10-27-2016

Finding Your Way Through the Brokenness in Your Life

The busyness of October has taken me by surprise.
It’s been a blur of days flung my way with not enough hands to grasp it all.

All the fun plans and unexpected adventures filled me with excitement but when all said & done has left me gasping for air.

I had grand plans for this month. Plans to blog every.single.weekday. You can see how successfully that turned out. When I feel like this, it’s easy to concentrate on all I didn’t accomplish instead of focusing on what I did get done.

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My kids got to see their first college football game in real life. The fact a hurricane was hunkering down on us made it all the more fun. Who cares if they only saw 2 plays before we couldn’t take any more of the 53mph wind and driving rain?

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My faith has been blown away as I see the Holy Spirit’s power & presence shows up week after week in a Bible study. Read National Geographic and watch Frontline documentaries on ISIS and it’s enough to make you question where God is inside the boundary lines of third world poverty and war. But I’m not overseas. I’m here in the continental U.S. And it’s God changing women’s lives right in my path that makes me confident in his reality.

The real treasure showed up two weeks ago in the form of this book…

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When it come’s to Ann’s poetic words, I’m a slow reader. I need time to process her words as they take root in my brain and heart. Even though I’m only to Chapter 7, I can already say this..

If your soul is weary, battered & torn from simply living life…

If you’re the lonely, outcast, and marginalized…

If you want to find a sense of purpose in this thing called life…

If you want your life to be more than just the broken that’s happened to you…

Read The Broken Way.

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Ann’s book released this week and you can find it here and here. Even if you don’t feel you are currently broken, this book will encourage you in a very tangible way to live a life of purpose and bring kindness to all those around you.

jessica

 

09-28-2016

When The Broken Way is Really the Only Way: An Invitation to Read Ann Voskamp’s The Broken Way

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Tucked into the fetal position on a cold hard concrete floor, a nine year old little boy beckons with God…please, just please keep my brothers & I safe. Please, God, please let the yelling and the throwing pass over us.

A forty two year old woman cries herself to sleep after watching her husband walk out that door. Alone and afraid, she wonders what her friends will think.

A four year old chestnut haired little girl teeters precariously on the kitchen stool, making her and her brother’s cheese sandwich for dinner. If she doesn’t, there’s nothing to eat tonight.

There is a lot of hurt & broken in this world.
All too often, we turn away from the broken in our hearts and deny it ever happened or made any impact on us.

We hide it all behind our shiny cars, clean houses, and lipstick smiles.

And I get it. I’ve been broken. I’ve been depressed. I’ve had moments when I wasn’t sure what the point in keep on, keeping on was.

When we’ve been broken, when we’ve been abused and trampled on, when taking a breathe feels like engulfing fire on the shame deep inside. When that is what our life is or has been – why wouldn’t we want to put on a pretty plastic facade and pretend we are a-ok.

Because if we say we are a-ok, then eventually, the longer we say it, a-ok becomes reality, right??

Ultimately though, the weight of that facade wears us down. The tension of day after day, holding it all together, pulls half-an-inch too tight. And our world comes crashing down around us.

What do we do then? When we just want answers and we just want our messy, broken, hurting souls to feel better. To be mended. We just want a way out from the all consuming crushing weight we’ve been wearing on our backs.

That my friends is what Ann Voskamp’s newest book, The Broken Way, is all about.

Ann, in her signature poetry prose, makes us consider…

“Maybe you can live a full and beautiful life in spite of the great and terrible moments that will happen right inside of you. Actually – maybe you get to become more abundant because of those moments….Maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest wisdom.”

I’ve never, in all my times of reading Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the 5,000, pondered the significance of the word broken. Ann does…

Jesus “took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the the people”

Jesus fed the people out of the brokenness.

As Ann writes, “The miracle happens in the breaking. Not enough was given thanks for, and then the miracle happened.”

Could it be that our messy traumatized hearts is what becomes the miracle in our lives?

What if…

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***

I was humbled and thrilled when I got the acceptance email for being part of Ann’s launch team for this book, The Broken Way. Her first book, One Thousand Gifts, transformed my life when I was in the midst of grief and despair following a loved one’s death from suicide. Her dare to write down 1,000 things I was thankful for in 1 Year’s time changed my heart and my life. This morning, five years later, I jotted down reason #4,799.

Giving thanks in all and letting our brokenness be the miracle God unleashes for the world are intricately tied together.

I hope you’ll journey with me as I read through the book and each Wednesday share nuggets of encouraging wisdom from Ann. The book releases October 25th and you can pre-order here.

Love,

jessica

 

09-14-2016

Dear Pinterest, I’d Like A Divorce

Dear Pinterest,

You with your oh so cute little red icon.
You with your oh so clever how-to & DIY posts.
You with your oh so charming photographs of perfect lives and speck free homes.

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It all started so innocently. Cousin Stacey expounding about all the loveliness found on your site. Friends promising it was just like cutting clippings from a decorating magazine but this way I could organize it all with just the click of a button.

But you know what Pinterest, we seem to have VAST differences in our filtering ideas, on the ‘ease it takes to create something’ and on what real beauty is.

For one, my brain filters things much different than yours Pinterest.

I doubt I’ll ever pick up a magazine with the feature article “How To Know If You’re A Toxic Parent.”

But it’s there on Pinterest every.single.time.
And my self discernment isn’t fail proof because I eventually click on the link.

Who knew that if you’ve ever looked at your children in a “I CANNOT BELIEVE You Just Did That” look, then – clearly, you are one horrible parent and your children are doomed to certain toxicity.

Or what about “Mom Teaches Daughter Valuable Life Lesson with a Tube of Toothpaste”…Can we just give it up for this lady…she clearly has far greater Parenting power than I do.

I’m not sure how katrillions of generations of mama’s ever made it before you Pinterest.
How in the world did they know how to parent?

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Mamas today are bombarded with articles such as…

Teach Your Child to Respectfully Disagree

What Not to Do During  A Temper Tantrum

How Much Stuff Do Kids Really Need

SERIOUS??? What about instead…

Just Do The Best You Can Do and Survive this thing called parenting

and clearly here in the developed world we need an attitude and materialism adjustment check.

When I was a kid, dirt + books + soccer ball = satisfied childhood. If you’re worried your children have too much stuff, then the answer is yes, they probably do. And there are some kids in your very own town who could use the excess toys your kids never play with.

{As a caveat, I’m all about parenting advice, but really, I want it from the people I live ‘real day to day’ life with. People that I actually know, trust, and most important…the people who know the real me. Your bombardments of “parenting to-do’s that I am failing” leaves me with feelings of ‘less than’, ‘never going to get it together,’ and I want to curl up in a ball and throw in the towel.}

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You & I also have a VAST difference in our understanding of the words “This crafty Christmas & Mother’s Day Gift is SOOOO easy to create”.

Yeah, I’m talking about you, Transfer Grandma’s Heirloom Banana Bread Recipe to a Tea Towel. After running around town attempting to find an old school copier that prints with ‘just the right ink’, countless hours spent scrubbing ink and dousing my house in citrus fumes, I am left with faint black scribbles on a tea towel now stained dismal brown.

Even the ornaments I try to make for Christmas are failures. Crayons don’t melt inside a glass ornament when you focus the hair dryer on them.

Half made, half sewn, fully broken, fully laughable presents abound under my Christmas tree and my family members are now experts at faking an “I love it” expression.

The worst part is, I get sucked in every time I open up your site, Pinterest. Even this morning, as I’m writing these words, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by “20 Christmas Ornaments Kids Can Make Themselves”.

It sounds so promising, but the reality is….those beautiful ornaments in the photos were probably not made by kids. They were probably made by people who have master’s degrees in using hot glue guns, people who really do have organized closets, and people who can actually make vegan fro-yo desserts taste good.

And if one more person pins Black Bean Brownies Taste Just Like The Real Thing, I may throw up.

They don’t taste like normal brownies. Serious, don’t waste your time or money on those recipes.

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And my husband, he most definitely wishes for this divorce to happen post haste. I’m pretty sure husbands across the globe would gladly unite to never again hear the words”I saw it on Pinterest and it’s so easy. I’m sure you could do it this weekend.”

The best one liner my husband has ever said, hands down, was…
“Just because it’s on Pinterest, doesn’t mean it’s to code.”

That was after an epic fail.

I mean epic burn down the house proportions.

I hotglued nautical rope to the kitchen fan light globes. It was on pinterest, afterall. What could possibly go wrong?

My husband telling me it was a fire hazard couldn’t be accurate I thought. He got the last laugh when the rope literally started falling off the light globe as the glue melted from the heat and a burnt smell took over the kitchen.   I found out later that if only I had used LED lightbulbs this wouldn’t have been a problem. But to save my husband a heart attack, I decided who needs light globes in the first place?

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Pinterest, your website is NOT REAL LIFE.

Real life is not meant to be or look perfect.

Real life is messy, it’s chaotic, it’s broken.

Perfection is a facade, the masking of our real souls.

Imperfection is being okay with our human frailty and letting others in to see that we’re really all the same. None of us have it all together. All of us use a party as an excuse to finally get that photo wall hung or dust the cobwebs off the ceiling.

True beauty is found in doing the best we can and accepting it’s okay to be imperfect.

Loveliness is found when our realness is exposed and our mess shines through.

Memories are made of the broken, ragged edges of our lives.

My Grandma Buckner’s floors, you know what they were made of Pinterest?

Green, yellow, and brown linoleum tiles, that in no way matched one another in size, shape, or design; all patched together, very randomly.

They were what she could afford (her & Aunt Budge probably found them for free, knowing their thriftiness) and while those floors were nothing fancy nor elaborate, they are recessed into the memories of my childhood. Those ugly beautiful floors welcomed children’s dirty feet, dogs named Sadie, and held up hundreds of National Geographic magazines discarded haphazardly under a vinyl orange sofa.

I can’t keep up with you Pinterest.

Consider this your official “we’re separated notice”.

But before I serve you those final divorce papers, I need to write down that recipe for those “to-die-for” gluten free chocolate chip cookies and photograph the “how-to-make” a perfect gallery artwork wall. After all, I’m only human.

jessica

 

09-07-2016

New Puppy, New School, New Frogs

September is here and change is on the way!

We have a new puppy, Sawyer, who reminds me daily of why I do not want to have another child. My ability and desire to wake up at 2:13am for bathroom breaks and just needing to be cuddled, has waned.

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We have a new school the kids adore. We miss old teachers who hold special places in our hearts but having a flexible learning schedule {Montessori} leads to a well rounded and much happier child.

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And we have frogs, frogs, frogs galore.

It’s clearly the birthing season for frogs.
Or the mating season.
Or we’ve simply gone back in time to the raining frog plague.

You can’t step toe outside the front door without accidentally shortening one’s life. {Okay, that might be a little dramatic. They aren’t in quite that stage of plethora.} However, they are everywhere. And if you are on the phone with me, there is a good chance you’ll be asking “What’s that noise” because the chirping is THAT loud. Even with the doors closed.

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Here’s to shorter days, cooler temps, and dog hair everywhere!

jessica

08-04-2016

The Ever Boring Tasks of Parenting: A Poem To Encourage When Yet Another LONG Summer Day Looms

Spaghetti splattered dishes haphazardly askew in an uncleaned sink.
Last night’s orange cheese grime caked on the metallic baking sheet.
Mold growing where apple juice resided in a pink sippy cup.
Making the 6th PB&J, of just this morning.
Bending low to wipe the yellow spotted toilet seat.

It’s the daily monotony that makes motherhood boring.

When we bend low with serving posture we see how low Christ bends to make Himself known to us.

He bends low to cleanse the mold of our messy souls.
He bends low to wipe away sobs of distress.
He bends low to open ears to cicada’s chants and noses to sweetgrass’ perfume.

Monotonous rituals of motherhood
shape us,
make us,
creates in us
the serving posture of Christ.

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jessica

07-29-2016

Friday’s TidBit

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This quote was shared during a writing workshop I recently attended and I loved how thought provoking it was.

Enjoy your weekend!

jessica

07-21-2016

The 6th Anniversary of Mat’s Death: Grieving A Suicide (or any death) Takes Time

The 6th anniversary of my brother in law’s death to suicide is this week.

As the week unfolds I am reminded what I need most during pressing times like these is to move slower.
Breathe deeper.
To give myself time to process the grief that wraps itself around you and clinches tight.

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Losing someone tragically, without warning, provides no time for the slow process of letting someone go.

Before we lost Mat, death was, for me, found most often at the end of an elderly person’s life.

Death at an old age seems natural in a way.
The body decays as we age and at a certain point our souls can’t continue on in a decomposing body.

When a 32 year old man who seemed to be thriving in so many ways is declared dead, to say it’s a tough pill to swallow is the same as saying Niagara Falls is just like that tiny creek in your backyard.

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Between “go to the pool so the swim lessons will be worth it” and  “putting up jars of peaches, tomatoes, and figs that occupy my kitchen table”…there seems little time this week to work in grieving.

I am easily overwhelmed when my to-do list stretches longer than “play at the house today”.

When I add ‘grieve for a loved one’ the list aches my soul.

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Relationships are forged over time and grieving works the same way.

We must permit ourselves time to grieve.

Time to process the sadness.
Time to process what was that will never be again.

My friend Amy who lost her mother in a tragic car accident a few years prior to Mat’s death told me…
time will never be the same for you.

Your reference point for the rest of your life will be “post this date”.

She was right.

Even now, six years later, I chronicle events in my head with Mat’s death as the marker of them all.

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It took me two years post Mat’s death before I would be able to write in a journal again.

Me, the girl who’d been journaling since pre teenage years. But to write it down meant I was committing it to reality.

When all I wanted to do was turn back time and have more time and alter reality.

In six years we’ve come so far. {There’s an entire book that could be written here in what happens in being a suicide survivor. That’s actually what they call the family members and friends who’ve lost someone to suicide. Crazy isn’t it? Usually being a survivor of “something” means you actually had the atrocity done to you. But picking up the pieces of a torn up broken into rags life is the atrocity that’s been done, the war wrecked reality you have to wade yourself through.}

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For me, losing someone tragically seems to magnify the loss.

The anniversary seems more poignant, more reminiscent.

And that’s where I find myself today, this week.

Simply needing time.
Time to be slow.
Time to acknowledge what was lost.

Reminding myself that the tomatoes desperate to be canned will be just fine if they end up being frozen instead.
Recollecting it’s okay if my children don’t perfect their swimming skills this summer.
Repeating the mantra to make time for myself so I can be a patient, compassionate, and caring mom and wife.

{There is so much more I could write & say on the subject of grieving a suicide. To sum it all up, you just feel a heavy aching in your heart that this is now reality. I even feel weird posting this. I didn’t write it to have condolences. I am just sharing because it’s what is on my heart and I want to be authentic. Plus, maybe it will encourage someone out there who is grieving a loss. And whether that loss is from a tragic death or from watching a loved one slowly slip away year after year – grieving is all the same…healing from loss requires time to experience and journey through grief.}

Love,

jessica

07-15-2016

Nice, Dallas, Minnesota, Louisiana: When will the bloodshed end?

82 in Nice, France

Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota

Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisana

5 officers in Dallas, Texas

Washing away blood stains on the sidewalks of Nice is someone’s job today.
Blood is dripping on the streets of this planet.

Where do we find solace?
How do we make sense out of any of this?

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There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us….And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. I John 4:18-21

Love is being kind, patient, tolerant, accepting, looking out for
those whose religion or views doesn’t match our own, those with skin a different pigment than our own.

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Fear invades our soul when mass killings are rampant. When we realize it could happen to us, to those we love.

When I am afraid, I will trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise, 
in God I trust, I will not be afraid. 
What can mortal man do to me?   Psalm 56: 3&4

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When the questions arise, because surely they will.
When having faith feels like walking on eggshells.
When our daily companions are Where are you GOD? WHY? When will you intervene? WHY? 

Remember faith is not only a choice but also a gift from God.

When faith can’t be found on our own, we need to ask Him to help us have it.

There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things {even our faith in Him} and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. I Corinthians 8:6

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May the hearts of those who grieve today be comforted deeply by the words of Christ.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

jessica

07-13-2016

Photojournal of Summer 2016: Choosing Contentment in the Messiness of Life

We’ve made it to July 13th which seems equal parts miracle “we’ve survived thus far without siblings killing one another” and equal parts “where in the world has summer gone”?

Every weekend is full of friends and family visiting or taking trips of our own and I am starting to feel like we are careening on a roller coaster that won’t slow down.

Being a girl who not only wants but truly needs a lot of margin in her life, I’m feeling a bit unraveled by all this busyness.

Despite my best intentions to fill our days with minimal cost activities and trips to the beach, we’ve actually spent most week days being very lazy at home.

Just us in our pj’s. Reading books. Getting messy with science experiments. Making lego princess castles.

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Now, don’t let me fool you that it’s all roses and peaches while we lounge around.

Our house is quite messy, sibling squabbles abound, and made beds are a thing of the past – as if they were ever even in existence in my house.

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You may look at these pictures and see joy & fulfillment or you may never see further than the dirt, grime, and mess.

How you look at my pictures – how you take in your own summer – your own spot in life right now,
it’s all in your perspective.

Isn’t that what joy and gratitude are really all about?
They are a choice you make every moment of your life.

You can focus on what you don’t have or spend your moments being thankful for what you do have.

When I can’t find contentment, I pray for God to show me what to give thanks for.  There have been days, months, years when all I saw was darkness, anxiety, and fear. All my life didn’t turn out to be.

But when I pray for an eternal perspective, when I beg on my knees for Him to show me what I do have right in front of me that I never fully appreciate…
He whispers back and nudges me to find the beauty found within the dirt, grime, and mess.

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There is beauty all around you.
I hope you find some today.

jessica

happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed.
happiness is the spiritual experience of living every moment with love, grace, and gratitude.
~ spiritual gangster

07-08-2016

Friday’s TidBit: An Easy Trick to Reduce Acidity in Tomato/Spaghetti Sauces

When I started this blog 5 years ago, I really had no clue what I was doing.

I simply wanted to share recipes and encourage other people to live life locally.

Fast forward 5 years and there have been plenty of changes to both the way my blog looks and to how I write.

More & more I write about faith and less & less do I share recipes.

But more than anything, I have this desire to write but writing isn’t always my top priority.

I finally realized though, these thoughts in my head will never be more than just that: thoughts in my head…if I don’t do something about it and simply write.

So here’s my new goal: to write 2 blog posts a week. One post (perhaps on Tuesday’s?) will be deeper/reflective/insightful. The other post (hopefully on Friday’s) will be a fun fact I’ve learned, a quick recipe trick, a quote that was touching to me.

So there it is…perhaps writing down & publishing my goal will help me stay on track? I’ve never been great at habit setting. But if I want to be a better writer, if I want to grow as a writer, then I’ve got to take the first step and simply write more frequently.

Today’s First Friday Tidbit is all about making tomato sauce not have acidity.
Or at least lowering the acidity so it doesn’t cause heartburn.

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I grew up on a farm so it should come as no surprise that I adore tomatoes.

In my mind, summer = tomato.

There’s tomato sandwiches on biscuits for breakfast, BLT’s for lunch, and caprese salad for dinner.

Then there’s the obligatory hours spent in the kitchen canning all those tomatoes so you can enjoy them in the winter.

It’s funny how adulthood rituals are often habits we learned in childhood.

I spent every summer of my childhood canning tomatoes and I’ll probably be spending my 38th birthday this month: canning tomatoes.

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Until recently everytime I had spaghetti sauce or any dish with cooked tomatoes, the acidity would cause the worst heartburn/indigestion. A few years ago, I even went to the doctor because I was worried about chest pains. It’s a bit humiliating when she simply says: I think it’s just heartburn.

Recently at the library I checked out The Clever Cookbook by Emilie Raffa at The Clever Carrot and ya’ll….
did you know you could reduce acidity in tomato sauce type recipes by using butter instead of oil??

It’s the best discovery of 2016 for me!

Her tomato sauce recipe was so simple but SO GOOD. It’s basically just using butter in place of the olive oil I’d normally use but it changed the chemical makeup so drastically that I was licking the tomato sauce bowl clean.

I realize most of us think tomato sauce is very basic and you can’t imagine wanting to drink it. But I promise, her recipe is that good.

I used the trick earlier this week when I made spaghetti sauce and I had no problem with heartburn.

Simply use 2 – 3 TBSP of butter when sauteing onions or garlic before adding in canned tomatoes to make any tomato/spaghetti sauce dish less acidic.

It’s that easy ya’ll. Nothing complicated here in today’s Friday TidBit.

Thank ya’ll for reading my blog and being so encouraging! I hope you are able to find a cool place to be this weekend with temps in triple digits for many people. Thank God for air conditioning!

jessica