Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 146
March 25, 2017
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.25.17]
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:
Jani Ojala / Facebook
Jani Ojala / Facebook
Jani Ojala / Facebook
it’s deeply healing to never get over the wonder of His glory
okay, thinking this might be kind the best way to start off an adventuresome weekend
Only Extremely Analytical People Can Spot All 4 Hidden Animals In This Picture
so — how did you do?
… um — why didn’t we think of this before?
go ahead — try to stop watching this one
alrighty now: if you meet up with this little guy? he just might not leave you alone…
kinda heart fireworks
I would absolutely love to meet you here!
human connection is making a big difference right here #beTheGIFT
So on the Stack on the Farm here:
“To get to the place where God can be enough — we have to first admit we aren’t.”
Jennie Allen has written an unforgettable, life-changing manifesto for the soul, the exhale of relief every soul needs that is nothing short of completely liberating: Nothing to Prove
“But like most of the things God does, once we stepped into the craziness and confusion of the unknown and unplanned —
we quickly realized that we were indeed among the lucky few.”
Heather Avis’s story has forever changed mine — start here.
“It turns out, actually – get this – Jesus is looking specifically for the people who can’t get their act together.
We are exactly the kind of people God is looking for. We are exactly the kind of people God is using. We are exactly the kind of people God loves.”
I needed this book more than words can express.
Julia Boda
Julia Boda
Julia Boda
what happens when one woman travels to Tanzania with a camera
#beTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
this ‘Garden of Light’ Installation Honors Nurses of the terminally ill — for their dedication to “bringing light in the darkest hours.” #beTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Kate Miller-Wilson
Kate Miller-Wilson
Kate Miller-Wilson
powerful: Mom Takes Touching Photos of Her Son with Autism as He Experiences the World
catching up with one special young man: turning grief into smiles
Millie Holloman Photography
Millie Holloman Photography
Millie Holloman Photography
LOVE! How This Mom Involved Everyone In Her Adoption Day Celebration
a mystery solved — and one father freed
straight up: The World Needs Us To Do This Hard & Holy Thing
#BetheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Labor of Love: husband builds a safe place for his wife who is allergic to everything.
They have a love than transcends every barrier life has put between them
#BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
what happens when one woman sees the same man on the same street corner?
#betheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
cherish — those right in front of us. Who doesn’t need this one?
Take the Dare, Join the Revolution, Pick Up The Broken Way
Quietly passing along this amazing sale for the audiobook version of The Broken Way?
on repeat here this week: Lord, I need You, every hour I need You…
Post of the week from these parts here:
Anyone who secretly feels like a loser – this one’s for you
Deep breath, new week — and the happy, relief of the whole thing is? No one gets to joy by trying to make everything perfect.
One only arrives at joy by seeing in every imperfection all that is joy.
“My brethren, count it all joy…” James 1:2-4
In the midst of the imperfect, there’s the perfect mercy of Jesus, and when you can count on Him to be with you, to carry you, to hold you?
Yeah, you can just go face the day with JOY — God’s got your back. And always remember: Perfectionism isn’t a fruit of the Spirit—joy is. Patience is. Peace is.
[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.
March 24, 2017
Links for 2017-03-23 [del.icio.us]
Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!
March 23, 2017
doing hard things? how to be the lucky few who see the world like this, so they can do the hardest & best things
So it was about 2 years ago this week, that I sat down on a bus across from a woman I had never met. As the bus wove its way around the streets of Israel, I overheard her talking to the woman in the seat in front of her: “Two of my kids had open heart surgery when they were babies.” “And all of your kids were adopted? Is that right?” the woman she was talking to inquired. My heart kinda stopped. Only days before joining these women on a trip to the Holy Land, I had learned about a baby girl with a heart defect — who needed to be adopted. And now here was this woman sitting across from me — who had done this very thing. By the time our bus pulled up to our destination, God had already begun to weave my heart to Heather’s. We stepped off the bus arm in arm, tears in our eyes, in awe and wonder at a God who crossed our paths at the exact time we would need each other’s journey’s and bravery to continue this way God was calling us to. It’s an absolute joy to welcome Heather to the farm’s front porch today…
One month and three days after Macyn came home—one month and three days of being a mom, one month and three days of oxygen and medication—I found myself in the car on my way to the hospital for Macyn’s open-heart surgery.
We knew about this surgery when we adopted Macyn.
It was, in fact, one piece of medical information we received about her condition that didn’t fill me with anxiety.
I knew people whose children had successfully be through open-heart surgery.
I felt as though I had a grasp on what open-heart surgery is, and being able to grasp anything in this season of life was a comfort.
Macyn Avis today- photo by Heather Avis
The night before the surgery, we had prepared what we could.
We set the timer on our coffee maker, packed a little bag with clean clothes, snacks, books, Macyn’s favorite blankets, and toys.
We received comforting e-mails and phone calls offering prayers of peace, of guidance for the doctors, of miracles and healing. We huddled together as a family of three to sing songs and say prayers and kiss cheeks and stroke hair.
On the morning of December 1, 2008, we woke up while the stars were still dancing brightly in the sky, and we rubbed the sleep from our eyes under the light of the moon.
The only thing we had left to do was wake our sleeping baby, bundle her up, gently strap her into her car seat, and head to the hospital.
Macyn was scheduled for the first surgery of the day.
When we arrived, everything was quiet and still. As we made our way to the elevator and up to the second-floor pre-op room, I felt my grip on my baby tighten just a little, just enough to feel her sick little heart beating up against mine. We rode the elevator in silence, maybe because it was so early in the morning, or maybe because we didn’t want to miss the sound of her every breath.
The elevator doors opened and we stepped off. The hallways were silent and dimly lit.
This was where we had our unexpected first meeting with Macyn just a few months earlier. Our familiarity with this place offered us a strange, unexpected peace.
While we waited for the nurse to come get us, we took turns snuggling our baby girl, humming familiar songs, and silently praying our guts out.
“Mr. and Mrs. Avis?” the nurse inquired with a kind smile.
“Yes, that’s us.” My heart began to beat faster.
“Follow me right this way.”
We went through a single door off the waiting area to the pre-op room. Hospital beds lined the walls, each one waiting for a sick child to occupy its stiff white sheets. Between the beds was an intermingling of bright, colorful murals of butterflies and smiling animals, and flashing or beeping medical equipment. The nurse led us to one of the beds.
“Here, put this on Macyn.” She handed us the smallest hospital gown I had ever seen.
As I laid Macyn down and took off her cozy pajamas I softly kissed her whole and scar-free chest.
I tried to capture a memory of her just as she was in this moment.
In less than an hour they would take her from me, poke her with needles, attach her to machines, and cut open her chest.
I wanted to remember her before all that happened to her tiny body. I gently touched her skin and could feel the bone that would soon be split open, and my eyes welled with tears—tears of the love for this perfect human, and tears of fear for the unknown.
It’s only the lucky few that recognize that the most beautiful things in this life are often found in the differences, in the difficulties, in the days that ask us to live a bit dangerously.
“Here, let me help.” Josh came alongside me and slipped one of Macyn’s arms through the hole in the gown. I pulled the other through.
“This just got real,” I said. I leaned on Josh and wrapped Macyn’s fingers around one of mine. “You realize this surgery, the very thing she needs to save her life, could take her life?”
“She’s not going to die, Heather.” Josh leaned down and kissed her checks. Macyn looked up at us and gave a sweet grin. “See, even she knows she’ll be fine.”
I laughed and wiped the tears from my eyes just as Macyn’s surgeon approached wearing blue scrubs and a colorful cap on his head.
“How is everyone today?” Dr. Razzouk asked as he placed his stethoscope over her heart.
“As good as can be expected, I guess.” Josh gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“Do you have any last-minute questions for me?”
I wanted to shout Yes, of course, one million questions but instead said, “I know you’ve already explained the surgery to us, but could you give us a brief description of what is going to take place next?”
“Of course.” He was calm and confident.
“We will be patching a hole found between the chambers of her heart. She’ll be placed on a heart-and-lung machine and will receive blood transfusions. Once the hole is patched, we’ll stitch her up and send her to the fifth floor for a few days to recover.”
“Are you ready for this surgery?” I asked. “Are you feeling confident?”
Dr. Razzouk, this surgeon sent by God, looked me in the eyes and said, “I am ready. I will be doing the best I can, but I am God’s instrument being used to help your daughter. It is all in His hands.”
The words I needed to hear allowed me to exhale.
Our thank-you was interrupted by a nurse. “Dr. Razzouk, the room is ready for you.”
He gave us a nod. “The surgery will take about five hours. I’ll meet with you as soon as it’s over.” And he walked away, disappearing through the heavy double doors at the far end of the room.
Only seconds after he was gone, an anesthesiologist approached Macyn’s bedside and introduced himself with a smile. “I’ll be your daughter’s anesthesiologist for the duration of the surgery. I will not leave her side. Has she been sick in the past forty-eight hours?”
“Nope. Super healthy, except for the hole in her heart. And her pulmonary hypertension.” I gave the doctor a wink.
“Okay then, Mom and Dad. It’s time.”
Josh and I looked at each other, then at our happy little girl.
My heart dropped. I was holding my daughter in a pre-op room. This could be the last time I would hold my new baby girl.
The last time I would kiss her soft cheeks and smell the sweetness of her skin. When you cut open the chest of a nine-pound, frail, three-month-old baby, things can go wrong, and I knew that. This real-life moment staring me in the face, this anesthesiologist waiting for me to hand him my daughter, made me want to run out the door and hide.
But rather than run, I handed my baby over to the anesthesiologist and fell into my husband’s arms and we cried.
The anesthesiologist held our baby over his shoulder and we watched her sweet little crazy-haired head bounce gently up and down as he walked, and she looked back at us, a picture forever etched into my memory.
Then God’s still, small voice reminded me to look at how far He had brought us.
He reminded me to let Him be God and do His thing.
He reminded me that no matter the outcome of this surgery —
I am forever Macyn’s mom — and He is still God, He is still good.
He is always good.
Then the doors closed — and it’s a strange and beautiful thing — how our hearts can forever open up.
Heather Avis is the founder of the hit Instagram account @macymakesmyday. After working as an education specialist teaching high school students, she became a full-time mom when she and her husband adopted their first child who has Down syndrome. Heather and her husband went on to adopt two more children, including another baby with Down syndrome.
In her book, The Lucky Few, she shares about their journey through infertility, down the road of adoption and into the world of Down syndrome. It’s only the lucky few that recognize that the most beautiful things in this life are often found in the differences. Even though at times His plan seemed terrifying and even downright foolish, little could they have known how much goodness, blessing, and joy would flow out of loving these three little people He’s put into their lives. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK!.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 21, 2017
Anyone who secretly feels like a loser – this one’s for you
We’re not that far into Lent and forget that sign of dust they brush on the center of your forehead.
I’m bowed over the sink after a teenage daughter’s slammed out the backdoor.
Slammed out of my ugly diatribe.
And I’m thinking I need something more direct, right there on the middle of brow.
The one the Farmer frowns deep at me and shakes his head that it isn’t true.
She says she didn’t. I say she did. I don’t know how it suddenly got so loud and we both lost.
I do know there are parenting days when the terms of endearment can get confusing and it all feels more like the terms of endurement .
Our arguing, it can go in circles. I don’t like it. What I like even less somedays is me.
It’s there in the center of the kitchen table, the wooden Lenten wreath — Christ encircling round everything on His way to Calvary.
Encircle our crazy circles, Lord?
Everything blurs and spills.
Whoever had the crazy idea that Lent was for the good who were forsaking some lush little luxury?
Lent’s for the messes, the mourners, the muddled — for the people right lost. Lent’s not about making anybody acceptable to a Savior — but about making everybody aware of why they need a Savior.
Wasn’t it Lewis who said that we are to be Little Christs?
If I’m following Him on His way to Golgatha, the place of the skull…. I finger the figurine of Christ carrying the cross.
Lent’s about little dyings.
How could so much of my flesh still be alive?
The girl whose side the sharp edge of my tongue pierced, she’s escaped to under the Manitoba Maple tree. She’s leaning up against the trunk’s mark — the scarring mark where a wind storm ripped off a limb last spring.
How could I have said those things and what part of this glorious child has my storm ripped off and how have words left marks?
In one wild moment, my disordered desires can betray how quickly I can lose my God-orientation. “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” I’m this spring rain over sin and everything swims.
Encircle us, Christ, us in all our dizzying chaos.
When I feel like I’m drowning–
I’m at last ready to drown in the ocean of God’s unearned grace.
The sun sets.
She’s at the couch, cheek against the window, looking out. I sit softly beside her, say it softer…
“I’m sorry.” I reach out and her shoulder’s warm under my hand. This way of somehow holding her, healing her. I murmur it again and again, trying to find the way out, the way back, and repentance is always the first step. “I sinned and I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry.”
Hadn’t Mama always said that: “It’s not that you aren’t going to blow it. It’s what you do with it after.”
“I’m the one who did it wrong, Mama.” She turns from the window, turns to face me.
She hardly whispers it, but it reverberates loud in this canyon, “Sorry, Mama.” And everything fills and our eyes find each other, flow into each other, and I reach for her hand, squeeze her hand, and forgiveness is a river that sweeps everything away.
“You know what you are?” I smile into her eyes searching mine.
She shakes her head, eyes brimming.
That’s when I know she needs a sign of who she is, right there on her forehead. That’s when I know she needs to know who she is no matter what is said, what happens, what storm descends. Her and I both.
Her mother needs to make new signs to hang everywhere, to live under.
“You know that index and the thumb that makes the stiff “L” sign — the loser sign?” She half grins.
She knows what her Father thinks of me making that hand gesture and she says it slow, “Yeeees?”
“See how these fingers can angle — how they can bend in surrender to Him.
And if you lay the other index finger a cross, pick up your cross and follow Him– there it is —
there’s the sign to wear, the sign showing the way out of a mess: “A” —
amazing.
She has to know this, that the word, “amaze,” it comes from the act of wandering in a maze.
The word amaze — comes from being bewildered, overwhelmed with wonder — amaze.
The losers, the ones lost in the labyrinth of life, lost wandering in the maze of life, are the ones made amazing — by the One who solves the mazes of life.
I touch her cheek, “In Him, you’re already amazing.”
She blushes and I laugh, nod my head yes, insisting to this daughter who has to know her Father’s heart for her now because of the Son.
In the flesh, you’re a mess.
In Christ, you amaze.
Get. That. In.
I sign the “A” over her and Christ with the scars, He marks her.
“And you are too, Mama.”
She laughs and when I give myself the L sign — she reaches over and turns it into an “A” and I brim.
And all the daughters, we could do that for each other, turn all the “L”s into “A”s and we could wear the sign of the Son and know. it. is. true.
You don’t need higher self-esteem. You need greater self-grace — that comes from the depths of His grace.
Amazing grace in your self-talk — makes everything amazing.
The wooden Lent wreath is there on the table. And it all comes round like a circle — His grace that you accept for yourself — is the same grace you then extend to others — which then graciously circles back to you.
And there too, the figurine of Christ, there on the circling wreath, there with the sign of sacrifice, showing how to move through Lent.
How to move in the right direction —
encircling the maze and the mess with this already amazing grace…
Related: 40 Day Lent/Easter wreath: our family’s best way to prepare for Easter
Links for 2017-03-20 [del.icio.us]
Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!
March 20, 2017
This is the Difference Between Getting Rich and Living Richly
In 2014, clinical psychologist Kelly Flanagan and his daughter Caitlin wound up on the TODAY Show, after his letter about her inner and outer beauty, which he had published on his blog went viral. Following their television appearance, Kelly realized people were not sharing his words primarily because they were parents of little ones, but because each of us still has a little one inside of us, who is desperate to be reminded of three things: we are worthy, we are not alone, and we matter. That insight evolved into his new book, Loveable, a portion of which you will read here today. Kelly has an uncanny ability to weave the Good News into his writing in ways that are attractive and inviting to all people. His words are rooted in the knowledge of God’s grace and his belief that we can all participate in God’s redemptive story by embracing that we are loveable, living beloved, and doing what we love with our one precious life. It’s a grace to welcome Kelly to the farm’s front porch today…
I was born to a drug dealer and his quiet wife.
When I was two, he was caught in the act and incarcerated, and by the time I saw him again, he had become a Christian.
I was too young to remember any of it, but a lot changed after that. That’s when we started going to church on the weekends and, a little later, my parents started going to college during the week.
Two tuition payments plus three children equaled eight years of scarcity.
By the time I was in third grade, we were scraping by in a mobile home, with my mother working as a nurse at night and my father going to school during the day. What they did was heroic.
Sometimes, heroism isn’t very glamorous.
We had a television that broadcast mostly static, a car that couldn’t make right turns, and the constant trailer park fear of tornadoes.
We had fights about grocery money. We had fights about every kind of money.
We had a claustrophobic hallway that ended at a claustrophobic bedroom I shared with my brother. We had a basketball hoop down the street—an old rusted rim tied to a telephone pole with yellow twine. No backboard. No net. We had bullies who chased me home from the basketball court.
I usually got away.
We had a tiny bathroom in our trailer with a tiny bathtub. Sometimes we had hot water. Sometimes we didn’t.
One night, when we didn’t, my dad had a little anger. My mom was at work, and he said he was leaving too. He tried, but I wrapped myself around his leg and wouldn’t let go. He stayed.
But my shame stayed too.
I had a friend who didn’t live in the trailer park.
His dad was a doctor, and their car could turn in both directions. His TV had options, and his house was attached to the ground. His basketball hoop had a garage behind it, and his bathtub had water at whatever temperature you wanted.
He had boxes full of G.I. Joe action figures, and we played with them on a lawn made of grass instead of dust. His yard had a fence that kept the bullies out. And his parents didn’t look like they were on the verge of leaving anytime soon. They were affluent and they seemed happy, and when I was with them, for some reason, I felt a little less alone, a little less ashamed.
So, at some point, I decided making money could make me worthy.
Shame comes and goes and it’s hard to put a finger on the exact moment of its birth.
But once it is born, it almost always grows into the same conclusion: I’m not filled with worthiness, so I will try to surround myself with it.
I may not be a valuable thing, but I can purchase valuable things.
When you doubt the quality of your heart, you increase the quantity of your stuff.
You tell yourself the next gadget will make everything better. Or the next house. Or the next investment.
And before long, you’ve confused your net worth with the worth of your soul.
On an afternoon almost three decades after moving out of the mobile home, I’m digging through old boxes for a book called Rascal—a book given to me on the eve of moving away, as a farewell gift from the parents of my friend with the fence and the lawn made of grass instead of dust.
The corners are frayed and the pages are brittle, but when I lift the front cover, I see faded blue ink on the first blank, yellowing page. In script clearly written with great care, my friend’s mother had written these words: “To Kelly, who is anything but a rascal . . . May you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.” It was signed and dated May 1986.
I was nine.
For thirty years, I had attributed my warm memories of their family to the stuff they had, and then chased after the same kind of stuff for myself.
On this afternoon, though, I realize I’ve gotten it all wrong.
I don’t remember them warmly because of their good stuff; I remember them warmly because of the good stuff they saw in me.
I remember them warmly because they gave me—the poor kid from the other side of the tracks—a chance to see my true self reflected in their eyes.
I remember them because the little one who clung to his father’s leg, terrified of being abandoned, needed desperately to be assured he wasn’t a rascal—he needed to know he was loveable.
I remember them because they were grace to me.
Years ago, these good people wrote these good words about me and for me, and the words sat neglected and mostly forgotten in a box all that time.
I think that’s how our hearts work too.
People write good things on them, but until we’re ready to read and receive the grace they are trying to speak into us, we close up our heart like a book and pack it away.
Instead of opening up the front cover of who we are to find the little bit of love that has been inscribed on us, we open up our wallets and try to find worthiness another way.
Perhaps it’s time we put away our wallets and dig our hearts out of the box.
Perhaps it’s time to open them up and read the good words people have written there.
Perhaps it’s time we dare to believe that the people who have loved us well—even if briefly and fleetingly—have seen us more accurately than we’ve seen ourselves.
Perhaps then we’d know:
Life isn’t about getting rich; it’s about living richly.
Kelly Flanagan is a licensed clinical psychologist, husband, and father of three. On his blog at drkellyflanagan.com he writes weekly about how to live redemptive stories right now.
The story he shares today is from his newly released book Loveable: Embracing What Is Truest About You, So You Can Truly Embrace Your Life. In Loveable, Kelly reveals the core insight gleaned from his years of clinical work: you are here for a reason, yet you cannot truly awaken to it until you have first embraced your truest, worthiest self and then allowed yourself to be truly embraced by others.
Weaving together heart-warming storytelling, gentle insights, and the wisdom of his Christian faith—including Kelly’s belief that we are all “the living, breathing bearers of the eternal, transcendent, and limitless Love that spun the planets and hung the stars”—these pages will invite you to remember the name you were given before all other names: Loveable.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 18, 2017
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.18.17]
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:
Dirk Dallas via FromWhereIDrone.com / Jökulsárlón is a lagoon in Iceland that shuffles huge chunks of ice out into the Atlantic Ocean
Dirk Dallas via FromWhereIDrone.com / Seljalandsfoss is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland because it uniquely cascades over a volcanic cliff near the ocean
Dirk Dallas via FromWhereIDrone.com / Iceland is home to hundreds of churches and this one, The Ingjaldsholl Church is the oldest concrete church in the country
kinda never get over the whole extraordinary earth being full of His glory
and the list is out: which cities are the healthiest, happiest cities in the US?
exactly ^^
grin.02
so they say? Only People with Perfect Color Vision Can Read these Words.
How did you do?
No way? $213 to travel by train coast to coast? who else is in!?
this is the one gathering that we can’t afford not to show up for — the most powerful gathering of the year, right here. See you there? The Justice Conference – June 9 & 10 2017
we circled ’round this one!
the latest frontier in the fight against homelessness? your spare bedroom?
what does age matter anyway?
Stack on the Farm
The Heart of Marriage by Dawn Camp: …
“Always put each other first: each other’s needs, wants, and desires.
Making your spouse happy will in turn make you happy.”
Love Lives Here by Maria Goff: …
“Leave your mark on the world.
The residue you leave, will be like layers of love leading you, your family, friends, and neighbors to a place called home for generations to come.” I love this book!
A 14 Day Romance Challenge by Sharon Jaynes: …
“We can get so busy taking care of life that we forget to take care of love.”
cheering on these college students: #betheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
powerfully expressed: So I Quit Drinking
come see how they’ve decided to give back to those who have given so much #BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Wow, YES: Why the church doesn’t need anymore coffee bars
okay, these are some great words right here
Five star read:
Your Normal Isn’t The World’s Normal and The Greatest Deception Is That You Believe It Is
#betheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
little guy with a big old beautiful soul
because, C’MON — who doesn’t love beautiful reunions?
We Dine Together: A club at this school makes sure no one is starving for company.
Please don’t miss this one ^…
#BeTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Make your Easter as memorable as your Christmas
Like an Advent wreath — have you started the Easter tradition of your own
40 Day Lent/Easter wreath? Our family’s best way to prepare for Easter…
absolutely stunning
So… this young man? He kinda likes hanging out here with us for the weekend’s Multivitamins:
so, yeah — go ahead and call me Three Dog! ;)
We’re fighting for joy, fighting the good fight right here every weekend!
Post of the Week from these parts here:
you know, honestly, life is wildly hard.
And we’re all just kinda hanger-ons, holding on — trying to figure out how to hold on, how to let go…. when to let go. And then this happened:
When It’s Hard to Keep Holding On: What Changes Absolutely Everything
Take the Dare, Join the Revolution, Pick Up The Broken Way
… choked me up… what we’ve been praying together as a family this week
#beTheGIFT #TheBrokenWay
Even if You don’t…
Okay! The rest of this week?! We’re going after JOY!
Not because we have it all together or not because it’s all going to go perfect, but simply because: Choosing an ATTITUDE of GRATITUDE is how we KEEP CHOOSING JOY!
Because: Gratefulness is not what you feel AFTER times of joyfulness — Gratefulness is what you have to CHOOSE to GET to times of joyfulness.
The bottom line is: Being grateful IS WHAT MAKES YOU joyful.
Gratitude in our circumstances — is what changes our circumstances.
[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.
March 17, 2017
Marriage Feeling Passionless? Here, Do This:
Moments of sudden glory. That’s what Sharon Jaynes calls the times when God makes his articulate presence known—when He woes and romances right smack in the middle of our busy days. She longs for readers to recognize the romance of God in the routine of life—to taste the sweetness of God on the palate of their heart. To slow down enough and savor the manna moments of God speaking—the miraculous in the mundane. Sharon is a fellow porch sitter and storyteller who loves locking arms with women who long to experience life to the full. Sharon invites you to her backyard to listen in on a sudden glory moment as God spoke to her about reigniting routine-ridden marriage.
I sat on my back porch with my Bible in my lap and a hot mug of steamy coffee in my hand.
Early morning is my favorite time of day. Just me, Jesus, and a smattering of birds.
I closed my Bible and looked out across the backyard. My eyes landed on a rounded mound of fur nestled in the grass under the willow tree.
I got up and moved in for a closer look.
My heart sank as I discovered what appeared to be a curled-up baby fawn lying lifeless in the grass. Probably the same fawn my neighbor had seen nursing from its mom the day before. I understand the circle of life, but still. A baby fawn lay dead in my yard. Most likely the target of the coyote I’d seen roaming around.
I couldn’t get close enough to see the wound. Sometimes that is the way of things.
I did get close enough to see the sunlight passing through the velum-like ears, the intricate spots on its back, and the Bambi-like eyelashes resting on a perfectly shaped snout. I would have to wait until Steve got home to take care of the situation. I didn’t have the nerve.
All morning my mind returned to the lifeless form lying in the sun. Hours passed. At noon I looked out of the window and the still fawn remained unmoved. Untouched. Undisturbed.
I couldn’t stand it. I had to know what had happened to it.
So I mustered up my courage and made my way to the fawn.
Three feet away. Stop. No signs of an attack. I inched closer.
Finally, I knelt down by the beautifully crafted creature, admiring God’s handiwork. But I couldn’t see what had killed it.
“What happened to you, little deer?” I whispered.
Suddenly, the fawn’s head popped up! Startled eyes stared at mine…wide-eyed. Me like a deer caught in the headlights. The fawn simply caught.
I fell back! And time stood still for a moment as we stared at each other dumbstruck.
Finally, the fawn sprang to its feet, wobbled a bit, and scampered off like a drunken sailor. I sat in the grass and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
So the fawn wasn’t dead after all. It had simply found a bit of grass and fallen asleep…until almost noon.
After my heart stopped pounding, God whispered to my soul: Sometimes things are dead, and sometimes they just need to be woken up.
I pondered those words for the rest of the day. I called a friend who was struggling in her marriage—in a very bad way. The sort of way that leaves you wondering if it will survive. I told her the story.
Sometimes things are dead, and sometimes they just need to be woken up.
Sometimes a marriage is dead, and sometimes it just needs to be woken up.
I got it.
Between taking out the garbage, paying the bills, running the car pool, mowing the lawn, disciplining the kids, and folding the laundry, sometimes the passion of marriage gets lost. It happens to all of us at one time or another.
We can get so busy taking care of life that we forget to take care of love.
None of us got married so we could have a long list of chores.
If you’re like me, most likely you got married because you were madly in-love and couldn’t imagine life without your man!
You got married because you your heart skipped a beat every time you laid eyes on him. You couldn’t wait to tie the knot and build a life with this incredible person God had miraculously brought into your life.
Maybe you still feel that way. But maybe you could use a little reminder. A stoking of sorts.
In the book of Revelation in the Bible, God had this to say to the church at Ephesus: “I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4). Ephesus was one of the most loving churches in the New Testament, and yet somewhere along the way they lost that initial thrill of knowing Christ. Their love for each other and for God had grown cold.
God gave the church two simple steps:
Remember and Return.
Remember how it was in the beginning.
Return and do the things you did at first.
Marriage is the human echo of Christ and the Church, and I believe we can apply those same two principles in our homes.
For most of us, life is just daily. However, the accumulation of small struggles can nibble like termites to undermine the foundation of what appears to be a healthy structure as surely as the unexpected, earth-shaking rumble of sudden disaster.
And routine, even good routine, can rob us of the joy and passion of marriage… if we let it.
One day I took John’s words in Revelation to heart, and decided to remember and return by romancing my husband for fourteen days straight. Everyday wasn’t earth-shaking romance, even though there was some of that. One day I simply put a sticky note on his bathroom mirror that said, “I love you.”
Another day I placed a box of Red Hot candy on his car seat with a note that said, “You’re my hottie.”
One morning I warmed up his towel in the dryer and had it ready when he got out of the shower.
And you know what happened? At the end of the fourteen days, Steve had a skip in his step and silly smile on his face.
And what happened in me? I can hardly describe the love that welled up in me, as I loved my man well.
I don’t have a big, bad personal story of how God took a terrible, tumultuous marriage and miraculously transformed it into a storybook romance filled with white-knight rescues, relentless romance, and rides into the sunset leaving all danger and darkness behind. Although our marriage has been all that at one time or another, it’s no fairy tale.
Our marriage is a daily journal, one page after another, one day after another. I’m guessing just like yours. Some entries are smudged with tears; others are dog-eared as favorites.
Some days are marred by unsuccessful erasures that couldn’t quite rub away hurtful the words said; others are finger-worn by the reading of precious events time and time again.
But on those days when I see my marriage slipping back into the mundane cadence of passionless routine, I remember and return.
I pull out my list of ideas, and put a smile on Steve’s face.
Sometimes things are dead, and sometimes they just need to be woken up.
Take the 14 Day Romance Challenge?
Sharon Jaynes is passionate about building strong marriages. For ten years she served as Vice President and radio co-host for Proverbs 31 Ministries, and continues to encourage readers through P31’s on-line devotions. She is the co-founder of Girlfriends in God, a Bible girl who loves teaching God’s Word, and international speaker for women’s events.
Her latest book, A 14-Day Romance Challenge: Reigniting Passion in Your Marriage, is putting smiles on husband’s faces everywhere. If your marriage has grown ho-hum in the daily routine of life, this book can help you spice up your relationship and rekindle the passion with over 250 creative ideas to show your man just how much you love him. Sharon shares heart-stirring inspiration and simple ideas that will put a spark in your marriage. Get ready to have fun and…wow your spouse with simple acts of affection he’ll treasure for a lifetime, wake up the passion that was God’s idea in the first place, and watch your marriage grow stronger and your love grow deeper.
[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 15, 2017
When It’s Hard to Keep Holding On: What Helps Me
So, it’s not when that package finally decides to show up here in the mail, dragged in through a foot of lingering snow.
It’s not when I happen to turn around at the sink and remember that pan broiling in the oven before it burns to a sacrificial crisp.
It’s not when, for a blink in the choreographed cosmos, the stars all align, and I can see the bottom of all the laundry baskets.
That’s not when it’s the best.
I mean, honestly, who really knows when it’s the best?
What feels like a great failure on earth may be revealed as a great success in heaven.
We can’t really keep going around saying that, “You know, everything is what it is” —- because how do we know how things really are and how things are going to turn out to be?
But I will just go ahead and say — the moment in the early morning dark, when she reaches, when she holds on to me, when her fingers stretch to find mine, when she finds and clenches tight, when I hear her breathing fall again into the rhythms of home and here and sleep —that is the moment I best remember, try to memorize, to always remember.
That’s the moment that re-members me.
“When life breaks our hearts, goes ahead and breaks parts and members of us — there are moments that can re-member us, that can put the parts and members of bits of our heart back together again.” ~The Broken Way
Her holding on to me re-members me. Her holding on to me — makes Christ intimately present to me.
The dark feels lighter, us holding on to each other, her fingers tied gently around mine like the relief of peace.
Maybe there is always just holding on through the dark.
A mother looked me in the eye this week and told me her son hung himself and she was holding on to that cross on her wrist, to living cruciform, to following Him who is the Way, to find the broken way through. We fell into each other, gripped each other’s backs. Hope is faith holding on a moment longer.
There are women who can’t remember the last time they were held, the last time they were pulled in close near another beating heart so they didn’t feel alone.
There are women who can never remember being cupped the gentlest, their faces traced and outlined by a fingertip of love, who can’t remember letting someone look long into their eyes without shame. Who can’t remember not looking away.
There are hands that forget what it feels like to simply be held, forget what it feels like to be connected deeply to just one other human being on this spinning planet.
There are parents reaching for kids who are reaching for something else, reaching away. Dads reaching for kids who don’t want to look back, kids reaching for Dads who have never really looked long their way, siblings who can’t find each other anymore and maybe don’t even care, women reaching for lifelines and only finding deadlines and end of the lines.
It can be hard to hold on when you don’t feel held.
The great challenge of faith is holding on to hope after you’ve lost your naïveté.
A heartbroken woman announces this week that her young husband and father of two, died, ravaged with cancer. And she just shot straight with us: not once did she reach out to any church’s coffee bars, trendy lounges, and hipster ambience to help her hold on.
When it’s hard to hold on — no one holds on to what is cool. They hold on to Christ.
When it’s hard to hold on, no one holds on to what is hipster. They hold on to Him who is holy and healing.
When it’s hard to hold on — we don’t hold on to trendy, we hold on to the True Vine, we don’t hold on to the prevailing and popular because we need to hold on to the Prince of Peace and the true Perfecter of our Faith.
It’s the beliefs we hold, that hold on to us — even when we’re struggling to hold on.
And we can always keep holding on because our God can always be counted on.
The art of living lies in the balance of holding on — and letting go because He’s holding on to to you — He’s holding on to everything.
The art of living is about holding on to His promises — and surrendering to His plan.
Hold on to His promises.
Let go into His plan.
There are marriages holding on only by one fragile, fraying thread, and women holding on to thin hope by the skin of their teeth, and adoptive parents holding on by their whitened knuckles to just one more day, and parents of prodigals praying like searing, begging infernos to keep holding on when everything’s telling them to high tail it off this insane ride.
And there she is, coming to me at the end of the day, when I’m standing there by the sink with its basin of tepid water, washing the last of the pots up, and she looks up at me, both arms raised:
“Mama — Mama! Mama! Please, Mama, up —- I hold you.”
And I lean over — “You want to hold me, Baby Girl?” She nods, grins in her Cheshire Cat spreading smile way that melts me…
She actually wants me to pick her up, wants me to hold her — but the only words she knows are the ones for the holding that she wants — are the words she’s heard me say a thousand times: “Come — I hold you.”
“Yes, Mama, Please, up — I hold you?”
And I scoop her up — and the universe seems to jolt to a holy still — pause — and all us hanger-ons, all us holding on, we exhale:
Yes, child —- you can hold me — because I am holding you.
Yes, Child, You can keep holding onto Me — because I am always holding on to you.
And when she flings her arms around my neck, presses her love right into my cheek, I can feel it, the re-membering, parts of my broken heart re-membering —
all of us the children — can keep holding on — because we are the ones always held.
Pick up our story of The Broken Way and how to love a brokenhearted world.
This one’s for all of us who have felt our hearts break a bit…
This one’s for the brave and the busted and the real and dreamers and the sufferers and the believers.
This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way… into abundance
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