spiritual stuff

Duck Dynasty, Writing and Christmas

December 23, 2013 by Amy 1 Comment

I was entirely distracted at the end of last week with the Duck Dynasty debacle. Truth be told, it still is stirring in my heart. I should confess that I felt like I should have written about it and got scared and didn’t.

Technically, I did write about it but threw it in a virtual trash can and then waited for someone else to say how I was feeling. Once I found a few articles that did just that, I realized just how powerful the written word is. Sometimes you can’t find the words to say what you want, sometimes you can’t put a finger on exactly how you feel but when you read the words that are locked in your heart, it’s like an internal dam breaks in your lungs and you can breathe again. Processing through the written word is just part of me and I suspect based on the number of articles being shared last week, that it’s the same for many of you.

So, even though I’m not as passionate as Jen Hatmaker or get to the heart of the matter like Ann Voskamp or find myself articulate as Mike Cosper, I realize now I should have written. Even if it couldn’t have helped thousands process what happened, it could have helped me process it a bit faster and maybe a few of you too. I apologize for not showing up.

When Thursday rolled around and I was debating writing about the Duck Dynasty stuff, I was already wrestling with some behind-the-scenes stuff that was happening with my writing here. When Ann Voskamp says words are powerful, she isn’t kidding. Vague enough? Bottom line, I was feeling the weight of words already when this Duck Dynasty stuff hit and the weight of their words piled on top of mine left me wanting to walk away.

I was on the way to the school to get the kids Thursday, I told the Lord, I need some encouragement. If this writing thing is going to continue, I need you to show up and help me.

I had decided before I left to get them that I wouldn’t take my book and just read whatever was on my Kindle in the car. As I waited, I opened Denise Hughes book On Becoming a Writer. I’d read it already but it was encouraging to me the first time I read it and decided it might give me the kick in the pants I needed. I came across a section entitled “Know Your Reason for Writing.” Denise asked why we write and then shared her personal mission statement from Isaiah 30:8:

“Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.”

As I read that I felt that tug on my heart that says, I just showed up for you—that’s the encouragement you needed. And it was. I want so much for this space not just to help me process but for it to be like an altar to the Lord to remind us, “God was here.”

God was here. God is here.

And that’s what I want us to remember this week as we celebrate Christmas. Christianity isn’t a list of rules to adhere to or theology to debate, Christianity is about a relationship to experience. It’s about a God who came—who comes–to be with us. Not just for 33 years on the earth but now. He wants to give us life and life abundantly now. He wants to encourage us when we doubt, he wants to hurt when we hurt, he wants to laugh when we laugh.

He delights in us so much and we just keep forgetting to delight in Him too.

And so I ask us to set aside the debates and the anger and the distraction of the season and let him show up. There’s a million reasons you might need him to show up and a million ways he might show up but look for Him. He so wants to and He so will. Immanuel—God with us.

Sole Hope Shoe Cutting Party

December 9, 2013 by Amy 8 Comments

How to Host a Sole Hope Shoe Cutting Party

If you remember from mid-November, I shared Sole Hope and invited everyone to my house for a shoe cutting party. Well, this past weekend was the big day!

For a quick refresher, Sole Hope provides handmade shoes to children in Uganda to help prevent foot-borne diseases. Our job was to cut the material for the shoes based on templates they give in a kit. They send the assembled materials to Uganda and pay local shoemakers a fair wage to make the shoes.

I thought our party ended up being a smashing hit and I’m so glad several people have expressed interest in holding parties of their own. I wanted to share how ours went and give some tips to new hosts.

Let’s get to it!

Preparing for the Party

Beforehand, I had the impression that we could just show up with some jeans and scissors and cut some shoes, but there’s actually several things you need to gather and do before the party.

Materials

Here’s what you’ll need with some extra tips and detail the kit booklet didn’t cover.

Jeans – Take jean donations from those not able to attend and have attendees bring some as well. Each average pair of jeans gets about 4-5 pairs of shoes from it. You really don’t need as many jeans as you think. We had a TON of leftover jean material.
Fabric scissors – I can’t stress enough that these need to be quality scissors. Jeans are not easy to cut. Find a local seamstress and see if you can borrow some for the night. I’m lucky that my mom has a drapery business and had a workroom full of massive scissors. I’d say for our size party we needed 5-6 pairs.
Pinking shears – These are those zig-zag scissors. I called Walmart and asked them if they had any and the lady said, “You want some PINK SHOES??” Needless to say, she came back online a few minutes later and said they didn’t sell them. I found them at the same store the next day. These are NOT cheap. Borrow what you can. We got away with only 2 pairs.
Safety pins – You need large safety pins but you don’t need too many. You’ll need one safety pin per pair of shoes. From what I could tell, we made about 1-2 pair of shoes per hour per person.
Large ziploc bags – You’ll need 1 bag for every 5 pairs of shoes.
Empty plastic jugs – Ask a large family or two to save their milk jugs for a week or two. You’ll need them to cut a half moon out for the heel. Depending on how the plastic is prepared, you could get 4-5 pairs of shoes per jug.
Quilter’s cotton – So as many of us learned for the first time, quilter’s cotton is basically just 100% cotton. The quilter’s cotton is cheaper because it’s plain. The cotton is used for the inside liner of the shoes. You can use jean material instead but we really, really enjoyed having pretty patterned cotton to work with and really, it’s not very expensive. Pro tip: buy light colors so you can see your pen marks from the template tracing.
Sharpies – You’ll need 5-7 Sharpie markers to trace templates on both the plastic and the jean material.
Pens – You’ll need 2-3 pens to trace onto the cotton.
Tables/chairs – If you’re hosting it at your church, you might be able to skip this one, but I had to borrow a few tables so we could be at my house.
Cardboard or plastic folders – You’ll get a paper template in your kit but you’ll need to make several more sets of the templates to be used at each station from either cardboard or plastic folders. I personally preferred the plastic folder templates.

Prepare the materials

If you have early jean donations, prepare your jeans to be used as material. Cut off the top of the jeans so only the legs are left. Then, cut down the pant leg at the seam. You should have a nice, rectangular-ish piece of jean material.

The kids loved destroying the jeans for us.

Prepare your plastic jugs. Cut around the top of the jug and outside along the handle. Then, cut close to the bottom so you’re left with the four sides. Then, cut down each corner so you should have 4 panels of plastic ready to be used.

Set up stations

There are lots of ways you could organize your party, but I found it easiest to separate the stations by material.

Station 1 had all the jean material. People there were responsible for tracing the template onto the jeans and cutting it out.

This station will need the jean material, fabric scissors, sharpies and templates.

We found that the jeans were the slowest moving station so it was better to have more people there than the others. We had 5-6 people working on jeans.

Station 2 was the quilter’s cotton.

The quilter’s cotton station seemed to require the most attention to detail and attract folks that were most comfortable around fabrics and pinking shears.

Fold the fabric over and you can cut two layers at once! Since you could cut twice as much at once and was thinner fabric, this station usually produced faster and only needed 2-3 people.

Station 3 was our plastic station. On one night, part of this station’s job was to prepare the jugs as described above but after that, this station simply traced and cut out the half moon shape for the heel patch. This station seemed to attract the men and kids. The template required here is simple and the plastic is easy to cut through.

Station 4 was the quality control and final assembly station.

For both parties, I handled this myself from my kitchen counter. My job was to make sure the material was cut as requested and then assemble a pair of shoes together with a safety pin.

Once you have 5 pairs of shoes, you put them in a bag and label them with the shoe size. You’ll need the safety pins, bags and sharpies at this station.

Finally, I’ll just say, as you can see, this doesn’t have to be super fancy. My house isn’t huge and I didn’t spend a lot of time decorating. You just need tabletops for people to be able to trace and cut. With kitchen counters, dining room tables and even the floor, almost anyone can make it work!

The Party

Finally! It was time to party! And surprise–we actually held two parties back-to-back!

solehope

Since our small group meets at our house on Thursdays, we decided to hold a cutting party during our regular small group meeting time the day before.

solehope

It was a great time to get my feet wet hosting and working out the kinks as well as introduce more people to Sole Hope and produce more shoes to send!

solehope

With everything set up, all that is needed once people arrive is a quick explanation of the stations and everyone seemed to have a natural fit of where they wanted to work.

Our small group completed 16 pairs and a few partials that I finished after the party that totaled 20. For Friday’s party, we completed 30. We had so much leftover material that I had my own little party and cut another 10 pairs while I watched Gone with the Wind (for the first time!) Saturday night.

So, I’m very happy to say we’re sending off 60 pairs of shoes!! Woo Hoo!!!

Skyler, Candie, Heather, Dani, Michele, Carla,
Tamara, Edwin and their 2 kids, Barb, Becky,
Jenn, Gracee, Emma and Lexi

Our small group totally forgot to do a group picture, but that’s the crowd from Friday night. Both groups are fantastic people I call family and friends! I’m a lucky gal!

If you spy the Sole Hope banner at the top of our group picture, I used some of the jean material and the sharpies to make it right before Friday night’s party. The photos are from the kit booklet. We just took the staples out of the booklet and then hung the separated pages right on the banner. So easy and fun!

Thank You!

Our parties absolutely could not have happened without the donations and help of so many people! They might kill me, but I really want to call out some people that made this possible:

Lara Beth provided bags and jeans and brought them to my house.
Jennifer mailed a box from Virginia and sent jeans, sharpies, bags, pins and a donation. It showed up just one itty bitty hour from the start of the first party. What timing!
My mom let us borrow her work scissors.
Phillip and Anita donated plastic jugs and got them to our church.
Holly donated plastic jugs and brought them to our church.
Jenny gathered all the plastic jugs at the church and brought them to the party.
Ken and JoAnn lent us their tables and scissors and donated fabric.
Heather brought us white chalk we used to mark on the darker fabric.
Dani bought quilter’s cotton.
Deb is sending a donation FROM CANADA with spare American dollars she had.
Dave prayed over our time and all the shoes.
Becky and Barb brought pinking shears and lots and lots of jeans.
Many of the participants brought bags, jeans, cotton fabric, and scissors and gave donations. It was coming in so fast I didn’t get it all written down.
Scott for running all my errands–he even went to the fabric store for me-and helping with all the set-up.
Everyone that attended and worked SO HARD!

As you can see, this was a group effort. To all of you that helped prepare and then those that attended, on behalf of myself, Sole Hope and the families in Uganda, THANK YOU!! I love thinking of those women sewing those shoes and then those toddlers walking around in the shoes! 60 of them!! That’s a lot of toddlers!

You absolutely can be a part! If you want to host your own party of any size, the first step is to buy a kit over at SoleHope.com. Please let me know of any other questions you might have!

Ultimately, I pray that these shoes would be a tool not just to bring physical healing, but be an opportunity to teach many about the love of Christ. When Dave in our small group prayed over the shoes, he was reminded of the verse that says how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel. I pray that the feet of these little toddlers are covered with shoes so that one day that verse may be said of them—beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel! Their feet will be covered so they can know and then they can go. May it be so!

Reminders and Reasons to Give Thanks

November 28, 2013 by Amy Leave a Comment

I woke up today with both reminders and reasons to give thanks from Scripture. I pray God moves and blesses you through them too.

Reminders to give thanks:

Psalm 100:4-5
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Psalm 107:1
“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

1 Chronicles 29:12-13
“Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.

Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18
“In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Psalm 105:1-2
“O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works”

Psalm 95:1-6
“O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.”

Reasons to give thanks:

Psalm 139:14
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalm 139:13
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Psalm 40:5
Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.

Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

1 Timothy 4:4
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

I’m very thankful for you. Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

The Gift Guide For HIM {and a read-along}

November 26, 2013 by Amy 4 Comments

image source

Sunday afternoon we finished up the 6th birthday gathering at my house this month. Does your family have birthday months like ours? July and November seem to be where many of our birthdays cluster.

I was walking through the living room yesterday morning and I said it under my breath, “I am DONE with birthday season.” And then I laughed because hello, Christmas–something about the biggest holiday of the year celebrating a birth. Birthday season was just starting.

So I started thinking about birthdays while I was getting ready and what that might mean for Christmas. What is it that really makes the day for the birthday person?

Decorations are fun. I think people agree because, um, Pinterest. But it’s not necessary, really. Unless you have a reality show or lots of time and money, do people (at least around me) ever decorate for adults. For kids, yeah, but birthday themed plates are as far as we go for adults. Unless of course it’s the big 4-0 and then some black balloons are in order.

Food is pretty central to the celebration. Whether you go out to eat, cook dinner in or just share some cake and ice cream, it’s a staple. But I wouldn’t say it MAKES the birthday terrific. (Except my Mom’s chocolate cake. That seriously makes my birthday).

Presents are welcome at any age, but by the time you’re an adult, it’s just your spouse and parents participating.

I thought what REALLY makes a fun birthday is people. When people simply remember your birthday and recognize it. It’s why people love their Facebook accounts on their birthdays. Two words from all their friends and it’s like BAM! Day. Made. No cake, no decorations, no presents. You don’t even need a fancy image. Just the nod from your friends that they remembered you.

And so after thinking through all that, I thought about Christmas and how Jesus might want us to celebrate his birth.

Yeah, we decorate and have meals and give presents, but he interrupted my Christmasy thoughts and whispered what he really wanted.

It wasn’t even a gift given for an angel tree or service at a food bank.

Here it is, come close:

He wants me.

And he wants you.

He wants us not to eat or decorate or swap presents or even serve because of him, he wants YOU.

He wants the nod, the time, the recognition that it’s all about him and you’re so crazy thankful that the real gift is Him. He loves us so much and we’re a gift to Him! It’s the whole reason He came!

So let’s not read stories ABOUT him or serve FOR him or gather with family BECAUSE of him. Let’s be WITH HIM because he’s with us. Emmanuel.

Sit at his feet this season. Listen after you pray. Sing songs of praise to him all by yourself. Whisper gratefulness as you go. However it is that the two of you connect, do that.

Be still and give him you.

Part of the way I connect with Him is through reading His word and the words he’s given others. I’m planning to read through Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift. It’s a daily devotional leading up to Christmas. I’ll be posting a thought about it each day on my Facebook page.

I’d like to invite you to read along with me and make that part of your season. The readings start on Sunday December 1st. If you’re in, that’s GREAT. I’d love to process Christmas with you. If not, that’s great too. Just remember—give him YOU. He’s crazy about you, friend!

Freedom

November 11, 2013 by Amy Leave a Comment

Today we celebrate our veterans. Lives lost, time spent, horrors seen, wars fought–for our freedom. The irony of freedom is it isn’t free. To those of you who have paid the price in any way, thank you.

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Yesterday our church continued studying Galatians where Paul talks about spiritual freedom. In America where we value our country’s freedom so much, we’ve distorted spiritual freedom enough that we find so many people anything but free.

My pastor talked yesterday about how our fleshly desires are in battle against the spirit. Our flesh desires sin. Do what feels good! I don’t need a boss! You only live once! Those messages abound in our culture.

And it’s true, gratifying our fleshly desires feels good—at least in the moment—and anyone that tells you different is lying. So we take those moments that feel good and assume that’s the way to freedom. However, if you live like that long enough, you’ll find it’s anything but freedom. You’ve done nothing but wrapped chains around your heart. You’re in bondage and it’s not fun anymore.

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Two years ago today I released Entangled, the confession of my emotional affair. I think back to moments it was fun—I felt great. I felt beautiful. I was finally doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted. In those moments, I felt free. But that’s the allure of sin. You have moments that lie to you. You’re free for a moment but in the end, it just tightens the chains a little tighter.

I went through a season of what our culture would call freedom—doing just exactly what my heart was desiring. But I ended up miserable. My stomach hurt, I was losing weight, my heart rate was through the roof. I felt terrible for hiding my sin. My body was physically battling for my true freedom long before my spirit was.

Here’s the thing we don’t get : spiritual freedom isn’t a freedom of will, it’s a freedom from will.

Spiritual freedom is not in doing what feels good or what you can just because we only have one life. You think fighting for your desires is the way to freedom but you wake up one day and realize you’ve been fighting on the enemy’s side the whole time.

True freedom is found in siding with God and his holy ways. Small moment after small moment, battle after battle, choosing the holy way and not the fleshly way.

I can tell you with conviction I never felt more free than by giving up what my flesh truly wanted. In the moment, it felt like defeat. It felt painful. I didn’t want it. But God’s ways are freedom, not our own.

Today while I thank the veterans for our country’s freedom, I also thank God for true spiritual freedom. Oh, how much I could have lost! Thank God for his grace and his never-ending, chase-you-down desire for my freedom.

To those of you bound up, today is the day to start your fight for freedom. Even if the battle seems too hard, even if you don’t yet want God’s ways, it just starts by telling God you want freedom. He will give you new desires and eventually, victory. Surrender your will and chase after Him.

I would love to intercede for your freedom in prayer. Email me and let me know you need it and it’d be my honor to help you battle today.

Fruit of Love

November 8, 2013 by Amy 4 Comments

A few nights before I left for Allume two weeks ago, Scott’s parents brought us a bag of apples they had picked with the senior adults at their church. It was a huge bag of apples—my guess was 20 pounds. I really wanted to make some of The Pioneer Woman’s applesauce but I had zero extra time as I prepared for my trip.

I let the apples sit while I was gone. I got home from Allume on Sunday, full and happy, but definitely not ready to get back to real life. Doing the grocery shopping that I missed on Saturday was the very last thing I felt like doing. So I made applesauce with Emma.

We peeled the apples and then Emma worked to slice them. They were hard apples—the hardest I’d ever seen. After Emma had dumped them in the pot on the stove, Emma picked up two apple seeds and said, “Let’s go plant these!”

I said, “No, Emma, they’ll take forever to grow.” I drifted off at the last of my explanation, taken aback at my reaction. I couldn’t believe my disinterest in planting the seeds knowing that it would be years before it looked like a tree and even more before it produced apples we could use.

Was I really that selfish that I had no interest in planting something that likely someone else would enjoy in years to come? Just because I wouldn’t ever see the fruit, wasn’t the planting and watching the journey with Emma enough? Wasn’t knowing that someone else would have joy because of our work enough?

Yesterday was Billy Graham’s 95th birthday. There was a huge celebration just a few hours up the road in Asheville, NC. He celebrated by producing and televising his last message to America called My Hope America.

In the video, Larry King asked him years ago what is your purpose? Billy Graham answered to go into the world and tell people the gospel. And still so many years later, when he is 95, at an age where anyone would give him a pass for not putting in hard work, he still has the passion and willingness to share this truth. He will likely never see the fruits of his labor, but he knows and cares about others enough that it doesn’t matter. It’s enough to know that someone else will be changed by Jesus Christ.

He says, “With ALL my heart, I want to leave you with the truth.”

He has that thing for people that I realized I was lacking when confronted with two apple seeds. Great love of others.

I pray that we are—that I am–so full of love for others that we are willing to do the hard work of planting seeds, satisfied with watching the journey and resting in the knowledge that the fruit will bloom and be enjoyed for generations to come.

If you haven’t, please, watch the broadcast online here. Even if you don’t believe his message, I pray we are all inspired by his faithfulness to the task.

Followers

October 31, 2013 by Amy 8 Comments

I was sitting at my desk the other day and looked out the back glass doors and found the scene above. My little Bella just sitting pretty under our one big tree in the backyard. Y’all, I just can’t tell you how much joy that little dog brings me. It’s actually kind of ridiculous. I never thought I’d be one of those dog owners but I am. I so am.

Just yesterday we had to go shopping and I told Bella as I was putting her in her crate I was sorry but I’d take her for a walk when we got home. And then. THEN. As we were pulling back in the driveway I said OUT LOUD to Scott, “I’m going on a walk when we get in. I told Bella I’d take her.” Like, I know. Crazy dog lady talk. I’m annoying myself.

Do you see her little leg propped out in the back? I call it her kick stand and laugh every time I see it and make Scott look too.

But really, guys, I think she likes me just as much.

She follows me around the house like my shadow. She sleeps at the foot of our bed at night. When I get up and go make the girls’ lunches in the morning, she sits pretty like that and watches me. I know she’s waiting for me to drop something but whatever. When I work, she stays close by in the living room and naps. When I go get ready in the bathroom, she lies under Scott’s hanging clothes in the closet and waits for me. And yes, even when I go to the bathroom, she follows me in there and lays on the rug and waits. I’ve tried to close the door and she barks to get in with me.

I love it. Whatever.

It got me thinking though about our relationship with God.

So many times we ask God to be our shadow like Bella is mine.

God, we’re going over here will you go with us? It sometimes looks like:

I just wrote this post, will you bless it?

I took a new job! Will you help me be successful?

We’re getting married, I hope you show up!

It can apply in so many ways. We decide where we’re going and then hope we find God has decided to follow and bless us.

I don’t know if I have it totally figured out, but my heart says we’ve got it backwards; he’s supposed to be the master and we should be the devoted follower, always sensing for movement, watching for his leading and delighting in sitting at his feet.

Allume 2013

October 27, 2013 by Amy 44 Comments

Such great community at Allume

I’m back from Allume 2013 (Christian women’s blogging conference) and I’m skipping right to the deep stuff. For my regular readers, you’ve gotten nothing but crumbs the past few weeks. I hope this makes up for it. Grab a cup of coffee and hang in there! God does some cool stuff at the end!

After Allume last year, I knew I wanted more than ever to my words to matter. My blog wasn’t just an online journal or a hobby to me. I rebranded and read all I could about writing and increasing the audience here. I was just about desperate to grow and make a difference.

As part of that training, I signed up for Lysa TerKeurst’s Compel Training about a month ago. It’s a private online training course for writers. I love Lysa and her work and was ecstatic to soak up what I could from a 14-time author. I started a session on goals and the speaker said something like, “I assume if you’re listening to this then God has called you write. That means making goals and writing is nothing short of obedience.” I clicked the pause button almost out of anger. I had no goals and in fact, did not remember ever being called to write in response to a call from God. Sure, I’d prayed about it before and never felt called to quit blogging, but I’d never specifically felt called to write either.

At this point in time, I was struggling so much with coming up with content at all. Even though I was learning all of this stuff about how to create content, my heart felt dry and it didn’t seem that God was giving me anything to share. I have an advisory board for the blog and even they seemed to stay mum.

With response almost nil and ideas lacking, I started questioning everything. Should I quit? Does God want me doing something else? Have I been called to write? Was it time to step away finally?

A few weeks passed and the word “intimacy” kept coming up in sermons or blogs. I knew Allume was coming up and I sensed that God was beginning to prepare me for the weekend, so I made a concerted effort to dwell with him.

I made a specific playlist and worshipped him in the mornings. One of my favorite songs was Oceans by Hillsong United. I read blogs with a Christian focus and really tried to listen to God speaking. I kept a journal on my desk of things I heard him saying to me.

The first post God took me to was one about giving God nothing—meaning, we need to give up the idea of needing to give God anything to be accepted. I had to ask myself did I really believe God accepted me just as I am without ever writing, or even doing, anything for him? I felt God asking me to stop writing for a time—give him nothing and really dwell with him.

The phrase he placed in my heart regarding my writing was “cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians says God loves a cheerful giver. The passage is speaking about financial gifts the Corinthians had given but I felt God’s permission to apply that passage to my writing:

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

He showed me I was no longer blogging out of a joy and overflow of his grace, but as something I saw as a duty—one he hadn’t even asked me to do! God began showing me that once I write out of joy, then God can bless and then HE will make every good work abound. If you look up the original meaning of “good work” it actually can be translated to “art”. He was responsible for making the writing abound!

This idea of being a cheerful giver was the framework for other messages I began hearing:

Through Andy Stanley, God opened my eyes to my addiction to applause. If I didn’t get enough feedback or comments or shares, I felt like the post was an utter failure. My joy was contingent upon the response and the worse the response was on one post, the worse I felt about the next one. It was a terrible cycle.

Through Holley Gerth and Joel Clark, I knew I needed to live a better life. By all accounts, I have a great life but I felt like I needed to sacrifice all the time. Making myself happy on purpose seemed overly indulgent. I’ll let you read through their posts but it’s not supposed to be this way! I couldn’t give cheerfully if I was trying to be miserable!
Not only did I need to live well but I needed to be loved well. My name “Amy” means beloved and God wanted me to live up that! He wants to love us ALL so much! My true joy and ability to give cheerfully is born out of giving back because he gave to me first out of love.

Through all that, I learned once I gave, the outcome was not up to me. My job was to cheerfully give back through writing and any outcomes were up to him. Whether I ever went viral or even impacted one person, the act of writing was meant to be out of thankfulness and an expression of joy to him.

I know that’s a lot and in fact, to even digest all of that, I created a visual of how it all fit together:

To summarize, God called me to dwell with him and give nothing for a time. In that, he led me to dump all the acceptance and approval. My new cycle was to be loved by him, be happy and live well within him, create out of the overflow with him, cheerfully give that to and for God and then let him bless it which would then feed into impact to others and his love to me.

Whew. Walking into Allume, this exact picture was in my suitcase and on my heart.

I walked into Allume still with the question, though, God, is this what you’ve called me to? I wanted God to confirm what I felt he’d been telling me. Or maybe, he’d ask me to walk away.

Well.

If you went to Allume, I hope you’re seeing just how God had prepared my heart! I think nearly everything God told me in those 2 weeks is what God spoke through the conference. As I flip through my notes, here are some highlights:

Sarah Mae says we need to learn to go back to our first love.
Logan Wolfram says a life well-lived is full of good content.
Ann Voskamp says when you write for an audience of one, you always count.
Ann says our hunger to be known is a good, God-given appetite and we ought to feed the hunger with what makes you beautiful not anxious.
Ann says the greatest tragedy is to be widely known instead of known intimately.
Ann reminds us to focus on a name that calls you BELOVED.
Melanie Shankle said security and approval comes when we know we are loved and adored by Jesus who has our name engraved on his hands.
Melanie says God sees us even when the world doesn’t.
September McCarthy reminded us to live well with our family.
Joel Clark reminded us to live well and finds what makes us come alive
Joy Thigpen talked about finding something that makes ourselves and others bloom and finding an outlet for our creativity so we are just a conduit.
Jennie Allen changed her entire keynote by the spirit’s prompting to talk about sins that have us entangled and God’s desire to free us. Her specific struggle? Letting go of approval.
Bianca Olthoff talked from Ezekiel 37 where they saw dry bones and how God is reviving us and those around us.

I can’t even fit all the applicable notes.

The final night, though, something very personal and special happened. Jeff Shinabarger spoke as our final keynote and do you know what set of verses he shared? 2 Corinthians 9!! He talked about us being cheerful givers and being generous without expecting anything in return.

David Walker came up after to lead us in worship. I was in tears the entire hour and then was blown away that the last song they sang was the exact song from my playlist that I’d been worshipping God with—Oceans. I was singing and crying and praising God and someone came up behind me and asked to pray for me. I didn’t know her. She’s not a blogger and had no idea who I was either but felt led to pray for me.

I can’t remember all she spoke over me, but she said she felt that I was feeling spiritually bankrupt and that God wanted me to know he was with me and hovering over me as I searched for him in the darkness. He delighted in me and that it was like the alabaster jar, broken and a wonderful perfume being poured out.

She prayed a second time after I had gathered myself and gone back over to her. She said she saw Samuel and Eli when Samuel kept thinking Eli was calling for him and it was God. Eli told Samuel to say, “Here I am”. She said that’s what was required of me…that God was calling and that all I needed to say was Here I am.

Y’all. That’s not even the end.

Worship was over and I had won one of 10 paintings that artists had been painting during worship. Logan had explained that there had been prayer over the paintings and she wanted us to talk to the artist and said she believed it was a message for us.

I began crying again as I saw my painting was of a feather. When I did the rebranding this year, we had found a theme of feathers and wings in my Pinterest boards—a symbol of encouragement and lifting others up. And more than that, the word “replenish” was painted below the feather.

Y’all. I can’t even stand it.

Here I am crying out to God to be called, feeling broken and dry, looking to others for approval and acceptance—a stranger even confirms I felt bankrupt–and God just shouted back to me, I see you broken, I love you, I want to replenish you and call you out for my purposes. You just need to be available.

After all of that, I believe my calling is simply to dwell with him and be available for whatever purposes he has for me. My writing will be an overflow of that relationship and will be to and for him. Through that process, I hope it does encourage and lift others up but that’s not my job. God is the lover of our souls, not me!

I know this stuff is deep and spiritual and charismatic and whatever. THAT IS GOD. He cares so carefully about each one of us like this and we should all be experiencing him. I love him more than ever and he’s just so faithful to me. I screw it all up and he still cares enough to call me his beloved.

To those of you who have been readers here, I am bent low apologizing. If you ever have been blessed by words here, it is a true work of God that has filled in the gaps.

I have no idea what this blog will look like from here on out. It could look the same or different but know the heart behind it has changed.

To the organizers and speakers of Allume, please know that God moved mightily through your faithfulness and sacrifice. Thank you.

To God be the glory!