​I was in my little writing nook writing yesterday morning. I happened to look out the window and down at the parking lot and panicked when I saw my car lights were on.

I put on some shoes and rushed down the steps and out to my car, nearly tripping over myself as I did. As I gathered myself and approached the car, though, it became clear my lights weren't on at all. It was simply the way the sun was beating against the glass on the car lights that made them LOOK like they were on.

I was standing there lost in this case of mistaken identity when I heard a voice, Keith!

No, this can't be, as I am standing there in 40 degree temperatures in nothing but my pajama bottoms and a t-shirt and untied shoes, the only neighbor I know in the whole complex is out walking her dog?

(Both of which were quite bundled up, by the way.)

She didn't ask it, but her face did quite well enough. What are you doing out here, Keith - looking like THAT?

So I told her. I told her about the sun's magic trick. When I did, she didn't look at me like I was crazy. I found this to be quite accepting of her.

Maybe even forgiving.

When I got back up to my nook, I looked down again upon my car. The lights still looked on. High beams. But then I shifted positions and tried looking out from a different angle.

Poof, the lights went dim.

Our senses have a responsibility of looking out for us. They detect dangers and urgencies in our life allowing us to respond accordingly and move to less dangerous spaces. Since many of us have had to deal with dead batteries after leaving our car lights on all night, it's not hard to understand why my eyes perceived and felt what they saw as an urgency.

But here comes the tricky part - our senses are not always right. They sometimes alert us to urgencies that aren't urgencies at all. Had I taken just a moment, allowed myself the slightest shift in how I was looking at things, I would have picked up on that.

We are always capable of spotting the tricks.

It's hard, though, because we live in a world that can keep our senses quite active. We have no lack of things these days to see and hear and feel and touch and smell. And in this world, it's easy to become a slave to trying to respond to the instincts all of those senses are tapping into.

It feels urgent, so surely it must be.

No. No it is not always urgent. The lights are not always on just because they appear to be.

Sometimes it's helpful to slow down, shift positions, look at life a little differently, protect ourselves from falling into the trap of believing everything demanding our response is worthy of our response, and maybe even more, protect ourselves from missing out on the things that truly are worthy while we are falling into that trap.

Some of our greatest changes in life don't happen through big overhauls, they often come through the smallest of shifts, the shortest of stops.

Just short enough to discover the lights are not really on.

​I had a friend reach out yesterday and wish me a happy Thanksgiving. It wasn't a normal wish, though. Her words landed more powerfully than a wish - wishes usually come with such uncertainty and this felt far more assuring than uncertain.

This friend knew I was spending Thanksgiving alone. She knew one of the complications of divorce and estranged family ties in my world is often spending holidays alone. She said I just want to acknowledge that has to be hard. She said I want to acknowledge that sometimes choices that feel right don't often result in outcomes that feel good.

She said I just want you to know I see it all.

To be honest, those words - "I see it all" - made me very emotional in the moment, but then became quickly soothing. So soothing I had to spend some time reflecting on why.

I would tell her later that after reflecting on her words, I realized I don't struggle with loneliness over the holidays. I suppose some of the broken parts of me have evolved to find great comfort in being alone. But I do sometimes struggle I think, and maybe often unknowingly, with feeling unseen during the holidays. Sometimes when the world gathers with their own over the holidays, those who don't have their own can feel hidden.

Out of sight. Which isn't always the same as lonely.

That is the only way I can explain why I felt so whole and completed by her words:

I see it all....

We come into this world soothed by those who initially see us. Parents. Nurses. Caregivers. From the earliest seconds of our lives, we are soothed by those who see struggles in us that no one else in the world can see. And so maybe that never stops being our greatest source of soothing.

Being seen. It is one of God's most loving promises to us, I see you always.

Maybe it is the fear of NOT being seen, of battling struggles the world has assumed away or lost sight of in the treasuring of their own gatherings, maybe it is that fear that most chips away at the way we see ourselves. The way we hold ourselves in the dark.

Until someone puts us quickly back together with, I see it all.

I want to assure you this isn't a message from a man battling post-Thanksgiving Day blues. That is not the case.

This is a message from a man committed to always wrestling with his blues and finding meanings that might make him stronger and wiser, and in his doing so, position him to offer light and hope to others. That has been such a pathway to fulfillment and joy for me.

My friend's message to me yesterday took all of about 3 minutes. I can't overstate the power of those three minutes.

I say this because we are rolling into the holiday season. For many, there are challenging stories in these holidays that they hope no one will ever see, and yet, at the same time, there are parts of their stories they fear no one will ever come to know at all.

During this holiday season, not everyone struggling needs a dinner invitation. Not everyone struggling needs gifts. All that many need is a simple message that says, I see it all.

Maybe a card or a note or a simple message that says I see it all, I want to honor your bravery and strength.

That is a gift we can all give. And I want to assure you, beyond any wish or uncertainty, the worth of that gift is beyond a price most any of us could afford.

These holidays for many are a time of great joy. And we should all soak up every ounce of that joy that we can possibly soak up. I am grateful for all the pictures of family gatherings and turkey trots and pure gratitude so many shared yesterday. They certainly became part of my joy.

But for those who fear you were lost in that joy, unseen, I just want to say, I see you.

I see it all.

I see your strength and your bravery. And I hope you, like me, will discover there is great joy to be had in honoring your own strength and bravery.

I am grateful for friends who offer that joy through the gift of being seen. And I encourage all of you, be that friend to someone someone in your life.

Don't ever underestimate the power of a friend saying, I see it all.

​Today is Thanksgiving. The holiday designed to encourage us to pause and feel and express gratitude for all we have. Why not, research strongly supports the power of gratitude in our lives.

At the risk of interrupting your day of gratitude for all you have today, though, I'd like to suggest another way of using gratitude. For me one that becomes more important to my own life and mental health every day. And that is expressing gratitude for the life that is coming my way; using gratitude to predict my future.

It's relatively easy to express gratitude for what one has, but how can one possibly express gratitude for that which has not yet come one's way?

For me, that's an easy answer.

I've experienced some challenges in my life. Some of them quite large. Which gives me something in common with so many of you reading this. But here's what all of those challenges in my past have in common; I wouldn't change any of them. Every one of them has served as the foundation of something stronger or better or both in my life.

So where many people's gratitude lists start with material blessings, friends and family, beautiful experiences - all very worthy of any gratitude list - my list starts with what many would consider comparatively less fitting gratitude entries.

Things others would want erased but I wouldn't change for anything.

I won't erase. Nothing. Because there is nothing I am more grateful for today than who I am: a beautiful child of God. And that beauty, like that of Noah and Adam and Paul and Sarah and Luke, has been built on the foundation of trials and tragedies and turmoil. And so how can I be exceedingly grateful for who I am and not start my gratitude list with where I've been?

The heaven AND the hell.

And more, how can I be so very grateful for everywhere I have been and not predict, with great confidence and gratitude, I will be equally grateful for all to come?

No matter where I am today, what I am experiencing or going through, how can I not look through that peephole to the future and not feel gratitude?

Wouldn't I be foolish to not use the gratitude that has sustained me to predict a future that will show up with even more sustenance?

I am so grateful for all I have this day. I am grateful for every day that delivered me here. And more importantly than both, I am grateful for what every moment in front of me is waiting to offer.

I have no idea what those moments are holding, but when you can confidently predict you will be grateful for them it really doesn't matter what they are holding, does it?

If you are reading this, please know how grateful I am for you this day. Writing to you is one of the most meaningful ways I have to express gratitude for each day behind me. To make wisdom out of those days - the good and the bad and the ugly - in a way that I hope helps you find more peace and gratitude in your own days.

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.

With so much love.

​Courage isn't something on a wish list.

Courage isn't something you'll receive from a character development class.

Courage isn't something waiting for just the right time to come knocking at your door.

No, courage is always waiting for you to come knocking at its door.

There's a story in the bible. The disciples are in a boat in the middle of a strong storm, when, out of nowhere, Jesus walks on the stormy waters to greet them.

And the disciples cried out, clearly scared to death (who wouldn't be) - "it's a ghost"!

Jesus said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

It's interesting, isn't it, that Jesus didn't tell them to hang in there, the storm will be over soon. Jesus didn't promise them that if they'd hang out with him long enough the storms would no longer be scary.

No. Jesus told them: TAKE courage.

Jesus was letting them know, and through them letting US know, courage is always there in front of us if we will just reach out and grab hold of it. Jesus seems to be saying, take courage, because if you're waiting around for courage to take you, it's going to be a pretty stormy and scary life.

Having courage means having faith. And having faith requires taking a risk. Many times we want assurances that our courage will be worth it as a prerequisite to having courage. That is backward thinking when it comes to courage, though, because assurances don't come until after we've had the courage to take a step.

A risk.

Pastor Robert Madu says, "you don't get the revelation until after the risk."

Maybe you don't follow Jesus. Maybe that's not the source of your faith. Maybe that's not where your invitation to take a risk comes from. But still, I hope we will all know and feel, so much of what we long to fully know about life, long to accomplish in life, long to experience in this life, so much of it is on the other side of that big door called courage.

I will tell you, for too much of my life, I stood staring at that door. Waiting for it to open, maybe? Waiting for someone to pop through it and extend a hand and say courage will see you now?

Well, that door never opened - at least not until I opened it.

And I will tell you, there is a lot more to life than I ever imagined on the other side of that door. I always knew there was more, but not THIS much more.

That door still trips me up now and again. But it has been helpful to know that door isn't going to open itself while I'm tripping. The answer to that door of courage always remains the same.

Take courage, because it IS there for the taking.

What door are you staring at today?

Open it.

​There is an important question in front of each of us this morning. Maybe some of us don't hear it, but don't be fooled, that doesn't mean the question isn't there.

And that question is:

Then what?

Why is that such an important question?

Because today is designed to be the answer. Today is designed to introduce us to the part of our story that says:

Then I.......

Many of us miss out on the 'then I' part of the story. We miss out on it because we are so busy wrestling with the 'whens' in our lives that we never hear the question, then what?

And I did say 'whens' - not wins.

WHEN they walked away from me.

WHEN I was younger and thinner and braver.

WHEN I was the CEO.

WHEN I was dark and irresponsible and lacking much integrity.

WHEN I was abused.

WHEN I wasn't there for them.

If I turned the list over to many of you at this point, you could keep right on writing it. So could I.

When. When. When.

But do you know what today is? Today is the day to start a new list. Today is the day to start the THEN list.

Then I. Then I. Then I.

Then I made the choice to get healthier.

Then I took the chance on love again.

Then I allowed myself to believe God will accept the 'when' parts of me just as easily as he can accept the 'now' parts of me. The God who is my biggest 'then I' cheerleader.

The thing about THEN, it is all up to us. It's up to us, with commitment and conviction and trust, to say today is my then. Now is when I'm done wrestling with all the 'whens' in my life and I'm about to start writing the 'then I' part of my story.

Because if you think about it, that's maybe the biggest guiding questions in our life.

Then what?

You hold the answer. You hold the decision. You hold the direction. You hold the rest of the story.

Then I.......

Then I what?

Go begin answering that question today.

​There is nothing like divorce, or other turn-life-upside-down events in life, to make you question how on earth you ever got here. And from there, it's really easy to start beating yourself up in that place, and then quickly come to believe you somehow missed the road to getting to where you were ultimately supposed to get to in life.

The road you start walking from there can get challenging and unhealthy.

I have walked that road.

There's a story in the bible about two disciples walking back home to Emmaus after Jesus had been crucified. They were talking about all that had happened, about their disappointment that the one who was crucified, Jesus, wasn't who they thought he was; the one they believed had come to redeem Israel was now dead.

The bible goes on to tell us:

As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

Jesus asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” he asked.

(Jesus, the one who had felt the nails of those events, now asking what happened....)

I won't pretend to fully know the ways of Jesus. I won't pretend to know why Jesus was playing dumb in this conversation with these two; maybe so they would go on to share the full depth of desperation they were feeling on the road to Emmaus?

Maybe to set the stage for the miracle they would feel the moment they realized that all they thought was missing in their lives was walking beside them the whole time?

And maybe to remind me, and you, that when we get to feeling like we've missed the road, we are actually ON that road. Maybe to remind us that when it gets to feeling like Jesus has left us in some point of no return, it is Jesus who is actually walking beside us and guiding our every next turn toward the point HE desires to return us to.

I don't know why Jesus disguises who he is sometimes.

I don't know why divorce can look like Jesus disappearing, but I've been on my road to Emmaus long enough now to know it is NOT because Jesus has disappeared.

Sometimes Jesus is quiet.

Sometimes Jesus doesn't look like all the centuries old drawings.

Sometimes Jesus just wants to be that friend, asking, what things?

So that Jesus can say, in his own time and way, I know all the hurt that comes with those things, but those things are not the final things.

When they got to Emmaus, Jesus and Cleopas and the other were eating dinner. And the bible tells us:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Sometimes Jesus shows up looking like bread. Sometimes as a sunrise or a sunset. Sometimes as a beautiful song that fills a room.

I simply have come to know, on this road to Emmaus, the moment I get to lamenting the death of Jesus, Jesus shows up to remind me he is still very much risen.

And as we head in to this week of giving thanks, there is nothing on this road to Emmaus that makes me feel more grateful.

Nothing that makes my heart burn more with love within me.

Wherever you are, you are not beyond the point of return. If you'll look for it, the return is walking right beside you.

​I had a conversation with a buddy yesterday who has lost a lot of weight. He sent me pictures of him attending two different weddings months apart, pictures before and after his weight-loss.

The difference was remarkable.

He asked me, Keith, how do we let ourselves get to where I was in that first picture? He said he knew that he didn't feel great. He knew he wasn't in the healthiest place. And yet, he didn't do anything about it.

There's something about unhealthy patterns in our lives. They are like quicksand. They suck us in because they are comfortable and easy to repeat, and then before we know it, we are way more stuck than we ever imagined we could get.

This can be true of our diets or exercise patterns.

It can be true of the challenging relationships we find ourselves in.

It can be true of the job we settle for.

I think the biggest challenge to getting unstuck once we're stuck is that we start obsessing over a picture in our heads of a life totally unstuck instead of simply taking a step toward it.

Seth Godin says, "the best way to make things better is to begin."

I think sometimes we want to skip better and get right to the ideal.

We want to skip healing and get right to healed.

We want to skip that half mile run and get right to the marathon finish line.

And many times, that isn't because we aren't willing to take those first steps, it's not that we aren't able, it's that we got ourselves so stuck that we can't begin to believe that a step will make any difference.

Often it's not because we are without discipline, it's because we are without hope.

Maybe hope comes from giving ourselves permission to believe that better is good enough. And recognizing that belief isn't selling ourselves short on our bigger mission, it's simply embracing that the ideal situation rarely comes before making our current situation better.

Many of us are living in some circumstances that can feel like a mess. Well, we can get stuck in believing there is no way that mess is going to go away, or we can start taking some steps to make it a little better.

In the end, that's really the only way a mess ever gets cleaned up.

​I had a meeting with a dear friend and work colleague yesterday. She told me she is embracing the idea of wintering in her life right now. It was not coincidental then, at least not to me, that as I was driving home, deeply reflective about this wintering idea, that I drove into a blinding snow shower.

I hear you God....

In her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May writes about the idea of embracing life's dormant periods, not as mere preparation for a new season, but as meaningful in their own right.

In our culture, it is easy to come to insist that everything we do, every step we take, must contribute meaningfully to some next step in life. What is the value in this moment, we might ask, if it isn't a moment building toward something meaningful, as if a moment in itself can not be meaningful if it isn't a building block.

One can begin to think my writing this article has no meaning if it doesn't directly contribute to touching someone's life, or if it isn't a chapter in a book. As if writing in and of itself can't be meaningful.

One can begin to think that a job has no meaning if it isn't a path to retirement, or buying a house, or paying the bills. As if working in and of itself can't be meaningful.

One can begin to find meaningless a conversation with a friend, or co-worker, if there is no endgame to the conversation, some added value yet to come from time spent together. As if connecting in and of itself can't be meaningful.

And so winter, a season often associated with life coming to a halt, the leaves fall, the plants die, the dormancy of winter can feel uncomfortable to many.

It can feel unproductive.

Because of our go-go-go culture, stopping can feel like a sin. We see others plow right through winter and we guilt ourselves into believing winter will surely leave us behind if we go about our wintering.

If we go about resting.

But what if resting isn't a break from life as much as it is actually at the very heart of life? What if we didn't have to feel guilty about our rest, but instead gave ourselves permission to know that it is in the winters of our life that we often find unexpected beauty and wisdom. And find them not for the sake of some better tomorrow, but for the simple sake of beauty and wisdom themselves.

I find it interesting that God wrote a season of winter not into every year of our life, but into every week. God wrote the Sabbath into our story. One day a week when all would stop, not just to rejuvenate, but to celebrate God and life itself.

The Sabbath used to be an important part of our culture until culture decided rest was bad for business, bad for youth sports, bad for our overall cultural productivity. Whether you are spiritual or not, there is much to suggest that robbing everyone of blanket permission to not only take rest, but to celebrate it for the beauty of rest itself, has not worked out in the best interest of our wellness.

Do we ever stop long enough in the moments we are living as a step to something bigger to celebrate just how big that step is that we are currently living, to recognize that the value of right now is immense long before we know what the outcome of this right now may one day be?

I don't know the answer to that, really.

But I want to encourage you all, give you permission to the degree my permission has any value, to do a little wintering this winter. To see the shorter days and longer periods of darkness as a time to rest, to celebrate winter as a beautiful part of life's rhythms, not as a building block to spring, but as a way of celebrating the right here and right now and the quiet gift of being.

Wintering.

The sweet reminder that rest is not about preparation and productivity. It is a sacred act. A time to honor the fullness of life as it is.

Driving home yesterday, the snow indeed felt like a sacred reminder of just that.

​I took a 5-mile hike on the Virginia Creeper Trail yesterday. It wasn't lost on me that as I hiked this beautiful section of the trail a mere 18 miles ahead of me the trail has been destroyed and made impassable by the remnants of hurricane Helene.

One trail. One part intact and full of beauty. One part broken and torn to bits.

I found myself thinking about life.

My life, to be honest.

One part intact and full of beauty, the other part broken and torn to bits. I suppose to at least some degree that describes us all.

In my work I get to hear a lot about people's broken and torn parts. I get to hear the parts of themselves that they themselves don't consider very beautiful at all. And yet, as I listen to them, as I fully take in their stories, I often am left thinking those are some of their most beautiful parts.

Not because they are without pain. Not because I would wish those parts on anyone else. But because those broken parts have been the building blocks of some of the most beautifully intact parts of people I've ever had the chance to interact with.

I think we do that to ourselves too much. Try to sort out our broken and together parts. We begin to wonder if the way to beauty is gathering up as much of one part of us as we can while leaving as much of that other part of us as we can behind. When maybe our greatest beauty is found in embracing the beauty in the whole of us.

I don't know what will become of the Virginia Creeper Trail, especially the badly broken parts. Maybe they will repair it. Maybe they will reroute parts of it. And maybe, indeed, some parts will simply become part of the trail's history, its memory.

But nature is resilient. Nature is the queen of adapt and rebuild.

And maybe I am the king.

There are sure parts of my trail that have been destroyed by hurricanes in my life. But they are a part of this beautifully intact trail I walk in life today. A trail I walk not in spite of the storms, but because of them.

Because I have rebuilt and adapted.

Over and over.

And there is beauty in that. Strength, not weakness.

I felt that about the Creeper Trail yesterday. I felt, this is a beautiful trail. Not THIS part, but ALL of it.

The whole trail.

The whole and the broken.

We're a lot like nature, you know.

Our beauty is in the whole picture, not in the parts.

​I get asked sometimes, how do you come up with something to write about every day?

My answer is short: God.

It's God who takes moments in my life, experiences, hopes and thoughts and dreams, and weaves them into stories. Messages. Essays.

I will tell you, I could never write as plentifully as I do now back in the days when I thought I was the actual writer.

There's a story in the bible about a man named Samson. A group of men called the Philistines were after Samson and his people. So Samson's people, looking out for their own well-being, bound Samson up with a rope and turned him over to the Philistines.

Only, Samson didn't stay bound long. The rope he was bound with fell from his arms as he approached his would be captors, and with the jawbone of a donkey Samson found nearby, he defeated a thousand Philistines.

Quite the accomplishment, right?

Samson clearly thought so, because after the victory he spoke these words:

“With the jawbone of a donkey,
heaps upon heaps,
with the jawbone of a donkey
have I struck down a thousand men.”

I read that like one of the earliest touchdown celebrations in the endzone. The wide receiver looking at the crowd and pointing to the number on his jersey.

But shortly after that celebration, dying of thirst and exhausted from the battle, Samson cried out to God: you have delivered me this great victory, must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the defeated?

And the bible tells us, shortly after Samson pointed to God's role in the victory:

"Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived."

Writing used to be exhausting to me when I thought the writing fell solely on me to produce and when after writing I would read something as if written totally by me. I was caught in this endless cycle of personal battle followed by celebration and weariness.

Today though, as I recognize God as the author of every word I write, and when I see God as the answer to my writer's block, and God as the path to new ideas and ideas well expressed, when I see God as the paper and the pen, there are no cycles, there is only God.

I love at the end of a sporting event, someone has scored that game winning basket or hit the walk-off homerun, and a reporter sticks a microphone in the athlete's face and asks them, how do you feel about what you just did?

And not infrequently, the athlete will respond, I give all the glory to God.

I know that makes some uncomfortable, they feel like television in that setting is not a place for an athlete to be sharing their faith. But they aren't really pointing to their faith in that moment as much as they are pointing to the author of the story a reporter is wanting them to comment on.

They are really put in a position of deciding, do I take credit for something I didn't do?

Do I sing a song about what I've done or point to the actual writer and producer of the song?

As fellow believers in God, these athletes have discovered what I've discovered in my life. If I lean on my own abilities, my own endurance, my own plans and paths - if I lean on me to perform all the magic, there might indeed be some magic, but it will have a very short shelf life.

There may come some magical victories, but they will leave me dying of thirst.

If writing the story of your life gets to feeling exhausting, maybe consider that you have a co-author available to you for starters. And then, start celebrating that co-author, and if you celebrate him long enough, and you might eventually turn all the writing over to him.

For me personally, I've discovered that's where all of my best stories come from.

God.