Where Grace Abounds

{Right up front I want you to know that I originally wrote this for my sister-in-law and her sister’s joint baby shower. I hope you hear the grace behind these words. I believe that God builds families and what and how He builds is good. More than a certain number of children or the experiences we might have in common—I want you to know God’s goodness is towards YOU. I pray that you would be able to believe with hope that God is working out a good story in YOUR life.}

Sometimes I’d like to wish more children than can be managed for everyone.

The wise Jim Gaffigan says having four kids is like drowning and someone throws you a baby. He’s not wrong. But Jim forgot to name the ocean you are drowning in.

Sure, sometimes you are up with the preteen who forgot to tell you about his school project due tomorrow, while letting a teething baby gum your finger with one hand and putting butter into the preschooler’s gum-stuck hair with the other.

You are drowning, but the name of the ocean is grace. God has done blessed your life right up to the brim, and you are standing on your tippy toes, and you can’t even get your nose above the blessings. You can’t contain them, control them, or manage a schedule for them without forgetting someone’s dentist appointment.

Looking like you have it all together is an illusion anyway, and—like eating in restaurants when you have three or more kids—it’s one you can no longer afford. Instead, you have been gifted countless opportunities to live God’s amazing grace.

You might feel frazzled, overwhelmed, needy, and tired, but you aren’t walking with a limp—you are walking with a lean. You are revealing the at-work, very-present God-with-you.

“If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.”

Sometimes I’d like to wish last babies for everyone.

For a baby whose arrival confounds you. You never dreamed of who she might be and what she might do—and you get to discover that God’s dreams surpass ours and stand on their own as GOOD without an ounce of help from our imaginations.

Only God could imagine how the oldest children would adopt her, not as rival, but as their own. How the baby can entangle you all with the intoxication of a new beginning when all has become practice schedules and errands.

Only God could imagine how a woman who has been around the block a few times now would know what matters most—sleep and showers and food (obviously)—and rocking in the dark, the baby’s downy skin outlined by moonlight, and—the scent!!—how you drink in the scent of newborn baby like it is the fountain of youth and you are thirsty… and old.

With your first child, you want to put your best foot forward.

With your last child, you want to keep your feet in place. Life is no longer a location to hurry towards; it’s a fleeting gift. So you linger. You smell. You “let your heart bay to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on soft cheeks.”**

A last baby is something special.

Sometimes I’d like to wish a baby after losses for everyone.

Not necessarily the losses, but what comes after. How when you’ve realized that pain and suffering can come for you, when the losses stack up and seem unfair and you wonder what you did to cause such a thing. When you are forced to excavate hope from the very bottom of yourself and look pain in the face and declare by your own living: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away and someone belongs here and God is still good and I will bless His name.”

To see with your own eyes, that what you laid down in devastation, God raises up, and stuffs full of rolls and fuzzy hair and bright eyes.

We all can recognize the miracle of a baby. But a baby after losses? It’s a stormy sky, billowing anvil topped clouds with dark bottoms, bright sunshine piercing through the gaps like swords, and a rainbow—brighter than anything—declaring God’s promises are yes and amen.

Suffering isn’t the absence of God’s goodness; it’s the very soil in which His grace abounds. 

you are my favorite reason to never give up

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a woman believing for life in this land of death?

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a woman propelled forward by the Holy Spirit and God’s good plans for her family?

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a woman laying down her life over and over again and seeing God raise beauty out of her surrender?

Friend, you are a beautiful woman.

Dear Hope-Excavators, Bottom-of-Yourself Soul-Scrapers—may God’s presence follow you; may His goodness astound you. You are beautiful. And courageous. And so very worthy of celebrating.

Happy Mother’s Day.

-Amanda Conquers

Before you go, I'd love to know: How has God's grace abounded in your life through the journey of motherhood (no matter where on the journey you are)?

**These pretty words are from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

The third to last photo was taken by Katie Fewell Photography and is used with permission.

Christ Was Buried

I’ve been studying early church history for months now. I cannot get enough of it. You’d think the by-product of studying history would be a plethora of random facts and dates. Maybe it’s that my memory isn’t what it once was, but studying church history has actually firmed up my faith in a way I didn’t know I needed. Since Sunday marked the beginning of Holy Week, I wanted to share something really cool I’ve been able to excavate in my deep dive into church history.

I think you’ll be blown away if you don’t already know this.

The church today is great at talking about how Christ died. It’s great at talking about how Christ rose from the dead. But that middle piece? About how Christ was buried? It’s missing from many churches’ doctrinal statements. It’s overlooked as a given or as a trivial detail in the greater narrative of the gospel.

That’s not how the early church viewed it.

That statement mattered. It is a tenet of the gospel. You can find it in both the Apostles and the Nicene Creeds. Paul writes it in his letters in what we now call the Pauline Creeds (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 for one example***).

One reason why it mattered so much was that the early church knew Jewish customs. During the time of Jesus, the Jewish people wrapped their dead in cloths and spices and buried them in tombs. One year later they returned to the site of the burial to collect the bones and put them in an ossuary (a small box) which was then placed in the back of the tomb with other burial boxes. Jewish people, as a matter of law, buried ALL bodies in two rites regardless of whether they were criminals or not. Roman law allowed them to do this–even if one of their own was, say, a convicted criminal hanging on a Roman cross.

Because of this, the early church knew that they held outstanding proof of Jesus’s resurrection. If Jesus was in fact buried (and he was) but was not also resurrected, the Jewish council would have had zero problems producing his body and proving Jesus’ disciples wrong once and for all. They knew where he was buried. The council had to know his burial site to be able to perform the second rite of his burial a year later. It was a member of their own council, Joseph of Arimathea, who provided the place for Jesus’ burial (Luke 23:50-53). They didn’t produce Christ’s body. Because they couldn’t.

Instead, they claimed his body was stolen.

This theory has many logical holes. I’m just going to share my favorite one.

The first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection were women. In those times and in Jewish law, women legally could not testify. Regardless of the circumstances, their witness meant nothing. Never mind the huge stone or the guards posted in front of the tomb or the sheer number of people who SAW the risen Christ with scars but also not nasty and bleeding, no human who was masterminding the stealing of Jesus’ body would pick women to be the first witnesses. Only God would, guys. Only God. (And how beautiful that God reveals himself through the witness of the marginalized?! THAT is our God.)

Y’all.

You can choose to not follow Christ.

You can despise his teachings.

But trying to say Jesus didn’t die on the cross, wasn’t buried, and didn’t rise from the dead is foolish. It’s a matter of historical record.

The resurrection of Christ is not merely a spiritual event. It’s a historical event. His burial holds the proof of this.

More personally, I think the part where he was buried felt so final. Jesus was super dead. It looked hopeless, his lifeless body laid out on a shelf inside an earthen tomb, a stone rolled in front, soldiers standing guard. You couldn’t get in. He couldn’t get out.

Maybe you know that moment. The one where you are looking at your life and saying, “No, no, no, no! It wasn’t supposed to go this way. This isn’t a story I’d want to tell. This isn’t a story I want to live.”

Your life isn’t going how you thought it would, and you’re gutted by what is no more.

By all accounts, it looks hopeless. With much anguish you turn away, you leave it behind, and you try to come to grips with a new normal.

It’s buried.

It isn’t just that Christ died and then rose again as though there was pain and then immediately triumph. His death was finalized. His march towards resurrection included Silent Saturday—where all was lost and silent and cold.

It’s in the utter hopelessness of burial that God reveals his unfathomable ways and his unshakeable love for us. What looks like death to us looks like seeded soil to God.

I can’t say when. I definitely cannot say how. But we know and we believe that God raises the dead to life. What we bury can be resurrected by Him.

Christ died.

Christ was buried.

Christ rose from the dead.

Christ is coming again.

Praise God.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Hey! I would love to hear from you! Comment below and tell me about a time you got to witness the resurrection power of Christ at work in your life?? Man, it’d be cool to hear those testimonies. I’m linking a few of my own death-to-life stories: What Hope Really Looks Like, Joy Invincible {A Birth Story}, and Proclaiming the Miracle.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

Sources: Bede’s Podcast with Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin, episode titled “The Resurrection” (a fantastic listen if you enjoy podcasts) and Salvation by Allegiance Alone, by Dr. Michael W. Bates (a heavyweight, but nevertheless fantastic theology read).

***I just wanted to mention that 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 is actually believed to be a Pre-Pauline Creed. Scholars believe that what Paul wrote down in his letter to Corinth (verses 3-7) was known and recited by many first Christians. I dare you to read aloud 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 knowing before there was a New Testament canon, before Paul’s letters, before the gospels were recorded, the very first generation of Christians memorized, recited, and sang these precious words.

An Advent to Remember

My favorite Advent story is far from traditional, but it goes like this: Rahab the prostitute hid the Israelite spies and in return asks for a sign, a “pledge of faithfulness,” that she and her household will be saved at the fall of Jericho. The spies tell her to hang a scarlet cord out of her window. Rahab does this and she and her family are saved. Furthermore, Rahab is grafted into the lineage of Christ.

The Hebrew word for cord here is tiqvah; it literally means cord. I know, it’s not a very interesting word translation, but, wait, because there’s more. From that point on in the Old Testament, the word tiqvah gets translated as hope.

Many Hebrew words are like this. You have a high and lofty idea like hope attached to this concrete image like a cord hung out a window as a pledge of faithfulness.

I have been studying the early Christian church, the history of what happened, but also how they thought about Christ a few generations after his life on earth. One prominent philosopher of the day, Celsus, wrote an eloquent argument against Christianity. He makes the point that the way to God was by clearing the mind of sensory distractions. Only then can one’s mind ascend to God.*

Don’t we sometimes think that way too? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished during the Christmas season to wipe the schedule clean, do away with presents, and live in a cabin in the woods where we can make memories and sing hymns and all can be holy. Or have you ever thought like me, that I would be doing so much better if I could just figure out how to have hours of quiet spent in prayer and devotion to God?

Origen, one of the great early Christian thinkers of the third century, responds to Celsus like this: “…the Holy Scripture shows more compassion for humankind when it presents the divine Word, who was in the beginning with God… as becoming flesh in order to reach everyone.”* In other words, we don’t ascend to God. God descended to us.

One of the coolest discoveries I’ve made in studying the early church is how committed they were to the historical person of Jesus. In a society that praised Greek philosophy and attaining higher levels of thinking, the early church wanted it clear: Hope is not a concept; he is a Person. He’s the physical embodiment of God’s love for sinners, and his name is Jesus Christ.

I think this is why I love how tangible the observance of Advent is. We physically light candles, one more each week, to remember how the Light of the World stepped down into our messy broken world. We watch the light of our hope grow each week, and it’s okay if we begin in the dark. After all, that’s exactly where God began, by speaking light into the dark.

In the story of Rahab, hope is made physically touchable in the tiqvah-cord. Hope isn’t an ideal to understand, it’s a cord you are tied to. Jesus Christ is our living Hope—his death and resurrection are our literal scarlet pledge of God’s faithfulness. Like Rahab, we are grafted into the lineage of Christ—coheirs with him. We know he is coming again, once-and-for-all ending pain and brokenness and suffering because he already—actually and historically—came.

Listen, friend, I know the tension of the holiday season. But don’t miss that you have a hope who stepped into your story—whose name is Immanuel—God with us. You don’t have to strive to get up to him. You don’t have to create a silent night, holy night kind of Christmas. You don’t have to spend hours of time in devotion and prayer. And, listen, it’s not that those aren’t good things. It’s that time with God isn’t a place to ascend to, it’s that He already descended to exactly where you are at. He’s with you. Already. Right now.

Stringing lights. Decking halls. Burning cookies. Sweeping pine needles. Reminding children to keep their ever-loving hands off the pretty ornaments every day until Christmas. Here.

Whether your holidays are stuffed full without room like the town of Bethlehem or sparse like the straw-lined manger-crib the Christ-child was laid in—Christ came to you. You don’t have to work to bring him anywhere.

He’s already here.
…

Hey, friend, I'd love to know: do you observe Advent? What tangible ways do you make Hope real and include Christ in your home during the Christmas season?

…

Praying you and yours experience the nearness of Christ this holiday season.

Amanda Conquers

*Source: The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, by Robert Louis Wilkin.

How to Light a Lantern in the Dark

{I originally shared this as a multiple-part series of Instagram posts. If you’ve ever struggled with despair or anxiety, wondered if you mattered, or thought this world has more worries than you can carry, this is for you.}

Joy and pain live side by side. It doesn’t make sense any more than inky blacks and bright whites should make a good painting and not some grey mess. Yet the Renaissance gave us chiaroscuro [kee-ahr-uh-skyoor-oh]—Italian for light-dark. Caravaggio and Rembrandt were masters at this.

Basically, a few details are placed in the light, while the rest of the painting remains in the dark. The stark contrast illuminates what is beautiful.

That has been the last two years since Junie’s birth: darkest pain and brightest joy. Perhaps, this post is my personal protest against the darkness. Perhaps, these words are my way of painting in chiaroscuro: darkness, yes; but you won’t be able to mistake the light.

Perhaps, in view of the tumultuous times, we are all facing, there is no better time to train our eyes to see the details in the light.

I want to share 3 glimpses of God over the past two years that I can’t ever unsee. My prayer is they light up the dark. Mine and yours. So if you are facing hardship, struggling with despair, burdened under the weight of all that is going on in our world, if you wonder if you matter… this is for you.

The sun has long since dipped below the horizon, and the clouds hover.

It’s dark out.

But the lantern glows.

And we can huddle near.

Rembrandt: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

Caravaggio: The Calling of St. Matthew

---

{In which I need you to know: The storyteller sits in the pitch dark before the lantern is lit}

I don’t think I’d ever grappled with how finite and imperfect these mortal dwelling places are. Not really. My body’s mostly worked the way it’s supposed to until two years ago. Switchfoot has a song that says, “this skin and bones is a rental.” My rental survived something like an earthquake after Junie’s birth. That day in the hospital was hard, but it’s not what leveled me. That was the aftershocks.

I’ve lived some really dark days. One day I’ll have the courage to tell you how dark.

Fortunately, for the artist of chiaroscuro, the details of the dark don’t need to be as well defined as the details in the light.

This isn’t ignoring them, you still want to paint your background darkly. There was the second brush with death six days later. The physical recovery from massive blood loss. The emotional recovery from trauma. The PTSD and anxiety I’ve been battling ever since. The time it got so bad for so long, I needed to be hospitalized. Yes. That kind of hospital.  It’s been an uphill battle ever since.

Because I am going to attempt to write about Light—about the glimpses of God I can’t ever unsee—I want you to know how human I am. How prone to sin. Ann Voskamp* penned that “anxiety is practical atheism.” And Marilla Cuthbert** says, “To despair is to turn your back on God.” If Marilla and Ann are right, I am two words away from being an atheist. Two words away from the totality of my sin. Two words that contrast the darkness and bring beauty to the light:

But God.

I don’t say that and brush away the details of the dark, I’m not being flippant. It’s just that the darkness cannot overcome the Light. It’s just that faith is less about us holding onto God, and more about Him holding onto us. That I can write this is grace alone. I need you to know that.

But because of that, I feel confident in saying, if He is for me, He is for you. If you are living before your “but God” moment, hold on. Cry out. Wait. I know it might feel impossible. God, I know that feeling. I can’t tell you when or how, but I know one day you will look back and testify to the goodness of God.

---

{The First Glimpse: His Presence}

My life was fading as they moved my bed through the hallways. I said, “Jesus.” Just “Jesus.” Over and over again. I wanted to be scared. But I couldn’t. Jesus was with me. In a way that felt thick and tangible, like He was the air I was breathing in, like I could have held His hand if I’d been strong enough to reach out for it. It didn’t matter that nurses were pushing my bed where they wanted it to go, it didn’t matter the uncertainty that hung between me and the other side of surgery. I was going wherever Jesus was going. Period.

The veil between this physical world and the omnipresence of God got peeled back just a tiny bit that day, and I beheld the mystery of God-with-me.

I can’t unsee His presence in what should have been the most terrifying moment of my life. I can’t unsee His peace that surpasses understanding.

Sometimes the reality of suffering and death feels like it might suffocate me. I struggle to grasp that they are as much a part of life as living is. I don’t want to accept it. Truthfully, I’d much prefer to reason my way out of them. Afterall, how could a loving God allow such things? But I can’t unsee that moment in the hallway. I almost died. And God was with me. His peace enveloped me. It was the least scary moment of my life.

My future was secure. I was going wherever Jesus was going.

Even when life has been horrifyingly bad this year, I know the One who holds life itself in His hands. I know He is good, and that beyond the mist-at-dawn that is our lives there is an eternity where the weight of glory outweighs the weight of our suffering. And tell me what scale exists which could compare the eternal with the finite? And who is worthy to hold that scale?

I wish I could see the same span of eternity, maybe suffering would look differently. I have but my glimpse of Immanuel from the hospital hallway. I know He’s with me, and shall be all the way Home. I think that’s enough.

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{The Second Glimpse: Our Purpose}

I looked back at Mike as they wheeled me away. Junie was sleeping peacefully in her bassinet like all was well. I whispered, “I love you.” As soon as I got those words out, the thought occurred to me that those might be my last words. I wondered if I needed to say anything else. Surely I needed to remind him about a school assignment, or give him instructions for taking care of our newborn, or offer some final words of wisdom to pass along to our kids. I thought of the bookshelves without the books of my dreams sitting on them, the places I never got to visit, the work I hadn’t done.

Peace flooded that moment. I just knew: those three words were enough. It was enough. I was enough. I’d lived my love letter to my family—the bottoms I’d wiped, the tantrums I’d redirected, the crumbs I’d vacuumed, the hair I’d tucked behind ears, the songs I’d sung rocking babies in the dark.

I’d lived God’s love letter to the reach of my influence—the cinnamon rolls I’d sent to the neighbors, the prayers I’d prayed, the words of hope I’d tapped out. Not that it was perfect or even all that magnificent, but I’d lived allowing God’s grace to leak out of the cracks of my shortcomings. Surely, grace would continue to cover the gaps.

I can’t unsee my enoughness, nor the simplicity of my life’s work: to love God and to love others.

Listen: It’s not the size of your influence, nor the books with your name on the spine. It’s being faithful over your one little life. It’s loving your God, and living as a letter of God’s love to those around you. You might leave without all your bucket list items checked off, but God doesn’t see your life as a to-do list. He delights in you—you—as you are. You are a living breathing expression of God’s love.

You don’t need a platform or a title or a book deal. Just love the ones in front of you. Be prepared to do so imperfectly. It’s our imperfections that leave room for the grace of God. Leave plenty of room for Him.

And be curious. Be curious enough to want to know what happens if you listen to that still small voice that whispers invitations into more ways to love.

That’s it. Love is always enough.

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{The Third Glimpse: The Way Forward}

A few months back I received an email. It was a cry for help from another continent. They’d lost loved ones, they were in despair, they didn’t know how much longer they could hold on.

I stared at that email paralyzed.

It wasn’t long ago I was in a similar place. I kept thinking: how could I hold the weight of another person’s life when mine felt so heavy all by itself?

I mentioned it to a friend, and she gave me the most practical wisdom. “Amanda, why don’t you pray for her?”

Duh.

I wrote her a prayer back. I might not have been able to be her counselor, but I hadn’t lived through the darkest night of my life to not know how to pray over someone living through theirs.

I did close my email with an exhortation.

I told her to do the one thing that had preserved me when I thought God had abandoned me, and I couldn’t keep going. I wrote, “Every day, I want you to record every good thing, every provision, every sweet moment. At least 3. Write them down and number them. Because despair lies.

“Despair lies and says there is nothing good for us. Despair lies and says all is loss, and the loss is too great. Despair lies and says the darkness wins.

“It might be a small act counting up gifts, but it’s a defiant act that stares in the face of darkness, and starts poking holes in it.”

Last year I had a moment where I wanted to walk away from the faith. I couldn’t believe what I was being asked to endure. I stayed because I found myself like Peter, “To whom should [I] go, Lord? [Only] You have the words of eternal life.”

I can’t unsee the power of gratitude through those fragile weeks. I struggled to hold on. But I can look back and see the hundreds of gifts I counted. It brings me to my knees. I was faithless. Yet He remained faithful.

Writing down gifts and counting them up is like dipping our brushes in the creamy whites and highlighting God’s goodness over the dark circumstances of our lives. We become the artists of chiaroscuro. When we highlight the goodness in the dark, we discover the lights aren’t all out.

The sun might have long since dipped below the horizon, and the clouds might hover.

It might be dark out.

But the lantern glows.

And we can huddle near.

What has gotten you through dark times? I'd love to hear your answer.
(And, friend, if you are going through a particularly dark time, it would be my honor to pray with you.)

By Grace,
Amanda Conquers

*from One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

**from Anne of Green Gables. (I can’t tell you how pleased I was to put my favorite writer Ann in the same sentence with my favorite fictitious Marilla. Fangirl going to #fangirl.)

Dig In: A Blessing for This School Year

{I originally wrote this as an exhortative blessing spoken out loud over the parents at my homeschool co-op. But I think this is for all of us this year. So I changed a few things up and made it for you. It looks at 3 different ways we can dig in <3)

Dig in.

Dig in—to community.

Dig in—to friendships and mentorships.

Dig in—to the ground on which God has placed you.

Your city. Your neighborhood. Your church. Your marriage. Your family.

Dig in—to The Truth with a capital T

Dig in—to books, to learning, to possibility.

Dig in—to the work of parenting.

Of thankless tasks, of the slew of little things—

dishes and diapering, picture books and pancake stacks,

grumpy attitudes and juggling acts.

Maybe they seem small,

but watch the years go by and see how they add up all.

Stop looking beyond where you are now—you know what they say about greener grasses.

Here—

is a good place to dig.

{Dig into Community}

Maybe we’ve had fields lying fallow—our lives and relationships locked down and socially distanced. We’ve backed away from pain in the places we thought it shouldn’t be found—in churches and communities. But it’s time to break up that fallow ground. To break through awkward first greetings and school and Bible study meetings and the assumption everyone else has all the friends they need.

(They don’t).

Dig in.

Let your roots press through the hard soil to find life. This might hurt you, but this same space will also nourish you. Remember, God is Redeemer. It is the same place of wounding that becomes our place of healing.

{Dig into grace}

Break up, dig in, put down seed, stretch out root.

Reach out.

It’s an act of faith: so much waiting before you ever see the growth above the soil.

Isn’t that parenthood?

So much work with whiney sinners (who we love more than life itself!)—and it takes years of consistency and continuing on and embarrassing grocery aisle tantrums and apologizing to kids who pushed the right button to make an expletive appear on our lips—and so much more wiping up liquids than we could have ever conceived—before we ever see the fruit of our labors.

And we labor in this hope: that we—moms and dads and these kids entrusted to us—are His workmanship created for the good works He planned for us.

Our kids aren’t our masterpieces.

This is hard for the parent to remember. We’ve got so much skin in the game. Lord bless us, we look for validation, but there are no annual reviews or good-job stickers for parents. We take it all on ourselves when our little ones scream in the stores or run behind the counters in restaurants. We see our kids’ challenges, their attitudes, their struggles as a measure of our worth instead of as an opportunity for God’s grace. The enemy of our soul whispers: “You’re Failing.”

Don’t run from your failures.

Instead, dig into His grace.

You have a Partner who is far more patient than us—Whose ways are above ours—Whose grace is sufficient—Who uses imperfect people to carry out His perfect will.

We, parents, are disciple-makers. We are the unlikely world-shakers.

Dig in—we shall yet bear fruit.

{Dig into Hope}

We’ve dealt with more than our fair share of uncertainty this past year.

But isn’t every finite thing uncertain?

Isn’t it then worth putting down deep roots, stretching, reaching, tapping that eternal source of life?

Isn’t the true marker of life in Christ known by the mysteries below the surface?

Unseen prayers.

Peace without understanding.

Joy in spite of pain.

Drought and wind and storms—and yet it can remain—because hope that is seen isn’t hope—and we have this hope as an anchor for our souls.

So we stretch our roots deeper, in places we can’t see or understand, and we find ourselves sustained.

The Old Testament Hebrew uses this word interchangeably for hope and trust: yachal. It literally means to remain. To stand in one place.

You know? After having done all this, to stand.

Steadfast, immovable.

To remain. To abide. To have roots dug deep.

This year?

Let’s dig in.

“He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.” Luke 6:48

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

PS I’d love to know how you are planning to dig in this school year.

One Thousand Times Over

I started counting gifts when I started falling apart.

Heart racing, stomach empty, and I just wanted out. The medical doctors said it was anxiety. The psychiatric team said it was too severe to be anxiety. No one had answers. I wondered if God had abandoned me.

So I went searching for beauty, for goodness, for evidence of God-with-me.

>>Rollerblades and wind in my hair.

>>Daughter carrying the rat cage around the neighborhood calling out, “Rats for sale. Baby rats for sale.”

>>Dimpled toddler hands covered in dirt.

>>Good sex.

My sister had a touch-and-go, almost-not-making-it kind of childbirth. Sort of like I did a year prior.

It scared me. And I got worse.

I fought to stay here, but it began to feel impossible. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is hold up our hands and say, “I surrender.” I gave up my rights and was hospitalized. I hate this part of the story, but if ever it’s retold, I hope they tell how much I love my family. How fought like hell to stay with them. How no matter how weak I felt, by the grace of God I am an overcomer.

>>Pastors who visit and pray without judgment.

>>A roommate bravely getting sober.

>>Friends who feed your family when you can’t be there.

>>A fairytale to write and a way to be with my kids at bedtime.

The day after I was released, the Bay Area issued their Shelter-in-Place order. Everyone was talking about COVID, about toilet paper, and about flattening the curve. I figured if ever there was a time to find out if this PTSD was responding to treatment, it was here.

>>Neighborly waves.

>>Prolific spring flowers.

>>My first solid night’s sleep in months. Maybe years.

Then came the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the eruption of buried pain and fear. I got calls my husband was holding over, protests to protect. I prayed there would be no rocks or spit or worse.

Then there was the call that the father-in-law had stage three cancer, the sister kept having strokes, and the grandma’s heart was failing.

>>Steaming stacks of sourdough pancakes.

>>Cowbells ringing through a wildflower-adorned meadow.

>>The prayers my kids wrote to their grandpa and how it made him cry.

>>A project to work on that turned into a whole book and the notes I got from people telling me how it blessed them.

Then came the wildfires, so big they created their own thunderheads and tornadoes of fire. My sister suffered the worst stroke yet and the doctors discovered seven clots, two the size of half-dollars on her brain.

>>Junie’s singing right alongside mine at bedtime.

>>Sitting with Sam on the couch reading books and doing crafts.

>>Mike’s promotion.

>>Finding the drawstring-less pajama bottoms from my hospital stay and throwing them in the trash. I don’t need them anymore.

>>My sister—a breathing walking talking miracle who stumped the neurologist—7 clots, several strokes, brain surgery, and all she’s missing is some of her memories. Only God.

Yesterday, I penned my thousandth gift.

One thousand gifts buried in the mess of 2020. Sure, most are garden-variety ordinary while the rest of this year has felt unprecedented. But have you ever seen a field of a thousand daffodils?

This gift-counting is an act of defiance that stares down the lies of the enemy that say, “it’s too hard,” “you’re too far gone,” or “there’s nothing good here.”

Friend. I am telling you, if you feel like you are drowning, start counting.

When we feel like we are falling apart, giving thanks is the grace that puts all the fragmented pieces of ourselves together into one mosaic of God’s unfailing love.

It’s been the hardest year of my life, but I flip through the pages of my journal and I have the proof: God is still here. God is still good. God is ever faithful.

One thousand times over.

Friend, I’d love to hear from you (it’s been a while!!). How has this year been for you? Do you count your gifts or keep a gratitude journal?

Joy Invincible {A Birth Story}

A little over a month ago, I gave birth to my daughter.

(Guys. Here she is. Juniper Joy. Isn’t she precious?!)

(Trigger warning: I share some of the traumatic events after my delivery. If you are sensitive to this or are expecting and already anxious, please be warned. I don’t give a ton of details, but still want you to be aware. xo)

This time, my labor was short and intense. Three hours from start to finish. I had no time for pain relief, and I struggled to stay on top of the contractions.

When it was time to push, this fourth-timer remembered the rush when the baby leaves your body and is laid on your chest for the first time. I focused everything on that moment and had her out in two pushes.

For the first three hours of Junie’s life, we might as well have been bathed in a golden glow. She latched well. She cooed. She nuzzled right onto our chests and let out precious sighs while drifting off to sleep.

We fell in love.

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It was glorious… until it wasn’t.

I mentioned to Mike that I felt like I was bleeding more than usual. “Isn’t bleeding normal after you have a baby?” he asked.

“Yeah, it is. This just seems like a lot.”

We shrugged it off.

When the nurse came to check on me, she was concerned. My blood loss was weighed, tests were called for, and a catheter was inserted along with medicine in IV’s.

The bleeding only got worse.

Four hours post-delivery, my room was full of hospital staff, and I started to feel the world go gray. I heard the doctor call out, “We have to get her to the OR now. She cannot wait. Right now.”

I looked back as they wheeled me away—the gravity of the situation starting to register. My baby was sleeping peaceful in her bassinet. My husband was looking at me—concern etched into the lines of his face. I whispered, “I love you.”

I wondered if those three words were my last and if they were enough to cover my life and the ones I’ve loved with every breath of it.

As they hurried me thru the halls to the operating room, I called out, voice-weak, for Jesus. Jesus over and over again.

And guys? He was there.

Peace hovered around me, tangible enough that though I was too weak to reach out and grab it, it touched me. I didn’t know what would happen, but I knew I was with Jesus. Wherever He was going, whatever He had in mind, I was with Him.

The bright lights and the medical terminology bouncing around the white walls of the OR made me feel like I was in a different world, one I wasn’t quite apart of. So I sang.

Great is Thy Faithfulness. O God my Father/ There is no shadow of turning with Thee/ Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not/ As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

I sang till the mask was placed over my face and the white room went dark.

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I hemorrhaged more than three-fifths the blood in my body because of what is called uterine atony (basically, the top part of my uterus contracted like it should meanwhile the middle part was too stretched out—ie 4 kids and a really fast labor—to contract. Instead it filled with blood.)

The recovery was rough because my legs filled up with gallons of fluid. I couldn’t walk and my nerves were shot from the trauma of the whole thing. They kept me four days and three nights.

Three days after I got home, I didn’t feel quite right, and my lungs were burning. So I made an appointment for that day at a clinic. When I got to the clinic, they sent me straight to the emergency room and urged me to travel by ambulance because my blood pressure was so high I was in danger of seizing. I spent another two nights in the hospital getting a 24-hour line of magnesium for post partum pre-eclampsia.

When my discharge papers were signed, my blood pressure was low again so they didn’t send me home with medicine. But right before I left, I could feel it going back up. I asked the nurse to take my blood pressure again. It was in fact up, but not high enough to be dangerous. So they sent me home anyways.

It was dangerous by the time I got home.

I had to go straight back to the ER. (I cried. Then I laughed. Then I cried again.) Fortunately, this time they gave me blood pressure medicine, monitored me for a few hours, and then sent me home.

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I’m still unpacking all that happened in the first few weeks of Juniper’s life. Some of it, I still can’t touch. It’s too raw. But here’s why I am telling you this story now:

Because God is faithful.

It’s not the story I would have asked for. Ever. It was awful and painful and terrifying. I certainly didn’t feel strong enough to face the recovery of it. Post-traumatic stress is not fun. And I am tired of anxiety.

But God is faithful.

So, while I continue to heal and recover, let me tell you what God did in the midst of all of this. Because, guys, while parts of this are hard, these parts are good. And I will tell them over and over again.

God is good. Even in the middle of your hardest, darkest night—He is still good.

•  The doctor who worked to save me told me she had never seen blood results come back like mine after losing so much blood. She was baffled and had no explanation because my numbers were as though I had never even lost blood. (I do have an explanation: Jesus.)

• My nurse told me that the day before my delivery they had done scenario training for my exact condition. I laughed it off at the time and said “You’re welcome for providing you with the real-life experience.” And then it hit me: If there was a best hospital to be at, a good day to bleed out, it was there, and it was then. I wasn’t even planning on delivering at that hospital—I switched last minute because it was closer and I had a feeling the baby was going to come fast.

Truly, I don’t understand how God works. But I do know He provided. Like Psalm 139 says, “He hemmed me in behind and before.” He sees all my days. He knows the ones appointed for me to live. And He has provided for each one of those days.

The revelation that God is in control is a paradox. It comes with both a terror and a peace. On the one hand, I am not in control. But on the other hand, He is.

• I had the best labor and delivery nurse come on shift right before I delivered. She was older, a mother of nine, and a traveling nurse. She coached me, breathed with me, reminded me to relax and lift my eyebrows, and held my hand when the pain was unbearable. When she heard I was in the OR, she left her post so she could be there to hold my hand when I went under and when I woke up. I can’t tell you how much it meant to have a familiar face with me.

Nurse Diane. She also popped over to the post-partum side just to check on me each shift she had while I was there. She’s probably the closest I’ve come to encountering an angel.

• Juniper means evergreen—and let me tell you, we might have faced a bleak winter, but still she’s thrived. She’s been a source of joy and calm when it felt everything was crumbling. I can’t put into words the heart-busting love.

  We mamas, we lay down our lives for our children, wrestle in a place where life and death can both feel so close—but I look at Junie’s sweet face and I begrudge her nothing. She was worth it, her life so precious.

  This last Sunday when I received communion and the deacons said the words “This is Christ’s body broken for you. This is Christ’s blood shed for you,” I wept. I now know more fully what that kind of sacrifice means.

  My own body broke; my own blood shed. I love my kids knowing exactly how far I’d go for them because I almost went there—and yet, guys, Christ went even further for me. (For you too.)

• Each day, I’d look at what recovery I still needed to get to and felt overwhelmed. And somehow, each day, God would meet the needs for that day, and by the next day I was crossing another milestone in recovery—the one that seemed impossible the day before. I will forever remember pushing the bassinet cart into the hallway, weak and short of breath, lifting my heavy legs one at a time, slower than I ever thought would feel miraculous. But I raised my arm and declared, “I am an overcomer!” And everyone in the nursing station cheered.

• The song, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” has been an anchor for me. I sang it to my belly as I learned to trust God and fall in love with the surprise He gave me. I sang it through the last weeks of pregnancy when I was miserable with pre-labor symptoms. I sang it through the hardest contractions, when the low notes and the words helped loosen and relax. I sang it in the OR, wondering if this was the end for me, feeling such a peace over me that it could only be Jesus—Immanuel—God with me. I sang it in the ambulance when my blood pressure soared. And I’m still singing it when I look upon the face of my Junie-girl.

• Sometimes it takes going through something hard to see the community you have around you. I have been overwhelmed in the best way by the number of people who prayed over us—who were like the friends in the Bible story lowering their suffering friend down through the ceiling to put right in front of Jesus. I have friends and saints in my life who carried me by their prayers when I was too unwell to get there myself. I am so grateful. Our kids were well-loved while we were in the hospital. We had 3 weeks’ worth of meals delivered—and what a blessing they were. Seeing our tangible needs met by our community has been humbling but also makes me feel so very rich.

His blessings all mine, with 10,000 beside.

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Last week, Mike and I were listening to the new Switchfoot album. (Native Tongue—It’s super good, y’all.) One of the songs is called, “Joy Invincible.” The lyrics talked about hospitals and hard news. It just seemed like an appropriate way to end this post.

If only life didn’t need us to be this brave/ But we don’t live in a world of if only’s/ Stretched tight in between our birth and our graves/ Hallelujah nevertheless, was the song pain couldn’t destroy/ Hallelujah nevertheless, You’re my joy invincible.

As it turns out, we can face the darkest night and find God still there. Our lives can feel like they are crumbling, yet there is a joy invincible that cannot be demolished.

These are not Christian platitudes. This isn’t me making less of hardship. This is me making much of God. Because He really can be our strength. Our peace. Our joy. Our present help in times of trouble.

Amen.

(And some more pictures because I know you all are eager for some baby spam. Okay, maybe not. But this mama needs to share, because, I mean… Gah!! So much cute!)

I’d love to hear from you: have you had a traumatic experience? How did you see God’s faithfulness through it? (Share with me in the comments.)

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

Photo Credit: The 1st picture of Juniper and the last 4 pictures were taken by Katie Fewell Photography and are used with permission.