Category: Books & Reading

Losing It & Rest {FMF}

~ Emily ~ 15 Comments

I feel like rest is something I can never check off my to-do list, which is semi-infuriating. It’s not like washing the dishes or buying someone a birthday gift. Rest isn’t really quantifiable or tangible. But it is oh so necessary.

Physical rest, emotional rest, spiritual rest – it’s all encompassing.  I’m not skilled in having a balanced amount of rest in these areas. Traveling for work wears me out physically but is generally a great opportunity to spend quality time in prayer and scripture. I usually come home and feel like a tired plop who justs wants to veg out and do nothing.

Like many other things in my life, I probably over analyze rest and try to fit it in my perfectionist box. God asks us to rest but He doesn’t necessarily provide a manual. I like instructions, but I guess that’s part of resting – being still without an agenda.

Rest is an ongoing cycle and I’d like to find the rhythm.

Five Minute Friday

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I’m reviewing a really great young adult novel on Kindred Grace today. Losing It by Erin Fry tackles some tough topics {death, illness, obesity, and friendship} with valuable insight into the mind of teenagers.

You can find the review here.

 

Praying For Protection

~ Emily ~ 4 Comments

Praying For ProtectionEvery time I leave for a work trip, I am reminded of a powerful passage in Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love {which is a phenomenal read} about what and why we pray for certain things – like safety.

I was convicted when I read it years ago and am convicted by the echo of his words today.

Haven’t we all prayed the following prayer? “Lord, we pray for safety as we travel. We ask that no one gets hurt on this trip. Please keep everyone safe until we return, and bring us back safely. In Jesus name we pray, amen.” The exact wording may vary a bit, but that is the standard prayer we recite before leaving on mission trips, retreats, vacations, and business trips.

We are consumed by safety. Obsessed with it, actually. Now, I’m not saying it is wrong to pray for God’s protection, but I am questioning how we’ve made safety our highest priority. We’ve elevated safety to the neglect of whatever would accomplish His purposes in our lives and in the world.

Francis Chan | Crazy Love | 133

This makes my mind reel with questions. What’s my motivation for praying for protection? Isn’t God bigger than my safety? Is safety what we are on Earth for? Don’t I trust God with His plans for my life, even if it includes harm? {or an untimely death, which is the underlying factor in my safety anxiety.} I wrestle with those questions every time I perceive my circumstances to be dangerous.

One hint of turbulence and I’m praying for God’s hands to surround that hunk of metal zooming through the clouds at 30,000 feet. When I take a wrong turn and wind up where lone females {especially ones that look confused and lost} shouldn’t be, I pray for a shield around my car.

Praying for protection isn’t inherently wrong. God asks that we bring everything to Him as a  prayerful sacrifice, but we are also asked to trust and not try to manipulate God through our prayers. (<— tweet this)

Right after I breathe frightened entreaties, I am hit with Francis’ words that never seem to leave the back of my mind.

People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress.

Francis Chan | Crazy Love | 133

God’s plan is sovereign. Prayer is a way we partner with God, which leads to opened eyes and hearts to the wonderful ways He works in our lives and in the world around us. We pray so we can acknowledge God’s work not so we can take control of our circumstances. (<— tweet this)

God loves when we bring our troubles, joys, successes, and failures to His feet, but He wants us to offer them as pieces of our hearts and accept whatever may come.

When I am scared for my life, whether the threat is real or imagined, I’m often praying to rid myself of the undesirable circumstances, not for peace and courage to meet the circumstances with God as my strength. My fear is born from a lack of trust and confidence in God’s provision and perfect plan.

Francis Chan

I was in Orlando last week and had convinced myself one night that I was sure to be murdered in my hotel room {in my defense, someone had mistakenly tried to open my door rather forcefully around 11 pm which is what started this train of thought}.

Following the unsettling event, my sweet husband suggested {via Facetime} that I read Psalm 27. The Psalms are my safe zone, my spiritual third place, and I was reminded again why I find such comfort in the Psalms as I read over David’s words. David is an emotive and volatile personality who cries out to God in every sort of emotional state. I can relate…

Unlike me, David generally has a god grasp of God’s place in his life’s purpose and plan. David knows that God is eternal and He views His children with an eternal perspective. God answers prayers and gives protection with the eternal in mind, while I am often stuck in the present. (<— tweet this)

I’m familiar with Psalm 27, especially the beginning and the end. {The Lord is my light and my salvation: Whom shall I fear?…Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall stregthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!} What I found in the middle, however, showed David’s grasp of God’s sovereignty in the midst of his fear.

For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.

Psalm 27:5

David trusts that God will protect him in times of trouble, but He doesn’t limit that protection to his earthly home. I love that David doesn’t specify where the protection takes place. Whether he is hidden in God’s physical tabernacle on earth or in His heavenly dwelling, David knows that he will be taken care of.

Safety comes in all shapes and sizes – in God’s world, it doesn’t always look like the safety we expect the police to provide. The next time I’m boarding an airplane or sending my husband off on a ministry trip, I want my prayers to be more “Your will be done” and less “safety first”.

Grace For The Good Girl

~ Emily ~ 6 Comments

I have never found myself so accurately portrayed in a book before I read Emily P. Freeman’s Grace For The Good Girl. I tweeted as much in the midst of reading it and Emily responded with an apology. It made me laugh, but it was indeed a reminder that being a good girl isn’t always a good thing.

Emily P Freeman TweetYou see, what I was meaning as a compliment to Emily spoke more than appreciation for her writing and message. I had unintentionally admitted how much I struggle in my good girl identity. Finding myself in every word of her book meant that I still desperately cling to perfection. I’m still seeking value from other people’s perceptions and base my worth on living up to an impossible standard.

One of the most encouraging things about this book was discovering that I’m not alone. I certainly don’t wish the stress and anxiety of being a good girl on anyone, but I spent many years wondering if I was the only one who felt shackled to an image that didn’t necessarily portray reality.

I believe being a good girl is part nature, part nurture. It’s one thing to be inherently sweet, thoughtful, and compassionate; but it’s another thing when you surpress normal emotions, desires, and needs to appear that way.

My natural good girl tendencies became my own enforced norm when I discovered smarts and an illusion of perfection could get me attention. Little did I know that a dangerous pattern of internal pressure was developing. When my natural good girl failed, I had to kick my nurture good girl into high gear or I wouldn’t feel good enough. My classmates wouldn’t like me as well if I didn’t get an A on that chemistry test. I wouldn’t be the apple of my Sunday school teacher’s eye if I didn’t find Malachi 2:5 first. No guy would ever ask me out if I didn’t stay a size 4.

Of course, I didn’t begin to recognize this corrupted train of thought until a few years ago when my circle of friends grew into a community of honest and authentic sisters who weren’t adverse to showing their brokenness.

Emily reveals that same brokenness in Grace for the Good Girl. She is honest about the time her husband found her curled on the couch sobbing because she felt inadequate, how she felt like less of a woman because she had c-sections instead of natural births, and how she is sometimes crippled by anxiety.

I felt as if an invisible good girl was following me around wherever I went, showing up without permission to shame and blame and scold. She was omnipresent, like a pretty little goddess in a pink, shadowy corner. She embodied the good girl version of my current life stage and shamed me accordingly; good student, good leader, good wife, and good mom. She represented the girl I wanted to be but didin’t know why. I felt the heavy weight of impossible expectations and had the insatiable desire to explain every mistake. My battle with shame was constant and hovering.

Instead of recognizing my own inadequacy as an opportunity to trust God, I hid those parts and adopted a bootstrap religion. I focused on the things I could handle, the things I excelled in, my disciplined life, and my unshakeable good mood. These masks became so natural to me that I didn’t even know they were masks.

Emily P. Freeman ~ Grace for the Good Girl

 

Even in those broken moments, Emily offers hope and encouragement for all good girls no matter where on the spectrum they land, whether they are recovering or still covered by the mask of perfection.

Emily also wrote a second book, Graceful, geared toward younger women. When it launched in September, Emily encouraged people to write letters to their teenage self. Mine sheds light onto my good girl history and explains more about Graceful.

Find more of Emily on her blog Chatting At The Sky.

 

Primitive Pleasures: what balanced out the rustic this month

~ Emily ~ 9 Comments

There’s this blog that I really love called Cardigan Way. Katie, the lovely author behind the blog, and I connected over a shared love of Eustace from The Chronicles of Narnia. She is also a pastor’s wife, loves literature, and has a keen sense of style. As I was catching up with all the truth, goodness, and beauty on Cardigan Way the other day, I came across her January Goodness post and loved it. It’s a retrospective of what she’s been into for the past month.

Primitive Pleasures is the Primitive Roads take on a “what I’m into” post.  So, here goes a lot of good things that got me through the rustic moments of February…

Primitive Pleasures February

Homemade

February was my turn to provide a meal for the elder’s meeting at our church and Tim’s birthday, both of which gave me reasons to make cupcakes. I have 5 cookbooks specifically dedicated to cupcakes, but I went for recipes I’d made before from one of my favorite food blogs – Annie’s Eats. She makes a ton of delicious things, however, the cupcakes are unreal. {My photos don’t do them justice…}

Annie's Eats Cupcakes

One of the things Tim and I miss most about California is really good Mexican food. Since my word for this year is intentional, I decided to push past the intimidation and start making Mexican food at home. I’m addicted to bean and cheese burritos so my first project was refried beans. The first recipe I tried {Crockpot Refried Beans} was a huge success. We also enjoyed the Sweet Corn Chicken Enchiladas and Baked Tacos from One Good Thing.

Baking is an outlet for me and when it’s cold, it seems like I really need an outlet for my winter blues. I made Joy The Baker’s Biscuit Cinnamon Rolls twice, Rosemary Lemon Sugar Cookies, and Martha Stewart’s Cream Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. Maybe my best baking discovery this month was the PERFECT chocolate chip cookie: Alton Brown’s Chewy – tender, chewy {because of bread flour} and chock full of chocolate chips. Just wow.

Cookies

Crafted

My friend Kristina is doing a month of craft therapy on her blog The Blissful Bird. She made the cutest cross-stitched likeness of her and her husband. I’m inspired to break out my needle and thread.

I made another version of the Paper Bag Christmas Card for Valentine’s Day {plus I made my first ever video tutorial} and then saw this Paper Bag Book variation and can’t wait to adapt it for upcoming holidays.

CraftedLovely Ideas

I’m spatially challenged, but my mom was able to replicate this awesome way to braid your scarf.

In and effort to fight back against the cold on a trip to Chicago last week, a friend and I held the first Humidity Saturday. We went to the Garfield Park Conservatory and enjoyed the warm, damp air, earthy smells, and greenery knowing it was below freezing just beyond the glass walls. I enjoyed it so much, I’m looking for ways to do it in Idaho. Even a day where you turn up the heat to 80 and wear shorts in your house would be a huge tre

Lovely IdeasRead

My new job offers me plenty of travel time to read. Some of my favorites from this month were Grace For The Good Girl by Emily Freeman, Losing It by Erin Fry, and Death Comes To Pemberley by P.D. James. {a note on that last one – not necessarily my favorite Jane Austen sequel, but worthwhile for the interesting way James developed the character’s life after Pride and Prejudice}

It’s fitting that I stumbled upon a couple awesome posts on marriage this month since 1. it’s the love month and 2. I was participating in a collaborative series called How To Maintain Your High Maintenance Marriage.

Closing Thoughts

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Enough said.

Downton Abbey as a Metaphor for Church Life by Adam McLane {who we are so excited to host at CBC in April!}

Speaking of good things to watch, it’s time for Psych Season 7 premiere! Time to sign off…

I’m linking up to What I’m Into at HopefulLeigh.

100 Pound Loser

~ Emily ~ Leave a comment

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Aside from latter elementary school and my junior high years when I was still little-girl-chubby, I never wrestled with being overweight.  Though I don’t currently struggle to maintain a healthy weight, I do struggle to maintain a healthy body image.

The past few years have been a battle.  Telling myself God’s truth wages war against my obsessive desire to be thin by the world’s standards.  I’ve spent my fair share of hours and days berating myself for that last cookie or for choosing a burger over salad.  My attitude towards food alternates between overly indulgent and unhealthily self-controlled.

Clearly, I’m still in battle.

Loosing baby weight is probably still a couple years in the future and I’ve never had 100 pounds to loose, but I resonated with much of Jessica Heights message in her new e-book, 100 Pound Loser.

Jessica successfully lost 100 pounds (wow!), and though she shares her strategy for losing weight, I appreciated her emphasis on just being healthy – physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Physically Healthy

God gave us our bodies and we have a responsibility to keep them in peek condition.

Mini goals should be everyone’s best friend.  Large tasks – whether weight loss or book writing, or marathon running – can seem daunting.  Broken down into approachable chunks staves off immediate defeat and discouragement.

I also like Jessica’s attitude toward cravings.  Best to indulge a craving with moderation than try to ignore it or pacify it with a subpar substitution.

Mentally Healthy

Body image issues can weigh heavily on the mind.  Battling against your body to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight is exhausting.  The way you view yourself in the process is just as important as the end result.

“When it comes down to it, issues of weight do affect the way we look, but they also affect the way we feel, and the way we function, emotionally and physically.” – JH

Spiritually Healthy

The spiritual components of a healthy body image is what I struggle with the most.  I rarely tell myself the truth – the truth that God created my body, therefore, it deserves my respect.  God cares more about my health than me being a size 2.

I love Jessica’s paraphrase of Proverbs 31:30.

“Conformity to contemporary beauty standards is deceptive and a stick-thin figure is fleeting, but a girl or woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

That’s what I want to model with my body image and what I hope to instill in my daughter some day.

100 Pound Loser by Jessica Heights

Jessica has managed to offer her perspective on major weight loss while keeping the focus on holistic health and respect for what God has given us to steward.

Even if you don’t’ have 100 pounds to lose, this book offers exhortation and application  for dropping excess body image baggage.

Find Jessica’s book on Amazon.