Starting with Amanda Palmer and her crazy, beautiful, bold asking<\/p>\n The Art of Asking: or How Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help<\/a><\/p>\n This is one book you should LISTEN to.\u00a0 Being a musician, Amanda weaves in her music to the story in a winsome way.\u00a0 Beautifully written, beautifully read, and\u00a0 appropriately edgy, I can tell this will be a yearly \u201cread\u201d for me. The best books invite you into a world so different than yours but helps you see the threads of similarity between, humanizes the differences, welcomes you in with open arms.\u00a0 This is the \u201cArt of Asking; it\u2019s one part motivation for the creative, two parts memoir, and ONE BIG HELPING of vision-casting of a world where we invite each other into our vulnerability by asking for help.<\/p>\n In all honesty, I would have never reached out to you, my readers and my friends for help getting to Allume without this book.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shot of confidence and a loving kick in the pants to take the gifts you have and the potential to make lives better with it seriously enough to ask for help.<\/p>\n \u201cIf We\u2019re Honest\u201d by Francesca Battistelli<\/strong><\/p>\n I came across this album when I was working on my fundraising video<\/a> last week.\u00a0 I needed a cute song towards the end when I reveal the thank you gifts for helping me get to Allume, and the song, \u201cWrite Your Story\u201d popped in in Spotify.\u00a0 I love that song, but my favorite was one I heard this morning after my quiet time by the pool, \u201cIf We\u2019re Honest\u201d<\/p>\n Bring your brokenness, and I\u2019ll bring mine It would change our lives Oh my goodness, I needed that reminder.\u00a0 Sometimes, I\u2019m so afraid of not seeming put together.\u00a0 Pride makes me want to hide my brokenness, but it\u2019s there\u2019s anything I\u2019ve learned about God\u2019s Shalom, about becoming a whole woman, it\u2019s that transparency is vital to the healing process.\u00a0 What I also loved so much about this album is on Spotify, there\u2019s an accompanying commentary album, so I made a playlist that merges the two, so I can hear the stories behind the song as I\u2019m listening to the album.\u00a0 Hearing the stories, makes the songs more accessible.<\/p>\n[spotify id=\u201dspotify:user:oshetamoore:playlist:3L4qF3NeCOFJyENKjgqfpb\u201d width=\u201d300\u2033 height=\u201d380\u2033 \/]\n Watching<\/strong>:<\/p>\n So You Think You Can Dance.<\/strong><\/p>\n So\u2026synchronicity\u2026it happens in the most unlikely places like WHILE YOU\u2019RE WATCHING SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!<\/p>\n Last Tuesday, I turned on Hulu while folding laundry to catch up on SYTYCD (since we got rid of cable when we moved to LA).\u00a0 Mind you, all month, I\u2019ve had Amanda Palmer, and Francesca Battistelli, and\u2026well\u2026Jesus, pressing me to let go of my \u201cput togetherness\u201d and ask for help when I need it,\u00a0 then I saw this Team Stage dance choreographed by Jaci Royal. In the treatment she says, \u201cWe\u2019re doing a contemporary piece about when you need the help of other people to overcome obstacles,\u201d and I was like, \u201cReally, God?!? really?\u201d <\/em>No matter what I did last month, I couldn\u2019t get away from the truth that helping and asking for help are important fixtures in God\u2019s economy. The easiest and most impactful way to practice Shalom is to be a generous giver and a humble receiver. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Yv-NEIk3lTw<\/a>\n It was like God choreographed that dance for that specific moment for me.\u00a0 Throughout the performance, scriptures about helping and bearing one another\u2019s burden kept popping in my head.<\/p>\n Seven times, I\u2019ve watched that dance, y\u2019all.\u00a0 Seven time and each one I notice a new seen, or have a new insight, or just sit in amazement of what our bodies can do.<\/p>\n Projects I\u2019m Into<\/strong><\/p>\n Fund the Nation:<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re raising money for any cause, I highly suggest Fund the Nation to help you. Fund the Nation is a Christian t-shirt design company that uses their gifts to create custom Tshirt for you to sell to your community to raise money.\u00a0 They specialize in mission trips, adoption fundraisers, youth groups and many more important Kingdom causes. \u00a0 I first heard about them in a Jamie Ivey podcast and tucked their name in the back of my mind for when we decide to adopt, but then I mentioned to a friend that someday I wanted to make Tshirts for my blog and I remembered Fund the Nation.\u00a0 I sent in a request for more info and when I explained that I wanted to create a shirt for my readers to help me get to a bloggers conference my coordinator, Andrew (who was da bomb!) jumped right in and helped me come up with these four designs.\u00a0 I love them so much and I\u2019m planning on wearing one each day of the conference when I go (hopefully) in Oct.<\/p>\n https:\/\/funds.gofundme.com\/dashboard<\/p>\n A percentage of every shirt purchased will go towards getting me to Allume this Oct.<\/p>\n Jamberry<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s been a hard weekend. \u00a0 I cried yesterday because I miss my friends, especially today on my birthday.\u00a0 I almost always meet up with friends for brunch on my birthday and then dinner with another set.\u00a0 I created a tradition of walking on the Charles with my birthday latte from Starbucks and reflecting on my past year.\u00a0 Today, I\u2019m working at the church and then grabbing lunch downtown with a new friend.\u00a0 I\u2019m excited, but really sad too.\u00a0 Yesterday, when TC came home from getting the kids\u2019 hair cut, he saw my tear-stained face, sighed, and pulled me in for a hug.\u00a0 While in his arms,\u00a0 I got a text from a acquaintance from MOPS asking if I wanted to meet up at Starbucks to look at her Jamberry wraps and catch up. At first I didn\u2019t want to go.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to spend any money, especially since I\u2019m asking for help to get to a bloggers conference in two months, but I also knew that TC was just encouraging me that God sees, knows, and responds to our sadness, so I wrote back, \u00a0 \u201cYes.\u00a0 I\u2019m leaving now.\u201d\u00a0 It started out awkward. I was all indecisive and she was gracious.\u00a0 I started with the greens and a peacock and quickly decided they were too joyful for me. I wanted to wallow in all the things I don\u2019t have. I apologized way too much and even said something like, \u201cI\u2019m a mess today\u201d. Then my friend said, \u201cLook! I\u2019m here to help.\u00a0 This is fun for me\u2026sitting with you and going through these wraps. Take your time.\u201d And so I took my time and found these wraps with good, true words and realized that help was coming from the Lord- in the form of beauty, and words which I love so much, in the form of validating my calling to be a writer,\u00a0 and an authentic bid for friendship.\u00a0 So, I chose the \u201cwords to the wise\u201d wraps and wrote her a check .\u00a0 Then she sat with me and we talked about my sadness and how connecting here in LA takes time, and how I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 At one point she made me look her in the eye and promise to call her if I ever have another sad day.\u00a0 She was probably the best birthday gift ever.<\/strong> She was the hands of Jesus as she took mine in her own.\u00a0 She was the voice of Jesus when she told me that I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 She was generosity of Jesus when she opened up her own stash of wraps, her \u201caddiction\u201d as she playfully calls it and suggested we do an accent on my ring finger.<\/p>\n When I look at these nails, I\u2019m reminded of the bedrock truth when it comes to helping.\u00a0 That God sees our needs and he responds in spectacular, unexpected ways.<\/p>\n I\u2019m praying for you today, dear reader.\u00a0 That you see God coming alongside you to help in delightful specific ways.\u00a0 I\u2019m praying for you to see beauty, be captured by art, feel settled by nature.\u00a0 I\u2019m praying for you to have courage to give when it seems you have nothing left to give and hope to see a world where giving, receiving, and helping are as natural as breathing.\u00a0 This is the way of the Kingdom, and I hope one day I can live into it without fear.<\/p>\n Seeing the Shalom of asking for help when I need it,<\/p>\n![\"What\"](\"https:\/\/oshetablogs.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/05\/what.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Listening to:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n\u2018Cause love can heal what hurt divides
\nAnd mercy\u2019s waiting on the other side
\nIf we\u2019re honest
\nIf we\u2019re hones<\/p>\n
\nIt would set us free
\nIt\u2019s what we need to be<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/p>\nTruth: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
\nPhilippians\u00a0 2:3<\/em><\/h3>\n*This one was so poignant for me, when I saw the dancers in this pose after a series of sharp contractions and poses, I was arrested.\u00a0 I could relate to this aversion to asking for help\u2013 arms out, moving away from the vulnerability, letting pride lead your response.\u00a0 Yep, I\u2019ve been there.
\n<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/a><\/p>\nAnd he answered, \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.\u201d Luke 10:27
\n<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/a>Bear one another\u2019s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
\nGalatians 6:2<\/h3>\n<\/a><\/p>\nLet each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
\nPhilippians 2:4
\n
\n<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/a><\/p>\nAnd let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
\nGalatians 6:9<\/h3>\n<\/a>In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
\nMatthew 5:16<\/h3>\n<\/a>grab yours here:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>(actual picture of the Foothills from my apartment)<\/p>\n