I’m standing at a table talking about Hazefire Studios and the work we do—telling stories for the glory of God. It’s hard sometimes to measure the success of a story. Do you measure the time it took to make? The breadth of praise? Download totals? Five star Apple Podcast reviews?

I say to the assembled group of potential partners, “We’ve taken to measuring success a different way…”

It all started with an email in the middle of the first season of Holy Ghost Stories. A listener said the Rahab episode had left her bawling in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. She thanked us. Another listener emailed to say she couldn’t listen on runs anymore because she was crying so hard she couldn’t breathe. Another listener texted Justin to say he listens to Holy Ghost Stories in the same coffee shop every week, and every week he sits on the same couch, headphones in, crying. He said, “Surely they have a nickname for me by now—What’s going on with Cry Guy?”

When we launched The Happiest Saddest People, more of the same. Crying on the lawn mower, crying in the car, crying at the sink doing dishes. Three separate people have told me about crying on the rowing machine at the gym.

Hazefire listeners do a lot of crying.

I say to the table, “We know we’ve done our job when listeners cry, because tears are the body’s worship.”

There’s no conscious choice to cry. It just happens. Tears bubble up from some unseen place—deep calls to deep, a spring unstopped, the mysteries of the heart made visible. You don’t cry because you want to. You cry because you have to. Like the stones.1

We saw in the closing scene of this week’s episode that tears are a kind of double anointing—a way of blessing God that also blesses us, messy glory like glitter, getting all over everything.

I hope Chapter 8 anointed you and Him and everyone close.

You can listen here:

In the Episode…

Sadness is wise.

This quote stood out to me the minute I saw it on the page:

Man, this has been so true.

And it’s not just sadness. It’s weakness. It’s pain. Owning those states, acknowledging them, saying out loud, this is the truth of the matter—whew. It’s just teleportation into the presence of Jesus who is, in His very being, the Truth.

Oh! Don’t forget guilt—that knife of conviction, slicing you open and revealing your heart. I meet God as powerfully in confession as I do in worship.

A Glutton for… food, just literal food

I hope you heard my honest confession of gluttony in this episode. I don’t share it because it’s one of those sins that’s not really a sin. I share it because I suspect lots of people struggle with it, and maybe some of them (some of you?) need to be convicted of sin.

It took me forever to realize that I was using food as a way to avoid my pain and even longer to admit I struggled with self control. I don’t use food like that anymore, but even now I can hear the lies—a faint voice promising that a pumpkin muffin will make me feel better about some fundamental problem in my life. Gluttony starts as “little treat” syndrome and, in time, grows into eat-a-whole-pizza cancer.

If you’re succumbing to this kind of temptation, the first step is to take it to God with complete transparency. Tell Him what you’re doing and ask Him to reveal the why. Let Him shine light on the shadows in your heart you didn’t know were there.

Because gluttony is primarily about pleasure and escape, it will be hard to put it down without learning how to be comfortable with discomfort. This is something only God can help you do.

By the way, we should be very reluctant to diagnose other people with gluttony based on an outsider’s view of things. I am not a skinny woman these days, but I eat a measured, balanced diet and practice self control. During my epic eating days I weighed twenty to thirty pounds less than I do now.

These days I am more tempted by new boots. New boots are also empty promises.

The Athens News-Courier

This is the paper I wrote for way back in the day. I wrote a feature on traveling to Europe for cheap, and it almost got me fired. Our publisher said, and I quote, “The people in this town aren’t going to Europe.” But then his wife told him it had been her favorite article so far this year. She said, “The people in this town can dream.” Thank you, Denny’s wife, for saving my job.

Talking to my mom

Just a plug for saying true things to the people you love. It’s terrifying. And then it’s not. And then it’s possibly (probably) amazing.

Questions

I haven’t posted videos in a couple weeks, because I haven’t had questions submitted. If I don’t get one again this week, I’ll take some time to fill you in on what’s coming up for Hazefire Studios. It’s good. :)

But I would rather answer your questions. So ask a question!

London’s Playlist

You probably know this song already. That doesn’t make it any less good. :)

Tomorrow I’ll lead you in the spiritual practice of Ignition reading, but instead of reading the Bible we’ll be reading our lives. It’s like going into the pensieve with Jesus. It’ll be fun! See you then.

To Be Continued,

JL