California fires

Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for my parents. It appears that their home in Escondido is safe, miraculously. I blogged about it today over on Boomer Babes Rock, click on over to check it out.

while the pictures of devastation and destruction filled the news even here in Chicago, my mother said one of the most amazing aspects of this tragedy was something that was not tragic at all.

The story behind the story is about the kindness of the people of San Diego. My mother said Qualcom stadium was full of evacuees, but there were almost as many folks there volunteering to help. thousands of people brought food, bottled water, blankets, air mattresses and more to the places where displaced folks were staying. The Red Cross was overwhelmed by trying to manage all the donations.

My parents' home was very close to the fires, they were certain they would lose it. So far, it has been spared, for which we're very grateful.

Even my parents, hearing on the news a request for help with some nursing home residents who had been displaced, decided to go over and volunteer. They were turned away, even tho my mom is a registered nurse, because there were too many volunteers. People brought donations of everything, including numerous boxes of Depends, mom reported to me. :)

While it's scary and sad to see the fires, it is amazing to see how people are pulling together and helping each other.

Kids and Homework

Hi everyone,
thanks so much for your prayers, my parents house in Escondido is still standing, as far as we know (see post below). Right now they are not allowing anyone in to that area, since several houses in the neighborhood were burned. Keep up the prayers.
also, wanted to let you know about a cool site, Boomer Women Speak, run by Dotsie Bregel, one of the Boomer Babes I blog with. They published an article I wrote recently on an experience I had helping my daughter with her homework.
check it out here.

prayer request

Hi friends,
Just wanted to ask anyone who visits this site to please pray for the families in the San Diego area (including my parents) whose homes are being threatened by the wildfires. My parents were evacuated from their home in Escondido very early this morning, then evacuated again from the friend's house where they'd gone.
The fires are the lead story on http://www.cnn.com/ this morning.

The photo at right is not their home, but a news photo of a fire in that area. Currently their neighborhood is evacuated because the fire is nearby. Please pray that the fierce winds calm, so that their neigbhorhood will not be damaged.
I'd appreciate prayer for them and for all the residents of that area.
Thanks!

Teaching at Willow Creek

As many of you know, I've taught a women's spiritual formation class at Willow Creek for seven years. This year, I took a break from teaching, for two reasons. I needed more writing time, and I also wanted to let the women who have been a part of my teaching team step up and do more teaching. I love helping women discover their gifts, I love mentoring. Part of mentoring involves stepping aside to provide opportunities for others. This year, my friend Pam is leading the class and doing a great job. The book they are studying is a classic: Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline.
But this week, I had the opportunity to be the guest speaker. I taught on the discipline of fasting. Definitely an interesting topic--I had a great time learning as I prepared, and really enjoyed teaching.
Tahna, who is part of the team, has set up a website for the class that includes lots of info, including audio of the class.
So if you'd like to hear me teach on the spiritual discipline of fasting (don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds!) go to the site and take a listen!

Reader mail

First, I need to apologize for neglecting this blog. I'm working on a book, and my speaking schedule always revs up a bit in the fall.
One such speaking gig was at the MOPS International Convention in Orlando. I taught a workshop there last month. MOPS, you'll recall, sent out a copy of my book Breathe to all of its 110,000 members last May. So all 4400 women at this convention had received a copy--I don't know if they read it. But a number of them had, apparently. Several of them spoke to me during the weekend, and told me, "Your book changed my life."
You know, I have never written a best seller. My income from writing is small. Really. And I am often discouraged by that. But hearing from those readers was, to me, assurance that I am doing what God has called me to do.
This week, just when I really needed some encouragement, I received this e-mail from Darcy, a reader in Connecticut:

“Keri, my husband and I read your book "Breathe: Creating Space for God in a Hectic Life" early this summer while enjoying "down time" with our five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. We are changed because of it and have entered the first of our numerous school years with NOTHING on the calendar, except for MOPS 2x month.
We believe we are creating space for God to tap us on the shoulder and tell us where to spend our time and energy. We will add activities slowly and prayerfully, but have been so impressed by your words, that we have changed our lifestyle. Thank you for being so bold!”
It’s gratifying to hear that my book has had an impact, and even more gratifying that readers “get it”—that the purpose of clearing your schedule is not just so you can do nothing, but so that you're available to hear God's call and have the time and energy to respond to it. To make concrete changes that say no to a hectic life, so that you can say yes to God, who is ultimately the only one who really changes our lives.

Living as a Missional suburbanite

My newsletter was sent out today. for those that don't subscribe, here's the article. You can click on the link at right to subscribe.

Why I am a Missional Suburbanite

God has been messing with me lately. That’s the only way to describe it. The “God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3) has been making me uncomfortable, and while I trust that this is for my own good in the long run (and the good of the world around me) it still creates an uneasiness in my soul.
There’s a saying that God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. And it is the comfort of my life that God has been challenging me about.
Six months ago, I took a class on urban development and leadership, trying to learn about the problems of the inner city and familiarizing myself with the work of various urban ministries. It was a part of a justice journey that perhaps some of you have seen evidence of in my writing lately.
In recent weeks, God’s invited me to take a few more steps on that journey, and on that journey, I keep coming to forks in the path where I feel I must make choices. As usual for me, God is speaking through books: His Book, of course, but also a few others.
In the past two weeks, I read Will and Lisa Samson’s new book, Justice in the Burbs, and also Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. Both confirmed what I’ve been learning for the past year or two, that faith in Jesus and caring for the poor are inextricably bound. And now, I can’t claim ignorance anymore.
You can see my reviews of both books below, but I wanted to tell you a bit about how these two works have come at just the right time in my journey.
I grew up in a church that valued the Bible, and that church instilled that value in me, by various means (raise your hand if you did “Bible drills”). The most prevalent was memorization, a gift I’m grateful for. One verse I memorized was Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Christian singer Ken Medema had a song based on that verse, which I heard not only when he came to do a concert at our church but at home when we listened to his albums. And I was so glad that Jesus took my sins away, that I was saved, that God’s love went beyond reason, to amazing grace. To me, that was what the words meant—forgiveness of sin, halleluiah. I’m not being flippant, that really is a thing to rejoice in. And that is what the verse is about. But it’s not all that verse is about. My reading is missing some of the context.
I’ve been reading Isaiah again lately, because I’ve noticed so many of the verses I didn’t read in my childhood are in that book.
For example, the verse directly preceding God’s invitation to “reason.” Reason about what? “Let’s reason together” sounds like an invitation to a thoughtful discussion. But about what? My need for forgiveness? My need for personal salvation? God’s willingness to forgive me, which goes beyond normal reasoning? That’s what I’d always assumed, in fact, been taught. Because it is about that, but it’s also about so much more. The previous verse, Isaiah 1:17 says, “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”
So “do right” doesn’t just mean not drinking, dancing, smoking or running around with boys who do? (the behavior my tradition labeled as the worst sins) Doing right also includes seeking justice, fighting oppression, helping orphans and widows? Huh. I mean, who knew?
It is still true that God’s grace washes us all clean, makes us white as snow. And that we ought to spurn sinful activities. His forgiveness of course, makes us grateful. That is so obvious that the text doesn’t even mention that. But the next verse says God expects our response to be obedience. How? By doing what it says in verse 17—to do what is right: seek justice, encourage the oppressed (my Bible’s footnote on this phrase says another translation of the phrase might be “rebuke the oppressor”). It seems that God is asking us to fight for justice so that those who are oppressed or orphaned can experience grace. No offense to my church, but how come I didn’t hear this part of the story? I thought that I was supposed to tell other people about Jesus. But this text, which is clearly about amazing grace, doesn’t say anything about telling, except with our actions of justice.
If the Bible says we should seek justice and rebuke the oppressor, then the actions that Shane Claiborne describes in his book—protesting mistreatment of tomato pickers, feeding the homeless and fighting for laws that protect the poor—don’t seem so radical anymore. His term for himself, an ordinary radical, makes more sense.
So, how is God messing with me? He’s poking around in my privileged little life, challenging me to seek justice and help widows and orphans, right here in my neighborhood. As Will and Lisa Samson write compellingly about what they call “theology of place,” which basically means that “God has placed us where we are for a reason. …Wherever you are, that is where the kingdom of God is at work. There is no neutral place. That is good news. So doing missions means doing the work of the kingdom wherever you are sent. And the best place to think about where you have been sent is to see where you are…. If you find yourself in the suburbs, welcome to your mission field.”
Since I do happen to find myself in the suburbs, where the regional pastime is shopping, I’m really wrestling with what it means to be missional. To be counter-cultural. To be a light in a place that presents a well-manicured façade is in some ways difficult. To fight my own tendencies to run after comfort and possessions, instead of seeking God. After all, they say that a light shines brightest in the darkness. In my comfortable suburb, just convincing people they are in the dark is half the battle.
One step on my journey was to decide to let God do the convincing, but do my best to act in a way that will give evidence of my faith. That doesn’t mean speaking in Christian jargon, it means admitting your struggles but pointing to God. It means, I think, loving people even when they are difficult.
In order to love someone, you need to get to know them. Do you know your neighbors, no matter where you live? Does your circle of friends include any people who have a different set of beliefs than you do?
Join the PTA at your child’s school, be one of the parents who volunteers to help with your kid’s soccer team—but do it with a missional mindset. Get to know people—seek out those who are different than you. Is there an elderly person in your neighborhood who could use some help with maintaining her home or yard? Offer to help. If there is a single mom in your neighborhood, get to know her. It’s quite possible that she will have a messy life, she will be needy. Get to know her anyway. Help her out in practical ways. That’s what love is.
You don’t have to move to the inner city to work for social justice. The way we live, the choices we make about lifestyle, consumption, etc. are all a part of justice. But the best place to begin is where you are, and the best time to do it is now.

Sabbath devotional

My friend and colleague Rachel Olsen, with Proverbs 31 Ministries, posted an encouraging devotional on http://www.crosswalk.com/ today. She wrote about Sabbath, which as you know is one of my favorite topics, and she quoted from my book Breathe. Check out what she wrote.

Revolutionary living

I just finished reading Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution. Wow. I highly recommend it, although I have to warn you that the book will challenge you. It might make you mad, if you are a little conservative. But I'd love to hear what you think.

Claiborne is a controversial figure in Christian circles, mostly because he has decided to follow Jesus to the inner city, where he and a group of friends live among the poor, in fact are poor themselves, and to actually fight for justice. (http://www.thesimpleway.org/)
This book is partly a memoir, with stories of how Claiborne went to Calcutta to spend time working with Mother Teresa, and his trip to Iraq as a “peacemaker.” Claiborne has been arrested numerous times for protesting various forms of injustice, including local laws targeting the homeless that made it illegal to feed people, or to sleep outside.
But the book is more than a memoir, it is a challenge to the church and to every Christian to live their faith in a radical way. To live as if Jesus words about when we clothe the naked and feed the hungry, we’re doing it to him, were literally true.
What I'm trying to figure out is how to live out my faith when I live in a comfortable suburb. God's using Shane's book, as well as my reading of Justice in the Burbs by Will and Lisa Samson, to challenge me. My neighbors need God's love--so how do I really show that to them? I'm insulated from the poor, so Claiborne's words really made me think:
“We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.”

My monthly visits to a women's shelter have enabled me to get to know the poor a little, but I would say that it's only a start. I don't really know them.

This book will rock you, because Claiborne claims that while he’s a radical, he’s an ordinary radical, and following Jesus is a radical calling.
The point of the book is to call Christians to actually live out their faith. figuring out what that means for you will require prayer, but then action. He writes:
“If you ask most people what Christians believe, they can tell you, ‘Christians believe that Jesus is God’s son and that Jesus rose from the dead.’ But if you ask the average person how Christians live, they are struck silent. We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way. And doctrine is not very attractive, even if it’s true. Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death.”
I challenge each of you to read this book and take just one small step toward living your faith. And to offer suggestions to all of us about how to live justly no matter where we live.

Writing for magazines

As a freelance writer, I write for several publications, including Discipleship Journal and Today’s Christian Woman. Knowing this, reader Dianne had this question: ”How do you do research for ‘practical Christian living’ type articles? If you are not an ‘expert’ how do you put that ‘expert voice’ into your articles?”

This is a great question. A lot of people want to write. But in order to write, you need to have something to say. So often, the idea of being a writer is so appealing, until you have to actually gather your thoughts into something coherent, and then sit down and actually write, which is so much dang work.
Perhaps you do write, and you have lots of ideas. If you want to write for magazines, the first step is to read the magazines you’re like to write for. Study several back issues to determine the magazine’s style, format, topics. Figure out which magazines line up with the topics you want to write about. A magazine such as, oh, say, Practical Horseman, is not going to buy an article on resolving conflict in your marriage, no matter how well researched and written. An article that is perfect for People Magazine would likely be rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association, no matter how intriguing or well-written. Research the magazines you are targeting.
An invaluable resource, if you are trying to write for the Christian market, is The Christian Writers Market Guide by Sally Stuart. Published annually, this book lists magazines, publishers, etc., and gives details ranging from whether they work with freelancers, how much they typically pay, what type of articles they are looking for, editors names, etc. There are tips on writing queries and articles. this year's edition also includes a CD-ROM which makes it easy to search.
Each magazine also will have its editorial guidelines, and an editorial calendar. (Often posted on their website or available by request). The guidelines give you rules for format and style and content. The calendar tells the topics or themes for each issue.
Magazine articles are not about you—they are about the reader. Your musings on a topic are not interesting, frankly, to anyone besides you (and perhaps readers of your blog, which is where that type of thing belongs—or in your own private journal—but that’s another topic). However, some articles begins with a story about you, and how you solved a problem in your own life. But they must move on to offer help to the reader to improve their life or solve a problem.

There are links on this blog to several other great sites that have more tips on writing. Or feel free to post a comment or questions by clicking on the word "comments" below.

Experience Africa

Just got back from a visit to Africa.

Well, actually, Naperville, IL, an affluent suburb about as different from Africa as you can imagine. But World Vision's traveling exhibit about Africa and AIDS was at a church there. What an amazing experience.

You can read more about it at www.boomerbabesrock.com/blog so click over and check it out.

then, visit World Vision's website and find out when this amazing interactive exhibit will be in your town. Make plans to go--you will not regret it.

book review

My book Listen was reviewed on a great blog, Unfinished Work, today. Click over and read the review, then leave a comment.

Postmodern parenting

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood words of our day is "postmodern." There are plenty of explanations of this term, and you can google it to your heart's content and find all kinds of different ideas.

But at the surface, break it down. "Post" as a prefix means "after."

The "modern" era was the machine age, an age of rationalism, when people basically believed that our knowlege and powers of rational thought would take us to, as that icon of modernity, Buzz Lightyear, proclaimed, "to infinity and beyond."

So postmodern means "after the modern era." Well, and a whole lot more.

Many conservative people tend to wring their hands a lot about postmodernism, as if it were a religion people sign up for, or a force of evil, like terrorism or oh, say, legalism.

Anyway, the fact is, because we live in the 21st Century, we live in the postmodern era. It is simply an observation about where we find ourselves on the timeline of human history. We live after the modern era, so it is now the post-modern era. Now, the term also encompasses the prevailing thinking of our day. And we can agree or disagree with some of the tenets of post-modernism, or not.

All to say, we have to live in this culture, where people around us often unwittingly ascribe to postmodern ideas. It is still very fluid and changing, which is indeed part of post-modernism--our desire to define things before they have even fully happened.

If we don't want our kids to simply absorb post-modern values by osmosis, we need to understand what those ideas are, and even to discuss them. To be informed and intentional as parents and as people.

As a parent, I want to be relevant and authentic. Writer Mary Demuth has provided a guide to help me achieve both with her new book Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture. I'm honored to be a part of her blog tour this week.

INTERVIEW WITH MARY
Welcome to Deep Breathing for the Soul, Mary. Let's start with an important question: How would you define the term "postmodern"?

Postmodernism is the waiting room between what used to be a modern worldview and what will be. According to several postmodern scholars, we’re in a shift right now, leaving modern ideas behind, but what we are shifting to is not yet fully defined. Postmoderns believe that rationalism and/or more education doesn’t necessarily create a better society. They typically don’t embrace the notion of absolute truth, though they reach for the transcendent. They are skeptical, and often question whether science is something to be embraced or feared.

Okay, how does this intersect with my parenting?

The question for parents is how will we mine the current worldview, even as it shifts? What in it can we embrace as biblical? What is not biblical? What I’ve seen in the church is a fearful adherence to what is familiar. So we cling to modern ideas, even though they may not be biblical and shun postmodern ideas even when they might be biblical. Our children will meet this shifting worldview no matter what our opinion of it is.

So as a mom, what can I do to help my kids?

Become a conversational parent. Talk to your kids. Listen. Share your story.Dare to believe that God has much to teach you through your kids. Be humble enough to learn from them.Create a haven for your kids, an oasis in your home that protects, supports, and gives kids space to be themselves. Take seriously the mandate that you are responsible for the soul-nurturing of your children.Teach your children to joyfully engage their world, while holding tightly to Jesus’ hand. Teaching this comes primarily from modeling it in your own life. Do you engage your neighbors? Are you more interested in God’s kingdom than your own? Admit your failures openly with your children, showing how much you need Jesus to live your daily life. You are the first to admit that being authentic might require a parent to apologize after an angry outburst.

So, authentic parents are real--they don’t always have it all together? We're allowed to make mistakes?

Yep! We are all frail, needy humans. If we present ourselves as perfect parents, never failing, always doing this correctly, we show our children we have no need of Jesus. We also set up a standard of perfection—that to be a Christian, one has to be perfect. This can lead to our children creating elaborate facades or hiding behind masks. I’d rather have my children see that even mommies make mistakes, and we all need Jesus every single day.You talk about the twin values of engagement and purity.

Well, that makes me feel good because my kids are highly aware that their mom is anything but perfect! But tell me more about these ideas of engagement and purity.

Many parents subconsciously believe that true parenting means protection at any cost. when we lived in France, we received a lot of flak for putting our children in French schools because the atmosphere there wasn’t exactly nurturing. Believe me, the decision was excruciating. But through it all, I realized that Jesus calls us all to be engaged in the culture we live in, yet not to be stained by it. That’s the beauty of engagement and purity. Abraham understood this. After God told him to leave everything and venture to a new place, he obeyed: “From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 12:8). Oswald Chambers elaborates: “Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two.” As parents journeying alongside our children through a postmodern world, this concept of pitching our tent between communion with God and engagement in the world should encourage us.

The book we've been discussing, Authentic Parenting in a Post-Modern Culture, by Mary DeMuth is available now. You can purchase your autographed copy directly from Mary at the link above. I highly recommend that you order it today!

speaking podcast

Back in May, on Mother's Day weekend, I had the privilege of traveling to Utica, NY, where I was the guest speaker at all three weekend services of Mount Zion Ministries chuch.
What a great community of people who love God.
My talk was about what moms need. I won't give it away, but validation and a sense of purpose were among the things I talked about.
Mount Zion podcasts most of their sermons, so mine is on their site. here's the link.
http://www.podshow.com/shows/index.php?mode=ext_detail&episode_hash=5a064391d865a30dfd80b8853718784a


If you're considering me as a speaker and want to hear a sample, listen in for a bit.

Reader questions

Thanks to MOPS International mailing out 110,000 copies of my book Breathe in May, lots of folks are reading it over the summer. And many of them have written to me with questions, observations, critiques. I really do appreciate hearing from everyone.

Here's one question that a reader posed, and since it's one that others have asked about as well, I thought I'd answer it here.

She asks: "I have a question about chapter 8... I am confused by the story of the Jewish girl named Naomi. I understand the beauty and focus of Shabbat however, I don't understand the piece about her getting a divorce. Why was this included in the book? The Jewish faith is rich in tradition but lacks the focus of Christ and divorce is the last resort in the Christian faith. I felt like I was missing something. I had to reread 3 times to see that I had not. I was left with confusion on why a Christian author and Christian organization (MOPS) would include something like this. We are doing a bible study on this book and are not sure how to explain this."

If you haven't yet read Breathe, it's about simplicity, slowing and Sabbath. It includes the true stories of real women. the chapter that includes Naomi's story is about Sabbath. Since Sabbath is a practice of both Jews and Christians (and frankly, a much richer tradition in the Jewish faith), and because Naomi has a compelling story, she agreed to be interviewed.

As a journalist, I don't get to decide the facts of people's lives. So Naomi's story is her story, not mine. I'm just conveying it, asking questions about the parts that interest me. I wanted to give a glimpse of her spiritual journey, which is in large part a Sabbath journey.

Other readers have asked why I'd include the story of a Jewish person in a Christian book. Well, the Bible is a Christian book and the overwhelming majority of its stories are about Jewish people. I'm not trying to be flippant, but it sometimes seems like we forget that the roots of the Christian faith are in Judiasm. And that Jesus was in fact Jewish. I'm not suggesting we convert to Judiasm, but only to be aware of and appreciate our faith heritage. To not be afraid of it.

I wrote back to this reader to remind her of that, and also, to try to address her question about divorce. Christians divorce at about the same rate as the general population. Perhaps we feel more guilt about it, but it does happen. And the reasons are never simple. But I included that fact in the book because it affected Naomi's life, especially her practice of Sabbath, which was the focus of the chapter. And God used that painful situation to draw her toward himself, and toward loving others. That's a step of growth in her journey.

Also, here's the thing about how I write--because I know myself to be stunningly imperfect, I prefer to tell stories of people who are real, people who don't have every little aspect of their life neatly boxed and shelved. Group leaders who've written to ask about Naomi and why she's in the book only made me question the other stories--were those people too perfect? While we need role models, we also need to know that no one, even role models, is perfect. Ife we think we can't learn from people who are in a different place spiritually, then the fact is we simply can't learn from people at all.

If you lead a group, don't worry so much about "how to explain" everything. Spiritual growth is less about figuring out the answers as figuring out which questions are even worth asking.

Think about Jesus. Did he typically "explain" things? Or did he answer people's questions with more questions?

I love Naomi, she's a friend and a treasure. She's on a spiritual journey just like the rest of us. She's asking questions, and I hope those questions resonate with readers.

Supper Swapping

Trish Berg, whose book The Great American Supper Swap I reviewed previously on this blog, will be talking about her book on TV today.
Catch her on The Harvest Show on Direct TV Channel 321 THIS TUESDAY August 7th at 9:00 am (replays 2 other times as well).

If you don’t have DirectTV, you can also watch online at www.harvest-tv.com if you wish.
Tune in if you can. Then visit Trish's website for some great tips on simplifying motherhood!

Urban adventures

I'm blogging on the Boomer Babes blog today about my urban adventures with our family this summer--rather than take a vacation, we visited Chicago numerous times.

Most recently, we were there for Venetian night, a free parade of decorated boats through Burnham Harbor, which draws about a half million spectators to Chicago's gorgeous lakefront. As we sat on the lakefront near the Shedd Aquarium that night, the moon rose, reddish in the evening sky. You can see the moon and the Shedd in the background of this photo of Scot and I. It was a night of family, friends and fun that we'll remember a long time.

Click on over to my post to see photos and read about other adventures we've enjoyed this summer--without having to travel more than an hour from our home.

Seeing Jesus

You have got to read my friend Connie's post on the Boomer Babes blog today.
Here's how it starts:

Today I saw Jesus…
While coming out of the Giant Supermarket ...
click here to read the rest of this moving story.

Authentic Parenting

Our culture is shifting so rapidly. Our values may not match up with those of the world around us. How do we parent our children in this ever-changing, postmodern culture?

Mary Demuth's newest book, Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture, addresses that very question. Writer Trish Berg is featuring an interview with Mary today on her Simplifying Motherhood Blog.

Another bonus: if you leave a comment on Trish's blog you have a chance of winning a copy of the book! Plus, check out the archives on her site--she really does have a ton of great ideas to help busy moms simplify their lives.

Just keep swimming

Perserverance is an oft-overlooked spiritual practice.

I write about the example of my hero, Dory the Fish, on the Boomer Babes blog today. Click here to check out what I wrote.

Encouraging Words

My monthly e-news went out today. For those that don't yet subscribe, here's what I wrote. You can subscribe by clicking the link I just added at the right.

In the front of the file drawer to the right of my desk, two red file folders sit, bold yet understated.
They hold precious cargo, as evidenced by the label hand written on each: Encouragement. In those folders (one was getting too full so I added a second) I have things like speaking evaluations from retreats that went well, letters from friends, and notes from readers I don’t even know.
In my life, I have sometimes had a tendency to hold onto the discouraging words, the criticism. Or, I make stupid mistakes and then make things worse by beating myself up for doing so. I let the compliments, sincere as they may be, slide like water over my skin. Refuse to drink them in, to taste and see the goodness of a kind word. Or think, if people knew what I was really like, they wouldn’t say nice stuff like that.
God has called me to write—and sometimes that’s a difficult calling. I wonder why I’m doing it, whether my words are just out there, rotting on bookstore shelves (or worse, publishers’ warehouse shelves). The income is sporadic and not great even when it’s there.
I’m called to write about the spiritual life, but I also happen to be someone who is stunningly imperfect—I am a sinner, saved by grace, and lately, I’ve been very aware of my need for grace. Like the apostle Paul, I keep doing things I don’t want to do, and forgetting to do the things that would be wise and kind.So those two folders are not just there to stroke my ego. They are to remind me of my purpose. They are to remind me of God’s love, which is in spite of my mistakes, not because of my accomplishments.
The folders hold, like a reservoir, enough to prime the pump of creative purpose.
When I sit here and try to write, and the words won’t come, and I think—that’s it, I’ve got no more books in me, nothing else relevant to say. When I think, what’s the point, no one cares about this stuff, it’s not helping anyone anyway—I dip into them. And let their contents remind me that God has a purpose for my life, and he’s blessed me with encouraging friends.
Lately I’ve been getting a lot more reader mail than usual, thanks to the fact that MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) sent out 110,000 copies of my book Breathe to their members.
Letters from moms who say things like “this book was divinely sent” and even “You saved my life.”
I’ve always thought of my books as letters of encouragement to people who just want to connect their faith with their actual day to day life. And so I am just so surprised and amazed and grateful for the encouragement that comes back to me.
And in a huge step of believing in myself, I’ve printed out those e-mails and put them in the red folder. Because I’ve had more than a few critics, and people arguing with me about what I write as well.
I don’t print out their e-mails.
I do consider their critiques, but I don’t dwell on them. And if I make a mistake (which I do on a fairly regular basis, unfortunately) I apologize to anyone I’ve wronged.
Do you have an “encouragement” folder? You may not get letters from strangers, but I hope you get drawings from your children, notes from friends, birthday cards, whatever.
Even if you don’t have written words to save in a folder, think about the words you save in your memory. Do you hang on to and replay harsh words of criticism? Do you have a folder in your heart for the words that say “You’re not good enough”? Or do you throw those away and hang onto words like “I’m so glad we’re friends” or “I love you.”
The good news is, God has written you letters of love and strength. So many words in Scripture can be filed in our “encouragement” folder. Here are just a few. Write them on note cards, and put them in a box or folder. When you’re feeling discouraged, pull them out and read them, knowing that they come straight from the heart of a God who loves you outrageously and unconditionally.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).
“How great is the love that the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)
“I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from the Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last” (John 15:15,16).
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned” (Isaiah 43:1,2).

Old friends

I'm blogging today at the Boomer Babes site, so click on over and see more about my trip to Atlanta, where I not only went to the International Christian Retailers Show, but also visited with my lifelong friend Jeanine.

It was great to see her and rekindle the bond we've had since we were babies!