Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 109
January 9, 2019
How to Live When You Don’t Know How Much Time You’ve Got [Pt. 1]
Yeah, who knows how long we’ve got?
Somebody answer us that.
Somebody get up on your tipsy soapbox and wring just that out of a grimy, holy world.
Tell us that we’ve got more than a few days — tell us — how long have we got.
Joy ProutyMaybe if you told us that we had ten whole spins around the sun left, we’d be duped into thinking there was time to fritter away the breathing with flipping channels or flipping fingers or flipping lids, as if that ever made the living better instead of distastefully bitter.
Yeah, go ahead and rattle the door all you want, but there ain’t no one who is going to tell you how long you have. You’re going to have to figure out how to live without knowing when you die.
You’re going to have to get it: Death may be certain, but when it comes is uncertain, which is what makes the living gloriously uncertain — a choice.
Who knows if you’ve really got time to clean out the garage, or to read this endless news feed, or to pick up and move to Haiti and live your dream of spending the fleeting time holding the hands of forgotten ones.
The road ahead would seem obvious if you knew how much road ahead there was.
No one tells you that. No one tells you if you have just enough time to laugh till your belly hurts, one more time with the beautifully strange people you love, if you have time to pull their neck close and whisper hoarse in their ear that there aren’t enough words to say what a love like this has done to you.
No one tells you if you have enough time to try to change the world or just enough time to try change your own story.
No one can tell you how much time you’ve got for what matters. Only you can tell how much time you’ll make for what matters.
If you knew how much time you have to live, you’d know how to live.
But that is the thing: You don’t know how much time you have to live — so you have to make time to make the life you want to live.
No one can tell you how much time you’ve got for what matters. Only you can tell how much time you’ll make for what matters.
Everyone knows they will die. They just don’t know when. So forget about the when. Who cares when you die. The real question is: when will you start to live?
You already know: You will die.
So the only question that remains is: Will you live?
The right question isn’t:
How many days do I get to live
but —
How am I living today?
Will you risk impossible things today so you remember how much you love the rush of real oxygen in your lungs, adrenaline in your veins?
Will you forget thinking there is no way out– only a way through? Sometimes the only way through is not taking the next step — it’s taking a wild leap of faith. Take it. Do it. Live it.
When will you lay there just to listen to the sound of him breathing in sleep beside you?
When will you memorize the way her hair feels as you stroke it back from her brow? When will you bend over the cup and inhale the steam of tea and breathe in living? When will you have time to walk in the woods with no place to go but looking up?
When will you be done with the armed way of living — the harmful way of living — when will you drop the arms you’ve crossed in front of you like some cynical shield, steeling you from really feeling?
When will you join the brave and move the crossed arms into open hands, into open hands to receive and really feel the glory that is called life as it falls into them—
How tears can fall like rain and wash your wounds right clean, how those wounds are beauty marks that make you one of the medalled warriors. How there is common grace everywhere but it is startling uncommon to taste it on the tip of your tongue or feel it pulse through you.
The question isn’t: H ow long have I got to live?
The point is simply: You got to live. You get to live. Today.
Do not spend the life you do have — wishing for the life you don’t have.
There is snow clinging to window panes today.
There is breathing that can cling to sheer Glory today. Sheer Grace — sheer God.
Yeah, who knows —
What would happen if you treated everyone you met today as if they only had 12 hours left to live?
Somebody could answer their day with that.
I can hear it from the kitchen sink —
The hands on the clock ticking like a miracle about to detonate into sheer glory.
My own story — of how to figure out how to live my one life…
Because your soul needs you to take the time to figure out how to live your one life
January 7, 2019
When Your Marriage & Close Relationships Veer: How to Take a You-Turn
Who hasn’t let unmet expectations with a friend or loved one go unattended until a once-revved relationship slowly stalls? All the more tempting is dodging conflict in the interest of maintaining a peaceful homelife, when the “friend or loved one” is our spouse. Which is why I’m grateful for Kimberly Miller’s real-life example of how she and her husband used a breakthrough approach that I have personally adopted to grow through conflict rather than allowing it to curb their marriage. Kim’s passion for harmonious relationships prompted her to start Leading Wholeheartedly, a ministry that helps Christian leaders cultivate their inner lives, resulting in more sustainable service to others. In her book, Boundaries for Your Soul, Kim explains how to befriend the sometimes challenging parts of ourselves, and others, to create wholeness within and without. I am thrilled to welcome Kim back to the farm’s front porch today. . .
It was a busy season in our marriage. My husband, Ken, was writing under a tight deadline, and I was preparing to lead a soul-care retreat.
While we focused on these commitments, our stack of unopened mail grew higher and higher.
On my way to and from the coffeemaker each day, I eyed it with growing aggravation.
And just like that, there was tension between us.
A part of me insisted that someone take action—I couldn’t focus on my retreat preparation until this administrative mission had been accomplished. The mail was cluttering our kitchen and my mind. And to make matters worse, Ken didn’t seem troubled at all.
After much stewing, my reformer part (the part of me that wants to improve everything and everyone) sought out an opportunity to settle the matter and waited for the right moment. Sure enough, one morning Ken smiled kindly and said, “Your birthday’s coming up, and I’m wondering what you would like this year.”
“I’d like you to help me with the mail for one hour,” I instantly replied.
From the bewildered look on his face, I could see that a part of Ken wasn’t at all enthused by my idea for a birthday present.
“How about I take you out for a romantic dinner?” he responded cautiously.
And just like that, there was tension between us.
Thankfully, the Holy Spirit within prompted me to take what I call a You-Turn.
First, I turned my attention inward and realized a part of me was anxious about the growing pile of mail that wasn’t magically disappearing. I got curious about this part of my soul and came to appreciate my fear that Ken and I might overlook some important letter or bill.
Befriending and gaining compassion for my worry, I invited Jesus to draw near.
I handed over to Him my fear and received peace in exchange. In partnership with God’s Spirit, I began to think about how to speak with Ken moving forward.
As a result of my You-Turn, I was able to speak on behalf of my fear with intentionality instead of being reactive.
The next evening, I waited in the kitchen for Ken to come home from work. When he walked in the door, he held open his arms for a hug. “Honey,” I said, “I’m sorry. I love you and know you love me. And a part of me is feeling anxious that some things aren’t getting done.”
Once he understood that a part of me was feeling anxious, we were able to conquer the mountain of mail together! We felt more connected to each other and, from that place, were able to clarify our respective responsibilities at home.
This experience reminded me that, when problem-solving, it’s crucial to develop emotional awareness and share new discoveries with the ones I love.
Speaking on behalf of my worry freed us to enjoy working together—and to be reminded all over again that we make a great team!
One useful habit to develop with a close friend or spouse is simply to agree that when one of you feels anxiety, or any other challenging emotion, you’ll say, “Just a moment, please. I’m taking a You-Turn.”
This simple practice works well for Ken and me. As a result, instead of experiencing one another’s reaction with the burden of having to figure out what it’s about and how to deal with it, we engage in our own process of reflection. Then we can speak more clearly and lovingly to one another.
As you gain perspective about a part of your soul that has overtaken you, such as one carrying worry, anger, grief, or insecurity, you’ll be able to connect more genuinely with that emotion or belief.
As a result of your self-awareness, you’ll find you communicate more effectively with others too. And loving communication is just one of the many ways that caring for your soul helps you spread the love of Christ to those around you.
Whenever you face tension in your marriage – or within any close relationship for that matter – you can take a You-Turn to gain clarity and perspective and improve your ability to communicate effectively.
A You-Turn is the process of looking within to bring overwhelming parts of your soul under the leadership of your Holy Spirit-led self.
As a result of your self-awareness, you’ll find you communicate more effectively with others too.
Taking a You-Turn helps you speak with intentionality and care instead of reacting to or avoiding a difficult situation. It also helps you move from seeing your thoughts and feelings as the problem to seeing them as part of the solution.
The Five Steps of Taking a You-Turn are:
Step 1: Focus on an overwhelming part of yourself.
Step 2: Befriend this part you don’t like.
Step 3: Invite Jesus to draw near.
Step 4: Unburden this weary part.
Step 5: Integrate it into your internal landscape.
Every day—in my personal life and the lives of my clients—I see the benefits of using The 5 Steps of Taking a You-Turn.
And I’m confident that you will, too, when you use this method.
As we begin 2019, you can turn your overwhelming thoughts and feelings into your greatest allies and become the most peaceful person you know.
Welcome to the New Year . . . and new you!
Kimberly J. Miller, MTh, LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in helping leaders avoid burnout. Prior to working as a counselor, she served as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University and worked with a micro-enterprise organization serving farmers in Central America.
The story she shares today is from her newly released book, Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies, in which Kim shows you how to calm the chaos within. This groundbreaking approach will help you know what to do when you feel overwhelmed; transform your guilt, anxiety, sadness, and fear into strengths; welcome God into the troubling parts of your soul; and move from doubt and conflict to confidence and peace.
Boundaries for Your Soul includes relatable anecdotes, helpful exercises, an engaging quiz, and opportunities for personal reflection. Gathering the wisdom from the authors’ twenty-five years of combined advanced education, biblical studies, and clinical practice, this book will set you on a journey to become the loving, authentic, joyful person you were created to be. I’m telling you, this is truly a phenomenal book – one to slowly read.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
January 5, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [01.05.19]
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:
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
the whole earth is full of His glory!
so what do you think? best job ever?!
3 Reasons to Read the Bible Everyday in 2019
For the working mamas who have felt the tension/guilt of juggling work, home, and family?
Stretched Too Thin is a life-giving resource and is just $1.99 right now
Joy, grief and a handwritten letter bring two families together.
“Family is everything, and if you don’t have faith you don’t have anything…”
come meet the man who’s diving through time
On the Experience of Entering a Bookstore in Your Forties (vs. Your Twenties)
… on the meaning of books as you grow older
this is really something: Meet an incredible student and his special coach, who both work to instill leadership, character, and love not only in their locker room but also their community
52 Ideas for Inviting Someone to Church this Year
at 65? she’s doing some amazing things:
“If I think that I’m getting afraid to be old… then I can’t live”
Phillip Haumesser Photography / FB / IG
Phillip Haumesser Photography / FB / IG
Phillip Haumesser Photography / FB / IG
don’t you just want to get outside and enjoy the wonder of your weekend!?!
they’re riding 10,000 miles to build schools for those in need of education
could not love this more: Foster grandparents volunteer and share their love at schools
what his father taught him about getting through the hard times
Remembering Tyler Trent, the inspiring Purdue fan
his courage in the face of mortality & his message of gratitude in the midst of his struggle inspired a nation
2019 is here!
Maybe in this new year, 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 this year
He is your guide, He is your advocate, He will never leave you nor will He forsake you! Amen and Amen.
thank you for these words, Priscilla Shirer
The Most Important Skill that Your 2019 Really Needs
almost unbelievable: because we all need to be rescued
too good to miss: forTomorrow – a poem by Joel McKerrow
so many tears: how he describes his late wife to this sketch artist?
Photo Credit: Julie Falk
Post of the week from these parts here
… so early on the first day of a fresh new year, when I walk fields dusted with snow, all I can keep thinking of is Joan of Arc who knew her time was short, so she laid it all down with one prayer: “I shall only last a year; use me as you can.”
Count me in:
Alcohol, Tragedy and the Legacy of Philip Lutzenkirchen
on repeat this week: Is He Worthy? He is…
…there’s a whole bunch of us marching along private battles nobody knows about, climbing hard mountains that nobody sees, wrestling tough things that nobody has any idea about. Maybe you need to hear this too? You’re not alone: He sees you.
So you simply purpose to pray, and simply pray for perseverance — today’s your very own clean slate of fresh possibilities — pray, persevere, do your hard & holy things…. He already sees you as perfect in Him — you’re already more than okay.
And Sometimes? Doing the most important thing eternally – doesn’t look like you are doing anything noticeably.
But this is all that ever matters:
God always sees and He will always see to the matter.
Because the thing is — In a new year, the only hope of a new me, is only Christ in me.
And He is always there with you.
[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.
January 4, 2019
When God Calls You Out of Hiding
I first met Michelle DeRusha a couple feet away from where Beth Moore was lifting Jesus high. We were two honest women who came to a conference, who’ve grown into the deepness of the questions and found God present and as enveloping and as real as air. A phenomenal writer with blazing courage, Michelle is a Brave truth-teller and unwavering Christ-dweller who writes authentic, honest, robust, life-changing words with an ear always turned toward truth and grace and Him. When she visited Tuscany as part of a writers’ retreat a few years ago, she hoped to refill her creative well and perhaps uncover a solution to her chronic vocational unrest. What she didn’t expect was to travel halfway around the world in order to confront her deepest brokenness. Here Michelle writes about why God yearns for us to step out of hiding, and how, in doing so, we take the first step toward becoming our whole, true selves. It’s a grace to welcome Michelle to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Michelle DeRusha
It was Sunday morning, the Sabbath. Early the evening before, I’d arrived at a stunningly beautiful villa in the heart of Tuscany for a spiritual writers’ retreat.
Following breakfast, our spiritual director had dismissed us into the garden, journals in hand, to reflect and write.
“What does it mean for you that rest is found in God?” he’d prompted us. “What does it mean that we are restless when we are away from Him?”
I didn’t know who I was, period, because I didn’t know who I was in God.
Settling into a grassy spot beneath a grove of trees, I slipped off my sandals, opened my journal and wrote a single sentence:
“I don’t have rest in my life because I don’t have rest in God.”
And with that single sentence written in my own cursive on the blank page before me, I suddenly knew the truth:
I didn’t have rest in my life because I didn’t have rest in God.
I didn’t have clarity in my vocation because I didn’t know who I was in God.
I didn’t know who I was, period, because I didn’t know who I was in God.
In an instant I knew in my heart, mind, and marrow that everything, everything, begins with our relationship with God. And in an instant my heart broke, because I knew the truth:
I didn’t know who I was in God because I didn’t know God Himself.
I thought I’d come to Tuscany to find answers to my vocational unrest and to refill my creative and spiritual wells.
But the truth revealed to me that Sabbath morning was that I’d come to Tuscany to recognize, confront, and name my deepest brokenness.
Joy Prouty
In the Gospel of Luke we meet a woman who has suffered from incessant bleeding for 12 years. Desperate for a cure, Luke tells us, she slips in between the throngs of people who have gathered for a glimpse of the one proclaimed to be the Messiah.
Unnoticed, the bleeding woman reaches out and grazes the hem of Jesus’ robe with her fingertips.
We don’t trust that God loves us enough to accept our whole flawed and broken selves.
Jesus, feeling His power go out from Him, searches the crowd, demanding to know who touched Him.
And then, Luke offers us a detail, a small but important insight into who this woman was:
“When the woman realized that she couldn’t remain hidden, she knelt trembling before him. In front of all the people, she blurted out her story—why she touched him and how at that same moment she was healed.” (Luke 8:47, Msg.).
“When the woman realized that she couldn’t remain hidden…she blurted out her story.”
Like the bleeding woman in Luke’s gospel, we, too, try to hide our worst selves, our shadow sides, our most broken parts from God. We hide our whole selves, not only because we feel ashamed and unworthy of love, but also because we don’t trust God’s goodness.
We don’t trust that God loves us enough to accept our whole flawed and broken selves.
And so we hedge our bets. We reveal only parts of our story, bits and pieces of our true selves, keeping our worst fears and our deepest sins hidden, not only from ourselves but from the One who knows us inside and out.
Fear and distrust prevent us from answering God’s invitation into intimacy and healing.
“We are not good at recognizing illusions,” Thomas Merton wrote, “least of all the ones we have about ourselves – the ones we are born with and which feed the roots of sin.”
I am a master at deception, and there is no one I have deceived more than myself. I refused to face my deepest flaws and my darkest sins because I was afraid they were unforgiveable and made me unredeemable and unlovable.
Like Adam and Eve in the garden, I hid among the trees. I used the dense metaphorical foliage of my life – busyness, distraction, social media, my to-do list, and, above all, my striving to achieve, succeed, and please– to shield myself from both my deepest sins and my deepest desires.
I didn’t realize it that morning, but my revelation under the Tuscan trees was a confession of sorts.
In that moment I saw myself as I was, and I named it in God’s presence.
Like the bleeding woman who only confessed when she realized she could not remain hidden, I knew, in that moment, that I could no longer stay hidden, that I had, in fact, never been hidden.
For the first time I saw my sin – that I didn’t know God, and worse, distrusted Him – as well as my deepest desire – that I yearned to know God and to love and trust Him with all my heart, mind and soul.
For the first time in my life I understood that relationship with God is the foundation of everything.
I saw that all things — intimacy in marriage, parenting, and friendships; relationship to community; vocation; knowledge of self — are built on knowing and being in relationship with God.
I saw that my identity as a child of God is everything. I saw that without that, I have nothing; without that, I am nothing.
I finally named not only my brokenness but my desire to be whole.
It could be that there is a piece of yourself or your story that is inhibiting you from understanding and stepping into your true identity as a beloved child of God.
It may not be doubt or unbelief keeping you from experiencing the fullness of God’s presence, like it was (and sometimes, if I am totally honest, still is) for me.
It may be something different altogether – perhaps a past wound, a deep fear, a lack of trust, or a need for control.
But the beautiful truth is that God is calling you, like He called the hemorrhaging woman, to step out of hiding – to recognize and confront yourself as you really are and name it in God’s presence.
God is calling you to kneel before Him, to name your deepest brokenness and to receive His infinite love.
Michelle DeRusha lives with her husband, Brad, their two teenage boys and their Corgi-Beagle in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is the author of four books, including Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk, which was a finalist in the Biography and Memoir category for the 2018 Christian Book Awards.
Many of us are bent on producing and achieving, striving and hustling for our self-worth. Beneath this relentless drive churns a deep yearning to uncover our true selves and our purpose in this world. Gardeners familiar with the technique called “pruning open” know that the secret to healthy plants and trees lies in subtracting rather than adding. Similarly, we begin to flourish as we let go of our false selves and allow God to prune us open.
Through compelling stories and insightful research, Michelle’s latest book, True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, helps readers exhausted by the do-more, be-more expectations of our culture declutter their hearts, minds and souls; let go of false identities; and grow in their relationships, vocations, communities and intimacy with God.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
January 3, 2019
The Most Important Skill that Your 2019 Really Needs
Spun.
Some guy with a mullet and loud voice had lobbed that one word my way.
In all his 1989 wisdom, he had flicked his feathered hair back and snorted over a soggy cheeseburger in our hick town high school cafeteria and said:
“Yeah, that girl is right spun.”
2019 dawns here now.
And it turns out that the prophet with the mullet has a point: I’m sorta spun – spun out by kids, by demands, by needs, by life.
The calendar fills like a pothole in a torrential gulley washer of a downpour. The laundry basket keeps overflowing — okay, flooding — the mudroom. There are the shelves spilling and the fridge emptying and the stove burning. And somewhere, there are people who can make New Year’s resolutions.
What if you just want your New Year’s Resolutions to be about One Revolution?
What if you just want to make one turn in a spinning world and find the certain equilibrium of center again?
On the third day of a new year, I can see it in the middle of a messy table –
what’s sitting there small and still at the center of the Advent wreath, the center of everything spiralling and spinning:
Resource: Advent Wreath from JoyWares.caThe Life Line of Jesus.
Even our calendars circle around this theology of time:
Thanksgiving, eucharisteo, always, always, precedes the miracle – and Thanksgiving always precedes Christmas, the miracle that Jesus comes, and right into our mess. And Christmas must precede the New Year, God with us — or our messes would have no hope for a new year, no hope for anything being made new.
I pick up the Jesus at the centre, turn the smallness of Him over in my hands… I hold the memory, the seed.
And the wonder Christmas whispers it right into the pragmatism of my New Year:
Is Jesus merely useful for your life — or is He ultimately the most beautiful in your life?
The most important skill to have in 2019 is paying attention to Jesus — nothing else is worth spending your one beautiful year on. And the soul solution that we really need is preaching Jesus to ourselves.
When Jesus is merely useful to me, I’m looking for a genie in a bottle, to give me the life I want.
When Jesus is ultimately beautiful to me, I’m looking for His face in my life, to give Him the love I feel.
When Jesus is merely useful to me, I want Him to move my world.
When I see Jesus as useful, He’s a gadget to make my life better. When I see Jesus as beautiful, He’s a joy that makes my heart sing louder….
Am I a Jesus-user?
Or a Jesus-adorer?
I turn that nativity Jesus over again and again in my hands. How do we stop being a bunch of Jesus-users? When did Jesus become more about business-like benefits to us instead of The Beautiful who calls us Beloved? The lights are still serenading in the tree.
And I wrap my fingers around that nativity in my hand.
Looking for the beauty of Christ in the everyday isn’t some quaint exercise in poetry. It’s a critical exercise in not being dead — of being resurrected.
“Your new life, which is your real life, …. is with Christ.
He is your life.
When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you…” ~ Colossians 3 MSG.
In a new year, the only hope of a new me, is only Christ in me.
The most important life skill to have in 2019 is to live aware that Jesus is the only life we have.
Nothing will happen this year apart from Him. Nothing will be remade, nothing will be transformed, nothing will be satisfying apart from Him. Jesus is the only life I have. His shed blood is the only blood I have. His given heart is the only heart I have.
When your new year is about revolving around Jesus — you have everything you need for every other resolution.
His identity is the only real identity I have.
The most important skill to have in 2019 is paying attention to Jesus — nothing else is worth spending your one beautiful year on. And t he soul solution that we really need is preaching Jesus to ourselves.
I sweep needles out from under the Christmas tree, and it’s like finding the needle in the hay stack, finding what I need for a new year. It’s all getting simpler:
Just be with Jesus.
Listen to Jesus. Rest in Jesus.
Wait for Jesus. Be Loved by Jesus. Wonder over Jesus. Live through Jesus.
When who Jesus is overwhelms you — nothing that happens can overcome you.
Steep your soul in Jesus and nothing is too steep to overcome.
Maybe that fresh white canvas of 365 days that I am terrified to ruin?
The commitments, the kids, that I fear I am going to fail? The impossible mountains that lie ahead of me?
It was like the Father hushing all my fears as I stepped into a new year:
“Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?” 2 Corinthians 13:5
Mount Everest in front of you? But “Christ Jesus is in you!”
The wilderness stretched before you? But “Christ Jesus is in you!”
The Red Sea staring like a wall ahead of you? But “Christ Jesus is in you!”
When your new year is about revolving around Jesus — you have everything you need for every other resolution.
Everything boils down to one plan, one word, one commitment, just to keep whispering this over & over again: Jesus.
Time with Him, keeping company with Him, walking with Him, resting in Him, living in Him, growing in Him, changing in Him, becoming like Him.
Resource: Advent Wreath from JoyWares.ca
Just –
Jesus.
No Additives.
Pure Grace.
All you need.
When I long for nothing else, desire nothing else, hope for nothing else, but Jesus — I have everything I ever hoped for.
This isn’t Sunday School cliché – this is real world oxygen. Try standing at a grave without Him. Try walking out of the doctor’s office without Him. Try picking through the minefield of life without clinging to Him. Try it – who knows how 2019 could explode?
So on the third day of the new year, I wear His name on my wrist to remind me who I am. I pray His name gets pressed right into my paper thin skin. I pray I get branded. Marked. I don’t know what else a new year needs: Intimacy with Jesus results in ultimately being like Him.
What had Ignatius said?
“My dear Jesus, is so deeply written in my heart, that if my heart were to be cut open and chopped to pieces, the name of Jesus would be found written on every piece.”
That. The world can wax loud. The world can go ahead and explode. Just give me that — Let the name of Jesus be written so deep into me that my heart could explode and His name would be found on every shard.
All there is to see is Jesus.
For others to see Jesus in me. For me to see Jesus in others. All there is to be is Jesus.
For everyone, the call is to be Jesus. And to respond to Jesus in everyone.
All there is to mirror Jesus. Mirror to everyone the face of Jesus… And see everyone as mirroring the face of Jesus.
“Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus…” Col. 3:17
“Whatever you do, work willingly, as though you were working for the Lord Jesus…” Col. 3:24
The New Year just got ultra-simplified:
Do everything as Jesus.
Do everything to Jesus.
8 words.
And the grace to actually do the everything?
Just One Word: Jesus.
The world — the year — could spin…
and even if it spun like it might explode…
the year has His love holding us like an anchor at the center — and we’re all held….
Related:
Need freedom not only beyond the fear & pain, but actually within it? The Broken Way
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be? 60 steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance: The Way of Abundance
Give yourself the gift of grace that He already has — and give yourself the beauty of: Be the Gift
The answer to anxiety is the adoration of Christ… and my story of just that: One Thousand Gifts
and the 60 DAY DEVOTIONAL with 1000 numbered lines to count your #1000gifts: One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflecting on Finding Everyday Graces
January 1, 2019
How an Abolitionist, Joan of Arc & a Full Moon Taught Me How to Show Up For a Meaningful Life [Day 1, Part 1]
In the early dark of the first day of the New Year, I walk fields under the third quarter of a waning crescent moon.
Genuine faith always ships genuine hope.
And it’s that waning moon in a new year that makes me think of emancipation and what an abolitionist half way around the world told me back in August.
How when they pulled the lid off the shipping container in Istanbul, there are 30 bloated bodies of young girls —- and 28 seat drenched girls gasping for one breath of air that isn’t thick with the stench of rotting evil.
The abolitionist who’s standing in front of me telling me this, she’s talking so fast. Breathless. Like there’s only so much time.
Photo Credit: Julie Falk
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Ann VoskampThe abolitionist, Christine Caine, a global evangelist born in Australia and raised by Greek parents with her own personal trauma of systematic sexual abuse, she gestures, past me, past Selena Gomez and her friend Ashley, who are broth sitting across the table from me, past a whole team of abolitionists gathered around this table in Thessaloniki, Greece — and Caine points toward the window.
Toward the Greek streets outside her window, toward the dock and the Mediterranean. And the more than 14 million containers circling the globe this very moment as she’s standing here talking to me. Shipping containers of Cheerios and double-ply toilet paper and stacks of Persian rugs destined for our pantry and back shelves and floors.
But how many of those shipping containers have fake interior walls with sealed pitch-black chambers where girls slowly suffocate to death?
Hope shows its face whenever the people of God show up.
How many women are wildly and desperately pounding on how many container’s sides, begging an indifferent world to actually hear?
Caine tells those of us seated around this table in Greece that that there would be no rescue for those 28 North African girls crawling out over bodies and this smothering premature grave.
There would only be police-uniformed men dragging them off to locked, windowless rooms on the back side of graffitied streets where, for 14 hell-on-earth days, none of those huddled girls would be offered any light, food, or hope — only bone-cracking beatings.
The uniformed men are no police officers, Caine tells us. Selena’s shaking her head, writing notes.
They are human traffickers masquerading as law enforcement to perversely enforce the twisted perspective that there’s no help these young trafficked victims can count on.
And none of these girls are being housed in any hotel — they are shut up in what’s known as a breaking room, the kind Caine would take Selena, Ashley and I to walk through. Where heavy cigarette smoke burns the eyes and clothes are torn off the body and over the course of a stream of endless days and nights, one’s sense of will and value and dignity is systematically broken. Breaking rooms for trafficked women — like the way dogs are broken in and trained. Yet categorically more inhumane.
When will women carry enough gravity in this world to matter, to matter more than matter, mere things to be used to further the purposes of power?
When the remaining 28 girls were sufficiently violated into submission, Caine tells us, their captors smuggle them down to a dock, throw them into into a dinghy to be swept by waves into Greece and directly into its teeming highway of trafficking and brothels and sex dens. Into a trafficking highway where souls of girls are desecrated and maimed by men divorced from their own souls.
Where women’s bodies are taken and splayed as tools to gratify their cheap thrills and deranged hungers at the expense of a woman’s very being.
Somewhere across the Mediterranean, the battering waves upends the dinghy.
Caine’s voice drops low, slows, like she can hardly bear the weight of this story:
Current death total of 60 original trafficked girls: 55.
Selena stops making notes. Lays her pen down on the table. There’s a palpable nausea in the room. How do you ask:
When will women carry enough gravity in this world to matter, to matter more than matter, mere things to be used to further the purposes of power?
Caine leans in and says how she sat with the surviving 5 girls.
Sat with them in the original Greek transition home of the anti-human trafficking organization she founded, A21, sat in a circle of young girls trafficked from all around the world, when one girl turns toward her and asks a singularly haunting question that still rattles Caine to the core:
“If you knew this was happening — why didn’t you come sooner?”
You can read the the brewing storm in Caine’s eyes, sense the shaking thunder of the question, see the flash in her eyes, feel the jolt of lightning, illumination, with her:
Why not show up for even one — the way you wish someone would show up if it were you?
Why didn’t you show up sooner?
“I told her — I didn’t have any excuse,” Caine tells us in her rapid-fire Aussie accent lit with determination.
“But I promised her, for the rest of my life — I’d be about ending human slavery, everywhere, entirely, forever.”
There’s no claiming Switzerland neutrality in the face of injustices against humanity.
Why not show up for even one — the way you wish someone would show up if it were you?
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Ann VoskampCaine turns to a photo on the wall behind her of a shipping container.
A freshly painted white shipping container with wide open doors on either end, with sinks for running water and mirrors and hot showers, and a torrent of refugees flooding the direly needed facilities.
Every mirror, every shower door, in every container, boasts a pictorial bulletin, to cross all language barriers, each frame alerting to the signs of human trafficking that, more often than not, hides in plain sight.
“Those shipping containers?” Caine points behind her.
“Those shipping containers, actually giving life instead of taking the lives of young girls, are full circle for me,” she nods with the ferociousness of a promise kept.
And when I turn from Caine, you can see it in Ashley’s eyes, Selena’s, the room filling, us filling, with that one phrase that hangs in Caine’s office, can light a blaze of hope:
“Difficult, yes. Impossible, no.”
Why not show up when a bit of hell’s going down — and bring a bit of heaven down?
Containers may be made for stuff — but there’s no container on the planet that should be stuffed with girls.
When you stuff your life full of shiny things and turn away from human beings — how can you say you’re a container for His glory and are about the things of God?
Hope will not be contained to waning seasons, and hopelessness is not contained to any people, or a gender, or a place and Hope is the container for faith that ships out into the world.
Genuine faith always ships genuine hope.
And the truth is:
Hope shows its face whenever the people of God show up.
After dinner that evening, under nearly a full moon, Caine and her A21 teams takes us through a red light district in Thessaloniki, where we witness a man lean out of a car and negotiate to purchase a woman’s body for the night — for as little $6.
“All this — right beside a mall,” Selena nods in the direction of the sale, down the street from Club Fever. Then she turns to ask, “Will these girls be on the street to 6 am?”
The global operations manager of A21, Phil Hyldgaard, nods yes — and then points out a building down the street two young trafficked girls were rescued by A21. We watch men walk into brothels — one brothel cruelly named, “Free House” — that look more massive factories with walls of barred windows.
Why not show up now, not because it’s convenient — but because it matters?
“There’s so many of them,” Selena whispers it under her breath. A sign flashes: “S*X THIS WAY.”
“These are streets that the mayor is proud of,” Phil’s nodding toward the window, toward the flashing neon signs.
“And does he have daughters?” Selena asks dryly, not missing a beat.
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A21Across the street from the brothels — is the courthouse.
In Athens, several moons ago, prosecutors were fighting a case against traffickers before judges — while under that very same floor, in the basement of said courthouse, women were being held to service lawyers and judges at their leisure. How can women be housed like livestock to satisfy and gratify men?
“It’s hard to imagine the silent, internal screams of the women behind those barred windows,” Caine’s shaking her head.
When you know the Spirit of Comfort, how can you not be moved by that Spirit to help women who are solely held for men’s comfort?
When Selena turns, I can see it, over these streets of brothels, suspended in the vast blackness, is this almost-full iridescent rising moon.
The oppressed and optimistic are all living parallel lives under the same sky, the same moon, but: When we show up, reach for each other, let our paths cross, let our hands touch — then the Cross shows up in the world — and hope touches us all.
The same moon that rises over Dallas and Sydney and Portland and Amsterdam and Miami and London and Atlanta and Toronto and Los Angeles and all the towns and back roads in between — the same moon that rises right over farm fields at home.
The same moon rising over a world of women waiting, women waiting who are running out of time during their one life here, time to be seen and known and valued, time to unfold any of their fragile, crumbling dreams, women who are holy containers of iridescent glory, oppressed and pressed into hell on earth behind barred brothel windows, waiting for the next John to take more of them — or for someone with a key to freedom to more.
Caine and Phil and Ashley and Selena and I look up over the brothels, memorize the moon that nightly bears witness to the unbearable, that bears witness to our vow to show up now and reach with a key, and all I can think is:
The oppressed and optimistic are all living parallel lives under the same sky, the same moon, but: When we show up, reach for each other, let our paths cross, let our hands touch — then the Cross shows up in the world — and hope touches us all.
Early on the first day of a fresh new year, when I walk fields dusted with snow, look up at white glow of the waning moon, I think of a whole world, a sisterhood, of women with their own waning time, who need just one person to show up for dreams to rise up, for hope to make full moons, and wasn’t it Joan of Arc who knew her time was short, so she laid it all down with one prayer: “I shall only last a year; use me as you can.”
This is the year to be used however you can.
As long as you have time, be used as long as you can.
As long as you get time, live given.
This is the year: Show up any way you can — and you’ll live the most meaningful way.
Why not show up for even one — the way you wish someone would show up if it were you?
Why not show up when a bit of hell’s going down — and bring a bit of heaven down?
Why not show up now, not because it’s convenient — but because it matters?
Photo Credit: Julie FalkShow up any way you can — and you live the most meaningful way.
I still and wait, right there under that first moon of the new year and there is the first resolution — realization? — of the new year and I will never see the moon the same way again:
Every moon rises like an SOS sent from our kin who are looking up at that same moon…
and if you show up now, reach out now — you not only touch the moon.
You touch them.
(Part 2 of what I learned from an Abolutionist, Selena and Joan of Arc coming soon)
SHOW UP RIGHT NOW FOR YOUR SISTERS,
ANY WAY YOU CAN, ($1, $5)
… & YOU LIVE THE MOST MEANINGFUL WAY
Click here, show up any way you can ($1, $5) & start the new year in the most meaningful way
December 31, 2018
How To Stop All Procrastination: Dear You Trying to Do that Hard Thing in the New Year
Dear Lovely You,
who doesn’t want to do that hard thing in the New Year,
who doesn’t want to get on the treadmill,
or go for a run,
or sort through the closets,
or tackle the garage, or the piles of paperwork,
or the project that’s hanging over you like a ton of bricks,
or do that big thing that feels like an impossible thing—
okay, yeah, boy, do I hear you.
It doesn’t matter a hill of sprouting beans if you’re 9 and stomping your feet or 16 and slamming doors or 40 and distracting on your phone — hard things just keep calling you because you’re meant to answer to higher and better things.
Resource: Advent Wreath from JoyWares.ca
You’re meant to do hard and holy things because they are the next thing —- to get to the best thing.
Life is Pain — and you get to choose: either the Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Disappointment.
You’re made to do hard and holy things — because there’s no other way to get to the happy and holy things.
You know how we wrote it up there on the chalkboard in the kitchen years ago, and we all memorized it? Well, it’s true, and it’s hard, but there’s a brave hope in it:
Life is Pain — and you get to choose: either the Pain of Discipline or the Pain of Disappointment.
Nothing happens without discipline. No music gets played without discipline. No games get won. No finish lines get crossed. No freedom gets tasted. And you want that.
Yeah, look, we had a kid who scored in the 99.7 percentile on the ACT, and that’s all well and good and all kinds of extraordinarily wonderful, but it’s like my Dad always said:
Brilliant doesn’t matter, if you can’t get out of bed.
Talent doesn’t mean a thing, if you let Fear be some terrorist that takes you hostage.
Potential doesn’t add up to anything, if you get addicted to perfectionism because perfectionism is slow death by self.
Listen: Fire your perfectionism and your procrastination will quit too.
Because here’s the thing:
The Presenter
You’re the Presenter.
You’ve been given a gift — and you’re the person who is trying to be present to this present moment, and do the hard work of unwrapping your gift, your talent, your vision, your God-given dreams.
Presenters want to be present to life and their calling and the joy and the work — but they know that the path is painful.
The Perfectionist Terrorist
Presenters know that the path is painful — because behind ever corner lurks The Perfectionist Terrorist. The Perfectionist Terrorist is a liar to the nth degree — he tells you that if you’d just get it perfect enough, do it right enough, be good enough —- that you’ll be liked by everyone enough.
But the truth of it is? Sometimes you have to accept that you’ll never be acceptable enough for some people. And whether you accept that as their issue or yours — is up to you.
The Perfectionist Terrorist claims to have High Road Motives, claims to want to make everything turn out perfect, but his policing pressures you and poisons you and prosecutes you, until it all paralyzes you.
The Procrastinator
So The Procrastinator tries to protect you, who is really The Presenter, from The Perfectionist Terrorist.
The Procrastinator tries to intervenes with distractions, temptations, and interruptions — or just pushes you to pull out and give up.
Honestly, The Procrastinator is just trying to protect you from the bullying of The Perfectionist Terrorist.
The Perfect Love
So Who’s missing in this struggling, messy triangulation of The Presenter, the Perfectionist Terrorist, and The Procastinator? The compassionate Words of Perfect Love.
You just need Perfect Love.
There is His Perfect Love who kicks all your fear to the curb.
There is His Perfect Love who accepts you 100% before you perform even 1%, there is His Perfect Love who speaks Protection and Peace and promises the Power of the Holy Spirit — so you can fire perfectionism and procrastination will quit too.
You fire your perfectionism every time you let His Perfect Love ignite you.
When you rest in Perfect Love — discipline comes easily because you’re being a disciple of Perfect Love — you’re following Perfect Love.
And Perfect Love says you don’t to have show anyone up — you just have to show up.
Perfect Love says you don’t have to impress anyone — you just have to press on.
Perfect Love says when you mess up — He’ll pick you up… and when you can’t carry on, He’ll carry you.
So dear Lovely Kid, Trying Friend, Tired You, who doesn’t want to practice that thing,
clean up that thing,
study for that thing,
sweat on that thing,
or do that big thing that feels like an impossible thing —
You can bravely do the next thing, because God’s got this thing.
Perfect Love terminates The Perfectionist Terrorist — which eliminates the Procrastinator — which liberates you, the Presenter…. to unwrap the gift of right now, your one life.
There’s snow down in the woods, all down the road this morning, the ice clinging at the edge of things —- and you can feel it if you turn your face toward the sun —-
all those hard things melting in the heat of a greater and perfect warmth.
This is The Year
to maybe purpose to —
* Embrace Imperfect.This is The Year to be held by the arms of grace, not to any standard of perfection.
* Engage Silence — not screens.This is The Year to engage silences regularly & retreat to the “back side of the wilderness.” Because when you do not need to be seen or heard — you can see and hear in desperately needed ways.
You find your true self when you look for your reflection in the eyes of souls — and not the glare of screens.
* Be still.Be small. Be Loved. Beloved.
Let yourself be loved anyway He wants to love you. God is always, always good & you are always, always, always. loved.
Be still …. & know.
* Believe in Him for impossABLE things.Believe in Him who makes the ridiculously impossible into the miraculously possible,
the unbelievable into the you-better-believe-it,
the never into the now.
Be the brave people who pray it bold in the space between the end of one year & the beginning of a New Year: BUT GOD.“Ours is the God who whispers: “With Me nothing, Nothing, NOTHING is impossible.”
Believe in Him for impossABLE things — because as long Emmanuel, God is with us & we are with God: nothing is impossible.Believe in Him for improbable, implausible, impractical, impossABLE things.
* Break idols — or they will break you.Break free, break out of ruts, break idols — or they will break you.
* Daily 3 for 10:These 3 for 10 everyday: Word In. Work Out. Work Plan.
It’s not what you do every now and then, but what you do everyday, that changes everything.Word in: Get into God’s Word for 10 minutes and let it get into you.
Work out: Work out. Even 10 minutes of moving is better than nothing.
Work plan: Write out the Work Plan — even just 3 things. And then just start: 10 minutes working the plan.
* Do Less. Pray More.More than your doing hands, God wants your bended knees.
* Let Go of the Outcome.Come completely committed to the process — and completely let go of the outcome.
In the middle of things seemingly not working out for us —- God is working out something in us.
* Learn Endurance.Do Hard & Holy Things. Break the idols of ease — or they will break you.
* Live Given.Because #LoveGives.
Because God so loved He gave.
Because Living is Giving.
* GiveIt
Forward
Today — 3 times a day.
Give It Forward Today & be the #GIFT — give an act of grace forward, 3 times a day. Be a #GIFTivst
It’s the Giftivists are the activists who believe that radical acts of generosity counter radical acts of inhumanity. #GIFTivst
* Grow Brave. Grow in GraceGrow Brave. Grow in Grace. Which is basically the same thing.
I kinda scratched the whole thing down — then slipped the SOULutions into a frame. Figuring that unless you can daily see your Life SOULutions…. the year will end up to be more of a dissolution of your life.
Maybe that’s one of the keys I’d never turned: Framable SOULutions — to frame up a new year, a new you.
Simply click here for these free printables plus a whole library of free tools:
December 29, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [12.29.18]
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:
Esther Havens
Esther Havens
Esther Havens
no one captures our world quite like she does
He Sought to Kill Sin with a Pen
John Owen (1616–1683)
when you’re collecting the kids at the end of the day
anyone else wanna go here?!
he does all of this with just 2 fins?! What can we go do today!?! amazed!
always a good one to revisit: never, ever, ever give up
kinda undone: how this Cafe helps adults with Down syndrome #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
love, love, love: so you’ve gotta come see what these barbers are doing #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
After teen cashier helps woman pay grocery bill? this Community stepped up in a BIG way cheering loudly
we circled ’round this one: WOW
at 80? he’s not slowing down
Christianity Today, Image processed by CodeCarvings Piczard
don’t miss! The Top Testimonies of 2018:
Here are the Christian conversion stories that Christianity Today readers shared most
anyone else fascinated at this?!
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
the photos he captures? glory, glory, glory
exhale right here
how he learned to be grateful for the people in his life
how one small municipality is pulling together to save the environment
In a year of ups and downs, the world searched for “good” more than ever before — according to Google Trends. From the epic headlines to the everyday moments, here’s to all the good that people discovered in 2018.
The Atlantic’s ‘Hopeful Images From 2018’
never, ever underestimate the power of prayer
2019 is almost here!
Maybe in this new year, 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 this year
one very special teacher: how she’s unearthed a special passion in her students
on repeat this week: because broken people are exactly who You use…
yeah, when you’re nearing the end of one year & looking out into a New Year, sure, some things look pretty impossible…
But this old world upends when we just go ahead & pray for improbable, implausible, impractical, impossible things.
So here’s to not just praying for the possible — because ours is the God who whispers: “With Me nothing, Nothing, NOTHING is impossible.”
Here’s to trusting the God who makes the ridiculously impossible into the miraculously possible,
the unbelievable into the you-better-believe-it,
the never into the now.
And we could be the brave people who pray it bold in the space between the end of one year & the beginning of a New Year: BUT GOD.
We’ll pray the impossible prayers — because as long Emmanuel, God is with us & we are with God: nothing is impossible.
[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.
December 25, 2018
when you just want to feel Christmas deep down in your heart
When you want to know you haven’t missed Him this Christmas…
when you wish you could find your way back — or forward…
when you want Christmas to not be over — or you sorta wish it all had been different…
when you just want to really feel Christmas deep down in your weary bones, deep down in your heart: just click on the video below
~from The Greatest Gift, Unwrapping the Fully Love Story of Christmas
[Part 1: what a hurting world wants most on Christmas Eve ]
so from our crazy clan to yours…
Merry, Merry, MERRY CHRISTMAS…
Levi VoskampOur God who cradles whole galaxies in the palm of His Hand, whom highest heavens cannot contain, He folds Himself into our skin, uncurls His newborn fist in the cradle of a barn feed trough — and we are held, saved, rescued… safe.
And He is Emmanuel — God is with us.
This Christmas season, may you & yours feel enveloped & carried & held by Him who is always, always, always with you…
All’s grace,
Ann xo…
Related: TheGreatestChristmas.com & TheBrokenWay.com
December 24, 2018
what a whole hurting world wants most on Christmas Eve
From our home & farm & hearts & all our unspoken broken….
to you & yours & all of your unspoken broken —
Merry, Merry Christmas Eve…
Levi VoskampThere are no words to express how we love you — so we slip this into your brave hands, the smallest token of our love — maybe what a hurting worlds wants most just before Christmas: just click on the video below
~from The Greatest Gift, Unwrapping the Fully Love Story of Christmas
[Join us for Part 2 of the Video on Christmas Morning & let our hearts celebrate and exhale and hold on… and simply rest together… Feel the Peace tonight — and I’ll see you back here in the morning? We’ll have all the celebrating ready!]
Related: The GreatestChristmas.com
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