5 Friday Favorites: June 20, 2025
It's time for my Friday link up with A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals.
On Fridays I share things that made me happy from the week - a photo, a song, a quote, a beauty product, a recipe, a pair of cute shoes, etc. If it's a product, sometimes it's something I actually own and sometimes something I just saw online that gave me a smile. Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's silly. I suppose I believe that God is in the simple details of life and yes, I can even find Him in a tube of lipstick.
Hey! Happy Friday from Chicago! Most of the Skinner fam is here to watch our favorite MLB player in all the world, Ben, and my new favorite MLB team, the Seattle Mariners, play the Chicago Cubs. Yesterday we met up with Ben’s parents and other members of his family for a riverboat tour of the city and were able to see Ben for dinner last night at a really great Mexican restaurant which got two big Texas thumbs up from me for the guacamole, tacos and margaritas. We’re headed to the game this afternoon and if you' don’t think I’ll cry my face off when the kid goes out on the field, you don’t know me at all. More on the trip coming in next week’s favorites.
If you’re here that means you found your way to my new website and I’m incredibly grateful that you’re here! If you haven’t yet, when you get to the bottom of the post, you’ll see a “Let’s be Friends” subscribe button. Click there to sign up for my email list and you’ll get Friday Favorites to you inbox each week. Also, if you have a friend who might like to hang out over here and read the nonsense I put out each week, please share the site with them! This will be so helpful to me as I try to expand the reach of my writing. Thanks so much! Here are this week’s Friday Favorites!
1. Tilda is Visible
I don't even know exactly how to describe this book except to say I cannot stop thinking about it. It's kinda weird, kinda deep, kinda woo-woo, and very much stuck in my brain. I feel like it's going to be something I'm thinking about for a long time. Tilda is a 52 year old divorced mom of two adult children who wakes up one day to find that parts of her body are invisible. I think this would make for endless discussion in a women's book club.
2. A Strapless Bra that Doesn't Fill Me with Rage
For the past several years, I have avoided buying any tops or dresses that might require a strapless bra because they make me irrationally angry. However, I bought this dress while I was shopping in the OBX and my niece promised me that this strapless bra would not drive me bananas. She was right. It's super comfortable and has non-slip silicone strips at the top and bottom that keep it in place.
3. The Mom Show: Episode 166 - A Conversation with Cara Shine
I met the amazing, Cara Shine, in March. Some would say we met by chance, but Cara and I would say it was all Jesus. Cara has an incredible testimony and just completed a book about her story that will be out next year. This week she was on The Mom Show Podcast with Courtney Doyle. I highly recommend listening to this powerful conversation where Cara shares the remarkable way Jesus pursued her and gives practical steps of encouragement on how to share our faith with others.
4. L'Oreal Paris Plump Ambition Lip Oil
I grabbed this lip gloss a few weeks ago because I wanted to try a deeper red shade than I usually wear and didn't want to spend too much on it. I got the Wine O' Clock color and I really like it, but it comes in a lot of other shades. A warning that I did feel a tingling sensation when I first put it on as I often do with plumping glosses, but it didn’t last long.
5. The Freedom that Comes with Knowing Who You Are & Whose You Are
from todaysbibleverse.com
At the beginning of each chapter of Tilda is Visible, there is a quote. Many of them made me roll my eyes. Many of them I had heard before. Many of them made me stop and think. Here was one of those:
"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are."
When I researched this quote I found that it's attributed to multiple sources: Anais Nin, Talmudic texts, Immanuel Kant, Stephen Covey and even the very famous and prolific writer, Anonymous.
I'm not sure if it matters to me who said it. When something like a quote, a song lyric, a movie's dialogue, etc. causes my very distracted mind to think for more than a few minutes, I assume that God is asking me to take those minutes seriously. And for me, it means exploring their meaning by looking at them through the lens of my faith.
In the book, Tilda is asked "who she is" by her therapist who proceeds to dismiss each of the responses Tilda gives as unsatisfactory answers to the question. The therapist contends that the things Tilda mentions are roles she plays or things she does. Not the truth of who she is.
I've certainly heard this type of question before and the pushback that comes when answers are given that encompass roles or occupations. Honestly, it has frustrated me. The roles we play and things we do certainly inform who we are and how we see things. So why aren't these sufficient answers?
I suppose it's because even those of us who have been walking with Christ for a long time, who speak about Him or maybe even write about Him every single week (ahem . . . ), forget that our primary identity before any role we take on, any task we perform, any job we have is as a child of God. I even wrote about this very subject in relation to how we pray for our kids to see themselves a few months ago. Why, oh why, then is it so hard to remember that for myself in the day to day?
It occurred to me as I was contemplating this quote that, "I am a child of God." is not a pat answer for a Christian to give to the question, "Who are you?". To declare that you are a child of God reveals how you see the world.
My belief in God and my identity as a child of that God must inform every other role, every other responsibility and every other task I take on. It comes first. It's the center of everything. In essence, if I strip away all the layers of me that I present to the world and drill down into the nucleus of who I truly am, I can't go any deeper than this one fact of my being: that I believe in and belong to Jesus Christ.
When I start to describe myself by roles I have taken on - roles that God has granted me even - daughter, sister, friend, wife, mom, teacher, writer, speaker - I realize that if I solely look at the world through the lens of those identities, while I may cherish them, I might see life only in light of those earthly roles. And those earthly things can be stripped away from me.
For example, when I look at the world solely as a mother, I might rely too heavily on the behavior or achievements of my children to give me purpose and worth. If I look at the world solely as a writer, I might rely on the how well-received my words are by the public to give me purpose and worth. If I look at the world solely as a 56 year old woman who hasn't realized all of her dreams yet, then I might look at the the world as a place where time is running out and my purpose and worth are passing me by.
When I look at the world through the roles I take on, I might perceive both good and not so good feelings: joy and pride, burden and anxiety So I wondered, if I truly begin each day reminding myself that the only role that really matters - the one that every other role flows out of - is that I am a beloved, safe, chosen, forgiven child of God, how would I feel?
I sat in that for a minute. And what I felt was an overwhelming sense of freedom.
And do you know what freedom feels like? It doesn't feel weighty or burdensome or oppressive. It feels like hope. It feels like possibility. It feels like abundance. It feels like rest. It feels like grace. It feels like peace.
This is how we see things when who we are is a child of the King. I'm so grateful.
Y'all have the best weekend. And again:pretty please sign up for my email list! I would be so grateful!
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