Angela Parlin

Does Your Small YES Matter? {Another Giveaway!!!}

May 2, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

A few years ago, Kristen Welch was just a mom from Texas, writing a blog about parenthood. And then she took a trip to Kenya, with Compassion International, hoping to encourage families to sponsor children living in poverty.

But when she experienced life in the slums of Nairobi, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “These living conditions were not for the living.”

Desperate and hopeless and angry, she silently questioned God. How can you allow this??? But she felt His response–Kristen, how can you?

It was that exact moment, when she knew her life would never be the same.

Yesterday, Kristen Welch released her new book: Rhinestone Jesus: Saying Yes to God When Sparkly, Safe Faith is No Longer Enough. As part of her launch team, I am honored to celebrate this book with her, and to give away 2 copies on behalf of her publisher.

It’s taken me a couple weeks to wander through her story. It made me pause and pray and think about the state of my heart. It’s an encouraging story, one I think any of us could relate to in different ways.

Kristen started with a desire to make a difference in the world for Jesus. But things didn’t turn out the way she’d planned, and at some point, she stopped dreaming to simply survive life. God used her trip to Kenya to wake her up to His heart. Afterward, He gave her an opportunity to do something, and she said yes.

In Rhinestone Jesus, she tells her story of founding a non-profit called Mercy House Kenya, a maternity home for young girls in extremely difficult circumstances. It’s an amazing story, and chapters are still being written. As of May 1^st, they are preparing to open doors to the SECOND HOME!!! Mercy House Kenya is growing, to accommodate more mothers and babies.

Kristen hopes her story shows us that our small yes matters. We often want to do something “big” for God, but she challenges us to lay the “big” down. To begin with the next small thing, right where we are. Say yes in your mess–yes to loving God and loving others. See one need near you, and do what you can to meet it. Don’t be paralyzed by ideas about what’s most important or about doing enough.

Say yes now in small ways, because when you love someone and care for their needs, you’re changing their world. And you’re changing yours, too.

Now for the book giveaway: Please answer this question in the comments by Monday, May 5^th at noon to be entered: What is just one way you can love God and love others this week? Do you know of someone sick or lonely or hungry or in need? How can you help someone in the next week?

The Grace of Friends {Five-Minute Fridays}

April 26, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

I remember being the new girl who needed a friend. Living on the inside and then suddenly living on the outside. I remember observing others make new friends, with an ease I couldn’t replicate. And then memorizing Bible verses about friendship, hoping they would turn me into an extrovert.

I remember wondering what was wrong with me, before I knew I was afraid. And also wired differently.

I remember the gossip that left a heavy wall in my heart and begging God to make me less ridiculous at small talk. And of course, I remember when I was the only one not invited to the club.

I remember later, becoming an insider, but seeing more value in the ones still on the outside. And wishing the sparkly people understood that sometimes people make poor choices from a place of pain. That there’s often a deeper story we haven’t invited out.

I remember how my big sister shared her friends with me and spoke for me when I was afraid. And a solid handful of close friends, I look back on as pillars who made me belong. And the unexpected friendships, obvious gifts from God at perfect times.

I remember friends I grew to love, who moved away. And the one I loved who died so young because of cancer.

All of this. The parts that hurt, the prayers, the work, the revealed weaknesses, seeing the underdogs and thanking God for the ones who saw me. The gifts and pure enjoyment, as well as the losses. These all became a part of me I wouldn’t trade. These shaped me, and they shaped my friendship with God.

Many times, friendships drove me to God. And He loved me in the middle of the hurts and the messes. Even though I just wanted Him to take those away. He used the changes I resisted to work in me and help me care more for other people. He showed me my shortcomings were nothing special, not so different from those of anyone else. And He does all this still.

God’s grace has been real to me through friends. Even the ones who humiliated me when they sent my underwear up the flagpole. Through those who labored long beside me to memorize the McDonald’s rap or make the Janet Jackson dance routines. Those who entertained and terrified me with shopping cart races in the Target parking lot and took me out for ice cream after breakups. Who shared wedding days and helped me plan baby showers and then became Mommies beside me. Who shared their stories around fondue and brought their babies over to play with mine and prayed over me when life got scary. Who helped me and let me help them. Who taught me and learned from me. Who do these still.

Thank you God, for the grace of friendship.

**To learn more about this flash-mob of writers who join together and post on Five-Minute Fridays, click here. I wrote this Friday afternoon, but some of our favorite friends blessed us with their presence for the evening, so I didn’t get to add photos and post until today. Totally worth it! 🙂

Hidden Idolatry

April 23, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

Even with truth living in and around me, somehow the lie came along too.

I believed in Jesus so young. No major questions, just a big Yes, I believe. I don’t ever remember saying yes to the lie, but it followed me anyway.

It’s the oldest lie on the books, the same lie that poisoned Eden. It wears the mask of something more, something better. But it spoils. After it weasels in to take root in our hearts.

God doesn’t truly love you, not enough. You need more. That’s the lie.

Did you know we can hold the truth in one hand, and reach for something better with the other?

We live in such a broken-down place, but we still build our towers to the skies. We fill ourselves up, or we try.

Even when we hold the truth, we can be living under the influence of the lies.

We need to remember, on thousands of days–God loves us. Oh, how He loves and made a way to rescue us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He who came not to condemn the world, but to save it.

And we need to be reminded, Jesus is enough. He didn’t only die for us. He was raised to life for us. Because He IS life, and He wants to create new life in us.

Why do we still look for life in other places? We wouldn’t usually call it that. Okay, we’d never call it that.

But the root of all our sin is—we desire created things more than we desire the Creator. We are idolaters, of the hidden kind.

We need to remember who God is, and we need to remember who we are. And then, the only way for us, is to repent.

We need revival, the life of Jesus poured into us.

It starts here. Not at a spectacular event. Not under a big tent on a summer evening with a preacher’s voice booming and a call to come forward.

But here, in my heart, in the middle of April at my kitchen desk. With the Word open and my heart open. In this moment, I desire nothing more than Him. And when I stray from here, I need this revival again. {So I will need it by tomorrow. But actually much sooner.}

My life, in Christ, depends on it.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives IN HIM, rooted and built up in Him… Colossians 2:6-7

Glue {Five-Minute Fridays}

April 18, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

I know far too well the old way, the flesh and self-will in me. I know how to live this way, without even trying.

My heart is divided.

I knew it for certain one morning in January, with my Bible open to David’s prayer,

Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

I came undone. I knew my heart was divided, and this prayer has become my own.

I read this morning, The old has gone, the new is here.

This explains the division in me, at least a little. Why sometimes I desire what the Spirit of God desires, and other times, I only want what I want. We could talk about the way we waver between flesh and Spirit, for a good, long time. We could write a book about it, maybe a series. But I know this: I am not already grown-up in Christ. I am growing in Him. And He is growing in me.

Regardless of my state of (sometimes) being, God reconciled me to Himself through Christ.

He did this also for you, if you will believe. Instead of counting our sins against us, He glues us to Himself. Then He gives us a role in His story, a ministry. He makes us ambassadors of Jesus Christ, not because of what we might offer Him, but for His undeserved love.

He has done this, and He still does this, for all who are willing to believe. The brand-new followers of Christ and the leaders with heady degrees. God pays no mind to human ranks. He makes every believer His ambassador to the world.

What an honor. We represent Jesus Christ in this world.

We get to extend His offer to all people–not as a threat, but an invitation. Not to exclude, but to welcome. Oh, that we would handle this role humbly, with so much love and mercy.

We have been glued to Christ, with the glue of God, and we have been made His representatives, with an endless supply to give away.

So on behalf of Christ this Good Friday–

Come back to God. Be reconciled to Him.

Because here’s the thing:

God made Him {Jesus Christ} who had no sin

To be sin for us,

So that IN HIM

We might become innocent,

The righteousness of God.

{2 Corinthians 5}

Surprised by Mom {Book Giveaway}

April 10, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

I remember being 22, freshly wed and busy building a new life 12 hours from home.

12 hours from my Mom. Who I dialed up daily, because somewhere in time, she’d become one of my best friends. My chosen counsel. We didn’t need to squabble over the length of my shorts anymore, and I realized, by then, she’d only held me to high standards because she loved me.

One afternoon, I stood on the back deck of my first home, holding a bulky cordless phone in place, and watched my two little puppies play. Mom and I talked about living a life of purpose. I was trying to figure out what that meant for me.

It sunk in suddenly. She was only 19.

When the doctor handed her my baby flesh, and she carried me over the threshold to Dad and my 14-month-old sister. Before her 20th birthday.

I thought about myself at 19.

A college sophomore, that year I went to a party with the boy I would marry. I studied and worked and played and figured out who I was and dreamed of all I wanted to do with my life. I loved that year. All those years. We had a ball without the seriousness of bills and jobs and adulthood.

But my Mom, barely more than a little girl caring for 2 baby dolls–she had us both so young. Young in years. Young in her faith in God. Young and crazy in love with my Dad. {Some things never change.}

Back when we liked our shoulders big and fluffy.

I cannot comprehend how she did it. She was really an amazing (baby of a) Mom.

That’s not to say there weren’t those days. Those days she locked her bedroom door and cried her eyes out. And we had no idea what could possibly be wrong with her. Why did she ever need a break from us? We had no idea. There were 3 of us little girls then, burst onto her scene within 3 years.

Oh, now? I get it.

My friend Lisa-Jo Baker just released her first book, Surprised by Motherhood. In it, she says she’s learned 3 things:

Motherhood is hard.
Motherhood is glorious.
Motherhood is very hard.

I could not agree more, and I waver between the 3. I often want a break, yet I never want this to end.

It’s the best thing I can imagine, but still I complain about the hard parts. Because you know, often their needs and issues get in the way of my desires. Of my life. And yet, my Mom never really had a life, of her own.

But she loved her life as a Mom. I mean, she wanted to control the outcomes. Who doesn’t?

And the three of us “learning to compromise” over dolls and toys and the neighbor’s dog and who would get to be Daisy when we played Dukes again…add the tears and drama and messes and tempers and high-pitched voices erupting in a house full of girls. She rarely lived a day without serving little ones around the clock. It was overwhelming sometimes.

I remember the whole circus fondly, but I never had to be the one in charge. I don’t know how she pulled it off, but I grew up feeling like Mom really loves this. Like it was all she ever wanted.

And then we grew into 3 teenage girls at once, with our sweet, little Tany, our well-mothered (smothered?) baby sister trailing a decade behind. I’m sorry to say, we became a little gang of sisters, who thought Mom was the enemy, too often. We were well aware of all the things she did wrong. In our opinions.

It took some time before we were just as aware of all she did right. Of all her whys and how she tried. The ways she served and blessed us. Her hugs and presence and neverending “I love you“s. Her endless teaching of truth and skills she gathered when adulthood arrived so early at her doorstep.

Who would I be, without her? I mean, honestly. Who would any of us girls be? Without our Mom.

And her outer beauty has nothing on her beautiful heart!

**This post was inspired by Lisa-Jo Baker’s amazing, new, selling-out-everywhere book, Surprised by Motherhood, in which she tells her own unlikely journey to becoming a Mom after she lost her Mother at 17. The beauty of Lisa-Jo’s words help me make more sense of my own story, and I think it will do the same for you. Don’t miss this one!

Because I LOVE this book, and it makes me love motherhood more, I’m giving away a copy Friday. Leave me a comment before midnight Friday, April 11th, and we’ll throw your name in the hat. 🙂 Just tell me one reason you’re thankful for your own Mom.

And if you have a minute, please watch the trailer below. It’s worth your time. Tissues, anyone?