Edie Wadsworth

What kinda horse you got?

February 23, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 41 Comments

I was in the Walmarts last week.

I have a love/hate with the Walmarts as much as the next guy but I just so happened to need deodorant, duct tape and green onions all in the same day. When I got to the check out line, there was a girl behind me who noticed my new riding boots. This is the exact conversation that followed. And THIS is why I love the fact that I live in Bean Station, TN. You couldn’t pay me money to live anywhere else.

Fellow Bean Stationer: “I like ’em boots. Is ’em ridin’ boots?”

Me: “Yes, they are, darlin’. I love them so much. I got them for my birthday.”

FBS: “Well, let me ast you su’um—–what kinda horse you got?”

Me: speechless

Me (still speechless and pondering the ramifications of the conversation and then talking to myself): Um, actually I drive a Excursion and though it may seem like an oxymoron, I have riding boots and have never even considered owning a horse. I also have two pairs of cowboy boots and have never lassoed a steer. And then there are the aviator glasses with no airplane. You get the idea. My life is string of paradoxes. It seems I’m living a lie any which way you slice it. What’s this world coming to?

I know. You’re jealous.

And next time you snicker when you hear the name Bean Station, remember all the fun you’re missing with your high falutin’ life 🙂

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And I’ll tell you all about it later but I’m headed to Blissdom in the morning! Yeeeeee-hawwwwww! Are you going? Save me a hug, would ya? I’ll be the one with the riding boots trying to find somewhere to tie off my stallion.

Lenten Devotion::Grace Upon Grace

February 20, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 35 Comments

Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday and I want to invite you to go on a Lenten journey with me. I’ll be reading the book Grace Upon Grace by John Kleinig and posting once a week about the reading. The book has an introduction and then five chapters so we’ll take the introduction this week and meet here to discuss it next Wednesday (Feb. 27th) and then take one chapter a week until Easter.

The book is about spirituality for the christian, perhaps the most misunderstood topic and word in our modern vernacular.

Kleinig introduces the book with this:

“The modern interest in spirituality is a bit like our interest in health. Our obsession with health is not at all healthy; in fact, it emphasizes the problems that we have without providing much of a solution to them. So, too, with our concern for spirituality! Despite the multitude of books on spirituality that can be found in the bookshop, Christians seem to find it harder than ever to practice what they believe. So many aspire to be spiritual high fliers but never seem to get off the ground for any length of time. As the failures mount, so does the fascination with what seemingly cannot be achieved. The only thing we learn is that something is lacking in this part of our lives. But we end up with no understanding on how to fill the void……If we have problems living the life of faith, if we have challenges in our practice of prayer, the solution is not to be found in what we do, our self-appraisal, or our performance. The solution to our problems is found in what we receive from God Himself, in His appraisal of us, and in His gifts to us. Like our physical life and health, our spiritual life is something that is given to us, something that is to be received and enjoyed and celebrated. Our piety is all a matter of receiving grace upon grace from the fullness of God the Father. “

Isn’t that good stuff? The book is chocked full of this all too rare theological truth—-that we already have everything we need from the Father and we are merely learning to live from His fullness, which was bestowed on us at our Baptism.

Too often our Lenten journeys are ‘try-hard’ failures. We give up coffee—-for a while. We pray daily—-until we don’t. We pull ourselves up with our spiritual bootstraps and suffer, by-golly.

But Lent is not about our supposed sacrifice of some earthly passion. Lent is a journey with Christ to His passion.

Lent is not a time to focus on ourselves and our own particular abundance or lack of self-discipline. Lent is a time of self-forgetfulness, where we learn to live more in union with Christ and less from our own capabilities.

Our Lenten discipline does not make us more holy. We have the very righteousness of Christ and His holiness already.

Our Lenten failures do not make us more wretched but serve to remind us that our wretchedness has cost our Savior His life and that He has gone to every length to secure our ransom.

We take this journey with Him to learn from Him what it means to be His child. To remember what it’s like to be loved by Our Father.

To learn to receive from His hand nothing more and nothing less than what He Himself gives.

Lent is about Christ and His pilgrimage to the Cross, where His love is poured out for all humanity.

Spirituality is His work in us as He creates faith and repentance.

But what does that daily spirituality look like? Dr. John Kleinig will be the perfect study leader as we explore what it really means to be spiritual. Join us for lenten devotions.

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You may purchase Grace Upon Grace through this link and I’m donating my Amazon Affiliate funds to purchase 4 books for anyone who would like to participate in this book study but isn’t able to buy the book right now. Just email me with your name and address and I’ll choose the first four people who respond:)

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Winner of Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman is Sarah Pinnault! Email me with your address, Sarah, and I’ll get the book out to you.

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You can find podcasts of Dr. Kleinig’s teachings here.

Shame

February 12, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 35 Comments

We go to great lengths to cover our sin. We hide it, deny it, justify it, psychologize it, and rationalize it.

Perhaps we are even so far removed from our sin that we call it by a different name altogether. We make ‘mistakes’, we are ‘inclined’ toward certain things, we have a ‘tendency’ to get angry, we are in the bad ‘habit’ of lying, gossiping and cheating. And perhaps we do this unconsciously because the word ‘sin’ makes us uncomfortable. Sin often travels with his big brother Shame and we’d do almost anything not to have Shame around. Psychologists have gone so far as to convince us that we need not have shame at all, only ‘repressions and inhibitions’.

C.S. Lewis said this of shame, “Unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one….In trying to extirpate shame, we have broken down of the ramparts of the human spirit.”

Shame literally means ‘to cover’ and it’s one of the most uncomfortable human emotions that exists, which is why we avoid it like the plague.

Shame is the painful feeling that arises from the consciousness of something dishonorable, disgraceful, humiliating. Shame makes us seek cover. It makes of want to shrink to nothing.

Lewis claims that we as a civilization have lost our ability to know real shame and thus lost our ability to appreciate the depth of our depravity.

But we’ve all been there. We’ve all been guilty of that ‘thing’ which we hope noone ever finds out, ‘that ugly and mean action which not even the worst of our friends would have done.’

Lewis says, “At such a moment we really do know that our character, as revealed to us in this action, is, and ought to be, hateful to all good men, and to God.”

And then he makes a leap that I’m still wrestling with in my mind.

He entertains the thought that though our sins are forgiven fully in Christ, they are not washed out by time. Time does not cancel them. His argument is that all times are present to God and perhaps it’s possible that He forever sees you ‘lying and lusting and in that moment of cowardice.’ “It may be that salvation consists not in the canceling of these eternal moments but in the perfected humanity that bears the shame forever, rejoicing in the occasion which it furnished to God’s compassion and glad that it should be common knowledge to the universe.”

“Perhaps the lost are those who dare not go to such a public place.”

So, my question to us all is this; why will we do almost anything to prevent ourselves from being exposed, from feeling shame?”

Why do we so violently protect our ‘good’ name and ‘good’ reputation. I suspect we have not plumbed the depths of our own sinful heart.

But it is at that precise moment—-in our despair—-that our hearts can perceive the need for forgiveness. It is on the bedrock of guilt and shame that we can know true Rescue. Our brokenness and disgrace has brought death, a literal wasting away, and now the mercy and compassion of Christ can raise us to life. Shame is not our enemy. He may well be the gatekeeper to our freedom and joy.

“The perfected humanity that bears the shame forever…..”—–that will take a Divine intervention.

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All ideas and quotes taken from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

Grace for the Good Girl

February 8, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 193 Comments

Hi, my name is Edie and this is my friend Emily and we are recovering good girls.

It’s sounds so quaint and harmless but my good girl nearly destroyed my life.

Emily has done a very brave and dangerous thing . She has exposed the good girl in us all—-and with wit and kindness, has helped us to see the damage that the she is wreaking in our lives.

I wish I had found this grace when I was 15 and the ‘do-good’ demons were wrestling me to the ground. I struggled with this book because it brought back painful memories. (The darker the room, the harsher the light usually seems.) My good girl is all grown up now and is smarter and craftier than ever.

She’s driven by all the wrong reasons to do all manner of ‘good things’ and when she’s been slighted in the least, she makes sure that everyone knows how hard she’s worked to keep this house of cards from falling—doing it all with her best, self-serving, martyrdom tactics. Down deep, she wonders if grace is just too cheap and if unconditional love isn’t a spiritual pipe dream.

Emily leads us to the foot of the Cross, where all sinners must go; for there, Christ exchanges our try-hard life for His perfect beautiful life and our exhausted good girl facade for His true peace and rest.

Her book will challenge your status quo as she brings to light the grave danger that lingers near a performance driven life.

Your good girl will be quaking in her boots.

My favorite quote?

“Good girls live obediently but they do not know the mystery.”

Grace, my friends, is a sacred mystery. And you can’t do one thing to earn it.

It is given to you freely by your Father without your effort or striving.

He has come to your rescue with life-giving mercy.

GRACE has come!

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Thank you, beautiful Emily, for your courageous truth-telling. I am so privileged to call you friend.

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I just so happen to have an extra copy of Emily’s book so if you’ll leave a comment on this post, I’ll pick a giveaway winner soon.

This is one you’ll want to read for yourself!

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I’m an Amazon Affiliate so if all 5,000 of y’all buy the book from this click, I’ll make enough for a Starbucks coffee!

between you and me

February 4, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 17 Comments

My good friend Tara, the sweetest blog friend ever and blogger at Between You and Me, sent me this wonderful custom-made sign and I’m nearly speechless. It’s amazing y’all! I cherish it and am so thankful to her and Andy for gifting me with something so special. This thing is the real McCoy. It’s 4 feet by 2 feet and it is soooo well constructed. She has a gift for you too. Mention LIFEINGRACE in the subject of your email to them and you’ll receive a 10% discount on a custom sign of your own. The offer is good for the whole month of February.

It’s so perfectly distressed and so perfectly versed for our little family.

It comes ready to hang in your favorite spot. Email her husband Andy at andrewshanelowry@gmail.com to get your order placed.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Tara 🙂 I will be blessed for many years to come!

Crushing on Lewis

February 2, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 47 Comments

I read The Great Divorce this weekend for the 3rd or 4th or 5th time. Lewis dreams that he dies and takes the bus trip to heaven. When he gets there, all the people from earth look likes ghosts compared to the people who’ve been in heaven. Apparently, sanctification, becoming a real person—-that can or would want to—-stay in heaven, takes a while and is painful. C.S. Lewis never ceases to amaze me. And this little book will leave you reeling. All weekend long I made Stevie listen to the brilliance by quoting one amazing passage after another. Guess what he’s reading now? We do this to each other all the time.

You really should read it.

xoxo,
edie