The Uncommon Normal

Hello, Twyla here with a quick message. To each of you who have listened to an episode of The Uncommon Normal—to each of you are embracing missional living in your neighborhood in small, everyday ways—to each of you who are leaning into proximity with God and inviting others near you to really get to know you—to each of you who have taken baby steps though you've felt imperfectly ready—keep going. Even when your steps feel small, they are not insignificant. You are not insignificant—to God or to your neighbors.   I will be taking a break from podcast, but you can still find me in all the other places. Every week there will continue to be new content to encourage you to keep leaning into this missional life on the blog. Find me at www.theuncommonnormal.com.   If you're not yet part of my email tribe, I'd love for you to join me! I send a note on Tuesday nights to my email friends share about all the latest things. My email friends also get free access to everything in the For You library, which includes some goodies like an entire week of devotions from my devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors, a printable of The Uncommon Normal manifesto, and a field guide to neighborhood missional living.   Did you know I also host a gratitude series, Begin Within: A Gratitude Series, on The Uncommon Normal? My vision behind the series is to inspire year-round gratitude that will impact not your life, but the lives of your family, friends, and neighbors too. Check it out while you're visiting the blog, and if you'd like the gratitude stories to land in your inbox every week, you can let me know there as well.   Before I sign off, I wanted to take another opportunity to pray a blessing over you.   May you know how very loved you are, and how with-you and for-you and all-around-you God is. May you always find yourself at home in His embrace, and from the near-Him vantage point, you will learn to adopt His heartbeat and point all glory to Him through all you do and say. May you remember His greatness when you feel small and His gentleness when you feel less than ready. May you lean into Him and into each next baby step into neighborhood missional living. May you remember always that the direction matters much more than the pace. This I pray in the precious and holy name of Jesus. Amen. Find me here: The Uncommon Normal Blog Subscribe to Unlock the For You Library Begin Within: A Gratitude Series Cultivating a Missional Life Devotional Instagram Pinterest Facebook

There, we've said it already—that slow and small produces better results—but sometimes there is a lag between the knowing and the living. The world tells us to hustle but our hearts don't concur—we sometimes just don't stop to listen. But this ripple effect way of living, it's not a frenzied rush, it's not a vying to climb rungs and be on top, it's not painting a curated picture of perfection—it's found in the slow of real-life living. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Affiliate links mentioned: Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the In Between by Kaitlyn Bouchillon Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World by Emily P. Freeman Small is Big, Slow is Fast by Caesar Kalinowski

Ever wished for a magical solution that could take you as you are today and transform you instantaneously into the person you really want to be? Perhaps you are cautiously optimistic that your life could be different, but the day-to-day choices leave you discouraged, weary, and perhaps a bit resentful. We've been talking about missional living and the ripple effect, but maybe you're hung up on whether what is rippling out from you would do anybody else any good. So let's talk about it today. You and I. Here in this safe place. How do you become who you really want to be? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: Giveaway (for 2 paperback copies of Cultivating a Missional Life)

There are days when our world feels small—when the appointments and to-do's and ordinary things consume us, and we anticipate that moment when we can finally rest ourselves. There are days when everyday feels largely the same and we start to feel swallowed by defeat. There are days we wonder if we are making a difference, if the little decisions matter beyond the moment, if we are nurturing the right things. Today I want you to know that you are living in a story that is larger than what you can see. The things that you do, the choices that you make, the way that you love and show grace and lead by example—they leave an imprint. Your life has a ripple effect. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

I get it. The feeling that your wheels are spinning. The dreams that are out of reach so long they begin to fade. The monotony of the everyday. Surely, truly, there is a way to wake up with a spark aflame in your heart, and the knowledge that you are part of something bigger than yourself—that the small moments of your life amount to something that matters. Perhaps it's less that we aren't doing the right things as it is that there are things we need to stop doing. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

You may know someone you would describe as a “good pray-er,” someone you know God listens to when they pray. But perhaps your own prayers seem to fall on deaf ears, or the words you say don't come out quite the way you think they should, or you avoid praying out loud in case anyone hears you and judges you by your prayer. But what if your prayers too could be highly effective? What if you too could be confident that when you pray, you are doing it right, and God actually hears you? There is something I want you to hear today: The secret to highly effective prayers is actually both doable for and available to each of us. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

If ever you've wished that someone could give you a step-by-step for how to pray, you're not alone. Prayer feels often difficult because we don't understand it, or we feel inept because we compare ourselves to others we think pray better than us, or we don't really buy that God hears us, answers us, intervenes for us. I find it noteworthy that even though Jesus's disciples spent time actually seeing, talking with, eating with, and doing life with Jesus, they still felt intimated by prayer. In fact, Jesus taught the progression of the Lord's Prayer multiple times, and once was in response to the disciples' question, “Would you teach us a model prayer that we can pray, just as John did for his disciples?” (Luke 11:1 TPT). Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Do you ever wish you could return again to the simplicity of your childhood where there was less to question, less to accomplish, less to maintain? Adulting shapes us, often erases some of the child-like wonder and replaces it with measured logic. But sometimes in trying to be all we feel we ought to be, we lose a little of who we are beneath all the shoulds and should-nots. What if we could go back, not physically to our childhood years, but to the freedom to trust and love and pray children are better acquainted with? How would you pray today if you could lose the baggage of the years, the questions that arose from the prayers that were not answered in the way you expected, and the parameters you've put on what prayer looks like? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Fear is a weighty word, one we're often more comfortable leaving unnamed. We downplay it as worry, anxiety, or insecurity. It's our personality or preference, we say. Yet to conquer our fear we must first face it, acknowledge the grip it has had on our lives. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Links mentioned: This wonderful list from Joyce Meyer of scriptural affirmations. For more information on how to pray Scripture back to God, check out this helpful article. And for a list of scriptures to pray against fear, click here. Resources on the Enneagram I recommend: The Path Between Us (book and study guide) by Suzanne Stabile The Road Back to You (book) by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile Your Enneagram Coach/Beth McCord (for the best free Enneagram test and lots of invaluable resources) The Enneacast (podcast series by Love thy Neighborhood) Gospel for Enneagram (including devotionals for each Enneagram type—some out already, more still coming) Enneasummer 2019 and 2020 series on Annie F. Down's That Sounds Fun podcast The Enneagram Journey (Suzanne Stabile's podcast) for a deep dive into all things Enneagram  

Isn't that the point of it all—to find the things that really matter and let go of the things that don't? The war within us is that we are drawn to the things we wish we weren't and the importance of what matters easily fades. Yet is it that the right things fade or that they are simply blurred when they get out of focus? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Selfishness is far easier to see in someone else than it is to identity in ourselves. It can slide in subtly, unannounced. It might keep quiet, hoping to remain unnoticed. Yet even before we identify it, it begins to turn our hearts. Our focus always paves a road to something, and selfishness inherently pulls our attention to ourselves—and away from our purpose to praise God. A selfish focus will always result in our living less than the life God invites us to. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Links mentioned: Cultivating a Missional Life is $0.99 on Kindle, March 23, 2021 through March 29, 2021. Preview before you buy! Snag your free download of the first week of devotions at www.theuncommonnormal.com.

Multitasking is an ability often highlighted on resumes and celebrated in the workplace. We like to think we can juggle all the things, and do it well. We might even welcome more on our plate, label it practice. This is how we level up, enhance our performance, earn our merit. Yet before we can know when multitasking is a good thing, we must identify where it directs our focus. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: Around the Clock Mom by Sarah Butterfield

That ache inside to be seen true and valued highly, I've felt it too. I've also tried to better myself in other's eyes, gain approval, and secure friendships as if to prove to myself that I matter. Isn't that what we want to be reassured of—what's beneath our people pleasing tendencies—that we matter? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Depleted. Disconnected. Deficient. Have you felt any of these lately? Like you are on empty—like you're trying to simply survive the day, and you have little energy left for much else. You want to live well and love well, to see beyond the right-in-front-of-you obstacles and inadequacies. What if more is possible? What if opening our hearts and lives to others when our energy is low doesn't have to demand more of us that we can actually give? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Which are the words that linger, the ones you hear in your head in your lowest moments, the ones that wear you down or beat you down or wound you many times over? Many of us have discovered the heavy truth that words indeed can hurt us, and the ones that dismantle us on the inside often don't wound just once. Today if it's hard to see how God can use you as a light in your neighborhood when the dark of destructive words is a reality you face daily, I want to speak hope into your hurt—to share how there is a way to be whole, how it is possible to heal. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: Joyce Meyer's list of scriptural affirmations to remind you who you are in Christ  

Gentle words spoken when we least expect them reassure something deep inside our souls: that we hold value in the eyes of others. These are the words that are genuinely kind and possess a power that is not found in volume. These are the words that are both light and saturated in the weighty, Holy Spirit glory. As we lean into mission in our everyday lives, how do we speak more of these gentle words that produce so much life? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Words are hard to take back. But sometimes I wish I could rewind time, pause a moment longer before speaking, and say better words. I've pointed out what's been missed in the cleaning before praising the work already done, been quick to become defensive, or let distraction sharpen my tone. But it's not so easy to simply stop criticizing with our words. Instead of stopping what we do in our default moments, we need to start doing the right things so we can actually stop doing the wrong things. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Links mentioned: How to Let Go of Perfect for Something Better Morning Routine post

No can be the hardest word in the world for me to say. Can you relate? It feels selfish or strict or combative, and I'd rather go with the flow and say all the yeses and never rock the boat. But I've found that all the yeses make the boat sink, and a sinking boat cannot do what is boat is meant to do. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Who doesn't want to live full, to savor this actual life, to experience joy and peace that transcends the here-and-now and not-yet-right? Yet the full life seems insistently just beyond reach. The immediate weighs heavy on hope, and it can feel like swimming slow is the best we've got. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: Get the Begin Within: A Gratitude Series stories in your email inbox!

It's easiest to see the ways we are not qualified for missional living—how we haven't been and it feels awkward to now start, or we know the hot mess below the surface and doubt our lives can actually point others to Jesus. We see how we've held back or drawn assumptions or tried and failed hard, and this starting on a new path is safer to just be for someone else. How do we actually live on mission when we are just us? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand-new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: Cultivating a Missional Life

I wanted to write a letter of encouragement. To speak directly to you. To remind you that you possess qualities that reflect God and therefore point arrows to Him. When you turn your gaze towards Him, your life points others towards His glory, His goodness, His kindness, His righteousness, His holiness, His joy, His love. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

And it struck me then, and I've never forgotten it: rain is an opportunity to share an umbrella. 2020 bleeding into the next chapter of 2021 may feel like the longest rainstorm we could possibility have to weather. But even the throes of a pandemic offers the same gift: rain is an opportunity to share an umbrella. Each storm is an invitation to look out beyond our own inconvenience and misery to see who else might also be caught in the pelting rain. Rain is a gift that can help us see. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

The week after Christmas, it seems a little like a falling off, like a sudden dissipation of the wave of anticipation we've been riding. We look at the gifts that have been unwrapped and regret some of the ones bought, some of the ones not bought, and it's easy to settle into a funk when all we see is leftover wrappings, empty wrappings. Sometimes the week after Christmas can feel empty. But as we catch our breath, we find there is grace in the lull to learn again to simply be . . . and to choose what our word of the year will be. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

My 7-year-old still sings that it's a “silent mid-night,” and perhaps she's right. Perhaps it was in the stillest part of the night—the most unexpected hour—that the sky alit with blazing glory. The shepherds were certainly surprised. Their day had begun, routine and ordinary. The sun set softly, all the norm. Even as darkness came and the stars came out, all, all still felt the same. The same as yesterday. And the day before. And the day before. Perhaps, as we enter the week of Christmas, you're feeling a little like the shepherds too—like all the days blend into one another, like all the days are the same. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

We inch ever nearer the gift of Christmas this week, count down Advent days on a calendar. Anticipation rises with the welcome of each new day. One more day—one day closer! Oh, that the joy of children would be reflected too in our hearts as we unwrap the greatest gift ever given: the hope of God here with us! Emmanuel, we sing. O come, o come, Emmanuel. It's a beckoning of expectant hearts for God to come near us. Because Emmanuel, I read, means “with-us God, or God with us.” He is the “with-us God.” Here in even the smallest moments. The ones that feel swallowed and unseen. The ones in which we feel unseen.   Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

“Hark,” that word we know from “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” it means to “to pay close attention to” or “listen.” It signifies action. The shepherds listened intently to the angels, then responded to glory revealed: “Let's go! Let's hurry,” they said, “and find this Word that is born in Bethlehem and see for ourselves what the Lord has revealed to us.” Then, the Scripture says, they ran. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

The approach of Christmas was marked during my childhood by the smell of a snowmobile running warm in the cold of Minnesota winters. Every year my dad would ask who wanted to go with him to find a Christmas tree, and every year as the moment of pulling up the layers of wool socks and bundling up to the nose approached, one-by-one by siblings said no, and I again got to go. I would sit in front of my dad, my helmet bobbing against his chest as we shouted Christmas carols, and I savored the snow flying into my mouth. The search for the tree was as memorable as the lifting of newspaper to unwrap each ornament and place it on the tree. But at Christmas we discover more than the perfect tree with snow to be brushed off before it's taken in. We unwrap more than the ornaments, shiny and memory-laden. We unwrap Christ, discover Him over and again. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

How do I conclude this journey of gratitude when the end is but the mere beginning? How do I put into words the difference it makes to hold as treasures the things given from God's hand? This week we follow the ripple begun by practicing gratitude out even further to see how it touches our neighborhoods. Because gratitude, it doesn't touch just one life, it touches many. Live gratitude and it will pull you deeper into God's embrace. Live gratitude and it will open wider your heart to be a better parent, child, sibling, friend, colleague, and neighbor. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: To receive the weekly story for Begin Within: A Gratitude Series in your email inbox, sign up here.

Gratitude gives me vision to see beyond the here and now—to see wonder in even the mundane, repetitious, and awaiting-completion. It helps me appreciate my various roles, lean into the ways they each grow me. It helps me to better listen and connect and engage—to live this one life of mine to the full. Gratitude helps me welcome interruptions as gifts, see the good first in the people I love, and be present in today's moments. I have but this one life to live. And so do you. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

As we focus this week on what is true of us because of what's true of God, we find we must press ever deeper into who God is. All that's true of us is true because of who God is and what He's done for us. Our identity, our value, our mission—it's all found in Him. He pursues us, calls us to Himself, and invites us to join Him in His mission to make disciples all across the earth—in every little, ordinary corner of the earth. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

The past couple days and through the next week we are focusing on attributes of God because it's hard to live with a heart open to our neighbors if it's closed off to God. Gratitude intwines so surely with missional living because when we give God access to our heart and life, giving our neighbors access to know us and do life with us becomes a natural overflow. In the middle of the still-messy of 2020, I need gratitude to speak to the heart of what's the matter on the inside of me and gently align my thinking with what is true. I need gratitude to open my eyes so I can see God more clearly. I need a deepened awareness of who God is so I can more easily see who I am in light of who He is. Perhaps you do as well. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Links Mentioned: How to Join the Uncommon Normal Gratitude 2020 Challenge (last week's blog post) The #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 gratitude prompts The #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 FB group My quarantine playlist on YouTube

It's been there all along, but long months of uncertainty and social issues weighing raw and heavy have made it more obvious: we are discontent. Scrabbling for peace but coming up empty. Ready for change but not always sure of the right, the true, and the best ways to pursue it. Our lives feel more than shaken, our country far from perfect, and our purpose in it all a bit fuzzy. As we near the end of 2020, many of us might be apt to join a gratitude challenge to wrap a bow round the less-than-pretty before the end of the year. But this year I invite you to something more: a gratitude challenge that speaks to the down-beneath things that keep us fulfilling our purpose in our homes and neighborhoods.   I'm calling it the #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 challenge.   How to get the most out of the challenge   Save the below gratitude prompt graphic to your device (see links mentioned) Participate (on any social media platform) in the challenge either with a photo, written response, or both Use the hashtag #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 on all your posts Follow the #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 hashtag to see others' posts Invite a few friends to join you in the challenge Read or listen to the accompanying blog/podcast posts   Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Links Mentioned:   #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 prompts Join my email tribe “Begin Within: A Gratitude Series” Submission guidelines for “Begin Within” Worship song medley to encourage you

A glance in the direction of our front door as I was pulling into the driveway gave me pause. The teal-tinted burlap I'd just months previous pushed, pulled, and re-adjusted a few too many times was looking a bit yellow. Later that day, I took a closer look. Sure enough, the sun, which had begun to disintegrate the previous, natural burlap, was already fading the tinted burlap. And here, buried in the layers of burlap was a lesson for the finding: to create room for what will be, what is needs to be pulled away. To move forward afresh and renewed, we must let the layers unravel. To be redone we must first be undone. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

Have you ever been asked just the right question precisely when you needed it? A few days ago I was loving challenged by a friend to ask God the truth about my work. The conversation stemmed from an admittance that I always feel compelled to produce my very best work and struggle with giving myself a break. Because I am committed to being transparent in the middle of my learning how to live on mission, I want to bring you into the conversation I'm currently having with God. If you, too, need to learn how to let go of perfect so you can find something better, please stick with me. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: You Can Just Rest (Spontaneous): https://youtu.be/akrIdj4cT1Q

The holidays are scarcely on our radar yet, but already we are weary. Long days with schedules still turned upside down have cramped our ability to truly rest. We may feel less productive but more tired. In the midst of the chaos, we long to feel grounded and at our best. What we need is a simple recipe for the rest that has long eluded us. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Links mentioned: More about my morning routine—read or listen

There is no denying the power of words to build us or break us, misguide the way we see ourselves or right our vision. Perhaps there have been words spoken to you in moments you were most vulnerable—words that wounded you, stuck with you, defined your moments since. It's hard to love well when we don't see ourselves as worthy of being loved. It's hard to live given when what we've needed was withheld by those we trusted. Yet just as words can negatively impact us, so too can the right words heal our soul-holes and break us into freedom. Choosing the best words to believe can free us to love God, others, and ourselves well. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.

The middle of the road seems to be the longest stretch, yes? When we face the unknown for endless days, it begins to wear away at our resolve, our patience, and our hope. What is it for you? School or school-events still on hold? Financial strain exacerbated by Covid? Singleness or loss or a terrifying medical diagnosis that seems to have you locked in a holding pattern? Waiting is hard. It just it. But in the messy middle of waiting, we need a way to still remain positive. To still live with our hearts open and our eyes lifted. To still be faith-filled, hope-fueled, and mission-minded. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. If you want to live on mission but don't know where to start, check out my brand new devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. Link mentioned: This 2-hour session of Dan Musselman playing Bethel worship songs.

I have a hunch that I am not alone in wishing it were possible to live a life rich with purpose and connection—one that involves getting to know my neighbors and living my faith in genuine, everyday ways. Collectively we are sick of feeling lonely, and sometimes even sick of being ourselves. The life we long to live may be a vague idea or drawn out with immense detail, but we still feel stuck. The life we want to live feels out of reach. But maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe there is a way to begin living that dream today. Maybe, even if you've lived in your home for years and haven't met many of your neighbors, you can still gently foster community and connection amongst your neighbors. Perhaps there is an answer not only for the loneliness you feel but the way your neighbors also feel alone, distracted, and disconnected. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Links mentioned: Pre-Order Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors on through Amazon's Kindle Store. (The release date is 9/18/20). Subscribe to The Uncommon Normal to not miss when the paperback of Cultivating a Missional Life releases.

Our fast-paced culture forces a divide, it seems, between those all in and those wavering. It feels as if we must choose a path, and stick with it—charge full-steam ahead, or jump off the train. The things that require patience and a long-view perspective chaff our aspiration for efficiency and productivity. We want to grow and become all that we can be but rarely do we accept the slow progress of baby steps as acceptable. But perhaps we've gotten it backwards. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Link mentioned: Learn more about Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors, which releases on Kindle 9/18

If Covid's taught us anything, it may be that our need for community is more real than we ever realized. It's accentuated how isolated we've felt. With our busy slowed, we've felt all the emotions that had been easier to ignore. Current times have shifted our priorities, and perhaps pushed connecting with other people much higher than on our pre-Covid lists. Yet while we know more surely our need to be connected and known, we may feel a little lost with how to get there. If it is possible to cure our loneliness with community, we want to know how. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Links mentioned: Vulnerability: The Key to Close Relationships by Karen Young Knowing Who I Am in Christ, Joyce Meyer's fantastic collection of verses that speak to our true identity

We talk about it often around here—organic discipleship—so this week we are going to unpack it a bit more. We'll put practical steps to theory and leave with an actionable step you can begin to practice today. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Link Mentioned: Morning Routines

The months since Covid changed our lives have slid together. Jokingly I've called it a time warp, but inside I've had my moments of railing against the endless holding pattern. For over five months we've been home, and now school starts a week from tomorrow but still at home. Again, indefinitely. After sitting with uncertainty so long, it seems we should be pros at navigating its waves. But the honest truth is that I need to quiet my spirit and hold my hands open in new and intentional ways to survive the start of school this year. Perhaps you feel the same. My top ten list for surviving the start of school year is the things that I am inviting God to work on in my own heart. They are relevant, however, regardless of the nuances of your exact school scenario. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Links mentioned: More on morning routines Natalie Hilton's post which includes more breath prayers

The fear of scarcity rattled us early on when the Coronavirus hit. Empty shelves mocked us, churned us, and prompted us to stock up on what we could, sadly at the expense of others. But rooted in our attempts to buffer our fear was narrow, self-focused attention. As numbers rise again and we face a fresh wave of not-knowing, let's leave some toilet paper and cleaning supplies for our neighbors and stock up instead on things that will last. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

When so much emphasis is placed on what we do, it can be easy to repeat our learned pattern of thinking without giving it a second thought. We often describe ourselves by what we do for work, or if we are a SAHM, by our role of not working a traditional job. Yet what we do outwardly is an overflow of what is going on inside us; it does not define us, it merely describes what's visible. When we begin inching our way into missional living, we find we must answer this question: what motive lies beneath what we do? To ensure it's a pure motive that prompts us to live on mission, let's pause our doing and reflect together on a few questions. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

The moment we step in the front door, especially of a home we have never entered before, all our feelers are on high alert. Our brain rapid-fires questions like Do I take my shoes off? Where do I put them? How long do I stay in the entry? What do I need to avoid touching? If we have young kids with us, we are also hyper-aware of where they are and what they could potentially break. Very quickly we gauge our level of comfortability and that first impression is often sticky. So how can we, as missional people, make our neighbors feel right at home when they visit? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Link mentioned: How to Clean for Unexpected Guests

Learning to posture ourselves as open—open to loving our neighbors well, welcoming them into our home, and doing life with them—shifts our mindset. Instead of avoiding, we begin to expect unexpected guests. While we talk often about slowly embracing a missional lifestyle, taking baby steps and trusting that God is growing something rich and beautiful in us—today I'd like to dive into a very practical component of our response to mission: how to clean your house for unexpected guests. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

Do you have a friend, the soul-quenching, real kind? Or do you feel the longing, but are hesitant to linger long enough for the friendship to flourish? Perhaps you feel like you are on the outside looking in, always. Or maybe you want to push through the uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability but you just don't exactly know how to. If missional living in our neighborhood means that we are slowly developing deeper friendships, let's talk about how we practically get there. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

We live most of our moments in the messy, sticky, actual life realm. Life happens. Fallen pickle jars shatter against the concrete of the garage floor. Feelings get bent out of whack in the midst of neighborhood play. Conflict thuds with heavy feet on the airy moments. We juggle the important work of parenting with other demands, still present, still with their own importance. If being missional includes sharing the life-on-life stuff, it must be possible to move ever towards mission while we live our messy, actual lives. Perhaps the messiest moments are actually the greatest opportunities to engage in organic discipleship in our neighborhoods. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

God is near, no matter what tomorrow looks like. God is with me, even if normal will be forever re-defined. God is present, even when I don't see it or feel it. Perhaps it's time to stop asking the question, “When will life go back to normal?” and ask instead, “What will my normal be?” What rhythms will flavor my life? Who will I be even when this is the only question I have power to answer? Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Links mentioned: Free Printable of The Uncommon Normal Manifesto

“Courage doesn't always roar; sometimes courage is the tiny voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.” How true are these words about courage from Mary Anne Radmacher! A mistruth about missional living that once deterred me from getting to know my neighbors is that it was a life available only to extreme extroverts or insanely courageous people. I am neither. I'd choose peaceful harmony over adventure most days and still feel that twinge of hesitation at the beginning of so many conversations. Yet I know that doing life with my neighbors put together so many puzzle pieces I'd carried around for years. If you, too, feel less than courageous, like you are stuck between wanting to adopt a missional lifestyle and feeling horribly inadequate, there is hope. I know it's possible to have courage even when we are afraid because I've experienced it. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

Much of life exists in paradox. The sun is shining as kids play with friends in the front yard and ride bikes around the neighborhood, and I answer a group Facetime call so my siblings and I can talk to our grandpa, many miles away, and encourage him to hold onto life so his daughters can make it in time to say goodbye. Pain and heartache juxtapose with joy and life, and we live in the tension. To be human is to experience both, and often as parallels. Today we will hold the tension of both/and while we talk about how to make a splash with our summer—because a missional life doesn't exist in a vacuum. To make a splash, we must get wet—and in terms of missional living, that looks like sitting with our neighbors sometimes through the messy and hard parts of life as well as those that abound with joy. It means we don't shy away from or minimize the seasons of life that are hard to navigate. It means we invite God into all the pieces because only He can piece together beauty when brokenness is all we see. It means we embrace the both/and. Listen in, or if you prefer to read, head on over to the blog. More content is available at TheUncommonNormal.com. I would also love to connect with you on social media. You may find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Links mentioned: Morning Routine Your Summer 2020 Cultivating a Life Worth Imitating