Five things to start your March

and three books I have preordered

One

I’ve preordered three books that release this month!¹

• Becoming the Pastor’s Wife by Beth Allison Barr

Barr, a historian and a pastor’s wife, unravels how the church moved from ordination for women to women becoming the pastor’s wife if they wanted to serve in ministry.

• It’s Time to Talk to Your Kids about Porn by Greta Eskridge

Because, well—gestures wildly at the world—I want to have the hard conversations first.

• Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Le Cunff’s newsletter and Instagram are some of my favorites. I’m excited to read this book that insists we can look at life as a series as tiny experiments instead of developing a robust ten-year-plan that we might hate in two years.

Two and Three

In these tumultuous, unprecedented times (ok, does that sound familiar?), reading the news is agonizing and it is easy to feel paralyzed. What can you do? Where is God? What does God think?

I am against what American is doing right now.² I have cut back on my news sources. I can barely stand to read what is happening in our nation. I will again suggest following Sharon McMahon. That’s 80% of my news intake currently. I cannot handle more. I cannot see 90 people talk about the same horrendous thing in their Instagram stories or Substack notes. I can read it once—most days anyway.

Then I move on to praying a psalm. Psalm 10 has been the most fitting for me as I watch evil appear to win and the helpless be demolished, as I see people put the name of Jesus on behavior that looks nothing like Jesus. Psalm 10 gives words to the agony of my heart. In last week’s zoom session, we walked through praying a psalm. If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll get that replay tomorrow.

Here’s a link to the text.

Limit news.
Pray Psalm 10.

Four

Despite the shocking headlines, it’s a joy to have gotten through February. March has arrived and with it later sunsets, slightly warmer temperatures, and March Madness. Basketball is a delight for me and it is the month of basketball.³ Daylight Savings time is going to start back and we are camping later in the month. I want to turn into a wood nymph and frolic in the forests as they start to turn green again. Except for when I’m watching basketball, of course.

Five

God’s not going to push his way in. God is at work in the world, in our hearts, but God is not going to bulldoze our agency and just make us into someone when we aren’t participating. Instead, God invites. God knocks. God says “here’s the part you can play.” A few weeks ago, I realized that I felt sluggish.⁴ Like the rational adult I am, I looked around to see if I needed to change my entire life to wake back up. Then I realized that I needed to do the simple things that I know open my eyes to the world.

If you are feeling stuck and looking for ways to wake up—

Maybe you already know what to do and you just aren’t doing it?

Maybe those things you know to do seem small and unnecessary. Maybe you aren’t sure that they will do anything at all.

But maybe you need to do them, as acts of faith, as tiny steps of obedience, as worship to the One who made you.

For me, that was realizing I hadn’t finished a book in three weeks.⁵ I wasn’t moving my body on purpose. I had not touched Hebrew even though I really want to learn Hebrew well.

These are things that I know matter in my life and I wasn’t doing them.

So, instead of changing my whole life, I started doing those small things. My life is not transformed. But I do feel awake. I am listening to God’s voice. I am ready to move in step with the Spirit as God directs.

What’s the thing you know you need to do but you aren’t?

Name it.

Commit to it.

Come back in a month and talk to me about it.

1. Because preordering is a great way to support authors!

2. At least what is headlining. I’m sure there are many wonderful things happening in our country but they are overshadowed by the choices of our current administration.

3. Watch this wild ending to the TN/Bama game last Saturday. We are TN fans for life in our house.

4. This feels like a normal February emotion honestly.

5. I was reading, just sporadically and randomly. I set out books for March to help with this. Reading is something that both grounds me and makes me feel alive.