12/31/2013

(nearly) wordless wednesday

 
embraced...
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12/26/2013

Guest post with Hannah Bryant


Hey there! Today we have another fun little guest post from the lovely and talented Hannah Bryant. She was with us back in November, and she's back with some wise words to share with you. Won't you give her a bit of blog love?

I’ve done it, you’ve done it and it’s been done to us. Judging.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Matthew 7:1-2

I had a large decision to make in my life and I literally spent months praying, seeking God, journaling, fasting, digesting scripture and having others unbeknownst to them affirming my decision. 

So when I came to the point of jumping out in faith, I felt I was in the right place and doing the right thing according to His plan for my life.

Someone had heard about the choice I had made through the grapevine and decided to write a very lengthy email about what they had heard. The language was direct as they wrote “I was outside the will of God and He will take His anointing off me.” They expressed disappointment and used passed information about me, against me.

Now I am very, very open, to having people speak into my life, to coach and refine me as I want to always be changing and growing in Jesus, but I was slightly baffled by this as I hadn’t spoken to this person in over twelve months. They didn’t ask a single question about my decision but were happy to shoot bullets into my heart. The only reply I could give at that point was to write “Thanks for your thoughts. Bless you.” That was it. 

I have also been that person shooting the judgement. So I know that I had to apply grace to this person, forgive, ask myself some hard questions, revisit motives, restore inaccuracy with Godly truth and move on…I have.

A lot of the time, we make judgements on one another without having the whole story. We fill in blanks with limited information, make assumptions and place our own bias on a situation.

We look at the outward appearance of a situation and a person which generally brings us to an inaccurate conclusion

When we speak into another persons life, we must make sure that we have spent time seeking God, asking for His wisdom and insight, so we can abandon our own opinion to then speak truth. We must have a pure motivation when coaching others, the delivery must be done with kindness, gentleness and with love. We must also ask them loads of questions so we can get insight into their world and hear their story unfold. You just might have your questions answered so you become more gentle and grace filled.

As servant girls, we fight judging others, there is something in our DNA which we must stand against so unity and acceptance surrounds our relationships. This disarms tension and allows our sisters to flourish in their God-given uniqueness and beauty. 

When we decide to become someone else’s judge, by what standard are we making those judgements? 

“Criticism leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person.” (Oswald Chambers Our Upmost For His Highest)

We need to be very careful of our thoughts and words. God sees the heart and knows exactly what’s going on. Judging is dangerous as we all have planks in our own eyes.

A woman who is at rest with herself accepts her position in Christ. She understands there is nothing to prove to onlookers. She knows her strengths and can cheer her sister’s on with a pure heart. She shines brightly as her words are seasoned with kindness, goodness and grace. She is peaceful and can edify others with ease as she is secure in her Fathers love.

 Hannah, her husband & three children are currently living in Ontario Canada and are heading home this December to Sydney Australia to begin Three Rivers Church, a home church movement. Hannah is passionate about teaching women about their uniqueness in Christ and encouraging them to abandon fear in order to live radically for Jesus. You can keep up to date with her at Ashes-to-beauty

12/22/2013

Breaking radio silence

Tap tap,
is this thing on? Does anyone remember how to use this thing? I'm a bit rusty. One word in front of the other. We can do this.

I took a bit of a blog-cation this month, my family and I took a trip way out west to visit some other Petersons.

So now that I'm done moving I can tell you all about our little adventure. And you can listen politely and glance through my photos with a tad bit of envy. Because taking seven people on a 46 hour train ride to Montana is something you should envy. Ahem.

But before I show you my pictures, I'll just point out that in the same amount of time it took us to get to Montana, I could have flown to Russia and back. But that's beside the point.


So we took the kids and Grandma out to stay at Uncle Jason's horse ranch in NW Montana. There was sledding, horseback riding, cousins and hiking. Many board games were  played cozied up to the fire, and more hot chocolate was consumed than I'd like to think about.


And there were photos. Glorious photos. I posted a gazillion on instagram (my username is elissapeterson if you want to see those) but here are a few more gems that I've been sitting on. Ones taken with a "real" camera that weren't nearly as easy to share as I snapped them. Enjoy!

 

 Most of the Peterson clan...





future cowgirls in training...


Horsey photo bomb. Love!

12/08/2013

when words fail.


So I generally don’t talk about current events on this ol bloggity. Newsworthy events that by the time you get back to this piece will surely be old hat. Events that will likely be old hat by the time I get around to sharing this collection of words with you. Or possibly the truth that it’s nearly impossible to discuss current events without sounding like a broken record bleeding heart.
But I stumbled across a particularly interesting article on NPR the other day. If you missed it, I’ll just summarize by saying that the Central African Republic is a hot mess, and those people are clearly experiencing Hell on earth.  And the international media is mostly ignoring the problem.
Which isn’t really news. There are a lot of people on this planet who go through Hell every single minute of every day. Which is probably why the media would rather tell you about Miley Cyrus’s new outfit than another international crisis. Because they don’t want to sound like a broken record either.
For some reason this particular story came like a swift kick in the gut. Driving along listening to this tale on the radio I had a vision. One of rebel soldiers storming my house and me handing my children each a box of granola bars and pointing them to the neighbor’s woods with the instruction to flee for their lives. Knowing full well that my oldest son is months away from being old enough to be rounded up as a child soldier in the LRA, and it won’t take much time for my girls to be old enough to be considered for marriage.
But instead of fleeing for their lives my kids are permitted to bicker over which movie to pick on Netflix and shop for cute winter boots at the mall.
And when I think about social injustice in terms of my own offspring there really aren’t words. Just tears.
But as I ponder over the insanity of it all I keep coming back to this truth; if Jesus didn’t let the world fall apart, then He would have no reason to come back and rescue us from ourselves.
So with this little reminder I’ll exhale. Kiss my babies, chuckle at their “conflicts”, and thank the good Lord that we’ve dodged another bullet. Literally.
Thank you Jesus for my first world problems.

12/05/2013

9 truths to teach your writers


So we were just talking about how to raise writers. Or more importantly how to not raise writers.
I mentioned in this recent post that while there is joy to be found in well ordered, coherent thoughts; there is also a great deal more joy to be found in breaking all the rules of writing. For my own amusement, I put together a list truths that most writers already embrace, and those of us who teach writing (whether formally or informally) also cling to. So here you go.
There is a difference between writing to make your teachers happy and writing to make yourself happy. And in my case, writing to make Jesus happy.
Learning how to satisfy other people’s requirements is fantastic. But really, most teachers would rather you learn how to be so completely compelled by words that everything else fades into the periphery.
Sometimes you can be so consumed by the need to string words together that you can’t eat. Or sleep. That sometimes you can be so overtaken by the need to organize the thoughts in your brain into happy, coherent sentences that you ignore responsibilities and let people down.
(Not that I’d know, ahem.)
That you will have moments where all you can really see and hear is the words that are flowing over your head like Niagra Falls.
Sometimes you just can’t turn the words off, no matter how hard you try. They grab you by the shirt collar and shake you violently until you admit defeat and sit down with a writing tool.
That true writing is not simply answering questions to satisfy a requirement, but answering them in such a way that you leave the reader’s brain swirling with their own thoughts and questions. Swirling and compelling them to pick up a writing tool and put their own words into somewhat coherent thoughts.
That you don’t need to write a best seller, or have a million blog followers to call yourself a writer.
That teaching others to write isn’t just about telling them to write like their hands are on fire, but also writing that way yourself. And letting your kids read those fiery thoughts that caused you to ignore them for hours.
That the writing topic doesn’t necessarily matter, as long as your brain is enjoying chewing it over, other people will probably enjoy reading it as well.
And that’s what it really is to be a writer.

12/03/2013

(nearly) wordless wednesday



Home on the range... 

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12/01/2013

On raising writers...


So this fall all three of my children have entered into the world of essay writing. You would think I’d be thrilled that their writing skills have developed to the point where they can string lovely words together into happy little sentences that all work together around a coherent theme.
But not so much.
These writing assignments are killing me. 5 paragraphs, each with a topic sentence and supporting details, thesis statements and conclusion paragraphs.
Technically correct and boring as all get out.
Who wants to write like that? More importantly who wants to read such lifeless crap?
Who wants to BS their way through stupid essay questions that don’t ignite passion? What moron wants to pursue topics that don’t allow them the joy of stringing words together into fiery sentences?
Not me. But such is the life of a writer.
So as we cross this threshold into a brave new world of the realities of the writer’s life, we tip our hats to those who fight hard to suck all the joy out of writing.
And then we acknowledge that there’s more than one way to write a paragraph.
You have the boring way that will get you an A on your assignment. And then the spit and fire way that will make you want to get up and dance. But will probably earn you a C- on your assignment.
We acknowledge that teachers probably won’t appreciate it, but its way more fun to write with snark. With a bit of piss and vinegar. With sentences that. Aren’t. Really. Sentences.
And frankly it’s way more fun to read essays that would probably earn you a C- anyway.
 So there.

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