Category Archives: identity

making the cut: dedicating our life’s fabric to Him

Posted on by July 14, 2025

It’s that time again. Meaning, it’s been a couple years since I last repaired it, and once again our cats have littered our duvet with several tears from their cute little claws.

And because sometimes I go out of my way to make a simple solution more complex, rather than just sewing it with the machine like I did the last time, I thought it would be brilliant to make some gorgeous scrappy patches for it, à la Pinterest.

The method: Determine color scheme. Gather fabric scraps. Waste time perusing the internet for ideas, under the guise of research.

And finally, pick up a piece of grey cotton, and hold the scissors against it.

Angle the scissors this way and that. Try to imagine the finished shape I’m going for.

Hem and haw, uncertain.

Aaaaand I’m stalling, doing nothing…and I realize I’m actually afraid to cut into the fabric.

Why? It’s just a small piece of unused material. It’s not like I’m ruining anything if I make a mistake.

But no, making a cut means a tiny bit of commitment. It means I’m officially starting this project. And it means the possibility of error, of ending up with something I don’t like, of eventually tossing these efforts into the trash bin.

And that’s the real crux of my hesitation.

I’m afraid to make this cut because I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m afraid it will be ugly, that it will be a waste of fabric, time, attention.

Holy Spirit corrects me: It’s not a waste. It’s never a waste. It’s how the process works, and you are learning.

And hey, Love…you’re making it out of scraps, anyway.

He’s right, of course. This is a project pulled together from scraps of material, worked on in scraps of time.

And the first try is ugly. A mess. Wrong stitches, wrong placements.

But this is how we learn: By trying. By making the cut.

Part of the problem was that my cuts were too small, too safe, too conservative. I was trying to not use too much fabric or make the pieces too big.

Why do we do this? The Lord offers freedom and gives us so much creative material to use. But whether it’s perfectionism, procrastination, overthinking, or fear of what others will think, we often hesitate and hold back, entertaining all the wrong what ifs.

But why are we afraid to waste what is already dedicated to burn?

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 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 2:19-20

If we have really laid ourselves down, determined to die to self and let Him be Lord and live through us, why do we keep trying to jump off the altar? Why do we keep trying to determine how hot the fire gets, and to control the burning?

Maybe we use the phrase “making the cut” in the wrong way. We think it means approval, that we’re allowed to stay in the game, that we’re good enough. And that’s the problem right there.

In Jesus, we already have approval. We’re already in the game. He has made us good enough, because it was never about us being able to meet a particular standard.

It’s always been about Jesus being the standard.

So really, making the cut is about our willingness to move forward in that freedom. We invest the talent, the time, the materials, the effort. We risk the unknown outcomes, and lay down our desire to be seen as flawless and infallible, rather than burying ourselves safely where we don’t even accrue interest.

Will we mess up? Yes!

Will Jesus be shocked, dismayed, and disappointed? No.

We make something beautiful by daring to try. We may not start perfectly – we might need to undo, redo, and repent. But we use it all, our whole life, and we don’t hold back to preserve what’s meant to revert to dust anyway.

And then we find that instead of a stifled lifestyle that ties us up in knots of stress and perfectionism and anxiety, focused on self-preservation and lack, we are walking in Kingdom culture. Our lives breathe the Kingdom in vulnerability and discernment as we are willing to risk honesty and transparency with others.

Can I ask…where have you been hesitating? To what material have you been holding the scissors to, afraid to make the cut? And what is the fear you’re fighting? If you can identify it, you can move forward faster.

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you need help untangling this; just reply to this email.

Personally, Vin and I have made several “cuts” in the last few weeks as the Lord has brought clarity and certainty to us about a shift we’ve been sensing. We’ve arranged meetings and asked for advice and counsel. We’ve said things out loud that surprised us. And it’s all been good – don’t panic, I’m not getting ready to drop a scandalous announcement – but it has also pressed us (at least, me) into a new level of bold surrender.

Are you ready for a soft announcement?

We’re moving toward full-time ministry, which means we are also moving into being fully donor-supported. Still writing, still sharing, but with less paywalls and prices. Less business, more availability for the needs God is putting right in front of us…whether they are local or in our inbox.

We are using it all, our whole life, to help people live out Kingdom culture, deep and wide.

He himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

— Ephesians 4:11-13

As a result, we’re even more focused on wholeness and healing, and we’re asking for monthly partnerships to help us do the work of expanding Kingdom culture, so we can still do other exciting things like pay the mortgage and buy groceries.

Many of you already support us through monthly or yearly subscriptions, and we’re so grateful for you. If you’d like to increase that giving or become a monthly supporter, you can mail donations to our address below, or donate through Buy Me A Coffee or Zelle (our email there is contact@vinceguerra.com). We’re still fleshing this out and will have more info to share soon….thanks so much for helping us make this cut.

To anticipate one question: We are not (and won’t be) a non-profit, and we will continue saying whatever God leads us to, whether the government or other entities like it or not.

As for the duvet, I’m just handstitching it. Forget Pinterest. :)

Praying for you,

Shannon
P.O. Box 298086
Wasilla, AK 99629

P.S. This was a fabulous little message about overthinking.

P.P.S. Grit is going to be available in paperback next month! You can pre-order it here and they’ll ship on August 19th.

honest work: thoughts on ChatGPT & other bougie conveniences

Posted on by May 28, 2025

It may be the drunken-like boldness that comes after several days of sickness, but I have emerged with sudden lucidity about ChatGPT.

I’ve been wrestling because I recognize one side of it as convenience and progress. But to be totally honest, I’ve also avoided it as a disgruntled snob, sort of like how professional cooks shun pre-made, canned spaghetti sauce.

honest work: thoughts on ChatGPT & other bougie conveniences | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Convenience and progress are important. We have a tankless water heater and our family takes full advantage of the fact that not only do we not have to pump, haul, and heat every drop of water we need, we also enjoy unlimited hot water straight from the tap. It’s so magical.

And yet, there are many who have struggled to just have enough water to survive. In comparison to their fight to have just enough to live on, if they could see our ease they might think we didn’t earn or deserve what they’ve had to work so hard for.

It’s understandable. Times and places and cultures are different, though.

And also, while there may be some skill needed in gathering and hauling water, it’s not an ability that a person works for decades to achieve. It’s something they do because they have to, to survive.

So on one hand, we’re talking about convenience and progress, and I am all for convenience, and mostly even for progress, depending on how you define it. I’m grateful to have a clean, modern mattress rather than a straw-filled pallet. I love flushing toilets and electricity. And don’t get me started on the marvelous bliss known as espresso.

But on the other hand, there’s another kind of convenience that robs us, sort of like taking cold medicine when you really just need to let a fever and other symptoms do their work to heal your body. When you don’t do that, you become dependent on artificial medicine that just hides those symptoms, and your body forgets how to heal the way it was designed to. Eventually all sorts of bad things eventually result…like people dependent on a medical system that profits from illness rather than educates on healing, and eventually encourages people to do things like wear masks while swimming because their IQ has dropped to the level of a toaster.

This is not progress.

In that vein, we could also broach the issue of calculators, which were rarely allowed in class when I was in school but now are pretty much used by all of us for everything from budgeting to figuring out how much change we should be getting back from the barista.

Have we collectively been dumbed down, made lazier? Yes, for sure.

So that’s a thing. And it progressed with the advent of computers and smartphones and pretty much every advance in technology, really.

I use a laptop with the conveniences of Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Delete, and even CAPSLOCK for when I’m feeling particularly punchy. Dickens, Austen, and the Brontes didn’t have those. (Well, they had literal scissors and paste, and I’ve heard some of them used it, but that’s much more complicated than hitting a few keys.) Tolstoy, Mitchell, Dostoevsky, Scott, and all those guys inserted and crossed out and rearranged and rewrote by hand.

By! hand!

In junior high and high school, all of my papers (including the dreaded 5-paragraph essays) were written by hand. Even my earliest college papers were pre-computer. Draft after draft after draft, I’d finally put it all together as a final copy in the neatest version of my messy scrawl.

I cannot imagine putting together Pride and Prejudice, Little Dorrit, or (gasp, hand me the smelling salts) the 1100 pages of Gone With the Wind that way. Not only did these writers create such incredible stories, but they had the discipline, tenacity, and mental clarity to pull such projects together without the help of highlight, click, and drag.

Meanwhile, I get distracted if the cats start meowing for food while I’m trying to put a complex sentence together. I will never be the writers these guys were; my world and ability and culture is different. I use tools they didn’t have, and benefit from them…but I have also traded ability for the convenience of using them.

But here’s what seems to be the crux of the difference: I will never pretend to be those writers, either. I do not present my work as someone who has put the effort into organizing and writing everything by hand.

Did tailors and seamstresses feel this way when the sewing machine was invented? There were mixed reactions. It shifted (and in some ways destroyed) the careers and artisanship of those who had mastered the craft by hand, and yet many of them were grateful for the ease the machine brought in making production that much simpler.

What about photography? Even though people like my husband went to school to learn the nuances of it, I can now easily take a beautiful photo with my phone because the technology does all the work. But I’m not fooling anyone about poring over images in a dark room – everyone knows that all I did was aim and click.

We enjoy these conveniences and we do not lie to the public about how we achieved the works derived from them. So in that sense, ChatGPT and its cronies are perfectly legit as tools to help lay people. For example, if you need help creating a legal document, or checking grammar for an email, or you need a few lines of code for your website, no shame, I get it.

So that’s one side.

On the other side, though, there’s so much more.

With many conveniences, tasks are simplified. For example, in using calculators, we relinquish our ability to solve a simple problem. But with AI doing our creating for us, we relinquish our abilities to express, communicate, and innovate.

We were made in the image of the Creator, so we were made to create. He spoke and things happened; and life and death are in the power of our words, too. We have no business abdicating our expression to AI, casting off our reflection of God and the partnership we have with Him in creating.

It’s not just writing, but art, film, and all sorts of media are being replaced by this cheap coin-slot alternative. Do we really want our humanity replaced, made obsolete?

Dear Kingdom-minded professional content creators: The breath of God within you is worth something.

It cost Him something for us to be able to express what He put within us. Are we so indifferent to the price He paid that we’re willing to trade our expression and reflection of Him – our honest work – to present an inflated offering?

There’s a story about this in the Bible, and it’s a formidable warning to those who would offer up a dishonest sacrifice.

It’s the time of the early Church, and the cool kids (well, Barnabas, at least) have started a trend of selling large assets so the proceeds could be used toward expansion of the Kingdom. So far, so good.

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

– Acts 5:1-2

He wanted credit for giving the whole thing when he knew he hadn’t given it all.

“Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!”

Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.

– Acts 5:3-6

Contrast this with King David, who said, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”

When used by professionals on the sly, ChatGPT and other AI tools are bougie conveniences: Big hat, no cattle, declaring to the world that something was created when it was merely…faked.

In a precious few places I’ve seen Christian content creators preface their work with, “I used ChatGPT to help me with this,” and I appreciate their honesty. But if the writer/artist doesn’t do that and they use these tools to do the work for them, they are saying, Look, I did this, even though they didn’t.

Maybe they wrote part of it, or started with the initial ideas, or even plugged in a draft for the program to polish. But none of that is equal to putting in hours upon hours of work – not to mention years of study and practice – to put forth a piece that is cohesive, creative, and well done. In that sense, it is much like athletes cheating by taking performance-enhancing drugs to get an advantage over their competitors who are doing honest work.

So ChatGPT is not just a new convenience, like a word processor. ChatGPT is also a hired hand, a ghostwriter who does the work while the name on the cover takes the credit. Additionally, it makes even genuine writers suspect, because if ChatGPT and other forms of AI creation become the assumed latest modern conveniences that everyone uses (even when we don’t), gone are the days when any of us gets credit for truly creating our own work.

As someone who has spent decades on this craft – and it is a craft, a skill that is developed with much practice and earned to some degree – the sudden rush of anyone and everyone cranking out books, posts, or even slews of social media promotions just by plugging in a prompt into a program feels like theft to me.

Oh, you told ChatGPT what to do, and it just…did it? That’s how you wrote your posts, and finished your book? That’s cute. Here are my shelves of books on writing that I’ve studied, and here’s my fourth laptop – I’ve slogged away on it until the characters are blurred on seven keys, and the left Shift button is cracked.

I know it sounds like a measure of superiority and bitterness, for sure. But I don’t think I’m a better person than someone who uses AI to write their posts. I just know I’m a better writer, because I’ve done the work.

Many of us have paid a price to achieve this. And some are taking credit for paying that price when they have not in fact done so.

After an interval of about three hours [Ananias’] wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.”

Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

– Acts 5:8-9

The sacrifice itself was good on its own. It became cheap and sinful when it was passed off as being more than what it really cost the giver.

If the intent is to use it as a tool, we can be honest about that. If someone needs the help, there’s no shame in taking advantage of it. We use electric drills, laptops, crock pots. I use a thesaurus, concordance, various Bible tools, and about 32 other tabs on two browsers. Tools are meant to be used.

The problem comes when the end result is faked, and offered as something it is not. If I sew something on a machine, I’m not going to represent it as something I stitched by hand. If I buy pastries from a bakery and bring them to potluck, I don’t take credit for making anything more than a purchase.

So it’s the misrepresentation that is meant to deceive and take credit that is the issue here. When we take credit for something we did not do, we cheapen the work of those who actually do create authentically.

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another….And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

– Ephesians 4:25, 30

We still have amazing photographers and seamstresses and tailors, even though technology has changed. But will we still have amazing writers and artists if anyone can fake it, everyone is suspect, and eventually people won’t even notice the difference?

I hope so. We work solo Deo gloria, not solo AI gloria. We’ve been given so much to say, and we will not trade the breath of God in our work to gain applause for a cheapened sacrifice.

Want more posts like this? Subscribe here — they’re all written by me, with the help of Bingley who is terrible at typing but super fond of the Caps Lock button.

clear the room: how worship changes the atmosphere around us

Posted on by May 9, 2025

After about four years, I still don’t have a great relationship with our wood stove. Because of our home’s configuration, the stovepipe veers horizontally out the exterior wall before going up again, and this jog creates issues. If the fire isn’t prepped right (more on this in a minute) the smoke floats out of the vents and fills the house, rather than going pleasantly up the chimney like it’s supposed to.

So when the kids ask if we can light the wood stove, I generally put them off. Not this weekend, maybe another time, I don’t really want to suffocate on smoke right now. Let’s save it for an emergency power outage in winter, okay?

clear the room: how worship changes the atmosphere around us

Right, like that’s the perfect time to open the windows to air out the house. In the middle of winter on those really cold days, the temperature rises to 2 above in the sun. If someone opens the door, frosty air billows in and visibly rolls across the floor…so that’s definitely not when we want to open all the windows to clear the smoke out.

But now that it’s May, it is the perfect time to mend my relationship with the wood stove. I want to be storm ready, and maintain a cozy atmosphere in every part of the year. So we need to be in the habit of prepping the wood stove, which entails preheating the back area of it with a mini blowtorch – maybe you can see why I’ve been stubborn about this, because the irony of needing to preheat a wood stove annoys me for some reason – so the air gets warm enough to rise up the pipe and create a current strong enough to push past that sideways jog. It’s just basic science. (But also, annoying.)

When the fire is lighted in the fireplace, the air contained in the chimney is warmed, becomes lighter, and rises. The hotter the air and the higher the column of heated air, the more powerfully it rushes upward.

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Secret of Everyday Things

I was thinking about this last Sunday, about the atmosphere we create – or rather, partner with God and others in creating – as we worship. The songs, the prayer, the attention goes up…or they’re supposed to, at least.

At the same time that the hot air rises, cold air, which is heavier, flows toward the fireplace, accelerates combustion, becomes warm in its turn, and joins the ascending column…To this incessant flow of air through the fireplace we give the name ‘draft.’

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Secret of Everyday Things

Our attention toward Jesus creates the momentum of a current. My eyes are on Him, your eyes are on Him, the smoke rises. The room is warmer, vision is clearer.

But our distraction – wondering what others think of us, what our kids or other people are doing, wondering how we sound or when the song will be over – is cold air that blows attention sideways and down, disrupting the draft and pulling smoke into the room, distracting us and others.

In that case, we choke and stifle on what God is wanting to do. Rather than joining in with the worship that is actively and always occuring, we hold back…and in so doing, we hold others back, too.

Maybe I sang too loud. She’s clapping off rhythm. I hate clapping. Ugh, this song again. If our attention isn’t vertical, it’s sideways.

This cold air necessarily lessens the draft by mixing with the hot air and lowering its temperature, or it can even blow smoke back into the room.

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Secret of Everyday Things

And it’s not just worship during church services, but in our everyday abiding we also create a current and shift the atmosphere. Our spouses, kids, and coworkers know when our attention is directed upwards.

[Exhausted Parents. Photography by Kavanagh, age 6]

Over the years, especially in hard seasons, I’ve noticed with my kids that if I’m in a funk, they follow. Or, if they are dwelling in gloom or malaise and I’m not attuned to it, I follow them and get sucked into it, too – thus abdicating my leadership in setting the atmosphere.

On those really difficult days I have to find small things to strengthen the draft, like drinking a few gulps of water, memorizing a short verse, washing a couple dishes. Picking up a tiny area. It’s how Holy Spirit taught me to retake authority, take back the land, in small increments at a time. We redirect our attention to what He is doing and what He wants to do – often in creating beauty and order – and the smoke starts to clear again.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

– Philippians 4:8

We make room for Him. The thorns, cares, and distractions of the world are clutter in our minds that overflow around us, choking out space, focus, and simplicity. So we surrender them: Lay them on the altar, let them pass through the fire. Some can be picked up again after our vision has cleared and we know what to do with them, and others need to burn entirely.

This is how we redirect the current upward, and clear the air, the congestion, the smoke in our eyes that prevents us from seeing.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

– Colossians 3:1-3

Ephesians 4 puts it this way:

…to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

– Ephesians 4:22-24

The things we’re stubborn about can get in our way and prevent us from creating the environment we really want and were made to live in. So we burn the old, earthly things so they can no longer stir up the current and blow smoke around, and thus we clear the room:

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.

– Colossians 3:5-10

Ephesians 4 parallels that, and gives us more heat to draw the current upward:

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

– Ephesians 4:25-32

I know this is a ton of scripture. But Ephesians is on one side of the room and Colossians is on the other, and both are shouting the same refrain: Make room and prepare the way of the Lord.

They praise God from one wall to the other, proclaiming the atmosphere we’re made to cultivate and walk in:

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

– Colossians 3:12-17

Now is the time to prepare, wherever we are, so we and those around us encounter Him continually. To mix my metaphors, we are not thermometers, but thermostats – we’re not just here to read the room, but to shift it. So are our eyes, thoughts, and attention directed toward Him, toward His works, toward His will? Have we cleared the room so we’re not making ourselves or those around us choke on smoke we’ve stirred up?

We’re learning to set the atmosphere so when someone walks in, they’re not entering a cold space. We’ve prepped the wood stove, the fire is lit, and the current is already strong and headed upward. You’re here to worship, to see Jesus? Great, join us, it’s already happening.

If someone opens the door on a cold day and frosty air billows in, there’s a strong draft already in motion to carry it toward the fire, warm it, and send it higher. We’ve taken on the new life that continually rises. And with our attention drawn to Him, every moment is worship.