Author: Heather Davis Nelson

learning to play

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 10 Comments

It used to come easy for me. My two younger brothers and I would build blanket forts and lego castles and watch our hamster spin around her clear ball beside us in our “rec room” that I always thought was “wreck room.” Because it was a wreck! The room over the garage with its orange-black industrial-strength carpet, and my mom never had to see it unless she came up to see what we were doing, and so it remained a happy wreck of the detritus of play most of the time. I played school there and my brothers were my reluctant students; we had a comfy beanbag we would fight over until it began to lose its stuffing one small styrofoam ball at a time. An ancient typewriter and I would be the “secretary.” There’s a great picture of a birthday party – maybe my 6th? – where me and all the little ladies are smiling big (with gaps for lost teeth) while sitting atop an old mattress in that room. And two of those girls are friends now with kids who were our age, and we still keep in touch. (Shout out to Shelby and Schelyn!)

Play was never work; it wasn’t “have-to;” it was our life. We lived for play. We came home looking forward to play, having to be coaxed to do homework at some point; but then it was always the return to play. My parents didn’t put us in lots of programs or schedules when we were in elementary school. They innately understood that play and family-at-home-with-nothing-to-do time was what we needed the most in those early years. They entered into our play as they could. Cultivating our creativity with frequent trips to playgrounds and parks and outdoor picnics and bedtime stories where we traveled with Susan, Peter, Lucy, and Edmund into the magical land of Narnia at the back of the wardrobe. When we wanted to have our own backyard putt-putt course, my parents trucked us around to the local putt-putt establishments asking to purchase/donate the green carpet for our course. And we did it – “Pine Acres Putt-Putt” – our 9-hole wonder – lives on, featured in a local newspaper where the archives from the ’80s hold our proudly displayed homemade sign.

Somewhere along the way, play became work. How? When? Why? I don’t know. It’s almost impossible to pinpoint, but I suspect for me it got buried in the “big work” of academic pursuit and the stress of working my first job and the angst of learning how to navigate relationships as a young adult. Add to that the pressure/dream I had to do big things for God, and somehow I forgot that big things for God must start with learning to be little with God. For that’s who we are as people – we are as small as a child splashing in the waves before the eternal horizon of an ocean, as blessedly tiny as the way I feel each time I drive into the Blue Ridge Mountains. I am small. I am meant to be small, and therein lies the greatness of any person – embracing the small, learning to play where I am and in accord with who I am.

My children are teaching me. Brene Brown  and Gretchen Rubin are teaching me. To play (again). I am learning to be as free to play as a child in a sandbox. For I am not God – HE is. I am free to play because the world does not rest on my shoulders. I am free to play because it’s the only way I can manage the weight of the small corner of the world that does rest on my shoulders. I’ll end by asking you (and by sharing with you) one of the best questions of this e-course on The Gifts of Imperfection – what’s on your “play list”? Not your iTunes one, but the list of things that fit the “properties of play” (from Stuart Brown):

1. Fun for the sake of fun
2. Not required.
3. Awakens my heart.
4. Lose track of time.
5. Able to lose myself in it.
6. Exponential creative potential.
7. Hard to stop.

I’m hoping a picture of my “play list” will inspire you to create your own.

 

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embracing imperfection, part 2

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

In beginning to write about imperfection – about *embracing* it no doubt – I realize that I am going to need LOTS of practice in this arena. And so this is going to be the beginning of a semi-regular series where I open up with you about my imperfect life, in hopes that you will be inspired to courageously do the same in your life, where you live, with your people.

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Last week brought ample opportunities to embrace imperfect. Could we start with the diagnosis of pneumonia of one of my daughters the same day I was hosting a baby shower for a dear friend that evening? To embrace imperfect last Tuesday meant saying “yes” to the offers of help. And so Jennifer brought over the fishing line I needed to hang the paper lanterns; Laura contributed a gorgeous hand-designed floral arrangement; Emily brought pimiento cheese sandwiches, and Liz came over early with Kelly to set up what we needed; and (thankfully) the Disney Movie Club orders arrived in the middle of the day. [Note: they are not paying me to promote them, but could I just tell you that this might be the best $12.95 you’ll ever spend while you have preschool kids who will be sick and the only way they’ll rest will be in front of the television?] And my husband took another one for the team by entertaining said sick children upstairs while the shower took place downstairs. Thank you, Seth. Once again.

Then in response to my desperate FB plea for prayer a few days later, Jenny showed up on my doorstep with a latte on Thursday morning and Bridget sent over a bag of goodies and Lynn dropped off homemade bread. My in-laws mailed “good-well” packages for the girls and sent a floral arrangement to me. And I don’t say this to say – look how deserving I am – but to say, wow! What a lovely “village” we are in! And it *does* take a village. But you don’t know that you need your village until you know how needy and imperfect you are and you’re willing to publicly embrace it. 

And now here I sit about a week later, and we had another doctor’s visit this morning for the other twin sister. She doesn’t have pneumonia, but couldn’t breathe well enough for the doctor to even be able to listen for the tell-tale “crackles” and so had to do a 10-minute in-office nebulizer treatment. We walked out with A. cleared of pneumonia and L. with preventative antibiotics as well as a renewed prescription for an inhaler. Oh my. Mommy fail perhaps? How did I not know my daughter wasn’t able to breathe well?!

My living room is littered with the typical kid clutter of scissors, small pieces of paper, stray Cheerios, a few raisins, half-full sippy cups, and four dying plants. [Plants come to our house to die, as a friend put it so well!] The kitchen around the corner is piled high with dirty dishes, and I’m just not sure I can/will deal with them tonight. The type-A part of me is rebelling, but I’m shutting it down.

My husband the pastor is at another evening meeting, and I faced bedtime alone [not as bad as it could have been] – and now instead of reading one of the books calling to me on my nightstand, I think I’m just going to unplug and watch “Parenthood” while sipping some wine. Before you judge me, come walk a week in my shoes. And I’ll try to do the same for you.

Where’s your imperfect today? This week? How can you boldly step out to embrace it – to admit its existence – to tell someone, anyone, that you can’t do it all and you’re tired of trying? Let’s help one another out … it’s a lovely village we live in … and there are friends just dying to know how to help.

 

 

 

the God who sees (moms who feel invisible)

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

It was a shocking story to hear. Of a woman who slept with her boss, and then became pregnant. Upon discovery, her boss’ wife asked that she be thrown out (for, you see, this woman was working in their home – a maid, of sorts). Oh, the irony! For the plan had been formulated by her boss’ wife, and this maid was only doing what had been asked of her. Her boss’ wife arranged for their maid to sleep with her husband, out of hopes that the maid would get pregnant and that the child could carry on their family name. When that very thing happened, conflict and contempt erupted between the two women. The boss? He didn’t defend the maid, but told his wife to do whatever she thought was best. And so this maid was abused and then thrown out, utterly destitute and expecting to die. While pregnant with child.

You would think this is the end of that very awful story. But it’s actually just the beginning. For this woman was found by one who cared – she was met in such a way that gave her courage to return to this home … !! (for that home was her only hope of survival for her and her soon-to-be born son) What made the difference?

An encounter with the God who sees. He gave her yet-unborn son a name – “the God who hears” – and she, in turn, gave her God a name – “you are the God who sees.” She was heard; she felt seen. And her story was recorded to give exponential hope for untold women and moms and destitute and abandoned who wonder if there is a God who hears and a God who sees. Her name? Hagar. Her son’s name? Ishmael. The boss and boss’ wife? Abraham and Sarah. Genesis 16:13 records it here –

“So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.’ “

mother's dayAs we approach Mother’s Day tomorrow, I want to remind you and me and all of us moms that it’s not about how much recognition we get. You have already been seen; your invisible and secret and overlooked work is validated by the God who sees. He sees the invisible and untold sacrifice of sleep, sanity, bathroom breaks to yourself, time alone, friendships, meaningful conversation, money to spend on what you want v. what your kids need, dreams, career, mental capacity. He sees all that you may not even be able to name, and HE looks after you. He commends you. He meets you in the don’t-have-enough-they’ve-taken-it-all moments when you really want to lay down and bury your head in your pillow and disappear from the whines and demands and incessant asking, asking, asking, and never-having-enough’ing. He saw you when instead of disappearing and locking yourself in your room, you gave a hug; invited your child into your lap for a snuggle; fed the crying baby (again) at 3:42am; warmed up the mac & cheese for dinner; poured the Cheerios into the bowl; swept up the mess made by the Cheerios spilling out of the bowl; cleaned the markers from the wall; folded laundry for the only quiet 30 minutes of your day; mopped up the potty-training accident for the 12th time; put the fighting siblings in time-out for the 22nd time; woke up before you wanted to; went to bed hours after your strength gave out.

He saw you show up instead of run away. He saw you enter in to the emotional distress of your adolescent daughter as she felt hurt and left out and alone. He sees you when you don’t let your teenage son run away – and you pursue him with hard questions and consequences and he screams at you in anger for messing with his life (while inside he knows you love him). He saw you carry the load alone of parenting when your husband walked out the door with another woman. He sees you in the months of single parenting you endure because your husband serves our country in military service that requires foreign deployments when you can’t regularly communicate with him about the ups and the downs of your days without him. He saw you when you wept in losing your weeks-old child to miscarriage. He sees you who are secret moms – moms who lost a pregnancy, or gave up a child to adoption, and no one else knows.

There is one who knows. Who sees. Who celebrates you, not just on Mother’s Day, but every day. He rejoices over you, and He will give you strength for the journey ahead. Ask him? Call out to him – be found by him, as Hagar was. And, yes, be celebrated this Mother’s Day … I do hope for you and me that we receive heartfelt cards and sweet handmade gifts that will be small reminders and reflections of the God who sees. But let’s not put our only hope there. There is a bigger hope to be had, and a grander validation and commendation in which to rest. You are seen by the God of seeing. Rest, rejoice, be comforted, find strength there, fellow mom!

Five Minute Friday: “mess”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

Ah, the irony of writing about “mess” as I’m in my favorite coffee shop, surrounded by happy chatter and no mess except that of my own creation … which right now, is nothing. But here goes. Jumping into Five Minute Friday for my favorite of blog activities. It’s been a long week, one where I didn’t recover from last weekend’s illness till Thursday really. One of feeling drained, exhausted, “just making it.” I don’t like weeks like this, yet they seem inevitable to living in this cracked-jar world. Meaning I’m a cracked-jar of humanity whose weaknesses show up even when I try to glaze them over, and yet whose glory shines through in the midst of those places. There’s a verse about that in one of Paul’s letters (2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 6-7) …

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. …

Ok – on to five minutes about “mess.”

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Many days I feel like that’s all I am – a manager of mess.

“Clean up the toys! Put those shoes in the basket! Take your plate to the sink! Where do the Legos belong? How many times do I have to tell you not to throw your food on the floor?!”

But, really, what’s wrong with mess? Yes, orderliness breeds peace and calm. Clean creates mental space. A messy home for me is visual chaos (and thus mental as well).

photo credit: homestrong.net

But what’s wrong with mess, if mess is evidence of life lived fully and creatively? If mess is evidence of life? For, true, our home pre-kids certainly had less uncontainable mess. I’m sure my husband’s rooms pre-me were much more organized, picked up, neat. His car certainly was clutter-free before I came along.

And my desk, when rarely used, is immaculate.

Life requires mess though. Art requires mess. Life is living out the art of who we are, therefore it’s inevitable that life will be/look/feel messy. And I haven’t begun talking about the relational mess all of us create and contribute to when seeking to love and be loved. That will be for another post … or maybe another retreat … or my next counseling session?

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what I learned in April

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

20140501-062941.jpgI have been on a bit of a hiatus from the “what I learned” series … not because I wasn’t learning, but I wasn’t recording what I learned. And one of the things I’m learning is how increasingly sieve-like my brain has become in “old” age and post-motherhood. So if I don’t write it down, I may never ever find that thought again. It’s alarming. But, well, a saving grace too that we have technology at the tip of our fingers at almost all times to record these thoughts that might otherwise slip away.

Without further ado … here’s my (remembered and written down) list as I join up with Emily Freeman (fave author, blogger, virtual muse for me …) for “What I learned in April“:

1. Explanation is more exhausting for me than proclamation. E.g. – answering ceaseless “why” questions from my three-year-old twin daughters wears.me.out. But speaking/teaching at women’s retreats is invigorating.

2. Chameleons don’t change colors with their environment but with their mood. For example, yellow is angry; white is scared.

3. C.S. Lewis was Irish! Not English, as I’ve always assumed. Learning this from Alister McGrath’s biography of Lewis.

4. I cannot hard boil eggs. I don’t like hard-boiled eggs, which I’m sure is probably part of why I’ve never learned how to properly hard boil eggs. But, like every “good” mother, I wanted to try to dye Easter eggs with my girls this year. So I hard boiled eggs (or so I thought). Alas, after they had turned various Easter-y colors, when dropped on the floor, they cracked. And seeped. Yuck! So I think I’ll cross “dyeing Easter eggs” off my list of things to do with my girls.

5. Speaking at three women’s retreats in a two-month period of time with a non-reduced counseling, mothering, homemaking load is TOO MUCH for me in this season. One retreat a semester is likely more reasonable for me until my kids are in school full-time.

6. I have good friends. Friends who have prayed and supported me and been so patient and understanding as I’ve been “off the grid” the past three months. Very thankful for you!

7. Road trips with friends are way more fun!! Jennifer and I packed our FOUR girls under the age of six into her Enclave and drove down to Columbia, SC, for spring break to visit our respective families. We had a blast – the road passed much more quickly and our girls seemed to entertain each other pretty well.

8. Friends with roots/history are true treasures. While in Columbia, I met up with a dear friend Schelyn who I’ve known since we were neighborhood playmates as kids. And there were tears in our eyes to reunite and meet her four kids, and my two. We picked up right where we left off, all six kids in tow at the Riverbanks Zoo, and had *such* a wonderful time.

9. Creativity is worth nurturing. Thank you, Brene Brown, for being my guide through the fabulous e-course through the guideposts of “The Gifts of Imperfection.” And thank you, Robin and Sarah, for being traveling companions with me. Let’s go make art!

embracing imperfection

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 11 Comments

Originally this post was going to be titled “practicing imperfection.” The problem is that practice implies that it’s something you have to intentionally do that you wouldn’t otherwise be doing. The laborious hours of piano practice from 4th grade through 12th grade come to mind (short fingernails, scales, metronome ticking). And the problem about “practicing imperfection” is that is would lead you me to believe that I am only imperfect when I am being purposeful about it. The truth is, imperfection shows up aplenty in my less-than-perfect, far-from-ideal day-to-day life under the sun. 

I just usually prefer to hide from it or run from it or pretend it isn’t there. Denial can be a very happy place to live. Until you awaken to reality. Like Dorothy’s discovery of the wizard of Oz, it feels shattering to lose all that we were hoping for in the blink of an eye. So, in the interest of living in light of reality, I want to consciously embrace imperfection. 

What this might mean is that I’m quicker to say I’m sorry when I’ve realized I hurt you (or when you tell me), or that I don’t try to scramble around like a crazy person to clean up the mess of a home that’s lived in because you’re coming to dinner and you don’t have kids yet, or that i don’t always do my hair and makeup to drop off my kids at preschool, or that when the small imperfections of life occur in my home/school/church/neighborhood – instead of judging and distancing, I lean in and accept. For this is what I hope from you when you notice my imperfections. Chances are, you will more often than I can. Sometimes I need to hear about them; other times I’d prefer that you cover it over with love and grace. I will try to do the same.

Have I done this? Do I do this? Those of you who know me in real life know that, well, sometimes I do. And sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I speak before I should. Sometimes I stay silent when I should speak up. I’m learning. And so are you.

Let’s breathe grace for one another. Let’s embrace imperfection. 

Two stories to illustrate, from the past 24 hours:

(1) A couple was over at our house last night for premarital counseling with my husband and I. They had just gotten settled into our couch (barely) when I heard cries erupt from our 3-year-old twin daughters’ room upstairs. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah – they haven’t really settled down very well tonight.” But the scene that greeted me when I opened the door was a far cry from this. Or, rather, the stench and the sight of one girl vomiting in the middle of the room and her sister crying out from the fear and shock of it all. Oh my. I don’t do vomit. At all. So I’m saying, “Seth, I can’t do this!” as I run down the stairs. The sweet couple quickly ushered themselves out the door, and I can only imagine that this session could be entitled, “reasons to wait a few more years before having kids.” Oh, yeah. #Embracing imperfection.

(2) This morning I had managed to wrangle the squirmy (but feeling much better) girls through an entire and very full wholesale store shopping trip. You know, the one where you’ve gotta get the deodorant and the tomatoes and the milk and the eggs and the pens and the Oxy-Clean – plus groceries for the week. And I was pretty worn out by the time we got to our car and I unloaded all of our assortment of items. I was rushing a bit because I wanted to get back to meet my friend for lunch. And then I realized that I had forgotten to get the main ingredient for our lunch together: the rotisserie chicken. The Heather-who-tries-to-hide-imperfection would have hightailed it back through the store TO THE VERY BACK where they keep the chicken, probably screaming and dragging my kids behind me, and I would have felt very frantic all around (more than I already did). Instead, I called my friend and asked her if she could bring chicken. Wouldn’t you know – she had one in her fridge already! What kindness in this embracing imperfection journey … what about you? I’d love to hear your stories.

What started me on this journey? I am deeply indebted to Emily Freeman’s Grace for the Good Girl and Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. Books I plan to read and reread for the rest of my life … and hopefully write a chapter or two of my own to add to their conversations.

Easter morning: “be free and have fun”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

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“Hear the bells ringing, they’re singing that you can be born again!” That melody floats through my head this morning. The melody that drew me into salvation as a child of 4-years-old who inquired what it meant to be born again, and then was … Keith Green’s invitation set to music.

Another phrase that seems to capture what Easter means for me this year, today:

Be free and have fun!

I overheard these words spoken by a grandmother sending her grandson off to play at a park a few weeks ago. And they have reverberated through my mind and heart ever since. Not only as such a good (different) parenting focus, but the words I need to hear from a resurrected Jesus this morning, every morning.

Easter means I am free and so are you who are united to Jesus by faith. Free from sin, free from slavery to the effects of my sin and others’, free from anxiety and worry, free from performance on the treadmill of perfection, free from my past and my failings, free from others’ judgments or opinions, free to say “no” to doing too much, free to love – to serve wholeheartedly – to create.

Free to have fun in the truest sense of fun. To be creative, to delight in a world that can be as delightful as it is broken. To have fun doing harm to evil (thank you, Dan Allender, for this poignant phrase from the “To Be Told” seminar I attended last month).  To have fun with my daughters and not only be a disciplinarian. To have fun with my husband and in so doing make both of our loads lighter. To take myself more lightly and laugh a little easier. To have fun doing what I don’t give myself permission to do in my quest for achievement and success: to have fun painting, reading novels, blogging, sharing a cup of coffee with a close friend, making life and our home beautiful.

What about you? What could it mean to live in the light of Easter morning? Of the empty tomb calling out to you – “be free! and have fun!”? Where are you still living under the weight of “Silent Saturday”? Of the agony of Good Friday?

Three posts I recommend for your perusal. “We are the Sunday morning people” by Lisa-Jo Baker, “Woman, Why?” at (in)courage, and “We Need All the Days of Holy Week” at Grace Covers Me.

Enjoy … be free … have fun! The tomb is empty; Jesus our Lord is risen; death has lost its darkness and sin has lost its power. 

 

beauty in darkness: what’s good about “Good Friday”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 4 Comments

I had skimmed over the verse countless times in the 30+ years I’ve read and meditated and studied this familiar account. Good Friday is the time to read the crucifixion story. A story of horror turned beautiful. Yet if you’re like me, too often I jump to the “turned beautiful” part without staying with the horror of what Jesus endured. It’s uncomfortable to sit with the events that culminated in the most gruesome of deaths on a Roman cross. But this week – this Holy Week – asks us to do just that. To sit. To see. To hear. Because in the horror, we are saved. We are deserving of all that the King of Glory endured innocently. And we who bear his name are called to endure similar suffering for the sake of love. Love enters into the messy, the broken, even the so-gruesome-you-can’t-bear-to-hear-it and Love takes it. Love endures. It does not run away. It stays. It shows up.

What feels impossible for you to endure today (and yet you must because of Love)? How can Good Friday become truly “good” for you today? What brokenness do you run from in your own heart and in the lives of those around you?

In my calling as a counselor, I often sit with those who have endured stories of abuse that are too difficult to name. And to think that what I have a hard time hearing is what they lived through. Well, that causes you to pause. To pray. To beg for redemption, for healing, for a Justice to make it all right. 

On Good Friday, we are given just that. Not only in the cross, but in the events leading up to the cross. Here’s the verse that stopped me in my tracks this morning (from Matthew 27:27):

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him.

Do you know how many soldiers are in a battalion? I didn’t either, so I checked the footnote and saw that a battalion is “a tenth of a Roman legion; usually about 600 men.” 600 men. Quite different than movies who portray this portion of the scene with a couple soldiers kicking Jesus around. That’s bad enough, but this has an arena quality to it. 600 soldiers. That’s a very full auditorium hall. And what did they gather to do? Well, read on:

And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

Utterly shameful. Shameful if it’s an audience of one, but for these horrors to happen before an arena-size audience of 600? Shame magnified. Shame too great for words. Twice he was stripped of his clothes. In addition to the emotional abuse of this mockery, there was the physical abuse of being “crowned” with thorns and beat on the head with a reed. What is striking is Jesus’ response. Nothing. The one who was God incarnate – who could have called down fire from heaven to devour these fools – stayed still and endured. That is the miracle. The miracle that turns bad into good, abuse into redemption, mockery into honor.

Centuries before, a prophet called Isaiah wrote about this and puts words to the what and the why of all that Jesus endured on “Good” Friday:

Surely he has borne our grief
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed. …
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth …

Because Jesus did not open his mouth when enduring abuse, we can open our mouths and beg for healing and redemption. Healing from our own abuse and from the ways we have abused and oppressed others through our sin – through our brokenness seeking false healings.

In the place of your abuse, there is healing. Because he took the shame for you.

In the place of my sin, there is peace. Because he carried the guilt for me.

In the places where you and I have been silenced, our voice is restored. Because his was silenced this Good Friday.

So go. Walk as one who is healed, who is at peace, who can speak up and speak out and speak of darkness turned beautiful on this most good of Fridays. 

Five Minute “Friday”: paint

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

Another week of catching my breath while juggling preschool drop-offs and pick-ups with a busy counseling schedule, and not one but two kids’ Easter parties, and hosting a small appetizer & dessert thank-you for the missions team at our church last night, and in the midst of it all, seeking to create time and space for soul-art. How fitting that this week’s word is “paint”!

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Paint is just too messy. This has been proven over and over again in the short 3.5 years I’ve had with my twin daughters. The handful of times I’ve allowed us to “take the plunge” over the precipice into paint, we have all come out quite colorful. And usually that includes my language (inside my head), with notes to self pasted across my brain like post-its of “why it’s NEVER worth it to paint with twins,” “better NOT to be creative in this way,” “reasons why to keep the painting at preschool with the experts,” etc etc. Can you relate? So in reality, our house rule is that we’ll be creative with anything but paint. When it comes to my kids.

my little artists

my little artists

 

But how ironic! For I still love to have a paint brush in my hands, whether to repaint a room or to dabble with words and color on a canvas. Art was always a favorite subject, and it was an elective of mine through high school. Somewhere along the way, I learned that art is too messy; that it’s inefficient; that mine isn’t as good as ____. And how those lies squelch the creativity of a creative being! 

We are all artists. I am learning that anew through A Million Little Ways and The Gifts of Imperfection e-course and my own soul when I take time to step off the treadmill of performance and simply be.

I am a creative being. And so are you. Even if paint isn’t your medium, what is? Paint the art of who you are across the canvas of your life today. Without shame. With abandon. Regardless of the mess. Maybe, just maybe, I might have the courage to do the same for my preschoolers!

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“what’s your story?”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

The following is the manuscript for a devotional I gave at the conclusion of my church’s week-long women’s Bible study yesterday morning. 

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I’ll never forget the first time I met her. I was a brand new staff member at her church, freshly graduated from seminary, and she was hosting a kids’ vacation Bible school at her gorgeous, historic Philadelphia home. And I’ll admit that I felt intimidated. She was outgoing and funny – clearly “the life of the party.” She leaned over after introducing herself and took me aback with her atypical first question, “So what’s your story?” She later told me that she intentionally asks this question rather than the more common, “So what do you do?” because she finds that typical opening question to be rather off-putting. You’re immediately put on the spot and labeled and categorized based on what you do (or you don’t do). And how many of us feel comfortable claiming our profession as our primary identity? Of course you and I are much more than what we do. The opening, “what’s your story?” captures this so much better.

So I want to pose the same question: what’s your story? My story this morning is of a mom who feels tired with trying to balance mothering twin daughters with the demands and privileges of a job I love as a counselor; and mine is the story of a woman learning to find my voice and seeking to explore my creativity through the art of writing. My story is of a daughter who misses her parents in South Carolina, of a sister who feels too far away from her brothers and their families, of a wife whose husband is a pastor and all the dynamics that this entails. My story is of a woman who longs for summer and spring with all my heart – who still associates summer with “free time” although having preschoolers at home means summer will be the opposite of this. My story is of a friend who wants to do more story-telling and story-listening than tasks accomplished and projects completed.

Studying Romans with my church’s women’s Bible study this year has given each of us a new angle on our story – a new way of understanding our stories – and this story is the best ever told. God’s story, or the shorthand Paul uses throughout the book “gospel.” Let’s think of the thesis in Romans 1:16-17 –

for I am not ashamed of [God’s story], for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in [God’s story], the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’

What’s your story when you’ve read and studied Romans? Maybe one of the following –

  •  the story of someone who’s trusted in your own goodness too much and so Romans is a story of being beckoned out of your self-righteous judgment and hypocrisy into the freeing grace of admitting your sin and your need for grace found only in Jesus and HIS perfect goodness
  •  the story of someone who has found grace and power for salvation for the first time – who has found God’s story of grace, forgiveness, and righteousness in Jesus to be THE story your life needs
  • the story of someone who thought your badness was too bad for God – that your rebellion was too much – and God’s story beckons you to come home. To be truthful with where you’ve wandered far from him and to find refuge in grace.
  • the story of someone who’s found Romans to be profoundly and deeply unsettling as you’re confronted with a God who is not as we would make him to be – a God whose character seems harsh or even capricious at times if what Romans says about him is true. So perhaps your story is one filled with questions that feel haunting.

There are parts of my story that fit with all of these scenarios, but I find myself identifying most with the story of my goodness and judgmental heart exposed AND the story of unsettling questions weighing heavy on my heart. Whatever has been stirred up in your story during Romans, don’t leave it here. Don’t end that for the summer.

Maybe you could find a few friends or people you connected with from your table and meet regularly throughout the summer at someone’s home or a park or a coffee shop for the purpose of sharing stories – either your own and/or the stories God tells in His Word. Perhaps you could find a book or resource to read on your own that will help you to grapple with your questions and your story. I’ve brought a few that I would recommend: Extravagant Grace by Barbara Duguid, The Prodigal God by Tim Keller, To Be Told by Dan Allender; Grace for the Good Girl & A Million Little Ways by Emily Freeman; Grace through the Ages  by William Smith and/or Out of the Spin Cycle by Jen Hatmaker as short devotional thoughts. For exploring some of the hard questions raised by Romans, these are two of my favorites: How Long, O Lord? by D.A. Carson and Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer.

Although WBS ends today, your story doesn’t and neither does the community you’ve found here. Join us for Easter week celebrations – Maundy Thursday, 12pm or 6pm Good Friday service, 9am or 11am Easter Sunday. Help out with CAMP/Camp JR. (and send your kids!); join a community group that meets weekly; if you’re a mom, contact me to be added to the list to be informed of Nurture events and meet-ups throughout the summer.

Live into your story – tell your story – listen to others’ stories. That we may live out the truth of God’s story as seen in Romans more truly through stories of more grace and less judgment, more freedom and less condemnation, more acceptance and fewer barriers to love, more of trusting in God’s goodness for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and less of trusting in our own.