The Firegirl Five - Making Moves
“Falling down the rabbit holes, so you don’t have to.”
1. Love Makes Moves
One of my favorite Jesus action-figures is a guy named Bob Goff. A few years ago, he wrote Love Does, a book about how loving Jesus and people leads you to interesting things.
For 15 years, his organization has built schools in conflict zones and now they're building one in Northern Iraq. But since many of those families are homeless Syrian refugees, they decided to build homes for them too.
My favorite Jesus followers are those who are so busy loving and serving they haven't got time to argue about religion. As Bob says, we can be known by our opinions or remembered for our love. Spend one minute letting him psych you up about that.
2. Make moves & eat ice cream!
Anybody know the geniuses behind Halo Top Ice Cream? I'd like to meet them because somehow, they created a low-calorie, high-protein, low-sugar, ice cream with all-natural ingredients. In other words, they made unicorn, because there is no way that should work or taste good, but it does.
The red velvet pint I ate by myself last night (no need to even judge!) has only 340 calories and 24 grams of protein. Yah, so it's basically health food. This woman went on a Halo Top diet for five days to see what would happen. Spoiler alert: She didn't feel good, but God bless her for answering the question. Anyway, it's delicious. Pro Tip: Let it soften on the counter first.
3. move through suffering.
A week ago, my friend Shelby's daughter got diagnosed with Lymphoma. She's two.
It's a good idea, if you plan to visit a child with cancer at a Children's Hospital, to have a solid theology of suffering in mind before you go, because it's easy to think:
"How can a good God..."
People have wrestled with that question for millennia and nobody has the answer. Tim Keller's Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering helped me get my head around the mystery and offered strategy for dealing with suffering, which is near-certainty for all of us.
Of course, it's natural to ask "WHYYYYY" in the face of this, but it's also a waste of time. A better question is:
"How will I show up?"
That's where you discover what you really believe about God and yourself. I'm throwing my lot in with God the Redeemer and Healer because I am prone to despair anyway, and that helps nobody. I choose to believe Jesus who said His power resides within me, and for now I just need to trust him.
Click here to help with Sophie Kay's Go Fund Me.
4. Move your pdf
This week, I was creating a beautiful document in Canva when I realized it had to be less than 30 pages. Mine was 80. Not to worry, Canva included a link to a quickie online tool called Merge PDF.
It took 15 seconds to correctly merge three files. The result is a lovely 80-page journal I've created for Intermissionary Retreats - which BTW begin in 18 days in France.
It's the little things.
5. Move into your van by the river.
In the 90's, I lived in a van, by the river, in Alaska. Chris Farley made that hilarious, Instagram made it cool.
#Vanlife lets you follow people, who are no longer considered dirty hippies, as they live off the grid in their vans - camping in Yosemite, surfing in Nicaragua and hitting up music festivals while cooking pancakes on the two-burner in their VW Westphalia.
In case you think I made that up.
People have been building alternative communities forever, in fact this one, which the New Yorker calls a bohemian social media movement, bears some resemblance to climbers in Yosemite or the people who followed the Grateful Dead.
The point is, you don't have to do life the way everyone else is doing it.
#Vanlife proves if you find a big enough tribe, you may even have a small economic engine to help fund your deal. These guys are making a documentary about #Vanlife and are funding it on Kickstarter.
If nothing else, it's fun to live vicariously through them on Insta.
Happy Memorial Day. God bless our fallen soldiers!