Category Archives: purpose

the gift is free…but it’ll cost you everything

Posted on by November 11, 2025

That’s the sentence one of our pastors said a couple weeks ago. We were gathered in the living room like normal, almost but not quite stuffed to the gills…and by that, I guess I mean two things: First, the room was full but not overly crowded, and second, it was Italian night but somehow 2/3 of the potluck was dessert.

the gift is free...but it'll cost you everything | Shannon Guerra @ Copperlight Wood

Finnegan was sitting in Vin’s lap, and Kav and I were on the floor, coloring. The discussion was about how Jesus invited people to the Kingdom – His approach was not the bad-news-called-good-news gaslighting that is sometimes misdelivered. Nor was it the flimsy appeal we hear so often that feels like a discounted ticket to an event you have no interest in, or junk mail promises from political candidates asking you to vote for them…but I repeat myself.

Anyway, when our pastor said, “The gift is free…but it’ll cost you everything,” Finnegan spoke up, which he’s hardly ever done before.

“What sense does that make?!”

Great question, right? We all thought so. How can a gift be free if it costs you anything, much less everything?

Discussion went back and forth. Adult-y concepts were tossed around, like debts, and payments, and real estate deeds, and ownership. This stuff makes sense to us, but they’re not on the grid of most ten-year-olds.

Finally I asked Finn, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” he said.

“Alright. You have a blue dot, and it represents your whole life. The whole thing – every day, everything you have, your whole being, is this blue dot. It fits right here,” – I held out my hands – “and has a beginning and end. That’s your life.”

“Okay…”

“But Jesus offers us a line that has no end. It’s infinite, goes on forever. He created it and paid everything for it, and you can have it for free – but you have to give Him your blue dot, because you can’t have both. It can only be one or the other.”

“Huh.” Wheels were turning. We’ve been going over this scripture for weeks, months.

You were dead [past tense] through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work [present tense] among those who are disobedient.

All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else,

but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

—by grace you have been saved—

and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

— Ephesians 2:1-7

“So the whole, unending line is free…but it’ll cost you everything. The whole blue dot. This, “ – I held out my hands again, a foot apart – “for this.” Hands flung wide.

“It doesn’t even seem fair,” he laughed, and the rest of us agreed. It’s not fair; it really is the most lopsided deal in the world.

And he gave his dot to Jesus, right there, in front of everyone.

Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.

Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

— John 5:21-25

Anyone who hears and believes exchanges death for life, their dot for the line.

After Finn prayed, our friend Chris said, “I see this picture of Jesus taking all of our dots to a wall. On the wall is a picture that’s being made of dots in all their different colors, and when someone gives their dot to God, through salvation, God adds it to the picture. Every dot missing represents someone who is still separate from Him.”

We begin inside the dot, stretching and pushing against its sides, unable to do anything but strive against its ungiving, deceptive boundaries. We choose between being the master of our dot or the steward of the line, but we can’t have both.

Jesus doesn’t give up ownership; we do. He is still the master of the line, but in exchanging our puny domain for His, our world expands deep and wide.

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.

But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

— John 3:17-21

That night while putting the boys to bed, we talked for a long time: about dots and lines, mosaics and murals, the Holy Spirit and surrender.

We talked about hearing God’s voice and moving in cooperation with what He says, and the ways we explain this to six- and ten-year-olds really isn’t that different than how we explain it to adults. We invite honestly, without manipulation or apology or junk mail promises, because Jesus doesn’t need gimmicks to justify the offer.

Kids understand as well as we do – maybe better – that it is the best deal in the world for us to trade our entire ownership of this temporary, decaying mess for the free, eternal, light-filled expansion.

“What color is your dot, Kav?” I asked our six-year-old.

He grinned. “Red.”

And before falling asleep, he prayed, and traded his dot for the line, too.

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sing harmony: how we find our place amid change

Posted on by October 23, 2025

When you go to the library, your book selections will reveal a bit of who you are…but only a bit.

When Vin and I went last week (sans kids, because it was our anniversary and we’re nerds), I got one book on quilting and another on leadership. Vin got books on history and true crime. And we both got a book to share (he gets credit for finding it, though) about toxic teachings in church culture that aren’t actually Biblical.

It’s not a full picture of either of us, but it’s a glimpse of this season. Also, it’s influenced by what the library offered: They had only two books by Dickens, three copies of Jane Austen, and zero (!) books by Wodehouse.

But I know what I like, regardless of whether or not the library carries it.

sing harmony: how we find our place amid change || Shannon Guerra @Copperlight Wood

So in this sense, the place I’m in doesn’t really define (or reveal) who I am at the core of things. What this temporary space offers doesn’t define (or change) what I actually like.

At the core of things, I love British lit, and already own most of those books. I’m currently in a quilting phase but I am a yarn junkie at heart. I love the Church, and am usually much more focused on teaching what is true rather than debunking what is not.

So a snapshot can reflect parts of us but it doesn’t really show our full identity. In spite of the change of location and what is offered at the library, I still am who I am.

And this is true of our changing relationships and seasons in life, too.

Some seasons (and relationships) in our lives are like a library that only holds books on true crime or psychology. Other seasons (and relationships) are like libraries full of parenting books, picture books, and hacks on removing crayon masterpieces from walls. They’re snapshots that shift and influence us, but they skew the focus on certain directions that do not define us forever.

We age, and our circumstances change. Our abilities grow and diminish, and sometimes we do not know how to respond to those changes. The temporary space we’re in is so different, we’re not sure what our role is in it anymore.

My grandma is almost 94 and recently, her already not-so-great hearing is so much worse. Added to the loss of vision and memory over the last several years, much of her life has totally changed. She’s had to adjust, and so have those of us who love her.

We used to talk often, used to call back and forth. She was curious about our present, and she told me about her past. I told her about our days and asked her about hers. Now, though, there’s so much less to our conversations because this is the season we’re in.

A few months ago I had some questions about my birth (which she attended) and she couldn’t remember any details. Maybe six months earlier, she would have. And maybe next month, she will again. But for now there’s a gap in places she used to be able to fill with light, and lines, and color.

Nowadays I’m the only one who initiates our phone calls, and I don’t do it often enough. It’s hard to have a heartfelt conversation while yelling into the phone so the other person can hear you, yes? But I call her because I know at the core, she is still there, and she needs to know she’s loved and remembered. And also, I call because I need her voice, and she needs to remember mine even though the last few times she hasn’t recognized it and I’ve had to tell her it was me.

During our most recent chat she said she’s feeling well, no problems, that she has no reason to complain. Then she lowered her voice and said, “That doesn’t mean that I don’t, though” – and there she is, the woman I know, the sassy grandma who is never in trouble but likes people to think she could cause some if she wanted to.

She asks if anything is new here and I tell her I’ve been trying to learn Greek, but it takes a few tries before she understands. Then she asks if I’ll teach her a few words next time I come over, and I might, though currently the most creative thing I can say is “I need a ticket” (and by that, I mean one to the opera or something, not one for speeding, thanks). She asks how we’ve been staying busy these days but she can’t understand what I’m saying no matter how many times I repeat it. So she moves on to wisdom and advice.

“Stop and rest, that’ll give you more years. I used to go-go-go all the time, and now I go…go…and…go…”

She pauses, and then asks, “Do you have plans for the summer?” Hopefully this is a blip; she knows her birthday in early November is coming in a couple weeks.

But I don’t know how to answer. I’m having a hard time finding books I can read on these shelves; this is a song I don’t know how to sing.

These relationships change for all sorts of reasons: age, estrangement, boundaries, busyness, distance. We don’t always know how to relate in the new seasons. I don’t know where everything is anymore; so many things I love seem to be missing. The song has changed and I can’t just go along because I still don’t know this tune yet.

“Do you read at all?” Grandma asks. “Do you have time to read?” And this is a face full of cold water. Don’t you even know me anymore? I wonder. I know she knows. Knew. She was a reader, too, before macular degeneration became part of our vocabulary. What does she remember of me, of us, of our family? Deep down, hopefully everything. But on the surface, on the phone, very little.

It is just a season. It is not who she is, or who I am. Who she is, is the woman who led me to Jesus, who took me to church, who taught me that the Bible doesn’t always actually say the things we think it does.

She led worship when I was growing up. She taught all of the kids how to sing Jesus Loves Me and so many other songs. When I went to school in Anchorage, she and my dad would drive an hour to come to my choir concerts even though I never had solos and only sang harmony.

Do you know that the little girl in messy blond braids who you used to take to church every other weekend now teaches others about Jesus? Did you know that the seeds you planted over forty years ago bloomed into her full-time mission?

I can’t tell her that, yelling into the phone, her not hearing me.

But who taught me to sing Deep and Wide? She did.

There are so many songs we don’t know how to sing. Kids grow up and move out, and the tune changes. They learn new songs we’ve never heard and don’t know the lyrics to. They also learn songs they think we’re clueless about, even though we’ve been singing them for decades.

But in spite of changes, can we still remember who we are, and who they are? Regardless of how people treat us, or how they change, or how we change, or the ways the walls are different around us, can we still remember our core – who we are, who they are, Who we have surrendered to? Do we remember that we are the temple, and our hearts are the sacred place where worship is always occurring?

Because if we know that, then the temporary place we’re in doesn’t define (or redefine) us. When we know how music works, we don’t have to know the tune, or even the lyrics. We can sing harmony, instead.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

Happy are those who make the Lord their trust.

– Psalm 40:1-4a

That person who distanced themselves and makes condescending judgments from their newly purchased high horse…can you see through their posturing? Can you recognize the voice that’s a touch louder than normal, and remember that it’s because they’re trying to convince themselves and others of things they don’t quite yet fully believe, and pray them toward integrity?

That one who needs healing, protection, wisdom, and maturity…can we love them through these changes, see past the braggadocio, and pray them through this season so they come out with fewer regrets on the other side of it?

That person who seems closed off and unreachable…can you see the heart that’s really there, the one that’s wounded and wary? The one that bottles up and then explodes because they still haven’t learned to recognize feelings and release pressure in healthy moderation? We can refuse to be cowed by the spiky exterior because the spikes aren’t about us, and we can press deeper than the shallow small talk, and risk baring a wound of our own that they might relate to.

What about that loved one who is singing away with everyone in their new crowd, seemingly reveling in how they’ve left you out? They’ve run hot and cold, and their song keeps changing mid-verse. You keep stumbling in, not sure what to do next. Should I hug them? Or will they bristle? Will they resent it if I don’t? I don’t know the words to this new song, they passed out the lyrics before I got here.

These are only glimpses of who they are. This temporary space they’re in does not define them, or us. We know who we are, whether or not we like the books on the shelves or the tune that others are singing.

sing harmony: how we find our place amid change || Shannon Guerra @Copperlight Wood
(In Galway with Grandma, March 2003)

And if you know music, you know what a rest is. You know that at certain times there’s an interval of silence when you’re not supposed to sing or play. Stopping and resting will give you more years, Grandma said.

So sometimes we need to stop for a while. You don’t have to share your song with someone who can’t stop criticizing your choice of music. We cannot have duets with people whose proximity is so corrosive you have to put a stop to it, but we can keep praying for their physical and emotional healing.

Beloved, do you know that we contend daily for your spiritual freedom, that you would encounter God and know His mighty love in every area of your life? Just because we stopped singing with someone doesn’t mean we lost our songs. They’re still there in the middle of you and me, wanting the best even for those who only seem to notice the worst.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to the one group a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is qualified for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many, but as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God, we are speaking in Christ before God.

– 2 Corinthians 2:14-17

We know that the Lord does not change His tune. He doesn’t run hot and cold in affection and indifference, and pull the rug out from under us. We’re not His best friend one day, His punching bag the next, and then snubbed the following week.

He always wants our presence. He is always leading us in triumph, in wisdom, in joy, regardless of the people we’re around, the circumstances we’re dealing with, or the temporary spaces we’re in. This is how the music works.

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

– Psalm 13:5-6

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can’t get enough: why the Lord is excited about the parts that bore us

Posted on by October 8, 2025

It is fall, so all I want to talk to you about is books, pencils, notebooks, crunchy leaves, cats, and coffee.

And garden harvests.

And knitting.

And the fog, don’t forget the fog…drifting through trees and wafting through the yard.

can't get enough: why the Lord is excited about the parts that bore us ||Shannon Guerra @ Copperlight Wood

It feels like I can’t get enough of these because fall in Alaska is a blip, a blink. But I actually do lean pretty hard into cozy stuff, and if you’ve been reading here for more than five minutes you already know that. So I’m not fooling anyone. I talk about them no matter what time of year…fall is just a good excuse.

You know how we overshare the things we’re really excited about? We rave about our latest projects, our big endeavors, the latest bee in our bonnet. If you come over and complement the granny square blanket I’ve been crocheting for the last few years, I will accidentally tell you all about the fiber content, where I sourced the yarn, and how I really need to find some grey worsted wool at the thrift store so I can finish it.

If you catch someone on one of their favorite subjects, they might test both your attention span and your good manners as you look for the nearest exit. Sorry.

So hey, speaking of testing our attention spans and looking for exits, I’ve been in Exodus again and I’m way past the interesting parts about Pharaoh, the plagues, and the deliverance. I’m in the long tail at the end that gets way less views, the part people are tempted to skip because it details fascinating things like priestly vestments (oooh) and curtains (ahhh) and pillars (gasp, you don’t say!) and fancy clothing which I promise you have never seen at Target.

Not your thing? Welll…could we perhaps interest you in some engravings and cubits? Some rings, or cords, or embroidered tunics?

No, no, we say, I’m so sorry but I can’t stay another minute, I’ve got to go, as though we’re trying to shut down a persistent telemarketer who insists upon reading us the script from a nonprofit we haven’t given to in 27 years.

Hmmm, vestments and ephods. Our eyes start to glaze over, the lines blur. These are not, for most of us, the eccentric passions that intrigue us.

We flip pages, wondering how much longer this section is. Are we there yet? But wait, there’s more: offerings and altars and basins, oh my.

Huh. We know this all must be important for some reason because it’s in the Bible…but this is odd, chin-stroking stuff.

What does it tell us?

The Lord is extremely excited about the Tabernacle.

And well, okay, everyone has their little quirks (I noticed there’s quite a bit of yarn mentioned in this section, so there’s that, at least) but why is all of this so important for us today, right now? What are we supposed to be getting out of it?

Fast forward, skip to the end, and here’s part of the answer:

Moses did everything just as the Lord had commanded him.

– Exodus 40:16

We start to see something important here. There’s obedience, and attention to details.

And then this:

In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was set up.

– Exodus 40:17

We also see timing and completion. This wasn’t instant gratification; this was an intricate process with an attainable vision.

Skip a little more for the finale:

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

– Exodus 40:34

And now we find the real obsession: It was His presence with us.

This is where the Lord would dwell to lead and guide His people.

Now, of course, we are the Temple, the Holy of Holies where He dwells.

And we are the place He’s extremely excited about.

In class, we’ve been talking about loving those around us. In so doing, we reviewed the five love languages and I’ve discovered mine are not what I always thought they were.

I always thought I was an Acts of Service person, but honestly, for 20-some years (or about as long as it’s been since we donated to that non-profit) I’ve just been an exhausted mom. Pleeeeease do something for me. I haven’t really slept since February, and the last time I had the margin to hear my own thoughts without interruption, the year started with 19 instead of 20.

That’s not really a love language. That’s motherhood.

If love languages could be identified by the things we’re really excited about, it would be so much easier to figure them out. Oh, you’re a Sports and Guns person? Awesome. My main love language is Memes, but Sushi is a close second.

For some of us, it takes a while to get to know ourselves, much less those around us. Sometimes we know those around us more than we know ourselves. Sometimes we forget who we are until we’re around the right people, reading the right things, hearing the right words, and we see ourselves clearly again in those reflections.

We think to ourselves, Oh, there I am…that resonates. That feels like home.

All this time, maybe we thought we were a Fluffy Polyester Blanket/Pumpkin Spice Latte/Hallmark Movie person because that’s what we grew up with. But then we bravely tried new things, and discovered we were actually a Plaid Wool Blanket/Chai Tea/British Lit person.

I did not know myself until I bothered to look deeper and wider than what I had always assumed and been familiar with.

When we look to the Lord’s leading instead of our own autopilot, we find out who we really are. We learn what we’re made of, and what we’re made for.

Back toward the end of Exodus, we see offerings, sacrifices, hins of wine (wait, what is a hin?), oil, and incense. I’m skipping quite a bit here; there’s also so much about giving, creativity, skill sets, and community.

And for those who have eyes to see, there’s also yarn.

SO. MUCH. YARN.

(Curtains of goats’ hair! Maybe that doesn’t sound appealing, but consider how it would read on an Etsy listing: “handmade drapery, woven from the finest angora…”)

It was not a casual thing to prepare the way for us to be in His presence. God is showing us that in Kingdom culture, we don’t sweep things under the rug, and He is dealing with the situation, the sin, the elephants in our rooms.

The Lord is uncomfortably assertive in addressing what we’d rather brush aside and ignore, because He doesn’t want any debris between us. He’s not into awkward pretending, fakey niceness, or passive aggression. He deals directly with us because He’s not insecure in our relationship and He doesn’t want us to be, either.

His presence is important because He is the right person with the right words for us. He wants us to know clearly who we are, and to see ourselves in Him, so we can know who (and Who) we’re dealing with.

For closeness and intimacy. To remove the barrier. Oh, there I am. That resonates. This is home.

All of the details, the sacrifices, the fire – it’s not just for us, but for our descendants, for generations to come, so they inherit strength and not weakness.

It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there.

– Exodus 29:42

It all looks ahead to the Lamb who fulfilled everything.

This is the extent He went to for us to be with Him – the hoops to jump through, the code that had to be cracked, the restitution required, the ransom paid, the pomp and circumstance necessary after the enemy’s infiltration.

Do you know the way in, or did you climb in over the wall? Do you know the password, or are you a spy, a thief, someone breaking in? Because we have certain ways of doing things, and they’re beautiful once you understand them.

And do you know that the requirements and trappings and accoutrements have already been paid for, and all that is left of us is to be the living sacrifice, resting in Him, because we are also now the Temple where He resides?

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

There’s so much more to be found when we persist in what seems dull and we keep coming back anyway. Even the hem of the robe, fringed with bells and pomegranates, was a constant reminder of who He made us to be: the fruit and the sound, our purpose and our worship, His creation and our works, the nourishment and the music of those who’ve partaken in it.

This is not a one-way street or solo endeavor, He’s telling us. There is partnership intertwined all throughout this and you’ll be reminded of it with every step you take as you hear the bells ringing.

The Lord is always speaking, whether or not we are currently understanding or even listening. He’s not silent; we’ve just been numbed to subtleties and bored by anything that isn’t shiny and takes longer than five seconds. How much farther? Are we there yet? we wonder, as we turn the sticky pages.

We’ve been there all along. We just needed the eyes to see: the things He gave us to love, the reflection of Him everywhere, the stuff He made us to get excited about, the fog drifting through the trees.

So we keep coming, because He keeps pursuing. We keep coming back, because He never left.

We keep listening, because He never stopped talking. We love because He first loved us. And we seek His presence because He first sought ours, and for some reason He still can’t get enough of us.