Taking Pictures...Helping Them "See"

I LOVE taking pictures. I am the crazy mom on the sideline of the football field that has her zoom lens attached to her camera and has her finger perpetually pushed down on the "sports mode"setting button so as not to miss a single moment of play. My average number of photos per game looms somewhere around 300 (yes I am serious). It doesn't have to be a football game though...if my daughter's cheer leading squad is performing I take just as many pictures, or if there is a pep rally at school, or if the orchestra is playing at the mall...you get the idea. By the way...not all 300 of these pictures are of the "fruit of my womb" (then we'd have a real problem and I would definitely need some sort of an intervention). I take pictures of all the kids...each and every one performing or playing. Close ups, action shots, moments between father and son on the field or between a coach and a player or even those priceless moments between friends. I capture them, I edit them, I upload them and I share them. Parents often thank me for the time and energy I put into taking pictures of the kids and some even ask me why I do it especially since I'm not getting paid. I've thought about this often and the best answer I can come up with is that I want these kids to know that "they are seen." I want each of these kids to know that someone not only notices them but that someone cares about them, is proud of them and loves them. I don't want them to ever feel "missed," "forgotten" or "invisible."

As I was spending some time in the Bible this week I came upon the story of Hagar and Sarai (found in Genesis 16:1-16) and in it I was reminded of the impact that feeling "seen" has on a person. If you are familiar with the story you'll recall that Hagar, Sarai's maidservant becomes pregnant with Abraham's child (Sarai's husband) which causes tension (to say the least) to arise between the women and for Sarai to begin to mistreat Hagar. This sends Hagar fleeing to the desert where Hagar is met by an "angel of the Lord." This supernatural encounter causes Hagar to realize that she has never been "missed" by God. God not only "saw" her but pursued her. This realization was so wondrous to Hagar that it reads "She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.' (Genesis 16:13) In Hebrew, El Roi is the name Hagar spoke of God. It translates as "the God who sees."

I take a lot of pictures...some may say too many...but one of my hopes in capturing all these moments is that these kids might someday know that it wasn't only one crazy mom on the sideline of the football field that "saw" them but it is the God of the Universe who not only "sees" them but relentlessly pursues them with His love.

Here is a shot I took at one of the last games. In it my son and one of his dearest friends (along with every member of both teams and the coaching staff) and teammates have gathered in the middle of the football field following a close game to prayerfully give thanks to El Roi-The God Who Sees.

Let's Pray...
El Roi, we thank you that you never miss a thing and that you certainly never miss us. Thank you for being a God that pursues us relentless with love, grace, truth and forgiveness. Please help me communicate this aspect of your character to my own children and to all of the children of God that you place in my path. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Magnificent Life When You're Miserable?

How do you live a "Magnificent Life" when life feels downright miserable? Good question and one I've grappled with for as long as I can remember.

I grew up believing that I "should be happy" and that if I wasn't happy than I was either doing something wrong, I wasn't working hard enough or the people in my life were really messing things up for me. I spent a lot of years "working hard," reading self-help books, setting short-term and long-term goals, achieving, performing and trying to "do the right thing" all in an attempt to avoid pain and any form of sadness and stay on a steady stream of success and happiness. It never worked. Inevitably I'd end up in a pit somewhere..depressed and eating anything that resembled a processed carbohydrate that could be washed down with Diet Coke. It was when a friend took the time to explain to me that I didn't need to keep "working hard" to be happy but that what I really needed was the free gift of God's grace that was offered to me through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. My friend told me that while receiving this gift would not ensure unending "happiness," it would indeed secure "eternal life" which in turn would enable me to walk around with consistent JOY.

In God's Word it reads "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8 NIV)

My friend explained to me that by receiving (through faith) this gift of grace, I was now guaranteed eternal life and an eventual home in Heaven and that it had nothing to do with what I did and EVERYTHING to do with what Jesus had done for me and for all mankind.

In the months that followed my decision to receive Jesus Christ's gift of grace and eternal life, I began to learn much through his Word, one of the most freeing things being what Christ said to his disciples in John 16:33 "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." This verse spoke such FREEDOM to me because it shattered the set-up that I'd lived out of that told me that "I should be happy" and it replaced it with the truth...while I walk on this earth I can count on the fact that there will be days of "trouble" but that I can "take heart" knowing that Christ is with me in those days of trouble and that He has overcome them.

So back to our question..."How do we live a magnificent life when life is miserable?" We must remember that we are not yet home but that one day we will be. In other words we have to live with an "eternal perspective" and the HOPE that is ours everyday; the Hope that one day we will leave "this world of trouble" and be face to face with Jesus and when that happens we will be absolutely and positively done with pain and suffering. So how do we do that? How do we live with hope and an eternal perspective? We go back to the first two principles from my previous blog entries...we stay connected to God's PEOPLE (friendship) so that we stay encouraged, supported, comforted, loved (and we do the same for others)...and we stay in a posture of PRAYER so that we can be reminded of who God is, how much He loves us and the truth of His unchanging Word.

To be totally honest with you, this season that I am currently in has been filled with some of the most "miserable" circumstances I've ever experienced...illness (my own, my husband, my daughter, my extended family), death of close friends and the grief of their families, conflict in relationships, disappointments for my children, challenges with finances...I imagine that as some of you read this you too can say that there are some really miserable things going on in your life right now as well. So how am I then living "A Magnificent Life"? I am choosing to live this life seeking to "see" God through it and seeking to reflect Him through the circumstances...I am choosing to believe that God is at work (whether I understand it or not), that God is in control and that God is with me (whether I "feel" it or not for He says "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you" Hebrews 13:5 NIV) and I am looking forward to the day when I will be face to face with the One who is my magnificent life-Jesus Christ. Won't you do the same with me? Take heart dear one...Jesus has overcome the world and He is our Magnificent Life.

Seeing God through Prayer

Is prayer on your list of "shoulds" (Along with "I should be exercising more, I should be sticking to a budget...)? It most certainly was on mine. Prayer was the perpetual New Years resolution that I found myself failing at by the first week in February each year. It was one of the many things that I wasn't doing enough of...something else I could beat myself up about or point to and say "See, if you'd just been praying more this would not have happened." This attitude towards prayer got a radical transformation when I heard one sentence that changed my life forever. While attending my first Christian conference, speaker Becky Tirabassi said this

"Prayer is a two-way conversation, one in which you talk to God and then you listen to God speak to you."

To think that the God that ran the universe might have specific things to say to me was a completely new idea. Having been raised in the church I always knew intellectually that God loved me and that Jesus died for my sins but somewhere along the way I adopted the attitude that "God's pretty busy so if I need anything it better be important, I'll need to make it quick and I certainly can't expect a response anytime soon." Now, with the uttering of this new sentence and concept rolling around in my mind I was being taught something entirely different. I was being taught that the Lord not only loves me and knows me intimately but that He longs for me to love Him and know Him intimately and to approach Him with an expectation to hear from Him. Speaker Becky Tirabassi went on to teach that one of the main places that I could expect to hear from the Lord was through His Word (The Bible). When I heard this my attitude about prayer became one of "If the Bible is one of the main places God is going to speak to me then why would I ever want to miss even one day of reading?!" Thus began my adventure in prayer...my two-way, ongoing dialogue with the Creator of the Universe and Author of my Faith. Interestingly enough, the season of life that I was in when I began this continual prayer conversation was when my children were babies. I write in Prayer Starters for Busy Moms "We pray without ceasing because God loves without ceasing and it is through the ACTION of prayer that this love comes ALIVE and is experienced in flesh and blood."


I believe in the power of prayer. After all, Our Heavenly Father could have used any channel he saw fit to release his power and presence on this earth and yet he chose the prayers of his people to be one the main ways it would occur. Prayer helps us see God, hear God and reflect his love and power to those around us. Prayer helps us grow in our faith ultimately helping us stand, like the little boy in France, with our arms flung wide in trust and love towards the One who loved us first.

Seeing God through Friendship

Has God ever "shown up" in your life? If someone were to ask you "where have you seen God at work in your life?" how would you answer them? My first answer to that question would be "through friendship." It was through friendship that the Lord first made himself real to me. It was through friendship that He showed me that He is near and that He cares. It was through friendship that I was first able to "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8) and that initial taste made me hungry for more.


If the "Magnificent Life" has to do with "seeing" God (which must happen before we can "reflect God"), than one of the things we need to remember is that God works through people and can oftentimes be glimpsed through the friends in our lives. Likewise, we have the distinct opportunity to offer others a glimpse of the divine as we extend our had in friendship to them.


One of the subjects you are likely to see many musings about in the months to come is this subject of friendship. Whether it is the friendship between husband and wife, between girlfriends or between children, I believe our Lord really does reveal Himself through people. I now offer you "a glimpse" from my latest book Growing Friendships (Bethany House)...


"Friends invest time in one another's lives. They make the conscious choice to 'Go out and play.' They see friendship as an invitation from God to receive what He has for them."


I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)


Remember when you were a little girl and you would knock on your neighbors' door and ask "Can Mary come out and play?" As a child, you made the choice to go and knock on the door, allowing your girlfriend to then decide whether or not she was going to come out to play. Not much has changed over the years. This is still the first step when it comes to "Growing Friendships." It is making the choice to "go out and play," or, in other words to choose to value friendship and to invest the time and energy it takes to "connect."


There was a time in my life when I made the choice not to go out and play. My best friend was Nancy Drew and most week-ends I could be found holed up in my attic bedroom clutching those yellow bound books. I feel sad thinking about that little girl. She didn't know what she was missing. She didn't know that she could have more laughter, joy and company in her life. She didn't realize how lonely she was, nor did she realize that wounds of rejection had entered her heart and caused her to tuck herself away with a "safe" friend.


That safe friendship found between the pages of books continued on through junior high; my library card was paper thin from overuse, my battery stash running low from many late nights spent reading under the covers.


It wasn't until after my husband and I were married and had purchased our first home that I began to realize the potential that was available to me through friendships. At that point, I began to make the weekly choice to go out and play, and this continued for a long time.


For seven years, five of us gals met together on Monday evenings at a local restaurant, occasionally mixing it up when a good "chick flick" came to town. As I reminisce about the faces around the table those first few Monday nights, I see two friends with young children, two friends that were newly pregnant and one friend that was on the career track. We all had busy lives, yet we made the choice to meet and in doing so, learned the value of intentionally setting aside the time to invest in our friendships.


We spent those Mondays talking and listening to one another, laughing LOUD and crying hard, celebrating pregnancies and births, promotions, anniversaries, birthdays and the life that happens in between. We prayed each other through marriage challenges, work challenges, and hormone challenges, and we tried our best not to judge one another when we needed to "vent" about our children challenges.


Not every Monday was a party...there were some really hard Mondays in the mix. There were times when we needed to share feelings that weren't "pretty" and discuss topics that we were in disagreement over. There were times we "missed" each other and had to ask for forgiveness and there were times when we lost our temper and felt like giving up on friendship entirely. Still, by the grace of God, we chose to continue to "go out and play."


As a circle of friends, we made a huge investment of time in our relationship and the dividends were enormous. I can honestly say that that "Monday Night Lifeline" helped me in more ways than I am even now aware of. My girlfriends showed me what grace, forgiveness and loyalty were all about and they helped me enjoy the season of life that I was in.


Were there times in those years when we had other things we needed to do on a Monday night, like chores, work, or catch up on sleep? Of course! But friendship is a choice and there are many reasons why it is a choice worth making.

The Deeper Meaning

It was the week following my very first writer’s conference and I had a job to do. I had to turn a twenty minute talk into a book proposal (a sixty plus page document that includes three sample chapters, a full table of contents and several other marketing documents…basically a business plan for your book idea that will convince a publisher to invest an exorbitant amount of money in you) and I was frozen in fear….no, that’s not quite right, I was stuck in a cycle of shallow breathing, bouts of extreme nausea, and heart palpitations. While this cycle repeated itself over and over, a cadence of specific sentences began to sound like a rap in my head…


What were you thinking?
You don’t know how to write a book!
You’re going to look like an idiot!
Why did you tell the publishers about this idea…you’re not a writer…you don’t even know what a book proposal is?!

You get the idea…it was a bad scene and when I actually approached the computer the voices in my head would swell to a fevered pitch…

I don’t know how to write a book!
I don’t know how to write a book!
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO WRITE A BOOK!

That’s when the picture of the little boy came to my mind and a firm and loving voice called for my attention. It was one of those times that I sensed the Lord had something to say and He didn't want me to miss it...

“Tracy, I know how to write a book! All that I am asking you to do is to come and talk to me each day…come and be with me…come and worship me. Moment by moment, I want you to do what that little boy in the picture is doing…come and stand open armed and empty handed in front of me. That’s all. Pull up to the computer and think of it as the place you are coming to stand open armed and empty handed. Tracy, as you do that I, your Father, will fill your hands with the seed that will satisfy not only your soul but the soul of a love-starved world. I will tell you what to write. I will give you what you need.”

Immediately, I went to find the photo album from our dream trip to France. I dusted off the cover and pulled out the picture of the boy. I taped the picture to the wall above my computer so that I could see it every day. It helped me. It reminded me of the verse that, years before had so radically changed my life… “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33) And, while I did have setbacks…crying jags and mantras of failure repeating in my head every few hours, they never lasted for very long, that is if I obediently pulled up to the computer and remembered that the only thing God was asking me to do was to come to him open armed and empty handed.


A few weeks later I had a completed book proposal and, a few weeks after that a book contract and, a few months after that a completed manuscript and shortly thereafter my first book Prayer Starters for Busy Moms—How to Pray All Day and Still Put the Laundry Away.

Now, lest you think this blog is going to be all about writing, publishing and the likes I would like to clarify….I am planning to write about how we as moms can live a “Magnificent Life.” I define “The Magnificent Life” as a life that sees and senses God at work and reflects God to those around us. I believe that is achieved only as we stand, with the simple faith of a child before our Heavenly Father and trust that our lives are in His hands and that He is not only in control of everything but that He loves us and has our best interest in mind. Perhaps you now find yourself asking "How do I do that?" How do I stand there with faith, with trust especially if I've have been hurt by people or by the circumstances of life? How do I believe that God is close by if I’ve only been raised to think that He is far off and much too busy dealing with the bigger problems in the world like poverty, AIDS, and war? How do I stand there and wait on my Heavenly Father to give me what I need if I’ve always needed to figure things out on my own and make my life happen? How?

That, my friends, is precisely what this blog is about…the how, the why, the sometimes fun, oftentimes messy, always meaningful process of living life... “The Magnificent Life.”

Open Armed and Empty Handed