by Heather Spring

Here’s Holly and I as little people. Don’t you just wanna pinch our cheeks?

Our mom used to do this to our hair. Holly’s bangs curled better than mine. I have an ornery cowlick that is at odds with me to this day. My mom did the best she could with my stubborn strands.

As a start to this blog I wanted to briefly explain where I’m at these days: upside down. But there’s an UP side to this down, if I can toy around with these words.

If you’ve read our book, Dancing On My Ashes, you know the season of suffering we experienced and the awakening that happened in our hearts. Our ashes have become our platform, but the beauty that emerged from these ashes has been our message.

Look at my little cuties below and you can almost feel what every mother would feel about their children:  so much love, such hope that they won’t experience pain, disappointment, or moments of fear.

I was just telling my husband the other day that my heart beats faster when I come to grips with the fact that I can’t protect Noah and Zach from experiencing pain. As a mother I don’t want them to hurt or be rejected… or suffer. I know it’s a part of life, but I can’t say that I don’t wince every time I think about them feeling real heartbreak. If I’m honest, I want all the kids on the playground to want to play with my boys. I want their friends to speak truth to them and never belittle or make fun of them. I want my boys to only date the girl that they end up marrying, so that they’ll never give their hearts away to the wrong girls. And as far as losing someone they love? Can’t we all just experience the rapture? Lord, is that too much to hope for? As silly as that may sound, and even though I know with all my being I can trust God with their precious hearts, everything in me wants to lock them in our house and shelter them from the ugly world out there. It wouldn’t be all that bad. I am loads of fun, people!

But it wasn’t until I was down that I looked up. It wasn’t until my cheek was pressed against the dirt and I was coughing up dust, that I lifted my eyes. Proper perspective doesn’t occur until our false sense of security and what we’ve built our life around comes tumbling down. I became painfully aware of this in 2000. It was a year of so much death, but it was the year that I looked up and found LIFE! It was a year that flipped me upside down… in a good way. Because when you are down, the only place to look is up. And when you look up and see Him, everything you once knew gets flipped upside down. And when you live this life upside down, things become right side up.

Ouch, my brain hurts.

So, as far as my kids are concerned, I want them to see Jesus more than I want them to have a safe and pain-free life. I want them to fall madly in love with their God more than I want them to be picked first for tee ball.

There is indeed an up side to down. If we never experienced the down we might never look up. And if we never look up, then we miss the One that has come to give us real life.

Life…

The abundant life that gives you new eyes and a new heart. So, with our new eyes and our new hearts we share this crazy upside down life of living looking up.

I hope you’ll join us as we look up!