To the ones who are wondering…

IMG_6397PINIT

To the lost and lonely…

To the wrecked and weary…

To the anxious and aching…

To the burdened and broken hearted…

To the hopeless and heartsick…

To the confused and conflicted…

To the desperate and discouraged…

To the messed up and misunderstood…

IMG_6393PINIT

Christmas is for you. 

J O Y  is for you.

H O P E  is for you.

L O V E  is for you.

L I G H T  is for you.

L I F E  is for you.

C H R I S T  is for you.

So, come.

Come into Christmas just as you are.

Come into Christmas with all of your brave and beautiful heart.

Linsey signature 100pix

IMG_6401PINIT

A new favorite candle: “Blue Spruce and Spearmint” from Sydney Hale Co.

 

Back to TopEMAILPOSTFacebookPOSTSubscribe
  • Krista - I love, love, love this message. My heart is rejoicing at the truth of what CHRISTmas truly means. Your words resonate deeply with me. Thank you for sharing His light on your blog! Wishing you & yours a very blessed & Merry CHRISTmas!ReplyCancel

  • Julie - Beautiful Linsey! I know it to my core. Yet, which of us don’t need to hear it again and again. Thank you, merry Christmas and happy new year! 🙂 Xo, ~julieReplyCancel

IMG_5724PINIT

Last night, I sat on my yoga mat for the first time since breaking my ankle five months ago. I took my place in a cozy, crowded room full of women who appeared peaceful and purposeful. I was longing to draw nearer to Jesus in my heart as Christmas draws nearer on the calendar.

The air was warm, the lights were dim, eyes were closed and familiar Christmas music was playing softly in the background. As I sat there trying to pay attention to my body, the music and the instructor’s beginning prompts, hot tears rolled down my cheeks in a quiet stream. What was happening? My ankle still aches, but not enough to produce tears. My daughter was behind me, and a few friends were on the other side of the room, so I wasn’t alone in a crowd of strangers. I even had the right pants this time. And a tank top instead of an old t-shirt. Sure my toes weren’t painted and my body hasn’t moved like this in five months, but on the outside, I looked like I should fit right in. So why the tears? {Over the last few years, I’ve learned to honor and even welcome tears. They carry valuable messages from hidden places of your heart and story.}

That’s just it: I’ve always looked like I should fit right in, yet never feel like I do. I’ve always felt like a misfit. Snippets of my life flashed through my mind at breakneck speed, story after story confirming the misfit theme. I paused at this one: looking like a sorority girl on the outside, yet never feeling like one on the inside. Wearing my Theta t-shirts around the Vanderbilt campus, while feeling like I didn’t belong to that group or any other. Standing on the edge of every party, empty handed and not a drinker, but told by a pledge sister that I needed to at least hold a red plastic cup…to look like I fit in. Watching my pledge class perform a crass skit that I couldn’t bear to participate in because it crushed my heart to have that joke played on me the year before…wondering why I was the only one who saw how hurtful it was.

Out of my brokenness, the beauty is that I’ve come to find out I wasn’t the only sorority misfit. The truth is, I wish I could go back with the heart I have now and get to know each of those sorority sisters for who they really were on the inside, not who they appeared to be on the outside. Turns out, the pledge sister who I’ve come to love the most in recent years is the one I felt like was my total opposite in college. I was a good girl, strong in my faith, always in the library; she was a wild child, atheist and appeared to be the life of the party. And yet this is what we’ve discovered today: we were both hurting and broken, covering and avoiding our pain with opposite outward behaviors. We were both misfits. And how ironic that two misfits joined the same sought-after sorority, furthering the illusion that we fit right in when we never felt like we did.

A misfit feels like she never quite fits. She may show up and look the part, but deep inside, she never feels like she belongs. She thinks she’s the only one who feels this way, because everyone else seems to take their place and roll with the flow of this fast-paced world. They seem to know how to move fast, talk fast, think fast, eat fast and pack more into a single day than a misfit would want to pack into an entire week. The misfit knows that she can’t move at that pace and still manage to connect with her own heart, God or others on an intimate level. But sometimes she wishes she could to see if it would numb the ache of not fitting in. Sadly, the misfit feels safest when she’s all alone. Because the crowds and groups remind her too intensely of what she already knows is true: that she doesn’t quite fit, and maybe, she’s the only one.

And then suddenly, I know it’s not just me. I know I’m not the only one. How do I know? Because I heard God’s gentle, knowing whisper to my heart last night on that yoga mat. He saw the silent tears I tried hide, and He leaned in close: I know what it feels like to be a misfit. 

And that’s when it hits me: Christmas may be the biggest misfit moment of all. Born a child, and yet a king. The High King of Heaven chose to lay His glory down and enter into a world that didn’t know a thing about the world from which He came. He came as a fully dependent, limited, needy baby, born to a teenage girl who didn’t know a thing about motherhood, much less mothering the Son of God. And then there’s the crazy way He came…the way He made His entry. The King of Kings was born in a manger…a nice way of saying He left His throne for a stinky mess of urine-soaked hay and animal poop. {Farm life taught me that reality!}

Christmas is for the misfits. The way He came at Christmas reminds us that He is one of us. A misfit like us. And then, as if God’s knowing wasn’t enough for my heart, He whispered one more thing: you’re just like me. 

And who wouldn’t want to be more like Him? Isn’t that the point for a Christ follower, a God believer, one made in His image? To become who we were made to be…to bear the heart and presence of God in this world? To be conformed to His likeness more and more as we move through this messy life as misfits? That’s what embracing our mess and our “misfittedness” is all about: becoming more like Him, bearing more of His heart, revealing more of His light and bringing more of His beauty to this broken world.

As I left the yoga class and stepped outside into the clear, cold winter night, I imagined it might be a night like the one when Christ was born. I looked to the sky in search of the brightest star and wondered if being a misfit wasn’t such a bad thing to be after all.

And that’s when God’s final whisper came to my heart: you’re just right in the way you don’t fit.

And so are you, Bravehearted Beauties. You are just right. It takes a brave heart to live in this world as a misfit…to believe you are just right in a world that makes you feel all kinds of wrong. But take heart, my friends! Christmas is for the misfits!

Merry Christmas from one misfit to another,

Linsey signature 100pix

 

 

P.S. A huge reason we feel like misfits in this world is because we were made for more. And more is coming. I love the way C.S. Lewis said it: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Back to TopEMAILPOSTFacebookPOSTSubscribe
  • Belinda - Just love! Merry joyful Christmas to your sweet family!ReplyCancel

  • Inga - Thanks Linsey! Just this week I shed a few tears about being a ‘misfit’ as you call it: I labeled it social anxiety. Just have to live with it…I guess we belong to that 8% that rather withdraws and isolates than mingles with the crowd (no clue how to do that without saying/doing the wrong thing) never looking forward to a social event end looking back always glad I survived another one!

    Merry Christmas to you and yours!ReplyCancel

  • Jennifer - Thank you so much for sharing this Linsey–I too have had this feeling and your words really speak to my heart. The quote from CS Lewis is perfect! Have a blessed Christmas!ReplyCancel

  • Suzanne - Such a beautiful and profound post! I can so identify with the feeling of being a misfit and your words really spoke to my heart! May your family have a blessed Christmas and New Year!!!ReplyCancel

  • Marie Adamo - God bless you and Merry Christmas !ReplyCancel

Hello Bravehearted Beauties. I felt a welling up of words in my heart this morning and thought I’d sit down and see what spills over onto this screen. But it’s been so long since I’ve written, and there’s so much I want to say, and so much I don’t know how to say, that I just feel overwhelmed all of a sudden. My brain feels all foggy. Just like the farm on so many early mornings last month.

IMG_6114PINIT

So why even try to write? Why battle the fog? Why not wait for my head to clear? Because I’ve tried that before. I tried that for all of November. It didn’t work. And that’s okay. I feel no shame, guilt or obligation to write. I just know writing can be a way forward for me. Sometimes you just have to move forward by faith, not by feeling, and trust there’s light on the other side of the fog.

Let’s talk about fog for a moment. How do you feel about it? When you see a thick blanket of moisture obscuring the view, what’s your first thought? Is it beautiful or burdensome? Cozy or confining? Mysterious or disorienting? Do you want it to lift or linger? What are you tempted to believe in the fog? Do you feel hopeful or despondent?

I’ve been all over the map on fog. When I’m at home in my introverted little bubble, the fog can feel cozy…an excuse to stay home. But if I’m on my dad’s boat off the coast of Maine, the fog feels eerie.

IMG_4033PINIT

As I look over the side of the boat, I feel the fear rising up. I feel it even now as I write these words years later. I know there should be a line out there…a line that separates the sea from the sky. A line that keeps you from feeling disoriented and seasick. I find myself wanting to raise that thick curtain of fog so I can see that line and fix my eyes on it. In a moment like this, I realize how dependent I am on seeing things to feel secure.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” {Hebrews 11:1}

Oh, God. Really? In this fog where I can’t see a thing, can’t even find the horizon line, you want me to risk believing that things are secure? Please let me see something! I just need to see one little thing.

Just as I feel like I want to jump ship, a vague shape of something familiar comes into view. And that’s when it hits me: everything is still there in its place, every bit as much as it ever was. The fog doesn’t change the placement of things, the coming of things, the movement of things, the goodness of things. It just obscures my view.

IMG_4032PINIT

The fog doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining. Somewhere on the other side of this veiled view, light is breaking through…maybe just a little bit at first.

IMG_4054PINIT

Soon you’ll see that horizon line again under crisp, clear blue skies. Soon you’ll see things in all of their glory and goodness. And just in case you’ve forgotten: that beautiful place of light and life isn’t just meant for a lucky few who know how to navigate their way through the fog. It’s meant for you. 

IMG_3935PINIT

I still prefer the sunshine to the fog. I still prefer seeing glory to believing it’s coming. But I’m thankful for what the fog has revealed about the default of my heart. The truth is, when I can’t see a thing, faith isn’t my default. Fear is. But that doesn’t mean I have to stay with fear. I can choose faith. And faith doesn’t mean I’ll see the horizon line; it means I have a hand to hold when I can’t see a thing.

 “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” {Hebrews 6:19}

My hope in the fog is God himself. He’s a God who draws near. Christmas reminds us that He is God with us. The crazy way He came still astounds me, but I know this: He still comes today. He comes right into the middle of the fog, takes our hand when we can’t see His face and can’t see a thing and says, “Do not fear. I am with you.” {God says this more times in the Bible than I can reference.}

And like my dad with his high-tech GPS navigation system, my God knows how to move through the fog. No matter how murky the past, how messy the present or how muddled the future appears, God sees what we cannot see. And it is good.

One more photo for you, taken here on the farm during a brief moment when the sun broke through the storm clouds during a very gray November.

IMG_6122PINIT

The sun didn’t stay long. And it’s still not shining today. But on the other side of this gray, I know there is light. By faith, I believe what I cannot see.

With a brave heart,

Linsey signature 100pix

 

 

P.S. For some, the entire holiday season feels like a fog. My heart goes out to you. I get it. But know this: the greatest light this world has ever seen has come for you. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” {Isaiah 9:2} And this light is coming again. All you have to do is come as you are, It’s not up to you to bring your own light into your darkness. God will do that. I’m believing that with you and for you. You are so brave, beautiful ones.

Back to TopEMAILPOSTFacebookPOSTSubscribe
  • Gracia @ Gracious Offering - Linsey, what a beautiful, hope filled post. I too struggle with faith when things are unseen and so often pray like the father of the possessed son, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” The Advent season just spills with hope…as we wait expectantly for the skies to clear and His light to shine in the darkness. Thank you for your words…keep writing. Have a wonder filled Christmas with your family! Warmly, GraciaReplyCancel

  • Sandy - Oh Linsey, what a beautiful post! Well said young lady! Well said!ReplyCancel

  • Sherry - I have no words to express my emotion right now. Your words are exactly what I need to hear as I buried my 35 year old son this week. My faith is the only thing that keeps me breathing and I’m in that fog. I pray God blesses you forever. You have spoken so perfectly and I thank youReplyCancel

    • Bravehearted Beauty - Oh, Sherry. I am so deeply, deeply sorry. My heart aches for you. That my words would be what you needed to hear today is evidence of God Himself with you and speaking to you. He sees you. I pray that you will feel His nearness in ways that go beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. Asking God to send you an extra measure of comfort and love today.ReplyCancel

IMG_6263PINIT

“Good morning!

You’re beautiful with God’s beauty,

Beautiful inside and out!

God be with you.”

L U K E  1 : 2 8

What a greeting! I couldn’t help but think of you when I read these words in The Message this morning.

This is the way the angel Gabriel greets a young, unmarried, little-known, virgin Mary. He’s about to rock her world {and ours} with the revelation that she will give birth to a son…the Son of the Most High God. But first, God greets her with what is most true about her: she is beautiful with His beauty.

Bravehearted Beauties, this is the way God greets YOU. You’re beautiful with God’s beauty. Beautiful inside and out. Not because you feel it, not because you try, not because the mirror, a man or your mother says so. You’re beautiful because that’s what God says is true about you. Beauty is what He sees when He looks at you. It’s who you are. It’s how He made you.

What if we let this greeting that kicked off the whole Christmas story be the greeting we hear as we rise each morning this month? What if we dare to believe these words are really true of us?

Enjoy the truth, Bravehearted Beauties!

Linsey signature 100pix

Back to TopEMAILPOSTFacebookPOSTSubscribe
  • Dianne - So good to hear from you! Hugs!ReplyCancel

  • Sherry - It made my day to hear from you again! Thank you for sharing this beautiful message. I am going to add it to our kitchen chalkboard so we can wake up to it day and begin to feel the truth of God’s message. Blessings to you and your family!ReplyCancel

  • Lexi - Your greeting resonated with me this early morning. So positive and full of love! So happy to hear from our Bravehearted Beauty again!ReplyCancel

Hello Bravehearted Beauties! Wow. Three weeks since I’ve written anything here. Aside from a few posts on Facebook, it seems that I fell off a cliff. Truth be told, I kinda did. Not the kind you might imagine. Not depression or broken bones. Nothing life threatening, though sometimes hard things feel like they’re going to kill you. The truth is, life hurts on this side of heaven. But today, I’m very much revived! God broke through in a miraculous way, and I’m honestly a little giddy with wonder and thanksgiving.

IMG_5939PINIT

But that’s a story for another time. Or maybe just a story for the pages of my personal journal. We’ll see. On this last day of October, I’m here to share the beauty that has rescued and revived my heart on the drive home this week. For just a brief time each year, the road home transforms into a golden tunnel. Our golden tunnel was gray and wet most of the week, but when the sun popped out, I grabbed my camera and came back to capture it.

IMG_5932PINIT

The Road Home is a Golden Tunnel. When I posted one of these photos with that caption, a friend said it sounded like a book title. My mind immediately turned to things I’ve not yet seen but sometimes dare to imagine: the road that leads to our heart’s true home. I imagine it’s far more glorious than the golden tunnel I’ve traveled through this week. For this world, even at its peak of glory, is only a veiled hint of what our souls were made to enjoy.

IMG_5904PINIT

There’s always a backstory to beauty hunting. And the backstory isn’t always pretty. In fact, it’s usually not. But it always ends in beauty. It’s out of the broken places that I have learned to wield my sword and fight for life most fiercely. The broken places drive me to look for the beauty, and God never fails to reveal it. Seek and you shall find!

IMG_5909PINIT

You might remember that I didn’t learn to hunt for beauty on back country roads in a picturesque small town. God taught my eyes to see His glory in the middle of a concrete jungle! So no matter where you are today, if your heart needs a rescue, hunt for some beauty. I promise it’s there…even in the most hidden, broken or unexpected places!

IMG_5933PINIT

IMG_5942PINIT

Every day and every place has a beauty all its own.

Let’s go find it!

Linsey signature 100pix

 

Back to TopEMAILPOSTFacebookPOSTSubscribe
  • Gail Sciortino - Hi,
    New to ur blog. I’d love to be able to live in the south. Calif isn’t good. I was wondering, are the summers really HUMID in Franklin? We have dry heat here…
    Nice blog 🙂
    Gail S.ReplyCancel