Anne Marie Miller

Category: Writing

Wanting God in the Midst of Imperfect and Crazy
Today I’ve asked my sweet friend Lisa to share on my blog. Because she has good things to say. Good things that resonate with my heart and soul and challenge me and beat me up in the best way. My life is usually crazy and always imperfect and I can choose to either embrace it with a bitter heart and want it all to be easy or I can want God. Lisa talks about this in her new book I Want God and gives us a little glimpse of how deep this message goes in today’s blog post. I hope you love it!

***

I will never forget the day in college when my friend asks me to describe God, the way I see Him.

It catches me off-guard, this question I have never been asked before.

Sitting on the cold, community laundry room floor, I answer, in a clumsy, pedestrian way that is small, but honest.

“I think He has nice eyes,” I say, my own filling with tears.

I’m much older now and my college days seem far away, but I still picture this same Jesus. I’ve learned and grown and studied since then and yet, it is what about Him, I see.

I know He is big. I know He is all powerful and holy and can take me out in one breath. And yet, He is everyday to me. He is lover. He is best friend. He is humble and perfect and laughs at my quirks and wipes my tears with fingers I can’t see.

And as His Church gets bigger and glossier and the craziness of making celebrities out of people who preach is the constant pull, I often retreat into my thoughts of who God is and what He is all about before I, myself, go mad.

And it always makes me want Him. Just Him. It is where I find rest.

[Tweet ““The only way I know to get better is to focus on God harder.” ~Lisa Whittle, I Want God”]

It’s not just the world and the Church that drives me crazy. It’s me, too. It’s my own stubbornness and need to be valued and the mental war of wanting God to make sense but knowing He likely won’t. It’s the constant rub of wanting to be comfortable and yet, the desire to throw my contented life out the window so I can do the brave, big thing.

And right before I get too disillusioned, ready to throw in the towel I remember these things:
- It is the wanting of God more than anything else, His power within us that makes us brave.
- It is wanting God most that helps us love, keeps us together and keeps us humble.
- It is the wanting of God that will drive us to stay the course, keep it real, accept ourselves, dive in, even when it’s hard and unclear.
The world will always be crazy. The Church will sometimes get it wrong. We will war with our flesh that tells us to be noticed and famous and our spirit that reminds us to become less – passionate to live our dreams one day, scared to death to move at all, the next.

But we can choose God. We can pursue God. We can long for God and lock eyes with Him.

And it will keep us sane. And steady. And ready for the day we can ditch all this imperfect mess and not want anything else anymore.

**

Lisa Whittle is an author and speaker, a lover of God, family, and the Church. Her high anticipated 4th book, I Want God: Forever Changed by the Revival of Your Soul, will release October 1. Lisa’s honest, bottom line approach is her trademark, as she points people to a passionate pursuit of God. In addition to speaking, media appearances and writing for Women of Faith, Catalyst, Relevant and various other publications, Lisa has done master’s work in Marriage and Family and is a part of the MOB [Mothers of Boys] Society writing team. Lisa is a wife and mother of three, plus one fluffy dog, residing in North Carolina. You can find her on Facebook, follow her on Instagram, Twitter [@LisaRWhittle] or Pinterest, and visit her ministry community at www.lisawhittle.com.
September 26, 2014
Because Free Books are Good and Because Friends are Better

In a couple of weeks (October 7 to be exact) my latest book, Lean on Me: Finding Intentional, Vulnerable and Consistent Community, will ship and be placed on book shelves and will hopefully, hopefully, hopefully help people think about and relate in community in very Jesus-like ways.

What’s the book about? Well, when I started doing the writing/speaking/blogging thing, life was pretty great. I got to do what I dreamed of for a living, I met fascinating people, I traveled the world, I spoke at conferences…I felt known.

I know many people who strive to live that life thinking a conference invite or a book contract or numbers on a dashboard will somehow make them whole and happy. I won’t lie – on the surface, those things did bring me a lot of happiness. But they did not bring me joy or wholeness. Yet, because I found so much of my identity in them, my foundation wasn’t built on Christ and that would prove to have devastating effects later.

In 2010, right before my book Permission to Speak Freely: Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace shipped, everything changed. Words were spoken to me that still haunt the deepest part of my heart. My marriage ended. Grief flooded in and I was left wondering if life was even worth living.

If you would have asked me in my “top of my game” days if I had community, I would have answered with a resounding “YES!” My phone was full of people I could contact, my inbox was full of encouraging letters from strangers. But when this crisis hit my life, I was faced with two distinct choices: run away and start over again or lean into my community and ask for help.

I ran.

It was a huge mistake and as I sat alone in a hotel room on a work trip, I reached out to a friend who told me to ask a handful of people to commit to being my friend for 18 months. I felt like I was in second grade and about to hand out notes to people:

“Do you like me? Will you like me? Circle One: Yes or No”

It was the most awkward ask I’ve ever made, but I asked 12 people to let me lean on them. I was a mess. I needed direction. I needed support. I needed a place to live.

10 wrote back and said yes.

The following 18 months were not easy. They were full of growing pains and tears and moments of joy and craziness. But that community committed to me and I healed through my grief. God spoke to me through them in unexplainable ways.

I knew the only way to repay them was to share the things they taught me about genuine community.

Lean on Me is just that.

It is not a how-to have community or what to do. It simply asks where you see yourself in community and tells the story of a community who loved a girl (who didn’t always deserve it or even want it) well. Jesus taught through stories and I know the way my community loved me (and in turn, the way Tim and I love others now) is not only inspiring, it’s actionable.

If you pre-order Lean on Me: Finding Intentional, Vulnerable and Consistent Community, the folks at Thomas Nelson will send you my book Permission to Speak Freely: Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace as an eBook for free. Just send your order confirmation to [email protected].

You can pre-order Lean on Me: Finding Intentional, Vulnerable and Consistent Community as a paperback and as an eBook.

If you want to read a few sample chapters of Lean on Me, you can do that here.

I hope both of these books encourage you to be yourself, love others, and allow others to love you.

We need each other and we get to carry each other.

Much love,

Anne Marie Miller

September 24, 2014
Blogging Isn’t What it Used to Be…And that’s Okay.
Several times a week, I log into the dashboard of my blog and think I have something to write.
- I could write about true freedom, and how that means willingly accepting my identity as a slave to Christ, which doesn’t bring oppression, but true joy.
- I could write about how I think the voice of the peacemakers is being shut down because the voice of the cynics is so loud…and the peacemakers know there’s really no point in fighting a virtual battle of words.
- I could write about all the new stuff I’m learning about anxiety disorders, OCD, trauma and grief or about the theology of subordinate & ultimate purposes in moral ethics.
But I don’t.

It’s not that I can’t; as if I have some writer’s block and I keep pressing delete and thinking my writing isn’t good enough.

It’s not because I’m scared of what people will think about what I write.

It’s not even that I don’t want to.

Or that I don’t have time.

None of those things are true.

Lately, I’m full of words and inspiration, most of which are being poured into the channels of a launching “Lean on Me” which comes out this October. Or into my other-new book that will come out next year. It flows into my husband as he goes through some exciting ministry changes, and into some friends over coffee or a glass of wine. I give these words to the trees and the sky when I go on walks with my dog, or sometimes they only rattle around in my head until they break into little digestible pieces I can stomach. These words fuel me as I straighten up our kitchen or hang up the laundry (who am I kidding? Tim so graciously does the laundry. I hate doing laundry.)

A few years ago I would have wondered if you missed me.

Maybe I still do a tiny bit, but most days this blog is so far from any of my normative thinking. Only when I see the bookmark to my dashboard to log in, I log in. And that’s really just to delete any spam comments.

I want to talk to you. I remember how, almost ten years ago, a small group of fifty or a hundred people would come here and listen about me putting up Christmas lights or running from tornadoes or wrestling through tithing as an automatic deduction from my church-staff paycheck. Then that number grew into the tens of thousands and the conversation changed and I began to love those numbers much more than I should have. And then, life changes pounced and left me wounded and I took everything off of the Internet for a couple of years and that huge audience I was so enamored with dwindled back down to a handful of people.

But that’s okay.

It’s taken a year or so of being truly back “online” for me to accept the new Web 2.0. Or is it 3.0 now? It’s not even about the Internet, is it? Whatever it is – whatever this is – I’m okay with it.

I’m not saying goodbye to blogging, and I’m certainly not bidding adieu to writing. I’m embracing how different it is now, both externally in how social networking has changed in the last decade and internally, how I’ve changed in the last decade.

I’m giving myself permission to keep things close, as Mary did, pondering them in her heart.

My heart used to be online, but now it’s found in quiet moments with trusted friends, in solitude, and in quietness and trust.

That is where I find rest.

That is where I find Him.
August 3, 2014
Summer Reading Fun!

Get all three of my books autographed & delivered to your door before you head out for your vacation

(or curl up for your staycation!)

Mad Church Disease: Healing from Church Burnout

Permission to Speak Freely: Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace

Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health

for only $30 + S/H

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[add_to_cart item=”3BB” quantity=”user:1″ ]

All proceeds go directly to support our ministry efforts!

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May 15, 2014
Get Free Sample Chapters from My New Book Lean on Me!

They say timing is everything, right? Well, today was the day I hoped to have some free sample chapters of my new book Lean on Me (it comes out in October) for you.

I’m speaking over at the (in)RL conference this weekend (Saturday, specifically) and sharing a bit of the story behind Lean on Me.

However, (wah-wah!) the samples won’t be ready for another couple weeks or so (I’m sorry!) but…

I’d love to send them to you as a free PDF as soon as I get my grubby little hands on them.

How do you get them? Easy, peasy. Put your email address in the little form below (if you don’t see a form and you’re reading this from an email, just click here!) and viola!

Sign up here! Quick!

Email Address *

You can find out more about the book (and pre-order it if you’re feeling sassy) here or you can read the little nugget below.

Have you ever found yourself in what feels like your darkest hour desperately seeking a lifeline?

Life has a way of throwing unexpected obstacles in our path, tripping us up, and bringing us to our knees. When these crises hit, who do you call? Who do you lean on? Anne Marie Miller found herself in one of these valleys on the floor of a hotel bathroom while on a business trip. Months of stress accumulated and took its toll. In a moment of desperation, she picked up the phone and called a friend for guidance. That simple phone call was the first step in a transforming journey of evaluating what community truly meant and looked like in her life.

We live in a world and a generation where the word “community” is often discussed. But how genuine and authentic are your relationships really? Anne Marie noticed an important tension all of us must recognize in order to have life-giving friendships: “We desperately want to belong yet at the same time, we yearn for independence.”

In Lean On Me, Anne Marie Miller takes us along as she sets out to dig below the superficial and explore what choices are necessary to find intentional, vulnerable, and consistent community. Jesus was passionate about truth-speaking relationships. And with Anne Marie’s narrative and practical insights interwoven together, you will feel more equipped in your quest for these types of relationships as you seek people to lean on and as you pour love into those around you.

Have a great weekend!

Anne Marie Miller

April 25, 2014
Do You Feel Tired? Do You Need Some Joy? Maybe This Will Help.
I was shocked by her reply.

“I’m beyond burned out. I’m apathetic. I don’t even care if I can get healthy anymore.”

I’ve researched and studied about church health since 2007. I’m still requested to speak about staying healthy when you’re in the church. It should be easy: the church is the safest place in the world, right?

But when I step off a stage and talk to people, I’m learning that more and more people are going through the motions.

They’ve lost joy, they’re afraid, they’re tired, they’re sick. And it breaks my heart more than ever.

As much as I talk about staying healthy, I often find myself walking the fine line between being balanced, consistent and falling off a cliff into a hole of apathy myself.

When the holidays approached last year, my anxiety skyrocketed. I tripled my anxiety medicine. I went on a strict diet. I did all the right things just so I wouldn’t have a breakdown. Lots of time with God. Lots of time with others. And I survived.

In that season, I felt compelled to write a devotional. Something short but deep. Something based on scripture and the grace that we don’t need to DO anything for God. Practical application of what the Bible says about our health: spiritual, relational, emotional and physical.

What does the Word say about rest? About prayer? What is one teeny, tiny thing we can do each day to help us focus and return to a healthy path?

Beating Burnout: A 30-Day Guide to Hope and Health is what resulted. Mostly written in our car as we drove from Tennessee to Texas, Texas to Iowa, Iowa to Tennessee over Christmas and New Years.

It was written in real-time. The day I struggled with anger and apathy, I dug into Scripture and wrote what I felt God pressing into my heart about anger and apathy.

Today, this book officially releases. It’s my very first self-published attempt. (Side note: Self publishing is not for the faint of heart. Thank you to those who carried me through the last month when I wanted to give up seventeen times.)

But here’s what this book is:
- It’s 30 days of short reflections on all aspects of your health and a focused prayer time each week.
- It’s founded fully in scripture, and I believe that spending time in the Bible each day can only strengthen our relationship with God.
- It’s my heart to see those who have been hurt or who are hurting for and by the church healed and full of joy.
You can buy the book three ways:
- For $4.99, you get all the eBook formats: Kindle, Nook, PDF, iBook…PLUS you get the book FREE on audio. I read all the chapters so you can listen to each one for 30 days if you’d rather listen than read. This is an immediate download after you pay.
- For $7.99, you get a paperback copy (which will ship in a couple of weeks) and an immediate download of the free audio book.
- Or, for $9.99, you get all the above: the paperback in a few weeks, and instant access to the eBooks and the audio book.
All of the proceeds from the book directly go to support Tim’s and my ministry efforts of speaking, writing, and storytelling.

Thanks for letting me share this with you. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you your money back. If you love it, I hope you’ll share it with anyone you know who could maybe use a little joy and rest.

(A special thanks to Tim Miller, Lindsey Hartz, Justin Paschal, Rebecca Cooper and Alex Moore for the time you poured into this with me!)
February 4, 2014
What Questions do You Have about Church Burnout or Staying Healthy?
As many of you know, the next month or two promises to be exciting!

I’m releasing a thirty-day devotional called Beating Burnout: A 30 Day Guide to Hope and Health (which will be an eBook, a paperback, and a free audio book) in addition to releasing an expanded edition of my first book, Mad Church Disease: Healing from Church Burnout (as an eBook and a paperback).

It’s been so great (and yet, so heartbreaking) to write the new material.

I continue seeing how burnout is affecting sons and daughters of God.

In no way are either of these books focused on church bashing, negativity, or cynicism.

It’s my hope that they’re full of light, practical steps, and overflowing with how much God loves you and you don’t need to earn His love.

The expanded material includes:
- new chapters
- an expanded study guide
- a more in-depth burnout assessment
- plans you can print to help you get healthy
- …lots of fun things!
If you’d like to find out when Beating Burnout and Mad Church Disease are available to buy, just sign up here! (use the link if you don’t see the form below).

Healing from Burnout

*(I won’t use your email address for anything else!)

As part of the resources I’m providing, we’re shooting video interviews with pastors and leaders (and not just the ones who speak at conferences!) but local pastors here in Nashville and the surrounding area. If you are a pastor or have served in a church and have a story about burnout and health, we’d love to chat and potentially interview you, if you’d like to share your story. I married a professional videographer (lucky!) so we can come to you or you can come here, whatever works best! Just contact us.

We have a couple of interviews this week, including one with Dr. Thom Rainer, who’s the president of LifeWay Resources and has often shared about staying healthy in ministry in his own communication.

If you have a question about church burnout you’d like to have answered, or have questions about getting or staying healthy (spiritually, relationally, emotionally, or physically), it would be great if you’d leave your thoughts in the comments here.

I realize it is not easy to talk about burnout, but here’s the thing. If you’re close to it or in it, you need to talk to someone. If you know someone who’s close, you need to talk to them, support them, offer help. It’s amazing to me how, when I go somewhere to talk about burnout, people come up to me before or after my session and say, “I can’t come to your session. I’m here with my team and I don’t want them to know how close I am to losing it.”

As Christians, we feel like we have to have everything together in order to be effective for the Kingdom. This is not the case.

If we had everything together, we wouldn’t need the Cross. We wouldn’t need Jesus. When we say, “I need help,” we’re inviting in more of His love, and we’re reaching out in faith for others to help carry us.

I need you to help set this example.

May you have an amazing day and just know how much our Lord loves you!

***
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January 29, 2014
For When You Feel Overwhelmed and For When You Feel Small

First let me begin by saying, wow, you guys. The flu is a terrible, terrible thing.

I thought I caught the flu the day after New Years. I was sick a few days, then I was okay for a couple.

Then sick a few more days, and fine for the next four.

Last Sunday night, my body hurt so terribly and I felt just so awful, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I set up a doctor’s appointment. I was running a low fever and my flu test was negative. My doctor said I had pneumonia. My chest rattled when I breathed and I couldn’t stop coughing. Antibiotics, make-me-loopy cough syrup, good to go.

I woke up Tuesday afternoon and could not stop shaking. Not shivering. Shaking. I took my temperature. 101. 30 minutes later, I felt even worse. I took my temperature again. 103.3. I was on Advil and my temperature was still 103.3? A phone call later, I was on my way to the ER where I learned I didn’t have pneumonia, but I did have the flu.

This is really me at the ER. Super awesome mask!

I don’t remember much of last week, but I think I’m on the mend.

I’ve never had the flu before (and I will be getting flu shots from now on) so I had no idea something could make me stay still the way it did. I didn’t touch my computer all week. All I could do was think.

Thinking for a week is not necessarily a good thing for me. I tend to get wrapped up in layers of self-doubt, self-pity, and even some bitterness and jealousy. Even if I try to refocus my thoughts on what’s good, my tendency to reflect in everything I’ve done wrong or that I’m not doing as well as I’d like takes over.

I was tired enough because of the flu, and with my mental defenses destroyed, I found myself in a big puddle of giving up.

I wanted to give up.

No, I want to give up.

I still do.

One thing you don’t want to do while sweating through all of your clothing because of a fever is go online. If you do, and if you’re like me, you’ll end up feeling like everyone has their life put together. They hustle and you don’t want to even get up to get a Powerade, much less do any work. They post about the great people they wine and dine with, and you forget to find gratitude for the friends who rushed to the hospital to pray with you, who brought you meals and medicine.

You feel so overwhelmed and you feel so small all at the same time.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I tend to have so much to do…I try and prove myself or reinvent myself or tell myself that if I do this or that maybe-just-maybe I’ll feel like I’ve made a difference, that I’m worth something to someone, that I’m contributing whatever it is that God gave me to contribute to this world. I preach a message that tells people about the beauty of simply being, about rest and about health, yet if I think about my to-do list, I feel sick to my stomach. I feel small and overwhelmed and because I’m not as popular as this person or because some other person who has an important title doesn’t email me back, that somehow I’m a failure.

THAT IS JUST NOT TRUE.

Maybe you’re like me (I can empathize). You work so hard to write, to share, to be a mom or a dad or a wife or a husband or a good friend and your heart burns with such fury to do just one thing that makes a difference. All the while every message you take in from the outside world, from the voices you respect (and maybe the ones people tell you that you should respect) tells you it’s not enough. If it was enough, you’d have that viral blog post, that book deal, or just one single comment or message about that super-important thing you shared with the world. You feel small and overwhelmed.

This – by all industry standards – is not a good blog post to write. I have no answers for you. No three-steps to finding peace in chaos or security where you feel frail.

This is just me saying (to the both of us):

YOU are NOT alone in this.

The chaos you feel is a lie from Satan that wants to draw you away from your identity in Christ.

It is not your job to save the world.

It is not your job to even save one single person.

It is your job to delight and worship your creator.

To walk the path he set for you, even if it’s not glamorous, or exciting, or what you expected.

Rejoice in Him.

Cry out to Him.

Strangely, as we become more desperate for God, that sense of desperateness leads us to great peace.

January 28, 2014
We Need Your Story! The Un-Fine is God Beautiful

A few months ago, sweet Lisa-Jo Baker sent me an email asking to share my story that would be compiled with other women’s stories for the (in)Courage (in)RL 2014 – (in) Real Life Conference.

Why does anyone need to hear my story?

In filming for this, I got to meet so many women. Hear so many stories. I needed to hear theirs. They needed to hear mine.

Who knew?

Here’s the thing. We need to hear YOUR story.

The conference is free. You don’t have to travel anywhere. Get your girls and snuggle up with some tea and coffee and watch and share.

Registration begins today. And again. It’s FREE. Over 6000 women participated last year from 20 countries.

A little bit about (in)RL…

Born out of two years spent listening to women in the comments here at (in)courage craving local, real life community, (in)RL is an invitation to share what we’ve learned about community and encourage women with stories and suggestions for connecting deeper in real life.

(in)RL is the combination of outstanding online content that encourages, moves and inspires women as they watch in the comfort of their own homes and local meet-ups where small becomes the new big and women connect, in person, beyond the comment box.

This year we’re unpacking the power of story. No matter how much life you’ve lived or what you’ve walked through, you have a story.

And we, as a community, are less without your story.

So, please register and join us. I can’t wait to hear your story.

January 15, 2014