What You Need to Know When Fear Is Suffocating You

I felt smothered by fear. I couldn’t catch my breath, and as tears rolled one after another and my body heaved, I had this feeling the only way out of this was a paper bag.

Maybe I was struggling to catch my breath because I’ve been holding my breath for over a year waiting for the worst to happen. I don’t understand this, this repeated miscarriage thing, and there isn’t anything I can do to keep it from happening. Sure, there are natural remedies, doctors and research, but really, I don’t have control over this.

So at that moment, when I was staring down the end of my cycle and what seemed like certain doom, to either not be pregnant when I want to be, or to be pregnant when I haven’t been able to stay pregnant…  My life felt out of control. I was hunched over in my kitchen, knuckles white gripping the counter, and fear was hard-pressing a pillow to my face. 

The other night, we were walking up to the house, just me and the kids. It was dark out. The kids thought they saw shadows and declared there to be bad guys in our yard. 

Two shaking voices in almost unison said, "Mom, I'm scared."

And then without even prompting him, Jed begins reciting the Bible in his gruff voice that still can’t tackle the “r” sound.

“The Lord is for me. I don’t have to be afraid.”

I’ve had my kids saying this verse (Psalm 118:6) since Addy was three and decided the dark was scary. I would go into her room, pray with her and we’d say this verse out loud. Sometimes I still hear her from her room, shouting it, declaring it, fighting the darkness. {It melts my momma heart.}

And on this particular evening, when Jed said it with his pure child's faith, it shined like a holy light on all the dark places in me. And I had to ask myself, do I really believe that the Lord is for me? Because I am afraid of losing, I am afraid of walking through another loss, I am afraid of the doctor’s appointments and a doom and gloom verdict on my womb.

I want to be able to control this, make it better, but who in the world can knit a life together in the dark of the womb other than God? I can’t control this. I can’t make it happen. And apparently after having 3 of 4 pregnancies happen where I thought we were preventing pregnancy, I can’t keep it from happening either. I have only to trust or to be crushed by fear.

Last Sunday in church, the pastor made mention of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). The first two temptations Jesus faced aren’t just about food and being carried by angels… they challenge the very identity of Christ. If you are the Son of God. IF.

Isn’t that how I am being tempted? If you are dearly loved of the Lord, his adopted daughter and co-heir with Christ, why isn’t He fulfilling His promise? Why do you keep losing?

And the lie that is at the very core of it: surely the Lord isn’t for you; doesn’t really love you.

Every time Jesus is tempted He responds with the Word of God. He picks up the same sword Paul exhorts us to use in Ephesians 6:17. It is written.

All of pieces of the armour of God help us to stand firm, to be steadfast unshakable. The sword, which is His Word is the only thing by which we can defeat the enemy, silence fear.

And can I just say this? We need to silence fear.

Because fear will rob you of your life. It will silence you, it will abort the woman you were made to be, it will destroy your relationships. Fear will trick you into trading living life to the full for the illusion of safety. 

We need to stand and declare to the darkness exactly who God says we are. That He is for us. And He is for that little life. I do not fully understand why miscarriage happens, but I don't have to. Trust and understanding do not go hand in hand. I can trust anyways.

I wanted to make a short list of "It Is Written's" that we could use to call out to the darkness, pierce the fear. Because, sister, God is for us. And we don't have to be afraid. {At the end of this list, I have a link to a simple google document in case you want all these verses in one place where you can see them. I know I do.}

“For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you” Isaiah 41:13.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you” Deuteronomy 31:6.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” John 14:27.

“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” Romans 8:15.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” 1 John 4:18.

“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by his love; He will exult over you with loud singing” Zephaniah 3:17.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” Jeremiah 29:11.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” Psalm 23:4.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.

 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.” Isaiah 61:1-3.            

       

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you” Psalm 139:13-18.

“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you” Isaiah 43:1b-2.

“But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands” Psalm 31:14.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” Psalm 34:18-19.

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. Momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

I made us a simple document to print out, if you want all these verses in one spot. I am printing this out and taping this to my bathroom mirror. I will be saying them daily, because I don't just need them on my mirror, I need them written on my heart. Just click ---> HERE<---for the document.

Do you have any verses to add to this list? I’d love it if you’d share them with us.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:

Season of Mourning
When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes
Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like

Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her 

What Hope Really Looks Like

(I am wrapping up the miscarriage series this week. But can I tell you, the next two posts, are dear to my heart and deal with topics interwoven into the Christian walk. If you've been avoiding the blog because miscarriage is not fun to read about, maybe don't avoid these ones.)

I was on the phone with my mom, pouring out the pain of the past year.

“Mom, I just don’t know how to trust God. I don’t know how to move forward. I want a baby. I really wanted that baby. And I am scared to try again because I just can’t lose again. I really don’t think I can.”

“Amanda,” My mom pauses. Her voice shakes a little, like she bracing herself for the weight of the words she’s about to speak.  “If at some point I had stopped trying, there would be no you. You are my promise fulfilled.”

{And then we both cried.}

My mom’s story, and my story really, begins like this. One month shy of 19, my mom married my dad. At 20, she had a miscarriage. At 21, she gave birth to her first son—Robby, after my dad. But the birthing room didn’t erupt into joy or a gender announcement, but rather a hushed panic—doctors and nurses clued into the knowledge that something was wrong rushing to identify it quickly. Robby was born with congenital heart disease. His aorta hadn’t formed properly and his heart was full of holes. As soon as he was able, he underwent open heart surgery and spent the first few months of his life in the hospital. He was sent home for a month and then returned due to complications from the surgery. At five months old, he was scheduled for a second open heart surgery. The night before the surgery, my brother so wearied from months of fighting couldn’t properly swallow the food he was given. He aspirated and died.

My mom has told me how after Robby’s death she felt like a mother but she had no baby to mother. She was young and newly-married to my dad who deals with grief much differently.  She felt alone and empty and sad.

A while after Robby’s death, my mom tried to get pregnant again. She had three miscarriages. If you ask her about it, she will tell you she felt her life was doomed to sorrow, one after another after another.

Then she got pregnant—her sixth pregnancy. She didn’t celebrate it, not even when the doctor declared her fine and the baby’s heartbeat strong.

It wasn’t until hearing the vigorous cry of a newborn taking her first breath, seeing skin a healthy shade of pink, and watching a room erupt into joy, crying out “girl!,” that she let herself believe she was having a baby for reals.

I was that baby… the happy miracle on a broken road full of sorrow. The fulfillment of a promise breathed quietly into the soul of a woman longing to be a momma.

It was five months later that my mom knelt beside her bed and gave God her whole life.

If she would have declared the suffering too great, the pain of losing again too daunting, the fight simply not worth it…

I wouldn’t be here.

Neither would Andy, Kelly or Jono.

Neither would Addy, Jed, or Zion, or, God-willing, her grandkids yet to come.

That’s kind of a sobering thought.

  

Hope is a rather weak word in the English language. I hope you do well. Here’s to hoping. Oh, I hope so. It’s almost wishy-washy and covers nice ideas as well as something our heart desperately yearns for.

But in the Hebrew language, hope is not a weak word. The Hebrew language likes to attach something tangible and concrete to even lofty ideas like hope.

I have been studying out hope in the Psalms. There are four different words that get used interchangeably for the words that appear in our translations as hope and wait. I want to look at two of those words.

The first is qavah. It means hope, but the picture that word intends to give is of a person tying a rope around something, binding it up, and holding on. It speaks of something active, something that requires strength. It is anything but a weak word used to express a fleeting feeling. It means believing to your very core, not giving up, holding on for dear life.

The other word is yachal. It means to remain, to stand in one place and to wait.

Two completely different words all wrapped up in the Biblical idea of hope. The Bible conveys this, and if you aren’t seeing it, let me just say it out loud: Sometimes hope is the absolute strongest and bravest thing you can do.

Hope is an anchor for your soul.

When you have found yourself unable to get pregnant for years, and still you try. When you have had every single door slam in your face for the job you know you were called to, and you apply one more time. When you’ve been cheated on, manipulated, abused, and God lays a godly man or a godly friend in front of you and you step into that relationship.

No one tells you about the sheer audacity it can take to hope.

I want to leave off with this verse (and it reads so powerfully when you read it in light of the original Hebrew).

“I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait ---> (wait=qavah-strength, bind myself to His promises)

And in His word to I hope ---> (hope=yachal-remain, stay in this one place)

My soul waits for the Lord  ---> (waits=yachal)

more than watchmen for the morning."

Can I just take a moment to make sure you didn’t miss that the place where it says yachal (to remain), is in His Word. Stand. Stand and remain and don’t back down from what the word of God says. (<---and let’s slap a period at the end of that sentence. Boom.)

Okay now check out what follows:

"O Israel, hope in the Lord ---> (hope=yachal)

For with the Lord there is lovingkindness,

And with Him is abundant redemption." ---> (redemption=peduwth-to divide, separate, liberate)

Psalm 130: 5-7

I know I just threw it at you, but did you catch what redemption means here?

Redemption/Peduwth is God saying, dear son and daughter, I know that what is on this side of the waiting and hoping is painful. But I am going to divide it from you, separate it from you, redeem it entirely. I will liberate you. And I will do this abundantly. You, dear heart, are loved. I am here. Hold on.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” Isaiah 43:19.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

And because I know I need these words stamped on my heart, and maybe you do too, here's a printable I made just for us. (Just click the link for a printable document version)

If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:

Season of Mourning
When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes
Project Still Hope

What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her 

Project Still Hope

About three weeks ago, we did some serious yard work. The house we live in had been neglected for years and the front planter was full of weeds... and I do mean full.of.weeds.

Somewhere in the breaking up the soil, removing weeds and more weeds and more weeds, in the dirt under my fingernails and the blisters on my hands… I was physically working through the soul-disappointment of that fifth miscarriage.

I got an idea while playing in the dirt. A dream really.

I had been looking, maybe without even realizing it, for some way to bury my losses. Something that would validate that I indeed had lost life, something that would tangibly demonstrate the little impressions forever left on my heart. Something that would be a physical sign of the trust I needed to place in the Lord. Something that would point to the resurrection power of Christ, even in this.

Bulbs.

It sounds funny to blurt out that word, and maybe it means moving my seed analogy over just a tad, but the coincidence doesn’t escape me that (most) bulbs get buried six inches down. They die in the cold. And then spring comes. And something rather ugly, rather dead, becomes beautiful and alive.

It’s a simple idea really, but I thought, what if I could challenge others facing loss to walk this hard journey with me? What if we could all have some way to lay our shattered dreams to rest? What if we could make some kind of memorial, something that might make this hard thing beautiful? What if we could all rejoice together when winter has done her work, and the new life begins to spring up? What if we could make this world just a little bit more beautiful because we have lost, and loved, and chose to let it rest in our Saviors arms?

What if we all planted bulbs?

And so I am reaching out. If it’s just me and the bulbs in my garden, I am okay with that. But if you want to link arms with me and do this together… well, let’s do this.

After this post I will provide some links about bulb growing, but I want you to know, even if where you live has a foot of snow on the ground already, or where you live is hot desert, or if you think you have a brown thumb, or whatever… if you want to do this. You can. There is actually a way to “force” bulbs indoors using a fridge, a pot, and a sunny spot in your house. Most bulbs are hardy and not so sensitive to whatever gardening mistakes we might make.

Also, if you happen to live in sunny California or a similarly warmer climate, right now is the perfect time to plant bulbs and that “perfect time” will last through December (when bulbs go on clearance at Walmart, I’m just saying).

I would love it (and I think it would be so good for our hearts) if we could link arms together as we walk this hard road.

You can use the hashtag #projectstillhope (on twitter, facebook, or Instagram) to share and find other women. Post the journey, and definitely post the beautiful result. Share the scriptures that are getting you through the day. Share your discouragement and share your encouragement. Share your story. If sharing on social media is not your thing (and that is completely fine! I kinda stink at it too.) you can email me at amandaconquers AT gmail DOT com.

Dear sister, even if you don’t want to share this with me or with us, will you pretty please find at least one person you can include on your journey. One person who you can tell what you lost, and how you are dealing with it. Don’t do it alone. Please.

I am telling you it is good for the heart to acknowledge the life you carried even if it was just a short amount of time. And it is so healing to watch something beautiful come out of something so painful.

Maybe let's flood the internet, our neighborhoods, our backyards and our kitchen windows with the hope that though we've lost tiny seeds, it was life and it was precious. And God can make something beautiful out of it.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

Links: 

4-Part How to Plant Bulbs with pictures.

How Force a Bulb to Grow indoors

FYI's: 

Spring bulbs (like hyacinth, tulip and daffodil) should be planted around the time the lows are in the 40's. You can still try if your area is already colder than this, and there is a good chance your bulbs will still bloom come spring. But if you are worried, just plant indoors.  

If you live in a very warm climate, try something like the amaryllis or paperwhite narcissus. These cannot handle freezing temps but thrive in warm climates.
If you really want to physically plant a bulb outdoors and worry the opportunity has already passed in your area, there are bulbs you plant in the spring for summer blooms (like dahlias and gladiolus).

If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:

Season of Mourning
When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes

What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her 

When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes

I pushed my spade six inches down. I tilted and lifted. The soil broke and erupted and left behind a small crater with loose bits of dirt that had fallen back in.

I took one of my tulip bulbs and set it in the hole. I took care to place it so that roots were down and the stalk up. And then I pushed the dirt I had temporarily displaced back into the hole.

I did this some forty times. Digging. Sowing. Covering. Repeat.

Always six inches under.

And there in my brick planter leading up to our front door are the potential of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths buried in the dirt, in the dark. When frost sends its death-kiss through the soil, the bulbs will slip into a deep slumber. If we didn’t already know the bulbs’ spring secret, we might say they were dead.

There they will wait through the bleak cold of winter, the dark days and nights, the rain, the snow, the icy winds and the thick fog.

And then spring comes.

Spring always comes. She carries her soft glow over wintered earth. She puts her warm breath to the ground, and it begins to thaw. The dormant bulbs awaken, at first a little lazily, yawning, stretching. Then they push out roots and send up stalks. Stalk, then bud, and, at long last, flower.

The final result is nothing short of glorious.   

Maybe you know that Jesus came to give beauty for ashes, but when you are sitting in the ash heap, it’s hard to see it.

I’ve taken my ashes, these last four miscarriages, and I’ve placed them in My Father’s hands. I’ve uttered words like “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” But the thing is, I’ve kept my hands there. I keep rearranging the pieces. I keep trying to work out some kind of purpose for it all. I want it to make sense.

I’ve thought maybe adoption, maybe 2 kids is all we’re meant to have, maybe it’s a nudge to pick up some of the dreams I’d laid aside.

And the thing is, I cannot make beauty out these last 4 miscarriages.

And the thing is, I know there is a dream in my heart for babies I haven’t yet met.

I’ve grappled those deep theological questions: did God cause this?  or does He allow it? Maybe I have some ideas based on Scripture, but it’s like I am attempting to hug a sumo wrestler: this hard theology, I just can’t get my arms around it.

Here’s what I do know: God can use it. God will use this for His Glory. I’ve seen it time and time again when I’ve faced the winter, the bleak, the impossible. And I’ve beheld the miraculous.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.

I believe there is a season for mourning, a cycle of grief, a time to stop and lament what never got to be.

But after that, comes something even harder… entrusting it to God. Placing that loss in His hands, removing your own hands, watching His hands close over it where you can’t see it, and waiting.

And maybe it feels a bit like winter, like barren. You wonder if you can trust Him, if He really loves you. And deep down you struggle with the part where you know you aren’t really worthy.

But spring always comes.

Death precedes resurrection.

I was reading of Jesus’ final hours before His death. He suffered, He bled, He felt the whip and the nails and the thorns. And then from the cross, Jesus cries out, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” And have I not felt that? Abandoned, cast off, like my worst fears could all come true. Really, I just struggle with believing that God actually loves me.

His final words before He died were surrender. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And this is the thing I’ve struggled hard against. That final surrender. It means no longer holding on. And it feels a bit like dying. And you can’t hold on forever because death has a stench, and it will foul your life.

And then they lay Jesus’s body in a tomb. They rolled a stone over the opening—one big enough, heavy enough so as to ensure no one could ever sneak in and fake raising Him from the dead.  Jesus’s body sat in the still dark, in the damp earth… dead.

But we know that isn’t the end of the story. Jesus resurrected. And there was no amount of guards or heavy stones or darkness or death-stink that could hold Him down.

You can’t work out your miracle. You can’t tell God what His glory looks like.

All you can do is hand over your loss, your broken dreams… and release it.

Dear sister, I don’t know what God will make of your broken dreams, the life you lost, the life you’ve been unable to carry. But I do know, perhaps in a way wholly unexpected, perhaps in a way that has always been quietly whispering in your soul… New life will spring up from the ground.

Spring always comes.

How have you seen God do a resurrection-glory kind of miracle in your life?

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:

Season of Mourning

Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her 

Season of Mourning

“Amanda! Come here real quick! There’s someone I want you to meet!”

I heard the familiar voice of a long-time friend. I tried to use the impending start of kid’s church as a reason to not be able to meet someone new. But she insisted again. You just have to meet them. They are your age.

It was a Sunday. I ran children’s ministries. I probably should have just stayed home. But staying home meant admitting that this was really happening.

For two weeks, I had been so full of wonder and excitement. We had laughed at the timing of Grandparent’s Day and bought cards for our parents. It would have been the first grandchild on both sides. But on that Sunday, I knew the worst was happening. That pregnancy was ending.

I sighed deep, put on my bravest face—my most genuine fake smile—and walked to the church foyer.

As I held out my hand, I saw her swollen belly. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I forced the words, “Hi. I’m Amanda,” past the lump forming in my throat. And when I realized that the most natural thing to small talk over would involve a due date, or gender, or months along… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even get out the obligatory “nice to meet you” or “please, excuse me.” I bolted because I knew I was breaking.

When I got home from church, I laid on the couch. I stayed there for a week. Every time I used the bathroom and was confronted with the reality that the pregnancy was over, I wept. When the bleeding stopped, I decided my grief should stop as well. Surely one week of doing nothing but crying should suffice.

Afterwards, I put all my energy on getting pregnant again. I thought I would find comfort in a new pregnancy.

When I got pregnant again and the changing hormones crashed into the grieving I had not yet completed… I can tell you, another pregnancy is not where you find comfort. Friends, I was so sick. And yes, it was definitely morning sickness, but there wasn’t much excitement to pull me through the sickness. I lost fifteen pounds and threw up till my esophagus was bleeding raw. I closed myself up at home and watched Judge Judy and ate crackers and cried over dish piles for the smell of dish soap. It was more than nausea-sick though. I was depressed-sick, and I couldn’t understand why.

Someone told me that they got through morning sickness by remembering that each time they got sick it was just a reminder of a healthy baby growing. This is how I coped with morning sickness with Jed. I looked at my Addy-miracle and rejoiced for the joy I knew would come. This was not how I got through the sickness with Addy. Because I still ached for the baby I lost, and I hadn’t understood that you can’t replace the life involved in the failed pregnancy for the life involved in a healthy pregnancy.  

Miscarriage is more than a failed pregnancy. It’s the loss of life—a life.

That particular genetic combination of you and your husband that at conception fused together will never see the world... your olive skin tone, your husband’s dimpled chin and wide smile, your husband’s easy going nature combined with your fiery passion for life.  Whether you cringed at the bad timing or just rejoiced at the thought of a baby, that due date will not see the birth of a child. The ways you imagined making your announcement, the names you dreamed up, the decision you rolled around of when to find out the gender, the thought of where in your house this baby would fit…. All of that potential never got to be. It’s life. And its loss is worth mourning.

Here’s the words of Jesus: “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”

When you fail to mourn, you fail to receive the comfort found in the arms of our Father.

Maybe it’s just me, but each time I have lost, I have searched for comfort everywhere else. I’ve thought that if I could just get pregnant again, I would be comforted. I’ve thought that if I could just understand why, I would be comforted. I’ve thought that if I could just have some kind of proof of my loss, some kind of validation, be far enough along so that I could bury something, I would be comforted.

It wasn’t until I crumbled on the floor, cried crocodile tears, wailed from the deepest part of me… it wasn’t until I got angry, and slammed my fists on the table, punched my pillow, and spewed boiling hot words at God My Father of how much I wanted that life and how stupid this was and why?!?!!!… it wasn’t until I let myself leak tears and linger reflective on what might have been… when I let my guard down and pressed into Jesus and asked Him to meet me here…

When I chose to walk out on deep water, across faith gaps, places unexplainable… When I chose to eat the mystery rather than understand it, when I spoke the bravest words I know: “It is well with my soul.”  

Somewhere in the passing of time, in the permission to be sad, in allowing mourning to be a season determined by the God who knows the seasons and causes them to change without an ounce of help from anyone, somewhere in opening my hands and handing over these broken pieces that I can’t make sense of... I found comfort.

Sister, coming from someone who had a miscarriage in which I found out I was pregnant in the morning and started cramping that afternoon… yes, even that needed to be mourned. It didn’t look anything like grieving after knowing for almost six weeks. But that doesn’t matter. You don't need to compare your grief to another, you just need to give yourself permission to walk through it. 

Friends, this was a hard post to write, and I have a feeling if you have ever walked this road, it was hard to read too. I want you to know, I am praying for you. I have been praying for you. You are heavy on my heart because you are heavy on His. I think the best way to end is in His Word.

“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” Matthew 5:4. 

“God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit” Psalm 34:18. 

“From the end of the earth will I cry unto you, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I” Psalm 61:2.

"He that goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" Psalm 126:6.

How have you been at walking through the grieving process?

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

If you missed the introduction to this series, you can find it HERE.

If you would like to continue reading, here are the rest of the posts in the series:

When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes
Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her

Still Hope: An Introduction to a Series on Miscarriage

I had another miscarriage.

Yes. Another.

I took the test a few Fridays back. Spotted that Sunday. Got myself into the doctor on Monday. And miscarried on Tuesday. Four days. That’s it. I was barely pregnant.

This is my fifth miscarriage. It overwhelms me to be putting that ordinal number (fifth!) in front of a word that speaks of defining loss. I can’t coherently string together words that would explain what it feels like to lose five times, but here’s some words come to mind: numb, angry, pained, discouraged, disappointed, and maybe even the word apathetic.

I admitted to a friend that I feel like a freak. Sometimes I even wonder if I just imagined those extra lines on the pee stick. I wonder if it’s possible to give false positives, and every time I’ve lost so early I want to kick myself for not waiting a full week past my missed period to take the test. I’m embarrassed to be sharing that I miscarried again… because it feels like I failed, and I keep failing.

I have a feeling anytime our bodies betray us, we feel a bit like a freak. When a uterus gives way or a cervix dilates too early or a fertilized egg implants in the wrong place, when our bodies fail to properly house the little life we so desperately want to bring into our home. When DNA hardwiring malfunctions, and life stops in its tracks before heart ever pumped. When an ultrasound reveals the life you’ve been carrying no longer lives. Oh friends. This is hard.

The most difficult part of this process for me, has been this need in me to define my loss—something besides zygote or failed pregnancy, something that validates that I indeed have lost something. Even when I miscarried at 10 weeks, the little life I carried grew no larger than the period at the end of this sentence. Doctors refused to say the word baby, and they corrected me if I did.

The Lord answered my broken cries for some kind of name to give my losses by giving me a picture. Do you know what there was in my womb?

A seed.

The tiniest of things with all the potential and hope and dreams the size of an oak tree. It might not have sprouted for reasons I cannot fathom, but I lost something. I’ve lost five seeds.

I can mourn the little lives with unformed hearts who never felt life-blood course through their veins. I can mourn because really it only takes a mother but a couple minutes to fall in love and see a future (even if she's still reeling from the shock of it.)

Though not all seeds get to send up a stalk into the warm sunshine, even the tiniest seed leaves an impression on the soil.

Can I tell you that this is not my favorite topic? I’d rather not write about miscarriage, about grief, about these things so hard and unexplainable. I feel vulnerable opening up about my grieving process, because it is so personal. I have this hope that one day I will look back and be grateful for this road I’m walking… but today, I would much rather be walking a different road. And that’s honest.

Sometimes I’ve felt like moving forward through the grieving process has been a bit like hacking through the jungle. It’s like blazing a trail, walking paths unwalked. I know that’s not true, but grief can be isolating. And miscarriage doesn’t get talked about much, especially a miscarriage belonging to an unannounced pregnancy. I’m writing what I wish I could have read.  I’m writing because I have longed to know that I wasn’t alone. I’m writing what God has been speaking to me along the way.

My hope is that if you are walking this hard road (oh dear heart. I am so sorry) maybe we can hack through the jungle together, maybe we can blaze a wider trail, maybe we can offer the wisdom of experience and the encouragement of camaraderie that makes a trail easier to walk.

We will be talking about losing, about grieving, and about hoping again. I even have a project God laid on my heart that I want to share with you. I think it will give you a tangible way to both grieve and hope--no matter the stage in pregnancy in which you miscarried.

Even if miscarriage isn’t your story of loss or suffering, you are so very welcome here. So is your story. This hard substance of miscarriage touches on topics that are deeply woven into the fabric of Christian life. I believe there is something here for you this week.

Friends, I hinge my life and this blog on Romans 8:35,37: that in all these things… yes, even this thing… they cannot separate us from God’s love, and we shall press forward and overwhelmingly conquer this darkness. God’s love is here. It is. I know it. And by His strength, I shall keep pressing forward. I shall overcome. You too, friend. And that’s what this series is really about.

I know this is hard, this subject, this kind of sharing, but it's an important subject, and your story is important. Here is your invitation. Will you join me? 

Here's the part where I ask you to be brave and share your story. 

If a comment on a public domain terrifies you= amandaconquers AT gmail DOT com 

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

To Continue Reading the Rest of the Series:
Season of Mourning
When You Are Trying to Make Something Out of Your Ashes
Project Still Hope
What Hope Really Looks Like
What You Need to Know When Fear is Suffocating You
Practical Advice for the Grieving Woman and Those Who Love Her 

About Me and This Blog

Hi!

I’m Amanda.

I am an imperfect girl, a huge fan of Grace, and a follower of Jesus. I believe in absolute Truth.

I am the wife to one smoking hot cop. We’ve been married 9 years.

I am a momma to 2 littles: Addy (6) and Jed (3). They are my heart.

Coffee and deep conversations are my love language. I am a California girl (like totally) to my very core. I love road trips, bird watching, literature, and playing in the dirt (aka gardening).

I battle depression and anxiety. I have walked the hard road of repeated miscarriages. I struggle to embrace that God could really love me. I make a lot of mistakes; really, I'm just a bit of a mess. But I hinge my life on these verses: 

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But IN ALL these things we OVERWHELMINGLY CONQUER through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:35, 37)

This blog pretty much hinges on those verses too. God made me to conquer, you to conquer. 

{Pssst... did you notice that Romans says overwhelmingly conquer?} 

Yes, in all those ordinary everyday ways you might fail: frazzled momma yells, dirty dish piles, forgotten birthday cakes, toddler messes that should cue the creepy Psycho theme music... 
And yes, God made us to conquer even in those hard things. I believe that there is no place His Grace can't reach.

I talk a lot about being a Jacob girl. Jacob who wrestled God. Jacob who was given a limp. Jacob who with a limp became, Israel, God prevails. Because the only way for God to prevail in our lives, the only real way to overcome, isn't to try harder; it's to walk leaning on Him. 

I am not a girl who has it all together. I am a girl who walks with a limp. I am a girl who leans on her Savior-become-Friend. I am a girl who, by the Grace of God, shall be called an overcomer.

I am inviting you to join me here on this Grace journey.

First Time Here?

If I could pick the posts visitors were to read, these are what I would pick. (They are my favorite and the most telling about me):  

• Walk Slowly (If I could grab the hand of every new mother and whisper words of encouragement, this would be it.)
• The Waiting Room: A Conclusion (If you have ever felt like your life was on pause or like you weren't enough... just. read. this.) 
• Cadence Caller (Because I really believe in the power of girlfriends)
• Good Morning! Good Breakfast!: Baked Steel Cut Oats and Most Importantly, It's Caffeinated (These two recipes were and still are game-changers in my day. They help me be a conquering housewife)

Want to Keep Up with Amanda Conquers?

If you'd like to make sure you never miss a post, you can subscribe to this blog by entering your email address in the box on the top, right-hand side of this page OR by clicking ---> HERE .

1. This will enable you to get all my posts delivered directly to your email box (about 2x's a week).  
2. You can email me directly and keep the conversation going by simply hitting the reply button from your email. This is my favorite.
3. Your email is never shared and is never used for anything other than sending you the latest posts from this blog. Period.
4. You can easily unsubscribe with the click of one button should you no longer desire this blog's feed in your email.

You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter {@amandaconquers}, or by RSS feed.
(Look at the top right hand side of the page for more ways to keep in touch)

I firmly believe that even though this is a blog called Amanda Conquers, it's about you too. I want to know the places where our stories intersect. I need your encouragement, your story. This is about community. And you are so welcome here. 


Okay. So... Tag. You're it! 
Tell me about you? Where do you hail from? What do we have in common? I'd love to get to know the AMAZING YOU. 
(If you are a blogger, don't be shy about leaving your URL in the comments. I would love to visit you back!)

Thank you so much for being here, new friend! I am honored to have you over at my place ;)

xo

Amanda Conquers

Favorite Things GIVEAWAY

I was asked to participate in a giveaway of favorite everyday items.

I really wanted to be apart. The women and the blogs participating are awesome. (Like seriously, click on a few of the links I have listed at the end of this post, you will not regret it. Warm, kindred spirits. Straight up.) And I just love the chance to give good stuff away.

Only problem. I could not figure out what my favorite thing could possibly be (other than coffee. It's always coffee.)

I searched my kitchen drawers looking for some handy tool I couldn't live without, I looked through my bookselves, my desk, my vanity... for something that would bless one of you.

I couldn't find anything. But as I looked, I kept seeing words. Words printed out and taped to my desk, post it note reminders, encouragement printed on cards, lip-liner scriptures on my mirror, hand painted Jesus words on wooden boards, words trapped in chalk-painted frames... Encouragement. Reminders. All words, pointing to my Savior and the kind of woman/mom/wife He's shaping me into.

Yes. Encouraging words really are my favorite thing.

So that's what I am giving away. A printable and a hand-painted frame... a visual reminder of who you are in Him. Because sometimes, we need reminding. And we need it where we can see it.

{and even if you don't win the giveaway, I'll be giving away the printable to you all next week}

Also... I am giving away a Starbucks card, because coffee really is my love language.

To enter, just follow the instructions on the rafflecopter at the end of this post. (Psst... it's easy)

Giveaway ends this Friday (Oct. 31).

The winner will get each and every favorite item contributed to this giveaway.


What's in the Giveaway (Plus Links to Some Quality Blogs):

Kayse is giving away a collection of Martha Stewart Office items!

Britta is giving away a ConAir Power Facial Cleanser!

Jennifer is giving away a "Be Still" print!

Monica is giving away a Let It Go (by Karen Ehman) Study Pack!

Erika is giving away a super cute coffee cozy of your choice!

Carey is giving away Cravings, a daily devotional for moms!

Kristin is giving away 2 books by Angie Smith - For Such A Time As This & Audrey Bunny!

Anna is giving away a candle, tea, and chocolate!

Bethany is giving away a Ginger & Lime Sugar Scrub & a 5ml bottle of Wild Orange Essential Oil!

Jamie is giving away a Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook!

Amanda is giving away a framed print and a $10 gift card to Starbucks!

Leeann is giving away a set of linen notecards!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Okay, so now I really want to know... What is your favorite everyday item? 



By Grace,
Amanda Conquers

On the Ugly Business of Comparison: A Letter to Us Moms

Can I say something to all us mommas, something God has been speaking to my heart?

I have been reading in Galatians 5 for a study I am doing. I read it, and it’s like I can hear it written just for us moms on this very real struggle of comparison and the weight of expectation we live under.

Would it be okay if I take my liberties with this passage that was written to the church of Galatia in the first century and write it to us, in our time and just for us moms?

For in Christ Jesus neither homeschooling nor public schooling nor private Christian schooling is anything…

Neither is Walmart nor Target nor Whole Foods. Neither are cloth diapers nor disposables. Neither gluten free, paleo, whole food, nor McDonald’s drive thru.  Neither breastfeeding nor bottle-feeding. Neither Gerber baby food jars, nor homemade organic babyfood. Neither all-natural home birth, planned c-section, nor begging for the epidural the very second you enter the hospital.

Neither is minivan, jalopy sedan, nor hybrid SUV.  Neither is a streamlined chore system set on burlap fabric nor a pile of laundry sitting on the couch for 3 days. Neither is being a mother to nineteen kids and counting nor a mother to one in heaven.

But the only thing that is anything is faith working through love.

Sisters, you were called to FREEDOM. Freedom to prepare bento boxes for school lunches or not. Freedom to adhere to baby-wise or to just wing it. But, sisters, do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to think yourself better than anyone else. THROUGH LOVE SERVE ONE ANOTHER. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you compare, judge, gossip, and try to find yourself a morally superior high ground that is better than one of your sisters, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

But I say, walk in the Spirit…

Motherhood is this vulnerable place. No matter whether you chose to ride into motherhood on the premise that it couldn’t be too hard or whether you read no less than twenty-three books on parenting, sleep training and feeding before you pushed that first baby into the world at some point you will feel clueless.

Even if book-learning and the sage advice of experienced moms could give us a leg-up on this parenting gig, there are things like colic, illnesses in a babe who can’t tell us where it hurts, terrific two’s, even more terrific three’s, mean kids at school, and preteen hormone surges that all level the playing field. And if none of the aforementioned scenarios leave you stumped, there are always those awkward moments, like when your daughter calmly and matter-of-factly announces to company that mom and dad shower together. (And you wonder how does she know that?! And even if you could come up with the “right” thing to say that would give her a healthy view of sex and marriage and would explain family privacy, and all this appropriately geared to her age level, how in the world do you get those words out when your face is crimson and all you want to do is hide under the couch cushions?!)

Friends, we all find ourselves feeling clueless, our shortcomings laid bare, and so very vulnerable in this thing called motherhood.

{And don’t we hate that?}

I think in all the beyond-our-control variables of parenting, in all the mistakes we just know we are making, in all the guilt we feel for all the ways we aren’t quite enough…

In all the frazzled yells, the birthday cake that was forgotten in all the party details, the fussy baby who you thought was teething and actually has an ear infection, the times you fell into the facebook abyss for five minutes and you turned around to find that your child covered the walls in crayon art…

Our lives shout at us:  “You aren’t enough! You need to do better! You need to try harder!” We miss the grace we have been freely given and the invitation to walk arm in arm with the Savior. Our finite minds seriously miss the eternal view God has of our lives, and our kids’ lives, and the way He is beyond able to use it All and work it ALL out for His Glory.

We struggle to accept God’s love for us.

We try to do motherhood by law, instead of grace.

We compare ourselves. We play judge. We treat the intelligence and talents of our kids as a competition and as a measure of our worth as parents. We think we have some kind of place to look at another mom’s life and determine whether she’s right or wrong, better or worse. Sometimes in our zeal for whatever passion we have stumbled into, we assume it must be best for everyone.

We look at a mom glowing in her talents, walking in her call, and read her personal excitement as a personal attack on the way we are living life.

We feel like we are somehow less of a mother for bottle feeding when we get up in the middle of the night AND make a bottle. We feel like we are somehow missing our badge of honor because narrow hips required a c-section AND a month of recovery with a newborn. We look at our mess of a home and feel like a failure AFTER a day of errands, wiping bottoms, picking up toys and dirty socks, and feeding… and feeding again… and then feeding again.

{Could we stop that?}  

I have a feeling the heart of all this originates in the same reason Paul penned Galatians and addressed the Jewish Christians who were preaching circumcision and the Gentiles who were choking on the hard demand.

It’s fear. And it’s pride.

It’s Grace-negating. And it’s freedom-squelching.

Momma, outside of love, there is no law to motherhood. There are only callings and talents and tools. Follow God’s call for you and your family wherever He leads. Shine in the God-given talents you were given (cooking, organizing, music, teaching, exploring, crafting...) And use the tools that are best for the making of your home, the raising of the precious kids God placed in your care, whether that’s baby-wise, homeopathic remedies, or chore charts.

The only thing that is anything is faith working through love.

So, rather than compare and judge and think we know a sister’s life from the fleeting glimpses of her Instagram account, let’s hold each other up. Let’s pray for each other. Serve one another. Even in our differences; ESPECIALLY in our differences.

We are all of us moms. We all of us love so big. We are all of us tilling the fallow ground of a child’s heart: both soft and rocky, full of strong-willed defiance and prone to bouts of me-me-me, mine-mine-mine, and i-want-it-MY-way. We are carrying the gospel to an unreached people group—our kids. And it’s important work. And, oh sisters, how we need each other’s encouragement. And truly we need a little less zeal for methods and fads and a whole lot more room for grace.  

THROUGH LOVE SERVE ONE ANOTHER. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

From one momma to another, I am standing here encouraging you, sister, to let His Grace wash over all your failings, to follow Christ where He leads, to shine in your talents, and to be a YOU kind of momma.

Maybe we could talk about this here? What is the one thing that is hardest to you about motherhood? What is one of the most hurtful comments you have ever heard from another mom? What is one of the most life-giving statements you have ever heard from a fellow mom?

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

What I Want You to Know About Homeschooling

I ran into an old friend a few weeks past. I hadn’t seen her since Addy was first born. She had asked about Addy: how old? what grade? what school?… In the conversation, I mentioned that I was homeschooling Addy.

“Oh! I could have never done that. I just don’t have the patience.”

This is the response I most often hear when I say we are homeschoolers. I think I have heard it at least 3 times since.

It seems like 75% of the population views homeschoolers as good and holy saints, full of patience, meekness, and humility and always soft spoken. Maybe even as women who don floral aprons and whose homes smell of fresh-baked apple bread. Women with burlap-covered chore charts and aspirations of no less than 7 kids.

I feel like I need to set the record straight. I can't speak for everyone, but I am not patient. I am not humble or meek… and I am definitely not soft-spoken when Jed decides he simply cannot wait five minutes for a snack and boycotts my lesson. I struggle with organization, and I might just be the world’s worst procrastinator.  I only wish I owned an apron, my clothes would thank me (anyone else a super messy cook?).

I have had it pointed out before that I used to be a teacher so homeschooling must come so naturally to me. I may have been a teacher before I had kids, but did I ever tell you about how when I was a substitute in a local school district I declined all assignments kindergarten thru third grade because I do not like teaching young kids? I may have been a teacher and teaching might be one of those talents God placed inside me, but I am great at teaching things like literary analysis, historical context, and algebraic functions. I assure you teaching phonics, handwriting, and basic arithmetic baffles me. Can I also just say that it hardly comes natural to deny my selfish desires and dreams to sit at home and educate my kids from whom, truth be told, I would like a break from every now and again.

I have this sinking suspicion that while I might not be a patient, meek, or humble person yet, homeschooling requires that I learn how to be. And let me tell you, homeschooling grates against every single one of my shortcomings. I am being refined.

I want you to know that the reason I homeschool has almost nothing to do with my abilities or my strengths. I do it, simply because when I weighed public school, private school and homeschool, and I laid it all before the Lord, this was the very thing God put on my heart.

Can I tell you sometimes it terrifies me?

Can I also tell you that {most} mornings I wake up with this distinct feeling that I am doing exactly what God made me to do? Each morning I wake up and surrender, press my rough-edged self into the potter’s molding hands. I know I am in His hands. This is where I belong. I know my kids are in His hands in spite of my failings. I know this is where they belong. That is a good feeling. I could ramble on about what I see in my family and Addy and Jed and just how much it means to watch us cross milestones together.

What I want you to know is that if you want to homeschool, you can. No, really, you can. We serve a God who gives strength to weak things. You don’t have to be patient to homeschool. Though I quite guarantee, a few years in and you might find yourself a good deal more patient.

What I want you to know is that if you don’t want to homeschool, that’s okay. Follow Jesus wherever He leads your family, please. Homeschooling isn’t holier or better. Wherever God places you and your family is full of benefits and, yes, shortcomings too that require you, momma to lean on God. The only thing that could ever make a person holier is weakness leaning on the strength of the Lord. Homeschooling can be a tool, but it’s only a tool. It is not holiness itself.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I bet it is with the same amount of terrifying surrender that I open my lesson books and take my kids’ educations upon myself that a momma releases the hand of her child to walk onto a school campus and entrusts education for six hours a day to someone else. It all requires bravery, camaraderie, and trust in the Lord.

I think it’s easy to compare. We stand and watch from a limited outside perspective and torment ourselves with our skewed imaginings of other’s lives. We do things like brush over pastor’s wives or homeschoolers or teachers with whatever idealistic notion we might have attached to that role. We play judge, and we play it horribly. But truth is, we are all just moms. Flawed, struggling, and finding ourselves holding our breath when we look at the child that was once a tiny baby fresh and new… and aching and proud over how much that child has grown and changed and wondering where the time went. We see the talents and the struggles, the gem under the rough surface. We love big and hard, and we love so much it hurts to our very core. And we fear how we might fail. We are moms, walking with fear and trembling. We struggle with releasing our kids to the Lord, with trusting. And we struggle with holding on to our kids who in so many ways never stop wriggling from our grasp. We are moms who need to know we all walk with a limp and the only way to walk whole is to lean on Jesus.

I am standing here humbly, telling you, sister, that I am cheering you on… and in however you are deciding to educate your kids. I am encouraging you to press into the One who molds and shapes, yes, every one of those imperfections. And, this girl? Well, I have certainly not arrived and will not cease to need encouragement until the day my heart is truly Home.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers



Sharing in this lovely community

Things August Taught Me

It's been a while! And I miss you all. So I thought I would put on my comfy jammie pants, sit down with my piece of chocolate and share all the things I've learned last month, some random and some profound, as though you were sitting here curled up on the couch with me, talking like friends. (By the way, all that means my writing is comfy too... i.e. barely edited.)

Okay, August, here's what you taught me:

1. This summer has been busy. I thought that those years when the little ones are just starting to walk and they are into everything were the busy years. You know, where you feel like you can't ever actually do anything because your toddler might climb up on a table, figure out the child safety lock lid on the Nyquil bottle and proceed to pour the entire bottle down their front all in the time it takes you to pee (not that I would know anything about this, ahem). Like so many other things related to parenting, I thought wrong. Right now, we are brimming on the "soccer years," you know, music theater lessons, midweek kids club at church, soccer practice, soccer games, friends, extra classes and I am now beginning to fully understand why moms of older kids refer to their cars as taxis. Yes. My kids are potty-trained and relatively independent when it comes to playing with toys and brushing teeth... but my kids keep me busy nevertheless. Parenting changes over the years, but I am not so sure it ever gets any less difficult or busy.

2. Somewhere in my mind I think I imagined kids went from eating like picky two year olds to ravenous teenagers sometime in their preteens. And here is yet another thing about parenthood I imagined incorrectly. I used to be able to plan my meals and do one big shopping trip a week. I don't know when it started happening, but it feels like everyday I am either going to the grocery store or talking about how I need to go to the grocery store. Budget aside, I cannot keep up with my kids' appetites. They eat SO much and SO many times a day. I want to ask if this is what the teen years look like, but I am fairly certain this is only a glimpse. *sigh*

3. Mike is rarely able to make it to church with us because of his work schedule. I have been seeking the Lord, desiring to a place where we can live out our faith before our kids, a place to share what life in Christ means to us, to grow and learn as a family. I came across this devotion. I loved how truth is not watered down but it's presented in a way my kids can grasp it and Mike and I can be spurred on in our faith too. I love how opportunity for discussion is woven through it and how there is a simple activity we can do (or not do) to further demonstrate the topic. I also love that it doesn't take too long (Hi. I have squirmy kids. You too?). Two weeks in a row we have managed to set aside one night for family night. We eat a good home-cooked meal. We look each other in the eyes and talk about life. We do a devotion. We pray. Then we eat dessert and some other family activity (movie, walk, board games, legos...) It's so simple, it only happens once a week, but it just means so much. Game. Changer.

4. At the end of July, I took the kids with me while I ran errands at Target. Petsmart was next door having pet adoption day. We call Petsmart the "free zoo" and I am not above bribing my kids to behave in Target with a trip to the "free zoo." This trip always comes with the following pep talk: "We are not getting anything. No pets are coming home with us. We can only stay so long, so when I say it's time to go, you don't cry, you say, 'Yes, mom'." On this particular trip though, I walked by another standard issue dog cage and saw a puppy with big brown eyes, ginormous ears, brindle coat and spotted feet. When I said "Hi," she nuzzled me and licked my hand. Maybe it was the fact that I was still grieving the miscarriage, maybe it was the ears and the puppy-dog eyes, but I threw my own peptalk aside. I couldn't leave without that puppy. We brought her home and named her Pepper. She has already chewed through every pair of shoes my son owns save but one pair I am currently guarding with my life. I gained another "child" to potty train, and, so help me, if she pees on my brand new carpet one more time, I will scream. If you would have told me that one day I would grow up and have a dog that would sleep in my kids' beds I would have told you, "That's impossible, I'm not much of a pet person." Somehow our hearts and our home have expanded and made room for this big-eared pepper-coated puppy. She's become apart of this family, and we kinda love her. Perhaps, what I have learned is that when you are grieving a loss, pet adoption day should be avoided at all cost... then again, perhaps, I learned exactly the opposite.

5. Minivans are magical. No really. Stow and go seating, two back rows so kids can be kept out of punch/pinch/poke/slap/tickle range from each other, doors that slide open at the push of a button and do not bang into another car when a rough-and-tumble three year old determines he is opening his own door and without help thankyouverymuch... They're magical, I tell ya. My car from college completely bit the dust a few weeks back and now I get to experience the magic for myself.

6. The car I just mentioned that died... it died the same week I was pulling together my homeschool stuff for the year, the same week I was knee-deep in ribbon and doilies and L M Montgomery quotes for my sister's bridal shower that week, when, between homeschool curriculum and a bridal shower, it felt like I was all of a sudden hemorrhaging money and had zero time to car shop or have the what-is-best-for-our-family-and-budget talk with my husband... Is it just me, or do cars always die those weeks?

7. We are into our fourth week of homeschool. This year, I decided to establish a good routine. I now wake up, make coffee and a good breakfast, I eat my breakfast away from the kids (well, most mornings anyways), and read my Bible and pray. Homeschool only starts when Momma is caffeinated and fed, spiritually and physically. This has been a game changer. For whatever reason, last year I just couldn't find my groove, at least not consistently. This year, I am placing the greatest value in my priorities on inviting Jesus into my day and starting well. I am also placing value on routine and homeschooling and it's meant being consistent and saying no to some things I wish I could say yes to. But you know, I am loving homeschool this year...LOVING it. My kids are loving homeschool this year. It just kinda feels like I am doing exactly what God is asking me to do in this season.

Favorites from my kitchen last month:
PW’s Sloppy Joes. Confession: I had never eaten a sloppy joe in my whole life till my sister tried this recipe and swore it was amazing. It is yummy, easy and kid-friendly, which is pretty much the trifold holy grail of family cooking. I make it without any tabasco and pepper flakes because I have spicy-food-hating kids, but I definitely add those in after the munchkins are served. I do not hate spicy food.
Cooking Light’s Jerk Chicken and Stuffed Mini Bell peppers. Another confession: I love this recipe's homemade jerk, it's worth the time to chop and blend those ingredients. BUT between homeschool and my husband's schedule requiring an early dinner, I just don't have that time right now. I have been using a McCormick Jerk seasoning mix and a tub of chive cream cheese spread with a little sour cream and cilantro mixed in. We eat the chicken, the peppers, and a heap of broccoli and our tummies feel warm and happy and guiltfree... with about 15 minutes of work. Hallelujah.


I am hoping to get the chance to sit down with you all again. I feel chock-full of words and encouragement. Until then, would you share with me one thing you learned in the month of August? Or maybe share a recipe you've been into? I'd love to hear from you! (I'd also love some fresh dinner ideas **wink wink**)



By Grace,
Amanda Conquers

The Thing About Fire

I wanted to get away. I needed to get away. 

My husband saw this, and took me to the foot of Sierra-Nevadas for a short retreat.

I was eager to hike something, anything. So before we even checked into our room, we found a nearby trail.

When we stepped out of our car doors, it felt like we were walking into a furnace. It was hot. 105 degrees. We took our last long drink of water and headed to the trail. We just planned to do a quick hike so it didn’t seem necessary to carry anything.

As we walked and the trail led downward, I came across an astonishing tree, beautiful and a little bit strange in a place that was all conifers and manzanitas, rocks and red earth. The madrone. It stood twisting toward the sun, relishing the heat. The sun scorched its bark so that it curled away from the tree like ribbon on a perfect birthday package. It shed layers of black bark, then red, revealing a silvery-green underlayer that was smooth and glassy like butter touching heat.

I found one perfect ringlet. A curly-cued piece of red bark that looked like it could have been a curl off Shirley Temple’s head. I wondered at it. How and why? Such a strange piece of beauty.

We walked on from the stunning madrone and found that the grade kept getting steeper and steeper. The trail was full of loose rocks, and our knees hurt from the steadying.

I kept waiting for this moment: a grand vista, a majestic waterfall, something that made the hike seem worthwhile. It never happened though. The trail ended at a crowded watering hole. It might have been pretty if every rock formation and inch of water wasn’t covered with loud people and floatation devices.  We headed back up the trail disappointed.

Now, one of the unchangeable laws of hiking is that if at some point you walk down, you will eventually have to walk back up. Another one of those laws is that downhill is always much easier than uphill. (Can I get an amen?!)

Sometimes I tell people, “I am a delicate flower. I just wilt in the sun.” I say this with a southern belle accent, eyelids fluttering, full of jest… but it’s true. As I climbed back up that hill, I had a moment. My heart seemed to have relocated to my throat, I could feel it pounding making my airways feel small and tight. My saliva got thick. I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. Panic rose in my heart. Then little black stars in my eyes’ peripheral appeared, the kind you see when black out is imminent.

My legs went weak, and I let my husband steady me with his arms.

And then I cried.

First, it was just a few tears that I quickly wiped away. Then the tears flowed, too many, too fast to stop them from sliding down my neck. My shoulders crumbled as though I had been carrying a sack of cement that I just let tumble off my back. I was trying not to cry, but I just couldn’t help it.

Mike pulled me away from his chest just slightly so he could try to read what was wrong on my face.

I was worried he thought I was a big sissy-la-la girl. “I’m not crying because I am hot and miserable. I mean I am hot and miserable, and I feel like I can’t do this, but it’s not why I am crying.” It all came out in jumbled sobs. I am not even sure Mike understood what I said. “It’s just… I’m crying because…” I stopped short. I couldn’t get it out.

Mike gave me this gentle look. “I know, Amanda. It’s why we are up here.”

We took a lot of stops on the hike back to the car. I drew deep breaths, slowed my racing heart, and I cried… a lot.

This miscarriage, it’s made me angry beyond words. When I sit in church and hear songs of God’s awesomeness, I can feel the rift in my heart. 

I think of Abraham walking Isaac up the mountain. God asked Abraham to do the inconceivable. I wonder at the questions that might have burned in Abraham’s mind and how he kept putting one foot in front of the other. I wonder if he felt anger as he gathered stones, then sticks, then bound Isaac’s hands and feet. Did he want to scream at God?: “You promised this son! He is my blessing and my miracle and you want him back?! I thought you gave him to me with the promise of descendants as numerous as the stars. How are you going to pull that one off, God?!”

When you read it in the Bible, it only indicates that Abraham obeyed.

The passage repeats this phrase twice: "So the two walked on together." Two together, just walking on. The Promise and the Promised side by side. I can't fathom the bravery and the trust in each step Abraham took. He didn't tell Isaac to go back or to hide, Abraham just kept walking forward knowing he was headed to the place where he would lay Isaac down. You read it, and you just know, Abraham would have followed God anywhere.

I struggle with that kind of trust.

I walked up a mountain and cried because life is hard and our refinement comes in the scorch of fire. I really am a big sissy-la-la, and I want it easy. And I certainly don’t want to lose.

Eventually that hike led us back by the madrone tree. I knew it was that tree by the perfect curly-cue. The piece of wonder and gratitude that I marked when it was easy was the same marker that pointed to home when it was hard. I think of Ann and 1000 Gifts, yes, the counting of gifts always points us Home.

I discovered in researching the madrone that they actually thrive in fire. Their wood is hardy and slow-burning. The conifer overstory is cleared out for a season, giving the madrone time to revel in unadulterated sunshine. Their seeds take root and flourish in the aftermath of fire. A madrone is so desperate for sunshine that they twist their way upward, rarely a perfect vertical, desiring to live in the most amount of sunshine as possible. They even can sacrifice a shaded branch... just so the tree gets the most sun. I think God wants us like the madrone. Desperate Son-seekers, coming out of fire better, stonger, reproductive, giving God everything. And God, He is able to work miracles even in the scorching heat, turning our dark layers into something beautiful… something that one could stop and marvel at and mark the way to Home.

Before Abraham departed from his servants, he told them, “I am going to the mountain to worship.” That word strikes me. Worship. He could have said anything else: rock-collecting, nature-observing, father-son bonding… Abraham said worship.

Abraham obeyed waiting for the moment when God would redeem the hardest, bravest, craziest thing he had ever done. Worship chooses God over understanding. Worship trusts God. Worship walks into the unknown with fear and trembling, one foot in front of the other, grasping the hand of Jesus.

With knife in the air, a clinched and fearful son bound before Abraham, and the realization sinking in that God really does demand everything (EVERYthing), God stops Abraham and points him to the bleating ram caught in the thicket. At the 11^th hour and right on time, God revealed His plan for abundant redemption.

Abraham marks the place. If he’d had a smartphone, he would have taken a poetic picture of a smoking altar and hashtagged it: #GodProvides.

There are places in my life marked where God has revealed Himself. They are my madrone tree curly-cues; so perfect and timely that one could only describe them as abundant. My husband’s job—Redeemer. A place to live—Good Provider. The times He’s closed doors and opened doors—Loving Shepherd. The times when I held my tongue and God moved on my behalf—Just Judge.

The pain of these miscarriages? Well, I am walking one foot in front of the other carrying them to the altar.

I am waiting for God to reveal His plan for abundant redemption.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers


Bible Reference: The story of Abraham can be found in Genesis 22.

The Post I Didn't Want to Write {On Trust, Loss, and Walking Deep Waters}

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I was hoping this was going to be the post where I got to tell you my exciting news.

Instead I am writing because this is the best way for me to process hard, because we are on this journey in which we need the encouragement of each other, and because even though my words have pain woven through them, God is writing a message on my heart that maybe you need to hear too.

I am writing because I was pregnant. The pregnancy was found to be not viable (which means somewhere along the way, life stopped forming.)

I had no idea that you could get through five and a half weeks of nausea and smell aversions and all the other body changes in that first trimester… that you could be utterly surprised and have no clue how you got pregnant, that you could cry both tears of joy and fear of change, that you could get excited and dream up names and tell family and friends… and all the while life not be there.

I am raw, angry, hurt and sad.

This baby, it may have surprised us, but it was so very wanted.

After I had gone in for my first prenatal appointment and they couldn’t find the heartbeat, they had told me it could just be too early. But I was worried. I told God, “I just can’t lose. Oh, God, please. I just can’t lose again.” After three losses, two this year, another just felt like too much.

After a formal sonogram and a devastating conversation with my doctor, here I am, loss number four, third within a year. I feel broken, like somewhere along the way the words failure got written across my uterus. Who gets pregnant three times in the same year all while preventing pregnancy and loses all three? It doesn’t seem fair. I’ve always wanted to leave room for God to have His way in my life. I might have in my rational mind thought it wasn’t time for a baby, but I still welcomed the idea of a surprise. But loss?

I have to admit that in my heart of hearts, that deep and fragile part that doesn’t understand and thinks I deserve an explanation, I don’t ever want to be pregnant again. Never. Because I don’t ever want to lose again. 

But here’s the thing. Sometimes we tell God anything. “You can do anything with me, God.” That “anything” might not just be hard, it might cost. And the cost might feel like more than you can bear. It might mean you are the vessel in which He places life, or at least the potential of life for a painfully short time. It might mean God leads you on a journey that is completely different from what you imagined. It might mean that what your heart desires must be hard fought. It might mean you suffer, and it might mean you don’t get an explanation. It might even feel meaningless.

Hebrews 10:39 has been a favorite verse of mine for a long time. It is the final statement that the writer makes before launching into a discussion of faith full of examples of men and women whom God used in mighty ways. Men and women who lost. Men and women who still chose to trust God. Men and women who saw the divine and the miraculous just beyond the tip of their own fingers.

“We are not of those who shrink back.”

We are not of those who live in fear. We are not of those who choose to close their hands to God’s blessings because the blessings might come through pain. We are not of those who stop trusting because we don’t understand. We are not of those who refuse to allow God access to anything and everything because it might hurt.

So here’s me saying: I am angry and hurt and so very afraid to lose again. But I will not shrink back. I will grieve. And then I will rise.

I will choose to trust.

I am reminded that I made this phrase my prayer for the year: “Trust without border.”

And here I am, in a place without border, without understanding. I am walking deep waters. Oh, they seem so deep. But God promises: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. For I am the Lord Your God” (Isaiah 43:2-3). In deep waters, we learn trust.

I look at Addy and Jed with fresh eyes. Because life is so very precious and fragile. When it comes hard fought and through much pain, you savor it, you suck the marrow out of it. You count the moments for joy. And you know deep down, it’s all worth it.  I think of that scripture “Who for the joy set before Him, endured…” (Hebrews 12:2). Yes. And we were worth it even in all the free will variables in which we might turn our backs on Him who loves us and paid dearly for the chance. And that thing you hope for might just come through suffering—through enduring—but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.

I didn’t realize hope could require such bravery. I didn’t realize you could hold onto to hope while losing. But I am clinging to hope. Because, friends, yes, this girl does so much desire another baby and a big, loud family. And while I am afraid to lose, I shall be brave enough to hope.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

Finding Spiritual Whitespace: A Review and a Giveaway

A few months ago, I noticed that my favorite (in)courage writer, Bonnie Gray, had a book coming out and had asked for people to sign up to be a part of the launch team. I usually don’t do that kind of stuff because I just don’t have the ability to make too many commitments right now.

But I felt compelled.

I knew this book on rest was the song Christ had been writing on my heart for the past year. After striving and struggling and trying to prove my value, rest is a message I am passionate about.

And then I started reading it. Because rest seems like this nice topic, right? Take a vacation, go for a hike, sip a cappuccino, read a book, be comfortable in your own skin. God loves you enough to let you rest. But this book hurts.

Because escape isn’t really rest. God doesn’t love us so small that He would just let us take escapes from our brokenness. God loves us so big that He wants to make us whole.

And that is rest. It’s digging beneath the things that we crowd our life with to try to look okay, to seem important, to wave at the rest of the world so we can be seen. It’s picking up broken pieces and giving them to God to make whole again. It’s knowing God’s loves us as is and that we are His work of art.

Bonnie opens up with us the pain in her past, the struggle in her present with PTSD, and what God has been teaching her about rest in this journey. This book is beautiful. It is also painful. And it breathes grace.

I don’t want to share Bonnie’s story, you are just going to have to grab a copy and read it for yourself, but I can tell you that while my own beginnings are so very different, this book has been so healing.

Practically, this book is easy to read. She weaves her story through all the non-fiction truth and revelation that, for this girl who struggles with reading non-fiction but delights in stories, it is easy to want to keep reading (I even have to admit to skipping ahead to see how things turn out, because I totally cheat like that with fiction). It’s also hard to read because it demands that you look into your own heart and see the brokenness Christ is longing to make whole in you. The chapters are small and at the end of each chapter is a time for reflection. This book is already perfect for a small group study and is meant to be gone through slowly—praying, reflecting, talking to a friend after each chapter.                     

I thought I would leave you with one of my most re-read highlights from the book: “In graphic design, whitespace is a key element to the aesthetic quality of a composition. The more fine art a composition is, the more whitespace you will find. The more commercial the piece, the more text and images you’ll find crowded in. The purpose is no longer beauty. It is commercialization… Whitespace is extravagance… Whitespace says we are someone special. It says we are fine art in God’s eyes” (67-68 of Spiritual Whitespace).

And you dear friend? You are a piece of fine art, created in the image of God.

Rest.

You can grab your own copy of this book HERE.

You can find Bonnie Gray HERE in the middle of a 21 day series on Rest. Her blog is beautiful and a favorite of mine.

Since I loved this book so well, I really wanted the chance to give one away to you, dear reader. {Of course if you just can't wait, buy the book now, and, if you win, give the winning copy away.} To enter, just log in to the rafflecopter using facebook or your email address and follow the prompts. The winner will be selected at random using the handy dandy rafflecopter gadget. As a head’s up, I will be contacting the winner and asking for a mailing address to send the prize to. Of course this is not shared or used for any other purpose (and is discarded after the prize is sent).

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

(Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my review. The opinions here are entirely my own)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

In Which I Struggle With Anxiety and Find Rest

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Last year, my husband who knows me well could see me struggling and told me he didn’t want me to lead anything in ministry.

I knew he was right even though I didn’t really like it.

And then the opportunity to lead presented itself. Perhaps it was the desire to have a clearly defined place in my world that seemed flipped upside down. Perhaps after years of leading bible studies, and internships, and children’s ministries, I just missed doing the work of the ministry. Perhaps, I struggled with pride and in my deepest heart of hearts, no matter how right I might have known my husband to be, I wanted to prove him wrong.   

Whatever it was, I chose to take the position.

{And okay, I did sit down with my husband first. He listened to my heart, told me he didn’t think it was a good idea, but that if I really thought I was ready, he would support me.}

I was to be the home groups’ coordinator. I made a video announcement, I recruited hosts and facilitators, I had a plan and a vision, I shared my heart for it in front of the church.

One week before the launch date, I felt crippled beneath anxiety and panic. It was the final push before the start. And.I.could.not.do.it.

Anxiety is like this: Imagine you have someone actively hunting your life. You are on the run. You operate under a heightened sense of awareness, every sound, every change in the atmosphere, a sign you’ve been exposed. You struggle with sleep because it’s when you are most vulnerable to attack. And now imagine this isn’t true. There is no need to be ready to fight or flight at any given moment. And you know it, but your body doesn’t. And so, panic is just under your skin ready to erupt into a fit of heart-racing, rapid-breathing fight for your life. Sleep eludes you. Shame and embarrassment are your prizes. 

Exactly six days before the launch, with meetings to have, details to nail down, phone calls to make… I found myself smack dab in the middle of one of the worst battles with anxiety I have ever had. I think if I was car, I would have been a car on the side of the road, with my tires blown, fumes coming out from under the hood, my timing belt off, and my engine fallen out some 200 yards back. This was not a patch job: you know pray, ask some of your closest to pray and keep going. Oh. No.

I was a mess.

Confessing that I could not carry those small groups to completion was one of the hardest and most humbling things I have ever done. Sharing the reason why was even harder: I was that broken, the struggle was that deep, and this supposedly seasoned leader/Christian was barely treading water. I wish I had the foresight to know that I couldn’t do it (I wish I had trusted that my husband did have that God-given foresight.)

After I sent that email, heartfelt and broken, I waited for a response. A prayer. Someone to tell me I was okay… that it was okay.

But no one did.

The only way I knew anyone had received my email was that the secretary called asking for my notes. I sat for a month with silence. They could have been angry. They could have been praying for me. I didn’t know. I only had God and His Words to comfort me.

Looking back, I am grateful for the silence no matter how it hurt. I had this unhealthy need for approval, this fear of failure. I got this chance to hear God’s heart for me without the competition of a person’s approval. I found that He could love me even when I failed miserably, even when I deserved judgment. Truly there is one voice from Whom we need to hear, “You are okay.” Only one voice that truly satisfies that deep inner longing for approval. God—Our Father.

I found myself like that banged up guy on the side of the road (Luke 10:30-35), overlooked by those who should have cared, and taken in by Jesus himself. The Best Neighbor. He bandaged my wounds and let me stay and rest—to take all the time I needed (and still need) to be made whole.

Truth is, God had been asking me to rest for a while. But I didn’t want to because it meant facing pain and brokenness. It meant stopping, slowing down. It meant coming face to face with this sinking fear I have always had that maybe God doesn’t really love me. That maybe my worth was in what I did rather than who I am, and, if I stopped doing, no one would see me.

My approval-hunt had led me to squeeze out the very last bit I could offer. And when I had nothing left, I found He was more than enough. And that He loved me still and He loved me big.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back talking a little more about this rest journey and reviewing a beautiful book and rest resource. I like it so well, I really want the chance to give it away to one of you, dear readers. Say it with me: Giveaway!

{You can click on over HERE now to read the Finding Spiritual Whitespace review AND to ENTER the GIVEAWAY)

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers


Sharing in this lovely community:

If You've Ever Felt Your Dreams Crush Against Disappointment (Part 2)

This is that continuation I promised from the last blog post I did. You know, two weeks later than planned. ;)

We were sitting outside the hospital cafeteria in the sunshine, the air uncommonly sticky for California. My husband and I were trying to keep busy, to do something besides think and feel. My eyes were swollen, evidence that I was not as collected or as calm as I might have looked sitting there skimming through my phone.

Just fifteen minutes prior, I watched my almost-three-year old get wheeled towards the operating room. And even though it was a minor outpatient procedure, I am not so sure any procedure feels like a minor amount of weight on a momma’s heart.  

It made me think of how when us kids would talk of leaving home or of grand global adventures, my mom would wrap us up in her arms and with both laughter and sadness in her eyes she would declare, “Oh, no. I don’t think I can let you do that. My apron strings just don’t reach that far.”

The gorilla-sized tears and the ache in my stomach seemed to indicate that my apron strings didn’t reach operating rooms. The nurse had told me not to worry, that Jed was in good hands. But the truth is, I wanted Jed in my hands.

While we were sitting, waiting, Mike was listening to an interview of Jim Caviezel on accepting the role of Jesus in the Passion of the Christ. I wasn’t paying much attention. I may have even thought to myself what a random thing to listen to at this exact moment. Wasn’t that a decade ago?

But then Jim Caviezel said something that settled on my ears and demanded my attention.

“We all want resurrection; nobody wants suffering.”

Five minutes later, my husband got a call from the doctor. He asked for us to return to the room.

Somehow Mike instinctively knew to go without me. He insisted that I stay and that he would call me if I was needed. I sat attempting to write about Caviezel’s truth nugget, but really all I could think about was Jed.

Mike came back after the longest ten minutes. While prepping Jed for surgery, the doctor discovered something else that needed surgery… something that was more important and pressing than the original procedure for which we had scheduled Jed.

So, in total, my baby got three procedures done in one surgery. Three incisions, three bandages, three wounds from which to recover.

{In case you’ve been counting, that third one was a minor one that they asked if they could do when we first arrived, and another story altogether.}

I felt grateful that we had taken him in and that Jed was being spared from a much bigger problem later on all because of this doctor’s keen eye.

I wanted Jed better. But I didn’t want him to suffer.

But even my momma heart knew that I had to let him go, that the better meant the suffering.

Because it’s true: “We all want resurrection; [but] nobody wants suffering.”

I don’t fully understand suffering. I have a really long list of questions for God about suffering that begin with the word “Why.”

But Christ, he suffered. Lashings, beatings, thorns scraping skull, nails like railroad spikes into wrists and feet, and then he died. And when the stench of death would have just began to take him, when hope would have seemed lost, when resignation would have held Christ’s followers… Jesus resurrected.

Like the barley kernel at the back drop of the story of Ruth: cut down, trampled under the feet of donkeys, and crushed under stones, and just when the barley kernel might have felt like it’s purpose was done for, like it was crushed beyond recognition, the harvester threw it into the air and a beautiful usable kernel fell to the ground to be carried off to the mill for flour.

Because God plants beautiful purposes in chaffy human hearts.

It is through trials and pain and times that feel hopeless that separate the kernel of purpose from the human shell it lies in. And God doesn’t abandon us in our hardest times, he is waiting for that separation of chaff and dream, of human and spirit so that He can raise back up to life. Crushing and raising up are both important processes and equally dependent upon the other. Crushing seems cruel without the raising up; raising up is pointless without the crushing.

Perhaps, we would like to think that our holiness is wrapped up in substance of our ideals, our dreams. I remembered being a rosy-cheeked newlywed full of “holy” dreams, of two sharing the gospel together, of raising children, of a house that could be full of God’s love. But our holiness is something that comes about in the refining fire of when our reality and our dreams don’t match. Holiness is wrought in the struggle, in the surrender, in the telling God that I choose Him over all of it, even over my best-intentioned dreams. That I want Him and all of Him and there isn’t a thing here in this life that could possibly compare to the goodness of simply knowing Him. That He is God and I am woman and while I don’t understand His ways, surely I can choose to accept that I won’t comprehend them but that I can TRUST Him.

This is probably not the most fun material to read. The truth is, it’s not just suffering that proceeds resurrection; it’s death that proceeds resurrection. And this is hard. It’s hard to listen to, and it’s a thousand times harder to walk through. But I can say when you surrender, lay that dream on the altar, I do believe I can echo Paul with absolute certainty: God is exceedingly and abundantly able to do above and beyond all that you ask or think…. And that no human heart can conceive the things God has prepared for those who love Him. (Ephesian 3:20 & 1 Corinthians 2:9)

Amen.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

If You've Ever Felt Your Dreams Crush Against Disappointment (Part 1)

I think it was hot. I sat on the porch swing watching my baby girl put two hands on the cement and one diaper butt into the air. She steadied herself in her newfound independence. One chunky-thighed leg in front of the other and she was wobble-walking towards me. 

Contentment was full in my heart. And then the phone rang.

I could hear it in Mike’s voice. Discouragement. Shame. “Amanda. I—um—I’ve been separated. I couldn’t pass the test.”

I can’t remember what I said. I probably offered some kind of encouragement, asked a few questions, told him we would get through it. I do remember what I did when I got off the phone. I wept.

Life had looked bright. A year prior my husband had lost his job and struggled to find steady work. And then he stumbled into law enforcement. He was one of seven chosen out of well over a hundred applicants to be put through police academy. He was paid, he had benefits, and he was doing well in his studies. It seemed like the pain of losing had found its purpose in this opportunity. Mike thought he had stumbled into his calling. And then, three weeks shy of graduation, he hit one too many cones on the emergency driving course. Just like that, he was out.

Before coming home, Mike drove himself to the men who had always encouraged him, always pointed him to God. There he heard these words: “Truth be told, Michael, I never saw you as a cop.”

Though those words were spoken as comfort, I think they crushed my husband.

I cried for Mike. For his dreams that felt lost. For how he must have felt like maybe he was less of a man for all the hard blows that seemed to keep him from a good job. I felt that deep hurt from so much hope dashed and that unshakable question word: Why? Why!? Oh God, Why?! I wept for how the future was so uncertain. I wept for the way our dreams of children and a home to raise them in seemed impossible.

Our dreams died that day.

A few years later, Mike was still talking about law enforcement. I told him to try one more time. I could sense the worry in him, worry that he would again fail. This time, he worked full-time while going to academy full-time. He was dad to two children, husband to this wife, full-time student and pest control expert. And somehow after over nine months of a crazy juggling act, he graduated at the top of his class. He received an award for perfect attendance. 

At the end of the ceremony, they read off one award--integrity befitting an officer--the recipient chosen by peers and instructors. When they said my husband’s name, I wept. Because there it was, what I always knew to be true, what Michael had doubted and questioned and struggled against-- yes, we see it, you are a man of character. You are fit to be a cop.

You’d think at some point it would have been smooth sailing, but sometimes our dreams are something we actively fight for, something we have to keep God’s promises stuck to… and we have to be crazy enough to believe He means what He promises, no matter the setbacks.

While Mike was in the hiring process, he was removed from his favorite department’s list for an integrity issue. He was discouraged, he wondered if he would ever realize this cop-dream, but instead of just letting it go and hoping another department would hire him, he challenged it. He submitted letters with his integrity award attached. He put on his nicest suit, pushed his tie to his neck, and met with the hiring captain. That captain gave him another chance.

If you read here you know, Mike's been working at that department for a year and a half. And, yep, it's the same department he worked at five years ago when his dreams felt crushed beyond hope.

I think of Ruth in the Bible. It's probably my favorite story.

Ruth—who must have dreamed of children, of a home full of love and of growing old with a husband—in one fell swoop, she loses her husband and everything she dreamed with him.

And then Ruth does something bold. Truth be told, I have no clue why she does it. She clings to this God she did not know and follows her mother-in-law back to Bethlehem… when she could have just started over. Perhaps, she knew she couldn’t go back, that you can never really go back, you can only move forward. Perhaps, she just wanted know this God--this God woven into the roots of her husband and his people.

Whatever the reason, Ruth arrives in Bethlehem—which means house of bread—as sickle met barley stalk. She goes to Boaz’s field to glean the grain dropped in the harvest, and there she finds favor. At Naomi’s encouragement, Ruth goes into the threshing floor on the night of the winnowing, when barley had been crushed and then raised into the air so chaff and kernel could separate. Ruth lay herself at the feet of Boaz.

Ruth—of crushed dreams—lying on the threshing floor.

And Boaz—he raises her up and promises to see her redeemed.

As I sit in a house that I never thought we could have and send my husband off to a job he never thought he could have, I marvel at this God we serve.

We serve a God who, when hope was all but lost, raised His Son from the dead. A God who saw Ruth and redeemed her brokenness. A God who lifted her up, breathed life into her long dead dreams, redeemed her long-passed husband’s name, and gave her a rich inheritance in Bethlehem.

God raises the dead to life.

The God who made the dormant seed to erupt from the dark confines of soil, knows how to resurrect dreams from disappointments. He can raise the dreams that seem impossible, the ones that maybe you are throwing your fist in the air crying at God over, the ones that sit in the pit of your stomach and leave a hole in your heart, the ones that make you ache.

He is the God of resurrection.

I don’t know what devastation you face. What dreams you are holding onto. What dreams have died. I am standing here heavy-hearted knowing there is someone who needs this message; knowing that as some of my dreams I dare not even commit to print lie waiting, I need this message too. I am reminding us that God is faithful. That sometimes dreams get crushed, but we serve a God who knows how to bring them back to life. I am standing here with you, brother or sister, praying for you, crazy enough to believe that God can and will redeem what seems lost.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

I think*** I will be back tomorrow (or Monday) with a continuation of this post, because I have so much more to say on this. But truth be told, we've just moved and we’ve had another major change happen in our life unexpectedly, so I can’t promise. You will love me anyways, right? And maybe keep us in your prayers? Thanks, friends.

Also, is it okay to mention, that if you want to make sure you never miss a post, the best way to do that is to subscribe to this blog’s email list? It is only used to send you posts. I never share your email address and it is super easy to unsubscribe. Just click-->HERE.


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To the Momma of Little Ones

A few weeks ago, my son started stuttering. It came on sudden, so sudden I may have panicked and thought there was something seriously wrong and called the doctor. As it turns out, stutters are quite common at Jed’s age. It’s even common that they appear suddenly.  There is nothing wrong with my boy, it’s just a matter of his mind moving faster than his mouth can.

Here’s the thing about stutters. The best way to talk to my son is slow and clear (not obnoxiously slow, perhaps just slower this Californian tends to speak). The best way to deal with the stutter is to allow him to take his time to say what he wants to say, to complete his own thought himself. To hurry his words is to hurt him. To apply too much pressure to him to complete his words is to risk a lifetime of difficulty. To complete his thoughts for him is to stunt his growth.

Is it okay to admit that there are times when it takes everything in me to not rush him to the point of what he’s trying to say? Sometimes it’s hard to be slow, to stop and listen, and to listen well.

But the hurrying hurts. It pressures and it crushes. It binds up in fear. It lies and tells us accomplishments make us matter, make us enough. Hurry misses what is right in front of us. Hurry denies us the pleasure of the gifts of today. Hurry places greater value on the next thing rather than the now thing.

And that’s the thing about these small years, is it not?

The days are long and the work mundane. We do things like sit under children, like clean messes while another one is being made, like brave ten minutes of finger painting for a half-hour of clean up, like try to be healthy and take walks… while pushing a stroller, hollering at the one kid riding off down the street, and reminding the three year old to not pick someone else’s flowers or walk out in the street or to leave the roly-poly alone and to keep walking before sister gets too far ahead… (basically you move REALLY slowly through the neighborhood).

It’s slow work. It seems like small work.

I think it’s pretty normal to feel restless, to want to hurry it, hurry our kids through it, to feel like maybe you aren’t enough and maybe you need something else to show for who you are. Maybe it even feels like some of you is buried underneath the cheerio messes, the bottom-wiping, and the clothes-folding. Maybe you feel like your life is on hold and you wonder if it will ever move forward again.

I’ve mentioned this Indian proverb before: Children tie the feet of their mother.

And they do. And if you try to run through this season…try to do more than you are appointed to do in this season, you will feel yourself tearing against the taut rope of a momma’s and a child’s love, you will trip, you might even fall, and maybe even crush those little ones at your feet.

The best way to walk, and perhaps it’s the most unnatural way for a post-bra-burning western woman… Walk Slowly.

I think it’s important to recognize the season through which you are walking. I think it’s important to know that God works in seasons, and these small years… it is a season of seed planting.

You are doing the grueling work of tilling the hard ground of strong wills, of mine-mine-mine and me-me-me, and of temper-tantrums in public places.

You are planting the seeds of God’s love, self-worth, and hard-work. You are planting seeds in your kids that will one day bear fruit. And what you do now and how you do it… matters.

You are surrendering some of the dreams in your heart to the soil to lie dormant for a season, trusting that one day God will resurrect them from the ground.

I think it’s needful to be able to say with absolute certainty, “I am a mom” and to be able to stick a period at the end of the sentence. For those four words to reverberate inside of you with truth, that yes, there is absolutely more to you than being a mom, but being a mom is glorious and important and along with a handful of other things, what you are called to do.

I think there is something hard but freeing about walking slowly, realizing so many things can and will wait, and embracing with fullness this season.

We are moms. And right now, that’s enough.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers


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One Good Simple Thing: Balsamic Honey Caramelized Onions

I have this cooking philosophy: sometimes all it takes is one special thing to take a basic meal to the next level.

These caramelized onions do that.

They are sweet, tangy, and have that caramelly flavor you can only get when you cook onion slices for a really long time.

And on that note: yes, these do take a long time. BUT (and this is a pretty great but) they are easy to make and you can make them in large batches to last you a few meals.

Honest moment: these are what I make for special occasions and a few random weeks when I am feeling especially fabulous; not every week to always have on hand. (Ain't nobody got time for that ;))

For instance: I might use them for my husband's birthday dinner of top loin steak served with parmesan mashed potatoes and crisp asparagus... all topped with this candy for your savory food. 

Or maybe I use them for that special get-my-girlfriends together lunch. I make these onions, grilled chicken, and pesto-mayo the night before. The day of I pull out a fresh loaf of dutch crust bread, cut it length-wise, spread it with pesto-mayo, put sliced chicken breast, thick tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, arugula, and these onions on top, and cut into sandwich sizes. On that day, I spend very little time in the kitchen busying about and a whole lot of time enjoying the company of my friends (and eating sandwiches that taste very "grown-up"... because that's all a mom really wants after a week of pb&j).

The rest of those kind of weeks, I use the remainder of the onions to top a "build your own pizza night," make tastier sandwiches for my husband's lunch, throw into some pasta primavera, or make an omelette with whatever's still in the fridge plus these onions.

Okay. So I know it's just one simple little thing, but one good simple thing can totally change a meal.

I like simple... and Lord knows, I like good food. 

Bon Appetite!

Balsamic Honey Carmelized Onions

(click here for a handy printable version)

Ingredients:

2 large yellow onions

2 TBS of olive oil

2 TSP of honey

1 TSP of balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Halve onions and cut in thin slices.
2. Heat skillet on medium/medium high heat. Add oil. Spread around pan. Add onions. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally until they are limp, 10-15 minutes. Uncover, reduce heat to medium-low/low and cook until onions are golden brown and sweet, 35-45 minutes, stirring frequently. 
3. Turn heat up to medium, drizzle honey into pan and cook for another 2 minutes. Add balsamic vinegar and cook for an additional minute.
4. These may be used immediately or stored in fridge for a week to add to various dishes.

By Grace,
Amanda Conquers

When God Leads You Onward

At the very beginning of this year, God led us out of our home church.

There’s a very good chance, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve walked through. At least right now, it feels that way.  

I mean, it’s the church I went to right after I gave God all of my life. It’s where I learned how to follow Christ, how to do ministry. It’s where I met my husband, it’s where we dedicated our kids. It’s the place where I connected with so many of the people who have been pressed onto the pages of my life’s story.

About a year ago, my church had moved from the small town I was raised in to a larger city a half hour away and merged with another church. My husband and I felt like we were supposed to make the move. And while we could see God’s hand in it and how He blessed the church and the pastors, I struggled to see where I fit in it.

In looking back, I know God had us stay for a reason. In the aftermath of all the change in our lives, I found myself battling depression and insomnia. Our marriage was a struggle those first months adjusting to Mike becoming a cop. We needed the people who had been praying for us, supporting us, encouraging us for years and years to keep on doing that. I am so glad God had us stay through the move.

And then at the start of January, in the middle of praying and making the longings of my heart known, clear as crystal and quiet as a breeze, God said, “Okay, you can go now.”

I was stunned. I probably spewed a stream of questions at God, but He was quiet on all the details.

So when the next Sunday came, I visited a new church. And the next Sunday, and the next Sunday… and in setting out, I wanted to go back. I wanted normal and safe and to know which seats I could sit in and to have familiar faces saying hi. I didn’t want to let go of the relationships I considered most dear, the people who had been there on my worst days and my best days. How do you leave when you genuinely like and care about everyone? But I just knew, like knew knew, God was leading us on, and I was not to go back.

I had always imagined that when we left, there would be tearful goodbyes, meaningful thank-yous, and prayers for blessings in our new season—a send-off of sorts. But that's not how God works sometimes. And I find that hard.

Truth be told, right now, I dislike Sundays and getting two kids up for church and trying to navigate my way through kids check in, seat-finding, and small-talk with strangers. I have no idea where God wants us, but I get the distinct feeling He has us in transition, and we might be here for a while.

I don’t have the words to describe the way God is working on me, the way He is so near. I see how weak I am, the way I want to back out, Can I just go back to the way things were?!… but I also see a braveness rising up. Maybe I have to talk myself through anxiety and push back tears, but I go every Sunday, usually without my husband… and I go clinging to Jesus. I know my kids need to be there, they need to see that we value community, worship, and God. I know I need to learn how to trust, how to live in the in-between.

It seems like it isn’t really taught in church how to transition, how to leave. 

I was raised believing, though it was more implied than taught, that church-hopping was what people did who weren’t fully committed Christ-followers. People who left seemed shunned. There might have been reasons that were an “acceptable” reason to leave, but all I got was, just don’t leave. Somehow I missed that faith is always first an inward thing, a God-with-me, more than it was how I appeared or where I belonged. I thought spirituality could be measured by one’s level of plugged-in-ness, involved-ness, and how many times one showed up at the church each week. I didn’t realize spirituality could mean that God could call you out unto Himself in the still, quiet, unconnected, land of in-between.

I mean, think about all the stories in the Bible where people were in-between, waiting, connected only to God. Abraham’s journey to the land yet to be shown to him. The Israelites in the wilderness. David’s time of hiding from Saul. Elijah in seclusion being provided for by ravens. How about the passage in Hosea: “I will allure her, bring her out into the wilderness and speak kindly to her…” (2:14).

Sometimes God calls us out into the in-between.

But I do believe it’s always full of such purpose. Perhaps it’s so we can really know Him, know His character, know His voice. Perhaps it’s that the God who knows all and cares deeply longs to protect us from some unforeseen danger. Perhaps it’s that He longs to work some miracle, some kind of surprise. I am not sure what God is doing, but I do know it’s what God is asking of me. 

And really, that’s enough for me.  

So, right now, I am finding such value in this blogging community, my mom's group, and my good friends. Even in my "unconnectedness" I have found I am still connected to the body of Christ. Community comes in all forms. And it's so valuable.

I have found that because it is completely exhausting (and probably asking too much of me and the kids), it's okay to find a place to transition. We have been mostly going to a sweet little church until God directs us somewhere else, or tells us that's the place He wants to plant us.

I would love to know if you have ever walked through this? How was it difficult? How did God show Himself faithful? I’d love to hear from you. (Also, if this is something you are going through, I’d love to hear about it, in the comments or by email at amandaconquers at gmail dot com. Pray for each other?)

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

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