When my daughter was five years old she rode a pink and white bike with training wheels on our family walks around the neighborhood. She confidently pedaled up and down hills with her training wheels steadying her bicycle wheels. The training wheels were effective to give her confidence to keep riding, until one day, when she literally got stuck in a rut. With her front wheel wedged into a crack in the middle of the road and her back wheel forced a few inches off the ground, the training wheels were rendered totally ineffective. Though she furiously spun her little legs on the pedals, she wasn’t going anywhere. My husband and I had to hide our laughs as frustrated tears started to form in her eyes. She was literally spinning her wheels.

 I think about that moment often as a physical picture of what’s going on in my head. I like to spin my wheels. I am a perpetual over-thinker.

 I remember the way my heart pounded in my ears as I turned my minivan into the church parking lot on a hot Sunday afternoon in late summer.

My family had started attending a new church a few months before and, in an effort to get involved, I told my husband I wanted to go to the women’s prayer night. He agreed to watch the kids and encouraged me out the door. But I instantly regretted my decision as I put the van in park and took a deep breath.

 I whispered a frustrated prayer, “Lord, I don’t know anyone here. I’m not good at small talk. Who will I sit with? What was I thinking?”

For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with self-consciousness. There was a stint, before 3rd grade when I was unashamedly confident, but mean comments, embarrassments, and my own resentment of my shy, introverted personality chipped away at that innocence until I found it easier to hide myself from a world full of standards I couldn’t live up to. My rules for survival were simple: don’t speak up and don’t stand out.

I was in my late 20s, married with little children, still struggling with the same low self-esteem from elementary school when I heard a truth that changed my perspective. A Bible study leader pointed out that self-consciousness isn’t humility, it’s pride. I was shocked and a little offended to hear this. How could someone call me prideful? I was rarely proud of myself, never self-inflated or self-promoting (I was too busy disliking myself for that!). But, as she pointed out, even though it was negative pride, I was still focused on that little word, “self”.

I was the friend who said the wrong thing. It was a text on a random weekday, a back and forth conversation about a sensitive subject. My words weren’t ugly; I repeated a familiar Scripture meant to encourage. But, as texts are prone to do, it lacked the nuance and compassion I intended to convey, and I hurt her deeply.

Like a broken thread on the hem of a dress, our friendship began to unravel. I apologized profusely and tried to fix my words with more words. My fumbling delivery was fearful and hesitant as I delicately tried to avoid making things worse. Her hurting heart became distant, and our friendship grew cold and unfamiliar. I exhausted every prayer, every apology, every word, but I couldn’t fix it.

Rest. We all know we need it, most of us long for it, but there are some seasons of life when it feels like an impossible luxury instead of a practical lifestyle. I think I’ve been in one of those seasons for the last seven years. As a homeschooling mom of three, 7 and under, a wife to a husband in full-time ministry, and a writer and speaker, it’s hard to come up for air most days. Maybe your season looks different, but you feel the same way. How can we find meaningful rest when we can’t even catch our breath?

I plopped on the couch in exhaustion. The house was finally quiet and still. We had just finished the drama of bedtime routines with our three young children.

“Every day feels like a marathon,” I complained to my husband.

As my let myself relax, I realized this was the first time I sat down all day. I recounted my to do list – nearly everything was left unchecked. How could I be so tired and have so little to show for it?

Here in Georgia the flowers are starting to bloom, the weeds are taking over my front yard, and I’m so thankful for a little sunshine. This winter is the longest I can remember. We didn’t get any snow, but we spent countless rainy days inside wishing for a change. As I write this, my cherry tree just outside my window is dotted with pale pink blooms. And I realize, this is the change I dreamed about on all those dark afternoons.

As we look back on a year of the pandemic with its lock downs, quarantines, and social distancing, it feels like Spring in many ways…

Do you see that person far away on the stage? If you squint you can find her. That’s me. Can I share what a testimony this picture is? You may have heard this from me before, but a testimony, by it’s very definition, is something to be recounted.

I shouldn’t be in this picture. I never thought I could be there. In fact, days before this picture, I sat on my couch, grumpy and paralyzed with fear and nervousness. I questioned why I ever agreed to speak publicly. I wondered if I’d be able to speak after Covid caused nearly a year to pass since the last event.

At 10 or 15 or 18 or 21, I wouldn’t have believed that was me, not in front of all those people. I’m shy. I’m very self-conscious. I’ve been hurt so many times by what others think of me, what they’ve whispered behind my back. I’m not strong, confident, sure, well-spoken, or poised. I’m more the awkward wallflower type.

In times of distress, people turn to something they can believe in. And I think it’s clear we are in a time of distress.

God’s word acknowledges this human inclination to seek solace in something when we struggle. The question the Bible quietly poses over and over again is, where do you turn? We see through examples in Scripture that people have a habit of turning to idols in place of the one true God. They do this because they lose patience with, or perhaps forget entirely, a God they can’t see.

But we don’t really have to worry about idols, right? The graven images described in the 10 commandments of Exodus 20, made out of stone, wood, or metal, aren’t really relevant any more. I mean, when’s the last time you saw someone worshiping a golden calf? (Exodus 32) Even our post-Christian American society isn’t setting up Asherah poles (Micah 5) or building temples for Artemis like Paul dealt with in Acts. When we survey the world around us we could conclude, idols are obsolete…