It wasn’t a place I ever dreamed I’d be, unable to help myself. As a young adult I had a moral compass set on true north and I stuck to it. I was not easily swayed. However, at twenty-three I met my undoing.

This year my aha moment came from the words of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. In Luke 1:25 it is recorded that she says, “The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” Elizabeth unknowingly was a conduit of God’s much bigger plan.

From the Best of Joying in the Journey

An Open Letter to My Boys

I can’t believe it’s been five months since your Meemaw left this world. We’re still clearing out her condo where the stored memories linger.

And among those are pictures … loads of them.

My Letter to You

Pictures of friends, relatives, weddings, birthdays, Thanksgivings and Christmases past.
A trip back in time to days forgotten. The good, the bad, and oh so ugly …
Pop-Pop loved to catch us in the worst possible moments and Meemaw kept them all to savor or perhaps for torture.

But the photos that burned my eyes and stirred my heart were the screenshots of my little men.

Toe-headed scoundrels playing in the mud with bare bodies and Sunday shoes.
Practicing future Olympians on a backyard swing set.
Little boys cuddled sweetly in Meemaw’s lap after a nap.

I miss you.

And to be honest, when the normal busy of the day gets tucked away and I’m ready for sleep … sometimes my heart will ache with the miss.

It aches for tiny arms that stretched around my neck squeezing the ever-lovin' life out of me.
It aches for the chipmunk-like voices saying, “Mommy, I love you more than anything in the world.”
It aches for the heart to heart talks about problems only a mama can solve.

It aches for the excitement of new toys on a Christmas morning and a first-time visit to Disney World.

Yes, it even aches for the T-ball all the way to middle school baseball games — hearing you recount the home run, the awesome catch, how you won or should have won when you didn’t.

I miss you.

The pickup trucks lined in the driveway and up and down the street. The endless, sleepovers and sleepless nights waiting up for you. The sneakiness. The mischief that came with those teenage years.

I miss you.

I miss your smell. I miss your presence. But most of all I miss how you loved me.

It’s not that you love me less. I know you don’t. It's just different. It has to be. You’re all grown up and married and I love who you’ve chosen for your forever.

I’m caught here in a strange place.

I can’t be your buddy like your Dad. I can’t be on your frontline like I once was. That place is for your lovely wife — my new daughter.

So now I take my place on the sidelines. From here I will not lose a chance to cheer you both on.

But it doesn’t stop the ache. The missing.

Motherhood is a bit of a conundrum in that way — a position where joy and heartache mingle together on a daily basis.

But the blessing far outweighs the pain.

Even though I miss you, please don’t misunderstand me, I'm not asking to have you back. I've always known you were a gift from God and were not mine to keep. But I didn't realize our time would pass this swiftly.

I love who you’ve become but my job is now done. I pray that you’ve learned some good from me, but more so I pray for God to give you discernment to throw out the bad.

I Want to Be Her Champion

However, I don’t want to be intrusive in your life or rob you of the joy you share with your wife. You belong to her in every way. And I don’t want to mess that up.

You’ve blessed me with a daughter I didn’t have. I want her to know I’m not competing for you or with her and I’m not judging her every move. Oh, quite the opposite.

I want to be her champion.

Her safe place.

Her friend.

But I didn’t raise her and I know only time and experience can grow the tender seed of trust. Such a relationship takes seasons to build.

So I will build. I will love. I will wait.

And even then,

I know there will always be those days when the busy gets tucked away and I’m ready for bed, screenshots of little boys at play will flash through my head.

And I'll find myself missing you.

We all have a story—a story God has written on the pages of our lives so we can retell it to the benefit of others and to God's glory.

One of the first posts I wrote way back in the day, was a tongue in cheek article about anxiety.

I can tease about myself but for most people struggling with anxiety, it’s no laughing matter. It’s debilitating.

I gave a talk this past summer in which I shared part of my story that had to do with panic and peace.

Two words as far from each other as the east is from the west.

For me, anxiety was just part of my life, my journey through this world.

When I stepped off the stage I was taken aback at how many others were on a similar journey still seeking answers on how to daily win the battle with the beast.

As I read today in a daily devotional, I was reminded of this familiar verse:

“Be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer, petition, and thanksgiving, let your request be known to God and the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hears and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:6-7

For the longest time, I didn’t do this verse well. Let me get you up to speed. In case you didn’t catch it earlier,

I have a panic disorder.

There I said it.

Actually, it’s not hard to say. Gone are the days where people whispered such things. And yes, I’ve had it since I was a little girl. I’m not sure where it came from. Maybe it’s in my genes, or perhaps it was the loud atmosphere of my childhood home. We were yellers. Lot’s of tension. Let’s just leave it at that.

Anxiety manifests itself differently in children than adults and it wasn’t until I was in college that I had my first full-blown panic attack. Although I didn’t recognize it as such. I just thought I might have a little bit of “crazy” in me. Special, isn't it?

I'd have seasons of attacks separated by as much as a year or more.

I remember before I got married thinking about how I was going to explain my “crazy” attacks to my future husband. But I didn’t have to. The stress of a new marriage brought them into full view. Thank you, Jesus! I mean really, thank you, Jesus, because I was able to get a proper diagnosis and solutions on how to cope.

Though now I could control the attacks for the most part (they make drugs for that) generalized anxiety continued to plague me well into my early 40’s.

I knew the all familiar verse in Philippians quoted above but I didn’t know why it didn’t work for me.

Early on I started naming it and claiming it. I prayed it. I memorized it. Then, I repeated it. I beat myself over the head with it, as if it was some kind of incantation that would work like magic.

But nothing. Not. A. Thing. Changed for me.

These were empty words on a lifeless page. I didn’t know how to apply the Word to my life.

That is... until the importance of my thought life and focus was explained to me.

Yes, peace comes with an attitude of gratitude. But hear me when I say, this is not just about please and thank you. It’s about thanking God for something you can’t see and don’t know exists yet. It’s one thing to speak the words thank you, it’s quite another to feel them. In order to feel them, you have to trust the one to whom they’re being given. And that requires a relationship.

As I drawn closer to Jesus, now I don’t just thank Him for what I can see but I thank Him and trust him for what I can’t—the place of anxiousness, the space I can’t control—the chasm between Dear God help me and my last Amen. It's there where the Power is at work.

When we pray God sets a plan into motion.

And peace comes with the belief... it is done.

It is finished— taken care of.

My worry was nailed to the cross 2,000 years ago.

I can walk away and trust His will is better than mine. I can let Him work out what I can’t do and turn my focus on what I can.

And that’s better than an incantation. More powerful than magic. And way better than a little crazy.

At first, Susan was just another neighbor. She lived a couple of streets over and we became acquainted when her son Philip and my youngest son Aaron became fast friends.

I remember thinking Susan was way too perfect.

She had a short, smart haircut and a cute preppy style. She always looked put together and squeaky clean. That was quite a feat considering she had two small children running around with four messy hands and twenty sticky fingers.

The thing that bugged me most though, was her house.

Nothing, I mean NOT. A. THING. was out of place.

Ever.

Day or night!

It was perpetually pristine. I know this because I popped in on her at odd times, hoping to catch her off guard with her house in disarray.

But it never was.

Still, there was something missing. Susan seemed to have a wall up a million miles high and as many miles wide.

One day at Christmastime we met for lunch without the kids. After our usual chit-chat, the subject of beliefs came up. Susan told me she had never been to church.

Wow, I don't think I had ever met anyone who hadn’t been to church.

Before I could stop myself, words started tumbling from my mouth. I told Susan the whole gospel story from the virgin birth to Jesus’ resurrection and explained how God sent Jesus to save us from our sins.

I have say, listening to myself tell this story, I thought, if I wasn't a believer, I’d think this was the most ridiculous story I'd ever heard.

You see, it was my first time.

Sure, I had answered friends questions, filling in blanks and giving my testimony, but I’d never told God’s redemptive story from the beginning to glorious end.

That is, until that day.

When I got through, I looked at Susan, and she stared back at me like a deer caught in headlights.

I thought, uh oh, I blew it, but then she said,

“That's the first time I've heard about Jesus.”

I was shocked.

How could a young, all-American mom live out 30 years of her life and never hear about Jesus?I went home happy about our conversation but still believing she thought I was a total nut case. Regardless I prayed daily for God to grow the seed He allowed me to plant.

Not too many days after our lunch our lives seemed to go in opposite directions. Our children went to different schools and participated in different sports, none of them overlapping. Suddenly our paths didn't cross anymore.

I continued to pray for Susan, that God would bring someone into her life to water the faith seeds planted.

God was faithful and brought Kim, a mutual friend, into Susan’s life.

Within a year Susan's husband was transferred. They sold their house in record time (of course, because it looked perfect and nothing was ever out of place) and they were off to a new adventure in Ohio.

Kim kept in touch with Susan better than me.

A year had flown by when I received a disturbing phone call from Kim about Susan's son Philip. He had contracted meningitis. They had mistaken it for the flu and he was now lying in a hospital bed, near death. I was asked to pray, and immediately got a prayer chain going.

I was able to speak with Susan several times during the long ordeal of Philip's illness. The gory details of what this disease was doing to his little body was hard to take. Her family had started going to a nearby church and though they hadn’t joined she talked with amazement at the love she felt from the members and how they rallied around her family, meeting their every need before she asked.

It was then I felt God impressing upon my heart to inquire whether Susan had asked Jesus to be her Lord. If there was ever a time for a Savior, it was now.

I nervously penned a letter to Susan. Spilling my guts, I explained the gospel message again and asked her to accept Jesus as her Savior.

Weeks passed. I spoke with her a couple of times catching up on Philip's rehabilitation but she never mentioned the letter.

I didn't either.

I felt stupid.

Should I have even sent it?

I prayed fervently to God,

"I know I'm just the seed planter but please allow me to know that Susan is yours.”

Another year passed. Christmas cards were exchanged. Philip had made a miraculous recovery. There were no signs left of the meningitis that had ravished his body and threatened his life.

Then one day, out of the blue, Susan called. It was wonderful to hear her cheerful voice. We did the small talk thing and caught up but I wondered why she really phoned.

The words she spoke next moved me to tears as they still do even as I write them now.

She said, "I wanted to call you today because I joined our church and they asked me give my testimony."

She paused, then continued.

"I told them the first time I heard about Jesus was the day I had lunch with you. Thank you.”

My prayer was answered. The phone call confirmed it.

We may never know this side of heaven the impact we might have on someone's life, by the words we use or the stories we tell. This time I did.

And I’m grateful.

Who lives two streets down from you? Who lives next door? Is it the all-American girl, the one that looks like she has it all together? The perfect life? Well, maybe she does or maybe there's something missing. And maybe God’s calling you to supply the missing piece.

Will you go?

Will you be somebody's first time?

Mark 16:15 He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."

I walked outside the other morning to see new growth on a plant that was beyond burned by our only freeze this year. I’m always in awe of how God works for our good even through the most difficult changes and arduous seasons of life. Looking down upon this miracle of the new green growth, I thought about one of my own.

It was a cool January evening when I checked all the doors to make sure they were locked and then turned out the lights on 15 happy years.

Warm tears rolled down my cheeks as my car rolled out the driveway — away from the home and the neighborhood where my children grew up, away from dear friends, away from the church I loved, and away from family and a lifetime of memories.

A new job. A new city. A freshly empty nest. All the elements needed for my perfect storm.

Wisdom pointed her finger to go, but with no certainty of return. Let’s just say it was a hard season.

Change. None of us like it. It’s different. It’s uncomfortable.

I wonder if Moses felt the same way the first time he left Egypt ?

Fleeing for his life, he left everything he ever knew and loved. He left the comforts of the familiar for the bitter taste of the unfamiliar and ended up on the far side of a desert tending sheep for the better part of 40 years. A slight detour from his purpose of delivering his people, from slavery. (Exodus2:15-23)

He probably thought this is it. The end of the road. I wonder if it made him sad?

But it was only a season. A new beginning actually.

And that’s the way it is.

Seasons come and seasons go. Some are grand, and frankly some are grim. Some we wish would never end. Some we feel never will and we wish they would. Some seasons are messy while others are just plain messed-up.

Friends tell us this too shall pass but we still wonder when, and we wonder why?

Though these changing seasons may appear chaotic at times, God has a reason for every season in our life. Each one with its own purpose builds on the last and prepares us for the next.

Just as God tilts nature, changing fall to winter and winter to spring to reflect His glory sprouting new growth, He allows our world to tilt a little to bring about changes in us that we might be better reflections of Him. There is a unique rhythm to it all. God’s perfect timing. God’s perfect plan.

Seasons push us towards our purpose notwithstanding the detours we take along the way. And even in those, God works them together for our good. For it’s from these detours we learn that the most powerful lessons often come out of the most painful places.

Maybe you feel like you just took a detour to the far side of a desert or perhaps you locked the door on what you thought were the best years of your life. Take heart sweet friend, change isn’t bad it’s just different and necessary for new growth.

We may not be able to fathom the scope of God’s mighty plan, but this we can trust. God knows where we are and where we need to be. Being our personal GPS, He’s calculated our time and distance and knows our ETA. And you can be sure He’s working for us, in us, and through us, to get us there.

“Yet God has made everything beautiful in its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

"For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Phillippians 2:13 (NIV)

ON YOUR MARK ... GET SET ... GO!

Hearing those words, I was always first off the starting block. Actually they were more like pieces of wood taped to the asphalt, but it was junior high; we made do.

It didn't matter to me because I was the fastest kid in our seventh-grade class. I could out-run the girls and the boys any day of the week ... except when it came to the 600-meter run.

Every year we had to go through something called the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. It consisted of a series of strength and endurance tests to determine each student's level of physical fitness. Those who finished the assessment in a certain percentile earned the coveted Presidential Physical Fitness Award.

I wanted that award in the worst kind of way. I knew I could ace the other tests, but year after year one eluded me. The 600-meter run. It seems like such a short distance now, but for this lanky seventh-grader, it was a marathon.

Before we started, the coach gave us instructions to set our pace to finish the race. I thought, Yeah, I know how to pace myself. Fast! I'll be around that track and done before the other kids hear the O in GO! Or, so I thought.

I figured I didn't need to heed the advice of our PE coach. What did he know? I'd set my own pace. And I did.

After running my heart out for about 100 meters, my legs suddenly felt like rubber and my lungs like lead. I couldn't go a second longer. Bent over and gasping for air, I watched out of the corner of my eye as each classmate plodded past me to victory.

Looking back, ignoring guidance and running as fast I could wasn't the best approach. As an adult, I can still run too fast and get ahead of God's plans. Instead of prayerfully asking God where He wants me, I speed ahead with my own agenda. And when I do, I'm like a fast-burning candle with a short wick. I burn out fast.

Our key verse, Philippians 2:13, tells us God has a plan and purpose for us, and He'll get us where He needs us to go. In His timing. We need not try to beat Him to the finish.

I've heard that patience is slowing down to the speed of someone else. I've also learned I need to have a little more patience with God and slow down to His pace — the pace He has set for me.

I have to admit I was disappointed every year that I didn't receive the Presidential Physical Fitness Award. But today, I'd rather finish my race at God's pace and have the reward of hearing Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Dear Heavenly Father, I have spent my life racing ahead, and I'm exhausted. My desire is to be in step with You. Help me slow down to Your pace, so I don't run past the place and purpose You have set for me. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

I thought the world would come to a standstill the day I discovered my ideal wasn’t real.

It was a Sunday afternoon after church, December 2004, when my oldest son, a freshman in college at the time, walked in the front door, through the kitchen, into the family room and emptied his pockets of his most prized possessions, laying them gently on his daddy’s chest.

The weight of my son’s wallet, checkbook and car keys woke my napping husband. As if innately ready for turbulent air, he pulled his “dad” recliner to its upright position.

“What’s this?” he inquired, looking at the bundle of goodies on his chest.

My husband who we refer to as Big David when lil David is around (I told him having the same name would be confusing one day), always told the boys if they blew it, (meaning if they weren’t responsible with what had been given them) their car, and their money would go back to the original owner. Him.

With a sheepish chuckle lil David humbly mumbled, “I got my grades.”

I’m not sure what Big David was feeling, but for me, call me a pessimist, but I knew in the pit of stomach what was coming next was not good.

Lil David had just finished his first semester at Auburn University. I talked to him on a weekly basis and every time I asked him how it was going, he answered.

“Everything’s good mom.”

“You’re sure?” I’d say.

“Yes ma’am.” he’d answer.

And like a big dummy, I believed him. This day would prove to crush my naive reality.

His dad went on to ask him, “So what did you make son?“

With another uncomfortable chuckle Lil David snorted, “Uh, .5.”

His Dad responds, “You mean a 1.5?”

“No sir, you heard me right, a point five.”

I thought, Jesus was a commin’ any minute because this was surely the end of life as we knew it!

Everything was pretty much a blur after that. I was in full-on panic mode. Thoughts went racing through my mind.

Surely this cannot be happening.

This is not what I expected

This was not what I imagined.

This is not what I had planned.

What will he do?

What will we tell people?

What will they think?

This is not ideal.

This was not one bit of MY ideal.

And it wasn’t. I had made big plans as to how my son’s life would run or should run and this wasn’t it.

Nope, it was more like:

He would go to Auburn, get his degree and pilots license. Meet some nice Christian girl (who would just happen to adore me) with a degree and a good job. They would get married. He would secure a job with an airline and we would forever fly anywhere and everywhere for free. Package deal with a big whopping bow on top.

Yep, that about sums it up.

How often do our realities get crushed because we make plans without considering the plans God has for us and those closest to us?

We often have ideals that simply aren’t real.

And when we think this way we set ourselves up for disappointment with our kids, with our spouses, careers and life.

Sure it’s good to set goals—for ourselves that is. But making goals for our children or spouses sets us up and them for failure.

It’s okay to tell God our ideas and ideals as long as we finish with, Lord, but Your will and plans are perfect. May it be done as you think best.

And then stand back baby and watch Him work!

I finally did.

My son didn’t take what I thought should be the traditional path. He took a better path with a detour…or two in between. But those redirects took him exactly where God wanted him to be.

An Air Force career and two degrees later, he has his dream wife and a new dream job. And a whole bunch of learned wisdom he might have not garnered otherwise.

Which was probably God’s ideal for him. Much better than mine I might add.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9