Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 123
April 21, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.21.18]
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:
Noam Chen | Dead Sea
Noam Chen | The ancient Coliseum in Caesarea National Park
Noam Chen | Israel’s Negev Desert
let’s start the weekend with some of the most breathtaking views
tears: sharing some good good words out of the mouth of a 4 year old
so what do you think?
how this bakery is preparing military veterans, spouses and caregivers for lifelong success
kinda undone: he has fed thousands of children in need every single day for more than a decade
what?!? at 90?!! he shows us you’re never to old to skydive
despite incredible odds and some setbacks — he’ll be attending the Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory of Music or the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University. come see his story
reflecting on the life of Barbara Bush and how she raised her family
heart stirring: remembering the love letters between George H.W. Bush and Barbara
these brave firefighters were reunited with the premature twins they saved
we gathered ’round this one…glory
HouseProud Atlanta
she’s doing great things: by making sure every senior citizen has a safe and stable home
have you seen this one?!? wide-eyed at the gift of this family right here
Make It Easy for Your Kids to Love God
profoundly spoken by a high school athlete: “If I couldn’t handle not being good at something, then how could I consider myself a successful person?”
Patryk Biegański
Patryk Biegański
Patryk Biegański
come along for a virtual tour? the beauty of spring in the mountain meadows of Poland
‘Be kind, loving and don’t get bitter’: One black dad’s advice to his multi-racial daughters
can you even?!? this young college player brings baseball game to terminally ill grandma’s backyard —
the story of a brave soldier who is giving back in extraordinary ways
some stories stick with you for a long time… we may never know the impression we make on another
simply stunning: How Great Thou Art
one phone call of complaint? changed everything
thank you, David Platt: Is Christ Your Life?
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 highly anticipated 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
on repeat this week: Christ My Hope, My Glory
…happy weekend! So today let’s remember? No fears of the future, no regrets of the past, are worth giving permission to steal the gift of the present.
Let something steal your Joy today & you let something steal your strength. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” Ps 5:11.
Today Joy will not just happen.
Today Joy will not just come unbidden.
Every moment Joy must be taken.
Every moment Joy must be chosen.
Every moment Joy must be RECHOSEN.
Because His Joy is your OXYGEN.
And the people living plain and down to earth know it— if you let something steal your thanksgiving, you let something steal your joy, and if you let something steal your joy, you let something steal your strength.
Stepping into a new day, there’s the real hope: “Thus far the Lord has helped us…” (1 Samuel 7:14) And He won’t stop now. The real hope of the day is that it is the Lord helping you — with all the strength you need for the stretch of just. this. moment.
[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.
April 18, 2018
People Drive Us Crazy: The Secret to Loving (Really) Difficult People
My admiration of this woman absolutely knows no end, and Lisa Bevere’s bold, authentic approach to embodying the words of Christ are a blazing torch for this generation. She beautifully weaves personal experience with profound biblical truth, giving us something relatable and practical all at once. In this post, she opens up about her own story with her mother—both her successes and failures—to show us a better way to love. It’s an unspeakable grace to welcome Lisa to the farm’s front porch today…
To say that my mother and I had relational challenges is an understatement of grand proportions.
As far back as I can remember, there was an undercurrent of tension between us.
Over the last ten years, whenever I called her, the conversation would quickly escalate to a misunderstanding of some sort. Perhaps you can relate. And yet even now I am hard-pressed to even remember the harsh words that passed between us.
What I remember most are the words I didn’t say.
I wish I’d been more intentional to show and tell her I loved her when I had the chance.
When it came to expressing love, my mother and I spoke languages as different as Italian and English. Sadly, I refused to become bilingual until much too late.
Yes, near the end, in the last month of her life, I said all the things I wished I had said all along. I told her I loved her. I asked her to forgive me for any and every grievance, large or small.
As I held onto her frail frame, tethered to the hospital bed by tubes and wires, she leaned into my ear and graciously whispered my reprieve.
That’s when the levee broke. We both cried, overwhelmed by the knowledge we had so little time to live this love out this side of eternity.
Less than a month later she was gone.
I’m glad I have the promise of eternity—it softened the blow of this reality.
But even so, regret can be a hard taskmaster.
I’ve often responded to its accusations and remorse by either making excuses or casting blame.
But over the years I’ve learned to handle it with a different approach: owning my mistakes. Though at first, it proves the more painful option, I can promise you it saves so much unnecessary hurt in the long run.
The truth is I should have loved my mother better sooner. I was in the stronger position to love her well, and I didn’t.
While I can’t change the past, I am left with clear choices going forward. I can feel bad and the sadness will stay with me, or I can flip my mistakes into lessons for others.
You see, once you own a mistake, it no longer owns you.
God is a redeemer, and His redemptive nature extends into the deep caverns of our regrets and failures. When we bring our failures and regrets into the light, we find God’s redemptive love brings something beautiful out of the ashes.
Please allow my mistakes to be your instructor and love well while you can.
Be kind while it is in your power.
Be generous in word and deed.
Look beyond the actions and search for God’s heart in the matter.
Have the hard talks. Extend olive branches. Reconcile. Own your part even if they refuse to own theirs.
You will never regret kind words, warmth, or acts of generosity—but you will regret the love you never gave.
Love well, and you will live well—for love is our agent of transformation. Our heavenly Father, who is adamant in His love for us, is likewise adamant that we love one another.
There are so many people we now call enemies who are actually just hurting people who are desperate to be loved.
As followers of Christ, we do not have the option of not loving them. Loving one another is not merely a biblical suggestion. Jesus tells us, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
The last five words are the challenge for me: “…as I have loved you.”
Jesus is our pattern.
How different it all would have been if I had loved as Jesus loves me.
Love how Jesus loves you. This may seem a bit abstract at times. It is hard to find specific Bible examples for our daily journey. Here is what I have learned: We won’t go too far wrong if we love others the way we wish we’d been loved.
We are not limited to how well our parents loved us, or anyone else, for that matter.
This is good news. At the end of the day, others are not our example of how to love. Jesus is. And His example is available for all to follow.
Jesus loved people before they ever loved Him back. There are those who will never give Him anything in return, yet He lavishes His love on them still.
It is His very nature to love. It is who He is at the very core of His being. And as His children, it is who He calls us to be. What an amazing honor that He invites us to be like Him!
Jesus loved people before they ever loved Him back.
Beloved, we are those who have received God’s adamant, unwavering, steadfast love.
Aren’t you so glad He didn’t wait until we deserved it, but rather, freely lavished His affection on us?
Now, dear one, with the same hands that have freely received this love, may we follow the pattern of Jesus and freely extend it to a world in need.
This woman is undeniably anointed and the power of God ignites her words.
Lisa Bevere is the New York Times bestselling author of Without Rival, an internationally known speaker, and the cofounder of Messenger International. The story she shares here with our little community is from her newest book Adamant: Finding Truth in a Universe of Opinions.
In her new book Adamant, Lisa unpacks how truth is not a river that changes with the passage of time, but the rock upon which we must build our lives. Using the mediums of Scripture and story, Lisa takes readers on a journey into the Mountain of God, to the one place they can learn not only to abide in God’s unshakeable truth and love, but become adamant — people who are unmovable, determined, and steadfast.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 16, 2018
One Unexpected Key That Will Make Your Marriage Really Work
In his work as a psychologist, Dr. Mark W. Baker has found that chronic feelings of shame have caused more problems than any other feeling. He has also found the path to healing shame is through grace. Mark utilizes a relational approach to counseling modeled after Jesus’s relationships with others. He marries theology and therapy to point people to God’s grace, bringing healing and restoration to their lives. It’s a grace to welcome Mark to the farm’s front porch today….
guest post by Dr. Mark W. Baker
Shame is a painful feeling that directs your attention onto yourself in ways that make it difficult for you to care about what other people are feeling around you.
Your own feelings of defectiveness become so weighty that your attention is diverted into coming up with strategies to hide.
Shame-proneness causes people to mismanage their fear.
Rather than using fear as a signal that directs your attention outward toward some approaching problem, shame forces you to direct your attention inward toward a bigger problem you don’t want to face—painful feelings of inadequacy.
Shame-prone people tend to respond to fear by either trying to hide or trying forcefully to overcome it.
But the best response to fear is to face it — with vulnerability.
Drew and Nicole came to marriage counseling a little late.
People often wait for years before they come for help, struggling with the same pattern of fighting over and over again with nothing changing. It’s really too bad, because in the vast majority of cases, marriage counseling helps. And Drew and Nicole certainly needed it.
Drew is a successful businessman and Nicole is an accomplished architect. They have two wonderful kids and a beautiful home, and they are involved in their local church.
But even though their lives looked pretty good to everyone on the outside, what went on within the walls of their house wasn’t so good.
Nicole is an energetic woman, passionate and excited about life, traits to which Drew was immediately attracted when he met her.
Drew is more of an introvert than Nicole, and his serious attitude about his career and finances gave Nicole a peaceful feeling of security when she met him.
This guy would be a good father, she thought, and his non-confrontational manner made her feel safe.
But as happens with most marriages, what attracts us to our partners at first, eventually becomes a source of irritation later.
Nicole grew up with an alcoholic mother who would yell at her for the smallest things, and if she had been drinking too much would even hit her in a rage.
This unstable environment wreaks havoc on a child’s sense of self, so the unpredictable and abusive atmosphere of her childhood left Nicole with a shame-proneness that she tried to keep hidden as best she could.
Consequently, what started out in their marriage as a passionate and frequently excited Nicole, morphed into a critical and angry Nicole as the years went on.
Drew, on the other hand, was always an even-tempered and thoughtful person.
At first this is exactly what Nicole wanted—the opposite of her mother.
But as the years went on, what was originally a securely non-confrontational Drew morphed into a withdrawn and depressed Drew in response to his conflict with Nicole.
The pattern that Drew and Nicole developed in their marriage is a common one.
Each time conflict would arise and one of them got hurt feelings, they both had their own deeply engrained responses.
Drew would withdraw and Nicole would attack.
Shame-proneness causes people to mismanage their fear.
Each response was equally powerful in hurting the other, and both were convinced that the other person was the root of their marital problems.
Nicole was convinced that Drew’s depression and emotional withdrawal were damaging their marriage and their children, and Drew was convinced that Nicole’s rages were doing irreparable damage to everyone she unleashed them on, especially him.
Neither Nicole nor Drew understood the problem in their marriage. When they finally came in for help, all they knew was that they both were very angry.
Drew was mad at Nicole for her unbridled displays of rage directed at him, and Nicole was just as mad at Drew for the way he had emotionally cut her off. That, she insisted, was the reason she was so infuriated with him.
What neither could see was that the very thing they were doing to deal with the conflict in the marriage was causing the other person to respond the way they were.
What I was eventually able to get Nicole and Drew to realize was that they were both afraid.
Anger is a secondary emotion, which means that there is always another emotion underneath it that is more primary.
In their case, Nicole was afraid she would live the rest of her adult life as lonely and unloved as she had been in her childhood, and Drew was afraid that who he was simply was not enough for her and that her disgust of him was proof.
Nicole’s anger made him feel worthless, and Drew’s withdrawal made her feel the same way, and it was killing them both inside.
They were fighting because they felt disconnected, and living disconnected in a marriage violates the very purpose for which humans were made.
Drew wasn’t withdrawing because he no longer loved Nicole; he was just trying not to make things worse.
Anger is a secondary emotion, which means that there is always another emotion underneath it that is more primary.
Nicole wasn’t raging at Drew because she didn’t respect him; she was trying to get through to the only man she has ever loved, and she didn’t know how to get him to listen to how much she needed him to make her feel safe again.
Once they understood they were fighting for connection, they learned the only way to truly deal with fear is to face it—with vulnerability.
As Drew came out from behind his stone wall of invulnerability, Nicole could drop her wall of rage, which she was hiding behind as well.
And as Nicole could vulnerably admit her fears of never being lovable, which were the real reason for her rage, Drew could easily confess how much he loved and needed her in his life.
The best cure for the fear of vulnerability is to have the courage to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability done the right way has the power to change us and everyone around us.
The power of vulnerability to get you unstuck in life is there for you — whenever you are ready.
Dr. Mark W. Baker is a licensed clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist. A bestselling author and the executive director of La Vie Counseling Centers in Southern California, his latest book Overcoming Shameexplores the only remedy that can bring real healing to the pain no one talks about.
Shame is debilitating. It ruins relationships, thwarts growth, and destroys hope. It can masquerade as various problems—guilt, envy, pride, resentment—but until you heal the core issue, freedom will remain out of reach. Dr. Mark W. Baker wants to open your eyes to the real battle you’re facing and teach you the skills to effectively fight back.
In his book Overcoming Shame: Let Go of Others’ Expectations and Embrace God’s Acceptance, he combines psychological research, biblical teachings, and clinical experience to provide a valuable resource for readers. This book will open your eyes to the real battle you’re facing and teach you the skills to effectively fight back. Overcoming Shame will help you discover the reasons behind your hidden pain—and the only remedy that brings real healing.
[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 14, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.14.18]
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:
Kinnara Bosworth
Kinnara Bosworth
Kinnara Bosworth
glory, glory, glory: get out and enjoy a really wonderful weekend!
so we gathered ’round this one – here’s to a huge smile
yes to this! Reading is fundamental — to the family’s happiness
Katja Jensen Photography
Katja Jensen Photography
Katja Jensen Photography
so how do they do it? Here’s some ‘behind the scenes’ shots during a horse photography session
maybe the best pool party you’ll see all day?
Phillip Hausmesser
he teaches everything he’s learned about photo editing: come see
so who knew? being an alarm clock used to be a job: they were the knocker-uppers
deeply moving: Cancer, a Birthday, and a Secret Prayer
a gift like no other?
born without her left hand? someone stepped in to help in a huge way
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
can you even? anyone else kinda want one or two?!?
just wow: the power of forgiveness and new friendships… who can we forgive today?
what an accomplishment: he was accepted into all eight Ivy League colleges
how about one amazing virtual tour of the moon?
she celebrated her 106th birthday at the keyboard
the whole earth is full of His glory!
she was hungry as a child — now she’s wanting to feed the world #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
they’re teaching young women with autism important skills for business and life
must read, and thank you, Jon Bloom: Unanswered Prayers are Invitations from God
“we need anointed people for the Kingdom”
“Life gets tough. And it’s nice to know somebody loves you no matter what.”
this is how 936 marbles can change someone’s life
Shalom Voskamp
Post of the week from these part here
when you just quietly & deeply need to heal
kinda undone: “your heart is the greatest muscle…look down your fence, love your neighbor, scatter love”
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 highly anticipated 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
The Love Kitchen: they’re feeding both body and soul #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
“Many fail to abide because they fast from the Word instead of feed on the Word” thank you, John Piper
Rend Collective – Resurrection Day (The Story Behind the Song)
on repeat this week: Resurrection Day
…parenting is hard & beautiful,
and very, very hard & very, very beautiful,
and sometimes you just get down on the floor & weep
& there’s no shame in it — tears just saying we’re loving deep.
And it’s kinda true… parenting children you literally have to look up — keeps you parenting from the best posture of all.
Who ever expected living to mean so much joy & so much heart ache? Love & pain are the two chambers of the same heart that pump courage through the aching veins.
And it’s my heart that keeps falling as these fledgelings begin to fly. Anyone know? Where did all this glorious time go?
Parenting is really all about swallowing hard & staying soft — and mastering the art of letting go & holding on & letting come what comes. Life isn’t about slowing down how fast time goes — it’s about taking the time to slow down your life to enjoy whatever comes.
There is only so much time here. So let’s be all here today, this week.
Remembering that how we look at each other — is how we love each other. How we look into eyes is how we love each other’s hearts.
And we can know this: Every heart loves deeper — when their eyes linger longer.
[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.
April 13, 2018
when you just quietly & deeply need to heal
Sometimes you go to the woods because where else would you hear what’s growing in your own tired soul?
Sometimes when we feel broken — we need beauty to heal — and He is Beauty Himself. Noise or news or new fangled ways of communicating won’t communicate healing like Beauty does, and all the loud incoming doesn’t speak to us like coming into beauty —- and being still enough to hear Him.
Mock your need of beauty and you laugh at what your soul needs. When there’s no end to the cynicism and sarcasm and criticism, we can get to the end of ourselves.
The soul needs the loveliness of beauty as much as it needs love. Because Love Himself is Beauty.
And where our lens to see beauty is broken that’s where we break even more. Failing to seek beauty everywhere, is a failure to see Christ in everything.
The trail winds through the woods and I wander slow. Sometimes the rootedness of trees grounds you in unshakeable ways. It’s clearer in the trees, through the forest:
God is a creator more than a dictator,
a sculptor more than a prosecutor,
an artist more than a scientist,
a romantic more than a critic.
There’s an exhale in this, if you want to feel it.
Shalom Voskamp
Shalom VoskampGod is Beauty and He is making all the ugly beautiful. There’s shatteredness and brokenness and the wounding edges of all the things, and there’s purple myrtle densely matting the forest floor, petals studding the dark green leaves. It’s everywhere, really, beauty for the taking, for the seeing. Beauty isn’t found in seeing certain things, beauty is found in how we seeing everything. Seek Beauty and you will find it.
Always: Seek and you will find — because whatever the eyes look for, the soul sees.
And I wasn’t expecting it, not like that at all, but when I wind a bit of the corner, there it is, and our willowy girl behind me on the trail, she kinda catches her breath, like the wind’s blown in, because there it is — a chapel of glass. Rising 48 feet into the early spring sky.
The soul needs the loveliness of beauty as much as it needs love. Because Love Himself is Beauty.
“Can we just, you know, come here every week?” our girl whispers it over my shoulder.
The kid makes me laugh — and kinda yearn too. Yearn for the stillness of trees and the rising of unlikely grace and the beckon of a mountainside chapel to come sit under the kindness of God.
Goodness and wholeness and kindness hide in Beauty.
As Plato wrote: “The power of the good has taken refuge in the Beautiful.”
The wooden doors of ThornCrown chapel swing open to this unexpected cathedral of glass, and what is this space that’s a wide open invitation to weary sojourners to come and lay the brokenness down?
Sometimes you don’t know how busted and battle weary you are until you let yourself sit a spell in a silent space and listen to a crow call from the top of a white oak and you sense the Holy Spirit descend like an unfolding of weightless wings and what if the burdens slid down and you breathed?
Outreach is infinitely more attractive than outrage.
What if the burden is you?
I keep forgetting how to breathe.
There’s a squirrel sitting on an outcropping of flagstone on the far side of the pews, on the other side of the glass. There are no walls in this chapel — only glass, only seeing, only seeing down the mountainside, only being seen.
What if the Beauty of the church was that it had no walls, only open doors, only open windows, only the openness of being fully seen — and fully welcomed?
What if church was a place where our most broken places could be seen — and we were loved most in those broken places?
What if the beauty of the Gospel captured the world’s attention more than the bustedness of this world?
What if we moved the world with the beauty of the sacred, more than we shook our fists at the secular and the sinners?
What if the church resisted shaming the world into moral conformity, but embodied the irresistible beauty of cruciformity?
There’s a cross etched into the glass at the very front of ThornCrown chapel and it looks like a cross suspended in mid-air, like our only Hope come down to reach us.
God knew the outreach of a cross was far more attractive than the cross outrage of anyone.
Outreach is infinitely more attractive than outrage.
And God’s wrath become nail-scarred hands that wrap up our wounds, and God’s bare given heart becomes the beauty that heals us, and God’s witness of our brokenness, and His with-ness in our brokenness — breaks our brokenness.
I know what I am feeling — and being fool enough to still long enough in the Beauty of His presence let me sense what I hadn’t known?
Fearfulness grows out of feelings of aloneness. But when we know we will never be abandoned — we can abandon our fears.
Enduring Beauty is with us, and Relentless Love is with us, and Defiant Hope is with us, and Emmanuel is with us, and God is with us. Breathing can become grace.
And there it is, written in the brochure on my lap, ThornCrown’s welcome: “At the centre of every light in the chapel is a cross. These crosses whisper to you that because of Christ, there is no place God will not go and no one He will not bless.
You are never beyond God’s love, and you are never alone. God is present even in the midst of your greatest need, your greatest weakness, and your greatest failures. Grace would have it no other way.”
Shalom Voskamp 
Shalom Voskamp
Shalom Voskamp
Graces chokes the busted up — because who can swallow the audacity of a love like this?
I look up — Crosses everywhere. Evidence of the Beauty of Christ’s outreach everywhere.
I run these sorry hands across the page, as if the ink, the truth, could rub into me, become me. Maybe the Beauty we all ultimately are seeking is the Beauty of being found under the safe arms of the Cross?
Grace would have it no other way — but to come find you no matter what way you’ve taken.
And the outreach of the Cross reaches you no matter the mess of things, and if He has removed your busted sinfulness as far as the East is from the West, you aren’t beyond the love of God — you are called the Beloved of God.
Those in need of a real Savior, need time for real beauty, because that’s a reflection of who He really is.
Those in need of a real Savior, need to seek the outreach of real arms, because that love is always really His.
And those in need of a real Savior, need to make space to sit in real grace, because that’s the only space God means for you to breathe.
Grace would have it no other way — but to make a way.
And I sit in the back of ThornCrown chapel and watch through the glass walls of the chapel, how the crow makes its way higher up the mountain, higher into the sky.
And maybe souls who break with growth, with the beauty of grace, find places to rise again.
April 11, 2018
when you really want to just show up & love your people really well
This woman: Becky Kopitzke admits she hasn’t always loved her people well. Busyness, distractions, cranky attitudes, exhaustion—these and so many more obstacles can keep us from loving and blessing others selflessly. We say we love our loved ones, but do our actions show it? How do we treat difficult people, strangers, or those with different interests and views? Why does it matter? In her new book, Generous Love, Becky digs through the Scriptures and shares heart-to-heart insight from her own experience and others who have both given and received real love—even when it’s tough. Please join me in welcoming Becky as she offers a bit of wisdom she learned the hard way…
On an hourly basis, I probably check my phone a dozen times or more.
Email, texts, weather, photos, Facebook, Instagram, Voxer, Lord help me!—these are the weeds that vie for my attention at the same time my children are flipping cartwheels in the grass.
Technology itself is not the devil. I firmly believe Christians have a responsibility to use it for good.
The question is— How am I spending the moments He gives me?
But as a work-from-home mom, it’s dangerously easy to let work time leak into family time. And then I start looking at my loved ones as the distraction, rather than the other way around.
You too?
Fact is, it’s impossible to bless someone that you’re ignoring.
When we get distracted by external demands, we lose sight of opportunities all around us.
Mobile devices aren’t the only culprits.
Distractions come in the form of stress, deadlines, overscheduled calendars, worries, fears, and so much more.
Together these can breed a groundcover that hinders healthy shoots of perspective from poking through.
Until God slaps a hoe in the soil and tears those weeds out all at once, it looks kind of like this.
I sat at the family dinner table on an ordinary Monday night, cutting a pork chop and listening to my five-year-old rattle off her favorite activities of the day—recess, snack time, blowing bubbles in the yard.
Just then I reached for a forkful of rice and heard it—a strangled, guttural sound coming from across the table. My head jerked up, and in an instant I realized.
My eight-year-old daughter was choking.
In a single motion, my husband leapt from his chair, lifted our daughter over his forearm, and slapped a hand to her back.
Praise God, the obstruction dislodged from her throat, and she spit it onto the table.
I wrapped my arms around her and didn’t let go. Every moment—every breath—is on loan from heaven. It’s a gift.
In moments like that, a mom realizes what she has. And what she could lose.
“Are you okay?” I held my daughter’s face in both hands and searched straight into her eyes.
“Yes, Momma,” she whispered and nodded.
“Well, I guess we’re not having those pork chops again!” My husband attempted to lighten the mood. But I knew it freaked him out, too. Our daughter sat on my lap for the remainder of the meal, although neither of us was hungry anymore.
The choking incident itself lasted a matter of probably seven seconds, but in my panic mode, I experienced the whole ordeal in slow motion. Then the adrenaline rushed throughout my body, and I fought back tears.
Suddenly, I saw my daughter with fresh eyes.
Not as the girl I scolded two minutes earlier for poking her sister with a spoon.
Not as the child who would waste a perfectly good plate of vegetables, then ask for ice cream.
Not as the kid whose homework drains a portion of my dwindling energy night after night.
Again she was my gift.
It was like the scales sloughed off my eyes, and for the rest of the evening and all the next day, whenever I looked at my daughter, I saw her more clearly for who she really is—a treasured possession on loan from God.
And I shuddered to remember He has the right to take her away at any moment.
The question is—How am I spending the moments He gives me?
With my eyeballs glued to a screen? With my head swimming through to-do lists so that I’m physically present but mentally in a different galaxy?
It shouldn’t take a life-or-death incident for us to realize how much our loved ones mean to us.
Every moment—every breath—is on loan from heaven. It’s a gift.
I want to live and love and soak up my gifts well. Do you?
It’s a holy shame, all the energy I’ve wasted whining about deadlines, iPods, laundry, and math homework—carpool traffic, airfare expenses, my husband’s socks on the floor. Why are these the thoughts that captivate my soul?
We were meant to awed by so much more.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will learn from your own experience how his ways will really satisfy you. (Romans 12:2 tlb)
Cherishing our people well today.
Toss aside the busywork and hug your people tight.
Tell your people that they are kinda a hero in all kinds of ways.
Call your best friend just to hear her voice.
Because none of the other junk matters compared to them, compared to the God who created them and placed them in our sphere.
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8
Becky Kopitzke is an author, speaker, dreamer, believer, family cheerleader, and recovering perfectionist. On her devotional website, Becky offers weekly encouragement for fellow imperfect women in need of God’s outrageous grace.
The story she shares today is from her newly released book, Generous Love: Discover the Joy of Living “Others First.” In this book, Becky inspires us to make a difference in today’s dark world by loving the people around us well. If asked, most of us want to make a difference, to live and love generously. But we get caught in the crazy rush of household routines, work demands, cranky attitudes, difficult people, exhaustion, worry, and pride, and once again we fail to love the people around us at all — let alone well.
[Our humble thanks to Bethany House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 9, 2018
Knowing the Key Difference Between Entertaining & Hospitality — Is How Jesus’s People Can Make a Difference
You know, true hospitality – the kind that emanates from someone’s selfless heart – is hard to find. Yet, can I just humbly say, Jen Schmidt is the absolutely embodiment of Christ-like hospitality. As she ministers to friends, family, and even strangers in what seems to be the simple act of opening her door to them, those visiting see a glimpse of Jesus who welcomed strangers and ate with sinners. Jen wrote one heart-needed, beautiful book about being God’s hands through hospitality called Just Open the Door, and I highly recommend it. It’s an absolute pleasure to welcome Jen to the farm’s front porch today…
As I think back on where my legacy of hospitality started, my memories surround our childhood doorway.
I can’t really describe it in great detail. That’s how little its appearance even mattered.
But I do remember its purpose.
It housed both a storm door and a screen door. The heavy door kept out the brutal Wisconsin winter, while the other door contained a large screen for those rare days when we captured the magic of spring and summer.
We can change a generation with something as simple as an invitation.
My favorite days growing up? The ones when that screen door announced action.
Slam. In.
Slam. Out.
I’d hear it again. Slam. Slam.
Long before Field of Dreams popularized the phrase, my parents had already personified the message of “If you build it, they will come.”
With a genuine love for others, and inspired by an outsized vision for impacting their community, they defied the indoor space limitations of our fifteen-hundred-square-foot house and poured a concrete pad in the backyard.
Thus began an informal volleyball league, meeting every Sunday night. Friends, kids, and strangers alike gathered from all over.
Simple snacks lined the table, complete with stacks of coolers filled with cold drinks. Smoky aromas from a charcoal grill wafted through the air. Laughter mingled with the casual delights of shared conversation, punctuated by roars of cheering and applause for points scored and exceptional plays. High-fives all around.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
There was never anything fancy about it.
“Come Sunday night, bring your favorite beverage, a little something to eat, and let’s have fun playing together.”
But I’m telling you, a whole lot more than volleyball took place on those incredibly memorable evenings of my childhood.
What started out as a loosely connected community came together around a game, only to turn into friendships that lingered into lasting relationships.
Life after life. Story after story.
I was there. I saw it. I heard it.
My parents—an ordinary couple—made a deliberate decision, intent on getting to know the people around them from more than a polite distance.
I didn’t even realize they were modeling anything special.
They were simply living the natural outflow of their faith, putting a smiling face on their heart of welcome.
But the aroma it created drew others in. And it wasn’t just the aroma of Wisconsin brats roasting on an open fire. It was so much more.
It changed the dynamic. It changed people’s lives.
Because hospitality has the power to change a generation.
I know I’m issuing a bold declaration with these words, but I don’t offer it lightly.
This is not an “over promise and under deliver” kind of marketing ploy.
This is a living, breathing, God-ordained path to walk out the abundance of the Gospel through incorporating ordinary rhythms of welcome into our everyday lives.
I genuinely believe we can change a generation with something as simple as an invitation.
And I say, why not yours? I’ve sure seen it change mine.
Hospitality. What is it, really? When we overstress, over plan, and overthink inviting others into our lives and homes, hospitality becomes overwhelming to our souls.
We become slaves to the expectations of others and freeze at the thought of extending an invitation. Craving both perfection and polished perception, we fall victim to a cruel taskmaster.
So how do we find the balance here?
How do we open our door to the unknown without opening ourselves to dread and discouragement?
Somewhere along the way, we’ve allowed the notion of social entertaining to hijack the true heart of biblical hospitality. It comes down to knowing the difference between the two.
In her flagship book Entertaining, Martha Stewart says, “Entertaining, like cooking, is a little selfish, because it really involves pleasing yourself with a guest list that will coalesce into your ideal of harmony, with a menu orchestrated to your home and taste, with decorations subject to your own eye. Given these considerations, it has to be pleasureful.”
This one paragraph hints at the telltale difference.
The entertaining host seeks to elevate herself. As Martha mentions, it’s a bit selfish. When the guest arrives, the entertainer announces, “Here I am. Come into my beautiful abode and have the honor of partaking of the wonderful things I’ve spent hours getting done for you. How fortunate for you to be a part of this.”
While I embellish on what a hostess might actually say, we’ve all encountered this attitude once or twice, haven’t we? Maybe we’ve even allowed a similar tone to slip ever so subtly into our own hosting.
Hospitality is different.
Biblical hospitality offers our best to Him first, understanding that our best to others will then fall into place.
It transforms our selfish motives and elevates our guest.
When the hospitable hostess swings wide the door, all her attention focuses outward:
“You’re here! I’ve been waiting for you. No one is more important today than you, and I’m thrilled you’ve come.”
The posture we assume in hospitality is one that bends low, generously offering our heart to another despite whatever interruption to our own plans or comfort.
Extending hospitality is about freely giving of ourselves while granting others the freedom to be themselves. Shifting our focus from us to them removes all unnecessary expectations.
No need to worry about what to say or how to act. Just come as you are.
Status-seeking versus servanthood.
“Here I am” versus “here you are.”
Self-serving — to simply serving others.
Over and over I’m reminded that we have no grand blueprint for hospitality aside from loving others.
The main reason we open our door is because we’re driven by the main principles of hospitality: loving Him, loving His will, and following His will into loving others.
When we use our lives exactly as they are, desiring only to create a sacred space for our guests, mixing it with the countercultural truth of loving Jesus and loving others —
we turn entertaining upside down, and it becomes radical hospitality.
Just Open the Door.
For the last decade, Jen Schmidt has been encouraging, challenging, and cheering on women to embrace both the beauty and bedlam of their everyday lives on her popular lifestyle blog, Balancing Beautyand Bedlam. With a variety of topics from easy dinner ideas and personal finance to leaving a legacy, Jen equips others to live life to its fullest, reminding them it’s the little things that really are the big things in life. A popular speaker, worship leader and founder/host of the annual Becoming Conference, Jen shares with humor and authenticity as she invites others to join her on this bumpy, beautiful life journey.
She talks about both beauty, bedlam and how to be hospitable at the same time in her new book, Just Open the Door. Jen has set out to reframe how we think about hospitality and to equip us to walk a road of welcome in our daily lives. She knows that every time we choose open-door living—whether in our homes or by taking hospitality on the road just like Jesus—those we invite in get to experience the lived-out Gospel, our kids grow up in a life-lab of generosity, and we trade insecurity for connection.
Just Open the Door is a personal yes-you-can guide to offering the life-changing gift of invitation. Whether you’re a seasoned host looking for renewed inspiration or a nervous newbie not sure where to begin, these personal stories, practical ideas, and poignant insights will give you the confidence you need to see your home as the most likely location for changing the world around you, one open door at a time.
[ Our humble thanks to B&H for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 7, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.07.18]
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:
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
she captures her world with beauty and grace…
yeah, heart kinda melting here…maybe hug your loved ones today?
Panorama Glass Lodge
patient surprises her doctor with a special recognition…who can we go thank today?
ayumiichi
ayumiichi
ayumiichi
creative mom gives a new twist on nap time for her twins
it’s been a big tool to help them change: Freedom to Play — music as prison rehabilitation
can you even? …this 7-year-old with cancer? She’s making care packages for the other hospitalized kids... #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
just love this: a retirement home — for the young and old
it would be my joy to meet you here at this important conference on April 14
learn more about how we can respond to the current refugee crisis
one woman and her truck? she’s changing lives big time #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” C.S. Lewis
coast to coast: the whole earth is full of His glory!
Guido Gutiérrez Ruiz
Guido Gutiérrez Ruiz
Guido Gutiérrez Ruiz
he captures stunning reflections in puddles: all around our world
Just a magnificent display of His wonder!
World Vision
World Vision
World Vision
the majesty of Africa’s largest owl
they are running to fight their drug addition – amazing story of recovery here
as a result of being bullied – she started in international organization to help people find their worth
fascinating research: How to make stress your friend #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
“just because a person is poor – doesn’t mean they aren’t rich in character”
Post of the week from these parts here
When Relationships Feel Hard & Broken: How to Practice Resurrection — and Forgiveness
come see this: they’re bringing medicine to the world’s forgotten corners
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 highly anticipated 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
Upbring is a leading Texas-based, faith-inspired nonprofit organization working to break the cycle of child abuse by empowering children, families and communities.
Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, into all the places that feel kinda abandoned?
These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.
Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift …
And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We will immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print from home or at your local print shop! Just let us know that you ordered Be The Gift over here.
You only get one life to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to
on repeat this week: Reckless Love
… and so it turns out: When you hold your forgiveness ransom until someone pays you back & earns your love — you’re the one whose quality of life gets poorer & poorer.
I get it – there may be ashes… but there are risings everywhere & resurrections are our moment-by-moment reality & doesn’t this change everything:
Only the forgiving heart — gets to be a forgiven heart.
Only if the heart forgives the one who betrayed the trust you gave,
only when you turn & face & forgive the one who lied about you behind your back,
only when you forgive the one who let you down and stood you up,
forgive the one who shattered your reputation,
shredded your trust,
busted your dreams,
broke your plans,
and bruised your one boldly beating heart —
only when your heart forgives — can your heart be forgiven – forgiven of what you thought you would never do, forgiven of what you don’t want anyone to know that you have done.
And I’m learning it again & again: How can I refuse you the mercy that I have needed to stay alive?
How can I weigh what you’ve done against me as heavier and what Jesus has done for me as far lighter?
Because this is the thing: Remember what Jesus has done for you and you will always remember how to forgive.
[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.
April 5, 2018
Why Beginning Again is the Single Greatest Thing You Can Do for Yourself
“Always we begin again.”—St. Benedict. For Leeana Tankersley, these words became a call, a balm—a lifeline. When she found herself stuck in a cycle of hurt, regret, and restless, Leeana reached for these words to receive rest and learn to begin again. To begin again is a holy call to all of us—to lay our trying and striving at the altar-table in order to receive trust, surrender, and a fresh start every moment of every day. It’s an absolute joy to welcome Leeana to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Leeana Tankersley
I am longing for ordinary, perhaps even experiencing a call to the ordinary.
We have lived in extraordinary for so long—twins, moves overseas, a baby born in the Middle East, moves back to the States, deployments.
I have always been drawn to big and dramatic and loud and exciting. And I have never been more ready for ordinary.
In the Christian liturgical calendar, there are two periods called “Ordinary Time”—a span leading up to Lent and then another span, which I am in as I write, that stretches from Easter to Advent. This second stretch is called “Trinitytide.”
Ordinary Time calls us back to our simple practices, our roots, all our tending that tethers us to the present.
Ordinary Time is where we begin again.
Not New Year’s Resolutions or Lenten Commitments or Advent Waiting.
Not the big stuff. Just the ordinary.
Feeding the cat. Washing my face. Opening the mail. Reading a poem. Sending a card. Making the meal. Witnessing and being witnessed. Holding. Nourishing and nurturing.
I love the idea of the everyday-extraordinary happening in the Ordinary, the periodic elements of this dying-living we are all doing.
Taking our meds. Confessing to friends. Breathing. Beginning again. Opening our hands and letting the wilderness— the unknown—be the wild place where new life begins.
This morning, I am back at my kitchen table, in the dark, hot coffee in hand. The heater is cutting through the morning chill.
I am reminded, as I type, sip, type, sip, of an idea my friend gave me: that any flat surface can be an altar.
She told me that wiping down a countertop or clearing the edge of a bathtub or tidying a desk . . . all of this creates a bit of space that becomes an altar if we will see it that way.
A place to commemorate and receive. A place to say thank you and to be loved. A place to surrender.
My prayer at the altar-table is this: God, give me only what I need for today.
I never want this part of my day to end, since starting to practice it. I go to bed looking forward to the heat and the coffee and the darkness. I have worshiped sleep in the past. Wanting rest more than I have wanted anything.
Now, rest is coming. And I am so very held and met in these dark minutes, maybe an hour. I want to harness it, stave off the light, but it comes. The sky begins to change. A child has forgotten to latch the chicken run tightly and the chickens begin moving in my peripheral vision. Important business, those chickens seem to always have, with the ground.
I’m never not surrounded by a stack of books, voices who meet me in this dark pocket. I see how I must get in bed earlier. I must turn the TV off the night before. I must take better care of myself if I am to get up and listen each and every morning.
The decisions to honor this time begin far before 5 a.m., and something about that feels right.
Feels congruent. Sacrificial and rewarding, like all worthy things in life. Now on to the altar of the countertop—lunch packing, breakfast making, dish clearing.
Every step an arrival, as the poet Denise Levertov wrote. An arrival into the present, which is always waiting for me to join it.
When I was minutes out of graduate school and brand-newly twenty-four years old, I drove from West Virginia where I had been in school, down to Virginia to pick up my little brother from college, home to San Diego, and then I slept for an entire day.
When I woke up, I found a book my mom left on my nightstand. A gift. Twilight Comes Twice. It’s a children’s book about dawn and dusk, a simple reminder that the sun goes down and the sun comes up. Every day. And twice, in between, we get the gift of these golden hours, these pockets of waking up and winding down.
No matter how beautiful and epic and glorious life is right now, the sun goes down.
And no matter how ugly and rejecting and hurtful life is right now, the sun comes up.
Something about this kind of saved me then and saves me now.
I was young and starting over geographically and professionally and relationally.
But more than that, the very rhythm of creation was reminding me that it wasn’t all up to me. Something was going on that was beyond me, behind me, below me, beside me.
And I just needed to join it, fall into it, beginning again and again and again.
I could join or I could resist.
But either way, the sun would set and the sun would rise—with or without me.
I could try to outrun the sun with my superhuman striving.
I could try to hide in the dark with my subhuman shame.
But the invitation, then and now, was to join the rhythm of creation, which is to be what we were simply and profoundly created to be . . . human.
Human. In all its extraordinary everyday ordinary.
If I am failing, stuck, and paralyzed, I always have the opportunity to begin again.
And if I am winning, elated, and propelled, I still must begin again.
None of us is too far gone, in the same way that none of us has arrived.
This is reorienting to the core.
Could you and I join the rhythm of twice-a-day twilight that reminds us there are gifts in both the light and dark—illumination and stillness? If you’re in the dark, you can begin again.
And if you’re in the broad side of the light, you will still need to begin again. This is how we practice being human.
Twilight comes twice.
Yesterday afternoon, as dusk arrived, we were all in the pool, kids climbing on Steve’s back and jumping off the diving board in tandem, which I’m absolutely sure is illegal. The kids were screaming their heads off and the water sloshed up and over the sides of the pool from the aftershocks of their dual entries.
The setting sun made the pool water glitter like our own personal ocean. And it’s hard to imagine a sweeter moment.
But the sun goes down and we come inside and we rest.
And this morning I was up early, and the golden light was back again, the mountains out beyond the kitchen sink window backlit in blush.
And I was reminded anew . . .
Whether we are in crisis or chaos or calm, hope or disappointment, burial or resurrection, ordinary or extraordinary, we can—
because of the inexhaustible grace of God — begin again.
Leeana Tankersley is the author of Begin Again, Brazen, and Breathing Room. Her writing has been featured in The Huffington Post, cnn.com, and incourage.com. Leeana is a regular contributor to MOPS International, both as a writer and speaker.
Leeana’s new book, Begin Again: The Brave Practice of Releasing Hurt and Receiving Rest, is the courageous call to open the window, even an inch, to let the breeze of grace come in. To open our hands when all we want to do is clench our fists.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 3, 2018
When Relationships Feel Hard & Broken: How to Practice Resurrection — and Forgiveness
They say if you kinda attune your heart — you can hear it reverberated throughout the universe for days —for forever — after Resurrection Sunday morning:
“Forgiven.”
I turn the calendar page yesterday morning, turn the page to a new month, and Easter Monday can feel like the most authentic beginning of a new year, a new you.
Whatever the critics say about you — isn’t the truth that God knows about you. This truth both defends you and disarms you.
And standing there with an empty calendar page in hand, I’m struck with how I have turned on the one man who vowed his life to me and said razor-slicing things I would never want repeated, would never want to be mentioned in the light of day.
I have up and lashed my kids with more than a relentless tongue-whipping or two and their hearts bear the scars.
I have lied and betrayed and taken and failed and fallen and my ugly selfishness has destroyed a whole world of beautiful things.
I trace calendar squares with the tip of my finger and don’t tell me that you don’t know how you can burn with ache on the inside.
These are more than cliche-swaggering words to me, this is the raw begging in my veins: I have done things I would rather die a thousand deaths than for even one person to ever know.
And I have been labelled and talked about and I have felt shattered and ashamed and those shards are buried deep and never go away, but the severe and merciful truth is: Whatever has ever been said about you, the truth is that you are infinitely worse than anything that ever has been said.
Whatever the critics say about you — isn’t the truth that God knows about you.
This truth both defends you and disarms you.
Resource: Lent Wreath available here
Hyatt Moore
Resource: Lent Wreath available hereI hang the calendar back up and now is Eastertide and now, for all you’ve said and done and taken, all there is to hear in this practice of resurrection is:
Forgiven.
You are forgiven of what you’ve taken. Washed entirely clean of what you’ve entirely muddied, Released of what you keep reliving, Cleared of what you couldn’t see your way through.
You are forgiven of the unforgivable and maybe — forgiveness is really only forgiveness — when it’s forgiving the unforgivable. God, how do I do that?
I carry out one of the fading Easter lilies today. I let the white cross carved from rock from Jerusalem stand alone on the mantle.
And there stands the rooted truth: Forgiveness only happens where a death has happened. Forgiveness only happens where hope has died, expectations have died, plans have died, reputation has died, fairness has died, dreams have died.
One wilted lily lies at the bottom of the compost bin.
If you don’t die to something, so you can forgive someone — it’s your own quality of life and very soul that begins to die.
Unforgiveness is a venom that will get you and give you grief.
Who’s died a bit to forgive the lot I’ve given them? Who’s had to grieve and let go, to let me off the hook? Who’s had to bury a bit of themselves to forgive me, and give our relationship a new lease on life?
Because when a wrong happens, aren’t there only two things that can really happen?
There is never any forgiveness without someone getting to pay for it. There is no forgiveness without demanding the cost or paying the cost.
I can happen to pay for the wrong — or I can try to make you pay for it. And I can just brazenly testify: there are a thousand ways to make trying people pay.
Or — I can pay.
I can pay the price and die to my anger and affirm you. I can pay — and die to my revenge and respect you. I can pay — and die to my desire to get even and give even you the grace even I have been given.
There is never any forgiveness without someone getting to pay for it. There is no forgiveness without demanding the cost or paying the cost.
Resource: Lent Wreath available here
Family Life Today Easter Banners/Placemats
And the thing is:
Every time you try to make someone pay, they are the ones who get to be in charge of your life. When you try to make someone pay, they dominate your thoughts, they take control of your energy, they seize your heart and mind and time.
When you hold your forgiveness ransom until someone pays you back and earns your love — you’re the one whose quality of life gets poorer and poorer.
That white cross on the mantle catches the light.
We grow bitter toward someone’s actions — when we think we are better than them and their actions. Bitterness is always a function of thinking you’re better.
Jesus did not make even one of us pay. Not one of us could pay what we owe — so how can we expect anyone else to pay what they owe? Jesus hung on that cross and said: “It is finished.”
And until we forgive and stop trying to make someone else pay — it will never be finished.
I don’t know when I realized: We grow bitter toward someone’s actions — when we think we are better than them and their actions. Bitterness is always a function of thinking you’re better.
To forgive is to give payment — and let the bitterness be finished and freedom begin.
You can overcome evil with good, because the cross overcame all of your evil and now gives you the power to do good.
Who of us doesn’t need a bloody resurrection?
There may be ashes but there are risings everywhere and resurrections are our moment-by-moment reality and doesn’t this change everything:
Only the forgiving heart — gets to be a forgiven heart.
Only if the heart forgives the one who betrayed the trust you gave, only when you turn and face and forgive the one who lied about you behind your back, only when you forgive the one who let you down and stood you up, forgive the one who shattered your reputation, shredded your trust, busted your dreams, broke your plans, and bruised your one boldly beating heart — only when your heart forgives — can your heart be forgiven — forgiven of being a lying, cheating, and thieving sinner, forgiven of what you thought you would never do, forgiven of what you don’t what anyone to know that you have done.
How can I not pass you the cup of grace that I have drunk so deeply from?
How can I refuse you the mercy that I have needed to stay alive?
How can I weigh what you’ve done against me as heavier and what Jesus has done for me as far lighter?
Resource: Lent Wreath available here
Family Life Today Easter Banners/Placemats
Only the forgiving heart — gets to be a forgiven heart.
It’s past time, and it’s Eastertide and it’s time to turn, and the stones could turn and roll away right about now, and everything could actually turn around.
Remember what Jesus has done for you and you will remember how to forgive. Forgiveness is only hard when we forget what Jesus has done for us and only remember what has been done against us.
I smooth out that empty calendar page of fresh possibilities. My eye catches that cross drawn on my wrist:
You can only forgive to the extent that you don’t forget what Jesus has done for you.
Remember what Jesus has done for you and you will remember how to forgive. Forgiveness is only hard when we forget what Jesus has done for us and only remember what has been done against us.
If you can’t forgive — then how can you claim to know you’ve been forgiven by Jesus?
I turn the cross on the mantle so I can see it clearly from the kitchen sink, from the door.
When you turn from how you’ve been wounded and look at how He’s been wounded for you — you can forgive — and are given soul healing through all the things.
And that cross on the mantle carved out of white stone from the Holy Land forms the abundant, cruciform way into the real practice of resurrection, every forgiven heart reaching out brave arms to forgive.
Stones and hearts still miraculously moving.
How do you more than celebrate Easter — but live the Easter season?
How do you practice resurrection?
How do you live a genuinely abundant life?
In sixty vulnerably stories, the tender invitation of The Way of Abundance moves you through your unspoken broken — into the abundant life.
Pick up your own Way to Abundance & start your journey to the abundant life
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