Most days I still can’t believe that I started this blog 2 years ago mainly so my mom knew that I wasn’t living in a tiki-hut in the jungle in Peru.
I’ve been working on a bio for my book and for this website. I keep going back to this one sentence.
I am who I am because of His wild love.
My life is split in two parts. Before God and after. And everything after is the result of wild love.
Most mornings I wake up before the sun rises to write. And in writing this book, I’m writing to myself. I find myself speaking it out loud during the day, Yes. You can. I drew it on my sketchpad the day I first posted about writing a book and then I realized that what I drew was the name of the book I was writing. That’s usually how things happen for me. God speaks to me in little clues and secret messages and sometimes I write something down before I realize that it was Him, talking to me. And that is it, simple and profound.
Yes, You Can!
>> do all things through Christ <<
I wrote it in glitter paint on my graduation cap and wore it when I walked across the stage at Hanner Field house. Because I never thought I would graduate from college. Because I dropped out before the first semester was over when I was 18 and my transcript was filled with failure. That’s why Philippians 4:13 sparkled on my cap and I wore it with such a full heart on graduation day, because before God my life looked one way and everyone in the world would have told you that I wouldn’t make it, but Wild Love came and changed my life forever and now I know that I can do all things through Christ.
You can do this. I whisper it as I cook supper and balance Jubilee on my hip because she has a cold and cries whenever I put her down. I stir spaghetti and kiss her forehead and take a deep breath. It’s hard but it’s a sweet place that I am in. After a long, difficult season of searching for God and searching for answers and learning to do life and missions and ministry, here I am. In the stillness and the quiet. Like I was that very first moment that I stood on the brink of change. The first moment that I gave my all to Him without knowing what would come next.
Our lives are busy and full. But there is a stillness that is sacred. A moment that you recognize as precious right there as you are living it and you memorize it, slowly. That’s where wild love is. In the ordinary moments. In the stillness. In the busyness. When you have a sick baby and really just want to be with your mom. Love is there.
I’ve traveled to many places. I’ve felt God’s love in some of the most extravagant moments. Standing on the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Sitting beside llamas in Machu Picchu, taking in all of the grandiose of one of the seven wonders of the world. Cruising down the Rhine River in Germany and sleeping in castles. But there is really no moment that I experience the wild and relentless love of God more than standing in my kitchen, practically in tears, trying to cook spaghetti and bounce a fussy baby at the same time.
It’s not because I feel awesome. Because those moments are hard. But it is because sometimes the most sacred moments are the most simple moments and in this world of edited pictures and instagram captions it can be easy to forget that God meets you where you are.
He meets you in the heartache. It’s why I’m here. It’s why I am who I am, every victory, every accomplishment, every dream. It’s all because of the wild love of an extraordinary God who chases after me and wins my heart over and over again.
He is fighting for you. In the hard places. In the not-so-glamorous moments. He is meeting you in the stillness, with a wild love that will completely revolutionize your life.
Let Philippians 4:13 be a banner over you. A glitter banner, just to be awesome. And I’ll be whispering it for me and for you over here in my corner of the world in Peru. I’ll be writing it for you in the pages of my book. Yes, you can. We can.
We can do all things through the one who loves us wildly.
with messy hair + wild grace,
Ellyn
1 Comment
Love, love!