looking through me

31 Day Challenge

Write about one topic every day for 31 days . . . really? That’s ridiculous.

Or maybe not.

Maybe if I whittled down to the core, if I sifted past the extraneous and found what remained, maybe I would find my foundation—the platform from which I write about all else.

And when I do, I find family.

Family. The thread running through all I am and all I do.

I was tied in at birth to an amazing collection of people united by blood and choice. Two generations above me two men opted out and two more opted in and adopted their stepchildren, my parents. Choices of inclusion craft the culture of welcoming people into our clan. I, too, view family as a hybrid of those we love because they’re ours and those we choose to declare ours because we love them.

Scrolling through the memories I see many other faces, many other names, fingerprints of many other sculptors who have shaped me.

This month is not a closed book. It isn’t comprehensive. Family can’t be constrained in 31 posts. But maybe, just maybe, I can capture a glimpse of how I see life through the lens of family.


 

Please feel free to bookmark this page for easy access to a running list of all posts this month. Or subscribe to receive an email for each new post.

Day 2: Great-Grandma
Day 3: Max
Day 4: aunts and uncles and aunts and uncles
Day 5: Fair?
Day 6: not even brothers
Day 7: Grandma’s face
Day 8: Saturday mornings
Day 9: special days
Day 10: home alone
Day 11: two are better than one
Day 12: unwrapped presents
Day 13: bird lessons
Day 14: family dinner
Day 15: the uncles
Day 16: the long walk
Day 17: backseat road trips
Day 18: perpetual cookie
Day 19: sharing Grandma
Day 20: driving with maps
Day 21: in the stands
Day 22: Grandma’s roots
Day 23: Oh, Brothers
Day 24: because
Day 25: Prayer Moms
Day 26: in-laws
Day 27: resident baker
Day 28: run, run, run
Day 29: O, Cousin(s), where art thou?
Day 30: like family
Day 31: done, already?

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

oceans

One song always evokes the same image in my mind: an old map. The kind with sea monsters lurking off the murky edges of a flat earth.

You call me out upon the waters / The great unknown . . . Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders*

Mysterious creatures hovering along the undefined edge of known reality waiting to swallow whomever dares cross the border of I’ve-got-this and this-is-bigger-than-me.

That’s where I say I’m willing to go.

Really? I, the one with a frustrating fear of heights and a great discomfort on open water, am ready to head into the vastness waiting to engulf me?

Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me

Fear. I understand fear. But You’ve never failed and You won’t start now . . . that’s true. Because fear has failed me. God has not.

It feels like the opposite. Fear feels like the sure thing. God feels like a risk. But fear doesn’t pan out, it doesn’t go down the way I anticipate—it deceives. God’s great faithfulness never wavers.

Your grace abounds in deepest waters / Your sovereign hand / will be my guide

True.

The sea is dangerous. The waters are deep and perilous. They could overwhelm me.

So I will call upon Your name / And keep my eyes above the waves . . . And my faith will be made stronger / In the presence of my Savior

No map—with or without monsters—will keep me safe or give me the courage to move beyond the shallows. No proper round earth understanding will teach me how to step beyond what my own abilities can support. The One who told the waters how far they could come, and no farther; it is He calling to me and leading deeper than my feet could ever wander.

Let me walk upon the waters / Wherever You would call me

 

* Hillsong United. (2013). Oceans. On Zion [song lyrics]. Hillsong Australia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy9nwe9_xzw

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.