Public Service Announcement {interrupting my "motherhood stories" for this PSA}

Increasingly, I see the need to get one thing straight:

There’s moxie…and there’s harpy.

There’s sass…and there’s sorcery. Jezebel.

“Say I Won’t”

But. But how do you know the difference?

Well, it is easy.

Moxie is based on something God has said to me. Harpy is based on something I say. Sass is based on being in the right. Sorcery is based on wanting to be seen as being right. Sass is strength in doing what is right. Sorcery is strength in having or getting it my way. Never confuse rebellion for sass. They aren’t the same. One is to be repented of quickly, the other is a prerequisite to leadership.

Here’s something I taught recently that might help you keep these things properly sorted:

Look inside the Scriptures. Plant your feet in them, put your face in them, soak your heart in them, wash your hands in them, cleanse your soul in them, light your way in them. Reckon everything in your life according to the Gospel.

“Well I reckon…”

That’s sass.

The other stuff? The self-help stuff? The “prop me up” self talk? The shenanigans and badassery? Nah.

The pseudo Christian female leader thing is bigbigbig right now. I am all for girl power, do not mishear what I am saying. I’m my daddy’s daughter - I carry his legacy on the inside of me.

(versus only saying that I do, or pretending that I do…dude…I actually love most what. the. man. loved. most…the word of God.)

So I try to live in a state of perpetual moxie. If you wonder what that might look like, well, here you go:

…daddy…

…daughter…

Actual moxie? Actual sass? It’s only done “by the book”. Literally, it is only done by having a sure word from the Lord.

Moxie is not me getting all badass about my own opinion.

Now…like the great apostle once said, I am not in charge of your faith, but I do hope to be a helper of your joy. And since I seek to be a helper of your joy, I want to share with you a song the Lord sang over me yesterday.

Yes. He did.

As I said goodbye to my pastor husband - who was preaching at another church in Talbot, TN - I went inside to finish praying over my own message I would be sharing to our home church. And just like any lover, the Lord waited to get me alone, and immediately said, “Go listen. I want to sing over you.” This has happened to me about three times before, and believe me, when the Lord says it, I tune in. Because it has always been life altering. Destiny shaking.

So, I heard my phone in the back of the house, where I had the usual Sunday Morning Pandora Channel playing. One song was ending and by the time I got to the room the next one was beginning. And I had never heard it before in my whole life. (I am not an early adopter…)

If you will allow me, I will just say it ahead of time…

You’re Welcome.

Literally, it has been on repeat all day yesterday and all day today, since. I can’t get over it.

Jesus, Lover of my soul.

Hearing His voice like that? It imparts serious moxie.

Day 32 of Lent, and Spring's Brief and Beautiful Ache

I’m trying to figure out what it was about this that made me ache. It made me ache in that familiar way, like when snow falls or babies are born. There’s something about beauty mixed with ugly mixed with cracks mixed with gold. There’s something about loveliness that can’t possibly last.

So I am an enneagram 5, but my 4 wing has a really big butt and she takes up a lot of room inside me. (And if you think I take those numbers seriously, we must be complete strangers…)

So the “enneagram 4 wing force” is strong with me, and I apologize in advance. Bradford pear blossoms on a cracked and dirty tray make me verklempt. If that sort of emoting troubles you, I beg you, look away.

Maybe it’s the loss of my father, last year. Maybe it’s a dozen other smaller losses combined, but the ache is making…has made…me wiser, softer, and sillier. I am more ready to risk - and that is saying a lot, because risky is already basically my middle name.

I know. I know, you look at me and see someone so careful. But look deeper. Deeper, still. The part of me that willingly stood beside my husband when he quit his full-time job with benefits to pastor full-time? The part of me that threw caution and workbooks to the wind to educate her children with mostly whole books and life experiences? She’s still there. The part of me that has refused, at great risk, to let myself feel beholden to those who did much to try to make me be? She’s still alive and alert. She hasn’t even taken a nap in 30 years.

Every beautiful thing God has done in me and for me, the meticulously gorgeous design of my family and my life, and the glory of the weighty calling that is on us - is not because anyone supported us, though so many have and do and will.

But they have, and they do, and they will because Living God has bathed us in favor. That’s true for you, too. You can risk, without fear of man. The only problem is, I cannot believe this for you. And I’m telling you, it is not easy to walk in simple faith in God’s goodness.

It is risky business to know these things for sure. To live like I believe it invites misunderstanding.

Spring’s brief and beautiful ache makes me even more willing to “fail, having dared greatly”.

I told you to look away!

“It is not

the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”