Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 172
May 18, 2016
Links for 2016-05-17 [del.icio.us]
Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!
May 17, 2016
When You Finally Give Up on Trying to Meet the Whole World’s Expectations
Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan were just two internet friends raising their families and blogging about their lives. They’d trade emails and Skype occasionally, cheering one another and speaking truth to their hearts that felt connected for whatever God-ordained reason. Things were casual and lightly encouraging until 2012 when they both began to feel pulled out and called up by the Father – into leadership, mission, and living Wild and Free. What began as private mantra they’d push one another towards turned into an Anthem for our generation – a call to live out our liberty and an answer to one burning question: If God is Wild and Free, what does that mean for us? It’s a grace to welcome Jess and Hayley to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan
To say the burden on the women in our current culture is heavy is a vast understatement.
As if the crushing weight of all women are expected to do and be wasn’t enough, the situation is only made more precarious because the expectations change drastically from city to city, community to community, even person to person.
We start with the national assumption that women should look impeccable at all times – without aging or having their bodies change.
Inside that pristine temple, they should have shining and glittering personalities – boasting kindness, graciousness, humbleness, while also being strong and successful and self sufficient.
Then, depending on where you’re at or who you’re talking to – the expectations can shift immensely and without warning.
Some women are expected to work and build careers, but only the kind that their community deems meaningful.
Some women would be corrected for having career ambitions and are encouraged to stay home, caring for children and having dinner ready by five.
Some of you feel like you’re not up to par because you don’t make the most amazing treats and goodies for your kids, some of you would be shunned for feeding your children refined sugar.
Personally I’ve felt the whiplash of moving from community to community and knowing instantly that I didn’t measure up or fit in. I would have worked and strived to fit the proper definition of womanhood where I’d just come from and then have the breath knocked out of me by the staggering rejection from not fitting into the next place.
Our problem isn’t one caused by our mothers or the mothers that came before them; it’s a tension of Biblical proportions exacerbated by the enemy of our Creator.
The truth remains that we were brought forth in the midst of a battle regarding our worth, purpose, and our assumed role in this life.
At first glance, the battle lines seem clear, but in reality the voices and messages are complicated at best. The confusion lies in the deception that began with Eve partaking of the shiny beautiful apple because someone told her that was best for her. That deception is still active today.
From one camp we hear that we are to walk in a straight line – be seen and not heard, not disturbing anyone with our thoughts, dreams, voice, or the gifts the Father gave us.
Swinging to the opposite extreme there is a vocal group insisting we must stand up and take control: get what is ours, forcefully find our own place, and make our own way, at the cost of anyone and anything that stands in our way. And of course, there are all sorts of tensions, questions, and limitations in between.
Do you see it? Inside your friend groups and the halls where you worship? Can you feel the burden of expectation—of what women are “supposed” to be?
Mantles have been placed on us as women that genuinely aren’t rooted in scripture, and they are slowing us down. When a horse is finally tamed and trained, bearing the burden of saddle and human expectations alike, she is called broken. It is only then that she performs the duties expected of her.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that’s what God ever had in mind for Eve. And I don’t think that’s what God ever had in mind for you and me.
In the Bible, He speaks of yoke and submission and there are commandments and thousands of pieces of wisdom. But His authoritative mission in our lives has never been to break our spirits, but free them to give Him as much glory as possible.
But sometimes His gentle voice is drowned out by the demanding ones in our physical lives, the comments and commands of those telling us who or how to be.
No matter where our gaze is right now, we’re trapped by expectation and it seems like we’re destined to fail. Our eyes dart about from habitat to habitat, wondering what is wrong with us and looking for ways we can become more like the perfect woman, whoever she is.
But there is a way back. There is a way home.
In our lifetimes, we probably won’t return to the Garden of Eden to all live there peacefully together, but by looking closer at our good God, we can drown out the noise and hear a little more clearly.
We can live wild and free, because our God is wild and free and He purchased our liberty on the cross of Christ.
We can look to Him for our identity and our purpose, our worth and value and mission and direction.
In Jesus’ name, we can throw off the burdens and expectations that culture has placed on us as we step into the wild and holy calling we’ve been given –
to live as daughters and ambassadors, calling others to the marvelous light we’ve been brought to.
We can live wild and free.
And we can bring our sisters with us.
Jess Connolly is a gal who is in the thick of it herself. She is the founder of the Naptime Diaries print shop, co-founder of the Influence Conference + Network, and she is passionate about using her words to point women to Jesus through writing and speaking. She and her husband planted a church in Charleston, South Carolina, where they live with their four children.
Hayley Morgan is a writer, speaker, and entrepreneur who inspires women to create lives of more passion and less fuss. She and her husband started Wildly Co., an ethical children’s clothing line, and she is also the cofounder of the Influence Conference and Network. Hayley lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her husband and their four sons.
Wild and Free is an anthem and an invitation in equal parts to find freedom from the cultural captivity that holds us back, and freedom to step into the wild and holy call of God in our lives. With fresh biblical insight tracing all the way back to Eve and a treasury of practical application, Jess and Hayley reveal how women today can walk in the true liberty we already have in Jesus.
Because you don’t have to be everything to everyone. You don’t have to try so hard to button it up and hold it together. And you certainly don’t have to quiet the voice that God gave you when He created you to sing. Wild and Free will help you shake off the lies of insecurity in your life, and step forward to maximize your God-given influence for His glory and the world’s good.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan and their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 16, 2016
25 Things Every Growing up & Graduating Kid (& their Parents) Needs to Know
Look… you get what we all get — a lifetime.
Just you or none of us ever get to know how long that will turn out to be.
So get to it. Because you woke up 21 this week.
You sat at the end of the table after barn chores, grinning like you were just getting stretched up for the starting blocks and the race of your life — and somewhere inside I felt this crossing of an invisible finish line, right through the stretched out tape.
And I want to go back.
I want to go back and hold the whole of you right in palm again and lay you in that kitchen scale and count your every gram, as if I could give you weight in this world.
I didn’t know that would happen until I started letting you go.
I want to go back and pull that boy with that bowl hair cut up on my lap again. Feel your chub fingers help me turn one more page, reach for one more crayon, hold my hand one more moment, and you have no idea how much I don’t care if that makes me a fool.
I want to go back to your sleep breathing on my shoulder and the way I didn’t want to move, to your bows and arrows and slung-on tool belts and well-envisioned, yet questionably-executed tree forts, to your buck teeth and big bravado and flipped up toilet lids and flipped out drive-me-mad attitude. I just want to go the whole ugly-beautiful way back and I want to get a do over.
Go back and shake up that 21 year old girl who brought you home and tell her that the best way to raise up a kid is to just loosen up. Nothing ever got raised up when held down tight.
The Holy Spirit is a fluid grace and the wind is a carrying thing and you have to lean into it and let Him surprise if anything’s going to rise up and fly.
You grew up — and I want to go back and I want to go with you, but I can’t do that either.
That’s a hard thing to sit with.
Hard to know I can’t fix any of the times I dented up your heart with my ridiculous white-knuckled steering-wheel control and big Buick idols. Yeah, you and I both remember how it got ugly and wild. You’ve got to know I’ll spend the rest of my life and pitiful wisdom trying to bang out those dents with real presence and grace. Yeah, you and I both know I’ll probably make some more.
You made me get that: Grace isn’t some soft, ethereal notion. Grace is a noun, it’s a verb, it’s concrete, it’s like air. Just try living without it. Just try living without breathing. We all know how wrinkled hard lives like that are. You — you made me me breathe grace right down to the bottom of the lung. It was the only way we could live with each other. Inhaling, exhaling, giving and receiving grace.
It ended up beautiful, what all happened, and I don’t even think we realized it was happening at all.
So you’ll end up heading out.
Heading out down some back roads and long roads and roads I’d never pick for you and I wished I’d lived more backwards, backwards from the knowing that ends really do come.
Knowing that one day you’ll leave and I’ll be brave and wave. And you’ll go fall in love and you’ll feel it too and I can’t stop it for you — how a crush can crush you, how real love is never logical, how real love is always crazy love, and love is the most horrible and the most wonderful because it will make you strong and it will make you weak and it will make you vulnerable, which is the perfection of strong and weak together.
How Love will open you right up, then pull open your heart to let someone get into you and get to you and undo you and remake you and it’s everything terrifying and everything you ever wanted.
And I will nod and say yes.
That’s what you’ve done to me.
That’s what I’d go back to tell that new 21-year-old mother I was with her dangling kid, what I’m feeling as the woman falling over a finish line I don’t want to cross, what I’m saying to you, that new 18-year-old man done with being a kid — Don’t fight the hurt. Let the hurt make you real. Let go of the defenses and the shields and the tightfisted formulas for some life that doesn’t exist and give away beautiful pieces of yourself and feel the hurt, because the only way to own a life worth having is to give away your own life.
Give away the life of polished floors and gleamy sinks, of big hair and bigger bank accounts, and let love get in and mess with you and loosen you up and make you laugh and cry and really give and really hurt because is the only way to really live. Don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less than love.
Don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less than eternity.
And that’s. what. love. is.
I once heard the story of a preacher man with a PhD — whose mother died when he was two. When he was two and they were 5 kids in poor Kansas and she had grabbed hold of her husband’s hand and whispered her 5 last words: Always keep eternity before them.
Always keep eternity before them.
Think of eternity — and live backwards from that.
Don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less than eternity — and that’s. what. love is. Eternal, without end.
Let love happen to you. Don’t fight the hurt. It’s making you real.
You woke up to snow the week of your 21st.
“Crazy, for the middle of May — again” And you inhaled your plate of waffles, and said it again, “Snow — for a birthday week in May!”
And I stand at the window and watch you, the oldest, the child no more — all man — walk through a bit of snow in the air on your birthday week.
Through the wind and melting snowflakes coming down in May, there it is: Seize the Day.
Just go do that: it’s never too late to love and there is always time to love and what else is a lifetime for?
You could see that — the boy grown into a man, walking through the snow melting before it hit the ground, giving itself away and unafraid into the coming sun.
Related Posts: How to be The Parent You Want to Be: 40 Things Your child Needs to Know Before they Leave Home
May 14, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [05.14.16]
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:
Hidenobu Suzuki
Hidenobu Suzuki
Hidenobu Suzuki
ever have just one of those days?
why you really need to have a nap today — did you know this?
just plain, straight-up fun
Holly Fox
Holly Fox
Holly Fox
combine a graphics designer & a baker — and you get this
free exhale #2… you are so welcome
have kids? you’ve got to read this: how you put them to bed can make them smarter & happier
worldfortravel.com
a village with no roads? Sorta makes you want to move…
why we’re all counting down to the 2016 Rio Olympics…
Emily Gibson
Emily Gibson
Emily Gibson
60 seconds. 59 national parks — your soul needed a bit of that too
why you absolutely need to take a hike today — because who knew that a hike did this to your brain
so I took my mama and our Hope-girl to see these guys this week — couldn’t have been better
Bride-to-be turns canceled wedding? into this
definitely onto something here!
it’s always really worth the time to reach out & inspire each other
anything is possible
Erin Elizabeth Photography / Kim Tucci
Surprised by — Five — naturally conceived… a one in 55 million chance
the kids walked in to take exams — only to find this on their desks — yes, really
He rescues dog. Dog rescues bird. Bird rescues both of them. Perfect — we all need each other
Flossie has some very good things to say right here
Today
thanking your nurses — 10 years later #thanksomebodytoday
she changed the way they see the world — and how they see themselves
youtube/JamesGivens
Goose summons cop. Leads Cop to her baby. Cop frees her baby.
why he’s on a mission to save lives: don’t miss this one!
“This is big, but we still believe that our God is bigger, and prayer is a very powerful thing”
never, ever, ever give up
Post of the Week from these parts here:
when you’re tired of these hidden feelings of failure
extraordinary kindness
going above and beyond
free exhale #4 … slow down & enjoy your weekend, friends
Hard couple of days? Just hold on —
God never gives up on you, He never runs out on you,
He never lets go of you.
When you’re about ready to give up —
remember this: He hasn’t.
Just keep taking the next step — and you can take any mountain.
“He will never give up on you. Never forget that.” 1Cor1:9 MSG
[excerpted from our little Facebook community … come join us?]
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.
May 13, 2016
when all you can hold onto — is just one thing
When I flew into Iraq last year, right after the 21 Martyrs were decapitated, Mindy Belz, an editor with WORLD Magazine, flew in too. We both came to stand with the shattered and give voice to the shell-shocked. And what Mindy discovered was a living and breathing church, where some worshippers chanted their liturgy in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. This diverse Christian minority has become the targets of Islamic terrorist groups — but Mindy has seen, over and over again, that in the midst of death and destruction the gospel of Jesus Christ remained alive, and going forth. ISIS now threatens the existence of Christians in Iraq, and Christians are being tested like never before. It’s a humbling grace to welcome a brilliant woman like Mindy to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post and photos by Mindy Belz
A United States air offensive broke what had been weeks of unchecked advance by the Islamic jihadists.
By daybreak ISIS could have been at Erbil’s doorstep.
Instead, its commandos had been pushed back to a distance twenty-five minutes away.
It felt like a victory, even if it was only a reprieve.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis remained stranded on Mount Sinjar. Most who survived nearly a week on the mountain eventually walked twelve miles to Syria for refuge.
The Kurdish peshmerga then opened a road, allowing the refugees to make their way back to Iraq, to safety in Kurdistan near Dohuk.
Many elderly and disabled Iraqis, along with their caregivers, were trapped in the cities and towns overtaken by ISIS, beholden to the Islamists’ whims and cruelties.
Otherwise those cities and towns sat eerily empty, guarded by guns and black-cloaked militants but home to no commerce, no everyday life.
In Qaraqosh, about one hundred Christians had been left behind. ISIS held them hostage inside their homes or churches.
One father described being tortured while his wife and two children were threatened after the family refused to deny their faith. When ISIS ordered them back to their home, the family escaped.
******
A few months later I met Najeeb Daniel and his wife, Dalal, both in their seventies.
ISIS militants had held them in their Qaraqosh home for fifteen days in August, then forced them to run.
The militants loaded them, along with others who had been too old or disabled to leave sooner, onto a bus. They drove them to the edge of town, where they dropped them off and ordered them to cross the Khazir River, located nearly ten miles away.
Given the condition of the group, the walk to the river took nearly twelve hours.
Already tottering, Najeeb fell into a hole along the way and broke his leg. The armed militants shooed them from behind, yet he couldn’t move.
Someone—Najeeb said it was a nun—dispatched a young man in a wheelbarrow, who picked up Najeeb and several others and ferried them to the river’s edge.
The young man carried Najeeb across the river on his shoulders.
His wife said the water reached chest height.
Once they reached the other side, the gunmen left them alone.
Learning of their flight, Kurds came in cars to help them, and medics took Najeeb to a hospital in Erbil.
When I interviewed Najeeb and his wife, they were living in one bare room on the upper floor of Erbil’s downtown shopping mall, where hundreds of displaced families were staying. Like nearly everyone who escaped ISIS, they made a home wherever they could, in this case accessible only by escalator.
Najeeb’s leg had been set but hadn’t healed well, and he couldn’t walk. He sat on the floor under a blanket, his chin quivering uncontrollably. When he tried to speak, only fragments of sentences would come.
Dalal told me their story.
For years the Iraqi Christians who populated Nineveh Plains had weighed and measured the high cost of staying but felt the tug of blood and history.
When al-Qaeda kidnapped their sons and fathers, they thought of earlier Ninevites, the Assyrians who had converted to Christianity, and they remained.
When the Sunni militias made life in their cities a daily hell of roadside bombs, they thought of the Chaldean church fathers and the monastic hermits with their libraries, and they hung on.
When the jihadist death squads in Baghdad and Mosul forced Christians from their neighborhoods, bombed them, and shot at them even while they worshiped, they remembered the life of music, the arts, the gatherings, and the commerce in the once-vibrant Jewish and Christian quarters, and they persevered. They even built new churches to keep faith alive.
And when the politicians overlooked their plight again and again, or when those who’d made it out to other countries told them it was too dangerous to remain in Iraq, they thought of the land, its history, and their fellow believers, and they responded as Insaf had years earlier: “I only hear Jesus saying, ‘Feed my sheep.’”
Now Nineveh Plains was empty of Christians, empty of all worship but ISIS worship.
The bells of the churches had fallen silent for the first time since the seventh century.
Voices for singing had been carried away. The crosses had come down; the worship spaces had been converted to mosques or simply destroyed.
The people who would not renounce their faith had been chased out, finally and perhaps irrevocably.
The Christians confronted face-to-face and door-to-door by ISIS had run, yes, but they had run only when to stay meant giving up their faith.
The sublime, nearly forgotten reality in all their hardship and loss was this: In losing everything, they had held on to the one thing that mattered to them most.
For this reason, they did not need our pity.
They had so much to teach us.
But having lost everything—houses, property, businesses, and belongings—they could not continue to survive without outside help.
Despite our distance, then, the reality remains:
We need them, and they need us.
Mindy Belz is the author of They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East and the senior editor of World magazine. Writing for that publication since 1986, Mindy has covered war and persecution in the Balkans, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan and has given on-the-ground news coverage from Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere.
Care about the world and what in the world is going on, care about brothers and sisters in Christ being persecuted and martyred for their faith, care about defying ISIS, care about making a difference — you have to pick up They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East
Links for 2016-05-12 [del.icio.us]
Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!
May 11, 2016
when you’re tired of these hidden feelings of failure
These days kinda find us out on the porch a lot, as our new little daughter loves outside and sunshine the best — and Sharon Jaynes is a fellow porch-sitter who communes with God with coffee in her hand, a well-worn Bible in her lap, and gentle breezes blowing over the lake of her country home. She loves nothing more than making Scripture come alive for fellow travelers and linking arms with women all around the world through the written and spoken word. It’s an absolute grace to welcome Sharon to the farm’s front porch today…
I sat on my back porch, wrapped in my fuzzy worn robe—the one that’s twenty years old but I just can’t seem to get rid of.
The birch tree leaves shivered in the cool morning crispness and the gerbera daisies that had been sleeping beneath the soil through the winter months, stretched their faces to the sun . . . just a bit higher than the day before.
Then I heard him. The rooster.
ER-er-ER-er-ERRRR. I’m not sure where he lives, but it’s within earshot.
ER-er-ER-er-ERRRR. I thought of Peter. I thought of me. I thought of you.
You know the story. At the dinner table, on the night before Jesus went to the cross, He had a chat with his friend Peter.
He referred to Peter in his pre-disciple-days name—Simon.
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
Don’t you know Jesus thought…sure you are, buddy?
“I tell you, Peter,” Jesus said, “before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
A few hours later, Peter did just that. Denied that he even knew Jesus. Three times. And then the rooster crowed. ER-er-ER-er ERRRR.
And Peter went outside and wept bitterly. He cried and cried and cried.
The next morning, the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered his failure.
And the next morning the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered his failure.
And the next, and the next, and the next.
With every cock-a-doodle-doo came a fresh reminder. First thing in the morning.
Have you ever been there? I have.
I have failed. I have cried and cried and cried. I have remembered.
Shame has poked drain holes in my Spirit-filled confidence and I have hidden behind the wall with Peter…behind the bush with Eve.
And even though I had asked God to forgive me, and I knew that He had, the rooster still crowed in my heart, and I remembered my failure all over again.
Like a trapeze artist who takes hold of the second bar, but refuses to let go of the first, I have hung—dangling over “life to the full.”
Not quite letting go of the life that’s “less than” in order to soar fully and free as God intended.
And God calls to me… Let go. Move forward. Live bold. It’s the only way.
And Paul tells me how… Here’s what I do… I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Forgetting what lies behind and reaching for what lies ahead… (Philippians 3:12,13)
And I see it clearly. For me and for you.
When we finally take hold of, grasp, and make our own all that Jesus has already taken hold of for us and placed in us, we begin to experience life to the full—the faith we’ve always longed for.
But taking hold is not enough. We’ve got to let go.
Let go of shame-filled ponderings and and take hold of grace-filled pardon.
Let go of crippling bitterness and take hold of radical forgiveness.
Let go of weak-kneed worry and take hold of sure-footed confidence.
Let go of insecurity and take hold of your true identity as a child of God.
Let go of preoccupation with self-doubt and take hold of God’s power-filled promises.
Let go of comparison and take hold of your God-fashioned uniqueness.
Let go of the lies that hold you hostage and take hold of the truth that sets you free.
Let go of paralyzing doubt and take hold of fleet-footed faith that’s ready to dance to the daring rhythm of God’s drum.
I get excited thinking about it — and I’m ready.
God has placed lavish promises in the safety deposit box of my heart and fashioned a cross-shaped key just for me…just for you.
And letting go of shame and taking hold of grace is where it all begins.
What did Jesus have to say about Peter’s failure? Three strikes, you’re out? Not hardly.
After his resurrection, Jesus pulled Peter aside…“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
Jesus removed the shroud of shame hanging from Peter’s guilt weary shoulders, and called him to get back to the ministry to which he was called. And He does the same for me and for you.
Take hold of grace.
But the rooster still crows.
The question is, what will we remember when it does?
Not the sin…but the grace.
Oh friend, don’t let the enemy accuse you of what God has already forgiven you of? Don’t let him fool you into thinking that the cross was not enough.
Take hold of what Jesus has already taken hold of for you.
And He asks…“Daughter, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord, you know that I do.”
Feed my sheep.
[image error][image error]Sharon Jaynes has penned a passel of books and loves linking arms with women all around the world through the written and spoken word. In her brand new book, Take Hold of the Faith You Long For she reveals the most common reasons we get stuck in a mediocre faith. By sitting fireside with Moses at the burning bush and looking at his four arguments with God, you’ll discover how to let go of all that holds you hostage to a life that’s less than what God intended, move forward into life to the full that Jesus promised, and live bold with mountain moving faith that is filled with expectancy. A liberating read to turn to again and again. To learn more about Take Hold of the Faith You Long For: Let Go, Move Forward, Live Bold, visit www.takeholdthebook.com.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker Publishing for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 10, 2016
why you’ve got to know that you (and her) are priceless
Kristen Welch and I are sorta, kinda, soul sisters? As I serve on the board of directors of the ministry Kristen founded, Mercy House Global, I get to see it first hand again and again, what we can all do together to change the world for women, if we say our brave yes. — and I am all in here with Kristen, with Mercy House Global, and togESTHER — we are the Esther Generation. Called for such a time as this, right where we are, to change the world for our sisters…. I absolutely love this woman with all my heart — a grace to welcome my soul sister, Kristen, to the farm’s front porch today…
She grew up in a brothel.
She was recently rescued from a living hell in the heart of Kolkata, India.
[Can we just let the weight of these words sink deep? Children in bondage. There are thousands and thousands of girls and women still trapped right now in this life and we have to stop and acknowledge this sad truth even when it’s easier to skip over it.]
In her first months of freedom, safe with one of our Fair Trade Friday partners, she chopped off her long hair so she would feel ugly.
The blunt hairstyle was a harsh warning to any man who might dare to touch her again.
“I don’t ever want a man to look at me again,” she said. This is how she protected herself from being hurt again.
Freedom Firm rescues and then restores. And they do that through dignified work.
We saw the miracle of self-respect grow almost before our eyes, as women realized they had made something worthwhile that people actually wanted.
For the first time they had a skill.
The joy and dignity experienced by the women in that moment birthed in us a great desire to make business a foundation stone in the rebuilding of the women’s lives,” -Freedom Firm
One of my friends visited the workshop in India (and sent me pictures of the 1000 pairs of embroidered earrings that are going to our June members…you should totally sign up) and met the girl with the chopped off hair.
She was a little defiant. A lot broken. And who could blame her. The world had used her over and over again.
She was also the most talented artisan in the room. She was sitting at a loom embroidering onto silk. In and out, over and through, quickly and accurately, recreating the pattern over and over.
My friend walked over and asked if she knew she was embroidering words.
Words in a language you don’t speak look just like shapes and patterns.
Tell her the words she is sewing. Tell her.
And so they read the words to her. Over her.
Treasured.
Loved.
Redeemed.
Beautiful.
Reassured.
Saved.
Comforted.
Hopeful.
Rescued.
Transformed.
Cherished.
An angry girl sewing words all day long about how God sees her? Priceless.
Tell her this is how God feels about her.
She put her hands over her face and smiled.
They are the same words God whispers over us in our darkest, loneliest moments, “Beloved, you are mine. I see you. I have not forgotten.”
I used to get mad at God when I heard stories like this one. God, how can you allow suffering like this? Where were you when she was being abused again and again?”
But then one day, He answered.
I was there with her in the middle of her hell. I never left her for a moment.
Every woman everywhere deserves to know that she is loved and valued by the God who created her. She is priceless like a treasured pearl. She isn’t a commodity to be bought and sold, but she has been paid for by the precious blood of Jesus.
Tell her she is priceless. It’s the goal of the dozens and dozens of ministries we work with who work to remind women of this truth.
Today, we are joining our hands around the world–from Freeset and JoyCorbs in India to Beauty for Ashes and Caring for Korah in Africa.
We are linking arms with Beauty for Ashes Uganda who is providing hope and healing to thousands of women–providing business training, start up gardens, mosquito nets, school fees for their thousands of kids-turning Uganda upside down with dignity and hope for the most oppressed.
We are linking arms with JoyCorps, creators of some of our favorite products, woven by lepers, block printed by families, sewn together by women who are grateful for the jobs. I have had aching conversations that have left me on my knees with their founder who was forced to leave her beloved India with her family. I have heard her trembling voice tell me of artisans who have stood up in the face of danger and violence and said, I will follow Jesus.
We are linking arms with Caring for Korah, in the dump of Ethiopia, as the country endures a desperate drought and I have watched hundreds of homes precariously situated in the city dump destroyed. I have visited these women’s homes with my own daughter and I have wept at their plight and begged God to help us empower them.
We are donning our pearls, taking selfies, giving sacrificially and standing up to say we see these injustices, these broken-hearted women who have chopped off their hair so the brokenness inside will match the outside.
Will you please join with us today–May 10th, 2016 and read these words over women around the globe?
Will you give to one of the organizations we are partnering with–working in hard places, with the most vulnerable?
Will you please join with us today and boldly declare with your time and resources we see you and we are here to say, you are not alone. He is with you.
Because you are priceless.
So is she.
We are joining together to remind the world —
that every woman matters.“She Is Priceless” Is A Campaign To Make A Difference In The Lives Of Oppressed Women.
Mercy House is teaming with four organizations that are on the ground changing lives.
A pearl is a healed wound. An oyster protects itself from irritation and suffering and the result is a priceless pearl. The women supported by this campaign have endured unthinkable suffering in their lives and often feel forgotten.
May 9, 2016
help for parents who want to give up: how to raise up kids when you want to give up
When I was an oblivious 16, I met this soccer mama who had it painted on her Keds:
Shoe #1: These 2 feet run
Shoe #2: After my 3 sons.
We ended up with 4.
Four boys. Two girls and four boys, who swelled me out like a melon and nobody tells mothers that: Once labor starts, it never ends.
Four boys that made mountains of laundry like they were tectonic plates, who furiously ravaged the fridge 24/7 and left a never-ending stream of empty plates. A quad of explosive testosterone, a quartet of dirt and wrestling and loud and dreams and books and mess and sweat and inventions.
And, frankly, there were a lot of days I wanted to have it wired up in neon blinking lights on a t-shirt:
These two arms
pull out a lot of this mother’s hair
over her 4 sons.
The one boy that was harder than all the other 5 kids all put together?
The one who made me think he was either headed to delinquency hall, or I was literally headed to an insane asylum, who made me lock myself in the mudroom, slink to the floor and weep a primal grief? At least three times a week?
The kid’s on scholarship. He bought his own house the week before his 18th birthday. That he rents out to 7 other roomates.
He won a grant this past term for his pitch of a new agricultural tech start up. At 19, he has his own team of engineers. A handful of times every week, he messages me: “Love you, Mom. You’re doing great.” He sponsors more than a dozen kids through Compassion. He’s one of my very best friends. One of my very favourite people in the whole wide world. I never want conversations with him to end.
A road always looks one way — until it makes a u-turn.
They don’t tell you that either:
The only way to raise kids — is by never giving up.
His kid brother, who shows up in the tractor seat this May, he’d only scowled and snarled at us.
For about two years straight.
I had failed that kid like the Hindenberg. Crashed and burned of epic proportions. Daily. Ranted when I should have bit my tongue. Hassled when I should have held my peace. Turns out that: Whenever you want to light into someone, is exactly when you should lighten up.
Instead of giving someone a piece of your mind, it turns out far better if you give them a piece of your heart.
I wish I had done that. I wish someone had told me that. There’s support groups for moms of preschoolers, but where’s triage for the moms of teenagers? #MOTS The older our kids become, the greater our isolation can become, because while mothers can instagram and commiserate together over the Terrible Twos — but mothers struggling through a stretch of terrible teens can suffer alone.
Then that same homeschool kid scored in the 99.7 percentile on his ACT.
Was offered a scholarship to his program of choice the week of his 17th birthday.
In mathematical physics. Won the university’s Provincial Roboticon Competition with the design, building and coding of his own robot. Designed and built his own chipboard.
Came home every weekend, hugged his dad and I, laughed loud and made bacon and eggs for the whole crew on Saturday mornings after barn chores. Got ready every Sunday morning with his older brother for gathering as a church around the Bread and the Cup. He wears bowties. Sometimes I just have to lean in a doorway and watch him. He’s become more than I ever dreamed.
Redemption is the papery ash that’s falling, turning and uplifting as sparks of pure glory.
This happens. We don’t deserve this and redemption still happens.
And it begs us to never stop looking for it, to always stop and witness it.
* * *
So that kid shows up in the yard the day after his last university exam, asks his dad how he can help?
Yeah, he ends up in a tractor seat — grinning a mile wide and nodding at us.
Ends up stuck at 2 a.m.
Cultivator caught a bit of damp dirt at the edge of the woods.
He calls home, looking for his kid brother.
I’m still up, making up something warm for that 14-year-old kid brother of his who’s just dragged in from the Hurst farm and planting 200 acres of soybeans on his own. Both boys have have been up since 4 am yesterday.
Feeding hogs. Washing down barns. Hooking cultivators on to tractors. Cultivating up a seed bed for hundreds of acres for those seeds.
When a family works shoulder to shoulder through something, they find they can take on just about anything.
Their Dad’s still out there. Still out there going in the field behind the barn, out there underneath a milk moon, on an open tractor, eating dirt up and down the field, trying to get the last of those corn seeds into the ground.
When I took a warm bowl out to the good man, his hands were bone cold.
Levi leaves his steaming plate on the table, heads out to the shed to grab a chain, start up the tractor again, haul over to the Martin farm to pull his big brother out of the field in the middle of the night.
This old ma of theirs, I drive the pick-up tuck out to check on our boys. Stand in the dark and nod them on.
Boy-men. Brothers. The Redeemed and the Rescued and the Remade. Gittin’ ‘er done with their dad. Doing whatever it takes to keep the other one going, get this crop in the ground and get this family through — because, for all our stumbling and wandering, that’s what families do.
Levi and Joshua hook that chain onto a tractor axle in the dark. Their bass voices echo across the field. When did I turn and they grow up like this and how did this miracle of grace bond us all like this?
People can say what they want about teenagers & boys these days. Say what they want about this next generation, say that kids can’t change, that we’re all going to pot here in a hand basket. But I just want to whisper:
There’s a whole generation of young men who are becoming good men.
There are young men who are of great worth, not because they do good yet, but because they are made in the image of a Good and great God — and that alone makes them great young men.
There are young men who need time. Oak trees don’t happen over night. Growing in grace and wisdom and stature isn’t an immediate download — it happens the way a tree grows up: over decades.
There’s a reason why children begin as seeds. It’s okay — it’s okay —- that growth and change take time — it’s supposed to.
There are good young men who simply need someone to tell them that they are that —- who need someone to tell them a dozen times a day, “You’re good at working hard and loving large. You were made for this.”
There are good young men out there who need to be unearthed from low expectations, and made over by relentless grace, and strengthened with daily doses of iron: the nails of service and the Cross of Christ.
There are good young men who need someone to show them they are trustworthy by entrusting them with worthy work, who take the time to inspect their work so they know what to expect, who give them confidence to to do hard things by giving them hard things to do.
Levi hauls his brother out of the mire.
I memorize the boys’ silhouettes in the lunar light.
The two of them stand in a shaft of moon, farm caps pulled low, deciding who will finish up this field now at 3 a.m., who will get up when the 4 a.m. alarm goes in an hour for the barn again and those hungry hogs.
It doesn’t matter if they’ve both been up 22 hours now. It doesn’t matter that there are hours ahead of them and Sunday and rain coming and only so much time to get these seeds into the ground. They’re both bent and bound to not quit now.
Don’t quit now.
There’s a whole generation of the hardest boys who can become the greatest men.
There’s a whole generation of young men who can learn to go till it’s done, work hard days till it’s finished, give each other a hand so no one get’s left behind.
There’s a whole generation of young men who will rise up if we raise our expectations, who can turn over new leaves because we never stop believing in them, who can do hard things because we never give up on them, no matter how hard it gets.
When you teach a kid how to work hard, you teach him how to work through whatever’s hard.
Yeah —- there’s more than just a few good young men.
There’s a whole world of them. Headlines could tout them. Facebook streams could flood with them and Instagram could capture them and Twitter could trend with our future men: #GoodYoungMen. And a whole generation of mothers and fathers could do the hallowed work of raising them up. Because a country needs them, a hurting world needs them, an eternity needs them, and the raising up of #GoodYoungMen is no small thing — it’s a hard and holy thing.
When Levi catches a glance of a photo from the field, he leans in over the outlines by the tractors.
“That’s Dad?” I shake my head.
“Oh, that’s Dad?” He points to the other silhouette in his peaked farm hat. “Wait — Dad was planting behind the barn that night,” he straightens up, confused.
“It’s you.” Something’s burning in my throat.
“It’s you and Joshua.”
Levi leans in again over the picture. “Really? We both look like Dad. The way Josh and I are standing. The way we’re walking.”
His mother nods, swallows around this burning ember.
The feet of all our sons run like all the good men ahead of them —
a crop of good young men planted by their Father, for a harvest worth all of a mother’s worn and faithful grace.
Related: After Steubenville: 25 Things Our Sons need to know about Manhood
How to Be the Parent You Want to Be: 40 Things Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home
May 7, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [05.07.16]
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:
Lukas Furlan
Lukas Furlan
Lukas Furlan
because you know you need to just exhale
oh, hello
this humpback whale made quite the entrance!
Rodessa Villanueva Reyes
Rodessa Villanueva Reyes
Rodessa Villanueva Reyes
creative mom is back with more cardboard fun!
New Puzzles from the 2016 New York Toy Fair
mind boggling and just plain fun to watch
the intrigue of an owl’s silent flight
This week’s Sticky Note for Your Soul:
FREE daily printables to cheer you on!
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gather the family for this one? solving the rubik’s cube: blindfolded
glory
Jackson Public Schools
what if we’d do this everyday?
a peek into a new way of training young doctors: surgeon tryouts
a most beautiful act of kindness that is just getting started
Yes. And thank you.
Magda Wasiczek
Magda Wasiczek
Magda Wasiczek
she photographs the very small in extraordinary ways
recently discovered – and it’s just stunning
Lisa-Jo Baker
yes, this: When You Still Need Your Mom and She’s Not There Anymore
and wow: JetBlue gave everyone a reason to smile onboard this flight
Thierry Bornier / This image was captured very early in the morning after climbing Yellow Mountain at 3 am and waiting for few hours in the cold and wind at -4 degrees. No HDR and no Photoshop was used for the effect of this image, everything is 100% natural.
we can never get enough when National Geographic has photo contests
he’s just sharing love, no strings attached
at just 9 years old? she’s doing THIS what can we go do?
anything is possible – just believe
on the top of the stack at the farm
Hope Heals: A True Story of an Overwhelming Loss and an Overcoming Love: Katherine and Jay married right after college and sought adventure far from home in Los Angeles, CA. As they pursued their dreams, they planted their lives in the city and in their church community. On April 21, 2008, as their baby slept in the other room, Katherine collapsed, suffering a massive brain stem stroke without warning. Miraculously, Jay came home in time and called for help.
Katherine was immediately rushed into micro-brain surgery, though her chance of survival was slim. Defying every prognosis, with grit and grace, Katherine and Jay, side by side, struggled to regain a life for Katherine as she re-learned to talk and eat and walk. An excruciating yet beautiful road to recovery has led the Wolf family to their new normal, in which almost every moment of life is marked with the scars of that fateful day.
I absolutely love this woman. Her story is unforgettable and a hands-down must-read.
meeting the man who saved her life: 20 years later
Jess Katz
Jess Katz
Two brothers were separated by the Holocaust. And 77 years later? Their families reunited
sometimes the best way to help someone who has fallen into a hole? is to climb in with them
We are joining together to remind the world —
that every woman matters.“She Is Priceless” Is A Campaign To Make A Difference In The Lives Of Oppressed Women.
Mercy House is teaming with four organizations that are on the ground changing lives.
A pearl is a healed wound. An oyster protects itself from irritation and suffering and the result is a priceless pearl. The women supported by this campaign have endured unthinkable suffering in their lives and often feel forgotten.
at 100? she’s running in relays and sharing some good good words here
a very special delivery
Post of the Week from these parts here:
So if we’re being gut honest here? We don’t really want the cards or the flowers this weekend…or what gets wrapped up in shiny paper, or stuffed in a bag with the wrinkled tissue paper.
Could someone just maybe wrap up this? Because it’s what every mother really wants anyway:
the most life-changing thing any woman can do for herself this Mother’s Day
Family turns tremendous loss into a mission with purpose
it’s ok to lean on someone stronger
Greater is He (don’t miss this)
No matter what today? It’s simply, already, okay:
“God will supply every need of yours” Phil. 4:19
I don’t need to be perfect,
I need to simply feel His perfect love.
I don’t need to be in control
I need to simply be in Christ.
I don’t need to be more —
because He is all I need.
[excerpted from our little Facebook community … come join us?]
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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