Tag Archives: Grace

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How I Know

This morning (at this writing) we woke up to 8 degree temperatures here in North Carolina.  Just a few days before Christmas I rode around town with my sunroof open, enjoying the breeze.   The forecast for this weekend includes temperatures in the 60’s and a week from now there is the possibility for a Wintry Mix.  I think our state motto should be changed to “The Schizophrenic Weather State” or “The Multiple Seasons a Week State.”

Schools were delayed two hours due to extreme cold so we took full advantage and slept in. You need all the rest you can get to work hard at staying warm.  A few minutes before I headed out to warm up the car Sophalopes started looking for gloves.  After several minutes of searching the dark recesses of our closets all we could come up with was one white glove and one brown one.  I had no idea I am the only female in the house with a matching pair of gloves.

Soph suggested that we stop at the grocery store on the way to school and see if they had any.  I thought it was an odd place to shop for gloves, but she thought she remembered seeing some.  So off we went. (Just a quick shout out for the Most Awesome Husband Ever who bought me a car with heated seats!  This “tushy-less” wife was very happy this morning!)  After a quick 30 seconds in the store she came out empty-handed and got back in the car.

I looked down at my leather-clad hands and as a Mom I knew it was one of those moments when you make the ultimate sacrifice for your child.  With a tear in my eye and a quivering voice I quietly offered up The Best Leather Gloves in the History of Leather Gloves to save my child’s precious hands.  I just knew generations from now people would be talking about this Momma Moment and how brave I had been.  Especially if she follows through on her plans to become an orthopedic surgeon.  I could be THAT Mom one day!

I really expected a huge smile as she lovingly took my offering and a gave a heartfelt, “Thank you.”  Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “These will be fine.”  These.  These.  “These” are the one white glove and the one brown glove.  The mismatched pair of gloves was fine with her.  I silently wondered how on earth this profoundly self-assured, confident young lady could possibly the daughter of such a mess as me.  Keep in mind she is the one who really tried to talk me into buying the yellow tube top dress back in the summer.

When we pulled up at the curb at school I watched in amazement as she gathered her things and got out of the car like nothing was amiss.  I looked her in the eye one last time as I tried to hand her my matching leather gloves and said, “Are you sure?”  And she just rolled her eyes and said, “Mom” in that tone of voice that reminds me she is closer to adulthood than I am sometimes.  She closed the car door like she does every day and walked into school like everything was right in her universe…with her mismatched gloves.

And everything is right in her universe because she knows she is not defined by her gloves…matching or otherwise.

Unfortunately, 31 years ago if I had been in her shoes (or in her gloves), I wouldn’t have worn any gloves in 8 degree weather if they didn’t match.  I would have been HORRIFIED.  To stand out in any way was a completely paralyzing thought to me.

So this morning, when I watched her walk into school that’s when I knew that I knew in the depths of my soul just how big my God is.  And how small I am.  While I have written this wrapped in humor and a bit of self-deprecation, please know that my bottom line is deep and profound:  God is so much bigger than me, my mess(es), my mistakes or my ability to screw things up.

Amen.

Mark 10:27 (ESV) ~ “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.'”

Important Update:  Just so no one thinks Sophalopes is completely devoid of any fashion sense…when she got home that afternoon she did ask that we go shopping for matching gloves (and scarf, and head band).  She is now all set for the 60 degree weather coming this weekend!

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What If?

What If?

“…love by its nature seeks union.  With the grace of recognition comes the awesome and alarming awareness that Jesus, the incarnation of the furious longing of God, wants more than a close relationship with you and me; He seeks nothing less than union.” ~ Brennan Manning, “The Furious Longing of God,” p. 68.

What if we lived like this statement is true?

What if the whole point of our creation is to be loved by Love Himself, to be one with Him?

What if we embraced the Truth of Song of Solomon 7:10 (NASB):

“I am my beloved’s,
And his desire is for me.”

What if we truly believed we are the beloved of God and He doesn’t just want to meet us and have a casual friendship, He truly DESIRES us?

What if we lived naked and unashamed?  No hiding, no covering up, no fig leaves.

What if we lived in deep, abiding, restful union with Christ?

What if this is abundant, reigning life?

What if this is what it means to be Fully Alive?

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I’ve Lost It

So in late 2012 I asked the Lord to give me a word for 2013.  He didn’t.  He gave me three words: Engage, Embrace, and Enjoy.  The same thing happened the year before, at the end of 2011.  I asked for a word for the coming year and he gave me four words:  BE More, DO Less.

In 2013 those three words (Engage, Embrace and Enjoy) echoed everywhere for me, all the way to the very end.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the Lord meant by those three words, but in the end I realized it wasn’t my job to figure it out, it was His job to REVEAL it.  And He did, ALL YEAR LONG.

So as the year began to close down and the season of Advent arrived, it became apparent that those three words were an invitation to live in each moment with the Lord regardless of my circumstances.  To engage, embrace, and enjoy each and every moment with whomever I was with and in whatever was happening.  Even the ugly moments.  Instead of hiding from the unpleasant and the ugly things to lean in to them with the Lord and allow Him to speak and heal.

For me, the Christmas season has historically been a time I feel the intense and overwhelming need to put on my armor and hide.  For many, many reasons:  the shopping, the expectations of others to get the perfect gift, the pressure for everyone to behave and perform and get along because it’s such a wonderful time of year.  And it is a wonderful time of year, but the pressure and the expectations that it be perfect and that everyone smile and be happy make me want to crawl in a hole and come out with the groundhogs sometime in February.

But this year was different for me.  The revelation of Engage, Embrace and Enjoy really started to take hold in my heart, partly through 31 Days of Advent in October. 

This year I also felt a real sense of release to Engage, Embrace and Enjoy from Popey (even though he didn’t know it).  Early one morning in December I called him at work and this is how the conversation went down:

Popey:  “What do you have today?”

Kimmie:   “Pam’s Christmas party (side bar: my FAVORITE EVENT AT CHRISTMAS EVERY SINGLE YEAR because the only expectation is to have FUN!) and then more shopping.”

Popey:  “Have fun.”

Kimmie:  [Heavy sarcasm] “Well, you know how much I ENJOY shopping.”

Popey:  “Well, you need to enjoy your life.”

Then I promptly hung up and burst into tears because in his simple reply I heard a precious invitation from the Father, yet again, to enter into each moment and enjoy it for whatever it is and whatever it brings.

So I called Popey back:

Kimmie:  “Thanks for telling me to enjoy my life.” [Sniff.  Sniff.]

Popey:  “You are welcome.  I have to work now.”

So off I went engaging, embracing, enjoying.  I had a blast through the rest of the Christmas season.  The Saturday before Christmas I even ventured out one last time for some last minute shopping and enjoyed every minute of it (for those of you who know me in the 3D world, this is nothing short of miraculous).  I rode around town with my sunroof open (that’s what winter in NC is like – very schizophrenic) listening to my satellite radio and just enjoyed being out, in public, with people.

I was so overwhelmed with joy and gratitude for all the good things God has blessed me with that I just sang and wept.  I cried like a little girl.  One of the things I was most grateful for is a husband who loves me, wants God’s best for me and gives me the space to figure it out (mostly because he’s not sure what to do with me or for me, but also because he loves me).

So I finally figured it out, right?  Well, I thought so.  But in the interest of keeping it real and honest and not hiding my version of crazy…here’s the rest of the story…

The Sunday after Christmas Popey and I were enjoying a quiet, delicious meal at home, alone.  He grilled the most fabulous steak I have had in a LONG time (he is known in certain circles as THE GRILL MASTER…which is the other main reason I love him, besides his money and his body (wink)).  We had a little wine.  We were both enjoying the evening, when I burst into tears.  And the truth is I am not entirely sure why.  I was just all of a sudden overwhelmed with an intense sense of loneliness, sadness, fear, and regret.

I didn’t just cry for a minute.  I cried the ugly cry…all night…and most of the next day.  And I am still not sure exactly why.

The bottom line?  Even in the confusing, ugly and less pleasant place I found myself in at the end of the year, I still hear the whisper of the Father inviting me to Engage, Embrace and Enjoy.  To lay down the right to understand everything, figure it out and fix it.  I hear Him saying, “Just lean into it with Me.  Don’t hide from it.  I’ve got you.”

I asked Him for a word for 2014.  He didn’t give me one.  He gave me two:  Fully Alive.  I think He’s showing me this week, even in the middle of the ugly cry, what it’s like to be Fully Alive.  Fully Alive doesn’t necessarily mean everything will be fixed and neatly tied in a bow.  Fully Alive may be ugly and painful, but the operative word is ALIVE.

As opposed to DEAD.

Dead people don’t feel.

Alive people do, even when they don’t understand what they’re feeling.

So here’s to being Fully Alive in 2014 – the good, the bad and the ugly!  I admit that I have no idea what that means at this moment, but I am ready to see what the Lord wants to show me.  And I am willing to Engage, Embrace and Enjoy the process, no matter how dazed and confused I feel along the way.

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A Re-Run: The Deceitfulness of Fine

The post below was one I published earlier this year, however I wrote it six months before it ever found its way to the world wide web.  And I still think about it almost every week.  Not the post itself, but my need to live wide-open, honest, brave, real and vulnerable.  To engage, embrace and enjoy every moment that I move through, in Christ.

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I am learning to be honest (primarily with myself) about my emotions. I’ve actually been in denial most of my adult life that I even have emotions! Somewhere in my southern, Steel Magnolias upbringing I bought into the lie that we (Bible-believing, genteel, southern women) aren’t really supposed to express our true feelings. If we did it might hurt someone’s feelings or worse make someone look bad. This may actually be a chemically induced problem by all the lipstick and Aqua Net I grew up with, but that’s a whole other issue. The result is that when I am asked how I am doing most of the time my answer is, “Fine.”

F-I-N-E…a potentially deceitful four letter word. On the surface those four letters seem quite innocuous. When used appropriately they convey the correct message. According to “Webster’s 1828 Dictionary” (available free online and in my opinion the gold standard of dictionaries), fine (adjective) is defined as follows:

1. Small; thin; slender; minute; of very small diameter; as a fine thread; fine silk; a fine hair. We say also, fine sand, fine particles.
2. Subtle; thin; tenuous; as, fine spirits evaporate; a finer medium opposed to a grosser.
3. Thin; keep; smoothly sharp; as the fine edge of a razor.
4. Made of fine threads; not coarse; as fine linen or cambric.
5. Clear; pure; free from feculence or foreign matter; as fine gold or silver; wine is not good till fine.
6. Refined.

When I limit the state of my well-being to simply “fine” then I take away the full dimension of who I am. I reduce my life to small, thin, slender and minute. I give it the appearance of being clear and pure and free from foreign matter and refined.

To be honest about how I am would be to admit that there is a LOT of “foreign matter” (I think that is a polite way of saying dirt) in my life and I am not refined. It would mean that I am not perfect and in dire need of help! In fact, I am often common or worse, vulgar and rough around the edges, even though I try cover it up with lipstick and hair color.

What’s wrong with admitting we have dirt? What’s wrong with being common, rough around the edges? Absolutely nothing! Those are the things that make us human. They give dimension to our lives. They make our lives less, “small”, less “thin”, less “tenuous.” They also demonstrate our need for Christ.

When I pretend I have it all together I am telling the world and God that I can take care of myself and I don’t really need a Savior.

To admit that I have dirt in my life, that I am not always (in fact most of the time) fine invites people to see who I really am. It opens the door to relationship. Who wants to be friends with someone who always has it together, or at least appears to (because we all know they are faking, right)? Grace says it is ok to be honest. Grace says I am loved and accepted even when I am not fine. Grace invites me to freedom from the confining prison of fine.

And the next time I ask how you are, I am expecting more than fine. Wear all the lipstick you want, but answer me truthfully.

How do you respond when people ask how you are? Is there anything that keeps you from being honest? What do you expect to hear from others when you ask how they are? How do you invite others to be real with you?

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Cure for a Writing Party Hangover

In case it isn’t obvious, this is only my second post in the month of November.  So what in the world is going on?  Well, I’ve been asking myself that for several days.  At first I felt like the internet needed me to be quiet for a few days so that there might be enough white space for people to process things other than 31 Days of Advent in October.

When it came time to put thoughts into words, sentences, paragraphs and posts again, and I struggled to do it, it dawned on me I am experiencing what I have decided to call a Writing Party Hangover.  Another blogger, Emily Freeman, recently posted that every year in October she writes for 31 days straight and then finds that she has nothing to say in November.  Well, I am experiencing something completely different.  I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head, it’s like a three-ring circus in here…in fact, it’s like a three-ring circus plus clowns and jugglers circling the perimeter, plus little kids on a sugar high squealing with delight and I think I heard a train whistle.  And they are all vying for my attention.

Elephant Trail

Sometimes writing, for me, is like giving those thoughts a safe place to land.  With the Writing Party Hangover it’s been really hard to just pick one thought, help it land onto the virtual page and then let it become a more fully developed idea.  But in some sense I don’t think this space is necessarily for completely developed ideas, more like ideas in process.

So, this morning I decided to break up my routine to help me look at things differently and hopefully get some of this circus of thoughts out of my head (now there’s a title for a post – Circus of Thoughts or Head Circus or How to Get the Circus Out of Your Head).   See what I mean?  It’s just a big mess in here.  God bless everyone who has actually tried to have a face-to-face conversation with me lately.

Hopefully unplugging from technology, being quiet, and working in a different room will shake some things loose for me and something coherent may come together.  Or not.  They say identifying the problem is the first step towards solving it.

Amen.

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Looking Back on 31 Days (or Clueless and Loving It!)

Last week as the 31 Days of Advent in October series was coming to an end I realized I was so engrossed in writing it that I hadn’t had a chance to discuss it.  You may be thinking, “Wow, what an odd thing to say Kim.  In writing it weren’t you discussing it?”  Well, the writing of it is one thing, but the experience of the process is something completely different.  And it turns out I think I have a lot to say about the experience.

Just in case you have no idea what I am talking about you can check it out here and here.  But I just completed a 31 Day writing challenge over at The Nester’s online home.  For the past several years she has invited bloggers to write for 31 days straight about the same topic in the month of October as a way of building an online community, encouraging others in their blogging journey, and to help bloggers remember why it is they signed up for this writing life.

Last October, for the second year in a row, I read The Nester’s 31 Day invitation and subsequent series and really longed to join in what looked like a Big Fun Writing Party.  But alas, I had no blog and therefore, no way to join the party.  Until of course it finally occurred to me that all I needed was a name for my blog, $10 (or whatever it was) to register the domain name, and an afternoon to set everything up through WordPress.  And just like that, on a cold afternoon in January, on my big red couch in my living room, Gracefullyunraveled – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly was born.

So the couple of months leading up to October 2013 the question loomed in the back of my mind, are you going to do it?  Are you going to join the writing party?  The truth is I waffled back and forth for several weeks because I had a couple of big commitments (at least big for me) already lined up and I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea of writing about the same topic EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 31 STRAIGHT DAYS.  I wasn’t sure if I could do it.

Apparently it all worked out because here I am writing this post on October 31st (even though it will publish in a week), my last post in the series went live this morning at 6:00 a.m. and here are some of my initial reflections on this journey:

1)     I loved this experience from beginning to end!  I was concerned that if I made the “commitment” to participate that at some point it might become drudgery, but it never did.  Some of the posts were a little more difficult to develop, but it was never drudgery.  Sitting down to write each post was such a joy because I didn’t have to struggle to make anything fit.  As I read each advent selections I could see lots of different strands that I could pull and follow and respond to.  Ann’s book, The Greatest Gift, is so rich that I could probably go through this exercise multiple times and write completely different responses each time. (Please, please, GET THIS BOOK before December 1st…it was life changing for me and every bit as important as One Thousand Gifts, also by Ann Voskamp.)

2)     Even if no one else ever read any of my posts except me it was worth every second of it.  The process of writing each post ministered to me in a deep way.  When I say the process I mean reading each day’s selection, internalizing it, and then articulating a response.  I wept through almost all of them as God convinced me personally of His coming just for my heart.  And that He’s been coming for me since before the beginning.  I am tearing up now thinking about it.  The only struggle was that sometimes there just didn’t seem to be words adequate to articulate the work going on in my heart.

3)      As I thought about this post I considered including a link to my favorite ones in the series.  The problem is I LOVED EVERY SINGLE POST.  Of course they weren’t perfect and given more time I could have done a much better job editing and polishing them, but each one of them had a unique and necessary thing to speak to the series as a whole and I couldn’t choose any of them over the others.

4)      This experience confirmed to me that art inspires art.  My posts came directly from my personal conversations with the Lord about another artist’s work.  My responses were different than Ann Voskamp’s, but they were certainly inspired by hers.  And they were also inspired by MANY other things I’ve read and experienced over the last few years – One Thousand Gifts, Grace for the Good Girl, several books of the Bible, my Advanced Discipleship Training (ADT) class, all of my classmates in ADT.  I am still thinking about this and I actually believe it’s a very important point.  I think it speaks to our need for community on many levels.  I have heard other writers say that when they experience a “dry season” they realize it is because they are not reading and/or engaging in their life enough.  I am sure all of them will be glad to know that now I also agree. 🙂

5)      The end product, meaning each post, was less important to me than the process of creating it.  That actually surprised me.  I came to this conclusion when I realized that every time someone said they liked my post or gave me encouragement (which I really needed and was very grateful for because this was a huge endeavor for me), I said “Thank you”, but I found myself wanting to talk about how that particular post had developed.  I just couldn’t figure out a way to say that to anyone without sounding like I wanted to talk about myself.  🙂 (I tend to overuse emoticons when I feel awkward about something I’ve just written, but I think I am the only one who didn’t know that about myself.)

6)      One of the best things about this journey was dialoguing with the Lord about each of the posts and allowing the post to be an expression of my union with Him.  I know that sounds sort of mystical and I don’t mean for it to, but I am not sure how else to say it.  I was openly using a jumping off point from Ann Voskamp’s, The Greatest Gift, but chewing on each writing selection,  internalizing the message and then spinning it back out into each post for others to consume, enjoy (or even reject) was a very personal expression of something the Lord and I were doing together.

7)      This point is going to sound crazy, but in the interest of full disclosure, I feel that to exclude this one would be dishonest.  I loved the 31 Days journey so much that I am a bit concerned/afraid/worried/scared to death that the next blog writing project (which I have in mind, but will talk about later) won’t be as good or amazing in terms of process or end product.  😦 I know this is completely irrational…and will probably sound even more crazy when I share the idea for the next topic here in this space.  (I have said it before, but it bears repeating, I often think my role in life is to provide the comic relief for the rest of you.)

I may have more to share but these are my initial thoughts.  I am a firm believer in the idea that as we move through the events of our lives we have absolutely no clue as to their significance until some time has passed and we gain more context and perspective.  So here’s to being clueless and loving it!

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31 Days of Advent in October :: Day 31!

Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

After writing about the coming of Christ every day for an entire month, I have to say I feel a bit like celebrating–not in what I have done, but in what the coming of the Word Made Flesh has done in me and in the world.

Won’t you celebrate with me?  What better words to end this Advent series with than those of Isaac Watts:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let all their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love,
And wonders of his love,
And wonders of his love.

Grace.

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31 Days of Advent in October :: Day 30

Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

The Greatest Gift
Reading Selection for December 25th
“Today”

Luke 2: 13-15  (NLT) – 13 “Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,

14 ‘Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.’

15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.'”

The angel tells the shepherds, “…peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”  Jehovah Shalom the God Who is Peace was pleased to come to us, to come for us, to come in us.

Love was pleased to come for us.  It wasn’t drudgery.  It wasn’t a last ditch effort of a reluctant Savior.  It wasn’t the act of an exasperated Father to say, “I told you so.”  He was pleased to come for us.  To rescue us.  To deliver us. To restore us.  To save us.  Us, the broken, sinful, forgotten and hurt.  Us, the one’s with nothing to offer, nothing to give, but our own filthy rags.

Us, the beloved creation of Creator God.

I love this line from “Hark the Herald Angel Sings,”

“Veil’d in flesh, the Godhead see;
Hail, th’incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,”

He was pleased to come, as a man, for you and for me.

Advent is here.  He has come, for you.  He’s standing at the door of your own version of a stable, will you let Him in?  Don’t worry about the smell.  Don’t worry about the animal dung.  The straw all over the floor’s just fine too.  He doesn’t need a place to sit.  He’s not interested in the pretense or the view.  He’s come just for you.  He’s pleased to be here.

Receive Him.

And if you need words to celebrate His arrival, maybe these by Charles Wesley will help:

Hark! the herald angels sing, –
“Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’ angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!

Christ, by highest heav’n adored:
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the favored one.
 Veil’d in flesh, the Godhead see;
 Hail, th’incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!

Hail! the heav’n-born Prince of peace!
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
 Born to raise the sone of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!

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31 Days of Advent in October :: Day 29

Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

Photo Credit: Sophie Pope

The Greatest Gift
Reading Selection for December 24th
“God in the Manger”

Luke 2:7 (NLT) – “She [Mary]…laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”

All of God in a woman; in a baby; in a manger; on a Cross; within us.  Is it possible for all of Divinity to dwell in all of our humanity?  It defies imagination.  It defies logic.  It defies all human reason.  Love like this cannot be pictured or concluded.  It had to be demonstrated.  It had to express Itself in the only possible explanation, a miracle.

Love, unconditional, heaven and earth-moving Love, creation-inspiring Love, could not stay Home and watch from afar.  Love was compelled to act.  Love was compelled to move.  Love came down to us.   Love was the only Way.  Love is the only Way.

In all of our imagining; in all of our logic and reason, we couldn’t get to Love.  He came to us.  Divine Love wrapped Himself in our humanity, made Himself vulnerable to us, submitted Himself to our care, and embraced us as His own.

Ann Voskamp writes on page 246,

“Rejected at the inn, holy God comes in small to where you feel rejected and small.  God is with you now.  Wherever you are–in a soundless cry or hidden brokenness or in your ache–God always wants to be with you.  You are not ever left alone in this.  We are never left alone in this; God is with us.

     “This is Love you can’t comprehend.  You can only feel and touch this kind.  There, in the place where you feel rejected, you can be touched by God.  There, in the places you feel small, you can touch God.  He came in the flesh.”

Advent is here, Love has come.  Can you make room for Love right where you are?