Category Archives: identity

when we know better, we do better (and other things I might tell the sunflower)

Posted on by September 11, 2026
when we know better, we do better (and other things I might tell the sunflower) || Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

After 14 years, we are looking at life turning right side up again. It is not a quick process but something that we’ll probably be walking out over the next several months, at least.

I’ve struggled with how (and how much) to share about this because even though it is such a huge part of our lives, it is also our son’s life and I’ve stepped back from writing about it. It was easier when he was little, when all the kids were younger, when their adulthood loomed far ahead in a nebulous someday that felt eons away.

But now most of our kids are adults. In a year we’ll only have two under 18, and I don’t want to compromise their privacy or share as much of their childhoods as I used to. File this under When we know better, we do better. In the last post I mentioned that intercessors can’t talk about everything, and that’s true with parenting, writing, and other ministry, as well.

You and I navigate situations that are none of the internet’s business, so suffice it to say that all of the parents and ministers around us need prayer. Including us. And we’re praying for you, too.

I planted a couple dozen sunflowers in June but this is the only one that bloomed, and it wasn’t even one of mine. The chickadees and finches are snobs about their birdseed, eating all the small bits and rejecting the crushed sunflower seeds which they leave all over the deck so it looks like mouse detritus (not really the aesthetic we go for around here). But several of those seed bits landed in pots and sprouted, and this one is to their credit.

Once it bloomed, instead of looking outward at the sun like a normal sunflower, it just stared into the house all day.

I can’t tell if it’s friendly or creepy, spying or just curious, but it is very much how I’ve felt in recent years about sharing life online. I’ll let you figure out what that means because I’m not sure I’ve decided yet, even though I started blogging eighteen years ago. Most readers are great (bless you) but occasionally there’ll be someone who feels entitled to judge or assume or presume something that’s none of their business, simply because they’ve read about our family for a year or a decade or whatever.

I’m telling you this because it’s very much a part of what God has been speaking to me about how we mistake the holy for the common, and forget to hold what is sacred with the care and reverence we’re called to – both as a reader of other people, and a writer with my own people. Both are holy.

Unfortunately, the internet tends to be an environment rife with treating everyone on it like a reality show, while the worst of the audience is like those in the stands of the Colosseum shouting for people to die for their own entertainment. Some others just tend to be armchair quarterbacks and captious critics. (For example, it’s a special form of gaslighting to tell a person who has lived with trauma that they aren’t “trauma informed” because they don’t promote a particular brand of training…but I digress.)

So over the years I’ve shifted many things here, and one of the main ones is protecting how we keep certain events and memories sacred rather than casually strewing them about everywhere for anyone to make shallow commentary on that costs them nothing but comes at our expense.

With that said, here is where we are at in one major area.

We’ve had a ton of growth, and last year it finally looked like we had “arrived” to some extent. We saw healing, joy, repentance, and wholeness blooming in our son who had formerly dug in his heels against all those things.

Then spring came around, and with it the knowledge that things would change: his last year of school, and after that a job and who knows what else. And change has always been scary – no, terrifying. Slam on the brakes. Avoid it at all costs, even if it costs everything.

So the heels dug in again, and to make his world small and comfortable he refused the most basic of things that would move him forward.

I don’t like sharing this with you and I hope someday he’ll be at a place where he’s both intellectually and spiritually able to read my writings. I don’t want him to feel shame from them, and I hope readers will walk a wide path of grace instead of ignorant judgment and superiority. But as we’ll discuss, each person is responsible for their own maturity.

So without giving gory details, I’ll just say that his hard choices have put us in a place where we’ve had to make some hard choices because we still have young ones in the home. And he himself is not a kid anymore, having passed that milestone a couple years ago.

Vigilance has become muscle memory.

The mental exhaustion of always scanning for triggers. Scanning for objects that could become unsafe.

Living in a home like this keeps the body on alert. We scan tones of voice. We track proximity. Muscles stay tight. Sleep stays light. Even when the house is quiet, our bodies don’t trust the quiet.

There’s a phrase for this: battle weary—the kind of fatigue soldiers feel when the fighting doesn’t end.

– Emily Lawson

We had a good conversation last week that I thought might indicate breakthrough. The cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face can really only go on for so long; consequences and counseling can only do so much, because repentance is really what moves the needle. I thought maybe, finally, he was ready. This is what we all need when we find ourselves facing the heat of our own poor decisions.

But twice later that day he made it clear that he wasn’t there yet. Loud and clear, in our faces, up your nose with a rubber hose. No way.

Okay.

And just so you know, that’s more than I’ve told the sunflower.

What friends and family outside our home couldn’t see was this wasn’t a temporary crisis. Trauma had reshaped the architecture of our daily life. Ordinary moments required calculation. Leaving the house meant anticipating triggers. Transitions meant preparing nervous systems. We could never plan for it all. The weight wasn’t occasional; it was constant.

Crisis became the ecosystem we lived in. So our questions were no longer: how do we get through this. It was: how do we find (and trust) God inside this new reality?

– Emily Lawson

We are again, for the zillionth time, faced with our own choices in the midst of his. But having seen how it’s played out for 14 years and still having other kids here who are impacted by how those choices accumulate, we’re making them differently now.

For weeks I’ve been in 1 John 4 and Proverbs 2 and the first half of 3. Normally I’m not a lingerer and tend more toward plowing through, but this is another way the Lord is shifting and growing me. It’s a good sign because so many things are still too close and blurry to make sense of. So I’ve been a willing captive in those chapters while He does work in me that I cannot.

Yesterday I was released and finally moved on, to be smacked upside the head by the end of Proverbs 3:

The wise will inherit honor,
but stubborn fools, disgrace.

– Proverbs 3:35

After I read it a few times, the Lord said, Go talk to him about that. Not like one of those horrid Bible thumping moments so many of us grew up with, but in trepidatious hope that he would have ears to hear and act accordingly. (But I did hold my Bible, keeping a finger in that spot because I didn’t want to ad lib.)

We talked about honor, and what it means to him: being looked up to, respected. It’s what he longs for; he revels in being the big brother and the kid who has answers, regardless of how reliable those answers are. It has long been a source of aggravation to Vin and I that he likes to be the town crier with all sorts of gossip, from announcements about the UPS truck in the driveway to ruined surprises and overheard information that is usually less reliable than a game of Telephone with 38 participants.

Then we talked about wisdom, how it’s not just being smart, but more about knowing and doing the right thing. Often the wise choice is the hardest one to make.

Convinced that he understood that much, I moved on the other half of the verse. He knew all the words except disgrace, so we talked about that, too: Basically, it’s the opposite of what he wants, or what any of us want. No one wants to be a person that no one else trusts, believes, or relies on. None of us want to be looked down upon.

Then we talked about the summer, the whole summer, and all the days that slipped by without his participation. Not a confrontation, just a calm observation of how he’s chosen to not do this, that, and the other because he refused basic responsibilities. That refusal cost him so much because nothing else seemed as important. Seemed like he wanted to dig in his heels more than he wanted anything else.

“I wanted to do those things, though,” he corrected me.

“Yeah,” I affirmed. “You wanted your cake, and to eat it, too.” Pause. “Do you know what that means?” No, he didn’t.

“It means you wanted honor even though you were making choices like a stubborn fool. But honor doesn’t go with those choices, you only get honor by making wise choices. Just like you only get to do those other things you wanted to do by being responsible and trustworthy.”

His eye faintly twitched but he wasn’t glaring, which is generally followed by rage, so this was a good sign. Maybe the message penetrated.

But also, I’ve learned that all the love and time and patience and teaching in the world can’t make a person’s choices for them.

“I know you can be wise,” I said. “I hope you’ll choose to be. Every day you can make that choice, and you’ve had all summer to make it. But the time might come when other people start making choices for you.”

I went inside and shut the door.

Honestly, I wonder if that’s what he’s waiting for – someone to make the choice for him. Because when they do that, we don’t have to take responsibility, and we can blame someone else for our situation. Not really of course, but the gaslighter gaslights themselves first in the process of lying to others…like so:

He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it.

Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it, and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm by the fire!” The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!”

They do not know, nor do they comprehend, for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”

He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?”

– Isaiah 44:14b-20

We have to be willing to face reality, which includes the impact of our decisions…and the decisions of others that we can’t control.

And for the Christian that can be an odd walk because we know that there’s more to reality than what we see.

We are asked to believe things that defy our senses, but not things that defy God.

We’re pushing 2000 words already and I’m running out of room here for both your patience and mine. But real quick, there’s one more thing I want to touch on that has been blowing my mind in this situation.

Last week in Bible study, our pastor talked about ruling in the midst of our enemies. And of course we know flesh and blood are not our enemies, but let’s be honest because they act and feel like it sometimes.

The big question is: Can we walk in the midst of hostility (or hatred, reviling, gossip, or whatever) with the same amount of authority (read: love, confidence, favor, kindness, joy, and all the fruit of the Spirit) as we do when we are around our friends?

Can we live as though we are loved even when we are around those who do not treat us lovingly?

There is so much more I want to say about this (notes and notes, which will hopefully probably possibly become the next post) but for now, I just want those questions to bother and encourage you as much as they bother and encourage me.

We are battle weary. But also hopeful. Also, more vigilant to protect those who’ve been cut in the process of loving the broken, including ourselves.

Thank you for praying for us. We’re praying for you, too.

Shannon

P.S. Emily’s full post is here.

P.P.S. Our schedule has shifted again (!) and we currently have a few openings for coaching, either for individuals or marriages. Info and sign up here. If you do not need coaching but would like to give toward scholarships for those who do, our give page is here and it will allow you to note that accordingly. Thanks!

open hand: how we fight pride, presumption, & other delusions of grandeur

Posted on by September 2, 2026

Up way too early. Out of bed, throw on jeans, a belt, a hoodie. All is stealth-mode until I hit the stairs, where the floorboards creak like books that have never been opened.

Turn on the teapot, turn over the quail eggs in the incubator. The light slants sideways through leaves on trees, and at this hour it’s golden like sunset but coming from the opposite direction.

I usually miss this.

The cats yawn and stretch in lazy suspicion, and I hear Kav, our youngest, sneeze in his room. He’s usually the first one up and you don’t sneeze in your sleep, so I peek in and his skinny arms stretch out for me, for a warm hug that comes with a silent grin.

open hand: how we fight inflation, presumption, & other delusions of grandeur

Back in the living room, it feels like forever extends before me. Like hours. I could do anything – clean the house, work on a class, read a couple chapters, bake something special for breakfast.

But really, I make tea and sweep the floor. That’s it.

Because it’s not actually hours that I have, or even a single hour. It feels like it in those first minutes, but this is Sunday, our only early morning of the week. Everyone’s got to get up and moving in forty minutes.

There’s nothing wrong with an extra forty minutes. But the delusions of grandeur threaten to make the found time seem small, insignificant, not enough. They aren’t, though; it’s just that unrealistic expectations take up too much room, crowding out gratitude for what really happens.

It was still bonus time, and quiet space. It’s all gain.

But inflation, as it tends to do, makes it seem like loss.

We have a good thing going, but something subtle sneaks in and steals from it.

Which leads me to the service.

It could be any Sunday morning service. It’s probably most of them, in fact.

But on this particular one, in the middle of amazing worship, I saw a picture in my mind of a 40,000-foot view of the churches of the Valley. It happened during a moment of noticing our congregation leaning into the song – the Spirit-filled singing, the off-the-page adoration of Him – and I felt like in that 40,000-foot view, the Lord was super pleased with our church and several others that morning.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling the Lord’s pleasure on something, by the way.

But in that moment, I also felt pride in our church and the way we were pursuing Him.

And the Holy Spirit very quickly squashed that and corrected me, and said that our leaning toward Him cannot be anything — ANYTHING — about our church or any particular church, or who we are, or our particular style. It can only be about Him.

If it’s about anything else, even (or, especially) in the guise of being about Him when it’s really about us, it’s idolatry.

Look at us, how humble we are, how we’re looking to Jesus, how good we are at holding this fragile bubble of genuine worship— pop! It’s gone as soon as we touch it.

We are not meant to hold this for ourselves. As soon as we’re aware of it, we’ve lost it.

I probably don’t need to tell you how many churches I’ve worshiped in where this kind of pride was just the status quo, part of the air we breathed, even as we were singing that He was the air we breathed.

So hey, let’s talk about Uzzah. We have something in common here.

Uzzah’s story happens in 2 Samuel, right after David is anointed as king over all Israel. David wants to bring the Ark to Jerusalem so he chooses his closest 30,000 friends to help, and here we are in verse 3:

They carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill.

Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went in front of the ark.

— 2 Samuel 6:3-4

So the Ark had been in the house of Abinadab, and the reason it was there is a whole other story, but it had been there for twenty years. A long time, at Uzzah’s dad’s house.

So Uzzah was pretty familiar with it. Probably too familiar. He may have felt a sense of entitlement, ownership, and authority over it, as we tend to do with things we feel inflated over due to our proximity to them.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen lurched.

The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him there, and he died there beside the ark of God.

— 2 Samuel 6:6-7

We often read this like, Ohhh, poor Uzzah, he was just helping! Dude, that was harsh. Even David thought so. And, sorry to keep picking on David but this wasn’t the only part of this situation he got wrong, because they weren’t supposed to be carrying the ark on a cart in the first place. They were supposed to carry it with poles, because it was not to be touched.

Uzzah had become so familiar with something sacred of the Lord’s that he thought the Lord needed his help in caring for it. You could argue it was just a sudden reaction and there was no thought involved at all, but you could also argue that our knee-jerk reactions are the tangible result of thoughts we’ve allowed to percolate.

I know the rules, but God needs my help; He’ll make an exception for me.

This is called presumption. A person who knows the rules but wants to see how far they can stretch them or get away with them is often also a person who is neither honest with themselves nor God…nor anyone else.

God knew exactly where Uzzah’s heart was, just as He knows our heart when we make excuses.

That is a sobering, fearful thing, especially in our culture (and even our churches) where we take such pride in our roles, associations, and privileges.

Because if Uzzah can’t get away with this, what does that mean for us?

It means we cannot treat what is holy as something that is common.

Uzzah, instead of being humbled by proximity and stewardship, seems to have made it about himself and became arrogant.

All of Israel had been warned against this:

As for anyone who presumes to disobey the priest appointed to minister there to the Lord your God or the judge, that person shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. All the people will hear and be afraid and will not act presumptuously again.

— Deuteronomy 17:12-13

I don’t know how it works for other people, but for Christians, pride usually sneaks in masked as righteousness: the sneaky humble brag, the fancy prayer, the exaggerated testimony, the subtle judgment of “those people” (whoever they are) that we distance ourselves from, not wanting to be inadvertently associated with. Or the desire to have (or be) the answer for someone, instead of seeking The Answer with them.

Inflated superiority takes up too much room, and crowds out gratitude for who we really are, what we really have privilege to access, and the sacred space we get to live in.

(Knightley also takes up a lot of room, but none of us mind too much.)

We have the privilege of proximity to so many holy things: His presence. Our families. The gifts we’re endowed with. The hearts of each other.

We have these sacred things but as soon as we get too familiar, we can take them for granted and treat them as common. Our hand closes over instead of staying open, and we begin to act like we are the one to be served, rather than the one serving.

When I’ve looked back honestly (facing all the cringe), I see this in so many of my old ways, and even in recent ways that I just thought were fine. They were so much a part of church culture that I didn’t realize how opposed they were to Kingdom culture, until He confronted me.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christand be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

— Philippians 3:8b-9

It is so good to be confronted by Him, when our hands are open to His ways and not close-fisted to ours.

Perfection doesn’t qualify people for ministry; repentance and obedience do. Humility does. Surrender to Him does. These things expand us without inflating us.

Pride is a disqualifier, though often a delayed one. God is so patient with us, giving us so many second chances to see ourselves rightly.

(I wonder how many second chances Uzzah already had?)

One of the things I have learned over decades of intercessory prayer and prophetic ministry is that when you are an intercessor, you pray about things you can’t talk about. God tells you things you can’t talk about, and when you minister, people tell you things you can’t talk about, too.

If you’re an intercessor, you know. It’s not our job to talk; it’s our job to pray, watch, and speak in agreement with God.

He never tells us something to hold over someone else, though. He doesn’t entrust secrets to those who get an ego boost or otherwise abuse them.

And we want to be those He can trust.

He is breaking off pride in our Valley and elsewhere, where we have taken something holy and perverted it into elevating ourselves, our individual churches, or ministries. If we want the spotlight on what we are doing instead of what He is doing (and it must be said, these are often not the same things), we have gravely lost focus.

Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

— Romans 12:9-10

It’s not that He wants us to be nameless or unidentifiable, but that He wants us to be so attentive to Him that we are oblivious to any name we are making for ourselves. This is for our protection.

Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

— Romans 12:16

Also, it’s not the desire to do something big or significant that’s wrong. There’s nothing wrong with healthy ambition or wild exploits or the desire to accomplish a whole list of things in an hour that you would normally sleep through.

And it’s not wrong to feel the relief or sense of achievement that comes from getting those things done, or from leaving something — or someone — better than you found them.

Making something or someone (even if it’s ourselves) better than before isn’t what’s wrong.

It’s thinking that we are better than [insert name or group here] that’s wrong.

If I’m understanding this right, the only person in the Kingdom I’m better than is myself, yesterday.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

— Romans 12:3

Don’t miss this: He is right there with you, as He is here with me, at the desk, in the car, in line at the post office, and as we are wandering the aisles in the grocery store, trying to find where they relocated the dairy. He is in the tension-filled meeting, and in the garden where the weeds are threatening to take over.

His presence is right there, the air we breathe, but we will miss Him if we are distracted by our preconceived notions and focused on our superiority masked as righteousness.

This is holy ground. We hold it all with an open hand, because we want to steward it well.

P.S. Along these lines: What does the Bible really say about leadership in the Church? Two theologians — a Hebrew scholar and a Greek scholar — untangle where we’ve often confused man made traditions and assumptions with what the Word (and words) actually say. Important info and perspective here.

Teaching & sharing wholeness, hope, and Kingdom culture is our family’s full time job. You can learn more about what we do here, or support our ministry here. Thanks!

turn dread on its head: maturity is for the motivated

Posted on by August 19, 2026
turn dread on its head: Maturity is for the motivated || Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Stubborn. That was me – as a kid, a teen, a youngish adult.

But I turn fifty this year (can’t believe I just wrote that) and as I’ve gotten older, I am less stubborn. In fact, there are times when I can change my mind with great rapidity.

Like recently when a huge spider scuttled across the floor.

You may already know about my favorite method of dealing with spiders, and a hardcover copy of The Wings of a Dove by Henry James was closest. I haven’t read it but was thinking of starting it soon, which is why it was handy.

Whump, I dropped its hefty weight on top of the spider.

Mostly on top, that is. I looked at Vin and cringed.

“Um…it’s like the wicked witch under Dorothy’s house.”

“A leg is sticking out?”

“Two legs.” Shudder. “Maybe I’ll read that book in a couple years, and start The Great Gatsby instead.” And I did; I finished it last weekend. (Three stars.)

Dear fellow humans, we are allowed to change our minds, to change our ways. It’s required for our maturity, in fact.

turn dread on its head: maturity is for the motivated | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Also, speaking of spiders, we are allowed – commanded, even – to ward off the enemy’s attempts to encroach upon our space. Our homes, our hearts, and our habits should be free of spiritual creepy crawlies. This is how we take the land and hold our ground, also known as stewardship and obedience.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:2

But how do we mature past our own stubbornness, when we don’t want to change? There’s no single answer, but since it came up recently, let’s talk about motivation.

Unmotivated people rarely mature. But when we’re motivated, we obey with enthusiasm.

I want that spider to die, so I’ll use whatever book is at hand, whether or not I’ll have to burn it afterward.

More spiritually, I want this sin/habit/prejudice/addiction/hangup removed from my life so badly, I’ll do whatever it takes because I want the joy and freedom on the other side of obedience.

Or, alternatively: I want this discipline/accomplishment/victory/breakthrough/understanding so much, I’ll surrender anything to follow Jesus into it.

We’re motivated by a lot of things, but sometimes maturity isn’t one of them. And let’s be honest – the Lord knows this about us.

Sometimes we’d rather be in control and keep the predictable status quo. Sometimes we’re deceived by lies we’ve convinced ourselves of until God confronts us, or the pain is so bad we are pressed into action, like…

We may not have such dramatic stories, but God confronts us in any number of ways. Then we have a choice to make: Stubbornness, or willingness? Stagnancy, or repentance that moves us forward?

To make the right choice, we have to kill the silent partner that rides shotgun to stubbornness.

Stubbornness is often linked to Dread, which I already mentioned.

Wait, I didn’t?

No, I promise you I did. I just used a code name for it: Control.

Control – or its alter ego, Dread – holds a gun to the back of our head and makes us a slave to it. If I change (surrender, repent, forgive, stop judging others, acknowledge the log in our own eye, stop lying to ourselves and others, or any other form of obedience), I don’t know what will happen. So I won’t.

An immature person does not trust God, therefore they require an illusion of control.

I’ve been watching a version of this lately that takes this to new, off the charts levels. By “lately,” I mean roughly the last decade and a half, but also more vividly, the last few months.

Imagine a person playing darts: They’ve seen the game played a million times, and played it themselves a million times more. But suddenly they insist that the way to play is by holding the dart backward, fletch first, and throwing aimlessly.

Then they blame you for not teaching them. For lying to them about the right way to hold, to throw, to play. For giving them the game in the first place. And when they play at all, they continue to throw fletch first.

And you realize after some prayer that this person is still afraid of winning a game. So afraid of what comes after this game that they will do whatever it takes to avoid it, destroy it, ruin the experience of anyone in the vicinity who wants to play.

If you dread the unknown, you’ll do whatever it takes to contain it – even if your world is the one that shrinks.

We dread all sorts of things, and change is a big one. But we also dread the worst case scenarios our unsanctified imaginations come up with, and the work that repentance demands.

We dread the disapproval of others, and their gossip and rejection. And we dread identifying with those we’ve previously judged – those whom we suspect may actually have been right all along, or at least not as wrong as we accused them of when we were busy ignoring the logs in our own eyes.

We dread failing to live up to our own expectations. So we put ourselves on pedestals, instead of going to the altar where we’re supposed to be the living sacrifice.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.

– Romans 12:1

We dread dying to ourselves, and we dread the altar until we trust His fire.

But the only way we get out of here alive is by dying to ourselves, and surrendering to Him.

And unless we know His goodness, that’s not something we’re naturally motivated to do.

How many times has the Lord sent us somewhere kicking and screaming, and when we finally got there, we realized it was so much better than we’d dreaded?

I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t until my mid-thirties when I started learning that I can trust Him with the things I dread.

(Insert narrator voice: It was August of 2012. A living room in Wasilla, Alaska. At the end of a two-year-long adoption process. And there she was, swearing at online travel websites.)

We were trying to nail down the itinerary for our pick-up trip to bring Andrey and Reagan home. The flights from Alaska to Bulgaria were fine, but the best option available for our return trip – at which point we would have two young, mostly non-verbal children with us – included an overnight layover in Frankfurt.

I fought hard and stubbornly against it because the idea of sleeping ONE MORE NIGHT OVERSEAS launched me into all kinds of fretting and angst and frustration: We’d be away from our bio kids for two weeks, and coming back with our two other kids who (in my mind) just needed to get home asap so we could begin the work of adjusting into a family.

But the Lord knew better. He knew we would need sleep for our sanity, and He knew we had family in Frankfurt waiting for us. He knew we would love it, that I would love it in the end, and that this lesson would teach me to trust Him instead of fighting against Him.

Since then, we’ve seen this in more recent years with the dreaded situation of guardianship that ended up being a huge unforeseen blessing, and with medical issues and hard relationship boundaries, and various moves and countermoves the Lord has had us make in obedience.

I am learning that dread – not healthy alarm, but any fear that keeps us in an attitude of stubborn resistance – is usually smoke and mirrors for something the enemy doesn’t want me to advance into. The Lord is teaching me to turn dread on its head, because I can trust Him for what is on the other side of it.

So, dread is actually something that can be flipped into anticipation. What are You trying to do in this? What do You want me to see beyond my own assumptions?

Because understanding His goodness and love for us is incredibly motivating.

When we let Him lead us, He trains us in the steady mundane. The character and discipline we develop there gives us the guts to obey when He calls us into something completely beyond what we expected.

And this is how we mature.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

– Galatians 2:19b-20

How badly do we want to live and die for Him?

Our maturity comes down to this: Are we willing to see the way Jesus does? He is under no illusions about how good He is, about how much He loves us, or how much our freedom means to Him.

I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

– John 10:9-10 (Jesus speaking)

Motivation, excitement, and anticipation require trust. And trust requires that we know and see Him rightly. When we do that, we can’t help but be excited.

You will grab that book and fling it at the spider, not thinking of anything else.

But those who don’t will continue in their old ways, and make excuses for living with creepy crawlies. The religious will justify the status quo the same way the Pharisees did, by claiming it’s for the Lord. They’ll declare that their ways are His ways, regardless of how opposite those ways are to His character, because to them, the means justify the ends.

But that is not His way.

His way is to reach down when we don’t realize we’ve sunk in our own mire, kicking and flailing and resisting and trying to get out on our own, but our own ways are only increasing the rate of our descent.

This way, we demand.

Really, it’s for You, Lord, we insist, but we sink further.

But this is what I was always taught, always believed, always told myself, we plead.

We are the ship in the storm, demanding that the opposing light moves out of our way, only to discover that it’s a lighthouse.

We will crash upon its rocks if we do not yield to the immovable.

The Immovable is waiting to receive us with warmth, shelter, and healing.

But I can’t let go; if I let go, I’ll die, we agonize.

Yes. Yes, we will.

We release the idol of fearful control, and His hand grabs our outstretched fingers. Our inflated sense of righteousness is pricked by niggling facts that are more stubborn than we are, and our bold defiance deflates a little.

Let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

– Isaiah 55:7

All this time, we were afraid He would suck us under, but instead He’s right there, pulling us out.

Stubbornness, dread, and all other forms of resistance are powerless when we see and understand His goodness and love for us.

We realize His ways are not our ways, and it is the best news ever because once we’re honest, we admit our ways – which were shrinking, striving, demanding, judging, cringing, cowering, fawning, gaslighting ourselves and others – were miserable.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

– Isaiah 55:8-9

We stop finding strength in weak things: puffing anger, naval gazing, narcissistic offense, petty condescension, inflated presumption, conceited superiority or ignorant posturing that made a mockery of who we were meant to be, what Jesus died for so we could become like Him.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

– 1 John 4:17

Emptied, and filled. Surrendered, and light. Dreading nothing, hopeful for what’s ahead. Free, and brave. Dead to sin, alive to Christ.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because he first loved us.

– 1 John 4:18-19

We’ll get out of here alive. But we have to die first.

And before we let go, He is already reaching for us.

P.S. Photos taken from a foggy evening last week at Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

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