On the day I typed its words, getting published was the farthest thing from my mind.

Instead, I typed broken hearted, with a struggling faith, a husband who had lost his job and 3 kids under the age of 4 hanging like monkeys on my ankles.

It’s interesting…how struggle brings forth art.

It is also interesting, how much big worded theology sounds small when life hits and the game of life is played for real.

I knew the Bible verses people shared with me, and I knew about the sovereignty of God.  I knew they meant well when they said maybe God has a plan, though those words, too, sounded wrong.

Because what I didn’t know was how to keep the bank from putting a padlock on our front door…what I should tell my kids about why daddy looked serious a lot…why their mom cried on the phone when they were supposed to be napping.

I, myself, was a child.  And my Father had sorely disappointed me.

But as the weeks went and the flowers outside died and came to life, again, my mind let me remember.

What I’d learned as a child.  Believed all my life.  Had to be true, or nothing I’d ever done mattered a whole lot, anyway.

The simple spoke to me, when bigger words never could.

Jesus loved me.

He cared.

He saw me.

He knew my hurt and read my heart.

Every day I feared a padlocked front door…every moment I pouted, cried, lashed out, crumpled in my dark closet to beg Him to please do something now, the simple words came back.

It didn’t change my circumstance.  But it coated my heart.

It is a word for today, maybe for you.  To remember: who He is.  That He loves.  How He sees, knows, and cares.

It’s true.

*Encouragement: What is a core truth you have rested on when real life hit hard? {Please, share. You never know who needs to hear it.}

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How can Christians say we love if we don’t let homosexuals be themselves? 

Are some preachers bullies, chauvinists who promote an old school mentality against women who speak to men — lead, spiritually? 

It is on this subject I’ve recently heard a lot — about how women leaders are happening now, as if we were a clothes trend that went away but is coming back around.

And the banter begins: ministry leaders taking to social media, criticizing each other for being too open or too closed, too egotistical or irrelevant, too sympathetic, too uneducated, too anything you can imagine.

Their quotes will be retweeted.  Their blogs will get many comments. Their opinions laced in passionate questions will be echoed, shared, taken in.

I get it.  It’s just not my thing.

The truth is, I don’t find it particularly helpful to the Jesus cause to spend time and influence on infighting about things that ultimately take the focus off of Him.

And maybe that’s about preference, not conviction, that I have recused myself from those kinds of conversations.  But I just happen to believe that time is short and laborers are few and Jesus can’t do His life changing thing with His followers constantly droning on and on about why our denominations and interpretations of the Bible are more correct.

Are there beliefs/causes/truths we should stand for? Yes.

Will those stands sometimes warrant a public forum? Perhaps.

Do I believe in the right to verbalize an opinion or conviction? Yes.

But I do not believe that personal right ever trumps personal responsibility.

So it is with passionate heart that I share with you a few things to remember, should you choose to join a conversation/controversy.  Before you weigh in, here are some things to strongly, truthfully ask and consider.

1)   Does my position/stance come from personal baggage, past damage or emotional hang-ups from experiences with a specific group?

2)   Am I giving opinion without prayer, research or fact?

3)   Even if I have fact, is this mean spirited against someone or damaging to the cause of Christ?

4)   Is this a matter of “I can” instead of “I should?”

5)   Is my desire to weigh in rooted in my hope to boost blog numbers, gain more followers through controversy, be seen as an expert?

6)    Is this mostly about me?

My encouragement today is simply this: that we use our words sparingly, prayerfully, and wisely.

Because the last thing Jesus needs is for us to be enamored by the sound of our voice, right fighting in His name about our opinions.

God knows, His cause is much greater.

*Conversation: Which question would you find most helpful in determining when/when not to weigh in? Think it’s important to consider them?

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I googled someone the other day.

He was a popular Christian musician who once sang for audiences of eager fans in large arenas with green rooms full of lavish food.

Now he is a former popular Christian musician who plays his guitar for YouTube audiences of a few hundred, his dog, and Jesus.

In many ways, he’s the same guy he always was.  Just now, his audience looks quite different.

And I was reminded…that big audiences do not make the message more important. 

It is how we view our audience that is listening.

Sometimes, in our I want more moments, we are tempted to forsake the small audience, forgetting that young minds and hearts that live in our home often listen more intently than people who hear songs and words that come out of expensive speakers on a stage.

We forget that people at work…in our neighborhood…at the gym…have been listening when we said we knew Jesus and their ears and eyes have opened wide to silently gather more proof.

The truth is, small audiences can be far scarier than audiences of many more, with eyes locking and bodies close enough to physically reach out and touch.

But they are rich.  Because it is in small audiences we often find stronger community, more humility, greater opportunity to live out hands-on holiness and character that pleases the heart of God.

It’s true, that bigger audiences have their merit, too, insomuch as we can use our passion and gifts to touch more people.  But sometimes things are lost in such crowds: the lights become too bright, the stages become too high, the faces become seas of noses and numbers.

And maybe the former popular Christian musician misses the old days of green rooms with lavish food.  Maybe he misses the crowds and sharing his gift with the masses.

But maybe he has found a way to be fulfilled with a few hundred YouTube viewers, his dog and Jesus because he is honored to know anyone, at all, is listening.

I am.

They are.

To you, too.

Whatever our audience, may we never believe that the size dictates the worth of the message…the importance is in the number of people who are listening.

*Conversation: Do you believe it is important not to get caught up in the size of your audience? What happens if/when you do?

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Yes, you have a long way to go. But you’ve come a long way, too.

Maybe it’s just me that struggles with the guilt over all the things I’m not, all the ways I’ve failed, all the things I wished I’d done or said or hadn’t.

But I doubt it.

Because we are human, you see, and humans aren’t supernaturally wired to offer grace to the flesh.  Including, and sometimes, especially…our own.

And yes, sometimes we assign grace the job of excusing us from our sins, but not always. More often, we tuck it away in dark drawers for only worthy people to pull out and wear.

Sometimes our biggest critic is the one inside our head that spouts nonsense that we take with us to work, church, kid’s sports games, the dentist, and bed.

And it’s that nonsense that tarnishes our hope, keeps us from getting better. But it’s believable nonsense because it could all be true if it weren’t for love, forgiveness, Jesus.

I am no expert on the grace.  But I know a lot about the nonsense.

I have a long way to go.  I suspect…so do you.

But we’ve come a long way, too, and maybe today that is what we most need to dwell on — the grace to be a screw up — in my case, daily.

Remembering where we once were.

Offering gratitude to the One who led us somewhere better.

Taking captive, every thought that is not productive.

Bowing in thanks, breaking off a piece of the bread of grace, offering it to ourselves for the promising journey that lies ahead.

Here’s to that.

*Conversation: Is it hard for you to give yourself grace? If yes, why?

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“All my desires have not been gratified, but thy love denied them to me when fulfillment of my wishes would have proved my ruin or injury.” ~Valley of Vision

Even as I write this post, I don’t like it.

There is a 2-year old rebel inside of me that, at the very thought…wants to ball up my fists, make the mad face, burst out in tears with mouth wide open to expose patchy fields of teeth.

It’s not pretty, when God tells me no.

Mainly, it hurts.  Because even though I know the truth from the Word about God’s sovereignty and design, still sometimes it seems that His no is a cruel rejection of the better I want that He won’t let me have.  Even more…sometimes it feels like a direct and cruel rejection of me.

I wonder if you can relate…to the no sometimes feeling like a sorry, but you’re not good enough — an if you were better, then what you want would be yours.  I wonder if you, too, have weathered the rejections that felt personal…cut to the core…tapped on the insecurities, made flesh feel useless, unworthy…allowed the not of God whispers in the ear to all sound true.

It is a reality: that it is how a no sometimes feels.

But if the trust our lips say we have for God truly exists, we have to understand the no, differently.

~Know that a no may have nothing to do with God, other than that He allowed it.  And if He allowed it, even an ugly rejection in His hand can turn out well.

~Believe that He knows the big picture and we don’t.  And if we did, we would agree He knew better.

~Have hope that the no very well could be because there is something even greater that we could miss if He said yes to us with this.

~Dive headfirst into the hardcore, deep down trust that He would never have brought us into this world to have us do nothing, become nothing, but to be ever, profoundly useable and feel fulfilled in it.  Either He was lying when He breathed out Psalm 139 or it is a truth we must believe despite how we feel.

I don’t have the answers to the no.  If I did, I still might not like them.

But I do believe that the God who made both you and me loves us enough to withhold what we think we want and need…for what only He knows is best.

*Conversation:  Can you relate to this post? Let’s talk about it.

{Congratulations to Beth and Rachel…audio book winners of {w}hole! }

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A God blogger.

It is not that the title is offensive.  I have, in fact, been called much worse. =)

It is also not that the title is not true.  I do blog about God.  Really, only about God because I find everything else far less interesting.  So in a very technically correct way, Drew Marshall is right.

But the truth is, I don’t like labels of any kind.  I don’t think a person’s life can be summed up in a multi paragraph bio, nor do I believe that packaging some of a person’s successes and passions into a quick, catchy tagline to describe them is fair.  In my mind, I am a woman who shares what she learns about God with other people.  It sometimes happens to be on something called a blog.

Please hear me: I’m not trying to play word games, nor am I truly mad at Drew Marshall.  In fact, I enjoyed our interview so much that I am hoping we can do it, again. {He’s my people.}

But I am a person that believes to the core that our roles often cause holes in life and who you are is not what you do. So as I satisfy the need for people to know identifying things about my life and ministry on a page of this site called About Lisa, I grapple with the inconsistency of my desire to be so much more than my own words describe me.

And it goes much deeper than that.  I believe these things are only a symptom of how, as a society, we label, categorize, classify people and how really wrong that is.

May I boldly say that I believe, too, that Jesus and I agree.

And so, these and other thoughts spurred a post about this for a ministry called People of the Second Chance.  It’s a group I fit in well, if I fit in anywhere.

What I wrote there on the subject I cannot write here any better.

I’d love it (alot) if you would go THERE after you finish here and read it.

And because I know that’s a lot to ask to people on limited time and because I am willing to ask because I find this subject so very important, I’d like to throw in an incentive.  Anyone that heads over, reads and comes back here to share their thoughts about it will be entered to win 1 of the 2 copies I’m giving away of the audio version of my book {w}hole.  Here’s a recent review about it, in case you wonder if it’s even worth your time. {Winner to be announced on Monday.}

“Using a play on words—“hole” versus “whole”—Whittle delivers her own work with painful honesty. In crisp, clear diction she focuses on three areas of life that commonly have “holes”: religion, roles, and experiences. Matching voice to mood, she portrays her transformational healing journey, richly recounting how God spun the things she most disliked about herself into healing and complete wholeness. Her characterization of how God was the hammer and she was the nail He hammered brings tears. As she describes her feelings and struggles at pivotal moments in her life, her voice captures the emotions of her journey. Ultimately, she learns to draw close to God, accept His love and grace, and become the woman He created her to be.”   G.W. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2012]…

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Because, you see, this life…it’s not easy.  What may a doable today might be an insurmountable tomorrow, and we will need more guts than we currently have to face it.

And when those requiring more guts moments occur, sometimes even tough people crumble and strong people buckle because courage doesn’t just show up for burly Goliaths.  It finds small Davids who stand up to them.

Courage doesn’t just happen.  We don’t wake up one day and order it off a glossy menu.  It develops from small steps consistently walking toward big fears.

Daily, we practice it.

{Practicing…the process of conquering something, working on something, getting better at something, praying for something.}

It is what I’m thinking about a lot these days.

Because, you see, God is pressing me toward a more unconventional ministry…to cities, churches, venues, people that most need to hear the message of {w}hole.  It will be a melting pot of ministry like I have never before known, and I’m throwing whatever rules I’ve had for God out the window to simply say yes.

And as I walk into prisons, addiction facilities, retreat centers and onto bright stages of a church…together we will be broken and open and ready to share stories about the God of the filled holes.  And our differences won’t seem important and our spirits will be kindred.  And the heart of this little Baptist girl born a wild bull who has journeyed hard with the church beats fast at the very thought.

But to do it I will need courage.  The truth is, just to finish this day, in a way I may not even know…I will need it, too.

I know that you share my need.  I know that you may face a Goliath bigger than mine.  And I know that the thought of your Goliath haunts you at times and you wonder how in the world you can stare it in the eye and not buckle.

And all I want you to know in this post is that for both of us, finding courage does not magically appear.  

But it is about that one step…this moment…walking toward the big fear.

So that when we must face it, maybe it won’t look as big.

*Conversation: Is there something right now that is requiring you to have courage? I want to pray for you, friends. Leave me a comment…with or without details…and I will.  

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It is by far the coldest, quietest place, where passions don’t exist and hopes have been deflated and the echo of emptiness pierces still air.

And the booze doesn’t work.  And the shopping gets old.  And the kids grow up. And the house has been bought and paid for and still it doesn’t feel awesome.

And the only way to not wind up in that space won’t be from working out so much that other people admire our bodies or becoming really smart so people will whisper about our brilliance at dinner parties or around the neighborhood pool.

But it is in being led to live by what we do not want to become. 

Today, these thoughts lead me…about where I do not want to be, in that, my the end day.

I don’t want to have fought for nothing.

I don’t want to have valued nothing, known nothing, wept over nothing.

I don’t want to have tasted nothing, seen nothing, felt nothing.

I don’t want to have known nothing of sacrifice, said nothing words, loved nothing gods like money and popularity and forever looking young.

I don’t want my kids to grow up and say they saw me stand for nothing.

I don’t want to have spent my life seeing nothing movies, eating nothing candy, loving nothing things that never lasted as long as I wanted them too but knowing nothing of the things that will eternally matter.

I don’t want to be a nothing woman with nothing stirring in my soul, nothing pressing on my heart, nothing that says I fought for what was right and stood up for God and at some point stopped being scared of everything that might take me down.

May this…the thought of living a life of nothing scare me more than anything else.

*Conversation: What do you NOT want your life to be about? 

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Other things I cannot change are less genetic but feel just as permanent.  In some ways, my reaction to them is more visceral because they are things that I know God didn’t paint when His brushstroke made me.  And that makes them feel a great deal unnecessary.

But life is tough. People are fallen. Weird, ugly, unnecessary things happen to all of us.

And the perfect people God created don’t exist once they suck in this world’s air.

This post is not a lame lamenting over my short, chubby fingers or the fact that to this day I have pin prick reactions to things that touch my scarred religious skin.  It is not a post to buoy belief in the idea that anyone, anytime CAN change, which I believe but is a forward movement that doesn’t include things in past history that cannot.

But it is a post to say to honest words to you, my very important reader, about your own life, if you’ll allow me that privilege.

I know you have things in your life you’d like to change but can’t.  I know you can’t go back in time and reverse a wrong or make a different choice or protect yourself from something unnecessary that was chosen for you.  I know if you could, you would.

But what you can do now is use it for something good.

Because you see, no one is ever inspired by a person who seems perfect.  As far as I know, plastic has never been interesting enough to spark any movement, change any game.

But battle scars? They are honest…moving…real.  They incite bravery and honor and cause people to rise up against injustices that pain the Artist who never brushed them.

And they are important.  Because in God’s sovereign twist of things that are most heinous, He can redeem the hardest, ugliest, most painful place inside of us and cause it to be the place most Kingdom usable.

We use what we cannot change…and somehow that makes the unnecessary things of this world become necessary in the realm of the eternal.

I ask you today: What can you not change?

Work with it.  Pray for it to be redeemed, for you to learn to see in it a bigger, more inspiring story.

And then…when God adds to it His sovereign twist…use the mess of out of it.

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The picture – not a literal one in a magazine – but the one coloring our minds about human viability.  The one where worth is deemed by someone who isn’t God.

We won’t admit it, but we all [at some point] do it.  We run to the pretty people who stand in the light hoping that if we stand in their light maybe we will shine, too.

Success taps on that place inside us that longs to know what it feels like to be considered that important.

And yes, I believe in reaching goals.  And yes, I think we should strive to become better.

But I read these words of commentary about the Bible’s Jeremiah, and I am convicted…about success, popularity, and the way we worship it.

“Although Jeremiah prophesied for 40 years, he never saw his people heed his words and turn from their sins.” ~NLT

And I am reminded: that a life dedicated to Jesus follows a different path. 

Because success in the Kingdom often means these things:

 Faithfulness without fruit.

          Risk without reward.

          Sacrifices never seen.

          Having next to nothing and giving it, anyway.

          Attempts for God that may fail.

Jeremiah’s message would likely have never gone YouTube viral.

But God saw it…everytime he got up and sweated passionate bullets of truth all over an audience that wouldn’t listen.  He saw him year 1 and 2 and 10 and 26 and 40, being faithful to the call without the outward success others might say would make it all worth it.

We can crave getting ahead and finding resources that will help us do it…listen to the noise…waste our lives buying into the airbrushed picture.  But I don’t want to. And I know that is not a popular thing to say and I say it anyway, because I don’t care about being politically correct when it comes to the things of God.

I want to be successful like Jeremiah: doing it scared, doing it without reciprocation, doing it without promise of becoming known, appreciated, labeled worthy..successful…important.

Those other rules — the ones set by someone who isn’t God — I can’t follow.

*Conversation: Talk about success and following “those rules.” Where are you with this? I value your input.

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