Tag Archives: life

Jun 29 2023
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new wine/old skins

There’s this interesting parable in the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke where Jesus talks about wine. 

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved." - Matthew 9:17 (CSB)
"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins." - Mark 2:22 (NLT)
"And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wants new; for he says, 'The old is fine.'" - Luke 5:37-39 (NASB2020)

I can’t think of a time when I’ve heard a sermon preached on this random section of Jesus’ teaching that 3 of the 4 Gospel writers deemed significant enough to include. I’m sure I’ve heard one, I just can’t remember it at the moment.

There’s also a chance I haven’t heard one. Because let’s be honest, it’s a weird parable. And I grew up in a church that didn’t talk about wine, sssoooo

But.

What I do remember, vividly, is a conversation I had with my Spiritual Director a couple of months ago.

For those of you unfamiliar with spiritual direction – like I was just a few years ago – in an article in Christianity Today, Richard Foster defines it as, “an interpersonal relationship in which we learn how to grow, live, and love in the spiritual life. Spiritual direction involves a process through which one person helps another person understand what God is doing and saying.”

Basically, I sit with my Spiritual Director (SD from here on out) and talk about what God might be up to in my life.

So, back to a couple of months ago.

I was sitting with my SD in the cozy space she has for us to meet, talking about the recent movement of Holy Spirit and how He was really catching me off guard. I was experiencing relationships in new, fresh, safe ways and I didn’t know what to do with it.

“Sounds like new wine,” she so rudely quipped.

“Hmmm,” I so wisely murmured.

“You might need some new wineskins.”

“That feels really costly.”

And that conversation has been ringing loudly in my ears since May 15th.

Because new wineskins are costly. Literally, you have to go out and buy them. You can’t just walk into the cellar and pull out the old wineskins you’ve had for years and years. Because, as aforementioned by our Gospel writers, new wine will cause the old wineskins to burst.

But the old wineskins…man…they’re comfortable. They’re familiar. They’re accessible. They’re available.

They don’t cost anything.

I don’t have to spend emotion, money, time, energy, etc. on the old wineskins.

But if I put new wine into them, I lose the wine AND the wineskins.

New wineskins are costly.

They require work.
Time.
Energy.
Risk.
Vulnerability.
Stepping out of my comfort zone to go and get them.

But if I put the new wine from the new harvest into the new wineskins, everything gets preserved.

It’s so attractive to just walk into the cellar and grab the old wineskins. There’s less risk and less effort involved.

But the old wineskins just don’t work anymore.

All of the new that I have tried to force into the old patterns (aka: wineskins) can’t be held. It all falls apart. And I would argue it all falls apart for the better.

Because the Lord is offering new wine AND new wineskins.

He’s not giving me fresh wine without also providing the proper container.

He’s inviting me to receive both gifts – the wine and the skins – open handedly and without fear that, even though the new wineskins are costly, He is helping me figure out how to cover the tab.

Don’t get it twisted – this isn’t about my salvation and paying for my own redemption.

This is about God offering me fresh abundance and me wanting to stuff it into old patterns of living that have not served me well. The old is comfortable, like the quilt my Great Aunt Vi made. And it serves its purpose. It did the best it could for me with what it had.

But I have something new now.

And while the new might be costly, it will be worth it.
It will be worth it to see the craftsmanship the Creator comes up with to hold this new wine.

I can’t wait to see what’s to be stored.

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Sep 10 2022
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Friendship

a great cloud of withness

Did you have a basement as a kid? If so, are the we same type of weird where (if the light switch was at the bottom of the stairs) as soon as your turned the lights off you broke the land speed record getting to the top so you could stay away from all the monsters that crept out when the lights were off? There are even times now, as a grown woman, that I have to force myself to slow down and walk gingerly up the steps of my parents house, reminding myself that the monsters in the basement aren’t interested in me and will leave me alone.

My miniBFF recently asked me to come to the basement with him because he needed to grab a couple things for nap time. On the way down he mentioned that he was scared of going to the basement by himself. After a, “No problem, I’ll go with you!” he asked, “Are you scared of anything?”

“I’m scared of a lot of things bud.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes I’m scared of the dark, basements by myself, and being up really high. There are alot of things that scare me.”
“How do you not be scared?”
“Well, I ask Jesus to help me be brave, and my friends help me remember that I can be brave because they are there to help me too! When I’m scared, I just ask for someone to come with me, and then we can both be brave together!”
“Like we’re doing right now!”

Exactly.

(side note: it’s always the kids. pay attention to them. the kingdom belongs to these.)

I haven’t been able to let this interaction go. It holds the truest thing about my story over the last couple of years. It speaks to the great cloud of withness about me.

Withness is a term I swiped from Ann Voskamp. I don’t fully know the context she uses it in because I just get it from her Instagram stories, but ultimately she speaks to the witness and withness of Christ and His people.

We bear witness to the Gospel as we bear with one another.

As I embark on new adventures or travel back into wounded spaces, I can do so with great bravery because I know that I have the withness of those that love me in the journey. I bring those with me that remind me of who I am, and who Christ is, in the midst of the hard, beautiful, scary, dark, exciting, unknown places.

Sometimes that looks like a first date.
Sometimes that looks like a hard conversation with a friend.
Sometimes that looks like a celebration of a loved one for a thing that I’m longing for.
And sometimes, that looks like walking down the steps into a basement with a little one that just needs me to be with him to help him be brave.

I can be brave with and for him because someone has been brave with and for me.

So many of us are unwilling to go with someone because of what it might cost us. It could cost us time, energy, or even money. It could cost us vulnerability and having to actually be known by someone – risking both rejection and love. But if there’s one thing I know in the depth of my bones, it’s that the reward of going with has always (and I do mean always) outweighed the risk.

If you’re scared, bring people along.
Ask them to be with you.
Be with those that ask.

Getting through this life, IMHO, will be abundantly rich if we take with us a great cloud of withness.

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Jun 11 2022
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Relationships

the smallest grasp

My friend’s youngest is learning how to walk. TBH, if I were her, I’d keep letting suckers like me pick her up to snuggle until I’m 18, but apparently that’s not how developmental stages work.

Not long ago I was sitting on her kitchen floor, arms outstretched, coaxing her to take a step or two. She’d done it before, so we knew the feat could be mastered, but she was paralyzed in a tiny little 16 month old stance. Making eye contact with me, looking at my hands, my fingertips just out of reach of hers. I balled up my fist and offered her just my pinky – because we’re classy ladies. #pinkysout
She took the tiniest hold on the tip of my tiniest finger and immediately raced across the tiled floor into my arms.

I scooped her up, we yelled “YAY!!”, and tried again.

I’ve been thinking about that small, necessary grasp a lot since then.

Thinking about how often I am paralyzed, reaching out for the smallest point of connection in order to move forward. And once I have that connection, how easy it is to run with zero hesitation.

Thinking about how, often, Holy Spirit is just waiting for me to take a step on my own. How Jesus – my Savior and Example – is cheering me on, knowing that I’ve done it before and I can do it again and it is okay to trust myself.

How just the smallest grasp – the tiniest tip – of connection and safety can propel forward soul-shifting action.

Often all I’m looking for with Jesus is a point of connection. His pinky finger outstretched in front of me.

The thing I hope this little one knows is that my pinky will always be there to grab hold of.
The thing I hope I never forget is that Jesus is always there to grab hold of.

Movement forward doesn’t need gigantic signs of confirmation, perfection in the steps to be taken, or zero-risk on the road ahead.

It just needs the smallest grasp.

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Jan 03 2022
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Word of the Year

2021 – the year of abundance

It’s time for a word-of-the-year recap! The only consistency this blog has offered in the last 3 years!

2021 saw me leave behind hope in an effort to move forward with abundance. 2021 was going to be the year that I watched God grow up out of the ground all of the things we had been planting together over the last few years. It was going to be the year that I asked, of every person/situation/choice/etc, “Is this life or death? Because if it’s death, I want nothing to do with it.”

The verse that I sat with for 365 days (2021 wasn’t a leap year, right?) was John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

I said to myself over-and-over again…

iykyk

“Is this trying to steal, kill, or destroy? Or is this bringing me life?”
One is from the thief.
One is from Jesus.

And if it’s from Jesus, abundance will follow.

The tricky thing for my heart in leaning in to that line of thinking was/is – does declaring something as God’s abundance mean that I think He is some kind of genie? That all along it’s just been up to me to ‘name it and claim it’? All God has been waiting for was for me to say some magical word and then He would open the floodgates of heaven?

Youth group worship song session, anyone?

I used to think that abundance would have to show up as grand, big, and uncontainable. But it doesn’t. Turns out, God’s abundance – the kind of life giving abundance that Jesus came to give to His people – found it’s way in to my life in really small, ordinary, what some might call mundane things.

His abundance was found in a condo with friends making homemade birthday potstickers.
His abundance was found in a new pair of cycling shoes.
His abundance was found in my nephew seeing himself as Iron Man on a poster for his third birthday and losing his mind in the best of ways.
His abundance was found in weeping on friends couches because I’d been delighting myself in the Lord for so long and yet He had not given me the desires of my heart and nothing makes sense anymore.
His abundance was found in a vacation in the mountains with my family.
His abundance was found in a thousand small ways that prior to this year I would have never given Him credit for.

The thing I learned from this year is that I need to keep asking, “Is this trying to steal, kill, or destroy? Or is this trying to give me life?”
Because if it’s life, it’s from Jesus.
And if it’s from Jesus, abundance will follow.

And if simple life from Jesus is all the abundance I ever get, I think I’ll be set.

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Aug 29 2018
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take & eat

take & eat.png

I’m not sure if I’m focused on this concept because I’m hungry or what, but here we go.

I often forget that the enemy never has the upper hand.

I’m in the middle of a season of crap. Just grey, dreary crap. And it’s not just me, but those I love are in the middle of crap too. It has, simply put, been a really weary season in a lot of different ways.

I have seen up close & personal that the enemy comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And – especially in isolation –  I forget the rest of the story. That Jesus came to give life and give it abundantly.

I love the way Jesus sets it up in John 10:10 – “the enemy does that, I do this.”

Jesus steps in and flips the script on what satan is trying to accomplish.

Which brings me to: “take & eat.”

In Genesis 3, we read about the serpent tempting Eve. He taunts her with, “Did God actually say…” – manipulating God’s truth and planting doubt in Eve’s mind. And she falls for it. The enemy essentially says, “Take and eat. You’ll be fine! God just doesn’t want you to eat this fruit because you’ll be like Him. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be your own god?”

So, she takes & eats.

And so does Adam.

And in comes brokenness and disobedience and shame and separation from the Holy One who created them.

The enemy does that.

Then Jesus does this:

And when the hour came, he [Jesus] reclined at the table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Luke 22:14-20

Jesus’ invitation to His disciples: take & eat.

He redeemed that which the enemy marred.

He took the invitation that ushered in death and remade it into an invitation that brings life.

He made the meal and the invitation new.

And guess what?

He’s going to do it again.

When Christ returns – just as He said He would – and sets all things right, we’re going to have another meal together.

I imagine being at the marriage supper of the Lamb, Jesus standing at the head of the table with a glass raised high, arms outstretched and declaring to all in attendance, “Take & eat.”

It makes me weepy thinking about how God is actively making all that the enemy has broken new and whole once again. How even in the middle of what feels like death, satan still doesn’t have the upper hand.

All of the crap, all of the weariness, is being pierced with light and given fresh life. The season is being restored, whether I can see it happening in the here & now or not.

It is.

Jesus is still in the business of giving life and giving it abundantly.

He is still flipping the script on the lies the serpent tries to tell His people.

The bread might be dry, and the wine a little bitter, but the invitation to take & eat is enough hope to hold on to for today.

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