Category: this is me

playlist

Mmm let these melodies sink into your soul. They are like medicine to mine. Some of them are straight from the Good Book and others sound more like foreigners, but each is part of what keeps me singing and I thought I’d share with you.

Here is an album I’m really excited to get to know more. Songs for the Book of Luke is an album “by the church, for the church” and it accompanies the Gospel Coalition’s National Conference in Florida coming up in April.

This is a song I like to sing to chase fear away. Maybe it will help chase some of yours away, too.

Sometimes it gets dark, real dark… and you forget that the night is followed by morning. Well, I forget that God has promised dawn – a bright and beautiful dawn in the work of Christ and it is sealed in our hearts. This is for those times when I need to be reminded.

And this is for those days when you just feel like you need…. more time.

And these…. these are just for fun.

Posted on by Caroline 0

breathe, step, Christ

The evil pressed in, breaking the seams of a gloriously beautiful, blue-sky day. It’s like poison warring to claim a body fighting for life and health.

The parking garages are always dark and quiet and cold, but today my brisk step met sunshine on the other side of the sidewalk. I stepped out from the garage’s shadows and under a warm blue sky for the 5 minutes it took to get inside the courthouse.

And in those 5 minutes, I claimed Christ – one promise after another in step with the clicking of my heels. Breathe, step, Christ. Breathe, step, Christ. Into the courtroom I went and out of the courtroom two and a half hours later into the same warm blue sky. Breathe, step, Christ. Breathe, step, Christ.

The joy of my slow, pre-work morning was distant and slippery now against the evil pressing in on all sides. I looked up and warmed my face against the sun and let my lungs fill with a heavy sigh.

No morning resolve will last the whole day through – it’s not strong enough to overcome the evil. My morning resolve wore off about one hour into my work day. One hour and I needed another promise to battle and overcome the opposition.

No, the gospel is not meant to be taken as a one-a-day prescription.

We’re meant to drink it all day long – to be satisfied in our souls with the richness of His grace. He pours it out and bids us come and drink. Today, I needed so many spoonfuls.

There is so much evil that threatens to rob us of joy and strength and resolve. And if we’re not drinking in the grace God has poured out, we will take a different medicine and fear will be our portion, worry will be our cup.

As I was driving away from one client and before I drive to the next, I rehearse the moments in which I need to believe.

In pain, Christ.
In fear, Christ.
In joy, Christ.
In hope, Christ.
In trembling, Christ.
In love, Christ.
In grief, Christ.
In failure, Christ.
In heartache, Christ.

Every moment, Christ.

I am being sanctified from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18) as this very moment rolls over into the next moment. And for all moments, Christ is sufficient and abundant to pour out grace enough to fill my soul to overflowing. For all the promises of God find their “Yes” in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Breathe, step, Christ. Breathe, step, Christ.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Morning devotions are not enough.

Posted on by Caroline 2

what the system cannot do

Paperwork. Bleh.

Yesterday my car was a freight train from 8:30 am – 7:30 pm, making a maze around Des Moines for appointments and meetings and visits. Today, my car Eddie has been parked in my driveway since 1 pm and I’m inside eating pistachios, watching the sun dance in my living room, and working on monthly reports. It feels way less productive, that’s for sure. But if I don’t finish the reports, all the speeding around is for nothing.

If a train never stops anywhere, what use is there to jump on board?

Apparently, I need a little blog therapy to stay stationary today. I need to remember that the words on paper are important to the little ones in my backseat. Sometimes the words on paper are what fight for them when everyone else has laid down their swords. So, I’ll write the words and finish my reports and respond to the emails and follow up on phone calls.

These frequent stops on the speeding train do make me wonder about the social transit grid – the systems and structures that make up child welfare. Where are we going to and coming from? And do those destinations make sense or are we all just rushing to get on board? The questions are too big for Tuesday late afternoon, so I won’t attempt an answer.

What I will say is working in the system has shed light on what the system cannot do. It cannot change people or convince people or heal people or cure people. It cannot offer forgiveness or grace (second chances are not the same).

Every time my speeding train stops and I get good and stationary, I am aware of what the system cannot do. Right about that time (now) I fix my eyes on the unseen miracles authored by the One who keeps His promises.

This grid of systems and structures is visible – in the paperwork and the gas mileage and the court costs – and it is limited. Meanwhile, I’m hanging my hope on something unseen. This is the grace-energized faith that makes my speeding and stationary days about more than the grid.

As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18 ESV)

Posted on by Caroline 1

the foolishness of too many things

All the markers were strewn around his feet. He stretched his chubby fingers, determined to pick up every one and carry them across the room. But he was too ambitious – every time he grabbed more than three the first two would fall out.

I just watched as he bent over with furrowed brows and his little bum in the air. He started grunting after several failed attempts and my heart swelled. He didn’t want just two markers or even three and he certainly didn’t want to make several trips across the room. He wanted all of them at once, no exceptions.

Oh, little one, I understand.

Everybody thinks you are crazy (seriously, kid – fifteen markers at once is never happening), but I get it. I get that those markers became super important the minute they became impossible.

Sometimes I wish it was culturally acceptable for me to just hang out with my bum in the air and grunt while I try to do what is obviously impossible. I don’t know why I wish that (I know I will have to give up eventually), but maybe it has something to do with our efforts as adults to keep things hidden.

I don’t want my foolishness out in the open. I don’t want to be caught with my bum in the air and furrowed brow, determining to do something impossible and foolish. But little ones – they get a “pass” when it comes to things like this because they don’t know any better.

I watched this little guy pick up and drop the markers until something shiny distracted from his frustration. And, I thought, I understand.

But there is something else – something about growing and knowing and being aware of what is good and wise and possible.

As much as I wish I could be foolish without consequence, I am glad to be rescued (to some degree) from futility. Deep down, I don’t really wish to go back to ignorance (even though it looks carefree and blissful at times).

I am grateful for knowing what I know on this side of things. I’m grateful for God’s promise to grow us from one degree of glory to another and that He teaches us what is foolish and what is wise. I claim this wisdom daily as I walk out steps of faith in obedience.

It just feels… complicated sometimes.

Posted on by Caroline 2

wooed many times into love

I have been reading the Hymn Stories from Challies blog and (this will come as no surprise) the words are often deeper and richer and fuller than what we choose to sing throughout our days.

As I read the bit of history on the hymn, “How Firm A Foundation,” I thought of something I heard recently in a sermon. The pastor said, “…the Bible is aware of the complexity of sin.” It didn’t sit well with me and as I thought over these words I realized why. Is a foundation merely “aware” of all that’s built on its top or does it inform and support and uphold every piece in place?

The Bible is more than aware of sin’s complexity because the Bible is the Living Word of God and our only guide against sin, a firm foundation and as steady as 4/4 time.

We are wooed many times into love with Truth.

There is the first initial drawing and calling and wooing that opens our eyes to the Love that grace helps us receive in Christ. And then there is the falling in love – the delighting in being betrothed and chosen. And then there is the wooing that comes round after we’ve chased other loves and forgotten how to stand.

This wooing again into love with Truth comes through the firm foundation of the Word. We are reminded that, by grace, God keeps us secure in His promises. He has claimed us as His own and offers the inspired words of Scripture as a constant love song to draw us out of fear and into strength.

We forget, I do anyway, the deep love and affection of the resurrection. I forget my place “while still a sinner” when Christ reached into the depths and sang his love song to my dead bones. I forget what I once was (1 Corinthians 6:11) and what I would be, if not for Christ. I forget the first few redeeming notes of the salvation song.

But Truth has many pages and the salvation song plays when we open the Word! God’s promises are not shifting shadows. His faithful song remains unchanged and when we have ears to hear, we will be wooed once again by His melody.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV)

The Word reminds me what God called us out of – that we were once sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, practicing homosexuals, thieves and the greedy, the drunkards and revilers, and swindlers.

God graciously interrupts the barrage of sinful labels to remind us that we are washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit.

We are wooed many times into love and it is by the reading of the Word. God has given us the treasure of His divinely inspired words to uphold and inform and support everything else that is built in our lives. This is the kind of transformational building the resurrection empowers.

I am awake, today at least, to the way the Word woos me into greater love for the salvation song. Do you hear the melody or have you forgotten? Have you ever heard it?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 3

seeking the greatest treasure

You know the kind of wave that arches around and swallows from all sides? My heart just got swallowed up by love on all sides like that kind of wave.

It’s been an interesting week, to say the least, but to end by being swallowed up on all sides by love is not such a bad thing. The flood feels like a thousand drops of sunshine, so “not such a bad thing” would be an understatement.

Amidst many layered other things this week, I read this article from Desiring God, “Single, Satisfied, and Sent: Mission for the Not-Yet Married.” It felt a little bit like Marshall Segall read my journal and listened in to my conversations over the past several years, but now I know I don’t need to publish the post that’s been sitting in my drafts for over a year “single, satisfied, and unselfish.” He said it better than I would have, I’m sure, and it helped bring some things in to focus as I sought the Lord.

I’ve really made an intentional effort not to fixate on situational things I cannot change. Maybe it’s the counselor in me that sees the futility in getting anxious about things outside my control. I am so incredibly grateful for God’s grace that placed godly men in my life to sharpen, challenge, and encourage me as I pursue Christ. My experience (which is not every girl’s) living inside these blessings has impacted the way I see relationships. I want to share just a snapshot of that experience.

so, I’m not a relationship book junkie

For whatever reason (and maybe the reason above), I’m not a relationship book junkie. Do you know the type? The girl who buys every dating book on the Christian market, inserts her own experience into the pages, and then adopts a new “method” to coping with her relational status. There was the phase where she kissed dating goodbye, and then the phase where she was only courting, and then the phase where she wasn’t interested in men because she was trying to be “content” with God. She kind of dated the dating books – if she had problems or frustrations, she could always find an author that justified her feelings and gave her 5 tips to get back “on track.”

NOTE TO THE READER: If you are the girl described above, I would encourage you to go read a different blog post – maybe one on antiques or the sovereignty of God or… knitting. Choose anything but the topic of relationships because I don’t want to be this month’s solution. Your best reading material is Scripture. Maybe try that first.

I hope you don’t think I’m the Debbie Downer when relationships are the topic of conversation. I love talking about the way God has designed us to reflect his trinitarian nature. I love understanding how our interaction with one another says so much about who God is. I love grappling with God’s introduction of marriage in the garden and the way he wove it through Scripture and presents Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church.

But I’m not trying to talk or understand or grapple as a means to solving my struggle with my relationship status. In reading, “The Meaning of Marriage” by Tim Keller, I was not hoping that it would be another 2 points for the good team – hopefully tipping the scales and giving me the holy advantage I need to find the right man. I read Keller’s book (which I highly recommend) because I wanted to know God’s design better, deeper.

It’s a good design – from any angle. It’s such a beautiful and good design that points ultimately to the good Designer, who holds all our hope and joy and future secure. I can love marriage and it’s place in my life without being obsessive about it playing out in my life. I love marriage because I love God – and He loves marriage!

He created marriage to display His glory and it does in so many beautiful ways.

What frustrates me about the books and books and books from women who are trying to help other women figure out life outside of marriage is this: they speak in pre-marriage/post-marriage language.

I read an article recently from a married woman who was so disappointed that she waited to have sex until she was married – it wasn’t what she hoped and looking back, she wished she hadn’t waited. I have read countless articles on the topic of sex and waiting vs. not waiting from women on all sides of the argument. And then there are the blogs about contentedness – what to do with the desire for a husband and family. I recently read about a woman who felt like her gifts couldn’t be used fully pre-marriage. And of course there are more – on every topic from career to money to children – the internet is heavy with posts from women who have something to say about singleness.

I usually don’t write about singleness because I loathe (a little bit) the attention it gets in Christian circles. I get it – we struggle as singles. It should be talked about and grappled with and our conclusions should be tested against Scripture and refined by seeking the Lord in prayer. I do get it and maybe that’s why I am writing today.

I am 28 and single. I have no idea what the future holds – really, literally, no idea (message me if you want to hear some stories that have caused me to let go of any ideas I did have). You may not believe me, but I am not anxious. I am not restless. I am not sad. 

My God is sovereign and able to make grace abound in Christ so that I am capable to do every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). I am not “working at being content” so that I hit the contentment quotient and God would grant me a knight in shining armor. I am content because God is faithful to keep His promises.

I love my Lord and He loves me.
He loves me and has chosen to be betrothed to me.

“I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.” (Hosea 2:19-20)

This is my Lord who loves me and has given me grace to love Him back. He will betroth me to Himself in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. This is my Lord, who chose me while I was still a sinner to be His bride! He is faithful when I doubt and fail and He is faithful when I choose righteousness by His grace. He is faithful as no other bridegroom will ever be. His sanctifying work in me is a promise that will not be broken and this is security no earthly marriage can guarantee.

Oh, I love my Jesus.

And this sounds like a soapbox. I guess it probably is. I am just another voice in the noise about relationships. But, my hope is that in sharing my experience someone might know that you can give up the formulas. You don’t have to get better at knowing God or better at being a servant or better at communication so that God will find you suitable as someone’s helpmate.

Seek to know and love God because you want to know and love God.

The reward is so great. When you taste and see the Lord is good, your desire for other things is always with the lingering taste of Christ on your tongue.

He is your first and best and enduring reward. Seek Him because He is the best thing to seek. He is the only One who can cause a wave of love to arch over your life and engulf you in joy. Only He can do that.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy, ladies
and seek the greatest treasure because then you will be satisfied

 

Posted on by Caroline 3

resigned, but found

Resignation sounds like defeat.

It sounds like you let something or someone else win. Resignation often happens after a hard fight – the relaxing of muscles after strained opposition. And there’s a heavy humility in knowing the object of opposition overtook all your efforts.

Resignation sounds like defeat because resignation is defeat. It bends our shoulders in submission as we admit our efforts were just not enough.

If it’s possible, I woke up today feeling this way – resigned, with shoulders bent. I know this sounds like a defeated posture. And, honestly, it feels like a defeated posture. But, as I pray for the Lord to be victorious in and through me today, I know that I must resign my own efforts and rely on His might.

I’m resigning all the ways I would push my own agenda and promote my own schemes so that my heart might be one found by Him and strengthened. The alternative (not resigning to the Lord’s ways, strength, and guidance) is war. When we foolishly oppose God’s purposes by relying on our own efforts, we welcome war.

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD, he gave them into your hand.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.” (2 Chronicles 16:7-9 ESV)

Resignation might look like defeat, but only until your heart is found and strengthened by the living God. Then resignation looks like victory.

“Not I ask for, not I strive for
But Thy grace so rich and free.
That Thou givest whom Thou lovest,
and who truly cleave to Thee.”

Posted on by Caroline 0

making melodies

I remember standing on the wooden pews and singing in Dimnent Chapel during college. The notes got all mingled together above our heads and bounced off the stained glass in the post Sunday night worship sessions.

“I’m making melody in my heart to You
I’m making melody in my heart to You
Pouring out Your praise with everything within”
(Matt Redman)

Now, I know my heart makes melodies whether I ask it to or not. It’s just a thing it does – sing, I mean. That can’t be a surprise, with the amount of music I post here.

Sometimes the songs are of the G, C, D, E variety with simple words and rhythms. Other times, they sound a little more complicated and painful. This song is some sort of mixture, but it is hopeful.

Yes, hopeful.

Love is what has brought us here
With the courage to come near
Chase away our pride and our fear
With the Light to carry
With the Light to carry on

This past weekend I went to John Piper‘s Desiring God Seminar on TULIP (5 points of Calvinism) in Minneapolis. Eight hours of lecture with live Q & A interspersed throughout is pretty heavy – one of those times where you are unsure whether to write anything down because you know what you do write down won’t be enough. (If you’re interested in the slides, they are here for free.)

One take-away I’m still clinging to on Tuesday night is hope. The kind of Romans 5 hope that doesn’t disappoint. Because God is sovereign, I have hope. Because nothing happens outside of God’s control, I have peace that my hope is secure. I can rest even while the world appears to be crumbling – even while there is death and disease and addiction and pain, I have a hope secure.

My pride and fear and sin and doubt are chased away by the Light of One who is mighty to save. God’s promises are trustworthy and His words pierce into the deepest dark with a light that exposes (Ephesians 5) sin for what it truly is: rebellion. And when my heart was dead without any hope of revival, His Light reached out and called me into right relationship while empowering me to take each step by grace.

He called me out of darkness and into His wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9) and then gave me the grace to walk until the sun shone on my face. What hope we have in a God who takes what is dead and makes it alive! What hope we have in a God who extends grace for salvation and grace for the saved to be sanctified. What hope! 

This message of God’s sovereignty is not about being puppets or robots as much as it is about God’s grace enabling those He has called to freely choose Him. This is the kind of hope that makes the dark clouds fade away – the kind of hope that is enduring because God is eternal.

This is the kind of hope that makes melodies in my heart – sometimes simple and sometimes complicated – reminding me who allows the dark clouds and who gives strength to endure.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 0

shaken and stirred

Kris Orlowski is not in the indie/folk Nashville crowd I usually electronically network to mine for new melodies, but maybe that’s why I’m hooked to his arrangements.

They are not simple – they didn’t just accidentally happen in someone’s garage (nothing against spontaneously inspired music in the middle of the night after friends reunite). These notes are artfully placed – pulled by strings and strums and voices and drums.

Maybe I’m just in that kind of place where music has more sway, maybe I am vulnerable to greater affection. Maybe. But maybe we are designed for such affections to stir us awake. Maybe we are far too easily pleased with the aesthetic menu of the top 40.

I think it’s more than maybe.

I know, not everyone feels a shift in his or her soul at the same sound, it would be silly to expect such a thing in a world with so many glorious differences. But, I do think we were created with a soul that senses beauty and greatness and … well, the fingerprints of the Creator in this created world.

When we have those moments of sight or sound or touch, I think our soul is shaken out of the far too easily pleased rut to desire more of the best the Creator offers. The beauty and earthly glory in music is a signpost that awakens my heart and points to what is most beautiful. Lesser things start to sound flat and dull and pale.

My musical preferences may not be for everyone, but I do believe God is inviting my soul into wakefulness to appreciate what He has made beautiful when the world settles for far lesser things.

This past weekend, I heard the acoustic version of this new song by Leeland and the story of how the song came about. The original words were penned by Lawrence Tribble in the 1700s after he was inspired by the famous preacher George Whitefield (more here) who preached revival during America’s Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards.

Are we ready to be awake again?

Here are some of my new favorites, shaking my soul from its “too easily pleased” stupor.

Kris Orlowski – All My People
Myles O’Mainnian – Incandescently Happy
Cody Fry – Underground
Sea Wolf – Old Friend

What music shakes YOUR soul into wakefulness?

Posted on by Caroline 0

don’t give up on me.

There are a lot of reasons I’m crooning this jam from Milo Greene. It’s not because I know what he’s about – I don’t. I am just the kind of person who has a soundtrack to my days and this is making the list.

This song got stuck on me because I wish my clients would sing it. Some of them do, yes. Some of them want their kids back more than they want anything else in life. And when I get their voicemails about completing treatment or a picture text of the parenting class they are attending, a little part of me leaps with them for joy. Some of them are the reason I have a job – because they prove change is possible.

Others of them, well… I have to sing these lines on their behalf. I’m not sure how badly they want their kiddos back in their care, even though I am sure that they love their littles. But I want them to be reckless with their love – I want them shaken out of the stupor that addiction has buried them inside. I want to see them look those littles in the eyes and say, “Don’t you give up on me. Don’t you do it.”

Because, sometimes I wonder if the children want to. I wonder if they are tired of getting tossed about. I wonder if they get lonesome for home – one that stays in the same place with the same people. I wonder that.

And then there’s the other thing. There’s the other thing I think when my day’s soundtrack is stuck on this song.

I know the song isn’t about holiness or the Lord or probably anything spiritual. But, my heart is the Lord’s and I suppose it always stretches to hear Him even in unlikely places. And when I hear this song, I can hear my heart singing to the Lord about my holiness.

I know, sounds strange.

I’m just so far from holy – so very far from even feeling like there is progress, sometimes. And those times I imagine God shaking His head at my efforts as He patiently directs my steps (often in the direction opposite my footprints).

My friend and I read Kevin DeYoung’s book, “Hole in Our Holiness” and went to the Desiring God conference last fall where both Piper and DeYoung spoke. The incredible importance of our holiness sunk in so deep that it’s in almost every conversation we have now.

Though we are called positionally holy as sons and daughters of the Lord, bought with the price of Christ’s shed blood, we are still being sanctified. That is, we are in the process of becoming holy right now, in this life. 

And so, when I sing this song a bit of my heart asks the Lord not to give up on me. I know the progress is slow. I know I go backwards as often as I go forwards. I know I need to learn lessons I’ve already been taught.

But, I know [far above everything else I know] that the Lord will not give up on His sanctifying work. Even as I plead for His patience I am believing that He is giving it in grace. He has called me, and therefore He is doing a work that will be brought to completion.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
(Romans 8:29-30 ESV)

My holiness, the messy progress of it all, is a victory I can claim in this moment. I know I’m not near finished – there’s a whole lot more in my life that needs sanctifying. But, to the degree that my heart mourns my waywardness as I sing this song, to that degree my heart is lifted with hope that God won’t ever give up on the progress.

The progress of my holiness is His alone to claim. He receives the glory for every victory over sin and He will not fail.

I guess that’s the difference between putting your hope in a person and putting your hope in God.

God will not fail.
He won’t give up on me.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 3