Overextended and Loving Most of It

Book excerpt: Would you consider your life stretched to the limit? Are you a burn-the-candle-at-both-ends kind of gal with lots of room for improvement when it comes to creating margins for rest? But you actually love it and wouldn’t want it any other way? Well, so does Lisa Harper. In her humorous and packed-with-biblical-wisdom way, Lisa shows us that it is possible for a frazzled nature to be glorifying to the Lord. Every late-night conversation with a hurting friend and each precious, adopted child needing a little extra tender loving care—exhausting, yet imperative, ways to be extensions of the gospel. In each of these vignettes illustrating Lisa’s overextended life, we learn that even in the middle of our own pure motives and hectic schedules, it is only by resting in God’s sovereign mercy that we are able to keep risking our hearts to serve his people and fulfill the callings he has placed on us. Real life . . . abundant life . . . godly life is about loving Jesus and the people he allows us to rub shoulders with well—which means some days you’ll be stretched emotionally and physically. You’ll feel overextended. Thankfully God will expand our hearts and calendars to accommodate the calling. He is in the business of supplying us with new mercies every morning . . . new candles to burn, for more lives needing his light.