Small Things: Jesus' Unlikely Game Plan

Margot Starbuck

Here’s something convenient: if I’ve got to sell everything I own in order to influence a world in need, or if I must move my family to Washington DC to fervently lobby U.S. lawmakers, or if I have to relocate to Calcutta to really impact the world, then…I’m sort of off the hook. Right? (Did I mention my kids are in awesome schools right now?)

If I costume Mother Theresa or Harriet Tubman or Lynn Hybels as world-influencing superheros, the kind who are clearly out of my league, then I’m not really obliged to follow in their gargantuan footsteps.

Don’t even get me started on SuperJesus.

I think Mother Theresa must have known how I’d try to worm out of my clear call to impact the world by loving my neighbor when she said, “You cannot do great things, only small things with great love.” Small things put me back on the hook.

Small things happen when my eyes are opened to the most unlikely folks in my circle of influence. It’s a small thing to enter into a relationship with the woman on my block who’s caring for an elderly parent with Alzheimers. It’s a small thing to show up at the basketball game of a kid on my block without family in the bleachers. It’s a very small thing to give a neighbor a ride to work when her car’s broken down. If Mother Theresa is right, which I fear she is, Jesus is calling me into small things.

Small things happen when I use the particular gifts that God has given me, to impact a world in need. For instance, my father-in-law is one of these disaster heroes. If he’s not doing demo in New Orleans you’ll find him building shelters in Haiti or installing wheelchair ramps in rocky Appalachia. And though it’s hard to explain, to him and others, why I keep going to El Salvador to look and listen, it makes so much more kingdom sense for me, as a communicator, to influence others through writing and speaking than to attempt to cobble together anything meant to resemble a dwelling.

This said, small things also happen when I do dare to leave my comfort zone. They happen when I try out my D+ Spanish in the neighborhood. They happen when I strike up a conversation with the guy down the block who frightens me a little bit. Small things happen when I say yes to caring for a desperate friend’s child, even though I’ve made it pretty clear to everyone I know that I’m not a kid person. Jesus is always calling me out of the comfort zone I enjoy so much.

Basically, small things happen when I grudgingly, crabbily say, “Yes” to Jesus’ invitation to love the world He loves. Word on the street is that this unlikely way is actually the very pattern of kingdom engagement: Shane Claiborne confirms, “God is preparing each of us for something really really small... and it's small things done with great love that move the world.”

This week: think small.

Margot Starbuck is the author of the recently released Small Things With Great Love: Adventures In Loving Your Neighbor. Connect with Margot on facebook or at www.MargotStarbuck.com.

What's New?

Elisa Morgan, Publisher, FullFill

You know what question really bugs me? “What’s new?” I hate being asked it at parties, all open-ended and accompanied by arched eyebrows of high expectations of my response. Then comes the pause of silence as I roll options around in my cheeks, tasting which answer could possibly be presented to my questioner. Out loud. In public. For others to hear.

“What’s new?”

Well there’s the reality that my husband has accepted new responsibilities in his job that require him to fly even more and longer away from our home. He’s tired but he’s also happy.

Then there’s the recent whisper from my daughter that she’s slowly recovering from losing her precious soon-to-be-born-and-adored baby last year. His tiny feet hold his father’s wedding ring in replica on the mouse pad she presented me at Christmas.

And there’s my adult son’s return home to health and hope. At last.

I could share these responses, but in many cases they feel too vulnerable. Or maybe it’s that they’re “not mine.”

“What’s new?” I swallow and roll my tongue again. Ah, my own bites there at last. I chew.

A three-quarter completed brand-spankin’ new version of the NIV Mom’s Devotional Bible, due out in the spring of 2013. (I giggle every time I tell someone I’m writing The Bible.)

Three book proposals in various stages of creation. All rawly personal and still in the formative discernment process where I wrestle with God, questioning, “Are these ideas for me or for others?”

Tuesday nights in Bible study on the book of Philippians with my neighbors. Grandson Marcus sleepovers with Yia Yia and BeePees. Monthly Mondays with my twenty-plus year old Covenant Group. A couple of trips for fun and a slew of speaking engagements.

A calendar full of commitments I made last year and now must keep this year.

But none of this is really new. And what part of it do I want to share with another?

“What’s new?” I think again and recognize just why the question annoys me so. The pressure to constantly create, to be for others what I’m not really, the discomfort with silence so that I leap to expression too soon. Nothing here is new. Instead, I find hard pits I’m learning to reject. Performance. Pressure. Pretence.

I spit them out one by one.

Left with a mouthful of my own tongue and teeth, I taste again.

What’s new? The year: 2012. The month: January. The day: Tuesday, the second. The hour. The minute. The second. I’ve never been here before, in this exact moment.

“What’s new?”

Me.

And another year of discovering how God has made me to be here and now in this moment. To know him and be known by him. To love him and be loved by him. Now. New.

My turn to annoy you: ”What’s new?” Ready to find out? Happy New Year...!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Christmas Moments

By Suanne Camfield

Although today is December 26, one day after Christmas has officially ended, if your family is anything like mine, Christmas is anything but over. In fact, as you read this I’ll be traveling eight hours by car, giddy with anticipation for another family gathering filled with eager children, mounds of presents and cookies galore.

And if your mailbox is anything like mine, it’s still welcoming Christmas cards, stragglers written by people who care just as much but couldn’t quite pull off all the addressing and licking and stamping before the post office officially closed its holiday doors.

I didn’t want 2011 to end without sending my own Christmas greetings to you, our beloved FullFill readers. My hope is that you will welcome this letter like the stragglers in your mailbox, from a friend who wants to wish you a Merry Christmas before THE DAY, but didn’t quite make the cutoff.

Every year I start my Christmas letter the same way – by telling the people I send it to that I wasn’t going to write one. I usually make the decision sometime in November, determined not to add one more thing to an already busy season, then exhort myself to stand firm: YOU.WILL.NOT.WAVER.

But, then –every year—something happens. A moment subtly and unexpectedly comes to life and wraps its tiny hands around my heart. And I find myself, once again, tapping away.

This year, I was clearing some Christmas cards out from last year’s card holder, making room for the new ones that had begun piling up on my kitchen counter when I came across a cute little card with a puppy wearing a Santa hat. Not remembering who sent it, I opened the card and smiled when I saw my grandma’s familiar signature. She passed away in January at 93. It was the last card I’d ever receive from her.

Card in hand, I paused for a moment, thinking how her penmanship reminded me of my mom’s, and then tucked the card back in with the others. It didn’t technically belong there, but throwing it away didn’t seem possible. It was, like so many moments we experience in any given year, one that presented a choice: simply toss it aside in a rush to get to the next thing, or let it linger and fill me and move me in a way that compels me to stop. And listen. And reflect.

That’s when I knew I’d be writing yet another Christmas letter.

In many ways, my year year could be categorized as an accumulation of blurred and rushed moments. It was the first full year my family experienced “mom” back at work (after eight years as a stay-at-home mom) while my husband continued to expand his role at the church where he works, while my two elementary age kids were just busy being kids. The four of us worked hard to incorporate things like rest and boundaries, but we couldn’t seem to dodge the season of life we found ourselves in – we’re just plain busy.

Which is why I love the Christmas moments. The ones that make us pause in the midst of the hard and breathless and chaotic and remember that life is full of moments that are rich and good and overflowing with love and laughter and grace. Moments worth pausing for—card in hand—and sopping up and soaking in. Because of that, we’re reminded to grab as many as we can, choosing to value relationships more than schedules, time more than money, neighbors more than ourselves and a Jesus worth pursuing more than any of the rest.

It’s been a privilege to travel through 2011 with you. Thank you for letting us invade your inboxes every Monday morning. My prayer for each of you as we close this year and look forward to the next is that you’ll intentionally pause—even as you live out your influence—long enough to grab a hold of your own moments and tuck them away for another year to come.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year on behalf of your friends at FullFill!

Suanne Camfield is the Blog Manager for FullFill and a freelance writer. She works at InterVarsity Press and is a founding member of the Redbud Writer’s Guild.

Heroic Authenticity

By Rachel Hansen

I love a good superhero story, a twofold tale. On one side, the main character is an invincible hero, a superhuman with great strength and special power. On the other, a man or woman behind the costume who looks much more like you and I.

Often I am more intrigued by the ordinary, the humble subplot of the humanity within the hero than the extraordinary strength and power that come with the title.

I have tried playing superwoman. Every room in my home holds books that teach me how to be like her. You would think by now I’d be a master chef like Rachael Ray, a home expert like Martha Stewart or perhaps would have uncovered the many secrets to living Real Simple. Instead publications sit on my shelves unfinished—as am I. Conversations with other women center on achieving more while finding balance. In the pursuit of doing it all, I grow weary (and so I also own books on beating fatigue!). Through it all, I continually push forward in search of the right answers.

But I have also experienced enjoyment in being me—no more, no less. I set striving aside and appreciate all I have done and learned thus far. I celebrate where I am in life while humbly recognizing I still have far to go. I embrace the reality that I am not invincible and I turn to God regularly. In the process, I’ve learned to take off the mask and genuinely share myself with others; it is satisfying, inspiring and real.

In a world searching for superpower, authenticity – being genuine, open and available to others – builds influence.

My influence shifted greatly when I chose to lead with authenticity. No fancy façade. I stripped off the polished exterior of my superwoman costume to expose the soft, unrefined parts inside. I offered gritty honesty about my personal life and work. Unfiltered, I shared about the battles I lost, won and what I learned.

Every season God brings women into my path that are hungry for authenticity in a world dominated by superficiality. Getting to know the woman I am behind closed doors, they see there is no better option (for me or them) than choosing to live by faith. In Christ, we are more than conquerors because of God’s love, grace and empowerment.

While many of us aspire to do great things, I have found my greatest influence comes from being myself – an ordinary woman serving an extraordinary God. As women of faith and as leaders, often the best thing we can offer others is authenticity. Sometimes being ourselves is the only thing required because if we only show what is possible through man, we fall short in our influence. But if we share openly about what God has done through our lives, we have supernatural power to change the world. Maybe in the end, it will make us all heroines.

Rachel Hansen has been active in a variety of ministries, currently championing the prayer ministry with her husband at New Life Community Church in Chicago’s Lincoln Park and serving on the Women of the Word Midwest Steering Committee. She is a freelance writer who plans to complete her first book for women of faith in 2012.

Give Grief

By Caryn Rivadeneira

I’ve been talking a lot about grief lately. My grief, that is. And about lamenting, about all the times I’ve cried out to God about the things that have broken my heart, the things I have lost, the things I cannot change. I talk about my grief when I do radio interviews, when I speak to women’s groups, when I’m leading discussions.

But the other day I noticed something troubling: while I can write about my grief, while I can stand in front hundreds or be “on the air” telling thousands about the trials of my life, I have a hard time expressing it to just one person. Or two. Or a few friends around a table.

I noticed this when a friend called. She asked how I was doing. Although I was not doing well at that time, I gave her my standard chirpy, “Great. Thanks. How about you?” And shoved down all my sadness, all my worries, all the things that had in fact been causing me to panic that very day.

I told myself it was because we didn’t have long to talk. There was no time to go into all the things that made me “not great,” all the things I was waiting on God for.

But the truth was, I was embarrassed, ashamed to admit to this friend that my life was still not in order, that I feared slipping back into the funk that made me write a book about my experience in the first place.

It wasn’t until I got off the phone that I realized the opportunity I’d missed. Something I haven’t always seen as an “opportunity.”

You see, I was raised to believe that no one cared about my problems. I was taught to say—just as I did with my friend—“Fine, thank you. How are you?” any time anyone asked how I was.

It was polite. And—my folks told me—no one wants to hear a complainer.

My parents meant well. Truly. But they were wrong. While that may be a polite response in some ways (though I could argue against that) and while every last person who asks how we are probably doesn’t want to hear a litany of complaints, some people do want to hear it.

Namely, our friends. Our families. Our colleagues. Our brothers and sisters in Christ. People who care at all about us.

In fact, sharing our grief isn’t just something that’s good for us, it can be a gift to others. Which is the opportunity I realized I missed with my friend.

In me not telling her I wasn’t doing well, I not only missed out on the opportunity for her to walk alongside me in a difficult time, but for me to tell her that I understood what it meant to hurt. For me to open the door for her to share any struggles on her mind.

It’s hard to be vulnerable. To share embarrassing things when we want so badly to be seen as successes—in so many ways.

And yet, sharing a bit of grief as well as our joys can be one of the best things we can do for one another.

So, this Advent season—as we all are waiting on our Savior—I’ve decided on the gift I’m giving my friends, my family, my any-one-who-cares: I’m giving them grief. My grief. I’m going to speak honestly and openly about the sorrows—and joys—of my life right now. And hope they can see me as a safe person to share theirs as well.

Anyone care to join me?

Caryn Rivadeneira is a founding member of Redbud Writers Guild and author of Grumble Hallelujah: Learning to Love Your Life Even When It Lets You Down. Visit her at http://www.carynrivadeneira.com

Have You Had Your Fill?

Elisa Morgan, Publisher, FullFill™

Click here to GIVE your fill!

Have you had your fill? I have. Had my “fill” that is. Every week I take a swig of encouragement, replenishment, perspective, faith, hope and help that comes in the form of the Weekly ReFill. Even though sometimes I’m the one writing them, I look forward to the words and the links and the insights that come through my inbox.

I’m not alone. Joyce writes, “I love FullFill™! It helps me in my walk as a woman of God.” Yeah. Me too. And Diana says, “Thank you so much for the Weekly ReFill being emailed to me. They are so ‘now’ and we all can relate.” Makes me smile. And I think Jesus smiles too. J

Have you? Had your fill? If so, can I ask you to consider something this month?

Weekly ReFill is now filling nearly 11,000 women in the US and lots of other countries. Every week. For FREE. We don’t charge. And I don’t take a salary. Our staff pretty much just volunteers.

But there are still some costs that need to be covered. Like our web site, the platform for the digizine library and the ReFill blasts and the webinars. If you’ve had your fill, will you consider giving so that other women get theirs? Our goal for 2012 is to cover the current 11,000 women we reach and add another 9,000 women for a total of 20,000 women in 2012. That will take $20,000 in funds for “Twenty 12”!

Wait! Don’t delete this because you think you can’t help!

It’s not that much. Pick your number! $1 per woman for a whole year of Weekly ReFills. And access to the whole FullFill™ digizine library and videos and Get More! Think about it! $50 underwrites 50 women for a whole year! Each woman receives the Weekly ReFill every week, access to the FullFill™ digizine and video library and eblast updates. And by the way, you’ll keep getting your fill for FREE too. Some of you may be in a position to make a greater contribution. $385 will sponsor one week for 20,000 women. $1,500 will sponsor one month for 20,000 women.

Plus - for every $10,000 above this amount, we’ll create a new issue of FullFill™ for our digizine library.

So please - will you join us this December and give your fill? Every gift is tax deductable. Click here to GIVE your fill!

Don’t want to give online? Mail your check to:

Mission: Momentum

PO Box 461546

Aurora, CO 80146

Keep an eye on your December Weekly ReFills as we update you on how God provides for our goal: $20,000 for 20,000 women in 2012!

Thank you. Truly. For being a part of the FullFill™ community and for inviting more women to live out their influence!

Elisa Morgan

President, Mission: Momentum, www.missmo.org

Publisher, FullFill™, www.fullfill.org

Author, Speaker, She Did What She Could, www.shedidwhatshecould.com

“Thank you, FullFill™, for a visually pleasing digizine filled with Jesus and His people. I appreciate you!” - Suzanne