Velvet Ashes

It’s Time to Trade the Yoke {Velvet Ashes}

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I’m hosting The Grove at Velvet Ashes today. This is the first thing I wrote after finishing a “writing fast” a few weeks ago. (As an aside, completing this purposeful season of electronic quietness must have unleashed a torrent of words inside me, as evidenced by the sheer number of blog posts and Facebook statuses I’ve shared in the time since writing this post.) ~Elizabeth

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At the beginning of this year I sensed God pressing the pause button on my writing. Not now, He said, not yet. I nodded and said OK. You’ve got stuff in your heart that needs to come out, He said —black, tarry, sticky stuff. I sighed and told Him I knew.

There was a stronghold in my life, a particular set of sins I’d been unequally yoked to. So I stopped writing and started working hard with God instead. Except I wasn’t always working with Him; sometimes I was working against. I complained, I reasoned, I argued. I contended that I was right and He was wrong. I kicked against those goads, oh yes I did.

Until one morning this month when breakthrough began, and the yoke began to crack. Later that day I sensed God lifting the ban on writing, almost as if to say, Ok, now you can start writing again, and THIS is what you need to write about.

Which is why I’m here today, taking a deep breath and walking to the front of the online support group we call Velvet Ashes. It’s why I’m steadying my feet, looking into your lovely virtual faces, and announcing that I’m Elizabeth, and I’ve been yoked to bitterness. I’ve harbored unforgiveness in my heart. I’ve been very, very angry.

Finish reading this post here.

A Letter to Singles {Velvet Ashes}

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Jonathan’s over at Velvet Ashes today, with a letter to single ladies serving abroad…

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You are loved. Cherished, even.

Not because you were brave enough to move overseas “alone.”
Not because you ignored the caring relatives who asked, “How in the world will you find a husband over there?”

You are loved. Adored, even.

Not because you’re an independent thinker, a strong person.
Not because you’ve sacrificed.

You are loved. Anticipated, even.

Because of Him.

You are loved by the eternal God, your Harbor.
You are loved by a Dad who wraps you up in his everlasting arms.

Continue reading here.

When God Paid for Christmas {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . .

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Money was so tight my freshman year in college that my family cancelled Christmas. We were struggling financially, and the three jobs my dad was working afforded him only four hours of sleep a night — with too little monetary margin to waste on presents.

When my parents told us there wouldn’t be any presents that year, my two younger sisters and I were unruffled. We were completely fine with a low-key Christmas. We’d each saved up a little bit of money to spend on Mom and Dad and each other, and that would be the extent of our gift-giving. But after all, presents aren’t what Christmas is all about, and we could still celebrate in our usual way.

Which is exactly what we did. We cracked open the special popcorn tin that was reserved for Christmas Eve. We munched away at the three different flavors of popcorn as we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” –another one of our Christmas Eve traditions. Then, in a deviation from the norm (and because we weren’t planning to wake up early to open presents) my sisters and I stayed up late into the night, past midnight in fact, laughing and joking and giggling over who-knows-what.

Finish reading this post here.

Naming the Missing Pieces of Our Souls {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . .

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I grew up in a faith tradition that sang acappella. Worship could arise in any place and any time: our voices were all we needed. We didn’t need advance planning. We didn’t even need songbooks, for the words were written on our hearts.

The songs of my childhood held such depth and resonance. There were four-part harmonies and four-part songs, echoes and counter melodies, descants and rounds. There were the “Greatest Commands” and the “Magnificat.” There was “Lord, Be There” and “Someday.”

There was singing in the stairwell after Sunday night church, where acoustics were the best. There was singing in the dirt at summer camp, amongst the bugs and under a canopy of stars.

No one could sing “On Zion’s Glorious Summit Stood” or “O Lord, Our Lord, How Excellent Thy Name,” like the Kansas camp counselors of my youth. And no one could sing the seven-fold amen of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” like the Arkansas camp counselors I later worked with.

The singing of my childhood was like none other. These days, however, I worship with an interdenominational fellowship that uses instruments. (And I love it.) But somehow when I’m there, the acappella tradition of my past seems distant indeed.

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The Art of Pressing On in Our Rhythms {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . .

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I used to stuff and starve. I’d stuff myself with food, and then deprive myself of it. Or I’d fast in preparation for a big meal. I didn’t want those binges showing up on my body.

Unfortunately, stuffing and starving doesn’t work for weight control in the long run (or so I remember reading somewhere). It’s also not very comfortable. I was always ravenously hungry or painfully full, never moderately hungry or pleasantly satisfied. I was stuck in a cycle of feast or famine.

I used to do the same thing with sleep. When my high school homework kept me up late, I’d sleep in on the weekends. My physics teacher Mr. Carmichael told me the engineering students at the university I was planning to attend also studied late into the weeknights and then tried to catch up on the weekends.

But, he said, the science showed that this approach doesn’t work. Habitually depriving ourselves of sleep and then sleeping in on the weekends doesn’t give us quality rest. Our bodies aren’t made for that rhythm. (Though of course his wisdom did nothing to prevent me from succumbing to it again in college.)

I think I used to stuff and starve in my relationship with God, too. I’d subsist on crumbs from Sunday morning services and on pre-digested meals from Bible class. Then I’d spiritually pig out at conferences and camps.

Finish reading this piece here.