Pour out all the vinegar until it’s gone. Then what you find underneath is the oil, glistening and thick: We’re going to be fine. God is real and good and present and working. This is the oil that women made in the Old Testament, harvesting and pressing olives for this rich green liquid. This is the grounding truth of life with God, that we’re connected, that we’re not alone, that life is not all vinegar—puckery and acidic. It is also oil, luscious, thick, heavy with history and flavor."
Excerpt from "Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic
for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living"
by Shauna Niequist, Brene Brown, Ashley Wiersma Bcuz
Our history together was puckery and acidic, salty and sweet, flavorful and distasteful, and always personal…our sometimes contentious discussions would end with hugs as we’d close the evening.
In my favorite TED talk by Susan Cain on “The Power of introverts,” she states that we sometimes make self-negating choices in order to prove that we can be what we are really not. Through our twelve years together, not one of us could choose to be more than we were; someone would call us out because we were known so well. How could I consider ending such a good thing? Only because of the still small whisper within me that we had gone twelve miles together and it was now time to allow ourselves to walk through other open doors. Now was the time for courage and confidence, descriptives I had claimed for 2017.
I still don’t know what the next door will be. But I know I am the happiest when I spend my mornings in Bible study learning what was happening in the spiritual environment in which it was being written. Bring into this mix a spiritual intellectual who can simplify my understanding of how the passage is speaking to me in today’s context and I am elated! Such was my time with Randy Furushima through our Ezekiel study, which I delighted in, except for passages like this:
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.
Ezekiel 24:15-18
As I read this passage, I cried, “How could you do this, Lord?” You took away the delight of Ezekiel’s eyes, yet still he did all You asked. Why do you ask so much of us, too? As many times as I ask, I sense that I am negating the power of God to be greater than ourselves and to limit what God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly beyond all we ask or think.” Do I choose less, or do I choose to be alert for another open door that will stretch me beyond my imagination? His courage and confidence is required of me still.
Excerpt from "Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic
for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living"
by Shauna Niequist, Brene Brown, Ashley Wiersma Bcuz
Our history together was puckery and acidic, salty and sweet, flavorful and distasteful, and always personal…our sometimes contentious discussions would end with hugs as we’d close the evening.
In my favorite TED talk by Susan Cain on “The Power of introverts,” she states that we sometimes make self-negating choices in order to prove that we can be what we are really not. Through our twelve years together, not one of us could choose to be more than we were; someone would call us out because we were known so well. How could I consider ending such a good thing? Only because of the still small whisper within me that we had gone twelve miles together and it was now time to allow ourselves to walk through other open doors. Now was the time for courage and confidence, descriptives I had claimed for 2017.
I still don’t know what the next door will be. But I know I am the happiest when I spend my mornings in Bible study learning what was happening in the spiritual environment in which it was being written. Bring into this mix a spiritual intellectual who can simplify my understanding of how the passage is speaking to me in today’s context and I am elated! Such was my time with Randy Furushima through our Ezekiel study, which I delighted in, except for passages like this:
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.
Ezekiel 24:15-18
As I read this passage, I cried, “How could you do this, Lord?” You took away the delight of Ezekiel’s eyes, yet still he did all You asked. Why do you ask so much of us, too? As many times as I ask, I sense that I am negating the power of God to be greater than ourselves and to limit what God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly beyond all we ask or think.” Do I choose less, or do I choose to be alert for another open door that will stretch me beyond my imagination? His courage and confidence is required of me still.