Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 100
June 8, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.08.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
@tinyshinyhome
@tinyshinyhome
@tinyshinyhome
@tinyshinyhome
@tinyshinyhome
cannot get enough of their views – welcome to a beautiful way to start your weekend right here
so who’s in? Amtrak’s incredible offer? Check these train tickets across the U.S.
grateful for the kindness of strangers who step in to help…
Sine / Foodbites: Instagram
Sine / Foodbites: Instagram
Sine / Foodbites: Instagram
so we circled ’round this one!
this one’s for all of the pickle fans
My Quiet Times Are Anything but Quiet
“My husband always tells me that he didn’t learn the art of surrender in a church.
He learned it in a field.”
extraordinary footage here… how hummingbirds survive in the rain
Mentoring Matters: they’re helping young students achieve amazing heights
never, ever give up
not forgotten: at 67, formerly homeless man readmitted to a university after leaving in 1975
so grateful for the work of Compassion International – this story? Tears
Jesus Gave Him What Boozing and Brawling Couldn’t
A journey from the criminal underworld to the foot of the cross
beautiful… in every way
LOVE: “We all need to know that we belong to each other — whether we are city folk, farm folk, whatever folk.
No matter where people live, work … no matter what we believe … we all belong to each other. And in a hurting world, that can make all the difference.“
come meet this family of 6: eating, sleeping, living, in a converted school bus
she’s got a passion for the perfect sentence
YES to this...let’s be more like her…
…honestly, maybe it’s time to talk about this secret all women face:
The Secret to “Doing it All” — and how We Can Not Judge Each Other
every word of this: it’s The Gospel that makes a way…
Post of the week from these parts here:
Waiting for the right thing, the right time — can feel like things are going wrong. And Hope can feel so much like hurt.
This has been one of the hardest springs of our lives.
This is meant for someone right now, a lifeline in the midst of hard times:
Tired of Waiting: The Secret to the Art of Waiting
thank you, Max Lucado… “Worship is warfare!'”
June is here!
Maybe in this new month, we all just need the gift of Joy… a bit of Hope? To stand together — FOR each other — knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than any sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love.
Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, into all the places that feel kinda abandoned?
These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.
Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift …
And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We will immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print from home or at your local print shop! Just let us know that you ordered Be The Gift over here.
You only get one life to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to
on repeat this week: Just give me Jesus
…Sunday rolling in and things may be looking big & hard & a bit impossible right now. But there’s this: “Jesus replied, ‘You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.'” John 13:7
When it looks overwhelming, understand that He stands in the midst doing something that you’ll understand someday.
When it’s hard to understand His ways, stand on His promises.
When it’s hard to trace His hand — trust His heart.
Trust: your days are is unfolding in His hands, He’s got you, He’s got a plan, He understands you, upholds you, and underneath everything today — are His everlasting arms.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
June 5, 2019
The Secret to “Doing it All” — & how We Can Not Judge Each Other
R
ain on a tin roof this morning.
The rocking chairs out in the ash grove sit quiet, solid — steady in the wind.
Steady in the wind. They’re calling for another inch of rain today, for it to just keep coming.
Our Hope-girl makes brownies, shakes the popcorn over the stove.
And there’s this deep peace that keeps coming about not coming and going at all.
It’s happens when we rest — that we relinquish our ambitions to be like God.
There’s always asks to do this thing over here or do this work, this thing, over there.
“Every yes automatically says no somewhere else.”
And the thing is: Asks aren’t obligations. Asks are options.
The Farmer says it quiet to me over bacon and eggs flipped sunny side over: Every yes automatically says no somewhere else.
I say my quiet nos and say more yes to kids and laughing hard over bad jokes and memorize their faces.
Because it doesn’t matter what any gatekeeper says: Mothering a mess of kids is as important as preaching to a stadium for a month of Sundays.
The size of your ministry isn’t proof of the success of your ministry.
The very Son of God had a ministry to 12. And even oneof them abandoned Him. Forget the numbers in your work. Focus on the net value of your work.
“The size of your ministry isn’t proof of the success of your ministry.”
The internet age may try to sell you something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness — and focusing on numbers can make you nauseated.
Someone sends me this interview that Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi, named by Fortune the #1 most powerful woman in business in the world in 2009 and 2010, and mother of two. Who gave what some are deeming the interview of the year:
“I don’t think women can have it all. I just don’t think so. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all… Every day you have to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact many times during the day you have to make those decisions…”
I think about Indra’s Insight while I make decisions in the garden.
While I bend over each strawberry plant, press the delicate white petals between thumb and index finger —and then just pluck it off. So there’ll be no strawberries this year.
It’s what you have to do: “Pick off all first blooms to ensure subsequent harvests are more plentiful.”
If you ever intend for the strawberries to produce heavily throughout the season, you have to choose to sacrifice the first harvest, so that all the growth and energy could be more efficiently invested into producing later crops.
Cut out that which seems good to invest in the best.
“Early sacrifice for later bounty.”
It is the law of life: Early sacrifice for later bounty.
I stand over the schedule and there’s Indra’s Insight and there’s this saying no, there’s this trimming back, letting go.
It can be hard to prune good things that are blooming. It can be hard to remember why you are pruning.
Because there’s a counter-intuitiveness to it, this plucking off certain life activities that will yield good fruit. Some might even think it foolish to pare back, when the bloom and gifting apparent; a good harvest inevitable.
Yet it’s the pruning of seemingly good leaves that can grow a better life. To allow later seasons to yield the longed-for abundant crop.
It takes courage to crop a life back —but it’s exactly the way to have the best crop of all.
“What seems like hard work that’s taking an eternity today — is exactly what may make the most difference in eternity.”
What seems like hard work that’s taking an eternity today — is exactly what may make the most difference in eternity.
Indra’s Insight rings loud. ‘You can have it all’ — isn’t the whole truth.
No matter where you are — it’s never all easy.
A crop is made by all the seasons and the only way to have it all — is not all at the same time … but letting one season bring its yield into the next.
This is how to have no fear — each season makes a full year.
What can seem like a plucking of dreams — may be the wisest of investments. In the later harvest. The sweetest one.
You can see it when you pluck the strawberries, hoe the beans, cut the lettuce, when you stand there in the thickening dusk:
You can see that the garden is one and the garden is a myriad of plants flourishing in their own space, their own way, their own time. Heaven forbid that you’d try to make all the cherry tomatoes into zucchini plants.
Heaven forbid any woman would go around and try to make all women into an image of herself .
Heaven forbid any woman would set up her life as a standard instead of making grace the standard of her life.
One woman’s thrift store donation is happily another woman’s thrift store sensation. And one woman’s ‘no’ can happily be another woman’s ‘yes’. One isn’t necessarily wrong and the other one right.
It’s the differences between us that makes us a Body and not a uniform.
Christ makes us a Body — not a faith factory. He calls us to be Christ followers — not cookie cutters. Break the measuring sticks of comparison — or we break our own souls.
“If you aren’t encouraging women to live out their particular calling, you may just be idolizing a particular idealized form of yourself.”
Because the bottom line simply is: If you aren’t encouraging women to live out their particular calling, you may just be idolizing a particular idealized form of yourself.
Malakai prunes new strawberry plants back with me.
And there’s this fierce trust that the Spirit will bring the bounty of a feast in His time to feed and grow the Body in His way.
And yeah — we each get to make our own unique decisions knowing we’ve heard God’s unique calling for us.
People will always have opinions about you.
But you live for God because He’s the only one who has intimate knowledge of you.
Hope and I wash the kitchen down while the brownies cool.
“People will always have opinions about you. But you live for God because He’s the only one who has intimate knowledge of you.”
The sun breaks through. The roof falls silent now. Rocking chairs still in the grove, armrests dripping soundlessly. Steady in wind. Know what you’re about. The evening light falls long and quiet across the counters.
There are crops finally coming to maturity — yeses and nos coming in their own right time.
I wash out my cloth at the sink and think about the timing of things at their right time: Often the evidence of maturity is responsability…. response-ability — the ability to make the right response at the right time.
“You want to have one of the brownies out in one of the rockers with me?” Hope looks up from the tap, her cloth in hand.
And there are holy yeses that are just to the one.
To a girl at the sink with a bunch of flowers.
Maybe in this season, we all just need the gift of Joy… a bit of Hope? To stand together — FOR each other — knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than any sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love. The way forward — is always to give forward.
(And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We’d love to immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print from home or at your local print shop! ( Just let us know that you picked up Be The Gift over here.)
We all only get one life to love well — and being a gift with you gives reviving joy!
June 3, 2019
Tired of Waiting: The Secret to the Art of Waiting
There is a time for everything, and yet —
Waiting for the right time, can feel like everything is going wrong.
“The sacrament of waiting can feel the hardest of all.”
You can bet on it these days, every morning when we rise, I hear the Farmer’s quiet sigh. Hear the rhythm of the rain again on the roof. Hear the rain cascading again over the edge of the plugged eavestrough outside our bedroom window.
It’s been a year of historic waiting for farmers. More than 40 days of waiting — waiting for the skies to show some mercy and dam up their deluge and let the flooded fields dry enough to be a bed for seeds. 40 days of painfully waiting to begin the work that puts food on our table.
In our nearly 2 and half decades of farming here, never, ever, have we been waiting with corn seed still in hand come June. Farmers around these parts have never seen anything like it.
The sacrament of waiting can feel the hardest of all.
They say waiting is the drumming of impatient fingers, the unbearably slow watching of the face of the clock, the long sitting in front of indifferent calendars and hoping so wide your heart cracks.
“Hoping can feel so much like hurt.”
Hoping can feel so much like hurt.
But, the brave and battle-weary will flat-out tell you, if you’re waiting beside a hospital bed for any kind of stirring, waiting for the word you need to finally turn off this endlessly-stretching dead-end road, waiting for change that is moving slower than old molasses frozen in the depths of December, you know waiting isn’t an uninvolved twiddling of thumbs because you have felt it:
“Hope is a buoyancy — and waiting is what splits you wide open to fill with the rising waters, so everything can rise. So you can rise.”
Hope is a buoyancy — and waiting is what splits you wide open to fill with the rising waters, so everything can rise. So you can rise.
Waiting isn’t passive — waiting is passion: loving long enough to suffer.
Waiting is the patience of the long suffering of letting go. Letting go of the plan, the dream, the map, the vision. Letting the ground of things, the things that you made your ground, letting them give way.
Waiting is a letting go to let something grow.
Stacked bags of corn seed, bean seed, wait on a flat wagon in the shed, rain pounding on the shed’s tin roof like we are caught again in the days of Noah.
The Farmer stands at the front window in the early morning light, watching darker clouds move in from the west. His Bible is open on the sill, like it’s a rail shielding him from the edge of things. His early hours are all the same: our hands may seem tied, but our knees never are.
“Waiting is a letting go to let something grow.”
His eyes don’t leave the sky. I try not to count, not think about how the season is growing shorter every day. Frost will be here by early to mid-September. You only have so many days to grow a crop, to grow hope. And the calendar’s harshly blunt: We’ve only got four months to grow a corn crop before Jack Frost comes nipping cold the middle of some September night and all possibility stops. I try not to think how we’ve already lost 40 days waiting. It can feel like hope is running out.
His eyes don’t leave the sky. His voice is soft.
“This is not about us growing a crop — but about God growing us.”
The waiting isn’t destroying us — the waiting is growing us.
“Nothing is lost in the waiting process — because waiting is a growth process.”
Waiting isn’t loss — it’s enlarging.
The longer the heart waits, the larger the heart expands to hold the largeness of the abundant life.
The waiting is widening us — so Hope is never running out — but more hope in Christ is running in.
I turn toward the sky and feel it:
“The waiting is widening us — so Hope is never running out — but more hope in Christ is running in.“
Nothing is lost in the waiting process — because waiting is a growth process.
Waiting is gestating a greater grace.
Waiting is the sacrament of the tender surrender, the art of a soul growing large.
And it’s true, even here:
Life has no waiting rooms — life only has labor and delivery rooms. Waiting rooms are actually birthing rooms and what feels like the contraction of our plans can be the birthing of greater purposes.
The Farmer only pulls on his tractor cap when he heads out into the rain, heads to the barn, past his waiting fields. His heads bowed low into wind and God’s ways coming down. Waiting is the sacrament of the tender surrender and this is the art of a soul growing large.
Every waiting moment is heavy with the weight of glory and this waiting midwifes a fuller life.
You find yourself at a crossroads every day — in a place of looking at the sky and wondering why? And what you need to know — is the way to abundance.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be in the midst of what is?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
June 1, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.01.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Kelley Hudson
Kelley Hudson
Kelley Hudson
exhale: here’s your free ticket and virtual weekend tour… enjoy!
so what do you think?!? This Café Made Entirely Out of Cardboard? Shows just how eco-friendly architecture can be
so the world’s most expensive potatoes? are only available 10 days out of the year – must come see
How Ecclesiastes Taught Me to Enjoy Life
the one thing we’ve learned from the humble caterpillar? Change is possible
As aging Americans increasingly grapple with dementia, churches have a growing opportunity to minister to exhausted caregivers and to comfort the forgetful
can you even!?! this dad interviewed his daughter on her first day of school for 13 years
Thank you, Randy Alcorn… Waiting When God Seems Silent
the kindness of strangers? never, ever gets old: best stories #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
Giedre Gomes / Instagram / Facebook
Giedre Gomes / Instagram / Facebook
Giedre Gomes / Instagram / Facebook
at 32, Teddy Abrams is the youngest conductor of a major orchestra in the US, and he’s done what most orchestras are desperate to do:
increased the audience, young and old – he’s brilliant, just come see
It would be a grace to meet you here in August!
glory, glory, glory
A Major New Study Asks: How Does Church Affect Marital Health?
this… This police officer dad and his daughter share a special moment during his final sign-off call after 25-years of service
our world could use a few more Curtis Jenkins in it… don’t you agree?
so many tears at this one: “they’re our children… we just happened to get them later in life”
You’ve heard this woman’s unforgettable story?
When I first heard it, I reached for a Sharpie to write her name on the palm of my hand — I resonated so deeply.
This is a heart-enlarging story to never, ever forget:
When life cracks your heart: For all the busted & dismembered desperate for hope
starting at the 1:17 mark? Refreshment for your soul
Wild. Bright. Awakening.
It would be a grace to meet you here… Lord willing, I’ll be speaking in Sydney and London in 2020
June is here!
Maybe in this new month, we all just need the gift of Joy… a bit of Hope? To stand together — FOR each other — knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than any sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love.
Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, into all the places that feel kinda abandoned?
These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.
Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift …
And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We will immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print from home or at your local print shop! Just let us know that you ordered Be The Gift over here.
You only get one life to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to
real, practical lifeline for real-life distracted & disconnected couples to have a really great weekend:
When you want a bold love life
thank you, Max Lucado… “Worship is proclamation. Worship says, ‘I still believe!'”
on repeat this week: Is He Worthy?
Feeling like it’s looking a bit impossible? BUT GOD!
Like there’s not a chance of change? BUT GOD!
Like there’s no hope for a different ending? BUT GOD!
“But God, who is rich in mercy…” Eph.2:4
Two Words, Change Everything: BUT GOD! Change every internal conversation with those two words “BUT GOD” — and you change your life. What looks impossible changes — because when we pray to a GOD WHO IS ABLE — He changes us & our impossibles into the impossABLES.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
May 31, 2019
When you want a bold love life
Aaron and Jennifer Smith are eager to spread the light of the Gospel, while also encouraging the faith of those belonging to the body of Christ. They recognize their marriage as a powerful tool in the hands of The Almighty God, saying yes to Him as they pursue the purposes He established for them long ago. The Smith’s transparently share their journey of marriage to remind other couples that they are not alone, that there is hope in Christ, and that God has a purpose for every marriage. What they deem more than just a book, but rather a movement in Christian marriages, they wrote Marriage After God. Their hope is that this book is a catalyst to inspire husbands and wives to be ambassadors of holy love to a hurting world. It’s a grace to welcome Aaron and Jennifer to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Aaron and Jennifer Smith
That first Wednesday we showed up to the marriage ministry night at church, we both felt extremely uncomfortable.
Lost in a sea of seemingly well-built marriages, we stood there awkwardly as if a spotlight was shining on us, exposing every crack and crevice in our broken relationship.
Isn’t that exactly how our enemy works?
The moment we choose to walk in obedience, he’s right there to accuse us and remind us of our brokenness and shame, doing everything he can to derail our trajectory toward closeness with God, toward oneness with each other, and toward healing.
“Our insecurities that flooded our minds began to get the best of us.”
Our insecurities that flooded our minds began to get the best of us.
Without even having to communicate, we slowly stepped backward, getting ready to turn around to slip out the doors before the meeting began.
But instead of escaping, we met the arms of a man greeting us, inviting us to sit with him and his wife at their table. This couple, Tom and Heidi, made a commotion shuffling chairs and scooting couples around to make room for us.
That night, sitting at that table full of marriages just like ours, we realized we needed this setting more than we could ever have known. We witnessed husbands and wives opening up and talking about their marriages.
No masks. No hiding. No faking. It was real, it was raw, and there was something uniquely appealing about it all.
It was refreshing, and that very night hope found its way back into our broken hearts.
Tom and Heidi stepped out in obedience to welcome us to the table, and their example of transparency, honesty, and real biblical love inspired us and taught us to walk with the same kind of transparency, honesty, and love.
Over the course of two years, God used them, and the other couples at that table, to sharpen us and help restore and mature us.
The redemption and healing we found in our marriage only came once we surrendered to God’s way of doing life, which included participating in fellowship with other believers.
“God desires His people to meet together, encourage each other, and love each other.”
Our marriage was being transformed by the renewing of our minds about the body of Christ and our place in it.
God revealed to us how every person who is a part of His body plays a unique and necessary role, to accomplish His will and purposes.
There is no such thing as an autonomous Christian who stands alone with no need for others and no obligation to anyone.
To be called a Christian, by definition, means being a part of Christ’s body, the church. Hebrews 10:24–25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
God desires His people to meet together, encourage each other, and love each other.
Jesus taught us that unity was what the Father’s heart is for His people.
“We know these types of relationships can be messy. We know that being known can seem terrifying.”
In John 15:5 He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus calls Himself a vine, and He calls us His branches, both of which are pieces of a whole.
In nature, there doesn’t exist healthy, thriving branches floating around. Rather, what is seen are healthy, thriving branches connected to the main stem of a plant or trunk of a tree, which is rooted with a strong foundation.
If there are branches that are found in nature, disconnected and alone, it is either dead or in the process of decaying.
In 1 Corinthians 12:27 Paul tells us that we “are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” How can we say we are a branch if we are not growing next to other branches? How can we call ourselves members of the body of Christ if we are not connected to the other parts of that same body?
We know why people tend to avoid true biblical fellowship, because we used to avoid it too.
We know these types of relationships can be messy. We know that being known can seem terrifying.
“Witness for yourselves how God will strengthen, challenge, and empower your marriage for His purposes through your experience of engaging with and being supported by His body.”
However, since experiencing the power of true community and fellowship with the body of Christ, we have come to know so much more of the good that comes from walking this way, in contrast to walking alone and isolated from the body.
We know the benefits of iron sharpening iron. We know the intrinsic value of being needed and being provided for.
We know the good that comes from being known, and we are no longer afraid of it.
We desire this same knowledge that comes through experience to transform your marriage as you and your spouse walk in unity with the body of Christ.
Do not be afraid of it. Not only is fellowship with other believers an incredible benefit to the refining of your marriage relationship, but it is also where you and your spouse will discover an extraordinary opportunity to serve and love others in Christ through the ministry of your marriage.
Your marriage is an active and necessary member of the body of Christ.
Witness for yourselves how God will strengthen, challenge, and empower your marriage for His purposes through your experience of engaging with and being supported by His body.
When all the parts of Christ’s body are functioning in perfect harmony, nothing will stop the body from accomplishing God’s will.
“We know the good that comes from being known, and we are no longer afraid of it.”
Don’t be like us, hiding from others because of shame and brokenness.
Don’t be like us, trying to slip out the back door before anyone could see us.
Instead, be like the couples who opened their arms, their hearts, and their homes to welcome others to participate in the extraordinary body of Christ.
Don’t wait to be pursued; be the pursuers.
Don’t wait to be served; be the faithful servants.
Don’t wait to be loved and invited. Love and invite.
Having been married over 12 years, and currently raising 4 young children, Aaron and Jennifer are no strangers to the enemy’s attack on marriage. They hope to equip couples to be prepared, inspired, and encouraged to live boldly, chasing after God’s purposes together. Ever since they got married, Aaron and Jennifer have purposed to serve God and build His kingdom together. They blog, write books, and host a weekly podcast urging couples to say yes to God and to be used by God for His extraordinary purposes.
Aaron and Jennifer Smith, authors of Marriage After God, have recognized the beauty and power of how God designed every marriage unique. They are passionate about encouraging couples to set their eyes on God, while boldly asking the question, “God, what can our marriage do for you?”
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 28, 2019
When life cracks your heart: For all the busted & dismembered desperate for hope
It’s kinda forever seared in my heart: At a Texas homeschool convention, there was this young Mama holding her sleeping baby as she stood at the end of a long night for a moment to reach out and connect. With tears in her eyes, she began to thank me for the ways One Thousand Gifts helped prepare her for the worst season of her life. The season which began with her embracing her three-year-old son Truman in her arms, as he took his last breath after accidentally shooting himself with an unsecured handgun. While she shared her story with me, I reached for a Sharpie to write her name on the palm of my hand to ensure I would remember her — etched into my heart. An heart-enlarging story of unforgettable faith. There are stories that need to be told and remind us of how, with God’s Grace, we can keep moving forward even in the midst of ultimate tragedy. Tiffany Scott is a mother to eleven children and the founding director of The Team Truman Foundation. She is humbly & sacrificially determined to use her pain and suffering to help others and glorify God. It’s my humble grace to welcome Tiffany to our farm’s front porch…
It was a deceivingly gorgeous summer day on our farm. The wind was blowing, creating an opportune time for hanging our linens on the clothesline out back.
My three-year-old son Truman, tagged along, asking his most popular question, “Why you do that?”
I could hear him giggling while playing in the freshly hung white sheets that were blowing in the breeze.
Then before I knew it, he was off to explore the farm and routinely follow his daddy around.
The scorching Texas heat was becoming nearly unbearable, so I headed in the house. It was just an average day on the farm for our family.
I changed the baby’s diaper, and then began to tackle my never-ending To Do list.
Our two teenagers piled in my bed next to me searching Craig’s List for iPhones while I worked on my laptop and nursed the baby. They found a listing with two iPhones for $500 so I made meeting arrangements with the seller for later in the afternoon.
Shortly later, my husband and Truman came in to escape the already hundred-degree summer heat. I mentioned my recent deal and asked him to get cash out of our safe.
As a seasoned police officer, he immediately saw bright red flags and cautioned me on traveling alone with that much cash to meet a stranger.
I ignored his warnings and tried to persuade him to agree by suggesting I take a small handgun with me for protection – just in case.
I rarely carried a gun but I knew if I did, he would be more at ease.
Our typical chaotic “getting ready mode” ensued with the kids in and out of my bedroom, deciding who was coming with me and who was staying at home with their dad.
“Get something to eat! I’m buying phones not food,” I directed my oldest two, who were excited about getting new phones.
While I began to get dressed Tim got out a small handgun and loaded it for me.
I was half paying attention to him when he set it down on our nightstand and went into the boys’ bedroom to cuddle with Truman and watch TV to rest during the heat of the day.
My room had finally emptied and I had nursed the baby to sleep by now, so I decided to take advantage of the quiet to make a quick phone call.
As I dialed a friend’s number, I yelled out a five-minute warning to let the kids know we would be leaving soon.
I was on the phone for maybe three minutes before I heard a loud noise coming from the porch just outside my bedroom.
I looked up and saw my six-year-old, standing in my doorway. I asked him what the noise was, but he shrugged his shoulders signaling he didn’t know. Assuming it was my dogs knocking a mason jar off the table outside, I told him to go check.
Instantly I could feel something was wrong and my gut instinct urged me to check instead.
I dropped my phone, instructing my son to keep the baby from falling off the bed while I rushed towards the porch door.
As soon as I stepped onto the porch I found Truman lying unconsciously on the ground with an obvious injured left eye.
Initially, I had no idea what was happening.
I honestly don’t know when it registered in my mind what had actually happened – that it was a gun accident. So much of that day is a complete blur.
I instinctively picked my little boy up, telling myself he was going to be okay, but when I held him to my pounding chest, I didn’t feel his little arms wrap around my neck like they so often had all the other times I embraced him after his typical toddler injuries. I knew . . . I knew my son was dying.
Panic quickly consumed me and I began screaming for my husband who quickly headed towards my loud cries with our two younger boys standing closely behind him.
We met half way in the house, at which point Tim immediately saw the gaping hole in the back of Truman’s head.
I handed Truman over to him and he took him back outside to keep the other kids from seeing their little brother with such a horrific injury.
Clinging to hope, I hysterically called our local 911 pleading for help, but I soon realized I wasn’t hearing any cries or even Tim yelling for help.
Suddenly, I became aware that my husband was on our porch with our dying son and a gun.
Fear crippled me from going back outside to them.
I was terrified that my husband was going to be so consumed with grief that he would take his own life.
Out of sheer desperation for help, I called the police department my husband worked for the last sixteen years. The dispatcher who answered my call was a friend of ours and I began begging her to send Tim’s sergeant, who was like a father to him.
I put the phone down and all I could do was stand in my bedroom and scream at the Heavens.
I begged God not to take my baby. “Not my baby! Please not my baby!!! Nooooo!” I screamed over and over.
I finally found the courage to step back outside onto our porch where I found my husband with tears streaming down his face and our little boy in his arms.
For nearly a year, I never knew what my husband endured on our porch that horrible day.
I didn’t know he breathed for our son until he knew it would only cause Truman pain in trying to prevent the inevitable.
Tim wouldn’t tell me until I was strong enough that he said, “daddy” one last time before his body started its natural response to trauma.
“How does a mama survive such intense heart trauma? How does a marriage endure this? How does family stay together?”
He carried a weight he knew was too heavy for me. Instead, he cleaned our son off as much as he could before I came back outside with them. I sat down and Tim put him in my arms for me to hold, just as he did the day he was born.
Seconds later Truman took a breath and I exclaimed “he’s alive, he’s going to make it!!!” but the look on my husband’s face said otherwise.
For sixteen years he’s had to look into the eyes of mothers and told them their child had died, but this time it was his own wife with his youngest son. He uttered the hardest words he’s every had to say, “No baby, he’s gone.”
I squeezed my eyes shut trying to unsee it all, trying to unlive this moment, as if when I opened my eyes, it would all be a nightmare. Silently praying for a miracle.
Instead, I opened them to the reality that I was holding my lifeless little boy. That breath of hope was actually his last breath.
So many thoughts were racing through my head.
How could this really be happening? How were we ever going to survive this tragedy together and whole? How did we let this happen? How was my shattered heart still beating when his had stopped?
I sat in disbelief, begging God to take us all.
It wasn’t a true desire of death for us all, but the plea of a mother enduring the fear of earthly separation from her child.
I had never been away from him for longer than a night’s end after a sleepover with his grandmother who lived five minutes away. Now the forced reality that our tight knit family was literally being dismembered was unimaginable.
I couldn’t fathom our family surviving this tragedy whole. The only alternative was for God to take us all, not just one of us.
How does a mama survive such intense heart trauma? How does a marriage endure this? How does family stay together?
The pain was so intense I felt sick to my stomach.
“He is God’s now,” my husband cried kneeling down next to us.
Those moments on our porch were indescribably heart shattering, but in the midst of our devastation there was a peace that overcame us both.
“In the midst of our devastation there was a peace that overcame us both.”
Our world stopped in those moments while the rest of the world kept spinning around us. I could hear the sound of an ambulance siren, then saw the flashing red lights coming up our dirt road.
I was quickly jolted out of those sacred last moments we had together with our son into the inevitable reality of the legal process that was to unfold.
An ambulance from our small-town volunteer fire department made its way to our old farmhouse. After coming to a stop, both doors immediately opened. I squeezed Truman tighter, knowing what was about to happen.
The driver was a familiar face, a man about my husband’s age. I remember Tim calling him by name, “He’s gone Brian, he’s gone.”
As he stepped onto the porch with us, Tim gently looked at me. Then with a soft, yet persuasive tone, my husband told me I had to let go.
I had to open my hands and allow him to take my baby out of my arms. I didn’t want to release him, I unyieldingly gripped my hands around him as much as I could, wanting to sit on that porch and hold him forever.
It was too much for me to take in so quickly. It was too much for my mind to process. I needed more time!
Tim reached down and I released my trembling hands, allowing him to lift his frail toddler body out of my arms.
It took everything in me not to fight him.
Instead I surrendered, knowing I really had no choice.
I nearly vomited as I followed behind them to the ambulance, watching my baby’s limp little legs dangle from his arms.
I climbed in and sat next to him, overlooking the paramedic who was hooking monitors on Truman’s still chest. I looked at that black and white rectangular screen for what seemed like a lifetime, still grasping for a miracle that there would be some sign of life in him. There wasn’t.
There was just a straight line pushing me further into a reality I was terrified of.
My last bit of hope slipping away, I began to take in every little detail of my son as my mind could remember.
Singing to him while looking at his dirty little feet, proof of his life just hours prior. I tried to mesmerize his toddler hands. Those little hands I had just dipped into paint to make a Hungry Caterpillar craft.
I ran my hands over his soft brown hair that we had just cut for the first time that summer to look like his daddy’s military “high & tight.”
His little lips that would kiss me goodnight. That dominate little freckle next to the chicken pox scar under his eye.
His eyes, those deep blue eyes I had woke to that very morning. How was I never going to be able to stare into them again?
When I stepped outside the ambulance our front yard was full of police – local police, state troopers, and a Texas Ranger, and there was my husband in the middle of it all.
I seemed to be standing still in a world spinning around me. Then it occurred to me that we had not broken the news to our other children who were still inside unaware of what was happening outside.
I stepped back onto our blood-stained porch, with a deputy following closely behind me. I now empty handedly faced the same door I had raced through just an hour before with Truman in my arms.
I put my hand on that door and prayed, “God, we need you! My kids have got to see you in this. Please give me the strength to walk through this door and tell them their little brother is with You now. I trust you. Please be with us.”
I opened the door to a trail of blood, leading to my bedroom where I had met my husband with Truman.
I walked through our house, stopping at the bathroom to wash Truman’s blood off before facing my other children.
I walked into our living room where our five other children were huddled together on the couch, patiently waiting for an explanation to the screams they heard from across the house, the sirens coming up our dirt road, and now the police in our front yard who they could see from the living room windows.
They had braved my cries together, not knowing what they were really hearing was their mama losing her earthly hold of their littlest brother.
I wanted to tell them it was all going to be okay, but instead I uttered the words that ripped their young hearts wide open, “Truman didn’t make it. He is with Jesus now.”
I don’t remember exactly what I said to them after that.
I do know, the second worst pain I have felt as a mother, was when I told them their little brother died. Reality was hitting me faster and harder. Each minute felt like an eternity. I could barely breathe.
Although so much of the rest of that horrible day is a blur to me, what I will never forget is my husband. The toughest man I know, in complete despair, totally broken.
He was consumed with guilt and repeatedly said, “I killed my son.”
I knew my husband would never intentionally hurt him. After all, he was the kind of man who would lay his own life down for a stranger. He would no doubt do anything to protect his kids. He was always trying to foresee hidden dangers.
As a seasoned police officer, he had witnessed his share of accidents. He could foresee so many dangers the average person is oblivious to. We thought we had all our safety bases covered.
Numbness continued to wash over me. That night we took a shower together and he began to kiss me and run his hands over my body. He was desperate for an escape from the pain and wanted to use me to numb himself.
I cringed and crawled inside myself as if I was being touched for the first time after a forceful rape. All I wanted was to be held, but quickly realized any physical touch was a huge trigger for me.
I didn’t understand it, I had never been raped and felt unworthy of the comparison, but it was exactly how my body was responding. Even at the touch of my own husband.
He felt rejected and assumed it was because I blamed him for our son’s death, but I never blamed him.
I knew how much he loved our kids. He was a good daddy. And Truman was his shadow, he idolized Tim.
If anything, I blamed myself. I was still trying to process everything from that day and couldn’t wrap my mind around so many of the details.
“I screamed at the heavens, demanding a different answer, a second chance, to go back, to do it over, do it better, but instead I began living a life I didn’t choose.”
How did he slip by me – with a gun? How did I not see him? How did his little hands physically pull that trigger? That gun was down for a matter of minutes, how did our entire lives change in just minutes?
August 2, 2012, I held my hands out to God, pleading for a miracle, but instead I found myself holding our son as his heart stopped beating.
I screamed at the heavens, demanding a different answer, a second chance, to go back, to do it over, do it better, but instead I began living a life I didn’t choose.
Our morning together at the clothesline is my last memory with my son alive that I can remember before I found him lying unconsciously on our front porch.
I know there was more, but when trauma takes your mind captive it has a way of robbing you of the good memories just as much as the bad.
For the first five years of enduring the indescribable pain from a heart amputation (because when my child left this earth, so did a part of me), I struggled with being angry that there were more memories, but my mind just wouldn’t let me remember.
I don’t remember the last time I kissed him or told him I loved him or even the last thing I said to him.
Then on the eve of what would have been his sixth birthday a dear friend sent me a few photographs she had recently captured of me with my now three-year-old son, Tellan, at the same clothesline.
The next morning, the morning I should have been waking Truman with birthday kisses, but instead was crying on my bathroom floor staring at these precious photos remembering that hot summer morning together when God spoke His healing grace into my shattered heart,
“I don’t know what has broken your one heart, but I do know that Christ is the only one who can mend brokenness.”
“This is the memory with Truman that I want you to have and hold onto. It is a gift just as much as these pictures are. This pause in time is exactly how I want you to remember your last day with your little boy.”
All those years of feeling like memories had been taken from me, God was actually healing me with a special memory as He was transforming my dis-membered heart into a re-membering heart.
To the Beloved who are in a deep pit of hopelessness, I don’t know what has broken your one heart, but I do know that Christ is the only one who can mend brokenness.
His nail pierced hands have cupped every tear I’ve shed and then wiped them from my face and given me moments like this – moments that have made my son intimately present to me.
Only He can take the most unimaginable memories that were so tragic even my mind tried to protect me from them and bring healing hope in remembering.
Most would deem this chapter of our story not worth remembering or too painful to share.
But I want to document the light shining through our brokenness.
Within this film is the reminder for my children, my grandchildren, for generations to come that our God has been faithful, mighty, and will forever be good.
Thank you to Joy & Donny Prouty for doing such an amazing job in the creation of this film and to Christa Wells for the beautiful song that speaks the words of my heart.
May 25, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [05.25.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
her breathtaking gift is your kick start to a glorious weekend ahead…
here’s to a beautiful weekend with the ones you love
woah….what a catch!?!!
so let’s all go read a little bit more!?!
People Who Read A Lot of Books Are Way Nicer, Kinder and Empathetic, Study Shows
he went and broke his own world record – reaching the world’s highest peak 24 times
so what do you think? come see how he’s turning street signs into art
with summer fast approaching?!
5 Pro Photography Secrets to Capturing Powerful Wide-Angle Landscape Photos
it’s take a community sometimes…
they’re finding refuge in running clubs: a former prisoner, and a mom of 4 share their stories
the power of play: they’re stepping in and letting kids be kids right where they are
Hesed Lane
Hesed Lane
Hesed Lane
… take a nap, sleep in, get some real rest and recharge this weekend — your soul works best when is has Sabbath.
(… our whole family is flat-out smitten with these sleeping little pups from Hesed Lane)
they’re on to something here: helping folks through community and fitness…
Jason Hawkes: @jasonhawkes, Twitter @jasonhawkesphot
Jason Hawkes: Inst @jasonhawkes, Twitter @jasonhawkesphot
Jason Hawkes: Inst @jasonhawkes, Twitter @jasonhawkesphot
yes! Stunning Aerial Photos Reveal the Natural Human Connection with Water
breathtakingly beautiful
around the world? the 20 best cities to visit for book lovers
reunions like these?!? never, ever get old… tears
Talk about Giving it Forward — astonishing grace. #BeTheGift
a beautiful story about justice: long delayed, but no longer denied
thank you, Jon Bloom… Satan Will Sing You to Sleep: Waking Up from Spiritual Indifference
to all who sacrificed their lives for freedom… thank you
…it’s true, when we’re deeply hurting and God feels absent, it can be straight-up hard to say “God’s got this. God’s got me.”
But there is hope, and an invitation in the middle of our suffering:
Hard Times? How to Hear God’s Song Louder Than Any Hard Times
God has a plan for your life —
please don’t miss this one, Ines Franklin shares her story of freedom…
mind-blowing right here
so grateful for everything The Seed Company is doing to get the Bible in every language
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
This gentle book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.
Order Your Way to Abundance Here
God has assigned forgetting and remembering strategic roles in our salvation.
In this lab, John Piper calls us to remember everything that serves faith and obedience and to forget everything that hinders faith and obedience.
on repeat this week: When We Pray
Feeling like it’s looking a bit impossible? BUT GOD!
Like there’s not a chance of change? BUT GOD!
Like there’s no hope for a different ending? BUT GOD!
“But God, who is rich in mercy…” Eph.2:4
Two Words, Change Everything: BUT GOD! Change every internal conversation with those two words “BUT GOD” — and you change your life. What looks impossible changes — because when we pray to a GOD WHO IS ABLE — He changes us & our impossibles into the impossABLES.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
May 22, 2019
When We Don’t Feel Strong Enough for Our Own Lives
Alia Joy offers her stories to you as permission to tell your own, to be honest about the unlikely places God might meet us and to make peace with areas that aren’t Sunday-school shiny or put together. Alia unflinchingly wields her words to heal as much as she cuts in her deeply personal exploration of what it means to be poor in spirit and how the Kingdom of Heaven is an inheritance for those who know what it means to need. With lyrical prose, she poignantly writes about meeting Jesus in her weakness and lack. Alia asks, what if weakness is a holy invitation to allow grace to do its work? What if weakness is a gift? Glorious Weakness offers hope for anyone who struggles or anyone who loves the struggling. For anyone who has sat in the dark with a silent God searching for a glimmer of hope that they’re not alone. It’s for everyone who needs to know that being poor in spirit is the richest place of all. It’s a grace to welcome Alia to the farm’s front porch today…
I fingered the bottle’s side and slipped a tiny white pill up and onto my palm, placing it on my tongue, gulping it down.
I tore the label, scratching the sticker with my thumbnail. I didn’t want anyone to know I was taking an antidepressant.
I was embarrassed I wasn’t enough.
I couldn’t fix myself with more faith and more prayer and more hours dragged off the clock spent in quiet seeking.
“I’ve barely survived depression at times.”
So I searched for sin in the wreckage, a sign that if I repented hard enough for my lack, the darkness would lift and His presence would fill the empty places where nerves and neurons had stopped being receptive and the deep pull of sadness had taken their place.
But no amount of repenting for my weakness, for my inability to hold all the pieces of me together and be a good Christian girl who chose joy and fought the darkness with well-memorized Scripture, worked. My anguish grew.
I’ve barely survived depression at times.
There are nights so dark they wolf down my days—all fangs and bared teeth under a moon thick as a lemon wedge bobbing in a sky full of sweet tea. But all I taste is bitter. And even still, I thirst.
My tongue has been long trained by Sunday school etiquette and polite society never to cough up unpalatable words like depression or suicide or antidepressant in church company.
“Fine” becomes my answer, so I choke down the unsavory words for fear of being the guest who fumbles the finery and dribbles wine down the front of my shirt.
Afraid I would forget my manners in the house of God and rip into the bread with white-knuckled fists like it was life and gulp down the wine like my tongue was on fire.
We’re practiced at nibbling tiny, digestible bites and taking the daintiest of sips, patting at our lips with crisp white linen, but we all come famished to grace. There is no other way to be filled.
We are all beggars here, some of us just clean up better.
Those pangs, that soul hunger points us to the cross. To communion. To the fellowship of suffering. To the gift of resurrection and new life.
It’s as though Jesus knew in the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine how ravenous we’d be in this world. And of course He knew.
“He knew exactly how much we’d need reminding that the brokenness of bodies and the blood spilt have purpose, because some days that’s all we feel.”
He knew exactly how much we’d need reminding that the brokenness of bodies and the blood spilt have purpose, because some days that’s all we feel.
That holy hollow, that treacherous ache allowed space to be interrupted by grace. The days slowed and became monotonous, a managing of sorrow and symptoms. On the days when my body waged war in every cell, I asked Jesus to show Himself.
I found Him in beauty and wonder.
An imagining and hoping in glory. A prophetic mindfulness.
I lay in bed one night, the curtains wide open like a theater stage hosting an ensemble of stars. The inky-black midnight was thick with them, like tiny seeds of hope embedded into soil as rich and thick as coffee grounds, and I imagined the way that light navigated wise men across foreign lands seeking a King.
The hope for us all.
I am a complete version of me because no willpower or positive thinking or bootstrap mentality will ever complete what grace has already done.
And this is the good news I often missed during those years when holy wonder seemed a notch above me and continually out of reach.
It slowed my soul enough to see beauty in peonies blooming by my bedside even though my nightstand was also covered with prescription bottles.
While I was stuck in traffic on my way to the doctor’s office after months of physical illnesses and surgeries, I marveled at how the blushing sunset melted into the clouds like a swirl of rouge swept across porcelain cheekbones.
“A wonder-filled life is grateful attentiveness to the awe in our ordinary.”
A wonder-filled life is grateful attentiveness to the awe in our ordinary.
I confess I am undone by the strum of messy chords on a battered guitar, by a perfect red lipstick, by children’s laughter on the first warm day of spring, by the musty splendor of a dusty old book.
I am gobsmacked by the first bite of a ripe summer peach. I am moved by the sway of limbs and swish of hips when that special song comes on, by the old copper roof caught in the tendrils of tender sunlight, the architecture, and the brick walls embraced by creeping vine on the slow walk home.
I am touched by everyday kindness—the casserole bringers, the lady in line who smiles in solidarity and lets me go first when my kid is shrieking. The ones who say, “You can sit here,” scooching over to make room. The ones who text, How are you? I’m thinking of you.
We are loved by the people, places, and things we love.
“They know there is a holiness I long for but it’s born in the surrender, in the ever-expanding ‘Not my will but yours.'”
We are loved by the way we take notice when our souls feel alive, and the way we are reminded to live with wonder when our souls don’t.
To make contact with the world, to bear witness to the glory of our everyday ordinary. I unwrap my arms and gather my children, and on days when I couldn’t leave my bed, they offered their tiny hugs, homemade art, and clumsy prayers. And it was glorious.
They see the poverty in me, the deep, abiding hunger of a poor soul, the desperation for God, and they know it’s not just about Bible verses and making good life choices; it’s not about having it together or doing more for God.
They know there is a holiness I long for but it’s born in the surrender, in the ever-expanding “Not my will but yours.”
It’s born on the ordinary days, when I wonder, am I strong enough to live the life I’ve been given?
And God’s answer to me is, I am with you always.
Alia Joy is an author who believes the darkness is illuminated when we grasp each other’s hand and walk into the night together. She writes poignantly about her life with bipolar disorder as well as grief, faith, marriage, poverty, race, embodiment, and keeping fluent in the language of hope. daily. Her blog, AliaJoy.com, centers on her dependance on Christ and offers insight into her life, family, and faith journey.
The remarkable beauty of Alia Joy’s, Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack, comes not from her raw, vulnerable testimony, but rather from the message she shares with her readers. Out of our individual suffering comes the highest call of all: to offer the grace we so deeply long for to those we view as least deserving especially if we think the least deserving is ourself.
Throughout her story of weakness, lack, and poverty, Alia Joy offers an unfiltered image of her bipolar disorder, chronic illness, and other brokenness that brought her to the foot of the cross. Readers will learn to confront their misunderstandings about poverty, mental and physical illnesses, and the function of the church in confronting and discussing suffering. In recognizing the role of weakness in God’s divine plan, Glorious Weakness ventures to create a conversation that acknowledges suffering and poverty as a place for learning, growth, and ultimately, reliance on God.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 20, 2019
Hard Times? How to Hear God’s Song Louder Than Any Hard Times
Grief, spiritual doubt, chronic pain, suffering; when we are hurting it can be hard to say, “God’s got this, God’s got me.” Aubrey Sampson knows this better than anyone. She walks the path of lament, finding God’s presence in the middle of what may feel like His absence. It’s a grace to welcome Aubrey to the farm’s front porch today…
After a few appointments, my grief-counselor said this: “I’d like you to think of suffering as an invitation.
You have two choices: Continue to pretend like it doesn’t exist, which clearly isn’t working, or accept the offer.”
I am currently unwilling to take this cup.
What precisely does this invitation mean? How difficult will it be to accept?
I catch my first glimpse of the answer when a friend invites me to a choir concert. I could use a night out, a night off from the weight of health issues, mourning the death of family, and chronic pain.
The performance takes place in this cool little theater-in-the-round in downtown Chicago. We grab our seats just as the lights dim, and a large projector screen descends from the ceiling.
Choir members clothed in all black walk onto the stage and start to sing a slow, sad, ancient funeral dirge.
“I’ve been looking for God to show up, and He hasn’t.”
Meanwhile, the screen flashes a trigger warning, then cycles through a series of raw images—a starving mother and baby; a child soldier; lands ravaged by famine; high school students participating in a walkout; a funeral; and other visual depictions of pain, poverty, and corruption.
The mood in the theater, previously expectant, excited for the concert to begin, soon grows sorrowful and heavy. Why did we come here tonight?
I think. This is a mistake.
What my friend and I don’t realize is that while we watch this depressing performance in front of us, a second choir has silently filed into the room and surrounded the entire audience. Quite unexpectedly, they raise their voices and begin to sing over us.
I immediately recognize their song from my adolescent days, a classic U2 refrain: “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
As I listen to the familiar words, a thought begins to gently poke and needle at me: What am I looking for?
Soon, the answer hits hard, sharply. It’s a realization about the crux of my struggle, the reason why I’ve been relentlessly avoiding the reality of suffering.
It’s not the pain itself, I realize. It’s not even the grief. It’s not the fear about what might happen.
It certainly is those things, but they are coupled with something more, something I haven’t wanted to admit. Something I’m terrified to confess, because then it will be real.
Here’s the truth: I’ve been looking for God to show up, and He hasn’t. Or if He has, I can’t seem to find Him.
I’m disappointed with God.
He hasn’t acted like Himself.
He hasn’t intervened, or healed, or done what I’ve assumed He should.
He didn’t keep my cousin alive.
He didn’t protect my bones from disease.
He didn’t prevent my son’s struggles.
“Where’s the healing, the wholeness, the rescue in Jesus that I’ve been promised?”
Where’s the healing, the wholeness, the rescue in Jesus that I’ve been promised?
I’ve walked with Jesus for so long. We’ve been through much together. We’ve overcome together. But now I feel utterly and completely abandoned.
I don’t know if He will ever calm this storm. I don’t know if I will ever find a peace that passes all understanding.
Where is God in this?
What’s He doing? I have no answers for these questions.
All I know is that God no longer fits into the box I have designated for Him.
I’m trying so hard to fake hope, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. I’m so afraid I never will.
If God never shows up, if He never rescues me, if He never meets me here in this pain, then my entire life of faith—the solid rock upon which I stand—will have been nothing more than quicksand.
Sure, I’m a mature enough Christian to know that when we feel these doubts, we’re supposed to choose faith, choose truth, choose hope. Endure.
But right now I’m tired of “supposed to.”
Tired of pretending to rise above.
I’m here, wanting the same thing every sufferer before me has wanted—proof of incarnation, proof of God’s ability, proof of God’s power over evil. God, if you’re Immanuel, if you’re truly with us, then prove it.
Lost in my thoughts, I don’t realize that something about the concert in front of me is shifting.
Somehow the second song begins to overpower the suffering song in front of us. The dirge-choir is still singing. The visceral images are still flashing in front of us.
But the hopeful song grows louder. The audience’s focus has moved from one song to the other. I believe in the Kingdom Come . . . you broke the bonds and you loosed the chains, carried the cross of my shame . . .
Soon, the choir director invites the audience to sing along with them.
“All I know is that God no longer fits into the box I have designated for Him.”
My friend and I sit there listening to the rising voices around us. We’re crying now, both of us. Almost the entire audience is in tears. We’re united by this strange, shared experience.
I’m singing and laughing through tears—that emotional cocktail when you feel everything all at once and your body doesn’t know which outlet to choose.
At last, I give myself permission to drop the pretending, drop the can-do Mary Poppins spirit. From my gut, my chest, my throat, I let out a deep, loud, guttural sigh, a moan. It’s like all the tidy, tightly coiled pieces of my broken, confused heart finally unfurl and release, exploding all at once.
My friend looks at me, shocked, “Are you okay? Do we need to leave?”
“No,” I say more forcefully than I mean to, through tears. “We need to stay right here.”
For the first time in a long time, I choose to be still. To bear witness to my own suffering and the suffering of others.
I don’t want to leave. I want to remain present in what feels like a holy, necessary moment.
This concert director has somehow managed to do something I have not been able to do, and I want—no, I need—to soak it in.
She has artfully acknowledged the existence of evil and suffering without any sugarcoating, without any need to lighten the mood with a show tune, without needing to organize it perfectly on a shelf.
She has allowed the unanswerable to remain unanswered while still declaring that suffering will not have the final say.
And then, from someplace sacred and holy, from somewhere deep within the myth inside all of us, I remember that this is what God does.
“God doesn’t avoid or ignore pain. He sings a louder song over it. And He invites His hurting people to sing with Him.”
In a world full of hate, abuse, and game change, God doesn’t avoid or ignore pain. He sings a louder song over it. And He invites His hurting people to sing with Him.
I reach into my purse and grab the concert program I didn’t have time to read. The title of tonight’s performance is simple as it is profound: A Lament.
Here at this concert, with Bono’s lyrics surrounding me and my friend beside me, I finally understand the invitation of suffering.
Suffering is an invitation to stop pretending.
Suffering in an invitation to stop avoiding.
Suffering is an invitation to let go of control.
Suffering is an invitation to pour out our hearts.
Suffering is an invitation to lament to God.
God has given us the biblical language and practice of lament to express our pain and survive our suffering.
Lament minds the gap between current hopelessness and coming hope.
It helps us listen, because God sings a louder song than suffering ever could.
Aubrey Sampson is the Director of Discipleship and Equipping at Renewal Church in the Chicago area. A speaker, writer, and church planter, Aubrey offers an incredible perspective in the midst of trying experiences. She writes for Propel Women and is a member of the Redbud Writers Guild.
The Louder Song: Listening for Hope in the Midst of Lament is for those who are hurting. There is a pathway through suffering. It’s not easy, but God will use it to lead you toward healing. This path is called lament. Lament leads us between the Already and the Not Yet. Lament minds the gap between current hopelessness and coming hope. Lament anticipates new creation but also acknowledges the painful reality of now. Lament recognizes the existence of evil and suffering―without any sugarcoating―while simultaneously declaring that suffering will not have the final say.
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 18, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [05.18.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
how she captures her world? takes my breath away every single time she shares with us here…
smiling: because we all need a friend, even accidental ones…
30 Breathtaking Photos From The 2019 National Geographic Travel Photo Contest Finalists
Seesaw noodles? kneaded with a bamboo pole? this, you gotta come see
never, ever, give up
sometimes it takes deep roots to learn how to fly
The Importance of Wrestling in Prayer
From foster child to foster mom – she’s given a home to 48 kids
You’ve got to listen to the clip — and read all the way down. They found the kid.
It’s a weekend to celebrate the wonder of getting to learn from kids like this…
glory, glory, glory
Ben Adams
Ben Adams
Ryan Johnson
kinda undone: 8 Breathtaking Photos of Hardworking Moms Around the World
giving thanks to our Mothers who are with us through it all
would love to connect with you here – we talked about life, practical how-to’s, and so much more…
how some folks deal with their morning commute in the most creative ways?
Hidenobu Suzuki
Hidenobu Suzuki
Hidenobu Suzuki
the beauty of this? never, ever gets old…
“Age is inevitable. Aging isn’t.”
He shares this, and some good words here…
A Mennonite Family. A daughter who needs a heart transplant. 6 months to 2 year recovery at a city hospital. 250 Km from home.
So the whole family is packing up to go.
You can’t imagine how my heart split over this one.
this army dad salutes his daughter on her graduation day…what a story
…okay, here it goes, straight up, from a farmer’s wife & mother of 7: how in the name of all things sane can you speed clean to clean-enough, and still spark joy and have a home of grace? Yeah, THAT, please & thank you very much:
6 Super-Fast Housecleaning Secrets to Spark Joy & Have a Home of Grace
this heart recipient meets donor’s family – tears at these hugs. so much love right here
…yeah, we all kinda survived Mother’s Day (((you)))) … & it’s kinda raw & fresh how us women are all in this together & we are all HERE for it:
So bring it — this is the story we’ve been looking for:
Right after Mother’s Day: Be Part of the Second Chance Sisterhood
thank you, Christine Caine…”God has positioned YOU in this time. He has given YOU gifts and talents for the purpose of serving our generation and we are in harvest time… This is the greatest opportunity to build His church.”
Joy Prouty
If Mother’s Day is Hard & Complicated, Start Here
All God’s Promises to Be for You
MAY is here!
Maybe in this new month, we all just need the gift of Joy… a bit of Hope? To stand together — FOR each other — knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than any sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love.
Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, into all the places that feel kinda abandoned?
These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.
Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift …
And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We will immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print! Just let us know that you ordered Be The Gift over here.
You only get one life to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to
on repeat this week: God’s not done with you yet
..hey, it’s all okay. Today — Just Be. All. Here.
Don’t be a Mental Runner– don’t run ahead to the future with worry, don’t run back to the past with regrets.
Be a Mental Receiver — bravely step slow & steady into each present moment with hands open wide to simply receive the present of now.
It is safe to trust — He is safe to trust. God’s very name YHVH (יהוה) means “Presence” — I AM.
The gift is always found in just being present.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
Ann Voskamp's Blog
- Ann Voskamp's profile
- 1368 followers
