Simplifying… me

It’s rainy season in Malawi. As I sit here, looking out at the quiet morning showers as they wash the lush, thick grasses, heavy hanging trees, and cactus plants in their soft dew-like downfall – nature enclosing me as though I were snuggled up safely in a canopy of green – I find my inner [...]

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When I was a little girl, I remember being at a friend’s house playing on their big tree swing. Her dad would lift us up, up, up in the air, and we would swing so high that I really thought I could touch the clouds. It was exhilarating. I loved every minute of it, and [...]

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Two months in.
Two months have flown by. And, yet, at the same time, it feels like we’ve been here forever.
Time is funny that way. Adjusting, transitioning, acclimating, and discovering all take so much effort and margin that time seems to slow down and speed up simultaneously.
We’ve been in Malawi for two months, and as I [...]

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Everything is upside down.
We are grasping for normal, and there is no normal.
The highs and lows hit multiple times throughout the day.
Elation from successfully making a full meal from scratch (and everyone loves it). Excitement in finding out that our children’s school offers ballet (an answer to Sydney’s prayers). Peaceful pleasure in roses in bloom [...]

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Transitioning from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
I have no idea what I’m doing.
I wake up in the morning and look around at suitcases and trunks, piles of clothes with no drawers, books with no shelves, and as I try to weave my way through the heavy fog of jet lag, I can’t figure out where [...]

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“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” John 15:4
Have you ever fought with God regarding the place where he has planted you?
Have you ever looked over at another garden and [...]

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There is no distance we can run from which God’s gracious hand can not reach out and rescue.
We can never go too far where redemption can not pull us back.
And if we think that our current circumstances have hidden us too far out of sight, then we have forgotten just how great and mighty, mindful [...]

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We need hope.
Hope is what gets us up and out of bed in the morning when the impossible is staring at us in the face.
Hope is what energizes and empowers us to keep hanging on when the unthinkable has disrupted our lives.
Hope reminds us that while we may not see it right now, we can [...]

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I was in third grade. It was a Sunday morning, and I was sitting in our children’s church room at church when our children’s leaders were suddenly called away from the classroom. They left a boy and a girl in charge – no more than two years older than myself – who were instructed to [...]

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Embrace the past
Embrace tomorrow
Embrace the joy
Embrace the sorrow
Embrace the simple
Embrace the uncertain
Embrace the weathered
Embrace the new again
All the days ahead
Are made what they will be
By all the days behind.
The gift of what seems too hard
Appreciated for what growth
Awaits on the other side.
The goodness of it all
The excitement, challenge, stretching, breathing in grace and peace
Found in [...]

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