Thanksgiving Day.  Today is the first morning I am waking up back in our house to a family of five, and the sweet, almost poetic gift of that timing is not at all lost on me.  There are five of us now—it is more joy than my heart can hold.  My three day old is swaddled in a cozy blanket sleeping next to me, and as I listen to his tiny squeals and watch his face move along to the rhythm of his dreams, I just keeping thinking that it was so lavishly good of God to start all of life out with babies, wasn’t it?

Growing up, Thanksgiving was mostly a “second place” holiday to me—more of a placeholder between the rest of the year and Christmas than anything else.  But that changed the year I married Alex, when I finally learned to sit with gratitude for what the total of my life really was rather than simply acknowledging a list of things for one day and moving on.  I wanted to be so intentional about thankfulness that I refused Christmas music and decorations until Friday morning (a tradition I still hold to because one holiday at a time works best for me). 

And today, just four short years later, I’ve been given the gift of teaching three little hearts that the practice of being full of thanks truly was meant for each day.  Grateful people are the best kind of people, aren’t they?  They have a contagious wonder, a humble posture towards others, and a joy untouchable by circumstances.  That’s what I hope for my people.  Together, as much as anything else in the world, I want our little tribe of five to be a family who lives out the joy of being loved by a perfectly selfless Savior and an amazingly big God.  I want us to say out loud how grateful we are for all that we have, knowing full well that our lives are rich in every way.  And because I know as we navigate this life together that the first thing the world will try to strip from each one of us of is the belief that we have all we need in Jesus, I want the foundation of our home to be the truth that “Surely, God is good…” (Psalm 73:1).   

I just can’t stop looking at the faces around me this morning.  My eyes are heavy with fatigue, my breasts are swollen with oncoming milk, and my body is insecurely figuring out how to put the muscles of my core back together since our little resident made his exit Monday night.  Still, I feel like I could run a marathon every time I kiss one of these six soft cheeks.  And my man?!  I just don’t know how to talk about him with the right words today.  The humble rock of our family who physically held my body upright through every contraction three days ago and is currently getting cups of chocolate milk for the two little babes still wiping sleep from their eyes: his love for us alone is worth a hundred years of giving thanks.    

Today we will do what so many of you are doing: we will eat turkey and gravy with homemade rolls, justify sweet potatoes with brown sugar as a vegetable, and talk with our littles about the meaning of this day and all the things we are thankful for.  We will pray for our family near and far, and we ask God to hold tightly the people who are hurting and lonely.  We will celebrate so many things that God has done and look forward with anticipation to all that lies ahead.  Today, we will stop and remember with new eyes that indeed, everyday is for giving thanks.   

"What can you do to promote world peace?  Go home and love your family."
-Mother Teresa

Life is so full, isn’t it?  We plot out our schedules and our days and we pack them with the things that are most important.  I tend to wear “busy” like a badge of honor, equating productivity with importance or, perhaps more damaging in the long run, a full schedule with a full heart.  But these things are misleading.  Busy and full can be amazing seasons, but they can also be the most draining and leave us with that all too familiar feeling of accomplished-emptiness.  You know, the one where our list is checked and we got what we wanted and we did the thing we said we would do… but now we sit discontent until we can busy ourselves again. I am the guiltiest person on earth of this.  I need a list and a few goals and darn it, I will get them done.  And here I am, expecting a little boy any day now, but when I get really quiet and really honest with myself, I know that my heart has been full of other things.

My third little baby is going to be born in the middle of a violent, chaotic world.  Last week it was Paris and Mali, but just a few weeks before that it was a community college in Oregon.  For four years it’s been an escalating crisis in the Middle East that we as Americans can no longer avoid dealing with.  And daily it is another battle of words and opinions and vastly different interpretations of history and how we got here.  And I feel all of these things: every little girl raped or sold, every Syrian putting their family in the ground far too soon, every orphan who desperately wants a mom to rub her back, all the people who need just a little bit of a hand… and I am sitting here in my warm home looking at all I have thinking that I cannot just sit here. 

Then my belly moves.  And I am reminded that every so often, I can.  And I should.

Do you know what I was doing as I was waiting for Harper, my first, to be born?  I was writing her a book.  Yes, I set the bar a smidge too high on that one and set myself up for a few conversations with my boys about how I love them just the same, I know this.  And if it weren’t for the serious nature of how much God has rocked me to my core in the last few years, I might laugh at how very different my first and third pregnancy are.  As I’ve been waiting for my third baby, I have spent more nights unable to sleep than I can ever remember, thinking about the girls taking their clothes off for strangers or the people forced to flee their homes and how we can raise money for them.  And I believe these are good things to be burdened for—we are supposed to be burdened when we see hurting.  But there is something I have not done enough of in preparing for this baby: I haven’t been simply sitting with him, guarding my heart against anxiety and unbelief the very same way I want to guard each one of my kids’ hearts.  And every day, more and more, I am realizing just how vital that is.

This weekend, my sweet friends celebrated my little boy with me.  They served brunch and cold brew, and wrote out words that they would be praying for us in this season: all of my very favorite things.  I felt so known and so seen by them, and my goodness, is there a sweeter thing we can do for one another than make them feel that way?  But as I opened a few gifts that, despite my objections, friends brought anyway, I also felt something I’ve really been missing: I felt peace.  And as I folded up the soft blankets I will very soon be wrapping a baby in, I realized how much I have missed that feeling.

Motherhood is the best work I get to do.  The very best.  My full of fire little three year old girl, my tender and quiet eighteen month old boy, and my soon to be sweet newborn son: my first life’s work wrapped up in three little souls.  I can so easily and unintentionally treat these hearts more like a to-do list than a calling, especially when it feels like the work to do in the world is growing by the second.  But that’s not the mama I want to be. 

I’ve been praying for my babies all morning today.  No emails.  No checking boxes.  No long-term writing plans or brainstorming on sticky notes.  No newspapers.  No headlines.  Just scripture and prayer for the people right in front of me.  I want them to see a mama fully engaged with and devoted to building God’s kingdom both in my words and my deeds.  I want them to know me as a teacher and a writer and maybe even a big dreamer.  But mostly, I want them to see a mama who was absolutely crazy about them.  Every day, no matter what the hours brought us.  So as we wait patiently to become the Blackburn five, I’m praying for a heart that is more than content, in fact, overwhelmed with joy, right here, wrapped in our soft blankets. 

I sat down and opened my journal this morning, but the pen moved slowly.  The little globe on my desk shows me Africa, Asia, and Europe right now, and I am reminded of just how big this world is, while at the very same moment I feel a little baby kicking inside of me and I feel like the whole world is right here.  How is that possible?  And how many mamas are thinking the very same thing this morning?

I’m wondering how the French mothers who buried their adult children this weekend are grieving.  I’m thinking how on earth are the Syrian and Iraqi and Afghani mothers surviving as they rocked a colicky baby in the freezing temperatures of the refugee camp all night.  I am up to my neck in the shepherding of little hearts in my own home, a job I consider to be the privilege of my life, and yet all that echoes in my head as I read and see and watch the world is How long, Lord, how long?

Because the truth is this: I want to face every reality of the world, but I don’t know how to hold this fear.  When my pen finally moved across the blank lines of my journal, here’s what came out: “How will I raise my sweet babies without creating in them a sense that they will always have something to be afraid of?”  I don’t want that for them.  I want a life laced with joy and covered in graces, with a touch of Pinterest decorating our home and making an appearance on each holiday table setting.  Don’t we all?  Life is so much easier when I can just think about those things.

But I can’t just think of those things.  None of us can anymore.  The fear is too close, happening too often, and so much of it is too astoundingly representative of what God said would happen.  I wonder if a lot of us are looking around thinking that the easy, me-centered faith we’ve been living here in the West is not holding up to the kind of faith modeled for us in all of scripture.  The latter is a much bolder faith.  It is willing to risk anything, and it is stripped down of everything in the world except a perfect Savior and his death on a cross for our sake.  It loves big and believes in grace, but perhaps most importantly, it knows that there is nothing on earth worth keeping compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus.  Just ask every single one of the eleven disciples of Christ who did lose their lives to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.  What were they most afraid of?  It seems to me the only thing they feared was holding in the truth they knew would change everything.       

Friends, I know I am the least qualified person on earth to write this.  Because y’all, not only am I not a Bible scholar, but I am afraid.  What will this sweet little boy in my belly face in his lifetime?  I cannot confidently answer that the way I really want to.  But here is what I know and what I am trying desperately to remind myself of today: The enemy’s greatest weapon against us is fear, but that is really all he has.  Because the fear is what will paralyze us and make us question our good, good, God.  Make no mistake, our adversary is not really after our homes, our careers, our families or our 401Ks—although many of us might see it that way.  Those things mean nothing to him; he knows good and well the temporary nature of this world.  He is after our faith in Jesus, and he will chase it down relentlessly with fear.  And this morning, as I tremble a bit to write this, I truly believe our job as mamas and followers of Christ is to press in to our faith more than ever.  Our God has always known the condition of our hearts would be bent towards fear, so he wrote a Book spanning history that tells us again and again we don’t have to be, and the empty grave proves it.  He has reminded us that our lives are a breath compared to eternity, and we can confidently live with that perspective.  And mama, be assured that God knows the fierce love and protection we feel over our children.  When we cry watching them sleep, He knows that feeling even though our words can’t describe it.  When our hearts burst with joy when they say their first prayer, He gets it.  And when our anxiety goes through the roof at the thought of anything ever happening to them, friends, He understands.  And his response was written generations before any one of us felt this beautiful weight of motherhood: “Point those babies to me, remind them of all I have done, teach them my words every hour of every day, pray and don’t ever stop, and remember that when you feel fear, that is not from me, because I gave you a spirit of love, power, and a sound mind, and mamas, never forget that I AM.  And I will be for your babies.  And I still will be at the end of this world, too.” 

As I am wrapping these words up, the sun is peeking out over the mountains to the east of our home, and you know, it just seems fitting for God to give a sunrise right in this moment.  He is near, friends, and we can be confident that He is as just as He is loving.  Always has been, always will be.

Lord, be so near to our brothers and sisters in every corner of the world today.  God, don't let us stop trusting you, even when the fear feels too big.  You are the God of all nations, all tongues, all peoples, all history.  Make our faith bigger.  Amen. 

“And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts…” 2 Peter 1:19.

We are eleven days in, and so far, SO very good.  NO-TV November.  For the second year in a row I have committed to turning off the television for the whole month—with the exception of college football on Saturdays (because I made this whole thing up and that means I make the rules) and kids’ shows (because I’m very pregnant and not ashamed to admit I need a little help from Dora, Diego, and Daniel—you all know how I feel about that Tiger— #lovehim).  But outside of that, during afternoon naps, or post bedtime when my usual routine might include turning something on the screen that would give me permission to turn off my mind, I’m being more intentional about making space for silence—a discipline that is rather difficult for me and always has been.  One really only has to be my friend for five minutes to be keenly aware that I process, out loud, all the time.  And if no one is around to hear me, well I typically like at least a little “Chopped” on in the background.  But because the gift of alliteration that comes with NO-TV November is just too good for a writer to pass up, I’m enforcing it again.  And that quiet space being created? It really is amazing the good things are filling it up.

First, I’m in scripture more than ever.  Being a morning person works greatly to my advantage here, because I wake up craving, needing, excited for the peace of my time with Jesus in his word.  He is blessing me with a can’t get enough season.  And it has not always been this way.  For most of my life God’s word sat on my shelf and I pretended I knew what it said.  But I started paying attention to the people around me who always seemed so grounded, so humble, so wise in their speech, and without exception the difference was their love for and faith in scripture.  Just over a year ago I started praying for those things, and I’ve found that asking for a genuine love of God’s word is not a request He is likely to turn down.  Quite the opposite, really.  He gladly throws kindling on that fire.  Because we are a generation rich in resources to talk about God through books, blogs, sermons, study groups and the like, I think it is easy for us to believe we know God’s word when we may actually not.  But there is no one and no thing that can replace the beautiful intimacy of just you and just Jesus in scripture together. And I want to be so careful not to have a relationship with God through my favorite authors or pastors, as thankful for them as I am.  The divine interaction with that book sitting on my nightstand proves again and again to be my greatest hope in the world.

I’m also setting goals and making steps towards accomplishing them, a discipline that easily gets relegated to the “someday” category all too often.  On the first of the month I sat down and wrote out all the things I want to focus on in the next three months (because that’s how Lara Casey does it and I think she is so legit).  And, well... wow, the intentionality that follows in my actions when I stop and think about them!  This is the most common sense thing in the world: think about what you do before you do it.  But for long seasons at a time I just haven’t, and I end up stretched thin, tired, and giving too many things, or the wrong things altogether, too little of my effort.  I have eight things on my goal list.  Eight.  For the next few months if something is not falling in to one of those categories, it gets a “no for now” answer, not because I’m putting any amount of pride in being “right” about my prioritizing but because it has to be that way or I will not make it.  I want to be someone who gives all of herself to a few things, a depth over breadth approach—something I would not have said just a few years ago when my mindset was framed around getting everyone to like me (I’m still working on that).  Today, my mindset is more time on the things Jesus would like from me.  And the three items on the top of this list are my faith in God, my marriage, and my babies, which you all now have permission to keep me accountable on because I’m saying them publicly.  So please do.  I have a tendency to schedule coffee dates when I should be scheduling, you know, like real dates with the man who made me his bride.  He is really the best person I know. 

And I’m reading some pretty great books.  Y’all, if you want to read but don’t think you have time, I’m telling you, just turn the TV off.  Twenty-minutes here, another half an hour there, and you’ve got yourself so excited to turn the next page that pretty soon you are looking for time to read.  My favorites this Fall have been Just Mercy, Reclaiming Home (by my friend, Krista, who is the real deal), and When People Are Big and God is Small.  A full nightstand equals a full heart for this girl.  (Also, I’ve read/skimmed approximately 700 books on natural childbirth, because my heart says “Your body was made for this!” and my head says “Epidural and sprite on ice, girlfriend.” But let’s just talk about all that later). 

And finally, I’m listening.  Or, I should say I’m trying to.  The words of one of my old mentors hang over my mind here: “Only speak if you can improve the silence.”  And let’s be honest, silence is really a pretty great thing in this world, so it's no small task trying to improve it.  And that whole external processing thing, it does not go away overnight.  But I’ve been sensing that too often I speak when I should listen, to both God and others, and I really want to practice a much more thoughtful approach to those relationships.  Believe it or not, a silent home during the hours that I can swing it has been unbelievably helpful in that.   

Now, if I have presented a version of myself that includes any mental image of a clean home, meal plans, sorted laundry, or really any manner of a thoroughly put-together life at all, I must undo them here.  Y’all, I am hanging on by a thread in these last few days and weeks of pregnancy.  At my 36 week appointment last week I was already 2cm dilated and 50% effaced, and I feel like it.  Each day the contractions get a tiny bit more real, and this little limp-waddle-walk I’ve got going on is evidence to the world that three babies in three years has done a number on every one of my core muscles.  But because I can’t do much but wait through the physical pain of carrying my third sweet baby, my heart knows I have to find my rest somewhere.  It won’t come at night and it won’t come from the couch and it certainly won’t come from listening to all the noise (there is so much noise!) in the world.  The only place I have ever really been able to find rest is in Jesus.  Which should not surprise me, He basically told us that would be the case*.  But I am never short on awe when it really does come.  And friends, it does.

{And y’all, feel free to use that little NO- (you pick) November alliteration trick I mentioned above, because who says a little giving up of something is only for lent or the first of the month?  It’s for anytime your heart needs it, so I say go ahead and give yourself permission.} 

*Matthew 11:28

We all got an extra hour of sleep last night, which to a mom of little ones essentially means that everything just starts an hour earlier.  But that’s ok, because mornings are my favorite and I love that the sun will rise before the world really gets going with their day now.  And do you remember that summer sunshine I bragged about for three solid months?  You know, the 10:00pm sunsets and late nights on the deck with friends?  Well, THIS is where we earn them.  We have officially entered the abyss of darkness that is the winter months, when the sun is gone a little after 4:00pm and we all walk around just a little bit tired and slightly Vitamin D deficient for the next half a year.  Soldier on, Northwesterners.  June is a mere eight months from today and in the meantime I will just casually leave three words here for your cold hands to hold on to: toasted graham lattes.

Our life on the homefront has been both the best and the fullest of any season I can remember.  In the midst of babies and bellies growing, careers demanding time, relationships needing tending and all the usual stuff of life, God has been so, so good to do something for Alex and I: He has united us in ways that I’m not sure we have ever been so ‘together’ on before.  We are hungry for God’s word, and while our time and walks with the Lord are separate, the paths are merging in the sweetest ways.  I did not truly realize until recently that we have mostly cheered one another on in our four years of marriage—not at all a bad thing—but right now it feels like we are hand in hand and not waving at each other from a sideline.  I feel so lucky to do life with this man and call him the leader of our family, more and more every day.

The last two months have also taught me a whole lot about juggling, a skill I thought I had down because, well, former student-athlete over here.  But let me tell you, Division I sports has nothing on motherhood, nothing.  Add 36 weeks of pregnancy to that mix and GOODNIGHT.  Keeping up with an almost-three year old, an eighteen month old who climbs on everything, and a baby boy who seems to be half-ninja in my belly has me leaning toward the deep end of exhaustion every day.  The kind where, if you sit down past 3:00pm, it takes an effort of monumental proportions to lift your own body again—mostly because we all feel the size of a child humpback at this point in baby-growing.  I’ve also taught nine credits since the end of August, which means grading, always grading (shout out to the two grandmas in my life for free babysitting!).  And perhaps the weightiest, no pun intended, piece of the last few months has been less physical and more emotional, because I’m watching the refugees and learning more and more of their plight and my heart falls right down to the floor (p.s. you can still HELP raise money for them right here!).  I’m sitting with friends who are walking through cancer diagnoses with people they love dearly, and it’s painful.  I’m part of building a small team of women that want to tell a different story to the world about our sisters stuck in the sex industry, and it’s hard to meet those women and hear what they actually think of themselves. 

You see friends, I’m so much of a make a list and get to work on it kind of person that this season of tenderness and deep feeling God has brought me to has truly stretched and humbled me.  Between God’s Word, and of course, third trimester hormones, I’m in a new place.  Still rejoicing in all the good, but really feeling the hard and wrestling through the insecurity that seems to follow any good endeavor we all make (anyone else feel like they always need to be told “Hey, you’re doing alright!”)?

In the end, the Fall season has been beautifully stretching, as much of life seems to be.  We’ve had children’s dentist appointments (I cannot talk about this), broken garage doors (not cheap), and freeway calls to AAA (just get the membership, worth it).  But we also have had late nights in our friend’s home, the kind where you put the babies to bed in pack n’ plays and stay up late solving all of life’s dilemmas (my favorite kind).  Big Al and I snuck away to a hotel (with a Jacuzzi tub!) for one night and enjoyed very second of it (and also slept nine hours. Hallelujah).  My best friend spent a weekend in town from Georgia and Harper jumped into her arms again and again and again at the park (it does something crazy good to your soul when lifetime friends become heroes to your babies).  We’ve all been growing, all been learning, all been stumbling.  And it’s all been worth it; I think it always will be when you somehow love Jesus a little bit more when you’re standing again. 

And here we are in November.  Just over four weeks from my third baby in three years, and very much looking forward to life with him and the other three people under my roof.  I have prepared less for this baby by a large measure than the other two, and I’m looking forward to wrapping up a few projects and then just being: finishing the room transition, packing a hospital bag, praying, waiting, praying some more, teaching my toddlers about thankfulness and practicing it every day, and keeping scripture at the center of my life and home.  And who knows, if baby boy decides to come a week early like his siblings, my November round-up might be a little extra exciting!

I hope your November is filled with good things, including cozy socks and fireplaces and time, just time to be around the people who fill you up.  I am immeasurably thankful for mine.

It all feels overwhelming sometimes, doesn’t it?  The headlines, the statistics, the almost routine mention of another capsized boat or a small group of sojourners’ bodies found dead along the border of two countries.  We Americans are generally a people of short attention spans: rocked and saddened over Aylan’s little body one day, moving on to a celebrity’s fall from grace or our football team’s poor performance the next.  This mostly steady emotional barometer towards the plight of so much of the world tends to mark the cadence of our lives; we give a nod or acknowledgment to headlines and news stories that, while they should shock us, leave us with a mostly unmoving response.  Or far worse, no response at all.  And then, we carry on.

This cannot be.  It can’t.  I am begging you, friends, to respond.

But how?  How!?  What can I do about ISIS? President Al-Assad?  The Middle East?  I hear these questions, they resound in my mind, too.  And they are valid: most of us are not in any sort of position to speak to these loaded political and governmental concerns and we will likely never be. 

But let’s not do something: let’s not, as Christ-followers, put our God on the same level as our politicians, weighing the power of each with equal belief and confidence.  That’s not even a thing.  Scripture tells the story of a God who has never once wavered in authority over all kingdoms and governments and leaders*.  Never, not one time, has he not been in charge— and this is true in every generation, every pocket of history.  It remains true today.  So that is where I start, with a clear reminder to myself that the terror of my moment in history is not un-watched by the God of all history.

The next thing we can do is know.  Stop looking away.  Read the stories, as many of them as you can.  Know that more than 12 million innocent men, women, and children have been forced from their homes in Syria.  Sit with that number for a moment, will you?  Really think about how many people that is.  Or picture your hometown, the traffic and the grocery stores and the busyness of people moving from here to there; moms doing school drop-offs and parents heading to work, meeting friends for coffee and closing business deals… and now picture it silent.  No food on the store shelves.  No cars on the streets.  No access to hospitals.  Banks are closed.  The water is shut off.  Maybe the biggest buildings are bombed out or perhaps the terrorist group has forced everyone in to hiding.  But there is nothing left of your life, and you find yourself having to answer questions like this: “do we take grandma with us as we flee or will she not make it anyway?”  That’s not really a choice; it is a life-sentence to guilt no matter how one answers it. See this in your mind, friends, because it is real for millions of our global brothers and sisters right this moment.

Once you know, allow it to hurt.  It is ok for someone else’s pain to hurt.  I would argue that it is good.  That hurting is the birthplace of compassion—the kind of compassion Jesus felt when he saw the hungry crowd**, the kind of compassion that means to “suffer with,” and the kind of compassion that makes a space in our lives for the Holy Spirit to come in and inspire.  And that is where we respond with prayer. Just prayer.  So simple, isn’t it?  Oh, but so, so powerful, and perhaps the most important work we can do,  if we truly believe in it.  I think that it gives God the honor he is due when we tell him out loud that we trust him with all of this, and that we believe in him for justice. 

When we go to scripture as our guide, we see thousands of years of men and women petitioning God for help, for answers, and for peace.  We read the greatest writer of the new testament, the Apostle Paul, offering prayers for the hearers of his letters and begging for them for himself at the same time; praying for protection (2 Thessalonians 3:2), for grace (1 Corinthians 16:23), and for clarity and boldness in his words (Ephesians 6:19-20) so that the gospel might go forward and believers would multiply.  If you are wondering how to start praying for Syria (or any number of injustices, countries, or people groups), may I humbly suggest that is a good model to begin with: protection in the face of danger, grace in the midst of chaos, clarity for those sharing the gospel and understanding for those hearing it.  We do not know how our prayers will be answered but we know that they will be heard, and most assuredly, heard by the only One who is perfect and able to answer with flawless justice, impeccable timing, and eternal truth.         

While I believe to my toes that prayer is the most important thing we can do for others, my hope is that as far as we are able, it is not the only thing we do for others.  Let’s not scoff at sacrificial giving, either.  That old Christian alliteration for stewardship applies perfectly here, because between our time, talents, and treasures we can all do something: are you a lawyer who can advocate for asylum?  A doctor or nurse who can volunteer for a few weeks with any number of refugee agencies?  A stay-at-home mom who can make room in her home for a refugee family (or an orphan, a single mom, anyone) for a few months?  I promise if you want a role in helping—with one of the statistically greatest humanitarian crises of our time, or any number of equally heart-breaking injustices— start asking questions and you will find one.  And there is also giving our money, which often feels like the easy thing but it is no small thing.  Because maybe you know someone willing to go, he just needs someone else willing to give.  Or you read about the agencies doing great work but who are sorely under resourced and you give to meet a need and help spread the gospel.   There are great people on the front lines but they are out of resources, leaving them with little capacity to help stop the hemorrhaging of the refugee crisis. Last week I read that on the Greek border refugee camps built for 500 people are housing 5000.  Put this perspective in to our world: the house we comfortably live in with 5 people would all of a sudden have 50. Wouldn’t we all feel the sting and meaning of under resourced in a moment like that?         

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I had the great privilege of speaking to the Chief Catalyst at World Vision last week, and the stories he told me after a trip to Lebanon to the refugee camp in Beirut are, in the truest sense, unbelievable.  And I mean that.  They are hard to believe.  In his words, “Utterly beyond anyone’s capacity to take it in.” It’s crowded.  Abuse is rampant.  Food and water supplies are low, a thriving black market is gaining steam.  Children are drawing pictures of their homes and remembering details like grenades scattered on the floor.  For so many of the refugees, after three years away from everything they know and no real means to an end in sight, a catastrophic loss of hope has settled in.  Truly, there are few things with more devastating consequences than that.

So what will we do?  As some of the most resourced Christians on the planet, the answer simply cannot be nothing.  And every agency on the frontlines, every humanitarian worker who has been there, every Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, or other beautiful refugee face will beg you to not let that be the answer.  We can do hard things, friends.  But most certainly, we can do these things: Remember. Learn. Feel. Pray. Act.

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Want to do something right now?!  My talented friend Margaret has created the adorable printable in the picture above to remind us to do the simple yet profound work of praying.  It’s yours for a donation of $5, $10, $25 or $50 dollars.  If you know me at all, you know that keeping your money will never be my style, and EVERY SINGLE PENNY of proceeds from these printables is going to World Vision.  And I think we could make a teensy, tiny little dent, friends.

Print out your reminder and then do the most important work: prayer. Pray for the refugees and their loss of hope in the world to be found in Christ.  Pray for the agencies and volunteers pouring themselves out.  Pray for President Al-Assad.  Pray for President Obama.  Pray for your own ideas to grow.  Pray for a small community of friends around you to encourage your creative passions and increase your capacity to give.  Pray to feel this.  Friends, let's talk to Jesus about it all and watch him work in our hearts and in the world.  This story, and so many others riddled with the most nefarious acts humanity is possible of, are not unseen by him.  In fact I believe his heart is broken over them.  There is not a believer on the planet who has not been invited to be a part of his work in the world in some way.  We can, y'all, and we must.   

{Printables available October 28-November 6: TEN DAYS, y'all.  Get yours.  Print it.  Share it.  Pray out loud.  Let's do something cool together}

*Because donators receive a printable, donations made through Just Enough Brave are NOT considered tax-deductible.  If you would like your donation to be tax-deductible, please visit one of the organizations linked in this essay and donate straight to them.

Scripture references (worth memorizing!)
*Daniel 2:21
**Mark 6:34

This guy.  He is so mello, so content, and so fun to be around that I have given him the title “my easy child.”  (And yes, I already know this is wrong and children should not be labeled).  Cannon came into the world after only seven hours of labor and two pushes.  And since then, he has remained my low-maintenance baby boy—almost always happy, almost always pleased just to be around you.  I haven’t got a clue where the last eighteen months went, but the thought that this little guy is going to be a big brother in a few weeks is crazy.  I mean, it’s true, there’s no going back on that.  But it is crazy.

This morning I was a little more intentional than normal with my baby boy as we rocked in the cozy chair by the bay window—our usual morning routine.  He drank his milk and I ran my fingers through his hair (you guys, I challenge you to find an eighteen month old with better hair); we practiced our animal sounds and I clapped wildly when he showed me a lion roar for the first time.  And I said big prayers for him, that he would find his words and someday use them for God’s glory; that he would see his role in the world as a brave peacemaker; and that he would love Jesus and love others like He did.  I said these three things again and again, and then Cannon slid off my lap, grabbed his elephant toy, and off he went. 

Do you ever just watch your babies in their world?  I don’t do it enough.  I’m quick to let the little man slide off my lap and then go check my email or get breakfast ready.  But today, I just stared at him a minute, watched him pick up toys and put them back, determining for himself which one he really wanted.  I won’t get to do this kind of savoring forever, so today, I did.  And then, he caught me looking, and with the biggest grin and quickest feet he ran over to the chair and buried his head in my lap.  I think that’s what I will remember most about my Cannon, the way he buries his head when he’s happy.  The gift of this boy is truly beyond measure. 

This morning reminded me that, while there is so much work to be done—in our homes, building a career, or out in the world for others’ sake—my most important work is right here, in this chair, in moments like these.

Cannon Lee, I’m so thankful I get to be your mama.  I’m your biggest fan forever.

I can hardly believe it, but this space, this tiny little slice of the internet that I named just enough brave was born one year ago.  For twelve months I’ve been putting my thoughts, my convictions, and my heart into words and putting those words here.  I’ve spent—and still spend—my fair share of time questioning this space and my ability to fill it with anything worthwhile.  And truthfully, I will probably always fight that battle with myself.  But writing… this is how I learn.  It’s how I process, how I sort through messes, how I both vent and apologize, and how God teaches me that every good endeavor can truly be done for his glory. 

This past year has both surprised and humbled me.  Almost without exception, the essays that I sat down and wrote in an hour were the ones that resonated most with readers, and the ones I labored through or worked too hard to be funny in mostly fell flat.  So, I guess like everything else in life, when something genuinely comes from our hearts the world can tell, and I think we are a people that appreciates genuine over fake any day.

What I have learned in a year is simple, yet worth reminding myself of.  Part of the beauty is in the journey, and remembering that journey. 

Lesson 1: don’t try to be someone I’m not.  A few weeks ago I wrote a post, a satire, if you will, on social media and my poor attempt to stay off of it for a while (I made it 12 days, in case you were wondering).  After one reader commented I realized I may be saying something I did not mean to at all and offending others in the process, and I took the post down 20 minutes later.  Remember what I said above about trying to be funny?  Well, I’m really not, and if I ever am it’s probably an accident.  So, staying clear of those essays from now on.  The things that truly get me excited to write about are motherhood, faith, justice, friendship, and other lessons life teaches me.  Straying from what I know in an effort to be more generally appealing, it doesn’t work.  And I would tell my kids this same thing in any endeavor they went after, so I have to model it as their mom.  Be you.

Lesson 2: if I live for approval, I’ll die for approval.  Am I the only one who puts something on social media and checks back a few hours later to, you know, see how it’s doing?  And by that I mean, “I’m just gonna log on real fast and see how many likes it has?”  Just looking for a friend.  Truth: this is not a sustainable way to be a writer, or an artist of any kind, I might argue.  It kills the whole spirit of creating something you believe in.  Shauna Niequist has said, “You are a writer if you write.”  I adore this, and so want to live it out.  Because I love words, and I also love when others love my words, it would be a lie to say that I didn’t; but even when they don’t, in my stillest, most honest moments with Jesus, I can truly say that I love putting them together.  When I invite God into this work and share the best of myself, public reception becomes much less important.  Plus, my husband and my mom will always read what I write, so I can rest knowing that (trying to be funny, friends).       

Lesson 3: vulnerability is good, but God has to be in it.  Many of you know that one of my very best friends and I wrote a blog together for four years.  I loved it, because I always felt like I was in this strange internet-writing world locked arms with someone.  Last summer when we both felt like God was stirring in us some individual directions for teaching and writing, I took almost three months to start j.e.b. because it felt too vulnerable, and I have never liked that feeling.  I didn’t want to be just another voice making noise.  I didn’t want to clamor for attention on my own because what did I even have to offer?  But with a lot of prayer and at the encouragement of a few friends, I bought the url, thought of a name (a reflection of how I want to not only write but live), and started sharing.  And, you know, it is vulnerable.  I am always wondering how others perceive me based on what I write.  But I also really believe in the power and beauty of words, and I really believe in God.  And sometimes, I wake up with things to say burning in my mind and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel vulnerable, it feels right.  Vulnerable comes when I am trying to make something of myself; peace comes when I am trying to make something of Jesus. Amen, and let it be so.

Lesson 4: I will fail.  Did you all know that I wrote a book 3 years ago?  No, you probably didn’t.  I think it sold 7 copies or something like that.  And even now when I read it, I feel like I am not the same writer.  Sometimes I cringe a little going “that’s really what I published?”  But I don’t remember the process like that.  I remember loving every second of putting that little project together during my first pregnancy.  I would write it very differently today, that’s for sure.  But if I had not written that and spent the hours I did on it, I wouldn’t even be the writer I am.  And I think that’s a lot like life.  We don’t arrive as perfect people; we make a lot of mistakes in the process of being good wives, mothers, friends, and most importantly, Christ-followers.  I have to ask forgiveness daily.  Daily.  Something I said, something I failed to do, a pride-filled attitude or action, you name it.  But those moments are almost always where I learn, and where I understand grace.  So really, failure isn’t all bad—it’s a step back and then two steps forward as someone with a slightly more humble heart.  That's the direction I want to be moving in, always.

Lesson 5: we all want to fit somewhere, and we are better together.  Really, isn’t it the best cheering others on?  So much more good gets done in the world when we do it together, and when we actually act like fans of one another in the process.  I really believe this. 

In the end, I have been writing here for a year because the best version of me is the one on paper, and I want to actually live the things I say.  I am inconsistent at best, but I keep writing because I keep trying, and because I want to love Jesus more.  And then, every once in a while, someone tells me with the most sincere encouragement, “Katie, please keep writing.”  You have no idea what those words do for my heart.  Thanks for being with me for the last year.  Here’s to a few more!    

I can’t stop looking at Aylan.  And I’m sure you’ve seen it, too, the image of a tiny little body with his face down on the sand.  I can’t stop looking because if I trade the sand for a light green bed sheet, the waves for the safety of crib rails, and the shoes for the pajama feet, that is what my little Cannon looks like when he sleeps: arms to his side, on his tummy, no care in the world.

But that was never Aylan’s story. At three years old he has never known a life that wasn’t marred by ISIS and civil war.  He was born into fear, and bless him and keep him forever, Jesus, he died in fear. As a mama, the thought of having my babies on my lap one moment and then reaching and screaming and crying out for them in the rough waters of the ocean the next is enough to put my heart in panic mode even as I sit at my kitchen table.  And she couldn’t swim herself, Aylan’s mama.  She had to have felt the panic before she and her husband paid most of their life savings to someone they did not know to put everything precious in the world on a boat for the journey towards a land where bombs were not going off and terrorists were not coming to their door to rape, kill, and torture them.  She must have felt in her heart not to do it.  But what choice was there?  Possible death or certain death?  Oh friends, that is no choice at all for our Syrian sisters and brothers.

Five years ago, God put a fire in my belly, this burden to do something.  I heard stories I can’t un-hear, I saw images, like Aylan, that I cannot un-see.  I feel guilt that I cannot for anything in me un-feel.  And I wish you truly knew how much I want to un-feel!  Because some days, like yesterday, it paralyzes me.  I have to be a mom and get lesson plans for my students ready and put dinner on the table and wear actual clothes for a four hour night class and all I can do is read, research, email trusted friends and mentors, listen, sob, look again at Aylan.  And I want to walk away from it, I do.  I want to stop crying when I smell Cannon’s beach-wavy hair.  I can’t.

So I pray, and I search scripture, and I write.  At one point yesterday Alex and I had three bibles and two commentaries open, because if we know anything it is that God’s word has the answers and we have to start with him.  But scripture only confirms what I have known for years to be true: we are supposed to feel others’ pain this much.  The system is rigged, friends.  The more we desire to be like Jesus, the more the pain of our friends, community, and the world will wreck us.  There is no pressing in hard to a life following Jesus that will not come with a terrible burden for the well-being of others.  It just is not there.

A great tensions exists in the life of a Christ-follower: the desire for wholeness, self-worth, healing in our broken pasts, thriving marriages, godly children, and hospitable homes set up against the backdrop of a very, very broken world.  The fact that a young girl in Cambodia was just bought for the price of a few of my caramel macchiatos.  The ‘abundant life’ Jesus said he came to bring us juxtaposed with the reality that life is anything but abundant for so, so many.  I have spent so many weeks and months of the past few years feeling like I cannot manage this kind of tension, it’s too thick and heavy.  I wonder if many of us feel like this: we don’t know what to do so we mostly look away.  Or, you may or may not go into the kind of crazy cycle I did a few years ago and throw away all the lavish purchases you had ever made in the name of repentance—my personal sackcloth and ashes moments.  But I don’t think either of those are right, because the former is an attempt to justify ourselves with the “there’s nothing I can really do" mentality and the later is an attempt to justify ourselves by saying “look what I just did!”  Neither line up biblically, where justification is found only in Jesus and his work on the cross.

God did not accidentally put us in this place and time in history.  I did not end up in Spokane, Washington with a husband, two babies, and one on the way outside of what he ordained or allowed in my life.  And I don’t believe that God wants me walking through life apologizing for everything I have that so much of the world does not.  Salvation through poverty is not his plan for beautiful redemption.  But I am also convinced of this to my very core: we are supposed to feel pain for others as much as we feel it for ourselves.  And I think this means fighting back.  It means using my resources in any and every creative manner that I can come up with.  It means prayer, the on our knees, groaning because we don’t know what to say to Aylan’s father kind of prayer.  It means giving sacrificially, considering what our family can do without this month and sending that amount away with trust that God will use it.  It means pushing my daughter on the swing and talking to other mamas about refugees at the same time.  It means Voxing conversations back and fourth all day with a friend talking about dentist appointments and justice in consecutive thoughts.  It means buying pretty flowers at Trader Joe’s for my table and looking at devastatingly painful pictures on the same day.

I can only think of this tension as a rather narrow ridge we are walking on.  But friends, we have to try.  We have to.  In so many ways the footing is a bit more sure on one side or the other, but the life of Jesus was one of both celebration and mourning, and I think he showed us how to do both so that we could do both.  We must do both.  We can be mamas who playdate and advocate.  We can be wives who serve dinner and the homeless, fatherless, or anyone with less.  We can be business owners who make money and a mark in the world. We can be girlfriends who have wine nights and prayer nights.  We can be parents who sign homework folders and petitions.  We can enjoy every beautiful thing God gave us, and we can work tirelessly to help others experience that beauty, too.  There is no formula.  There is just an unapologetic pursuit of Jesus, and the way he shows each of us as we do. 

And to our church and faith leaders: you can ask hard things of us.  You can beg us to look, to empty our wallets, to know what the world is facing outside of our walls.  I promise we can handle it.  We can clap joyfully at the baptism of new family and celebrate wildly when wayward children come back; and we can cry for Syria and Nigeria and so much of the world on the very same day. We can do both, because Jesus did both. We will follow your lead on this.  Please, ask us to do hard things for others.  Give us scripture to sustain us when we are weary and offer a place to rest when we need it, but don’t go easy on us.  If our faith in Jesus is real, it can stand up to pain in the most raw places.  Teach us how to be like our Savior. 

William Wilberforce, one of my heroes of history, will always be famous in our home for his tireless effort to use his position to speak for those who were not allowed a voice.  I think he found that narrow ridge, and history is different because of him.  He also said these words, which I leave you with today: “You can choose to look the other way, but you cannot say you didn’t know.”  Let’s keep looking friends.

I’m starting to feel like these stories are everywhere.  I’m living them and hearing them and watching them unfold in front of me.  I’m offering prayers for solutions and being convicted of the ways I am part of the problem.  I bounce from frustrated to judgmental to empathetic to remorseful.  But the more I listen, the deeper I go with friends and trusted souls, the more I think there is something going on here.

I have some evidence for this theory: stories my closest people have told me about the way others have damaged them with words; experiences I have lived of being confronted about something that I immediately wanted to defend and scream ‘no, no, you are misunderstanding!’; and more than a few misjudgments on my own part, conclusions I had drawn about someone only to be told more information and realized those conclusions were arrived at much too quickly.  And in the end, there is a question sitting in front me that grows more powerful with each season of my life.  Simple in grammar, fully loaded in weight of conviction.  This question: Am I for you? Four words, that’s it.  But they are starting to undo me.

This all started almost a year ago, this thought that I could be caring for the relationships in my life much better. And then the evidence started piling in and making sense in my head, and then came Jonah, that short book of the Bible that most often gets reduced to a debate over the probability that someone could survive in the belly of a whale.  That, or it’s told as a reminder that God will come after you even when you try to run.  Which is true, and a very important characteristic of God to find immense comfort in: he is a pursuer, and how gracious of him!  But keep reading the story.  God was not just pursuing Jonah, and he was not chasing after him for Jonah’s sake alone.  He told Jonah to go, Jonah didn’t.  God taught him a lesson.  So Jonah went.  God was clearly thinking of the millions of souls in Nineveh, and he was not going to let Jonah’s judgment or cowardice stop His plan for the good news to reach them. 

God was for Jonah, but if we miss this I think we miss the whole point: God was so very for the people of Nineveh.  And even when the message finally got there and the sinners repented and mourned that their own choices had kept them from a loving God, the guy who was supposed to be the hero reveals something about himself that hits a bit too close to home for me: he still thought he was ‘better than’ the Ninevites, more worthy of grace, more acceptable to God, more holy, more spiritual, more right, just more.  Jonah wasn’t for the city of Nineveh.

I see myself so much in Jonah.  A woman who believes in God and wants a role in his work in the world, but so often misses this: I wasn’t saved so that I would have high self-esteem, or so that I could reach some elusive self-transcendent stage during my lifetime.  I was saved so that I can be for others, so that I can talk about grace in a real way, so that I can spend a lifetime on someone and something else.

Our default mode is just so much about us, isn’t it?  How we are perceived, if we have a good reputation, if our homes are nice enough, if our children are well-behaved enough, if the work we produce is enjoyed enough, if we have enough followers (can you even believe that is a thing?), and on and on.  And I think if we are really honest with ourselves, sometimes we use other people as the standard to make these judgments.  'Enough' sometimes simply means more than the next person, and instead of truly, from our hearts cheering on the people in our lives, we are secretly hoping they do ok, but not better than us.  We want them to take risks, start businesses, adopt children, be applauded and loved, but we don’t want it to take away from our own sense of acceptance and belonging.  There is this lie the enemy tells us that says if someone has a lot of one thing, there won’t be enough to go around for us.  And it is a lie; it’s the very opposite of the heart of God, whose message is lavish, abundant grace.

When I sat with these things, my perspective got rocked a bit.  And now I’m starting to ask myself this question every single day: Am I for you?  Am I a woman scratching and clawing for attention, or am I humbly offering my best and cheering on your best?  Because the gossip, the cynicism, the comparing, the false pretense and the manufactured measurements of success are all too revealing, and I think what they really show is a whole bunch of people preaching one thing and walking out another.  Are when really surprised that the gospel, and followers of Christ in general, are so misunderstood by people outside of the church?  In my life, I know I will never really fall deeply in love with Jesus unless I am for what he is for.  And friends, that’s everyone.

Time for the heart check: no more withholding words of encouragement, no more behind-the-back judgment, no more fancy rhetoric to prove how right I am, no more pretending.  There is so much work to do in this world and we have such a short time to do it in.  And I know the work pace will increase a hundred fold if we just can be for each other.  It’s only then that we can truly be for the rest of the world.  Let’s leave behind the things that hinder us, and let’s acknowledge that very often these things are of our own doing and from our own pride. And then let’s get to work, because we have to.  Oh goodness, does the world need Jesus followers to get to work.