Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 160

how to live through the breaking waves of stress, life, and grief

When I feel like we’re drowning in it all a bit, our daughter, Hope and I, we go up to the lake and feel the waves pound,  feel the serene fury of water.

Feel the waves breaking against the earth and it quakes the inner cochlear and there’s nothing else to hear but the breaking.

Hope stands there with wind blowing strands of hair across her face, the electrical energy of each breath of wet, briny air sparking something in her.

“Is there anything lovelier, really, than the way waves keep touching the shore no matter what tries to keep pulling it away?”  I lean into her, point down the  foaming shoreline. Say it over the sound of the wind, of the crashing surf.

Hope tucks her hair behind her ear, “Love’s like waves — keeps reaching out no matter what tries to keep pulling it away.”

Her and I stand there in the battering of the elements, watching waves, watching how the light catches in water, how the waves move like the earth’s own pulse — like our own heartbeat.

“You know — a pool isn’t like this.” I say it slow, watching the waves, seeing it for the first time:  “It has no power, no life — because it has no breaking of waves… Strange how that is: It’s in the breaking, there is life.”

What did my husband say again and again? “Never be afraid of being a broken thing… Unless a seed breaks, there is no life.”

All down the shoreline, right at our feet, the waves keep crashing and breaking… and living.

Hope slips her arm through mine. Her hair’s blowing into mine.

All life losses break us, break through us, scar us. I want them not to.

Frankly, there are days I’d like to hide my scars and the jagged edges of my brokenness, days when I wish there were no marks to bear. But if losses don’t leave their mark — how can we say we were ever marked or shaped by love?  Scars can be signs that show the way we loved.

Sometimes… If your scars are deep  — so was your love.

And, it’s true — Scar tissue is stronger than original skin ever is. Scars are where the strength gets in — our breaking is where our strength gets in.

And scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.

Hope’s hand rests on mine.

“Maybe I just gotta make my heart get tougher?” She turns toward me.

And I get it, I hear her heart, the way the girl beats. When tough things keep coming at you — you think you have to get tougher. 

I say it quietly, not sure she hears me over the waves? “Hearts that get tougher — leave you with nothing of value to give.”

Love is what we have to give —- and love comes from places that are vulnerable and soft and tender enough to feel — to break.

Only those who are really vulnerable enough to be broken —  get to be the ones who really love.

It can be that when you feel broken — it’s proof that you’ve given.

Is there anything greater than living heart broken wide open and given?

Hope pulls my hand high, and we both stand there with our hands flung up into the winds, beckoning the crashing waves.

Who understands the language of waves?

Life, fears, losses, grief, stresses — it all keeps coming like waves.

You can feel like you’re drowning — everything you need to hold on to, breaking up all around you.

And I don’t even realize I’m saying it out loud.

“When you’re hit by the breaking waves, break deep.”

You’ve got three options when the breaking waves of life, fears, grief, stresses, hit — when you feel like you’re drowning.

You can either let fear make you fight hard — but fear never makes you safe, fear just makes you fall — and fall hard.

Fear always makes you fall and no one can outrun a breaking wave.

Or, secondly, you can fall back on your pride and try to brace against that wave breaking over you — and it will break you.

Pride goes before the breaking. 

When you’re driven hard by the waves of life, it’s tempting to be driven by either pride or fear.

But this could happen — and there could be a breaking free of fears, breaking free of pride.

When you’re hit with a breaking wave —- you can break deep.

You can break deep into that breaking wave and let yourself be moved by Living Water and transformed and formed by Christ and remade by the rising current of His Love.

The only way through the breaking waves — is to break deep into the wave.

Open your arms wide and give yourself to the wave. 

Forget fighting the waves, forget bracing against the waves — give yourself to the waves, surrender and breathe and break deep into the waves.

The only way through a wave breaking over you is to break deep into the roiling water and and dive down into the depths and stretch out both arms through the fathoms and and let yourself be made into the shape of a Cross.

This is how you float, this is how you stay alive. Stretch out both arms, live formed like a cross, and break into the waves.

That’s all there is: You can either be broken by fear or broken by pride — or you can break into the surrendered, cruciform shape of Christ.

When you break deep into the breaking waves, arms stretched out like a cross — you find yourself in what they call the “cushion of the sea.”

Far beneath the breaking waves, beneath the crashing storm of things, there is a space, a stillness of the sea that doesn’t ever stir. That’s never disturbed. 

Break into a shape of a cross, arms out-stretched and surrendered, and break deep into the breaking waves — and you break into the deep, deep peace of God. In the midst of the storms — live shaped like a cross, arms broken wide open, and you can break into the the still cushion of the sea. 

Break deep. Break deep and roll.

I turn to Hope — there can be this feeling of being  baptized. You can live through the breaking waves.  You can break deep, break open wide and roll. What feels like surrender –  this can feel like freedom.

When you’re in over your head, you touch the depths of God.

Break deep. Break deep and roll.

 

 

People? So this is really happening. Tonight. And I need you.

Need you to be there, you & all your people.

Need us to do this together. Need you to write it down, set an alarm right now?

Counting on you for tonight on my Facebook? Because tomorrow morning? Fox & Friends?

And all these things in NYC that a farm girl needs her people for? Stay close — please? Be on Facebook tonight at 8pm?

And tell me, tell us all, how you’re being brave right now? We really need each other… share your courage — please?

P.S. So counting on you tonight over on Facebook. Bring your people too — we all need to right now take the dare to the abundant life together.

Today is your last day to pre-order and receive all of these free gifts!

I have 6 amazing free gifts for you that include plane tickets

so pre-Order The Broken Way by the end of today

for all these 

Free Keys To Break Free … 

& I’d love for it to be you, a plane, & a trip to Africa. 

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [10.22.16]

Happy, happy, happy weekend!

Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))! 

Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:  

Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan

this, this, and this again. If this doesn’t win your Saturday? not sure what else to tell you?

The Fuller Cut

thinking they’re really on to something here…

because sometimes? we all need to be rescued a little?

When darkness is pressing in, may You be the Light that guides me

everything she creates is breathtaking: free printable and so much goodness right here

oh the joy right here!

Peter Adams-Shawn, Memories of Tomorrow Photography

some of the most uniquely beautiful wedding photos you may ever see?

when friends can just be real with one another through it all

Kenneth Knox

“Out of my 25 years being a cop this is my greatest and most profound accomplishment”

come see how music is bridging the gap: so good

caught on camera: he stood for the flag

she did it! : she stepped out of her comfort zone to love her neighbors

At FaithGateWay: If you don’t need this today, promise: you will soon

amazing grace

how this family is choosing to seize joy in the midst of the difficult

have you thanked a nurse recently? they are super special folks!

what she’s doing? ‘Because God put it on her heart…’

how she’s living with Cerebral Palsy: and not letting anything hold her back

come meet her: Sofia is beautiful

Post of the Week from these parts here, picked up by Fox News:
 really, in the midst of a contentious campaign,

America, It’s Undebatable: Why the World Loves You & Thanks You

an interview with Chip and Joanna Gaines: Finding greater rewards in steps of faith

so tell me, whereabouts are you at?

The Broken Way Together Tour: it would be the absolute craziest grace to meet you!? 

Soooo…. Releasing on Tuesday:

I have 6 amazing free gifts for you that include plane tickets
so pre-Order The Broken Way by Monday 
 for all these 
Free Keys To Break Free … 
& I’d love for it to be you, a plane, & a trip to Africa. 

“we have a responsibility to help one another get home.” please don’t miss this one?

Believe it: you’re only ever one step away. And you’re never alone in all of this.

  [ Print’s FREE here: ]

…and this is going to get real personal:

You are seen & known.

You aren’t just another face in the crowd, you aren’t just left fighting your battle, trying to slay your giants, forgotten & alone on the backside of nowhere. You aren’t just a number — your name, your name is engraved into the palm of His hands. He knows you — He knows that thing you can’t say out loud, He knows the soreness of the hidden wounds you’ve been carrying around on the inside, He knows the weight that you’ve been lifting & trying to pretend isn’t even there. He wrote a love letter to you about it all; He didn’t just write the Word–He wrote it for you … He wrote it to you — personally.

He wrote your name on His hand — personally.

So let’s believe it and

Never buy the lie

that it matters how you’re ranked

in the eyes of the world —

when what ultimately matters

is how you are ranked 

in the hearts of your people 

and the eyes of God.

 

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

‪ Dare to fully live!

That’s all for this weekend, friends.

Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.

Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again

Share Whatever Is Good.

Links for 2016-10-20 [del.icio.us]

Sponsored: 64% off Code Black Drone with HD Camera

Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!

I Have 6 Amazing Gifts For You!

Pre-Order The Broken Way
before Monday for these


Free Keys To Break Free 

Pre-Order The Broken Way 
before Monday for these 
Free Keys To Break Free …
& I’d love for it to be you, a plane, & a trip to Africa. 

 

 

America, It’s Undebatable: Why the World Thanks You & Loves You

Yeah, sure, there’s another debate to take the airwaves tonight, but there’s really no debate:

America is great and her people are great — and, it’s pretty clear, sitting here today, with the Give It Forward Today & #beTheGIFT calendar that says on the 19th of October, thank as many people as possible — and, really, the truth is, the whole world wants to thank you, America.

You’re the people who gave the world Broadway and Google and delivery pizza and Youtube and the best road trips on the planet, you’re the people who gave the world the internet, the language the whole world now speaks in, who gave us the Wright brothers and the whole world wings, who gave us Thomas Edison and the light bulb and ignited something in all of us.

You gave us all lemonade stands and apple pie and Tex-Mex and Wrigley Field and Fenway Park and wheeled suitcases and the RV and the NFL and the glory of KFC. The people who gave us lasers and calculators and the Commodore 64, gave us all washing machines and Facebook and photocopiers and popcorn makers and the jukebox to crank out the best tunes.

And you may be a family hashing things out right now and but the world thanks you for hanging in there because you do the greatest things.

You’re the people who propelled us off the planet, who put footprints on the moon, who are shooting to get humankind to Mars, and America, you are the people who never stop shooting for the stars and will not let the best vision of humanity be shot down by divisions or politicians or opposing positions.

You’re the country that welcomed in a six year old boy from Russia, Sergey Brin — who would one day co-found Google.

You’re the people who offered refuge to Andy Grove, a Hungarian who hid from the Nazis as a kid, who came to America and founded one of the leaders in the global tech industry — Intel — and you’re the country who made a home for a scared Ukranian teen, Jan Koum, and gave his family food stamps to stay alive — and that same kid would one day co-found Whatsapp that just sold for $19 billion.

No debate or vote or campaign can undermine it, because it’s undeniable and all of you, America, hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and you will hold on to each other no matter what because you not only believe these things, you aim to live these things no matter what.

Because America? You’re a great incubator of dreams, a lab for human possibilities, a seedbed for visions of hope to grow, a beacon of refuge and liberty to the tired and huddled masses and an election doesn’t change the DNA of who you are, a campaign season cannot undo the heart of you that beats from the winding sublimeness of Highway 1 to the general stores of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and no vote can derail that you’re a family who knows that if an election is allowed to destroy friendships, then it’s America that loses.

Thank you, America, for being the people who know that —- no matter who takes the White House in November, there are people in God’s House who will keep taking hope into the streets.

Thank you, America, for knowing that ultimately good news isn’t the wheelhouse of the government —- it’s ultimately the reality of the gospel.

Thank you, America, for being a pioneering people who believe in Seed Lives, who believe in breaking hard ground, who aren’t afraid to plow deeper to grow greater, who believe that the smallest seeds of kindness can begin to break the worst kind of brokenness.

The world thanks you, America — for believing in liberty, for hoping in possibility, for fighting against poverty, and bigotry, and misery, for living neighbourly, and choosing unity and accepting diversity and being grace in community.

America, the world thanks you, for not only being a land of great people, but for being one of the greatest ideas of the world.

And there is nothing that can destroy the strength of an idea that never stops believing.

 

So this is our story of the smallest seeds of kindness beginning to break the worst kind of brokenness — a story for us all.
Maybe now more than ever we all need to do this thing together: Dare to take The Broken Way — to Abundant Life.

Click here to Pre-Order today for a whole bundle of keys to break free… 

 

Dear Fears Trying To Break Us All

Dear Fears Trying to Break Us:

So you fears may be wedges thinking you can try to drive us all apart, divide us, but you don’t know how we’re seeing things.

You think you can divide us apart and conquer us and imprison us in small places, in small lives, with high fences — that keep out hope and possibility and each other and the lives we really want.

My grandmother used to say when I started to feel a bit undone, the way she had a saying for everything: Feed a cold, starve a fever.

So we’re giving you notice here, all you nagging fears, to the plan:

When the world starts feeling a bit undone: Feed your faith, starve your fears.

You can count on it, right about now:

We’re feeding our faith in the Maker of all people, feeding our faith in hope and mercy and the Slayer of Giants, feeding our faith in redemption and making resurrection our refrain and gorging on grace and feasting on the glory of God in the moment, the sky like this, and the air in your lungs like this, and our hearts thrumming alive in our ears like this.

We’ve grabbing all you fears a bit by the jugular because we’ve know it:

Fear is the every day enemy.

Fear can be your cancer, your addiction, your hidden habit, fear can be your jailer, your poison, your daily blade of self-harm. Fear can be your anaesthetic, what you let come freeze you everyday, lock you up, and suck away your life.

Fear can snuff out your soul while you keep on breathing for years. Fear is the most common brain tumor, always beginning in your mind.

And you fears? You may think you can make us cynical about dreams and apathetic about hope and dubious about possibility and people and prospects.

But we’re all over you: Fear isn’t meant to drive our lives — it’s meant to teach us something about our lives. Fear’s a chameleon that wears a thousand different masks and there are ways to see the realest, truest, surest things.

Fears can sound loud and look like anger… or can strut about and rant like pride … or can grow deafly quiet and look like numbness, or apathy or indifference or a dream running in the wrong direction.

But the thing is:

Find your fears — find your idols.

Find where the fear lurk, look them in the eye until you know their realest name, say their name out loud and you find that every fear can be a mask for an idol.

Sit long enough in the quiet —- and let the fear get close enough — the thing that seems like your worst nightmare — and then let your hand flash out like fireball of fierce redemption, rip that flimsy mask off and name the fear for what it is.

Break your idols — and you break free of all your fears.

So there’s this slow crushing all those fears to a fine powder and we’ve all made it a deal:

Be better at letting go of your fears than letting go of your joy.

We don’t have to worry about what’s up ahead — because Christ is the head of everything.

We don’t have to fear what’s around the next corner — because Christ is already there too.

We don’t have abide in our fears — because we can abide in our Father.

There’s a believing it, a living it:

Fear is a liar and Love hands out keys.

Love is infinite and Love can’t ever end and if Love doesn’t ever run out, what is there ever to fear?

There will still be love when the worst happens and when the hope doesn’t happen, there will be still love when everything’s crumbling and there will be enough love to rebuild, there will there will be enough love to keep breathing, to keep believing, to keep being and being brave.

Fear can be what we feel — but brave is what we do.

There’s enough Brave in us to believe that though the world is broken, there is light getting in…

That though the busted road ahead may head through the dark, there is more than enough Love around every bend that will carry more than you can imagine….

That though there may be battles ahead to brave, as long as we keep holding on to Love, there is never any losing.

It’s strange how that is — how hate is never the enemy like fear actually is, and every fear shatters, breaks away, when it turns to face the relentless love that will not stopped by anything.

So this is our story of breaking our fears — our story of living broken and given and loving large — but it’s really a story for us all.

Together — we can be free.

Please stay close? Maybe now more than ever we all need to do this thing together: Dare to take The Broken Way — to the Abundant Life. Click here to Pre-Order today…

 

how to keep on loving large

It’s after the Farmer checks over the combine that I crawl in the cab, in beside him in that ratty old t-shirt.

Something about a man who wears his work with no shame.

“Ride a few rounds with me?”

The engine’s drowning out that quiet voice of his.

I sit closer, my shoulder pressing against his.

His dirt-lined hands man that steering wheel around and he turns the combine around into the light, into that field of soybeans east of the bank barn.

The field rattles with dry pods, rattles like a stirring of the dry bones, and hope, it can split right open in the dry places and yield up life.

Shalom, she sits at my feet on the floor of the combine cab. “What’s the moisture, Dad? Are they dry enough?”

She asks it in her deep “I’ve got 4 brothers and I listen to these farm conversations” voice. She crinkles the freckles of her nose all smart, waiting on her daddy to dish her the beans about the beans. The Farmer grins.

“Should have been here sooner, really.” The Farmer glances up from his steering wheel toward the numbers on the monitor. “They’re running a bit too dry. Closer to 14% moisture would have been better… they are more than ready.” He bends again over the steer wheel.

Yesterday, the number on the thermometer said he’d had a fever of 102. Shalom pats his knee, the ragamuffin child comforting her daddy like a mama…

And hunched over a steering wheel, over the beans feeding into that combine reel, he talks of teenagers and the barn and feeding sows and what would God have for us.

And I talk of boys’ bathrooms and reeking socks and choir schedules and new homeschool routines and I sit there with a camera in my lap and nothing framed at all, and I start to feel this pressure build, all the things I need to clean and cross off the list. And sitting there beside him in the combine cab, us both watching out the window, watching the pods shell open and the harvest of beans roll in, all my insides pacing like this tomcat caged and I half howl:

“I really should go do something.”

And the man turns away from the harvest and the Farmer says to his wife:

“Being with me is always doing something — the right thing.”

The pig farmer’s wife, she nods sheepish, and I lay my hand on the knee of his threadbare jeans and his one hand lets go of the steering wheel to find mine.

It’s in the settled space of just being that it comes.

Like a pod breaking into an answer, right there in the middle of harvest.

“I told Moses that I’d fast and pray.”

The shelled beans are filling the bin behind us, and it sounds like a rain, all these round nuggets of gold.

“You know that Haitian man who I asked if he could get out of Haiti, all that poverty? And he was the one who turned to look me right in the eye, who said, “I’m Moses. I do not leave my kin.” That man.”

Now, just today, someone had written me with a project in Haiti that perhaps we could help with…

The Farmer slows down at the end of the field, turns on the headland for another pass. Levi’s crawled up high on the combine platform beside us.

“But you know how it goes.” I’m watching Levi watching the beans, looking out across the field, his face straight into wind.

“How do you know how to best invest your life? How do you know what’s wisest and where’s wisest and who’s neediest and is any of this even the point?”

The Farmer glances quick behind his shoulder to see that the stream of beans are still running in the bin, that the harvest is still coming. I keep going:

“And not an hour after I had said it out loud, that I’d told Moses I would pray about Haiti and if and how and when of the helping… I get this parable sent to me by a friend who found it buried 2 years deep in the internet — this parable about Americans finding a pile of rubble and hearing Haitians crying from under the rubble.”

I’m shaking my head. Why do I ever doubt that God hears and starts coming before you even cry out?

“So in this parable, the Christians start digging. And after several hours, they get out three Haitians: one dies of cholera, one straight up takes off without time for Jesus or thank you ma’am or nothing and only one’s kneeled down to help.”

“What’s cholera?” Shalom crinkles that nose again. “Aren’t all the parables in the Bible?” And I explain and the point of the parables is to get out of story and get right under our skin and what was that parable about giving a glass of water to the least of these?

“So then the parable has all the American Christians stop digging and have a meeting. Reasses. Are we doing this wrong? Are we being wise stewards here? Maybe we jumped in here too fast and need a better plan?”

Me or the parable — who is echoing who here?

Levi’s walking the field now. I can see Levi stopping to count pods, to just count pods.

I squeeze the Farmer’s knee:

“And I get this not an hour after I say it out loud, that I’m with Haiti’s Moses and I’ll pray and see what’s wisest — when people are dying.

The whole thing’s like — like God pushing a note under my door.” I swallow hard.

Sometimes the only way you hear if God’s knocking is if you are standing right by the door — ready to go. The beans keep streaming in right behind me, harvest ready and pouring.

“So the Christians have all this talk of stewardship and timing and plans and politics — all amidst the cries of people who are actually dying under the rubble…”

That’s what the parable read:

Then one American Christian bends down and begins the work again of freeing those who are trapped. He works frantically with energy, passion and tears.

The others look at him for a moment and then one asks him, “Brother, where have you found this energy for the task? Are you sure you know what you are doing?”

“Don’t you see, loved ones?  My heart is trapped beneath this rubble, too. We are all in danger if we do not respond to this need. We are all in grave danger – those who are below the rubble and those who stand above….

My witness before the throne of Jesus lies beneath this rubble.”

And the Farmer who’s working at a harvest, he turns to me:

“Sometimes if you wait until you really know what you are doing — means you don’t know really God and what He can do.”

We are all in grave danger.

Those who don’t respond are the ones in grave danger.

“Tell your Moses yes.” The Farmer in the tattered t-shirt, he wears the habit of harvest and isn’t the habit of harvest the one habit that Christians need to cultivate most? The Farmer’s speaking loud over the engine now, over everything that threatens to drown out our yes.

“Tell your Moses that we haven’t forgotten our kin and we aren’t hard or deaf and we’re going to do something.”

Something? Even if we still aren’t sure it’s the best thing?

And I answer my own question.

When someone stops doing nothing and just starts doing something, anything — this is what starts to change everything.

I’m done with excuses that stand in the way of a harvest — when it’s time to stand in the gap for the harvest.

Being with Christ as He goes to the lost and the least is always doing the right thing. 

The harvest of beans is running loud in me and now is the time, not later,  and the harvest is ready and we can’t afford to be sick one day longer. It’s time to split right open.

The world says, follow the right people and be a success. And Jesus says follow me and be crucified — and this is success.

The world says get rich now — or at least very soon. And Jesus says give it away now — because “soon” might be too late.

The world says you find your best life when you spend it all. And Jesus says whoever loses his life for me will find it — and if you try to save your life, you’ll lose it. Does anyone believe Him?

Keep your life safe, save up life, hoard all this good to make your life good — and you will lose your life. That’s what He said.

Whoever wants to save his life will definitely lose it.

Right into twilight, the beans break themselves wide open and there is the harvest and my heart is trapped beneath all this rubble too.

It’s time to break myself, break into harvest, break wide open — break free.

And when Malakai stands at the end of the field in the last of the light, while there is still day, while there is still light —  he splits open a pod, rolls the gold beans around in the palm of his dirty hand and the habit of harvest means you get dirty and there is no shame but relief.

The boy just raises his hand. And it’s like the whole rattling dead field is rising right alive and he holds his palm up to the sun just in time.

Like an offering of yes burst into flame.

 

 

This is our story — our story of living broken and given and loving large — but it’s really a story for us all.

Because you see — we’re all a bit broken…but when we share that brokenness? Together — we can be free.

Stay close? Maybe now more than ever we need to do this thing together: Dare to take The Broken Way — to the Abundant Life. Click here to Pre-Order today…

 

Links for 2016-10-16 [del.icio.us]

Sponsored: 64% off Code Black Drone with HD Camera

Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [10.15.16]

Happy, happy, happy weekend!

Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))! 

Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:  

Emily Gibson
Emily Gibson
Emily Gibson

the world’s really beautiful if we slow down to look at it

lost…and now found! Love this! 

Patrick Blanc

come see these urban gardens all over this city

so who woulda thought?

and the research is saying? dogs can smell time

glimpses of our extraordinary planet

“I am a pediatric occupational therapist, and I play for the glory of God.”

at 102? You’ve got to meet her: Edie Simms

totally makes me want to pack up and explore this beautiful world — anyone else in?

especially for you:

 you matter 

how she’s women choosing to #beTheGIFT changes the world

“I don’t think anyone should go unknown.”

a story of finding yourself

a free 3 week study with one of the wisest women I know:

 be still and know 

a look into the life of single parents

courtesy of the artist and C. Grimaldis Gallery / Rania Matar
courtesy of the artist and C. Grimaldis Gallery / Rania Matar
courtesy of the artist and C. Grimaldis Gallery / Rania Matar

I can’t turn away: ‘invisible children’ growing up as refugees

you gotta come see? how she’s loving her neighbors — at a turquoise table

When we open up our front door? Good things really happen

an act of character and an unlikely friendship — just yes

between mother and daughter

a gift beyond gifts: the power of saying thank you

and even the sparrow knows…

This is blowing up my heart like I never would have imagined:

how we could get to be the kind of people the world needs right now

Pre-Order The Broken Way & throw in for a free trip across the ocean with Ann

  [ Print’s FREE here: ]

…you know the world will get loud this week — make stillness to hear Him still. “He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.” Ps. 107:29

Trust, Braveheart: Jesus can still the storm inside. 

God’s Word never says Hurry Up.

God words only whisper: Wake Up. God has today — so I have enough time to enjoy today. Whoever believes will not be in haste.

Stay the mind on God today, and there is no storm in the world that can move you from the peace of God.

 

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

‪ Dare to fully live!

That’s all for this weekend, friends.

Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.

Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again

Share Whatever Is Good.

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