Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 173
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.
Links for 2016-05-06 [del.icio.us]
Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!
May 5, 2016
the most life-changing thing any woman can do for herself this Mother’s Day
Yeah — if you’re being gut honest here — you don’t really want the cards or the flowers.
Or what gets wrapped up in shiny paper, or stuffed in a bag with wrinkled tissue paper, or anything that gets tied up and presented with these dangling tendrils of curling ribbon.
What you really wanted is to be extraordinarily, obviously, good at this. At this mothering thing.
You wanted to be the best at this.
You wanted to take the podium and gold medal in mothering — not take a million timeouts behind some locked bathroom door, turn on the water so no one hears you sobbing at what a mess this whole shebang is, and how you’d like to run away. Ask me how I know?
Honest? You wanted to be more.
You wanted to be more patient — you wanted to never lose it, to always have it together, to keep calm and that is all, always, — and yeah, take their tantrums with a grain of salt instead of throwing one of yours that turned out to be a first class tsunami and a tad bit more dramatic than theirs. You wanted more flashes of wisdom in the heat of the moment when you had no bloody idea what was the best thing to do, when you flung up an S.O.S. prayer, made The Call on the deal that was facing the kid and you —- and the kid hated you for it and you crawled into bed feeling like a heel who always gets it wrong when everyone else gets it right.
You’d about give your eye teeth and your left arm for more time. More time to get it more right and less wrong.
More time so that you could that leave that one more thing that ended up not mattering a hill of beans in the long run, so you could take the time to lay there in the dark with them after prayers and talk about the deep things that only come in the exhale of last light out, and rub their back till they fall asleep.
Somebody — how about just more time — and internal permission — to surprise with more spontaneous “Mommy-Holidays!” in the middle of the week and go for ice cream and the park and the beach and the woods. More time to not hurry them, badger them, nag them, or manage them like some to-do list that needs to get stroked off, done and tossed before tomorrow’s starts again — but just more time slow down, smile into them, simply enjoy being.
You want a do-over.
You wanted to be better.
Never once did you ask to come stumbling into this with all this baggage — all this mess that your parents sent you packing with, all these unhealthy-coping mechanisms, all these triggers, all this unspoken broken.
What you really want, desperately, wildly, in spite of everything — is for them to remember the good…. to remember enough of the times you whispered, “I Love You” … to know how many times you broke your heart and how how hard you really tried.
All you want? Is for them to feel a deep sense of safety, that they are safe to trust people, safe to dream large, safe to believe, safe to try, safe to love large and go fly — and you need to know that you haven’t wrecked that. That they feel the certain, tender embrace of your love —- in spite of all the storming times you acted unlovely.
So… SomeOne?
Could someone just wrap up … a bit of Grace?
What every mother wants, her most unspoken need — is a truckload of Grace.
Grace that buries her fears that her faith wasn’t enough, and that her faults were too many.
Grace that washes her dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies.
Grace that says she doesn’t have to try to measure up to anyone else because Jesus came down — and He measures her as good enough, as worthy enough, as loved more than enough.
Grace embraces you before you prove anything — and after you’ve done everything wrong.
Grace holds you when everything else falls apart — and whispers that everything is really falling together.
Grace loves us when we are at our darkest worst — and wraps us in the best light.
What happened in the past can’t change it, and nothing in the future can intimidate the reality of it — and it’s what your soul aches for the most —- and it’s the realest true:
You are always sufficient — because God always gives you His all sufficient grace.
You don’t have to be afraid —
because you have a Father.
You don’t have to know how to do it all.
You just have to choose to be all here, right where you are.
His grace meets you in the moment — and you will miss it if you are worrying about future moments.
Lock your thoughts in this moment — and you get to live the freest of all.
When you focus on living only in the grace of this moment — is exactly when you get the grace of a momentous life. Live in the moment — and you get a momentous life.
That is all …
You don’t have to be awesome and do everything.
You simply have to believe that the One who is Awesome loves you through everything.
And when the mothers sat with that….
When the mothers sat with that, when they gave themselves that, when they opened up and unfolded all this Grace…
when they were given it …
and when they let it completely enfold them —
all these wounds healed in a thousand places.
Related: Why Mother’s Day is For the Birds — really
Links for 2016-05-04 [del.icio.us]
Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!
May 3, 2016
the art of pre-grieving so Mother’s Day isn’t ruined
You know, I’m feeling it this year, as a new mama to 7, like none other, the complex range of emotions for Mother’s Day. For a surprising number of us, it’s a tender day—a reminder of the mother we lost or the mother who couldn’t be or the mom we needed when we were kids. Or it’s an awkward day spent wondering if a partner will help our kids celebrate us. Or it’s a day of aching for the unfulfilled role of mother—a role we do not yet hold or may never hold. And for a few, Mother’s Day ushers in deep sorrow for the child we lost—the child we no longer can touch or see or raise. September Vaudrey is such a mother. She lost her middle child, Katie, age 19, several years back and has logged seven complex Mother’s Days since. How do we engage this holiday in a way that honors those we love—and yet gives a nod to their loss, or to ours? It’s a grace to welcome September to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by September Vaudrey
When Katie drove off for the first day of her summer job on the afternoon of May 31, 2008, none of us knew an aneurysm lurked deep in her brain.
But the aneurysm ruptured as she drove, and Katie slumped behind the wheel, unconscious.
And there was a crash.
By 9 p.m. that night, the neurosurgeon declared my daughter brain-dead. My worst nightmare had come true, and I was thrust into a new normal.
Holidays were especially hard. Father’s Day. Birthdays. Anniversaries. And the biggies: Thanksgiving and Christmas.
How did we celebrate the here and now with our living children and still pay tribute to their sister who died?
What did it look like to embrace both the life we had loved and the uninvited life that was now ours?
We were grief rookies, and I quickly discovered that if I didn’t “pre-grieve” some of these Awful Firsts—create space for my sorrow to have its release before those hard milestones arrived—my tears would erupt unexpectedly on loved ones and strangers alike.
Pre-grieving took the edge off and helped me be more present for my family when the actual hard day arrived.
As the following spring unfolded, I braced for my first Mother’s Day without Katie.
We planned a family trip to California for the May 9 college graduation of our oldest daughter, Bethany. May 10 would be Mother’s Day.
I was adamant that this Awful First would not interfere with our celebration of Bethany, so I made plans to pre-grieve the Katie part of my Mother’s Day before we flew to California.
I didn’t have a specific place to go to remember my daughter. Katie had been cremated and we didn’t own a family plot, so her ashes were still in an urn, nestled with her baby blanket in my closet.
The crash site of her accident—along a scenic country road, with two crosses erected by friends—had become that place of remembrance for me.
The last time I’d visited, I had noticed that the laminated photo of Katie on one of the crosses hadn’t weathered its first winter very well. I went to FedEx to laminate a new 8×10” print of Katie to replace the old.
And the day before our family flew out to California, my friend Kaye accompanied me to pre-grieve my first Katie-less Mother’s Day.
But when we arrived at the site, I realized that the original photo was only 5×7”—much smaller than my replacement. I removed the weather-beaten photo and thumbtacked the new one to the small cross.
The new photo looked huge—like a campaign poster, as if Katie ’ s head were popping out of the grass, saying, “ Vote for me! ”
Kaye and I burst out laughing.
It was the perfect joke for a girl who had loved being in photos, whose thinly veiled attempt at being “caught” on film had led to her classic quote, “Are you filming me?” I could almost hear Katie giggling at the inside joke of the campaign poster planted on the side of the road for all to see.
My daughter’s face smiled up at us from the oversized photo as we planted pink petunias and some orange tiger lilies around Katie’s crosses. They mingled with yellow dandelions and tiny purple violets that were nestled in the wild grasses.
When we were done, Kaye took a Mother’s Day photo. Then we drove to a nearby forest preserve, hiked a loop of trails, and came across a solitary picnic bench, where we stopped to pray.
“ Father, our family is surviving, and I think we will live, ” I said, “ but I hate that Katie is gone.
This side of heaven, I will never understand how her death was a good plan. I just want her back.
You are the God of time and space. You see the landscape of eternity. I am asking You, one final time, for Mother’s Day: Turn back the clock. Give Katie a symptom, a sign of her aneurysm. We will rush her to the hospital, and she will be saved, and no one will be the wiser. Please, please, I am begging You. Turn back the clock!”
I waited.
“And if You don’t turn back the clock, as I think You will not,” I said, “help me let go of the life I wish I had, the life I loved so deeply. Help me embrace this uninvited life You offer me, the life that is still mine to live.”
Three days later at APU, as the setting sun cast its rosy-gold rays on the San Gabriel Mountains behind APU’s Cougar Stadium, our Bethany walked across the stage in cap and gown to receive her diploma.
In spite of just having lost her sister, she had carried a huge academic load, worked long hours at two jobs, and still graduated summa cum laude. Bethany had prevailed. What a warrior she had been.
The pre-grieving had done its healing work in me.
On Sunday—Mother’s Day—I rose early and stepped outside our hotel room. I knew my friends Kaye and Lynne and Sandy were praying for me on this day. My mom was praying too. I was being carried by their prayers.
The perfume of the tropical flowers in the hotel courtyard hung sultry in the morning air. The sun was just appearing above the horizon, casting a vacant glow against the dusky sky, chasing away the last of the stars.
The sting of this “ first ” was already behind me.
Thank You, Father, for the gift of being a mom to these five kids of mine. Thank You for each one. And thank You for nineteen years with Katie.
I stepped back inside, ready to share another Mother’s Day as a family—and to celebrate my firstborn daughter, the lovely Miss Bethany Paige.
Maybe you are facing a complex Mother’s Day this year.
This strategy of pre-grieving has been tremendously helpful, especially on hard days when I need to be on deck for family or friends—or to fulfill work obligations.
By looking ahead at my calendar, I often can spot those hard days. I schedule time to give my grief the space it deserves.
And I plan time outside, or set aside time to journal or pray, or make a coffee date with a friend.
By being purposeful, I find a greater peace when the milestone at last arrives.
It ’ s not a cure-all—the day is still difficult, and my soul tender—but I have a greater sense of peace, knowing I have already invited God into the folds of my grief and He has met me there.
Do you know someone facing a hard Mother’s Day this year?
Consider sending her one of these free e-cards from the Unconventional Mother’s Day line.
Give a nod to her sorrow and let her know you see her,
you care for her,
and she is not alone.
September Vaudrey is a writer, wife, mama of five, and nana of two—and counting. September is on staff at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, where she teaches in workshops on parenting, grief/loss, and marital restoration. Her new book, Colors of Goodbye: a Memoir of Holding On, Letting Go, and Reclaiming Joy in the Wake of Loss, follows the death of her 19-year-old daughter—and September’s journey to rebuild her life in the wake of this loss.
Colors of Goodbye invites readers into the both/and of life—holding both sorrow and joy, together. It’s a raw, behind-the-scenes close-up of one family navigating the hardest of circumstances with authenticity, humor, and faith. This is one book you won’t be able to put down.
(And the Mother’s Day prayer cards in this post are available for you to print free right here, here, and here.)
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
May 2, 2016
how to love your actual life — the one you are actually living right now
You know, sitting here with our newest little addition to our family, I’m realizing that it was about five years ago, I exchanged a few emails with a pregnant mama from Denver who was waiting on her fourth child to arrive. Love this woman — because this mama has explored how to manage life at its frantic pace with her daughters in tow without missing the miracles all around her. She has intentionally stopped, in order to fully see. It hasn’t always been that way for Alexandra Kuykendall, but her new book Loving My Actual Life: An Experiment in Relishing What’s Right in Front of Me recounts how she has focused on today’s grace in order to not miss out on the life God has for her. This is not a journey of perfection, but of a fellow stumbler whose hope is to fall in the direction of Christ as often as possible. Sitting here with our littlest girl, welcoming Alexandra to the front porch today….
guest post by Alexandra Kuykendall
“M
om, can I have a play date at Daisy’s house?”
I was on the school playground to pick Genevieve up from school and she wanted instead to go home with her friend.
Well this was a waste of time I thought.
Why did I drag two littles into the car, drive down here, now with half an hour to waste before needing to go pick up Gabi from practice after school, when I could have been at home attending to the 3,251 things that needed to get done?!
There is not enough time for me to waste like this!
Frustration easily mounts in my head.
And then Heather came and sat down next me and I relaxed a bit. I hadn’t seen my friend in a while.
My sweet friend who is parenting alone since her husband Jon died two and a half years ago. Heather, who I always want to encourage, always want to hang out with, and never seem to have enough time to make my intentions reality.
“I went to grief counseling today.” We sat down right where we were, on the edge of a concrete planter, and made space for the updates and the hugs while our kids circled around us.
The “I’m hungry”s and “Can we go?”s beckoned us to get up and move, but this time together was so rare, we blocked out the whining and focused on each other.
As I drove to the middle school, the next stop in my afternoon’s route, I thought not a waste of time at all.
There is something about being open to the person God puts in front of us, and putting our own agenda’s aside.
I still needed to leave to pick up Gabi at a certain time, but I could fully use those few minutes by sitting with my friend and listening.
In fact Jon, Heather’s husband, is a great reminder to me that people are my priority because every single day really is a gift.
It can be so cliché this thought of seize the moment, but when you are with a friend who would love to capture some of the moments back, to go back in time to be with someone who is no longer here, the glaring truth that life is fleeting is unmistakable.
All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel!
He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times —
so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. ~ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (The Msg)
I will never be able to give Heather what she truly wants, her husband back. But I can offer my prayers on her behalf, trusting God to meet her with what she needs.
I ask myself: What can I do in this moment that will make a difference? What can I offer her with what I have right now?
My truest calling as a follower of Jesus is to love God fully and others fully. How much more to show that than giving them my full attention when present with them?
Because this is the place where our lives and God’s purposes intersect.
This one life we’ve been given. How will we use it today?
It doesn’t have to be with thousands of “followers”; it has to be right here in our core.
With our Creator hearing our prayers, knowing our heart churnings, feeling our feelings right along with us.
It is here in our innermost places that we relish that we are made as image bearers and we live out of that creative genius. It is here that we make our mark on the world— one conversation, one help, one prayer at a time.
There is no show here. Just an earnest desire to be my best and live my best so God will say I used this one life well.
Loving My Actual Life. Loving. Really loving it? I think I do. And yet there are a million distractions from the goodness.
My life. Not her life. Or your life. But mine.
Circumstances and details that have been assigned to me by chance, by choice on my part or others’, by God’s design.
Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between those, but it really doesn’t matter. It’s the only life I have and I’m the only one who can claim it as my own.
It’s a coming to terms with and embracing.
Actual. Not virtual.
Not imagined. Not dreamed of.
The circumstances or details are not as I would wish or design if I were in charge.
But that’s part of the exercise, right? The loving within what is, rather than what I wish would be.
So I look at them honestly, these parts that make up my every day, and I am grateful for the good. And I even work to be grateful for the difficult because I know, though painful, it can shape me for the better. So in all things I give thanks.
Life. That breathing, pulsing, beating portion of time that I am here.
Because I guess that is what defines a life in part, the time you are here and what happens in it.
And Jesus who says He is “the life” beckons me to come to Him for more. Because just as He says He is the life, He says, “Come.”
All you tired, overwhelmed people, come and I will give you rest.
So yes, I want to love these days, hours, minutes I have here and I want to draw closer to the One who breathes life in.
Because I want to know I’ve done my best with this one life when I pass from it to the next.
From church basements to the set of Good Morning America, in writing and in speaking, Alexandra Kuykendall offers women grounded perspective on how to approach the “crazy busy” in front of them. She is also the author of The Artist’s Daughter: A Memoir.
Her words today are from her newly released book, Loving My Actual Life: An Experiment in Relishing What’s Right in Front of Me. This newest book’s entertaining, poignant recount of Alex’s nine-month experiment to love the ordinary moments of her life is a reminder to us all that our fresh start can begin today. Through her signature transparent storytelling, join her as she tackles everything from her family’s morning routine to adding adventure back in to her daily grind.
This is a book for any woman that has found herself wishing for more satisfaction in the here and now, for finding God in her actual life. Essentially — a book for all of us.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker Publishing for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 30, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.30.16]
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:
Warren Keelan / Instagram
Warren Keelan / Instagram
Warren Keelan / Instagram
because you know you need to just exhale
smile
you know, it’s really okay that we all need a little bit of help
Erik Kessels, KesselsKramer Publishing, 2014
This will sorta blow your mind:
The Mistakes That Make Photos GreatYou’ve got to see it, because exactly:
“What if we re-imagine failure as one of the surest routes to creative success…“
fascinating
you know, this is sorta a beautiful metaphor for life & what we can be for each other
let’s do what it takes to connect
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
Meg Loeks
just too beautiful not to share … my soul needed this
and some detours in life? surprise the best of us
Rachel Chapman
no matter what? we can all help each other
the best. the end.
This farmer is liking it: Honey Nut Cheerios is working towards some really good things with farmers
okay, maybe he’s onto something here: “we can all be a super hero to someone“
waiter goes above and beyond — and shrugs off all praise
tried another person’s shoes lately?
Brilliant! this is what the world starts to look like when even stores care about our needs
don’t you know it: power in the name of Jesus
sit with it: “God has a new dream for you.”
everybody dies — but, telling you, not everybody lives
love in action right here – could you love this more? undone
Thy Will Be Done (really beautiful)
… that moment when your new daughter falls asleep for the first time in your arms & your heart kinda splits, the way love goes sorta nuclear & your hearts know fusion.
And it kind of happened on this adoption journey, like it does whenever women anywhere have a holy moment — that there’s this Real Sisterhood of Women who pull in close.
A Real Sisterhood of Women who help make us strong enough to want the thing that God wants — more than we are afraid of anything.
A Real Sisterhood of Women who make us know that when the love of Christ motivates us — the more fearless of everything we become.
A Real Sisterhood of Women who show us how women never fight each other — but show each other how to really fight.
A Real Sisterhood of Women who make us brave — by being real about all their unbrave.
You were all that, Mei, and sharing that first holy first moment with you, @meredithtoering, a woman in our girl’s #tribeofmothers, a woman who fought for our daughter & her broken heart for her first two years at @morningstarproject, a woman who’s a relentless champion for all kinds of busted hearts — let me into knowing more about what it means for women to midwife hope & God-sized dreams for each other… know what it means to genuinely find a soul sister & forever kin…
There are women you want your daughter to grow up to be — women who live daringly & love dangerously, women who know all fear is fraud & there’s nothing beyond the hope of God, women who care less about their hair & more about doing hard & holy things. It’s no small thing that we get to be that for each other & for each other’s daughters.
I’m telling you— the light fell about nearly perfect just in that moment, over us bond of His daughters.
“when you don’t feel like you’re enough: our year long story — and a new chapter coming”
“when you feel too broken to be chosen”
some really inspiring kids, doctors, nurses, and volunteers — let’s be this to each other?
Post of the Week from these parts here
There’s always something barking loud that we’re in need of the bigger & better & grander…
And we wonder if anything we do matters enough:
when it feels like everyone else’s life is sorta, kinda better than yours
a most powerful lesson in forgiveness (you’ve gotta watch)
Jesus is enough
Give Me Jesus (on repeat here this week)
I know how it feels but really — what’s your mountain to a mountain-moving God? Whatever mountain that every Christian ever faces, the Lord levels with sufficient grace: The Lord Will Provide.
This is the thing: God’s constant vision is our constant provision.
When I feel worry today, I will simply exhale.
Worry is belief gone wrong.
Because you don’t believe that God will get it right.
And Peace is belief that exhales.
Because you believe that God’s provision is everywhere – like air.
“Don’t fret or worry…It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” Phil4:6MSG
[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.
April 26, 2016
when it feels like everyone else’s life is sorta, kinda better than yours
When the fog meandered in lost on a spring evening in April, she hung her apron up in the back mudroom.
She wandered down the back lane too.
Down in the woods, she could hear them, the frogs singing, an invisible symphony.
She knotted the one side of her skirt up to step over a pothole. She tried to make her way.
In a world of reaching, how do you rest? In a culture of numbers how do you kneel? In a world of ladders how do you go lower?
Somewhere a dog barked loud.
She looked across fields.
There’s always something barking loud in you that you need a bigger field.
A better kid, a bigger house, a greater life, a grander point.
There’s always part of you that wonders if anything you do matters enough.
And there’s always someone who makes sure you know how much smarter and wiser, bigger and better, known and greater they are.
There’s always someone who snatches the horn to sing too loud of their own tens of thousands.
She had to remember to tell herself that: The ones keeping tally in life just want to know they count.
Everyone wielding their own horn just wants to be held.
And Jesus, He stretched His arms out to the whole world — and He nailed His offer right there.
Who wants the love of a Messiah more than the lauding of men?
She stood at the top of the hill behind the barn.
She could do this: When the world strives — the wise still. It’s the only way to feel God’s embrace.
The whole world could compete to be heard and esteemed and known and get ahead. She didn’t have to. She could breathe deep and feel all of her filling with this calm sea of peace.
You can give up the need to compete in the world — when you accept being complete in Christ.
Sometimes the way to win is to never enter the race.
She stood there listening to the frogs croaking, song filling all the spring sky.
She just stood there….
There’s no need to keep up with the Jonses’ when you are keeping company with Jesus.
When she rambled back up to the house, up to the porch, she nearly didn’t hear them, the barely cry, the hardly-ness of new hatchlings.
She stood on the step and stretched.
Up in the leaves, up in a branch by the top stair, that’s where she found them. Found them hidden, found them cupped. She could see that this was the mattering part — that in hiddenness, we are held.
She stood there, rooted there, watching and witnessing it — the hatchlings, how they opened so wide, how without a sound, they opened so wide.
She could feel it in her — her heart imitating that one movement, doing just that — soundlessly doing just that.
This is all that would ever matter —- that she opened wide so He could fill her.
She needn’t be heard…. because she was known.
The hatchlings, they held themselves in this silent, fearless assurance.
The fog settled down in the hollow, a veil hiding the woods away. Behind it somewhere the frogs sang on…
She felt found.
She would be small. She would make her life small.
There on the stairs, there by the nest of hatchlings in the deepening twilight, she looked up.
She could see it all above her —
How the stars are always small…
April 25, 2016
how saints & sinners can keep holding on to each other & lightening each other’s loads
Getting ourselves turned around here from our adoption trip to China & falling head over heels in love with our new daughter, & grateful for people living crazy beautiful stories like Drema Hall Berkheimer’s. In the 1940s in Appalachia, her father is killed in the coal mines, her mother goes off to work as a Rosie the Riveter, and Drema is left in the care of devout Pentecostal grandparents — and what follows is a spitfire of a memoir that reads like a novel with intrigue, sweeping emotion, and indisputable charm. Drema’s coming of age is colored by tent revivals with Grandpa, poetry-writing hobos, and traveling carnivals, and through it all, she serves witness to a multigenerational family of saints and sinners whose lives defy the stereotypes. Just as she defies her own. Please help me welcome Drema to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Drema Hall Berkheimer
Sometimes at night you could hear the music all the way to Sissy’s house, and we sat in her yard and listened until her daddy called us in.
When Grandpa drove home from prayer meeting, I’d ask him to drive past the camp, although it was out of our way, so I could see the gypsies around the fire, drawn to the light like a flock of bright moths.
One man played a little accordion Grandma said was a concertina. Others fingered guitars strung with many strings.
The girls danced, lifting their chins and holding their arms up as they circled the flames.
When the gypsies were in town, things went missing.
Pants and shirts disappeared off the Harveys’ clothesline.
The Bledsoes’ strawberry patch was picked clean one night, and Sissy’s grandma, Ma Moles, had her garden plundered and her pawpaw tree stripped almost bare.
But even worse, Grandpa said unless he was mistaken, we were missing two white leghorns and a guinea hen.
My heart flopped over. In my mind I could see white feathers flying as the man plucked the chickens for the stew. Caught in the web of my deceit, I couldn’t say a word.
One night someone dug up two potato hills in our garden, and left several bunches of parsnips on the ground to ruin. Apples thrown at Queenie lay rotting near the doghouse where she was tied.
Grandpa decided to see if he could catch the culprit.
Nothing happened the first night or the second, but the third night I woke up to Queenie barking.
I sneaked down to the porch and saw Grandpa softly snoring in the swing, a flashlight in his hand and his double barrel shotgun propped between his knees. He woke right up when I touched his shoulder.
When he heard Queenie, he told me not to move or he’d skin me alive when he got back. I made sure to stay put until he disappeared from sight around the far side of the house.
Crouched behind the blue hydrangea bush at the corner of the porch, I was near the garden but could still scoot back to the swing if Grandpa headed in my direction. I saw his flashlight search over the cabbage and potatoes and rhubarb.
Then it froze.
Grandpa hollered, and two shapes took off toward the tall rows of corn.
A shot blasted a hole through the quiet and the shadowy forms toppled.
My knees folded and I sat down so hard it knocked the wind out of me.
I was too scared to breathe until I saw one of the thieves get on his knees and start sobbing and begging Grandpa not to shoot him, while the other one cowered nearby.
“Why, you’re hardly more than babies,” I heard Grandpa say.
He knelt next to them, telling them they didn’t have anything to be fearful of — he didn’t plan on shooting either one of them or calling the law on them—at least not this time.
“I’m likely to do both if you boys come back here stealing out of my garden again. How old are you children anyway?”
The big boy said he was ten but his brother was only seven and wasn’t allowed to be out at night.
Grandpa took both boys by the hand and walked through the garden, the little one dragging a burlap bag behind.
“You tell me what you want, and I’ll show you how to harvest so it won’t damage the crop,” Grandpa said.
Soon the boys filled the bag with potatoes and onions and carrots and ears of corn. Grandpa showed them how to tie their sack in the middle of a long pole so they could share the heavy load on the way home.
“A load is always lighter if it’s shared. I want you to remember that. You want more, you knock and I’ll give you what can be spared. I want to show you something else before you leave,” he said, leading the boys over to where Queenie was tied.
He unhooked the leash, and Queenie, grateful for freedom, ran to the boys and started jumping up. Grandpa gave a hand signal and the dog sat down, watching Grandpa and waiting.
“This dog is part of our family, and I won’t stand for her being tormented. She wants to be your friend. Go on over there now and get acquainted with her.”
The smallest boy approached Queenie and put out a hand. Queenie closed her teeth gently over the dirty little arm, leading him around the yard and back to Grandpa.
“Her name is Queenie, and we’re right fond of her. She’ll do your bidding if you just ask her. Tell her to sit and she’ll sit right down.”
Recognizing the command, Queenie sat. The boys looked up at Grandpa wide-eyed.
“Okay, hold out your hand and she’ll shake hands with you.”
The older boy held out a hand and Queenie extended a paw.
“Now, boys, I don’t want to hear tell of you mistreating this dog or any other living thing for that matter.”
Grandpa put Queenie back on her leash and led the boys out to the road.
“You go straight home and don’t be dallying along the way. And you remember that we have us a gentleman’s agreement: You are welcome on my property anytime as long as you knock on my door first. Get along with you now.”
I was wide awake after all the excitement, so I sat with Grandma and drank milk coffee while Grandpa told and retold the story of how he’d shot into the air to scare the boys.
“I hated like the dickens to have to scare ’em like I did, but them little hooligans needed somebody to get their attention. I’m hoping they’ll think twice next time, but there’s no telling. What they need is somebody at home to jerk a knot in their tail and straighten them out, but I expect that’s where they’re learning their thievery.”
“If you caught me stealing, you’d more than likely wring my neck,” I said.
“More than likely,” Grandpa agreed, “but that’s because you been taught right from wrong. Maybe them little fellows don’t know better.”
Grandma said she didn’t want to hear any more foolishness from me and Grandpa about wringing people’s necks.
She had her no-nonsense face on, so Grandpa aimed a yes ma’am in her direction.
“Tell it again,” I begged.
“I figure you know it well as I do, you do the telling this time.
I’ve plumb wore my teller out.”
Running on Red Dog Road — is what some are calling their favourite book of the year.
Excerpts from Running on Red Dog Road, won first place Nonfiction and First Honorable Mention Nonfiction in the 2010 West Virginia Writers competition.
Drema Hall Berkheimer lives in downtown Dallas with her husband and a neurotic artistic cat. The cat takes after her. Her husband is mostly normal. You can follow Drema at DremaHallBerkheimer.com.
You won’t want to put down this page-turner — Running on Red Dog Road is it’s own kind of unforgettable.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
April 23, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [04.23.16]
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:
Christine Anderson
Christine Anderson
Christine Anderson
maybe go on outside and inhale deep? enjoy the gift of this life today!
this coach? just saved the day
enjoy
Tracy Johnson
Tracy Johnson
Tracy Johnson
extraordinary beauty right here
had to watch this one a couple of times – love
Joe Hendricks
Joe Hendricks
Joe Hendricks
they sold everything and are now doing this
the making of a medieval manuscript – who knew?
“It’s not easy, making connections as a senior,” she added. “But we need it. It’s up there with Medicare and Social Security. I hope people remember that.”
introducing the PodRide – fascinating to watch
Carola Becker
Carola Becker
Carola Becker
just go ahead and focus on the often overlooked
okay, just wow – the Aurora Borealis shown from Space in ultra-high definition
how he’s helping to change the world: one book at a time
tears of joy watching this one:
pilot takes his younger brother who has Williams Syndrome on his first flight
florist spreads random cheer and kindness every week:
“It’s the ability to make someone feel that somebody cares, that somebody is thinking of them and that they mean something in life, that they are appreciated.”
you really need to meet this woman
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
Ginny Sheller
just too beautiful not to share
using bikes: to reach kids
to “our favorite awesome smiley garbage man”…Let’s go #BeKindToOneAnother
reunions never ever get old
Elysia Rodriquez
sometimes the best finish last…
… when you can’t help but grab the ayi, the nanny @morningstarproject who held your daughter through how many hospital stays, through how many sleepless nights for the first two years of her life, hug the woman for all you’re worth & murmur your meagre Thank You a thousand times.
There are women changing the world in quiet places & their loves rings loud for all of forever.
There are people laying down their lives so hope rises up & shatters the dark, ordinary radicals sacrificing & risking & loving dangerously & it’s their names that are written in the Heroes Hall of Fame.
Christ plays in a thousand places & witnessing Him in open faces is nothing short of a bit of glory. Our eyes said everything & gratitude is the world’s common language & you don’t need to speak the same language to express thanks & we all come from one long tribe of mothers holding on to each other, belonging to each other, raising up the next generation with each other.
There really aren’t other people’s children — all children are really all of ours … & all this belonging to each other fulfills real longings.
Her and I, we left part of ourselves with each other, the way women loving dangerously keep holding on to each other.
“when you don’t feel like you’re enough: our year long story — and a new chapter coming”
“when you feel too broken to be chosen”
#adoption #chinaadoption #1000Gifts
no limits:
Russian teen born without fingers is an accomplished piano player
Post of the Week from these part here
…so, who hasn’t been hurt? For there are a thousand ways to bleed, to nurse wounds and bitterness and no one knows.
Maybe no question is more pressing these days than: How far can forgiveness go?
how to love the people who have hurt you
the only thing standing in your way — is the belief that you can’t
he’s bringing humanity back into homelessness (please watch)
Jesus Paid it All – yes, yes, yes. Maybe this on repeat today?
…so today can get itself all in a wad that this week’s gotta be killer amazing if you’re going to survive the pounding surf of everything coming at you —
So let’s just go ahead & kill that little notion right now. You don’t have to get it all perfect & nail it —
Jesus already took the nails & finished it, so perfect’s been done & He’s handed His perfect over to you.
So — what if we all just forget right now about being Perfectionist Enablers & instead were Presence Enjoyers?
Presence Enjoyers of God, Presence Enjoyers of People, Presence Enjoyers of His ridiculous gift of Now, Today!
Yeah, we’re all over Enabling Perfectionism. Because where real life is at? Is Enjoying Presence. Because, bottom line:
Perfectionism isn’t a fruit of the Spirit —
JOY is.
[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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