The Joy and Gratefulness of Being Aunt Lala

I love my sister. I love that our personalities are completely opposite. I was reminded of this recently when we exchanged cars so I could keep Canyon for the afternoon. I stepped out of my car that was clean and vacuumed into my sister’s car—with more water bottles than you could count and last month’s mail in the front seat. Some people might call that motherhood, but I know the truth. (And by the way, that new reality may be true for me someday.) But Michaela’s car has looked like that for as long as she’s been driving. I know this because I would shove the papers and the water bottles out of the way as I sat in her purple blazer, waiting for her to drive me to school. I say waiting because I was downstairs and ready a good 20 minutes early every morning…so I could wait…

People have asked me: Is it hard being around Canyon? Have you struggled since your sister had a baby? I would say there have been hard days, but we—Michalea and I—we have wept together. That’s how we do things in our family. Together.

I’ve never been around a lot of babies in my lifetime. Apart from holding a baby here and there once or twice a year, I hadn’t been around babies. And getting to be around Canyon these last six months, I now know it was God’s gift to me that my sister got pregnant before me. I don’t say that lightly. I say that with genuine gratitude. I would not want to walk what I’ve watched her walk for six months without first watching her walk it.

I’m so proud of my sister. She’s an incredible mom. Of course, I knew she would be. When it came to playing with baby dolls, she had the whole mom thing down. But watching her in action, in real time, my heart just swells with joy. I’ve spent my whole life watching her, observing, learning from her choices. Why would I think motherhood would be any different? God knew what I needed.

Canyon is her gift from God. Her blessing. I prayed for him as fervently as I’ve prayed for anything. But in an indirect way, he’s my blessing, too. I love being his Aunt Lala/Lulu (depending on who you ask!). I love him deeply.

I’m not a gifts person. I’m not a words of affirmation person, either. I’m a quality time person. It’s how I show love, and it’s how I receive love. I cultivate relationships with time. That’s my thing. So after Canyon was born, I wanted to spend as much time as I could with him—and when school started again, I wanted one day—at least one—that I could spend with him. Come hell or high water, I don’t care how much grading I have to do, Wednesdays are my day.

I know he won’t remember it. To him, it doesn’t matter if we played games or if I held him while he slept. But it matters to me. I’ll remember.

This last week, I cried almost the whole way to Lubbock to pick him up. My heart was so full of joy as I prayed for him and for my sister and for Jaime. And when, after his afternoon bottle, after he had exhausted himself playing in his bouncer, after we had sung songs and made silly faces—when he fell asleep on me for almost an hour, I cried some more.

God knew that I needed this experience. He knew I needed a baby to hold. And while we wait for our own joy and blessing, I have this gift, this sweet boy. And one day a week, I get to practice being a mom.  

This year has been a precious time for Hal and me. And although life hasn’t always turned out how I planned it, I have never felt more fully the goodness and the faithfulness of God in this season of my life.   I am grateful for His timing, for His perfect plan, and I feel so blessed. 

Trusting God with our dreams AND our finances: God's 'how' with our 'what'

On Sunday, our church had a message on finances, and I was struck by one comment in particular: finances fall under the law of sowing and reaping.

You see, we make financial choices today, good or bad, but we may not feel those effects for years to come. I've been thinking about that. We are pretty budget-conscious when it comes to our finances. We tithe, give, and save from 30% of our budget, and we try to pay our bills and live on 70%. We're not perfect, and we're not debt-free, but this practice has worked pretty well for us. 

There are days, however, when it's so tempting to think, man, if we could just use this for this, then we could have X outcome, maybe pay off X amount of debt; man, if we could just have a little more here and there, we would be set!

And that's the danger. Not the planning, the budgeting, certainly not the savings--but the mentality that if we can get to X place, we will be worry-free, our future secure. 

The danger lies in who controls your finances, in where you place your trust, in how you lean when uncertainty arises. 

The danger is forgetting that all we have is His. 

In our culture today, we like the law of immediacy, the law of "I snap, and it's done." And we look around to see where everyone else is in comparison to where we are. There's a reason keeping up with the Joneses is still a thing. 

But it's such a trap, with no long-term reward. 

I've been reading Psalm 37, and David describes two time frames: the right now and the future. Over and over, he is saying, now, it looks like this, but then, it will look like that. 

What does the future look like for the righteous man*? His righteousness will be brought forth (v. 6); he will inherit the land (vs., 9, 11, 22, 29, 34); he will have abundant peace (v. 11); he has a heritage that lasts forever (v. 18); he has abundance in the days of famine (v. 19); he is generous (now and then) (v. 21); he is not forsaken; his children are taken care of and are a blessing to him (v. 25 - 26); he is preserved (v. 28), not abandoned (v. 33), defended (v. 33). 

What an incredible list of promises! But it's a future list, not a present-day list. It's about sowing today for a harvest tomorrow. 

So what does the righteous man sow today? 

• He trusts in the Lord (v. 3, 5)
• He does good (v. 3)
• He delights in the Lord (v. 4)
• He commits his ways to the Lord (v. 5)
• He is still before the Lord (v. 7)
• He waits for the Lord (v. 7, 9)
• And he gives generously (v. 21)

That last bullet is not an accident. The big idea of last Sunday's message was that we cannot follow Jesus if we are out of balance with our finances. The righteous man in Psalm 37 is a faithful, patient, surrendered servant of the Lord. He does not compare himself to others (v. 7). He is not worried about the Joneses. 

He keeps his eyes on God, and he continues on the path before him. 

We've been reading The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson, and we have been dreaming some pretty big dreams, asking God for the impossible, the unlikely, circling desires we only whispered about as silly pillow-talk before bed. 

Big prayers don't scare God. They scare us because it's not the what but the how: how could we do that? 

And when it comes to the how, it often returns to money. That's why I think Sunday's message was so timely. Finances operate under the law of sowing and reaping. You know what? So does prayer. We sow prayers today that may not be answered for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. 

The how is God's place of miracles; the what is our heart of dreams. 

The what puts us on a path... 

Sometimes, we forget that we are 28 years old. It's okay that our savings isn't overflowing with tens of thousands of dollars (or even the Ramsey recommended 3-times your monthly expenses!). It's okay that our kids' college funds aren't fully funded (yeah, we don't have any kids yet; I think we've still got time!). And it's okay that our combined retirement funds don't even equal one-third of what we make in a given year. 

God's got all the time in the world. 

Our job is to dream big, pray big, and say yes when He asks. May we be patient, trusting, giving servants today! 

*If you're a woman and the list of 'man promises' here is hard for you, I always insert she when I read (i.e. She will inherit the land; she will have abundant peace, etc.). God's kingdom is full of righteous men and women. :) 

For God Gave Us a Spirit... (Part 2)

"For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind." 1 Tim 2:7

A few weeks ago, I shared how fear has recently been revealed to me as a stronghold in my life. And in May, I started meditating on this verse and trying to understand how to combat this spirit of fear.

I began this journey by recognizing the many, many ways that fear ruled in my life: fear of lack, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, etc. From worrying about whether my straightener was going to burn down the house to worrying about future bills and uncertain outcomes--fear had a full foothold in the door of my heart.

But lately, God has focused me on the other three components of this verse: power and love and a sound mind. I have a spirit of power: What does this look like on me? I have a spirit of love and a sound mind: What does that look like?

I mentioned a little in the last post that fear is the antithesis to faith--and faith unleashes the power of God in our life. 

Ephesians 1 calls His power immeasurable toward us who believe.

When we put our faith in Jesus--in the power and the message of His finished work of the cross--it reveals to us the mystery of the gospel, the good news: that we are made righteous, that we are given an inheritance--our status as sons and daughters--and that we are filled with grace.

Grace. His power, His ability, working in us. 

It is sufficient. 

By His grace, we get to be powerful people. 

So, fear is the antithesis to power, to faith. Fear is also the antithesis to love.

I'm reading Danny Silk's Keeping Your Love On, and it's no coincidence that the chapter I just started is titled, "The Battle Between Fear and Love."

Fear of rejection, fear of (dis)connection, fear of vulnerability, fear of loss--that's the battle; each is the hindrance to our ability to be real and genuine, to be sincere in our love toward each other.

Silk writes, "Learning to partner with the spirit of love requires you to become powerful. That is a serious challenge. When Paul told Timothy that the spirit of love is also the spirit of power and a sound mind, he implied that the opposite, the spirit of fear, is the spirit of powerlessness and a weak, divided mind. When you grow up partnering with the spirit of fear, as most of us do, you learn to simply hand over your brain and your power, letting fear take control. But as soon as you decide to partner with the spirit of love, you have to think and make powerful choices" (p. 53).

Last post, I said that we are powerful people, and I love how Danny calls fear a spirit of powerlessness.

To be powerful is not the same as being a bully, manipulative, aggressive, or even controlling. In fact, one of the most freeing things I've heard recently from the pastors at Harvest is that control is an illusion. 

Danny says it this way: "The only person you can control--on a good day--is you" (p. 51).

So let's talk about this last component: a sound mind. Some translations calls this a spirit of self-control. How appropriate!

Fear in relationships creates distances, disconnection, anything that looks nothing like love. Sometimes fear in relationships translates into the pseudo-power we tend to recognize: manipulation and control.

But for us to have healthy relationships, for us to love sincerely, we have to break the spirit of fear in our life. We have to take control of our minds--our thoughts, our worries, our assumptions, our judgments, our hypothetical conversations (I know I'm not the only person who does this :)). We have to learn to control our minds--to find self-control.

But the good news is God has given us a spirit, and it's not of fear. Like the gift of righteousness, like the fullness of grace, this gift is ours to choose, to believe, to receive His spirit of power and love and a sound mind. 

I can't control others, but I can stay connected to my Father's heart. I can, by faith, receive the fullness of His grace. I can, through Him, be powerful in my relationships.

And what does it mean to be powerful? It means I'm free from fear--and more so, I'm free to love, to really love, with sincerity, with a genuine heart, without expectations, without fear, without shame.

I'm free to be vulnerable.

Last night, I heard a message on shame and the fear of loss, and like the spirit of fear we've been talking about, the pastor concluded that we fight shame by being vulnerable.

I'm still mulling this over, but I pray if you're reading this, I pray for myself, that we would recognize the strongholds of fear in our life, and that we would especially fight the battle of fear in our relationships with others, and that fear of lack, fear of rejection, fear of loss, insecurity by any name we want to give it would be broken in the name of Jesus.

May we be powerful and vulnerable people today. 

For God Gave Us a Spirit...

"For God gave us a spirit, not of fear but of power and love and self-control." 2 Timothy 1:7

Most of us probably know this verse, so maybe it feels pat, but I've been meditating on this one verse all summer. It started when I read a book by Jackie Mize last May that used this acronym:
F - false
E - evidence
A - against
R - reality

Fear. False evidence against reality. Jackie writes, "Fear motivates Satan as faith motivates God. Fear is Satan's tool as faith is God's" (p. 100).

Satan's number one tool is fear; it is the antithesis of faith. Yet, we so rarely recognize fear. We mask it as stress, worry, insecurity, busyness. But at the root--it is all fear.

Stress/Worry: 

• Fear of the future, that something won't be accomplished
• Fear of the unknown, that something won't work out the way we want or need
• Fear of failure, that something will fail and/or that we will be failures
• Fear of insufficiency, that the "work" we do (i.e., at our jobs, in our marriage, with our kids, in our friendships) won't be enough 
• Fear of lack, that He won't provide, that He isn't enough

Insecurity: 

• Fear of lack, that we aren't enough, that we aren't sufficient (i.e., body size, hair color, personality, what we do, where we live, how much we make, etc.)
• Fear of rejection, that again, we won't measure up, that others will reject us

Busyness: 

• Fear of feeling, that if we stop, if we slow down, if we feel, we'll be vulnerable; we'll have to be real and get to the root and deal with our heart, and isn't it just easier to be busy? 

For the last two months, I have prayed against a spirit of fear almost daily. And I've found that Step One is just praying to see the evidence of fear, to recognize it, to call it what it is. It's more than stress: it's fear. It's more than insecurity: it's fear. 

And we have to see it from the seemingly insignificant worries to the major events that keep us up at night. For weeks, almost every time I left the house, I was convinced I had not unplugged my straightener. This, naturally, led me to believe that the house would burn down, that my dogs (my babies!), who are inside, would die, that I would lose all my possessions, my journals, my writing. Life itself would be over. That is fear, my friends. Did I unplug my straightener? Did I close the garage door? Did I lock my car? These obsessions are Satan's tools, insignificant as they seem. 

If we never identify fear's strongholds in our life, we cannot break the spirit of fear over us. 

God gave us a spirit. 

It is not a spirit of fear.

It is a spirit of power and love and self-control. 

I want to look at each of these traits of our spirit individually in the next few posts. But today, remember that you are filled with a spirit of power. God's grace--His ability--fills you. I believe Paul lists power first because it's believing that the power of God dwells in us that enables us to overcome fear, and it's believing that the power of God dwells in us that equips us to love and to have self-control. 

You are a powerful person. Don't walk in fear today. 

A letter to my dad on his 60th birthday

Dad,

If there’s a word to describe you, it’s consistency. I can’t think of one time in my life where I have been uncertain whether you were coming or uncertain whether you would be there for me. I’ve never doubted that. Not once.  

You’ve always been an incredible dad, and most incredibly, you were present. Even when life was stressful, money was tight, or schedules were busy—you always made time for us. You attended dance recitals that may or may not have lasted for hours upon hours. You watched me play basketball at an age when watching basketball could not have been on the short list of your favorite things to do. When I think about how hard you work even today and how long your hours were when I was growing up, from making rounds in the morning to clinic all day to more rounds in the evening, coming home at 6 or sometimes 7—I see now more than I ever could what a sacrifice it was to attend those week-night events.

When you took Michalea and I away for our Daddy/Daughter weekends, you didn’t just take us to cool restaurants and buy us nice clothes and help us pick out our prom dresses. All of those activities were great—and our shopping trips for prom dresses are some of my favorite memories with you. Not many dads will do that—in fact, I don’t know of another person’s dad who has done that. You sat on many benches outside many dressing rooms for hours and hours and hours. Why? Because you love us so. You spent more money than I can probably imagine not just on clothes and dresses, but on hotel rooms and fancy dinners. Why? Because you love us so. You invested in our hearts, you invested in our daddy/daughter relationship, and you taught us—literally taught us—how to search out the hearts of our potential husbands.

And, Dad, if there’s one thing I’m most proud of, it’s not the things you said to me; it’s not the lectures you gave, or even the advice. It’s the way you lived. You lived the husband that I wanted to marry; you lived the dad that I wanted my husband to be. You lived it, and I saw it, and somehow I knew there would be a man like you who was worth waiting for.

I’m also forever grateful that because of the time you took to invest in us; because of the lessons I learned from you about men, you instilled in me standards for myself and for others. I know I didn’t always make good choices with my boyfriends, but I made the right choice in the end—the only choice that ever mattered so much. You had a lot to do with that choice. And I chose well.

You’ve taught me more lessons than you can imagine, and again, it’s not because of what you said but because of how you lived. You told us that we should find something we love doing and do it; that it’s not about how much money one can make, it’s about how satisfied he feels at the end of the day; that it’s not about how much recognition one can get, it’s about how happy he can be when he’s walking in his gifting and passion. My personality may have already been “set” to be driven and goal-oriented, but you encouraged me and supported me to pursue what I love. There were many, many hard days to get to where I am, and you listened to countless hours of my stress and complaints—but you always believed in me. And because you believed in me, I could believe in myself.

You taught us to be wise with our money. Even as early as 16, you showed me how to apply for a job and how to interview. You helped me open my first checking and savings account. Because of all that you taught me, I saved and bought my first car at 17. A nice, good, reliable car that lasted me for 8 years. Something that seems so simple as budgeting is not simple at all: it’s life-changing. And having seen others who were not taught the same skills, I’ve never been more grateful. We own a house we can afford; we don’t purchase things we can’t or shouldn’t—and we have been richly blessed in ways that money can’t buy. You taught me how to tithe. And you taught me how to give. Because you were and have always been generous, you instilled in me—in all of us kids—a heart to be generous to others.

You taught me that character is built from the inside, from a heart and a life of integrity, from a person who is the same at home as he is at church as he is at work. That’s you. And it’s who I want to be. You work hard. You never quit. You’re never lazy. And you never expect someone else to do what you can do yourself. Your character speaks. I want mine to speak like that, too.

Thank you for sending me to London. I grew up in London in ways I am still processing. I learned so much about being alone, about navigating a big city, about who I am and what I wanted to be. I fell in love with learning in London. I fell in love with language—with linguistics—which carried me all the way through my PhD. And today, I get to teach courses like Advanced Grammar that make my heart more happy than you can imagine—and somehow, I know, it started with London.

Thank you for buying the ranch. It is a safe place for us all, and I’m thankful for the hours we’ve had to spend together out there. Sometimes working. Sometimes talking. Sometimes doing nothing at all. It’s one of my favorite places to be—and it has less to do with the location or the building or the land and everything to do with who I get to be with when I’m there.

Thank you for coming to my recitals and plays and games and for telling me I’m beautiful and for buying me roses on Valentine’s Day and for helping me to have confidence in who I am.

Thank you for being a dad who was present and consistent. Thank you for being there—wherever there was.

I tell you all the time I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have you as my dad. It’s true. You have played a huge role in who I was and who I am and who I will become. I know that life is precious and that it’s never guaranteed. I’m thankful that we are here—and God has given us today. One more day. One more breath. I won’t take it for granted.

I look forward to the days of our growing family—as we all add children and grandchildren to the mix. But I’m so thankful for the foundation. You built that foundation, and God has honored it and graced it and blessed it deeply.

Happy 60^th Birthday, Dad!

I love you!

Laura