I want to push you, swiftly and hard.
Not in the way that bruises knees and pride but in the way a mama
bird nudges her lovies out of the nest. She knows they're capable of
doing so much more, that they only need a little encouragement. Mama
knows they'll soon find out she wasn't being mean after all, that she
just wanted them to experience Great Things, Wide Open Spaces…and what they were designed to do.
It slays me to know I'm created in the image of God; I can barely think on it. I don't think it's even possible to comprehend fully all it means.
If we're called to be imitators of Christ, to look like the One
whose image we bear, what does that mean? What are the first qualities
that come to your mind? To love lavishly and without
condition? To forgive freely even when you've been wronged? To serve
sacrificially and to consider others' preferences above your own?
“If I have a hope, it’s that God sat
over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the
story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to
say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.”
~ Don Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, pp. 59
There's another attribute of God I'd like us to consider together, the place I'd like to swift-kick you into action.
Your potential to c r e a t e beauty….
{Please click through to finish reading at (in)courage and find out why in THE world I'm so eager to kick you AND how you can win $25!}
I so enjoyed this post, Robin, that I wanted to come over to your blog to tell you! It’s beautiful and so true- we NEED to be kicked out and encouraged instead of coddled. Thank you so much!
Mandie…thank you, sincerely. I know not everyone takes time to click through to say "hello" to authors at collaborative sites, so I'm grateful you did. Plus, golly, you've been so kind to encourage ME. I reallyREALLY appreciate it! 🙂 xo
robin- blogging has already been a creative outlet for my need to express myself…but I wouldn’t call myself creative or artistic by any means. so i took your challenge this month and look forward with fear an trepidation to next month’s! It is good to stretch my creative muscle–once i find it. :0) Thanks!
You reminded me you've gotta crawl before you can walk before you can run. In other words, NOW I remember when blogging was a stretch–putting my words out there for "someone" to see (and criticize!). I had to laugh at your "fear and trepidation" remark about next month's challenge because intuitively, you KNOW I started EASY. hehe, I'll move into this slowly…and I can tell already this is funner than I imagined! 🙂