Category Archives: Alaska

right here: how we seek first the Kingdom

Posted on by May 2, 2025

I was sitting on the bed, journaling, and out of the corner of my eye I saw something move across the floor. Turned my head to look, and it was a huge spider.

My preferred method for dealing with spiders is to grab a book, hold it a few feet above the intruder, and drop it with a solid thump. Then I leave the book on the floor for Vin to take care of because I don’t want to see what’s underneath, and he’s a good sport about this…even when I use his books, not mine, to do the thumping.

(The only book of mine currently next to the bed is a clothbound copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and we do not, not, not use clothbound books to smash spiders, let the redeemed of the Lord say so.)

right here: how we seek first the Kingdom

So I dispatched the spider with Vin’s military history book, left it on the floor by the bed, and went back to writing:

My last post is still doing its work in me, teaching me to behold joy and win through peace and gratitude. Also, I am strategically ignoring the wind and waves – those things that feel simultaneously too much and not enough – and am continuing to focus on writing His words and stewarding our home.

This verse came up last weekend in church, and it’s long been one of my favorites:

I paused to look up Matthew 8:33 – but no, that’s about herdsmen fleeing a demon-possessed man, definitely not it…tried again…ah yes, Matthew chapter six, not eight:

It’s this: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

I’ve always focused on the kingdom part and not really noticed the “and His righteousness” part, until our pastor said that “His righteousness” could also be seen as “His standards” – and the verse came alive to me in a whole new way. It seems obvious from a moral standpoint, but for the first time I also related it to His order, and beauty, and functionality, in a more domestic, home-keeping, family-nurturing, homesteaderly light.

I haven’t stopped thinking on it, how all the things are added unto us when we take care of the core issues. And I was still thinking on it when another spider crossed the floor, closer to the door this time, presumably to check on the first one.

But there weren’t any other books nearby.

I looked across the room at the bookshelves, and back near the door where the spider was. There was nothing else to be done, it was too close to getting away, so I peeled the already-used book off the floor and held it by the edges, careful to not look at the smashiness stuck to its underside. Took two steps, and WOMP, dropped it on spider #2.

Then I got a tissue and bravely (I hear you laughing, stop it) looked for the smudge of grossness on the floor from spider #1, and wiped it up. Threw the tissue in the toilet. Then grabbed three books off the shelf to keep handy, because the next offender was going to get hit with How The Irish Saved Civilization.

And I thought, Huh, that’s ironic, because that’s basically what I was journaling about, and what so many conversations have centered on lately. Not the Irish, but saving civilization.

Friends and acquaintances have been talking about redirecting their focus homeward, turning from what has somehow become normal because as Dave Ramsey says, normal is broke – not just in the sense he means, but also in the sense that forty-plus hours outside the home to meet the car payment and mortgage payment and the skyrocketing price of groceries often equates to parents and kids and spouses barely knowing each other because they spend so little real time together. Hence disconnection, and disillusion, and burnout.

Normal is broken; we do need saving.

Our culture has had all kinds of misfires in its attempts to do the right thing, depending on the current consensus of what the “right thing” actually was at the moment – provide for the family, reach the lost, raise the children, attend the church functions, train and educate for the next endeavor. All good things. But in light of “seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you,” it also makes me think of Jesus saying, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.”

And then He defended Mary, sitting at His feet. Mary, defying cultural norms and expectations, learning with the men. Mary, coming close: her eyes on Jesus, preparing to teach others about Him, seeking first the Kingdom and His righteousness.

We fight this constant sense of obligation and “ought to” that is more often just pressure than real conviction. The accusers and distractions (sometimes external, but often in our own heads) come in like so many spiders, trying to divert us from the work at hand, but only one thing is necessary.

Sometimes we feel like we ought to be doing something else because we’re subscribing to our culture’s standards and not His standards. We are a culture that likes formulas and programs, and we will often jump through all sorts of hoops rather than do the most simple, necessary task at hand that we’ve been avoiding because it isn’t the popular answer.

Prepare your work outside;
get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.

— Proverbs 24:27

We look for breakthrough and direction, but sometimes we do so while ignoring the unglamorous answers right in front of us. It has taken me a lifetime to learn that our breakthroughs don’t require us to say just the right words in just the right order, crack the code or solve the riddle, stand on your left foot for a certain number of seconds while singing the pre-determined worship song that will unlock everything once and for all.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed,nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

— Luke 17:20-21

We look all over, but the Kingdom is right here.

The mom who can’t raise her hands in worship because her arms are full of baby, of child, of other things, is no less engaged in worship than the person who stands up and sits down and claps at all the right times.

Having your arms full with your calling is also worship.

At the risk of stating the obvious (because sometimes we need to hear it): If you’re burnt out or sick, it might be because you’ve been so busy leading or serving others that you need to take a break to get yourself well. We can’t lead or serve others well if we’re not leading ourselves well.

That doesn’t mean you have to feel like you’ve arrived before you can lead or serve. It just means that it’s important to routinely draw back and strengthen our foundations, make sure our personal structures are sound before we miss the forest for the trees and try to serve our community. This is the heart of why we Sabbath, but it isn’t limited to just observing the Sabbath. (It’s also important to give grace to those who are different, or in different seasons than we are. What looks like rest to one of us looks like drudgery or torture to another.)

It also doesn’t mean you’ve got to have your act fully together before you can obey the Lord in whatever He’s called you to serve in externally. It just means there’s a necessary balance, because the first thing He’s calling us to is Himself. And if we’re not able to abide because our lives are so busy serving, serving, serving, and we’re out in our community so much that our home life is falling apart, our kids are falling apart, our marriage is falling apart, everything’s out of control, then it’s definitely time to draw back and strengthen those core areas.

A shadow runs across the path in front of us, and we look away from the work at hand. It needs to be squashed quickly so we can return to the one thing that is necessary.

Just to clarify, this isn’t a message about women needing to be solely domestic. We can blame radical feminism all we want but it does no good if we don’t recognize that radical feminism was an overcorrection in response to routine misogyny. Both sides have missed the mark in seeking first the Kingdom and His righteousness.

I shared this recently on social media:

If you feel stuck and aren’t sure what to do because the thing you want to do seems to have no openings or opportunities right now, put the weight of your focus on the things right in front of you or just ahead of you that you can do.

Strengthen those foundations and core areas. Build a strong spiritual structure, make the presence of God your permanent atmosphere.

Much will change in the coming months and you’ll be the better for not rushing into certain moves and changes right now.

But other things — the ones you feel Holy Spirit leading you in right now — need to be addressed immediately, and those are the things that will prepare you for the bigger moves in the long run that you can’t see the way forward in quite yet.

A voice cries:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

— Isaiah 40:3-5

We spent part of a recent Sabbath checking our chicken paddock fencing, closing gaps, stretching the fence back to its height where it had sagged from the weight of snow. If we don’t, the chickens will get loose and predators can get in (been there, hated that).

When we were done, walking back, we talked about how this would be a good time to look for chaga before the leaves come out. (What is chaga, you ask? It grows on birch trees, great for all kinds of health issues – here you go.)

We’ve never really hunted for it before, but lots of our friends have. We walked through the woods, looking up while also trying not to trip over the roots and fallen logs at our feet, wondering how we would get to the chaga if we found any in these tall, tall trees. Even if you do spot some, it’s not the most accessible thing in the world.

“You know what would be amazing?” I said. “If that giant birch tree the neighbors cut down last year had some on it.” We’d shared our chainsaw with them, and they had shared the wood with us, but we’d already chopped and stacked our share. We kept walking, looking up, going around the trees, looking at all sides.

We finally reached the edge of the woods and a huge birch log lay next to the path – part of the neighbor’s tree that for some reason we hadn’t cut for firewood.

Right on the top of it, a choppy dark crust with some exposed orange under it. If you know, you know.

“Um, wouldn’t it be nice…” I repeated, “if there just happened to be chaga on the tree that was already cut down…like, right in front of us…”

Wouldn’t it be nice if the thing we’re seeking really is what’s closest at hand?

It wasn’t a large piece, but it was right there. No climbing, no striving required. Just right in front of us, waiting to be found.

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P.S. It’s been a while since I updated y’all on some things, so here you go:

  • Looking for more homesteaderly content? Here’s our fun new gig: short posts on sustainability in small bites, everything from chaga to chickens.
  • If you feel stuck and need someone to help you move forward in this season, I may have a slot available for coaching — and if I’m currently booked up, there’s a waiting list. Info here.

I don’t know: confronting confusion with equanimity (and satire)

Posted on by February 1, 2024

Our seventh attempt to get through to a hotline. You are number 120 in queue, your wait time is 45 minutes.

Thirty minutes later: You are number 97 in queue, your wait time is one hour and twenty-eight minutes. Wait, what?

Almost two hours later: A noise that sounds like someone picking up the phone to answer. And maybe they did, but we’ll never know, because the call was disconnected.

[OH EXPLETIVE]

I don't know: confronting confusion with equanimity (and satire)

Have I complained about government paperwork enough already? Too bad, here we go.

If you’ve never heard of it before, let me introduce you to the concept of the “Circumlocution Office.” You’ve probably experienced it many times, just not by that name.

The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office.

– Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

The Circumlocution Office is where All Things Bureaucracy and Paperwork go to die. But they don’t just die – they relocate, then circumvent, then redirect, then dawdle sluggishly toward some oozey pit of phone lines, paper-stuffed cabinets, and stale TicTacs in a room like a giant coffin with apathetic lighting until all papers within have disintegrated from the erosion of procrastination.

Thanks to the guardianship process for two of our kids, we are in the middle of applying for multiple programs for both of them. (This is required, not optional, don’t even get me started.) I’ve mentioned before that paperwork and administrative duties are my hate language – as opposed to actual love languages like coffee, memes, and good sushi – and the process of navigating this system has challenged all my efforts toward healthy self-medicating, including prayer, staying up too late reading, and a slightly addictive obsession with Sudoku.

If you’re not familiar with Sudoku, the instructions are precise: Every row, column, and square must have only one of each number (or in our case, color). Even at the higher levels, it’s hard but not confusing. When you feel stuck there’s always a solution if you consider it long enough. The rules are simple and they don’t change.

In spite of being in the guardianship process for over a year, we have yet to find a single corner of this arena where experts agree on how the process is completed, and none of it has been streamlined for ease and efficiency.

It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.

– Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

Enter Paperwork Saga, round two: Day of Phone Calls.

Paperwork requires phone calls because applications and government websites are designed by mystical regulatory leprechauns in such a way as to give you only a third of the information you need to fill them out. The rest is a riddle of precision guesswork spiked with threats of legal retribution if you forget to cross a T or you accidentally double dot an I.

It turns out though, there are some wonderful people whom you can call. Most of them admit the system is a mess, and none of them actually work for the government.

Unfortunately, none of them know the same things. For example, I have asked approximately fourteen people if we could apply for a particular requirement for our kids before they turned eighteen, and every answer without fail has been “I don’t know” until one person finally said, “Oh, absolutely. In fact, it takes about a year for it to go through. So you should’ve applied a year ago.”

*headdesk, headdesk*

But here’s what I’m learning: Most of the things we dread are not as bad or hard as they seem. And when they are, you get writing material out of it. (Also, the extraneous forms and duplicate paperwork can usually be composted as bedding in the chicken coop.)

This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen…Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.

– Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

One government website says “You can try applying online.” (Try? Try? Like it’s one of those ball-throwing games at the State Fair?) The instructions continue with this disclaimer: “Depending on your situation, it may be hard or it may be easy.” Um. Greeeat. Turns out, if the website craps out in the first thirty seconds every time you try filling out the forms, it’s definitely hard.

Two people told me, “Call this office. They will definitely be able to help you get this waiver.” They had to tell me repeatedly because, at this point, you can see how skeptical I am of anyone’s surefire solution. But I finally called the office and left a message. The following week, I heard back.

“No, sorry,” the guy said, “we only do this waiver, and you need this other waiver. There are actually five different waivers,” he admitted, “and I know it’s really confusing. But you need to call this office, in Anchorage.”

How are we supposed to get anywhere when even the professionals who are supposed to guide you through this don’t know what they’re doing because the system is so bloated?

…The Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it…

– Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

After that blunder, someone assured me, “You can call this number for help, these people definitely know what they’re doing, they do this for a living.” Thereupon I called the number and an answering machine picked up; it said they may (What? May?) return my call within ten business days.

But hey, to their credit, they called two days later and got my voicemail. It was a woman whose first language was definitely not English, and her message directed me to the same website that was unnavigable in the first place.

Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office…Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, except the business that never came out of it; and its name was Legion.

– Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

Among the many things we don’t know about this process is that all these people (the ones we’ve dealt with, at least) are actually kind, respectful, and encouraging. Maybe I was prepared for otherwise after two years of officials behaving like Gestapo who wouldn’t even respect a person’s right to breathe freely. (Those protocols really brought out the worst in humanity, didn’t they?)

Had they used their faces, not for communication, not to utter thought and feeling, not to share existence with their neighbors, but to appear what they wished to appear, and conceal what they were? And, having made their faces masks, were they therefore deprived of those masks, and condemned to go without faces until they repented?

– George MacDonald, Lilith

The difference is that during the plandemic, those officials demanded that you wear a mask, too, and they turned into freakish banshees if you refused – and ironically, instead of covering ugliness, their masks revealed what was really inside and made them more hideous than ever.

“How long must they flaunt their facelessness in faceless eyes?” I wondered. “How long will the frightful punition endure? Have they at length begun to love and be wise? Have they yet yielded to the shame that has found them?”

– George MacDonald, Lilith

But it seems like most professionals have come back to just being decent people, truly trying to help. And we need help, because the system is a convoluted mess.

It’s such an intimidating process. Court documents flooding my inbox, meetings with lawyers, interviews with court visitors. It all seems very official – and it is – but it’s also very human. And maybe this is a secret, but the formality is a cover for an extremely informal, fluid process. It, too, is just a mask.

We want to walk through the process correctly. The problem is that there’s no correct way to do it, and all the experts tell you something different (unless it’s “I don’t know,” which is alarmingly consistent).

And honestly, I would rather hear “I don’t know” than a bunch of misleading information. So this is a good step – a cultural willingness to admit humility, to let go of pride and ego, to acknowledge we’re all in this together, needing answers. How else do we make sense of the things that don’t?

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

– Titus 3:1-3

Of course, cooperating with a system isn’t the same as capitulating or conforming to that system, just as being “submissive to rulers and authorities” isn’t the same as sucumbing to tyranny. So we work the problem in front of us, sitting in the discomfort of not having immediate solutions. The answers are there, regardless of how ambiguous they look right now. Time will either bring the solutions to the surface, or they just won’t matter because we will have bigger things to deal with.

What I’ve really needed to hear from someone is, “Yes, it’s a mess. Yes, it’s confusing. You’re doing fine.” And praise God, the Lord brought someone who said that very thing, and it was such a comfort. (She still didn’t know how to file for SSI…but I digress).

So friend, if you are walking through something hard and complicated, and there are no clear answers and lots of confusing directions, let me tell you: Yes, it’s a mess. The world is a cleanup operation, and these are confusing times. We don’t have all the answers but Jesus does, and we have the mind of Christ so we are able to discover Kingdom solutions. We can wait for the revelation while we sit in the mystery. You’re trying and waiting and trusting? You‘re doing fine.

There’s another number sitting on my list that I’ve been referred to multiple times. Overcoming my jadedness, I finally call and a woman with a smoker’s voice answers.

“You have access to the internet?” she asks, and directs me to a website with a big yellow button to apply.

Short form, easy. Now I feel reckless and brave, and ask if she can help me navigate this other arena.

“Yep, that’s the Something-something-aging-something office. Their number is –”

“Wait, that’s the office I need?”

“Yep. Their number is…” and she gives me a local number with real people who live here in Alaska and actually answer questions.

Miracles abound.

I called the lady and she was so nice. The person with all the knowledge and resources and answers will call us next week and help us through the whole process, she said.

“Of course, you don’t have to go through our office, we’re just here to support you. You can go directly to the federal government website if you want.” And it was all I could do to not scream, No! I need you, please don’t leave me! (Of course, she hasn’t called me back yet, and it’s been over a week. So I guess that’s on my to-do list again tomorrow.)

But something that keeps recurring to me is that many of these things that seem like such a big deal – so time consuming, such hassles – end up being nothing in the long run. I don’t just mean that in perspective they are small, but that they often just dissolve into nothingburgers, distractions that just took up too much brain space when we could’ve been cultivating peace and productivity elsewhere.

The Spirit reveals what we need to know when we abide. And often we don’t need the answers as soon as we think we do, so resting in the mystery of His timing is an exercise in growing in trust and equanimity. It’s easy to slip into intimidation and pressure, but taking a step back means we won’t allow the enemy to magnify that stress in or around us.

Instead, we can counter that stress and confusion with prayer, compassion, Sudoku, and mockery of inept government systems as we expose the mask and move toward a more transparent, healthy, and secure culture. We will try and wait and trust. My big situations, your big situations – will they even matter in the big picture? I don’t know; it’s a mess out there. But you’re doing great.

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bits and pieces: how we build the Kingdom with small offerings

Posted on by December 8, 2025

“You don’t need the light to go down the stairs,” I mumble as I flip the switch off. I do this at least once a day and the stairwell isn’t even dark; there’s a window at the bottom, and light from the kitchen filters in at the top.

And even if it were utterly dark (which it almost never is at our house), humans – even small humans – know how to walk on stairs. We’ve done it a million times, even carrying bags of groceries or dozens of eggs. It’s muscle memory. But the kids flip the light on just for the fun of it, I guess.

bits and pieces: how we build the Kingdom with small offerings

We like to see where we’re going, and we like the way to be clear. I was reminded of this last week when I drove to church through heavy snow and hated it with every mile, knowing I could do it but not liking it. In those times we kind of wish we had the cop-out of not being able to do something so we can beg off from the responsibility. But no, we can do hard things like driving on sloppy roads, and learning how to use cantankerous sewing machines, and going through the bureaucratic hoops of guardianship.

We were officially granted guardianship of Reagan on Tuesday, which is an odd thing because we’ve been her parents for over eleven years and she’s been 18 for a month already. So yay, that’s done – until next month, at least, when we repeat the process with Andrey. Now we just need to get used to all the new paperwork routines and deadlines (have I told you lately how much I hate paperwork? SO MUCH) and new adult-y things for her, like establishing her own bank account, which is also an odd thing because we’re supposed to get all this in place as soon as possible but we won’t even have the decree in hand to do so for 4-6 weeks, because this is the government we’re talking about.

Right, the sewing machine isn’t the only cantankerous one around here. Maybe we should switch subjects and talk about cheerful things, like how we didn’t die when we drove home in the ice fog last week.

It was the same day I mentioned a minute ago, when we were driving in the heavy snow to church. But on the way home, the snow had stopped and the roads were clearer, and I even told Cham she could turn on the radio to look for Christmas music.

And then four minutes later we hit the ice fog on the highway.

At first I thought it was fine, but then I quickly realized we were driving through a cloud that was adhering to us. Ice started building up at the top of the windshield, and then it crept lower. I flipped the wipers on and they helped a little, but within another mile they went right over the glaze that continued to spread downward.

“Turn off the radio,” I said, and flipped the heat to its highest setting. We were still four miles from home and all those little tiny particles kept building up on each other.

And I think this is when I repented of angrily flipping off the light switch to the stairwell, because seeing where we’re going is more than just a luxury sometimes. It’s one thing when you have muscle memory to walk down the stairs, but it’s a totally different thing when you’re on the highway in the dark, and ice is covering more and more of the windshield as it shrinks your view of the highway in front of you.

There was nowhere to pull over. The road was barely plowed, two lanes had shrunk to one and half, and there was no shoulder. Pulling over and putting on hazard lights meant blocking what was left of the slow lane, and surely we would’ve been hit in the fog.

So we did what we had to do, and kept going. The ice continued to crawl further down, and I continued to crouch further down so I could see the road out of the clear space left in the windshield. We were in this catch-22 – we had to drive slow because we couldn’t see far in the fog, but we also had to drive as fast as possible to get home before we couldn’t see anything at all.

Sometimes stopping and quitting isn’t an option. Sometimes we must keep going; we have to see it through, even when we can’t see ten feet in front of us. We know we’re in danger, we know God has to protect us, and we know that stopping doesn’t just mean rest or quitting, but something far worse.

And we made it, obviously, because I’m here writing to you about it. We barreled through the last intersection and pulled off the highway, drove up the hill, and then up our driveway, and the relief would’ve been complete if we hadn’t driven separately, because Vince and Afton were still out there behind us somewhere.

Eight minutes later they pulled in the driveway and pounded up the stairs and into the kitchen. Our conversations were all “Oh my gosh,” and “I’ve never seen it like that,” and gratitude that we pray over this highway every single day.

I wonder if those tiny daily prayers matched that ice fog granule for granule, keeping it at bay so we could get home in time. Because good and great things build up on themselves, too.

Over the last several months I’ve seen encouraging progress in prayer, and sometimes it surprises me in its suddenness: Oh yeah, I prayed for that, as I notice a kid making better media choices, and another kid having better sleeping patterns. I keep noticing small but visible victories, these little pieces that start adding up and instilling courage, reminding me that prayer is a powerful work that builds on itself, too. We don’t have to know what the answers or details are, we just need to agree with God’s will for goodness and healing and restoration.

And that brings me back to my efforts with the sewing machine, because I don’t really know what I’m doing with this fabric, either. I just know that I want to make something beautiful out of these bits and pieces.

I don’t have a pattern, and I don’t really want a pattern. Some people follow intricate geometric designs, and I admire their precision and planning. But I don’t want to do that; my brain space for precision and planning goes to writing, and this is play.

Why is it that it’s so much easier to not have a plan when it comes to this? With bigger life situations when I don’t see light on the next five steps, it’s not play; it’s frustration and fear and self-doubt. But here with these bits and pieces, I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m also not doubting myself. I know that if I mess up, I can seam rip; if I cut too many pieces, I can use them in something else.

That’s what I can do in your situations, too, the Holy Spirit keeps reminding me. That’s what grace is. Nothing is wasted.

We take things so seriously. A lot of our situations are serious, of course, but we fret over them as though we’re more attentive and concerned than God is, which is stupidly presumptuous. We spend a lot of our lives flying by the seat of our pants, and it seems like that’s by design because God does amazing things with our loaves and fishes, scraps and thread. He knows we don’t know what we’re doing half the time, and there’s huge comfort in that.

It’s not my job to create the material or know exactly what the finished product will look like. I’m just taking the material available and pulling certain pieces together, doing what I know to do – and when we know better, we do better – so these bits and pieces in front of me can become something beautiful, useful, and redeemed.

There’s a dark, moody scrap here, telling a kid no, they can’t go to a certain event. And there are lighter, brighter scraps over there, laughing together during movies and telling old family stories. Threads of abiding prayer weave through every day, holding pieces together. And I think, so far at least, this is all I need to really know.

We want to do something grand, but often all we have energy for is bits and pieces. Are the bits and pieces enough, though? They have to be, because it’s the only way things are made and accomplished. A book is read – or written – a word, a sentence, a page at a time. Relationships are built one interaction at a time. Breakthrough is achieved one steadfast, grace-filled, desperate day at a time.

Our obedient, faithful bits and pieces counter the ice fog of life, and it’s enough. We have vision for the next couple of small steps, we have strength for the one busy day ahead of us, we have patience for one more go-round with the kid who’s been cooking our grits. It’s all we can do. Like manna that cannot be hoarded for more than the day ahead, we cannot store the effort and strength and energy we need for all these things. We can only build the character that perseveres and comes out victorious with one small, obedient decision at a time.

It’s not about doing everything just right. We don’t always know if it’s working. We know if we’re obeying, though. And we also know when we’re procrastinating by praying for more guidance when the way is already clear, but just not as clear as we want it to be. We want undimmed light for all 17 steps, not just the first couple.

But if risky obedience is approached a little more like play, joy suddenly takes the place of anxiety. It all hinges on trust, though – Does He care? Does He have our best in mind? Is He big enough to cover my imperfections?

Yes, to all three.

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

– Malachi 3:10-12

The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
    for those who fear him have no lack!

– Psalm 34:7-9

Joy and freedom and expansion are markers of the Kingdom. Fear and dread and anxiety are the enemy’s methods to waylay those.

Obedience, courage, and surrender are contagious. Sometimes people wait for the obedience of someone else to move. So your obedience creates a current that moves the less willing, and momentum sweeps through like a rising tide that lifts all boats and aligns many in the right direction. Our obedience isn’t just for ourselves; it changes the atmosphere and culture around us.

Is the dim light enough? Just enough for this step, and the next one, and then next one? Because these days, just those little steps might be all we have in us. And maybe that’s for a good reason.

Will you find your identity in your grand achievements and accomplishments, God asks us, or will you find it in Me?

I believe in the bits and pieces: Joy, freedom, expansion, obedience, courage, and surrender. He’s using these small steps of ours to make grand, beautiful things out of the scraps we have left.

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