Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 131

Dear Predators Who Don’t Know (Or Maybe Do) That They are Predators: (And How to Not Raise Another Generation of Predators)

It may have taken us awhile for us to find our voice — but don’t you dare ask us why it took us so long.

When someone takes something from you that doesn’t belong to them — they take your voice too.

I’m finding mine. We are all finding ours. 

When someone takes something from you that wasn’t theirs, they try to give you shame — and count on that shame gagging you for years.

But never doubt it: Silence for years about an assault does not, and cannot hush, the truth of that assault.

When someone gropes your body, they grab a bit of your soul, the part of you that speaks, and it can take years, decades, for you to gather up the pieces of your voice and slice the silence with truth.

But The Truth always finds it voice — because the Truth is like the lion of Judah and you will hear it roar.

You may have taken something that wasn’t yours — but now I get to tell a story that is mine.

I didn’t want you to touch me.

You reached out and your fingers felt along my skin and I shrunk back and tried to play dead, like the way they tell you to play dead when you’re being mauled to death by a bear, and a part of me has been soundlessly dying for years.

You took something from me that I didn’t want to give. Read that again: You took something from me that I didn’t want to give. Do you have any idea of the pain behind those string of words? It wasn’t yours to touch, it wasn’t yours to take, it wasn’t yours to trespass.

What makes a man think his hungers trumps a woman’s humanity?

What makes a man think that his desires trumps a woman’s dignity — that a man’s wants trumps a woman’s needs?

Women are not prey — they are persons.

The moment that any one sees someone as less human than themselves, is the moment more evil scars all of humanity.

Do onto others as you would have them do onto you — is the only way we can do no harm.

Hear this righteous roar: We are not some cup of tea for you to swig down, we are not five bucks for you to swipe and get a high for getting away with it, we are not some quick feel to make you feel good, and we are not a piece of meat for you to devour to satisfy your insatiable appetite for power.

We are not prey — We are persons.

What can be so violating about sexual assault is that it’s more than only an assault on a body — it’s an assault on a sacred soul.

Skin is the outer layer of the soul — and touching someone’s skin is touching someone’s soul.

And no one should touch a consecrated soul without having consent.

If you don’t have consent with words — it doesn’t matter what messages you think anyone is sending.

Asking for consent sends the message that her womanhood trumps your wants.

And this is the thing: Consent isn’t so much about an equal sense of permission as consent depends on the equal distribution of power — or there’s intolerable violation of rights.

Power can be the most powerful duct tape — to silence someone’s voice, someone’s needs, someone’s rights.

And you didn’t ask if you could take a bit of my body which is the thin membrane of my soul. And if you never ask and you take it without consent — it’s not okay, just because you didn’t hear the no I was screaming in my head.

And if you did ask to take from someone and you never heard a clear answer — then you clearly need to stop. Because it’s never okay to take anything from someone when you first haven’t taken the time to hear their voice.

Situations can silence — and that’s exactly when you can’t take advantage of the situation.

You never have permission to touch anyone unless their words have given you permission.

And if you used physical strength or emotional manipulation or differential power to get what you wanted from someone? No matter what words were said, you assaulted, stole, robbed, and violated and denigrated. Forcing a yes out of anyone still means too much force was used.

Hear our roar: If you took what someone didn’t want to give, but it can’t be indisputably proven in court — that doesn’t mean for one second that you didn’t violate and denigrate that person.

And this is always indisputable:

No person’s unwanted touch — can touch how another person is wanted and valued.

No person’s power can deprive any of us of our personhood.

And no person’s assault on any of us can assault anyone’s worth.

No person’s unwanted touch — can touch how another person is wanted and valued.

The people of God’s hunger for power may make them more tolerant of immoral behaviour, but the God of the people, He’s hungry for holiness and proves that real power makes people behave more like Christ. And Christ didn’t denigrate women, but venerated women.

Christ didn’t abuse power as a means to satisfy Himself, but He laid down power and used grace as a means to sacrifice Himself and save the world .

This is the roar that whispers through the fractures of brave hearts: Even now, when you are seared by past, love can still find you, even when you terrified of trusting again, of feeling again.

The preyed on, they can turn and rise, and be the ones to feast on healing love and banquet on grace and taste the courage of now.

 

Related:

35 Things We’d Better Tell Our Sons About Harassment, Assault & “Boys will be Boys”

About those “20 Minutes of Action”: 20 Things We’d Better Tell Our Sons Right Now About Being Real Men

How to be the Parent You Want to Be: 40 Things a Child needs to know Before they Leave Home

Dear Kids: Why Wait till Marriage — What No One Tells You & What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

Letters to the Wounded

How to Stop the Fighting Under Your Roof & Have a Bit of Peace & a Whole Lot More Love

Rarely have I encountered someone with the humble determination September McCarthy shows in her journey of motherhood. As she follows the Lord’s call to equip her own children to build His kingdom, she gently shares her hard-learned lessons and hard-earned wisdom. September understands the challenges of nurturing our children as Christ-followers, and her insights have been a breath of fresh air in my own moments of frustration and surrender. Her heart beats for God, the women He has called to be mothers, and for the children we laugh, cry, and pray over. It’s a pleasure to welcome her to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by September McCarthy

They sat on the sofa watching me with disbelief as I wrapped their hands together with a sock.

Honestly, it was all I could find, and it was conveniently stuffed in the couch cushions.

It seemed appropriate at the time.

I think any onlooker would have thought that I had lost my mind. A desperate parent will pull no stops when we are over-the-edge tired of hearing our children quarrel.

There they sat inching their bodies as far away from one another as the stretch in the sock would allow.

I was so tired I had to turn my back to the kids as my stern look of anger gave way to a smile.

Maybe in some psychology book there is a term to describe what I was doing. I’m not sure. But it was my last resort to make a point.

And it did.

We had a long talk while their hands were tied together.

Their angry eyes began to soften and the slight curl of a smile emerged at the edges of their lips. Always a good sign.

If peace had to come like this, then I was willing to try it. After all, the Bible says, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9 NIV). And if parents aren’t peacemakers, I don’t know what we are!

Did my children argue, squabble, or have conflict after this? Of course they did.

The sock incident only changed the direction of that morning; it didn’t change their hearts.

And so, over the years, I realized that my children need to understand and learn one big lesson:

Love begins in the home. If you cannot love your family well, then how will you love others?

The thing is, our children cannot love if they don’t understand what love looks like in a day, in the middle of a conflict, or when they do not care for the actions of their siblings.

Motherhood has so many intentional moments, but pulling the root of selfishness up and out in your home is one of the hardest, most painful jobs there is. It takes work that will require plenty of sweat and tears from you.

Your heart will ache as you see your children’s different personalities clash and the conflict that ensues when they cannot put their own agendas aside.

Love cannot reside where selfishness is rooted. It’s our job to teach them every day how to put on patience, kindness, and self-control.

It’s easy to lose sight of the ship when the fog rolls in.

I remind myself of this when life overtakes me and I cannot figure out how I found myself trying to diffuse sibling rivalry or handle a conflict that festered with my teenager way too long.

If someone could just help me navigate through this muddy time, I think, it would all go away. But conflict can be just under the surface and will pull us under if we don’t learn how to navigate through it.

All relationships take work and time. We have applied these very basic and biblical rules to the communication in our home, and they have helped us walk through some serious issues and discussions that would have been much easier to avoid and let fester…

Our Four Family Rules to Better Communication: 

Be honest
Keep current—don’t focus on the past
Attack the problem, not the person
Act—don’t react

Like it or not, we are the models for godly or good behavior in our homes.

Our family and those who know us are our audience.

We often overlook the influence of our own tongue in the home.

Our words influence the steps of resolution we take or don’t take to work through a conflict.

It is possible to have a home that permeates peace.

Mothers, imagine the power over the nations, the generations, if you are willing to model and speak peace into the very fiber of your home and your children. It will be life changing.

Mothers have the power to shift and stabilize the atmosphere of their families and can turn a day right side up or upside down.

Women can ignite happiness, spark anger, diffuse arguments, and lift the fog of discouragement in any atmosphere.

Mothers are mood makers, and it is our job to set the tone in the lives of those we are given to steward.

It may seem daunting, but it is truly a gift.

Don’t feel as if it’s a huge weight of responsibility or something you are required to do.

Your home will become who you are, and your family will shine forth this atmosphere wherever they go.

Love stands tall.

Love will always trump conflict.

 

September McCarthy believes every woman needs someone to speak into her life with understanding and truth. She encourages women in each season of motherhood through her blog One September Day and her ministry Raising Generations Today. As a speaker and writer, her vision and mission is for the generations. September lives in rural Upstate New York with her husband and their large family.

Do you ever wonder if your efforts as a mom make any difference? Take heart. Whether you’re struggling through sleepless nights with your toddler or endless battles with your teen, September McCarthy’s story offers practical insights and powerful inspiration to encourage you on your own mothering journey. In Why Motherhood Matters you’ll find sweet anecdotes and gentle guidance for those moments you need both a breather and a lifeline. These pages are like a breathing coach. And each page is a delivery—into more and more of the grace and heart of your Father. Motherhood matters—because what matters like sculpting souls with your Father? Motherhood is an incredible labor of love—and in the scope of eternity, it matters more than you know.

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

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [12.09.17]

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 & your people right here: 

Matt Deakin 
Matt Deakin 
Matt Deakin

you know you may never get to really ride a camel so you know you want to try this out vicariously today, you do!

uh — yeah.  Kinda? ;) Christmas: according to kids

can you even?!? This Loving Dad Pens Comic Book For His Son Starring a Superhero Who Has Down Syndrome

whadya think? For real or no?

we all need a friend… and everyone is talking about this one for a reason

These players have come together on the field, but here’s a look at what binds them all off the field

Piotr Halka / www.thewanderingpath.com 
Piotr Halka / www.thewanderingpath.com
Piotr Halka / www.thewanderingpath.com 

come see: Incredible Temperature Inversion In The Karkonosze Mountains — sorta the loveliest soul exhale 

come meet the food cowboys who are doing great things — I mean — C’MON!

getting food from people who have it  giving to people who need it 

a homeless man returns a lost check? and she thanks him in an extraordinary way. UNDONE

#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay

just — beautiful

Seriously: Would You Let a Stranger Live with You?:  Laying Aside the Fear of Hospitality

right!?? because everyone loves to be welcomed home

3 random acts of kindness stories you won’t soon forget:  promise 

cheering loudly: a program that works to improve school attendance rates with this one simple act

this is just kinda the best: how these firefighters helped?  in ways you’d maybe never expect

what’s happening at schools around the country:

how relationships are being built around a lunch table 

Yes, exactly the simplicity of this:

How to Have A Simple Christmasy Home Like A Normal Person Who Loves Beauty

 

“from one mother to another — you are loved”

remember the grandma who texted the wrong teen last Thanksgiving?

oh yeah, you bet they celebrated together again this year! #BeTheGIFT

YESSSSSS! This is THE THING, what she says:  ‘giving creates a cycle of love’ #BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay

CNN

“I was led by God to take the chance. God brought us all together. I really don’t have any other way to explain it.”

WHAT a story here: “When you give someone a job, you give them a second chance at life”

He walked away from the NFL to become a farmer:

“I wanted people to remember me for my heart & community service…and how much I had given back.”

a very brave little Maeve

what if — we kinda quit with all the Fear Mongers — and became Hope Mongers?

So that’s kinda exactly what happened after we lit the first week of Advent’s Hope candle.

We are all just loving this here on the farm: 

How to Keep Hoping for Hard Things (& Keep Passing The Giving Light)

believe it: “He wants to love you like you’ve never been loved” #BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay

Post of the Week from these parts here:

… what if someone could just tenderly wrap up your kinda raw places no one even really knows about —

yeah, *for you*, right here:

How to Really Not Lose Hope in Hard Times

Instead of Just Faking Hope (Brutally Honest Psalm #4)

goodness, this woman, this song, on repeat here: The Thrill of Hope

This is an heirloom, a Christmas tradition, a wonder for the child in all of us! 

Pick up the NEW Pop-Up Advent book, “The Wonder of The Greatest Gift” — with your own 14″ pop-up tree, 25 Bible-inspired ornaments hiding behind 25 Advent doors, a new family read-aloud of 25 Advent devotionals, and a star for the top of the tree! 

Thank you, beautiful people, for sharing the new “The Wonder of The Greatest Gift”

We just love this album: The Celebrations’s starting!

 

Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift this Advent… & get theeself to Target!

Want to know how all your unspoken broken can be be transformed into abundance? Tired of trite answers?

Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, all the places that feel kinda abandoned?

These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.

Don’t miss out on the gift of the life you’ve always wanted.

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
(& check out your local Target’s Best Books of 2017 for a copy of The Broken Way!)

yes, yes, yes: It’s about the cross

[ Print’s FREE here: ]

….can you just feel held for a moment? The God of invincible reliability, of infinite resources, of insistent love, says, “Give me everything you are carrying — because I want to carry you.”

“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you” Ps. 55:22

No family or personal choice that’s muddied a life can ever outdo God’s choice to wash everything in that life with grace.

He graces even us, especially us, with healing grace. Give yourself the gift of grace that He already has. Believe it: no situation is more hopeless than your Savior is graceful. He will sustain you. 

[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. 

How to Really Not Lose Hope in Hard Times Instead of Just Faking Hope (Brutally Honest Psalm #4)

Don’t tell me to crank the music up a few notches or light a candle and just breathe. The world’s on freaking fire.

You’ve got forest fires blazing down mountainsides right into cities like the magma centre of the earth has roiled up to surface of things, and there’s grief running like hot lava too close to our homes, and tempers flaming everywhere like the world could combust, all our hot air whipping embers across aisles and streets and our own dinner table.

We’re all a bit scorched, the edges of us singed.

And you can bet that no one’s thinking, for even one hot minute, that Dante was that far off when he wrote that hell was framed with the inscription: “Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.”

C’mon, God — You’re the One Who said You’re the ultimate know-it-all, so You’ve got to know:

Shelby Rocco bundled up and carried 6 babies to the crematorium in the last 36 months.

Jessica Cho hasn’t slept a straight night in the last 6 months, haunted by flashbacks of what a church elder did to her in a back room off the sanctuary for years and no one believed her when she let the truth take up residence in the tip of her tongue and finally speak.

Ionela Williams is in the middle of a family war and she’s trying to win only the battles that won’t make her lose her own soul.

You see us at all down here? Trying not to despair?

Is prayer the only way to not despair?

Oh God, hear our howl.

 

Camila Garcia laid here in bed this week, screwing her eyes shut to stop a stream of tears from leaking, but there was no stopping her betraying body from draining out her 4th miscarried baby in the last 2 years.

Comfort us, Your people:

Does the darkness wage war the loudest because it’s already lost the most?

LaTasha Morton, she has no idea where her son’s sleeping tonight, and she’d look anyone in the eye and say she couldn’t tell you the last time he came home for dinner, but don’t you doubt for one apathetic blink that she isn’t marking the days on the calendar over the phone that’s still sitting there on the kitchen counter. There’s no way this side of the great divide that LaTasha’s getting rid of that landline. That’s the last phone number for home that her boy knows.

There’s a woman we’ve talked to this week whose child is going through something she can’t tell anyone about.

There’s a woman we’ve talked to this week who has something happening behind closed doors that’s killing her and we’d about die if we knew, and that one reason why she’s never opening her mouth and telling us anything about her own blazing inferno.

Cool the the second-degree burns of our souls with the relief of it:

Every mother knows that the conviction of her hope determines the courage of her parenting.

Abdul Amin, just a tender 7 years-old, hunches over a piece of paper, drawing better than most kids his age, images that no kid his age should ever think to draw: pencil-line drawings of screaming people on the ground, blood streaming from their necks, and men with machine guns aiming their rounds of slugs right into pulpy, pulsing warm flesh.

Where is this thrill of hope that let’s the weary world rejoice?

What if hope is just a privilege for the privileged — while the rest of the world’s poor suckers cough on the stinging smoke of all their hope being torched right to the ground?

The Truthtellers amongst us will testify anywhere: Wherever there is kind of hopelessness, there is a kind of hell. And if hope doesn’t burn in your bones, a sort of hell does instead.

What gives us anybody on this suffering earth any Hope?

Nobody orders hope online during some two for one sale because no one’s mining hope by the truckload out of some mineral vein running across Africa.

No one’s churning out cheap hope knock offs on eBay with free world-wide shipping out of Hong Kong, so you tell me:

Where in this bent-up universe is the flashing slot machine dispensing the mother lode of hope?

And the there are candles lit with unswerving hope and we are the brazen people who confess it and will never stop confessing it:

What gives us Hope if not God and who is the source of Hope if not our Savior?

Making up hope isn’t our job.

Hope is God’s job and our job is to trust that God’s making Hope.

That God’s making a way, because He is The Way.

Let the weary world rise with the thrill of the unwavering knowing:

When we’re tempted to fill with despair, Hope whispers that God will fulfill His promises.

When it feels like life is a setup to let you down, we will whisper it to ourselves like a resuscitation:

Hope is not the belief that things will turn out well,

but the belief God is working through all things, no matter how things turn out.

And when we get karate kicked in the esophagus by life and it hurts to breathe, we will be the Remembering People who retrace it slow again, how Hope works:

Hope fiercely promises to meet us in hard things now —- because we fiercely trust God’s promise to make all things new.

You see: Hope is a defiant reliance on God keeping His Word.

The winds and the days may rage and the blaze of things may leave you feeling charred, but now is the time for faith to rise like a phoenix from ashes and we will:

Hold on to His Word for all you’re worth — because His Word is what proves God is trustworthy.

And when you know God is trustworthy — you know today is worthy of Hope.

When your bones know God ultimately makes good on His promises — that’s good enough reason for hope to burn in your bones.

As long as you still are, all is not lost. Being is hope, and hope is presence, and this present moment is a gift pulsing with hope.

Feel it even now: Hope doesn’t promise success to the strong, but resurrection to the wrecked. Because success isn’t the virtue that will remain. Love, Joy and Hope are. So we will make those three that will remain, always our main thing.

Feel it especially now:

Like muscles, Hope is made by rising,

again and again, lifting the weight of dark

that’s conspiring to flatten us

with the strength of His promises

that’s certain to carry us.

Advent is learning how hope works and you can feel the warming light of the main thing that matters:

Hope is not some elusive lottery ticket for the lucky, but hope is the fiery torch the faithful raise in a life-grip to burn back the ugly face of the dark so they can see their promised land —

and the welcoming face of God.

 

Related: 1. How to Have Yourself   The Greatest Christmas.com

2. How To Keep Hoping for Hard Things (& Keep Passing the Giving Light)

“There is Always Hope” print

What Cures those Unspoken Feelings of Abandonment & How That Can Change Your Holidays

They say they found Him wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger, but I have absolutely no idea how they found my daughter.

I wasn’t there.

I have no idea if they found her naked or swaddled in something or if she was lying on anything between her and the dirt, or if her bare back indented the granular earth.

I don’t know how they found her that late summer day, but thank the Lord someone found her. Thank God someone heard the wails of our daughter not from a feed trough, but from her own hidden finding place — at least that’s what the paperwork said.

I flew 10,000 kilometres across the arc of the world two springs ago, stood by that river in China where they found her and I hold her and her brave and broken beating heart next to mine.

I only go back there now a thousand times in my mind. Because in some ways, she begins there for me, and all these questions begin there for me, all the answers I have found…

How does a world, a heart, not make room — and why do answers to that question make a heart, a world, hurt, and what if there are answers that haven’t yet found me?

The wind didn’t move through the trees that day. I know this. I stood there watching for even a sigh through the leaves. I had stood there watching for a coming.

And I had heard the thrumming heart of her and it’s like a murmur, this cry against abandonment that beats like a drumming in our daughter’s broken heart, that echoes like a howl through the chambers of every single one of our broken hearts:

If I broke into a thousand pieces — who would come and pick me up?

If I up and lost my way —- who would come look for me until all of me was found?

If I forgot who I really am — who would come make me remember my real name?

This happens, these things happen. You can get to the middle of your life, the middle of a season, and be met with a haunting of questions that refuse to be hushed.

Now is Advent — and Jesus comes.

Jesus comes and when there’s been a breaking into a thousand pieces, He picks up the pieces of you, the pieces you’re tired of being brave and saying aren’t even broken and He whispers: What feels broken and falling all apart — I’m making it all fall together.

He is taking the broken things and making better things.

Now is Advent and when you’ve up and lost your way in the wounding loudness of things, Jesus comes and He looks for you and He won’t let you stay lost and He won’t stop coming until —

Jesus finds you and whispers: You most find yourself when you find your joy in Myself.

Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in the fully accepting embrace of Christ.

Now is Advent and when you’ve forgotten who you really are, Jesus comes, He comes and makes you who are in Him remember your real name:

You are My friend… Hear Me — You don’t ever get rejected.

You are justified… Hear Me — You don’t ever get any condemnation.

You are complete… Hear Me — You don’t ever have to prove anything.

You are forgiven… Hear Me — You don’t ever have to beat yourself up.

You are chosen… Hear Me —You don’t ever have to feel like you don’t belong.

And I’d looked down at our little daughter, standing beside me in her finding place, and I kneel down beside her and tuck this little wisp of hair behind her ear and whisper:

Little One?

Little One? 

You weren’t abandoned in this place to be forgotten — you were placed in this place to be found.

That place that may feel like abandonment —- is placement.

And what may feel like being thrown away — is about being placed because a way is coming always.

And there was the echo of the heartbeat of the Father for all His children, and there is a feeling of this:

That place where you feel abandoned by everyone —- is really where God has placed You to be met by Someone —- Him.

That place that feels like abandonment —- is placement.

That place where you feel thrown away — is about being placed because His way of healing wholeness is coming for you always.

You are never abandoned in a place to be forgotten — you were placed in this place to be found.

I’d knelt in the long grass with her. Pulled her close.

And “sometimes God takes us into the wilderness not to abandon us — but because He wants to be alone with us.

Wildernesses can be safe because we are always safe when we are always with Him.

Wildernesses can be where God woos.” (~excerpt from The Broken Way)

Beside that river where she was found, I had cupped my daughter’s little face in my hands: “I was always coming, Little One — always coming.” Her eyes looked like an answer. Looking long into the eyes around you is always the beginning of answers.

Now is Advent.

And He is always coming for you, Brave One — His healing, breaking free ways are always coming for you.

And now she stands in front of our Christmas tree, her eyes, her face, lit with all this light, and she holds up the fabric nativity scene that my mother hand quilted with long strokes of her needle, her thread always coming, and she hold up Mary: “Mama!”

She runs over to me, thrusts Mary into my hands: “Mama.” She pats my cheek, like I could be like that willing girl.

Can I live given to God? You can live given — surrendered — wherever you haven’t surrendered or given yourself over to fear.

And there is never any need to fear anything: There is no abandonment — only placement.

Placement for His coming ways, placement for His coming arms, placement for His coming purpose, placement to be an Esther, to be in this place for such a time as now. 

And then she turns and reaches back for Joseph:

“Papa!” She holds the quilted Joseph above her head, like she knows the banner over her is love and she laughs like music: “PAPA!”

And then her clubbed, bluing fingers reaches for the manger, and she cups the wrapped quilting in her creased palm, and she holds the newborn in the cradle out to me like an offering — and I’m waiting for her to whisper — Jesus?

And she whispers it like a hushed secret: “Me.”

“Your baby, look, Mama! —- Me!” she pats my cheek again.

And I nod, and smile, and she’s confused and she’s not and there are answers when you don’t expect them.

“Yes, You — You, made in the image of God.”

I may have questions about what her birth mother looks like … but no matter who she looks like — she bears the image of God.

No matter how anyone looks — you know who they look like: they bear the image of God.

The most belligerent relative, the most difficult neighbor, the most resistant kid, the most different foreigner, stranger, other —- is Jesus in the manger, in Christ in the crèche, is the image of God.

And when you give to the least of these, when you hold the least of these, when you welcome in the least of these, when you live broken wide open and given to the least of these: you give to Jesus.

I take the little Baby Jesus from her hand.

Yes….. All there is to see is Jesus — for you to see Jesus in every person — and every person to see Jesus in you.

Now is the time of year where there are lights to see and plays to see and family and neighbors and community to see — and all there is to see is Jesus. For you to see Jesus coming in everyone and everyone to see Jesus coming in you.

Now is the time we don’t only look for Jesus coming to the stable — we look for Him around every table; we don’t only look for Him coming to the crèche, we look for Him in every crisis.

We don’t look for Him coming only to the manger, look for Him in every mess; we don’t look for Him coming only in the barn — we look for Him coming through brokenness.

Advent is about looking for the coming face of Christ — in every face that comes to you.

There is never abandonment — only placement… and we are all placed by Him for each other, so no one has to feel abandoned.

Light the candles but never let anything less than the heart be lit:

Advent isn’t so much about hushed waiting, as much as it’s about heart breaking with the things that break God’s heart,  about a heart breaking in repentance… a heart breaking over the darkness and crying for the light to break in, for Advent to come and the Kingdom of GOD to break in to us.

Never let anyone shrink your Advent down to only lighting candles — instead of you breaking into flame, because our God is holy fire and His people ignite light that breaks into a wildfire of change that breaks the captives free. 

In the spring, I knelt beside her, beside a river in China where she was found, and in winter I kneel beside her, beside a Christmas tree where the light is finding us all in the dark, that is finding us because there is never any abandonment to be forgotten, only placement to be found.

And Christ keeps coming to find and remind and remake and rename, and we could keep finding Christ coming in every face, finding Christ coming — not only through the world to us, but coming to the world through us.

Come, Jesus, come to us with our broken hearts — and come through us to a world of broken hearts.

The lights are blazing brave, coming through the dark everywhere right about now.

And they’re calling for snow to fall all day tomorrow, swaddling us in white.

It’s coming now, tomorrow, always coming —  like a quiet abandonment to the arms and will of God who never abandons or fails.

 

#BeTheGift bracelets, supporting women in Ecuador, are available here

Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift this Advent…  

Want to know how all your unspoken broken can be be transformed into abundance? Tired of trite answers?

Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, all the places that feel kinda abandoned?

These are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.

Don’t miss out on the gift of the life you’ve always wanted.

In the places where we feel abandoned — are the places where we abandon ourselves to God — and find the gift of a broken way to a truly abundant life. 

How to Keep Hoping for Hard Things (& Keep Passing The Giving Light)

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urns out you can count on it to happen, like choreographed grace, right there under thousands of roofs, under thousands of steeples, the first Sunday of Advent, this lighting of the Hope candle —- like we’re all getting together to blow the whole lid right off the dark.

The moment we let hope die, part of us dies. You need Hope like a flame in the veins to keep you rising, to keep the light rising.

We keep the Hope candle burning here all week.

Because we need more than one flickering day of hope around here — we need a whole obstacle-shattering season of HOPE.

One kid here again has a sweat-drenching heart rate of 237 beats per minute and some mighty fine doctors are left scratching their heads while our hearts kinda break.

Another kid, right after dinner, has a blood sugar low that plunges to comatose-dangerous depths, no rhyme or reason, just us rummaging for sugar for the kid with no insulin-making pancreas, us all murmuring a bunch of really confused prayers.

The cat gets catastrophically lost outside. The scale is definitely going in the wrong direction. And, like the day before, and the day before, I say the wrong thing, failed to do the right thing, and would like a sign in the sky to know what is the next thing.

Life’s under no obligation to give us what we hope for — but we all hope for a life that gives us hope over and over again.

The essence of every living thing is at least one part hope. To live is to Hope.

But it turns out you can lose your Hope somewhere along a string of doctor’s offices, or your Hope can get jammed up in another slammed door, or everything can careen off kilter and and your Hope can get bruised up pretty badly.

It can hurt to hope.

The Farmer holds that little carved wooden star, that rises over the Messiah Manger. “This little star?  We’re gonna go ahead and call it ‘The Giving Light’.”

He looks around at our tribe of toddler and teenagers and now tall men. “And this year, we’re gonna keep passing this Giving Light around. Do an act of givenness, an intentional act of kindness — and leave The Giving Light with your kind act of givenness — so the next person can Give It Forward Today, be the GIFT, and keep passing that star forward every twenty-four hours, just like the stars, the Giving Light always moving forward.”

Till Christmas Eve— when that Giving Light will return and rise over the Messiah’s Manger — knowing that what we’ve given forward, we’ve always given toward Him.

The Wise not only still follow the Light, seek the Light — they become the Light.

“So who knows who’s going to go first with that little Giving Light?” I whisper it to the Farmer in the kitchen. The man just winks, eyes glinting with a bit of hope.

And I nod: This is the week that The Giving Light gives Hope — hope that we’re noticed, that we’re seen, that we’re wanted, that we’re loved now more than we’ve ever been.

Our daughters need Hope that their voices matter, and our sons need Hope that they can stand for what matters, and our men need Hope that their sacrifices matter and our sisters need Hope that their courage every confounded day matters and there is always a way.

And on the second day of our Hope week of Advent — a girl here leaves me a box outside my bedroom door — with The Giving Light sitting on top. The Farmer winks.

“Open it.” He nods toward the box.

You may not know where you lost some of your Hope — and you never know when Hope will find you again.

And there it is in the bottom of the box — one bulb — and a pot of dirt. An amaryllis bulb. With a thin puck of dirt in the bottom of a plastic pot.

A girl says it quietly from the kitchen. “You can plant it with the other ones? And yeah, I know it doesn’t look like that puck of dirt will expand — but really, go ahead and add the two cups of water? And just — wait and see?”

Littlest Girl pours the water into the pot, showering the 1 inch dirt puck in a bit of showering rain— and we wait for the soil to swell.

“Well — look at that,” the Farmer stops on his way through the kitchen half an hour later, leans over the pot. He grins over at me, “Wait with faith— and what doesn’t seem doable — can be seen done.”

And the Farmer stirs the pot now fill to the brim with dirt.

And I dig a hole for that one bulb swollen with hope — and with hands in dirt, dropping it that bulb, I whisper it again:

You have to plant Hope at the bottom of your hole.

Holes exist — to plant Hope.

Have a hole? Plant Hope.

Plant Hope at the bottom of every hole.

And I bury the bulb — believing. Wait with faith— and what doesn’t seem doable — can be seen done.

And I line up that newly planted pot with a trio of other bulb-planted pop, all in different stages of growth and bloom — and I kneel over to touch that one amaryllis shoot already rising up toward the light.

You need Hope like a flame in the veins to keep you rising.

You have to keep holding on to Hope to keep holding on.

You having to keep finding your Hope when you’ve lost it, or you lose your way.

You have to breathe hope to keep your lungs and your dreams from collapsing.

You have to let Hope always carry you or fears will carry you away.

And these days? The world needs less fear mongers and more Hope Mongers.

Fear says our only choices are either fight, flight, or freeze, but Hope says we always have the choice of optimism, options, and optimizing all things for good.

Hopemongers knows there will always be obstacles in the way, but there is always still a way.

Hopemongers believe The Way forward is always greater than any obstacles in the way.

Hopemongers know there is always a way to get from here to there.

And at the back window — I water all four of my little buckets of hope. Plant Hope at the bottom of every hole.

And when I stand in the kitchen, I can see it when I looking past the Hope candle blazing on in the Advent wreath.

There on the front porch window, sitting atop what was the starless, thrifted ceramic Christmas tree out on the front porch — there’s now a little carved wooden star.

And the Farmer catches me catching the light of that little thrifted tree’s star, and I ask him grinning like a found Chershire cat.

“You — found another Giving Light? A carved star? For the little ceramic tree too?” His eyes are unabashedly glinting again.

“You never know when Hope might find you.”

And the Farmer winks, like all this giving light can lift the dark and out of any black hole, there can rise a stellar Hope.

 

Related:  www.TheGreatestChristmas.com

And How to Be A Star in the Dark 

When the World is Hurting This Season & We’re Desperate to Help – What Our One Small Invitation Can Mean

My heart first broke for poverty as I stood at the edge of a city dump in Guatemala. With Shaun Groves leading the charge for Compassion Bloggers my life forever changed. Five years later Shaun would hand the torch of Compassion Bloggers to his co-leader Bri McKoy. After years of entering the homes of children living in desperate poverty, of breaking bread with them, Bri found this connection of sharing a meal with people of all different backgrounds and races. She found that the call to make a place at our table was more necessary than we could ever fathom. She is realizing that the invitation to come and eat is more potent than she first understood. It’s a grace to welcome Bri to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by Bri McKoy

Just over 2,000 years ago Jesus came to us. Came to be with us.

He exiled Himself from His home and did not count Himself too wonderful to not be just like us.

Swaddled as a babe in an animal feeding trough, not a crib, to parents who were fleeing for their lives. He grew up and started slinging truth, doling out freedom for the captives, and throwing open a door to life everlasting.

An invitation.

He proclaimed that He wasn’t here for the healthy. No, He did not leave his Kingdom for the have-it-all-together-tribe. He came for the sick. The shamed. The heartbroken. The just-can’t-seem-to-get-it-right people.

For you and me.

He performed miracles. He laughed with us. He cried with us. He taught us. He also did this curious and wild thing: He pulled out a chair in our homes. He took His seat at the table of sinners.

He shared a meal with us.

He broke bread with us and leaned in close as we chewed on our crusty loaves and forked away at our salty fish. He let us know, “You’re more than just hungry. You need more than just water.”

We shifted uncomfortably in our seats. We wondered quietly if He was who we’ve been waiting for.

In all of this the religious leaders asked incredulous, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11, ESV)

 As if Jesus had been waiting all his earthly life to be asked this, he quipped back, “Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” (Matthew 9:13, The Message)

And then after modeling for us this act of sharing a meal, this grand invitation to come and eat, He spent His last hours as a freeman at a common table. He broke bread and said, “Remember me.” He poured wine and said, “My whole life is poured out for you.”

Just like that, we cannot separate our eating and drinking from Him. He revealed Himself to us at a table. He whispers to us of a table yet to come, one filled with people from all tribes, nations and backgrounds.

I want my table to look like just a whisper of what the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will look like.

But here I am. Thirty-three in 2017. Living in a world Jesus’ disciples could never have imagined. High fences. High tech. High fructose corn syrup.

The call to invite others over for a meal seems small at best. Maybe even outdated?

Why ask the neighbor for sugar when I can have Amazon drop it at my doorstep by drone? Why open my door when I want to lock, even deadbolt, myself inside because the hurting world hurts too much.

What I really want to know is what my one small meal can mean for anyone given the state of our world?

What can my one small empty chair pulled out for a neighbor really accomplish?

This God-Man, this Savior of ours reminds me again and again as I flip through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that He came to earth and took a quieter way. This man who could have entered the world with all pomp and circumstance, He took a different path. He did not take a seat on a throne in some high castle, He took a seat at our wobbly chairs at our common dining room tables.

Maybe if Jesus did ministry on this earth at a table over a meal, maybe that is what He has for us too?

Maybe before God calls us to some faraway land to help a hurting people, maybe He is first calling us to our tables?

I remember the tables He’s sat me at over the years.

I’ve shared a table with prostitutes at midnight in the heart of the red-light district of Pattaya, Thailand. I was wild-eyed young and ready to shut down every bar with my fiery, waving fist in the air. The Thai women were calm and subdued. We sipped our cokes and I watched as each one got plucked from behind the bar. Until I sat there alone. Dismayed. And I asked myself for years after, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?”

I’ve broken bread with a girl-child on a dirt floor under a barely-there roof wondering why she was born into poverty and not me. She ate her small meal over the span of two hours and I wondered at her patient bites, her slow communion. A translator looked at my curiosity and said, “She’s trying to make it last the whole day.”

I’ve feasted with family and friends and neighbors. Toasting to new births and new jobs and new moves. Because God is always making everything new.

I’ve shared countless meals with a man who knelt down and made me his wife. We’ve laughed around the table. Shouted at the table. Come together at the table.

This is what I know, when the hurt of the world became too much…when all I could see was death and pain and suffering and I did not know how to help…I did not know where to start, I did the smallest and bravest thing I knew to do – I took my cue from Jesus and I prepared a meal.

With our one small invitation to the table we echo His one life altering invitation, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20, ESV

This month we celebrate the man, Our God, who came to us because His love for us could not keep Him from us. This season we also stand with bated breath because it holds the highest suicide rates for our country. Depression on rampage. Sorrow overwhelming.

How is there this juxtaposition? This hallelujah. This weeping.

But there is also always this invitation.

Starting at our own tables is a way we can participate in taking up the cause of the lost and desperate.

It’s how we can start right where God has us.

It is how we go from overwhelm for a hurting world to overflow for the hurting.

May we fling open our doors to a vibrant and wild world.

May we pull out a chair at our table often, and bravely invite, “Come and eat.”

 

Bri McKoy is an accidental home cook, a gatherer of people, an obsessive smiler.

What a JOY her new book is, Come and Eat: A Celebration of Love and Grace Around the Everyday Table  — every page filled with encouraging, embarrassing, heartbreaking and joyful stories from her own table. It’s an invitation for you to begin, or continue, your own journey to the table and includes over 20 weeknight meal recipes as well as questions and prayers for the table to inspire you. 

I’m telling you, for all those who are hungry and craving more of God’s kingdom in their homes, Come and Eat offers recipes, tips, and questions to jumpstart conversation, while reminding us that fellowship in God’s love is always the most remembered, most cherished nourishment. Because when we make room for others, we make room for God, and our homes become a vibrant source of life, just as He means them to be.

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

What Advent Really Is : What We All Really Need This Season : & How to Be A Star in the Dark

When I found this little ceramic Christmas tree from the 70’s — that had no star?

Just a table-top tree with translucent multi-colored bulbs, up on the upper shelf of a piled and tilting thrift store?

Yeah, I rescued a sting of childhood memories and brought that chipped star-less tree home.

Because it’s December the 1st, and the hype ends now, like someone, thank God Almighty, duct-taped all the grating noise and made a sacred space of sane stillness.

These are loud and wounding days of right reckoning. News streams are a torrent of pain. A lady yells at me on the way home with this blister of 40 tongue-lashings.

And I’m telling you: When we dash one person’s light — we dash a world of light, because we tend to pass on our pain, instead of passing the peace.

Maybe when we are most disillusioned with each other, is when most need to be blaze illumination for each other.

Why You Need to Surround Yourself with Warrior Women

Hurtful words have a weeds-like way of tangling themselves around your image of yourself until the truth of who you are gets choked out by a joke someone told at your expense, by critical words someone said to cover their own insecurity, by mean lies you learn to live with as truth. Words like these repeat in our souls like broken records. As a spoken word poet, author and music lover, Amena Brown writes about the lessons she’s learned about music, surrender, friendship, being yourself, relationships, and finding home in her new book How to Fix a Broken Record. It’s a grace to welcome Amena to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by Amena Brown

When I was a little girl, my grandma watched two TV shows religiously: The People’s Court and The Young and the Restless.

The latter was referred to as her “stories” and should not be interrupted for conversation or emergency, unless it was a commercial break.

During the commercials, my grandma would scold or applaud the characters, extracting life lessons on how Nikki and Victor’s relationship wasn’t working because they didn’t “love one another like the Bible says.”

I never scheduled my day around Judge Wapner or Mrs. Chancellor, but I found my own “stories” in Grey’s Anatomy.

I know the characters by name, and sometimes when they are in a tough spot, I’m tempted to pray for them, until I remember they are fictional characters. I’m a sucker for a hospital drama, so I jumped ship from watching ER when a young, hip hospital show began starring these new interns: Meredith, Cristina, Izzie, George, and Alex.

I chastised Meredith for sleeping with her boss. I felt her pain when she spoke the “Pick Me, Choose Me, Love Me” monologue in the scrub room. McDreamy, McSteamy, Burke, Bailey, the Chief, the on-call room, the break room, the operating room, the makeups, breakups, firing, hiring, and all the quintessential Shonda Rhimes’s cliffhangers kept me glued to my couch.

Maybe my grandma was right.

Maybe we can learn something from all the drama in our “stories.”

When I watched the season 10 finale and exit of one of my favorite Grey’s characters, Cristina Yang, played by phenomenal actress Sandra Oh, I felt like I was saying good-bye to an old friend.

In one of Cristina’s final scenes with her best friend, Meredith, she said, “You’re my person. I need you alive. You make me brave.”

When I was a little girl, my mom and her best friend, Naima, used to stay up late, way past my bedtime, talking, laughing, and reminiscing.

Their friendship has remained a steady pillar as their romantic relationships have come and gone and as their homes have slowly emptied of children to raise.

They have walked each other through birth, loss, love, divorce, and job promotions.

No matter how much their lives change, they always find themselves sitting across from each other discussing everything over a hot cup of tea.

They are each other’s person.

I learned from watching them how important it is for me to have women friends in my life who will help me to be brave, who will be my person.

I’ve always leaned on a cadre of strong, funny, truthful, fabulous women.

I envision us all strong warriors, fighting the good fight of faith, yoga, and chocolate; espousing to each other the good merits of biscuits, stillness, and dancing.

Womanhood is a journey that is best walked together with other women.

I’m thankful for so many warrior women who have walked this journey with me.

For my girlfriends who are preachers, activists, writers, entrepreneurs, businesswomen, artists, whose leadership teaches me to fight for justice, drink my water, wear a bold lipstick, sleep, celebrate, lament and ask for help, pray even when I want to cry and cuss.

Who remind me of my worth and value.

For my girlfriends who have struggled with disease, grief, and heartbreak. As I have watched many of them find joy and gratitude while walking through sorrow, I’m encouraged to be more joyful and grateful too.

There are too many women to name here. I could spend a lot of time here outlining the ways my girlfriends have taught me love, truth, grace, fashion, and leadership.

It is a fight to believe what God says about me, to love and accept the way God made me, to do what God called me to do, even when it’s not convenient or easy or applauded.

I don’t fight that fight alone. I walk with a squad of women warriors I would be honored to enter any battle with.

Sometimes it takes us so long to realize we need people and needing people doesn’t make us weak. Cristina and Meredith in Grey’s Anatomy reminded me we can’t be brave by ourselves.

We need someone to be our person.

So find someone who can walk with you, cry and snot with you, pray with you, laugh with you, sit in silence with you, grieve with you, cuss with you, grab your shoulders and speak the truth to you until it hits you right where you need it.

When discouragement and pity creep in, lean on your person —

and let them help you be brave, in hopes that when they need it, you can help them be brave too.

 

Amena Brown is an author, spoken word poet, speaker, and event host. The author of five spoken word albums including her most recent release Amena Brown Live and non-fiction books Breaking Old Rhythms and new book How to Fix a Broken Record, Amena performs and speaks at events from coffeehouses to arenas with a mix of poetry, humor, and storytelling. 

Spoken word poet Amena Brown’s broken records played messages about how she wasn’t worthy to be loved. How to Fix a Broken Record chronicles her journey of healing as she’s allowed the music of God’s love to replace the scratchy taunts of her past. From bad dates to marriage lessons at Waffle House, from learning to love her hair to learning to love an unexpected season of life, from discovering the power of saying no and the freedom to say yes, Amena offers keep-it-real stories your soul can relate to. 

Recognize the negative messages that play on repeat every day in your mind. Learn how to replace them with the truth that you are a beloved child of God. And discover how to laugh along the way as you find new joy in the beautiful music of your life.

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

The New Houston Strong: Don’t Read Unless You Want Your Faith to Grow Crazy Strong

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he woman we’re standing with, she is kinda a modern-day Job in a floral kimono.

Even if she looks like any woman you might see in a Texas H-E-B grocery store or in a Sunday morning pew on a steamy Houston morning, worn Bible on her lap.

She’s wearing two bracelets on her left wrist. One read: IF …. as in: IF GOD IS REAL — THEN HOW WILL I LIVE?

The other one read: I AM LOVED.

Laura nods my way, those two bracelets glinting in the Texas sun — and then turns to the moulding and muddied heaps of her earthly existence, water-stained furniture, swollen drywall, stacks of soggy photos and books and papers, piled outside her flooded Houston home, and the woman speaks a steadying faith that needs to make headlines, because it rents the heart wide open: “

Laura’s house has flooded —  twice. Laura and her family have lost nearly every single one of her household contents — twice.

Don’t ever doubt: There are giants of the faith that look like victims in the eyes of the world, but are victors in the eyes of heaven. Giants of the faith are simply the ones who commit to giving every small thing to God.

I memorize her faith.

“Honestly, you have to understand about the first time everything flooded,” Laura walks us through the crumbling piles of rotting rugs and ruined kitchen appliances and flood-wrecked chairs.

“It was 16 months ago; it was tax day 2016. Our daughter was up at 3am reading Huckleberry Finn and she came into my room and said, “Mom and Dad, get out of bed. The house is flooding!”

“It had started raining at 8:30 that night. And by 3 am, we had water up past our ankles. We waded through the house grabbing things. One of the things that God prompted me to grab was my IF journals. And in the midst of everything, I had laid my IF journal on my dressing bench at the edge of my bed — and I forgot to go put it back in my bag.”

“As we drove out of here between 3:15 and 3:30 am, we could barely get out of the driveway. The cars were sputtering because the water was so deep – it was halfway up my shins. That was the first time.”

“When we came back, I went into my bedroom. There was the bench on the other side of the room — the bench had floated to the other side of the room. And my IF journals were still sitting right there on top of the dressing room bench. God wanted me to know: He had saved my journals.”

The rising flood water about washes away cars, but God saves the evidence of what’s moved one woman closer to Him.

Laura stands admist the destruction of her home, literally piled around her, and I ask her to be honest: “Did you ever say to the Lord, ‘You already had this happen once, you can’t dare to have this happen again.’?”

Laura looks me right in the eye. “This is God’s story. And I’m okay with that.”

I don’t look away but ask her straight up: “Do you feel that this is a story that God should be ashamed of?”

“No,” Laura’s eyes are gentle. Brave. “Because He is so faithful. I cannot tell you the way I see – I’m not looking at this destruction. I know He has a purpose in this, and I’m looking at the waters that washed through my house, not from an earthly perspective, but in a spiritual aspect.”

She points to her flooded and gutted kitchen:

“Look — even if, you take one of the worst things — you can allow it to help you know Him more, or you can do the opposite and be bitter and be angry.”

I nod.

You always have options.

Either the the hard things help you turn more toward more Him — or the hard things make you grow more bitter toward Him.

You can choose to be bitter. Or you can choose to be Beloved.

You can choose to grow angry. Or you can choose to grow more in love. Wilderness can be where God woos you and floods can be where you sink into the expanse of His love.

This real faith of living given in the midst of Job-like loss, this is a story for our time, a story for our church, a story for all of our North American faith.

I have to know: “What did you do beforehand to cultivate a deep enough faith so that when you hit crisis — this is where you are?” I look into her lit face.

It’s her husband that answers immediately for his Job-strong wife:

“5 a.m. Bible open in her lap.”

Laura nods. “The Truth is so much stronger than the grief anyway. The Truth has the power to heal it all. I think the thing is? Once you recognize how rewarding it is to spend time in the Word, I would rather do that than anything else ever. My dream vacation is to go to a nice hotel and sit with my open Bible, my open journal.”

We are standing in all the rubble of their material lives.

And I nod — let faith like this be seen and heard far beyond Samaria, Jerusalem, Houston, Texas.

Laura hands me her journal and I run my hands across the scrawled pages and there it, clear as ink and this gospel incarnated in one 5-foot feminine powerhouse of prayer:

Veneer faith’s a mile wide with touted, trite words but only an inch deep with time in the True WORD.

Victorious faith is only an inch wide with public commotion, but a mile deep with private communion.

Come face any crisis, catastrophe, crossroads and there is your lifeline: You will handle your world only as well as you handle the Word.

And you will publicly navigate through the world only as well as you privately saturate in the Word.

Laura shows me how she wrote this verse in her journal — she reads it slowly, surrounded by heaps of her ruined house: “For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you…

For the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but give us power, love, and self-disciple.

So don’t be ashamed about the testimony of our Lord, or of me, His flood VICTOR”

Laura looks up at me: “First I wrote victim, then I thought that didn’t seem right —”

I can see where she crossed out victim and wrote VICTOR.

Laura reads the next line: “Rather, join me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.”

Laura keeps smiling into my face and there’s no denying it: Put on Christ and you move from being a victim to a victor.

“Even if our house floods twice — and we lose everything twice? I know God’s for us.” Laura nods. “His people just keep showing up.” And the woman knows what she’s about and I can’t stop nodding and I have no shame in blinking it back:

When God’s people show up, people see that God shows up.

“Laura?” I question her slowly. “I’m just thinking about all us who are hanging on. What would you say to us who haven’t lost everything? What do you say to us who are sitting in our homes in comfort?”

Laura reaches for my hand: “Be the hands and feet of Jesus.” I squeeze her hand back.

When we are the hands and feet of Jesus — the body of Christ doesn’t grow heartsick.

When we are the hands and feet of Jesus — the suffering see the face of God and don’t lose faith.

When we are the hands and feet of Jesus — the world doesn’t lose heart.

The church cannot ever have compassion fatigue — or hope tires and faith dies and the dark wins.

Enter in and co-suffer with Christ in the sufferings of the world, and you will rise with Christ, defeating the suffering not only in the world, but in your own broken heart.

Embrace the suffering and you find yourself held.

We all will find ourselves held.

Laura takes me by the hand, leads us through the water devoured home. She shows us how high the water rose. I run my hand across a two by four that has it inked unexpectedly right into the wood, as if the walls if this house laughed unafraid, even if the waters kept rising:

“Psalm 62:7”

On God rests my salvation and my glory;

my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

In the bathroom, I bend over and pick a bit of the shattered granite that was once a countertop.

My mighty rock, my refuge is God.

“What is your most pressing need right now?” I ask Laura, but looking around, I don’t even know where to begin?

“I don’t think I have a pressing need,” Laura smiles.

The woman’s house and everything she owns is water swollen — and her praise to Him swells greater.

“I have wants. I would like to be in a house that I can live in. I want to be settled so that I can do ministry. Teaching little children. Leading Bible studies. Praying over others who have lost everything in the flood. That is my favorite calling — to pray over people. With our house and everything we owned — lost? It’s hard to do everything that I’m committed to ministering and doing and giving.”

The day after Laura’s entire house flooded with more than 5 feet of water? Sunday morning? Laura was in church — praying for the grieving, serving the hurting, teaching the children, giving, giving, giving.

I struggle to smile, to choke it out, “You live as the gift — even in the midst of this. You are living — entirely cruciform, entirely broken and given right now. Why — even now? When you have so much need — why are you choosing to be the gift?”

“Because that’s where I find joy. Count it all joy.” Laura is still smiling with the greatest ease, warmth.

“When your whole world is upside down — that’s often used as reason to not live given? How would you feel right now — if you didn’t live given?” I search her eyes.

“Overwhelmed and stressed and unhappy.” Laura doesn’t miss a beat.

“Bitter.” Her husband chimes in.

When we show up for others, joy shows up in us. God shows up in us —- and we are the ones fulfilled.

Laura fumbles for her phone, to show us a picture from that first 2016 flood.

“I had these two cardboard letters, “IF” — as decor for a table.” To ask in all things: IF God is real — then how will I live today, choose today, believe today —- live given today?

She finds the photo:

“And there they were after the flood — after everything had floated around the house.

They were laying on the mud on the floor, just like this – ‘I’ ‘F’.”

She hands me the phone and I stare at the photo, the evidence.

There are places in this world that cannot stop speaking the Truth, because even the remnants of the flood cry out:

Even if God doesn’t give what we want — we want to love Him forever.

Even if God doesn’t do what we long for— we long to stand with Him regardless.

Even if God doesn’t do what we think best — we know He’s working all things for good and for our best.

Even if God doesn’t prove to be a puppet on our strings — we will prove that our hearts are tied to Him and we will praise Him, no strings attached.

Even if God doesn’t answer what we ask — we answer that we will not question His goodness, His closeness, His kindness and His rightness.

Even if the world says we’ve been abandoned by God — we will abandon ourselves to God.

Even if the waters rise and time runs out and the bottom falls out of everything, we will rise, and we will run and we will fall down at the feet of our God and say: You are mine and I am yours and hell will freeze over before my heart’s flame for you burns out.

Even if.

Even if we don’t have much — we can make much of Christ by giving some of what He has given us, so we have more of Him.

That granite corner of Job-Laura’s cracked and destroyed bathroom from the Houston floods, it was carried home the thousand and five hundred miles from Houston and it sits on here my desk, because there is a rock for a life to stand on, to stake your life on, and it’s worth sitting with the ebenezer of it every single day:

When you live given — to God and people — you get a life infinitely more than you dreamed —- even if everything else gives way.

all photographs by soul sister, Esther Havens, & flood photos by Flood VICTOR, Laura

 

 

This Giving Tuesday — will you live given and #BeTheGIFT and will you help Laura & other flooded families in Houston by giving to the relief efforts of Bayou City Fellowship Church on the ground in Houston. 100% of donations will go to helping FLOOD VICTORS in Houston

Each FLOOD VICTOR family that’s helped by Bayou City Fellowship (a faith community where I have worshipped and been deeply & profoundly ministered to by Pastor Curtis Jones and his wife Amanda, and her Jesus-loving Mama, Beth Moore) is assigned a team who will pray for the FLOOD VICTOR family, evaluate their needs, walk alongside in the rebuilding process, and support them through it all — and Jesus gets all the glory.

Can you #BeTheGIFT and give $5 this Giving Tuesday to Houston’s FLOOD VICTORS because when God’s people show up, the world sees how GOD SHOWS UP! 
Even if we don’t have much — we can make much of Christ by giving some of what He has given us, so we have more of Him.

When we show up for others, joy shows up in us. God shows up in us —- and we are the ones fulfilled.

LET’S BUILD NEW ROOFS & A CITY OF HOPE FOR LAURA & THE FLOOD VICTORS! EVEN IF every single one of us ALL GET to CHIP IN EVEN $5 & SHARE  the JOY of  GETTING to live GIVEN TO Flood VICTORS like Laura & Us all Together is the NEW HOUSTON-JESUS-STRONG. 
Love lives given. #BeTheGIFT. Give HERE