Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 127

Told You’re “Too Much”? Or Feel Like You’re “Too Much”? Dear Me: Lifelines to the Person I Long to Be

Dear Me:

What if you stopped apologizing for being you,

stopped apologizing for the way you laugh only like you do,

You aren’t too much; like the stars are never too bright, like the moon is never too large or luminous, like the wonders of the world are never too much.

for the way you drive your decisions like a stake into the landscape of debates,

for the way you let the thoughts that singularly unfurl in the curling neurones of your brain alone,

find their brave way to the tip of your willing tongue as wholehearted words,

for the way you say only what you can, only how you can, only you can do what you can,

for the way you look in the mirror when you get out of bed first thing

or when you crawl into bed at the end of everything —-

and all your apologies for being,

and being as you are,

ended right now.

Shalom Voskamp

What if:

No more apologizing for being you, but more being fully you, fully in Christ.

Repentance for what you have done is profoundly different —  than reviling who you are.

You aren’t too much — to the people who choose to see all of you.

No more being sorry for who you are, and more feeling how you are entirely His.

Sorrow for how you fail is profoundly different — than sorrow for how you feel.

No more saying sorry for being you, and more gratitude for being — just as you are, imperfect, in process, in Him.

Praying to become more like Christ is profoundly different — than praying to become someone else.

Shame of being who you are, is an addiction to self-harm, self-destruction, and slow death by self.

Shame drives you to you desert yourself, abandon yourself, abdicate and evacuate yourself, and when you exit yourself, you exit God’s plan.

Shame is a bully and grace is a shield and you are safely protected behind the defense of Him naming you His Beloved. You are embraced, wrapped and protected in His Kevlar Love and you’re bullet proof against the shrapnel lies of being not enough or too much.

You aren’t too much; like the stars are never too bright, like the moon is never too large or luminous, like the wonders of the world are never too much.

You aren’t ever too much to the people who love you so much.

You aren’t too much — to the people who choose to see all of you.

You do not have to disappear. You will not have to disappear.

Shalom Voskamp

You aren’t alone: We all come into the world, seeking someone who’s seeking us.What we’re all looking for most, is someone looking for us.

We all want to be seen — and see how someone’s seeking us out. And what makes each of us feel less on the outside is knowing that we are sought out.

You are not too much. You do not have to disappear. This can change all the things beating loud in your heart, to feel the truth of this.

Feeling like you’re too much and not enough, is the same fear: the fear of being loved as you fully are.

And there is no fear, because Perfect Love’s moved in here. You don’t have to become less — you only have to come and let yourself be loved.

Let yourself be loved by the Lover of your soul, by the Maker of all of you, let yourself be loved by those who get you, by those who don’t get you, those who get all of you, those who get some of you, those who get to be themselves too, and let Love be enough for all our much and not enough, because Cruciform Love is the form of everything that abundantly fulfills us.

You can be more than just loved — you get to be understood.

There is a place for you — a safe place for all of you. Do more than find that place. Forge that place. Trust that place. Rest in that place.

Feeling like you’re too much and not enough, is the same fear: the fear of being loved as you fully are.

Forge somewhere safe: Lay all your heart down on the table just somewhere. And be that place for one other heart looking to see if someone’s looking for them. When a soul doesn’t feel like too much — it becomes even more beautiful.

Don’t take it down a few notches. Take risks — and take all of you to the table.

It can feel terrifying — but it is far more terrifying to live anything less than being fully seen.

The world is fixed a bit when we fix our eyes on one person’s soul, and take all of them, turn to all of them, follow all of them, seek out all of them, return to all of them.

Jesus’ eye is on the sparrow and our eyes can make every deeply dismissed place feel deeply seen.

Will you let yourself be fully seen? This is what you want and how you take courage, Braveheart. Meet someone’s eyes and let them see all of you.

You can feel like you’re too much — when maybe you haven’t vulnerably shared enough. When you actually haven’t shared enough of your brave heart.

You aren’t too much; you just feel much, see much, love much.

You can breathe:

Because the world’s much too apathetic, the world needs how you ferociously feel much.

Because the world’s much too distant and indifferent, the world needs how you passionately and compassionately give much of your attentive soul.

Because the world has lost much of its heart, the world needs more of us to come with so much of our heart instead of so little.

And it’s better to feel much than to feel much of nothing at all. It’s better to love with your whole broken heart than to love anything half-heartedly.

Those who are told they are too much — are those who awaken the world in much needed ways.

And it is the most beautiful to see, deeply see —  a whole glory tribe stops apologizing for their large hearts — and the world stirs, awakened to abundantly more.  

 

Feel like “too much” — or “not enough”? This Lent — there’s a Way of Abundance waiting for you

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 but exquisitely profound book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.

Pre-Order Your Way to Abundance Here

(and let us get the download of the free Perpetual Lenten Calendar of the Beatitudes and the free “Keep Company with Christ” Church Calendar and the free #BeTheGift Calendar all to you immediately.)

3 Ways to Train Your Heart to Resist Hurry: Lend Your Lent Space to Breathe

When Katy Butler’s first daughter, Evelyn, was born, she was shocked at how constant and consuming motherhood was. Evelyn was feisty, energetic, and NEVER napped, even as a baby! That’s when Katy decided that a “quiet time” wasn’t enough to feed her soul in this new season. She needed a life immersed in God. So she decided to write a devotional specifically for people with little margin in life – one that gave simple ways to move closer to God throughout the day, through the use of spiritual disciplines.  One cross-country move, two kids, and three years later, Habits of the Heart was finally completed. Today she talks about one spiritual discipline that many of us need a bit of practice in…slowing down. Let’s welcome Katy to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by Katherine J. Butler

W hen theologian Dallas Willard was asked to describe Jesus using one word, he chose “relaxed.”

Is it just me or is Willard’s answer a tad convicting?

I would use a variety of words to describe myself, but “relaxed” would not be at the top of that list.

Honestly, it wouldn’t even make the list.

God has a great sense of humor, because somehow I married the most unhurried person in the world.

I love my husband dearly, but he is so relaxed it makes me anxious. He eats slowly. He speaks slowly. He even drives slowly… Lord, help me! Whenever my anxiety prompts me to move him along, he calmly says, “What’s the rush?” This is his motto.

Maybe my husband has it right. When he is with someone, he is really with them. Even though I still get aggravated with his speed (or lack thereof), I have come to deeply love his approach to life. He has helped me slow down to enjoy many wonderful moments that I otherwise would have missed.

Our culture has trained us to hurry, and when we give in to haste, we miss opportunities of connection with God and others.

Our Creator didn’t intend for us to live this way.

So, for those of us racing through life, is it possible to truly become someone who is unhurried? Relaxed? Present with God and others?

Absolutely! But it requires the retraining of one’s heart.

Many of us don’t think about training our hearts, but the truth is, we train them every day.

The apostle Paul tells us that our whole lives are a training of some sort.

Everything we do is training our hearts either toward God or away from Him.

When our hearts are conditioned to live life in God’s company and in obedience to His Word, we experience the greatest joy, peace, contentment and fulfillment possible.

Could slowing down be a spiritual discipline?

Spiritual disciplines are often thought of in the traditional sense—fasting, solitude, silence, etc. But spiritual disciplines can be anything that opens and changes our heart to become more like Jesus.

So how does slowing down help us become more like Jesus?

Just like any other relationship, slowing down helps us be present with others.

Letting go of the to-do list gives us space to listen, time to enjoy their presence, and capacity to deepen relationship.

When we intentionally discipline our bodies to slow down, we are actually habituating our hearts back toward our Creator.

How has your heart been trained to hurry?

Do you tend to rush through conversation?

Are you too busy to enjoy the simple pleasures of life—food, drink, rest, beauty? Do you tend to drive or walk quickly?

Is your typical day overscheduled?

Are you continually thinking about your to–do list?

The only way to live life with God is by first recognizing where we live apart from Him. This is where transformation happens.

I have by no means mastered the art of slowing down, but I have a few exercises to help move my heart in that direction. (Side note: For those who relate more with my husband, these exercises are applicable to you, too. Think of an area in life where you tend to hurry –work, children’s bedtimes, commutes, or some other obligation? I encourage you to continue reading with that particular area in mind.)

Here are a few exercises to help you slow down, resist hurry, and be present . . .

Slow Down

When my daughters are upset, I encourage them to take deep breaths while I explain that we cannot calm our hearts until we calm our bodies.

This is true for adults, too. Here is a simple way to slow down your body.

First, get into a comfortable position. Allow yourself to relax, noticing the areas in your body where you are holding tension.

Close your eyes and breathe in slowly, allowing air to fill your lungs completely.

As you inhale, thank God for the gift of life, and for His breath that gave life to all creation.

As you breathe out, imagine exhaling your stress, anxiety, and tension. Repeat this several times. I often do this exercise when I feel anxious or to calm my heart before I read Scripture.

Resist Hurry

Choose one way to resist unnecessary hurry today.

For example, drive in the slow lane, or sit and eat slowly, savoring each bite.

Or choose one item on your to–do list to let go today.

Ask the Lord to help you become aware of when you are going too fast.

Choosing to slow down or simplify my agenda strengthens my trust in God. It reminds me that He is in control of my schedule, my day, and my life.
Be Present

Too often we live our lives on autopilot—we are “there,” but not “present.”

When you find yourself distracted or daydreaming, use your five senses to pull yourself back to the present.

What do you see, smell, taste, or hear in this moment?

What sensations do you feel on your skin?

When I feel distracted or disconnected from my children, I engage my senses to help me slow down and be present.

I pull them onto my lap and touch their soft skin. I smell their hair. I look into their beautiful eyes; and I listen to their sweet little voices.

Our senses are wonderful gifts from God to enjoy each moment—even the moments that feel messy or mundane.

My prayer is that you will begin to slow down and see the work and beauty of God around you.

I pray you will view life as a gift to be enjoyed rather than a race to the finish line —

and that you will be present to love God and the people around you.

 

Katy Butler holds a Masters in Spiritual Formation and SoulCare from Talbot Seminary and is a certified Spiritual Director. She lives in Illinois with her husband, Stetson, and is a mother to two free-spirited daughters., Evelyn and Penelope. 

Real change happens only when we train ourselves to be in the habit of exercising our hearts in the practice of godliness. The Bible says that training the body is of some value, but the most important thing we can do is to train our spirit. Habits of the Heart will help you develop practices that draw you into a deeper and lasting relationship with God. Each day of the year, this simple guide will help you focus on one essential aspect of your walk with God and show you how to make it a habit. In her new devotional, Habits of the Heart, Katy invites the reader to practice fifty-two different spiritual disciplines (one a week) throughout the year. Each devotion is short enough to complete by the time you brew your coffee. The purpose of each day is to give small, achievable ways to experience God and grow with Him throughout the day.

[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]

When Cancer, Gunfire, Grief, Lent & the Unfairness of God Wreck Us [& Free Lent Devotional Calendar]

It’s the woman in Florida.

The ashen woman with a soot-ash cross smudged large on her forehead, her face contorted in horror, holding another howling woman.

We are but dust and this is a dust eating world but we are stardust and we blaze the courage of stars and we will go on without end.

It’s the woman wearing a cross on her forehead, trying to stay standing outside the school where they carried out 17 body bags on Ash Wednesday.

I keep returning to that one photograph of her. I keep wanting to reach for her hand, keep thinking:

We are but dust and this is a dust eating world but we are stardust and we blaze the courage of stars and we will go on without end.

How can this woman, wearing her ashen cross there on her forehead, weeping in the middle of sickening, mass horror, be anything but a defiant, undeniable sign to us staggering through wreckage:

There is a cross that’s a bridge across to dreams — and no crosscurrent of evil can undercut it, and no crosswinds of despair can overtake it, and no crossfires of any suffering hell can burn it down.

My shattered heart fuses with hers. Where two or more are gathered in grief, never doubt that God was there first and He will be there long after the last have left.

Lent isn’t only a season of subtraction; Lent too is a season of multiplication: more love, more grace, more kindness, more courage, more Christ.

Lent is this living more of the beatitudes — to bless more of this broken world with the indestructible, upside down beauty that’s formed like the heart of Christ.

Four days before Lent, I hold a tried and true friend’s hand and she takes off her wig and looks me straight in the eye when she tells me that this new tumor’s inoperable and this will be her Cancer 2.0. I blink hard. Her entire countenance insists:

Grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, by their very nature— aren’t fair — but they are the fully abundant life. God being unfair — is what has actually given us life. Can we accept what seems very unfair in life — because we have accepted the unfairness of God that has saved our very lives?  Because we accept what is His goodness — can we accept what feels like His unfairness?

Losing dreams don’t mean losing your hope.

Suffering doesn’t mean your kindness suffers.

And a change of plans doesn’t mean your God changes.

In the midst of crisis, there can be an abundance of more Christ.

On the third day of Lent, early this morning, a friend texts me that her baby died in the night, and my heart writhes with disdain of death and there’s a searing sadness that can make you feel physically sick. Death vows to terrify us all.

I get to the bathroom.

Body bags in school yards and Cancer 2.0 and dead babies laugh evil in the face of all that seems right and fair.

But Lent begs:

Was Calvary fair? Was the Cross fair? Was the Crucifixion fair?

God endured the greatest injustice in history — to justify unmerited grace for you for forever.

Grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, by their very nature— aren’t fair — but they are the fully abundant life.

The unfairness of God — is the graciousness and forgiveness of God that actually saves us, that gives us abundant life. God being unfair — is what has actually given us life.

Can we accept what seems very unfair in life — because we have accepted the unfairness of God that has saved our very lives?Because we accept what is His goodness — can we accept what feels like His unfairness?

I wash my face from a morning of grief stains. But my heart won’t stop leaking. Breathe.

God isn’t obsessed with creating fairness now — God is obsessed with creating closeness now — and fairness for all eternity. Seek His closeness now — trust His fairness for all eternity.

This the force of all our reality right now:

Lent lends Light to all the dark.

And this is the cruciform force of the cosmos that will make all things fair and right and I squeeze my friend’s hand for allI am worth. We will do this:

Live a Lent that lends. Live a Lent that lends more light, more hope, more courage, more grace, more Christ.

When I stand in the kitchen, stacking dishes on the third day of Lent, our littlest girl flies by me on her wooden push bike, “Looooveeeee you.”

And a heart hurting for a hurting world, I mutter it more to her than to me, “What in this world does love even mean?”

And our little girl comes to a full stop. Slides off her little Red Rider. And comes back to me.

Losing dreams don’t mean losing your hope. Suffering doesn’t mean your kindness suffers. And a change of plans doesn’t mean your God changes. In the midst of crisis, there can be an abundance of more Christ.

“You wanna know what Love means?” She cocks her head, parrots back my words in her high-pitched 3-year-old lisp.

And I look over to her standing there in her mismatched socks and a lopsided ponytail.

“I know what love means, Mama!” She gently laughs like a laying on of hands that heals the rawest wounds.

“Love means this —— “

And she flings her arms open as wide as they can reach. That wisp of a 3 year old girl, she’s standing there with her arms stretched wide open — cruciform. Not wearing a cross on her forehead — yet making all of her — ams, hands, body — into a cross.

And behind her, high up in the gable, on the dining room wall, is a canvas depicting the crucifixion, Jesus with His arms stretched a universe wide, not one of us beyond His rescuing.

And I kneel down.

Kneel in front of our little girl with her arms stretched out in the meaning of love — kneel at the foot of the cross hanging behind her with Jesus stretched out in outreach that reaches even the brokenhearted.

And how can you not feel it?

Lent lends Light to all the dark.

I touch my baby’s girls reaching arms and her glinting, smiling eyes find mine, hold mine, and I whisper:

“Yeah, you’re right baby girl — Love means exactly this.”

The form of love is cruciform.

In a world of outrageous pain — we love with outrageous outreach.

In a world of grief beyond magnitude, what will change us and the world, is the attitude of Beatitudes.  Blessed are those mourn, for they will be comforted.

In a world that doesn’t feel fair — His cruciform love and outstretched arms embrace us —- so what we feel is Him.

No one knows more than Jesus that this world isn’t fair — and no one loves us to death like Jesus, until everything is fair for forever.

In a world of loss — Lent can lead us back to healing, cruciform love. The deeply suffering are deeply touched by the suffering of Christ. We do not weep alone — and Christ will not rise alone.

Lent could lead the way to the way of Christ — to the way of abundance. Abundant life.

Then the little girl wraps around her arms tight around my neck and my heart feels it:

How she’s lent me an abundance of His healing light.

 

Free Just for You
 The 40-Day Perpetual Beatitude Lenten Calendar &  The Keep Company with Christ Church Calendar are my free gift for you

Just let us know right here, about your pre-Order of The Abundant Way, the brand new 60-Day Journey into a Deeply Meaningful Life — and we will slip these 2 unique calendars, (and the bonuse 12 Month Intentional Acts of Givenness “Be The GIFT” calendar so that is THREE FREE PERPETUAL CALENDARS!) into your inbox for your own journey into a deeply meaningful life.

Pick up Your Way to Abundance Here
& we will get you your Perpetual Lenten Calendar AND Free Church Calendar AND Free Be The Gift Calendar

How to Have an Abundant Lent: When Lent & Valentine’s Collide [New Book, New Free Printable Lenten Calendar & Church Calendar]

This is a season for the soul, this is our time for love, especially when hearts are breaking.

Love is immeasurable and incomparable and incalculable. Because God is love and He is infinite and cannot be compared or measured or boxed — then how could we ever compare, measure or box up love?

In Walmart yesterday, there were farmers in their beat up hats and old boots, clustered in front of that rack of Hallmark cards, their worn hands thumbing through the glossy hearts, looking for a string of words that spoke their own hearts of few words.

I watched them all for a while from the end of the art supply aisle. Scruffy and grease-lined hands, taller and not-so-tall, faded Wranglers and Levis, they all look like a circle of stillness, searching for ways to speak their depth.

Still waters always run deep.

You can see it etched on their faces, in their kind and seeking eyes: Those of few words, may feel the most love. I can tell that their wise farm wives already know it:

Love defies measurement in words, in flowers or cards, and love defies being quantified by a holiday, or a good day, or a bad day.

Love is immeasurable and incomparable and incalculable. Because God is love and He is infinite and cannot be compared or measured or boxed — then how could we ever compare, measure or box up love?

Trying to measure love is like trying to determine inches of the universe and comparing one love to another is like pitting stars against each other instead of letting each simply blaze through the dark.

In the next aisle over, a bonneted Mennonite woman is looking for just the right box of chocolates. Her and I both end up choosing the same heart shape one, shyly smile at each other. Love doesn’t have to take the same shape to form us like Christ.

Early Valentine’s morning, I can hear the cutlery in the kitchen, and he’s putting away clean dishes and I smile in the bedroom and I feel serenaded by the spooning of spoons and love isn’t so much about what you give — but that you live given.

When he scoops up our baby girl still in her pajamas and flies her over his head through the house, and she laughs like music cascading down over all of us, he’s the one who looks like an everyday superhero to me.

Old and boring love, it bores deep wells of joy into the every day so all is well — and the abundant life is found in the tender grace and givenness of every day life.

He holds my hand at the table, and Baby Girl laces her fingers through my other hand, and all the kids bow their heads and we remember where we are and who we are.

After his prayer, I murmur it to him, to all of us: “Blessed Lent and Happy Valentine’s Day — which is kinda saying the same thing?”

The calendar this year, the two coinciding dates, speaks of cosmic things.

When the day that ash crosses are brushed on our foreheads, intersects with the day we hand out hearts, something seems right with time and calendars and the universe.

Those who feel lonely and lost and long forgotten, get to feel the fullness of the only Love who has ever loved them to death, and back to the realest life, the Love who woos and heals wounds, who whispers Beloved and Bride, whose passion proves even we are worthy of being loved beyond this world.

The meaningful life is hiding in the given life —- and the abundant life is found in finding that Jesus is abundantly enough.

Alone or not alone, we all know a kind of loneliness that leaves us clinging to His love alone.

Today, we are literal crosses and hearts today, all dust and love, and there it is and the visual is everywhere:

We are not for long, and we are what we long for, we are but dust and we are but our hearts, we are a vapor and we become what we come to love. Love Him most and we who are a vapor become a fragrance of praise that will last for all of forever.

I pass out hearts around the table and our tribe of crazy kids are bickering and nothing can extinguish this holy burn. This is a season to intimately seek Christ, who is the lover of our souls.

Everywhere, Jesus is begging, “Be Mine.”

We are but dust — and now is our time to love. To me, all the kids look like moving mirages around the table, here and gone. My heart beats the rhythms of my days: There is only so much time to love, to live given, to live without regrets, to live a meaningful life. I will light candles and clear the table and put in another load of laundry and now is our time and don’t let anyone tell you that abundance can’t meet you in the midst of brokenness.

The meaningful life is hiding in the given life — and the abundant life is found in finding that Jesus is abundantly enough.

And when Valentine’s Day with its hearts, meets Ash Wednesday with its cross, you can hear the ways of God ask:

“There is Self-Gratification Love — and Given Love.

One will leave you empty and one will abundantly fill you. Will you be Mine — and love My abundant way? Love lives given.”

My own busted and broken heart can testify:

The thief of the abundant life is self-gratification.

Didn’t St. Valentine’s love reach such depths that he gave his life?

Passionate love always pays a price. To love is to suffer — look at any mother. Look at your heavenly Father.

Passion literally means to suffer. Love is always simply choosing: Who am I willing to suffer for?

Real love always really leads to death — death of self and death of the loved one — and then real love always goes on forever and ever without end.

The kids unwrap their small Valentine’s and maybe this is a season for the soul, a time for love because maybe, as Lent literally is an old word about lengthening, about spring— this is a season of more, a season of growth. Maybe this:

Lent is about lengthening our love.

Ultimately, this Lenten spring season of grown — is a season of abundance: Abundant repentance, abundant love, abundant grace— an abundance of God. Maybe this is a season to live the abundant, cruciform way of The Beatitudes, to memorize The Beatitudes by heart, so this Way of Abundance is what the heart knows by heart.

The greatest kind of love is not running happily ever after into the sunset, but setting aside self, and laying down your life. This means the greatest love can happen in the smallest places.

This is the abundant way of Jesus that my heart aches for most— my own valentine to Him, my answer of yes to His open-armed beckoning, “Be Mine.”

And to a gathered bunch of humble farmers in Walmart, trying to stammer out their love, and the busted and grieving in the streets, cross ashes smudged on their foreheads, tears streaming, and the old and practiced grace of scarred people holding on to each other, it is all the same for all of us:

The greatest kind of love is not running happily ever after into the sunset, but setting aside self, and laying down your life. This means the greatest love can happen in the smallest places.

You don’t need someone else to make your life a great romance — you need to only lay down your life for Someone.

And the Romance of Grace is the greatest romance we could ever know.

The way of abundant love beckons us all.

 

 

Free for you
 The 40-Day Perpetual Beatitude Lenten Calendar &  The Keep Company with Christ Church Calendar are free for you

Just let us know right here, about your pre-Order of The Abundant Way, a 60-Day Journey into a Deeply Meaningful Life — and we will slip these 2 unique calendars, (and the bonuse 12 Month Intentional Acts of Givenness “Be The GIFT” calendar) into your inbox for your own journey into a deeply meaningful life.

Pick up Your Way to Abundance Here
& we will get you your Perpetual Lenten Calendar & Church Calendar & Be The Gift Calendar

How to Make Your Question Marks & Unknowns & Life Feeling a Bit Up in the Air — Into the Best Kind of Life

I’ve got no idea who went ahead and pulled out a Sharpie marker and circled a bunch of dates on the calendar, but there it is, dates with Sharpie ink ringing around them like circling vultures.

Dates for doctor appointments and drop-dead deadlines and dream days that have sort of been lifelines.

My shoulder’s been dislocated like a bad set of scraping tectonic plates all week and I’ve been walking around with soggy ice packs that keep leaking down my back.

“I know why you’re shoulder’s out, Mama,” some clever, grinning kid pipes up at the dinner table as I keep shifting this dripping bag of snow. “It’s cause you keep going around shrugging your shoulders, saying: ‘Who knows?’”

Yeah, kid, let’s go with precisely that. 

Who knows what’s coming out of those doctor appointments?

Who knows if things can come together for this dream or that plan or in time to make that date?

Who knows if signatures will happen in time, who knows if people on the other end of phone calls will say yes, who knows if things are just going to up and fall apart and who even knows if…  what looks like it’s falling apart —

is actually falling together?

I crawl into bed with a snow bag under my shoulder pressed, this pack that keeps leaving spreading wet circles everywhere like it’s up and relieved itself.

“It’s kinda feels like — our whole life is up in the air.” I whisper it to the Farmer like I’m looking for relief of my own.

“Life’s kinda sorta supposed to be up in the air, isn’t it?” He murmurs it in the dark like he’s turned on a light.

“Yeah—maybe…” I’m chuckling in a melting puddle of icy-shoulder-numbness. “The abundantly good life is supposed to feel kind of up in the air.”

He finds my hand.

Life’s about pulling skin on Jesus on earth — and about pulling out all the stops against the powers of the air.  

“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

The house is a stilled quiet. I can hear the dog breathing out on the mudroom mat.

The real good life is meant to be up in the air — because life’s real battles are being fought up in the air — up in the heavenlies. 

There’s a message from our boy: “Can you pray for me? Please?”

There’s a child in a hospital bed who we love with all our heart turning blue because her heart can’t keep going on like this. There’s cancer gnawing away at a mama who bows her head beside us every Sunday morning.

There’s women who I’d bleed for, who look numb and empty and who are going through the brave motions because you’ve just got to do the next thing even when nothing feels like it’s changing anything.

There’s a beautiful world of hurting crazy out there and our brave kids are in the centre of it, and our people are the bloodied wounded because of it, and our dreams and our hopes and our futures and our communities and our countries are hanging in the balance through it, and there is a war in the heavenlies and the man laying beside me is believing that if our lives aren’t up in the air where the battle is, our lives on the ground fail.

The tap’s dripping in the kitchen and I’m listening to the thrum of things.

The more indifferent we are to prayer, the less God’s power makes any difference in our lives. 

The snow pack’s bleeding cold into the knots of my shoulder.

Prayers makes us slayers. 

No weapon is more formidable to slay the dark and the demons, and prayer’s the weapon we wield to make everything else we do survive fire. 

She who commits to pray, she goes the narrow way: her prayers circle demons and slay.

So go ahead, let our life be all up in the air. I can hear the wind out in the trees. The night sky’s stretching far above those spruce trees, like a shadowed battlefield.

Do not work so hard for Christ, that you make no time to pray to Christ. He is the lifeblood of all prayer, all work, all being, all communion. There’s moonlight catching the cross on the wall across from the window.

The calendar squares out there in the kitchen say we’re moving toward the third week of Lent.

What had Andrew Murray said? “Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal.

Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves, to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.”

What of earth do I need to let go of,  fast from, sacrifice completely, to reach for what is unseen, to reach for the One more life-giving than air? 

I lay there in the night quiet for a long time…  resolving, letting go.

Snow’s falling from above the spruce, the wind hissing through the orchard from the north.

I’d heard it once from an old farmer’s wife, how an eagle never takes a snake on the ground. An eagle always tears into the reptile with its talons and flies it into the sky. An eagle knows:

The way to win is to change the battlefield. 

It’s from the heights, the eagle flings the snake into the air.  A snake has no strength, no power, no way through air.  Dashed upon rocks, the snake’s food for the victorious bird. When the battle’s taken to the air, there’s winning on earth. 

I exhale in the darkness and I didn’t even know I was holding my breath.

Take every battle to the air in prayer — and God will take over your battles on earth.

The Farmer’s already asleep but I almost shrug, say it anyways, say what the universe knows:

“A life up in the air — can be a life up to the best things.”

Out in the orchard, the wind shifts toward the east.

There is a changing of everything —

when breath becomes prayer.

 

Related:

For this year’s lent wreath

5 Ways To Encourage Your Child To Shine

This! I could not be more excited about this new wonder for little kids and big kids and all the kids in us! I can’t turn these pages without choking up the happiest, with worship, with kinda heart-bursting joy! It’s an honor to welcome Matthew Paul Turner to the farm’s porch today. His wife Jessica is one of my dearest friends; we’ve journeyed together through life, sharing struggles and triumphs of parenting and life. And Matthew has heart for the marginalized and whether it is with his work with World Vision or serving people in his community, he loves people deeply. Few children’s book writers manage to capture the message of Scripture as beautifully as Matthew. His books When God Made You and When God Made Light are story time favorites in our home and have moved me to tears. I am so grateful for his words here today. Be sure to read to the end to see how you can get one of his amazing children’s books for free – today only! It’s a grace to welcome Matthew to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by Matthew Paul Turner

“Let your light shine before others…”

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you…”

“But now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light…”

Throughout scripture—the prophets, the Apostle Paul, and of course, Jesus—utilized the concept of “light” to help us understand the hope of God that we would actively play a role in making the world brighter, that our lives—how we live and how we love—would reflect the heart and passions of God.

As a parent of three little lights—Elias, Adeline, and Ezra—empowering them to shine brightly in the world is one of my most important responsibilities. The prayerful hope of my heart is that I will help my kids feel empowered by God to shine and that wherever they go, the world would become just a little bit brighter.

Though we are hardly perfect in our pursuit to help our kids shine, my wife and I do try to be intentional at enhancing our children’s God-given light.

Here are five ways to bring out the love and light in your own kids:

Remind your children often that they are light.

Speak this truth over them and also to them on a regular basis.

Sometimes I’ll whisper it in my kids’ ears before kissing them good night. Or as I’m praying for them during the drive to school, I’ll ask God to help us to shine today.

Because “light” is an easy concept for kids to understand—because they see it and experience it every day in tangible ways—empowering them with the knowledge that they are spiritual lights is something their hearts and minds can more easily grasp. Using books like When God Made Light and children’s bibles are also helpful ways to talk about light.

Give your children practical ways to shine.

Children need tangible examples as they learn new practices.

I’ve explained to our kids that “being God’s light” can be reflected in our attitudes, our demeanors and how we interact with friends and strangers.

It also can be shown through looking for ways to help somebody in need.

I tell them that “shining” amid everyday circumstances can be as simple as doing our very best or embracing an easy-going spirit when things don’t go our way or showcasing kindness toward others in our classroom, lunchroom, and on the playground.

When one of my kids finds him or herself in a predicament in which they’re having a negative attitude or they’re portraying selfishness, I’ll often use those situations as teaching moments for what it means to be light.

Make your home a place of light.

Home is where we are our truest selves.

For our children, it is a safe place to freely express their emotions in ways they may not be able to during the day.

Create an environment of light, where everyone is welcome and loved. Treat one another with kindness, show forgiveness and practice gratitude. Take time to celebrate the ordinary and the extraordinary.

These simple demonstrations of light will have a profoundly positive impact on your children.

Demonstrate light by admitting wrong.

The chaos of everyday life can sometimes get the better of us, causing us to engage our kids with a frustrated or weary spirit or with words that are too harsh.

But as we all know, our kids learn far more from what we practice than from what we say.

When we fall short of “shining,” apologizing to our kids is some of the best light we can give them.

It’s important for our kids to see us engaging fully in the complex struggle of what it means to pursue being God’s light in the world, which includes our home.

One powerful way for our kids to experience God’s light is seeing me, as their parent—their father—engage them with humility and asking them for their forgiveness.

Praise Your Children for Shining.

Never take your children’s light for granted.

Be grateful for it. Cherish it.

Praise them when you encounter it.

We should offer our kids praise for shining with far more passion than what we showcase as frustration when they struggle to be light.

Because light encourages light far more than frustration and disappointment.

Remember, your child’s light is a gift from God.

Our goals as parents is to enhance that light, to help them see it, and give them the life tools to use their light for God’s glory.

 

I am truly smitten with this children’s book! When God Made Light is unlike any Christian children’s book I have ever read —  with a whimsical, rhyming prose that stays with you long after it is finished. Matthew’s prose is a captivating mix of Max Lucado and Dr. Seuss all rolled happily into one.  An absolutely delightful, romping book, to be read again and again – highly recommend! It’s just as delightful as its predecessor, When God Made You. It’s truth-filled message is one that children need, as well as their parents.

And you know what? Our children’s books need to reflect the glorious diversity of the kingdom of God and these two books are desperately needed additions to every bookshelf and child’s library because these powerful visuals and diverse, affirming messages deeply matter. 

If you pre-order When God Made Light today, you will get When God Made You FREE! Preorders must be placed today (2/12) to get the free book. For details and to get your free book, visit WhenGodMadeLight.com. When God Made Light is a five-star book and one that our family COMPLETELY loves.

[ Our humble thanks to Waterbrook for their partnership in today’s devotion ]

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [02.10.18]

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:

Kalen Emsley
Ali Gooya 
Chris Holder  

life is not an emergency, life is a gift. go enjoy your weekend!

and we’re smiling

they’re on to something here: This simple solution to smartphone addiction is now used in over 600 U.S. schools

first hops are always the best

beautiful: because we all need to be rescued sometimes 

The Nester

How to Add Soul to Your Home

“Second-hand is often my first choice when it comes to finding items to use in our home.”

this takes walking your dog to a whole new level

The Healing Power of Forgiven Sin

so who knew!?! maybe tell a friend?

we’re amazed: how this young teen stepped up to help the bus driver in an emergency? 

heard about this? Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bible was recently discovered – we gathered ’round this one 

so this beautiful woman turned 100 this week and she shares some good advice for us: come see

“Family is important, she said, along with church, getting an education and forming friendships. And, of course, staying busy.”

now how fun is this?

a shout out to dads doing great things!

The Refresh Seattle Conference is a time for you to escape from the distractions and chaos of life and be refreshed, equipped, and inspired.

heart bursting for this event! it would be a joy to meet you here!

who doesn’t like a good transformation story: building a home from an old school bus

just beautiful: Sisters Separated for 47 Years Meet for the First Time

a welcomed second chance at life

Snowboarder goes from coma to the winter Olympics – what a journey here

too good not to share: embrace your struggle, it’s an opportunity to grow

keep coming back to this one:

when you are kinda feeling old & a bit busted by life: the traumatic disorder of everyday life

Freedom is Risky…thank you for this, Christine Caine

Post of the week from these parts here

25 Unexpected Life-Transformative Secrets I learned from 3 days with Katie Davis Majors

his smile is changing the world

this welcome home? never, ever gets old

tears here: There is tremendous joy in making others happy, despite our own situations #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay

  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

let’s just go exhale here for a few minutes?

on repeat this week: My Victory

[ Print’s FREE here: ]

…every single day has a bit of it’s own now-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe now is the time to look at that wrinkling face in the mirror and touch that cheek gentle and whisper, “It really is okay. So you are broken. Be brave. Let yourself be loved.”

Always remember: Peace is a Person. No one can steal Peace from you. And nothing can steal you from Him.

You can’t turn the calendar pages and think you’ve messed it up, you can’t hold up any measuring stick and think you’ve botched it so bad, that you lose Peace, that you can’t get Peace, that you can’t find Peace. If you have Christ – nothing can steal your peace.

If Worry is practicing the absence of God’s presence —

then let’s just hold the grace of practicing the presence of Him

whose very name is Peace.

Peace is never a place — but always a Person.

Practicing keeping company with Him, Peace… just might make every place worry-free today.

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… ” Rom8:1

[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]

‪ Dare to fully live!

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. 

25 Unexpected Life-Transformative Secrets I learned from 3 days with Katie Davis Majors

When you’re all set & keen to grab a coffee with this trail-blazing woman of faith tomorrow, Lord willing, your whole heart goes straight back here:

So there was this girl named Katie and she laughed loud and like an angel when someone said she was like Mother Teresa.

Threw back her head and laughed loud into the sky.

It’s strange how this can move in you, a laughter like this , and how hands can embody love.

Katie was 18 when she flew to Uganda.

She took Jesus at His Word: Real life is lived on your knees. I was a whole lot older than that when I first started to read over at Kisses from Katie, years ago now. I am still finding my knees and what it means to really live.

How in the world do you keep on living everyday in middle North America when you’re mildly wild to go live something as radical like Katie?

How many of the Esther Generation hear Jesus asking us now: “Why do you stand here looking into the sky?” (Act 1:11) We’re hungry to do more than stand here looking at the sky – but tell us what? Where? How?

How many women on this spinning globe read Katie and lay in bed at night desperately wrestling and writhing with their own life, hearts dizzy and aching… I was one of them. These are not trite ponderings. You only pass by this way once.

Your life is passing like a hand waving from the back of a train and every choice determines whether you are on the right track. It all matters. How do you keep your nails filed and you eyebrows plucked when your secret hope is to have dirt under your fingernails and the strings of your heart plucked into a symphony that might make stars move?

Go ahead, give us that. We want that. We are the generations that are done living the comforts of this world and we’re ready to live uncomfortable because we’re ready for the comfort of God.

“Jesus wrecked my life.“ That’s what Katie said. ”For as long as I could remember, I had everything this world says is important. In high school, I was class president, homecoming queen, top of my class. I dated cute boys and wore cute shoes and drove a cute sports car.”

Having everything doesn’t mean you have the right track.

“Slowly but surely I began to realize the truth,” Katie gives words to all generations: “I had loved and admired and worshiped Jesus without doing what He said … I wanted to actually do what Jesus said to do.”

That.

The Esther Generation, the North American Church, we’re hungry for uncomfortable and that’s where we are at:

We are done with loving Jesus – without doing what He says. We know that loving Jesus means doing what He says.

But what in the world does that really look like? How? Where? And our husbands are here.

Katie graduated highschool – and then got on a plane for Uganda. Serving at a Ugandan orphanage was to be short-term. One year – and then back home to “normal” and the shimmer of the American dream.

But Katie watched rag-poor parents hand over their children to the orphanage so they’d get three meals a day and education. She was witnessing the ripping apart of families. She waited on God. She didn’t wait for someone else to do something. She saw a need and said to God, “Here I am – Use me.”

By His grace alone and out of her offered weakness – she ended up pioneering a sponsorship program, including meals and school fees, to keep kids in families — over 600 of them. She started a school feeding program for a few thousand more. When a storm toppled a house on to a 9-year-old down the street, and Katie discovered that her, and her 7 year old and 5 year old sisters were all living alone, orphaned, and fending for themselves, she said they could sleep at her house until God made it clear what came next.

What came next is that they called her Mommy.

You are doing something great with your life – when you’re doing all the small things with His Great love.

We want clarity; God wants us to come closer. Life is always clear when you press closer and see it through the sheer love of God.

That’s what Katie did. And that’s how it began – one surrendered girl right out of high school finding herself mothering 13 little girls.

When I find out Compassion Canada has invited our oldest girl and I to Uganda to meet our sponsored child, Katie emails, “Come!” Hope and I show up on her doorstep late on a Thursday afternoon. Hope stands there smiling shyly at 13 smiles. Katie and I fall into each other arms and we believe in miracles.

In five minutes, I am on Katie’s couch and her little Patricia has dragged up a pile of books and I am sitting criss-cross applesauce and reading The Ox-Cart Man aloud in Uganda with this little girl nestled on my lap, her head of braids tucked under my chin. I think my heart might explode.

Love is complicated and the simplest thing in the world. And that is all there is.

Katie stirs beans in a massive pot on the stove and one of the girls pulls up a chair and mashes a mountain of potatoes and I read of The Ox-Cart Man selling his cart at Plymouth market and there’s a map of the world on the wall over Katie’s table and that’s what I want to do –

We could write it on a million kitchen chalkboards: You are doing something great with your life – when you’re doing all the small things with His Great love.

You are changing the world – when you are changing one person’s world.

You aren’t missing your best life – when you aren’t missing opportunities to love like Christ.

Katie and I stay up ate into the night talking, two mothers, and I feel like I am breathing anwers. Her daughters sing loud. “The Sound of Music has nothing on us,” Katie grins and I laugh louder. We tell each other how each other’s book has changed each of our lives and how God is in the business of miracles, of using obedient yeses from the weak and unlikely to do the impossible, and how heat like this does crazy things to our hair.

Mother of a half-dozen, I watch 13 girls with their 24-year-old mother for 3 days. Grace reigns and peace pervades. You mother as well as you know your Father. I look at Katie and all I can think: She mothers like she’s memorized the face of her Father. It is a holy witnessing.

Katie pours over Scripture at the close every meal. She reads His Word like something’s burning hot in her chest. Her girls never leave the table without smiling toward her, a chorus: “Thanks Mom… for food.” For food. Not this particular food, not this particular meal – but for just. for. food. at. all. I never leave the table without blinking it back.

A man with a flesh eating virus limps to the door. Katie opens the door wide, grabs him a chair, dresses his wound. I watch this and can feel the shifting in me. We go out to the slums, to where Amazima, Katie’s ministry, feeds hundreds of kids. We sing Gospel songs till I think we might lift the roof. I swing with kids and wonder how to touch the sky. How to touch the sky. I watch Amazima give each child a bag of rice before they leave for home, a stream of gratitude on red roads – because one young woman said yes. That one young woman turns to me on the way home and I remember how she smiled it: “The answer to everything is relationship.” And I nod and feel it again and relationship with Him is always the answer and then how we live that out in relationship and this is what I know: Relationship is reality.

Her daughters braid Hope’s hair, this plaiting and lacing and how the strands give way and wrap round each other and are strong in the wrapping around each other. Hope’s heart-tied. She can’t stop smiling. A farm girl from Canada giggles too late into the night with sisters from Uganda and Katie and I whisper, “Shhhhh.”

One of Katie’s daughters has a birthday.

Katie and I stand together in the kitchen and make up 6 pans of lasagne and it’s like I can the feel the sky descending. She’ll serve 22 tonight. We’ll have to squeeze on the benches. She bakes a cake and lights candles. And I feel the lighting.

Living radical isn’t about where you live — it’s about how you love.

It’s about realizing– Love doesn’t happen when you arrive in a certain place. It happens when your heart arrives in a certain place – wherever you are, right where you are, dirt road Africa or side street America.

Because it isn’t where we love. It’s how we love. It’s who we love. The reward of loving is in the loving; loving is itself the great outcome of loving. The success of loving is in how we change because we kept on loving – regardless of any thing else changing. The value of loving is in the value of being like Christ.

People are starved for Christ everywhere; there are poor too down our streets and down our halls and downs our pews. Radical begins finding them and radically loving them.

I look at Katie Davis and she is this: She is one mother. She is us. She is the Esther Generation. She is one mother who lives the welcome of the Gospel. You can look into the eyes of her children and see resurrection. You can see how her door is an open welcome to the wounded, her couch an open welcome for the drunk, her garage an open welcome to the homeless, her bed an open welcome to the sick, her table an open welcome to anyone – her smile an open welcome to every one of her children, every stranger, every guest.

Because her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, said, “I was a stanger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).

We are done looking into the sky – we are ready to fling open every door in our lives, we are ready to tear down every gate. We are the Esthers inside the gate — and the hurting and the poor, the oppressed and the ignored – is Christ on the other side of the gate. Christ is saying: “I was a stranger and you welcomed Me. I was the stranger on the other side of the gate — and you risked everything inside the gate for the One outside the gate — Me.”

It’s not nameless masses of the deserving poor on the other side of the gate; It’s Christ. Every single stranger, every single disadvantaged, is Christ and if you love Him — you have got to make your life about tearing down the gates.

Every face is the guise of Christ.

I look at Katie. Radical isn’t as much about where you move – but about looking into the face of Jesus – and letting Him move you where you are. He may move you to Africa – or across the street. But if the love of Christ moves you – it will move you out into the world. He will move you to tear down gates.

Pundits can banter about one southern cook and the nature of racism in this continent, about the nature of marriage and truth and grace and orientation and the Church, and our screens can explode with opinions and rebuttals and politics.

But our answers to all the raging questions of the day won’t be found in what we write: it will be found in how we open our doors.

Our actual theology is best expressed in our actual hospitality.

And I don’t mean that hospitality is one quaint ministry for those good in the kitchen and keeping their house picked up. Hospitality isn’t for the good housekeepers — it’s the grid of life for anyone keeping company with Christ. Hospitality is meant to shape our churches and politics, our work and our schools, our homes and our faith and our schedules and our meals and our lives.

Hospitality is Life with no Gates.

Hospitality means if there is room in the heart —

there is always room in the house.

And if we’ve really welcomed Christ into our lives – it means our lives are evidence that we’ve welcomed the strangers and the neglected and the outcasts.

The Esther Generation lives it and the North American church is hungry for something as authentic and organic as hospitality: Don’t start with a program. Start with a plate.

My girl and I live 3 days with Katie and we are lit:

The radical practice of hospitality begins with each child, each knock, each phone call: Every interruption of the day is a manifestation of Christ.

There are no interruptions in a day. There are only manifestations of Christ.

One of Katie’s daughters had whispered it:

“Mommy, if Jesus comes to live inside my heart, will I explode?”

There are no interruptions in a day. There are only manifestations of Christ.

And Katie had said —“No!” and then —

“Yes, if Jesus comes to live in your heart, you will explode… That is exactly what we should do if Jesus comes to live inside our hearts.

We will explode with love, with compassion, with hurt for those who are hurting, and with joy for those who rejoice. We will explode with a desire to be more, to be better, to be close to the One who made us.”

And Africa undoes me and I’m exploded and broken wide open with the Esther Generation –

broken and exploded by Christ —

a thousand bits of His Love bringing down the sky and tearing down gates.

 

 

 

Pick up our story of  The Broken Way  and how to love a brokenhearted world.  This one’s for all of us who have felt our hearts break a bit…

The one’s for the brave and the busted and the real and dreamers and the sufferers and the believers.

This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way…into abundance. 

 

Related:

How to Be Beautiful and Have a Beautiful Home and Life

The Research that Proves You Can Change the World

 

When You Have the Wrong Shoes

At some point in life, every woman struggles with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and I love the honesty with which my friend Kayla Aimee shares about those feelings that she has felt in each season of life. I met Kayla in a hotel hallway where she showed me pictures of her beautiful daughter on my phone, which was so endearing. She has a wonderful sense of humor, which has a way of disarming us so that the Holy Spirit can use her words to put salve on the injured parts of our souls. It is an honor to welcome Kayla to the front porch of the farm today…

guest post by Kayla Aimee

My shoes were all wrong.

Black Mary Janes with wide straps, they betrayed me with their sparkly sequins, catching the light from the classroom windows and reflecting it back on row upon row of matching white tennis shoes with three-and-a-half-inch rubber heels.

I slid down further in my seat, tucking my toes under my backpack as a faint blush crept over my cheeks.

Maybe no one would notice.

I glanced around furtively to assess the footwear situation of the rest of my classmates.

White, chunky-heeled platform tennis shoes, white tennis shoes, white tennis shoes. What was this, gym class? Did everyone assume we’d be doing first serves instead of first period today?

As I surveyed the sea of white platform heels, the most popular girl in our grade caught my eye, glancing down at the floor where I was self-consciously attempting to wedge my feet further under my backpack to hide my obviously uncool footwear choices.

She smirked and bent her head close to the girl next to her, her chestnut brown hair swaying as she tilted her head in my direction.

Thick and glossy, with artfully arranged butterfly clips across the crown as though it was meant to look casual but must have taken all morning to pin in place, her hair fell across her face, blocking her from view but not quite muffling the sounds of the two of them giggling.

How did everyone even know what shoes to buy anyway? I mean, was there some sort of seventh-grade girl newsletter that circulated during the summer? “To be considered cool, buy these shoes”?

I had been trying hard to prepare for junior high.

First, I convinced my mom to let me buy all those teen magazines (okay, so I hid some in the cart and snuck them on the conveyor belt when she wasn’t looking), and then I mapped out elaborate charts with the coolest outfits I could afford on my meager babysitting salary.

Like a vision board. I saw that on Oprah. I took a copy of Seventeen with me when I was shopping for a back-to- school wardrobe that should have made the cute boy in homeroom notice me.

I blew basically my entire budget on those sequined Mary Janes in Delia’s, as seen on page forty-three. They were supposed to be THE thing that year. And okay, they totally did make my legs look longer.

But apparently, they were not the “Must Have Item for School” like the September issue promised because, hello! White tennis shoes with three-inch heels. Where was THAT piece of information, Seventeen magazine? Those magazines were full of lies. No one even tried to kiss me by my locker either. I’m probably going to sue.

The bell rang, and as I gathered up all my books to leave, I felt a hard shove from behind, then blushed again as I bent to pick up the scattered contents of my Sanrio pencil box from the floor.

Popular Girl smirked down at me as she passed. “Loser,” she hissed, and then tossed her head and laughed as she flounced off in her white, chunky-heeled tennis shoes.

Loser.

I reached out and caught that word as it hung in the air between us. I absorbed its weight, and it quickly made a home in me.

I didn’t know who I was yet, but I knew that this word had correctly defined me. This one moment reflected back all the insecurities I already had about myself, which meant it must be true.

And so I believed it easily, without question.

Maybe you are like me.

Maybe someone else’s words have reduced you.

Maybe you’ve been made to feel invisible or inferior or inadequate or ashamed.

Shame is like Stockholm syndrome. It holds us hostage, and after a while we subconsciously embrace it because it’s become our method of survival.

Shame is our captor, and we were never meant to be held captive.

We were meant to be captivated. God promises to restore the years the locusts have eaten, avows in Isaiah that “in place of your shame, you will have a double portion” (61:7).

Our entire covenant is based on redemption. And the Bible holds the blueprint to interrupt our insecurity. The good news is in the Good News.

You can only get two chapters into the Word before it comes spilling out, “Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame” (Gen. 2:25). This is how life began, in our Eden, naked and unashamed.

This is more than a longing; this is how we were created to be. This is the divine design of our humanity, that we would live with one another uncovered and unburdened.

Shame strips us of our confidence. It ensnares us with its subtle lies, leaving us longing and lonely.

Somewhere along the way I collected all the tiny moments of hurt and embarrassment and insecurity, and I decided they comprised who I was.

I was like a sieve.

All the good things and encouraging words passed through me like water, leaving only the muck behind.

I felt worse than invisible: I felt insignificant. And like many women I know, I buried the beauty that was uniquely knit into me by my Creator when He formed me “in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13).

Shame keeps us striving for acceptance, but grace gives us an eternal belonging.

I opened up the Bible along with my heart and went through a metamorphosis of spiritual renewal.

I thought that I couldn’t be happy unless everyone else was happy with me —

but I’ve learned that someone else’s measure of satisfaction is not greater than God’s portion of sanctification.

It’s not that life got easier.

It’s just that now I’m fulfilled because I have found my portion.

This is how I learned to flourish.

 

Kayla Aimee is a writer, mother and a spirited southern girl who spends her days uncovering hope and humor in unexpected places. Her poignant but humorous storytelling style has firmly established her as an influential faith and family blogger and her work has been featured on The TODAY Show and The Huffington Post as well as several other national media outlets.

Her newest book, In Bloom: Trading Restless Insecurity for Abiding Confidence, will help you rewrite the narrative of insecurity and inadequacy that you have experienced, exchanging it for abiding confidence in the One who holds it all together.

In this fearless, funny, and refreshingly relatable chronicle of her own metamorphosis from the insecurity that once held her captive, author Kayla Aimee unfolds the blueprint for women to identify the deep-seated sources of our assumed inadequacy and replace them with steadfast truths of affirmation and replace our need for approval with the promise of an enduring acceptance.

[ Our humble thanks to B&H for their partnership in today’s devotion ]

when you are kinda feeling old & a bit busted by life: the traumatic disorder of everyday life

They sell anti-aging cream to women like us.

And Spanx.

And glossy checkout line headliners that splay this shock that over 40-something women can still startlingly turn heads — as if having no wrinkle lines in your skin is somehow an accomplishment of galactic proportions and worthy of worship – and you can just be emptying your cart in checkout #6 and end up feeling more like a piece of meat than the roast that’s on sale for 1.99 this week.

So you end up buying 3 tulips on your way home in the snow.

Because you’re getting to that week on the calendar page that says the Big XXX–0 … and you feel like something’s broke.

Like the world’s gone mad, like your heart and head have just up and shattered over night and you are sitting in a mess trying to put the pieces together again and we all get old and there’s no defying it and you aren’t all you want to be and neither is anyone you love.

Every single day has a bit of it’s own now-traumatic stress disorder. It’s not just the life crises that are traumatic. The mirror can be traumatic and any self-reflection, and time and aging is traumatic for us who are made to breathe eternity.

And Miley Cyrus will someday have a wrinkled neck and Little Prince George will be wheeling a car out of Kensington palace and his Dad will have no hair and his mother’s will be white and it is what it is and your choice is either receive your life or reject your one chance at living and you can ask all you want where does the time go, but it doesn’t get stuck under the couch.

The point is that your life is meant to be spent.

The point is that your life is meant to be used up and every wrinkle means you are wringing out the good of the wonder of this thing called life.

So let the glossy people take their botox and smooth things over and pretend they aren’t wringing this thing right dry, because the rest of us are going to try and we have no shame.

The kids are flat-out growing up. And speed and time are the addictions of all space outside of heaven and the kids are standing there looking us now in the eye and we are stumbling out of bed and looking in the mirror and wondering if we’ve grown into the lives that we prayed for or have we fallen into something else?

Is this it?

Why is hope of change sometimes the one miracle you don’t dare hope for?

Snow just keeps piling on the roof.

Snow just keeps coming across the fields, and the tulips in candlelight and the ache of a thousand popping moments has you leaning in a doorway, waiting for something to finally come and something else to finally ebb away.

Sometimes you can want to run away more when you are a supposed-adult than when you are a kid.

When you really want to disappear – is when you really want to be found. When you really want to run away from everybody – is when you really want to be found by just somebody.

It’s about aging — and more. It’s about time passing and never coming back — and more. It’s about getting through the birthdays — and letting yourself be loved. Even if it’s imperfectly by imperfect people. Hold out for perfect and you end up holding nothing.

Why is it so hard to let yourself be loved?

Sometimes you can hardly bear to let anyone try to love you because it feels like a lie.

And for crying out loud, life is too blazing short to live lies.

Is that why a million haggard people hate birthdays? Because love on that day can feel like a lie, like an obligation, like a polite duty and it’s too hard to smile and pretend through its plasticity.

Or maybe it really is — that the moment you accept love, you have to accept yourself, and there’s something in that that seems unacceptable. Strange, how there’s no love without humility – no one can accept anything except on their knees. (Everything else is stealing.)

Maybe it’s not about birthday candles or aging; maybe it’s really about the calendar saying the time is now to look that wrinkling face in the mirror and touch that cheek gentle and whisper, “It really is okay. So you are broken. Be brave. Let yourself be loved.”

There.

Everything can still in that moment and the knots can all fall away and it has nothing to do with the tulips.

Peace is a Person. No one can steal Peace from you. And nothing can steal you from Him.

You can’t look across candles and think you’ve wrecked your life, you can’t turn the calendar pages and think you’ve messed it up, you can’t hold up any measuring stick and think you’ve botched it so bad, that you lose Peace, that you can’t get Peace, that you can’t find Peace. If you have Christ – nothing can steal your peace.

I stand there watching the snow.

The house and the kids hush in the evening thickening and falling and the candles flicker boldly on.

And right there those memorized verses from Romans breach the surface of things, because memorization isn’t for the smug saints who have made it but for the desperate sinners who want to make it:

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… ”

The enemy wants nothing more at the end of the day than to make you and all your offered years feel like a piece of chopped up meat. You’ve just got to call Satan by what his ugly name really means: prosecutor. The work of the enemy isn’t ultimately to tempt you, but to try you.

If Satan can ultimately prosecute you — you will ultimately imprison yourself.

He’s like this glossy headline mocking your weathered life: “And you look around at your life and call yourself a Christian?”

And even the weary and worn-out can cut him down with one sharp edge of a memorized verse:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? …

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us…. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth —

nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~ Romans 8

The prosecutor of your soul can’t ever nail you: Time can’t wreck your life. You can’t wreck your life. Nothing in all of this world can separate you from the love of Christ and His love is your life. Your life is unwreckable because Christ’s love is unstoppable.

Sure, time, age, life, this side of glory is traumatic. Living in a fallen world can’t help but be traumatic — falling is traumatic. Every single day is this stream of tiny traumas. (Those who dare to trust call them gifts.) We’ve all had to unplug toilets and clean up puke and crawl into bed and lay waiting for His new mercies to come again before we move. None of us are alone in any of this.

Growing cold and numb and buying a year’s supply of botox isn’t going to make you soul beautiful. You have to let yourself feel. You accept freedom the moment you accept the apology that no one offered.

You have to let your life wrinkle. You have to let hope get into the folds of things. You are here to be spent. Saving yourself up isn’t how the saved are meant to live. Go for broke.

And when you are broken – because that’s what happens when you go for broke – and you look into a mirror, a calendar, into that one face, and you can’t stop the aching lump burning up through the center of your heart, listen till the rain comes.

Watch how the clouds break and break open and listen for rain and reach out your hand and feel it’s wet sweetness coming down in all this vulnerable freeness. This is the broken that makes you beautiful.

Live like this right to the very end.

Peace can fall like snow.

 

 

 

Our story of taking The Broken Way:  This one’s for all of us who have felt our hearts break a bit…

This one’s for the brave and the busted and the real and dreamers and the sufferers and the believers.

This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way… into abundance

Related: 40 Things You have to know Before You are 40 — Letter to a Woman Mid-Way