Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 132
November 22, 2017
How to not have or want more but how to BE more because that’s the ultimate goal
There are only so many full orbits around the sun, and who makes time to lie in bed and listen to rain thrumming on roofs or to take someone for strawberry ice cream sundaes and linger down at the bridge, the river running underneath like the present running through your hands?
And there are glads to be picked from the earth and there is time yet to live in the givenness of everything.
Your time is limited— so don’t limit your life by wanting someone else’s.
Sometimes I stand in the living room after they’re all in bed and listen to that clock tick slowly.
Sometimes the ticking of the clock is like Morse code, tapping it out again and again:
You have only one decision every day: how will you use your time?
Sometimes the best use of your time is to stand and listen to a clock. We’re all terminal— and we all just want a number. What size is this bucket of time? How many days do I actually get?
The hands of the clock are bound by the decisions of our hands. And He has made our hands free to be His.
I don’ t even know who has the audacious idea to go up to the dollar store and leave dollars up and down every aisle, but our kids watch unsuspecting kids wander in. Smiles break up every aisle.
This boy in a ball cap stops at the counter and picks up a lollipop we’ve taped a note to: “Here’s a dollar. Pick any color. We’re Giving It Forward Today. #betheGIFT.” His face explodes in this smile, and bits of joy lodge in the brokenness of me, and I feel a bit remade.
Smiling at anyone is to awe at the face of God.
And “the beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile coming to us through matter” (Simone Weil). There’s a clerk grinning at the till. The guy stocking shelves is chuckling.
There are people Giving It Forward Today, and don’t think that every gift of grace, every act of kindness, isn’t a quake in a heart that moves another heart to give, that moves another heart to give, that grows into an avalanche of grace.
Don’t say this isn’t what a brokenhearted world desperately needs; don’t say it isn’t how to change a broken world.
What if the truth really is that every tremor of kindness here erupts in a miracle elsewhere in the world?
I can feel it like the slightest sense of a suturing along raw and ragged scar lines.
Maybe our suffering and brokenness begin a kind of healing when we enter into the suffering and brokenness of the world, right through the brokenness and givenness of Christ.
Maybe there’s no such thing as a small act of giving.
Every small gift of grace creates a love quake that has no logical end.
It will go to the ends of the earth and change the world, and then it will break through time and run on into eternity.
I would read later that those who perform five acts of giving over six weeks are happier than those who don’t, that when you give, you get reduced stress hormone levels, lowered blood pressure, and increased endorphins, and that acts of kindness reduce anxiety and strengthen the immune system.
Five random acts of kindness in a week can increase happiness for up to three months later. “He gives by cartloads to those who give by bushels,” wrote Spurgeon.
Maybe if all you have to give are handfuls, He might make a broken heart full?
The world kinda echoes with it:
To continue reading this post please click here to join us over at (in)courage…
November 21, 2017
How to live through anything these holidays when you’re finding it hard to even breathe
The woman I meet up on the concourse, she tells me she was done.
Done with the man and the ring and the vows, done with the kids, done with her life.
Her eyes are so large and fragile, hands trembling, the way your world can quake and break and the aftershocks rattle you and the stunned retelling. I touch her shoulder.
And she crumbles in and heaves, and heaves that counting blessings made her see blessings and she’s staying and staying alive and barren places can break with bloom.
I memorize her face and glory.
We are the broken and the bruised and the messed up and the unmasked, women meeting at a conference, and turning quiet to pull up sleeves and show scars.
A woman murmurs at my ear over the din that her brother in law ran over his 13 month old daughter, and we don’t have to say anything, and hands find each other and lace and this world is right busted and tied up with the strings of His broken and offered heart.
And a gravelly voice speaks of cancer and a grave and a child whose name she wears around her neck, and we finger that name together and fiercely believe in a Father who knows and holds and cups like relief, like a lung, when we can’t breathe.
And the story of a stroke and a mother and depression that pinned to a bed and the dark that suffocated for decades and the pen that wrote His gifts, that opened the veil to His light.
And I tuck a lock of hair behind the ear, and listen to unlockings and how women are finding keys.
And then she stepped close, a woman who couldn’t lift her head, who hid her eyes, and she says it timid near my shoulder.
“I had six children when I sinned.” And I turn, wrap an arm around her shoulder, draw her in.
“I had an affair…” Her words snag and tear and I hold on to her as she starts to give way. “I got pregnant. And I couldn’t handle what I had done.”
I try to swallow, all my sins stuck and lodged and burning there in my throat. Oh, sister. The sobs wrack and we are two women caught in the act of living and sinning.
“And the day I was going for the abortion, a friend gave me this.” She nods her head towards that book with the nest on the cover.
“She gave it to me — and she said what I couldn’t handle… was actually a gift.” And I can hardly take this, have to look away, take my shoes off, tear my coat, beat my chest.
“And I read and I agreed with God and he is.”
And there on the screen of her phone — she offers this picture of a smiling baby boy.
And I reach out and hold his smile and it is holy and it is epiphany and it is hard —
What you think you can’t handle — might actually be God handing you a gift.
And I think of everything I have chaffed against and railed about and howled to the heavens and who am I to know what is best or not — but when you bow and surrender to the sovereignty of God then you are in the posture to receive all as a gift.
I touch the pixels of that baby boy smiling.
Eucharisteo always precedes the miracle and he’s smiling, that miracle baby’s smiling.
What is beyond the redemption of God?
And I look up and around at all these women gathered here with their God-witnessing, all their pain-glistening eyes and courage-smiles and chins that still quake, and there it is — in all of them —
In Christ, thanksgiving is more than a holiday —
In Christ, thanksgiving is all of our days.
The living proof, the woman from Chicago and the sisters from Kansas City and the grandmother from Florida and the couple from Arkansas, they are the walking witnesses of His Word and why giving thanks isn’t a pollyanna game — but a powerhouse game-changer:
God asks us to give thanks in everything — because this is the way you live through anything.
It’s a dare to really live and I want it, all over again, I want it.
And the mama of the miracle that almost wasn’t, she smiles at me through tears, and we both blur and reach out and touch each other’s face — Giving thanks is life giving.
And we murmur it at the same time —
Thank you.
And He hears.
And everything that seems done and over revives again.
“Christian thanksgiving is the life of Christ in the heart, transforming the disposition and the whole character. Thanksgiving must be wrought into the life as a habit—before it can become a fixed and permanent quality.
We must persist in being thankful. Thanksgiving has attained its rightful place in us, only when it is part of all our days and dominates all our experiences.
Every day of our years should be a thanksgiving day.
He who has learned the Thanksgiving lesson, well has found the secret of a beautiful life.”
November 20, 2017
How to Find Contentment – when you’d really rather be somewhere else
You may know Candace Payne as the stay-at-home mom from Texas who went viral after laughing hysterically while wearing a toy Chewbacca mask on Facebook Live. However, Candace is “much more” than a viral video star, and has a great deal of whimsical wisdom to offer as she encourages others to embrace freedom and experience defiant joy. In her book, Laugh it Up!, Candace shares her secrets for leading a life filled with joy. Today she shares with us how learning the art of contentment paves the way. It’s a grace to welcome Candace to the farm’s front porch today…
Through circumstances beyond my control, I abruptly ended my college studies and an exciting musical theater focus to move back home and care for ailing grandparents.
During that season, I met my husband, married, and put many of my own dreams on hold to pursue love and family.
I entered into what I call the “anonymous years”…living life backstage instead of center stage, as it were.
I no longer found myself in a line waiting to audition for interesting roles in a play, but rather a grocery checkout line buying bulk diapers.
And to say I didn’t struggle would be untrue.
For a while, it felt as though my purpose and identity were fading like the late-day sun.
My grandmother, Annie Mae, was someone special to me. More than my grandma, she was a beautiful mirror into everything kind and lovely that I longed to become.
Both before and after the dementia took hold of her, she was an ornery lady with sass and sparkle in her eyes in equal parts. You never truly knew what that woman was plotting.
In her younger days, my grandma would make the best pot roast, force me to take a nap when I visited her house, eat a five-gallon bucket of ice cream in one sitting if she wanted (she loved pecans, pralines, and cream), and jerk out her dentures in one swift motion to scare the dickens out of me for her own sheer amusement.
In her later days, Annie Mae struggled with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and though she didn’t remember my name, she always laughed at my jokes, and I knew she knew me.
No applause or crowd laughter will ever carry as much weight as the memories I have of making my sweet Annie Mae laugh.
When we were together, and as I hummed hymns while brushing her hair, I felt more love and appreciation than I could ever earn on a stage.
I found contentment in just being her granddaughter; in simply sitting and holding her hand.
During those “anonymous” years, I discovered that who I was wasn’t dependent on where I was (aka, on a stage).
The shift came when I realized that contentment is not always achieved in fulfilling our grandiose life goals.
It’s found in quiet moments and memories, many of which can so easily be lost to time and busyness if we don’t work to preserve them.
Simply put, contentment is not natural, it’s a learned behavior and a choice.
“…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” (Philippians 4:11b ESV)
But if we can work to preserve it each day, stop it from slipping through the cracks, we will find a surprising byproduct waiting for us.
Deep inside a heart that can find contentment regardless of heartache, disappointment, rejection, or failure, is my beautiful friend, joy.
It’s in contentment that we find authentic joy.
Joy may not always be full of laughter, but she most assuredly she offers comfort in spite of our circumstances or position in life. Every time.
Are you capturing the small moments of contentment offered each day, week or month?
Or are you letting them fade into obscurity?
Catch them! Hold on to them!
Let them be your anchor.
And whether you’re backstage or center stage, claim your contentment and let it lead you to joy.
Candace Payne is a viral sensation whose video of trying on a Chewbacca Mask became the most-viewed Facebook Live video in history (170+ million views). She has been featured in more than 3,000 media outlets and has interviewed with major media such as Good Morning America, FOX & Friends, “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” The New York Times, PEOPLE and Cosmopolitan.
Her first book, Laugh It Up! tells the rest of the story behind the woman in the mask. Like most of us, Candace has often felt overlooked, undervalued, and insignificant. But she has also discovered the secrets to unshakable joy that no circumstance can take away, and Laugh It Up! will help you discover and experience the same.
Join Candace to discover the gift God has given us all to experience life to the fullest. All you need to do is answer “yes” when joy, whom Candace personifies as a friend, calls you to come and play. With humor and power, wit and wisdom, Candace lights the way forward to a life that is free indeed.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
November 18, 2017
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.18.17]
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:
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
can’t ever quite get enough of the extraordinary that she shares again and again
the kids and I laughed so hard over this one
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
there is always so much more than we can see:
NASA Captures Amazing Photos of Jupiter After Successfully Completing Its Eighth Flyby
so did you know?
Calling all knitters and crocheters with a really big heart.
our God is awesome…right there in the Sam’s Club
their meal was covered with an anonymous gift of $300:
“At a time like this it gives everyone a new faith in humanity. There’s still good out there.”
he’s brave, resilient…and walking to find a cure
sit here for a bit? just breathtaking:
The 27 Finalists Photos Of The National Geographic Nature Photographer Of The Year 2017
YES and thank you: “The goal is to see His strength perfected in our weakness.”
(Mercy House engages those with resources to say yes to the plight of women in poverty, empowers women and teenage mothers around the world through partnerships and sustainable fair trade product development & disciples women to be lifelong followers of Jesus Christ.)
Each box supports 5 groups we partner with to empower women around the world. We’ve added more fun ornaments to the mix! Get this set of 5 from Sierra Leone, Haiti, Ukraine, Kenya and India. Each set comes in a gift box.
Life can get really busy, really fast. But it only takes a moment to say ‘thank you’
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
too beautiful not to share with you…
never, ever, ever give up
Spring Herbison Bowlin via Facebook
Walmart Cashier Helps Struggling Man: ‘We’ve forgotten how to love one another’
#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
pushing past what you can’t forget, and trying to remember what you never knew
Holy, holy, holy…is the Lord God Almighty
What Matt Chandler says here slays me with praise for the only One who has ever loved us to death…
Anna Duncan Photography
a most extraordinary journey of faith, love, hope, and redemption
please don’t miss this one? you will want to pass it on…
this, this this: a story of adoption and redemption…I could not love her more
Post of the week from these parts here
… kinda crazy, how it turned out here for some of our kids — and maybe we weren’t surprised by what the heart monitor read this week:
6 Secrets that 3 Kids with Hard Life Diagnoses Know: An Anthem for a Wonderful Life
“I really just wanted to know God.”
Want to Win this Wooden Advent Wreath? We are Giving Away FIVE!
Just post a picture of you with The Wonders Of The Greatest Gift on Instagram or your FaceBook page along with the hashtag #TheGreatestChristmas #ReclaimTheWonder
Share the photo of your copy of The Wonders Of The Greatest Gift by November 25th and we will pick 5 happy recipients of The Cradle to the Cross Advent Wreath along with the new Messiah Manger engraved with Emmanuel —
because when our holidays are about staying in the story, being with Him — we reclaim the wonder. The wonder of The Greatest Christmas.
This year, let His wonder to awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart!
More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.
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!
Hallelujah!
Want the gift of less stress?
It’s hiding where you’d never expect it.
Want to know how your brokenness could be transformed into abundance? Tired of trite answers?
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.
Featuring new stories from Ann’s blog, powerful excerpts from the New York Times bestseller The Broken Way, and Ann’s signature photography from her farm and family, this gorgeous book will be a profoundly meaningful and needed gift — not only to your own weary soul, but any loved one looking for the relief of a bit of beauty and abundant joy.
Grab a copy of Be The Gift — and 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 and live the life you’ve longed to.
yes, yes, yes: he left his career to help kids in need of direction…and hope
#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading? Pleading for you and for me
…In the stressful times: seek God.
In the painful times: praise God.
In the terrible times: trust God.
And at all times – at all times – at all times Thank God.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
November 17, 2017
How To Feel Lasting Comfort Through the Really Hard Days
I know friends who’ve had to grit their teeth and persevere through a lifetime of hardships. And when their smile doesn’t fade, I wonder, how do they do it? How does God’s Word change from printed letters on a page into the fuel that empowers their faith? What is different about their engagement with the Holy Spirit… and what can we learn from them?! When I saw that my friend, Joni Eareckson Tada, was the general editor for the new Beyond Suffering Bible, it confirmed it: Joni is one of those people. She knows something about the Word of God that I want to share with my friends, I thought. Fifty years of quadriplegia and chronic pain have given her a platform that really makes people want to listen. And so, I invited her to share a few of her secrets…
guest post by Joni Eareskon Tada
It’s no fun getting older, but it can be a heart-pumping adventure.
And I’m saying that after five decades in a wheelchair.
Like, how did I reach 50 years of quadriplegia in such good spirits?!
Now, I could rattle off the many litres of water I drink, or that I limit red meat and guzzle apple cider vinegar twice a day, but that’s not half of it. I live not only on bread, water and more; I live on the promises of God. Really.
When it comes to God’s promises, I can’t be just a hearer; I must be a doer. My paralysis makes it so.
Like what happened last Monday morning.
Because I suffer from severe scoliosis, I often wake up with huge pain in my hip and back.
But on this morning, it was off-the-charts. Barely out of bed, my spirits were already sagging. My girlfriend got me dressed and ready, and I wheeled into my van where my husband tied down my wheelchair.
We started driving the 101 Freeway to Joni and Friends, but the whole time, I just wanted to ask Ken to turn around and take me home.
I was miserable.
Usually when Ken drives me to work, we pray together in the van. But I had no strength for that. Nor did I have strength to sing hymns, which I usually do while driving.
Yet I just couldn’t let myself go down a dark, grim path to depression.
I whimpered, “God, where is the comfort You promise?!” Just then, a Bible verse popped into my mind, Psalm 119:50, “My comfort in suffering is this: your promises renew my life.” Joni, there’s your comfort, the Spirit seemed to whisper, lean on God’s promises.
It sounded trite and theological. But since God brought it up, I decided to act on His suggestion. Okay, God, I’m going to hold You to it. I’m going to believe that Your promises actually can rescue me.
So, for the rest of the way down the 101, I loudly recited every Bible promise I could recall.
I dug them up from Sunday school, and from memories of faded verses on yellowed 3×5 cards.
As promises tumbled into my mind, I proclaimed them insistently enough so that my husband, sitting in the driver’s seat, could hear (he kept giving me funny looks in the rearview mirror).
I would blurt out, “Lord, you promise that You are my ever-present help in trouble… and You promise that Your grace is more than sufficient for my every need… You assure that you will never leave or forsake me… You promise to be the One who will go out and fight for me.”
I gathered more steam, insisting, “And the book of Joshua tells me that you will be with me wherever I go… You promise you are a refuge for the oppressed, and a stronghold in times of trouble… You say You will counsel me and watch over me, and guide me by Your righteous right hand.
You’ll sustain me and be my mighty fortress… You invite me to cast my cares on You, for You will never let me fall… Your name is a strong tower, and as the righteous run into it, they are safe. Jesus, You tell me I’m safe!”
By the time we arrived at Joni and Friends, a different person wheeled out of the van.
Something had changed.
My pain was still throbbing, but I had courage. I had a new degree of faith that was stretching my heart. Plus, a smile and heaven-sent strength to endure.
I wheeled up the ramp to my office, happily singing worship songs. I must have been loud, because people in their work stations started humming along.
It was crazy, but God’s promises had renewed my life, as though each verse infused life-given blood into my spiritual veins.
I knew God would come through, but… really, like this? So filled with faith that I no longer felt defeated?!
“God, you are sweet,” I said under my breath, “thank you!”
Don’t ask me how it works, or how the Holy Spirit does it, but when we do the Word – actually do it — something splits the seams of heaven and pours out a shower of blessings.
Like in Psalm 18:6, “In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple, he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.”
There are scores of verses that say the same: if you hurt, cry out to the Lord. Cry out. Don’t read it demurely; say it like you mean business.
He loves to see us put His Word to the test.
True, you may come across a little like a ‘fool for Christ’ in front of your husband or co-workers, but God wants to see how seriously you take His promises. When it comes to His promises, don’t you dare doubt them.
Don’t think God cannot change your heart, if not your circumstances. It’s what happens when you grab the Word by the horns, and wrestle it into the dirt of all that it means to be human.
That’s the stuff of which courage is made.
William Carey once said, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”
Your future is bright.
Hope is written all over your horizon.
And if you’re not sure; if your soul is feeling dry; if you are weary of persevering through a tough trial and want to throw in the towel, remember, change is possible.
Tuck a healthy handful of God’s promises into your heart, and start living them out.
You never know when you’ll be driving down a hard road and need your life to be renewed.
Joni Eareckson Tada broke her neck in a 1967 diving accident which left her a quadriplegic. Her wheelchair literally drove her deep into the Word of God to find answers for her plight. A lifetime of study has resulted in the Beyond Suffering Bible published by Tyndale in partnership with Joni and Friends. “God wrote the book on suffering, and this special edition helps the reader find the trace of God’s hand in every hardship,” says Joni. Discover how God permits what He hates to accomplish that which He loves – it’s all in the Beyond Suffering Bible.
There is not one of us who gets a pass from suffering. Whether it’s sleepless nights with an infant, concern over a loved one, a physical disability, chronic pain, illness, depression, the list goes on and on we all need comfort. The Beyond Suffering Bible tackles the tough questions, not giving the pat answers, but pointing people to the goodness of God and what He has to say amidst critical questions about suffering.
If we are to fully grasp what suffering is, and what we must do with it, we have to spend time digging in Scripture and this Bible is your shovel. Go deeper into how God can use our suffering in ways we could never imagine — this Bible is for every heart that’s known brokenness….
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
November 15, 2017
6 Secrets that 3 Kids with Hard Life Diagnoses Know: An Anthem for a Wonderful Life
The day I release a book out into the world, I go see the heart doctor.
Her heart doctor, not mine.
Because hearts do break around here. And us and our babies know it: Life has this painful way of busting your heart— and then you have to use your one life to bust out of the hopelessness of pain.
Sometimes the best way through our pain, is to not be afraid to sit with it. Because: when your life is about avoiding pain, you end up avoiding your life. But when you hold space for your pain, you find your pain taking up less space. Baby Girl reaches over for my hand.
In a closet-sized stuffy room, up on the 4th floor of The Hospital for Sick Kids, I’m sticking stickers on her bare chest for her ECG, her and I there with all the other sick kids and I squeeze her tiny finger because we get to lend each other courage and this is always the way through, like inhaling and exhaling: Be with God & Be Brave. Being with God is how you be brave.
Courage comes from communion.
Her big eyes keep searching mine and I whisper that it’s okay to not feel okay and still trust that we are all going to be okay.
The machine prints a graph of the beat of her heart and the technician hands me the paper. I hold it and nod because there it is, what every heart monitor will tell you: Mountains and valleys is what really living really looks like.
When the cardiologist marches into the room and starts throwing around dates of the next open heart surgery, the next time they will cut her chest wall open and start slicing her warm, beating heart, Baby Girl crawls up into my lap and whispers it louder and louder until its a begging howl, “Mama, need to go home. Go home, now, Mama.”
And I pull her in close and try to comfort her while straining to hear the cardiologist’s plan over Baby’s frantic pleas for home.
I know, Baby Girl — Home. Our broken hearts can stop beating any blink second and the time we get to hold on to each other is but a flashing minute and we all are evasively homesick for Him.
Our boy with Type 1 diabetes says goodnight to me every night, us both knowing that there’s a 1 in 20 chance he may not wake up in the morning.
And our girl who takes blood thinner every morning for her literal half a heart, who will one day be waiting on a list for a heart transplant before her broken heart finally fails, falls asleep every night with her arms around my neck, her brave heart pressed next to mine.
And there’s our child here who daily takes 4 beta blockers to slow the pound of a racing heart down, doctors warning of an ongoing risk of a sudden heart attack.
And I’m telling you, as a parent of 7 and mama to 3 children facing grave diagnoses, I don’t need any heart monitor to tell me what this heart of mine now knows by heart:
You face life differently when you’re daily facing how short life could be. Your priorities get unbelievably clear, when it’s clear life could be unbelievably short. Because time here is short, you have to know the long game that wins forever.
Life is a vapour and wisdom is knowing how to inhale every breath.
And these 3 kids of ours fighting against diagnoses for long lives, they’re the Wonderful Lifers who are making us write our own kind Anthem for a Wonderful Life, a refrain of what ultimately matters and defines who we all yearn to be with the days that come down the pike:
1. Be the WayFinders and the WallBreakers
Be the WayFinders who never give up because He holds us up, who always find a way, because He is the Way and our God never stops making a way, the WayFinders who practice rising, practice resurrection, who doggedly keep practicing our faith that always determines the healing Way forward.
Be the Wallbreakers who break masks, break pride, break prejudice, break oppression, break otherness, break hopelessness and break brokenness. Be the Wallbreakers who break down high walls around hearts so that hearts break free around here, and down the street, and across the world.
You break down a wall in the world, every time you break down an idol in your heart. Comfort isn’t king — Jesus is King, and the King of Kings said the Kingdom of God rises where you lay down your crown at the foot of Jesus and pick up your cross and come die to rise. The wall breakers get to be the idol breakers and the ground takers and kingdom shakers and the freedom makers.
2. Be the WordKeepers and the Worshippers
Be the WordKeepers, because only they keep to the straight and narrow, be the Wordkeepers because only they know how to keep calm and carry on, be the WordKeepers because this is the only way to keep hope, keep sane, keep brave, keep company with Christ. It is the WordKeepers who are this old dim world’s lightkeepers.
Keep reading the Word to keep the lights on.
And be the Worshippers because worship is existence and every word, thought, act, reveals what we really worship. What you think is worth it, is what you really worship, and you’ve got to worship right things, because every single one of us is wired to worship something and worship the wrong things and it’s your life that goes wrong. The choice is always worry or worship. One drives out the other and determines the course of your life, and you get to choose the life you want: worrier or worshipper.
3. Be the With-ers and Wonderers
The With-ers stand with people because solidarity is revolutionary and with-ness is what makes this world turn and turn around, and our God is Emmanuel, the With-God, who calls us to be the With-People, who stand with the unwanted and unpopular, and if we’re not standing with them, we’re not standing with God. With-ness breaks brokenness, and it’s showing up for people that forces pain into a showdown, and the With-ers are the Wonderful Lifers because good relationships makes a good life.
This is the Anthem to a A Wonderful Life: Be the WayFinders and the WallBreakers, the WordKeepers and the Worshippers, the With-ers and the Wonderers.
It’s worth risking wonder, because we can brave a culture of cynicism and outrage, but we can’t live in a culture devoid of wonder.
It’s worth walking with a holy, persevering wonder through a world of hurt so we don’t lose our way home.
They say Steve Jobs last words were: Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! Maybe those last words are words to live by — a holy, persevering wonder of wow, wow, wow.
There is no wisdom without wonder.
And yes: The spiritual practice of persevering in wonder takes courage but it makes the very most of all our moments: To be awed by God. God in all these moments. Be Brave & Be with God — oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.
Nothing wonderful happens in our lives without wonder.
After Baby Girl and I wander home from the big city and one long day with her heart doctor, after us bunch of Lifers determined to live another day as the WayFinders and WallBreakers, the WordKeepers and Worshippers, the With-ers and Wonderers because there’s no better way to A Wonderful Life, after we all gather round the table, my Mama sends me and our posse of kids this one photo.
A photo of my 96-year-old Granny opening up a bit of her own wonder.
Baby Girl with her own brave heart grins, points to her Great-Granny, then leans in over that brave tree and whispers — “Wow!”
Wonder makes this a wonderful life.
And I read it aloud, the whole of Mama’s caption: “Read Great-Granny a bit of The Wonder today — and she asked for more.”
Baby Girl squeezes my neck the tightest. Persevering Wonder.
And from 3 to 93-plus-3 — we ask for more.
This year, let His wonder to awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart!
More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.
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!
Want to Win this Wooden Advent Wreath? We are Giving Away FIVE!
Just post a picture of you with The Wonders Of The Greatest Gift on Instagram or your FaceBook page along with the hashtag #TheGreatestChristmas #ReclaimTheWonder
Share the photo of your copy of The Wonders Of The Greatest Gift by November 25th and we will pick 5 happy recipients of The Cradle to the Cross Advent Wreath along with the new Messiah Manger engraved with Emmanuel —
because when our holidays are about staying in the story, being with Him — we reclaim the wonder. The wonder of The Greatest Christmas.
November 13, 2017
The Key To Having Zero Fear of Missing Out
Jess Connolly isn’t your typical pastor’s wife and she’s not necessarily the typical woman you’d picture who would be writing about holiness. But honestly – isn’t that where life gets sweet? When we step into the roles that aren’t necessarily typical for us, to be stretched and shifted, and encourage others as we go. She’s shared with me that she didn’t feel like she was the girl to write this book – that she asked God to ask let her write easier and lighter things. But thankfully, He determines who is right for which callings and He equips us all the way. Enjoy this snippet from her new book, Dance Stand Run, a book of story and study that dives into the God-Inspired Moves of a Woman on Holy Ground. It’s a grace to welcome Jess to the farm’s front porch today…
A little over a year ago, I had a dilemma. There was a question pounding in my heart that I couldn’t ignore any longer: have I forgotten about holiness?
I didn’t use that word a ton at the time, other than talking about God’s perfect nature.
If I was talking about myself and my relationship with Him – I used words like grace, feeling, mercy, and mess.
And man, did I feel the joy of being His mess – His redeemed and restored daughter.
But yeah, I had forgotten about holiness.
I was realizing that my head knew the truth that I stood on holy ground as a daughter of God, but my heart was having a hard time catching up.
I wanted to understand how and why I had gotten to this spot, starting with when I began to believe in grace instead of receiving it in fullness and when I had given up the pursuit for consecrated Christ- likeness.
The truth I was missing for a good amount of time was this: my faith isn’t a two party system.
We don’t have to choose between pursuing holiness and celebrating the grace we’ve been given.
Instead, we’re invited into abundant life—grace and holiness in harmony together.
Can I repeat that again with some emphasis?
We don’t have to choose between standing on holy ground and dancing in grace; we get to do both all at once.
No one is saying we must live a different way, and you won’t hear the word should come out of my mouth in this context either.
I’m not passionate about this message because I believe we’re doing it all wrong. I’m passionate about this message because I think that without out, we’re missing out on the abundant life we most crave.
As much as this is a “get to,” there’s still some tension for those of us who realize this isn’t the truth we live in our day-to-day lives.
What if we sat with that, holding that tension, aware of the very real fact that something is amiss amongst the daughters of God, to acknowledge that something has gone awry. Perhaps you’re like me, and you feel it strongest within yourself.
Maybe it’s an ache you’ve carried for your sisters in Christ—you’ve longed to see them understand grace and truth, holiness and liberty.
Maybe you just feel the tenderness for all of us, the sisters and the wild women of God across the world—the ones with the heaving and heavy hearts who have longed to feel at ease in their identities and walks with the Lord.
Wherever you sit, I invite you to hold that ache and look to the possibility of grace and holiness working together in our lives—because it is going to be very essential to our hope moving forward.
My favorite pastor (my husband, Nick) illustrates abundance for me in a way that makes me yearn for more, more, more of Jesus.
I feel like Alice in Wonderland peering over the edge of the rabbit hole, ready to basically cannonball in and get lost in the mystery of all that He is. Nick describes abundance like this: Abundance is being convinced that we have all that we could ever need, want, or desire because we have Jesus.
It’s true that our God supplies what we need for us and meets the desires of our hearts—but abundance is about so much more than that.
Abundance is rooted in the undeniable and inexhaustible truth that God supplies all that we need just by giving us His son, Jesus. When we accept God’s grace without acknowledging His incredible holiness, we don’t see the full, abundant, miraculous nature of this relationship we’ve been pulled into.
Rather than being women who are slowly becoming likened to the status quo that surrounds us, grasping grace and standing our holy ground enables us to change the world—not be changed by it.
It’s not that God needs us to get this, it’s that we get to try and grasp it, so that we can taste and see Him and share Him more effectively—experiencing more of Him here on earth than we would otherwise.
The point is, we’re missing out.
If we’re only talking about grace, not receiving it and embracing it, we’re not experiencing abundance.
And if our faith lives are built on an assumption that we’ve got to work to become more holy so that we can experience grace, we’re just as lost.
It’s in the celebration of grace coupled with the awareness that we’ve already been given holy standing with God that we start to taste the fullness of our identities.
This is where it gets good, friends —
We are the daughters of God. We delight and dance in God’s grace, and we don’t want to take it for granted. We’ve been found out, found needing Him, and we won’t go back into hiding again.
We are the daughters of God, and we stand firm on holy ground. We didn’t get here by merit. We were bought and brought by the blood of Jesus. Here we stand, and here we’ll stay. Our positioning and proximity to God mean something, and both invite direction over our daily lives and decisions. We are here on purpose, a part of the world, set apart to be used by God to bring change. We don’t conform to our environment or seek its approval. We spiritually grow while our bodies groan, and we live in this now-and-not-yet reality as saints in a fallen world.
We are the daughters of God; we are compelled by His grace and held by His holiness imputed to us through Jesus. We don’t soak up the abundance of intimacy with God mindlessly, but we grab hold of all He has to offer us so we can give it away to everyone else. We run on mission, because when you hold the keys to light and life, you don’t hide them.
We are the daughters of God, and we are ready to dance, stand, and run — in faith for His glory and our good.
Jess Connolly and her husband lead a church in Charleston, SC and she’s the mom to four wild kiddos and one silly dog. She loves coffee and color, and watching women take their place in the kingdom.
Jess will be the first to admit that not long ago, like many women, she grasped grace but she had forgotten holiness. Dance, Stand, Run charts her discovery that holiness was never meant to be a shaming reminder of what we “should” be doing, but rather a profound privilege of becoming more like Christ. That’s when we start to change the world, rather than being changed by it. For anyone longing to take their place in what God is doing in the world, Dance, Stand, Run will rally your strength, refresh your purpose, and energize your faith in a God who calls us to be like Him.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
November 11, 2017
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.11.17]
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 Trivett
Matt Trivett
Matt Trivett
your free invitation to exhale: you really want a front row seat right here
grin
so who knew? just had to share this one
Christoffer Relander
Christoffer Relander
Christoffer Relander
Nostalgic Landscapes Captured in Jars Using an In-Camera Double Exposure Technique — kinda like capturing time in a bottle
huh. Wasn’t expecting this…
Tired? Damaged? Regrets? God Wants to Recruit You…. THIS.
because we all need a little help from our friends … right!?!?
UBMF
they’re on a mission to help the homeless – with just a bike, backpack and a burrito We all can do something.
#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
so you gotta come see where he lives
how he taught his players to respect others
can you even?!?
Mercy House’s new Christmas stocking stuffer bundles have kinda stolen my heart
(Mercy House engages those with resources to say yes to the plight of women in poverty, empowers women and teenage mothers around the world through partnerships and sustainable fair trade product development & disciples women to be lifelong followers of Jesus Christ.)
These Fair Trade stocking stuffers are perfect for kids this Christmas! Not only will your children delight in the handmade items, they are life changing for families around the world. Come share in the joy!
Fox 29
THIS right here, YES: Stranger GIFTS barbershop to man behind ‘Haircuts for Homeless’
#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
coming up on TBN this Monday, November 13th @8pm — an interview with Christine Caine, Laurie Crouch, & yours truly. Prepare to tune in and have your socks right blessed off — these two are something else
I watched this one slack-jawed — then watched it twice more. What if we lived more like this? #BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has invited me to speak at Evangelicals for Life in DC this coming January. I’m really looking forward to being a part of this event & would be honored if you’d consider joining us for this direly needed conversation
(…and passing along? If you use my personal discount code at checkout, you’ll save an extra 20% on your ticket: ANNVOSKAMP. This code expires on November 18th!)
they’re implementing creativity, gumption, grit, resilience, & entrepreneurship to revive this community
Love this … Desperate is Normal: A Field Manual for Overwhelming Anxiety
Kinda undone here: how they’re helping women re-enter the work force? #BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
so much good: “I’m not just a band teacher. I’m a counselor, a father, a friend.”
Re? Well, yeah — she can do anything
This is Wanda B. Goines. At the time this video was filmed she was 92 years old. She calls this poem “The Gift Wrap & The Jewel“. It’s so beautiful — and I’m not teary, you’re teary
Post of the week from these parts here
The Unexpected Secret about ‘Boring Men’ — and the Women who Love Them
WHAT a story here: come meet Ami – a champion of what can be done when you believe and put your heart and soul and energy into something
I fought for you
“Piece by piece, God was making me new … slowly but surely, He has scrubbed away all the old hang-ups and all the old junk from the old me and made me new in His perfect timing.”
Dear Us,
So. Just SIX Saturdays till Christmas — I. Know.
Okay, so. Who wants their Christmas MOJO back? Yeah, me too. And straight up — I AM SO STOKED ABOUT THIS NEW (!!) & UNEXPECTED WAY FOR STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL HOLIDAYS!
I’ve been kinda waiting my whole LIFE for this — Can. You. Even.
maybe it’s time to think about our perspective and give thanks for the big & little things in everyday life!
Want the gift of less stress?
It’s hiding where you’d never expect it.
Want to know how your brokenness could be transformed into abundance? Tired of trite answers?
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.
Featuring new stories from Ann’s blog, powerful excerpts from the New York Times bestseller The Broken Way, and Ann’s signature photography from her farm and family, this gorgeous book will be a profoundly meaningful and needed gift — not only to your own weary soul, but any loved one looking for the relief of a bit of beauty and abundant joy.
Grab a copy of Be The Gift — and 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 and live the life you’ve longed to.
yes, yes, yes: he left his career to help kids in need of direction…and hope
#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Undone by this glorious spitfire — this CD is on repeat
…I’m telling you: transparency can feel like a death trap. And how I know it — the head can know wisdom — but the heart knows its wounds. But you have to find a way to let the love in. Open your arms wide open today — and let the love in. Live with walls to block out pain — and you will block out all the love that’s trying to get in.
This is worth the risk. I keep trying to tell my bruised heart this. To risk loving one another is our greatest safety, and to fearfully try protecting our hearts is our gravest error. Live like a gift. Your gift is not what you do — but who you are & who He is in you. And He is making your heart into a gift.
This is what you have to remember to always do with a broken heart: You be the gift. The only real gift you can give is a bit of your heart.
Believe. Be The Gift today. Find your gift — and give it away.
Feel the weight of His love, the gravity of His goodness, let the closeness of God weigh you down in the blasting storm. You are loved.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
November 8, 2017
How to have Hope When You’re in the Middle of a Mess
I’ve wept with this woman. Prayed with this woman. Laughed loud with this woman and served alongside her. I’ve been changed by the heart of this woman for Jesus. Couldn’t love her more. My friend, Sheila Walsh loves being a Bible teacher, making God’s Word practical, and sharing her own story of how God met her when she was at her lowest point and lifted her up again. Her passionate commitment is to simply and powerfully allow the light of Christ to shine through the broken places of her story. It’s a grace to welcome her to the farm’s front porch today…
I looked out of the window as the plane began its descent into Glasgow, Scotland.
Green fields, Granny Smith apple green as if they had been freshly painted that morning.
And the sheep. I love sheep and in Scotland we have more than our fair share of the global flock. They look so white, I imagine because it rains so much. They are bathed daily in the gentle rain that falls on the west coast.
I’ve always looked forward to this view. It means I’m about an hour away from my childhood home.
Not today.
Today it feels as if I have a lead weight on my chest and my heart is beating too fast.
I’m flying home to bury my mum.
My brother-in-law, Ian, met me in baggage claim.
He hugged me which was all it took for the tears that I’d dammed up to spill down my face. A watershed. I’d been numb since my sister, Frances called in the middle of the night.
“She’s gone, Sheila.”
I’d caught a flight from my home in Dallas, Texas the following day
It’s a forty-five-minute drive from the airport to the little fishing town of Ayr, where I grew up.
I looked out of the window, remembering the last time I was home.
Mum was beginning to lose so many pages from her life. She knew me but she thought I was still in high school.
Some days we just sat side by side on the edge of her bed as she stared out of the window. I wondered what she saw and where she thought she was.
I placed my hand over hers. I didn’t want her to feel alone or afraid.
I whispered the name of Jesus over and over, asking Him to hold this beautiful, faithful, fragile daughter of His. My mum, His daughter.
I looked to see if the picture was still above her bed. Wallpaper and furniture had changed over the years but this one simple picture remained. A friend had embroidered it for her. Just two words – Yes, Lord!
The next few days were beautiful and broken.
Ayr Baptist Church opened it arms to welcome all who came to say, goodbye.
Our family has been in that church for generations. My great-grandfather carved the communion table.
As I stood to give the eulogy I looked out at the sea of faces, most of whom I’ve known my whole life. One row was filled with my cousins, some who’d travelled down from the north of Scotland and I realized that I didn’t really know them at all.
All my growing up years we’d lived just a few miles apart but I was so shut-down, walled-off as a child.
My father’s suicide when I was five years old broke something deep inside me and left an indelible message.
Life is not safe.
Not kind.
Don’t get too close.
Protect whatever little pieces of your heart remain.
Now, I looked into kind eyes, warm smiles, some with tears running down their cheeks and my heart ached inside.
I wanted to sit down with every one of them and ask them to tell me about their lives.
My shame kept me quiet, safe, alone but it also kept me from knowing other broken ones.
As a child, I thought I was the only one but I was wrong, so wrong. We are all broken, all a little lost in this strange land.
We need to see one another’s scars, to see where the light shines through.
That evening when all our guests and family had gone home I went back to the cemetery.
I read the cards tucked into flowers.
My mum was loved, not just by her children but by those who saw the, Yes, Lord, not on her wall but in her life.
The soft rain began to fall on my face as I lifted it to the heavens.
Life and death.
Beauty and brokenness.
Our present mess and our future hope.
Christ present in every moment so I cried out to the evening sky,
“Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! Yes!”
Sheila Walsh is a powerful communicator, Bible teacher, and bestselling author with more than five million books sold. She is the author of the award-winning Gigi, God’s Little Princess series, Peace for Today, Loved Back to Life, The Storm Inside, and Five Minutes with Jesus. She is also a cohost of Life Today with James and Betty Robison.
In her long-awaited new book, In the Middle of the Mess, Sheila Walsh equips women with a practical method for connecting with God’s strength in the midst of struggle. From daily frustrations that can feel like overwhelming obstacles to hard challenges that turn into rock-bottom crises, women will find the means to equip themselves for standing strong with God.
This book will not only change your life—it may literally save your life. It is one rare, luminous, astonishingly brave book, saying what too many of us in the shadows have been desperate for someone to speak out loud for years. Sheila Walsh is not only a brazenly vulnerable, fearless warrior, she speaks with unwavering truth that shatters the dark into a freeing light. It’s a long time since I’ve read such a book and I weep for joy that someone finally wrote a literal lifeline. This woman is my hero.
November 7, 2017
The Unexpected Secret about ‘Boring Men’ — and the Women who Love Them
So not every guy proposes with lip syncing, rolling cameras, and a choreographed entourage.
Yeah, kids — so what if the guy I married, your Dad, didn’t?
He just pulled that beat-up Volkswagon Rabbit of his over in front of Murray Reesor’s hundred acre farm right there where Grey Township meets Elma Township, pulled out a little red velvet box, and whispered it in the snowy dark: “Marry me?”
“He didn’t even get down on one knee or anything?”
You kids of ours, you can go ahead an ask it incredulous, like there’s some kind of manual for this kind of holy.
And I’ve got no qualms in telling you that: No, he didn’t even get down on one knee – it was just a box, a glint of gold in the dark, two hallowed words and a question mark.
“Boring.”
I know. When you’ve watched a few dozen mastermind proposals on youtube, shared them with their rolling credits on Facebook, marvelling at how real romance has an imagination like that.
Can I tell you something, kids?
Romance isn’t measured by how viral your proposal goes. The internet age may try to sell you something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness – so don’t ever make being viral your goal.
Your goal is always to make your Christ-focus contagious – to just one person.
It’s more than just imagining some romantic proposal.
It’s a man who imagines washing puked-on sheets at 2:30 am, plunging out a full and plugged toilet for the third time this week, and then scraping out the crud in the bottom screen of the dishwasher — every single night for the next 37 years without any cameras rolling or soundtrack playing — that’s imagining true romance.
The man who imagines slipping his arm around his wife’s soft, thickening middle age waistline and whispering that he couldn’t love her more…. who imagines the manliness of standing bold and unashamed in the express checkout line with only maxi pads and tampons because someone he loves is having an unexpected Saturday morning emergency.
The man who imagines the coming decades of a fluid life – her leaking milky circles through a dress at Aunt Ruth’s birthday party, her wearing thick diaper-like Depends for soggy weeks after pushing a whole human being out through her inch-wide cervix, her bleeding through sheets and gushing amniotic oceans across the bathroom floor and the unexpected beauty of her crossing her legs everytime she jumps on the trampoline with the kids.
The real romantics imagine greying and sagging and wrinkling as the deepening of something sacred.
Because get this, kids — How a man proposes isn’t what makes him romantic. It’s how a man purposes to lay down his life that makes him romantic.
And a man begins being romantic years before any ring – romance begins with only having eyes for one woman now – so you don’t go giving your eyes away to cheap porn.
Your dad will say it sometimes to me, a leaning over – “I am glad that there’s always only been you.” Not some bare, plastic-surgeon-scalpel-enhanced pixels ballooning on a screen, not some tempting flesh clicked on in the dark, not some photo-shopped figment of cultural beauty that’s basically a lie.
“The real romantics know that stretchmarks are beauty marks and that different shaped women fit into the different shapes of men souls and that real romance is really sacrifice.” ~The Broken Way
I know – you’re thinking, “Boring.”
Can you see it again – how your grandfather stood over your grandmother’s grave and brushed away his heart leaking without a sound down his cheeks?
50 boring years.
50 unfilmed years of milking 70 cows, raising 6 boys and 3 girls, getting ready for sermon every Sunday morning, him helping her with the zipper her dress.
50 boring years of arguing in Dutch and making up in touching in the dark, 50 boring years of planting potatoes and weeding rows on humid July afternoons, 50 boring years of washing the white Corel dishes and turning out the light on the mess – till he finally carried her in and out of the tub and helped her pull up her Depends.
Don’t ever forget it:
The real romantics are the boring ones — they let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.
Be one of the boring ones. Pray to be one who get 50 boring years of marriage – 50 years to let her heart bore a hole deep into yours.
Let everyone do their talking about 50 shades of grey, but don’t let anyone talk you out of it: Commitment is pretty much black and white.
Because the truth is:
Real love will always make you suffer. Simply commit: Who am I willing to suffer for?
Who am I willing to take the reeking garbage out for and clean out the gross muck ponding at the bottom of the fridge?
Who am I willing to listen to instead of talk at?
Who am I willing to hold as they grow older and realer? Who am I willing to die a bit more for every day?
Who am I willing to make heart-boring years with? Who am I willing to let bore a hole into my heart?
Get it: Life – and romance — isn’t not about one up-manship — it’s about one down-manship.
It’s about the heart-boring years of sacrifice and going lower and serving.
Real love isn’t about how well you perform romantic gestures. It’s about how well you let Christ perform your life.
Sure, go ahead, have fun, make a ridiculously good memory and we’ll cheer loud: Be a creative romantic — but never forget that what wows a woman and woos her is you how you purpose to live your life.
I’m praying, boys — be Men. Be one of the “boring” men – and let your heart be bore into. And know there are women who love that kind of man.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t flashy – because love is gritty.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t about cameras — because it’s about Christ.
The kind of man whose romance doesn’t have to go viral — because it’s going eternal.
No, your dad did not get down on one knee when he proposed – because the romantic men know it’s about living your whole life on your knees.
And there are the quiet romantics who will take out the garbage without fanfare. There will be the unimaginative calendar by the fridge, with all it’s scribbled squares of two lives being made one. The toilet seat will be left predictably up. The sink will be resigned to its load of last night’s dishes.
And there is now and the beautiful boring, the way two lives touch and go deeper into time with each other.
The clock ticking passionately into decades.
Excerpted in part from The Broken Way
Our daring story of taking the life-transforming way of boring love, of taking The Broken Way…
This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way… into abundance
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