Sarah Mae (MaeMae) and I became internet friends when it was still weird to say so out loud. Over the past decade our friendship has turned epically real-life and is one of the greatest gifts of both our lives. From our totally random (but clearly God-ordained) meeting, to running the Allume Conference side-by-side, and now just doing life together as the best of friends, we have talked and laughed about everything under the sun. I think perhaps once in a blue moon we have friends where even working together feels like play and that’s the way it is for Sarah and me.

It’s why we decided to do this podcast. Well….partly why.

Over the years we have both received a lot of questions from friends, readers and interviewers about our friendship. Maybe it’s because it sort of started via the interwebs? Maybe also it’s because with social media people have seen that friendship go from running a conference together to spending as much time together as can be managed with a long distance friendship. Whatever it is that has made others interested in learning about it, we agree that this friendship is totally great.

And something else we have realized, especially the older we get, is that true heart friends…#friendshipgoals kind of friends, are super rare. So we decided to pull back the veil on our friendship and invite you all into it. You’re invited into the laughter, the real conversations, the fragmented and haphazard directions that conversations take between cooking dinners and carpools and all the real life that goes into (and distracts us from) the reality of maintaining true friendship. And in the end, we hope you’ll go out with a real idea of what it takes, and what it looks like to both be and have the kind of friendships that will change your life for the better.

In our brand new podcast we’re drawing random topics out of a hat (because most days that’s what our actual conversations look like) and dishing about all the things: life, faith, family, parenting, food, dreams, and all the ridiculous stuff in between that make friendships for real. It’s random, it’s fun, and we’re trying to keep it at about 20 minutes so it’s short enough to keep you company in the carline!

We have an email address for the podcast and we’d love to add your topic ideas to our hat! (Yes, it’s an actual hat…my favorite trucker ball cap to be exact.) So shoot your ideas, comments, and thoughts to LoLoandMaeMae at gmail dot com.

Also make sure you’re following us on all the socials and subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or Podbean so you never miss an episode!

Pop over to our socials to say hello and send us your ideas there as well! We love to hear from you!

Find me at @LoganLWolfram on Facebook and Instagram, and Sarah (MaeMae) at SarahMae.com, and @SarahMaeWrites on Instagram, and Facebook.

Here’s a little audio snack to whet your appetite! New episodes will air on Wednesdays! We can’t wait to hear from you and we hope you enjoy the show!

The post The MisAdventures of LoLo and MaeMae: THE PODCAST! appeared first on Logan Wolfram.

This morning I woke up with a case of the Shingles. No joke… like the geriatric version of the chicken pox virus. I know this because I had it before when I was 15. Also, I just spoke to my dermatologist friend, Christine, on the phone after sending her a picture and the words “TELL ME THIS ISN’T SHINGLES.” She confirmed it is in fact the dreaded virus and told me “Congratulations, you’re in the 1% of people who get it more than once.”

Apparently I am special.

In the past year and a half I have heard the words “worst I’ve seen in 40 years” with regards to several areas of my life. I told my mom I’m tired of being the anomaly.

A couple of weeks ago, the roof in our tiny house started leaking and I fell apart. Like… I cried pretty much uncontrollably for 3 days because my contingency plan had sprung a leak and the rain from outside was coming inside. I’m sure most of you know what that feels like… when even your backup plan fails and then you’re left wondering what on earth you’re supposed to do now.

You know what it’s like when the rain from outside still drips on you inside… maybe you know it physically…most assuredly you do metaphorically.

I reached out to some praying friends and asked them to hold me up because I couldn’t do it myself. Life has been brutal these past months in too many ways and I’m not sure that I see when exactly it’s going to let up.

My friend Amber messaged me that day to pray more and I confessed to her that I don’t understand why the devil has been so relentless. I asked why he is wasting so much energy coming after us when I’m not much to worry about now. Surely there are more concerning people who are doing great things for God than to bother going after me right now. I mean from where I sit my career has been in the toilet, my house is too small to even host one other family for dinner, my arm isn’t all the way healed from literally being torn, and I haven’t been good for much of anything. In pretty much every area of my life where I have been gifted, produced, or excelled before, my hands have been completely tied. I’ve asked the Lord why he’d bother gifting me in certain ways if he won’t let me use those gifts. What good am I right now and “Why won’t the enemy stop?” I said to her between tears, “I’m not even a threat to him right now.”

“Oh but remember my friend that YOU ARE because you carry the light of Christ wherever you go.” Her words spoke to my heart and ignited a longer conversation with the Lord and me later.

And in that conversation here’s what the Lord told me and what I’m reminding you of today as well:

You may feel that your hands are tied in all the areas you’ve always known how to do something, to create something, to say something or to accomplish anything, but even still YOU ARE A THREAT to the Kingdom of darkness because you carry the light of Christ wherever you go… and light ALWAYS drives out darkness…

The Lord spoke straight to my heart as I cried out to him and said, “Baby girl, you are a threat to the enemy when you light up the day of the grocery store clerk in a checkout line. You’re a threat when you take a meal to someone who needs it. You’re a threat when you arrange flowers to bless the people in your church. You’re a threat when you speak kindly to your kids even though you may feel like cussing! You’re a threat when you love your husband well, and your’e a threat when you offer up whatever you have in your home to others tiny house or not. You’re a threat when you speak life, and you’re a threat when you hold your eyes above the water and look towards heaven.”

And then the part where in so many ways God made sense of this season that has felt crushing…”You may think your hands are tied, but maybe you need to consider that I am incubating something in you right now. Maybe I don’t want you producing, or creating, or having something to show for your life right now. Maybe, just maybe, I’m marinating something inside of you that needs time to soak in to change you from the inside out. You’re in a season of incubation, and when I do give you the go ahead to put those gifts to work again, the enemy knows just what a threat you’ll be then, and so he’s doing all he can now to stop that from happening. Because girl, if you are anything, what you need to know is that YOU ARE A THREAT.”

Friends, I’m a fighter. I have a tattoo on my arm that reminds me that I am a “mother of warriors.” But you know what God keeps telling me, is that if I’m going to raise warriors for the Kingdom, then I have to first be one myself. I will fight through the muck and I will find the blessing.

My husband recently took our son on a trip to Rome to celebrate his 13th birthday. Ever since our boys were born, Jeremy and I decided that when they turned thirteen, he would take them on a dad/dude, coming-of-age sort of trip, and when they turn 18, before they fly the nest, they’ll go on a trip with me. We made the mistake of saying “anywhere in the world” out loud and of course our elephant-minded kids never forgot that part. So my oldest, who has a love of things Roman and Greek, historical and mythological, chose to go to Rome.

I’ve prayed Romans 8:37-39 for Walker since he was in the womb. It has been my heart and earnest prayer that he would know that he is more than a conqueror through Christ who loves him and that nothing would be able to separate him from that love.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:37–39

As his trip with my husband neared and I was praying for them, the Lord reminded me that the Hebrew tattoo on my arm actually says “mother of conquerors” because there isn’t a word for “warriors” in Hebrew. For some reason I’d never connected the verse that I’ve been praying for over a decade to the marking on my arm that came years later from a prophetic word over my life after the loss of a pregnancy. But suddenly here it was, a string of connection between the marking of my skin and the one I believe is over my son’s life. I am a mother of conquerors.

As I thought about that, the Lord reminded me that the verse was something that Paul wrote to the people in ROME. He spoke to them in terms he knew they could understand…with pictures he knew would resonate. As he wrote to the believers in early Rome, he knew that what they saw as strength and might and assurance was something they were exposed to every day…they saw the Roman Legion, they lived in a land dominated by gladiators and fighters that still ring fear to consider today. When he told those believers of Christ’s love, he promised them that they would be MORE than those formidable conquerors they were used to seeing. That though the soldiers the Roman church knew were the fiercest and strongest in the world, in Christ, these believers were MORE than that.

SO of course the Lord knew that 14 years after he gave me those words to pray over my son, that very boy would choose to go to Rome of all places where he could see those things for himself. And it was my prayer when he went and still evermore, that he will know he too is more than a conqueror through the Christ who loves him and gave himself up for him.

It’s my prayer that you and I would know that too. That we are more than conquerors…that no situation or circumstance, no gladiator or glass ceiling, no loss or brokenness, no past or future will ever separate us from that love, or from the power that we have to overcome those things in Christ!

And so here’s where I’m sitting today…in all my glorious insufficiency on the sofa in my tiny house with a leaky roof and a shingles outbreak on my abdomen.

“Satan… I see you. I see your career attack and your attack on my home and my gifts and my purposes. I see you, and I am not afraid. I’ll let you in on a little something….What God is incubating in me now should scare the hell right out of you, and I know it does…because I see you and while you may think you’re coming for me, you better know that I am coming for you. And in the end, my God wins. We win.”

I am a threat, because I carry with me the Kingdom of Heaven wherever I go. And you are too.

Maybe friends you need to hear that today. That whatever nasty business the enemy is throwing your way is because he wants to keep you from accomplishing all that God has for your to accomplish. And perhaps that accomplishment begins in the piece of your heart that needs to remember that you too are more than a conqueror. You are a threat my friend…

Now suit up, and know that the battle you’re fighting is already won.

The post If Even Your Backup Plan Fails appeared first on Logan Wolfram.

All to say, I have more time for experiments.

Last week I was chatting with a very dear friend who was doing a science lesson with her kids and discussing the ways that God has set our world into order. They end up talking about something called the Fibonacci Sequence which is a complex mathematical calculation ultimately exemplifying what is often referred to as the “golden ratio of order.” This sequence of numbers forms a perfectly distanced spiral no matter how large the spiral becomes.

Bear with me…I know I’m getting technical on you here. It’s about to get worse before it gets better.

Anyhow, a Fibonacci spiral is formed with a calculation of a sequence of numbers, where the next number is equal to the sum of the two before it. Starting with 0 and 1, the sequence goes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on and so forth. Any two successive Fibonacci numbers have a ratio very close to the Golden Ratio, which is roughly 1.618034. The larger the pair of Fibonacci numbers, the closer the approximation. (Obviously, my non-scientific self has had to do extensive research to even try to explain this much.)

Yes, I know…that’s a lot of words that get pretty complicated. I’ll post a video at the end that explains this even better than I can. But don’t watch it til the end.

But for right now, in layman’s terms, what this is basically saying is that in a case of perfect mathematical order, stuff forms a really lovely spiral and it happens in nature all the time. Think of things like a nautilus shell, the seeds on a pinecone, the perfect spiral shape of a wave crashing on a beach, or of the entire Milky Way in the sky. There’s a perfect order to the way the molecules align.

And because I’m a huge fan of the way that God creates things, I love how he does it so often with such gorgeous order for us to see. I love that even though sometimes the world can feel pretty whack, there is the assurance of nature all around us reminding us that we serve and are deeply loved by a God who delights in order.

So then my friend shares that she and her daughter had been discussing the power of words as they relate to the world around us.  And because we believe that the Bible is the absolutely true and infallible word of God, then the things that God has to say about how we use our words ring true as well.  Our words have the capacity to change things…our words can be impactful to cause order or disorder.

Scripture talks all over about the power of our tongues to change atmospheres and outcomes, and if we didn’t believe that was true at all then I think it would go without saying that prayer itself would be a completely futile exercise.

I’m a huge believer in prayer. I’ve seen it change lives, circumstances, outcomes, and people. I believe that prayer is our greatest tool and weapon to see the world around us change.

Anyhow…back to my friend.

So, she tells me that she and her daughter decided to do an experiment.

They got two identical plastic lidded containers and measured one cup of tap water into each container. One container they labeled “blessed” and the other they labeled “cursed.”  They then proceeded to speak every awful word they could think of over the “cursed” water and every kind and good word they could think of over the blessed water.

Then they froze the water. (For wondering minds, I googled it and typically it takes about three hours for 1 cup of water to freeze.) My friends did it overnight.

The next morning when they dumped out the frozen water bowls, the bowl they had blessed had a very clear Fibonacci spiral at the center where the bubbles had been. That bowl of water had frozen in perfect order.  The bowl that they had cursed though had slashes all throughout the block of ice. The bubbles were disrupted and chaotic, the water appeared almost cloudy, and there were cracks all through the frozen mass.

She sent me pictures. The difference was obvious.

Now you know that I’m a curious person, so obviously I wanted to try this for myself…immediately.  As soon as my kids got home from school I told them about the experiment and insisted that they join me to do it.

“Mom….this is the stupidest thing ever. Can we just go outside?!”

“No. This is amazing. Let’s do it. Ok…now think of all the nasty things you can say and say it to this bowl of water right here.” I labeled that bowl with a “C” for “cursed.”

Needless to say, they both saw this as an opportunity to use words we don’t normally allow like “sucks” and “butthole”, but for the sake of the experiment I didn’t do much more than raise a disapproving eyebrow. Once we had exhausted the nasty words of the moment, we turned our attention to our “B is for blessed” bowl.

We then began speaking lots of nice words to this bowl of water (which in the world of two competitive brothers can sometimes be harder to come by).  We told the water it was lovely and orderly, that it was good for the soul, balanced, and clear. I had more nice things to say to the water than they did. Had it been Gatorade we were blessing they may have been more generous.

Then I froze the water overnight and popped them both out of the Tupperware containers the following morning.

It was exactly as my friend had shown me that her water had come out. Perfect spiral in the clear, blessed water, and disorder and cracks in the cursed on.

“Mom. For real. Like I’m going to just believe that. It’s a sample size of one. Why don’t you freeze some plain water that you don’t do anything to?” My nearly 13 year-old chided me, his unbelief and question of my sanity clearly on display.

“Fine then.” I said, as I grabbed two more containers, measured a cup of tap water into each one and put into the freezer without a single word. “We will check these when you get home from school.”

So, that afternoon, we popped out the plain water only to find that they had each frozen solid and practically, perfectly clear. Not a single thing had happened to the center of either bowl.

“Ok fine Mom. But you have still only done the blessed/cursed experiment once. Use this water and bless one and curse the other and then see what happens.” My doubting Thomas spoke up again.

“Fine. I will. I’ll let it sit here and melt and when it does I’ll do it again.”  So that’s exactly what I did.

And lo and behold, the next morning it was just as before. Blessed one clear with an ordered spiral in the center, and the cursed one cracked and cloudy.

My kids and husband all started to believe it at this point too.

Listen you guys, I fully realize that this is about as weird as a fish riding a bicycle.  But at the end of the day, I’ve seen it with my own eyes and because apparently my mustard seed of faith is so small, I’ve done it repeatedly over the past few days…every single time to the same ultimate effect. The blessed one is totally different looking frozen than the cursed one.

And since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about words. Like A LOT.

I’ve been thinking about wise words and unwise ones. Words that speak blessing and ones that curse. Words that build up and words that tear down.

When I’m honest with myself, I have been responsible for speaking words that fall into all of those categories over my lifetime. And really, I probably have spoken every manner of words even just yesterday.

I like words. I think them and I write them. I can use them to change the course of someone else’s day…for better or for worse. I have seen them restore things that appeared broken and I’ve seen them break things that seemed unshakeable. I’ve heard words spoken that shift atmospheres and change outcomes. I’ve experienced words that set captives free, and I have walked alongside people who have been imprisoned by words as well.

Words are powerful.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Nonsense. Bones heal faster and ultimately in the places they broke are stronger. Words though… the wounds of words can last a lifetime.

The Bible is clear about our words over and over. We are responsible for the ways in which we wield them, and they have the power to give life or destroy it.  Kings and prophets and followers of Jesus knew this well…they knew too well the power of the tongue.

David knew his words could cause trouble and in Psalm 141:3 said, “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.”

King Solomon, arguably one of the wisest men to ever live, had plenty to say on the subject as well all throughout the Proverbs.

Proverbs 11:9 “Evil words destroy one’s friends; wise discernment rescues the godly.”

Proverbs 15:4 “Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.”

Proverbs 16:24 “Kind words are like honey–sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.”

Proverbs 18:21 – The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 12:18 – Rash language cuts and maims, but there is healing in the words of the wise

Matthew 12:33-37 tells us that it’s not just our words we need to be concerned with, but our hearts that much more. Because words may be sounds spoken into the air, but our hearts are the incubation chambers for the syllables that make their way into the atmosphere.

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

In Mark 11, while walking into Jerusalem, Jesus becomes hungry and happens upon a fig tree only to discover that it has no fruit. “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” he says, cursing the tree within earshot of the disciples walking alongside of him.  But the next day when they are passing by again, Peter notices and exclaims that overnight the fig tree has withered and died. 

And it didn’t just kind of wither either.  The Bible says that it withered all the way to the roots.  That tree was D.E.A.D….DEAD!  And then Jesus goes on to explain it all to the disciples in versus 23-27,

“Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

Our words hold the power to speak life and death.  I think we forget that all too often.

And as for me, lately I’ve been really having to squelch some words that I’ve realized are in my heart to keep them from ringing out within earshot of anyone else. Sure we all do this better sometimes than others, but for crying out loud it is so so hard sometimes, right?  And just because words might be true, doesn’t mean they should be spoken either.

Whether it’s with our kids or our spouses, friends or coworkers, it’s like my friend Jocelyn says, “Once it’s out, you can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube.”

Philippians 4:6-9 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I’m banking that if we can present our concerns before the Lord and He guards our hearts, in this way He is in fact guarding our tongues as well. If out of the mouth flows what’s in the heart, then while we may be required to attend to words once we have said them, we can attend to our hearts FIRST such that our words don’t become a problem.

Philippians goes on to say, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

You guys. I cannot stop thinking about this ice. I cannot stop thinking about my words. And I cannot stop thinking about how Jesus tells us that we also walk in the power of the Holy Spirit who can shift the atmosphere. Our words have the capacity to bring things into order. Our words can speak the blessing of heaven.  But our words can also disrupt and crack and cloud things too.

And this isn’t just about a bowl of tap water.

Sure I can say kind words to the cashier at the grocery store and brighten her morning for the minutes I’m standing at the conveyor belt. Sometimes I can even toss an action alongside the words and make or break someone’s day.

But if we begin to realize that if our words carry this much power, then what can they do to really bring about change?

I mean, if we stick with just the water business for a minute and apply only the concept of speaking blessing or curses to water, then think for a second about how that could impact a person. If our human bodies are made up of approximately 60% water, then just by way of my little experiment, that’s more than half of our bodies that could be jacked up by negative words.  Or conversely, more than half of our body in good working order.

I decided that I wanted to see what would happen if I melted the cursed water and then spoke blessing over it. I let it sit on the counter melting with the lid on to make sure no fool in my house went about drinking it…you know, just in case.

Once it melted, I spoke the exact opposite of the ugly things I’d spoken before. Where I’d called it bad, I said “water, you are no longer bad. I declare that you are good.” I’d said it was “cloudy” before and now I called it “clear.” I don’t know the exact opposite of “butthole” but I think I said it was “nice” or something to that effect.  And then I froze it again.

I was expecting it to come out with the perfect nautilus and clear as the day is long.  But what happened was SUPER WEIRD.

When I dumped out the container, I noticed that the top of the ice block was cracked and cloudy. It was maybe a quarter of the whole. When I flipped the ice over, the bottom though displayed the perfect nautilus suspended in clear ice around it.  The majority of the water was in order, but the surface had clearly been impacted and showed the cracks and disorder.

And isn’t it that way so often with us?

I shared this whack-o experiment with a precious-to-me group of writers I’ve been in a prayer group with for the past couple of years. We formed the group when our friend Stacey’s husband unexpectedly went into cardiac arrest and was comatose and expected to die over two years ago. All we were doing was making our voices heard by using a walkie-talking like app called Voxer to come together and pray for Mike. For several months, that prayer group became a holy ground like I have rarely stood on in my life.  It was as if our voices rang out in the throne room of heaven and we all got to listen in to the prayers of God’s people on behalf of one of His own.  And you guys, we saw atmospheres shift, diagnoses change, and a man on his death bead come back fully into the land of the living. 

Anyhow, I decided to tell them all about my little frozen experiment. I figured if anyone might hear me out just for a second, it was these gals.

My friend Kelli in the group, just adopted a little boy from China. For three years of his life he was tucked into the corner of an orphanage because no one quite knew what to do with him. Words were spoken over him like “disabled, stupid, lazy, and unmotivated,” and when Kelli and her family brought him home and doctors said “we just have to wait and see”, they haven’t quite known what they are waiting to see. 

My experiment resonated with something in her heart.  And here’s why I think it did, and does, and hopefully speaks life to your soul today too.

Because we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, paid for with a price so great that Almighty God can now look us in the eye and speak words of life and restoration to our hearts. 

The God who put the planets into alignment in the heavens is the same one who invites us to put his perfect words into our hearts and learn to speak them out of our mouths.

The God of all Creation….of nautilus shells, and pinecones, of waves and spiral-shaped galaxies, invites us into relationship with him and calls us to steward the influence we have wisely. He invites us to speak out words that bring about order and goodness, alignment and hope, to change lives around us, including our own.

And while we live in a broken world we may still see cracks on the surface of ourselves, what lies hidden inside His perfect love which will bring everything into order and alignment with his good plans for us.

I mean….Hallelujah to that, huh?!

The post When Words Wound appeared first on Logan Wolfram.

I honestly didn’t have the first clue what I was getting myself into when I walked up the long stairwell alongside my children. So often I think if we knew what lies ahead, we would probably completely avoid the circumstances that set us up for the wild rides in life that we endure in the first place. This day was no different.

I was completely dry. Our family was here because my youngest son had begged to come for two years and it was his birthday and the only thing he kept asking to do. My participation and presence in this place was a complete labor of love.

And speaking of love, if you don’t already know, I have a genuine, deep love for people. I have come to realize about myself these past few years however, that I don’t love too many people in one place with mass amounts of exposed flesh. I don’t love the idea of small bodies of water that kids are peeing in and spitting out washing over my body. I don’t love bumping into the bare flesh of people that I don’t know and I really don’t love the idea of recycled air all around me during flu season. But because we are all stuck together under the dome of an indoor waterpark, all of these things are completely unavoidable. Some might have walked into that humid room filled with splash pads and water slides, wading pools and waterfalls and have felt they’d found a respite from the cold winter weather… but me, I walked in and all I could see was large quantities of flesh and the flu.

After sitting in a chair overlooking the wave pool for awhile, watching my kids frolic in the fleshy, flu waters, I determined that I needed to deal with my drama and join them (lest I sit mortified with my thoughts of nearly naked bodies and germs for the next several hours). I put my pants and shoes in the locker we had just paid $15 to rent for the afternoon and walked towards my kids in the swimwear that I desperately wished had been a Hazmat suit.

My husband and I followed along and reminded them not to run as we made our way towards the waterslide area. There were sets of steps leading in several different directions so we chose one and joined the line.

* * *

The past few months have been hard. Life hasn’t gone like we expected in a lot of ways. There are things that we have begun that have gotten rocky and feel as if we will never see an end. I know that because God is good there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but for now I’m not able to see that light for myself. I know it’s there though because I know my God. And I know that even though it feels dark, we are still safe.

Psalm 18:28-30 affirms it for me, “For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.“

I’ve been angry too. Mad to be in this place and mad that I don’t know how to get out. I’ve been mad at other people who have impacted the journey that have landed me here, and mad for all the ways I think I should have been rescued by now or forewarned before these things happened. I’ve been working through offense in my heart towards those I hold responsible and even towards those who aren’t responsible at all but somehow feel connected in the midst of all my frustration. When your own sins land you in a mess that’s one thing, but when you find yourself in a mess that was no fault of your own, that’s a whole different story, and one that takes a lot more soul searching to emerge from without bitterness.

I refuse to let other people steal my joy. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to like the process of what it takes to hold onto it. Sometimes we just have to deal with the fact that we are in a dark tunnel and determine to live knowing that there’s light even when it’s not obvious. I can have joy even in the places that feel scary.

* * *

At the top of the stairs there was a teenager with a whistle and a walkie talkie hoisting giant four-person tubes from a conveyor belt to his right into a pool at the opening of the slide to his left. Groups of people took turns each nestling into his or her own opening of the 4-leaf clover shaped tubes. Every couple of minutes the teen-in-charge would say “have fun” and shove the tube into the entry of a red and yellow abyss.

I had no idea where they were going but imagined the large tube moving down a pipe at a speed a little bit faster than a lazy river. This would be fun.

My husband and I were instructed to be seated in the tube opposite of one another to help counterbalance our family. My boys were between us on each side. All of our legs came together at a hole in the center of the tube and we each grabbed hold of the handles alongside of us.

“Have fun” the pimple-faced youth said as he kicked us over the edge and into the pipeline.

Almost immediately we raced down the tube and soared over an edge that dropped straight downwards. We were barreling so fast that I couldn’t even take stock of what was happening. Suddenly, the tube catapulted up one side of a halfpipe and nearly tipped me over top of my husband as I clung for dear life to the grips on the tube. As fast as we had zipped up the one side we slung across to the other and continued back and forth, up and down across the half-pipe like something out of ESPN’s X-Games.

I began screaming uncontrollably. My voice had asserted itself beyond of my capacity to control it and I yelled over and over and over “I don’t like it! I don’t like it! I don’t like it!” The panic rose from my chest to my throat and my entire body began to tense and tingle.

My kids looked equally stunned and shouted over the rushing sound of swiftly flowing water, “Mom…stop yelling!” Despite their instruction I was unable to regain any semblance of composure as we darted from side to terrifying side of the pipe.

“I don’t like it! I don’t like it! I don’t like it!”, I continued. “I don’t like it!” I was shaking and couldn’t feel my face. “I don’t like it! I don’t like it. ” I thought I was going to burst into tears as my stomach jumped out of my skin over and over and over in what I discovered later that the park refers to as their “six-story funnel of fun.”

Speaking now from experience, I can confidently assert that dropping six stories in a raft with all that you hold dear is not fun. Not fun at all.

“I don’t like it! I don’t like it!” My husband was clearly growing exasperated by my inability to manage any other speech at this point in our 90 second journey. I couldn’t help myself, the same words continued spewing forth in rapid succession with each whipping movement of our raft.

“I don’t like it! I don’t like it! I don’t like it!”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter that you don’t like it Honey!!! Because you’re on it!” He shouted at me across the raft. His face showed both amusement and annoyance, neither of which I was able to address as I continued with the “I don’t like it!” monologues all the way to the end. At the bottom of the pipeline we barreled towards a set of steps where another whistle-clad teenager was waiting with a smile.

“Did you have fun?” he asked as he steadied the raft so we could exit.

“I don’t like it” was all I could manage to say as my husband peeled my shaking, soaked, fleshy self out of the tube and into a chair beside the ride. It was then that we discovered we had just experienced the park’s thrill ride called “The Tornado.”

I’m a month to the safe side of The Tornado experience now, but golly if I don’t still feel stuck in one on plenty of other days. In spite of my exit from the ride that day and 24 glorious hours later from the entire water park as well, I still find myself sometimes wanting to shout “I don’t like it” as I barrel through life on a ride I had no idea I was entering.

I still find myself struggling to catch my breath with experiences that were supposed to be fun but somehow end up sucking the air out of my lungs and color from my cheeks. There are moments in life recently that have felt much like that ride, dizzying, terrifying, and completely unexpected with a total lack of awareness for how long it will go on. And all I want to do is yell “I don’t like it” and exit the ride before it’s over…but just like with the Tornado, an early exit isn’t possible. There’s no lazy river you can select off to one side when the going gets rough, no lever you can pull to slow down the speed, no method available to end the madness, and so we just have to hold on for dear life and ride this thing to the end.

You know what I mean right? Sometimes we just have to hold on for dear life, trust the raft we are on, and ride it down through the crazy tunnel of doom til we get off at the end. We have to know that The Tornado was tested and approved and some engineer out there who specializes in these things determined that we would in fact make it through to the despite feeling as if we could die in the process.

Now I’m not saying that the Lord is a thrill manufacturing engineer, but I do know that the raft he puts me in to ride these things is secure. I know that His word is true and His character is loving and even if I’m shaking in my flesh all the way to the end, He will see me through and I will be ok.

Job 11:13- 18 offers encouragement to this very place in life, “If you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward him. If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and let not injustice dwell in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be secure and will not fear. You will forget your misery; you will remember it as waters that have passed away. And your life will be brighter than the noonday; its darkness will be like the morning. And you will feel secure, because there is hope; you will look around and take your rest in security.“

We may be on a rough and scary ride, but we won’t be abandoned to it. We may not like it, but we will triumph over it. Even when I am stuck and I don’t like it I can know that there is life and light and joy for me because God is good, and He is for me.

“Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” – Psalm 16:9-11

The post I Don’t Like It! appeared first on Logan Wolfram.

Literally.

And by “literally”, I don’t mean “figuratively” in the way that people misuse the word all the time either. I mean, the entire roof was most literally and legitimately knocked square off of the foundation and covered the front yard in a mess of boards and shingles. Even the decorative front lintel over the porch was all in a crushed up pile where the front door used to be.

And then all that mess just sat there in the front yard for over a week.

The company that was supposed to bring the dumpsters was two weeks behind schedule and so our house sat covered by the mess of all messes. You couldn’t even tell that the house was still there.

Turns out that the roof was the worst that one our contractor’s crews had ever removed. Over the years it had built up quite the heavy duty covering, and unbeknownst to any of us until they started trying to cut through it, there were five layers of shingles on that old roof.

Our contractor, Robert, told us that would amount to more than 1500 pounds of asphalt per ten foot square, and that there’s no real good reason the roof had held up as long as it had with all that mess weighing it down. It was sort of a marvel that it had happened and even survived as it was for as long as it had.

The demolition crew went through more than 50 saw blades in two days to get it all off, which interestingly enough they told us, is what they typically go through in an entire year.  All to say, removing the roof was apparently a beast of a task which left a beast of a mess.

The day that it was all completely removed, I walked around front and just stood there looking at it for awhile. I’d never quite seen anything like it. The roof was just gone, and what remained inside was a hot mess of wood and dirt and then rain on top of really old insulation. It looked like cotton candy once you’ve licked it and the sugar melts in on itself and all goos together, except that it was brown and seemed somehow depressing and hopeful all at once.

As I stood there just silently taking in the wreckage, a still small voice (that has felt awfully silent to me this year) decided to speak up for the first time in a long time.

“Funny how sometimes to make something wonderful and new, you have to blow off the roof and gut the whole thing so that it can be great for the next bunch of decades.”

I haven’t heard that old familiar voice in awhile. Perhaps it has been overpowered by all the sounds of demolition reverberating through the halls of my heart this year. It’s been a season where the roof seemed to be blown off of my life, but it wasn’t until I was standing and surveying actual, literal wreckage on our front lawn, that I realized sometimes there has to be a mess to make way for something better.

Sometimes there has to be a mess… to make way for something better.

Because the truth is that I’ve spent the better part of the past year feeling simply uncomfortable. Nothing has gone like I thought or planned…hardly a single thing, in fact. So many of my big dreams have felt broken, displaced, and even ripped completely out of my hands. Honestly, I’ve been left wondering what’s left of me when I’m not holding anything much to show for what I can do.

One question tickles often around my ear and asks, “If I don’t do enough, can I still be enough?” And while I know the correct answer in my head, apparently sometimes it takes a literal roof on the lawn to point out that there’s more to this plan than what meets the eye.

Because sometimes you have to blow off the whole roof and gut the whole thing so that the whole house can be made new.

A friend looked at the hot mess that is our house the other day and said, “doesn’t it totally stress you out to see it like this?”

And all I could think was “No! I am so stinking excited! The more walls they bang down, the more I can see the way it opens up! The more they tear apart, the more I can envision where we are going!…and where we are going to end up is AWESOME!”

I can see it, and I’m excited about it… because I know the plan.

I. Know. The. Plan.

To her it just looked like a hot mess of nails and boards and insulation covering the house and my lawn.

But when you know the plan for the end, the mess in the middle is just how you to get to the good stuff.

I had lunch with a precious mentor friend recently. As I was sharing my excitement and some of the truths that the small voice is speaking to me loudly again, she said to me, “you know, all I kept thinking while you were talking was that sometimes God wants to take off the ceiling so you can see how limitless the sky can be.”

Sometimes he has to knock off decades of heavy shingles that weigh us down so that we can see how limitless the sky can be.

I can barely breathe at the thought of how God must feel just like I do with this house when he looks at us.

We stand in a yard and survey what is often the wreckage of our life. It feels so damned UNCOMFORTABLE because we can’t see what any of it is supposed to be.

All we see is a giant mess of junk, without a dumpster to hold it all for ages. Sometimes, it’s so bad that you can’t even tell the house is there anymore.  We see wet insulation, buckled old wood, and plaster crumbled around antiqued wall joists. The only scent that tickles our nostrils is of mildew and mold from the rains that won’t stop pouring into the roofless house. And it is a hot, freaking mess of junk heaped all over everything.

Nothing is recognizable anymore.

But God…

But God stands there and breathes a sigh of relief.  Because he knows that while we think he just removed our heavily armored roof, he actually just lifted a ceiling and allowed the light to shine in again.

He knows that where there was hardly space to move well in a kitchen before, there’s going to be a big island that will invite others to gather around the action of a stove and fill their bellies with stuff that will stay with them for awhile. He knows that tearing out all the guts will bring old, faulty wiring up to code that is better for us. He knows how to change plumbing that has begun to crumble and leak where it shouldn’t. He knows what to do because he knows the end goal. He knows the plan.

And sometimes you have to remove years worth of ceiling in order to make the sky the limit.

There’s still so much that I don’t know…with this house or with this life right now.  But what I do know is that this is the first time I’ve even wanted to write anything at all in months. I know that I hear the familiar soft voice again, and that it showed up when I stood surveying wreckage all around me and let myself feel hopeful about what was to come.

I don’t have to know the plan, because I know the heart of the planner… and for the first time in a long time again, I find myself simultaneously excited and at peace with all that I can’t possibly know.

The post Uncomfortable appeared first on Logan Wolfram.

We have been in our new house for two weeks, but it has only taken that long for my heart to break into a million pieces and simultaneously be put back together each day. Every day I look out the picture window in the front of our house, and I have a clear view of their front door from here. The mint green paint is cheerful and someone made sure to hang white Christmas lights around it to keep it that way.

I’ve noticed that someone or many ones have made sure of a lot of things over these two weeks.

I don’t really know the family who lives there at all…yet.  I met her the first couple of days when we moved in and I took a dinner to introduce ourselves. I didn’t find out til later that day when a friend told me that they actually might have needed the dinner. Two days ago I took rolled out cookie dough and sprinkles so they could make Christmas cookies together. It was little and insignificant in the whole grand scheme, but I thought maybe it would be good to make another memory.

Today I’m sitting on my sofa in tears looking out the window at their circle drive jam-packed with cars. The yard is crawling with men in backpack blowers and work boots. None of the cars are from a lawn service, they’re all just regular guys.  A few minutes ago I saw another man and his son with rakes walking down the street and into the yard of the house with the green front door. They just started working alongside everyone else.  No one appeared to ask them for help, they just started working. More and more people kept showing up, it was an army of people all hard at work.

Sometimes the best help isn’t the kind you have to ask for, it’s the kind someone else just does because they saw a need.

First there were just two men. One of them I knew from college, so I waved and walked across the street to say hello. It only takes a couple of people to start a movement, and for the last couple of hours all I’ve seen in their yard is movement. It’s a big yard and there are a lot of leaves… too much for her to do on her own even if her two young sons helped out.

The first day we moved in my husband met her out in the yard with their boys. I think they were tossing a ball or something pretty normal. We didn’t see him and didn’t think much of it. But over the past two weeks, I have seen him daily from my front window.  Usually around lunchtime there are more cars parked in the drive than normal. The first time or two I saw him, he was walking to the green door in between two or three other men. Then after a few days passed, I noticed they were helping him walk and his pace had slowed. Next he pushed a walker, and towards the end of last week there was a medical van and some people showing her how to open and close a wheelchair. Three days ago there were five men helping him out of a car, into the chair, and to the front door. They all stayed close and walked inside. It was slow and deliberate and I sat on my sofa and cried. I’m not trying to watch or being weird, it’s just that this real life stuff is unfolding just outside the front window of our home.

It reminds me of the last months with my friend Melissa. I’ve had a front row seat to this kind of pain before.

Someone told me it’s in his brain. I don’t know if it started there or if it has simply spread and done the most damage since it arrived there. I’ve watched him get weak though and I’ve seen the cars coming in and out over days. “I’m glad they have such good community” I think to myself. “That is important.”

Today I was reminded of the power that pain can hold. The pain is in his body, but I see the way it shapes and touches everyone else. I know how it makes me feel when I look out the window and see the way it moves others too.  The thing about pain is that while it devastates, parts of it can expose a beauty not otherwise visible. Today the beauty looked like men and kids with rakes doing what needed to be done. Pain moved people to proactively love one another.

The Lord doesn’t let any part of this world go to waste, and while the enemy may be trying to destroy in some ways, I see God making things new in others. Redemption isn’t always seeing something fixed in the exact same way it broke, but it sure does make beauty from ashes. I’m seeing a redemption story unfolding in the yard across from me.

They all finished clearing the leaves there a bit ago and now they’re blowing the leaves in our yard and another neighbor’s too. What started out of one home, out of one life, has moved outward and touched us too.

I heard that they had to call in hospice. And whether or not that’s true, what does appear true is that their journey through this pain isn’t lessening. It’s not letting up, and I suspect mostly everyone around feels helpless. I know I do. We want to help though, we want to take the pain or make it go away. We certainly don’t want to live in it or have anyone we love or know walk through it.

What I see cultivated in the life across the street now spreads across their yard and into mine… all decked out in work clothes and ball caps. So I don’t have to have known him for a lifetime to be changed by him in just a few days. I’d guess the people who have known him a lifetime would say the same.

But what I do know is this, the legacy of friendship that this man has cultivated is the kind that changes communities. It’s the kind that can change the world. And the Lord is using that legacy of a life well lived to remind the enemy that pain doesn’t win in the end.

Pain may hold power, but it doesn’t hold the victory.

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

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