State of Grace

What does winter represent for you?

For me, winter represents a season of waiting. Winter promises the dawn of spring but recedes on it's own time. We can wait through Winter because we know with complete certainty that spring is coming for us.

What if we approached life like spring is coming?
What if we approached life like God is coming for us?

It would be permission to live fully in a state of grace, trusting that what is the very best for our lives is coming for us. 

"Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety."
{Marianne Williamson, A Course in Miracles} 

I don't want to be a girl that wakes up in the morning and asks, "Am I happy?"

I want to be a girl that wakes up in the morning and thinks, "Look at that sunrise! Wow, that puppy fur is soft. I love coffee. It's time to workout! This button-down from the dry cleaners looks so fresh, I missed pastels. Oh, it's time for my next meeting, game on."

I want to celebrate life and really mean it. Not ceremoniously celebrate to keep up or convince myself and everyone else that I'm ok and my life is really great, but genuinely, and honestly celebrate. I want to admit when it hurts and laugh when life surprises, and be real and live authentically.

When we rejoice and celebrate we fully live by living full. Full of the right things. Full of God's grace that comes from turning inward to Him, instead of turning to the world and attempting to fix an inside problem by filling up with outside things. 

"Anything you get won't solve your problem. The problem is alway in our minds." 
{Gabriel Bernstein, Spirit Junkie}

When I'm forcing my way through life with a contingency plan for the contingency plan, then I'm holding on too tightly and I need to give myself back to God. I have an ongoing group text with five beautiful girls, and this week I surrendered in the middle of the day and asked for prayer.

Within fifteen minutes I felt energized, strengthened, and loved; not from a change in circumstance, but from a change within myself. I surrendered and cleared space for God.

Surrender is the sacrifice God desires most. When we surrender to Him we can detach ourselves from the present moment and rest in the knowledge that He has only His best for us. Resting in that truth, we feel complete and free.

Life is bittersweet and every fresh start comes from an end of something that made room for a new day, a new season, or a new relationship. The best memories come from moments that have past and every sunrise shines from a night of rest and waiting for morning.

Today is the gateway to God and His joy. God is in the future, but we can only meet Him in the present. We can't give today back to God because we refuse to live fully until a circumstance in our lives, or a condition within ourselves is "fixed."

"Let's be careful that in the midst of all that accomplishing and organizing, we don't bulldoze over a world that's teeming with beauty and hope and redemption all around us...To choose to celebrate has the potential to return us to our best selves, to deliver us back to the men and women God created us to be, people who chose to see the best, believe the best, yearn for the best. Through that longing to be our best selves, we are changed and inspired and ennobled, able to see the handwriting of the holy God where another person just sees the same old tired streets and sidewalks."

{Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines}

Let's live fully today, in a state of grace based not on an outcome but on a truth. The truth is that you are deeply loved, fully accepted, with a future guaranteed. 

What could you not risk if you knew the future was guarenteed?

What could you not take from God and celebrate, if you knew with absolute certainty He was using it to secure your future?

"For we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God."
{Romans 8:28}

Live free, love wins.
Lisamarie

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The Secret of Winter

The Secret of Winter

Daylight Savings Time came in the night, requiring an extra cup of coffee, but reassuring us of longer days and Spring on the horizon.

This Winter held some beautiful moments, like spending a white Christmas at home in Denver with my mom and baby dog Sunday, and my trip home to LA.

I’ve been missing home – the beach, the ocean air, the culture, and the hustle. I’ve been trying to find my endless summer in big mugs and hot tubs, but you can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take the California out of the girl. I moved to Denver to be uncomfortable, to find myself, to find God, and to experience ALL four seasons. Yet four winters into that fateful move, I’ve been homesick...so last month, I went home to Hollywood.

My time in Los Angeles was beautiful, and it left me torn between the life I love in Denver, and the place that will always be my home.

Life has landed in the sweet spot, I've been balanced, grateful, and content. While I’ve been enjoying this season of rest, I've also been resisting the urge to bite off a new challenge and take a new risk. I don't want my life to fall into a pattern of striving and achievement. It's easy to jump from one milestone to the next, constantly seeking the next accolade, accomplishment, and adventure. At it's core, everything we do in life is a pursuit of love, joy, and beauty. Life is beautiful, but only when I've built enough space and time into it to experience it's grace.

My time in Denver has taught me that the great gift of winter is that there are times when the season gives us no other option but to stop, rest, and reflect. 

“Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview.  There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry.”

{William Young, The Shack}

With snow falling from the sky by the buckets, we all retreat in unision to our homes to rest and wait it out. We don’t have an answer or a plan, we just have today and snow, and time. Suddenly, we all live in a snow globe and what could be more romantic and charming than a snow globe?

The grass is greener in California, but does it beat out a snow globe?

Remember: God’s place for us is wherever we are right now...in Denver, in March, in the snow, in this moment.

Love wins,
Lisamarie

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