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| A gift for you… It’s #ChristmasComeEarly! Read on to find out how it’s yours… |
It happens every time I leave a friend’s house, or a party, or a Bible study.
It happens every time I trip on a sidewalk, or forget the diaper bag for my toddler, or try to make someone laugh and the joke falls flat. It happens when I try to pull on jeans that no longer fit.
The doubt happens. And I question who I am.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. What if they thought I was shallow, or insincere? How could I have forgotten her name? Do I come across as caring? And why did I have to wear that? Why couldn’t I look more like ___ or ____? Why do I have to be me?
I do it on the long ride home, in the moments between brushing teeth and bed, in church on the pew behind the heads of families all lined up neatly in a row while my children climb all over me.
Do you see me? Do I see them? How can I help them, and what do they think of me? I’ll never be enough.
It’s a voice that tells me I don’t measure up, don’t live up to some unseen code, failing the mothers or the wives or the women’s etiquette and my flowers like Ann’s–all wild and knotted.
But then another voice whispers something so beautiful I stop the world to hear it: I push back the criticism and the self-doubt and I strain my ears to hear, that voice that sounds like a man cheering on his boy who’s playing baseball or that woman applauding her baby who’s learning to walk, it sounds like hallelujah.
You are mine, and you are loved, the voice tells me.
I can’t hear it in the dark, though. I have to fling open the windows and let the sun in and then the voice is everywhere, singing in the rafters of my home and it’s a sweet smelling magnolia tree.
You are accepted and redeemed and forgiven. You are chosen and you measure up and you’re beautiful. You are everything you need to be because you are a daughter of the king.
Some days I sit too long on the computer. Someone’s Facebook status says they’ve done this or that, or been invited to this, or have reached so many followers, and my world comes crashing down because my world has become too small. My world has become my computer.
And that’s when I close the laptop and run outside. Stand beneath the maple trees in my backyard and listen to the wind rustle the leaves.Remember that everything is so much bigger than me. Life is about so much more than me.
And that’s when I hear it, again.
I delight in you, the voice whispers. I celebrate your existence. I see you, and I rejoice, because everything I make is good, and my Son has set you free. So live, daughter, fully!
Because this is my father’s world. And he is here, telling me he’s got a plan I can’t imagine and he’s got stars which he knows by name and he’s counted the hairs on my head and I am enough. Because he is in me, and greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.
I stand there and I hear the song of my father. A song sung over me, Zepheniah says, and it’s a song of the redeemed. And it tells me:
Nothing from the past can keep God’s song from changing me.
Nothing that happens today can keep me from believing in hope.
And nothing in the future can scare me from choosing love in this very moment.
God is so much bigger than me, than my worries, than my fears yet he became small enough to fit in a manger.
And because of this, because of his deep, deep love for me, the kind that holds the world tight, it doesn’t matter what people think or say, for I know who I am.
I am His.
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GIFT TIME
Friends… it’s #ChristmasComeEarly!!!
I have a brand-new e-book out, hot off the presses, called Canvas Child: A Collection of Art and Poetry by Emily T. Wierenga.
Here’s a description of the book from Amazon.com:
“Canvas Child is a compilation of paintings and poetry by artist Emily T. Wierenga. Wierenga is an active speaker and blogger, a disillusioned pastor’s daughter and the author of multiple books. These poems and paintings were created over a period of significant spiritual growth, during which Wierenga was ministering to Young Life kids while battling a relapse into anorexia nervosa. It is her prayer that they will somehow serve to minister to others.”
~Emily Wierenga’s style is pure poetry. Her sensuality, depth and tenderness seep down into your very bones. (Janet Fitch, White Oleander)
~I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Emily Wierenga at my annual writers’ workshop in Italy. Emily competed to participate in the Lake Como workshop, and her beautiful prose made her an immediate winner. Emily Wierenga is a writer to watch. (Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief, The Sandalwood Tree, The Chef’s Apprentice)
**And? Thanks to Dan King of FistbumpMedia.com, I get to give it to each of you for FREE. All you have to do is take a minute to subscribe to this blog HERE:
and you’ll instantly have it in your inbox!
Not only that, but we’re throwing in an e-book sampler of my book, Chasing Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder, along with Canvas Child, so you’ll get TWO free e-books just for subscribing!
It’s all for you, my dear readers… And for those who’ve already subscribed? There should be an email in your inbox with both books attached. ((You))
Thanks to my buddy Dan for doing all of this for me. #fistbump
(And by the way? I strongly encourage you to check out FistbumpMedia.com for all your blog design, email subscriber management, social media coaching, and publishing needs. It rocks.)
So much love, e.