I never thought she would take to ballet so well.

We tried a year of ballet/tap with my seven year old when she was in Kindergarten. She liked it but it wasn’t her thing.  Riding horses is.

My three-year-old, however, has been trying to dance from the time she could walk. She’ll prance, hop and strut through the living room with brightly colored dress up clothes and high heeled plastic play shoes.  So when the school year began last week, I signed her up for a 40 minute preschool ballet class at the studio a mile from my house.

I had no idea.

In her black leotard and pink tights, we strapped on her mini ballet shoes and she became a different person.  She stood up straight, giggled at her own reflection in the mirror and began to point her toes.  First postion, Miss Heather showed them.  Second postion, third and fourth.  The girls followed her across the dance floor.

Naomi paid perfect attention, a departure from her normal 2.5 minute attention span.  She pointed her toes inside pink ballet shoes and took correction when needed.  All of a sudden, my three-year-old felt beautiful.  She knew that she could make her little leg and foot look pretty if she extended them the right way in an arabesque.  If she held her arms right, she would be praised by Miss Heather.

It was like she’d always felt like dancing but never knew how to do it right before this class.

But what she didn’t realize was that she’d always been beautiful. She didn’t need pink slippers to make her pretty.  She didn’t know that she’d always been a dancer; the class was simply a tool to hone and teach skills.  The shoes and the class only expanded the grace and beauty she already possessed.

Sometimes I feel like if I can only be something if I’ve done something.

Until my book is finished, I’m only a writer, not an author.

Or, maybe I’m not worthy because I’ve done nothing to deserve worth from God.

And that I’m unlovable because of all people I’ve hurt, things I’ve done.  I want to be loved.

But what I fail to realize is that I’ve been an author all along. I’m writing my story as I go.  I’ve been loved this whole time and I’ve been worthy.  I don’t need people to say so in order for it be true.  It’s a state of who I am rather than what I’ve done.  And even though I’ve hurt, there is grace and forgiveness.  There always has been.

But sometimes there are tools to expand God’s grace and beauty in me:  a finished manuscript, an apology, a grateful heart to God for giving me worth…

Naomi has always been beautiful.  She’s always danced.  But now, with her shoes and instructor, she not only is beautiful, she feels it too.

Do you feel like you have to DO to BE?

If anyone tells you that pornography is only a male problem, they are either in denial, lying to you, or are simply unaware.

Women struggle with porn too.

This is actually part of my own story that I haven’t shared yet on my blog, but I’m writing into my book.  My husband brought pornography into our young marriage over 13 years ago and I found it difficult to resist.  It was one of the symptoms of my sick heart.  During our healing and restoration, both my husband and I were able, with the power of God renewing our minds, to stop viewing pornography.  And we’ve been free from it for almost 6 years.

That’s just another part of the amazing grace of it all.

My friend Crystal Renaud, a former porn addict herself, is launching a new ministry.  Dirty Girls Ministries (DGM) is a Christian anti-pornography ministry created to help women who struggle with pornography addiction.  The mission of Dirty Girls is to:

• Bring awareness to the porn problem among women today
• Show struggling women they are not alone
• Demonstrate hope for recovery from this addiction
• Explain that the Bible and Jesus have the answer

DGM offers recovery groups, coaching networks, resources and prayer support for women with this of problem.

Visit DGM.

Read Crystal’s personal blog.

Follow DGM on Twitter.

What do you think? Why do you think pornography has crossed the gender line?

I’m watching my seven-year-old on her big girl bike. No training wheels, just two thin tires separating her from the pavement.

Her legs (that have grown two full inches since the beginning of the summer) make long rotations.  She rides down to the end of the street, her new limit being the farthest house.  And when she gets there, from where I sit on the lawn, she’s as small as the tiniest mailbox.

She makes a turn about and heads back toward us, fast, legs spinning, and her sister whines, “I wanna go!”

But she can’t.  As a three-year-old on a tricycle she could never keep up.  Her legs are shorter.  Her method of transportation is far beneath her sister’s.  She pedals fast, three wheels squeaking, but she just can’t compete.

She melts into a puddle of crying and wishing on the afternoon cul-de-sac and gives up. Her sister speeds past her and down to the end again.

What my youngest doesn’t understand is that when she’s big enough, she’ll be on two-wheels too, riding down to the end of the block in a purple helmet.  Her wheels won’t squeak anymore and she’ll forget that she was ever three years old.

She’ll have a different tool to help her get where she wants to go.  She just has to wait.

But she shouldn’t give up now.  She just needs to keep moving forward.  If she can get over the fact that her tricycle wheels squeak and that she’s shorter than her sister, and that she is moving painfully slow, she can get there.  Eventually.

She just has to be okay with her tricycle.

I have to be okay with my tricycle.

Rusty, squeaking wheels and all.  Remembering that I will get there, maybe slower than someone else, but I will get there.

The tools I’ve been given may not be the same as someone else’s.  I may not have the big girl bike yet.  And I might have a long time to wait before I get it.  In fact, I may never get it.  But my job is to keep pedaling.  I need to take the next step even if it feels quiet or slow or short.

I have to stop comparing.

I have to stop whining.

I have to be proud of my less-than set of wheels.

I can’t complain that I only have two hours a week to write, that the rest of my “life” takes up all of my time. (Never, because ohhh, it is such a good life. The best one.)

I have to keep moving forward.

DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE THIS?  WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KEEP “MOVING FORWARD” WITH?

I’ve never been one to live in the “glory days” of high school.

I didn’t play any sports, and was only talented in studying, so I never got stuck in the glow of a life lived well once upon a time.  I had friends, but was never part of the popular crowd.  I had a “pretty face” but was always somewhat overweight (in a time when most high school girls weren’t).

High school was what it was and nothing more for me.  I had good days and bad days and mostly in between days. But I never once thought I was living in my “best days”.  I was embarrassed about the eighties that had just ended and cringed to think of myself as a junior higher with bad bangs and multiple zippers in my jeans. I did mathematical calculations in my head about the future, wondering how many years away I was from…anything else but now. I was only fifteen when I would fantasize about getting married in five years.  At 17 I thought I would arrive when I turned 25, a seemingly perfect age in my mind.

Having gotten married at 21 and then eventually reaching 25 and speeding right on past it, I am beginning to understand that every season in my life has been my “best days”.

Cold summer vacations in the mountains with my family when I was too young to venture off into the woods by myself (I felt like a tortured soul in need of open space to think and write my poetry).  These were my best days.

My grandfather dying when I was 9 and me not grieving properly (and still not understanding why).  These were my best days.

My new mothering hours, blind from sleeplessness and deaf from a screaming infant, those were my best days.

A marriage, completely destroyed and then stitched lovingly back together by my Savior’s hands.  Those were my best (and worst) days.

Today my days are filled with a second grader’s incessant questions about science and God and the universe and with her little sister’s leftover terrible-two tantrums (even though she’s three).  Smudgy fingerprints on my clean windows.  Cheerios fastened, glued, rooted to my kitchen tile.  A roving pile of clean laundry that is never really all folded: from my bed to the floor to the chair and back to the bed.  Sippy cups, fish crackers, half eaten grilled cheese sandwiches.  Cursing because I’ve stepped the arch of my foot on a mini lego in the dark.  These are my best days.

I understand now that I am always living in my best days.

Tragedy, sin, death, heartache equally paired with joy and peace — all of these are what makes up our lives.  God crafts each day for me, each season in my life with my best interest in mind.  My life, even if it is filled with difficulty, is at its peak of the best of the best because He has created me for today.

If He’s built today for me and it is full of heartache and stress, then I must (I have to) rest in knowing that it is the best thing for me.  It is my best day.

If I am always living in the day that God has created specifically for me, then the best days of my life follow me. I know that whenever I am, it is the best time.

The difference, however, between surviving through a terrific tragedy and allowing it to change me is only in the realization.  If I realize that now, today, this pain is for my good, the pain won’t go away, but the days, they will be the best ones of my life.

So glory days for me?  Not hardly.  But the best days, I’ve always had those.  And today, I’m living in them.

ARE YOU LIVING IN YOURS?

The two most common words uttered in churches across America…

“Let’s pray…”

And then the pastor/elder/ worship leader launches into a prayer about people you don’t know, programs you won’t attend or missionaries you don’t care about.  But you bow your head and close your eyes anyway but think about what you have to buy from Trader Joe’s this afternoon.

So maybe it feels overused or overdone, or even boring.

But that’s not the kind of prayer I”m talking about.  I’m talking about bringing each other to the cross because as Christ-followers we are His hands and His feet here on earth. And sometimes we can’t walk by ourselves and have to be taken on a stretcher.

So today, in the comments, leave a request for prayer about you or your immediate family and we will pray.

Even if you do not pray yourself, but want us to pray for you, leave a comment.

Even if you do not want us to know who you are, leave one anyway and put “Anonymous” in the name and email fields.  I will pray.  Others who read it will pray.

But if you do leave your name, I will pray for your by name.  I promise this.

So be brave, leave a comment, and then pray for the others before you who have left prayer requests.

And then sit back and watch God work.

This kind of prayer is never boring.

Okay, so you’ve heard my story.  If you haven’t, click over to read it. It will take you a few minutes to get through the five posts and then a little longer than that to process, but I promise you won’t be sorry.  Click here to read.

I can wait.

Then come back because I want you to understand something about story.  Stories.  My story.  Your story.

Nothing on earth (heaven might be different?) is more powerful than when a heart that has been restored stands up to tell her story.  His story.

We all have them.  Even if you think you don’t, it’s a lie.  Even if you think your story is

too sad

too long

too shocking

too…

I assure you, someone else has been there, had that happen, experienced the same loss, lived through the same pain.  You are not alone. But you are unique.  Your experiences, embedded with who you are; THAT is your story.  That is what you have to tell.

(Incidentally, YOUR story infused with GOD”S story — now that’s power).

Or maybe you are in the middle of your story still.  Maybe you still are figuring out where you fit in your story. Maybe you don’t want to be living in your story…

Regardless, know that when you tell your story there is power in that.  Power that comes from a changed heart, a righted soul, and a lifted face.

Maybe you will tell your story

over chai tea lattes with your best friend,

on a blog,

speaking in front of 85 women at a retreat,

to thousands of people someday,

or to the ONE person who needs to hear it in order to be healed.

And here’s the kicker:  my story (I trust you’ve read it by now) is not a story of lying, or cheating, or even adultery.  My story is one of hope, redemption and renewal.

There is power in that.

What’s your story?  Or who are you telling?

A couple of months ago I sat in the front row for the Cirque de Soleil show, Mystere.

We were close.  When the stage sunk, I was close enough to see the blue and green birds and monkeys hop away into the belly of the theater.

I was close enough to see all the detail on the feathered costumes.  I so far up in front that I could see the trapeze above my head and hear the whirr of the cables through the air.

Close enough that the in-your-face French styled performers stared into my eyes once or twice (Would the man-sized parrot peck at my feet?) and so close that I was worried I might be called up on stage like others in my same row had.

I had the best seats in the house where everything was in brilliant, glimmering detail.  I could see everything, and hear even hear the performers’ bare feet as they padded across the stage.

And I was amazed.

The past couple of weeks for me have been full of the same kind of mind-blowing experiences (minus the yellow feathers and glitter makeup).

I’ve felt like I’ve been sitting in the front row, exposed in all vulnerability to watch God working in my own life and in the lives of others.  And He’s shown it all to me in explosive, bright detail.

And I wonder, has God done anything different in the past couple weeks than He always has done?  Or has He been working overtime lately?

I think He’s always been this way, it’s just that I’ve been expecting to see it lately.  He’s proven Himself faithful and I’ve been watching.  He’s shown me not only what He CAN do but what He DOES do.  And now I’ve been expecting it.

[I'm not sure if I was a cynic before or if I was just disappointed in myself.  Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong place...]

As soon as I began to watch for Him, I saw Him.

And then He was everywhere:  in my girls, in a phone call, in that email, even in that harsh word.  There He was.

It was as if I’d been sitting in the front row this whole time, but with earplugs shoved in my ears and a blindfold tightly around my eyes.

How cruel.

But I did it to myself.

I’d been front row to brilliance and blaze and the glow of what He can do and I’d been playing with my phone and checking email.

But now I’m watching. And expecting.  And I feel like I can see what God is doing.  I’m excited to see what is coming next.

Have you been watching for God?  What have you seen?

Healing takes time.

I’m currently seeing a chiropractor for this crazy neck thing that I have.  He keeps saying that I have an old injury in my shoulder/neck that is causing me this pain almost 15 years later.  I thought and thought and I remembered that I had injured myself skiing when I was about 20.  Incidentally, that was the first and last time I skiied.

But the remnants of that shoulder injury are still here giving me the range of motion of a 90-year-old woman.  It might take a long time to be free from it.

Healing from my affair took time also.  In some respects, much of the triage, stitch-up-the-jugular vein healing took place quickly: within the first six months.  But I think some of the healing takes place over time, bubbling with purpose under the surfaces of date nights, family dinners and pillow talk.

So be patient.  Keep moving forward, even if it’s slow.

Nothing can take the place of good solid marital counseling (which, in my opinion, can be helpful for ANY couple), but in the absence or in supplement to that, here are some books and websites that are helpful.  Some of them I’ve used myself and some have been recommended.

Books:

• Shannon Etheridge, author of Every Woman’s Battle.  I read this book in the first month of my healing and it helped immensely.  You can buy it here.
• Intimacy Ignited, by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus.  This was integral for me in discovering (for the first time!) real intimacy with my husband.  It is a book for married couples that outlines God’s design for sex outlined by the Song of Solomon.
• The Love Dare, by Alex and Stephen Kendrick.  I read this much later, but it is very helpful.  It is a book designed to take couples on a 40 day journey of mending and melting hearts that have been separated by hurt and bitterness in marriage.
• Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Influence and Sacred Marriage.  These were given to me recently by my mentor and I am working through the first one.  They are insightful when it comes to the spiritual roles women play in the lives of their husbands.
• The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I think someone got this for us for our wedding 13 years ago and I read it once back then.  I need to read it again. If you haven’t read this book before, pick it up.  It is eye-opening.  And by the way, I am quality time and receiving gifts. My husband is physical touch.  Knowing that helps a lot.

Websites:

• Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.  Books, conferences and an interactive website.
• Gary Smalley, author of many books on marriage.  His website features books, articles and information on hot topics.
• A Chord of Three Strands.  Preparatory conferences for young engaged and married couples.
• Covenant Eyes.  Blog and web accountability software that monitors internet use and reports to people you select.
• Weekend to Remember by Familylife.com. We attended one of these conferences in our first year of healing.  Exceptional.  They hold retreats and conferences designed to help grow your marriage.  Also this website is a wealth of information regarding healthy marriages.
• XXX Church.  An online community devoted to bring awareness, openness and accountability to those affected by pornography.

These are only a few of the resources available for hurting and healing couples and I know I’m leaving out hundreds of amazing books and websites.

What about you?  Is there anything that has helped you that I’ve left out?  Or what are your thoughts on healing?

What did you do this weekend?

(We will be talking about healing on Monday morning and I will post some marriage resources then too)

My three-year-old sings, whispers, and mumbles secrets in my ear every night before bed.

She grabs my shoulder and says, “Mama, I have a secret for you!”

I expect this but I act surprised. “Really?! What is it?”

And then she tells me the secrets of a preschooler, complete with wishes that can never come true and descriptions and details of things only viewable from three feet above the ground.

I won’t tell you exactly what she says because if I do, my daughter’s secrets will lose their power.

As soon as I speak them in the light, they lose their mystique.

But the same is true for those other types of secrets.  You know what I’m talking about.  The ones that need to be, should be, must be shared.  Sin in secret has power. But shared and confessed in the light, it loses it’s hold.  When my daughter is scared in the night and what she thinks is hiding in the dark corner of her room, I simply switch on the light.  Nothing looks the same in the morning.

Even things like laziness, overindulgence, and bitterness seem to lose traction when we begin to share with someone we trust.

A best friend.

Our spouse.

A sister.

I don’t have any secrets anymore.  As soon as I begin to tell my story, no one else can beat me to it.  “Did you hear what she DID to her husband?” holds no power any longer because I’ve already spoken it.  The gossip doesn’t mean anything anymore because I’ve said it first.

So I suggest that you have something to confess, big or small, that you consider what it is doing to you by hiding it.

It is draining you.

It is holding you captive.

I know it feels better in the dark, somehow safer.  But that is just a lie.  Kept in the dark, it is haunting you and keeping you inside it’s cage.

If you can, share it.  If you are brave enough, speak it.  It will kill you if you don’t.

(I understand that everyone’s situation is different. Sharing secrets of a particular nature should be done with intention to heal relationship, not merely to assuage personal guilt.  If you choose to confess, please share with much thought and prayer.)