The truth is: it’s hard to stay well in a world that blows us in a different direction.

It is why we have to want to know peace – the lasting, deep down kind; want to be used by God in such a way that surprises us; want to sleep at night without the haunts of silent secrets…and want it more than anything.

It is the seek Me with ALL your heart kind of anything.  The I don’t care what I have to do to stay well, it is worth more than my momentary desire that could blow all the hard soul work, away.

Those of us who have not lived perfect lives…people, like me, who have had Jesus breathe into the dead religious spaces to create something really vibrant and new…those who have had addictions of another kind, to something physical or chemical, those who once walked in shame and now walk in truth…we have every good reason to never want to do life that old way.

And all of us, no matter who we are or where we’ve been, have crosses.  And not the Jesus, life-saving kind but the rough, worldly kind that splinter our wellness.

To stay well, we must do more than just know…we must do.  We must live in a space where commitment is strong and dedication is a must and the head won’t turn to the right or left but will stay steady and ready to fight what threatens our wholeness.

These are such things.

1)   Bring it out.  It is never comfortable to out ourselves about something hard.  But it’s in those hard admissions that strongholds break and freedom is experienced.  Secret places kill us, spiritually. We only truly live when we live truth.

2)   Do Bold Things. Flesh is often loud but rarely brave.  It will talk a big game but won’t back it up with action.  But the one who desires to live a life of wellness will be willing to do whatever it takes to live that way, even if that requires making bold moves that feel scary.  They will facilitate their own accountability — support their own recovery by living everyday in a proactive stance that makes relapse less likely.

3)   Remember where you came from.  Part of being well is remembering how sick we once were and how much Jesus healed us. Staying well requires that we never forget the hollow place God rescued us from and move in our everyday lives with overwhelming gratitude for it. We thank Jesus by the way our life lives and gives grace.

4) Stay with Jesus. The best way…the only way…I have ever found to get better is to pursue God harder.  The only thing that has ever kept my fleshly, independent self well is to stay in His presence.  His Word breathes life and wellness and long-term success in recovery. The person who wants to stay well, above all else, will stay with Jesus.

It is about more than getting well.  It is about staying there.

It is about more than wanting wholeness.  It is about wanting it more than anything.

It is remembering where we’ve been, thanking God for where we’ve come, and steadying ourselves so that the strong winds don’t win.

*Conversation: What aspect of staying well is most difficult for you? How can that change?

{*Reminder: my Neue podcast is live, today. I’m giving away one more audio copy of {w}hole, if you can guess the one question Roxy asked me that I’ve never been asked before. Leave your best guess here or on Monday’s post. Winner announced Monday.}

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We are having some important conversations on this blog, and that excites me.

{As promised, the winners of last week’s give-away of the audio version of {w}hole: Sarah Jarrell and Linda R.  Congratulations, friends!}

If you follow this blog you know that I don’t typically use this space to promote my upcoming events or interviews. But I am making an exception, today, because something has come up that I find that important.

This Wednesday, 2/22, I’ll be featured in a Neue podcast HERE. If you are not familiar with Neue, it is the go-to magazine for the culture of the church and has featured leaders from Francis Chan to Rob Bell to Joni Eareckson Tada {a personal faith hero of mine}, so I am honored to be in the company. I would love for you to listen in — a cool girl named Roxy and I had an important, honest conversation about the church…one I believe can change the tone of many things within our community.

She asked me a question no one has ever asked me before, so it’s worth your listen, just for that.

And…if you listen in and can guess what that question is (leave a comment here with your best guess), I’ll send you an audio book of {w}hole, too.  {hint: it was towards the beginning of our conversation.}

Cause…you know…I love you.

See you Wednesday.

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There is a reason I stand on stages and speak.

It is not because I like them. The truth is, the young girl who used to crawl under restaurant tables to avoid conversation still lives, somewhere deep down inside.

It’s also true…that I don’t like Christian celebrity and I’m not sure how it’s possible to speak and somehow be invisible, and yet it will always be my goal.

Because the only reason a person would need to hear my voice is not because I can spew my own opinion or make up some canned speech that gets people impressed…but in the words I say about Jesus and how His love not only singlehandedly transformed me from the inside out but inspired me to get out from under tables to talk about it.

Only an act of redemption by the Savior could do that.

And I know…that like me and the guy in Mark 5 who got demons taken out of him and put into pigs…you have a moment that He entered your life and turned everything upside down in the most divine way.

And I know…that it doesn’t take an elevated stage for your voice to be heard about the One who changed your life.

Because sometimes your voice will actually be your hands which speak about Jesus when they serve.

And sometimes your voice will actually be your eyes which speak loud volumes about Jesus because they smile with a joy that could not be acquired any other way.

And whether that is in front of 1,000 people or the person behind the counter at Starbucks who senses a certain spirit about you — the presence of God in your life — it is your privilege to use your voice to speak out for Him.

Your voice matters because all voices matter and especially the ones that share about Jesus.

If He has changed you, then use your voice to tell about it. Because the most compelling evidence that Jesus is real is a living, breathing life that is changed.

{GIVEAWAY! **In honor of our determination to USE OUR VOICE to matter, I’m giving away 2 copies of my audio book of {w}hole. I was honored to speak the message of this book…I’d love to speak it directly to you. Just LEAVE A COMMENT here, about anything related to this post. Winners announced in Monday’s post.}

 *Want me to bring The {w}hole Story Tour to your town? Email Shawna at booklisawhittle@gmail.com with inquiries and requests.

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…behind every car steering wheel, every counter of a retail store, every sign that says “will work for food” is a real, live person.

They bring with them, baggage. They have ideas about the world and many of them have been shaped by what thus far, their world has taught them.

Some shed more tears than others.  Some dress their hurts better.  But they all share – we all share – the common space of being broken in some way with absolutely no hope of ever being able to make ourselves well.

This is my world.  And yet, in tangible ways, my world is really, two.

One of my worlds has alarm clocks set to 6 and school lunches and carpool and dishes, laundry, and what I may or may not burn for dinner.  It has laughter and love and difficulty and real life things like marital fights and solicitor calls too early on a Saturday morning and struggling to be a good wife, daughter, mother and friend who makes good on all my promises.

My other world is different.  It is a ministry world full of book galleys and radio interviews and plane trips and standing on bright stages with much more attention than I deserve.  It is a world of buy my product and please book me for your event and how can I keep it real when someone out there thinks I’m some kind of big deal and my flesh begs me to believe it.

And I find myself just wanting to stand up with a bullhorn voice and ask us all to just drop the madness of celebrity and remember that Jesus is the only One worth getting excited over – then, now, forever.

I remember that every person breathes, every person lives, every person struggles, and every person somewhere inside feels like they are the only one who does in that way.

And what I really want is to honor the fact that people are not products and to treat them that way means that we have somehow purchased the mindset of insanity that says a hierarchy of human really exists.

That we have somehow forgotten that it is not about the book that is sold, but the person who is reading it.  That it is not about how many can visit a blog but the eyes that see it and Jesus connects the dots to make the words even matter.

That people are not products and that means the people who hand us food in the drive-through and forget our napkins for the 1,000^th time.  And people who stand in line to get an autograph of a person who has really done nothing to deserve that honor other than to get up and do something with the body Someone else gave them.

And so, we honor people when we remember this.  And we do ourselves a favor, too, because life is beautiful when we travel humbly, graciously, honestly.

And that is what I want to do.

Because I am not a product.

And neither, my friend, are you.

Conversation: Have you ever felt like a product? How does that feel, and can we do better with this with others?

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{You have been forewarned.}

Consider this a disclaimer, of sorts…as things on this blog and in this community are about to get serious.

As I wrote in my last post, I’m going hard after God this year. And I’m not altogether sure what that is going to look like.

But here is what I do know:

I know that I want to do this with you.  I want us to journey together, to explore the vastness of our great God, to be bold together and make big moves and use our life for something more than what our human minds can think up.

I also know that this is going to be wild.  And fun.  And interesting.  And we may have some conversations that are hard and we may lose some fans along the way and we may make some people nervous and bust our own chops and that will all be ok because we will find Jesus in every bit of it.  And I believe that for this reason alone, it will be a most worthy experience.

If this is something you want too, I say to you…let’s go.

Let’s travel hard after God, together.  Let’s be willing to own our stuff and admit that the church, though deeply important, is not perfect.  And then let’s talk about how we can be better.

Let’s speak up for those that can’t speak for themselves, use our influence well, and shut our mouths when it’s just our opinion.  We’ve probably given that enough.

Let’s become mesmerized, again, by the power of the Gospel and turned off by the idea of Christian celebrity.  Let’s go back to those days where it was just about making God’s name famous and we believed that the transformation of souls came not from bright lights and big screens but the raw explosion of truth from the Word.

And in the process, let’s see our fear of boldness lesson.  Let’s watch our attraction to loud theological wars, well-coiffed Christianity and marginal living, lesson.  Let’s see our earnest prayers increase and our half-hearted prayers be snuffed out.

Let’s watch our commitments be taken seriously and see ourselves run…hard, bold, and serious after The Way.

I’m ready.

Are you? 

Then let’s go.

*Conversation: What part of this passionate pursuit of God scares you/excites you the most?

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I do not believe in resolutions any more than I believe God needs a man-made calendar to make anything new.

What I do believe in are commitments, surrender, and recognizing when God is messing with you and being willing to go publically dark while He does what He privately needs to do.

I want God. That is where I am.

Even as I type this, I feel much less like the overtired housewife, dreading the treadmill…lamenting my to-do lists and the laundry piles that never seem to end.

Instead I feel like an old time preacher, standing in the white canvas walls of a puffy tent, palms sweating in anticipation of the delivery of words.  And like old time preachers, my words may go too long and I will seem unaware because I am consumed with the message.

Before I lay this blog down for a month, allow me to share what I believe He is telling me…for in it, maybe there is a word or two for you.

~Pursue Me in a full-on sprint, the kind where arms pump and legs race and at the end it is the good kind of exhausting.

~When you feel Me messing with you, let Me.

~Pay attention to the rumbling, even when things don’t make sense, remembering that I don’t usually work in any traditional way and that rumbling often represents an uprising of a spiritual kind.

~Don’t fear what others may think or say, as that is a terroristic tactic of Satan meant to take you out of the game, altogether.

~Have integrity, even when it costs you something else.

~Stop wasting time trying to fix yourself when that introspection costs you prolonged time out in the field, pointing people to Me.  You know enough, now just go.

~Dive in, sometimes blindly.  Do the hard thing without knowledge of how it will play out.  Say no to things your freedom allows but at the end of the day, won’t make you more holy.

~Lay things down and simply, walk away.  Offer praise in moments of pain. Live the Word, once and for all.

~Stop giving excuses for why your way works better.  Know the difference between human imperfection and when “I’m messy” becomes a crutch.

~Endure, not in the quick fix way the world promotes but in the kind of raw, rogue Old Testament way that made regular people heroes.

~Know that nothing works but me and quit wasting time pretending it does.

~Realize that what you grasp the tightest is what you most need to release and that I honor doing hard things first rather than last resorts.

~Chase only the accomplishment of loving me more than anything else.

My friends, I dive into 2012, not knowing what else Jesus may say.  I enter my 30 days with Him expectantly, believing that in my stillness He will continue to be loud.

And as always, I will share those things with you as He prompts.

In the meantime, will you join me in saying…

I want God.

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It was how things felt on Sunday, when my pastor said this:

“Our purpose here on earth is to give our life away.”

The 11 words hit my ears and all-at-once I felt like a hoarder…of the parts of me that rest in comfortable piles I keep close.

It was a call most personal…to be willing to sort through the piles and give every last thing, every last piece of me…away.

I admit that the thought of choosing to give away more of me makes me feel like the older-and-more-female-version of the little drummer boy, knowing that there are but meager offerings this flawed vessel has to present.

But all of it…any of it…every of it…is still not mine.

It is His.  And the offering starts, today, with those in my closest circle of influence.

Today…

I will give me to my husband…knowing how I forget to laugh with him when I feel weary and how much he needs me to stay present.

I will give me to my children…respecting their need for me to look into the whites of their eyes…offering tangibles that make words about their importance not feel idle.

I will give me to my close community of friends, old and new, and the family I will soon see but haven’t seen in years…knowing that taking time with them for granted is not only foolish, but costly.

I will not wait to give me, lest I take back what has been determined to no longer be mine.

And so…this will be my last blog of 2011.  I’ve loved every minute of this past year we’ve shared in thoughts, questions and pursuit of our Savior. But for the next week and a half, I need to give me to those who know and love me most.

I leave you with this charge, that I pray for this entire community of friends, may ring true.

May we finish this year strong, resting in the good work that God has begun in us, eager with hope for the things He still has to do.

May we offer ourselves fully, without needing to know how we are useful.

May we give our lives away in ways we were never meant to keep.

See you in 2012.

Be well.

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‘You’re far happier giving than getting.’” {Acts 20:35}

There is a place that lives inside all of us…a place that wants more.

So when the Christmas lights shine and the mall shops sit, overstuffed…we numbly bow to the gods of commercialism, pretending that the more is about things that come in shiny packages with crisp, wiry bows.

And then the day leaves the calendar, and we, again, are left with our voids.

~Will you join me, this year, in making the more about something a bit different…something fulfilling that lasts more than just one day?

~Would you consider sponsoring a child through Compassion to give yourself and those in your home the gift of learning to be a giver?

In the spirit of giving, I want to give you a gift for your sponsorship of a child.  From today until January 3, if you sponsor a child with Compassion, please send an email to lisa@lisawhittle.com with the child’s name and country you have chosen, and I will send you a copy of my new book, {w}hole!

Ideas for how to give more through Compassion:

1) Visit the Compassion site HERE…find a child, and commit to praying for them by name in the coming year.

2) Visit the Compassion site HERE…find a child, and start a personal relationship with a child by making a monthly commitment of sponsorship.

~Read more about my Compassion trip to El Salvador HERE.

~Read a true story about a Compassion sponsored child HERE.

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I cannot see a face, and that frustrates me.  But for their heart I pray, that it will be joined with mine in common threads that only Jesus can tie.

And then sometimes, in God’s grace, He lets me see a face and know a name.

In this case, Brittany.  Here…her own words about something many of us struggle with: thinking our one big life experience defines our story.

I used to think my Mormon childhood was my story.

It was the only thing that made me different, the defining experience that molded who I was and who I was to become. I’d heard some stories described as “great testimonies,” as if there was a scale of pasts and the more dramatic they were, the more powerful. My Mormon past shocked people most, so I figured that must be it, my story.

The problem was, I hated telling it. I believed I was supposed to share it, but it just never came out quite right when I tried. People didn’t clap or say ‘amen’ or shout ‘praise Jesus’  when I finished speaking; they just stared or asked crazy questions I didn’t know how to answer.

So I hid it. I ignored it. And because I believed it was my story, the hiding and ignoring brought guilt and shame in heavy doses. If I wasn’t using my story for the glory of God, I was letting Him down, I thought.

And then, I read {w}hole.

As my eyes skimmed over pages scattered with black and white, my soul breathed easy and light with the awareness that God had brought me to that moment on purpose. “Holes are created when we allow our experiences to become our story,” I read, and I knew that was it, the truth He was leading me to. The freedom He wanted me to find.

I finally realized being raised in the Mormon church was an experience. An important, life-altering, character-shaping experience, but an experience nonetheless. And believing that one experience was my whole story created a hole. And that hole became a home for guilt and shame.

My story is so much more than one experience. It is the story of a girl trapped by religion and released by grace. It is the testimony of God’s constant pursuit of our hearts, even when we’re looking for Him in the wrong places. It is the discovery of a relationship with a Savior who still lives, forgives, and loves…it is the story I will share.

Brittany Williamson is a twenty-something who is amazed every day by the grace of her God. She is passionate about the purpose and potential of her generation and loves journeying with other twenty-somethings on her blog, www.faithinbetween.com. She can also be found on Twitter (@britmwilliamson) and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/faithinbetween).

Question: Can you relate to Brittany’s story about how an experience in her life once defined her?  Is there an experience you have lived that you have allowed to define your “story?” Brittany and I would love for you to share…

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