Covered in Joy

“We needed to believe that God, who gave his Son, was giving us all that we needed and that was beauty enough, even without a happy ending. Though God did not answer my prayer the way I wanted, He answered...He did not say yes to my request, but He did not remain silent. I will make this beautiful too , he whispered.” -Katie Davis Majors’ Daring to Hope How the time flies! It has been several months since I last sat down to write a blog post. Several months full of messy, busy, prayer-filled days. God has been working in ways that we could have NEVER seen coming. Like it did to so many others, Hurricane Harvey left its mark on our life. My husband and I watched our first home together, a home that we got to call “ours” for only a couple of months, flood during the hurricane. While we are still very much in the thick of the “rebuilding” process, I have been truly amazed at the goodness of God every step of the way...how He can even cover such uncertainty and heartache in His pea...

“God in his goodness has been doing this thing in my life for a long time - surprising me, drawing me along to places I could never have imagined.” Shauna Niequist in Present Over Perfect When I first read this, my whole body, down to my core, resonated with understanding. There have been so many shaky, messy, uncertain times in my life where I couldn’t see exactly where the unpaved road was leading me. What was the end goal in this big new decision? Should I really have ventured down this new path? The road I was travelling on before seemed fine and safe to me...what am I doing!? Can I really handle this? But when I take the time to look back at each of those uncertain, sometimes scary moments, I can see that God was at work. He was taking the lead and “drawing me along to places I could have never imagined.” He was covering my life in joy and I didn’t even know it. When He told me, during college, to apply to be the Director, the leader, of an organization with over 100 studen...

We’ve all got it...our own “thing” that holds us back from being who we really desire to be. From who God desires us to be. From living covered in joy. For some it’s impatience, some it’s the desire for perfection, maybe it’s being overly competitive, jealous, insecure, fearful, could be a whole litany of different little things. But I don’t even need to skip a beat when I confess that one of my “things” is letting worry, unnecessary worry, lead to ugly stress. So much so, that for Lent this year, I “gave up” worrying! It worked like a charm right over night...NOT! If only it worked that way. But, any time I found myself worrying, especially about something show-stoppingly insignificant, I stopped in my tracks and started praying instead. “I’m handing this over to you, Lord.” Well, Lent has been over for quite some time now, and I am STILL considering this mission a work-in-progress. Little by little I’m learning, though. Baby steps! :) I’ve had a handful of “AHA moments” througho...

You Are ALREADY Enough! Here goes nothing...I’m sure we’ve all had that moment. The one where we don’t really have any idea what we’re doing or what exactly we’re getting ourselves into, but we know it really is a step in the right direction… That’s a perfect description of me as I sit here with a cup of coffee, okay okay, my second cup of coffee, writing this very first blog post. I’m currently doing a summer Bible study with some amazing women. We are devouring Shauna Niequist’s book Present over Perfect . It got me thinking, what better time to jump into a new journey that’s been on my heart for so long than right NOW, the present. I can pretty much guarantee that this will not be perfect, but if you’re still reading and haven’t clicked that little “x” at the top, thank you! My prayer is that one day my words will touch even just one person who needs to hear them as much as I do. So really, instead of here goes nothing, I’m going to go with - here goes...something. :) You ...