I said something out loud last week, something that only my husband and very closest people knew has been brewing in my heart for two decades. It’s a little big dream. Sometimes really little, and sometimes really big: it floats back and fourth between being buried in real responsibilities and burning to come out as if absolutely nothing is in its way. But lately, even though the responsibilities are bigger and heavier and feeling much more like I cannot do this all than at any other time in my life, this little big dream is trying to get out—forcing its way in to my thoughts and daily rhythms, sometimes invited, but more often than not showing up like a surprise houseguest that I must quickly change the dirty sheets and vacuum the guest bedroom for.

(And now that I write it, that is a fairly accurate metaphor for what this dream feels like.)

I want to write a book. A real one. I want to force myself down a path of focus and discipline and hearing from the Lord; crafting all my thoughts, my fears, what I’m learning, how I’m failing, where I’m growing and how the gospel enters in and turns all of that on its head, and I want to put that journey into prose that feels like having coffee with a good friend or wrapping up in the softest blanket. I want to write words that resonate, that connect us all by the common threads of never measuring up but longing to be enough. I want to tell the truth about myself, sharing stories that make readers feel like we’ve been friends for a lifetime. But mostly, I want it all to point to Jesus.

That last part is the real dream. Living a life and leaving a legacy that gives God glory.

But here is the hard part: they say you need a platform. The people who know about book writing stuff say you need to have a following, a social media presence, and a significant corner of the internet carved out that readers actually stop by and say hello in. They say people need to sorta-kinda-already-know who you are.

Well I don’t like any of that, not even a little bit. Because that advice feeds an idol in my life that I desperately want to leave at the foot of the cross; broken in pieces right there so that nothing stands between me and an unhindered gaze up at Jesus. (Jesus lets us look up at him, let’s not move past that miracle without a moment of awe). I am too quick to take comfort in the approval of others while my husband is concerned about our time together. I am all too easily comforted when my words about motherhood draw applause while my children are shooed away for the fourth time while I finish crafting them. I easily mistake writing about faith and justice for actually living faith and justice.  And that’s the thing about writing: when you have done it long enough, you start to get real good with words but can become real bad with life. And since only real life counts, I want to put all my stock there.

But there remains this dream to create, and my heart and mind long to do it. So the only way forward, the only way I can think of to make this houseguest comfortable while still being a woman of great faith in Jesus and true devotion to her family, is to pray, to offer this process back to One who I believe started it in me.

I’m praying big to stay small.

God, I am so very grateful for the cross, where every bit of my faith is centered. It’s where you took all the sin, all the ugliness, and all of the condemnation of my life and burned a path right through it for me to walk on straight to you.

I ask for forgiveness for the times my feet have strayed from that path towards ones that give the illusion of fulfillment, the ones that promise happiness but deliver emptiness, the ones that scream in bright lights ‘you’ll love it here’ but end up trapping me in a darkness of self-absorption.

I pray that this desire to create is guarded by your Word and fenced in with a reverence for the gospel that every sentence I write submits to.

I ask for inspiration that is saturated in the Holy Spirit, because on my own I have nothing of any lasting value to offer.

And I thank you for words, because in the right hands—yours—they are such a gift. May the ones you give to me always tell stories that make you beautiful, because you are… more so than I would ever be able to say.

When all is said and done, keep me small, Jesus. Give me a work to do, but keep me and my pride out of the way of getting it done.

You are so, so good to us, God. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, Jesus.     

The women of the IF:Gathering have left me with words that are game changers; too much to process in one sitting or one day.  This is part two of a week long look back at the ways that I don’t want to stay the same. 
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I care a lot about what others think.  And that is not always a bad thing: I think it is good and healthy to want to be respected and thought well of, because it is hard to do life alongside people whom, for whatever reason, we may have a strong distaste for.  But that is not really what I’m talking about.  I really care what other people think, like, to the point that my day could be a pretty good one or a pretty bad one depending on how I perceive my standing in your mind. 

I came out of the womb being a people pleaser.  And then God blessed me with an upper middle class upbringing and an athletic talent that got me more recognition than most as a teenager.  Not that I never made mistakes, but my childhood was really fairly storybook.  The result is that I grew far too accustomed to people high-fiving me along the way.

Adulthood may have changed the context from which I seek approval but it hasn’t changed my craving of it, and I do so many things on a regular basis because I think people will like me if I do.  I watch my sweet little daughter be, well, not so sweet at times and I worry more about what others are thinking of my parenting than I am about actually parenting her.  I write something here on this space and measure its success by likes and comments rather than by the authenticity that I wrote it with.

But here is something I know to be true, and I am learning this more and more every day: God doesn’t care about the same things people care about.      

During Jennie Allen’s opening talk at IF, a talk that was raw and so true to her journey leading this gathering, she said this: “I have tasted God in such a way that now all of you people feel small to me.”  And I’m sure what she said in the few minutes after that was beautiful but I actually don’t remember it, because those words were taking up all the space in mind as I quickly wrote them in my journal.  All of you feel small to me. I want that so badly.  Not a lesser view of people, places, community and life right here where I am, but a much, much greater view of God.  I actually tremble with an anxious excitement at the thought of what my life would look and feel like if His guidance was the first and last place I went, if His will was actually the truest pursuit of my life.  What could change if I was really willing to be totally misunderstood by people if it meant that I was exactly where God wanted me to be, doing what He wanted me to do?

People around me have told me that I’m brave. But I’m not.  I want to be, but the truth is I have chosen a very safe journey, one that has not cost me too much yet.  I do have a heart that breaks at the knowledge or sight of injustice, but y’all, that does not feel very brave.  It actually feels safe, because who could possibly criticize me for wanting to stop an injustice?  It is a path of altruism that I’ve been walking, not at all hating the high fives along the way because believe it or not, I can turn even a seemingly selfless pursuit in to one that makes me look ok in your eyes. 

God can, no, will accomplish his work in anyone, perfectly pure hearts or not.  But I think we can be doing all the right things and still feel empty if we are doing them for the wrong reasons.  This has been so much of my story.  Yesterday I thought a lot about repentance, and today I’m thinking about really knowing, even tasting God, in such a way that everything else feels so, so small.  He is the good soil I have to be growing in.  Otherwise I’m just a temporarily pretty flower in a jar of water.  It looks nice on the table today, but very soon that water won’t be enough.  We do need each other to keep us going, to refuel our visions and to support us and love us and tell us what our hearts need to hear (trust me, I believe this!).  But not instead of what Jesus wants us to hear.  It’s an equation I have often gotten backwards, but one I am working on correcting.  Jesus > approval.  He is bigger.