Christmas isn’t about stuff. And Christmas isn’t about busyness. Christmas is about the generosity of God. And Christmas is about the incredible gift He shared with us. For us!

For a child has been born—for us!
the gift of a son—for us!
He’ll take over
the running of the world.
His names will be: Amazing Counselor,
Strong God,
Eternal Father,
Prince of Wholeness.
His ruling authority will grow,
and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings. Isaiah 9:6, The Message

There will be no limits to the wholeness he brings. Now that is a reason to celebrate! 

Presents. Lights. Trees. Cards. Parties. Elves on shelves. Santa Claus. Reindeer. Blow-Up Snow Globes. Stockings. Hallmark Christmas Movies. They are all have their place. But that place isn’t shouldn’t be at the center of this special holiday. Yet sometimes, in all the stuff, and in all the busyness, we get lost in the festivity and forget the true meaning of the season.

This year, let’s not forget.

Let’s take back Christmas.

Food for the Hungry is launching a campaign this Christmas, “The 8 Days of Giving” Challenge. Our Director of Digital Media, Jeremy Reis, is leading the charge and will be blogging from December 9 to December 16, on the FH Blog. Our goal is to give 800 gifts, 100 gifts per day, from the FH Christmas Catalog.

The FH Christmas Catalog is designed to deliver gifts that impact the lives on the most vulnerable globally. Through the gift catalog, families in need receive items like small farm animals, school supplies and uniforms and bed nets.

We’d love it if you would join us in taking back Christmas. Here are three simple ways you can help:

1. Read and share about “The 8 Days of Giving” campaign.

2. Choose some items from the FH gift catalog to give to your loved ones this year.

3. Find other creative gifts for good. A few of my favorites are Project 7 Gum & Mints, Krochet Kids hats, 31 Bits Jewelry, Warby Parker glasses, and C & C Coffee Company’s Christmas Coffee.

How are you taking back Christmas this year?

For the first time in a long time, I have so many words to say that I’m not quite sure where to start. So I’ll start here. (I guess it’s as good of a place as any.)

Today was an incredible day. I got up went to a great job for a company that is doing good around the world and had the pleasure of interacting with talented and supportive co-workers and friends. Lunchtime came and I got pho-to-go (actually it was bun but that doesn’t have the same ring to it, now does it?) After work, I introduced a dear friend to the luxury of a pedicure and the deliciousness of Bear Flag Fish Company.

Yes, today was an incredible day.

Life is rich. And I am blessed.

But the last nine months have been hard.

When I packed up all my things to move to California, I was braced and ready for the challenge. A loss of the people, places, and things I held most dear coupled with a discovery of a new culture, a new home, a new church, and a new job. Yep, the challenge still managed to knock me on my rear end.

Hard, yet necessary.

I have learned much about myself, about solitude, about community, and about things I haven’t even learned that I’ve learned quite yet.

Over the last few months, I started to sense this adventure was meant to be a short-ish one.

So when I got a phone call from Ben Greene about an opportunity IN NASHVILLE to join the work that FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY is doing and MOBILIZE SPEAKERS, AUTHORS, AND OTHER STORYTELLERS TO GO TO THE HARD PLACES AND BRING HOPE AND HELP TO THE CHILDREN, I perked up. I explored the possibility that sounds like THE BEST JOB EVER. And when the job offer came, I jumped, I shouted, and I accepted.

This is my next right step. I know it. While zig-zagging across the country once again might seem a little whacky or sideways to some, I know it is just perfect, for me, for now.

So that’s my bittersweet news.

Bitter because it is the end of an awesome adventure and bitter because I will have to say goodbye to some precious friends. Sweet because by God’s grace I get to live and work in the flow of the Spirit and sweet because I AM GOING HOME.

“God’s plan is not just for us to be saved by grace – it is for us to live by grace. God’s plan is for my daily life to be given, guided, guarded, and energized by the grace of God. To live in grace is to flow in the Spirit.” John Ortberg, The Me I Want To Be

Thank you for your ongoing friendship and support. It means the world to me. 

As I write this I am 30,000 feet in the air, headed to Haiti with a handful of Project 7 teammates. We are going to plant fruit trees as our Save the Earth campaign culminates. And truth be known, I am a little nervous. Okay, I’m a lot nervous.

Nervous because while I have experienced poverty, I haven’t experienced the darkness one hears about when discussing Haiti. Nervous because I have heard first hand Dan Woolley’s stories of surviving in an elevator shaft for days after the 2010 earthquake. Nervous because diseases like Cholera and Malaria are still real threats to Haitians and travelers alike. And nervous because Haiti feels dangerous, and as lame as it is to admit, I like feeling, being, living safe.

Last night as I climbed into bed and allowed my thoughts to spin, I started whispering to myself…

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I wasn’t quite sure where the familiar words came from {a quick google search told me that it was from St. Patrick’s Breastplate and is said invoke protection on a journey} but they are the words that I will take with me to Haiti and will holdfast to on all the journeys laid before me.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, his shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death-wound and the burning
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Friends, will you pray for our journey? And in the comments let us know how I can be praying for you?

I am finally catching my breath after an incredible couple of days at Catalyst West. And before next week launches another incredible adventure {more on that later this week}, I thought would share with you a guest post I wrote for the Catalyst blog for Earth Day {that’s today you know?}.

Too often saving the earth is viewed as a left wing political agenda and not as the God-ordained responsibility of every human being that inhabits this beautiful earth that He created as our home.

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Genesis 2:15

But as Genesis so clearly states, from the very beginning, we were put here to work and to preserve creation. So today, on Earth Day, let each of us take a few minutes to reflect on this incredible gift we’ve been given and the and little steps that we can take to take care of it.

Here are five easy ways that you can help save the earth: Read the rest here. 

Happy Earth Day, friends!

Three months ago, I joined Project 7 as the Director of Community. It’s been a wild ride (In October, Project 7 Save the Earth Fresh Mint Gum and Feed the Hungry Peppermint Mints hit the shelves at 1,500+ Walmart stores.) and we’re just getting started!

It’s incredible knowing that for every product we sell tangible good is being done in the world.

Feed the Hungry products provide 7 meals in US communities.
Save the Earth products plant trees back into the earth.
Heal the Sick products provide medical treatments for a person suffering from malaria.
House the Homeless products provide shelter for a day for an orphan.
Hope for Peace products provide a day of counseling for a child of war.
Teach them Well products provide a week of schooling for a child in Africa.
Quench the Thirsty products provide clean water for a person for a year.

This holiday, as you pull together gifts for your loved ones, I’d love to encourage you to give products that give back. That way you’re giving not just one gift, but two. Not just products from Project 7 (although our gum, mints, and frac packs are the perfect filler for any stocking), but also from other great organizations like Krochet Kids, TOMS, 31 Bits, etc. Every purchase can make a difference!

Also, please consider blogging, tweeting or Facebooking to spread the word about Project 7 and other products for good?

Check out the Project 7 online store and don’t miss our holiday assortment.

What gifts that give back on your holiday list this year? 

I’m in one of those weeks where my thoughts, my fears, my plans, my memories, and my prayers are fluttering around in my head so frantically that I am not quite sure how to untangle them. Each morning, I’ve slowly gotten out of bed, put one foot in front of the other, checked things off my seemingly endless list of to-dos, and done my best to avoid the “hot mess” that is my head.

But unfortunately Catalyst asked me to put together some thoughts on the theme for their Atlanta event, “Be Present.” So here I sat, staring at my blank white “edit post” screen, cautiously trying to make some sense of my jumbled thoughts and scanning the web for procrastination, or perhaps a touch of inspiration, when I stumbled upon this beautiful post from Amber Haines after discovering her 19-day-old son Titus has a small whole in his heart.

The presence of God is a riptide, and I do want to go under – thanksgiving, awe, love, and fear intermingle only there with truth and peace.

Let it be said of me that I knew I wasn’t in control. Let it be said that I threw my hands in the air, took the free-fall and found my joy deep in His mysterious river.

“Even though I walk through [hospital hallways (not to mention my insanely vivid imagination,)][the craziness of a cross-country move][enter what you are walking through here] I fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

May we all BE PRESENT to this Truth. May we all discover the presence of God. May we all embrace the riptide.

And don’t forget The Catalyst Early Bird Deadline is tomorrow! Don’t Miss it – BE PRESENT.

I will BE PRESENT in my new role with Project 7 and I hope to see you all there. It is going to be an incredible event.

Call 888.334.6569 or go here to register: http://ow.ly/6b96t.

Gosh, sorry I haven’t written since the big news. I meant to, but time has sort of escaped me.

How have I been doing???

Well, I have been a tad overwhelmed.

The logistics of moving to California are far more complicated than I imagined.  Figuring out where to live and how to get my self, my belongings and my car from Nashville to Orange County has been pretty much all consuming. Not to mention the plotting of a lot difficult goodbyes.

And, for the better part of last week I was gripped with fear.

Can I really do this? What was I thinking? Moving to Southern California…the land of earthquakes and Real Housewives?  Who am I? Without Nashville, my friends, my church, and my dog? {Yeah, I came to the brutal decision to send Molly to reside in Texas with my parents than force her to accompany me as I get settled. Brutal.}

But…things are looking up.

I am feeling more cool, calm, and collected as the plan begins coming together. And I know this sounds corny and perhaps a little hyper-spiritual but Sunday as I sat in church I couldn’t miss the little confirmations, the gifts of reassurance, from God that this is the right move. And that I am not taking this leap alone.

From the gripping lyrics of Healer, “Nothing is impossible with You. You hold my world in Your hands.” To Pete Wilson’s poignant message about what being radically devoted to Christ looks like. To watching the waves crash on a rocky beach as Merlyn Catron sang, “Where you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I’ll stay. When you move, I’ll move. I will follow you.” To the perfectly timed text message from Tyler Merrick nudging the Project 7 team to, “Look for His details in the tapestry of your life today and this week.”

He won’t let me endeavor to think I am taking this leap alone.

Praise. The. Lord.

Enough about me. Has He sent you any gifts of reassurance lately?

Monday afternoon around 5 PM, I jumped. Monday afternoon around 5 PM, I took that giant leap of faith, or some might say insanity, that turns a comfortable existence right on its side. Monday afternoon around 5 PM, I accepted a job as Director of Community for Project 7.

If you are not familiar with Project 7, it is a cause-related company founded by “social-capitalist” Tyler Merrick that makes every day consumer goods, like bio-bottled water, gum, mints and coffee. And with every purchase of a Project 7 product, tangible good is done in 7 areas of need: Feed the Hungry, Heal the Sick, Hope for Peace, House the Homeless, Quench the Thirsty, Teach them Well and Save the Earth.

Gnarly, huh? {Yeah, I don’t imagine I will ever be able to pull off that word. I better stick with cool.}

Cool, huh?

And my job is even cooler. As Director of Community, I’ll be overseeing all strategic partnerships, relationships and sponsorships in faith-based channels. If someone could craft a position just for me, I believe this is it. It will allow me to utilize the various marketing, merchandising, and communications skills and the relationships that I have honed over the last decade at Thomas Nelson and Books-A-Million.

I know what you are thinking, none of this sounds so crazy.

Well, the kicker is that the job will be based in Southern California. I am still in the process of working out logistics of how to close up a home, and a life, in Nashville and begin anew in Orange County, CALIFORNIA, but imagine I’ll be west coast bound in early September.

So truth be known, I am feeling excited, scared, sad, and a tad bit overwhelmed. But most importantly, I feel a gentle peace about the decision. I know it is the right thing and I am ready to start this new adventure. I hope you will join me on this journey. And I am sure there a lot more to come {read: weepy posts} in the next few weeks as I begin to process this big change.

Appreciate you all!