{"id":1134,"date":"2019-02-12T23:39:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T04:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2020-02-11T09:50:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T14:50:19","slug":"barn-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/barn-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Barn Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" src=\"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Barn-Doors.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors.png 500w, https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Barn Doors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitefire-publishing.com\/authors\/emma-broch-stuart\/\">Emma Broch Stuart<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hearing God\u2019s voice in my life isn\u2019t always easy. Sometimes He gives me a blank canvas and lets me paint to my heart\u2019s content\u2014as long as I stay within the boundaries of the canvas. When I feel Him leading me down a certain road, I immediately ask for barn doors to swing wide open and neon lights to flash \u201cThis way! This way!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God delights in pulling open those barn doors that creak on rusty hinges and plugging in the neon lights that guide me down the right path. As my spiritual roots grow, He doesn\u2019t open those barn doors as wide, nor does He always plug in the neon lights. But He never fails to show me His goodness\u2014I just need eyes to see and ears to hear. He delights in me when my spiritual eyes and ears can spot His goodness no matter how it arrives, whether flashing and stampeding through a barn door, or fluttering on a butterfly wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Barn Doors<\/em>&nbsp;is a collection of short stories about seeing and hearing God. It\u2019s a collection of rusty hinges creaking open, butterfly wings fluttering on breezes, and a harvest of God\u2019s goodness in my life.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class='et-learn-more clearfix'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class='heading-more'>Barn Doors and Neon Lights<span class='et_learnmore_arrow'><span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='learn-more-content'><p>It wasn\u2019t so long ago that I\nturned my life over to God. During the last ten years, He\u2019s proven to be better\nequipped than I at leading\u2014and showing me that I was created to follow. For\nsome people, that moment of relinquishing control is like throwing God the car\nkeys and jumping in the passenger seat and letting Him drive. For me, it was\nmore like turning the machete over to God so He could hack through a past made\nup of thick jungle vines, suffocating vegetation, and a maze of gnarled tree\nroots. Over time, the jungle chaos that was my life transformed into a path of\nrighteousness where fruit and flower blossoms replaced tangled roots and\nbranches of thorns. I have followed behind for ten years, humbled by the beauty\nthat springs up before my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those blossoms only scent my path\nthrough a lifestyle of seeking God\u2019s will and enjoying the peace that comes\nfrom a harvest of obedience and gratitude. <em>Barn\nDoors<\/em> uncovers the beauty springing up before my eyes as I journey with\nHim. Rusty hinges creak as God swings <em>Barn\nDoors <\/em>wide and invites you to join Him and me at the table. A table spread\nwith a decade of bounty\u2014beautiful gifts, astounding joy, pure goodness, and\noverflowing love. I have reaped a harvest of obedience and deep gratitude, not\nto keep for myself but to share with all of you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I walk with Him, knowing His\nclear direction for my life isn\u2019t always easy. Sometimes He gives me a blank\ncanvas and lets me paint to my heart\u2019s content\u2014as long as I stay within the\nboundaries of the canvas. When I feel Him leading me down a certain road, I\nimmediately ask for confirmation. And not subtle confirmation. Not a whisper on\na breeze. No, I need barn doors to swing wide open and neon lights to flash\n\u201cThis way! This way!\u201d That is my confirmation style. I desire more than\nanything to be obediently in His will at all times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God delights in pulling open\nthose creaking doors and plugging in the lights that guide me down the right\npath. As my spiritual roots grow, He doesn\u2019t always open those barn doors as\nwide, nor does He always plug in the neon. But He never fails to confirm no\nmatter how many times I ask. He delights in showing me His goodness. And He\ndelights in me when my spiritual eyes can spot His confirmation no matter how\nit arrives, whether flashing and stampeding through a wide-open door or\nfluttering on a butterfly wing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Barn\nDoors<\/em> is a collection of those butterfly wings fluttering on\nbreezes, a harvest of God\u2019s goodness in my life, and rusty hinges on barn doors\nthat creak when God swings them wide.<\/p>\n\n\n<div data-block-name=\"woocommerce\/handpicked-products\" data-edit-mode=\"false\" data-products=\"[774]\" class=\"wc-block-grid wp-block-handpicked-products wp-block-woocommerce-handpicked-products wc-block-handpicked-products has-3-columns has-multiple-rows wp-block-woocommerce-handpicked-products\"><ul class=\"wc-block-grid__products\"><li class=\"wc-block-grid__product\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/barn-doors\/\" class=\"wc-block-grid__product-link\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-300x300.png\" class=\"attachment-woocommerce_thumbnail size-woocommerce_thumbnail\" alt=\"Barn Doors\" srcset=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-100x100.png 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-title\">Barn Doors<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-price price\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>9.99<\/span> <span aria-hidden=\"true\">&ndash;<\/span> <span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>15.99<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Price range: &#036;9.99 through &#036;15.99<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-button wc-block-grid__product-add-to-cart\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/barn-doors\/\" aria-label=\"Select options for &ldquo;Barn Doors&rdquo;\" data-quantity=\"1\" data-product_id=\"774\" data-product_sku=\"\" data-price=\"9.99\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"wp-block-button__link  add_to_cart_button\">Select options<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class='et-learn-more clearfix'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class='heading-more'>Love Stains<span class='et_learnmore_arrow'><span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='learn-more-content'><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Love does a lot of things, but\nwe don\u2019t usually associate love with stains. I have three lovely examples of\nwhen love stains. Groups of three are a delight to me, since I have three\nchildren. As luck would have it, my three examples are about each of my three\nchildren. They have been little love stains in action! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2012, ten months before\nreturning to the states, my daughter and I moved in with a friend as a way to\nsave money and purge our belongings. The first purge was easy because not much\nfit into our attic bedroom with its low ceilings and steep flight of stairs.\nThis love stain didn\u2019t happen in the attic, so we\u2019ll have to go down those\nsteep stairs and wander into the unusually narrow hallway between the toilet\nroom and the bathroom. There was no wiggle room in that hallway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My daughter (whose middle name\nis Emma\u2014get it? Emma Broch Stuart) bonded instantly with my French friend. She\nwas glued to her side almost every moment from the time school let out until\nbedtime. After a few months, my friend noticed that every time I spoke to my\ndaughter, I used a different pet name\u2014sometimes more than one in a short\nconversation. Established pet names blended in with made-in-the-moment pet\nnames. My daughter had gotten so used to it, she didn\u2019t even notice. But my\nfriend did, and I told her I didn\u2019t know why pet names flowed naturally as I\nconversed with her. Names like Baby Flower, Little Love, Pork Chop, Sweetness,\nLovebug, and Buttercup. Even names from books we read together like Petunia\nMay\u2014who was a dreamer\u2014and Daisy Dawson, a dawdler. Every time my daughter\ndawdled, I called her Daisy Dawson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few weeks went by, and my\nfriend was hugging Little Love in the kitchen one day, asking her about school.\nAs they conversed in French, several pet names were spoken over my Baby Flower.\nNames like Ma Puce, Mon C\u0153ur, Ch\u00e8rie. Even made-in-the-moment names like\nChouchou and Woogie. Suddenly my friend gasped. \u201cI see what you mean! Calling\nher pet names just comes out of your mouth.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That love stain didn\u2019t happen in\nthe kitchen, I know, but you have to pass through the kitchen to get to the\nhallway where it did happen. Sweetness saw my friend coming out of the bathroom\none day and ran to her in the doorway of the narrow hall and threw her little\nButtercup arms around her, sloshing my friend\u2019s coffee so that it spilled down\nthe wall. My Petunia May did not get burned; the wallpaper soaked the coffee\nright up. And left the biggest stain. Pork Chop felt really bad for making my\nfriend spill her coffee, but my friend shrugged it off and squealed, \u201cWoogie,\nyour love stains!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so it does. Goodness, she\nmakes me smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My oldest son (whose middle name\nis Broch\u2014where the Broch in my writing name comes from) had a couple of close\nFrench friends who came to his fourteenth birthday party. His birthday is in\nDecember, but we celebrated it during the summer with an outdoor BBQ. I pulled\nhis two close friends aside and conned them into picking up my son\u2019s birthday\ncake and throwing it in his face. I didn\u2019t waste sugar on this cake, or\nfrosting; cheap whipped topping covered it instead. The plan was to stand on\neither side of him and wait until we sang \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d; after, I would pull\nout the candles so those didn\u2019t get jabbed into an eye, and then they were to\ngo for it! There my son sat, grinning with that teenager grin of his while we\nsang. As soon as he blew out the candles, the two friends stuck their hands\ninto the sides of the cake and paused. They both realized they\u2019d forgotten to\nwait for me to take out the candles. That teenager grin changed to a scowl. Why\non earth he didn\u2019t run, I\u2019ll never know. But his friends kept their hands in\nthe cake while the candles were removed with my son scowling back and forth at\nthe two of them. How dare they touch his cake. He never understood their intent\nuntil it was smashed in his face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was one of my favorite days\nof love staining ever! The funniest moment was his brother howling at the other\nend of the table because the cake was ruined. At eight years old, he was not a\ngood secret keeper, so he was never let in on the plan. We fetched the real\ncake from the fridge but not before my son chased everyone down and stained\nthem with fake cake and fake frosting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That howling little brother\nhated stains. Of any kind. This son is represented by the name Stuart in my\nwriting name and therefore comes at the end of my love staining chapter. When\nhe was two, he would eat oatmeal like this: take a bite, stiffen up, and squeal\nuntil I wiped the tiniest hint of oatmeal from his mouth. He would chew,\nswallow, and start the process all over again. His best two-year-old friend was\na heathen. There\u2019s no other way to describe her, bless her little heathen\nheart. She\u2019d sit at that plastic picnic table and watch her friend go berserk\nover a speck of oatmeal stuck to his chin. She\u2019d let him do this a few times\nbefore picking up her bowl of runny oatmeal and turning it upside down over her\nhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This sent my little stain hater\ninto hysterics. He\u2019d fuss and fume for me to \u201cwipe it off,\u201d to which I would\ndeclare, \u201cHoney, there is no wiping her off.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He grew up to be a stain-hating\nteenager too. Every hair had to be in place, every microscopic fiber of lint\nrolled off his wrinkle-free clothes. Until he moved back to the States when he\nwas fifteen to finish high school. I warned him that the Midwest was muddy, and\nhe was going to the country. He didn\u2019t even own a pair of mud boots. He lived\nwith Grandma and Grandpa, and while he may have started out as a stain-hating\nteenager, his grandpa is quite the opposite, and my son got over his OCD of\nstains quick, fast, and in a hurry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My three Little Loves aren\u2019t so\nlittle anymore. That\u2019s okay; there\u2019s not an age limit when it comes to love\nstains. If they\u2019d hold still long enough, I\u2019d slosh them real good with some of\nmy own love stains. They don\u2019t dawdle much anymore, and they run faster than\nme. But I put puddles of love in their path that trip them as they run. There\u2019s\nmore than one way to make a love stain stick. <br><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n<div data-block-name=\"woocommerce\/handpicked-products\" data-edit-mode=\"false\" data-products=\"[774]\" class=\"wc-block-grid wp-block-handpicked-products wp-block-woocommerce-handpicked-products wc-block-handpicked-products has-3-columns has-multiple-rows wp-block-woocommerce-handpicked-products\"><ul class=\"wc-block-grid__products\"><li class=\"wc-block-grid__product\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/barn-doors\/\" class=\"wc-block-grid__product-link\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-300x300.png\" class=\"attachment-woocommerce_thumbnail size-woocommerce_thumbnail\" alt=\"Barn Doors\" srcset=\"https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/readmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/read\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/23135654\/Barn-Doors-100x100.png 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-title\">Barn Doors<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wc-block-grid__product-price price\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>9.99<\/span> <span aria-hidden=\"true\">&ndash;<\/span> <span class=\"woocommerce-Price-amount amount\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"woocommerce-Price-currencySymbol\">&#036;<\/span>15.99<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Price range: &#036;9.99 through &#036;15.99<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-button wc-block-grid__product-add-to-cart\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/product\/barn-doors\/\" aria-label=\"Select options for &ldquo;Barn Doors&rdquo;\" data-quantity=\"1\" data-product_id=\"774\" data-product_sku=\"\" data-price=\"9.99\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"wp-block-button__link  add_to_cart_button\">Select options<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barn Doors by&nbsp;Emma Broch Stuart Hearing God\u2019s voice in my life isn\u2019t always easy. Sometimes He gives me a blank canvas and lets me paint to my heart\u2019s content\u2014as long as I stay within the boundaries of the canvas. When I feel Him leading me down a certain road, I immediately ask for barn doors [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,199,198],"tags":[148],"class_list":["post-1134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-of-social-relevance","category-spiritually-challenging","tag-emma-broch-stuart"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2973,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions\/2973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}