life lately

It was a good year.

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This is the first year in awhile I’ve felt really good as I look back. I don’t mean to sound over the top or anything, but there’s a chance that 2014 was the best year of my life. When it started, I was at an all-time low… the kind where I couldn’t be alone without checking in with my husband every hour because I was so depressed and anxious. There was nowhere to go but up from there, though. So up we went.

I went to counseling and began to heal. I learned about fear and shame and failure and why it’s dangerous and unhealthy to focus for too long on those things. Around the same time, I discovered Lara Casey’s Powersheets. They shifted my focus and sharpened my life management skills in a way that changed me for the better.

And then the sun started to come out. We found hardwoods beneath our carpets and blackberries in the backyard. There were tropical vacations and afternoons spent working in the dirt. Speaking engagements and trips to the children’s museum. I fell in love with my family all over again. I found my long-lost sense of style and paid it some much-needed attention. I began to walk alongside women in a new way, allowing them to encourage me and cheering them on in return. Then came along a high schooler, a middle schooler, and a preschooler. My husband and I connected more deeply and effectively than ever, on a therapist’s couch and at a women’s conference and during an anniversary getaway. I started a new job, and a new rhythm, a new season as a hospice nurse. I began to use phrases like redemption and life change and hope, words that I’d always seen in others and never imagined would apply to me.

Don’t get me wrong – I struggled this year. But the illness and the arguments and the stress and the problems only drove me to Jesus instead of away from Him. I can look back on 2014 and see His hand on every situation, His sovereignty oozing from every crevice. I can remember the darkness and call Him good. And for someone who has a thing about darkness, that feels like a win.

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household management motherhood the whole & simple gospel

Ready or not.

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an adapted excerpt from a letter to some of my Influence women

I picked a piece of dead Christmas tree off of the bottom of my foot this morning. I’d been fighting off a cold all weekend and therefore slathering Thieves oil on my feet, and therefore walking around on tiptoes, and therefore not as nimble as usual, and therefore stepping on dead Christmas tree twigs. We cut down down beautiful trees at a nearby farm, and they have since betrayed us and died – a full week before Christmas. As I pulled the greenery off of my foot, I grumbled a bit.

Here’s the thing, women of mine. Christmas is coming, ready or not. In sickness and in health, dead trees or live, presents wrapped or not. Baby Jesus came, ready or not. To borrow an Andy Stanley phrase from a recent favorite talk, about the years leading up to Jesus’ birth…

God told Israel over and over, “Listen, I’m gonna do something with you. You can either work with Me, or step back and watch Me work.”

He’s pretty much down for whatever. It’s either, or. We can choose to be a part of God’s story or not but when He’s ready to move, He moves. Let’s be the ones who are ready for Him to move. Open hands, open eyes, open hearts, all of the time. Especially this week. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to celebrate His move towards earth, towards me. I’m standing here with my heart as wide open as I can get it, whispering thanks that God loved me enough to send me His son one Christmas night.

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household management motherhood

Advent is not about me. Freedom!

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So there I was teaching last month, zooming through Colossians 3 and giving women ways to let the peace of Christ rule in their homes over the holiday season. I felt the Lord depositing some serious truth and freedom into me as I prepared, so I was in the zone that night. And then out of nowhere, bam! Someone typed something along the lines of, What are some of the traditions the Kincaid Parade enjoys during the holidays?

In a melodramatic sort of way, tradition is a trigger topic for me. Tradition means I feel the pressure to make memories and leave a legacy. Tradition means I have the potential to mess up, to let people down, to fail. Failure. Fear of failure. It always comes down to this for me, doesn’t it? But enough about that.

But y’all? Advent is not about me. It’s not about my identity as a mother, or my skills or creativity. It’s not about making memories or leaving a legacy. Advent is not about tradition. It’s about receiving a gift I didn’t deserve. And once I’ve received that gift, it’s about enjoying things like the holidays through its filter. I’m intimately aware of how good grace feels when I don’t deserve it. I’ve got that receiving-the-gift part down pretty solid. Now it’s time to move on to the enjoying-the-holidays part. Now it’s time to embrace a little tradition. Here’s how I do that.

I buy all of the kids silly, footed pajamas every winter. I also get them each a new ornament, based on something they loved or experienced that year. We cut down our trees at a nearby farm. We eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve after church. Whoever finds the hidden pickle ornament in the tree gets to open the first present. I wrap all of my presents in brown paper, year after year. Once our children are old enough to appreciate gifts, they each receive three.

Well look at that! An actual list. I’m excited to build on it, with timidity and joy and freedom. I’m also excited to see what sorts of traditions you women enjoy! No rules. Just give us all a little taste of what your Christmas looks like. The sky’s the limit. Join the link-up below.



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racial reconciliation

What I’ve learned about being white.

I’ve been sitting on this idea for awhile, feeling a bit hesitant to write about it. There’s so much out there right now, with Ferguson and other stories captivating our nation’s attention. A lot of it is such good stuff, and I don’t want to add to the noise unless I have something to say. If you read this post, or you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been watching closely. I can’t look away. This is too important for my generation, and the one coming after it. But then I saw this last week, and I knew it was time to speak up. I couldn’t even read the entire piece because it made me sick to my stomach. This was me, you guys.

I grew up at a privileged, Christian school with a solid and consistent group of black friends. It was a K-12 school, so I literally went through life with the same people for over a decade. Like all kids do, we’d get hung up on certain trends and jokes. There was the Why does it have to be a color thing? response whenever the word black was used in any sort of context in the classroom. There were comments about oreo cookies when we’d line up for photos at parties. I put a Confederate flag sticker on my truck when I turned sixteen, and nobody ever said a word to me about it. I even watched as two of my black friends made a joke about watermelon when picking out candy one time.

I assumed it was all in good fun, until the day I made one of those comments to them. They were so gracious with me, but they absolutely put me in my place. You don’t get to make those jokes, Rach. About that same time, I noticed someone had scratched f*** you through the Confederate flag sticker on my truck. I asked one of my black friends if he was offended by it, and he spoke such wisdom to me. If you have to ask, why have it up there at all?

I’m grateful I didn’t make it out of high school without such valuable lessons. I quickly learned a thing about being a white girl with black friends. I quickly learned a thing about being white in general. I’m a spectator to a culture and background that is not my own. It’s an honor to be a part of it, sure. I’m grateful to get in the mix and learn about it and bring value to it. But their story is not my story. Their past is not my past. The jokes and the comments and the flags were never pointed at me. These weren’t my feelings at stake. Thank God my friends of color were gracious and gentle with me. I’ve kept up with them throughout the years and repeated the sentiments over and over. I’m sorry. I’m grateful. I’m listening.

Of course, this can go beyond race. I could get much broader and talk about respect in general. Just because your friend jokes about his nose doesn’t give you freedom to poke fun. Just because your coworker complains about the burden of a special-needs child doesn’t give you license to join her. But let’s stay on race today, for just a minute. It’s incredibly tender and difficult to stay on a topic like this because it makes people uncomfortable. So let’s get uncomfortable and stay there.

I have the freedom to feel however I want. I can laugh at jokes and make comments and put flags in places. That’s my right. However, I do not have the right to assume that people feel the way I do or understand my heart. I do not have the right to explain or defend my way into living a lifestyle that devalues people. My intentions will never speak louder than my actions. As a white person, I don’t think I have the right to feel any sort of way about how people of color should feel or should think.

When you want to learn something, get out of your story and into someone else’s. Go to where the wisdom is. It’s exactly what I did, and I was humbled in the most beautiful and painful of ways. Once I saw life through a new lens, I could no longer defend a Confederate flag sticker on my car. I could no longer laugh at watermelon jokes.

I decided never again did I want to have a conversation like the one in high school. Never again did I want to watch someone I loved tell me how much I’d hurt them with my ignorance. So I just stopped, right then and there. I repented. I stayed in the mix, but with new eyes and new ears and a new mouth and a new heart. I saw the jokes and comments and flags for how hurtful and and degrading and divisive they were, and suddenly my intentions didn’t matter anymore. I began striving for a life of reconciliation. I wanted a lifestyle that removes all barriers.

These days, that lifestyle looks like a lot of listening. A lot of asking questions. A lot of reading. A lot of conversations with my kids. There’s a revolution happening in front of our eyes, people. I’m doing my best to arm the next generation to join it, by bringing value and peace to every person they encounter.

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health & wellness household management life lately

The day after.

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I’ve spent the last few years learning the art of being content in my season. I’ve tried to stop anticipating the future at the expense of the present. I’ve begun to sit into my feelings more – the joy, the sorrow, whatever it is I’m experiencing. I want to move through life without regret, knowing that I’ve wrung every last drop out of the now as I leave it behind.

But the day after holidays make me so, so happy. I find an almost unreasonable amount of joy at cleaning up and packing away and starting over. The kids helped me put away the fall decor and bring in the winter stuff yesterday,  while the Christmas tunes and a fire roared in the background. We don’t have a tree yet or anything, but I strung up our old paper snowflakes and our new prints after everyone went to sleep. The evening absolutely refueled me.

Advent brings a sort of anticipation that’s completely acceptable. There’s a sense of freedom to look forward to a new thing. Don’t lose sight of the now, but remember what’s stirring and get excited about it. Permission granted? I’ll take it.

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community marriage motherhood

It was fresh, and it was loud.

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I got married ten days before Christmas. Everything was cold and warm, at the same time. It was as perfect as we’d pictured. Candles amongst flowers, holly berries tucked into corsages. That week felt like a dream. In the days following, we tried our best to figure out how to handle holiday traditions that we had brought into our marriage. Whose houses do we visit, and when? When do we open presents, and how many? It was a whirlwind few weeks, and we made it through, but it wasn’t easy. It was fresh, and it was loud.

I remember sitting in my in-laws’ living room on Christmas Day, watching twenty people open presents at the same time. There was screaming, laughing, paper flying. Nobody could see the floor. Nobody knew what anyone had received or given. Nobody stood a chance at being heard. I watched in horror, with a little fascination on the side. I’d grown up with a quiet and tidy, one-person-at-a-time-and-please-don’t-rip-the-paper tradition. I didn’t know how to wrap my brain parts around what I was experiencing.

As the years have passed, we’ve sort of hit our holiday stride. We’ve set up boundaries and torn down walls. I’d call it an awkward, bumpy rhythm, but it’s a rhythm nonetheless. And it’s ours. It beats to the song of the Kincaid Parade, and I’ve grown imperfectly comfortable with it.

I’ll be sharing more tomorrow night, and I’d love to have you.

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