CELEBRATE This Week LXXXI (81)

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I turned my Instagram account public. I've been using it to collect & document celebrations. I love it. Please follow me there: @ruth_ayres to find celebrations throughout the week.

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Someone sent me a thank you note. The old-fashioned kind, where it's blank inside and you use your own handwriting to fill it up.  I didn't do anything to deserve this thank you. I didn't take a meal or give a gift or help with a project. The return address wasn't from a close friend or family member. 

The thank you was simple, but loud to my soul. I've had the privilege to invite the whole town to be part of a bible study. In the process, it's becoming a network for women of faith in our community.

It was a natural step, but one that felt risky. It was a step waaaaaay out of my comfort zone. It's been a step where I've battled the the voices in my head that tell me I'm ridiculous.

Recently, I've been wondering if maybe all this working-up of my soul, stepping into new writing territories and chasing down a dream I never expected, but makes a lot of sense, is totally smoke and mirrors.

At the same time, I've been flooded and nourished by messages and scripture and teachings to never give up. 

Never

Never

Never

Never

Never

Give Up.

I thought maybe I was just making it all up -- these steps I keep taking are maybe on the wrong path. Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe I shouldn't be writing. Or studying. Or teaching.

I look down at that handwritten thank you note and I realize it's more than an off-handed note. It's sustenance. It's evidence. It's the grit that I need.

I will stay the course. Dreams are only accomplished when we don't let go when things get a little rocky. 

I celebrate staying strong, even when it feels like it doesn't matter.

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We have been celebrating for 81 weeks. I. Love. This. 81 times we've been coming together to find the joy in the midst of life. 81 times we've dug to find magic in the muddle. 81 times we chose to celebrate rather than wallow. 81 is significant enough to change a life. 

It has changed mine. Thank you for investing in this corner of cyberspace. It comes as no small thing that you chose to celebrate here.

Share below!

Learning to Reach Out

We need each other. Yet when things get hard we pull away. We draw in. We hunker down.


We are living in a world where we have plenty of followers and few friends. Mass amounts of likes and few conversations. Our Twitter feeds are constant in our palms, keeping our phones awake and our hearts numb. Instagram lets us peek inside lives, but no one sees inside our hearts.

We appear connected, yet feel alone. Even worse, we believe everyone else is connected except for us. It's true across generations. Lives are falling apart. Women are worn. Teens are tattered.  Grandmothers are weary.

And why doesn't God make a difference?

Maybe He does, by creating us to need each other. When we pull away, we lose perspective. We can hide behind connections that keep us disconnected.

What happens if instead of pulling away, we decide to strive side by side? We aren't made to do this alone. We are made to work together, not neglecting to meet together. We are made to strive side by side for the faith of the gospel. We are made to encourage one another -- and all the more. We are made for our joy to be full through loving one another; to cling to what is good; to shine in the world.

What happens if we learn to reach out instead? If we pause after saying hello and let a conversation unfold. If we send a handwritten note. If we stop checking the time. What if we decide to linger rather than rush; to speak in love; to stop sleepwalking through life?

It's time to open our eyes wide and build each other up. To worry less about the number of followers and more about following the One who makes a difference...

when we let Him.