Tag Archives: Jesus

The Shift.

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Knock knock. I’d ask if anyone is home, but I know the answer. This feels like opening a squeaky old door, timidly entering a long-lost room with cobwebs and old dreams scattered underfoot. I didn’t come here with the intention of writing anything; quite the opposite. After trying three passwords to find the correct key, I found my way back in and started digging back, back, back to that first blog post. The one I wrote sitting on my bed after church that January afternoon almost eleven years ago. I had no idea it had been that long. I didn’t remember the time of year and I didn’t remember my pastor’s sermon (sorry, Brian); I only remembered that it had spurred me to do something with the gnawing I’d had in my gut to give writing a go. So I did, and a decade later I’ve unwrapped them and decided to go from private to public in this space once more. This isn’t about me becoming a “blogger” again, I may not scribble anything else here for another decade. But today, it’s about me making space for what feels like another blank page I’m calling “The Shift.”

A lot has happened from thirty-six to forty-six. No more children (I read on my about page that I longed for gangs more than two…I honestly never remember having that thought. It’s funny how time erases some things.) Most everything else on that page still rings true, though. I’m a walking-talking oxymoron in many ways and still more than perfectly imperfect. Then there is Jesus. My Jesus who I felt so close to when I wrote on that new blank page. My Jesus who I served as well as I knew how for so many years…until I didn’t. My Jesus who never left me or abandoned me even when I abandoned Him. My Jesus who has been drawing me back closer and closer this past year. And now, the shift.

I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know where He’s leading, all I can see is His hand through the fog. And I’m at peace with that because in the fog with God is all the Light I need.

You’re welcome to poke around these old halls of mine; though I’ll ask for your grace in what you find. I don’t remember much of what I wrote, but I know it was important to me at the time. This space helped me grow in many ways, hopefully as a writer, but also more than that. In these words I hashed out who I was, who I had been and who I was becoming. In the past eleven years I’ve learned there’s beauty in it all, most especially the ashes.

xx,
m

It’s Moving Day. {On the blog}. Please come with me!

Posted on by under Daily Grace

This has been my home for the past five months and it’s been a great start. I’ve come to know myself better and know a lot of you better through the sharing of these words. All of these words!

It’s time for a change. Time to merge the two passions God has given me between my pen and my lens.

From this point on, I will be posting HERE and would really love to have you follow along.

You can subscribe to my new blog through the link at the bottom left of the page…see here:

 

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My new home isn’t completely finished…there are still boxes to be unpacked…but it’s ready for visitors, as long as you don’t mind the mess. I’m perfectly imperfect, remember?

This isn’t an end at all, but the beginning of a new chapter. On to bigger and better…only and always FOR HIS GLORY.

Blessings…see you over there,

Meredith

 

Sometimes mom needs a night out.

Posted on by under Motherhood, Woman to Woman

Silence is golden, I’ve heard. This week that rang true for me.

In the clamor of life and responsibilities, whether those put on me by others or those I wear from my own choosing, I was feeling trapped. Claustrophobic. Overwhelmed.

In the space of this safe place I’ve grown so accustomed to on my screen, I was finding the words harder to come by in the chaos surrounding me and the chaos inside me. I needed a break. I still do.

But in a few days of silence, I’ve had time to reflect. If I can’t hear what my heart is trying to tell me, I have nothing to offer. Nothing to give.

If my thoughts are being held captive by fear, failure, or just being too busy to listen, then the words can’t and won’t come.

It’s true for all of us…

If we don’t take the time to listen to our heart, we will never hear what it has to say.

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If we don’t take time to hear what God wants to tell us, we will never know what direction to go or be equipped to get there in the first place.

At the end of another too-full week, I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t done since college…maybe…I can’t even remember. I had a girls night out. A “Mom’s Night Out” to see the movie of the same name.

And can I just say right here, right now, it was awesome? It. Was. Awesome.

I literally belly-ached laughed, with a few snorts on the side, from the first ten seconds until the end. Minus the two minutes I cried the ugly cry as Trace Adkins biker-tattooed-up character sat on a bench in a jail and explained how Jesus has all of us mamas wrapped in His arms and that’s all that really matters, not all the chaos we get so wrapped up in.

This mom’s night out reminded me that sometimes when we take time to just be and be with others sharing the same struggles or that have been there and done that, we learn things about ourselves we didn’t know.

I learned from a new friend that my favorite snack is an entire box of reeses pieces mixed in the same bowl with greasy movie popcorn (I am still here. I did not have a heart attack.) Try it. You can thank me later.

I also learned that time with other women may be bad for my hips, but oh-so-good for my soul.

Time spent laughing and crying together is time. well. spent. 

A week short on words ended in a week long on laughs and thirteen new friends. Yep, I went to this gig only knowing a few and I’m glad I didn’t let that stop me.

We are all in this together. Life. Motherhood. Wifehood. Sisterhood.

It’s not about her and them. It’s about us. Together. The sooner we embrace that, the better off we will be. And maybe we will find someone to walk off the reeses pieces with.

Now go plan your own GNO and come back and tell me how wonderful it was and what you ate. I really want to know what you ate.

For His Glory,
Meredith

It would have been her birthday.

Posted on by under Motherhood, Prayers, Reflections

Today we would have celebrated not only Mother’s Day, but your birthday. It’s one of those years where they actually fall on the same day.

But instead we celebrate this day without you. And you celebrate for the first time in heaven with your own mother.

And I don’t know how that works, because I’m not there, but I can only imagine you are near one another and rejoicing together. Glorifying your Father together today. 

In as much sadness as we have in your absence, we have as much joy in the remembering.

The way you were the life of the party and always enjoyed one and always made them special for all our special days.

The way you laughed and smiled and hugged so big and loud and contagiously. I guess I have you to thank for my own obnoxious laugh.

The way you held our family together and loved deep and wide and strong and steady. And sometimes the love got abused by me and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry, but these words will have to do for now.

The way you held your friends close and never took time for granted with them and showed us that they matter. Friendships matter and they are important in this life. In the life of a woman.

The way you loved the work you poured yourself into. Shining like a light and now they present an award in your honor every year aptly named the Sue Mills Lighthouse Award. That sums it up, doesn’t it?

It’s a bittersweet day to think we would be celebrating your sixty-third year here and instead it’s almost thirteen without you.

But it’s still a day to celebrate you in your absence. The mother you were who helped shape the mother I am and the father my brother is now.

Oh, how you loved us. Oh, how you shaped us. Oh, how we wish we had told you more how we appreciated you.

It’s a day to remember and rejoice in the other mothers God has put in our path to continue the work you began.

God promised to finish the good work he began in us. And I see your work continuing to be fulfilled through our step-mother and others placed in our path just so. Just perfectly so.

He is really the most gracious God. I see that now more than ever. In all the ways I failed as a daughter and now as a mother, He covers me with his grace. Just as He did you when you failed. Until you were made perfect in His site.

Oh to be in His site! I just can’t imagine what that is like for you every. single. day. In His site.

And one day soon we will be in site again. Perfectly whole. Perfectly perfect. Together again.

And until then I’ll keep writing these words as they come, until they don’t. Believing you’d be proud as you always were. So proud of your children, even when we really didn’t deserve it. But that’s what mom’s do, isn’t it?

They believe in their children even if nobody else does. And a good mom, a great mom will lead her child to Christ. And you did. And for that I am the most grateful.

The best gift you ever gave me and your son was to introduce us to Jesus. He is all that matters in this world. And I get it now. I get it. Even if I didn’t get it while you were still here. I get it now.

Thank you for loving us to Him and for the prayers you prayed that you sowed in tears. I get that now, too. As a mother, I get that.

Until we meet again…always in my heart,
Meredith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For anyone letting the past define them today.

Posted on by under Glorious Ordinary, Motherhood, Sin Life

I had given up on being a mother.

Not for the same reasons so many do.

There was no infertility.
There was no obstinate choice.
There was nothing inherently wrong, but I had resigned to the fact that I never would be.

And I didn’t dwell on it, because there was no use.

I had made choices in my life that left me barren and broken.

A broken marriage.
Broken families.
A broken self.
A barren soul.

And I found myself in a relationship I didn’t want to end, but I wasn’t sure how I could stay. It was wrong.

I turned to wine and “good times” to numb the pain inside from all the pain I had caused.

And a week after a gluttonous Christmas party, sitting alone but now not alone, my life shifted focus. Forever.

Those three sticks with baby blue lines were telling me I would be a mother. And it would turn out it was a baby boy.

Ready or not. Right or wrong. And of course it was right, because God doesn’t make mistakes and of course, I wasn’t ready, because I do.

I shook in fear.
And I cried.
Tears of unbelief.
And tears of joy.

And in the nine months between the delivery of the news and the delivery of my son, his father and I got married. Together we started a new life as the new life inside me formed.

And in those nine months God awakened my soul to my need for a Savior and I found Him through His son and my own.

I was brought up in church and I was baptized at the age of twelve, but when I was baptized again at the age of twenty-nine and eight months pregnant, I was truly washed and free. Oh. So. Free.

For so long I had lived letting my past define me. Now I was ready to live letting my God define me.

Then grace. 

Grace covered what I had been trying to cover so I could finally let it go. And in the aftermath, God began to work good through all the pain and hurt and sin that had once defined me. Because that’s what He does for those who love him.

He works it all out for good. ALL of it. 

As my doctor delivered my crying, helpless new life into my arms, my Savior delivered my crying, helpless self into His.

My life now had purpose.
My life now had direction.
My life was now whole.

A tiny human that was half me was in my arms and even though I did not have a clue what to do with him, I knew we would be okay.

Even in the fear of the unknown, I knew that there was now Hope.

I was a mother.

I was a mother and I was going to be okay.
We were going to be okay.

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I had often wondered how my mother would have responded to the sinful choices I had made and had even uttered the words in my soul, and maybe even out loud, that I was glad she wasn’t here to see me make them.

Now I took those words back.

Oh, how I wished she was here to meet her grandson.
How I wished she was here to tell me what in the world to do with him.
How I wished she was here to tell me that everything I was feeling and experiencing was normal and that she had been the exact. same. way.

But she wasn’t here.

She wasn’t here for my son’s birth and she wasn’t here for my daughter’s birth three years later.

And I didn’t know at the age of twenty-two that I needed to ask her the things that I so wish I could ask her now.

Things that my dad doesn’t remember or know because he’s my dad. And only a mother can relate to a mother.

I say none of this to belittle any woman’s agony of not being able to have children for whatever reason and wanting them so desperately. I cannot relate to that agony because I have not been there. But I can and I do grieve with you. For the void of a life that you so desperately want to bear.

And I have no words of empathy, because I have not walked your same path. But I do believe that God is sovereign and that in His time and His will and His way He is making all things new. Even your broken heart.

I can only truly relate to the motherless mother. Because that is who I am.

And thirteen years later it hurts as much as it did the day I became a motherless daughter.

The day I sat alone in a crowd, hunched over rocking back and forth on my sofa repeating, “Not my mom. Not my mom. Not my mom.”

But it was my mom. And there will always be unanswered questions. Until we are in Glory together and then they won’t matter anymore.

Mothers…today you matter. Whether you feel like it or not. You matter.

Your life matters to your children and your husband and your families. Your life matters to your Father. He made you to matter.

You matter. For His Glory. You matter.

And if I could just take you right now and hug you the way my grandmother would wrap me with her whole sweet southern being, I would whisper that in your ear.

Listen to me…You matter…

And whatever that thing is in your past that is telling you that don’t matter and you can’t move forward and you can’t be loved and you can’t be forgiven…that is just. plain. wrong.

I’m living proof. And it’s a good place to be. On the other side of forgiveness.

I am now defined by my identity in Christ, not my identity in the world.

There is a beautiful difference there. The difference grace makes.

For His Glory,
Meredith

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28

 

For the hard days that end in “why?”

Posted on by under Daily Walk, God Sized Dreams, Motherhood

I see you.

The wife who sees no hope for change.
The mama at her wits end.
The friend with nothing left to give.

I see you.
I know you.
I’ve worn your skin.

What happened to the fairy tale endings and God-sized dreamer ready to take on the world?

Where did those go?
Where did she go?

Sometimes in living life, we lose ourselves.

We lose site of who we were in becoming who we are.
We lose site of the dreams we once had in view of the here and now and doubt of ever achieving what seems impossible anyway.

But this.

 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.”
Hebrews 6:19

He’s already been there and done that so we don’t have to fret over what we think we can’t do.

Whether that’s writing a book, or leading a ministry, or changing the 1, 532,893 diaper or making the 4,234,912 meal. again.

A sure and steadfast anchor of our soul in the storm-tossed waves of life that tempt to drown our dreams and drown our soul.

A God-sized dream takes God-sized faith to see it through.

Our God is big enough and strong enough to see us through.

We aren’t hoping in something that has no hope, we are hoping in Someone that is Hope. 

The sun doesn’t set on God-sized dreams when we seek hard after the God that gives them and can fulfill them.

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When the days get hard and the dreams seem lost and we just want to know “why…,” we can rest assured He hears our pleas.

The answers may come fast or slow and the answer may be “yes” or it may be “no.”

In Gods sovereignty he has the Power and ability to do anything He wishes.

In God’s humanity he will hold and comfort us when he says no or not now.

God’s humanity always comforts us in the sovereignty of His will.

And always, always He is with us in the storm. Holding fast as an anchor in our sea of doubt.

Does He see me?
Does He really know what’s going on in my life?
Does He know what I’m dealing with?
Does He really care?

Yes, He does. He is the I am. He is everywhere, in and through everything.

His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts.

The dreams we have for ourselves are nothing as compared to those our God has for us. And in His power He will see them through.

If we let Him. If we get out of the boat in faith and let Him lead us through the storms and the calm. He wants it all. All of us. Every bit of you and every bit of me. Wholly His.

There are no fifty shades of grey with our God. There is “yes, I’m yours” or “no, I’m the worlds.”

In Him is the only place we will ever know peace even when every day is hard that ends in “why.”

Take heart, friend. Today I want you to know that you. matter. You matter to me and you matter to Him. For His Glory. You. Matter.

And in Him, those dreams you once dared to dream that He gave you to dream are worth taking back up. One glorious day at a time, they are worth digging into. For His Glory.

In Him,
Meredith

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I’m linking up today to a haven for all God-sized dreamers.
Come here to find friendship and love to spur you on to your own God-sized dreams!

For everyone living with the best of intentions.

Posted on by under Daily Walk, Faith

I don’t know how or when it started, but I’ve certainly mastered the art of un-intentionality. As if I’m intentionally living with the best of intentions that never come to be.

The stack of books I have had every intention of finishing…or at least starting. That would be a start.

The upstairs attic that needs to be purged to make room for our growing toddler who deserves a room void of a washer, dryer and gun safe. A girl needs a real bedroom and there is one waiting. Waiting for me to clean it out and clean up this too full life of mine.

The flower beds that are more weeds than flowers these days, being choked out like the pressure on this conscious of mine suffocating with guilt.

The endless pile of clothes that ebb and flow and diminish and grow like these emotions that march in like a lion and roll out like a lamb.

The old corn crib that was to be storage building that instead sits on a trailer for the second spring because it’s too wet, then too dry, then time to make hay and no time to make way.

A week post-vacation and my son is still living out of his duffel bag that just gets filled back up and depleted again. What’s the use of putting the clothes in a drawer, anyway?

What’s the use, anyway?

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Our best intentions get the best of us.

The best part of our day. The best part of our soul. The best part of me that’s aching to be the best part for them.

The will-dos and should-haves keep us grounded in the past and dreading the future. Forgetting all we have is the here and now.

Living out-of-presence in the present is the norm these days. We long for the promise of tomorrow and live in the regret of the past.

Instead of living in the now, we get stuck in the when or lost in the then.

It’s time for us to get intentional about today.

It’s time to say “no” to what’s not important, to have time to say “yes” to what is. So we will have the time and energy to say “yes” to Who is important.

I know the clothes will keep piling up, the books will still be stacked, the room will be busting at the seams and the day lilies will get lost in the wire grass, BUT they don’t have to. I don’t have to be unintentional. I have a choice. 

There is freedom in the choosing. There is Grace in our freedom.

There is a way out of our un-intentions. His name is Jesus.

He gives grace for the best of intentions that never come to be. And He gives us freedom to choose a different way than where we find ourselves today.

Living in the present isn’t impossible. It’s necessary. And by His grace we can make it back to where we really are in the first place.

Here and now. It’s all we have.

Our kids need us here. now.
Our families need us here. now.
The lost need us here. now.
Jesus needs us here. now.

It’s not impossible to be here. now. It’s necessary. And liberating to find ourselves where we’ve been all along.

Graciously,
Meredith

 “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.”
Romans 11:5

What’s on your list of “best intentions” that you haven’t gotten done…? I’d love to hear…and know I’m not alone. 🙂

I’m honored to be linking-up with my friend Katie Reid for #inspireandgrow today. Link your own inspirational post following her instructions here: (http://www.echoesofmyheart.com/2/post/2014/04/1.html).

In the silence.

Posted on by under Prayers, Religion

I can’t help but think today what that day was like. The silence that the world experienced in the aftermath of His crucifixion and the deafening of the earth and temple splitting in response.

I wonder if the silence on this day wasn’t even more deafening that what happened the previous afternoon.

I imagine people stunned in silence. Wondering to themselves what had just happened. What had they done? Was this man really the Messiah after all? If not, what just happened? I mean, what. just. happened.

If He was who He said He was, why didn’t He save himself? Why didn’t He save them? 

They were expecting a king. A king like they knew a king to be. A ruler of men, not a ruler of hearts.

And on this day, the silence must have been audible.

And then again, I imagine there was intense weeping. Weeping among those who knew…or thought they knew…who Jesus was.

They had followed his every step. Hung on his every word. Seen every miracle He had performed. Believed in their hearts He was the Son of God.

Then why? Why did He die? And what next…?

And what about the women who loved Him so? His mother, Mary Magdalene and the other women…no doubt busying themselves to prepare his body the next morning in the way they were accustomed to do. Did they move in shocked silence or racking sobs throughout this day…or both?

How often have I been in the middle of a shock or tragedy or just plain fit of my own will…waiting in the silence for God to move. For God to just. do. something. And I try to keep busy, because busy dulls the anxiety of waiting. And I may stop and have a good ugly cry, because God made me emotional and sometimes I just need to get it out.

Sometimes in the middle…in the waiting…in the silence…is when God speaks the loudest.

In the Silence

 

“Be still and know that I am God,” He says.

I can imagine Jesus lifeless body was crying the same silent words that Saturday. “Be still and know that I am God! I may appear dead, but you will see, you will SEE tomorrow that I. am. not!”

He is saying the same thing to me and to you today.

Be still, my child, and know that I am God. I am not dead. I am alive and therefore you can be alive with me. You don’t have to go through this life as a dead person. Dead inside. Full of everything but Me. I am the Life-Giver. Without Me you will always and only be empty, even when you are full. Nothing the world offers you will ever satisfy you or fill you the way I can. I created you with a hole only I can fill. In the silence of your soul, you know I exist. You choose whether you acknowledge me or not, but you know I exist. I made you to know. My handiwork is everywhere and I gave you senses to know it…if you have enough sense to accept it. A fool says there is no God. In the silence, you choose. Me or the world. But the choice is yours. I will not make you. I love you enough to let you decide. And in the middle of the silence, the grief storm you find yourself in, remember joy comes in the morning. The darkest hour is just before dawn and I am not only in the darkness with you, I will deliver you into the light, in My time and My will and My way.

Is it presumptuous of me to speak for God? Maybe so. But I stand on the Word of God because He gave it to me to stand on. And He gave it to you to stand on. Even in the silence. Even when the silence is deafening. He stands. Risen.

For His Glory,
Meredith

 

 

The {glue} that holds us all together.

Posted on by under Faith, Five Minute Friday, Sin Life

It was raining that afternoon. The hardest I could remember ever driving through. And in a matter of an hour the rain would be an exact mirror to my tear streaked face and washed out insides as I met my new reality.

She was fifty years old and six months retired. She was my mother. And she was the glue that held our family together.

She wasn’t supposed to die in her sleep from a massive heart attack. Alone. My dad out of town. Me either upstairs getting ready for work or in the kitchen drinking the coffee she got up to make me or on my way to work or already at work. Either way, she was alone. And we were now alone. And our family glue was gone.

But in the midst of those days that stripped our souls bare after her death, there was another glue that worked His way into our family unit and took hold. Fast. Strong. Steady. Jesus.

I imagine the same torrential rain fell from the sky as the world came unglued those moments He hung lifeless on those splintered pieces of wood fashioned in a cross pointing to the heavens.

Those who had just murdered Him now realizing maybe, just maybe, He was the Messiah after all as they watched their sacred temple literally torn in two. The thunder. The lightening. The fury as all hell was poured out in blood and water from his broken and beat body.

Hell he endured for me and for you. The glue that holds the world together. And me. And you.

Jesus. The only glue that can hold us together when our world comes unglued. And it has and it does and it will. Until we are whole with Him in glory.

I weep to think how many sins of my own He suffered for that dark day. I weep to think how they were all washed away when He conquered death and held fast to His promises as He always does. Always did. Always will.

My hope stands fast in the One who holds me fast. My Cornerstone. My solid rock. My redeemer. My rescuer. My glue.

In Remembrance of Him,
Meredith

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**Linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker and a slew of other talented writers for Five Minute Friday on this special Friday of Holy Week. Tonights prompt was {glue}.

 

For all the in-betweens

Posted on by under Daily Walk, Faith, Reflections, Religion

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Some days it seems I’m in-between more than anywhere.
In-between here and in-between there.

In-between who I was and who I want to be.
In-between where I’ve been and where I now see.

In-between dreams that have died and those just born.
In-between drop-offs, pick-ups and mess-ups galore.

In-between bedtimes that take too long and mornings that come too soon,
In-between the starry sky and bright side of the moon.

In-between great losses and bountiful gains.
In-between parched dryness and soul-quenching rain.

In-between should-have, could-have and would-haves if known.
In-between all the ways that show me I’ve grown.

In-between the girl of my youth and the woman she thought she’d be.
In-between the dreams of her past and ever present reality.

In the in-between is where I find myself these days.
And I’m starting to realize that is ok.

It’s ok to be where God’s put me to grow.
If that’s stuck in-between, then I’ll wait for the “go.”

Truth be known: life’s all one big in-between,
In-between the beginning, the end and eternity.

If the in-between’s are all we have, there really is no doubt,
We must make the most of all of them before our time runs out.

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”- Solomon, (Ecclesiastes 1:9)