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letting go and as you go: the art of graceful Christmas living.

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This post was written by guest contributor, Sarah Bragg.

The Christmas cards that we receive in the mail are one of my favorites parts of the holiday season. On one hand, I love them because they’re actual mail that awaits me in my mailbox, but on the other hand, I love those cards because of the people and stories they represent. Every family is different. They all have different stories. Most of the cards reflect the smiles and display the easy moments from the past year. They don’t typically capture the imperfect, difficult parts.

It’s not bad to put our best foot forward, but sometimes its easy to look at those cards and see a perfect family. And consequently, to look at our own family and believe we don’t measure up.

We all tend to have an image in our minds of what the perfect family looks like. This is the family who doesn’t fight. Coordinates their clothing. Has toddlers who were potty trained by two. Has tweens who are pleasant every waking moment. Their house smells of gingerbread cookies. And they do Advent family devotionals every day.

We can look at these images in the mail or on social media and wonder how in the world anyone has time to do all the things in December when we’re barely coming up for a single breath each morning.

To me, graceful doesn’t mean perfect. Graceful seems to be fluid, able to move, able to change positions with ease.

There are no perfect families. There are no perfect people. Maybe Graceful December is about letting go of the perfect picture of what you should be doing this season. Maybe its about letting go of the expectation of who you are and what you do. And maybe being graceful is about doing something as you go.

Maybe it’s about letting go of what your house should look like (e.g. It should be fully decorated including mini wooden snow skis and a sled by the fireplace.) Our front steps are bare. We have to skip garland because our cat eats it all. We have minimal decorations up in our house–not because of any reason other than I need things to be simple in life right now. The reality of life for us is chaos, so decorations are something I needed to let go. Its okay that our tree looks like a 5 year old decorated it, because she did! It’s not perfect, but it’s beautiful.

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Maybe being graceful is about letting go of what your family should be doing together. We look around and see all the people doing Advent devotionals and crafts with their families. And you want to do Advent because you want to bring the real meaning of Christmas to your children so badly, but you just can’t seem to do it. I get it. I have great intentions and fail every year. Give yourself grace.

I am going to go ahead and raise my hand here. We aren’t doing Advent this year. I give you permission to relax. Maybe instead of doing some elaborate craft (because crafting with toddlers is elaborate!), you simply set up a nativity scene and talk about the characters. I overheard my 5 year old playing with our Little People Nativity set. She performed the wedding ceremony of Mary and Joseph saying, “You may now kiss the bride.” Then, she pressed the button to play “Away In A Manager.” Adorable, right? As you go.

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You don’t have to do bible readings everyday, but you can incorporate the truths of Christmas as you go. My nearly 8 year old thought Moses was Jesus’ father. I have a seminary degree and my child is missing key components of the story. But you know what, it’s okay. She will get it one day. Isn’t that being graceful—fluid and able to move with ease? We will talk about the actual characters of the story as we go.

Maybe graceful is about letting go of what you look like.

Maybe you put so much pressure on doing all the right things for your kids, their classrooms, their teachers or your friends that you have placed an unattainable expectation on yourself. Extend grace to yourself.

Allow yourself to take in the wonder of the season. Do something that feeds your soul.

Last Sunday, we decided to not go to church. No one was sick. The weather was pleasant. But sometimes we need to let go of of the expectation of going to church every Sunday—even in December. That day, it was better for our family to be home. The girls built a fort in their room while my husband and I read books by the fire. My soul was refreshed.

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Graceful December is about letting go of perfection—letting go of expectations. Embrace an attitude of ease. I officially take the pressure off of you. Leave room to move this Christmas and to be inspired. Leave room to breathe.

Because maybe, just maybe, God wants to do something graceful in you.

And Graceful December is about experiencing Christmas as you go. As you go, let the wonders of this season bring up the truth that God loves us so much that He gave us the greatest gift.

 

 

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Sarah is in her mid-thirties striving to keep her head above water while seeking to live a life with purpose. She is married with two beautiful (busy) girls. She worked in full-time ministry for more than 10 years. Before having kids, which left her wondering how to connect words to form a complete sentence, she graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and authored the book, Body. Beauty. Boys. The Truth About Girls and How We See Ourselves. She is currently the Lead Editor for XP3 Middle School at Orange. She could spend countless hours decorating, drinking coffee, on Instagram and perusing Pinterest. She creates over at SurvivingSarah.com and you can find her on IG as @sarahwbragg.

I met this beautiful mama and kindred heart at Allume just a few months back. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about attending a Christian women’s writing conference is meeting like-minded, thought provoking friends we wouldn’t otherwise have the privilege to know. I love Sarah’s heart for her family and for keeping things real in a gracious way. She has an amazing eye for design and an obvious passion for ministry. If only we didn’t live a great distance apart…it would be so fun for our lives and kiddos to intersect in daily life. Thankful for the way something as abstract as the internet can bring us together and keep us connected! As you go today, friends. xo, molly madonna

 

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words to speak.

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I have loved words my whole life. Books, poetry, song lyrics, inscriptions, conversations, prayers. Not yet realizing their power, words shaped me from an early age and became a part of me at my core. I spent my time telling stories, keeping journals, reciting Shel Silverstein at the top of my lungs for anyone who would listen. (We have video of the latter, and it’s fairly embarrassing.)

Each time I sat down to write, I felt good about putting pen to paper. I had created something. It always welled up from somewhere unknown and bubbled out of me, onto the page and into the world, whether anyone else would ever read it or not. Looking back, I had no idea I’d ever write to share thoughts intentionally with others. I had no inkling of a space called mollymadonna.com. I knew I wanted to write books somehow, but I didn’t know how I’d ever walk that path.

Over time, I grew up. My words did, too.

Fastforward to now, and I am constantly exploring the power of words–written and spoken–in my adult life. I have more influence than I’ve ever had, if only because there are two precious little people who cling to my words and depend on them to shape how they feel about themselves, about each other, and about the world, every, single day.

The weight of responsibility that I feel to love well through words grows greater all of the time. Recognizing how much my own words and their delivery matter to our children continues to stretch me as I evaluate my communication with everyone I meet.

Sometimes, I get these words just right, and quite often, I get them woefully wrong.

When I speak out of urgency, frustration, worry or exhaustion, no one gets the best version of me. I know that I’ve been entrusted a voice that I might steward it well, and I’m challenged on many days to refine and revise and edit–just like I did writing papers all through high school and college.

As it is with so many things in life, honing words in person or in print are muscles I need to exercise regularly to keep fit. The way that I speak to Jason, our kiddos, or the customer service agent on the other end of the phone actually makes a difference.

I have the ability to speak life or death every time I open my mouth…every time I pound out letters on the keyboard.

I love the weight of this responsibility, and yet I find it one of my greatest challenges. There are moments every day when I have to work harder than I’d like to admit to speak life-giving words. And there have been so many times when I know my words weren’t life-giving at all. Human nature, I realize, but I’m working hard to shift this reality to something better–something that could honor God and be found worthy of His affirmation.

This is why #gracefulDecember comes as no surprise to me now, for such a time as this.

There just isn’t room in this broken and hardened world for me to take liberties with my words.

I know we live in a time and culture defined by individuals pursuing freedom of self expression and the right to “be” whoever and whatever they want to be. I know that the popular thing to do is to preach tolerance and self-discovery and carte blanche on everything, everywhere. And I disagree.

If I expect that I might have an impact or influence on my children or the world, I am also going to be sure to set my words and actions on something foundational, moral, Biblical, and perhaps, unpopular. I did some deep digging and self-exploring for a handful of years when I was younger, and  where I ended up in that pursuit was unhappy, unfulfilled, mad at the world and confused. I thought maybe my own way was a better way, so I turned my back on Truth for a while to find it.

Thank goodness words and story win my heart every time, because the story at the end of that path would have been a dark and dreary one, and the story God was moving me to return to is full of light.

Pursuing the story of Light in a darkened world is not a small or easy choice, but a redemptive one. This is why I’ll keep loving words and trying to love others through them, too.

In the midst of a busy holiday season, there are pressures on everyone that don’t exist at other times of the year. There are pressures we don’t see when we’re brushing past others in the grocery store after work or in the hallway at school drop-off.

Some people are coasting on the sheer joy of the holidays, but I’ve not met too many of those. Most of us are doing our best to be joyful, to be “Christmassy,” to live in a spirit of giving and charity and hope–all while juggling things beneath the surface or behind the scenes that we don’t share in the check out line or out loud at a holiday party.

As we wander through this season of Advent, moving ever-closer to Christmas and the hopeful light it casts on any of us waiting to receive it, let’s not forget that this time of year brings so many other things to light, too. Loneliness. Loss. Heartache. Financial burdens. Challenging family dynamics. Time constraints. Deep, hard-to-face emotion.

Our words have power–perhaps more in this vulnerable holiday season than at any other time of year. Let the words that we have for the world and for one another be filled with grace in these precious days. We must hold them thoughtfully and offer them up with the hope that, if only for just one person, they might speak light and life in this graceful December.

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Ps. 19.14

celebrating this, my 500th post to you, and the opportunity you’ve afforded me to share the words on my heart, here in this space, for so long. may they always speak in a way that honors, uplifts, encourages, and gives life!

molly madonna

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…you have to change your world first. (part 2)

I just absolutely love Sunday afternoons. I didn’t used to–not before we discovered a cadence to the space that takes shape after church and lunch, right in the midst of quiet times and naps. The house gets still, and I feel little guilt about taking time to rest. That’s what this time of the week is for…to pause, absorb, process, draw inward, be.

I used to be a doer. All of the time.

This didn’t change much about the trajectory of my days, save the fact that there was always something in front of me as tangible evidence that I could produce. I had something to show for my time. I could keep up quite beautifully in a world of movers and shakers. I thought this was progress. And I thought my work determined my worth.

There has been a shift in me in this regard, and it’s taken it’s time to evolve. In part, becoming a parent has caused me to discover value in intangible progress: dirty dishes in the sink and toys everywhere, but kiddos whose hearts are forming daily and babies who are growing physically and spiritually at the same time. Sharing life with little ones kind of forces you into letting go of all of your to-dos on a regular basis. In a good way.

More than raising a family, though, the agent that’s caused the most change in me is the Holy Spirit–the presence of Christ in my life and the ability to ask for wisdom and discernment about all things, so long as I’m willing to invite the idea of a higher power and a mighty God into my life. If you’re reading from a different faith perspective, I hope I don’t lose you here, but that you’re open to me sharing my heart just as I would welcome dialogue about what’s going on in yours.

It’s taken a long time for me to realize that I’m not nearly as effective at anything as I am when I am inviting the Holy Spirit into my days. When I’m diligent about this, my production looks far less like checked off lists and far more like a willingness to bend to whims and changes, and an acknowledgment that my life is not my own, but borrowed time.

When I operate with the understanding that I have a responsibility to steward my time and thoughts and intentions well, not only do I feel the difference in my heart, but I see the fruit of this choice in my life. My relationships flow more naturally and carefully. My children snuggle closer and draw nearer in the soft spaces of the day that didn’t used to exist. When I sit down to write, or I head to the kitchen to make dinner…when I drive Henry to school or I talk with Jason about the meatier things going on in our lives and the world, I just have more peace. And I feel like God is willing to use me differently than when I’m overly concerned with the physical output of my day.

Enter Allume, and the ways that four days in South Carolina realigned my priorities and emphasized the work that God has been doing in my heart as of late. I love when this happens–it’s just so beautiful how things work together!

“If you want to change the world, you have to change your world first.” Remember this thought from last week’s conference? I shared a bit about this on Monday. While there’s so much more than a few blog posts worth of information and inspiration to unfold, it’s all coming in bits and pieces that I hope will trickle into my words here for some time to come.

Where do I begin to change my own world, so that I can change the world? For me, that place is in my commitment to intentional times of quiet, prayer and rest, which is why Sunday afternoons are a significant and worthy part of my life these days. Everything within me is richer when I rest, listen and pray.

For me, the listening part is the hardest, and also the most fruitful.

I started to draft a book proposal before heading to Allume. This was my first go, and a very challenging but rewarding process. I hadn’t planned to take this step even a few months ago, but sometimes things come at us and surprise us in a really beautiful way. In my case, a book proposal was the sweet and soul-refining exercise I needed to head into the conference with completely open hands and a wildly open mind. I didn’t know what God was doing in any part of the process.

Every time I sat down to the keys, I prayed first, but I spent more time just being quiet. And the more I did it–the more I surrendered my own thoughts and wants for the space to listen for God’s, my heart was refined. I stayed up, energized, so many nights in a row, not knowing where the road was taking me, but enthralled with the possibility of finding out.

Overlapping this time, I felt prompted to reach out and ask for prayer and support of a dear community of women around me, and goodness, did they show up! Day after day and prayer after prayer, these beautiful souls covered me and engaged with me, trusting that God could do something good…and he did.

He did. And he is, and I know he’ll continue to, so long as I keep giving my time and words and heart over to be refined and shaped. Under my own power, what I can produce in this lifetime pales greatly to what God can do when I invite him to show up. I am amazed at this process.

To be honest, I’ve been a little gun-shy about sharing it all here. Not because it doesn’t excite me, but because I know that talking about God and the Holy Spirit and both moving in my life and heart might seem a bit too etherial. This is true, in part because I can’t do any of it justice with my own thoughts or words.

What I can say is this: my Sunday afternoons and places of rest produce far more good and fruit in my life than any of my own human striving ever could. And whatever God has for my life and for me to do in this world matters way more to me than risking it all by not sharing it, by not prioritizing it, by not making it obvious to my kiddos or the people around me out of fear.

If I want to change the world, I have to change my world first.

So what matters to me? What do I spend my time on? My money on? My thoughts on? What fruit exists in my friendships, my home, my family, my daily life out in the world? Am I thinking in earthly terms, caring so much about the physical things that I forget to give time to what actually matters most?

I’m asking myself all of these questions and taking time for introspection because it matters. Because I really do want to change the world. Because I really do believe that God has something mighty to do, and that he is inviting me to share in a little part of it.

What more could I want or ask for in this life?

I want more of God, and I’m not afraid to say it. I want more of honoring him and pleasing him and serving him, and it starts with Sunday afternoons. I pray that they bleed into the fabric of my whole week…into the very marrow of my being. I pray that the more I’m able to change my own world, the more the world around me will change for good. And I pray that however God wants to use me, I’ll be open to it and hear it clearly.

He makes beautiful things out of the dust. He makes beautiful things out of us. What might he want to make out of me, or you, that could be far more beautiful that we would otherwise dare to imagine without him?!

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love from this quiet space on a sunday afternoon,

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well hello, 2015.

I’m not much one for surprises, really, but I do like change. So I like that the new year comes, as expected, every 365 (or 366) days, and I also love that it brings about new beginnings and fresh starts and the sense for everyone that we’re on the cusp of possibility. Sitting around a dinner table for eight with a beautifully radiant group of women a few weeks back, I shared what I most looked forward to in 2015–the fact that we (our little family) didn’t really know what good was in store, and the fact that I’m committed to diving into book writing this year (whoa). It felt great to put myself out there to friends new and old, to actually SAY I’d be writing a book, and to think about the year to come in a glinty, sort of romanticized kind of way. 2015 was attractive to me at the dinner table that night, and it still is (and maybe more so). But the very next morning, my husband Jason got hit by a truck and lived to tell about it, and that phone call and these past few weeks have ushered in 2015 a bit differently than I’d imagined.

In the midst of J’s crazy (and miraculous) accident and recovery, we’ve had moments of immense gratitude, a magnificent array of emotions, a new and different kind of juggling with our house/days/kiddos/life, the holidays(!), lessons in grace and humility, and a fresh experience with the depth of love between two people in covenantal marriage. I am thankful for nearly all of these things, despite the fact that many have been harder than we could have imagined. I will hope to unpack more of the accident and our experience somewhere down the road, but for now (and hopefully to quell concern), J is home, walking on his own two feet, and improving daily. If you saw him out and about, you wouldn’t know his body faced a truck head on two weeks ago, but he is certainly still healing. It will be something, to look back together in a year, or ten years, and to see what has come of one split second moment on an icy December morning. For now we are just so grateful–that he is here, that God has more for J to do on this earth, that our littles still have their daddy, that I’m not trying to forage a path into the new year without him.

Today I was able to sneak away to a nearby coffee shop during nap time, and to soak in God’s word and spend time in prayer and reflection over the year ahead. I’ve been aching to define a word for 2015 as I’ve done previously in 2011, 2012 and 2014, and I’m confident I’ve landed on the perfect fit for these next twelve months: intention.

Intention: In Latin, intentio, defined as ‘stretching or purpose’. Derived from the Latin intendere, which, translated involves a host of definitions that sync beautifully with what I feel God has placed on my heart:

…to have a course of action as one’s purpose or objective…design for a particular purpose or end…to have in mind as something to be done or brought about…to direct the mind on…directed with strained or eager attention…concentrated…

As I prayed this afternoon, digging into one scripture verse I’d heard over and over since asking God to take charge of my 2015, I landed firmly on “intention” as the guide and filter for my steps in the coming year. I have such peace, settling on a focal point that I’m trusting God will honor in the days ahead.

Eph 4.1, 15-16: Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God…15 we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

These words will be my lamplight in 2015, in the midst of the good and the bad, the expected and unexpected, the scary and the crazy-beautiful. We forage a path with God or without God, but with Him, He gives us grace for the journey. He generously offers us boldness and courage in the smallness of the daily, in the magnitude of loss and love and life change, in the heart-stopping phone call on a random Thursday morning, in the book whose unwritten pages have a purpose yet unseen.

cheers to a year of living with intention in every way possible. and love.

mm

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ground work.

Planted. Rooted. Grounded. These words keep pushing up through brown, ruddy earth in the deep, deep parts of me. God is ever faithful to join us in tilling plots of land He’s offered up.

Three weeks ago today, I could not push rawness down. I could not see past packing and last feedings with our littlest and arrangements around the house to make things easier while I’d be gone. I waded through fears (irrational and founded), folded clothing into piles, checked off lists. I’d been out of the practice of doing, for anything outside of family and children and home, for a long, long time.

All of this–the worry and the adrenaline and the vulnerability of things was messy, but crazy-encouraging. Whenever God is up to something big, I feel it. I sense it in the opposition and the emotion, the irrational moments and the over-thinking and the way I’m suddenly a battle ground for good. When Aslan is on the move, everything in the air changes. Just as in this season, with the November sky beckoning winter and the last cascading leaves turned to gold, the whole earth waits and so do I. God was going to make a move, and soon. I just had to get on the plane.

I love what happens next, because it’s so gigantic and beautiful that I can’t possibly contain it in a blog post, although I’ll try. My dear friend and I arrived in South Carolina for four days of breathing God in and breathing Him out at Allume–a conference and experience He’d been edging into our lives graciously for months. We sat under the teaching of wise, wise women and men, gleaning from their obedience and desire to bring forth light in the world through Truth. We met beautiful soul after beautiful soul–all women with the same longing in their hearts to know God and make Him known through communication and the written word. We worshipped all day long, gained inspiration, got to know each other far more deeply, and opened ourselves up to what God would have for both of us–not just in that weekend but in the days to come.

Three weeks later, it’s the first time I’ve written about it because I’ve been processing so much good and wanting not to miss one bit of what God is doing within. Because I want to share it well with you. Because I believe the things that God is doing are Kingdom things. Big things. Life changing, community changing, heart changing things.

I was feeling a little washed up before all of this. I’d not done a very good job of giving God my first fruits for a long time. I’d not been a very good steward in so many areas, catching myself up on just a few I thought were most important…at the expense of much. Despite my efforts to be open, welcoming, invitational, honest and real, my interactions have lacked a dimension I long for–one I think we all do.

I’m not getting down on myself for missing a boat or wasting time, although I could. What I am doing is putting a stake in the ground as God promised He’d show me when 2014 began. In the days and weeks ahead, I’ll be unpacking Allume and the nuggets of wisdom I gained that feel so important to share with you. I hope you’ll be along for the journey, and patient with me while I lean into God and listen. I think the changes to come are worth the process.

love to you, my faithful friends. God has big plans for us…so big we can hardly imagine!

mm