Positively (Im)perfect

"You see, sometimes God allows  us to be uncomfortable." "Oh?" "Yes. Because it's good for us." So my dear sister-friend, Sara , explained to me one day, impassioned by this truth she'd discovered in a recent podcast. She was embarking on her own personal revelation, but I listened attentively, her words snapping into place like scattered puzzle pieces finally coming together in my mind for a glimpse of the full picture. "It's not about whether it's easy or hard, it's about whether it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's the easiest things that are uncomfortable...but God wants us to do them because it's the only way to stretch and grow ourselves from where we are." I've paraphrased, of course, because my mind was too busy spinning in place at the time to trap her exact words for safekeeping. It kept spinning as the full picture came into view: Degrees of suffering differ. Degrees of difficulty differ. Bu

It's no secret that I love to read, and I thought this link-up with Haley over at Carrots for Michaelmas served as the perfect year in review for all of my bookish finds; especially because she has just as many books on her "started but not yet finished" list as I do! Guess I'm not the only one... I also can't wait to snag a few titles from her list and the rest of the bookworms taking part in the link-up so I can get my read on in 2014! I ultimately had to consult three different places to "find" all of my books--my Kindle, my Goodreads , and the various 'shelves' around the house where I tend to leave my non-digital books. (And I had to wrack my brain for the few I borrowed from the library, too, if that counts as a place). But I think I got them all. So here they are, grouped into loose categories, with the understanding that many fall into multiple categories (anything more is beyond my organization level!): Don't be fooled -

The other night, I went to retrieve a picture of myself for a little project. It's one of the few baby pictures I have in my possession, (the rest being maintained in a fabulous 80s-style photo album at my parents' house), and I knew exactly where that picture was: tucked between Ezra and Nehemiah in my NAB Bible. "Kinda strange place to keep a baby picture," one might think. But my Bible is chock full of such things. As I rifled through the pages to find my photo, I found myself pausing continually at each natural break in the binding to look at another card or note or photo, taking in memory after meaningful memory, tucked away in its own special place. It must have been sometime in high school that I started using my Bible as a spiritual scrapbook of sorts; no doubt influenced by my own mother's practice, as I can picture even now hazy memories of paging through her worn Bible, running my fingers over the groove of the underlines and markings, bookmarked

Have you seen this yet? Three beautiful minutes of "Preach ON!"