I was up in the wee hours that morning, trying to get a head start on the day. Computer on, coffee steaming, papers right there, I was ready to work.
But also, our baby was playing at my feet with our three cats, and every ninety seconds I was interrupted by trying to protect them from his violent affection..except for Knightley.
I didn’t have to move her, because she moved herself. A few days earlier, little Finn had attempted to use her tail as a leash and now she didn’t need my protection; she was highly motivated to stay out of his reach.
Sometimes we need a little motivation to move us.
That morning, I needed some myself as I was looking at ten pages of fine print that needed read and signed. I scanned ahead for any pictures or graphs to break it up a little, but nope, no extra white space at all, just big words in tiny font, all the legal details about Us, Them, and the Agreement.
We were in the process of revising and re-launching my first book with a publisher, and I needed the motivation of partnership and accountability. Because I know me.
I wanted to do the project, but on my own, I’d put it off, think about it for a few more years, and feel incompetent and not-enough about the hard parts until I finally gave up on ever doing it and felt like a loser. Big sad face.
But now, with this paperwork in hand, I was highly motivated to move – not only to get it done, but to also pull other projects forward that had been simmering on the backburner.
God was talking to me a lot then (as He is now) about cooperating with change: How do we do the work that needs to be done, and find joy in the process?
That was one of the seasons with nursing babies, middle of the night wake ups, and diaper changes in a dark room. He was my fifth baby so I knew all the moves, but sometimes babies still fight like mad against being changed.
So there I was, in an exhausted stupor, barely conscious. It was like trying to put a snowsuit on a fractious baby kangaroo while blindfolded. And also, bonus challenge: If you don’t hurry up and finish in time, the kangaroo will pee on you.
If you’d stop kicking, we could do this faster and get it over with. The second I thought it, I realized God had been telling me the same thing for who knows how long. I had my own things I was writhing and whining and trying to sleep through, ignoring the need to change.
These restless and edgy seasons warn us that change is ahead. But unless we’re really motivated, our relative comfort will keep us from being willing to expose ourselves to something new and fresh that is better for us.
We will all be changed, though. So, how long will we waste time resisting it?
Sometimes we’d rather wallow in fitfulness. We’d rather ignore it until it reaches the tipping point, and something motivates us to move, to get up and do the thing we’ve been avoiding.
Motivation is important; it’s the fuel behind our choices, our work, and our change. In Him we live and move and have our being, and we are meant to live and move and be in joy, not resentment or reluctance.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
— Psalm 139:23-24
We don’t always need more tools or help or clarity to convince us to do what needs doing.
We need the want-to.
For example, if dentists really wanted us to floss, they wouldn’t lecture and send us home with another packet of tooth floss destined to be used twice and then lost in a bathroom drawer.
Nope. You want someone to floss? Send them home with kettle corn and little samples of beef jerky. That’s motivation.
We might make excuses about needing the right tools, time, or ability, but usually it’s not about those things at all. If we’re procrastinating or resisting the Lord, we probably already have everything we need to get what we want. We just don’t want it bad enough.
I’ve always known that drinking plenty of water keeps us healthy, but I never drank enough of it because the reasoning was just so…vague. Water, boring; coffee, better. But then I had emergency surgery and learned, Wow, water helps you keep your organs. That’s highly motivating.
I started eating more spicy food to motivate myself to drink more water. I also constantly encouraged our kids to drink more water, which they totally loved, as you can imagine.
Sometimes it went like this:
Teenage boy comes to the kitchen and asks for a drink from the fridge. I tell him, Yes, but drink some plain water first.
He says, No thanks, he doesn’t want it that bad.
(That’s my boy. Spitting image, sometimes.)
But then in a move of brilliance that can only be credited to the Holy Spirit’s prompting, I start eating pico de gallo. For the sake of this story, you should probably know that Vince got tired of me eating all of the pico and he made that particular batch with an extra serrano pepper and the tears of Hades. He denied it, but I know his tricks and ways, and I persevered, anyway – two extra glasses of water down the hatch, no problem.
And this was the batch I was eating when I offered Afton a chip. And if you give a boy a tortilla chip, he’s going to want some pico to go with it.
“Whoa,” he said, and coughed a little.
“Now you want some water, don’t you?”
And he did. Two cups down the hatch, no problem.
God can show us how to want something badly enough if we ask Him. But are we willing to ask?
I think He longs to make it easier on us. He wants us to see the way He does.
Even in that hard thing — the one we know we need to do but we just don’t aren’t motivated enough — God knows us. He’s a good father, and He knows how to give us the want-to. If we’re willing to change, we’ll get it faster.
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We packed the Jeep with our gear for the day, and Vin turned on the ignition. Country music blared suddenly from the speakers, and several of us jumped – including me, and I was the one who left it that loud.
“Sorry guys,” I said, turning it down. “I went to Grandma’s last night.” Meaning I drove home with all the feelings and tried to drown them in volume.
The Jeep has many assets, but with seven occupants, extra space is not one of them. So my floorboard was covered with essentials: purse, bookbag, extra shoes with extra socks, a small container of snacks. I held my jar of water in my lap (why do I not use a lidded water bottle like other grownups? I don’t know, just accept it and move on) and as I leaned down to grab my bag I forgot all about it and spilled a couple ounces on my lap.
Whoops, won’t do that again, I thought – though on a 75 degree Alaskan day, it actually felt pretty good.
But just five seconds later I did do it again when I reached for something else. This time fourteen ounces whooshed down my legs, all around the seat, into my purse…but mostly into a side pocket that was full of partially used tissues and a couple of ancient-yet-remarkably-absorbent receipts, because that’s how moms roll.
Menopause is something else, I tell ya.
But it wasn’t just me that day. Vin was talking about the landmarks on this road and how to find the turn we needed: You look for the long flat building, and the bent mushing sign, and the pond on the —
“Aaand, I missed it,” he said, realizing we were much further down the road, accidentally on the way to a different friend’s house.
Just so we’re all on the same page here, he’s not going through menopause.
He said it’s the leaves; there weren’t leaves on the trees when we made this drive last time, in early spring.
A couple days later on another drive, I was on my way home from Grandma’s again. All the feelings again. Always wondering if this was the last visit.
I hadn’t cried in weeks; we had a lull of sorts once she was finally adjusting. Things were looking up in so many ways that it was easier to forget this is still a short timeline and we don’t know when it ends.
She still changes every week but those changes are different – not as angry or sad anymore, so that’s a huge relief, but others that mean more decline. More confused. More tired. More in and out of consciousness and reality.
The sky was a million shades of silvery blue over a million shades of green as I drove home. I flipped the blinker at an intersection and noticed that Grandma’s hair tie – the one a nurse had pulled her hair back with, but Grandma wanted it out because she never wears her hair in a ponytail and was a little scandalized to realize it was in one, no matter how cute we told her it was – anyway, the hair tie was still on my wrist, next to the bracelet she bought me in Ireland that I wear most days lately.
According to that nurse, Grandma had slept a lot that evening even after sleeping most of the day. I sat next to her, and her head kept leaning against mine as she drifted in and out.
These are precious, thick, persevering days. Sometimes it’s just her and me, and sometimes it’s my uncles, too, when our visits overlap. We share life updates and memories aloud, and patient grief and concern in silent looks.
There are so many things we are not saying, that we don’t know how to say.
Some of it doesn’t need to be said because we know; we already know about the grief and the flesh that is raw in some places and weathered tough in others. What we don’t always know is where those tender spots are, in ourselves or others, so we are tentative lest we do damage.
It’s one of those seasons that demand a dramatic soundtrack but instead it’s filled with these quiet evenings, conversations and hugs with nurses, small talk scattered amid end of life discussions and daily care. I could hear another resident breathing in a way that sounded like her last, but the nurse assured me it’s normal.
Or, normal for now. Relatively, for this stage.
It is a season of ragged breathing, and it’s not just on this front, in this home. It’s also in our own home with kids and their decisions, and in other parts of our community with families in crisis, and loved ones battling for their mental health, and some making choices that don’t even have that excuse, and also, so many things in our house suddenly demanding expensive repairs.
Life is a war zone with skirmishes happening on several fronts, and many of them are silent, under the radar.
Some of them, in my life and yours, we don’t talk about openly because we know all too well about drawing fire, even from those on the same side. We know how people can take aim and still miss the mark, even when they mean well…and not all of them do.
If we’re not abiding, we’ll miss the Lord’s direction and shoot at anything that moves or makes noise. When we do that, we often hit someone who’s on our side, just trying to figure out their next move forward while quietly enduring the present onslaught.
If it’s felt like your home, family, church, workplace, or neighborhood is a battleground, it is: The Kingdom-minded believer is either taking ground, losing ground, or holding their ground.
We’re not really talking about physical land, of course, and we’re definitely not talking about political boundaries. That’s a “look here, not there” tactic of the enemy, and too many have been falling for it. Not to get too woo on you, but let’s be real — most of the battle is on another plane, and what we see is not all there is.
God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.
— Ephesians 1:20-21
The non-physical ground we’re claiming starts within our own heart, our own personal clean-up operation – throwing open all the doors, letting the Spirit blow through and find anything we’ve avoided for so long that we’ve become seared or numbed to it.
See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven!
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for indeed our God is a consuming fire.
— Hebrews 12:25-29
You’re already in the middle of the battlefield, but another blow comes: the news, the diagnosis, the estimate, the announcement, the disappointment, the explosion.
We feel numbness; it’s all too much. And then that weight in the chest, the pain in the throat. Swallowing. Blinking. Staring off into space. Everything blurs. Fear whistles overhead, and the ground around us shakes.
The enemy wants that territory back. He wants you to think you are losing ground. But —
Will you trust Me? the Lord says. Can you move through the next hour as though you know I’m already taking care of this?
My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.
— James 1:2-4
He’s wanting us to gain ground here, but sometimes it’s just the smallest thing in the midst of everything else that sends us over the edge, and we wonder if it’s all over. We don’t think we can hold this ground, or get this back, or take one more surprise, or handle one more grief.
Several times in the last few weeks, I’ve been there. And the Lord met me there and said, I always defended, protected, and provided for the women who bowed at my feet.
Mary, sitting at His feet to learn in the room with the men when Martha demanded her help in the kitchen.
Mary again, breaking the expensive jar of oil and pouring her savings over Him, when others were indignant at what they thought was waste.
The woman caught in adultery, held to a double standard by a crowd hungry for her bloody death but apathetic about the man who was at least as guilty as she was — probably more so, since in that culture, he had status and protections she did not.
And Jesus’ own mother, when He was on the cross and she looked up at Him, her oldest son and provider. He assigned John to care for her from then on, and did not leave her defenseless.
He modeled it for us, because we also claim ground by helping others hold their own – by nurturing the hearts of those around us, loving the Body.
We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry,but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way:
in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute.
We are treated as impostors and yet are true, as unknown and yet are well known, as dying and look—we are alive, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.
— 2 Corinthians 6:3-10
How do we love the Body? Love doesn’t move in self protection mode but moves on behalf of others, at our own expense.
Sacrifice, service, and leadership will cost us. It is the meal, the extra sweater in bad weather, the afternoon’s agenda swept aside to make room for what wasn’t scheduled but had to happen.
What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said,
“I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
— 2 Corinthians 6:16
When the Body gathers, we create sacred space. The body of believers is holy ground:
Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
— Matthew 18:19-20
This is where the battle is won.
It’s usually quiet though, without fanfare.
Your gentleness toward others and your effort to keep a tender heart rather than a seared conscience does violence to the enemy, and wrenches vast amounts of real estate from his grasp.
You must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.
For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
— 2 Peter 1:5b-8
Your effort to hold your tongue and wait, to let the other finish, to not rush to fill silence with noise – these are all such small moves of faith that take the land. It is what trust and humility look like, because we know the Lord is in our midst and we don’t have to do all the talking.
Superficial moments on the surface, but momentous underneath. These are the sweetest seasons happening in the deepest grief and need and concern: uncertainty about timing juxtaposed with the certainty of His goodness and protection, while we do not know what that goodness and protection will actually look like.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power;
put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
— Ephesians 6:10-12
We submit to the upheaval of routines because certain situations have taken vivid, sudden priority and they are worth flipping our days upside down for.
Like one Monday, when a text came in that was rapidly followed by a phone call from the nursing home. Urgent prayer over speaker phone while kids ran in and out of the house, and then were quickly ushered into one vehicle with Vin while I took the other on a rushed drive across town after peeling out of the driveway and almost taking out some wandering raspberries.
But she was okay. It wasn’t time yet. We still have work to do, hearts to tend, time to hold with an open hand.
So we are here in the midst of beauty in the chaos, steadiness in the uproar. We are watching for landmarks, not wanting to miss the turn when it comes.
The time together is worth the drive. Our fellowship retakes occupied territory: The roots that run deep, the arms that stretch wide, all the ways we care for each other. This is how we hold our ground, and how we gain it.
On my way to jury duty but otherwise minding my own business, I drove through the roundabout and saw flashing lights in the rearview mirror.
I already have complicated feelings about roundabouts.
It’s been thirty years since I’ve been pulled over, and in my defense the legal speed limit at the time was not what it should have been and they later raised it, thankyouverymuch. So I wondered if this officer was just passing me on his way to someone else.
But no, he pulled over right behind me. I rolled down my window and looked out.
As he walked up, he was quick to reassure me. “Hey ma’am, I pulled you over because your brake lights aren’t working. I followed you for a while and neither of ‘em went off at the roundabout, it might be a fuse issue.”
“What?” Stunned relief. I passed him my ID and asked, “Is this a good time to tell you one of my headlights is out, too? Because that’s why those aren’t on.” I pointed at the new part Vin had just picked up the day before, waiting in the dashboard pocket.
He smiled; just a warning, no citation. Headlights go out, fuses trip, and life happens. We all have bigger fish to fry, and I even made it to jury duty on time with a couple minutes to spare.
Life is a series of obstacles and other imperfect circumstances: disappointments and frustrations, emergencies and trauma. We need grace and mercy in the roundabouts, and wisdom to know how to move through them.
I have given citations when I should’ve given a warning. Also, I have given warnings when a citation would’ve been much better. We need so much grace and wisdom.
Our family terrain – and probably yours, too – is filled with obstacles. Boulders, caverns, and sudden drop offs, and I don’t know how to bridge them, move them, go around them. While we navigate our own current roundabouts, we have friends dealing with medical crises, custody battles, kids or spouses going off the rails, leadership wounds, and major financial hurdles. So many obstacles to press through.
And while there are plenty of armchair quarterbacks with cheap advice that costs them nothing because they’re not responsible for actually implementing it, there is a real shortage of easy answers that lead to quick fixes. These situations have moved far beyond your basic roundabout; they look more like someone on the DOT took a drunken spree with a steamroller and attempted a series of figure eights.
Here’s what I’ve been confronted with, and the answer probably seems obvious: Will God still meet us when life is so messy? So different from everyone else’s? So off the map, and into uncharted wilderness?
Yes. Of course He does. He is, He will continue to do so.
(I am not referring to deliberate sin or a seared conscience. I am referring to living with the effects of what is often someone else’s sin, or the consequences of our own previous sin, or just the messiness of a fallen world and the cleanup operation we live in.)
We find ourselves in the midst of paperwork, requirements, and systems that we never wanted to be part of. Our house – and some others we know – have security measures in certain places they shouldn’t have to be. We don’t want them there any more than other people want to have to file for a restraining order or other legal protection.
And yet, here we are. Messy times.
But when life is messy instead of straightforward and simple, the enemy often convinces us that we are less than, unworthy, disapproved of, or unable to meet God, minister, or even just do life the way others do because our life does not look the way we thought it was supposed to. Somehow, it feels like we have to clean this up first – which of course is an impossibility. If we knew how to fix this or move past it (dynamite, anyone?) we would’ve done so by now.
These roads have not been straight and smooth. People and life events do not always progress predictably, meet all the prerequisites in perfect order, pass all the tests with high scores. Some are late bloomers, or got a rougher start, and have more roundabouts to navigate.
We are learning about grace and persistence. And also, braking and yielding.
Because God is wanting us to learn about what success really looks like.
So let’s talk about Solomon, and his imperfect start.
Solomon, in many eyes, was a picture of success. He’s known for wealth and wisdom. But that is only part of his story.
Let’s go back to a scene from the beginning:
The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord.
Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.
– 1 Kings 3:2-3
Like both kings before him, Solomon was not a perfect leader, and he began with some obstacles. “The people were sacrificing at the high places” – well, that’s bad, because it alludes to idolatry, but the verse says it’s because no house was built for the Lord yet. So this sort of looks like a “you do what you gotta do” situation.
The next verse says that Solomon loved the Lord – so far, so good – and that he walked “in the statutes of his father David” – uhhh, this could be a red flag. It’s the only place in the Bible that this phrase is used, and it’s significant that it doesn’t say Solomon “walked in the laws of the Lord” as it does elsewhere. If you know the full story of David (not the romantic flannelgraph version, but the truth that involves murder, rape, and neglect of responsibility), you know where this is going. Too many horses, too many wives, yada yada.
But at this early point, at least, unlike the two kings before him, Solomon wasn’t an imperfect leader due to his own character flaws and poor decisions. He was in an imperfect situation. This is what he inherited, what he walked into.
Or, you could say, this was the iniquity he lived in.
Wait, what?
We tend to think of iniquity as just meaning “sin” but it’s not quite the same as that, and we’ve talked about it before. To sum up, iniquity is more of a cultural or generational bent; a learned misbehavior. This is just the way things are, the way things are done; this is what we’ve always known and been taught…and it’s not necessarily the right way.
If it’s not good and true, it’s iniquity. We didn’t necessarily choose this imperfect situation; it’s what we walked into, grew up in, or found ourselves in the middle of, beyond our own choosing. It’s not right or okay, but it’s also not necessarily deliberate…and it needs to be dealt with.
But it’s not outright rebellion or disobedience, which is what we generally mean by “sin” (but more accurately termed transgression). So we deal with iniquity differently. And so does God.
At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I should give you.”
– 1 Kings 3:5
Solomon was just doing what he could with the circumstances at hand. It wasn’t ideal. It looked bad. And yet God still met him there.1 God didn’t care about appearances, because He knew what was going on in Solomon’s heart.
God is not waiting for us to perfect our circumstances to meet with us and work through us. He’s not accusing us of surface-level improprieties; He’s not insecure and worried that we’ll make Him look bad. He knows our hard situations (read: mindsets, family roots, patterns of thinking, systems embedded in culture) and He is still willing to meet us. In fact, He wants to.
He knows all about the obstacle in the path, and the roundabouts you and I are navigating.
That doesn’t mean God is smiling at sin or excusing a horrible situation, or that we don’t need to do what we can to change those things. In fact, our recognition that this situation is not the way it’s supposed to be – it is avon, crooked, misshapen – is the beginning of turning it straight again. Correction and healing cannot happen in a place of denial.
But it also means we don’t have to change them before hearing from Him. We can’t make the corrections if we’re not hearing from Him in the first place, because we need His wisdom for this.
God meets with Solomon at the high place anyway, and this is where Solomon famously asked for wisdom instead of all the other shiny things he could’ve requested, and God gave him wisdom plus everything else.
Then Solomon awoke; it had been a dream. He came to Jerusalem, where he stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. He offered up burnt offerings and offerings of well-being and provided a feast for all his servants.
– 1 Kings 3:15
After the dream, Solomon changed direction (we could call this repentance – he changed his mind and way of doing things) and faced God’s promise. And then he offered his sacrifices there, instead.
Sometimes we need to move somewhere new or set a boundary or start over to see breakthrough for the situation we’ve been fighting. But we also need to know that the Lord is with us now – in this place, and in these circumstances.
He is the God with us now, not the God with us later when we get our act together and have all the answers.
Some of us have been used to running to the new thing, away from the old thing, feeling like we had to cut ties or start over or move entirely for deliverance. And sometimes we do need to let go and move on.
But it’s not always the case.
Sometimes we’re just running, avoiding, desperate for any change, no matter how much worse it ends up, as long as we don’t have to keep facing this situation, here and now.
But we need to know that the Lord is faithful here and now. In the roundabout, as we are facing our obstacle.
Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your custom toward those who love your name. Keep my steps steady according to your promise, and never let iniquity have dominion over me.
– Psalm 119:132-133
He is faithful in the land of the living, in the place of our pain, at the table in the presence of our enemies.
If He’s not telling you to move, then stay. Stand. Hold your ground.
In the roundabout, we slow down. We have to hit the brakes to take the curve, and people ought to notice our brake lights so they don’t run into us. Wait, I need to think, give me a second.
Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.
So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to one another, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
– Ephesians 5:15-21
Others are on their own journey, taking the curve as well, and we all have to yield.
We are navigating the long goodbye to my grandma, a major house repair, and the inability to make someone choose rightly when the consequences of their wrong choices are coming at them fast.
You are navigating your own obstacles: a legal battle, a leader who dropped the ball, a work crisis, a family member whose dumpster fire is spreading dangerously close to your home.
We are learning to ask Him, “Will You show me today how faithful You are in this?” and to wait for the answer.
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
— Psalm 13:3-5
He has an answer here, now, in this messy situation that looks nothing like it ought to.
He’s not testing us to see how much misery we can handle. He is teaching us to conquer fear so we can see how trustworthy He is.
He is teaching us peace in the place of fear, boldness instead of intimidation, and joy in the roundabout, instead of those curves causing us anxiety and nausea.
We are looking to Jesus because He is the roundabout, showing us the way through.
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Another great example of this is Esther, who was in a much worse situation (being abducted and forced to marry a pagan king), and yet still God met her and moved through her in faithfulness. This is a terrific post about her story. ↩︎
