Holy Week is arguably my favorite week of the year, lodged deep in the heart of my favorite season of the year. It’s rife with emotion, reflection, tradition, and celebration – all things I treasure – and it’s centered around my Savior and His love, worth, and triumph.
It is a gift.
He is a gift.
Today I wanted to share some thoughts (shared last year in my newsletter) on a portion of Scripture that never – and I mean never – interested me until recently.
I don’t know why I always skimmed over the account of Jesus joining the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, but, apart from my childhood fascination with Jesus suddenly disappearing from the table after breaking bread, it had never stuck out to me before.
But finally one phrase in that account hit home…
“Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have you not known the things…concerning Jesus of Nazareth…and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.”
luke 24:18-21
I can almost hear the devastation and confusion, even the hurt in Cleopas’ voice as he shares his shattered hopes with the man he has yet to learn is Jesus.
And yet I almost smile in anticipation of the revelation that is to come for him. Just wait, Cleopas! He has redeemed Israel! Just in a far better, far grander way than you could have dreamed.
Just wait.
I think this story has finally stuck out to me because I find Cleopas’ disappointment and disillusionment to be so relatable. Over and over again I’ve dreamed up ways God could redeem the broken storylines that hang aching in my life, and over and over again I turn confused and hurt-filled eyes to Jesus and whisper,
“But I was hoping You were going to redeem this.”
I can picture His patient smile. Just wait, Laurel! I am redeeming this! Just in a far better, far grander way than you could have dreamed.
Just wait.
I’ll be honest; my flesh is so very sick of waiting.
I, with the disciples who ran confused after Christ’s crucifixion, want answers and healing right here, right now, and I know I’m not the only one.
But.
God has all the time in the world.
He is in no hurry.
He is good. He is righteous. He sees you, and He sees me. His heart breaks at this brokenness, too.
And He is a Redeemer, never late, ever unafraid of the clock.
So even when our hearts want so badly to scream for wholeness on our terms and on our timelines, we can lay our fears and even our anger to rest on the heart that bled out for us.
I scribbled this on a sticky note the other day and stuck it on my fridge as a reminder:
I have learned not to fear the silence of God.
God’s silence stretched on for 400 years, and then He changed the world forever.
He is not silent in confusion, indecision, or fear.
He is silent in anticipation.
Oh, what a wondrous God we get to love and serve! May He be the strength of our hearts today and our portion forever.
I haven’t shared a poem on the blog in…a very long time. Let’s change that today, shall we?I’ve come to find that I love referencing seasons and months in my poetry, and this poem reflects that. I hope it can be an encouragement to you.🫶🏼
Release day for my upcoming poetry collection is less than two and a half months away,and I’m looking for a group of people who…
love finding beauty in the tiniest corners of life
want to see my poetry make its way a little farther in the world
can commit to helping me spread the word online about my upcoming poetry release
could go for a good bookish freebie or two (but hey, isn’t that all of us??)
If that describes you, you may be interested in joining my street team! I’ve linked the application below, and there you can find some more details about what being a street team member would entail.
That’s it for today, friends! Regardless of whether or not you’re able to commit to joining the street team, I am so grateful for your readership and your support. Thank you for being here!🫶🏼
A few weeks ago I was FaceTiming a friend, very messily eating my noodle soup and rambling about how much I missed blogs and blogging.
Blogs were such a joy for my teenage self, both as a creative outlet and as a means by which I could be encouraged and inspired by other women I would never have been able to “know” otherwise. I was by no means a perfect teenager (HA!), but the intentionality and convictions I did possess were fueled and shaped in part by the blogs I read. I’m so grateful for them.
In my corner of the writing world, however, blogging isn’t a huge deal anymore. So much of it now is all about building a thriving IG community, creating digital resources, and putting out consistent newsletters.
I miss the days of rambling blog posts, of not trying to sum up a complicated thought process in a way that will capture a short attention span, of posts that read more like a letter from a friend than a best-foot-forward scramble for likes and engagement.
(Don’t get me wrong…social media has so many perks, but lately I’ve been seeing more of its detrimental effects, both on my attention span, my time management, and even the way I want to spend my time. I don’t like it at all, and I’m trying to figure out what my use of it should look like going forward.
Anyway.)
I so miss blogging…so what if I tried doing it again? The way I used to, but, you know, hopefully better? Much better??
“You should do it,”my friend said, without batting an eye. “If you’ve thought about it this much, you should just do it.”
I knew she was right, but then the second-guessing came in.
But I’m a mess!
I’m not qualified.
I don’t know what I’m doing…I really don’t know what I’m doing.
But Ikind of feel like I should start blogging again.
I got to chat with a friend on a hike the other day, and in talking about something completely unrelated to my hesitations about blogging, she shared about part of the exchange between Moses and God at the burning bush…
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? So He [God] said, “I will certainly be with you.”
exodus 3:11-12a
Moses’ qualifications for the way in which God wanted him to walk did not lie within himself, but in God’s presence and calling.
I will forever, on this side of eternity, be a mess.
I will forever be unqualified in some way.
I will forever be still learning the ropes of my current season.
But I feel convicted to start blogging again…to write through and about what I’m navigating in this gloriously wild chapter of life. That includes but is not limited to:
Living singleness well, undistracted and wholly for Jesus
Stewarding my time well
Cooking for one (or for a mob; there is rarely an in-between)
Knowing and loving more deeply the heart of my precious Savior
Being a better friend
Reading across a few different genres…okay, a lot
Doing my work well – whether as an employee or as a writer
Carpe-ing the diem
Hear me clearly: I really don’t know what I’m doing, and I think I may be more aware of that than ever. I am young and inexperienced in so many ways, but if I can bring a bit of encouragement, hope, a feeling of being understood, or even just a good laugh to someone in this corner of the internet, I will be happy.
I’ll be writing primarily with an audience of women my own age or younger in mind, but I hope that my posts can be a blessing in some way to any woman who stumbles across this blog.
So.✨
Let me know in the comments if there’s a certain topic (or two or three) that I listed above that most interests you, and I just may let the feedback determine the next post!
Today’s post is a repost from a couple of years ago that echoes what’s been on my mind lately. I hope you enjoy! ❤
What will I leave behind?
It’s a question that’s tugged at my attention for years. As I read the stories of eternal heroes with short lives and stared at the caskets of people I held dear, the question haunted my mind.
so small and
insignificant
one breath will
blow this life away, and
what
will be the proof that
it was here?
mangled lives
and broken hearts?
friendships
that were torn apart by
hands that now lie still and cold?
oh, no!
forbid it, Lord!
A month or so ago a friend and I were wandering through a beautiful cemetery that sprawls over several acres of hills. (You know you have loyal friends when they smilingly join you on strange expeditions.) There were so many old gravestones – some tipped and sinking deep into the soil. Several were ridiculously tall and ornate, but they were so old that wind and water and time had wiped the sentimental words right off of the marker. Their attempts to leave an echo of their greatness were in vain.
Of course I hope that I leave behind me a trail of words that can point others to Christ and to truth decades after I’m gone, but paper burns. Ink fades. Files become corrupted.
If words are all I leave, I’ve failed.
For even if my words could surpass the masterpieces of Dickens and Shakespeare,
If I sang with the voice of an angel,
If the world remembers my name until the world stops turning,
Is it my prayer to be made comfortable, or to be made complete?
The topic of joy and trials linked together has been on my mind lately, and since I haven’t shared one of these “on my heart” kind of posts in a while (it’s been mostly poetry, life updates, and trying to convince you to buy my books! XD), I thought I’d try to gather my ramblings into a blog post.
Can trials seriously be an opportunity to rejoice?
In spite of having James 1:2-4 memorized for years, I’ve been reading/recalling it wrong this whole time. In case you aren’t familiar with it, here it is…
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James 1:2-4
Honestly, whenever I read or recited this verse, most of the last part was drowned out by the first part: My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials… And to be honest, I pictured this joy as a “grin and bear it” sort of thing. A grimacing endurance of hard times because we know that good things are ahead for us as Christians (see Hebrews 12:1-2).
But in listening to this message and recent sermons and small group discussions, it finally hit me that joy isn’t just something that we’re supposed to cling to as we weather the storms of life. It’s something that can be found because of the storm.
“…count it all joy…knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.”
Sure, the trial itself isn’t any fun. At all. (Unless you love pain.) But we can rejoice in the fact that the trial will refine us, revealing to us our weaknesses and showing God’s strength through us, and ultimately conforming us more purely to His image.
“But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
I mean, if that’s not encouraging…
And this we also pray, that you may be made complete.
2 Corinthians 13:9b
Then this verse popped up in my Bible time the other morning, and it made me ask myself how often I pray to be made more mature, more complete, and then come crying to God when the very trials that will give me maturity slip (and sometimes pour!) into my life.
Quite honestly, it’s often.
Very often.
But I want to stop living that way.
I want to get in the habit of embracing the struggles. Of choosing to see the end result instead of simply wailing about the current mess, while somehow managing to delight in the lovely moments of now instead of being lost in an eternal chasing of the future.
So there it is…a sort of brain dump of what I’ve been processing lately. It’s by no means an exhaustive essay, but I hope it gets some wheels turning in your head and pushes you deeper into Scripture and prayer like its doing for me.
Whether we like it or not, comparison seems to be ingrained into our very souls…or at least, the very soul of our culture. I never thought I had a significant problem with comparison because I truly love my life and don’t obsess over what people think of me…
But the whispers still come…
I’m not doing what she’s doing. Does that mean I’m not doing enough? She’s writing so many more words than I am…and is doing it better than I am? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I seem to keep up?
There are so many people in the Bible that fascinate me, but Simon Peter takes the cake. My soul has a good laugh (or sometimes a good cry) whenever I read about him because he’s just. so. relatable. I’m glad I’m not the only Jesus-adoring soul who talks too soon, too much, and too thoughtlessly. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has had to work through my own unfaithfulness to realize Christ’s faithfulness is unfathomable.
And I’m glad I’m not the only disciple Jesus had to call out of the comparison game.
In the last chapter of John’s account of the gospel, Jesus has just told Peter, “Follow me.” And what does Peter do?
What most of us do, honestly.
He turns around and looks at someone else.
John. The beloved disciple. The favorite. The one who didn’t deny his Lord three times after vowing to die for Him. The one whose seeming perfection likely made Peter feel more ashamed than he already was.
“But what about him, Jesus?”
I can just see Jesus turning to Peter, looking him straight in the eyes, and replying,
“What is that to you? You follow Me.”
Jesus doesn’t ask us to look to those around us for condemnation or validation. He simply calls, simply and clearly, for us to walk after Him.
What is it to me if my journey looks vastly different than the lives of those around me?
I’m to follow Him, and that is all that matters.
Let’s jump out of the comparison game, friends. Let’s take a hard look at ourselves in the light of God’s word and leave the clamor of the world behind. There’s only one Voice whose approval truly counts.
In last Monday’s post, I said I would be sharing a recap of the writing retreat I attended last month, but, alas, the week was full of other adventures (such as writing a prologue for my new WIP [!!!] and having my guitar accidentally stolen by a band) and I didn’t cut out enough time to write the post.
So here is a post that I shared in January. I still get goosebumps reading it. If the weight of guilt and desperation is weighing heavy on you, this piece is especially for you. It’s my prayer that it gives you hope and a glimpse of God’s redeeming light. ❤
Laurel Luehmann 