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How does one word invoke so much peace?

It's amazing what one little word can do. Ask a total stranger on the street about their home, and watch their expression change, soften, and lose its careworn appearance. 

My Ideal house has a wrap around porch and enough room
for 8+ kids, a husband, and a dog named Murphy. 

No matter where it is, the type of home that makes people relax and smile involves comfort, love, warmth, and care. A place where others will be welcomed and treated like family.

Yet even with all of these things, and more, there will still always be conflict, hurt, pain, fear, and anger. Even in good homes, we are all still flawed and empty, yearning for something more to fill us up.

Yet ask anyone, and they will tell you that they yearn for a  place to call Home, even if they've never experienced it before. 

So where is our true home to be found? With the people we love? Of course.
Having a soft bed? In the most beautiful house we can find, with a four car garage and a big backyard?

Not so much.

Our eternal home, of course, is in heaven, but on earth, things are a bit trickier.
Our earthly home is where the Lord leads us, sustains us, guides us, grows us, and brings us to his presence. Whether that be the furthest reaches of Africa, or in your hometown in the Midwest, that is often up to Him.

Where is Home?
It may be better to ask,
what is home?

Hanna Elizabeth

Insects buzzed around me as I sat in the tall grass, drinking in the beauty of the sunset.
Beams of light spewed forth from the sun as it sank, and shot forth onto the mounting thunderheads in the north east.

The sticky heat had been oppressive all day, and the living ached for the coolness of the breeze.
Yet still the sun sank, and the sky grew more vibrant as the clouds turned from pink to purple, against the stark blue and orange hue of the sky.

A tree which had given up its will to live sat creaking in the wind, lamenting its fate, as a large crow alighted on it.

As the sun's beams continued trying to pierce the growing mountains of clouds in the north east, the thunderheads stubbornly refused to yield their bleach white color.

As I continued to watch the battle between sun and clouds, even as the sun began to retreat, a third, darker element gradually came into view.

Thin fingers of suave grey from the south began reaching in the sun's direction
as flashes of light told me the bigger story may lay behind me.

The fingers of darkness continued to reach out to cover the light, and the flashes of light to my back became faster.

The puffs of cool breeze which had been absent all day began to replace the heat, and suddenly, every insect was gone.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

This thought enveloped me as I watched the impending storm creep across the sky.

This is going to be a big one I thought, as the clouds continued to darken and spread.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Its insistence made me pause. Why did I so often become afraid of the darkening clouds, seeming to block each light beam in its path? Even if it looks bleak, why should I not trust?

The rumble of thunder in the black sky behind me gave me a sliver of fear.

The thunder and dark clouds seem so frightening in our own lives, but what happens after each thunderstorm?

The Sun comes out.

Jesus, please do not let me forget your constant presence, even when the dark clouds build behind me.

Hanna Elizabeth

Fear, and What to Do with It

I'm moving in four months.

Even to write that seems foreign to the little girl who had her life all planned out for the town she grew up in.

I was the kid who always had the answer to that classic question "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Grow up, graduate college by 22, meet and marry a good Christian guy who was tall, dark and handsome, and settle down to teach 3rd grade in my hometown and raise 3 kids.

Perfect
Idyllic
and boring.

Here I am at 24

Single
Almost finished with college,
and about to move to a new state to teach preschool.

The Lord is funny with His plans, isn't He?

Yet even as I've prayed and thought and prayed some more, realizing that this is truly my desire, Fear begins to creep in.

I'm so afraid that I'll hate it. That I'll miss my family too much, and regret my decision, that I won't make any new friends, or that I won't find a church family as wonderful as the one I have now.

I'm afraid of losing touch with my friends back home, that I'll be bored in the little town of 14,000 when I grew up in a city of 70,000. I'm afraid that I won't be able to make enough money, that I won't ever meet my Romeo who I've been waiting for.

Even though I've grown and changed, and the Lord has given me confidence and independence, a thirst for adventure and new things, and a great and mighty Love that I know will not let me go,
Deep down, I'm still that fearful little girl who had her life planned out, and who couldn't bring herself to talk to strangers.

I wonder why I'm really so afraid. I mean, the Lord tells us 365 times in the bible not to fear.
Fear should be something I can pray against, and it will magically go away.

Right?

"Fear is necessary for us to be courageous." A wise man told me the other day.

Every time I think of it, these words brings tears to my eyes, because there is so much truth, and so much relief in that one sentence.

I don't have to fight the feeling of fear which grows whenever I think of leaving.

All I have to do is act in spite of it, and follow where God leads, and He will do the rest.

Hanna Elizabeth

Good Good Father

Why is the Lord so good to us?
That's a silly question you might say.
He's good to us because He's good and kind and loving. He's good to us because He is, as the song says, a good good father who takes care of us.

Yes, but there's more. The Lord is so good to us, that He takes care of our needs, gives us our desires, and grants us blessings abundantly.

What has been striking me, is how often he saves us from Ourselves.

When we want something so badly, that relationship, that promotion at work, or even the approval of others, and the Lord says simply.
No
What ensues can be a mixture of whining, complaining, frustration, and bitterness.

How dare God tell me no! Doesn't He know that this thing is going to make me happiest?

We fume for days or even months on end like a petulant child tugging at God's sleeves, continually asking Him to grant our requests.

Then one day, we wake up, look behind us, and realize that the one thing we've wanted all this time, wasn't actually what we needed-or truly desired

Realizing that I got what I truly needed, instead of what I wanted is a humbling experience.

As I hang my head in shame as I look back on the many times that I've been guilty of these things, my gracious Father lifts my face gently, so that I can meet His gaze.
"You are forgiven. Trust Me and move forward with boldness"  He says, His voice like soft thunder.

He forgives me, refines me, and irons out the wrinkles one by one.

We have a good, good Father.

In Christ,
Hanna Elizabeth

The Power of a Smile

I've been wondering how many times a day I smile.
I have two jobs this summer, one at a credit union, and one at a tutoring agency, so I have plenty of opportunities to smile.
As I've been considering this, I am beginning to realize there's usually two very different responses to a smile.

When I'm tutoring, 99% of the time, a kid's first response is to smile back. I think it's part of being young and un-jaded, and it's one of the millions of reasons I want to spend the rest of my life working with kids.
It's also a reason I wish I could go back to being a kid.

One of my favorite quotes

Psychologically, our automatic response to a smile is to smile back. Yet even before our facial muscles react, when we receive a smile from someone, our brain releases endorphins (the chemical responsible for happiness and Joy) into our brain. A returned smile creates even more endorphins, and a connection is made between two people. It is actually healthy for you to smile! 

Then there's the second response, which I get more often: The un-reciprocated smile. Otherwise known as the Dead-Eyed-Stare-Straight-Ahead Look. The look you get often when you're in customer service. 

Maybe that person has had a hard day. 

Maybe they are upset about a problem they're having.

Maybe they just don't like to smile.

Whatever the reason, this type of reaction can be a little deflating.

Personally, I see it as a challenge. 

Once I get this type of reaction, I try to make it my goal to get that person to smile. Sometimes I'll ask them questions, tell a silly joke (puns are my favorite, and they're usually effective), or just be as genuine and kind as I can. 

And you know what?

85% of the time, it works, and they're smiling at the end of our conversation. 

My smile gives them Joy, and their smile gives me Joy. 

It's a win-win.

Maybe trying to make people smile isn't your cup of tea, but what can you do every day to try to spread a little Joy?

Hanna Elizabeth

Embrace the Broken

“We have no more food in the house. I don’t know if I’m going to have supper tonight.”

The shock of this statement washed over me as I listened to this little boy show me how sheltered and blessed I really was.

You really begin to question your priorities when you hear these words coming from a kindergartener.

How can we not become crushed by the weight of the world’s problems? With all of the pain, heartache, and evil in this world, how should we respond? My first, albeit unhelpful response is to become overwhelmed and discouraged. How can I possibly solve these huge problems? I have taken to avoiding the news now, because I struggle to handle the vast amount of suffering I am exposed to.

But as this little boy in a local school quickly taught me, there are few places I can go to escape exposure to suffering.

We as Christians do this frequently-try to escape the world. We have our Christian bookstores, Christian schools (or homeschooling) Christian radio stations, and have exclusively Christian friends. We can even go to Christian-run establishments to shop, find Christian movie review websites to find out exactly what questionable materials are in each movie we expose our children to. In the United States today, one can essentially live inside a self-made, Christian bubble to a large extent, shielding oneself by and large from the outside world and the suffering and evil that is its trademark.

But is that what we are called to do?

Jesus didn’t eat with the best people, and isolate himself to be with the people who went to church.

He ate with the tax collectors and sinners. He ate with the worst of the worst.
His disciples? Men who worked with fish for a living, who had little money and less decorum.

He hung out with the broken, and ministered to their needs.

I can turn off the news, go to my Christian establishments, and hang out with my Christian friends, but if I’m actually going to follow the example of this Jesus I talk so much about, I need to be in the world.

I need to understand suffering, and embrace those who are broken.

I need to Love everyone around me.

My heart sometimes breaks for the children like that little boy whose next meal depends on a bag of food from school.

In response to my breaking heart, my calling is to be the hands and feet of Jesus to these people.

To use what resources I’ve been blessed with to step outside of my sanitized Christian bubble.

I need to embrace the broken, hurting, careworn people around me who are crying out for all the love I can give.

Musings on Musicals

Today, I was listening to several different songs from various classic musicals, and I began to wonder...

What is up with people who don't like musicals? I have met a handful of these interesting people in my life, and I must say, the best reason they give is that "no one goes around singing like that in public."
Your point being....?

Yet, in order to allow these realists to jump on the musical bandwagon, perhaps we should normalize impulsive leaps into song in our daily lives.

Now I will admit that a few people I know do this anyway. But how much more exciting and joyful would life be if more people spontaneously broke into song (and perhaps dance) as they completed mundane tasks?

To begin this trend, I issue you, my readers, a challenge. At least two times this week, I challenge you to break into song during your daily routine. You don't have to sing well, or even on key, just start to sing. Monitor how it affects your mood, the days circumstances, and your overall joy this week.
You won't be disappointed.

Hanna Elizabeth