Chasing Blue Skies

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the Blog

High-waisted Pants and Emotional Muffin Tops

When You Must Walk Through Life-Stirring Change

For the Mama of the Graduate

A Peek into Our Kids’ Futures

When You’re Outside—Or Inside—the Clique

How to Build a Life Remembered by Others

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I intended to simply flip through this book while

I intended to simply flip through this book while at Starbucks yesterday afternoon, but I started reading it and continued reading it after I picked up my daughter from school and dropped her off at tennis. I continued reading after I picked her up from tennis and dropped her off for choir. Later that evening, I went home and kept reading still.

My point is this: There's a translucent, tender quality to author @meredith_mcdaniel's writing that grabbed me and didn’t let go.

I always belong where good writing springs from an authentic, relatable voice.

If like me you're all too familiar with fear and anxiety doing its level best to unravel you, then you’ll find solace and substance within #inwantandplenty. If you’ve undergone a difficult change or anticipate one, you’ll find this book acts as a wise (and less expensive!) therapist helping you process it all. A licensed professional counselor with her own private practice, Meredith offers us a place where our fears meet God’s faithfulness in this book’s pages. Find it wherever books are sold!

#whereIbelongwednesday
#fromthebookstack

I’ve been under a towering bout of fear lately,

I’ve been under a towering bout of fear lately, with a Committee of Inner Critics bossing me around. When I sit down to tap out something, I find myself second, third, fourth guessing what I’m gonna say to a degree it just seems preferable (easier, safer) not to say anything at all. So, I stop writing and vacuum the floors or make brownies.

I like vacuum lines. Making brownies is always a good choice, I reason. No fear there.

Still, a couple hours later, I take a deep breath and sit my hind-end down to get at it again. I’ll keep at it because small steps are still progress and the only way through is through.

Fear tries to push us toward a place of questioning, “What if this or that?”
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But Christ’s love compels us toward a place of resting, “Even if this or that, you're accepted and loved.”
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If you fear doing that thing you know God is asking you to do, think about taking one tiny step where He’s asking you to go. His perfect love drives out fear.

May you and I keep moving through not because we have no fear, but because in the smallest of ways we’re brave enough to live from how the Creator made us and out of Jesus’ love for us. That is where you and I belong.
#WhereIBelongWednesday

After texting yesterday with Cheryl, one of my dea

After texting yesterday with Cheryl, one of my dearest friends whose husband is deployed to the Middle East, I sauntered down memory lane through this photo. All us gals met as neighbors living on a military base almost twenty years ago. I told Cheryl, pictured above, that among other things, my family is praying God would place divine bubble wrap around her good man. (Not the loftiest of sentiments, but a heartfelt one just the same.)
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My husband is no longer active duty, but military families are always close to my heart.

Service members don’t make the policy decisions, but they do make the sacrifices. We can honor their sacrifices by seeing and praying for them and their families. If you struggle to come up with your own prayer, feel free to borrow mine.👇🏻
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Lord, protect our service members on the front lines of danger.
Be with their families on the front lines of uncertainty and calm their new waves of anxiety.
Give our leaders Your wisdom and discernment.
Show us how we can offer words and actions of support to those military families in our circles.
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“God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in a sea storm and earthquake, before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.” Psalm 46:1-3 (The Message) .
#WhereIBelongWednesday

It’s a new year—a new decade—but maybe the s

It’s a new year—a new decade—but maybe the same ol’ problem or circumstances followed you right onto the new calendar. Maybe you prayed your guts out for some kind of resolution to the problem before the holidays, because after all, wouldn’t you enjoy Christmas all the more without this blasted thing hanging over your head? But no answers came, and it seems your New Year looks awfully similar to the previous one.

You’re hanging onto the side of that same ol’ same ol’ cliff.

In one way, that’s where I am. But yesterday I go and read the Scripture passage about when the synagogue ruler was told not to bother Jesus with his requests. Overhearing the exchange, Jesus told the ruler, “Do not fear; only believe.”
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Faith over fear, prayer instead of panic. While my circumstances haven’t changed, there’s something about those 5 words in Mark 5:35 that put my feet a bit more on solid ground. May we both take Jesus at His word, believing we aren’t forgotten (because we’re not). Wait in anticipation rather than trepidation and see what He will do.

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