As You Are

"How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved" -Sigmund Freud

What would you do differently if you knew you were loved? If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was someone who knew you, loved you, as you were, what would you do differently? What if this love wasn’t the passive, watered down love that said it knew you and loved you but deep down wished you would change, wasn’t the love that had ulterior motives, or thought you lacked? What if this love was passionate, actively for you, fiercely fighting, knew you to your very core where the bits of darkness we try to hide live and the bright spots of light we are kind of scared of live, saw you, knew you, and still said, “I am here”?

Each and every one of us has a deep need to be loved. But when we say “loved” we aren’t talking about feelings of affection or care for someone else’s well-being. We feel lots of affection and care for a ton of people. Sometimes when we say “love” what we are really saying is that we care what happens to the other person. We don’t want them to be hurt and we want them to have a better life than they do currently. But when we say that we want to be loved, we are talking about an entirely different emotion.

We want to feel like we are known, accepted, worth fighting for, that we belong. We want to know that there is nothing we could do, say, think, or feel that would change those things. We want to be able to show our whole, true, authentic selves and receive others’ whole, true, authentic selves.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”- Tim Keller

How do we find this kind of love? Some of it is being willing to be authentic and vulnerable, being willing to show parts of our hearts to people we are close to. We find this kind of love by first being this love to others; to truly accept, fight for, and know the people around us. To not give platitudes or empty well wishes but to truly see and know the people we encounter—our family members, our friends, our spouses.

To really love someone, to see them and know them and then be so excited about what you see and what you have come to know, breaks away fear, shame, brokenness, and grief. It repairs relationships, creates new ones, and allows each person to become who they were created to be.

If you were loved like this—truly loved—what would you do differently? If everyone around you was loved like this, how would that change the world? And then if everyone encounter the source of true, deep, abiding, self-sacrificing, fight-for-you love, how would that change the very foundation of humanity?

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.—1 John 4:18

Deeper than the Ocean

When was the last time you felt truly emotionally, mentally, and spiritually filled? Was it today? Last week? Last month? Last year? Never? Human beings have a deep need for satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness. When we start looking for fulfillment, we begin with things that are tangible and that fill basic needs: food, water, shelter. We move on from there to things like people, relationships, connectedness, physical touch, emotional intimacy, vulnerability, and purpose.

All of those things are wonderful, good, and necessary. Human beings were created to need all of them. Without them, we feel a deep longing inside of us. Yet, even with all of them, there still seems to be something missing.

And we were designed to feel like that! We are finite beings with an infinite amount of need. We were designed to want an endless amount of love, belonging, and value. Unfortunately, it is like we are leaky buckets. Other people and things and careers can pour into that bucket, but never to the top and never to overflowing. Even if everyone in your life spent their entire lives dedicated to trying to fill you up, it still wouldn’t be enough. So if we were made to have this deep, infinite amount of need and want for fulfillment, where do we get it?

Thankfully, we can get some of it from other people, the only problem is that every person is pouring into you from a leaky bucket and asking you to pour back in to them. And that is awesome! That is how we build relationships: I pour in to you and you pour in to me. But since that alone isn’t enough, what do we do?

We would need something that is limitless, something greater than our own need. Our leaky buckets need an ocean to stay filled. Something that is so deep, so wide that none can measure. We need something divine, all-encompassing, constant. We were designed to be filled with something infinite and the only one who has an infinite amount of love and grace and peace is God. We need God.

The greatest part about God is that He sees us and says, “Great, you have a leaky bucket? I have an ocean. How much do you want?” We can have as many buckets as we want. It’s never going to run out. And He wants you to access it, to be filling yourself. He made the ocean for you, it was all for you. When we have access to this love, we start to be filled in ways that we didn’t think we could. We start to feel fuller, more rested, filled with love, joy, and peace. So that when our buckets are empty and life is hard, we get to combat it with something that is more vast and immeasurable than anything we can think of. We get to access a love that is deeper than the ocean.

The Things We Carry

Every one of us carries something with us: brokenness, bitterness, shame, secrets, scars. They are scary to share and burdensome to hold for too long. We can feel them weighing on us, feeling them just sitting like anchors in our stomach. We keep them there because we genuinely don’t know where else to put them. So where do we put them?

We don’t feel like we can give them to someone else— sometimes because we don’t want to burden them with our own brokenness and, other times, simply because we fear their judgment. For whatever reason, we end up holding things inside of us that we weren’t created to hold on to for very long.

Brene Brown says that shame needs three things to survive: secrecy, silence, and judgment. This means that to kill shame, three things need to happen: honesty, communication, and acceptance. But how do we do this? This is vulnerability to the max. It is a lot and it is terrifying. The first step is to find safe spaces. There are three places you can go for safe spaces: yourself, others, and God.

The first space is yourself. There are things that we are carrying that we have not admitted to ourselves that we are carrying. There is shame and secrets and scars that we have yet to verbalize or write down. We know they are there, we can feel them but we hope that if we ignore them, they will go away. Unfortunately, they don’t. They stick around. This is so very difficult because deep down, we don’t believe that what we are carrying is worthy of acceptance, and therefore, neither are we. Before finding someone else to share this with, before releasing this burden completely, we have to be able to admit it to ourselves, see it in ourselves, and love ourselves nonetheless.

Since loving ourselves no matter what darkness, shame, and scars we have is almost impossible, we need another person to come in and love the parts of us that we cannot. This is where the Creator of the Universe steps in. He can see into the very depths of our souls, sees things that we cannot even see, hears every thought that rattles around in our brains, knows every emotion that has gone unexpressed. He is not surprised by the things we hide. He already knows. And then He begins to communicate truth to us. He stands next to us and tells us what is real: we are valuable, beloved, worthy. When we realize that there is a God who sees all, knows all, and then still loves us, we can start loving the parts of us that are a little messy and broken.

Sometimes we feel like God accepts us like people sometimes accept us: mostly but not all the way. Thankfully, this isn’t the case. You are accepted, loved, and wanted completely. There is not a part of you that God does not see, does not want, and does not understand. He is completely for you.

The last safe place is other people. Now, not everyone is a safe space. We should share our burdens and scars only with people who have proven to be safe, trustworthy people. These people should make us feel loved, welcomed, accepted, and worthy. Any person who makes you feel small, dirty, judged, or less-than does not deserve to hear your story. Safe spaces are ones where someone can come completely as themselves, as broken or as whole as they are, and what they receive in response in love. Where the response to vulnerability is honor, kindness, and acceptance.

We can be the ones who create those safe spaces too, by listening well, loving well, and being vulnerable ourselves. When we create safe spaces for other people, we find that people start making safe spaces for us as well. When we are vulnerable, messy, and broken, we free other people to be that way too.

When we release the things that we are carrying, we feel like we can breath. We feel light, alive, and loved. We create deeper relationships with those we are vulnerable with, we learn how to love ourselves a little bit more, we start to have courage. We find ourselves becoming fully ourselves, embracing life, living with joy, and walking with freedom.

Broken and Redeemed

What happens when something breaks? When our favorite cup is chipped or piece of our favorite toy is lost or the fine china has been scratched? The thing about brokenness is that it completely alters the thing that was broken. Shattered plates, even when meticulously put back together again, are still filled with cracks and chips; broken bones heal differently than they were before so much so that even years later x-ray machines can see what was cracked. Even small chips in coffee cups alter the whole coffee cup. When things are shattered, broken, chipped, or scratched, that thing is forever changed.

We are like that too. When we are broken, beaten down, wounded, and left with scars, we are no longer the same people we were before. Tiny fractions of what we were are permanently missing. We can feel the fissures of that break like we can feel the repaired cracks on a glued together plate. There is a sadness and grief that comes with knowing that a great deal of pain and suffering changed us so radically that we are no longer the same. Even when we begin to heal and pick up the pieces again, we end up having to rediscover ourselves. Who is this person who has cracks and scars where there used to be none?

There is an ancient form of Japanese pottery repair called kintsugi. In this process, the artist takes pottery that was broken and fixes it with a special lacquer that is dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. It “treats breakage and repair as part of the history of the object, rather than something to disguise.”

Through this process, the broken pottery has been more than just mended—it has been redeemed and made new. This is what God does to our brokenness. He picks up our shattered pieces and glues us lovingly, gently, and sometimes slowly back together—restoring us with His love, His grace, His peace. We are not just repaired so that we are slightly less broken then before, trying to hide our scars and our rough edges— we are made into dazzling pieces of art.

Your past is not something that God is ashamed of. He is not angry at your brokenness, your chipped coffee cups, or your shattered plates. He wants to redeem you. He wants to turn you into something beautiful and new. Something other than what you were before—not less than before but a person whose scars and brokenness become encased in beauty, whose cracks become a part of a beautiful design that celebrates that all things can be redeemed.

Beyond the Grave

What did the weight of sin and death feel like? Was it like feeling all the shame, rage, bitterness, envy, lust, and hatred of all humanity on His shoulders all at once? Was it like carrying all the greatest moments of pain that humanity had ever felt? Was it like holding all of the decay and rottenness of perversion, fear, and death inside the pit of His stomach?

We will never know what it felt like to take on all sin and death, to carry it, and defeat it once and for all. We can barely hold our own sins, our own pains, shames, fears, and hatreds. Sometimes, we can barely stomach the overwhelming brokenness and perverseness of our current world let alone the cruelty and pain of the generations before and after us. Can we even imagine what it would have felt like to carry all of that at once? To hold onto it on purpose so that something pure, lovely, and beautiful could be created?

What did Jesus see beyond the grave? Beyond the pain of the cross, beyond the crushing weight of sin? What was worth all of that? What could possibly be worth the nightmare that was dying, holding all of humanities dirt and brokenness, disconnected from the Father for the first time? What was worth it?

Perhaps, it was you. Perhaps the joy that was beyond the grave was you. Perhaps as He held all of your sin and my sin and the sin of every person that has ever lived and will ever live, He saw you. Perhaps, deep in His heart, untouched by the things He carried, was a love so deep, so passionate, so pure that all the weight was worth it. Every single second of torture was worth it. Every minute in hell, every painful breath, every scar, ever drop of sacred blood was worth it.

Because beyond it all, there was you. You, who He had waited thousands of years for and would wait for as long as it would take. You, who He had loved since before the beginning of time, before the first breath entered man’s lungs, before the Spirit hovered over the deep.

So today, on this Good Friday, we remember the pain, the suffering, and the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. We thank Him that He thought we were worth it. We praise Him for the audacious, brilliant, and painful plan to take on death and sin so that we could be together with Him always and forever. We are grateful that He knew and understood all the pain that He would have to take on and still thought we were worth it. That He looked beyond the grave and saw you and rejoiced.

Healing Hurts

"to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations."

-- Isaiah 61: 3-4

As joyful and beautiful and wonderful as life is sometimes, life is also hard. We end up with bumps, bruises, and injuries. To move forward from that pain we have to go through a healing process—to get to the joy, the beauty, the splendor. But the process of healing is painful.

We expect that healing will feel good. We expect that we will finally get relief from the pain, that we will be as good as new, and that we will be instantly fixed. We think of the healing process—especially emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—like we are going to a nice day spa, with calming music in the background, people waiting on us hand and foot, feeling relaxed and like we’re at peace with the world.

Healing hurts. Sometimes we have wounds that are festering, that are deep inside of us. The only way to heal those wounds is to cut them open, clean them out, and stitch them back up—which is incredibly painful. When it comes to physical injuries, we have to heal them, right? We have a broken leg or an infected cut or anything like that, it is obvious. We have to get it fixed to function in our daily lives. So, we suck up how much it hurts and go through the healing process. Even physical therapy after injuries is hard, painful, and seems like it isn’t worth it anymore.

Emotional, mental, and spiritual pain are much harder to see yet they affect our lives just the same if not more so than physical injuries. Bitterness, anger, judgment, betrayal, trauma, and un-forgiveness rot inside of us. They end up seeping into all avenues of our lives, much like infections do. Yet, the process to excise these things from our hearts, minds, and souls is so very painful.

The process is worth it though. God, in His ever lovingkindness, sits with us in the pain. He is the ultimate Healer, the Great Redeemer. He takes our wounds, our pain, our strife, and He binds it up. He is near the brokenhearted. As we let Him heal our hearts, we find that we draw closer to Him, our hearts open up, and we find freedom that wasn’t there before. He turns our mourning into praise, a crown of beauty instead of ashes.

Keep in mind, the process is a lot of work on our parts. We still have to show up, process through the pain, work through it, and be willing to let things go. We don’t get to say a single prayer and find that all of our issues, hurts, and pains are miraculously gone (that does happen, but it’s rare). We have to fight for our own health and healing.

After the pain, after the healing, after the tears, and the “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” feeling, after all of that, we find what we have longed for this whole time: peace, love, joy. After we have our wounds exposed, cleaned out, and stitched back up, that chronic emotional pain is no longer there. We feel lighter, breath deeper, and find more peace and joy. We are stronger, steadier, and more confident. We become fuller versions of ourselves. We fought for our healing just like Jesus found, died, and rose again for our healing.

Step In

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.—Theodore Roosevelt
 
“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”—William Shakespeare
 
What do plays, movies, TV shows, and games have in common? There are the spectators and the players, the watchers and the doers, the ones who sit on the sidelines and the ones fighting.
 
Sometimes, in our own lives, we end up acting like spectators instead of players. This means that we watch our lives unfold before us, feeling out of control and completely not responsible for what happens during the game, the play, or the plot. This is the safest way to be. There is no risk, no chance of getting hurt, nothing to lose. 
 
At the same time, we end up wondering why the play, plot, or game isn’t going our way. Why aren’t the characters doing what we want? Why isn’t the team making the calls we told them to make? Why isn’t everything happening the way we have hoped and prayed it would?
 
Perhaps it is because we have accidentally been sitting on the sidelines, asking God to change the game, to change the outcome of the plot, to make some sort of massive impact. While we are asking, God extends His hand, inviting us to become active participants in His game, His plot, His story—to make an impact, to take a risk, to make a move on the things we have been praying about. 
 
God hears your deepest hearts cry, He hears the prayers for change and for something better. He hears you. He wants to give you the desires of your heart, but He also wants a relationship, a partnership. He wants to make the change together.
 
God wants to partner with humanity to do great things on this earth, things that ripple through eternity. Sometimes, we end up sitting on the sidelines begging God to do something. In His kindness, He reaches out a hand and asks us to participate—to step onto the field to gain something great. 
 
It is time to step onto the stage, to get off the bench, to walk boldly into your own story. It is time to fight, to show up, to get a little messy, and to risk something great for something greater. It is time to join the team, to partner with Christ, to fight for our own plots, our own plays, our own games. To become conquerors. 
 
Blessing,
The Witheos Team

Lost Moments

As human beings we tend to want life to make sense, for all the pieces to fit together, for there to be a purpose and a reason for everything that happens. When we read biographies or stories of people who have done wonderful things, everything seems to lead up to a defining moment that feels like they were put on this earth for-- a "for such a time as this" instance. We search for that moment, those moments, that show why we are here, what all the hurt and pain and weirdness of life was for.

We want the perfect plot, with no loose ends, no plot holes; everything leading to a beautiful conclusion. Instead, sometimes we are left with questions that we might have at the end of a disappointing movie: what was the point of some of the scenes? Where were the writers and directors going with that? Why was X, Y, or Z necessary?

In a movie or book or story of any kind, you have to trim the fat. You have to take out irrelevant details that don’t move the story along. We do this even when we tell the story of how our day went-- we leave out what was boring, mundane, or not relevant to the person who is listening.

The issue is that this leads us to feel that the moments in life that are boring and mundane, just plan terrible and heartbreaking, or are really confusing but don’t seem like they fit into our overall story are wasted moments. If pain, joy, monotony, or strangeness somehow doesn’t move our personal plots forward, what are they for?

There is beauty in the mess, in the loose ends and the things that seem pointless. We learn from them, we grow from them. Not everything that happens in our lives seems to fit into the story we are seeing unfold around us. Only one Being knows your whole story, from beginning to end, and that One is not you.

God redeems the brokenness, the pointless and wasted time, the mundane of life, the strangeness of growing up. He is the Master Storyteller. He uses all things for good. Just because you cannot see the point of different things in your life does not mean that they are not bringing your story to life, that they are pointless or wasted moments. We don’t always know why we encounter the pain that we do, we don’t always have the privilege of finding out why we had seasons of waiting or boredom, or why life feels like a random set of events that may or may not be leading somewhere.

God, in His every-loving kindness, knows where we are heading, knows the plans and dreams He has for our lives. It might not have been in His plan for you to experience the pain or heartache that you have. But He is such an amazing storyteller that He will weave His love, His purpose, His adventure into every moment of your life.

Our stories have been bought by the precious blood of Christ. Even when we feel like we have found ourselves outside of the story God has written for us, know that God is so great, so kind, so loving that He can rewrite our story every day, even every single second. Not only can He do this, He delights in redeeming. He delights in redeeming broken and lost moments.

“I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see”-- Amazing Grace

A Personal Definition

Who do you think you are? No, truly, who do you believe you are? What kind of person are you? Extroverted? Introverted? Smart? Funny? Kind? Who are you?

 
How we choose to define ourselves directly impacts how we operate within our world. If you believe that you are not the type of person who eats spinach then you will most likely never eat spinach. If you believe that you are a kind and considerate person, you will most likely act like that towards people. If you believe that you are un-loveable, unable to do many things, and overall a terrible person, that affects how you act. 
 
Most of the time, these definitions and narratives about who we are run in the backs of our minds. We aren’t consciously aware that we believe certain things about ourselves. But underlying everything you do is some sort of thought you have about yourself and the world around you. 
 
Thankfully, we can choose to change these narratives. Let say, for instance, you want to start running in the mornings. The first thing you end up saying to yourself is something along the lines of: “Man, I should really get up earlier and go for a run. But, wow, I do not want to do that.” What you are essentially saying is that “I am the type of person who would rather sleep in that go for a run,” or “I am the type of person who does not thinking running is worth getting up for” or anything along those lines. 
 
What is awesome is that we can change that narrative. For instance, we change the phrase to “I am the type of person that get’s up early so I can go for a run.” As simple as this sounds, it’s amazing how much this will change how you view something and therefore how you act.
 
This can be a powerful tool when we combine it with how God looks at us and how He defines us. We have been paid for by the precious blood of Christ. We are redeemed and made whole. We are no longer broken, dead, or downtrodden. We are alive and surrounded by the greatest love in the universe. 
 
This narrative we tell ourselves is infinitely important. It ends up dictating most of what we do and how we do it. It impacts how we spend our time, who we hang out with, and what kind of person we end up becoming. 
 
How have you been defining yourself? What type of person do you want to become? Brave, strong, kind, loving, patient, gentle, loyal? Great! Own it. Let it become a part of your personal narrative until it get’s woven into the very core of your being, until the truth of who God has called you to be becomes your very DNA. 
 
If you want to hear more of what God thinks about you, watch this clip from Graham Cooke!

Open Arms

How do we manage hardship, loss, brokenness? How do we withstand things that break us, shatter our hearts, leave us debilitated? What do we do when our world crumbles?

There are two responses to such injuries: we shrink or we expand.

When we shrink we cut ourselves off from everything that could cause harm. When we do this, we are guaranteeing that we are safe. We are ensuring that nothing bad will ever happen again. But in order to do that, we end up having to cut ourselves off from all the things that bring joy and beauty into our lives.

Though it seems counterintuitive, the things that bring love, joy, peace, etc. into our lives are also the things that could potentially hurt us.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”—C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Isolating yourself from everyone and everything is a somewhat logical decision if your main goal in life is to never get hurt. But if your goal is greater than simply avoiding pain until the day you die, if your goal is to conquer fears, love well, or even develop new skills, than isolation isn’t an option. You cannot grow in the comfort of your own bubble, you cannot love more without people, you cannot overcome challenges sitting on the sidelines.

The second option is to expand. When we expand, we are able to handle more brokenness, more loss, and more pain because we also have put more love, more joy, more peace into our lives as well. We might be broken and hurt but we find that we can hold more than we ever thought we could. We find that our hearts grow weary and heavy with each passing year, yet hearts also grow as we learn to love in new ways, as the world around us expands and blossoms.

Jesus held all sin, all hardship, all destruction in His arms on the cross. He wept and felt incredible pain. He thought it was worth it, that you were worth it, that the joy and love beyond the grave was worth it. When we choose to expand, to accept the pain along with the beauty, the brokenness along with the healing, the destruction along with the love, we grow. Our capacity for handling and holding what life throws at us expands alongside our capacity to feel and experience love. 

When we close our arms to the world, we close ourselves off to everything. When we open our arms wide, we open ourselves up to, yes, more pain but also more beauty, more love, more joy, more of everything.

A Love Never Wasted

“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.”—Barabara de Angelis

“Extravagant love is never wasted”—Bob Goff

“Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity” – C.S. Lewis

Love is something that we all crave and yet something we tend to be terrified to give. We are afraid to love people because they might not love us back, we are afraid to love hobbies because of what others might think, we are afraid to love ourselves because we don’t want to be narcissistic and selfish. What if we waste our love on someone or something and it doesn’t pan out? What if we use our love on something that turns out to be a waste of time?

The great thing is that love cannot be wasted. You won’t regret the amount of love you gave to something.

(Note, there is a difference between love and obsession. Obsession is about never having enough of that thing, of needing to own it, and possess it until it is the only thing you can think about. Love is about enjoyment, acceptance, being, and wanting for the sake of joy. Also, love is not about sacrificing your own well-being, health, or sanity for something or someone else. Love also includes loving yourself and taking care of yourself)

Love is infinite and it multiplies. As you love, that love grows and creates more love. You don’t have only a certain amount inside of you and once it’s gone, it’s gone. It is ongoing. It’s wonderful whether that love is given back or not. It’s one of the only things that blesses the person who receives and the person who gives it.

When we love something or someone, we get to tap into the eternal God who is love incarnate. As we learn to love extravagantly, we find that we connect to the heart of God in a new and different way, we begin to understand how God would send His only Son to die for us and how Jesus gladly went to the cross.

We begin to understand the beauty in sacrifice, vulnerability, and acceptance. True love is not predicated on being reciprocated, it is patience and kind, it isn’t dissatisfied or wants what others have, it doesn’t see itself as better than anyone else or lacking more than others, it is forgiving, “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Cor. 13:7).

Love is steady, constant, radical, terrifying, extravagant, and fulfilling; it calls us to something deeper, something greater.

Do not be afraid of love, for perfect love castes out fear. Love is always worth it, so when you can, choose love. When it’s hard, when it’s painful, when it causes you to be unbelievably vulnerable, choose love.

Tell a Good Story

What makes a good story? What keeps us turning the pages of a book or clicking the next episode of a TV show or going to movie theaters? 
 
One of the most compelling aspects of any story are the characters. If we cannot connect with the main hero in the story, we won’t continue the story. We don’t even have to connect with them on a deeply personal level, we just want to know they’re human.
 
We tend to care less about characters who have perfect lives, always make the perfect decisions, and never seem to try all that hard to accomplish their goals. What we want is to watch someone really try to accomplish something. We want to see the blood, sweat, and tears. We want there to be heartache and triumph! 
 
We also don’t connect with characters who never learn and never grow. They become so stagnant and unchanging that we become bored and frustrated watching them.

Though this is our innate preferences for stories, we seem to forget this when it comes to our own lives. We expect that everyone around us wants perfection from us. They want us to never have failed and to never fail again; to be perfect now and to never waiver from that, always being exactly as we were made to be.
 
We think that this will make people like us better, approve of us more, respect us more. We think it makes our own lives a better story. But, in reality, we become like every way-too-perfect character in books, movies, or TV shows: boring, un-relatable, and not compelling. We also want this no-hardship-or-failure life for ourselves. The amount of work and pain that goes in to truly being the hero of your own story sometimes seems like too much to bear. 
 
Yet, no matter how badly we wish our stories were great if we were only perfect all the time, our stories are actually made better through our quirks and differences, through our pain and our struggles, through our breaking and our growth. We are made better through becoming the heroes of our own stories, through risking failure for something greater.
 
What kind of story do you want? 


Blessing,
The Witheos Team

Rocks and Backpacks

When we hold onto things, it’s like putting rock after rock into a giant backpack that we lug around. We go about our lives, climbing metaphorical mountains, and we wonder why we are so tired, why just getting up in the morning is exhausting, why we feel like we can’t catch a break.

Granted, there are seasons in life that are difficult. They knock you down or force you to run at breakneck speed. You feel like you can barely get your feet under you. 

But sometimes, we have so many rocks in our backpacks that we can barely stand. Just like if you are physically exhausted, when your spiritually, emotionally, or mentally exhausted, you aren’t capable of doing as many things, you tend me be grumpier, and tend to resent those whose lives look perfect. 

The remarkable thing is that we have the power over ourselves. We can put rocks into a backpack and take them out. We can choose what’s important to carry on our shoulders right now and what is not. We get to decide how much of something we can handle. We get to decide how much we want to hold on to.

This is a beautiful realization that puts power back into our hands. We can choose to drop as many rocks as we want to. We can let go of anger, bitterness, and un-forgiveness. We can let go of worry, fear, and shame.

It’s not easy to do and sometimes we find that we take the anger rock out of our backpacks only to find that we have picked up 3 more along the way. Some rocks are too heavy for us to take out ourselves. We need some help: friends, family, therapists, Jesus. 

The best news is that these rocks that we are holding onto are not permanently attached to us. They can be removed. The burden that you are carrying today, you don’t have to carry that anymore. Those emotions and thoughts that plague you, you don’t need to keep those on your back. There is freedom and lightness available to you.

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is life”—Matthew 11:30
 
Here are some tips for letting go of emotions:

1.  Releasing breaths. Take a deep breath, hold it in for a second and let it go. Imagine that what you are holding onto is leaving your body as your exhale. Feel your whole body relax as you breathe in and out, releasing the tension in your body and in your mind.
2. Best case/worst case. If you are experiencing anxiety and/or worry about a situation or an event, imagine the very worst thing that could happen, the absolute worst. Now imagine the best thing that could happen, the perfect situation if you got to create it. Now take a moment to recognize that what is actually going to happen is most likely somewhere in the middle. 
3. Positive self-talk. You are strong, capable, and able to let this thing go. You have fought hard in life to be the best you can be and you are strong enough to take this rock out of your bag and set it down. You can conquer fears, defeat shame, rise victorious.
4. Forgiveness. God calls us to love our enemies and bless those who hurt us. Instead of the constant angry thoughts we have towards people we don’t like or who have wronged us (no matter how justified and accurate those thoughts are) they weigh us down. Start blessing these people. Saying it out loud works best. It can start simple with “I bless so-and-so. God, I ask that you would draw closer to them and that there life would be filled with blessings.” This is a terribly uncomfortable exercise. You might feel yourself cringe as you say words you genuinely don’t believe and don’t want. But as you continue to do this, you will find that you start to believe what you are saying. Slowly, the anger, hurt, and bitterness starts to melt away and you find that you are more free than you were before.

 
Lay your burdens at the feet of Jesus, for He cares for you.
 
Blessing,
The Witheos Team

The Art of Adventure

“Western culture has things a little backwards right now. We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we’re so comfortable we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. We get in a car, we get in an elevator, it all comes easy. What I’ve found is that I’m never more alive than when I’m pushing and I’m in pain, and I’m struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there’s a magic” —Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon runner and author of The Road to Sparta

“Comfort equals boredom”—Michael Hyatt, author of Best Year Ever, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, and Living Forward

“We experience the strongest positive emotional response when we make progress on our most difficult goals”—Timothy A. Pychyl, psychology professor

God has placed things on your heart that you want to do: write a book, climb a mountain, start your own business, etc. Chances are these things are risky and scary. They are going to take a lot of hard work and effort. These things tend to intrude on the patterns of our current life.

We all want to be comfortable. If we had the choice, we would all choose a life without pain, without strife, where everything we wanted to do was easy. We want to know what each next step entails and know we would succeed. Essentially, we want a life without any pain, fear, or discomfort.

But a life that is only comfortable, that doesn’t test you, doesn’t ask you to risk anything, to be brave, to be daring, or to grow in any way is actually a very boring life.

Deep in our hearts, what we want is not comfort but adventure!

We want to strive towards something meaningful, we want to fight for something we believe in, we want to struggle towards the highest mountain peak. We want to live lives of adventure, excitement, and wonder.

As this year begins, take some time to ask God what adventures He has for you and make this the year that you take a leap of faith, that you climb to new heights, create new and wonderful things. The year you listened to the call of your heart, the call of adventure. 

Happy New Year!

“And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” – Hebrews 12:1

“Live life in crescendo”—Stephen Covey

As the new year gets closer and closer, people find themselves reflecting on the past year and planning for the next. We tend to see this as a time to start fresh with a “new year, new me” outlook. We sit down, detail out these giant new plans that are going to revolutionize our lives!

Yet, year after year we find that all our great and giant plans fail more times than they succeed. Why?

When we start creating new plans or habits in our lives, we tend to create something that complicates our lives more, adds hours of work to our day, and perhaps leaves us exhausted. And the worst part is, it’s rarely fun.

These types of plans are just not sustainable. Unless you absolutely have to, you are not going to be able to continue a plan that is exhausting, boring, and time consuming. So what can you do instead?

New plans and new habits in your life will become ongoing if they are one of two things: either they are energizing to you or they are incredible simple. If they’re both, even better. Figure out what you want, then find the simplest, most fun way of doing that thing. It might feel small but even a small step forward is a step forward. Soon those small steps become long strides which becomes a light jog and then a full paced run.

We all want each year to be better than the year before, we want to have peace and joy, an abundance of love.

Our prayer for you is that you encounter God in a new way this year, that you experience love and acceptance in deeper measures, and that you find purpose and passion along the way.

Thank you all for being a part of our journey. We are truly grateful for everyone who has made Witheos possible. We look forward to more exciting things in our future!

The Day Love Was Born

In a few days we get to celebrate Love Incarnate coming to Earth. God made flesh, born to a young woman who was engaged to a carpenter. Born in a barn, with only the animals and His parents there to witness the most important birth on the earth. One of the most life altering, earth-shattering events that has ever happened was literally witnessed by two people and a bunch of sheep. How sweet and kind that God gave Mary and Joseph that moment, what a blessing to give to these two people—the only people to not only see, but experience, the birth of the Savior of the World.

As Jesus aged, He transcended being just the son of Mary and Joseph to become the leader of a revolution like no one had seen before. Mary and Joseph had to share their first born with the entire world. But those first moments, when Jesus breathes and cries and open his eyes, those moments were for them alone.

Maybe Jesus was born in a stable not only so that he came from humble beginnings, starting in the lowest of low places, but also to give Mary and Joseph this gift.

Love being born was life-altering, veil-tearing, and death-defeating. It shattered the earth to its core. It caused angels to rejoice, wise men to bring gifts, and shepherds to bow down. The effects of Jesus’ birth ripple on and on throughout history, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the current era until it has reached today, until it has reached you.

But before the revolution, before the final battle, before the walking on water and the water into wine, before the healing of the sick and the downtrodden, before all the miracles and parables and teachings, before all of this, there was Mary and Joseph, alone, holding Love in their arms. 

Finding Joy

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.” ― Rainbow Rowell, Attachments

To live a good life, it would make sense, to fill our lives with good things. To live a joyful life, fill your life with joyful things. To live a fun life, fill your life with fun things. God loves the little things that make you smile, that make your heart come alive, and just give you joy.

If we start adding good, fun, joyful things to our lives we will start to see that as the weeks and months and years pass, our “pile of good things” grows. It grows and grows till our life is bursting with good, fun, and joyful things. So that even when life is difficult and we feel like we are drowning, that there is still joy. That even when we don’t know what path to take or what step to take next, that there is still joy.

And God delights in delighting His children.

Try adding one good thing to your life this week, one thing that fills you with joy, happiness, and/or peace.

(NOTE: good things are things that are fun things that are also healthy and beneficial to you and/or the people around you. They are NOT things that are fun but potentially detrimental to you and/or the people around you) 

Rest as a Weapon

Many of us see resting as a passive thing in which nothing is getting done and therefore is a waste of time. Taking a break feels pointless and boring. We want to run full speed ahead and, as the phrase goes, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Yet, contrary to how it feels, resting is a weapon that helps us conquer obstacles and defeat enemies.

When we rest, we become filled with strength and peace. When we are filled with strength and peace, the Enemy can’t mess with us, we can fend off any attacks against us, and we can successfully accomplish the mission set before us. 

When we rest physically our bodies refresh and our muscles strengthen. Sleeping an appropriate amount of time can boost metabolism, increase creativity, help you stay alert and focused, and help your muscles to recover and strengthen. 

When we rest spirituality, there are similar benefits. Not resting can lead to stress, anxiety, anger, and depression, all of which can lead to other physical or mental health issues. When we do rest, we find peace, joy, and strength. We are focused and alert. We are more creative, more loving, more awake, and more present in the moment. And the enemies in our lives cannot harm us. Instead, they shake in their boots at how strong we are and at the power of our God.

Here are two simple ways to rest, find peace, and find strength:

Philipians 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

1. Give God all of your worries. “Cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares for you”—1 Peter 5:7 Whether you imagine giving them to Him, putting them in a box, or putting them on a shelf, give God the things that weigh on you. You do not need to be burdened by them. “For my yoke is easy and my burden is like” – Matthew 11:30

2. Practice gratitude. List 10 things that you are grateful for and thank God for those things.

Stop "Shoulding" on Yourself

Have you ever been trying to figure something out with a friend or even a stranger and they immediately tell you what you should be doing? In rare cases, they hit the nail on the head with a brilliant idea that you have never heard of before and you can feel your heart come alive. But in most cases, you can feel the burden of all the things you “should” be doing just get heavier.

Whether it is about what you should be doing with your resources in the present moment, what you should do in the future, or even how you should be as a Christian, we accidentally end up taking on tasks and goals that are not our own, do not make our hearts come alive, and are not beneficial to us.

The definition of “should” is that it is “used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions.” When we are making plans for our present and for our future, we don’t want to act out of someone else’s obligations, duties, or what they view as correct. We want to act out of the things that God has placed on our hearts, the things that God has called us to do, and to do them in the way that God has called us to do them.

God has so many beautiful and wonderful things in store for you. A plan that is so magnificent that He created it at the beginning of time. When we fill our lives with obligations and “shoulds” from other people or our culture, we don’t have time, energy, or resources to accomplish the very things that God has woven into our beings.

We don’t want to base our lives on “shoulds”, we want to base them on love. We don’t want to do something because we should be doing it but because we genuinely see the value in it and see God in it.

Partner with God to define what a good life is, partner with the people you love and respect to define what a good life is, and partner with your own heart to know what a good life is. And then, completely ignoring the “shoulds” from the peanut gallery, run towards it with abandon. 

Rise Up

Did you know that whenever you lift weights or work out, that tiny tears are formed in your muscles? When these muscles heal, they are stronger than they were before.

Did you know that people who practice martial arts will repeatedly kick tires or have someone hit their shins with a hammer? Doing this causes microfractures in the bones which then heal stronger than they were before.

We break to grow.

Pain breeds strength and hardship creates endurance. If we look at literature, the Bible, or people we know, we can see that those who have struggled the most and overcome those struggles are the strongest people we know. Are they just inherently stronger than other people? Were they born with natural strength? Maybe. It is more likely that they are, instead, Overcomers by choice. Conquerors. Fighters.

God did not give us a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). We were not created to be timid beings, unable and unwilling to defeat the giants in our paths. We weren’t made to live a life of nothingness, stagnant and bored. We were made to fight. We were created to heal stronger than we were before.

Be encouraged that every obstacle in your path, every hurt and every pain, every scraped knee and broken bone, every actual or metaphorical day in the gym, all of those make you stronger.

Warriors are created through blood, sweat, and tears. You have been called to fight the good fight, to run the race with endurance, to be powerful. You might get knocked down but you are strong, wonderful, awe-inspiring. You can overcome all things through Christ who strengthens you. You can either let pain and hardship defeat you or you can rise above it.