Anne Marie Miller

Author: Anne Marie Miller

  • Trusting God’s Design

    I didn’t know much about personality profiles growing up. What I did know is after about 2 hours at church, 2 hours at a party, 2 hours on a school trip, 2 hours at a sleepover…I was done.

    I wasn’t angry. I didn’t dislike people. I wasn’t bored. I didn’t want to check out.

    But something inside me hit a threshold of sorts and I knew I needed to spend at least a few minutes by myself and recharge. Otherwise, my mind would get spacey, I’d become easily distracted, my speech would begin to falter, I’d even become more clumsy.

    Over time, I learned although this could cause me anxiety, it wasn’t the anxiety I wrestled with.

    It was simply my design as an introvert (and a far-reaching one at that).

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    I’m not too shy (usually). I love people. I love loving people. I adore hearing what journey they’re walking and what God’s doing in their lives. I’m good with people.

    As someone who has been, for the most part, self-employed for the last seven or eight years, I find a lot of quiet time in my own routine with writing and speaking. Now, as Tim and I entered a new season of life, with him as a youth pastor at a growing church, I find my time alone growing shorter and shorter. I know God knows how I’m wired and I know He gives me strength for every situation, but I often battle the process.

    It goes a little like this:

    1. YES! I am SUPER PUMPED about this youth retreat we’re having this weekend. Over thirty people are going! I love the girls we get to minister to and with. I LOVE seeing them learn and grow! Yay!
    2. Wait, how far do we have to drive?
    3. Hold up…lights out is how late?
    4. How much time will I have a chance to be by myself and recharge?
    5. My routine! My routine! Ack!
    6. Geez, Miller. That’s entirely selfish! You’re here to serve these students and your husband and these volunteers. SUCK IT UP. You’re not going to die from talking and listening to people for four days.
    7. Well, you’ll die a little bit. But it’s for Jesus.
    8. Really, Miller. SUCK IT UP. Good grief. You introverts are always overanalyzing and planning 78 of the conversations you think you’ll have and you actually won’t have…no wonder you’re exhausted already. This is NOT ABOUT YOU.
    9. (Hey, but God. You know you gave me a really empathetic and sensitive heart. You know this stuff is hard for me.)
    10. (Anne, I know. Just trust me.)

    It seems like such a small thing to trust–God’s design. Knowing He fully created me, my fears, my flaws, and my strengths. In ministry, it’s been difficult to see being an introvert as a gift…I can see it as a curse. I want to wear shirts that say, “No, really. I LOVE YOU! Even if I don’t seem like I talk much.” Church events are usually social events. Loud. Talking. Games. Counseling. It’s a challenge for an introvert.

    I’ve been looking forward to (and yet I’m still slightly anxious about) this weekend for a long time. It’s the first big event Tim and I get to lead (with the help of our wonderful volunteers!). I’m going to try and be EXTRA intentional about letting God fill in those places where I need Him to. I don’t want Him to change the way He created me, but I need to learn to trust the way He designed me in whatever season in which He calls me to minister.

    (And, yeah. Feel free to pray for this retreat! We’d be VERY grateful!)

  • Breaking Up with Nashville?

    It’s kinda crazy. After a year in Nashville, we weren’t sure if it was the place for us to start a family and raise kids…so we began exploring a few ideas.

    One of these ideas was a casting call for young couples who were thinking of “breaking up” with their city. We applied as a joke, not realizing it was a real reality show on FYI, a station under A&E. After a ton of Skype calls, cameras showed up to our house in Nashville and we began the process of finding our next home.

    The Millers on My City's Not that Into Me on FYI Nashville Season 1 Episode 1

    We filmed for a few weeks, really…long…days. How they managed to make this into a 21.5 minute show is beyond me. I’ll be just as surprised as you to what made the cut!

    Reality shows have a bad rap for being over produced and fake. Not once in this process did we feel we weren’t being us. We had to reshoot some things from different angles, but all-in-all, it’s a REAL reality show that shares our journey in breaking up with Nashville.

    It airs on March 4 at 9pm CST on FYI, which I think is on most cable stations. Since it’s a Wednesday night, we have youth group, and we don’t have cable. We’ll actually be watching it the next day, so don’t tell us any spoilers!

    You can see the preview for our episode here! (It may take a few seconds for the video to show up!)

  • Look What God Did

    Dear 25 year old Anne,

    It’s me. Anne. Today you…me…we…? turn 35.

    Holy Moses, has it been a decade?

    I wanted to tell you four words: “Look what God did.”

    25 year old Anne, 2005 was the year you landed in the hospital so stressed out and so hurt from working at a church. You were 40 pounds overweight, working 90 hours a week, and glued to people-pleasing. You thought doing things for God was the same thing as being with Him.

    But it wasn’t.

    And over the next two years, as you resigned from that church and healed, you wrote about your journey. You helped others.

    God took that terrible mess and made it beautiful.

    A few years later, you had to do something terrifying. You had to open up to a group of strangers who were investigating the man who sexually abused you 12 years beforehand. Memories you buried so deep emerged and you even went into shock as you recalled them. You put words to the actions of what a grown man, a trusted youth pastor, did to a vulnerable high school girl who just barely had her driver’s license.

    It was like watching a horror film in your mind on repeat. But God gave you the words and the strength and the right medication and friends to help. The man was finally caught. His sins finally came to light. And God healed you and the shame and gave you ways to share your pain and His healing with others.

    God took that terrible mess and made it beautiful.

    When you turned thirty, everything was in full bloom. Life. Was. Good. You just finished writing your second book and still had a contract for more. You rode your bicycle across the flipping United States. California to South Carolina. You made friends in those two months that forever changed you and shaped you. And then the tragedy of divorce fell into your path. Grief swept you away but friends held on to you for dear life. It was a long, quiet, tough road of healing. And God was good even when everything was going bad. You learned this about Him then.

    A few years later, a strong and Godly man with a passion for truth and holiness and loving others and serving everybody who comes into his path humbly and out of the abundance God gave him met you in the most lovely Michigan town. He won your heart, even though you were still timid to give it, afraid of being hurt again. Then, when you were afraid, God met you in a living room on a cold night and music played singing “night must end.” God gave you this moment and said, “You can trust your heart to him.”

    So you did and you married this man on a beach at sunrise because you and he wanted to raise an ebenezer to the fact that God’s mercies are new every time the sun rises.

    God took that terrible mess and made it beautiful.

    And now, here you…me…we? turn 35. You live in west Texas and you pretend you’re Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights and you’re minutes away from the church where you got baptized thirty years ago. Life has come in such a full and glorious circle. You’re surrounded by new friends, loving neighbors, and people who pray with you with babies on their hips and in the midst of toys in the kitchen floor. You sing praises to the God who took those messes and made them beautiful surrounded by the voices of others you call your church–your friends, your small group. Twice a week you get to see a few dozen teenagers who are uncovering the depth and breadth and faithfulness of God and it’s so exciting to watch your husband lead them and their eyes light up with every moment of new truth revealed to them through your Word.

    God took that terrible mess and made it beautiful.

    So, as another ten years passes and the wrinkles on your face grow deeper and gravity continues to pull you down, as people come in and out of your life and as you come in and out of theirs, even when those you love are dying or are sick, are broken and are hurt, know that God is good because God is good. He is not good only because He redeems; He is good because He allows things into our lives that need to be redeemed.

    All this to say, and always say, and never stop saying to a world who always needs to hear it:

    In everything, in every moment, God took it all and made it beautiful.

    Look. What. God. Did.

  • Why the American Church is Not Going to Hell in a Hand Basket

    I know what the statistics say about the future of the evangelical American church.

    Our buildings are bigger, our lights are brighter, our programs are sleeker, our preachers are teaching, our pastors are shepherding and yet people are leaving out of the church in droves–especially my age (almost 35) and younger.

    • Some are leaving for good. God, the Church, religion…it’s just not part of our core anymore.
    • Some leave and plant other churches. We’re more entrepreneurial than ever so when we see something, in our opinion, that needs to be improved on, we know how to run a church. We’ve spent enough time within our well-oiled machines that we’ve been groomed to do it ourselves–just better, we think. More or less intimate. More or less community. More or less programs. More or less topical. More or less exegetical. More or less flash. More or less candles.
    • Some leave and go to the church down the road. And then to the other church farther down the road. We commit just long enough to wonder why we haven’t found community only to start all over again.

    And herein lies a problem: the categories of people I just defined are people who are already inside the church–whether it be a church building or a gathering in a living room or a coffee shop.

    We study, we plan, we program, we find scenic, peaceful pictures and slap encouraging Bible verses on them in hip fonts to post across social media. We create devotionals, printouts, and have a board or two on our Pinterest pages for quotes and for Jesus.

    Let me say there is nothing inherently wrong with studying, planning, programming or encouraging. I’m guilty of all those things, Pinterest boards included.

    However, if we fly out to 30,000 feet and take a look at the landscape, what do we see?

    I think we’ve become a little bit gluttonous in regard to our faith.

    At first, that statement sounds pretty innocuous. We’re to learn scripture, memorize it, encourage each other, and be faithful with the time and resources we’ve been given, right?

    I agree.

    At what point are we spilling out to others–to those who haven’t heard the truth and the power and the saving grace of the Gospel of the cross?

    Having grown up in the church, worked in the church, served in the church, and now, being married to a pastor, I hear all the time how, with each generation, society is becoming more and more post-Christian. If I had a nickel for every time I heard, “Just look at what happened in Europe!”…

    I’m a logical person. I love research and I love statistics. I geek out over spreadsheets and trends. Quantifying and qualifying things are one of my favorite hobbies.

    Yet, in spite of all the science and stats, I really don’t believe that the American church is going to hell in a hand basket, so to speak.

    Why not?

    I believe in the power of prayer.

    I believe God desires a true reviving of His church all over the world, including America.

    I believe truth always wins, even in an age where truth has been redefined and recategorized as relative and subjective and personal.

    I believe that the children and students of today are hungry for truth. I see it every week as they ask good and thoughtful questions about the Scripture they read. I see their struggle, and it’s a good struggle. 

    I believe the power of Christ that is in one person who’s faithful to worshipping, obeying, and joyfully sharing the saving grace of Christ is more powerful than 10,000 people who attend a church out of routine or tradition.

    And lastly, I believe there are enough people who believe like me–quietly hoping, seeking, praying, pleading, trusting and living out the Gospel that the numbers and statistics don’t matter.

    We will not lose to the self-fulfilling prophecy that the church in America is dying.

    Yes, the future of the church looks grim at times.

    But we understand it’s not that we need to (or can) fix what’s broken.

    We need to pray our faces off and be obedient so that what has been broken in the church can be made whole, made new, and made alive again.

    The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us.

    It’s time for us to take that power and let Him raise the dead through us.

  • Managing Anxiety and Making Friends

    The fine folks at Christianity Today had me write a little bit about the challenges of community when you’re struggling with mental illness (or when you love someone who has a mental illness). Enjoy!
    With mental illness, community becomes more challenging… and more essential.

    I was a high school freshman when I had my first panic attack. Heart palpitating and lightheaded from heavy breathing, I laid down and tried to take deep breaths, but my lungs didn’t want to cooperate.

    What was happening? Was I having a heart attack? My heart kept pounding and my head kept spinning, and I wondered what they’d say the next day at school if I died. I could see the memorial page in the yearbook. Why couldn’t I take a decent school picture? I’d forever be remembered as the girl with a spiral perm and uncooperative ‘90s bangs. This fact only worsened my condition.

    My dad comforted me by telling me my “irrational fear” would go away, and it did—for a little while. But then it came back and stayed, 20 years of constant panic.

    Some days here and there, I’ll find mild relief, but I’m almost certain it’s here to stay. Most of the time, I’m functional and happy, and my anxiety lays dormant in the chemicals and synapses in my mind, hushed by medication that knows when it starts getting too loud.

    Even on the quiet days, my anxiety can put a wall up around me, whispering (or shouting) how it’s not safe to go outside, how I’m better off alone. But I know God desires more for me. He wants me to have community, real friends. People I can lean on and people who can lean on me.

    No matter who you are, cultivating friendships is a difficult process. As our developed societies have become more independent, we’ve felt the effects of disconnectedness on such a deep level, we’re afraid to admit it at times. Even though we have screens and pixels to connect us to anyone, anywhere, any time, we’ve never felt more lonely or unhappy in any decade in modern history. We’re surrounded by people everywhere we go—both physically and virtually—yet the need to feel that we belong somewhere is undeniably palpable.

    As if the symptoms of an anxiety disorder aren’t damaging enough, coping with any mental illness (to name just a handful: depression, bipolar, ADD, and obsessive-compulsive disorders) can add to the challenge of finding community.Real community. Friends you can be vulnerable with. People you let into those places in your life that seem unbearable…

    [[Read the rest of the article here.]]

  • Happy New Year!

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    Happy New Year from the icy plains of west Texas. Tim and I are almost back to Lubbock after a few extra days of adventurous travel. The new manuscript is due in two weeks and wow-it has been a wonderful learning experience. I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season. I’ll see you back online in a couple more weeks after that next book is turned in!

    Much love-Anne

  • Until 2015, I Bid Thee Adieu.

    You finally close the day’s work after reading and taking notes and asking questions.

    You stack the books, the printouts, the papers, the highlighters, the notebooks; you stack it all, on the dining room table for tomorrow.

    You save the manuscript.

    You close the computer.

    You walk away.

    And you hear a small voice whisper, “Add a chapter.”

    You argue back, “The title of the book is ’10 Things Parents Need to Know About Their Kids and Sex’ – You can’t just go and add a chapter!”

    He says, “Chapter 10 needs to be: Parents Need to Know There’s Hope.”

    And you get it.

    So you walk back, you make a quick change in the Word document and you press save again.

    Because no matter what the statistics, the stories, the reports, the trends, the media…no matter what:

    There is hope.

    It is with this post that I will bid you all adieu until the new year. I have 45 days until this manuscript is due and evidently, a lot more listening to do.

    See you then.

    With much love and gratitude,
    Anne

  • The Power of a “Thank You” in the Story of Redemption

    Five minutes of pure beauty.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwKyauE_l-k

  • Free Devotional: Surviving Christmas: Advent Devotions for the Hard and Holy Holidays

    Growing up, I didn’t know much about Advent. Christmas cantatas, yes. Live nativity scenes, yes. Stolen baby Jesus dolls, yes. Advent…not so much.

    It was a few years ago after I began attending St. Bartholomew’s in Nashville where Advent really took a hold on my heart: a time to prepare and reflect upon the coming Christ, his birth, death and resurrection, the narrative of Mary and Joseph, angels, dirt, mundane, pain, rejoicing.

    Over time, I’ve written a few blog posts inspired by the season or on Christmas in general. Because as mystical and ponderous Advent is, the holiday season is hard for many people.

    Family and travel and money and parties and finals and bad weather and schedules and so…many…things that distract and hurt and remind us of a broken world, not a healed one.

    This year, I’ve compiled a couple old blog posts with a few other reflections (if you received my Advent emails last year, those too) and made a little eBook.

    And it’s free. Just head over to Noisetrade and download it. Please share it with your friends, your family. Study it by yourself or with a group of people. Print off a million copies of it and give it to anyone you think could find it helpful. It’s yours.

    It’s my prayer that by taking just a couple of minutes each day as we approach Christmas to stop and breathe and pray and hope and to know we aren’t alone in this hard and holy season, we can live vulnerably in the dualities of joy and sadness and pain and peace.

    Those tensions have been lived and wrestled in since the beginning of time but in this season we know the most beautiful moment is in our rest.

    And we can rest and know we are loved and can love, we can rest in knowing hope and holiness, and we can rest knowing our Savior has come (and is here, now).