Women of Purpose

How to Live in Accepted Tenderness

I sat at the back of a large church in a Texan city, remembering a few Sundays ago in a much smaller church when I sat sandwiched between my two sisters and their husbands.

That Sunday both sisters got up with their babies and there I was, the divorced sister, suddenly alone with a space between me and both their husbands on either side of me. I remember thinking how visible that made my position in life, before God reminded me that I was beloved, HIS BELOVED.

The enemy flashed another word into my head before I listened to God speak over me. I could have listened to the lie instead, but I knew it wasn’t true. Anything but beloved, it collided with my identity as God’s beloved.

I had decided to bring humor into the situation by texting my other sister during the service (yes, I’m like that sometimes), telling her what I felt like. The text never sent. Weeks later, I scrolled through my texts to her and saw it sitting there, “undelivered”. The identity lie never got sent because it was never true.

I knew the truth that Sunday. God was good and I was His beloved.

This Sunday in Texas was no different. I was somehow fine sitting alone in a large church where I knew no one, because I’d already seen God see me in a large airport in Dallas.

Get that—you can see God see YOU.

“I like your dress,” I’d smiled at a lady in the Dallas airport restroom. Then, I chatted with a pilot during a long slow line to board. The officer world I’m familiar with is similar to the pilot world, so we chatted easily about family schedules and making it all happen in spite of its challenges. I ask about his wife and kids because it is my honor to reflect on a man’s family as he’s out in the business world.

I was once the wife of a man who needed a woman out there to mention his family at home. I do this frequently for wives, —even though I do not know them. In my heart, I know them.

Inching forward on the plane toward my seat, I noticed the same lady in the pretty white dress sitting next to my assigned seat. We smiled briefly, then both buried our faces in books while ignoring each other for the silent space of written words. But as the plane landed in Amarillo, I smiled again and said hello.

She lived over an hour away but had friends in the city my daughter and her family lived in. We exchanged numbers, and she reached out twice later in the week before I got back to her to thank her. The church she let me know about, the friend she connected me with, and the love she shared was definitely God seeing me, seeing us.

I planned to meet her friend Sunday morning, and in a large parking lot, I recognized her and her husband’s faces pulling up close by. We were both running late so I avoided meeting her before service, but as I sat toward the back, I noticed they sat close by. God highlighting them and making it impossible to miss each other in a very large space with hundreds of people.

God sees me, I realized again.

Worship melted me. It was good to be pulled into Something greater than myself.

Then, the preacher began with no ordinary sermon, but a deep and vulnerable teaching from the scriptures with his own experiences tied in. Raw, human, and devastatingly real—in some ways entirely adjacent to my own stories—I sat there seeing that I was seen by God as His Beloved in a city where I could have felt alone.

Of course I met the friend of the lady in the Dallas restroom, and now hopefully we’re meeting this week at my daughter’s house.

God is extravagantly showing me His eye, I realized.

Hear me on this—the most extravagant love shows of God to you are sometimes small and could be invisible if you ignore them. But if you see them, you can’t unsee them.

And once you see the goodness of God and your space with Him, you can’t unsee your identity either.

Hear me on this also—satan’s clamoring voice is loud and often believable. But it wreaks havoc in your soul and wrecks your identity. It looks real and sound real but an imposter will never be the real you.

As John Eagan says, “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”

Whether I’m in the Queen city of Charlotte, at home and familiar, or whether I’m flying alone to a place I’ve never been, my God sees me. And your God sees you.

The bliss of my grandbaby in Texas was interrupted one morning by sudden and rare postpartum complications for my daughter. I never felt so helpless as I fought for her life and watched her wheeled out on a stretcher to an ambulance. When she was okay, I wanted to say “God is so good”, but I caught myself.

God is good all the time, no matter what. He’d be good if my daughter wasn’t alive that day, her body full of fentanyl and pills to accomplish the fastest thing possible—let her live. What if she died? Would God still be good. I knew the answer was yes.

But in those harrowing moments, God saw us and let us know His eye was watching. Her ambulance driver went to the same church the Dallas airport lady told me about, and invited Beka to come. “My mom already visited, and I’m going to,” Beka told him.

Amarillo is a large place with a lot of churches. Do you see how small things can tie together to let us know the eye of God is on us?

You don’t have to (and you cannot) fix people or circumstances. But you can tune in, you can focus your eye, and when you’re too tired to do either one, you can pray—and this is the good thing about God—when you’re too tired to pray you can rest and remember that the Spirit prays for you.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we aught, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

Romans 8:26, ESV

I’m learning, as Brennan Manning says, to “Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness.”

Seeing the accepted tender position you have with God changes everything.

Love always,

Sara D.

How to Keep Your Wonder

Some weeks ago, my youngest boy asked if he could pick me up, as he sometimes does.

I stared at him a bit because we were at a friend’s house and I didn’t feel like tenaciously clinging to his neck in midair. But I said yes. Before long he was demanding that I do not hang on, so there I was (46 year old mother and all that), trying to follow scary orders as he hoisted my body up and down for arm curls.

He’s in another state for his summer job, and I’m learning how quiet the house is as I do this empty nest thing for the very first time.

I’ve never lived alone so this feels a little odd. Sure, my oldest son is in the garage bedroom but this 120 year old house literally has just me in it.

My parents have seven girls and we all married. None of us ever thought divorce an option, but it happened to me, anyway. So, periodically at the end of a long work day I bring in some humor to the situation and snap a photo of a wine glass and book, or wine and bathtub, or some lovely food I’m eating along with “Perks of being single”.

I remind them that I get to relax while they cook dinner for their husbands. And it’s a little odd how we all laugh and cry over my reality because they all know, along with me, that I’d have done anything not to land in this boat.

I’m wondering what your thing is, and where your raft has taken you?

The mother who lost a child asked me, “How do I find joy in a life that seems deprived of what I wanted?”

And the world over, men and women grapple with a solid reality of grief that makes even noise go silent. The world stands still in an intermission between what was and what will be, while what is seems impossible to breathe through.

Silence can be deafening.

But I’m seeing this thing of identity as never before, how women find identity in being a wife, a mother, a daughter without ever finding it alone, first of all.

Did you know all the props can be taken from you and still, you’re fully known and fully loved?

That when the props are taken from you, you’ll lean into the greatest love you’ll ever find, away from performance and people, alone in your bedroom where the Holy Spirit lets you know to look up, as if your eyes feast on the north star and you whisper it quietly, “God, you are my north star.”

That you can look away from people and fix your gaze past them onto something other worldly, that you can be gentle with yourself as you see the hand of God reaching for you, engraved on His hand and continually before Him.

Isaiah 49:16 says “Behold, I have engraved you on the palm of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”

Perhaps you’re wrestling with bitter disappointment of loss, but here, God says you are engraved on His hands. The hands crucified to the cross have you engraved there. You are continually before Him and forever will be.

I wonder why we look to people, places, or things for identity when God has His own hands marked with us.

I want us to settle our souls with nothing less because frankly, they won’t settle with less. If the root is God, the rest becomes desire rather than desperation–and hear me carefully on this–God given desire is HOLY, yet He remains your first Love.

My children are taller than me now, and busy with life. Has my identity changed, or am I less of a mother because they’re no longer sitting on the counter making cookies with me, drowning me in flour and potty training on the floor?

Am I less of a mother in a quiet, clean kitchen eating leftovers than I was when each meal was effort to make and serve?

The answer seems obvious but the feeling eludes us at times. We reach for humans while we forget that God is always reaching for us. That He has His hands marked with our name, so to speak.

When we fully see our identity apart from any human being, we can then reach back out for joy. In the long intermission between what was and what will be, we start hearing joy. I say hearing joy because we have to tune our ears for it.

The season I hoped to step in next was obviously not mine to have. I wrestle with this reality, sometimes brave and sometimes crying tears that fall too fast and heavy. We set our hopes on something, in someone, thinking this time we’re stepping through the door we always hoped for—and then, God says no—or at least, not yet.

PC: eye_of _serenity _photography

I want you to know sister, that he sees your hope deferred and how it makes your heart sick. I also want you to know that God’s no is always His better yes. Removing you from a situation not currently right for you is far more than Him saying no; it is His gentle invitation to something better, even if that something better is nothing more than leaning into Christ wholeheartedly as you say yes to the wisest thing, rather than the wished-for thing.

Saying yes to God means saying yes to the best thing even if it feels otherwise at present.

But as surely as God is real, He has something for you. There’s a gift, a delight, something to savor from the hand of God.

What has He made you good at? Run after it.

What lights you up? Follow hard after it.

What has He always called you to? Remember that no man can stop it.

Now there’s the hardest question of all, but tell me this, dear reader. Was I less of a woman when my husband walked out the door to a teen aged girl?

Eight years later, I know the answer. In that moment, I was fully and deeply loved, as much as I’ll ever be. Did I feel it? Yes and no. God gifted me His presence but the devastation was so great I lay weeping on the floor.

But get this—in that very moment, fully and deeply loved, as much as I’ll ever be.

I want us to lift our gaze to the North star because it pulls us heaven ward where love is. Here, we are safe. Here, love won’t fail us. Here, absolute identity with certainty that never leaves even when people do.

God became so dear to me that if I allowed sin in me and felt His presence less, I’d be wrecked. I depended on the presence of God because I could no longer depend on anyone or anything else.

There, I found that was the love I was looking for, all along. And in some sense today, as my youngest child is gone for the summer, my nest will never be empty because my heart is always full.

Full of love, that is. I get to transfer the love I receive from heaven onto those around me no matter where they are or what they’re doing.

I get to never lose my wonder. And as I keep that, God continues to fill my life with what I need, and more. Not in my way, but His.

All because He loves me. And He loves you just as much.

Live in love, live engraved, lived marked, always before Him.

Love always,

Sara D.

Soft and Strong in Proverbs 31

I grew up as an Amish girl, with my own certain idea of what Proverbs 31 was all about.

I loved staying home with my children, and frankly, I loved pleasing my husband. It wasn’t hard for me to throw my entire self into homemaking and homeschooling. I have no regrets doing so, even though life changed and put me in an entirely opposite position.

I read Proverbs 31 carefully, as I read all of scripture. Somewhere along the way I discovered that man-worship hovers with oppression, and that only God deserved the radical attention of every human heart in every situation. I read the Bible as if my life depended on it, because it did.

When it’s hard to breathe, the breath of heaven becomes the air that keeps you alive.

I was suddenly alone in the world with four children to raise and a big world to face. But I enter Monday traffic with peace now, and have that deep knowing in my soul that nothing changes my womanhood unless I allow it.

It’s that odd feeling of knowing I can be out in the business world with the same attitude that kept me home making a big pot of oatmeal and nutritious green smoothies for my four children.

The same realization that I can be a single woman working hard to make it in a big world, with the same attitude that once, back in a far off day, had me homemaking and doing all the things I thought it would take to be a good wife. That I can stop at Chick fa le for my son’s dinner when I used to be home cooking delicious meals every single day.

My world is different now, but the goal is the same, and I’d like to call us back to softness. Not a weak kind, where the brain hides behind cleaning and opinions are shared in question form rather than God given insight spoken with confidence and a quiet knowing that the Holy Spirit is forming words internally so they can be shared externally.

The idea that a woman is a woman, and bears the image of God in a different way than a man does. That she is a nurturer and a life giver, a bearer of beauty, that somehow her softness in a world that could make her hard has more power than she knows—and it’s worth keeping.

I work daily to help my children see that a harsh world still leaves them with the option to be victors when they could be victims. And I’d love to remind us ladies of the same; that in a world of gender confusion and brittle women, there’s still an undeniable call of heaven to bear the image of God in the way we do it best.

The Proverbs 31 woman worked hard, with strength. “She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong.” (verse 17)

Ladies, this is our call to health. We work hard, yes, but stewarding our bodies also means staying healthy to the best of our ability. Do you love the gym? Go work it out and stay in shape!

Do you hate the gym? Buy a simple app on your phone, head upstairs, and do calisthenics by your bedroom wall.

The call to keeping ourselves healthy is clear, and the rewards are great. Loving our bodies means we care for them, whatever that looks like.

“She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.” (verse 27)

Ladies, this is our call to keep a tidy home. Let the kids make a happy mess, but clean up and tidy up at the end of the day. I believe scrubbing a toilet is a form of worship, and lighting a candle brings cheer. A well kept home is a woman’s domain, and we don’t need wealth to accomplish this. Scrub an old wall and place some wildflowers in a vase you thrifted—whatever it looks like, consider your home part of yourself and what you keep tidy.

The anointing you need to hold a microphone begins when holding a toilet brush brings meaning because of what you’re creating when you do it.

Worship is not a public act; it is a way of life, a way of being with God, a way of finding meaning in all places at all times.

“She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” (Verse 26)

Ladies, this is our call to be wise. Do we truly hear that? We are more than silly, emotional, complicated beings. Where is wisdom when emotions want to take over?

Growing up as an Amish girl with a fearful mind has given me an insatiable desire for wisdom when I feel afraid (which is often). As I navigate female emotions I am constantly pulled into the question, “Are my feelings about this wise?”

Our emotions are tools, but they are not guide posts.

Our emotions can lie, depriving us of all things good.

When my emotions take over, I pause and question myself. What is true and what is not true about this situation? What is of God and what is my own mind creating an unnecessary mess?

When I navigate life with this in mind, I give God the opportunity to turn a difficult situation into some kind of high praise outcome where only He gets glory because only His wisdom made a way for it to happen.

My daughters and I laugh often about hormonal challenges and we all give each other grace to be a little more edgy or weepy certain times of the month. We don’t laugh away hormonal difficulties in a spiritual pretense they don’t exist—but I teach them that not even hormones are a cause to treat another person ill.

Have a bath at mid-day before you yell at your family even once in a day.

“She considers a field and buys it.” (verse 16)

“She makes linen garments and sells them.” (verse 24)

I didn’t know I had a hidden entrepreneur inside me before life forced me to discover it. And as I lived year after year, I noticed that Proverbs 31 praised this kind of woman. In fact, her husband praised her because even he gained by her insight.

Titus 2:5 says that older women are to “train young women to love their husbands and children, to be self controlled, pure, working at home……”

Scripture calls women to put husbands and children first. When children are young, they need their mother. But scripture invites the same woman whose children no longer need her, to be business savvy—that this kind of woman is a crown to her husband.

The Proverbs 31 woman had maids do some of her menial tasks so she could pursue lucrative goals. Whatever your situation is, don’t let your mind and body lay idle. Cultivate yourself, grow yourself, and bless your family first at home and, if life calls for it, also in business or ministry outside your own walls.

“Her clothing is fine linen and purple.” (Verse 22)

Charlotte has a large European community. I can often spot the ladies in a crowd because they take care of themselves. Slouchy or ugly clothing doesn’t work for these women, and they take care of their hair and skin even when they don’t wear jewelry. Different than a large part of American women who are either grossly immodest or simply don’t care at all, European women are a lovely reminder to keep myself feminine.

Ladies, we don’t need the latest fad or lots of money to be presentable and pleasant. Sweat pants and boxy t-shirts are not inspiring—wear a shirt with a feminine cut to it, and modest but cute skirt or pants. Shoes do wonders to an outfit and I sometimes pick up a pair at thrift stores. Even on cleaning days, I can take care to wear feminine or cute casual clothes, pin my hair up and take note of what looks pleasant.

Today I’m wearing light blue because it makes me feel happy and bright. You might not like blue, but take note of what creates a feminine and lovely feeling for your body and personality.

What we wear and how we cultivate our appearance has a direct bearing on how we feel.

“The heart of her husband trusts in her.” (Verse 11)

What about us can a husband trust? Is he exhausted just navigating our emotions or does he find peace in our presence? A husband should be able to let his guard down when he comes home because the over-all gift of a wise woman implies she has internal confidence and a sense of autonomous well-being that has something to add to the relationship rather than deplete it. Of course there are days we need his strong and safe presence to handle an internal storm—but I’m advocating for an over-all sense we can give a man that he’s coming home to something good and beautiful.

Do we wallow or do we worship? “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” (Verse 30)

God calls this kind of woman (I believe single ladies, also) “far more precious than jewels”. (Verse 10)

Here’s a brave and bold dare to stay soft in a world that could make us hard.

Love Always,

Sara D.

Hope Beyond Therapy

It’s a beautiful thing when joy comes.

The day my sister flew to Washington state to join my kitchen table because she knew my heart was in shreds—that day she spoke six words which honestly are the only words I remember of her entire visit.

“You won’t always feel this way.”

Like a small ray of possibility, yet illusive and out of reach, the words burned into my soul because I felt no hope.

I’d spent hours walking the trails close to my house, asking (more like begging) God to save my marriage. I started an altar of rocks where I was going to place one stone on top of the other each time God answered a prayer.

Then, one day it came to me, almost as if God was audibly speaking, this strong awareness that the answer was no. My husband was going to walk away. I don’t know why God let me know that—perhaps to prepare me in a small way for what even local law enforcement called a “glamour TV show”.

I was the main character in a very slow motion show that was difficult to wrap my head around even as I lived it.

Everything blurs when life becomes one long painful thing to navigate, yet there’s this hope of possibility because you know the will of God. I knew I was praying according to God’s will, which means God should say yes, right? Doesn’t He promise a yes when we pray according to His will?

“And this is the confidence that we have before Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14-15, ESV)

“Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (John 14:13, ESV)

How do I reconcile those verses when I knew I was praying according to the will of God, yet my husband chose other women?

How do I reconcile the Father’s love for me when I felt no love as my husband spent years asking about having an open marriage?

How do I find joy when clouds were full of rain and grief was so intense that even noise became silent?

How do I find rest when my heart pounds in a desperate effort to silence the truth with denial and reasoning circles in my brain?

Therapy could help me, but only God could heal me. And I had to surrender.

Surrender isn’t a popular word in today’s society where each man and woman fights for their own happiness. Submission isn’t popular either. But the only way through loss, whether by death or divorce, is surrender to the unthinkable.

A christian therapist will help you surrender to God by walking you through that hour in the office with Jesus as the answer. He may give you tools to utilize, boundaries to implement, and a solid choice to walk away from an unfaithful spouse. But every tool he or she gives you must lead you closer, closer, and closer to God rather than away from Him.

Talking it out helps; turning to God heals.

Boundaries can take away abuse, yet leave you alone without healing until you bring Jesus into the grief with you.

Walking away can free you, yet leave you desolate unless God is the most intimate Being you know.

And I’m here to say that no human being can heal you or replace what you lost.

Surrender means letting go of what was.

I packed up my kids, put them on a plane, and moved to the opposite coast.

A teen aged girl had my bedroom and my husband.

The girl’s mother had my first office, the room straight off the sun room where I got to write and store my books.

And the wrap around porch overlooking snow peaked mountains was now walked on by people I never wanted to see again.

I said goodbye to my friends, some of the best I’d ever made. And in a new kind of southern culture I floundered and struggled to make the same kind of friends as a grieving single mom with four struggling children.

For years, I spent hours in therapy sessions. Some of the kindest, older, wiser believers were also trained and equipped with tools to lead me closer to healing—and they always led me to God.

The tools given me were for one purpose only—to see the heart of God toward me and to move away from evil.

God wasn’t saying no to His will for my marriage. Rather, He wasn’t forcing Himself onto another party who wasn’t choosing Him. Because we can pray according to the will of God, but another party refuse to say yes to the will of God.

In all my questions, I had to see God. What I see changes when I see God.

And in some odd way, through years of wrestling and working and raising my beautiful children, joy came and I saw God’s hand on my life. I learned to look, pause, turn aside to see the hand of God that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Christian therapy helped me see God better, more, deeper. I remember the chair where I prayed aloud to bring Jesus into the grief, led by another to see Him beside me. The years of pain that were finally acknowledged by a human allowed me to see even deeper that God acknowledged them also, and He was angry, too.

Exodus 3 says that “When the Lord saw that (Moses) had gone over to look, God called to him within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’

And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’

‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’” (verses 4-5, ESV)

When we turn aside to notice what God is doing in our loss, He speaks. And in that moment, whatever we’ve been through, God’s words to us are sacred and we are standing on holy ground.

Surrender of the very things I wanted most led me to an act of worship in my spirit that was so meaningful and deep I began to realize the gift of the presence of God was far greater than an easier life.

Take the tools therapy gives you and use them to help your body, soul, and spirit lean into rest. Believe that the promises of God are always yes, though perhaps a no in the way you wanted. He truly does restore your soul, though perhaps not your circumstance. He will lavish you with His goodness in your inner being until you laugh again and realize your weeping is somehow far less and perhaps, even over.

You may spend years processing and growing, but the time will come when, rather than join another grief course or therapy session, you will want to dance. Joy is a fruit of the spirit, and the promise of God for joy is always a resounding yes because heaven isn’t weeping.

Heaven is singing. And God resides within you as the angels hover over you, bringing heaven to earth in a way that even angels long to look into.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

Love always,

Sara D.

Why I Still Believe in Submission (and when it’s time to say ‘no’)

Instinctively, many women want to please and by nature, we invite rather than push away.

I still believe in submission, though the word is frowned on in this post modern society. A woman still wanting a leader in the home becomes a supposed icon of weakness rather than a dignified woman still respecting her husband.

Many claim men and women have equal positions of leadership in the home. Equal importance and value, yes. Equal leadership, absolutely not.

1 Peter 3: 7 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.”

Titus 2: 3-5 “Older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or given to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be…….submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

Here’s an undeniable call to “teach what is good”. And what are they to teach? They are to teach young wives to allow leadership in their homes.

Our culture calls for leadership in every area of life, and feminists are some of the first to demand positions of leadership. So the questions becomes, “How is it not even more important to have leaders in the home?”

If the church, sports, businesses and corporations, government, and even charity organizations all need a leader, why the bristling effect on a home needing one?

A reaction to a problem doesn’t bring a good solution to a problem. The fact that some men aren’t good and selfless leaders in the home, doesn’t nullify the need for good leaders in homes. But this brings me to the heart of this blog.

There are times when wives need to say no. I remember the days when my then-husband wanted to study a book together promoting open marriage and talked about potentially having other partners in our bed. Doubtless, I had to say no.

I was told to be open to study, that God would show me if it wasn’t right. Thing is, it takes very little to show me that’s not right. The night we went out to Valentine’s dinner and I was pointed to a table of one man surrounded by three gorgeous women, then asked, “See, don’t you think that’s exemplary; he attracted all those women!”

I tried not to gag on my food and replied, “No, he probably has some major issues, needing that.”

My husband was no longer leading his home in righteousness and love. Like a sickness permeating every area of life, the illness I knew was there for many years festered until I could no longer deny it. We were going to break.

And because I said “No” to my husband, he was gone—into the arms of other women.

There are doubtless limitations on allowing a man to lead you. I am endlessly grateful that the divorce I tried so hard to avoid ended up being my rescue and the tears I cried ended up being my release.

And I realized, after his most obvious affair with our daughter’s friend, that something was broken beyond repair even though God led me through a process of forgiveness.

I’d seen him flirt with the child, but in my wildest dreams I didn’t want to admit he would ever do it. And when it became obvious, I knew I was to forgive him, yet remove him permanently from my life. That even if he repented someday, he could never again be my husband or lead our home. My job was to create emotional safety so my children could heal and others could feel safe in my home.

I write this for the church, for other women in similar shoes, for a call to leaders in the church to rise up, man to man, for the protection of women and children. Women in abusive marriages are often brainwashed as I was, and need strong men to stand alongside her to help her take a stand.

I needed two couples, one on either side, to help me. I needed a strong attorney. I needed a whole community of support, and it was graciously given.

But sometimes, the church is so focused on forgiveness and restoration of a broken covenant, that sexual perversion is “forgiven” and the marriage “restored”. I’m here to call into attention that the consequence of some sins makes “restoration” a ruin for the heart and soul of women and children.

My daughter begged me to never take her father back, even if he was repentant someday. I agreed with her. I didn’t think only of forgiveness; I thought of protection and the emotional well-being of myself, my daughters, their friends, and other women I was called to serve.

In that moment I knew they would never feel safe if he was there, and that I could forgive while entirely obliterating him from my life and home, forever. That if he tried to came back someday even as a repentant man, healing would stall and perhaps never happen. That women would feel unsafe in a home I was called to keep safe.

I’m here to ask the church to protect the heart and soul of women more than they promote a perverted man to find restoration in the home he destroyed. Because incest, rape, or child attraction is different than an affair—I do believe some affairs can be healed and a marriage better than before. But on this level, damage is ongoing for years and impossible to heal from if the offender sits at the table and lives in the house.

Our job is to help women find the strength to speak up and realize there is life after divorce, that no woman is unconditionally tied to a man, that no man was ever meant to take the place of God, that her position has now become the protection of her children and others rather than the welcoming back of a man who will unearth, daily, sexual trauma by his very presence. And I add here—even if he’s repentant.

Marriage is sacred; sex is holy. Sexual sin can be forgiven, always. But marriage can be restored, only sometimes. And if men in the church don’t know the difference, they are not doing the job of spiritual leader, protector, and provider for those who were once voiceless.

They are, instead, agreeing with the Pharisees in Mark chapter two where Jesus was accused of allowing his disciples to harvest and eat grain on the sabbath. In opposition to Jewish law, Jesus reminded them that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27&28, ESV)

Even before his death, where grace would replace law, Jesus wanted a proper and merciful application of law.

He reminds the Pharisees also, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him. How he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the High priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” (Mark 25&26, ESV)

And again in Matthew 19:9, Jesus allows for a merciful deliverance from a perverted man by stating that divorce is permissible for sexual sin. He does not want His daughters stuck in a threesome marriage (or worse), and He takes care to address it clearly.

Again, the church needs to carefully assess whether they are protecting the idea of marriage long after it’s broken, or whether they are protecting women and children after an utterly broken marriage. Are we idolizing marriage or are we protecting victims of sexual crime by bringing them to healing places where the mind can be renewed and the body restored?

Are we idolizing marriage or are we worshiping God?

Are we in love with marriage or are we loving the helpless and hurting?

And in rape cases, are we more concerned with a man losing his home and family than we are with a child losing her virginity by the man who was called to father her?

If so, we do not understand the damage of sexual trauma nor the need for years to heal in a safe place where reminders are gone.

Satan loves to twist the submission thing and make it harmful rather than beautiful. And, if I may speak boldly, some men love to protect other men from certain ruin and loss even when the man himself ruined and lost his home.

Jesus has always called us to be a voice for the voiceless. And sometimes, that means the church helping wives do the hard thing of saying no because they are not yet able to, on their own.

I am eternally grateful for the men who helped me, for the way my mind cleared when I was out from under psychological manipulation that almost destroyed me. For them to assure me that I needed rescue more than my marriage needed rescue.

I needed Godly men, and they came.

I’m asking them to come for other women’s aid, too.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8, ESV)

For hope and healing,

Sara D.

A Celebration of Masculinity

“They say women don’t need men anymore,” my fourteen year old son told me on the way to school.

“Who says that?” I asked. “Because your mom and sisters certainly don’t believe that.

The look on his face made me want to cry. Fourteen year old boys are already facing identity questions. Who am I, and where do I belong? Who needs me?

And yesterday as he helped his sister move, I could see his shoulders square up. He literally saved the day along with another young man who brought a truck to help with a heavy mattress.

My daughter and I had no problem needing men yesterday and I was so proud of her as she expressed respect and appreciation for the men’s strength and help. Ironically, the two young men lit up doing exactly what she needed.

Biological design lines up with Biblical order, because the God of the Bible created biological design. Fascinating, life giving, encouraging and affirming of both genders–we simply cannot improve this.

God designed good men to want to care for and protect women. And I want to say to all women, even to those who’ve been hurt by a man, that women need good men.

We had a talk there in the car, my boy and I. Femininity and masculinity are both under attack in our culture, and I want my children to know deeply the calling God has on their lives.

My son is the first to open my door when we go out. I trained him for this, on purpose, by standing to the side of the door until he got there. And the other day when I asked him what the newest thing was that he learned on his phone, he said, “How to be a good husband someday.”

Yesterday as I spoke with another woman struggling with betrayal, I spoke to her of womanhood, how even us single ladies can inspire the world with feminine manners that call out the best in people around us.

We don’t need a husband to do this, though we wish for one. We can still embody what we’ve always wanted to be. We can refuse the attitude of “I don’t need a man” and instead hold on to gratefulness for the good men in the world.

We can still be fully woman and fully alive.

And here’s the thing—ladies, you don’t need a perfect man in order to be a grace-filled woman. If he provides for you, is faithful to you, and seeks to love you, be grateful every day. Look for the ways he’s showing love even if it’s different than what you want. And if you need him to show love another way, ask him for that specifically. But please don’t walk around with a chip on your shoulder if you have a truly good, but imperfect, husband.

Tell him you appreciate him, often.

Notice his good qualities and speak them out loud.

Let him come home to peace—and remember, peace is a gift for your children, too.

Look him in the eyes and smile. Like, truly meet his eye with a smile.

When he comes home after a long day of labor, let him rest. If you’re a stay at home mom, please don’t nag at him to fold laundry unless you truly need help because of babies, etc.

If you’re a working mom, let him know you need his support when you both get home.

Be specific and gracious in your requests. Men want to be asked for a need they can meet rather than be nagged for a need they didn’t meet, because they were never asked.

I’m here to call out gratefulness for the faithful man.

This man may not be as romantic as you want him to be. He may not know any of your favorite therapy phrases or personality tests or attachment styles. He may kick off his boots inside your door and drape his coat over your dining room chair.

He may love God but not be the best teacher of each chapter in scripture.

I’m calling women to stop the comparison game and stare down the blessing of a man who loves you for life. Some of you are blessed to have all your bills paid without having to worry about it. Others of you are working alongside your husband to meet financial needs in a cost-hijacked world. Either way, your husband wants to know he’s your support and at the end of the day, you need him.

He wants to know you’re grateful.

He needs to know you admire him.

If that gives you struggle, I want to remind us ladies that admiration to a man is what love is to a woman. Today’s world embraces women who ask for love while it scorns men who need to be admired and respected. Yet, one is as good as the other because both are God-designed.

I defy divorce culture in the name of Jesus because I see a better way, a way that creates heaven-sent love into the hearts of our children and each other. I know it takes two, and one cannot do it alone—but one can always find their identity in Christ, obey His word, and leave the outcome to Jesus Who doesn’t force change on anyone.

Remember that if you follow Jesus in how you treat your spouse, change in your spouse is not guaranteed—but here’s the thing: obeying God will change YOU. And a love relationship with Jesus is worth having whether or not our spouse gives us the relationship we long for.

I speak this over you as a woman who tried (too hard) to save her marriage, and it broke anyway. God’s call for me as a woman always has been to carry myself with honor and dignity. It’s a “Yes, Lord” love relationship with Jesus that isn’t based on what I get or don’t get.

And I want you to know, married friends, that you can carry yourself with honor and joy with an imperfect husband. Be joyful, be grateful, address needs clearly, get your head out of the sand, and live free.

The Ancient of Days always has had, and always will have, ancient ways. Those ways aren’t feeling based; they are truth based–and they truly work for good.

Whoever dares plant their feet on the Rock of Ages will truly stand on something solid where the gift of God remains undeniably life giving, life changing, and life altering.

Today, look at your imperfect husband and speak it to him, “I appreciate you so much for—.”

Men need to be needed. And I will say to any woman, “Men ARE needed.”

The bulk of military is …..men.

Most hunters are……men.

Most construction workers…….men.

Strongest and tallest………..men.

Fastest to protect……..men.

And you want a baby? Well, I hate to break it to you but you need a…….man.

Tell him you appreciate him, today and often in the days to come.

In a world of dishonor, remember that your crowning glory as a woman is to honor those around you, and especially your husband.

Never let the world rob you of the dignity of womanhood. Because if we do, we lose the ability to encourage true manhood.

A sisterhood is truly thriving if it sees the value of brotherhood. And to all the ladies out there, if you meet my boys, please treat them like gentlemen who are needed in the world, with God given attributes different than your own because women do not have it all.

Together, as we celebrate both masculinity and femininity, we have what we need.

Love,

Sara

For My Single Moms

I looked at her face and thought, “Why is she in a church conference when she needs a spa?”

I knew why she was there—it wasn’t so much for thoughts on how to create a Biblical church. Craving more than isolation, she was there for community and friendship.

I asked her aside to a small room and saw relief. The doors closed and the next hours were spent laughing and crying as only two single moms can.

I’m writing for her, and I’m writing for other single moms who call me during the week. And I’m writing for the sincere and loving people who ask me, “What can we do to help crisis moms?”

My own story pales because I have a dad and brothers who are always there, making sure I’m okay. Many of the moms I speak to have neither dad, friend, or brother. And they are desperate.

I write for these moms and for those of you who have so kindly asked me how you can help. The answers are simple, but they do require a shift of expectation, and they do require sacrifice.

1. Ask questions before assuming anything.

I ask questions to the woman who tells me she’s thankful for little things, like being able to feel her back pain. Why is she thankful to feel pain?

Her ex-husband had sexually and physically hurt her for so many years that in order to cope, her bodily reactions to pain shut down and she became numb. Five years later as some wonder why she’s curled up in a ball with a blanket around her, I understand that the adrenaline it took to survive the years is just now wearing off.

None of us want to feel pain, and here she was, thankful just to feel again. Feeling is a gift we take for granted—but numbness isolates the human heart from life itself.

Feel the good.

Feel the bad.

Experience joy.

Experience sorrow.

Leaving an abusive marriage takes years of pushing forward. This means it may be 5-7 years later when the mind and body is able to grieve, because those first years are a push to survival. Like PTSD symptoms in soldiers often surfacing 7 years after battle, a single mom and her children may or may not only begin to face the truth of the past when life settles down again and there is time to think rather than survive.

Those who don’t understand this will judge and move away from a woman who “can’t seem to get over her sorrow to find joy.”

They’ll accuse her of being a victim rather than understanding that finally being able to feel her grief is the first step to her becoming a victor.

She’ll hear Bible verses on joy but won’t feel the whole message of the God of the Bible enveloping her in comfort and rest.

When we force premature healing, we encourage numbness. There are enough people in the world covering pain with humor, sarcasm, and avoidance. These are the ones who find it hard to love, connect, and establish long term, close relationships, either platonically or romantically.

My urgent message is this:

Families must be able to step out of their own experience and enter another’s crisis even years after people think it should be over by now.

Thank God a woman is able to feel again. Let her cry, and cry, and cry for as many years as it took being numb to avoid feeling physical pain inflicted onto her body. Sit with her and put your arm around her, but don’t expect her to talk or show up for every meeting. Allow her to belong with no expectations.

The mind can and will create new nuero-pathways which will help the body regulate. This is often a slow and misunderstood process, hindered even further by judgment.

When a woman feels emotionally safe, she can heal faster. None of her energy should have to be spent navigating hurtful comments. Unfortunately, because the church is often unaware of the crisis happening right under its pulpit, it is even more ill-equipped to handle it properly when abuse is brought to light.

Because of this, I write. Ladies, throw a blanket around her shoulders and pull her in close. Men, add her son to yours for all the things.

2. Consider her family, not a visitor.

My parents were great at this. I grew up in a home filled with single women or children from broken homes. Because my dad was trust-worthy, my mom never worried about other females being around. We had a familial atmosphere for us, yes, but we extended our table and opened our doors to anyone who needed the same.

Family is not an end; it is a means to an end. In other words, family is a gift from God not to hoard but to use as a ministry platform. We hear it often—marriage should do more for the kingdom, not less—then we get married and turn our houses into our own rather than into homes of service for God.

I honestly believe this is why so many Christian women seem bored, dissatisfied, and able to create problems out of nothing. The human heart is designed to feel restless until it finds its rest in God—which means we’re so busy with our Father’s business that we have no time for unnecessary drama or self-inflicted pity.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress.” (James 1:27a)

This means we don’t say, “Sorry, I can’t have your child over because we’re going out with friends.” A mom goes to work while her child sits at home alone while two families go out to have fun for the day, somehow because adding another child would kill the vibe they’ve set their expectations on.

Perfect love often disrupts the idea of perfect family days, and makes them even better. We get to add family. These kids don’t need to feel like they can visit when it’s convenient; they need to feel like they belong.

Belonging isn’t convenient—it just is. It’s a thing, a gift, a state of existence every human being should be able to experience. A child robbed of it needs it more than ever, but it has to be created, on purpose.

Children whose father abandons them (usually after physical or emotional abuse) heal much better if another family remains. A child should be able to say, “He was always there when my own father wasn’t.”

The slogan needs to become “Adopt a single mom’s child” rather than “Let’s reach out to them when it fits our schedule.”

Scripture says, “He settles the solitary in a home.” (Psalm 68:6, ESVa)

3. Get rid of your own fear.

Two moms told me that holding babies was comforting to them. One was told that she’s using babies as a drug and to top it off, both were judged for perhaps being a pedophile.

One of the moms was already rejected, alone, and had suffered more than most of the rest of America put together. Of course she needed to hold babies. I don’t have words to express my righteous anger on this–but may I only hear this twice from single moms, and never again.

Christian wives need to repent of hurting moms in crisis with their own fearful outlook on life.

4. Single moms are not a threat.

Most single moms will take a bullet before they take your husband.

Yes, they’re single, and yes, there should be appropriate boundaries.

This could look like group texts, an appropriate amount of people in the room, etc. A single mom never needs to be alone with your husband or even text him solo. It is easy and appropriate to set up group texts rather than texts between her and your husband.

But I have never seen more fear and judgment toward single moms than from conservative Christian wives. Ladies, I speak to you frankly. If you can’t trust your husband, that is yours and his problem, not the single mom’s.

If you’re threatened by her beauty, take it to God and allow your own beauty to shine.

If you’re threatened by the fact she takes care of her body, listen to your own inner longing and start taking care of yours.

If she’s vulnerable and feminine, and you know in your heart of hearts that Godly men rise to help women like this, allow that knowledge to create in you a desire to be feminine and vulnerable with your own husband.

Again, if she has something you do not, it is not her problem—but an invitation from God to observe something you admire and create the same in yourself.

Single women are often from marriages where husbands demanded and expected her to take care of her body. After he’s gone, she will want to do so out of love for God and herself rather than out of fear of being discarded.

I would love to not hear this over the phone, “I shouldn’t have to be ugly in order to not be a threat.”

Or, “I can’t wait to be a grandma so that women don’t feel threatened.”

Christian wives, this is your invitation to create in yourself what you fear in her.

Leaves are falling on my laptop as I write these words, and they are beautiful. Brown and fallen, but lovely in their season.

And as the church becomes aware of ways to help rather than hurt women and children in crisis, it can add beauty to the dark season of their lives.

Hope is never out of reach within communal love.

5. Make sure she’s okay financially.

I grew up watching my dad dig deep into his pockets for vulnerable women and children. One year he bought a mobile home and hauled it to our yard for two women who showed up for coffee and had no place to go. Until the home was ready, he and mom gave up their bedroom and moved upstairs. Even when the home was set up, either of them walked across the yard in the mornings to join our family table for breakfast.

It wasn’t always fun, but it was always good. And because it was good, it was blessed by God. And because it was blessed by God, the family was more okay than if we’d have saved our happy walls for ourselves.

Another friend I know has had 15 foster children in and out of his home. Active love doesn’t look the same for everyone, but it should be overtly obvious that sacrifice is made for the orphan and widow.

It hurts to hear a single mom tell me she worked six 12-hour days a week to become financially stable. This, during the worst crisis I’ve heard from my moms. This, and it shouldn’t be this way.

Pure religion isn’t going to church, dressed well. Pure religion is to relieve the distress on widows and orphans.

I didn’t realize the beauty of my parent’s life-style until I became a single mom in crisis. Dad and mom never experienced crisis of my own nature, but they were tapped into the heart of God long before they had a daughter in crisis. They did for another’s daughter long before they did for their own.

Because in the body of Christ, no one should ever feel alone. The family of God reaches far and wide, and it knows no boundaries when it comes to love.

In the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who work together in perfect harmony, gift your moms in crisis the same love.

Thanks for asking, sincerely. And thanks for allowing me to pen these honest answers.

For the Cause of Hope,

Sara D.

Grace, Graffiti, and Gossip

“The South is known for saying ‘bless your heart’ to peoples’ faces, then talking about them behind their back,” our pastor said recently.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that and I knew it was true. The south has it’s own faults just like the north, albeit different.

In the Pacific Northwest where I’m from, you’ll see lots of addicts, drugs, and alcohol. You may even see barbed wire strung over bridges to prevent more suicide, and you may or may not be allowed to use a rest room in a cafe where you just purchased coffee because too many teens use drugs in the teeny room out of sight.

“Do I look like I use drugs?” I asked the barista once, gently. “Can I please use your bathroom?”

She looked at me and nodded her head, and I had a bathroom.

Of course there’s graffiti everywhere, too. Like the gum wall in Seattle that isn’t only splashed in color, but covered in chewed gum. (Don’t ask me why this reminds me of my childhood when I used to find pieces of gum in the driveway and started chewing on it myself.)

The north has its vices, out there in the Ho Rainforest where water drips off magnificent trees and waterfalls tumble over rocks, where mountains rise in the distance with such splendor that one can only stare and wish to score the next highest peak, where flowers bloom alongside patches of snow, somehow all of it stepping toward the sea.

There’s nothing more glorious than a campfire with some of your best friends on top such a mountain—and I’ll sleep up there any day no matter how hard the ground is.

It’s in the towns below where the trouble is obvious. I don’t want to see barbed wire strung high over a bridge to prevent one more teen a voluntary death, desperate to escape mental despair.

It’s odd though, that here in the South, where wealth is obvious and churches stand on every street corner, where business trucks roll along with “Heaven and Earth Landscape” or “Alpha and Omega Construction”–it’s here that we’re known for gossip and gluttony.

The Bible Belt. We can preach the word of God without having the heart of God.

I’ve been troubled by my own words at times. Like a knowing in my soul that I sometimes said things about others that didn’t need to be said. I didn’t like it—and I struggled to make sense of it. What was God saying to me?

Here’s what God was trying to teach me.

1. Anything not said in love for the well-being of another, doesn’t need to be said.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.” 1 Corinthians 13: 1

I was once aware of another’s sin repeated without cause to someone. I felt terrible for the person it was said about (I don’t even know the person) and realized again that the ruckus of gossip can ruin lives. This dear person could repent to God and others who wouldn’t repeat it, but if someone merely discussed it, it could have long lasting affects. My heart ached that God’s people would allow for redemption by not passing along information needlessly, even if it was true.

2. Be a safe person.

Once I shared something with a friend and later wondered if it was kept in confidence. I picked up the phone and asked her. She had kept my heart and life in confidence and it meant so much to me. I want to do the same for others.

3. Realize that gossip comes from insecurity.

What wounds are we trying to heal by wounding another? Why can we feel good about ourselves by making someone else look bad?

What are we feeling so terrible about in our own lives that we feel the need to tear another person down, just so we can feel lifted up?

“How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” John 5:44

4. When we stop worrying about what others think, there’s a light joy over us that has no desire or need to talk badly about someone else, even if it’s true.

I became so enamoured with grace that I wanted to give it to others. I wanted to hug the person I used to be bitter toward—and the person I went to in person about the way she’d hurt others, well, I wanted her wrapped up in love, too.

Redeeming love toward all people became my theme. Bitterness fell off me and I could no longer hold grudges—even if someone had wronged me. I knew I had also wronged others and I needed a whole lot of grace, too.

Like a summer night lit up by an evening sky, the light of God’s love became so real that I longed for everyone not to worry what people thought, but to know deeply the thoughts of God toward them.

5. Go to people alone when you need to.

Do it before you talk to others, before you dump to your girlfriend, before you share it in a text.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Matthew 18:15

Here, we see the way God loves people. He doesn’t want His people discussed in a bad light because His heart toward them is good and growth—and He died to extend that kind of amazing grace to fallen mankind who would all need it at some point of their lives.

He wants you to go alone, so the person can repent with privacy and integrity.

If the person refuses to change his ways, He wants you to take others with you for added accountability.

See this—he’s not throwing the person with the problem under the bus. He gives him a private chance first.

Then, He’s not leaving you helpless and hurt. He asks you to take others with you if you need help after not being heard.

Redemption in the best way possible is God’s heart for all people—and it should be our hearts, too.

Lesser methods are a symptom of less than love in our hearts.

We may be afraid to confront someone—God asks us to trust Him in all things He asks us to do. “Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18b, ESV

We may be afraid of someone not liking us if we gently confront them about something. In order to keep ourselves safe, we head to a friend to vent rather than to the person herself.

I have to think Jesus weeps over pride like this—and here’s the thing, He absolutely knows how to humble us.

“But He gives more grace. Therefor it says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6, Esv

At the end, the only disclaimer I can give is if someone isn’t safe. Then, you need to head for help immediately. There are absolutely times when emotional, spiritual, or physical abuse call for immediate intervention without first going alone.

God loves you. He keeps you safe in His care by giving you safe people.

God loves others also. He aims to redeem them with the Grace He died for. Can you help others run to Jesus rather than run from people who call themselves Jesus Followers?

Humble and loving, Jesus was most relaxed with sinners who saw their need and longed to touch the hem of His robe for healing and forgiveness. He tensed up with religious people who did whatever it took to feel righteous about themselves rather than enter the righteousness of Christ where everyone kneels on horizontal ground in utter need of absolute grace.

Living in the goodness of God, as Jenn Johnson so beautifully sings, means we don’t live in our own goodness or in another’s goodness. We expect to find faults everywhere we go, and we expect to give grace as we want to receive it.

Then, we confess our faults to trustworthy people, because owning where we’ve gone wrong helps us get closer to what’s right. Rather, the only One Who’s always right.

And we get this deeply, this undeniable truth that walking toward a church building won’t make us a real Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes us a car.

It’s mercy and truth that meet together in one redemptive wrap around, like a circle of redeeming love. There, we can truly say “I’m a Jesus Follower and we love each other.”

Stand with me here, walk with me here, kneel with me here, for His glory and for the sake of those He loves—which is EVERYONE.

“Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be til I die.”

By Grace alone,

Sara D.

How Grace Changes Us

I always feel badly for people who fast, and I’m like, “Don’t tell me you’re fasting because I’ll feel sorry for you all day long—or days long.”

And because life often takes more energy than I have, the last several years I’ve focused on keeping my physical energy by feeding my body. The amount of meals I eat just to keep energy has me telling sister that I wish we’d be neighbors so she could feed me (best cook ever!) and I could return the favor by cleaning her house.

So it took extra courage to start the year with a ten day fruit and vegetable fast. I struggled. I spent hours more on the couch. I watched “Alone”, which is a documentary on men surviving in my beloved Pacific Northwest with no food sources except what’s around them in the sea and forest.

I knew I wasn’t as hungry as they were, but it felt like it. Day after day, I’d do my work then crash on the couch as my body adjusted and my spirit became more and more clear.

I woke praying one day, asking God what He wanted to speak to me. What did I need to rid my life from?

He nailed it. In difficult conversations, I didn’t actively listen enough. Thus began a deeper journey into how to love people better.

I thought I was a good friend, a good listener—but I also knew that in stressful situations my heart would squeeze tight with stress and I tried to remedy that with words that I hoped would help and eliminate the stress of the conversation.

In doing so, I’d transfer something onto another person that didn’t feel like love or care—even when that’s exactly what I wanted to be or show.

Here’s the thing about real grace—it’s free, yet was bought with a price. And something that expensive, given to us freely, is made to change, renew, restore a person into something better.

The oxymoron of accepting an expensive gift while putting it on the shelf for a later date (heaven) should strike us hard. The gift of grace is meant to draw us to our knees in repentance, allowing the light of it to shine onto places that are yet dark in our lives.

I repented of not listening better, the other day. I apologized to a friend who was on my heart. And I walked toward people rather than away from them.

I’m not good with conflict, but God is good, and He came to change atmospheres. Active listening is the best way to show someone you love them, yet most of us are good at actively speaking our own thoughts rather than actively hearing another’s heart.

It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong–because sometimes being understood is far less vital than making sure another feels heard. First, just listen with your presence.

The awesome thing about Grace is this—when heaven sheds its light onto something you’ve failed in, it also sheds its awareness of how you could grow.

Every time the Spirit of Christ nails something in me, I’m aware of deep, deep Love reaching out to heal, restore, change, and bring me to better things.

I feel safe with God even when I know I’m not representing Him well, and He has to create grief in my soul over it. “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10, ESV)

See this—there’s no grief in Godly sorrow because it leads us to things that will save us, and bring salvation to others.

Our post modern, humanistic culture teaches us that we are enough, and that we should love ourselves the way we are. Friends, I’m here to tell you something different. We are not enough, and sometimes we’re actually quite messed up.

And if you expect your people to be enough, you’ll be disappointed because they will fail you, hurt you, and be less than you need.

But when we understand grace we can’t carry the weight of humanity’s mess any longer. The cross still stands, and it still eradicates sin, and when you can care deeply about a person and be unable to carry offense, you know that Grace has indeed won in your soul.

Fasting made God’s voice clearer. Things I knew before, I now really knew.

I had to give myself the same grace I wanted to give others. Rather than say, “Man, Sara, that was really dumb”, I needed to say, “Lord, I failed. Thank you for loving me and forgiving me. Thank you for showing me a better way.”

I realized, as I accepted Grace, that I was unable to carry the weight of it. Christ set me free.

The goal is to be spiritually, socially, emotionally, and relationally mature. We work hard at it—and yet, we have those areas God shows us are not aligned to love. Here, we get to bow before the cross and allow Grace to seep into our bones and marrow, changing who we are and what we are.

We extend the same grace to others. Most people don’t want to be mean or ill spoken. Most are just humans making mistakes, often born out of their own pain. And when a person is truly cruel, God will deal with him in his own time and way.

In the end, the universe needs Grace—this unmerited favor thing, this free yet costly thing—this counter cultural, life changing, heaven embracing thing that will change us if we truly receive it.

To celebrate Grace, here’s a book—because all of life takes reminders of how to bring Grace into the rough places and allow it to change atmospheres.

The blackened salmon salad today is great—but Grace is even better. Cheers to 2025, being renewed, restored, and living Grace.

Much love,

Sara

For the Joy of It

Yesterday my sister and I put Christmas hats on miniature goats, then took them for a walk in the snow. Both of us were unashamedly delighted and couldn’t stop laughing.

It didn’t matter what others thought of us, or whether someone wondered how two grown women could be that silly. We were absolutely thrilled at walking our favorite pets through a snowy December town.

My sister’s pet goats didn’t just happen; she worked for them. From a small outdoor shed, hay and feed, to a fence in her small town yard, she ran after what brought her joy—and in the process, God used these pets to form community in her small town.

She even took the goats to public school where she taught school each day. I’d watched her study and work for years to get her masters in teaching. I’d wondered what man would be good enough for this sister of mine, and I even listened on the phone as she worried that she was merely running after what she wanted—and what if her now- husband wasn’t God’s will for her?

But nothing stood in the way. No red flags and no major faults—just another awesome, yet imperfect man before her giving her the choice to choose his love, or walk away. So I encouraged her to simply lean into the gift of this man since that is what she desired.

A few years later, the joy of that goat walk was multifaceted after both of us hearing a sermon at church that day on “surrender”. Her kind husband, dreamt-of job, cozy little home, and quirky little pets had all culminated in her surrender to God’s yes.

I want us to consider a side of surrender that is just as important as the side we usually hear about. In order to see God, embracing His yes is as vital as agreeing to His no.

Christians often elaborate on the need to deny self, but we can only deny sin with victory when we’re satisfied that God is good in all He does. And a big part of that is walking in all the good things He offers.

It is actually damaging to others when we only attribute suffering and denial to a good God. People can struggle for decades with surrender when all they ever hear is how important it is to agree with God’s no.

What about God’s yes? Isn’t it just as vital to agree to all aspects of God? If we don’t embrace the gifts of God, we enter a bleak, monk-like asceticism where we struggle to surrender to God.

Asceticism is not surrender; it is as ungodly as selfishness because it is not of God.

Surrender means loving God and being filled with God, after which we run after the gifts of God while simultaneously agreeing with God when He says no.

Anything not of God we refuse and every desire given by God we embrace.

Refusing the gifts of God is as harmful as refusing to surrender our desires to God.

Embrace both God’s no and His yes. Simply embrace God, then look to see what He’s created you to be, in a mortal body with an immortal spirit.

Did you know God created your body and soul as much as your spirit? That you are eternal, starting the moment you were conceived in the womb? That earth is a passage way to glory and everlasting bliss?

Even here, we are created in the image of God for the glory of God.

Sister, God created your mind, will, emotions, and body for His glory.

Your body is not sin, but it can sin.

Your emotions are not sin, but they can become sin.

Your will is not sin, but it can lead you to sin.

When you’re in tune with Jesus, He will give you desires in line with His will. What is burning on your heart? Could it be that understanding surrender is understanding that some of our desires are placed there by God, and the holiest, most surrendered thing we can do is lean into, run after, and embrace the longings placed there by Him?

He wants to accomplish good things, sisters. So it remains that a large part of surrender is not usually even mentioned by the church.

We are told to give up and surrender what we want, but we are not taught to lean into desires placed there by God, and run after them.

Follow hard after God.

Say yes when God says yes.

Say no when God says no.

Remember that when God says no, He’s leading you toward His best yes.

And just as much, remember that when God says yes, saying no to yourself will only lead you into bondage. Some of the worst bondage I’ve seen is from people who focus on the wrongs of the world rather than the rights of a good, good Father.

Asceticism is not surrender just as grabbing things selfishly is not surrender.

The only blessed, joyful, holy union with God is a whole hearted yes to His blessing and design for our humanity, and a whole hearted surrender to His no when He says no.

Our greatest longing is satisfied in union with God and His ways for the entirety of our body, soul, and spirit.

In this way, surrender becomes a joy rather than a teeth gritting sacrifice we can barely do. God becomes GOOD.

God is the safest, most blessed, most healthy option for you. Lean into Him! Enjoy everything He created you to enjoy and this will help you surrender things He asked you not to indulge in.

Surrender doesn’t necessarily mean we lose an opportunity, but it changes our posture in that blessing. We enjoy it even more when we see God in it. And we can’t enjoy it fully when God isn’t in it.

Remember that you won’t get an audible word from heaven for all decisions. Sometimes God places strong desires in our hearts and we dismiss them, attributing them to mere carnality that needs to be “laid down”.

I’m here to tell you that full surrender to God includes picking up blessings He’s giving to us.

Being satisfied in God happens in union with God. There, in His presence, we are free to inhale His blessings and empowered to resign things we know are not from Him. His yes will fill you with wonder and His no will lead you to internal, eternal worship.

Just be full of Christ, and inhale.