You are beauty.

The more I look at you, the more I see Him.

I mean, you.

His daughters each different.

Each one with your own beauty adding to the mosaic that is the human race.

You, with your pictures engraved on your skin, 
matching the soft amber of your eyes.

You, with your weathered cheeks and hands that have seen much life, 
and whose heart bursts with love and compassion because of it.

You, with your hands that never stop helping
and your tongue that never stops praising.

You. The way you mother your children.

Not perfectly, no.

But, with tenderness and a heart willing to say I'm sorry when needed.

You. Discovering anew the gifts within yourself.
You shine.

You make me laugh. 
My life has more joy because of the way your heart comes through those smiling words.

You remind me that there is good and beauty in the world.


You who,

light up in your own skin.
shine with the uniqueness that only you can.

You are beautiful, just the way you are.

Don't. ever. stop.


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Linking up today with the following lovely communities.

Encouragement is the shy girl

I'm linking up today with the community of writers at Lisa Jo Baker's blog for Five Minute Friday. Five minutes of writing just for the fun of it. No backtracking, just writing. Check out Lisa Jo's blog to join in , or just hop on over and read what others have written on the prompt, "encouragement".

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To what can encouragement be likened?

She is like a shy girl who cannot be forced to be in the center of attention.

When she is asked, she retreats, in fact, she may run away.

I want her to stay and play.

To be my friend.

To make all my wishes come true.

photo credit--Pinterest

She is like a breath of fresh air in my face or the wind in my sails, but she cannot be forced.

If she is forced, she becomes something else that will darken my skies.

If Encouragement is forced, she becomes Discouragement.

How can I beg her to stay on her own accord?

I cannot.

I must trust that if she really cares for me she will stay.

She will stay because she truly wants to.

photo credit--Pinterest

I must put my trust in Someone else however.

Someone who I know will always have more supply than I have demand.

Someone who promises to supply all of my needs.

I need to trust and not waver.

If I put my trust in any other source, I will eventually be truly disappointed.

Any other source is fickle and that source may not have it to give.

I desire Encouragement to be my friend, not my foe.

She must come willingly and on her own time and in her own way.

I will trust the One True Source.

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How about you? How do you see encouragment?

You are an encouragement to me.

Thanks for stopping by!

Anne

Cultivate: One Word 2014

      you are God's garden and vineyard and field under cultivation...

I Corinthians 3:9b

   

      

I was a little girl on the plains of central Nebraska. We had winters with snow drifts the size of buses, pivot sprinklers to splash in (if we dared), and an old barn to explore. 

My dad was one of those hard-working farmers who worked from sun-up to sun-down. I never asked him outright, but I know he loved his job. He lived by the seasons and enjoyed the gifts each one brought. 

Fall, he said, was his favorite. He did tell me that. Harvest was the pinnacle of the whole years’ hard labor. 

 In winter the ground sat fallow and frozen like the tundra. 

And spring, well, spring was my favorite. The smell of dirt would be fresh in the air as the neighboring farmers and my dad would be out in the field preparing the soil for the year’s fresh crop of corn.

With a disc attached to his tractor, Dad would break up the dirt that was now unfrozen, but hardened by winter's unuse.

Then, he would hook up the planter to the tractor and there he would go. Sun up to sun down, day after day, coffee time after coffee time to plant those seeds in the good soil.

I loved this green machine with eight green buckets in a row hooked onto the tractor. In each bucket was the seed corn. In each seed corn was a stalk just waiting for God to grow it.

Next job on the list for my dad in the spring was cultivating. On his tractor and pulling this contraption, he would take to the fields to attack the weeds that were threatening to choke out the tender seedlings he'd worked so hard to plant. 

Dad wanted this baby corn to grow big and strong, so he cultivated the soil to get the weeds out. 

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When I think about one word that I want to focus on for this year, there are many I could have chosen.

I've felt like I have dormant gifts that need to be unearthed. 

I’ve had rocks of doubt and weeds of uncertainty that need to be removed.

This year, I want to... 

cultivate love.

cultivate creativity.

cultivate hope.

 It's time to pull the weeds and flourish right where I'm planted.

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Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12


And the desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passed by.
Ezekiel 36:34


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Do you have one word for 2014? If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

*special thanks to my daughter Kara Landhuis (karalandhuis.com) for transforming my watercolor into a workable digital photo!

Blessings,

Anne

To see clearly

Things go much better when I can see clearly. 

See clearly where you end and I begin. 

When I can realize that maybe your struggle to connect with me isn’t about me at all, but about where you are at right now.

Why must I always take things so personally, like you are out on a vendetta to get me back for something?

When did this “taking things so personally” begin?

I don’t know.

I want to see your heart beyond your words.

Even if your words don’t come through clearly and I must work at deciphering your true meaning, I want to put forth that effort.

I want to understand you as I want you to understand me.

I want to show you empathy and not judgement.

I want to cultivate wonder rather than the critical eye.

So many things get in the way of us seeing each other clearly.

I must remember that.

I want to remember that.

I want to know the real you.

The things that hurt you. 

The things that bring you joy. 

The things that make your heart come alive.

This requires me to put on new lenses.

Supernatural lenses that allow me to see truthfully and not just through the foggy lenses of my own doubts and weaknesses.

I want to take off the foggy rose-colored, tainted, tinted lenses

To see you clearly.

I'm linking up with the lovely writers at Lisa Jo Baker's blog for Five Minute Friday. Today's prompt is "see". Free writing. No edits. Writing just for the sheer joy of it. Won't you join up with this great community?

Giving up the fight

I'm linking up with other lovely writers at Lisa Jo Baker's blog for Five Minute Friday. We are to write for five minutes straight, no edits. Just pure writing. Today's prompt is fight. Stop by Lisa's blog to see what others are writing!

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I’m giving up the fight.

I really am. 

I’m giving up the fight to be perfect. 

To be acceptable to everyone, in fact loved by all. 

I’m giving up on being someone I was never meant to be and doing things that I’m not cut out for.

I’m done fighting all alone the emotions that sometimes threaten to overtake my soul.

I’m done believing the lies the enemy hands out to me on a silver platter and says, 

“Here, have some of this that will make you whole.”

I’m done trying to fight the enemy alone.

I cannot. 

But, I forget. 

I forget that the all powerful one who came to this earth is right beside me. 

He promises to fight my battles. 

So, I’m giving up the fight.

I’m giving up the right to fight.

To fight for peace, calm and stillness.

I want these things, to be sure and I do have a right to them as a child of God.

But, I cannot fight for them alone.

I know that now.

After trying on my own to fight and losing a fighting battle.

He says,

 “Don’t fight. 

Be still. 

Let me fight the battles for you 

while you rest."

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"The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm."

Exodus 14:14

What I learned in December

In honor of the passing of 2013, I've listed thirteen things I learned in December in no particular order. It's always fun linking up with Emily at Chatting at the Sky for this monthly link up! Head on over there to see what other lovely writers have shared! 

 Oh, and Happy New Year!!

Mary, Joseph and the "donkey"

1. For the first time since our now adult children were little, my husband's side of the family acted out the Christmas story. It was complete with donkeys, sheep, angels and wise(wo)men. All the adults and our adult children. Does it look like we had fun doing it? See baby Jesus lying in the manger?

The Christmas Story--Live!

2. Also, my nieces and nephews are acrobats. For the first time, we had a "feats of strength" portion of our Christmas party. It got absolutely crazy!

3. If you ask your husband to write down 10 things he would say to describe who you are, plus 10 things he wants from your marriage, it will be eye opening and a great conversation starter.



4. Sitting in row 4 of a Broadway show is immensely more fun than sitting way in the back! My hubby took me to the show White Christmas and we were so close we could see the microscopic mics that the actors were wearing. We were also so close we got "snow" on us at the end. We decided we'd rather go to fewer productions and have great seats than lots of shows and sit in the nosebleed section. We had so. much. fun!

View from Row 4

5. Just because I talk about having realistic expectations for Christmas doesn't mean I carry that out perfectly. I still had some moments of disappointment that I had to work through. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.



6. I can tend to take on the negative emotions of people I'm close to. This is a problem that was more evident during December because I was around more people. I need to figure out how not to do this any more.



7. I don't care a lot for church cantatas even though I used to be in them. I can't put my finger on exactly why. Most people love them. I'd rather hear a great sermon. 



8. When I see favorite authors of mine and other admired bloggers post the books they are reading I immediately get panicky. I want to read them all too, because I trust their judgement in good books. And, because I love good books. I guess you could call it Book List Envy.



9. If you take sugar free hot cocoa and then pile on mini marshmallows, the calories in the marshmallows and the non calories in the cocoa cancel each other out. Don't ask me how I know. ;)



10. One mini candy cane makes an excellent after dinner mint. I've eaten more candy canes this year than in all of my years combined. 



11. On Christmas Day, our family of 6 plus my mother and mother-in-law did a short story writing activity. Write down five things you see in the room and then take 5-10 minutes and write a story (like a paragraph or two) including those words. So much fun! I saved all the stories, because my family is full of excellent writers! More to come on those in the near future. 

Here are five of the words that were used: ceramic owl, jogger in neon green, flash card, big toe, birdcage. Now, aren't you curious?



12. My twenty year old daughter has kept a folder on her computer listing all of the books she's read since 2005. She had a goal to read 40 books in 2013 and at 11:50 p.m. on New Year's Eve, she was reading the last couple of poems in a book written by C.S. Lewis. She made her goal for the year!

13. Our family attempted to take a selfie on Christmas Day. What I didn't know is that my mother was recording our antics on her iphone. Take a look at our silliness!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing in what I learned in December!
Blessings,

Anne

When you need a soul remodel

Lord,

Take out your soft-bristled scrub brushes and do an inner soul-cleaning today.

It's time to rearrange the furniture a bit.

Maybe move some of it from one room to another, or even out to the curb.

Until it's garage sale weather,

remove all the outdated soul-hold items that are no longer useful and are not a beautiful addition to my being.

--remove bitterness and move in forgiveness

--put impatience out and place kindness front and center

--put love by the window so those wandering souls who pass by can feel its            warmth and see the glow of it

--take the ugly sketches drawn by my frustration and disappointment and hang        up your colorful splashes of peace on the canvas of my mind

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There are smudges of indifference on the walls of my heart.
Buff those out and put up a mural of your compassion and service.

Sweep up the crumbs of self-doubt
and roll out the crimson carpet of faith, peace and self-acceptance.

Sometimes the windows of my soul are fogged over with a haze of judgement.
Polish those with the cloth of your grace and acceptance.

I want the sofa facing the door, Lord,
so others will feel welcomed to come in and rest awhile.

Remove the splinters of hurt caused by the roughness of where I've walked,
and sand those surfaces smooth with Your healing touch so the hurts don't linger.

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I trust you, Lord, with the clearing of soul clutter:

--inner chatter about imperfections
--worries about the future
--regrets of the past

In fact, Lord, don't just tidy up.

I want you to do a whole-house soul remodel.

Amen.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Psalm 51:7