Liebster Award Nomination 

  
It’s always encouraging when someone appreciates what you’re doing, and sometimes that appreciation comes in a special form. I’m honoured to announce that fellow blogger Tammy from faithhopelovefood has nominated me for the Liebster Award. I have less than 3000 followers which makes me eligible for this award.

The Liebster Award

The Liebster Award is given by bloggers to fellow bloggers in order to support and encourage them in their blogging. The guidelines for receiving the award varies, however, the general rules are as follows:

  • Post your award to your blog in a blog post
  • Answer the 10 questions that were given to you by the fellow blogger who nominated you
  • Nominate 3-10 other bloggers you have discovered with less than 3,000 followers
  • Create 10 questions for your nominees to answer

Here are my answers to the questions I was given:

  1. Who has been most influential in your decision to write? It may sound clichéd but it has to be God. He just won’t let me off the hook. Even when writing feels too scary or too hard, he keeps gently nudging me to persevere. Encouragement from good friends and family that I have something worthwhile to say, also helps tremendously.
  2. What led you to choose the focus of your blog? Reading John Ortberg’s book The Me I Want to Be. He writes about flourishing and that really resonated with me.
  3. Where do you find your inspiration for your blog posts? It’s really a mixture of my own experiences and observations, thinking about something I’ve read or seen, and the occasional insight that’s like a light-bulb moment. Sometimes I have no idea what I’m going to say or what I think until I’ve written it. I’m learning to just keep writing, whether I’m feeling inspired or not.
  4. Who is your favourite author? Tough question. Since I have to choose, I’ll say that it’s currently Emily P. Freeman. I’ve been reading her blog and books for several years now, and I appreciate her perspectives and insights. Sometimes it feels like she’s holding up a mirror in which I see myself.
  5. What are your writing aspirations? To be a better, more consistent blogger for a start. To walk beside people as they explore their own faith journey. Whether my writing will extend beyond blogging is part of the journey of discovery.
  6. What is your favourite scripture or quote? Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
  7. What does a perfect day look like for you? Spending time enjoying nature, reading a good book, journaling in one of my favourite cafes, watching a good movie, getting a massage, enjoying good food with good friends and family. Hmm, I might need a week.
  8. Coffee, tea or neither? I’m a hot chocolate girl. However I am partial to an iced coffee or an iced tea. Go figure.
  9. Favourite childhood memory. There are many, but one is picking wild blackberries in summer. I’m sure we ate far more than we brought home.
  10. Advice you would give to someone who wants to be a writer. Some good advice that was given to me: be prepared to keep working on your craft. Keep learning and improving your writing skills. On the flip side, don’t wait until your writing is perfect before you release it into the world, because that day will never come, and there are people waiting to read your words.

The blogs I’m nominating are:

Charis at Charis: Subject to Change
Alicia at Alicia’s Roses: Renewal, restoration, refreshment, rest
Judi at It’s not really about me…  …it’s about a creative journey of faith

And here are my questions for them:

  1. What does writing / blogging mean to you?
  2. What’s a significant lesson you’ve learned from life experience?
  3. What’s your favourite way of being with God?
  4. What are you thankful for?
  5. In what ways has God blessed you this year?
  6. What books, films or music have impacted you, and how?
  7. What is you favourite place to just be?
  8. What advice would you give to someone asking you how to flourish?
  9. Do you have a favourite topic or theme that keeps showing up in your life or your writing?
  10. How do you integrate rest into your rhythm of daily life, and what does that look like for you?

Monthly Musings: October reflections

It’s time again for monthly musings, and this time I just wanted to reflect for a few minutes on writing through the month of October. This isn’t new, other writers have been here before. But this my path, and these are the things I’ve discovered for myself.

  1. Letting go of perfectionism. When you have to post every day, there isn’t enough time to write and rewrite to get it perfect. At some point you have to decide it’s good enough and press Publish.
  2. Writing to deadline. Lots and lots of short deadlines means you have to keep showing up and putting pen to paper and fingers to the keyboard. Even when you don’t have any great ideas and aren’t feeling inspired.
  3. Writing on the same topic every day. Writing and posting on the same topic every day for a month makes it easier and harder. Easier because you have a frame to work within. Harder because you have to keep finding new elements, new perspectives to keep the topic interesting.
  4. I still don’t have a solution for procrastination. Deadlines help, but they can also mean that you just get less sleep so you can hit Publish before midnight. Ironic when you’re writing about rest – but then I knew that was a risk from the beginning.
  5. Uncovering insights. Sometimes I don’t realise what ideas or insights I have on a topic until I’ve started writing. I might think I have nothing to say, until I start to say it. Sometimes it just unfolds in the process of writing. That’s a weird feeling, but also good.
  6. But wait, there’s more. Even though the series has ended I know that there’s a lot more about rest to be discovered and practised. This is really just the beginning of finding the rhythm of rest, and I fully expect to be writing about it more in the future. As they say, watch this space.

What did you discover in October?

Image credit: morguefile.com

31 Days: Practising the Rhythm of Rest

  

As we come to the end of this series on the Rhythm of Rest, I hope that you’ve enjoyed it and have found something helpful for your own situation. It’s been a pleasure and privilege to explore this theme with you, and wonderful to hear from some of you about how it has blessed you. I would also like to point you towards some other resources that you may find helpful as you continue to explore and establish the rhythm of rest.

This is a list of books I have either read or plan to read, that explore rest in some way:

If you know of any other books worth reading please let me know in the Comments.

  

The following music has been meaningful to me and I share this list in the hope that you may also find it helpful:

  • “Come to me” by Bethel Music & Jenn Johnson (on the album The Loft Sessions)
  • “Dwell” by Aaron Keyes (on the album Dwell)
  • “Receive” by Brian Morykon (on the album The Smallest Seed)
  • “Rest in me” by Ann-Maree Keefe (on the album Cryptology)
  • “Restless” by Audrey Assad (on the album The House You’re Building)
  • “You speak” by Audrey Assad (on the album Fortunate Fall)
  • “Worn” by Tenth Avenue North (on the album The Struggle)

(These songs are also available individually on iTunes.)

I’m also appreciating the music of Alberto & Kimberly Rivera (I’ve been listening to their albums Yearnings and Live Soaking Sessions, Vol 1 but there are plenty of others to explore).

Finally, let me bless you in the name of Jesus, to experience glorious refreshing rest and joy in his presence. May you learn the life-sustaining rhythms of work and rest as you walk with the Lord. And may you flourish in the fullness of his love for you.

The Rhythm of Rest
This is Day 31 of The Rhythm of Rest series (Write 31 Days challenge).

Image credits: morguefile.com

31 Days: Make every effort to enter God’s rest

 

We’re really just beginning to experience God’s rest, but there is so much more that awaits us when we respond in faith. This is God’s promise to us if we don’t give up – perfect rest with him. Rest from trouble, conflict, pain, sorrow and death. No more hunger, no more thirst, no more tears. Instead joy, refreshment and satisfaction in his presence. Isn’t that something immeasurably precious? That’s our homecoming, our eternal inheritance.

These words keep ringing in our ears:

Today, please listen; don’t turn a deaf ear as in the bitter uprising. 

For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren’t they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt? And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn’t it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness? And when he swore that they’d never get where they were going, wasn’t he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear? They never got there because they never listened, never believed. 

For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we’ll experience that state of resting. But not if we don’t have faith. Remember that God said, 

Exasperated, I vowed, “They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.” 

God made that vow, even though he’d finished his part before the foundation of the world. Somewhere it’s written, “God rested the seventh day, having completed his work,” but in this other text he says, “They’ll never be able to sit down and rest.” So this promise has not yet been fulfilled. Those earlier ones never did get to the place of rest because they were disobedient. God keeps renewing the promise and setting the date as today, just as he did in David’s psalm, centuries later than the original invitation: 

Today, please listen, don’t turn a deaf ear . . .

And so this is still a live promise. It wasn’t canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn’t keep renewing the appointment for “today.” The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.

Hebrews 3:14-4:11 (The Message)


The Rhythm of Rest

This is Day 30 of The Rhythm of Rest (Write 31 Days challenge).

Image credit: morguefile.com

31 Days: Sleeping in the storm

Matthew 8:23-27

Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked. “Even the winds and waves obey him!”

In the Mark (4:37-38) account of this event we find that “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.”

Jesus is a man who knows how to rest! He takes the opportunity that presents itself – a cushion in the back of a boat. It doesn’t sound all that comfortable at the best of times. So how is it that Jesus could sleep in a sinking boat in the middle of a violent storm? I find this hard to get my head around, but I also find myself concluding that although probably very tired at the end of the day, Jesus was also a man fully at peace, trusting and resting in the Father.

The disciples who were experienced fishermen had no doubt faced storms before, but this one must have been extremely bad to frighten them so much. When they woke Jesus, shouting at him to save them from drowning, they must have expected that he could in fact save them! It’s unclear how, because they certainly weren’t expecting him to still the storm.

Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, and it seems apparent that they still didn’t fully comprehend who he really was.

What about us? What is our faith like? What is our response to the storms of life? Do we become worried or afraid? Or do we remember that Jesus is in the boat with us, and put our trust in him?

The Rhythm of Rest

This is Day 29 of The Rhythm of Rest series (Write 31 Days challenge).

Image credit: morguefile.com