Today I have the awesome privilege of being featured over at Christian Supermom, hosted by Rosann Cunningham, for her Super Blogger Spotlight.  I am truly honored!  I met Rosann when our paths crossed through blogging.  Over the last couple of years, I have been extremely blessed and encouraged through her blog, especially over at Unemployed Faith, as I’ve walked with my husband through unemployment.  She is a super encourager and I am so thankful God brought us together.

Will you head over to Rosann’s place to read my interview?

Thank you, Rosann, for hosting me in your space today.  What an honor!

Today, I am so excited to have Lisa at Four Simply Living sharing her heart with you.  This post truly spoke to my heart, as I know it will yours.

 “Earths crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes his shoes off;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When the heart throbs for children, but your womb stands empty.

When you sit in the chair stunned with the news the doctor has prescribed.

When you are called to the office expecting to receive an accolade but handed a pink slip.

When the bank calls and the house, the one with the white picket fence and neighbors you love, is no longer yours.

When you lean in close to kiss the one you love for the very last time. When they unplug the monitors from their body and in doing so unplug your soul.

When you hear the cold damp earth envelop the one you birthed into this world.

When he walks in the door and tells you he’s in love, just not with you.

When you go to wake a slumbering child and find a note instead, one that says I had to run.

What do you do when your life picture changes? When you wake up one morning to find what you know to be true to be lost in the chaos of the ever changing universe. When you planned for one thing but found another. When the darkness closes in all around you and you can feel the life smothering oxygen out of your lungs. When you are wrecked, and broken, and lost, what do you do?

You cry out to a God that you are not convinced exists, because how can you be expected to hurt this much. “He will only give you what you can handle,” she crones to you in Bible study. In return you want to hurl back at her just how much this is more than you can take. What do you do?

Lean in. Lean. In.

“The Hard Eucharisteo- to lean in to the ugly and count it blessed.”* Accepting the blessing is giving up. Giving up on your own impression of what you thought life should look like and accepting his version instead. Healing comes in the acceptance of God’s ability to do anything but His choosing to do nothing.

And how do you lean into an intangible body? No warmth of chest leaned on, no arms encompassing you in comfort, shielding you from life.

Slow down and see. Lean into the ugly to see the beauty.

To witness the miracle we must slow down to see the blessing. The tick of time, the growing of Earth, the sun rising and setting all to the tune of our Master’s hands. He leads the symphony of life, the tangible essence of His love bestowed on us. If we miss the music, we miss God. Slowing down to see. To choose what is hard, seeing the excruciating beauty of pain, leaning into the ugly, to count it all joy. “If we are willing to see, all is transparent. Eucharisteo washes the glass, wiping away the soot.”* All is grace if we choose.

*{One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are & Study Guide, by Ann Voskamp}

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Thank you Lisa for writing such a beautiful post here in my space. Friends, would you send Lisa some comment love and visit her lovely blog?  Her heart of love for her Savior and others will overwhelm you.

Lisa is a vagabond, who has traveled the world her entire life. The military has flown her here and there, from one land to another, since the day she was brought into this thrashing world. She said she would never marry a military man; she wanted to plant roots and grow friends, and have a house where her kids would live life circled by a white picket fence. And then, when she was 17, a boy with hazel eyes dove deep into her heart and on the way announced that he too wanted to join the military. At Four Simply Living she writes about that journey and  faith, and family, and tries to capture the beauty of it all in photography.