Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 176

when you don’t feel like you’re enough: our year long story — and a new chapter coming

Sometimes you don’t know you are walking through a door until you are already through it.

Sometimes you don’t know a story is beginning —- until you find yourself looking at the last page — and the beginning of a new chapter.

Because sometimes you don’t know — if the book will be snatched out of your hands — or if you’ll be whipped around and escorted out of the room because somebody higher up didn’t think the likes of you belong… because somebody didn’t think you’re enough.

It’s been almost a year since I’ve started losing my voice. It happens. You can find yourself living into a story — that you don’t know how to begin to tell?

But honestly —- every story that you’ve ever lived wraps itself around your DNA. Your stories will express themselves, your stories will manifest themselves —- even if you never whisper a word of your story aloud.

You can think you can wear masks to hide your story from the world —-but maybe the masks we wear are really just a way for us to hide pieces of us from ourselves?

Our stories are always stronger than our masks.

There is no mask in the world that eventually our story won’t bleed through. 

Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing the last year? Hiding this story from myself — losing my voice to tell this story, any story — because we were living a story that I was scared we weren’t enough for.

The whole story started actually last February.

Something holy had happened — and that’s a story, for another time, in due time —- but that’s when the long walk began, he and I talking slow, trying to find our way through. If it hadn’t been the middle of our winter, I would have walked our backroads in bare feet. Sometimes even hard ground can be holy ground.

Come last March the snow started to melt. You could hear the sparrows up in the spruce trees and everything thawing into hope. He and I would lay there in the dark after the kids went to bed, staring at the ceiling, murmuring begging prayers for clarity. Why do I have chronic soul amnesia and forget: We want clarity — and God wants us to come closer.

Clarity did not come. He came closer.

By time last May rolled around, when the seeds were in the ground all across our dirt, when there was the hope of life coming, the Farmer had decided. You can only walk so long before you get to a fork in the road and you’ve got to take a stab of faith.

“Let’s do it.” He told me on a Sunday.

I’d looked across the room at him, trying to figure if he’d really figured this was the direction we needed to head.

“You sure?”

He’d nodded.

“If God’s leading you, I trust it — I can take this step of faith.”

I nodded slow, holding up a door frame, not knowing if we’d get to enter or not.

I mean —- we’d seen other people fling through their door, announce their big story — we’d seen other people get clear calls, loud bullhorns from heaven, Holy Spirit fire breathing in their bones so they were ablaze with a new story flung about a new room.

But here it was, May, three months of begging to know the way and what we got — was definitely not fireballs from heaven —- just a simply a conviction to obey. To trust.

That same weekend in May, the apple blossoms setting out in the orchard, a tried and true man of the cloth and the Cross, he pulled us aside and pastored the Farmer and I with words about leaps of faith, “What did Jesus in the Garden say, His face set toward the Cross?  “Not what I will — but what You will.” And what did He say after the shadow of the Cross: “Out of the anguish of His soul, He saw and was satisfied” (Isa 53.11).

Sometimes you don’t feel God’s smile until after you take a step of obedience into God’s will.

We sat with that on that Sunday afternoon, the bees droning through the russet trees.

Certain peace may not come until after you take a certain step of faith. And a step of faith often feels like a step through fear.

That night the Farmer opened the only Book he owns that’s worn and battered and he read the next pages of his chronological reading, there in the tried and true book of Matthew, read it in the same chapter, that one line, not once, but twice: “Not as I will, but as you will.”

The Farmer had looked up at me and nodded.

“There’s your fireball.

And I’m sure.” He’d nodded and winked.

Maybe fireballs of faith happen just when His Word sits in your open hand.

So we went to the first class in June.

We told no one about those string of mandatory classes.

Or what we were embarking on or about our wild why. Not my dad or his, not my brother or his, not the church family or all of the kids. Because, frankly, there was no telling if we’d be deemed fit enough to make the cut, and it gnaws away a bit at you —- living on the crumbling edge of wondering if you’re enough. Every time you take a step of faith — there is this fear that you won’t be enough. You won’t be enough to make the leap, you won’t be enough to finish the journey, you won’t be enough to land on two feet.

We ran a couple of pens dry filling out paperwork and forms and files about our past, laying our bustedness down on paper. We were asked to write down our weaknesses, lay out our very worst, spell out all the things about us that might break and fall apart.

Have you ever been treated for depression?

Have you ever been to counselling?

Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?

My pen hovered. How in the world can you feel your heart and your blood all rushing deafening loud in your ears like that?

It can feel like if you show anyone your brokenness — it’s your dreams that will get broken.

I’d wanted to scrawl in my answer: “Look — Getting help isn’t a sign something’s wrong with you — it’s a sign that you are doing things right.

It’s never weak to seek help — it’s evidence of being strong.

How are you supposed to be healthy without finding a workout for your soul? Why this judgement of the people wise enough to get the best help to be better selves?”

I’d wanted to crumple those forms up in my fist and torch them before they burned the edges of my fragile bravery.

By last July, when the water was getting warm up at the lake, we got the letter asking us to produce and submit written reports of all my counselling sessions. I felt like someone had asked me to strip naked so I could be assessed, get my gums and teeth checked out, have my cellulite exposed, poked and evaluated. I felt small. Deeply broken. It started to feel like —- the greatest act of courage is to simply keep facing one direction when everything in you wants to turn and run.

Stand your shaky, holy ground.

We went and got finger prints on a summer morning right after the flashing heat of a thunderstorm rolled in from the west and across our fields.

Lined up for mug shots.

Come the lingering humidity of August, we begged every Tom, Dick and Harry to write us reference letters to try to prove we weren’t psychopathic, narcissistic hatchet-swingers but presented within the semblance of normalcy —- well, even if barely.

In the middle of last August’s wheat harvest, the Farmer stopped the combine as the sun sunk further down, boys jumped down from tractors, washed up at the water hose at the side of the barn, and we took family photos for our file right there in the field. One tired kid struggled to grin. We begged through thin smiles. I collated and organized that portfolio and letters and photos like I was warring some desperate life and death battle.

When you’ve got a big enough hope in your heart — you’re willing to risk being told you’re not enough.

I licked and sealed what felt like a hundred believing envelopes.

There’s some risks you have got to take because it turns out you can’t live not taking them. You can’t live with dreams drying up inside you like some dying and parched riverbed.

You can’t expect to keep breathing if you aren’t breathing in hope.

All through the summer, every Wednesday night, we hauled our 5 inch binders to those mandatory classes and kept our faces set like flint against the wind and we willed ourselves to keep breathing.

They came to inspect our house. Twice. I scrubbed the air vents with a tooth brush and prayed that all the closets were good enough and nothing fell down on any unsuspecting inspector’s head, because I doubted that would be helpful or that I would actually live through a scenario like that.

We served them pork roast on a platter afterward, followed by pie — – after nothing fell out of a closet on them, after they checked off all those squares on their precise little clipboard lists.

I poured coffee for them before they left. My hand didn’t even shake bad enough to spill any on the barn beam table.

Even if you don’t feel like enough — you have to risk enough — or you will die without ever having lived enough.

Even when you’re afraid of not being enough — you’ve got to be more afraid of not having stepped out enough. 

Death by living is far preferable to death by being too scared to really live at all. 

Then on New Year’s Eve? The very last day of of the year of 2015?

Just after 10 pm, with the popcorn machine whirling and board games all over that barn beam table, the email came through: 10 am in China.

Our adoption dossier had just logged into China. January 1st in China.

Dossier number 20160101002— the second dossier logged into China in 2016.

The Farmer and I walked around dazed. The most slackjawed, happiest daze.

After walking a million paperwork miles — have we actually just walked through a door here? Found ourselves in a story that I couldn’t even bare to whisper out loud? 

And then — less than 48 hours later, on January 2nd, the Farmer stood right next to me, holding my hand in ER.

Held my hand as the doctor told us our Malakai, a gaunt 20 pounds lighter, sick as a dog, and hooked up to an IV, had Type 1 diabetes. And I’d pulled in real close to him and Malakai smiled brave.

Sometimes — The story isn’t going how you planned, but that isn’t a reason to stop trusting that the story has a plan. 

Sometimes, turns out? You clearly not being enough  —- is what makes the enoughness of God most clearly seen. 

There’s a new crib assembled in our room, right beside our bed.

There’s baby clothes hanging in our closet.

I have a plane ticket for China —- flying next week.

Even when you’re afraid of not being enough — God’s making everything into make more than enough grace. You only have to keep believing — and keep stepping out unbrave. 

There’s a stack of new children’s books here on the shelf, waiting.

There’s fresh new stories with unexpected hope chapters about to be written everywhere.

A Holy Spirit wind can turn any page.

 

addendum: our unlikely adoption story will unfold quietly here over, in excited bits and pieces, as we travel to China next week and find our way through the next several months… and find words to a pretty little miraculous Story He’s writing…

Links for 2016-03-28 [del.icio.us]

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What Your Heart Needs to Read on Resurrection Sunday: The Unexpected Letter

And all the people in need, in desperate need,

in broken need,

whisper it like a breaking dawn in the dark,

He is risen indeed, indeed, indeed.

and the cornerstone of Christianity

is this rotting cell sparking,

a heart valve quivering in the pitch,

a beetle scratching in the black while

convex chest cavity shudders,

sunken death inflating with His hot breath,

atoms of the second Adam recreating

resurrecting 

all the impossible things

and the universe.

 

absolutely heart-shatteringly powerful… email readers, join us here for an unforgettably moving video:

What Your Heart Needs to Read Come Sunday:

The Unexpected Letter

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.26.16]

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

 Stop, world. Exhale. You’re welcome.

The Nester 
The Nester

One of my absolute favourite bloggers. Best Post.

Must Read: “Five Things People with Tidy Homes Don’t Do”

bet you didn’t know why smiling is so good for you

stand in the light — be seen as we are… Listen: It’s a pretty heartbreakingly beautiful thing

happy 10th anniversary to Twitter

and that calf picture? for this farm girl — pretty much undone.

Twitter Canada celebrates some of the most interesting, gorgeous feeds 

Luke Tyree
Luke Tyree 
Luke Tyree

you have to keep looking up

meetings… never ever ever get old

did you know Starbucks is doing this?

don’t leave the internet until you’ve seen this #perspective

a house built around a tree? you know you want to live there

 two words — that go a whole lot further than you could ever imagine

Hidenobu Suzuki 
Hidenobu Suzuki 
Hidenobu Suzuki 

 you have to come stand here… 

you have zero limitations… zero  #DoYourDreams

Mary Anne Morgan 

why it’s okay to be struggling — really

always look for the helpers — always 

Facebook

“We try to teach them to love one another. We’re all the same… We’re all one. 

because sometimes? we all need a strong arm to guide us home… can you even

watch — and you’ll listen differently all weekend

this, this, this – okay, don’t leave the internet without reading this one

why you have to make room — and what happens if you do…

 Exactly.  Powerful: “Good Friday

celebrating the one thing our culture tries so desperately to suppress.“

 soon… and very soon… 

Post of the Week from these parts here

… world’s reeling a bit this week — so much ache & grief & violence & war & brokenness.

Then the unlikely wow of an every day miracle like this happens —

& all of us can pass some healing hope around:

when the world’s hurting & bleeding in Holy Week:

 how to really pass some healing hope around

because you need your strength renewed…

… in a busted up world, carrying our unspoken broken, we drag into Good Friday with hearts more broken than anybody knows.

And He took fire so we could walk free.

He took violence so we could be victors.

He took hell so we could be healed —

when you’re tired & torn in a heartbroken world: why you need Good Friday

one person. do this, this weekend. for real.

at the Cross…I surrender

Sunday’s a Coming

[ Print’s FREE here: ]

… on the night that He went to the Upper Room,

He was ready to go to the lowest

to reach every single one of the bruised & battered.

On the night He wrung sweaty, bloody prayers out of His soul in the garden,

He wanted the heart of us broken and the will of the Father

more than He could stand being without any one of us.

” ‘And on the night He was BETRAYED…

He broke bread & lifted it up & GAVE THANKS.’ (1Cor.11:23)

And, I’m telling you — If Jesus can give thanks IN THAT?

Then, even in this busted & hurting world, we can look to Him

& give thanks in EVERYTHING.

[excerpted from our little Facebook community … come join us?]

‪ Dare to fully live!

That’s all for this weekend, friends.

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

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

Share Whatever Is Good.

when you’re tired & torn in a heartbroken world: why you need Good Friday

Our Pastor calls one year to ask if I’d write a moment through the eyes of the mother of Jesus? So I write down words… and imagine the mother of our Lord… fingering the bloody tunic of her Son.

Son…. Son of God… Son of mine…

God.

Why?

From the beginning I have watched and I have listened and I have pondered all these things quiet in my heart — but now I have to ask:

why?

Why didn’t You come down from that Cross in all Your power and Glory?

Why didn’t You blind the chief priests with Your divine radiance?

Why didn’t You still all their blasphemous tongues with the army of the heavenly host, with Your burning holiness, with Your flaming sword?

Isn’t that who You really are?

Oh Son — why?

I know… I know.

Only Your blood flow can extinguish the flames of hell.

There was no other way.

How could You let a lost world burn?

You took fire so we could walk free. You took violence so we could be victors. You took hell so we could be healed.

Sin hurt You far deeper than the spikes.

And You let the horrors of satan take a swipe at You so that all horrific sin could be wiped clean.

And You knew it all along.

You were conceived into skin for the Cross — the cave of that manger beginning glimpsing the cave of Your Messiah, martyred endings.

You who had no beginning, You were born for this, for the blood —

that we might be reborn to life.

Oh Son….

I know… how could You have been our Saviour if You hadn’t known suffering?

How could we have worshiped You if You weren’t wounded?

How could we bow to You if You were not bruised?

We could only believe in You because You have lived in us — in our mangled world, in our aching pain, in all our hurting humanity.

You alone are the God for us — because You alone are the God who has been one of us. You felt what we feel, You touched the death that we know, You came to us as Immanuel: God with us.

I remember when Joseph first told me… that the angel had told him that You would be called Immanuel… God with us.

I started weaving your robe right then.

The loom work was soothing, the shuttle slipping back and forth, like rocking, a lullaby. And I dreamed of You and holding You and how someday You would wear this cloth…. this tunic without seams.

It’s tradition, what all Jewish mothers give to their sons when they leave home: a seamless robe.

A one-piece robe.

And I began Your one-piece before I even beheld You and I wove late through the nights, under that circle of moon and I thought of You who has no beginning and no end, You from which all things are from and through and to… and I gave you the robe and I watched You walk this sod and I was there.

I was there at Calvary and I stood near that Cross with my sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas and with Mary Magdalene and I saw you heave breathe.

And I saw the blood trickling down from the iron pierced holes in your feet and I saw the soldiers take Your clothes… this one-piece robe… and I hardly breathed… and I heard them say, “Let us not tear it.”

And when they already had tore you right through…

“This all happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

And I heard you say, your voice gurgling blood, “Dear Woman… here is your son.”

And I went home with John, my mind thinking of you torn and your one-piece robe still whole…

How You let your side be ripped open that our lives need never be split into sacred and secular.

How you were slashed that our lives could be seamless — all holy.

That the veil in the temple rents in two because of You, and there is no longer a divide between the common and the hallowed and the whole earth is full of your glory and You are the continuous, unending, divine thread that weaves through all of the world, holding all together… even when you, Son, are rent apart.

And hanging naked and blood smeared and dirt defiled, You nodded slow and You said yes — You gave us your one-piece robe of seamless holiness and You clothed us, the filthy ones, in all your white righteousness.

Your blood wasn’t enough.

Your buying us back wasn’t enough.

Your being our brother wasn’t enough.

Nothing short of dressing us beautifully and calling us Beloved would be enough.

O Son…

That I’d take up this cloth that You give me and be who You name me — Beloved.

That there’s no more being torn in a million directions — that no matter what pulls, I have a one-piece life life in You:  One direction, One purpose, One audience, One Love, One Joy — a one-piece life — all holy, all meaningful, all offered to You.

That I’d wear a One-Piece life and see Your face in a thousand faces, in a thousand humble and unseen places, and all my life would be all with You. And the moon will shine round and the threads of all my moments will shine with Your glory. And this one-piece life  — that it’d be all be for the One and True God alone…

I swaddled You in the beginning…

And now You hold us and robe us in You.

 

 

Related:

How What He Asked Us on Maundy Thursday Could Change the World & The Church & Every Broken Heart

 A Journey to Iraq through Israel & Holy Week: 5 Ways to Make Every Conflict Bear Fruit instead of Grudges

Journey through Israel to Iraq: How There Can Be Hope in Our Hidden Hells

Journey to Iraq through Israel & Holy Week: How to Avoid The Worst Fool’s Joke Ever

Resources: Lent/Easter Wreath

Links for 2016-03-23 [del.icio.us]

Sponsored: 64% off Code Black Drone with HD Camera

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

7 Ways to Stop The Complaining Under Your Roof

Kristen Welch and I are sorta, kinda, soul sisters? As I serve on the board of directors of the ministry Kristen founded, Mercy House Kenya, I get to see it first hand again and again — Kristen, one knock-it-outta-the-park, best-selling author, will inspire and empower you to say yes to God right where you are— and choose gratitude at home and see how it changes everything. I absolutely love this woman with all my heart — a grace to welcome my soul sister, Kristen, to the farm’s front porch today…

guest post by Kristen Welch

Every spring we go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

It’s not only a big deal around these parts; it’s the biggest indoor rodeo in the United States.

A couple of years ago, we decided it was high time our three growing kids got their first pair of cowboy boots. You might call it a rite of passage for children in Texas.

We budgeted for the rodeo even more than usual, planning to purchase boots there because we knew there would be plenty to choose from as well as special deals that would save us money.

On the hour trip downtown, one of my kids complained about the seat arrangements in the van, the heat, and the very air siblings dared to breathe.

I corrected said child, and I was half tempted to squash the dream of boots, leaving this one scuffling along in tennis shoes, but after a quick apology was received, grace won out.

We headed straight to the Justin Boots booth and helped all three of our kids try on and choose boots that (1) they loved and (2) we could afford—which was a feat in and of itself because my kids can be picky and boots are expensive.

But we accomplished our goal in under an hour and spent the rest of the day in new boots—looking at animals, watching roping events, and eating large amounts of food that probably shouldn’t be fried. (I’m looking at you, bacon and Oreos.)

On the way home, the same child’s bad attitude surfaced again, this time about not getting to do something at the rodeo.

It wasn’t just whining, the result of a tiring day; it was ingratitude and entitlement. Complaints and warnings fired in rapid succession between the backseat and the front. The day had been a splurge from the beginning, but it wasn’t appreciated.

But mostly, it wasn’t enough. Even after grace put a nice pair of boots on the kid’s feet.

Halfway home, in the middle of the tense ride with an unrepentant boot wearer in the backseat, my husband said, “That’s it. When we get home, I want you to pack your boots back in the box. I’ll see if we can’t return them.”

This nearly broke my Texas heart, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

It saddened me to hear the tears, the begging, the promises. Then the question, “Why can’t you show me grace?”

“Buying you the boots in the first place was grace,” I said.

Once we were home, we put the boxed boots on a high shelf and said, “If you want the boots, you’ll have to work for them.”

He pointed to the huge mulched areas in the front and back yards. “You have three days to pull every weed. I won’t remind you; it’s up to you. This job will pay for your boots. This time you’re going to earn them.”

And that was that.

The rodeo happens in early March, usually before we have a chance to clean up winter’s effect on our yard. My gaze followed my husband’s pointing finger to the weedy mulch beds, and my heart sank. It was going to be a lot of work. Lo, the weeds were many.

My husband is kind and loving and a lot nicer than I am most days.

But I could tell by the firmness in his voice and the tilt of his chin that he was serious.

This was serious.

The mounting ingratitude that had been an issue for weeks had to be addressed. I wanted to high-five him and sob at the same time.

I wondered what our child would choose.

My heart soared a little while later when I heard the front door click. I looked out the window and saw my kid wearing old clothes, bent down in the wet mulch. It had started to rain.

For the next two days, I watched from that window. A little proud, a little brokenhearted, but with every pulled weed, I knew the hard work was making for a softer heart.

When we handed back the boots after hearing a meaningful apology, I knew we had all won. “You earned these,” he said. “I won’t take them away again.”

The boots meant twice as much.

It will go down as the infamous boot story.

It was the day we generously bought our kids cowboy boots. It was the same day we took them away.

It definitely wasn’t the first day my kids acted unthankful—and there have been many times since.

But it was a day we called out entitlement in our home and waged war against it. It was the day we reestablished the fact that we wanted to raise grateful kids more than anything else.

Here are some things we are doing to try and live counter-culturally:

We Are Asking for Hard Work– I think many kids in our culture (my own included) don’t know much about hard work. A few weeks ago, we spent most of the day in the yard. And the more my kids complained, the more I realized how much we had neglected giving them hard, dirty work. We are changing that. (Phil 2:14-15)
We Are Sticking to Consequences-If we suggest a consequence, we commit to seeing it through as often as we can. I’ve come up with some stupid consequences in my day and have regretted my rash tongue. But something clicks in our kid when they understand we are serious about some things.
We Are Limiting Media-Media specifically targets our children to want a lot of stuff they don’t need. We have a TV and computers and devices, but besides filtering them, we turn them off. My kids still complain about it, which reinforces exactly why it’s important.
We Are Exposing Them to the World– When you’re only looking and thinking about yourself, you can only see what you want. But when you remove the blinders and see needs around you and in the world, it alters your perspective. Exposing our kids to other cultures and how most of the world really lives, stirs up gratitude like nothing else.
We Are Extending Grace and Leading by Example-Living by a bunch of strict rules and do’s and don’ts isn’t the answer. Being flexible with your own rules is not only necessary, it’s healthy for your family. When I compare and complain, I’m leading by example. When I am thankful and gracious, they are watching. It’s important to admit when we are wrong and ask for forgiveness when we hurt our kids.
We Are Raising them to Be Different– I Peter 2:11 Our society has low expectations of kids. We expect toddlers to get what they want and teens to be rebellious. Instead of helping our kids fit in every area of their lives, we are encouraging them to go against the flow, reminding them we’re supposed to be different than the world.
We Are Relying on God- Parenting is a hard job. And honestly, there are so many days, we don’t know what to do. Our kids belong to God. He loves them more than we do. He wants to guide us down the hard roads.

Our family certainly didn’t need new boots, even though we plan to wear them for years to come.

But walking a mile in them taught us a great lesson in gratitude.

Some days we feel like we’ve lost the battle against entitlement in our home; we are still in the trenches, trying to figure this all out.

But as we reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice and turn our attention to the Cross —

it’s thankfulness for His sacrifice and grace that I want them to grasp the most.

 

Kristen Welch blogs at wearethatfamily.com where she shares parenting, marriage and inspirational encouragement. Her family founded Mercy House, a non-profit that empowers impoverished and oppressed women around the world. Kristen is an author and her newest book Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World releases this month. 

It’s never too late to raise grateful kids. Get ready to cultivate a spirit of genuine appreciation and create a Jesus-centered home in which your kids don’t just say―but mean!―“thank you” for everything they have. Who doesn’t want this? Who doesn’t need more help with exactly this? This is a needed, practical book to reset the whole family. It’s like a gift to your whole family: cultivating an atmosphere of genuine appreciation under your roof. Absolutely do not miss this book. On the end table here and highly recommended.

when the world’s hurting & bleeding in Holy Week: how to pass around healing hope

Tuesday of Holy Week and you wake up to the the world weeping for blood running in streets.

Everywhere you look at the beginning of Holy Week, the violence is more than a bit disorienting, and this world that’s  home for all of us can feel unsafe — angry and unsafe and in the blink of an eye — everything can be ripped apart by hate.

Where in the world is hope in the heartbreaks? 

And I’m back to where He walked, back to where He came to meet us, back to woman with a slop bucket and a mop in Bethlehem who washed the wounds of this world with an awakening…

Maybe the way you find words, find hope,  is to feel along to where the Word became flesh and dwelt among us —

because the only way any words can make any sense in all this mess are through the dialect of His.

The sky over Bethlehem felt like this an exhale.

It feels like an invitation to never stop exhaling.

It’s nearing Good Friday  —   and we walked the streets of Bethlehem. Sometimes you just need to pause everything for a minute and go find the beginning… if you’re ever going to make sense of where all this is going.

I’ve been carrying around this 40 Day Pilgrimage of Prayer in my pocket for weeks, trying to find my way — His way.

You can hear every footstep echo on these age-old stone streets. There’s been so many of us here.

The headlines keep screaming about attacks in the streets and terrorists fleeing and every day lives being detonated by violence. 

The air in Bethlehem feels like this burning belief in the lungs:

Hope is the salve that keeps our broken hearts soft.

We may find relentless heartache in our days, but our days must never lose relentless hope.

You can feel the warm breath of heaven here.

Spring dares to come.

* * *

When we walk over to the Church of the Nativity, somebody’s laughing loud that her very weather-wise husband told her it would be warm, that she wouldn’t need a coat in Bethlehem.

Her hands are pulled up into the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

Then she breathes out so that we can see her breath hang in the dusk. Her laughter falls over us like something warm.

She pulls on those sleeves of her sweatshirt when she bends low, crouches down ahead of me to get through the door of the church where God was born.

Our guide says the door is impossibly low so that pilgrims couldn’t ride their steeds, their camels, their donkeys, straight into the Church of His Nativity. No one gets to meet God unless they get off their high horse, get down off of whatever they’re riding high on.

Somebody cracks one: The doorway to God is made only for those who make themselves small.

Turns out wise ones still seek Him.

I stand silently with that for a long time by the carved inner doors and something settles into me:

Any problem shrinks low whenever we exalt Christ high.

O yeah, little town of Bethlehem… the hopes and fears of all of us now are held in the mind-blowing unconceivable that happened here…

When I run my hands across the carved wood of the doors, the surrendered wood, you can feel the engraving of time and hopes and fears, how they make their way into the crevices, run into the lowest places.

Turns out that when God comes to this sod, visits this planet, He doesn’t come the expected way: God doesn’t enter our lives through the most esteemed place — but through the most accessible place….

God never comes in ways to impress us — as much as He comes to make ways for us to have intimacy with Him.

In a world of ache and grief and war and brokenness, in a world where you’ve tasted the grittiness of your own unspoken broken–

when you bend low through that door and you kneel down and touch the place where the Maker of the Heavens delivered Himself into earth, where the Creator of the Cosmos birthed Himself as a creature…

where God came to this sod?

You’re crushed by unfathomable grace.

God is with us.

God was one of us.

God walked this sod, pressed His holy heel into the earth, let His divinity fill a container of skin and filled His lungs with all our atmosphere of ache.

We aren’t alone in this mess. Us on this pale blue dot of a planet in the vast blackness of the cosmos — we are the visited planet. He came. He sees. He knows. We are not alone. God is with us.

Kneeling there in Bethlehem, wrecked by the incomprehensibility of the Master of the Universe pulling on flimsy flesh, climbing over the walls of this world, slipping into time through the back door of the universe that is Bethlehem — all I could think was the the Holy Other curls His newborn fist in the cradle of a barn feed trough — and we are saved from ourselves.

We are saved from our hopelessness — because God came with infant fists and opened wide His hand to take the nail sharp edge of our sins.

Emmanuel, God is with us in our ache and He gave us more than explanations for all our messy brokenness —

God gave us an actual experience of Himself, because God knows explanations can be cold & Christ’s arms are warm.

When I walked slow up the stairs to the the sanctuary of the Church of the Nativity, the woman’s bucket was steaming straight up.

I had thought the sanctuary was empty.

Had absolutely no idea where everyone else was. I had lingered behind too long with God, awed?

I’d stood there quiet, waiting, before the stained glass brokenness of His birth, rising there above the altar. Waiting for God knows what.

Waiting for God.

He’d come. Here. He had literally come right here.

That’s when I saw her steam rising from a bucket. I had heard the slosh of the pail tipping over first, up near the altar. Then she had stepped out of the shadows with her mop.

And she’d began this slow choreography of grace across the floor. Of mopping up the mess down here because God came down here.

She looks like Mary, breaking her jar of nard and and letting her love run out, washing the feet of Jesus in the fragrance of her love.

She doesn’t have to be seen, she doesn’t have to be known — she’s mopping up the birthplace of God.

The music —

Where in the world is the music coming from? Haunting notes, high and lovely. From the dark? From behind the altar?

Her shoulders, her shoulders, are moving with the notes.

The music’s coming from her.

The music’s coming from within her.

She turns with her mop and the whole thing feels like I’ve walked in on her anointing Him and I kneel low — like I don’t want to interrupt? Don’t want to be seen? Like I am watching a singular act of worship and it’s brought me to my knees.

I am witnessing an incarnation — her humble act of service is incarnating her Lord. And something in me brims…. and spills.

This world won’t be changed by fame-lusters like it will be by faith-livers.

This world won’t be changed by the flashy like it will be by the lowly.

This world won’t be changed by more selfies like it will be by more self-sacrificing.

This busted-up, warring world will taste resurrection, not because of people stepping up in front of news cameras or spotlights or spout their soundbites but because of people who step down into the shadows to be the light of Christ.

This bleeding, broken planet will taste healing not because more of us tried to climb ladders to be seen — but more of us went lower and saw the face of Christ in those who are too often unseen.

And this spinning, scarred chunk of sod in the corner of the universe will taste shalom not because more people wanted to be crowned important — but because more of us have knelt at the feet of the One who is Important and we’ve got the dirt of His kingdom under our fingernails.

Hope rises up when there are people who are willing to descend and serve because God descended and gave.

Hope rises up wherever people beat their power into plowshares, their microphones into mops, their ladders into life lines for the languishing and lost and hardly living.

Hope rises only when there are the courageous who are willing to go lower and incarnate Christ.

And here is this exquisite woman with her bent back and humble mop in the place where God first touched this sod, first let his loud cry mingle with humanity.

And I’m a kneeled mess and can’t stop weeping, my shoulders moving with the breaking of my heart over the beauty and rightness of her lowly offering right where He Himself came low and offered Himself.

The woman leans her mop up against a pew.

She steps in close toward me. And she cups my face in her wrinkled, warm hands.

And she gently kisses my one wet cheek — and on my other wet cheek.

There’s hope in our hells when we become like Jesus to each other.

I don’t understand the thickness of the foreign words she murmurs over me, but I know how this communion makes me feel, and she holds me up as my repentance breaks right open and falls like rain.

She’s like my Mary who kisses the unlikely with this fragrance of His love —

anointing me for my own going lower and dying.

 

 

Related:   The People of the Cross

when you crave more: a life changing tool : a free app

If I were shipwrecked on a deserted island, I’d want to be shipwrecked with Jennie Allen — because sister knows Jesus, knows His Word, knows how to pray & her & I have been flat on our faces before Him, asking Him to show His way for this generation. I’ve slept in her spare bedroom and laughed late with her kids and ate around her table and Jennie is nothing if she’s not a pitcher poured right out for her husband, her children, her Jesus and her sisters down the streets and across the aisle and around the globe. & believes God uses them to heal souls & to reveal Himself to people. Jennie is the founder of IF:Gathering, has  a Master’s in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary & I love this woman something fierce & it’s a ridiculous privilege to have Jennie Allen come to the farm’s front porch today:

guest post by Jennie Allen

If you had told me a few years ago that God puts big dreams in the hearts of women, I would have told you that you were right.

But if you’d told me the size of the dream God would put in me?

I would have told you that you shouldn’t talk so crazy and so loudly because I was sitting in the back of the room, trying not to be noticed.

There ’ s something scary and wild about trusting God with our dreams.

Hannah Mayson (all photos in this post)

I spent a lot of my life blending in and making very little noise.

These days, with a house full of four catalytic children, an adventurous husband, and this fun little thing called IF:Gathering, we have a whole lot of noise.

And sometimes, I look back at that quieter life before and I think about what has changed.

The prayer that I would do anything for God was certainly a start.

But now, seven years and 145 countries later, IF:Gathering is in full swing, going from dream to reality as we gather, equip and unleash women to live out the dreams God has put in their hearts. We have this little office of 12 or so dreamers and go-getters and it’s so easy to catch a new rhythm and forget that less than a decade ago, I never would have dreamed this big.

I remember having tiny kids at home and going to seminary. I wanted to make sure that I knew God well and that when I did ministry alongside my husband, who was studying to be a pastor, I was giving them the truth about who God is.

I didn’t know what it’d look like.

I didn’t have big dreams.

But as I sat in classes and opened the Word and saw it come to life under incredible professors, I would weep. Because knowing God in this deep way was changing me and making me ache for women who didn’t know Him.

And I knew that if I could leave the legacy of a few people loving God and because of them a few more people loving God, that would be a great way to spend a life.

Learning such moving truths about God, our purposes, and this world made me long to give it all away in simple, creative ways that every person could receive.

Years later, when I was teaching my Chase Bible study before it was even published, with just a few girls in my living room, there was one girl who came and her name was Jenn. She was so wide-eyed, fresh in her faith and eager to learn anything about Jesus.

So I stood there with a whiteboard and a marker in my living room teaching her about the basics of Christianity and she ate it up—hungry for this Jesus she newly loved.

That moment stands out in my mind as one of the most important things I could have ever done.

Not because it was flashy.

Not because it was programmed.

But because this woman met Jesus in this space.

Sometimes, we look in the mirror and we see nothing spectacular. 

We see a woman who dreams far beyond her reach. 

Who bears scars of a difficult or complicated past. Who sits, week after week, month after month, year after year in church pews but craves more.

And we sense, deep in the dark corners of our hearts that we don’t have anything to bring to the table.

So, we try to blend in.

We look to the right and the left at what everyone else is doing and we just follow suit, setting our dreams aside. I get it. It’s easier that way.

But what would happen if we stopped and listened to the things that God says to us?

What if we paid attention to the dreams He whispers that leave us with a nervous feeling in the pit of our stomachs?

It’s hard to be brave and use our gifts.

It’s hard to take risks and fail.

As I travel around, I see the struggle in your eyes as you tell me you can’t step out from where you are into telling the story of God.

I hear you say you feel inadequate. And you ache to matter but can’t seem to move.

Your fears.

Your not-enough-ness.

You feel the cost.

Sometimes, handing things over to God feels more like loss than worship.

It is a loss–a loss of control.

But with every little bit that we loosen our white-knuckle grip on control, God moves. He isn’t waiting for us to let go and trust so that He can cause needless chaos. He is kind.

He says to us, You know what? I have dreams for you and they are good, but they likely are not what you ’ve envisioned.

Years ago? When I was sitting in the back row? The groundwork for IF:Gathering was actually being laid, but not in ways you would suspect. It was being laid through the people who discipled me – the people who caused me to love and know God in deep ways. The groundwork was being laid sitting in seminary classes, with barely an inkling of what teaching the Bible would become in my life today.

What no one sees about my life is that I am simply a product of years and years and countless hours of people depositing God in my life–eye to eye, in living rooms and classrooms and over coffee.

I was in the back row–yes. But I was also in a season of preparation that I didn’t even realize was happening for a time I couldn’t even fathom.

God wants us to start living in that place where calling meets action.

I hesitated before I started that living room Bible study. Only a few months ago, Jenn was killed in a boating accident. I hadn’t seen her for years. In fact, the last time I saw her, I had a marker in my hand, teaching her about how to study her Bible.

And now, years later, standing on stages? You cannot convince me that there was any greater work in the world than standing in that living room that day, eye to eye with a woman freshly discovering her love for Jesus.

I am so glad I didn’t let my hesitations stop me from teaching that Bible study and spending those hours with Jenn.

If you told me all those years ago, that IF:Gathering would be what it is today, I would have never believed you.

This community of women astounds me daily. And the best part? Each one of us is bringing something different and absolutely vital. We sit around this virtual table, and give Him away in our own ways.

For years, I had the tools to teach women like Jenn the Bible, but I wasn’t using them.

And now that I’ve caught a glimpse of what happens when He takes a hold of our lives and our dreams, I don’t want to miss a minute.

Today, the IF:Gathering app is becoming a reality, and it is the culmination of this dream.

Not only are we equipping women in deeper ways, but now everyone can bring their voice, gifts, creativity and display God too, through a myriad of ways: photographs, video, blogs, hand lettering, book recommendations, voice memos or podcasts.

A friend recently said, “It will be a tsunami of creative worship!” We can’t wait.

Disciple a Generation was the dream I felt in my bones so many years ago in the back row and the means of making disciples has not changed.

It is women in their places with their people – giving away what they have been given. We just wanted to build a tool that communicates about God in the language of this generation.

In a world of Facebook reactions and Instagram likes, we can put our energy and creativity into something that inspires and ultimately draws the attention away from us and to the beauty of our Creator.

We get to have a conversation every morning that pulls us from our different contexts and giftings and lets us proclaim who He is. God moves in living rooms with white boards, and He moves in a million other ways, as well.

The hope is that the app will be a place to see that take shape as we build a community around proclaiming truths about Him.

I can’t wait to see how He uses this app to refocus us to His purposes and how He will continue to put dreams in our hearts so that we can tell those stories as they echo through eternity.

IF:Gathering is three years in and I believe we are just getting started. We are starting to become the things we have dreamed about from the beginning.

On one hand, I don’t want to make too big of a deal about launching an app – it’s just a tool.

But on the other, I do not want to minimize the potential power of this tool, if harnessed by a generation of women across the globe, who are unified on a mission to make disciples who make disciples.

Now, it’s your turn.

Your turn to receive and your turn to give.

To tell the stories of the ways that God is moving and to gather together to learn about who He is.

It will take on thousands of forms but trust me – you have no idea what you are missing.

Don’t miss it.

Head over to ifgatheringapp.com to join us.

 

IF Gathering App: Disciple a Generation

Join the conversation about God with thousands of women around the world. Bring your gifts, your creativity, and your unique voice to the table. We hope that this safe, deep space allows this generation of women to collectively create a powerful expression to God, for God, and about God. Your comment, your picture, your video, and your voice could possibly be a part of what draws someone to Jesus. 

With the launch of the IF:Gathering app, our first study will be called I Believe, A Study of the Nicene Creed. Do you know what you believe and why you believe it? The Nicene Creed will guide us in understanding the beliefs of Christianity. For example, what does it mean that God is the Maker of Earth and All that is Seen? And IF this is true, then how does it apply to our lives? These truths are the foundations of our faith, and thinking about them is worth our time. 

We want to put tools in your hands that makes disciples who make disciples. Right now, we have a problem in this generation. Many have passionately come to Jesus but few have been equipped. We want to take the next step in creating deeper content that will be used for holistic discipleship of women in this generation.

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.19.16]

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: 

Andy Yeung
Andy Yeung
Andy Yeung

some breathtaking views captured from the sky

Andy Best
Andy Best
Andy Best

go and enjoy the gift of life today!

introducing Albert

Rodessa Villanueva Reyes

the most creative DIY kitchen set for your kids? we could do this!

because sometimes? we just don’t want to let go

wolfgang2242 
wolfgang2242 
wolfgang2242

he went into his local shelter and asked to adopt the ‘least adoptable’ –

Bald eagles hatch in CA and we’re able to peek in on them with this live cam

André Vicente Gonçalves / Facebook / Instagram 

capturing doors and windows all around our world

the kids gathered ’round here and found this experiment fascinating

Thomas Dambo / Facebook
Thomas Dambo / Facebook 
Thomas Dambo / Facebook

he’s hoping to help birds stay in cities – what can we go do?

 meeting their siblings four years after adoption

unknown
unknown
unknown

some of the best sunsets around our world

so? how far back in time would we still understand the English language?

what if we all did this? #couldchangetheworld

come enjoy this quiet glory?

Today / Twitter

the internet quickly reached out with love for papaw

because sometimes we all need to be rescued

Iris Grace

This young girl with autism has made headlines in recent years for incredible paintings that drew comparisons to Monet.

Her parents were concerned she might never speak — until she met Thula, the cat.

at 88? She greets children on the school bus every day. And today they gave back…

Lisa-Jo Baker 

“When the News Makes You Feel Like America’s Sinking and Jesus is Fast Asleep”

the wonder of this

ABC News

the world is coming to the mailbox of this brave little fighter

never ever underestimate the power of kindness

Facebook

?!

welcoming families home

Post of the Week from these parts here

honestly, all the anger can get pretty wearying — and you can just want a bit of a reprieve from the noise of it all:

when you’re done with all the anger: the relief we really need

#HowDoYouSeeMe

…I once was lost, but now I’m found

“This is Your Fight Song”

’tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home

[ Print’s FREE here: ]

… when it turns out you’re feeling a bit bruised,

feeling like it all isn’t shaping up the way you’d planned,

feeling like it’s messier than you’d like anybody to see —

His grace makes your messes meaningful —

not shameful.

[excerpted from our little Facebook community … come join us?]

‪ Dare to fully live!

That’s all for this weekend, friends.

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

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

Share Whatever Is Good.