I am 32 and I like myself. Like, I just really think I am awesome.

I owe that, I think, to my search for abundance. I have always been confident, but I would say that this is the first year I would say I like myself, and then stop.

No caveat, no but I am working on, no but/and/plus I like you too.

Just, I like myself. I think I am pretty awesome. And that doesn’t preclude you from being totally awesome, it doesn’t even preclude me from thinking you are totally awesome. I don’t have to apologize for really liking myself, because it doesn’t take anything away from anyone in anyway. It just means I like myself.

For me, this has been the greatest gift of rooting out the scarcity in my life. There is so much more SPACE than there used to be. So many ways a person can be awesome. So much room to like yourself even though you aren’t “there” yet. There is just so much room.

So happy birthday to me, and may YOU find out just how amazing you are this year.

Scarcity says: You are only as good as your last work.

Abundance says: you are good. You are good.

I hope you found sabbath today.

I love hating on scarcity. You can start from the beginning if you want.

Monday is my birthday, so our family is celebrating today. This year I know it is going to be the perfect day because I asked for it.

I took the time to think about what I wanted and WHY I wanted it, then I asked for the things that would make me happy.

My friend Nicole (who is running her own series you should totally check out) taught me a lot about asking, and receiving. So this year I did.

We woke up and I am having coffee while my girls watch Inside Out. We are going to see a friend’s big art show after we get donuts. Then I am going to a wine bar with some friends, ladies who know the whole me and love inspite and because of those things.

Scarcity has been telling me, I think my whole life that if I ask for it then it doesn’t count. All the wants just have to magically appear.

Y’all THAT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN! Scarcity loves to discount things, and I am so, so, so, over that. If you hear, in your brain “that doesn’t count because…” Y’all that is a lie, from the pit, that we hate.

In my 32nd year I want to lean into abundance. I get to ask for the things I want. I get to decide what counts. There are a million ways to have a perfect day. Today I will choose one.

I wrote a thing for the Huffington Post, about race and education. People read the thing and shared the thing. There was some backlash. I didn’t love opening my email for a minute. But we made it through. And now? Now people are calling me brave.

And I guess it was brave, I knew when I wrote it that it wouldn’t be universally loved. But I certainly wasn’t expecting the kind of attention I have currently recieved! (Hey new readers! The comments over hear are not scary. I promise.) But really I was just doing the next right thing for me.

What the heck does brave mean? And who gets to decide what that is? I think YOU get to decide. And I think that you are probably not giving yourself enough credit. Because I think you are probably being very brave.

Showing up is really brave. To your family, to your work, at a church or organization that is made of people and can therefore be sort of messy. You are showing up, and that is brave.

There are a lot of ways to be brave.

Scarcity tells us that you have to be a BIG deal and get a BIG chance to be brave.

Scarcity is a liar, and that junk is a lie from the pit.

Abundance says doing the next right thing is REALLY really brave. I am glad you are showing up to your own life. Abundance is real, and you already are brave.

It doesn’t surprise me that much that Cara and I get along. She was once an English teacher and has been talking to me about her experience in youth ministry. Cara is vivacious and loving. I think you will love this one.

The Kingdom of God is like my  Little Lady

I call her my little lady.

She stands to the left of the kitchen sink, dressed in pearls and a sexy black dress. She doesn’t don heels, nor is her hair all done up, but she sees me in yoga pants and in rumpled, just-woke-up pajamas, in heels and in the same pair of skinny jeans I sport day after day. Together, she and I keep each other company.

I suppose it’s a little strange to give this much thought to an inanimate dish soap holder and the pearled black dress that clothe her.

But I suppose it’s even stranger to compare her to God.

To think her Spirit-like might be to start humming a chorus about how my sin, like the dishes piled high in the sink, has been washed away. I have been made clean and renewed, sudsy bubbles scrubbing every last speck – and while that may be true, to an extent, it feels a bit too individualistic, a revivalist’s visit to the campy King of my youth, complete with good ol’ Baptist songs belted around the campfire.

Likewise, I could expound on her watchful, all-knowing, all-seeing presence. She, like the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, take in every last bit of activity and of restlessness, of household screams and broken tears and hushed moments, too. She looks over the valley of our small space: ashen dinner remnants stayed from the night before, the moral wasteland of our kitchen floors most certainly a swift ticket to hell’s fiery furnace. But like the sin-cleaner, an uninvolved, uncaring Great Judge isn’t the Jesus I know.

So who is she?

To me, she is Beauty.

And to me, Beauty is found in the most unlikely of places, where and when we least likely expect it.

I can hike a mile or two into the forest. I’ll come to a clearing, and I’ll look out over the cliff and I’ll be reminded that beauty is not hard to spot. She’s in the green and she’s in the blue, and she’s in the rise and fall of mountain ridges and ocean crests. If you’re really, really quiet, she is not just a thing that is seen, but she is a Real Heard Presence, wings flapping a thousand times a minute like her hummingbird muse.

But when Beauty isn’t the first thing I see, she seems to matter that much more.

When my three-year-old sports his Batman costume and cape, and runs around the house saving the day, I see his Fully Alive Self. I see the way he embraces the moment, and I see how he pauses to hug and kiss Baby Brother, and I see how his contagious smile lights up the room. And I think, this faith, this love, this LIFE is a gift from above, for this child shimmers in Christ’s beauty – and this Beauty changes me.

When we’re walking down MacArthur and up Lakeshore, through the streets of our urban neighborhood, and concrete and weeds and garbage seem to overwhelm the landscape, there is a lone daisy popping through the mess. So I stop and I stare. I pause and I give her a head nod. I tell her to keep on growing and to keep on pushing through the obstacles, for she is one beautiful, necessary, admirable being. And if I think this much of her, her whose petals fight for grace, how much more does Real Beauty think of me, of you, of us?

I am haunted and I am stilled by these thoughts. I am found in want, desirous that I may pry open eyeballs as to not miss a single moment of the Spirit’s gift.

So that’s why and how and where my little lady reminds me of God. For when I’m covered in suds and the front of my shirt is soaked and the pile of plates and cups and knives seems an overwhelming obstacle in and of itself, I see her. I see her and she makes me smile. I see her and am reminded that it’s all a gift. I see her, and my mind begins to dream of Beauty.

Because when Beauty finds me in the most unlikely of places, in my ordinary, everyday life, then I am changed.

A former high school English teacher, Cara was in full-time ministry for eight years before getting a Masters of Theology (Fuller Seminary). She now juggles her days as a writer, speaker and mama, and hopes to finish her first manuscript by the end of the year. Cara enjoys reading, the great outdoors and any excuse to eat chips and guacamole. A Seven on the Enneagram, she can’t help but find Beauty in the most unlikely of places. She and her husband, the HBH (Hot Black Husband) live in Oakland, California with their two young sons.

This is one of the first things I wrote on scarcity, and since it is okay that we already said that, I thought perhaps today it bares repeating.

It might look different for you, but for me, I can tell I am believing in scarcity when my breathing quickens and my chest clamps up. I get nervous and jittery and start refreshing my email because. What if I miss it? What if I miss my chance? What if I miss the boat? What if an email comes, a tweet rolls by, someone puts something on Facebook and I don’t do it and I should do it and I miss my shot? 

What if the boat comes and goes and I am standing on the dock with my bags screaming WAIT!!? What if all my friends are on the boat toasting each other and sailing away into the sunset and I am on the deck crying? WHAT THEN?

What then…. then, another boat will come. And if it doesn’t a bus, or a train, or a rickshaw, or I will walk if I have to. Or one of my friends on that boat will make the captain turn the boat around. Because my belief that I missed the boat is a belief in a scarcity of chances to get it right. But God is a God of abundance, abundant love, abundant chances. When I tell people that God’s mercies are new every morning, I need to know that is true of my art too. If I miss this boat, another one is coming.

Somewhere a long the way I heard and believed of this BIG GOD. But I somehow missed the part about his BIG GRACE. So I thought that mean that God cared about every single thing I did and I better get it all right. I better not miss any boat He has for me. 

But that is scarcity talking and IT IS A LIE! There are all the boats. I don’t have to worry when my friends hop on a really cool boat that isn’t for me. I get to send them off with a hug and a cheer and a peace that there are an abundance of ways! See you at the finish line lovely ladies! That boat wasn’t for me. That is okay. I don’t have to be afraid that no other boat is coming.

It is a little late but I made it! 31 days of fighting scarcity..

You don’t have to be good at everything.

I know you know that, but I thought maybe you could use the reminder. You don’t have to be good at everything. I almost gave up this whole write 31 days thing before I started because everyone esle had a cute picture, and every time I tried to make one it looked terrifying.

When I went to Facebook to tell everyone that I was almost in tears over Canva and PicMonkey and trying to put some words onto a background. Everyone else I knew seemed to be able to do this. But I couldn’t. I was messing it all up. Then one of my friends offered to do it for me. And just like that Caris created my button.

It was fun for her, and I am still so grateful for it.

Scarcity tells me that if I haven’t mastered pictographs, periscope, snapchat, instagram, and the the next thing that hasn’t even come out yet, that I am not qualified to do what I am good at, the words part.

But abundance says I should do well, the things I am good at, and needing help doesn’t make me any less qualified.

What have you been waiting to do? Try it! Even if you don’t know how.

I am still here, blogging about scarcity. I started here. 

Yesterday my pastor preached about perspective. It was really really good to hear about.

Is it a duck or is it a rabbit?

I see a duck first, I always see a duck first. I see the rabbit if I make myself, but ultimately I see a duck.

The church has duck seers, and rabbit seers, and even people who don’t see either, or see something else. That is a really really hard things about being in the church. This is a really really hard thing about being in the world. This is a really really hard thing about being alive.

We don’t all see things the same way. And we want to, or rather we want people to see the thing we see so we don’t have to question ourselves. By we I mean me. I mean I do that. I mean it would make me feel a lot safer, and more secure if everyone could just see the ducks that I see.

Scarcity tells me that my perspective is only okay if everyone else thinks that, that a different perspective threatens me and my world. I have to fight for myself, for my perspective.

But scarcity is such a stupid liar.

Abundance says that I can really and truly try to see the rabbits of this world, but that doesn’t mean that the duck isn’t there. My perspective and understanding can grow and change, and everyone doesn’t have to see it that way. Abundance says God loves all people desperately, even if the people cannot even agree on what is right in front of them. Abundance says my perspective will not always be correct but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t seek to find truth anyway. Abundance says even though I am terrified of living in a world with multiple perspectives God can do good good work through it all.

I think I will go with abundance.

I missed yesterday, so you will probably get two today. It is the 18th and I am still in this thing! 31 days of fighting scarcity.

I went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. I went with my kids, my sister, her family and some of her neighborhood kids. I went to the pumpkin patch because I wanted to and because my sister wanted to go and because it was time. But I always forget it is time. I always forget because it doesn’t feel right. It isn’t cold enough to be pumpkin carving weather, and the leaves. Why are most of the leaves still green?

I have lived in the south for almost ten years and I am still confused by the seasons. I still sometimes almost miss peaches because they are ripe far sooner than I expect. I still get confused when my girls wear sundresses to the apple orchard and short sleeves to get their pumpkins.

And this next one, this is the craziest one, every year at this time I look at the pictures other people post of the leaves that are orange and yellow and red, and I am afraid that I have missed it, that the changing of the leaves won’t happen to me, in my neighborhood, on my trees.

I get scared that because the timing isn’t exactly what I expect, or what is happening to other people then the timing of the leaves means this part will just be skipped.

Y’all this is not how the cycle of the trees works. It makes no scientific sense. It doesn’t even make any social sense. In my head I am screaming, EVERYONE ELSE I KNOW HAS PRETTY TREES. But that isn’t true either. I know a lot of people in Atlanta who are experiencing exactly what I am experiencing. But scarcity makes me totally crazy.

There are a lot of things in my life that have happened on a time line that I was totally comfortable with. In fact, in this way I am very, very lucky. But there are a few things that I thought I would have by now that I am still waiting on.

Scarcity tells  me that if I don’t have it right now then I am never ever getting it.

But abudance, abundace gently tips my chin toward the warm setting sun and whispers, Abby, love, feel the warmth of a fall sunset in the south. Breathe the air still warm into your lungs. The changing leaves are coming my dear. But for now enjoy the gift of the angle of the sun on the patch of earth you are on this minute. The still green leaves come with their own gift.

Yesterday I promised you that you are better than your worst self. I know, it is a lot to take in but I promise it is true.

But that also means that everyone else is worth more, and loved more than their worst self. That person who totally jacked up your day, or your week, or your work? They are better than that thing that they did to you. or said to you, or didn’t do for you. They are better than that. That is how God’s kingdom works.

Even if they make YOU crazy, even if YOU are just so done, even if YOU can’t see anything good anymore, abundance says they are still a totally valuable, wonderful, amazing human being who deserves all the dignity and respect that any child of God would receive. Abundance says that even if you don’t see it right this second, you should go ahead and act on the wholeness and goodness and love-able-ness of the student who is right there because it is so, absolutely there.

(Scarcity is telling me that this isn’t enough, but abundance says sometimes it only takes a few words. You can read all of the series here.)