and she will wear these truths as her duty and her joy.

Always Trusts

My heart will believe in herself.

Always Hopes

My heart will believe in her future self.

Always Perseveres

She will.

Sisters, can you hear these words in your own heart?

Neighbors, from this Bread, infused with His Love, we can break… and give to you to eat.

Christy is a writer and designer. She lives in Austin, TX, with her husband Dan. Together they run a small design shop called Thoughtful Revolution. They are passionate about humbly bringing change by inviting people to ask the questions Jesus came to answer. She is Living a Thoughtful Revolution in simple typefaces at ChristyMcFerren.com.

It's The Love Dare, a dare to love yourself, and we're doing this every Monday until NEXT WEEK, when Emily's upcoming book, Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy will be released (now available for pre-order, HERE) Link up your posts below, on how you're learning to love YOUR self.

**Also, there's a BIG Mother's Day Blessing Giveaway happening over HERE today--a basket full of goodies, including a copy of Mom in the Mirror! Check it out, and see how you can enter to win!

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When motherhood puts your dreams on hold

2013-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

You know the scenario.

It's five o'clock. Your husband is supposed to be home but he isn't and you need a glass of wine but it isn't evening yet so you let the kids pull all of the pots and pans out of the drawers and go "shopping" in the pantry and you try to come up with something half-tasty for supper all the while lamenting what you could have been, were you not a mother with boys.

One of whom just peed on the floor and the other of whom, dumped rice in the pee.

And that's when you get it.

Your dream. Your big huge stupendous dream. You finally know what it is you've been called to do. Maybe it's to be a speaker, or an author, or a lawyer, but whatever it is, it's something other than this.

And you're thinking of leaving the tomato sauce simmering on the stove and rushing to the computer and writing a post about it or an email to someone or something, just so you don't lose it.

The dream.

The promise that you are something OTHER than this woman with the dark circles and the pulled back hair who can't remember the last time she wore something other than sweats.

And then, something stops you.

Something prophetic tugs at your sleeve and you look down and you see your boys. You see the way they are your one of your greatest endorsements. You look at the tomato sauce simmering--you have food to eat!--and the messy house--you have a house!!--and the piles of laundry unfolded on the dryer--you have a dryer! and clothes! and a family to fold them for!--and suddenly, it's enough.

No. It's more than enough. It's a blessing.

And every tug on the leg of your pants by the one-year-old with the crusty nose, every offering of a book to be read, every tear longing to be wiped, every meal begging to be eaten is a chance to serve, and this, when we become everything.

When in fact, we become nothing.

Because it's then that we'll have gotten out of the way and allowed our families, our children, our husbands, our friends, to see Christ. And what greater dream than to give the ones you love a glimpse of Jesus?

It's not wrong to want more.

It's very natural. God gives us many dreams and callings, and I'm not saying you shouldn't send that email or write that post, at some point.

I'm just saying, this is a dream come true, too. This motherhood. And sometimes I forget that. So I hope, by reminding myself, I can encourage you too.

Live the dream, sisters. Because soon, our homes will be full of nothing but time in which to write those emails and posts--and our greatest longing then will be to cuddle a child and read him a story.

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: Making Love in the Kitchen (and giving away FOUR copies of Bread & Wine!)

2013-05-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

Growing up, we ate Saturday Stew.

It was a conglomeration of all of the week’s leftovers in one pot, because we lived under the poverty line, and my parents hated waste.

So if we didn’t finish our supper, the week before, it would go into the pot and we dreaded Saturdays. Liver and onions mixed with spaghetti mixed with meatloaf.

Mum didn’t want us to take our meals–the blessing of having food, and the love with which it was prepared–for granted.

She made love, in the kitchen. She baked homemade bread and homemade granola. She made every meal from scratch and because I was home-schooled until grade five, she did “cultural” meals once a month in which she cooked a meal from the country we were studying. I still remember the African peanut-butter stew, the chunks of beef in the peanut sauce over rice.

My mum didn't know how to tell me she loved me, in words. She wasn't a big hugger and compliments didn't come naturally because her own mum hadn't complimented her (see this post, here.)

But she put oregano in the spaghetti sauce.

She broiled tomatoes and cheese on top of the creamy macaroni, and she crunched up potato chips in the tuna casserole. She made homemade chocolate zucchini cake because she wanted us to be healthy, and every swirl of the spoon, every donning of the apron, every evening standing over the stove was the posture of love.

Even Saturday Stew. Because she cared, not only about us but about our futures and our children's, that we would know compassion for a world in which 15 million children die every year from hunger. So she taught us to clean up our plates and to this day, I do.

But for four years I refused my mother's love.

I stopped eating at the age of nine. I refused Mum's expression of love, because I had decided it wasn't enough for me. I needed more, but what I didn't realize was, there was no amount of loving that my mum could do that would fulfill me. I needed my Abba Father's love.

So out of desperation Mum began making calorie-rich meals in order to try and save my 80-pound body. But the rest of my family just ended up gaining weight while I just sat there and said "No." No to her love. No to her desperate attempt to hold a little girl who couldn't move past her hurt.

Now I'm eating again, and I'm a mother. And I hate cooking, but I bake bread from scratch. I bake chocolate zucchini cake, and even though some nights are still store-bought chicken wings or pizza, I use oregano in my spaghetti sauce and I bake chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven because, as Bob Goff has taught us, love does. It does dishes and meals and sweeping and folding sheets.

And sometimes, my husband cooks us supper and in the same way, it's a love letter.

Communion is bread and wine, but it's so much more than that.

It's the symbolism of sacrifice.

Meals, too, are a symbol of sacrifice for one's family.

The kitchen table is the heart of the home, the place where nourishment happens--both spiritual and physical. It's the place where my dad would pull out his Bible with the cracked spine after Mum's homemade meal and we'd read a passage and then pull out the basket of Christmas cards, and pray for a particular family, each night.

In the same way, every night after supper, Aiden runs to grab The Jesus Storybook Bible and Trent reads it to the two boys perched on his lap.

Even if we can't spend time preparing meals, let's spend more time over the dishes we serve. Let's spend longer than we need to at the supper table.

Because it's around the table and over steaming dishes that family... and life and love and everything holy... happens.

[Photo: Robert S. Donovan, Creative Commons]
----------------

Today I'm delighted to be giving away Shauna Niequist's new book, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table.

What is your favorite dish, either to cook or eat? Tell me in the comments and I'll choose FOUR winners by the end of the week.

(here's the button code:
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" alt="" border="0" />)

3. read other's prose, and encourage them!

so won't you join us, as we "walk each other home"? (ram dass)

Pre-order my new book, Mom in the Mirror, at 44% off, here.

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On how to deal with criticism and hurt in the blogging community

2013-04-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

"It's not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I have no fight left in me.

I have only love.

I have only the desire to be a prophet in the desert proclaiming someone greater, someone whose sandals I'm not worthy of tying.

The other week, a video was posted, mocking my Servanthood post on Prodigal. I was at Jumping Tandem at the time, and someone told me about it but said not to bother watching it but of course, I went back to my room and I did.

And I spent about half an hour writing out what I felt was a kind and gentle, loving response and then it all disappeared when I went to publish it. And my roommate, Michelle DeRusha, told me not to bother spending anymore time trying to respond but, partially because I wanted them to understand what I was really trying to say in my post (pride) and partly because I wanted them to know I wasn't angry, that I was being Jesus in my response to them, I tried to re-write it.

And then Jennifer Dukes Lee ran into our room looking for a phone and I ended up telling her about the video and she became angry on my behalf and said not to bother with the response, either and then I burst into tears.

I couldn't stop crying. And I closed my laptop and walked over to my bed and just cried and cried.

Because my sisters were taking care of me. And their love was in such sharp contrast to the disdain I'd sensed in the video.

Sometimes we can't defend ourselves.

But always, our job as Christian women is to come along and pick each other up and pray each other up and protect each other up so we might try again.

I had already made public and private apologies--and both to one of the girls who did the video. I had thought she'd forgiven me for the hurt my post had put her through. And then, this.

It felt like a stab in the back.

Yet I wasn't mad. I ached for the women who'd posted the video, because in the end, they will be accountable to Jesus. We all will be. And all we can do is try our best, to say sorry when we hurt someone, and then, pick ourselves up and keep picking ourselves up and keep running the race that is set before us.

To strive valiantly.

I have no more fight in me. I'm not sure where it went, except that Abba Father took that angry little girl and heard her. Saw her.

And now I'm a sober woman in love with a Jesus who was mocked and ridiculed and crucified. A Savior who appeared to be weak. A Savior whose last breath was "Father, forgive them," and all I can hope is that these would be my final words, every single day.

But friends?

Let's have each other's back in this blogging community. Let's allow for open dialogue and for each other to have differing opinions and to use our words for life, not death. Let's be light. Let's strive together for truth. Let's rally around each other as we all seek to work out our salvation.

Let's use our personal stories like flashlights to shine on the footprints of the one who walked the hill to Calvary.

And let's never quit loving.

The Love Dare: A Journal of Cancer (by Amy Bowman)

2013-04-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Journal of Cancer
April 2011
Radiation--Round 13 of 26

I have come far. I have so much to be thankful for. There are many ups and downs. Today was a down, but I'll get back up there.

I was late for radiation today.

It was a hard morning...I just could not pull myself together in time.

My radiation therapist, Mr. Brad, was so kind, reassuring me that they can be flexible, and that it was ok.

I told him a bit of my hard morning, he listened and said he would pray.

Then, I told him, with tears flooding,

"I am weary"

He looked straight into my brewing storm and without hesitation, said:

"but the Lord isn't"

A nugget of truth that shot straight to my heart and immediately brought internal storm rest. I exhaled and went on to face my day.

Oh Truth, sweet truth

From the written Word and the words of His people!

What would I do without Truth?

Truth has been harder to feel lately.

I KNOW truth, I SEE it, but it FEELS far away.

Lots of "static" in the way.

Busyness of thought that creates distance from grasping the feeling of truth.

I know I create some of that static, and I know that giving up a medication and adjusting to that give up creates static. I also know some of it is just life right now.

It. Just. Is.

This said static got the best of me this morning--it was oh, so loud--it comes and I kick and fit and shake my fists. Eyes up, head down, at times-- in hands. Tissue thrown in piles on floor.

I blurt my static...to Him. To husband. To my close girlfriend.

Words of "whys" and "no's" and fears and questions and closed hands and fed ups..my words.

"But Lord..."

"No Lord..."

"Enough Lord.."

Vivid dreams have turned from normal into nightmares. Can I just have one day of my life before? I don't want this unknown anymore. I want concrete, expected, easy. I want pretty, no scars.

Lord, do you see?

My Lottie-3 -year- old- Mae, the bravest fighter, her mother torn from baby sister to seek treatment far away. Leukemia in a child is enough, Lord, enough. But..bacteria infection and pneumonia, too? Families who love and yearn, torn from each others presence? It seems too much..

Lord, do you see?

The man after me, there for radiation therapy. The only color in his face are blood shot eyes that are hollow, but still smile at me.

Lord?

My husband, who deals with enough by dealing with me. He is sitting at table, deep in thought, while shuffling the mounting bill piles, doing his best to make them all fit.

Lord.

The statistics they scare me, why can't I have a concrete answer? Please? Stage 3a or Stage 3b? Which one is it? It matters to me.. 70% or 39%? Why can't I let go of the numbers? Hands grasped, closed tight. Digits grasping digits.

Oh Lord, and these women...

These dear, strong, fighting women.

Stacy, Nancy, Amanda, Stacia, Veronica, Elaine, Connie, Gina, Michelle, Heather, Monique, Jill

Women who have felt lumps, endured scans, had parts of themselves cut on and cut out, allowed chemical chemo to flow through veins and radiation to burn both good and bad cells, who felt razors and cold air on scalp, have to take pills that keep wombs empty and all the while are wives and some mothers and burden bearers for each other. Oh Lord, these women!

Lord, do you see?

So. Much. Static.

The above is enough there is so much more. Unnamed more.

Lord?...?

Then.. my Lord...

My GOOD, good, God...

He whispers to me.

"Yes, Amy, I see."

"I know you are weary, but I am not."

"I SEE. I, too, wept.

I KNOW. I, too, have scars.

I can handle your cries to me, My child.

I'm so glad you've come to me...

For I am the Way. The Truth. The Light.

I will make sense of tragedy.

I will be your burden bearer.

Hand over the load. I was meant to bear it, not you.

Endure, child.

You know on this earth there will be pain and trials.

It was not meant to be this way, but it is.

I will fulfill my promise to make it all right again, in my time.

This is what it is in an imperfect, sin- infested world.

This is why I sent my Son, for a way out of it all.

You've tasted the hand of bitterness, do not let hatred numb your sorrows.

Do not clinch your hand closed tight.

The wise hand opens slowly, to lilies of the valley and tomorrow...to Me!

I gave you the words to this song in your heart.

I gave you these words years ago, knowing you would need them in these fist shaking moments."

"This is what it means to be held, how it feels..

When the sacred is torn from life and you survive

This is what it is, to be held, and to know that the promise was

when everything fell, you'd be held."--Natalie Grant

"I am holding you.

I have not promised a pain free world and life.

But, I have promised that I AM Life, the Way,

and I will be holding you every step."

These are God's whispers to me.

I listen.

I search and find that song.

I listen again.

The static volume lowers to just a whisper and I find truth--and I am held.

---------------

My Cancer Timeline:

Aug 2010-Diagnosis: Stage 3 Invasive Ductal & Lobular Carcinoma

Sept 2010-Port surgery

Sept-Nov 2010- Chemotherapy 4 rounds

Dec 2010 -Mastectomy + Reconstruction

Feb 2011-Radiation --28 rounds

This journal- round 13, halfway done with radiation!!

May 2011-"Phase 2" Reconstruction

June 2011- Tattoo Time (read more here..)

For details of the journey, click here

------------------

Amy Bowman is a blogger, mother of three girls, wife, two-time cancer survivor, and lover of LIFE! She is the author of New Nostalgia, established five years ago, a place where she writes about living a simple but full life, with topics on health, organization, beauty, homemaking, parenting, slow living, loving God and more.

Her love of beauty is reflected in her boards on Pinterest, where she has over 70,000 followers. Social media is a passion of hers, as she believes in the deep connections one can make over the world wide web.

It's The Love Dare, a dare to love yourself, and we're doing this every Monday until the release of Emily's upcoming book, Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy (now available for pre-order, HERE) Link up your posts below, on how you're learning to love YOUR self.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

In which Holley Gerth believes in my dream (and gives YOU a copy of her new book!)

2013-04-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of meeting Holley Gerth and Lisa-Jo Baker amongst dozens of other beautiful bloggers in the flesh this past weekend at the Jumping Tandem retreat, a weekend nestled in the fields of Ashland, Nebraska, a retreat which Lisa-Jo would describe as "church camp meets slumber party."

It was a lot of women, and a few men, gathered together under one roof to explore the topic of dreams, and what a God-sized dream looks like, and how we can be a part of it.

Holley led the opening keynote and I led two breakout sessions the following morning and then I stole her away that night for a glass (or plastic cup, rather) of red wine and a quiet talk.

Because God has been giving me a shepherd's staff lately.

In my dreams, it's a staff, and I'm rising, a little girl (Talitha cumi--little girl, I say to you, arise!) and Jesus is handing me pens in one hand and a shepherd's staff in the other.

And I sat across from Holley and we were both in our pajamas drinking red and I said, "What does it mean, this shepherd's staff?"

And she sat and she thought for awhile. I knew she was praying. And slowly the words came: "The shepherd tends to his sheep; he carries the young lambs in his arms, and he takes them to quiet and safe places."

But then I leaned in. "I feel I need to challenge people though, too."

She nodded. "That's what the end of the staff is for. It's for prodding the sheep, because sheep can be stubborn."

She isn't laughing. She's looking at me and believing that Jesus has given me this. "And what about the ruts, the crevices?" I say. "When someone is just so fallen, and doesn't know how to get out of that wounded place, how do we help them?"

Her eyes light up. "That's the crook of the staff. If a sheep falls into a hole, the crook carries them out and sets them on solid ground."

I don't know the details. I just know the big picture. I know Jesus has given me a shepherd's staff, but that night, in the corner of the lodge with our plastic cups full of red and our faces washed and ready for bed, I learned why he had given me that staff.

Because a sister of mine was willing to stay up and wrestle through the details with me. To pray with me, and to believe in my dream.

This is community, friends. This is what I want my blog to be about. Guiding, shepherding one another to safe pastures; prodding when we need prodding, and scooping up and holding close when one of us falls in the ruts. In the hard and wounded places. And you did this, here, in this post, in which my friend shared her very vulnerable story and you came alongside her and showed her mercy and grace. ((Thank you))

So this is my dream, friends. To help shepherd us along in this quiet place.

And Holley's dream is to believe alongside God-sized dreamers. And she does it so well, because she's anointed. Because it's God's dream for Holley to do this.

And that's when we succeed, as Lisa-Jo Baker reminded us in the closing keynote. Not because we've gained a certain number of followers or we've stood on a big enough platform, but because we've chosen to be obedient to the calling God has placed on our lives.

To pick up that pen, or that paintbrush, or that hammer, or in my case, a shepherd's staff, and together, work out our faith, our salvation, to the sound of heaven's applause.

------------------

Today I'm so honored to be giving away Holley's latest book, You're Made for a God-Sized Dream.

To enter to win, please share in the comments WHAT YOUR DREAM IS. Thank you.

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: When you've been hurt by the church-and why you should keep going

2013-04-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Imperfect Prose on Thursdays. Today's post is written by IP team member Elizabeth Stewart of Just Following Jesus. Link up your posts below!

I read the words and I see the wounds behind them. The words weep with hurt and ooze with the putrid infection of bitterness. I read them in blogs, in magazines, in books, and on Facebook statuses reduced to statements that pack a punch, "I'm a Christian, not a Churchian".

If you know me personally or via my blog, then you know I'm a pastor's wife. My husband and I have served in full time ministry almost as long as we've been married, over three decades. Maybe you expect me to defend the church, to excuse the abuse and hurts that happen there, as if to do so is my job. I'm not here to do PR for the church. I'm here to talk about it, because I've lived smack in the middle for it for well over half of my life.

I love the church. I didn't say my church, although that would be true as well. I said the church, which is made up of people from every tribe and tongue, every worship style you could imagine and many, many, (too many), doctrinal differences and denominations. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is simply all those who have personally accepted and received Him as Savior and Lord. Instead of letting that One Beautiful Name unite us, unfortunately, we let our differences divide us.

I want to make it clear that church does not save you. You could attend church 365 days a year and still be lost for eternity if you don't have a real, true personal relationship with Jesus Christ. However, I don't agree with those who, due to the disappointment and wounds they've received in church, decide that church is unnecessary in their Christian walk.

If church isn't part of serving Jesus, then most of the New Testament isn't part of serving Jesus either. Paul's letters were to the churches...real churches with structure and pastors and elders and meeting places and problems. John, in exile on the Isle of Patmos for his faith, penned the words that we now read, the last book of the Bible, the REVELATION of JESUS CHRIST. It begins with the letters to the seven churches. Again, real churches who gathered together, had structured leadership, and had strengths as well as weaknesses.

The most painful things I've had to walk through have happened in church. I've been hurt and betrayed, abandoned and misunderstood. At times, I've closed my eyes in worship and lifted my hands there in the front row on Sunday morning and inwardly cried out to God that I'd rather be anyplace else then in that unsafe place called church, my church. He didn't snatch me up in a whirlwind, but left me right there in the middle of the mess, and taught me the truth that if you don't quit you win. My place of wounding became my place of healing, as brothers and sisters, many who never even knew I'd been hurt, how I'd been hurt, or who had hurt me, loved me back into wholeness.

(I feel compelled to add a disclaimer here. I am not implying in anyway that you should stay in a church where there is emotional or spiritual abuse, perversion in leadership, doctrinal carelessness, etc.)

Here's what I am saying. Hurting people hurt other people. Jesus Christ Himself said that He came for the sick and wounded. If our churches are full of hurting people who are, hopefully, on the journey to wholeness, it seems to me that the odds are pretty stacked that all these hurting people will in some way inflict wounds on each other. Obviously, God forbid that we use this as an excuse to be the one doing the wounding.

With over three decades in church leadership, I've got some big scars and, unfortunately, I'm sure I've done some wounding myself. I type those words with sadness and grief. The fact that I may have hurt others in Christ's body deeply grieves me. I could tell you some horror stories of the wounds I've received myself, but part of the forgiving includes not keeping a record of the wrongs. However, on a less serious note, some pretty ridiculous things, that I can now laugh at, have happened.

There was the time we had a church potluck supper and one of our elderly ladies brought a homemade pie in a glass pie dish. When the dinner was over, I washed her dish and brought it out of the kitchen to her. She went home insisting that she had brought a 9 inch pie dish and I had, for some unknown reason, pulled the big switcheroo and given her an 8 inch pie dish instead.

She called everyone in the church to warn them against my thievery, and never came back to our church. She's long since died, but I know the truth about the woman behind the pie dish. I know that in her eighties, she was still struggling to get past the molestation that happened to her at age five. Hurting people do hurt other people. Unfortunately, it happens in church.

Nothing in the Bible is included my accident. Amongst Jesus' disciples there was a Judas. There was a Peter who denied Him when He most needed him. There were His friends who slept, instead of praying with Him and supporting Him, in His most agonizing moment of surrender to the Father's will. The Apostle Paul pens the words from a prison cell, "all have forsaken me". So, why does it surprise us, when we are too are betrayed, forsaken and abandoned by those who sit beside us in the pew or, God forbid, those who preach from the pulpit? It shouldn't happen, but it does.

However, included also in Scripture is the Good Samaritan who reached down into the ditch to rescue a wounded one. There's the woman who broke and spilled out her life's savings and her heart of worship over the Savior, comforting Him as He faced Calvary. There's Barnabas the encourager. There's the people of the early church, who claimed nothing as their own, but lived like a family, tending to one another's needs. Beside us in the pew may be our betrayer, but on the other side may be our savior, the God who indwells and loves us through our brothers and sisters in Christ.

That's one of the things I love most about God's Word. It doesn't gloss over the ugliness of humanity,

but it also shows the beauty of God's love that works through fallible flesh and blood. So, it doesn't surprise me to see both in the church as well. There's beauty in the middle of the messy place we call church.

For every hand that grabs a knife to stab you in the back, there's two or three hands that reach down into the ditch to pull you out and bandage your wounds. For every word spoken that pierced your heart with pain, there are other voices speaking words of encouragement to you telling you to not give up.

I want to be the hand that reaches out to heal, the voice that speaks to encourage and bless. If all of us would make that our goal, the church would be a much safer place, a safe refuge for the wounded as God intended it to be.

Still following,

every thursday, we gather together to celebrate redemption. here are the details:

1. link up a post (old or new) that relates to redemption.

2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (here's the button code: http://www.emilywierenga.com/" target="_blank">https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3s5KmhxpIYU/T4Inziu4R4I/AAAAAAAAENk/LTq221viFVc/s144/imperfectprose.jpg

" alt="" border="0" />)

3. read other's prose, and encourage them!

so won't you join us, as we "walk each other home"? (ram dass)

Pre-order my new book, Mom in the Mirror, at 40% off, here.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

The one dream we should never lose sight of

2013-04-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

"When I was a little girl, I dreamed that I could touch God," she says in a soft voice.

We're in a room at the Carol Joy Hollings Center, at the Jumping Tandem Retreat, and I'm leading a workshop on giving birth to our dreams. I've challenged the women to gather in groups and answer questions, one of which is, "What was your dream as a child?"

"I would swing," she says to me. "I would swing so high and try to touch the sky, because I thought if I touched the sky, I could maybe touch God."

She leans in. Her brown hair wavy and her eyes bright. "And I would sing. I would sing long and loud, hoping that maybe, if I sang enough, he might hear me."

I couldn't speak.

When do we stop trying to touch God? Trying to get him to hear us? Believing that if we wanted, we could do the impossible?

And I remembered how, earlier that weekend, I had been standing in worship, my hands outstretched as Jaime, the man in the cap with the earrings, strummed his guitar and we sang Holy, Holy, Holy. And I closed my eyes as I stretched my hands to the ceiling and I've never stretched my arms so high.

And suddenly, with my eyes closed, I saw him.

My Abba Father, reaching down from heaven, trying to grasp my hand.

His face, so eager.

And for a brief moment, the chasm between humanity and the divine didn't seem so wide.

Friends?

Let's never stop trying to touch God.

Let's keep swinging in the hopes of reaching heaven.

And let's keep singing in the hopes that one day, the heavens will open and erupt in angelic chorus.

Your kingdom come, oh Lord. Amen.

****

(Some fun photos from the retreat below)

Laura Boggess and I feeling windswept

My dear friends Jennifer Lee, Laura Boggess and I

Lisa-Jo's keynote and Seth Haines' video challenge

Me, speaking in one of my two sessions


Praying with Amanda Hill.

The Love Dare: On how God sees us, as mothers (and book giveaway!)

2013-04-22T07:09:00.005-07:00

(Guest post by author Jena Morrow)

All my life I had dreamt of becoming a mommy. It wasn't my only dream, but it was certainly the most important dream in my little girl heart. I was the child who never went anywhere without a baby doll tucked under my arm -- and I wasn't the type to toss my baby doll aside when the ice cream man came down the street or when my favorite TV show came on. No, Annie came along with me, and I included her in every detail. It mattered to me what Annie wanted from the ice cream man (snow cones were her favorite) and if she understood the jokes in that week's episode of Punky Brewster (and as I recall, I often had to explain them to her).

Some women come into motherhood by accident, and others are ambivalent throughout their young adult lives about whether or not they want children. And both of these types of women can become amazing mothers despite how they come into the role. But for me, as sappy as it may sound, I had always believed I was born to be a wife and a mom, and I had it penned into my life checklist early on: Finish undergrad (majoring in Music Education) by 22, by which time I would have met Mr. Right (who would also be an education major so we could teach in the same school district, which would be adorable); get married by 23, take two years for grad school, and be blissfully pregnant by age 25 with my MA on the wall and my hunky husband at my side. Then we'd have our second child two years later, and if we had the finances and the energy, a third two years after that. Voila: two degrees, a fulfilling career, a healthy marriage, and three kiddos -- and all in time for my 30th birthday. Nothin' to it.

I once read a bumper sticker that said "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." And while I don't believe for a minute that our compassionate, perfect Father laughs at our dreams and plans, He certainly doesn't seem to hesitate to rearrange them for our good.

My carefully calculated life plan had derailed before I was even to have completed step one. There was no undergrad degree by age 22, because the anorexia that had chased me all my adolescent life had caught up to me by age 18 and nearly killed me. Instead, I found myself hospitalized for most of 1996, with a tube in my nose and a weight on my heart far heavier than the sad, sickly weight on the scale. I left the hospital the day before my 19th birthday, owing around four hundred thousand dollars in treatment costs. There would be no college -- and worse, within six weeks of my discharge from treatment, I had lost thirty of the forty pounds that had been put on me. I had gained the necessary weight, but I had not learned to feed myself -- because I had not learned to love myself.

Fast forward just a few years, to age 24. Steps one and two of my checklist had not come to pass, and as I approached 25 -- the age by which I HAD to be married and pregnant -- I panicked. I met a guy at church, and figured that since my pastor approved of him and we quickly became the iconic church couple, mascots almost, surely God would bless our union despite the fact that we were completely wrong for one another and both brought unresolved emotional baggage into the marriage. I mean, we met at church; if it didn't work out, that would make God look bad.

For a few months, the courtship was exciting. Even though I wasn't in love with my fiancé, I was madly in love with the idea of marriage and family. My dream was coming true -- even if I had to force it. And since I wanted children and felt I was running out of time (according to my checklist), I began eating healthily and increased my food intake enough to restore myself to a healthy weight. A grown-up weight. A mommy weight. I absolutely hated my body during this time --but I believed this was the one thing that meant more to me than the sense of control I felt from starving myself. In exchange for the fulfilled dream of marriage and family, I would surrender.

The naive little girl inside of me, still clutching her original childhood dream for dear life, cried tears of grief and confusion when the honeymoon ended before it had ever begun, and the marriage became unsafe. This was not the plan. What had I done wrong? But in the midst of my darkest hour, I was to meet my greatest joy. A month into our marriage, we were expecting a baby.

Those around me were unsure how pregnancy would effect me, having never made peace with my body image before the pregnancy began. But to their surprise and my delight, I loved every minute. As I wrote years later in my memoir, Hollow, "This expanding, itching, stretching, round, swollen body of mine was suddenly a great pleasure to me. The same body I hated and despaired of and punished and starved and cut and cursed for years was now doing me the ultimate favor, by fostering life and turned me into something I had always wanted to be: someone's mom."

The challenge to love the mom in the mirror came after my son was born. By the time my son was eight months old, his father and I had separated. And while we worked to reconcile through marital counseling, it was becoming progressively clear to me that I was going to be a divorced woman.

A divorced woman. A single mother. A divorced single mother who never went to college. The checklist had been abandoned. And in my rigid perfectionist mind, the same mind that had driven me to starve myself for so many years, I was a failure. It was then that it became especially hard to look at myself in the mirror.

But the story gets brighter. It always does, at some point, friends -- because we have a God whose love pursues us tenaciously and tirelessly.

In the darkest time of despair, when I was hardest on myself for having seemingly ruined everything, God provided me with moments of peace that were as overwhelming as they were fleeting. They usually occurred in the quiet moments of nursing my baby boy. Nursing infants have a way of communicating love to their mothers in such a way that even I could not argue with the force of that love. My baby needed me -- but beyond that, he longed for me. He was jealous for me. He wanted to be near to me, to feel my heart beat next to his.

Credit the hormones if you must, but those moments became spiritual experiences for me. They reminded me that God Himself is jealous for me. Longs for me. Wants to be near enough that my heart can begin to beat in sync with His. I could not love "the mom in the mirror" on my own; I needed to borrow from the love that God had for me. I had made terrible, life-altering mistakes -- and none of them had shaken or even touched His love for me. My checklist had never mattered to Him, in that He had never had such rigid standards for me as I had had for myself.

My baby boy, Jaden, didn't care that his mommy only had a high school education. He didn't care that his mommy was carrying a little post-baby weight; in fact, if anything, he rather enjoyed it because those were the pounds of selfless love which allowed him to be fed and nurtured. When Jaden looked at me, both then and now, he didn't see an imperfect body to be tweaked and sculpted or a failure at life in general. He sees his mom. He looks at me through love.

When God looked at me, both then and now and forever and always, he sees His daughter. He looks at me through love and through the blood of Jesus, which has erased the sin of those life-altering mistakes of mine.

My son is eleven years old now. I never had another child, never remarried. I still get angry at the mom in the mirror sometimes -- and it is in those moments that I know what has happened: I've moved away from God, and I need to scoot back over to where I can hear His heart beat.

His heartbeat always sounds the same: You. Are. Loved. You. Are. Mine.

My part is simply to take His word for it.

Jena Morrow's debut book, "Hollow", chronicles her nearly three-decade-long battle with eating and body image issues. In her second book, "Hope for the Hollow", Jena takes readers on a thirty-day devotional journey to challenge eating disordered thoughts and beliefs in light of God's Word. In addition to being a writer, speaker, and activist for eating disorder awareness and prevention, Jena works as the Alumnae Coordinator at Timberline Knolls in Lemont, IL, a premiere residential treatment center for women and girls battling eating disorders, substance abuse, mood disorders, self-injury, and PTSD. Jena makes her home in a suburb of Chicago with her son, Jaden, his pet snake Stephanie, and a mischievous cat named Prim.

Today we're giving away a copy of Jena's beautiful new book, Hope for the Hollow... just leave a comment and we'll choose a winner randomly by the end of the week.

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On Forgiving Your Sexual Abuser, and Yourself

2013-04-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

(Guest post by Anonymous*)

The blogosphere has been discussing the Purity Culture a lot lately. I've heard all sides from how it hurt those who did and didn't "wait," how harmful it is to all sexes and genders and races, and so on. Having been raised Catholic, it was certainly one of the unquestioned precepts I absorbed into my life. I didn't grow up necessarily believing that all men were out to get me. I didn't really feel like a temptress or an object of lust.

Instead, I internalized and interpreted the message to mean, "Whatever happens to you, you in some way deserved it. Whatever you do, whatever you let happen, is your fault and it should cause you shame."

I would like to say that as a liberalized, independent, and analytic 22 year-old that I have moved past this message. But the stakes of shame and doubt and self-loathing are driven deep and I am still tethered to them. The rope is a little longer than it used to be and maybe even getting thinner, but I'm still tied to the idea that I am to blame. That "it" was my fault.

"It" happened from the time I was about 10 until I was nearly 17. I allowed the one person who was arguably closer to me than anyone besides my own mother to sexually coerce me into things I never wanted to do.

I was secretly depressed and I thought of taking my life often. I still have what some would refer to as my "technical V-card," but that's very little consolation for the confidence and positive self-image that I lost over those years. There were more consequences to "it" than I ever could have imagined.

In the end, we both died.

He killed himself in 2007 and took a lot of me with him. The mixed light and dark of my childhood-self faded as quickly as the memory of his voice in my mind. I will always love him and miss him more than I can sometimes bear. But one of the most bitter aspects of his death was the fact that I still thought it was my fault until almost 3 years after he had passed.

I didn't see myself as a sexual abuse victim. I was weak. I was disgusting. "It" was something to be deeply hidden in the earth and never spoken of. Finally, over Easter break in my sophomore year of college, I told my mom about what we did. She remains one of only three people whom I've told. I felt like I had to tell her. I trusted my gut and, this time, my instinct was exactly right. I realized that the secrecy I had bound myself to was just as toxic as the experience itself.

Mom was the first person to tell me what I still have trouble believing.

It wasn't your fault.

Thanks to the slew of bloggers and writers I keep up with, I'm starting to realize that the Purity Culture very much helped build the cage I willingly sat in for so long. I'm not completely free yet, but I am getting brave enough to walk around outside of it. The rope that keeps me from leaving it will only be severed by forgiveness.

I think I've almost completely forgiven him. It's myself that I can't seem to let off the hook. What do you do when you can't demonize the person who caused so much pain? How can I fully blame the cause of my grief when he was also the embodiment of all the good in my childhood? If he had been violent or under the influence of some substance, I might be able to more easily accept my role as his victim. But I thought it was just adolescent curiosity – normal and soon to pass.

I don't know where we would both be if he was still alive. I'd like to think we had pretty much closed the door on "it" before he passed, but I can never be sure. Right now, there is no resolution; no happy ending to my story, yet. A part of me knows that I was a victim to "it," to him, and to the Purity Culture. But for some reason, I am not able to accept the grace that I have given or the Grace that God has offered me. I think a part of me still believes in the Purity Culture idea that I had in my mind for so long. I still deserve to suffer. I could have said no; I should have been stronger; "it" could have stopped if I had been brave enough.

But I wasn't.

I will never let myself be a victim again so long as I can help it. But as for forgiving myself, that's a story I've only begun to write. Every pen stroke draws blood and every page is hard to turn. I am trying. Hopefully, by God's Grace alone, one day I may love myself fully again.

(Please leave brave and beautiful Anonymous* a comment below, letting her know how her post moved you/spoke to you. Thank you friends. I look forward to reuniting with you after the Jumping Tandem retreat this weekend... please, pray that the Lord be glorified through the talks and fellowship? Thank you. Bless you.)

*the writer of this post has asked to keep her name private for personal reasons.

Pre-order Emily's new book, Mom in the Mirror, at 40% off, here.

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Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: What it means to be a writer who is a Christian (and giveaway by Jen Hatmaker)

2013-04-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure but that there isn’t a time in every one’s life when we’re called--

To stand up for what we believe in. But before we stand, we have to know what we believe, and before I became a wife and a mother, I didn’t really know.

I didn’t know the way I would cry at night for fear of sending my boys to school, for all of the school shootings and drugs but not only that: for the way they wouldn’t be taught how to be strong leaders, but rather, would be questioned about their gender, made guilty for the way their kind had treated women in the past, and told that they could be attracted to either males or females because there was no male or female: there just was.

And I didn’t know that I would suddenly feel the need to make a decision about womanhood and manhood and whether or not I believed there was a difference and if so, how I would treat my husband and how I would raise my sons.

And so I wrote the servanthood post out of conviction, that we as women need not only nurture and care for our children, but to stand up for our men in a dark world.

But.

Being a writer who is a Christian doesn't just mean standing up for your beliefs. It means saying sorry when something you've written has hurt someone.

One week following that post, I spent a morning making public and private apologies to those who'd been hurt by the Servanthood post, because one person's story can be another person's stumbling block. And no matter how convicted you may feel, without love, you are but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

I didn't apologize for the message of the post. I still stand by my theology. I still believe in submission.

I apologized, though, for the ill-placed anecdote which I used, about my Lebanese friend who had stayed in her abusive relationship, and how her husband had become a believer as a result, and in spite of the article being read by a dozen editors, no one caught the trigger that would cause a number of readers to suffer PTSD.

I have never been so remorseful.

Having never been abused (save for neglect as a child), I wasn't aware of the trigger, nor of the implication it would make to stay in abusive relationships for the purpose of saving one's husband (I by no means support that theory; spiritual submission by the wife MUST be paired with spiritual responsibility by the husband.)

But these stumbling blocks are things that we as writers--as Christ-believing writers--need to be conscious of. No matter how true our message, no matter how passionate our hearts, love needs to prevail. And this means apologizing when we're wrong.

In the end, it's about living mercifully while inspiring righteousness.

Jesus did not throw stones. But. He also told the woman to "go and sin no more."

We serve a merciful savior who longs for us to be holy. So there is the fine balance.

I discovered this quote the other day through a fellow blogger: I don’t think that God always tells the person with OCD that he doesn’t need to wash his hands five times. I think He makes sure he always has soap. ~ Serena Woods, Grace is for Sinners

Our Abba Father always makes sure we have soap.

But in the meantime, he longs for us to not need that soap anymore.

He is patient, and while we need to stand up for our convictions, we also need to make sure that we're not blocking the light for anyone. That in standing, we're offering our hands to those around us and helping them to stand too.

Our stories should not be pedestals. They should not be podiums. They should be parables--carefully worded attempts to illustrate truths of the kingdom, on behalf of a world that longs to find Jesus and to find him, fully.

(Today, I am happy to announce that Jen Hatmaker is giving away a copy of her book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, which we reviewed last week here. Leave me a comment below, and we'll choose a winner by the end of the week.)

every thursday, we gather together to celebrate redemption. here are the details:

1. link up a post (old or new) that relates to redemption.

2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)

3. read other's prose, and encourage them!

so won't you join us, as we "walk each other home"? (ram dass)

Nanny's Suicide--and Why I Believe She's in Heaven

2013-04-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's easier to feel angry.

It's easier to feel angry than it is to admit how much you miss her.

It's easier to feel angry than it is to stare at that urn with its Chinese markings and to know that your British grandmother died from a razor and a broken heart.

Nanny lived next door to Mum and Dad. She'd moved from England to Canada in 1996 so my Mum could take care of her.

But in 1999, Dad was told he was being transferred.

Nanny didn't want to move. She told my parents as much. My parents told her they had no choice, but they would make sure to take care of her and find her a good place to live near them.

Then they left to scout out the place they would be moving to.

The day after their return, Nanny told them not to come and visit until late in the afternoon.

That's when my mum found her, dead in the bathtub. No note.

...

(for the rest of this post, please join me over HERE at Prodigal? Thanks friends.)

The Love Dare: Passion, Life, Love (Guest Post by Alise Wright)

2013-04-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

I spent two years not touching a piano. And when playing music is where you feel the most like yourself, two years is a long time to go without feeling completely you.

I was told that everything I was doing was wrong in the area where I was the most passionate and the most alive. I was told that I could still attend the church, but I could have nothing to do with music. I was told that my passion was self-serving and that what was life-giving was an idol. When you receive that news, it kills passion. It sucks life away.

And when passion and life are missing, it can be difficult to love yourself.

I went through a season where this was my existence. A season where the pain of the words that had been spoken to me drowned out the knowledge that I was doing what I had been created to do.

For that season, I saw my talents not as a gift from God to be used for God’s glory, but rather as something of a liability to be used for my own glorification. This was not my heart, but because someone in authority had told me that this was so, I began to believe it for myself. The lies became reality and that reality crowded out feelings of self-worth that I had.

We are so often afraid to allow ourselves to be identified by what we do. We worry that our value is somehow cheapened by attaching significance to the titles that we have. We worry that if we enjoy the things that we do too much, we will push God out of the picture.

But I have found that the more I am fully myself, the more than I fully immerse myself in the passions that God has placed in me, then I am more aware of God’s presence. When I play the piano, and play well, I am more in tune with what God desires for me. When I am fully present with my children, when I choose to be a loving wife, when I write with conviction – these things draw me closer to God.

As I am closer to God, I am reminded of my value. I am convinced of the greatness of God’s love for me. And as I gain that confidence, I am able to love myself. Not simply the things that I do, but who I am.

By embracing my passions, I have found life. And by finding life, I have found a deeper Love.

Alise is a wife, a mother of four, an eater of soup, and a lover of Oxford commas. She is the editor of Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression with Civitas Press. You can generally find her sitting behind a keyboard of some kind: playing or teaching the piano, writing at her laptop, or texting her friends a random movie quote. You can connect with Alise on her blog, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

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What I (Emily) am learning as a writer, and as a believer, and why it hurts

2013-04-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on the steps after a run. Spring has finally come to Alberta, and the air smells like new things: like garden dirt and budding trees and unsung heroes: fallen leaves and broken stems.

Snow has done a number but it's left everything rested and saturated and ready to grow.

And I'm praying here on the steps, because I too, feel ready to grow.

I've been resting this week. Last week's post at Prodigal did a number on all of us, and I left a number of people wondering what had happened to e.wierenga, the soft-spoken prose-writing, redemption-dwelling woman who was suddenly on fire for purity and submission.

Sometimes I'm left wondering, too.

I'm no longer in the middle place, a place I once found so comfortable, the grey place, the place of questions and doubts and woundedness, a place of grace and of being a wanderer. I was there for a long time, and I started this blog in that place, but as of January, something changed.

As of January I flew down to Portland, Oregon, to meet with a psychologist friend of mine to plan a book we're writing. And while I was there, she prayed with me, but it wasn't just a folding our hands and closing our eyes prayer. She took the child Emily to Jesus. This one--the one in the suitcase, who had just moved to Congo with her missionary parents:

And she took that child to Jesus who in turn, took that girl, and the four-year-old and seven-year-old version of me too, he took us to his father, to Abba father, and that little girl just broke down before Abba and he healed her.

Since then, my soul has shifted.

I'm no longer angry--particularly at men in general, because Abba became my father that day, and so all of my daddy-issues disappeared. I forgave my dad in full and Abba filled in the gaps.

And Trent and I haven't argued in months. But more than that. I no longer feel like I have to prove myself. I know, deep down, I am enough, just as me, but also, that I have an eternal purpose, and Abba and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are showing it to me.

So there's that. The wounds from my childhood have been healed, and all of a sudden, I'm not only not angry at men anymore; my heart is breaking for them. I'm sitting in church and weeping for them. It's like the anger had kept me from truly seeing them, all these years; from seeing the vital role they play in the church and community and home.

And I'm finally accepting me in all of my femininity, as a woman, and rising up to the strong, beautiful, surrendered yet capable role that God has designed, specifically for me--and I no longer feel afraid or defensive.

I've been devouring Scripture in the way I always hoped I would. I can't get enough because suddenly I trust Abba. I believe every single word in Scripture, whereas before I would approach the Bible with a lens of doubt, because I've had trust issues, all these 32 years, with men, and with God, and he's healed those.

I do not say all this to boast or to say that we all need to reach this place or that some of us haven't. No, please know that I am just sharing from my heart why my words in this place have changed.

I've continued blogging through all of this, and you, poor readers, have been left wondering where this radical Emily has come from.

I've been grappling with this. Because it's like Paul says... originally, like infants, we start on spiritual milk but there comes a time in our lives when we begin to crave spiritual solids. And the thing is: no matter where we are on this journey, we're in it together.

I'm not going anywhere, friends. But I'm changing and growing, and I will continue to change, as I hope you will, because aren't we here to spur each other on towards the goal, which is, eternal life with Christ Jesus? The fullest kind of life, the kind that is willing to give up everything for Him?

So, bear with me as I experience growing pains. As together, we stretch our minds and souls and hunger after righteousness while still acknowledging our brokenness.

I love you. Thank you for being patient with me. I'll probably continue to surprise and challenge you, as the spirit leads me down this new and exciting path but I hope you'll come along for the ride. Because I need you friends.

With all my heart, e.

(btw, here is an interesting video by Gabby Reece, who says submission is strength, not weakness)

Why your ugly past should be part of your future (Guest Post by Duane Scott)

2013-04-11T22:21:00.000-07:00

We’re in the Taco Bell driveway, just two famished college boys getting something to eat, when I mention it.

My past, that is.

And he stops diving deep in his backpack for scrunched dollar bills; stops and just stares at me with somber eyes, like he has witnessed something bigger than he or I.

“You too?” His eyes are wide.

And the lady is waiting now, for our money, and she watches as he hugs me tight and this is how friendship is, just two people reaching past the ugly toward fragile beauty.

“I’m so glad your plan didn’t work. I can’t imagine never having met you.”

I hand scrunched bills and loose change to the lady and she asks if we need hot sauce, mild, medium, or hotand we say yes to all three because reading the captions is more fun than eating them.

Driving away, quietness becomes our passenger, and my friend starts to say something, then stops, starts again, and stops again.

“I was there too,” he finally says through bites of burrito, “and not too long ago either.”

I nod, sip at the super-sized Pepsi in my hand.

“I thought about calling you,” he adds.

“You can. Anytime.”

“I will now... now that...” his voice trails off but I know what he’s talking about, that this darkness we’ve both lived through has made us closer, like brothers, and this is why we need to be sharing our stories.

Yes, we need to be telling others the path we’ve walked because none of us can go through darkness and be unchanged, just like none of us can go to Calvary and be the same.

And the two, if you think about it, are closely related because the first steps toward redemption is in the walking through hell, just like Jesus did when He carried our sins there. And you know what?

He came back to tell us about it. How there was hope. How there is hope.

So shouldn’t we, likewise, also come back from our hells, whether it an eating disorder, depression, or any other inner darkness? Shouldn’t we come back and tell others that there is hope?

Because written in the Word is this: “Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.” 1 John 2:6

It saddens me today how many churches are filled with hushed, broken people, unwilling and embarrassed to share their stories. And this needs to change; the stigma needs to change that admitting our faults makes us weak because the reality is “the truth shall set you free” and when we become nothing, like the dust from which we are, then God can use us.

By telling our stories, we become human and becoming human is how Jesus saved us.

And this is how we can save the world.

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” 1 John 3:16

Duane writes about life and what it means to live fully aware of God in every moment, what it means to live loved, and to love in return. He lives in Iowa with a beautiful Southern Gal and a horrendously naughty dog named Mr. Watson. He currently writes on his personal blog Scribing the Journey, and here, you’ll find him scribbling all about this wild, grace-filled journey we’re all on.

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: Brokenness is a Portal

2013-04-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Imperfect Prose on Thursdays, a place where we blog about redemption! Today's post is by IP Team Member Holly Grantham of A Lifetime of Days. Link up your posts below!

The morning begins simply and purposefully. The boys and I eat breakfast, clean up dishes, make beds … all of it completed with, seemingly, contented airs. First one thing is finished, then the next, and the decided and determined course of slow and steady becomes a rhythm that breathes joy into the mundane.

I pause, midstream, and see this with eyes resolved to frame the plain, every day moments for what they actually are: glory come down.

I breathe deep, knowing that this must be my practice.

Stopping.

Breathing.

Beholding.

Over and over and over.

World without end.

As our routine and ritual plays out, we gather on the sofa to read aloud. As we are drawn deeper into the story and questions arise, we pause and discuss, compare and contrast. For one cannot traipse and footslog their way through the dominion of elves and dwarves. No, this territory must be revered and respected. Inevitably, however, when opinions are shared, a boy forgets to extend that same respect to his brother and words begin to fly like arrows. Voices rise. Emotions flare. And in a single moment, the morning that was wrapped in gold burns hot and I am left with hands dripping dross.

I stop.

I breathe.

I remember.

This is a practice.

I remind the boys of what it means to really listen and respond rather than to run roughshod over another person’s ideas. I talk about the power in our words and how we should only speak words that make souls stronger,and I am talking to myself as much as to anyone else. And even though spirits are still tender, the tension begins to melt and we continue reading until my voice gives out.

We move through math practice and readings in history until we can no longer ignore the rumblings of growing boys’ stomachs. We move to the kitchen for second breakfasts and the din of chattering grows louder and more incessant and my practiced patience wears thin. A boy speaks short and demands too much, all with a seeming flippant regard for my service to him, and in a blink, something breaks.

Apart.

I know it the very moment the words leap from the pained place deep in me out through my open lips.
These words are not what are needed. These words are not helpful.

As time slows and I witness the vitriol and venom coursing everywhere it shouldn’t go, I want to yank it all back. I want to shove it back into the hellish hole from which it leapt.

But I can’t.

Words have been spilled and hearts are now leaking.

And no one in the room feels any stronger.

I seek shelter in the bathroom. To stand before these boys one second longer will be my undoing because I am just like Paul and do not do the good I want to do but the evil I do not want to do. I know that I say one thing yet do another and now my cheeks burn crimson and my heart has holes. The bathroom is used to my tears.

And the tiny room becomes my confessional and I weep hard and long. For how does one build up a home or hearts with love when the winds of mediocrity blow in through all the cracks? Although I can be stubborn, I am not stupid, and I know when I am fighting something bigger than myself.

But then there is a knock.

Small and quiet and steady. I look up towards the door, eyes brimming.

Then there is his voice: “May I come in?” he asks.

He is seeking me. He is asking me. And in an instant I understand why Jesus said children are at the very center of life in the kingdom.

The door is opened and as soon as our eyes meet, there is a melting. He runs into my arms and I cling to him fiercely, as if I were holding on for my very life.

Because, the truth is, I am.

And if I want love to win I have to accept that my brokenness will continually crash the party. My brokenness, my inability to be perfect, is not the problem.

Instead, it is the portal.

My brokenness reveals all the ways in which I come up short. It reveals the myriad ways in which I fail and disappoint others. It reveals the depth of my fear and anxiety.

But my brokenness is also the doorway to becoming the person that I want to be. Because the person that I want to be acknowledges the whole of me and that acceptance births a genuineness that makes me real.
On the other side of my brokenness, there can be forgiveness and healing and who doesn’t grow in the soil of grace?

So, as our arms wrap round and round and love is borne anew,

I stop.

I breathe.

I behold.

Over and over and over.

World without end.

every thursday, we gather together to celebrate redemption. here are the details:

1. link up a post (old or new) that relates to redemption.

2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)

3. read other's prose, and encourage them!

so won't you join us, as we "walk each other home"? (ram dass)

Pre-order my new book, Mom in the Mirror, at 45% off, here.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

Jen Hatmaker reverses the fairy tale

2013-04-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

(Guest post by Angela Reitsma Bick)

I’m in Starbucks skimming Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, jotting down questions for an interview with Ron Sider the next day. The irony is not lost on me. I pray, abashed, that God will free me from stinginess and apathy. Talking with Sider seems a good place to start.

One month later, my friend Mel hands me an unassuming brown book — 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.

“This book really messed me up,” she warns. “Are you sure you want to read it?”

It’s the account of a 7-month journey by Jen Hatmaker — Christian writer, speaker and mother of five. “I can’t have authentic communion with Jesus,” she came to realize, “mired in the trappings he begged me to avoid” (29). And so begins her repentance through reduction: a month eating only 7 kinds of food; a month getting rid of 7 possessions a day; a month praying 7 times a day, and so on. The categories are chosen based on her analysis of what, for their family, has become “just too stinking much”— food, clothes, possessions, media, waste, spending and stress. It’s “an exercise in simplicity with one goal: to create space for God’s kingdom to break through” (5). It’s a wonderful book — hilarious, humble and convicting. I dare you to read it and remain unmoved.

It brought to mind a fairy tale I loved as a kid, The Fisherman and his Wife. Today, it haunts me.

It starts in a shack, but the wife would prefer a cottage. Innocent, right?

“Husband,” said the woman, “didn’t you catch anything today?”

“No,” said the man. “I caught a flounder, but he told me that he was an enchanted prince, so I let him swim away.”

“Didn’t you ask for anything first?” said the woman.

“No,” said the man. “What should I have asked for?”

What indeed. I am guilty of expecting a lot from God. A loving spouse? Well, yes. Children? Thank you.

Maybe another house, this time with a garage? Good.

Jen Hatmaker reverses the fairy tale. Instead of continually asking for more, she slowly sheds the extra things that weigh so many of us down. It’s inspiring to watch.

More

Everything went well for a week or two, and then the woman said, “Listen, husband. This cottage is too small. Go back and tell him to give us a palace.”

I can come up with a good explanation for why it’s OK to read 7 in Starbucks. After all, we don’t splurge. I wear hand-me-downs. We drive an old car.

But living in pockets of Western affluence plays with your mind. I can relate to Hatmaker’s confession:

“For years I didn’t realize [we were rich] because so many others had more.” My happiness is embarrassingly tied to what those around us have and to whether we’ve improved our circumstances over time.

Ron Sider calls us out on this too. “One of the most astounding things about the affluent minority is that we honestly think we barely have enough to survive in modest comfort” (21). Like the fisherman’s wife, I’m focused on more. And that means missing out on what God could do differently with the surplus, and with me.

Ruin

“Husband, wake up and go back to the flounder. I want to become like God. I will not have a single hour of peace until I myself cause the sun and the moon to rise.”

Maybe some people can handle great wealth, and use it for great good. But most of us are closer to the fisherman’s wife. We live in a culture that prides itself on indulgence. We celebrate excess until we’re blind to both our privilege and our greed.

“What does it communicate,” Hatmaker asks, “when half the global population lives on less than $2 a day, and we can’t manage a fulfilling life on 25,000 times that amount? It says we have too much, and it is ruining us” (4).

While writing the book, the Hatmakers are busy adopting two children from Ethiopia. During the month on food, her three biological children throw out uneaten chicken fingers one night, because they were out of ketchup. Hatmaker cries for all her kids — the ones still in Ethiopia, probably going to bed hungry that night, and the ones in Austin, Texas, “who will battle American complacency and overindulgence for the rest of their lives.”

“I don’t know who I feel worse for,” she says.

Enough

If there’s any hope in the original Fisherman’s tale, the brothers Grimm don’t highlight it. Perhaps only this — that with each request, the husband says to himself, “This is not right.” But he goes anyway.

In Alexander Pushkin’s retelling, the ending is redeemed. Once the fish revokes all their goods and glory, the couple finds a contentment in the shack that was elusive before.

Look over Jen Hatmaker’s shoulder, and there are even better signs of hope — a reawakening among Christians.

“Here come the radicals!” declares the cover story in Christianity Today (March 2013). Best-selling books by pastors like David Platt (Radical), Francis Chan (Crazy Love) and Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution) are “calling comfortable Christians to extreme discipleship.” And if the enormous popularity of all these books is any indication, the radicals have hit a nerve.

When I asked Ron Sider if anyone has picked up his mantle, he mentioned Claiborne. Many of the new radicals are the intellectual descendants of Sider, but not just of him — also of Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Søren Kierkegaard, Menno Simons and — oh yeah — God, who has some 2,000 verses discussing money management in his book.

But is a journey away from the American Dream really radical, as CT wonders, or is it just basic Christian discipleship? It’s true that there are tensions within this movement. (Such as: Stage Your Own Mutiny by buying The 7 Experiment — Leader’s Guide and DVD set only $69.95.)

But overall, I’m in. Sign me up. “We’re so conditioned to being the problem,” Hatmaker says, “that we’ve forgotten that we are actually the answer.”

There are wide, gaping holes between what we profess and what we possess, and grappling with that as Christians in this time and place is an important, and on-going, task.

‘What should I have asked for?’

Freedom from ‘more,’ rescue from ruin, and to inherit Jesus’ understanding of what it means to be rich and blessed.

Angela Reitsma Bick is Editor of ChristianCourier. She lives in Barrie with her family.

This article originally appeared in the April 8, 2013 issue of Christian Courier. www.christiancourier.ca

(Join us tomorrow for Imperfect Prose on Thursdays, where we blog about redemption)

The Love Dare: On Infertility and the Truth About Being a Woman (Guest Post by Flower Patch Farmgirl)

2013-04-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Week after week we sat on the edge of the tiny sofa in the doctor's office. Cory held my hand. We kept it light, willing success to float down from the drop-ceiling tiles and settle on us through the sheer force of our collective certainty. It was no big deal. He would fix me.

Around week four or five, Doctor Jan peered at me from behind his desk, his eyebrows stitched together in concern. His tired eyes narrowed and the words tumbled out, "Why aren't you pregnant yet?"

His question hung in the air for a moment, then fell around me like an omen.

I'd never felt an exceeding sense of faith in my body. I'd been a sickly child, always too thin, always without reason. I'd had minor surgeries, migraine headaches. I'd missed too much school. I had failed the scoliosis check in 8th grade and worn a brace on my left knee. Twice I had been wheeled on an ambulance stretcher through a nosy crowd of my peers .

It was no real surprise when Dr. Jan couldn't clear the road for my eventual, inevitable knocking up.

Despite hoops, jumps, and shots in my rear, he continued to ask the blasted question until I couldn't hear it one more time, and we hopped off the edge of his tiny sofa and into the magnificent ocean of adoption.

Ten years have passed since Dr. Jan and my uterus has seen no visitors.

What I know now in the marrow of my bones and to the chagrin of both ovaries, saddled with a job that appears to have no clear purpose, is that God simply had a different family in mind for me. He knew all along that my boys would have almond eyes and my daughter would have the regal forehead of an African queen. He knew that our oldest son would find us late in life and make us believe he had always been right here. It was no surprise to Him, no plan B.

But I'm easily adrift in conversation about childbirth and breast feeding. I've let myself trip down the slim, corkscrew of guilt, angsty and anxious that my formula-fed babies might have missed out.

I hear celebrities gush about growing a human, "I've never felt more like a woman!". I hear of husbands who gained insight into the whole of humanity as they watched their wives sweat and growl through labor. Women hang their superhero capes on the hook of Life-Giver.

Sometimes it's hard not to feel broken.

But it's bedtime and my fingers are ruffling the silky hair of my four-year old while he says his prayers. My eyes are locking his as I tell him for the thousandth time that Mommy and Daddy will never leave him, will always love him.

Daylight seeps through the edges and my arms are wrapped all the way around my daughter as we say our hellos, having missed each other through the night.

It's late afternoon and I sit next to my 8-year old, my hand rubbing circles over his back while he pushes back tears and fights his way through his math homework. It's my voice that he needs - the only one he'll really believe. You can do this. You're doing this!

The house is quiet, the curtains drawn, and it's my hand holding the pen. I write to my oldest about redemption and dinner. I tell him we love him, then send it off to the state prison.

My body, the one that was never strong enough, is a warrior for them.

My husband's eyes linger on me differently than before, not because I helped recreate his flesh and bone, but because I'm helping him create a life - the one he was always meant to live.

It's true what they say about women - we are life givers. And this life is wild and vast. It isn't defined by biology or science. It can't be measured in inches or the degree of a curve. The life that we nurture might look just like the one we had planned. Or maybe not.

My hands are too big. I have knobby shoulders. I'm scrawny and I have cellulite. My imperfect body has never born a child. But I'm not broken. I keep on moving, keep on living, keep rubbing shoulders with the world around me.

I'm a friend of mine, loving my body not because it's the sexiest, the most capable, the strongest, the healthiest; but because it was formed by a Creator who does no wrong.

Shannan Martin is an ordinary girl who searches for and finds beauty in the everyday.
She's the wife of Cory, who thinks all of her jokes are funny, and Mama to
three funny shorties, Calvin, Ruby and Silas, and one Big Kid, who came to them across
rivers and oceans. On the heels of a God-sized life-wrecking, Shannan and her family left
their dream farmhouse behind to embark on a fresh adventure in the city.
They traded quiet days down an idyllic lane for rowdy evenings at
the neighborhood park and visits to the county jail, but life remains a
heaped-up pile of blessings and Shannan will forever be a Farmgirl at heart. You can find her HERE.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

The joy of the Lord is my strength (an update from my quieted heart)

2013-04-07T13:43:00.001-07:00

Hi friends.

I'm still here.

Just a bit quiet these days.

It was a hard week. A heartache week, knowing I hurt some people (unintentionally) through THIS post, yet knowing too that I was trying only to be obedient, so I haven't had many words to say as of late. Just a lot of tearful prayers, and a lot of sleepless nights and wrestling with physical sickness.

But the joy of the Lord is my strength. And I have some incredible friends holding me up and I know I must press forward.

This coming week we'll hear from some guest posters, giving me time to work on my talks for the Jumping Tandem retreat, as well as a new book project being released August of 2014 (which I'll tell you about as soon as the contract is complete!).

In the meantime, keep leaning into our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who,
being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—        even death on a cross! (Philippians 2)

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: The Day I Met Jesus in My Bedroom

2013-04-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

The light, falling through broken blinds on our unmade bed and the books piled up, dog-eared and clothes on the floor and laundry folded in a basket waiting to be put away. It was early morning and the boys, all four of them this Easter weekend, were doing a candy-hunt outside with Trent. Spring was sounding in the snow melting in the gutters, and this bedroom was, for all of its unkempt-ness, heavy with something holy.

I was in my pajamas and making the bed but I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't alone. And I turned, and friends: I saw him. Not with my physical eyes, but with my spiritual ones. I don't know how else to explain it, but on Sunday morning, Easter morning, Resurrection morning, Jesus entered my bedroom and stood in the middle of the un-vacummed carpet and held out his crucified hands to me.

And he told me he wanted me to see him, to know him intimately because of what I would be facing in the coming weeks and months. Because of the calling he's placed on my life to be a voice in the desert and me standing in my pajamas with the light splitting through broken blinds.

I didn't say anything. I just stood there. Felt the heaviness of the holy and heard the sound of children's laughter through the window and felt the warmth of his body in that room. I didn't physically see him. Yet I knew he was there, and I heard him, with the ears of my soul.

And then he was gone and I was left with the distinct impression that I was changed.

I was still in my grey flannels but you can't encounter the risen Lord and hear him say your name and remain the same.

But there's always a choice.

And even as I slipped into church clothes and stubbed my toe while quietly swearing I wondered if it had all been a dream, and just like that I needed to choose to believe.

Each day, I choose. Many moments, I choose. It could have been a piece of undigested beef. Or it could have been Jesus. That sunrise could have been a gift, or just a cosmic occurrence. That healing could have been the doctors, or God answering prayer.

I choose to believe. Because if I don't... if I say, "That was nice, but it probably wasn't a visitation from Jesus. It was probably too many late nights or my imagination or..." then each day, I'll believe a little less until one day, I'll wake up, and all I'll have is doubt.

I'm not saying I don't doubt. But I doubt with the intent of discovering truth. I doubt out-loud to God. I speak it to God in conversation, I tell him what I'm struggling with, and I lay out my fleece, over and over, because I'm Gideon to the tenth degree and my faith is smaller than a mustard seed, and I need God, I need God, I need him.

So those ordinary, everyday moments in which Christ transfigures himself--maybe through the kiss of a child or through an answered prayer or through an extra twenty-dollar bill found in your pocket or a bag of groceries at your front door--those are pivotal. They are sacred altars disguised as daily trivialry. They are tests disguised as chance. They are gifts disguised as cosmic occurrences.

We are not physical beings. We are spiritual ones, having a physical experience. But unless we choose to believe it, we'll never find a resurrected Jesus standing in our bedrooms while the sunlight leaks through broken blinds.

every thursday, we gather together to celebrate redemption. here are the details:

1. link up a post (old or new) that relates to redemption.

2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)

3. read other's prose, and encourage them!

so won't you join us, as we "walk each other home"? (ram dass)

Pre-order my new book, Mom in the Mirror, at 45% off, here.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

The lost art of servanthood (a letter to my feminist sisters)

2013-04-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Dear sisters, dear spiritual mothers and daughters and midwives and stay at home mamas;

Dear women pastors and elders and janitors and lawyers and teachers and artists,

I celebrate us. I think this is obvious from my Woman's Manifesto.

But.

I fear for us too.

I fear we've lost the art of servanthood.

...

(for the rest of this post, please join me over HERE at Prodigal Magazine today, friends. Thank you. And don't forget to link up your imperfect posts tomorrow at Imperfect Prose.)

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

The Love Dare: When It's Hard to Let Your Husband Kiss You

2013-03-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

It's not hard the way you think it's hard.

Ever since we lay on my single bed in the townhouse, six months after dating and him finding the lip of my ear and then us standing because we wanted our first kiss to be vertical, my husband has always been the only man I've ever wanted to kiss.

There were others, but you know about a kiss like you know about a good beer. And his kiss was a Rickard's Red.

And 10 years later he still pulls me close in patches of sunshine on our walk outside of Canmore, Alberta, by the stretch of Canadian Rockies we'll snowboard the following day and he kisses me every time the shadows clear. Every time the trees peel away to let in some sky.

But a couple of times I pull back. Stiffen.

And it isn't because of him, the father of my children, the farm boy who's held me this decade beneath a duvet, the man who dances in our living room and wrestles with our boys and makes me milkshakes with vanilla and strawberries.

It is because of me, and it's the way my mum would pull back from my dad when he tried to kiss her.

As though she couldn't believe he would want to.

Perhaps it's because a man is able to enjoy a kiss, to separate himself from the rest of the day and enter fully into those lips.

But a woman brings all of her with it. All of her insecurities about her hips, her lips, her heart, her mind and her neglected childhood. Sometimes we fake it. Sometimes we're able to just enjoy it, but sometimes, the sunlight makes shadows on the snow and you notice your silhouette and the way your shoulders hunch and you wonder if you'll ever look confident and this makes you slouch further. And you wonder what he sees in you.

But he waits for those pools of light. He wants to see all of me. And even as I pull away, he tries again, and I see him, for who he is: love. The 1 Corinthians, always and forever kind. The kind that knows the girl, the way she slouches over her heart so it won't get hurt again.

"I'm proud of you," he tells me, then.

The trees touching the sky.

And my shoulders straighten even as his mouth touches mine.

(We had a wonderful week, resting, snowboarding in Canmore, and hiking the Rockies. Such a Holy Week... I hope yours was filled with love, and that Easter continues to rise in your hearts and homes.)

It's The Love Dare, a dare to love yourself, and we're doing this every Monday until the release of my upcoming book, Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy (now available for pre-order, HERE) I know it's Easter Weekend, but if you feel inclined to link up a post about how YOU are learning to love yourself, feel free, below.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

The Love Dare (Link-Up): Writing a love letter to your body

2013-03-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

I wrote a letter to my body once.

It was something suggested to me by my therapist - something I never in a million years thought I'd be able to finish.

It was a post written in the middle of as opposed to after the fact. I did not see myself as I wrote, but I prayed to find beauty in the body God gave me through every word.

It was soul-shattering.

My plea for acceptance echoed against the lies repeating inside :: don't let anyone near, don't let anyone touch, don't let anyone love.

It was the proverbial ice-pick for the glacier of hurt I kept inside.

Perhaps it's fitting these words were thrown on a page in faith a little over a year ago. I've grown a lot these past few months - understanding and accepting and fighting for the personality and skin and space my body possesses.

We spent some time at the coast this past summer.

Before we left for the beach, I surveyed the clothes in my suitcase. Cover-up? T-shirt and shorts? Both and? Nothing at all? I could feel the familiar fear creeping in, the words of warning and the disgust thrown my way. Closing my eyes, I breathed deep and grabbed the cover-up and flip flops. When I took off the piece of fabric leaving only my swimsuit, no one glanced my way. No one curled their lip. No one pointed and laughed. I walked into the waves, holding the hand of my husband and leaned in close for a salty kiss as he smiled.

"You look amazing, love. Alive."

And I glanced at the sun and giggled at the wave coming our way because I felt alive. Every cell in my body was waking up and taking notice.

I have a page in my art journal titled self-love 2013.

There's a list there - take naps and invest in haircuts and don't be afraid to take those dance classes among a few of the reminders. I started the spread at the beginning of the year when I felt myself fold over into a new stage of RISK - acting out on dreams He's birthed in me. I knew the risk would produce vulnerability. I knew vulnerability would clash against the fear.

I knew in everything I would need to hold my body and spirit close, whispering and reminding the little girl inside just how much I love her and how thankful I am for her resiliency in getting me this far.

So every day I stretch into yoga and listen for that whisper of a beginning in self-care. I remember the words that started it all, a love letter to this skin I'm in, a declaration of acceptance for the woman He's made me to embrace.

Elora Nicole Ramirez seeks out the beauty in brokenness and aims to tell the Truth in all she does. She believes stories can change the world and every day prophets will help us get there. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook or read more on her blog.

Every Monday we're Daring to Love Ourselves, leading up to the release of my (Emily's) new book, Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy. Join us by linking up your own posts below, writing a LOVE LETTER to your body. Let's create a beautiful revolution, friends!

**Please, if you link up, could you add the Love Dare Button (see right-hand column of blog) to your post? Thank you!

**ALSO: there will be NO Imperfect Prose on Thursdays this week, as Emily is on vacation.

Pre-order my new book, Mom in the Mirror, at 45% off, here.

Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Etsy

On Steubenville and fighting the darkness

2013-03-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

Abigail Batty, and Felicity DeVries, born March 19, 2013

This morning I greeted life with a bouquet of flowers and a Jesus Storybook Bible, in hospital room #33, where my friends had both given birth on the same day, and both to girls.

And one, the sister to Savanah Grace, the girl you prayed for, the one with the genetic disorder, the one who passed away just over a year now and Felicity Grace is her sister, carrying on the middle name.

And tonight I wept on the elliptical, a wind storm outside and Matt Redman's Endless Hallelujah on the laptop. More than weeping, really, it was an intercessory sort of sobbing, the kind where you raise your hands limply and ask God to lift them higher because they're weighted down.

I cried for the fragility of it all. For the subtle line between life and death and the infant skin that I had kissed that morning, all new and soft and that's how Savanah's skin had felt too, before she died.

And there's the Steubenville rape trial and those boys and that girl.

Sometimes all you can do is cry on the elliptical because of the darkness. And our own flames seeming so fickle.

How do we rise up against death and sin and horror? How do we combat the evils in the schools our children attend, how do we equip our sons with the qualities to treasure and cherish a girl in a world that rapes her? And on the flip side, how do we raise our boys up to be respected leaders in a feminist society? How?

I'm reading a book right now, Why Men Hate Going to Church, and on the back cover, it states that men are the world's largest unreached people's group.

I see evidence of this in the football players who took advantage of a passed-out girl and I see it in a leaderless society that glosses over the value of a life and I see it in a justice system that cheats and sympathizes with sinners.

But I also see a girl that got so drunk that she passed out.

Our children, our sons and daughters, are stumbling around in the shadows.

How do we fight, while putting down our swords?

How do we, the redeemed, turn the other cheek while protecting the innocent?

How do we let our little lights shine when we're terrified of the darkness?

And then I remember my walk, two nights ago, even as evening was falling, and me asking God if he saw my dreams, if he cared.

Winter is SADS for me, is long dark hours in cold Alberta, and even now, the snow is piled high around my house, but the days are lengthening.

And God said this to me: "Emily, sometimes I slant the sunlight, just so that it will shine through your living room windows. Don't you think I care about your dreams?"

The elliptical slows, and I'm realizing, we don't have to fight the darkness.

We just have to let the Light of the World shine through us.

It's about being open windows, so the world can catch a glimpse of Jesus.

And the cleaner the glass of our souls, the better the world can see him.

(I will be taking the next week off, friends, to rest. Monday, my friend Elora Nicole will be sharing her story for The Love Dare... join us? May you know Easter in your hearts and lives.)

Emily T. Wierenga

The ancient cry of mothers (when little ones suffer)

The Love Dare: 1 Corinthians 13 as a Letter to Myself (by Christy McFerren)

When motherhood puts your dreams on hold

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: Making Love in the Kitchen (and giving away FOUR copies of Bread & Wine!)

But for four years I refused my mother's love.

Communion is bread and wine, but it's so much more than that.

On how to deal with criticism and hurt in the blogging community

The Love Dare: A Journal of Cancer (by Amy Bowman)

In which Holley Gerth believes in my dream (and gives YOU a copy of her new book!)

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: When you've been hurt by the church-and why you should keep going

The one dream we should never lose sight of

The Love Dare: On how God sees us, as mothers (and book giveaway!)

On Forgiving Your Sexual Abuser, and Yourself

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: What it means to be a writer who is a Christian (and giveaway by Jen Hatmaker)

Nanny's Suicide--and Why I Believe She's in Heaven

The Love Dare: Passion, Life, Love (Guest Post by Alise Wright)

What I (Emily) am learning as a writer, and as a believer, and why it hurts

Why your ugly past should be part of your future (Guest Post by Duane Scott)

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: Brokenness is a Portal

Jen Hatmaker reverses the fairy tale

The Love Dare: On Infertility and the Truth About Being a Woman (Guest Post by Flower Patch Farmgirl)

The joy of the Lord is my strength (an update from my quieted heart)

Imperfect Prose on Thursdays: The Day I Met Jesus in My Bedroom

The lost art of servanthood (a letter to my feminist sisters)

The Love Dare: When It's Hard to Let Your Husband Kiss You

The Love Dare (Link-Up): Writing a love letter to your body

We spent some time at the coast this past summer.

​I have a page in my art journal titled self-love 2013.

On Steubenville and fighting the darkness

I have a page in my art journal titled self-love 2013.