I am super smart in a lot of ways and painfully stupid in others. If you need someone to walk you out of a crisis like as is in 9/11 has hit and you need to find safety, I am totally your girl. At 25, on AA plane bound for NYC that awful morning, I had a car rented before my ass walked off the plane on a reroute that landed me in the middle of North Carolina – I was going home!

However, if you need to find someone who can get you to your destination and you have an address and I am your only hope…you are doomed.  I cannot find my way out of paper bag.  I literally will screw it up with a map, Siri, and someone on speaker, but at least with Siri I have a fighting chance.

I keep praying for the Holy Spirit to be more like Siri — or a neon sign.  I meant the tickling of the Holy Spirit is often hard to distinguish at least for me.  Surrender?  What does this even mean?  Except that I know when I don’t check in with Jesus, I screw it up almost every time.  In true paradox, I want to be the hero and I want to be saved.

My humanness makes me think that’s okay; except for when I fall flat on my face…then I remember that I was supposed to be surrendered. Damn! When I get the surrender part right, it’s like magic – the most freeing thing in the world – floating on wings, feeling safe and secure, dancing the happy dance.  I say thank you Jesus for stepping in.

I think about the small moments that lead to big changes, the ones you didn’t see coming.  These end up being the life lessons you are most grateful for….it’s the slow moving work of Christ that is sweet to the taste.  For me and my kids, it was the meandering through a neighborhood that I had longed to live in….of being “lost” but seeing a sign for rent out of the corner of my eye. It led to a home, a community, a network of friends to help raise up these kids.  It became a soft place to fall.

Thank you Jesus for helping me find my way – in life and to Siri for finding my way out of downtown.

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Here’s to the dreamers…..

I have always been obsessed with quotes.  I love the power of words and how they can move us – poems, music, books, movies, all of it. Words matter to me; they have been my comfort; my motivation; and what has saved me.

Here are my top 10 quotes right now and why:

1. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” – God Phillipians 4:13There have been a lot of really hard things to go down and days when I did not think the next step was possible…I don’t mean what to do next; I mean putting the one foot in front of the other.  So, I clung to this verse and had my kids memorize so that in the face of anything, they could remember God has them in his grip.  And God never doesn’t live up to his promise!  Thank you Jesus for that.
2. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo EmersonIt is my fervent belief that at our core, we all want to be inspired.  What would the world be like if we woke up each morning motivated in our soul to go do what God has uniquely made us to do.   It makes me giddy just to think of that world — it’s the one I want to live in!
3. “Never, never, never, never give up.” Winston ChurchillI feel like this speaks for itself.  You just don’t quit.  Period.  Ever.  (although an occasional tap out is recommended)
4. “Luck? Sure. But only after long practice and only with the ability to think under pressure.” Babe Didrikson ZahariasFirst off she was a quick ass female athlete at a time when it was not cool to be one and I really really appreciate that.  She had God-given abilities but worked her tail off.  I believe that there is luck in this world to be had, but I think to improve your odds, you better work pretty hard and have a plan.
5. “Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.” Louisa May AlcottIn most honest moments, I am a dreamer, so I love the permission to dream my dreams and believe them.  The book “Little Women” mattered to me. It made me see different dimensions of women.  Who i wanted to be has changed as I have matured.  When I was young, I wanted to be Margaret or Amy.  I knew I wasn’t possibly Beth and didn’t want to admit the Jo I had in me.  I wanted to be the other.  What I learned over time was that I was a mix of all of these — even Beth who seemed the best to me.  I had some of that in me too.
6. “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.” ― Theodore RooseveltI just want to live up one day to this text — living a life of meaning, of value, authenticity, transparency.  I want to be part of things that matter.
7. “We here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  – Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg AddressThis is one of my favorite speeches.  I literally cry every time I read it, hear it, or even think about it.  I love our country and am the sap that bawls during the national anthem.  The promise of our nation and responsibility of freedom means everything to me.
8. “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.A person’s willingness to stand in the line of fire; the commitment to stake his or her claim on justice and the persistance to follow through is the kind of power that matters.
9. “We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.” – Eleanor RooseveltIn today’s world, courage does not always mean charging a hill, but it certainly means living your own life, being true to who God made you to be.  That’s courage.  I love those people.  They are who I want to be with.
10. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. – Psalms 23:1I keep this one close to my heart.  God has been my kinsmen redeemer.  He jumped up and rescued me in ways I could not have imagined.  I am grateful everyday and never forget that he came and saved me.

Words matter.  What words have moved you!