Elizabeth Sands Wise

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BIG NEWS!

March 7, 2017March 7, 2017 / Elizabeth

book announcement

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amazon, daughters, first fifty letters, mothers, my book, this sacramental life, wisdom

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← The Sixty-Third Letter: How the Whole30 Confirms What I Know to Be True About Myself

The Sixty-Fourth Letter: All Y’all Be Perfect →

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You can find some free digital print downloads under the “Sharing & Freebies” tab.

My newest book project! This collection is coauthored with my husband. (Click on the photo to purchase on Amazon.)

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This will get a little preachy, y’all. Because after 21 hours in the car over the last three days, I’m back on my own front stoop. Actually, I’m on the couch with a heating pad, but I am here and I am still and I am grateful for this place I call home. And I’m grateful that there is grace sufficient for me and my less-than-best self I become when I am single parenting from the drivers seat over a long day’s drive. I only had one trust-me-no-matter-how-bad-you-think-this-is-it-is-worse-for-me conversation with my children. And there were tears only one time. That might be a new record. So now that I’m home, let me preach a bit. Friends, it is never convenient to rally around your people and show up. Your tribe, no matter how far flung, needs you to show up sometimes. And not just when you’re expected to but sometimes when you’re given all the outs, you still need to show up. I just feel like I need to say that sometimes out loud. I need to say it to myself. All. The. Time. Because—can I be real?—I pretty much never want to show up. My less-than-best self wants to stay home and pray and send a hand-written note, but most of the time, when I read the gospel, I feel all the feels, and not in a good way. Because Jesus showed up. Then. Now. Repeatedly. Surprisingly. Vulnerably. It’s called incarnation, and I promise you that you’re called to it. Even if you would rather stay at home and lay your wornout soul on a heating pad and drink a glass of wine. (I hear some people are like that.) #showup #preachingtomyownheart #sabbathmeditation #incarnation #itshardandnotcool #myrealfrontporch #homeagainhomeagainjiggityjig #roadtrips #sacredordinarydays

Some days you attend funerals in the morning and demonstrate your most-awesome-aunt skills in the afternoon. That’s how life is, friends. It’s funerals and hula hoops. It’s broken hearts and skinned knees and sunburn alongside French braids and petting zoo reptiles and two too many daughters joining you on an air mattress. It’s 10-hour car trips and conversations with friends you haven’t seen since your wedding 14 years ago. It’s long hugs and too many tears and standing in solidarity with friends who’ve had a really shitty year. It’s being present to say I see you. And picking up a hula hoop to say, watch this. And for the record, I have never NOT ONCE in my life succeeded at hula-hooping before this afternoon. I was always jealous of those girls who could do it interminably while mine just dropped to the ground with no momentum. Next up? Double Dutch jump roping. #ifonlyihadabmuscles #illbehurtingtomorrow #mournwiththosewhomourn #bestauntever #myhusbandswifereallyisfreakingawesome #didntlookmuchlikehula

So the thing is, when Jesus said he was going to prepare a place for us, you know where he was going? To the cross. Tonight I was feeling a little sorry for myself. Okay, a lot sorry for myself. I was having some alone time because I just could not even, and I picked up a book I haven’t visited in awhile, and I opened to a chapter, and that is what it said. That Jesus prepares the way of suffering by going first. A friend of mine lost her mother last weekend. All of my seedlings I transplanted last weekend have died. My liturgical cactus is blooming again. Our church is in transition. I’m tired and grumpy and don’t want to write. So I’m pretty whiney if you catch me in person, which is usually when God tells me subtly to get over myself. I go to prepare a place for you, God said. And oh by the way, that place isn’t very comfortable. #couragedearheart #cslewis #grumpypants #handletteringtribe #ipaintsometimes #mournwiththosewhomourn #getoveryourself #kickinthepants #handlettering

On Monday around lunch time the Bean sighed and said, "So I guess we aren't doing school today." I said, “What???? You made a monster out of craft stuff with your dad and I read Peter rabbit to you—before breakfast! You practiced piano and had your piano lesson. I read 3 chapters of Calpurnia Tate aloud and then you read me 3 of your library books. While running errands, you sang me the presidents song, the books of the Bible, the history of the world timeline song, and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. And I already told you we were going to paint during quiet time. I think that counts as school!” "But we didn't practice telling time," she said. Sigh. This girl. Anyone else have particular expectations for your to-do list today? Are there certain things you count as “work” and certain things you count as “play” and everything else is interruption? Well. Turn your attention to an interruption today. Do something unexpected. Say yes to something good. Say “not right now” to something that’s a burden. And if someone asks you to handletter a crazy physics formula, say, sure, why not? Also, for the record, I let the Bean get out her learn-to-tell-time-clock while I was chopping vegetables for dinner and we practiced time. So she could ✔️ that off her list. Because I really am a fan of to-do lists. Within reason. #handlettering #ineveractuallytookphysics #homeschoolingmama #todolists #tahdahlistismorelikeit #whathomeschoolinglookslike

Some days I feel more like a smoldering pile of ashes than a match ready to light the world on fire. Sometimes I feel like I’m putting out more fires than I’m kickstarting. Sometimes I can hardly breathe from all the smoke. You, too? Well, it’s okay, friends. It is. Still we get up. We do all the things. We say yes to some things. Maybe too many. We say no to some things. Probably not enough. And we keep on keeping on. And sometimes, when you’re really not feeling like being chatty but you’re outside on a sunny day planting your flowers and minding your own business, you strike up a conversation with a stranger walking by, and you find out she homeschools her girls, and you find out your daughters are the exact same age, and you say, okay, God. You’ve got the matches. Go ahead. It’s simply Tuesday. #settheworldonfire #bewhoGodmeantyoutobe #catherineofsiena #handletteringtribe #itssimplytuesday #sacredordinarydays #loveyourneighbors #plantyourflowers (Also, this is my artwork, and this photo belongs to me. Please don’t share this image (or anyone else’s!) without permission. Thanks!)

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