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Photo dump from an incredible week. ⛷Skiing at

Photo dump from an incredible week.

⛷Skiing at Schweitzer with our friends who are family.

💒Being part of the @schweitzer_mountain_chapel service.

💡Working on plans for @theopendoorsisterhood with @kristatgilbert (How did we not get one picture together? I’m a terrible photo documenter. 📸)

💖Attending a breakfast for Spokane 1.27 as they launch into efforts to bridge the local Spokane church community with the child welfare system so there is a family waiting for every child that enters the system.

My heart is full.

#lovingmyactuallife

It’s a cold one in Denver this week. Lots of sin

It’s a cold one in Denver this week. Lots of single digits.

I lost a tooth, a crown with my tooth attached actually. The dentist told me today people are losing teeth like crazy. Three times as much as pre-Covid. Why? Likely stress.

Our bodies are keeping the score. It is still sinking in that we’ve had two dang crazy years. I was an early adopter in the Covid prepping, so two years ago I did my first big Costco run. (See my post from 2/29/20). I saw the headlines moving from China to Europe and I sensed some shutdowns were headed our way.

I had no idea we’d be standing in our places two years later looking at the world from THIS vantage point.

Here is what I know from where I stand:
🌟God has not left us.
🦷Our bodies keep the score.
❄️Seasons remind us the world keeps going.
🛒@Costco has not let me down.

What do you know today to be true?

#seekingoutgoodness

My current obsession: books of prayers, liturgies,

My current obsession: books of prayers, liturgies, and blessings.

I keep going back to these. It helps me sort through my own prayer needs to read others’ written words.

From the stack:

Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggeman. A book of prayers about modern dilemmas. Everything from noisy politics to the Super Bowl has a prayer. 💥

The Power to Bless by Alan Wright. The only book in the stack that isn’t written prayers or blessings, but covers how we can speak blessings over people in our daily lives. (Perhaps a gift for that teenager obsessed with manifesting. 💫)

100 Prayers Every Christian Should Know a compilation of historic writings brought to us by Bethany House publishing. A great variety of well known and not so well known voices speaking in many styles. 🌏

Every Moment Holy Volume 1 by Douglas McKelvey. A liturgy for ordinary life. From the starting of a book to tackling laundry there is a liturgy included. Volume 2 is on grief and loss. I have gifted it many times. 🙏🏼

Common Prayer by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove. My most quoted book of 2021 including in my most recent book, Seeking Out Goodness. I have the pocket edition and good thing because I truly do carry it with me. 💼

A Book of Uncommon Prayer by Brian Doyle. The latest addition to my stack I received it on Saturday and enjoy its stream of consciousness approach to prayers on very uncommon topics. 💡

To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donahue. A book of blessings for those moments or people in your life that need an extra charge of grace.

How about you? Do you like books of prayers?
Would you rather have a book of prayers, liturgies, or blessings on your bookshelf? 📚

I was reminded again this week that relationships

I was reminded again this week that relationships can start awkward, get awkward, or have awkward moments. And yet awkward is better than alone.

I was headed to a retreat with some people I knew well, some I was getting to know, and others I’d never met. I was worried about how I would greet them, how we’d get along, if there would be moments when I didn’t know what someone wanted or needed from me.

And then I was mentioned in a post by a reader ( @natalieahilton ) who pulled this quote from my book Loving My Actual Neighbor. And I was reminded being alone is worse than some awkward. We have to push through those unknowns, or learning, or even disagreeing moments to get to a more comfortable spot.

And this week at the retreat, we did. I’d say we all left feeling less alone than when we arrived. And that is a good thing.

Many of us are reentering the world after years of more isolation than we’ve know what to do with. We’re out of practice and it’s awkward. Let this be my encouragement to you to push through the awkward (or the fear of the awkward) in order to be with people. We are made for each other. And awkward is better than alone.

#lovingmyactualneighbor #awkwardisgood #morethanenough #fosterlove #project127

“A few years ago CNN published an article titled

“A few years ago CNN published an article titled ‘A Creative Life is a Healthy Life.’ The article showed there is lowered stress, with all kinds of physical benefits, when we add creativity to our routines. And this makes sense because creativity is woven into the fabric of who we are. God is a “maker”, and he made us in his image, to be makers. When I deny that creative part of me, I am going against my very nature. Even if I don’t really feel like an “artsy” person, I need to cultivate this part of me to truly thrive on a daily basis. I was made for this, but seldom indulge in intentionally creative pursuits.” -Loving My Actual Life

Since writing that book I have tried to pull out the paints more often. It gets me creative for other areas of my life.

We’ve got a lot going on right now so we’re pulling out the paints 🎨 and trusting the creativity will flow into other spaces, decisions, and plans.

What are you making these days?

#seekingoutgoodness #lovingmyactuallife

Here’s my Friday story of God’s gracious love.

Here’s my Friday story of God’s gracious love.

This fall I spoke at a MOPS group in Boulder. My mother-in-law @carolkuykendall is a MOPS Mentor at her church @gracecommonschurch. They invited me to come speak on my new book Seeking Out Goodness. I did and it was fun. There were two new moms there that morning, one came with a friend, and another had just moved from Austin, TX with her newborn, two-year-old, and husband. Later that afternoon the MOPS Coordinator messaged me and thanked me for coming and told me the mom from Austin loved it and was going to join.

Fast forward to December 30th. A crazy freak of nature let a storm blow fire through the towns of Superior and Louisville Colorado. One thousand homes were burned to the ground in one afternoon. This has been a traumatic event for our extended family’s community that lives in Louisville. It’s our home away from home, Derek’s parents, his sisters (who I claim as my sisters too), their husbands, and kids all evacuated on that day while we sat in Denver and prayed.

I got word a few days later from the Grace Commons MOPS Coordinator that the mom from Austin, the one who visited the day I spoke at their group, lost her home. They were trying to support her since she had newly arrived without much of a local support system. The Coordinator sent me the link to a Go Fund Me page they had started for the family.

Fast forward to this morning. I went to the MOPS group at @newdenverchurch here in Denver to give the same talk. Only the second time I had ever given this message I’d tailored specifically to sleep deprived moms. And who was there? You probably know where this is headed. 😏That same mom who is now in temporary housing here in Denver. The fire forced her to move and now she was in a new MOPS group close to their current home.

What in the world? What are the chances?

Her name is Laura and we both got a little teary thinking about the message of looking for the good in a world that can quickly deliver the hard. She said the message hit differently today. It was a gift to both of us to see each other again.

Continued in comments.

Monday was good. ⛷ Tuesday will be different bu

Monday was good. ⛷

Tuesday will be different but can be good too. ✨

Back to school and work. 👩🏻‍💻

Every day is a gift. We count it all joy. What are you grateful you get to do today?

#seekingoutgoodness

2021 was not the easiest year for us. The last w

2021 was not the easiest year for us.

The last week of it really tried to push us to a breaking point. We’re still standing.

This book released in 2021. It’s one of the fruits of 2021 (and 2020). My manual for remembering that God has not changed and his goodness can be found.

As an author I’ve been told to write books on topics I want to talk about for a few years. Because that’s what we end up doing. We think, write, edit, and interview on the subject.

That’s why I wrote this book. I NEED THIS!!! I need to remember HOW to seek out what is good because these days the fog is thick and it can be hard to make out what I can see on a clear day.

If you are starting 2022 feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, more hopeless than hopeful, I wrote this book for you too.

I know Friday introductions are meant to introduce me to my new Instagram friends, but this book is the state of me right now. I’m choosing to believe that there is good to be found in the world and I’m looking for it. When I find it I’m going to stop long enough to recognize and remember that there is the true and beautiful still around me. And I’m going to call out what is good in the people and places in my life.

#seekingoutgoodness

A blessing for your first Monday back: If you are

A blessing for your first Monday back:

If you are facing your first Monday of 2022 with dread, just consider it the 10th Day of Christmas, because it is!!

Our 12 Days of Christmas are proving to be adventurous:
-Covid positivity
-Unexpected appendectomy
-Family evacuated for fires
-Delayed return to school

In other words, not what we expected. Life events I don’t know how to post about because, though they worked out for our family, they are too devastating for others.

In many ways, that’s Christmas.
God entering the world in the middle of hard circumstances. Showing up in ways people didn’t expect. Surprising us. Shocking us. Reminding us that he’s present in the details.

So as we face our Monday together, our 10th Day of Christmas, let me offer this blessing:

May your body be fueled,
Your mind clear,
And your heart open
As you meet every challenge presented to you.

May your decisions be easy,
Your convictions guiding,
And your energy refueled
As you face the work in front of you.

May your dinner be planned,
Your smile lines deep,
And your friendships robust
As you greet 2022 with the gratitude it deserves.

💖

#seekingoutgoodness

It’s been a year. It’s been a month. It’s be

It’s been a year.
It’s been a month.
It’s been a week.
It’s been a 24-hours.

All true.

To say we’ve been running a marathon at sprint speed might be a good description.

A lot of things have happened this week that have been out of my control and yet have required my response.

I’m reminded that my response is all that I’m responsible for. It seems fitting to end this hard year with words from my book that released in 2021:

“ ‘You may not control all of the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.’
- Maya Angelou

Oh, wait. This COVID upheaval may be unique to our times, but upheaval is not unique to the human experience. Obviously I know we can’t control life, but when all of the details felt especially out of control, it was good to remember that some circumstances are simply life on steroids and my responsibility is how I respond. Well, if that wasn’t convicting, I’m not sure what was. I went from grumpy to grateful. I could see the truth in the words and how I needed to apply them immediately.”

I was talking about an experience in the summer of 2020, but funny enough it still applies as we move into 2022.

This is my family doing what we can today. Some had to stay home. Some had to wear masks. And we moved forward knowing we aren’t the first people to respond to circumstances we didn’t ask for.

May you remember to seek out the good as you cross over this year’s threshold. I’m right there with you reminding myself I tend to see what I’m looking for.

#seekingoutgoodness #lovingmyactuallife

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