An

Ordinary

Friday

This morning I woke up thinking it was going to be...well...an ordinary Friday.

I drank my coffee, watched the birds from my porch, wondered if I'd hear anything about a job, and headed to visit my mom at the nursing home.

Mom and I were sitting together watching television when a commercial came on.

Children came in from the cold, cheeks rosy from winter, and someone served them steaming bowls of tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches and potato chips.

Mom looked at me.

I looked at her.

Almost at the same time we said something like, "Oh, doesn't that sound good?"

For just a moment, we weren't in a nursing home anymore.

I was a little girl again.

It felt like one of those snowy afternoons when Mom made tomato soup and grilled cheese after we'd been outside playing. One simple commercial had carried us both back to the same memory.

Then I wheeled my mom to lunch.

Tomato soup.

Grilled cheese.

Potato chips.

We just looked at each other and smiled.

I whispered, "Well...that was a little God wink."

But God wasn't finished. I then proceeded to feed my mom for the first time ever - quite the role reversal!

After lunch, I helped Mom get settled for her afternoon nap. I brushed the hair away from her face, and she looked into my eyes.

I looked back into hers.

For a moment, nothing else existed.

Not the nursing home.

Not the job search.

Not the worries.

Just a mother and her daughter.

I realized something in that quiet moment.

God doesn't always shout.

Sometimes He whispers through a bowl of tomato soup.

Sometimes He reminds us of childhood with a grilled cheese sandwich.

Sometimes He lets two hearts meet across a lifetime with nothing more than a glance.

I almost called today "just another Friday."

Instead, it became holy.

Maybe that's why we should never rush through ordinary days.

We never know where God has hidden His little winks.

❤️ Has God ever surprised you with a small moment that became unforgettable? I'd love to hear about it.

We Might

Have Her

Today

I was lying in bed this morning crying, loving on my sweet Stormy, and wondering why I was still in such a funk.

I was trying to do my Bible study. I know the Scriptures. I know what I'm supposed to do. I know about God's goodness. I know about His promises. I know I'm supposed to trust Him, wait on Him, surrender my need for control, and refuse condemnation.

I know all of this.

So why am I still sitting here crying?

And then it hit me.

Spiritual warfare.

Not every bad morning means I'm doing something wrong. Not every dark thought means I've forgotten everything God has taught me. Sometimes there is a battle happening in my mind, and the enemy knows exactly which buttons to push.

And suddenly I could picture it.

Satan and his minions sitting back and laughing.

We got her.

Maybe we don't have her permanently.

But we've got her today.

We've got her right now.

We've got her crying.

We've got her questioning herself.

We've got her dragging every failure she's ever made out of the archives and putting them on trial again.

We've got her blaming herself for this season.

We've got her believing that this waiting must somehow be punishment.

We've got her looking backward instead of looking at Jesus.

And for a moment, I could almost hear the celebration:

“We got her.”

But then something changed.

Because I realized what was happening.

And suddenly I got angry.

Not at God.

Not at myself.

At the lie.

Because here's what I know:

I am not going to spend today beating up somebody Jesus already died to save.

I am not going to take every mistake I've ever made and use it as evidence that God is punishing me.

I am not going to confuse conviction with condemnation.

I am not going to let the enemy convince me that my waiting means I've been forgotten.

And I'm not going to hand over this Monday morning.

No.

You might have gotten me crying for a little while.

You might have gotten me stuck in my head.

You might have gotten me looking backward.

But you don't get to keep me there.

Because I know who I belong to.

And maybe that's part of spiritual warfare that I forget sometimes: the battle isn't always about whether I know the truth.

Sometimes it's about whether I will stand on the truth when I don't feel it.

I can know that God loves me and still cry.

I can know that I'm forgiven and still feel ashamed.

I can know that God is working and still get impatient.

I can know that Jesus is enough and still have a morning where my emotions tell me otherwise.

My feelings don't get to rewrite God's Word.

And neither does the enemy.

So today I'm getting up.

I'm going to make the most of this day.

I'm going to love my Stormy.

I'm going to open my Bible.

I'm going to do the things in front of me.

I'm going to laugh if I can.

I'm going to sing if I can.

I'm going to pray.

I'm going to live.

And I'm going to refuse to spend another minute punishing myself for sins that I have already brought to Jesus.

Because maybe the enemy thought he had me this morning.

Maybe he thought he could keep me curled up in bed, crying over everything I've ever done wrong.

Maybe he thought he could convince me that this season is proof that I've been abandoned or forgotten.

But he made one mistake.

He reminded me that there is a battle.

And once I recognized the battle, I remembered that I don't have to fight it alone.

So no.

You don't have her.

Not today.

Not because I'm strong enough.

Not because I have everything figured out.

Not because I suddenly feel great.

But because Jesus has her.

And that's enough.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
James 4:7

So that's what I'm doing.

I'm submitting.

I'm resisting.

And I'm getting out of bed.

We might have had a rough morning. But we're not giving Satan the rest of the day.

Under the Flowers

I looked down at my arm this morning and

saw something I'd never really seen before.

Most people notice the flowers.

They're beautiful Hawaiian blooms that remind me of Maui, the place that has captured my heart.

What they don't realize is that underneath those flowers is another tattoo.

It's still there.

If you look closely, you can still make out the French word folie.

Insanity.

I had it tattooed on my arm in 2014.

At the time, my life felt unsettled. My oldest son was serving in the Marines. Chris and I were struggling. Logan was fourteen. I had just made one of the biggest decisions of my life and entered rehab because I knew something had to change.

I loved the old saying from the recovery world:

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I wanted a permanent reminder.

If you want something to change...

You have to change.

You have to ask God for strength.

You have to build different habits.

You have to take different steps.

I chose the French word because it sounded beautiful and private. I didn't want everyone to understand it. I wanted it to be between God and me.

Ironically...

I hated it almost immediately.

People asked about it.

Some thought it said "Jolie."

Others couldn't read it at all.

Eventually it became a blurry reminder of a season I'd rather forget.

So years later, while I was in Hawaii, I covered it with flowers.

At least, that's what I thought I was doing.

This morning, I realized something.

I didn't cover up my story.

I framed it.

The flowers didn't erase the word underneath.

They redeemed it.

For the first time, I wasn't embarrassed.

I was grateful.

Not because of the tattoo.

Because of what God has done since then.

That frightened, restless woman who walked into a tattoo shop hoping to remind herself that change was possible...

She had no idea what God had in store.

She didn't know about the healing that was coming.

She didn't know about the lessons.

She didn't know about the waiting.

She didn't know about the birds on quiet mornings, the deeper love for Scripture, the peace that would slowly replace striving, or the woman she was becoming.

Today I can still see that old word beneath the flowers.

And I'm glad.

Because it reminds me that God didn't ask me to pretend my past never happened.

He redeemed it.

Isn't that what He always does?

He doesn't erase our testimony.

He transforms it.

Now when someone asks me about my tattoo, I won't laugh nervously or change the subject.

I'll tell them the truth.

The flowers are beautiful.

But the real beauty is what God grew underneath them.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
2 Corinthians 5:17

I'm saved by grace.

And I'm no longer ashamed of the work God has done in me.