Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 121
May 31, 2018
How the story of your life changes the world for generations to come
Jackie Green and Lauren Green McAfee are a mother-daughter duo with a passion for inspiring women to shape their legacy. While traveling the country sharing about a project they were both deeply involved in – Museum of the Bible – they met many inspiring women. Hearing women share their stories launched Jackie and Lauren on the journey of co-authoring a book Only One Life to celebrate incredible stories of female legacy builders. It’s a grace to welcome Jackie and Lauren to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Jackie Green and Lauren Green McAfee
Are you a woman of legacy?
The idea of leaving a legacy may sound intimidating. But legacy is not meant only for the elite few who have great power or influence.
It’s certainly a grand word, and a daunting word at that.
When viewed from this lens of small daily actions and how they add up, creating a legacy is the most important job we can undertake.
So let’s start by what we don’t mean. Legacy is not the idea of leaving financial wealth to someone. It’s not reserved only for people whose names will be in history books, on monuments, or in record books.
Legacy is far more.
It is the story of your life that lives on after you leave this earth. You write this story every day through the values you embrace and live out.
Your legacy can be positive or destructive, but the outcome is always up to you.
When viewed from this lens of small daily actions and how they add up, creating a legacy is the most important job we can undertake.
Legacy is crafted by our faithful everyday choices. Anyone can truly leave a lasting legacy—even you.
The hope for a legacy is: to outlive our lives by the impact we leave behind.
Now, whenever the subject of legacy arises among Christians, it is usually a reference to the legacy of men. It’s pretty safe to say that there are more men mentioned in the Bible, recognized throughout history, and likely to be recognized in leadership roles even today, not just in our country but around the globe.
Does this mean that women don’t matter as much? Of course not! We simply are more likely to be valued for roles that don’t get a plaque or an award.
This sentiment was reiterated by Bishop Ndimbe of Kenya when he said, “Train a man, you train an individual; train a woman, you build a nation.”
Not always, but most often, it is the women who have a directional and influential role in the way a society goes, because they are the ones most often taking care of that society’s most valuable asset: the next generation.
In a similar way, there are certain cultural and societal impacts that we women are uniquely gifted by God to make.
In every place on earth and in every time in history, right down to ours, women have been the keepers of the flame of family unity and the binders of the cords of connectedness. We are seemingly handcrafted by God Himself to be the conversation starters, the communication hubs, and the culture keepers.
Typically, women serve as the family scribes and historians. With our scrapbooks, newsletters, cards, and social media posts, we celebrate the milestones, keep in touch with friends and family members, share the news of both victories and challenges, and chronicle every aspect of family history.
We also tend to function as the cultivators of connection and relationship. Who takes the time to care for the office staff and maintain culture? Who plans the office Christmas celebrations and birthday parties? In most cases, it is we women.
We are usually the ones reading the stories or saying the bedtime prayers, snuggling in rocking chairs, whispering words of comfort, affirmation, and biblical truth into impressionable little ears.
It is in our nature to pour ourselves into the ones we love, and that is a beautiful part of legacy.
Legacy is so much more than your family history or the possessions you pass on to the next generation. As Dr. James Dobson once said at a conference, “Heritage is what you give to someone. Legacy is what you do in someone.”
All of this and more endows the Christian woman with an amazing power, not to mention an immense responsibility. Our unique roles and gifts provide us with the opportunity to be influencers.
How we use that power is up to us. We can wield it in positive, negative, or neutral ways.
As a woman, whether or not you happen to be a mother, you have an irreplaceable role in our society.
God created women with unique gifts and traits, and we all have an important role in passing on our legacy of faith.
Our hurting world needs godly women leaders now more than ever.
We can lead. We must lead.
Future generations will bless us if we press through our obstacles, fears, and insecurities to meet the sobering challenges our families and communities now face, and invest in others.
Doing so will create a positive ripple affect for generations to come.
What will your legacy be?
Life keeps us running so fast and frenzied that we often lose sight of each day’s holy potential. Yet as a woman loved and called by God, your ordinary everyday matters more than you could possibly imagine.
Your choices today shape the legacy you leave for future generations. You are part of a story that has existed long before you and will long outlast you. And you can play a unique and irreplaceable role.
In Only One Life: How a Woman’s Every Day Shapes an Eternal Legacy , mother-and-daughter team Jackie Green and Lauren Green McAfee invite you to join the company of women God is using to change the world. Through vivid portraits of women of the Bible, women of history, and women shaping the world today, you will discover how God multiplies seemingly small daily offerings of faithfulness.
Jackie Green, co-founder of Museum of the Bible, is a full-time homemaker who relishes her roles of wife, mother to six children, mother-in-law, and “Gigi” to four grandchildren. Married to her high-school sweetheart, Steve, Jackie actively supports him in his high-profile role as president of Hobby Lobby and chairman of the board of Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. An adoptive mom, Jackie served on the Advisory Board of a local Crisis Pregnancy Center and has worked with her family in orphanages worldwide. Lauren Green McAfee is a speaker, writer, connector and coffee enthusiast with a heart to engage others in the Bible. While pursuing her graduate degrees in pastoral counseling and theology, Lauren worked for her father Steve Green as he founded Museum of the Bible.
Building a legacy through your “only one life” is not a calling for the elite few. It is a calling for you—as a woman with unique capacity to shape the future through your faith, family, gifts, and leadership. Only One Life will encourage and empower you to develop grit, grace, and the long view—able to change your world forever—starting today.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 29, 2018
One Gentle Secret to Healing Hard Situations
Just as Debra Fileta was about to place the wedding ring on her husband’s hand, an astute guest piped up, “Wrong hand!” Debra turned and said, “Wrong hand, but at least I’ve got the right guy!” She’s the first to admit that she entered marriage with idealist expectations and a belief that her husband-to-be was absolutely perfect in every way. A licensed counselor and author of Choosing Marriage, she is often described as compassionate yet candid. Experience has taught her that marriage will always cost you, but the more you know, the better you’ll do. Come, take a seat on the farm’s front porch and join me in welcoming Debra…
My husband sinned against me. Seriously.
I was having a rough day, and I opened my top-secret drawer where I hide my desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures chocolate stash.
Gone! My chocolate stash was missing.
The stash I cling to in case of emergencies. The stash I spend a little extra money on, knowing that I’ll use it wisely and savor it piece by piece. The no-kids-allowed, husband-stay-away, one-and-only-stinking-thing-in-life-I-call-my-very-own stash. Immediately (considering the location and the fact that it was only known by the two of us) I knew it had to be my husband who broke into it.
He knows this is my secret stash. He promised not to touch it. I’ll bet he didn’t even savor it! He probably finished it in all of 30 seconds. Can he be trusted? Does he even love me?
Okay, call me a bit dramatic, but I was fuming.
Maybe it sounds like such a small thing to you, but anyone who is married knows it’s usually not the big things that tend to cause a marital rift. Most often, it’s the small things.
And you know what? This wasn’t even about the chocolate anymore. It was about the principle! It was about the trust. It was about him keeping his word and respecting my boundaries.
I was annoyed. I was mad. But more than that, or underneath all that, I was hurt.
A few minutes later my four-year-old daughter walked into our room while we were discussing “the situation.”
We make it a priority to be wise about what we discuss around our children, but she overheard the part about the chocolate.
“It’s okay, Mommy. You can share your chocolate with all of us!” she said with a beaming smile.
It’s a humbling moment when your four-year-old models more grace and forgiveness than you do.
Talk about getting served a nice big slice of “chocolate” humble pie.
But the bottom line is this wasn’t just about sharing; it was about choosing to respond with love when I had every “right” to be annoyed, frustrated, and hurt.
It was about seeking an attitude of reconciliation rather than sitting on the throne of condescendence.
It was about letting go of my pride (You’re the problem. I’m hurt. This is all about me. I have done no wrong here.) and instead learning to move forward with humility, grace, and forgiveness (Do I have a responsibility or role in this? I’m not perfect either. How can we resolve this and come together? Could I be misinterpreting this? How can this be used as an opportunity for grace?).
The best way to measure how humble we are is to look at how quick we are to forgive.
Forgiveness requires us to lay down what may be rightfully ours (our hurts, our grievances, our desire to seek revenge) in exchange for something greater (healing, peace, and reconciliation).
But sometimes our pride gets in the way of making that important exchange because it completely blinds us to our own flaws and weaknesses.
Have you ever been in a rush to head out the door when you realize you’ve lost your keys? Your glasses? Your wallet? Your shoe? With three kids, it’s not uncommon to find me running around the house desperately looking for something minutes before we need to leave.
I go into crazy-panicked-lady mode, thinking of the most obscure places I might find that lost thing.
But you know what’s even worse than losing something you need two seconds before you head out the door? Finding it a half hour later in the most obvious place! I’ve often thoroughly looked for something in a spot twice, only to magically find it right in front of my face the third time. It drives me absolutely mad!
It can be so easy to miss something right in front of our eyes. Not only do we do this with our things, but we do it with our selves too.
In the heat of an argument or disagreement, or in the face of an offense, it’s easy to focus on the faults of the other person and completely overlook our own.
If we’re not careful, we see what we want to see — rather than what’s really there.
In our oblivion, we magnify the flaws of others while minimizing or missing our own.
Jesus says we’re quick to look at the speck in another’s eye while ignoring the gigantic plank in our eye (Matthew 7:3).
What an accurate picture of our tendency to exaggerate the flaws of others. To let go of our faulty perspective, we’ve got to first get a glimpse of truth .
We’ve got to let go of the false idea of who we think we are and open our eyes to the reality of who we actually are—sinners in need of Christ’s mercy.
When we see God, others, and ourselves accurately, we’ll have a much easier time letting go of our pride and choosing humility instead. We’ve got to get to a point where we can say no to flesh (what I would rather say and do) and yes to Spirit (what God is calling me to say and do).
I realize the importance of this necessary introspection, because if I’m honest, it’s something I wrestle with daily.
Not only am I quick to point out the flaws I see in others (namely, my dear husband), but I’m also the type of person who finds it hard to forgive when I’ve been wronged because I want the person who has hurt me to know just how hurt I really am.
And because, frankly, sometimes sulking feels downright good, doesn’t it?
But as we all know, the longer we hold on to wrongs, the faster the seeds of bitterness and contempt begin to take root in our hearts, ultimately suffocating our relationships with the poison of pride.
For a relationship to have any hope of thriving, we need to learn to let go of our pride in exchange for something greater
— humility .
Debra Fileta is a licensed professional counselor, relationship expert, and author. She’s a popular contributor at RelevantMagazine.com and founder of TrueLoveDates.com, which reaches millions with a practical message of hope for dating and marriage. With a fresh and honest perspective, she’s spreading the message that healthy people = healthy relationships with her new book Choosing Marriage.
Any married person will tell you: there’s a huge difference between what you expect marriage will be like, and what marriage is actually like. For so many couples the struggle is real as the “reality check” of marriage begins to unfold with each passing year. A candid look into the reality of married life, Choosing Marriage: Why Is Has to Start with We>Me addresses everything from attraction to sex, from conflict to confession, from confusion to communication. Learn fascinating survey results from over 1,000 singles and 1,000 married people and find eight choices that can take marriage from average to exceptional.
[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 26, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [05.26.18]
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:
all the earth is full of His glory!
parents and kids at the same age – amazing how much they look alike!
What A 90-Year-Old Who Works At McDonald’s Can Teach Us About Happiness:
“Every day I have is a gift from God. And I love to work. I’ll keep on working as long as the lord gives me good health, and I will just keep on until he tells me it’s time to quit.”
How the Inventor of the Rubik’s Cube Cracked His Own Code
at 102? yup, he’s the world’s oldest zip line rider
the secret life of bugs: so much info here!
an extraordinary story of friendship: An Army vet and a coma survivor found friendship through science. Now they’re graduating college together
this retired medical staff: can’t stop helping people #BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
the results are in? 30 of the Most Gorgeous Beaches on the Planet
breathtakingly beautiful
Good Samaritan goes viral after shading woman at bus stop
“I pray every day that God will allow me to be closer to Him”
because we all need to be rescued: hero deputy saves baby’s life
God Bless the broken road… so many lessons in this one. Please don’t miss
The Devil Is Not in the Details: Fighting Temptation with Specific Truth thank you, Jon Bloom
They’re Grateful Gatherings: they’re doing amazing things for families in crisis. 5 star right here
Connecticut surgeon saves, adopts baby born with rare birth defect
“I think watching her frail but tough spirit made me just feel a special connection with her”
a testament to the power of love. So many tears at this one…
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
“It’s a beautiful thing to know even though in the midst of sadness and despair, that your loved ones perished so that we might have the freedoms we have.”
yes, yes, yes: Your Greatest Reason Not to Worry
on repeat this week: I am counting every blessing, letting go and trusting when I cannot see
I know it’s hard to know how it’s all going to work with that problem, the kids, your health, this season. What if you didn’t need to know what was coming ahead of you, as much as needed to lean on Him who is beside you?
“Let the one who walks in the dark who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord & rely on their God.” Is. 50:10
We want clarity; God wants us to come closer.
Come closer to God who’s got it: Lean on His Love, Rely on His strength.
Sometimes we want greater clarity when what we need is deeper trust.
Life is always clearer when you press closer to Him
& see your life through the sheer love of God.
[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 25, 2018
How to make right now the right time to love difficult people
I’ve known Bob Goff for a long time and we’re good friends. We’ve stood up for some of the same things and stood against some other things. Here’s the thing – we’re not trying to be like each other; we’re trying to be like Jesus. Bob has written a new book called “Everybody Always.” It’s about loving people who are different than us. It’s not about putting aside our differences, but putting Jesus in the middle of them. In his book, Bob talks about castles and Kingdoms. He says castles have moats to keep people out, but Kingdoms have bridges to let everyone in. Castles have dungeons for people who have messed up, but Kingdoms have grace. I agree with him. The people who intimidate us out aren’t obstacles to having faith; they’re opportunities to understand it. It’s a grace to welcome Bob to the farm’s front porch today…
I
got into the back of the limo and talked to the driver through the window dividing us as we traversed Orlando on the highway.
The driver was a friendly, engaging guy. After we’d driven a short time, I said, “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever been to Orlando, but if someone asked me what I thought about everyone in the city, you know what I’d tell them? I’d say I think everyone in Orlando is just terrific. Do you know why? It’s simple—because you’re a nice guy!”
I thought how the opposite was true as well.
If the limo driver had been mean or rude or pushy with me and someone asked me what I thought of everyone in Orlando, I would have said, “I think everyone in Orlando is mean or rude or pushy.”
Neither statement would be true, but somehow, because of how we’re wired, when we’ve met one person we feel as if we’ve met everybody.
Think about it. If you know just one person in Mexico or the Philippines or Bolivia or Lichtenstein and something happens in one of those countries, don’t you feel a kinship with everyone there? It feels like we’ve met everybody in those countries even though, obviously, we haven’t yet.
I bet this is what Jesus meant when He told His friends that people would understand who He was by watching how we treated each other.
Early on I thought big acts of generosity or great sermons or arenas full of people singing songs would help us understand God’s love for us.
He said it was none of these.
Jesus told His friends that letting people see the way we love each other would be the best way to let people know about Him.
It wouldn’t be because we’d given them a lot of directions or instructions or because they memorized or studied all the right things.
It would be because someone met you or me and felt as if they’d just met Jesus.
I think what He meant was He wanted someone to meet a person who loved Him and then feel like they had just met heaven—everyone there.
We drove a little farther through the city, and the driver told me about his life and the people he loved. He also said he’d been driving limos for twenty-five years.
“Wow,” I said. “I bet you’ve met some interesting people in that time—not me, of course, but you know, famous people.”
“I have,” he said. “I’m really going to miss this job, because I’m retiring next month.”
I sat back in my seat, watched the palm trees pass by for a few more minutes, and then I had a thought. I leaned forward and said through the glass, “Hey buddy, have you ever ridden in the back of one of these limos? I bet you’d love it. They’re terrific!”
He laughed and said, “Of course not. I’d get fired.”
Now I had my arm through the glass between the driver’s seat and the living-room sized back seats in the limo. I think I even got a shoulder through the window.
“Hey, you’re retiring anyway. Pull over!” I said.
And you know what?
He did!
I got out of the back of the car, and we swapped places. He got in the back, and I put on his hat and jumped behind the wheel and drove us to Disney World. He got there about fifteen minutes after me—it was a pretty long limo.
I carry medals with me all the time. They don’t say anything on them. I’m a lawyer, so the medals mean whatever I say they mean.
I opened the door and let my limo-driver friend out from the back seat. He stood up and straightened his jacket, and I was still wearing his hat.
I pinned a medal on his chest and said, “You’re brave. You’re courageous. You’re foolhardy! Did you see how I took that last turn?”
I spoke words of truth and affirmation to him with a smile. I patted him on the chest, gave him a hug, and walked into the hotel.
When the limo driver went home that night to the woman he’s been living with for the past ten years, do you think he told her he’d met a Christian guy that day who told him he was supposed to be married? Of course not! I bet he told her he’d met a guy who told him who he was.
That’s our job. It’s always been our job. We’re supposed to just love the people in front of us. We’re the ones who tell them who they are.
We don’t need to spend as much time as we do telling people what we think about what they’re doing.
Loving people doesn’t mean we need to control their conduct. There’s a big difference between the two. Loving people means caring without an agenda.
As soon as we have an agenda, it’s not love anymore. It’s acting like you care to get someone to do what you want or what you think God wants them to do.
Do less of that, and people will see a lot less of you and more of Jesus.
Talk behind each other’s backs constantly. Just talk about the right stuff.
Talk about Jesus. Talk about grace. Talk about love and acceptance. People don’t grow where they are informed; they grow where they’re loved and accepted.
Talk about who people are becoming and who you see them turning into.
And give people medals, lots of them. The people around us should be walking around looking like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They should jingle when they walk.
It’s this simple: I want people to meet you and me and feel like they’ve just met everyone in heaven.
Bob Goff is the founder of Love Does, a nonprofit organization that operates schools and safe houses and pursues justice for women and children in conflict areas such as Uganda, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Bob is a recovering lawyer and he serves as the honorary consul of the Republic of Uganda to the United States. He lives in San Diego with Sweet Maria near their adults kids and growing family.
Everybody, Always reveals the lessons Bob learned—often the hard way—about what it means to love without inhibition, insecurity, or restriction. From finding the right friends to discovering the upside of failure, Everybody, Always points the way to embodying love by doing the unexpected, the intimidating, the seemingly impossible.
Driven by Bob’s trademark hilarious and insightful storytelling, Everybody, Always takes readers on a life-altering journey into the secret of living without fear, care, constraint, or worry. The path toward the outsized, unfettered, liberated existence we all long for is found in a truth as simple to say as it is hard to do: love people, even the difficult ones, without distinction and without limits.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 21, 2018
How to Scale Your Mountains: When Life Feels Like Facing Rocky Terrain
When I first read Hinds’ Feet on High Places, I read all through the night, every page of the allegory resonating with the broken bits of my life. And when I finally turned the last page of the allegory, I began the story straight away again, this time as a family reading aloud. Because the story of Much Afraid, and the challenges she faces, and how she keeps turning her heart toward her Shepherd, is one of the most powerful metaphors for life I have ever read. Reading the classic allegory that Hannah Hurnard wrote in 1955 from the green slopes of the Braunwald Alp in Switzerland — is life-transforming. Throughout the pages of her hauntingly profound allegory, Hurnard encourages readers to live in God’s radiant presence and forever let Him lead them to the still high places. And this new visual edition is not only breathtaking — I literally could not stop returning to these pages — it’s set to become a spiritual classic in its own right. It’s a deeply humbling grace to welcome the writings of Hannah to the farm’s front porch today…
Considering how steep it was, the descent down into the valley seemed surprisingly easy.
But perhaps that was because Much Afraid desired with her whole will to make it in a way that would satisfy and please the Shepherd.
The awful glimpse down into the abyss of an existence without Him had so staggered and appalled her heart that she felt she could never be quite the same again.
However, it had opened her eyes to the fact that right down in the depths of her own heart she really had but one passionate desire, not for the things which the Shepherd had promised, but for Himself.
All she wanted was to be allowed to follow Him forever.
Other desires might clamor strongly and fiercely near the surface of her nature, but she knew now that down in the core of her own being she was so shaped that nothing could fit, fill, or satisfy her heart but he Himself.
“Nothing else really matters,” she said to herself, “only to love Him and to do what He tells me. I don’t know quite why it should be so, but it is.
All the time it is suffering to love and sorrow to love, but it is lovely to love Him in spite of this, and if I should cease to do so, I should cease to exist.”
So, as has been said, they reached the valley very quickly.
The next surprising thing was that though the valley did seem at first a little like a prison after the strong bracing air of the mountains, it turned out to be a wonderfully beautiful and peaceful place, very green and with flowers covering the fields and the banks of the river which flowed quietly through it.
Strangely enough, down there in the Valley of Loss, Much Afraid felt more rested, more peaceful, and more content than anywhere else on the journey.
It seemed, too, that her two companions also underwent a strange transformation. They still held her hands, but there was neither suffering nor sorrow in the touch. It was as though they walked close beside her and went hand in hand simply for friendship’s sake and for the joy of being together . . .
. . . It is true that when Much-Afraid looked at the mountains on the other side of the valley she wondered how they would ever manage to ascend them, but she found herself content to wait restfully and to wander in the valley as long as the Shepherd chose.
One thing in particular comforted her; after the hardness and slipperiness of the way on the mountains, where she had stumbled and limped so painfully, she found that in those quiet green fields she could actually walk without stumbling, and could not feel her wounds and scars and stiffness at all.
All this seemed a little strange because, of course, she really was in the Valley of Loss.
Also, apparently, she was farther from the High Places than ever before.
She asked the Shepherd about it one day, for the loveliest part of all was that He often walked with them down there, saying with a beautiful smile that it was one of his favorite haunts.
In answer to her question He said, “I am glad that you are learning to appreciate the valley too, but I think it was the altar which you built at the top, Much Afraid, which has made it so easy for you.”
This also rather puzzled her, for she said, “But I have noticed that after the other altars which you told me to build, the way has generally seemed harder and more testing than before.”
Again He smiled, but only remarked quietly that the important thing about altars was that they made possibilities of apparent impossibilities, and that it was nice that on this occasion it had brought her peace and not a great struggle.
She noticed that He looked at her keenly and rather strangely as He spoke, and though there was a beautiful gentleness in the look, there was also something else which she had seen before, but still did not understand.
She thought it held a mixture of two things, not exactly pity — no, that was the wrong word, but a look of wonderful compassion together with unflinching determination.
When she realized that, she thought of some words which one of the Shepherd’s servants had spoken down in the Valley of Humiliation before ever the Shepherd had called her to the High Places.
He had said, “Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible — terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the Beloved.”
When she remembered this, Much Afraid thought with a little shiver in her heart, “He will never be content until He makes me what He is determined that I ought to be,” and because she was still Much-Afraid and not yet ready to change her name —
she added with a pang of fear, “I wonder what He plans to do next, and if it will hurt very much indeed?”
This book is an absolute feast, for both the soul and the eyes, and a classic book for every library, to return to again and again.
Hannah Hurnard was born in 1905 in Colchester, England, to Quaker parents. She graduated from Ridgelands Bible College of Great Britain and spent four years training with an interdenominational faith mission and doing evangelistic work in England and Ireland. In 1932 she became an independent missionary and moved to Haifa, Israel, where she worked in a clinic and distributed Bibles. Of her many books, Hinds’ Feet on High Places remains her best known and most beloved. She died in 1990.
And, for the very first time, this beloved Christian allegory is a mixed-media special edition complete with charming watercolor paintings, antique tinted photography, meditative hand-lettered Scripture, and space to journal. As you read and connect with the story of Much-Afraid and her trials, the pages of this book become a canvas on which to chronicle your own story, struggles, and personal triumphs.
Available now at BN.com, Amazon.com or wherever books are sold. Really — a memorable gift to have on hand to give for anyone facing challenges.
…let me hear thy voice
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 19, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [05.19.18]
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:
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
just too beautiful not to share … my soul needed this
we all need a friend
I think she’s onto something here: Color + Texture without much money or commitment. Yes, Please.
wow: treehouses like maybe you’ve never seen the likes of before?!
good words here: If I Were 22 Again
could not love this more: because we all just want to belong
kinda amazing
“When love is the way, we treat each other like family.” YES, yes, yes!
can you imagine?!? he’s traveling the world solo and without his sight
how these customers are pitching in to help a grocery store clerk of 30 years? #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
kinda the best: a program that adapts toy cars to help children with disabilities
College Student Hailed as Hero after Saving 80-year-old from a Burning Home
“I believe the Lord put him here for that reason. He was impressed to do it, and he did it.”
tears at this one: it can be hard to say good-bye
Yuichi Yokota / Instagram
Yuichi Yokota / Instagram
Yuichi Yokota / Instagram
stunning: 4.5 million baby blue eyes
she’s sharing her about her 20 year struggle with anorexia, hoping to bring the darkness into the light for others
he’s handing out hope: “don’t forget to show love”
stunningly beautiful
Here Breathing. too good to miss
the most life-changing thing any woman can do for herself this:
What a Mother Actually Really Wants
LOVE this: An everyday errand turned into a beautiful testament to the power of generosity
#BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
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
yes: rocket fuel for weary mamas
deeply moving: These believers have not let war and displacement interrupt their ministry
on repeat this week: Grace to Grace
yeah, I get it: You want a do-over. You wanted to be better.
Never once did you ask to come stumbling into this with all this baggage — all this mess that your parents sent you packing with, all these unhealthy-coping mechanisms, all these triggers, all this unspoken broken.
What you really want, desperately, wildly, in spite of everything — is for them to remember the good…. to remember enough of the times you whispered, “I Love You” … to know how many times you broke your h eart and how how hard you really tried.
So… could someone maybe just wrap up … a bit of Grace for us today?
If we’re being honest? What every mother wants, her most unspoken need — is a truckload of Grace.
Grace that buries her fears that her faith wasn’t enough, and that her faults were too many. Grace that washes her dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies. Grace that says she doesn’t have to try to measure up to anyone else because Jesus came down — and He measures her as good enough, as worthy enough, as loved more than enough.
That is all … believe it today: You don’t have to be awesome and do everything. You simply have to believe that the One who is Awesome loves you through everything.
[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 16, 2018
The Key to Knowing How We May Experience Failure, But It doesn’t Make Us a Failure
When I first met Christine Caine, slack-jawed might be the only word? When you witness someone astonishingly gifted for such a time as this, there are no words. I’ve listened to her speak countless times, talked Jesus with her over dinners, late through the night and over early breakfasts and this woman is called like no other, and she is an unstoppable global igniter of a whole generation. Christine jokingly says, when people ask her what she does, that she makes laps around the globe. As a global speaker, the founder of A21, an international anti-human trafficking organization, and Propel, a woman’s organization dedicated to helping women realize their purpose, passion and potential, she definitely makes laps around the globe overseeing the rescue and restoration of human-trafficking victims—and inspiring women to be all that God created them to be. With offices in 13 countries, her work takes her from churches to refugee camps, from teaching on television to conferences where she builds up the local church to win the lost. It’s a crazy grace to welcome Christine to the farm’s front porch today…
I once had a dear friend whom I loved wholeheartedly and with whom I shared so many fun times.
We had endless heart-to-heart talks about God, ministry, life, family, fashion, movies, books, food, and of course, coffee.
We shared an incredibly strong bond. We could talk about the most serious issues on earth one moment and then be laughing hysterically the next.
She was one of those people with whom I didn’t have to second-guess my words or filter my responses. There was simply an ease between us. And we had just enough differences to keep our friendship interesting, engaging, and evolving.
She was one of the people I could call for anything, a true BFF.
Until the day she just wasn’t.
She cut me off. No warning. No conversation. No explanation.
I felt so lost about what to do, what to say, and how to respond—just like a middle school girl. I felt as though I had been knocked off my feet, dumped on the floor, and left gasping for air, and I needed God to help me catch my next breath.
I needed Him to help me process the hurt and wrap my mind around what seemed incomprehensible.
How could she do this? She was my friend. I loved her and had shared so much of my life with her. We both loved Jesus and wanted to see His kingdom flourish. How was this possible?
I knew I couldn’t let what happened to me become what I believed about myself.
Rejection was the last thing I expected from someone I had trusted the most.
I felt like King David when he penned gut-wrenching words about his own dear friend: “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers” Psalm 55:12–14.
I knew I needed to start with forgiving.
After all, that is what I spend my life teaching others to do. But it is never as easy as it sounds, especially when our heart is broken.
I knew I couldn’t let what happened to me become what I believed about myself.
Just because someone hurt me didn’t mean I was unworthy, unlovable, or unkind. It didn’t mean I was worth less or worthless. It didn’t mean I was not a good friend or capable of being a good friend.
But that’s how I felt—no matter how many times I tried to refute all the lies bombarding my mind…
None of us starts out in life planning to be hurt—or to hurt others—but it happens.
People fail us—and we fail people—repeatedly.
It happens in our childhood and continues all the way through our adulthood.
Our lives are intertwined with everyone around us—just as God designed—but we are all a part of a flawed humanity.
None of us ever arrives, so it stands to reason that every time we open our hearts to one another, every time we’re thrown together into each other’s worlds, we will, quite possibly, hurt one another.
Whether it occurs in our dating, marriage, work, or friendships, it is going to happen.
I’ve heard so many stories from women who started out their careers full of enthusiasm and talent only to be devastated by life-altering criticism that postponed or derailed their success.
They didn’t know how not to believe everything someone in a position of authority said and how not to let it define who they were. So they minimized their talent and settled for a less fulfilling position.
They believed the lies that they were not smart enough, not gifted enough, not savvy enough.
I’ve listened to stories from women who married the love of their life only to have the marriage eventually crumble. Because of all the hurtful words thrown at them, they believed they were a failure and that they were unworthy of a loving relationship.
Just because we experience failure, it doesn’t make us a failure— but that’s hard to process when we don’t know how.
My own aunt was married for twenty-five years when she learned her best friend had been having an affair with her husband for eighteen of those years.
She was devastated, and it was so hard watching her internalize lies about herself because of their deceitful actions.
She agonized over not understanding how she never knew.
She questioned everything she’d ever done or said that might have made both of them betray her.
She obsessed over what she could have done differently, believing she was the one who had failed.
We have all been through deeply painful situations where words or actions significantly wounded us and threatened to derail us—whether it was from a friend, a spouse, a colleague, or a mentor.
When we were…
■ Blindsided by a divorce
■ Upstaged by a coworker
■ Shamed publicly by a leader
■ Financially ruined by a business partner
■ Judged by a family member
■ Rejected by a lifelong friend
■ Betrayed by a ministry partner
We’ve never forgotten those times when we lost our peace, joy, and hope and sometimes our vision, passion, and purpose.
Unexpected emotional wounding is so deeply painful because it is…unexpected.
It hits when our defenses are down and our trust levels are up.
How critical then to understand that even when people leave us and hurt us, God never leaves us nor forsakes us.
He understands what it feels like to be kicked in the gut, to have the wind knocked out of us—and He cares.
He promises to be there for us and to help us.
“If your heart is broken,” writes the psalmist, “you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you catch your breath” (Psalm 34:18 MSG).
Even when people are unfaithful, God is always faithful.
WARNING: THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
I could not love this woman more — the way she has poured into me has changed my life. Christine Caine is the founder of A21, an international anti-human trafficking organization, and Propel, a women’s organization dedicated to helping women realize their purpose, passion and potential. She is the author of seven books, including her most recent, Unexpected: Leave Fear Behind, Move Forward in Faith, Embrace the Adventure.
In Unexpected, Christine helps us walk into the life God has for us—unknowns and all. Using dramatic examples from her own journey, she offers real-life strategies and biblical inspiration to help us move from fear and worry about ourselves to hope and trust in God. As we learn new ways to manage disappointment, strengthen our hearts, and build our faith, we can enjoy a new adventure with God that is more fulfilling than any day we spend trying to anticipate what will happen next.
[Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 14, 2018
How to Stand Up for the Value of a Woman #SheIsPriceless
Kristen Welch and I are sorta, kinda, soul sisters? As I serve on the board of directors of the ministry Kristen founded, Mercy House Global, I get to see it first hand again and again, what we can all do together to change the world for women, if we say our brave yes. — and I am all in here with Kristen, with Mercy House Global, and togESTHER — we are the Esther Generation. Called for such a time as this, right where we are, to change the world for our sisters…. I absolutely love this woman with all my heart — a grace to welcome my soul sister, Kristen, to the farm’s front porch today…
It’s miraculous how much can happen in a year.
When I left Agnes’ house in a slum in Kenya last April with my family, we went straight to a public bathroom and shook the bedbugs out of our clothes. We found a table, ordered a Coca Cola for comfort and sobbed our eyes out.
Because hopelessness will do that to you.
As we sat in her home, she had wiped tears away roughly with the back of her hand as she described selling her oldest son as an indentured servant to a neighbor.
I shuddered as she explained the desperation that made her choose prostitution for her and a daughter so the rest of the family could survive. Her pregnant 14 year old ended up in the maternity homes supported by Mercy House Global.
She named her little girl Kristen Mercy.
We sat quietly gathering our thoughts, and mostly our courage, while we sipped our sodas, and we began to dream with our in-country directors about what God was asking us to do. And we asked him to do the impossible. To somehow someway, change Agnes’ life and that of the other families we had visited. We dared to believe God for the unlikely. We envisioned kilns and imagined looms.
When I left her home last week, I returned to that same restaurant. This time there weren’t bedbugs that made us shudder and the tears we shed weren’t sad ones. She was no longer in a home in a slum and she proudly showed us her concrete floor and second room. Music blared from her radio and when we entered her home, we danced.
And we danced some more. And our dancing turned to weeping. We held hands and thanked God for doing the impossible. Again.
On the way out of the house, introduced me to her son. The same boy that was owned a year ago without freedom or a future, he shook my hand, looked me in the eyes and smiled. He was free.
I couldn’t stop the tears.
Because hope will do that to you.
In just a year, Agnes has become a master weaver at a loom. Her gorgeous rugs that each take five days to make, thread by thread, are for sale at Mercy House Global. She and the other grandmothers to babies at the maternity homes supported by Mercy House Global sit at looms and kilns every day. They were poor women without hope or a future and God has reminded them they are priceless. They are a miracle.
Earlier this year, Ann and I sat together at those looms in Kenya, and stood on holy ground as eyewitnesses to the miraculous. We held ceramic beads from the Kenyan earth and ran our hands over the soft cotton and we committed together–that every woman everywhere deserves the simple dignity of knowing she is priceless.
Agnes and her sweet family have suffered great wounds. They have been abused and hurt by this world.
But God is taking the pain and sorrow, the grit of this life and He is creating something beautiful. He is writing a new story.
Every woman everywhere deserves to know that she is loved and valued by the God who created her.
She is priceless like a treasured pearl.
She isn’t a commodity to be bought and sold, but she has been paid for by the precious blood of Jesus.
Today — tell her she is priceless.
It’s the goal of the dozens and dozens of ministries we work with who work to remind women of this truth.
Tomorrow, May 15, we are joining our hands around the world and raising money for 10 non-profits who exist to empower women in oppression and poverty with She Is Priceless, a Global Giving Day.
We are donning our pearls (#putonyourpearls), taking selfless selfies, giving sacrificially and standing up to say we see these injustices, these desperate women who are begging God for provision so they don’t have to make desperate decisions.
Will you please join with us tomorrow –May 15th, 2018 and read these words over women around the globe?
Will you give to one of the organizations we are partnering with –working in hard places, with the most vulnerable?
Will you please join with us today and boldly declare with your time and resources we see you and we are here to say, you are not alone. He is with you.
Because women around the world — including you — are priceless.
We are joining together to remind the world —
that every woman matters.
“She Is Priceless” Is A Campaign To Make A Difference In The Lives Of Oppressed Women.
Mercy House is teaming with organizations that are on the ground changing lives.
A pearl is a healed wound. An oyster protects itself from irritation and suffering and the result is a priceless pearl. The women supported by this campaign have endured unthinkable suffering in their lives and often feel forgotten.
May 11, 2018
Being A Mother of Kids Who Can Die: Facing Down Every Mother’s Greatest Fear & How You Can Be Kinda Guaranteed to Get What You Really Want for Mother’s Day
Maybe I would — or wouldn’t have — signed up to be the mother of children who could die at any minute.
Maybe it’s kinda every mother’s worst fear?
I mean, every mother has signed up for this, really — but there isn’t once that I don’t hug our Type 1 Diabetes boy goodnight and not think that there’s a 1 in 20 chance that he will die in his sleep.
“Well, hope I see you in the morning,” he always laughs and winks and I always have to remember to breathe. His arms are bruised and sore from the tyranny of insulin needles that keep him alive and here.
A few weeks ago, he was found non-responsive. A diabetic coma — severe hypoglycaemia that results in death — is the beast that daily tracks us, threatening to hunts us down and eat our prayers for lunch. I counted minutes to the ER.
The shadow of death is a strange friend: it wakes you to savouring life and every minute. Sometimes I find myself memorizing my children’s faces, the way their eyes look when they turn and catch the light, the way their laugh sounds down the hallway.
A mother memorizes her children to know more of grace by heart.
His baby sister, our littlest, has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a literal half a heart, and heterodaxy, her heart being on the other side of her chest, and there’s no cure for any of this and all we can do is hope for a heart transplant someday and a bit more time. When I think about this, I forget to breathe.
When I tuck her in at night, I hold her the tightest as she has this kinda actual death grip around my neck, and she begs me, “Stay with me, I need you to stay with me.”
She feels like evening light in my arms.
I whisper it back to her every night:
“Stay with me. I just need you to stay with me.”
Stay breathing, stay dreaming, stay being you, stay in this circle of love, this circle of safe, that is ours — that’s all a mother needs, all a mother wants.
I need her to breathe so I can breathe — but you tell me, what happens — if something happens?
My mother-in-law buried her four-year-old and a 17-year-old within a handful of years. How does a mother bear it and still bear down and deliver hope? My own mama buried my sister, two years younger than me—- while she was holding my 3 week old baby sister in her arms.
Maybe there is no other side to heartbreak — only living on your island through the heartbreak, living with the heartbreak.
Somehow a mother who breathed a child, a life, into the world, she breathes her way through loss, one breath after another, and a woman can breathe her way through anything. And I say “through” — because maybe — there is no other side to loss.
Maybe all the brave know no matter our story: We don’t cross from one side of heartbreak to the other side of heartbreak — maybe heartbreak just becomes the ocean that we almost drown in — and then becomes the waves that surround the island we drag up on.
And somedays the island is frighteningly small and all we see is rising ocean everywhere, threatening to sweep us away, and the waves of ache just keep coming. And then other days, the island is a refuge and we get lost a bit in the living, and we can see glimpses of life growing even here in the middle of our ocean. But the ocean is always there, the ocean never disappears, the ocean always remains at the edge of things, heartbreak always touching the shores of you.
Maybe there is no other side to heartbreak — only living on your island through the heartbreak, living with the heartbreak.
And the ocean becomes the friend who gently kisses you again and again, so that the dreams and love and all that was, always remain with you, never lost. And someday, you find yourself not fearing the ocean, but the ocean becomes a strange kind of refuge of its own — a way to remember.
I tell myself this, when I think of being a mother of children who can die any minute, like all the mothers living through all kinds of heartbreak. I tell myself that I will breathe through the ocean, that I can live on an island, that I can live surrounded by any ocean.
Mothers don’t need take-out or a day out or dinner out. All we really need from each other — is time to be with each other.
I tell myself now: Mothers don’t need flowers.
Mothers don’t need chocolates or take-out or a day out or dinner out.
We don’t need more glitz, more bling, more glamor, more things. And maybe it’s not so much about getting us what you can fit in a box, a shelf, a drawer, a wallet, a closet or a purse. Maybe it’s about giving us what can fit in our hearts forever. Maybe it’s more about giving us time. Because in the end what every single one of just really wants is more time.
Time to breathe, time for walks in the park on May afternoons and picking wild flowers from the ditches down some back country road. Time to kick a ball around, lay on the grass and watch the clouds make sky art, time to find a bucket of maple ripple ice cream and memorize all over again how your people laugh.
I never want to forget how we all look when we’re happy.
What a mother truly wants — is for her kids to be truly happy. There isn’t a mother who needs any greater gift than her children being greatly happy.
And bottom line: All we really need from each other — is time to be with each other.
Because getting time
to love the people you love
makes you the luckiest.
Maybe… Mother’s Day is less about being deeply loved and appreciated—and more about appreciating that we just get to deeply love these people.
Maybe every year needs one day to live wide-awake to celebrate that we get to call these people ours, that we get to be the one who gets seconds and minutes and hours and days and maybe even years — to witness the wonder of them.
For as long as they’re here.
When we know we only get so much time — all our sacrifices are made into gifts that we get.
When expectations shift from wanting to be loved — to being the luckiest to get to love — we can always expect to get what we want most: joy.
And when I hug the fleeting mirage of these kids, him towering over me, her little heart pounding next to mine, and they whisper: “I love you —”
How can I help but murmur: “I get everything I need when I get to love you.”
Stay awake, stay grateful — because in this moment, they get to stay — and I get to stay here loving them — what more could I ever need?
Getting to love — is getting the best gift of all .
Maybe all I can hear is that singular heart beat of what all the mothers are trying to say to their people, the ones they get for only so long:
“Getting to love you makes me the luckiest.
Getting to witness your brave gives me strength to bear whatever comes.
Getting to receive your grace makes me only want to give more.
And getting to be with you, ever, whenever, however, makes everything worth it — because you are worth everything.”
We get the gift of this day to love our people — and what if we don’t get the wonder of another?
And there’s this ocean of grace, and us on this island of here, with this minute to love all of them.
And maybe —
Getting to love — is getting the best gift of all.
Maybe what we want most desperately — is relief for our unspoken broken, and — just to get the grace
to stay and love.
Maybe what we want most — but don’t know how to quite find words for —
is healing for our unspoken broken, a gentle touch of hope for our heartbreak.
Maybe we want someone to be real, someone to sit with us so we know we aren’t alone.
Maybe we want someone to hand us some Brave for this island of now — to face down our greatest fears.
Maybe we want someone to give us courage to dare to take The Broken Way… into the abundant life.
May 9, 2018
the most life-changing thing any woman can do for herself this Mother’s Day: What a Mother Actually Really Wants
Yeah — if you’re being gut honest here — you don’t really want the cards or the flowers.
Or what gets wrapped up in shiny paper, or stuffed in a bag with wrinkled tissue paper, or anything that gets tied up and presented with these dangling tendrils of curling ribbon.
What you really wanted is to be extraordinarily, obviously, good at this. At this mothering thing.
You wanted to be the best at this.
You wanted to take the podium and gold medal in mothering — not take a million timeouts behind some locked bathroom door, turn on the water so no one hears you sobbing at what a mess this whole shebang is, and how you’d like to run away. Ask me how I know?
Honest? You wanted to be more.
You wanted to be more patient — you wanted to never lose it, to always have it together, to keep calm and that is all, always, — and yeah, take their tantrums with a grain of salt instead of throwing one of yours that turned out to be a first class tsunami and a tad bit more dramatic than theirs.
You wanted more flashes of wisdom in the heat of the moment when you had no bloody idea what was the best thing to do, when you flung up an S.O.S. prayer, made The Call on the deal that was facing the kid and you —- and the kid hated you for it and you crawled into bed feeling like a heel who always gets it wrong when everyone else gets it right.
You’d about give your eye teeth and your left arm for more time. More time to get it more right and less wrong.
More time so that you could that leave that one more thing that ended up not mattering a hill of beans in the long run, so you could take the time to lay there in the dark with them after prayers and talk about the deep things that only come in the exhale of last light out, and rub their back till they fall asleep.
What every mother wants, her most unspoken need — is a truckload of Grace.
Somebody — how about just more time — and internal permission — to surprise with more spontaneous “Mommy-Holidays!” in the middle of the week and go for ice cream and the park and the beach and the woods. More time to not hurry them, badger them, nag them, or manage them like some to-do list that needs to get stroked off, done and tossed before tomorrow’s starts again — but just more time slow down, smile into them, simply enjoy being.
You want a do-over.
You wanted to be better.
Never once did you ask to come stumbling into this with all this baggage — all this mess that your parents sent you packing with, all these unhealthy-coping mechanisms, all these triggers, all this unspoken broken.
What you really want, desperately, wildly, in spite of everything — is for them to remember the good…. to remember enough of the times you whispered, “I Love You” … to know how many times you broke your heart and how hard you really tried.
All you want? Is for them to feel a deep sense of safety, that they are safe to trust people, safe to dream large, safe to believe, safe to try, safe to love large and go fly — and you need to know that you haven’t wrecked that. That they feel the certain, tender embrace of your love —- in spite of all the storming times you acted unlovely.
So… SomeOne?
Could someone just wrap up … a bit of Grace?
What every mother wants, her most unspoken need — is a truckload of Grace.
Grace that buries her fears that her faith wasn’t enough, and that her faults were too many.
Grace that washes her dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies.
Grace that says she doesn’t have to try to measure up to anyone else because Jesus came down — and He measures her as good enough, as worthy enough, as loved more than enough.
Grace embraces you before you prove anything — and after you’ve done everything wrong.
“Grace holds you when everything else falls apart — and whispers that everything is really falling together.”~The Broken Way
Grace loves us when we are at our darkest worst — and wraps us in the best light.
What happened in the past can’t change it, and nothing in the future can intimidate the reality of it — and it’s what your soul aches for the most —- and it’s the realest true:
You are always sufficient — because God always gives you His all sufficient grace.
You don’t have to be afraid —
because you have a Father.
You don’t have to know how to do it all.
You just have to choose to be all here, right where you are.
His grace meets you in the moment — and you will miss it if you are worrying about future moments.
Lock your thoughts in this moment — and you get to live the freest of all.
When you focus on living only in the grace of this moment — is exactly when you get the grace of a momentous life. Live in the moment — and you get a momentous life.
That is all …
“You don’t have to be awesome and do everything. You simply have to believe that the One who is Awesome loves you through everything.” ~The Broken Way
And when the mothers sat with that….
When the mothers sat with that, when they gave themselves that, when they opened up and unfolded all this Grace…
when they were given it …
and when they let it completely enfold them —
all these wounds healed in a thousand unspoken broken places.
Maybe what we want most — but don’t know how to quite find words for —
is healing for our unspoken broken, a gentle touch of hope for our Broken Way.
Maybe we want someone to be real, someone to sit with us so we know we aren’t alone.
Maybe we want someone to hand us some Brave — and the truckload of grace that we’re kind of wild for.
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