Finding ourselves in the midst of our first significant transition, it seems fitting to write a more personal weekly truth. This past week I announced my transition out of leadership of the Bible studies and I wanted to share how God has shown His faithfulness.

I’d been reading a book by Henri Nouwen and challenged to think about care—what it means, how I do it, how to do it well. Nouwen writes in Out of Solitude, “The basic meaning of care is ‘to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with’… we tend to look at it as the strong toward the weak, of the powerful toward the powerless… in fact, we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone’s pain…”

One of our members took the time to share her simple system for weekly bread for her family, that can also used for hoagies, pizza crust, and cinnamon rolls! You’ll also find a free recipe printable - perfect for a simple frame in your kitchen.

Every fall, with the first crunch of leaves, I cannot resist welcoming the season with a few autumnal favorites. Here is what I recommend, reading, watching and baking.

I like having answers. I appreciate the ability to definitively determine whether something is one way or another. And I really like it when conclusions seem obvious, when I can put my finger on what I understand or believe about something. When we began our Bible Reading Plan this year, although we didn’t head into it with specific themes in mind, I was really looking forward to making connections.

This idea of being an inconvenience is the tone I hear in the leper in Mark chapter one. According to Mark, it’s early in Christ’s ministry. Jesus seems to be trying to keep a relatively low profile as He begins preaching and teaching in the synagogues. Before even the first chapter of the gospel is over, a man with leprosy has somehow seen Jesus’ capabilities, found him, recognizes His power and authority and declares the Truth that, if Jesus is willing, Jesus has the power to cleanse Him. There’s something about the way the leper asks the question that resonates with me. It’s like, “If you can spare one moment of your attention for me, that’s all it would take. I know I’m the least of your concerns and that this is a big ask. But if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

It’s Labor Day and hopefully this finds you resting. Isn’t it funny that we celebrate work by resting? In fact, I think that’s exactly what the Sabbath was intended to be: a weekly celebration and enjoyment of all the things we accomplished in our labors throughout the week. This particular Labor Day is just plain bizarre. It’s the beginning of a season of a hundred decisions a day, from the schedule we keep at home or work, to how we’re going to school our children. Also, it’s an election year, and the Labor Day of election years always marks the beginning of the final campaign sprint to Election Day on November 4th. The insanity surrounding all of it simply goes without saying. It’s nuts; nothing feels normal. It feels like everything and everyone is reactionary and nothing can be planned. And yet our God loves loves loves to give His people rest. There are hundreds of verses related to His desire for our rest, but I’ll lay out two to help us decide today to rest rather than react.

He erupted into the world—encapsulated Himself in flesh and blood, subjected Himself to time in order to live the perfect life for us, so that… He could obliterate the bounds of time and flesh and meet us Spirit to spirit, dwell in and among each of us forever and always. Paul’s explanation of what the Holy Spirit means for us overwhelms me when I hold it up against the feelings of inadequacy I have as a mother to be everything to my children.

We are so excited for the opportunity to host a Collective Workshop with a Dive Collective member. Emily LeVault is part of our community and is teaching Lettering Basics beginning next week, and we wanted to dig a bit deeper with her and her love for both teaching and the art of lettering—we decided to ask her a few questions.

God often reminds me that He is God and I am not. He does it in many ways; through His Word, through circumstances, through discipline. Sometimes it’s a hard-learned lesson, but He is always kind to show us Who He is, and who we are in relation to Him. I think one of the kindest ways He does this is through creation. 

Over the years, I’ve come to recognize that for me, often, simply being reminded that He’s the Creator of it all is what causes me to trust Him most—especially with the things I just can’t comprehend. When I’m confronted with things about His character or in Scripture that are “too wondrous for me to know” (Job 42:3), it’s the fact of creation that brings me back to trust.

Learning about the art of sourdough has been a fun process. I didn't get it right off the bat; it took me a few tries and a lot of reading and many troubleshooting conversations with my sister-in-law who already had it down. Being able to transform flour, water, and salt into beautiful loaves still makes me feel a little bit superhuman, but it’s really not as complicated as I thought. And once you understand how a starter works, there’s a lot of room to play and experiment.

His love is not a modest love, its a fierce love that obliterated the boundary of His holiness to draw us into Him in Christ. To let Him see us in our imperfect states, to hear our voices and their imperfect thoughts, to share our feelings in their imperfect forms is the only appropriate response to this kind of love pursuit. It’s surrender. 

We surrender so that He can lavish us with His love, remind us we are forgiven, wash us white as snow. 

It was this realization that God wants to be with me in all of it, that simply letting Him have access to all of the depths of me somehow results in fully falling into Him limp but full of life, and suddenly my lungs open and the universe reveals wide open spaces to breathe.

Recently, I wrapped up a four week study of the Book of Ruth with Dive Collective and my heart is expanded. I’m going to share some of that freshness here. These are the juicy fruits I plucked from this book, startled silly by their potency and relevance to my own life. Here’s hoping there may be something here for you too.

I learned what the Bible means in 1 Corinthians 13 when it says, “love protects.” The Greek word for love in this case is agape—the kind of love only God can give. And the Greek word for protects is stego and means “to cover over in silence.” As soon as I heard this definition, my mind immediately flashed to this story of Noah and his sons.

Did you know, we have an enemy who literally stands before God accusing us day and night, pointing out our shame? (Rev 12:10) Like Ham, he laughs about us: “Look, God…look what your ‘little righteous one’ did! Come check it out. Do you see her shame?” If you try to imagine what you’re being accused of as Satan stands before God, it probably wouldn’t take long to come up with some ideas. Maybe the way you yelled at your kids before school this morning? Maybe the way you treated your husband in a moment of hurry? Maybe the entire cookie sleeve you ate from the pantry five minutes ago? Maybe you feel it’s so much worse than any of those examples and it’s not even in the same universe…abuse? Adultery? Slander? It doesn’t matter. My point is, the voice you have in your head accusing you and insisting you should feel ashamed is real. But our agape loving God already responded to every. single. accusation—both big and small.

When Naomi loses everyone and everything important to her, what she wants more than anything is to go back to her people—more importantly, her God. She returns, not because she thinks her life will get better; she goes back fully believing she will be desolate until the end of her days. But she goes back because she knows that ultimately in her emptiness, God will be enough. She is so certain that she’s willing to bear a treacherous journey back to Israel on her own. She has nothing left to lose; all she wants is God. 

When Jesus comes this time, He is going to come with final and complete authority. He is coming as King of kings and Lord of lords, not as a baby in a manger as He did the first time. He’s not going to gradually grow a following. This time He’s coming on clouds of glory and we will all recognize Him as King. The entire world will see Him and know exactly who He is—God—both Love and Justice in the flesh. But here’s the amazing part…

Paul’s entire mission in writing the letter to the Galatians was to plead with them to understand that for those of us who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are as Christian as we will ever get. Redeemed. Paid for by the blood of the Son of the Living God. Period. We can’t do anything to be more righteous. There are no customs we can follow, no actions we can take to make us more qualified to come before God. Jesus Christ alone qualifies us for everything.

For me, one of the greatest simple pleasures of summer is enjoying a light yet captivating beach read. These are the cotton-candy books that are quick and easy. While they may lack the intellectual density of a literary tome, I passionately stand in defense of the importance of a beach read. These books help us shutter our minds, to block out the rigors and demands of daily life and have a brief respite and mental vacation. What I’m looking for in a good beach read is to be transported to a different world where the endings are always satisfying and the characters are quick to come alive off the page.

It seems the world is burning. God silenced the world through Covid-19. He insisted we all take a break for a bit. And then the ground began to shake. Locust swarms and dust clouds from Africa, famines, racial tensions peaking and spreading across the globe, and it feels like our nation is irreparably fractured and our world collapsing. 

For me, whenever major life events take place, I can always trace a supernatural draw to Scripture occurring for a long season before the crises; so I know it’s no mistake that I am immersed in the Word of God more than I’ve ever been before. In fact, I have found it to be consistent with God’s rhythm in my life. 

So this one is for you—the young moms who are managing limited play dates in the midst of quarantine and have become the primary care giver and imagination-mate to your children. To you who are feeling guilty for not having one more moment of make believe in your tired souls. For those of you who are sure that your sanity got flushed down the pooper with the last failed attempt at potty training this week. And dare I say, this is for you, the mother of little ones who hasn’t a moment for a quiet time or devotion and if you did, you’d rather shut your eyelids for those brief moments or talk to your mom or best friend on the phone than open your Bible.