hello, and welcome!

if you’re new here, HELLO! i’m michelle. i’m the daughter of missionary parents, wife of a singer-preacher, mother to five children (ages 4-14), friend of Christ. i live with my family on a small farm near the shores of Lake Michigan.

i grew up in a christian household, but more and more, as i grow older, my heart’s true HOME is Christ.

while i’m a fairly private person, i love hospitality. i’ve been keeping this blog, much like keeping a house, but i’ve yet to invite anyone inside. while you’re here i’ll show you our farm and flowers, and we can chat homeschool (all under the “little phlox” tab), but if you linger for a bit and we sit down in front of the fire with tea, i’ll share what the Lord’s been doing in my life (this “journal” tab)—that’s where my whole frame leaps to life, words flow freely, eyes sparkle.

welcome!

(photos by my friend robyn ♡)

on being simple

i love how when the Lord has something He’s trying to impress upon us, we can count on Him to tell us over & over, in the language of our heart & our daily circumstances. a few days ago i was driving home from the appliance store, praying, intermittently in tongues. i was about to turn into the Mexican grocery store, waiting at the light, when i asked the Lord, “what’s something you like about me?” and He said, “you’re pretty!” this stunned me! not the answer i would have expected—quite honestly, not one of the first things to come to mind when i think of myself…but immediately my heart knew, i was expecting for Him to answer in a way that revealed my spiritual significance or functionality to serving His kingdom purposes, but really i’m just beautiful to Him, not for anything i can “do” for Him.

the next day i was reading Little Pilgrim’s Progress with the kids, in the chapter called “The Valley of Humiliation”. christiana and her siblings notice a joyful shepherd in the valley, the Good Prince’s favorite place, singing a merry little song, while the lambs frisked happily beside their mothers. “he is poor,” said great heart, “yet he is happy. he works faithfully and knows that His master is pleased with him.”

and i knew that shepherd was me! immediately i had that familiar image of myself as a simple, empty vessel—it’s always that rough red clay one or an old rustic wooden bowl. not elegant, but highly elevated when filled with beautiful flowers. simple but made for noble purposes when filled completely with the Holy Spirit.

yesterday on Pray-As-You-Go the passage was from john 3:31-36. “he whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.”  He showed me again that, simple though i am, my capacity for and through the Spirit is endless!

we read in Hurlbuts’ after that the story about mary and martha, and again I knew...i am mary, sitting at the Lord’s feet for much of my time on earth while everyone around is involved in much Christian “activity”. i often feel guilty or tempted to do something and yet He continues to tell me : you are simple, you are beautiful, you sit at my feet, you tend the sheep with a happy heart—you are an immense pleasure to me!”

and finally, PAYG a today was about gratitude, and Jesus’ prayer, thanking God the Father for hiding things from the wise and intelligent and revealing them to infants. that’s me! is this you, too? what a joy it is to walk daily with the Shepherd, to hear His voice to strengthen our days. may this encourage you today in your simple, beautiful life!

worship as a way of life

josh was gone last weekend, so for church we stayed home and i shared a testimony with the kids. we prayed, sang, and read verses about the Lord being our portion and reward. earlier that morning the Lord had brought to mind a memory from twenty years ago, the time when worship first invaded my heart, in the midst of a trial, and it became a lifestyle for me—worship as a way of life, an attitude of heart. i played that pivotal song for the kids (it was “king of glory” by third day, by the way, and it was totally not my style of music as a counter-cultural girl! i’ve found God often loves to confound my natural affinities) and the tears streamed down my face again. at the end of the day heron came up to me and said, “mom, i think God is calling me to worship. not just on the worship team but with my whole life...and guess what! i worshiped God all day today, and He gave me so many inspiring ideas!”

we’re noticing a link here, between worship and creativity, and it is stunning to see our kids come alive to this reality. makoto fujimura has some beautiful thoughts on this—the theology of making, in his book “art + faith”, and in any interview you read or see of him, as he so articulately shares his own creative process and vocation as a visual artist, of making art as a discipline of awareness, prayer, and praise. “simply put, when we make, God shows up...” which we affirm and add a hearty “...and vice versa” ♡ // pictured here, heron in her dairy barn studio

community development begins at home

when i was twenty i spent a semester at the HEART training institute in central florida, studying small animal husbandry, intensive gardening, appropriate technology, small engine repair, permaculture, etc. this was a pivotal time for me, in part because i was finally stepping towards the dream God had put in my heart at age four to work among the poor back in my birth country of Peru. (also because i was given a book there by a classmate called “Experiencing God,” which began a life-long adventure of hearing God’s voice, but that’s a story for another post). i did end up returning to Peru to work in development, and over the years God has continued to have the development calling on my life. it’s an indelible part of who i am, though i’ve been slow to understand the implications and context.

for years that calling felt at odds with my husband’s. it took us out to portland for a degree in art/craft + social entrepreneurship (that i barely even started, as the babies and homeschool calling kept coming), and almost to cambodia. but as i’ve pressed in and surrendered my own will, been obedient to have all these kids and school them at home, i finally see it : community development begins at home. that old “give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime!” adage is at the heart of our homeschool as i train my own kids now (two of whom already hope to be missionaries). here at home, i’m discipling my own kids, helping them grow in what we called in Peru “los cuatro areas,” : intellectual, physical, spiritual, social (using christ’s own development as an example from luke 2:52) so that they can have flourishing and self-sustaining futures in all the spiritual and practical ways. and, a fun little full-circle moment, though it’s twenty five years later and i’m having to re-learn all these things myself, i get to train my own kids to trim goat hooves! 👏🏻 (photos from 7/17 and 10/11/21)

inspiration vs. perspiration

I was thinking about that quote that’s attributed to thomas edison, that creativity (or is it genius?) is 99 percent perspiration and one percent inspiration. & i was thinking again about Jesus being with God the Father at the beginning, "all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made..." the very creativity of God personified, & now He lives in our hearts. i often think about Jesus as a placemaker--He's gone to prepare a place for us! so how do we companion with Jesus in our creativity, & flip around that 99 & 1 percent? i got a glimpse into this last week with the girls' room which all three—heron, poppy, & willow, share. i've really been praying about all of the creative choices that need to be made in our new/old house to build a home (which are also linked to financial decisions, & i want to be a good steward). & i'm trying to not move forward until i have a clear vision, room-by-room because it's fun to test out my theory of divine creative partnering & inspiration. it's like practicing agnes sanford's faith prayers for healing on languishing flower seedlings--low risk. for me, sometimes placemaking these days looks like 99% online research. but in my heart i know, if i'm partnered with Jesus in this creative act, it should be 1% perspiration/research, 99% inspiration & joyful implementation, not toil.

i was practicing that with the girls' room, & one morning my quiet time very easily flowed into a creative imagining time with the Lord. in one fell swoop i had a vision for the girls' room, right down to the homemade accent pillows of ticking stripe (not shown) & liberty of london florals. i quickly gathered together the pieces online--the beds ($140 each for metal beds!!!), fabric & linens, & the following day i went to antique stores & effortlessly found all the remaining furniture i needed for that space. like He really planned it all out for me. (i even met the owner of one of the booths while she was cleaning out her space, she's a christian, had the best booth in the whole antique mall, she gave me everything 30% or more off, i got a sweet cabinet for $75 instead of $175, & we even ended up going to her shop in her barn a few days later to pick up a few more pieces). i think this is the ideal, right? a really practical implication, a practical theology for "doing what i see my Father doing". not spinning my wheels or overexerting myself in areas that aren't working, but waiting until i have a clear creative vision in a particular area from the Lord. partnering with Him in that thing, feeling the vigor of creative inspiration, the pleasure of co-creating with the very author of the ultimate creative act—the creation of the whole world!

all of these thoughts feel like they have serious implications, not just homemaking ones. i'm married to someone who, while divinely-inspired, has toiled hard, perspired buckets, & bears the marks of it still in his body (though presently experiencing healing in so many ways! 🙌🏻) . that's what self-effort can look like, a premature breaking-down of the human frame. so i'm curious about what entering into Jesus' promised easy yoke can look like in the creative & professional realm. i see Jesus pre-incarnate singing & laughing over the waters He's speaking into existence, a confident inspiration, a joyful implementation. i see Him in ministry "relaxed," as dallas willard says of Him, His most notable feature. recently i watched a short video of makoto fujimura talking about his own theology of making, & he said he often begins his art-making with moments of stillness before the Lord, saying over & over, "i don't know what i'm doing, i don't know what i'm doing..." to me, this is the humility of the empty vessel, waiting to be filled with the Spirit's divine inspiration, & leaving the toil of creativity up to Him.

promised LAND

for the past five years we’ve had Land on our hearts. we longed to raise our children there, and knew it was on God’s heart to give it to our family. we left the west coast three years ago as the midwest landscape called us back. a real estate deal fell through, we ended up back in the same small town where we’d first met twenty years ago—no land, but trusting in His promises still. He comforted our hearts at the beginning of what would be three years by letting us know it was temporary, that we’d be there for two or three years, that He was preparing a place for us. (i journaled that word down, but if i would have fully trusted it, would we still have renovated the entire house...? yeah, probably!)

nearing the end of our third year in muncie, josh was on his weekly prayer drive up at the michigan border, near the Lake, near the south bend, indiana area where he grew up, when the Lord said, “take a left…I have something to show you!” and there it was : an 1882 farmhouse on ten acres with a For Sale sign in front of the popcorn and squash patch. we closed on the sale exactly three years after God’s word came to us, through a sweet little, low-stress FSBO deal. all this to say, truly, PTL with us! God is real, He’s good, and He speaks. (i think this is one of the major themes of my life) it is just so ultimately sweet to walk in fellowship with the Father, to cling to His great, precious, and personal promises, & to see them come to pass.

willow glad | the names of our children | part i of v

a morning hike to a favorite place // willow just learned to stand straight up from sitting

willow + glad :

our children’s names generally come to me about halfway through my pregnancy. they seem to be both representative of something God is teaching me, or me & josh, during that season of our lives, & also an indicator of the nature/gifting/destiny of the child i’m carrying.

during my pregnancy with willow, the Lord was teaching us to praise Him at all times. so often we as humans construct shrines of our disappointments, which are apt to become the theme & message of our lives, towering above the tabernacles we could rather build to proclaim the goodness & faithfulness of God. in times of sickness, confusion, “failed” plans, the Lord was teaching us to trust Him and His goodness, & proclaim His praises as we awaited His provision, healing, & salvation. 

the symbol i saw of this in nature was a willow tree, which seemed to have a flexibility & resilience in its limbs, arms gracefully arched in praise. in scripture, the willow tree is a symbol of praise, a symbol of the Lord’s faithfulness as the people celebrate the feast of tabernacles in leviticus (23:40), then in ezra (chapter 3) and nehemiah (chapter 8) as they return to jerusalem after a season of exile. i also uncovered a wonderful allegory about a willow tree in some early christian writings, namely “the shepherd,” parable 8, which also portrays the willow as a tree that ever clings to & sprouts new life.

we were also learning to take delight in the law of the Lord, & saw the correlation in scripture between righteousness & gladness (Psalm 1:1-6 and Psalm 32:11, etc., through the work of the Holy Spirit—Galatians 3:2-6), even as we were seeing the truth of that in our own lives. thus, willow glad.

so, while we were learning about praise in all circumstances, & reaping the fruit of gladness, God was forming this resilient, joyful little girl inside of me. these lessons josh & i were learning seemed to be a part of her, our little willow glad, & already she has seemed to be an easy-going, sweet-natured little thing, who will be firmly planted by streams of living water, offering shade & comfort to others beneath her graceful, ever-praising branches, singing songs of gladness even in times of seeming captivity (psalm 137). welcome to our family, willow glad!

God is real, He's good, and He speaks

everywhere we go, there soon emerges a morning rhythm. on mayne island i wake up before dawn, head outside, light the fire, and enjoy a quiet hour with the Lord—a slivered moon and faint pink sky to my right, the bay with boats and fishing heron in front of me. josh wakes while the rest of the house sleeps on. willow wakes, i nurse her, she climbs on my back for a hike at dawn to the neighboring bay. i speak in tongues, the animals draw near—the squirrel, three deer, a heron. He whispers kindness, understanding, sweet mysteries that i cannot forget. God is real, He’s good, and He speaks. willow plays with shells on the beach, the arbutus across the water glows a regal red. it’s 7:30, we return, my heart full.