Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 177
March 18, 2016
what no one tells you about how to live an extraordinary life
So yeah, you won’t likely find it making the headlines of People Magazine.
But that shouldn’t stop real people from really knowing.
Marjorie Knight told me when I was nine.
She turned to me while we were hulling a heap of strawberries over her sink, and her white hair caught all this afternoon light and her gravelly voice rolled over those words like smoothened stones:
“Running hard after an extraordinary life turns out to be chasing a lie.
The realest extraordinary is always found in the ordinary.
The extra everyone’s looking for —- it’s found in ordinary.”
She didn’t say much after that, but I tasted her words in the strawberries, in the swallowing down of the rubies, the juice of them running out the side of the mouth.
I don’t know exactly when I realized that The Big Dipper spills over everyone’s house.
I have a mess of kids of my own when I realize that sunlight can warm anyone’s back in front of any window.
That there’s the dog breathing slow in sleep at the back door, and there’s a minute to sit and scratch behind his aging ears, and there are trees all down the open road with limbs reaching, the ordinary welcoming. I tell the kids to notice that.
And that it’s a ridiculously free world. Everyone gets to accept the invite to extraordinary or not.
I tell the kids that glossy red carpets can lead to nowhere and that the ordinary is the every day container that holds the realest extraordinary.
That everyone single one of us gets eyes to look into, to smile into, to witness glimmers of souls right here.
The ordinary becomes the extraordinary when the eyes see the extra glory here. That’s a life equation, take it or leave it. We could give it to the kids for free.
There’s nothing in this world that’s normal — there’s only growing blind to the glory.
There’s only wearing armour to shield the heart from the beauty that wounds.
The cynics do that. Thing is, guard your heart long enough with a shield of cynicism and that shield of cynicism becomes a lidded tomb over your heart withering up, numb and dead.
I tell the kids to be the brave and see and feel.
Tell them that our language shapes us, that we keep saying, “I’m stressed…. I’m overwhelmed…. I’m so crazy busy” so we can feel the blood hurtling wild through the veins like some extraordinary important.
But I tell the kids we’re trading in those worn out phrases: “I’m stressed” —- for “I’m grateful…” and “I’m overwhelmed” — for “I’m wowed.”
And saying the words out loud — “Yeah, I’m wowed… Yeah, I’m grateful” — so that the eyes hear what they could look for right here:
The extra everyone’s looking for —- it’s found in the ordinary. The ordinary becomes the extraordinary when the eyes see the extra glory right here.
The kids laugh that I’m the fool who wants to write it in red lipstick on every mirror, write it on a sticky note for all the wallets: “We don’t need more things. We need more meaning.”
More ordinary awakenings to the common extraordinary, to the God-glory hidden in plain sight. Take it or leave it.
Some kid left strawberry hulls leaking juice across the counter. There’s a candy wrapper on the windowsill. Stacks of hardly-tamed laundry lean. There are bare feet hanging off the end of the couch.
And there’s a headline for every day — a line to set on replay:
“I’m wowed here. I’m Grateful here. The Grace is here. The Extraordinary is here. God. is. here.”
We don’t need more things. We need more meaning. God. is. here.
The meaning unfolds in the ordinary Wow. Thank You. Yes.
March 16, 2016
the best secret about housekeeping: what every one who has a home needs to know
Sarah Mae is a woman who has always struggled with keeping up with her home. She likes to call herself a Type-B homemaker, a woman who believes in the mission and beauty of making a home, but who isn’t so great at the daily-ness of it. Oh, but she does care, because she believes that the home is where souls are nurtured and love is built in and hospitality becomes real. It’s worth the trouble, worth the struggle, worth knowing that being a gentle homemaker is better than being a good homemaker any day. And there’s the rub: good homemaking is less about a clean home and more about loving others, including ourselves, well. She gives herself to the work, so very imperfectly, and is keeping on because of the kindness and gentleness of the One who made her who she is. It’s grace to welcome Sarah to the farm’s front porch today…
It was dark and we were in the car outside of an ice cream shop.
Tears were fresh on my cheeks.
My sister-in-law, Renee, and I had set out to pick up some milk, but more was to come out of that trip than picking up a few gallons of dairy products.
I was crying because my heart hurt deeply; the feelings of not being a good enough wife were eating me up, and I didn’t know what to do.
I told my sister-in-law that I thought my husband, Jesse, would rather be married to someone else, someone better, who was good at cleaning.
“I have this friend,” I said through my tears, “who gets up early, is efficient, and is so good at cleaning and getting things done. I’m sure Jesse wishes I was like her. I’m such a failure.”
As Renee began to speak life-giving truth to me, my mind raced, trying to rewind the events that had brought me to this point of brokenness and disappointment in myself.
An Inclination toward Messy . . . Plus Babies and Aprons
Nearly all of my childhood, after my parents divorced, I lived with my dad and stepmom.
My stepmom cleaned everything except my room; I never even washed a dish. In fact, I didn’t do my own laundry until I was fourteen and living with my mom.
Under my dad’s roof, I was expected to keep my room fairly clean.
If I let it get too messy, I would find a note from him on my bed saying something like, “YOU MAY NOT GO TO YOUNG LIFE OR DO ANYTHING UNTIL THIS ROOM IS CLEAN. Love, Dad.”
He rarely came down hard on me, but he did want me to take care of my room.
When I moved in with my mom, it was a whole new ball game. I could keep my room in whatever state I liked; my mom didn’t care about it at all. I had freedom! I don’t think I was terribly messy, but I didn’t put much stock in tidy surroundings.
Once I got to college, my true colors really came out.
I roomed with a gal who was extremely neat, and it became clear immediately that I wasn’t.
I remember her actually taking tape and creating a line midway across the top of the vanity between her side and mine so my mess wouldn’t creep over to her organized side. She was mostly gracious, but I’m pretty sure I drove her crazy.
The next place I lived, I had another roommate who kept things spotless, and again, I had to work hard to do my part.
Finally, my junior year, I moved in with a gal who was just like me, if not worse. Our one-bedroom apartment always looked like a bomb had gone off in it.
One morning while we were still in our beds, we heard the front door to our apartment open. We looked at each other, and then my roomie threw the covers over her head thinking that it would be a cue for the unexpected visitor to go away.
I started to get my defensive hackles up when all of a sudden we heard, “Ahhh . . . ohhh . . . uhhh . . . groan.” What in the world?
I opened our bedroom door to find our landlady bleeding on the bathroom floor, in a pile of our mess.
She had tripped over our clutter in the hallway, veered off, and hit her head on the bathroom sink. Talk about embarrassing! She was there for some sort of routine maintenance check, which apparently we had been advised of in a mailed notice that was most certainly in the papers strewn all over the floor.
If I had known of the upcoming visit by actually reading the paper, I would have cleaned up a bit. Really.
Of course, the upside for my roomie and me was the assurance that if someone did decide to break into the apartment, the intruder would probably end up in a bloody heap before doing any harm.
Fast-forward to my first year of marriage.
Jesse and I lived in the small apartment that my messy roomie and I had shared—she had moved out and I stayed. I tried to keep it nice for my husband.
My biggest issue was papers and junk that all ended up on the dining room table. And I always had a messy kitchen.
But still, in my opinion, it wasn’t too terrible. My husband and I were stretching into our new lives together, learning about each other, and just enjoying the freedom that marriage brings.
It wasn’t until I got pregnant that things got ugly real fast.
Along with the surprising and exciting news that I was pregnant, I also got incredibly sick. I threw up from morning to night, had terrible headaches from not getting enough food, and one evening ended up becoming so dehydrated that I was taken to the hospital and hooked up to an IV.
I couldn’t go to work, and I was in bed most of the day hitting myself in the head with the palms of my hands (like that helped), wishing for a narcotic to knock me out for three months. No such narcotic arrived. When I would feel hungry or get a craving, I had just enough strength to half-crawl to the kitchen, eat a few bites, throw up, and go back to bed.
Jesse was a senior in college at the time, and when he would come home from class, the apartment was littered with bowls and cups that I had brought out but not put back in the kitchen.
The place was a wreck, and I’m sure the smell wasn’t too pleasant. My husband was carrying a full course load plus an internship with a police department so he not only had to study for his classes, but many times he was pulling overnight third-shift hours required for the internship. He was exhausted and overloaded, and I was exhausted and sick.
He resented me for not taking the dishes to the kitchen, and I resented him for not understanding how terrible I felt with my pregnancy.
Just the thought of moving made me queasy. He thought I was exaggerating, and I thought he was not supportive. Our marriage went through a really rough time during the initial months of my first pregnancy.
Unfortunately, my next two pregnancies weren’t any better. I was nauseous all the time, the house was a wreck, and the bitterness between us was becoming worse. It was awful.
I would try to establish a routine, but of course as soon as I did, I would have another baby, or one of my children would go through a change (teething, crawling, etc.) that wrecked my routine. Or I was just exhausted from getting up at night, nursing, and caring for three little ones.
I struggled with motivation, fatigue, laziness, lack of self-discipline, and constant feelings of failure and guilt.
I sincerely wanted to be a good wife and homemaker, but I felt that I was failing miserably.
So I tried harder.
I read everything on cleaning and being a good wife and mother. I perused the Internet for tips and tricks, and read all about biblical womanhood. Oh yes, I would be that woman, that biblical, godly woman who cared for her home, her husband, and her children no matter what; all my energies would go toward the goal of making my home a haven. I even invested in pretty aprons.
But then I ended up in the car outside the ice cream shop.
What Went Wrong?
My heart was in the right place, and I had good ideals. I wanted to care for my home and my family, but those ideals weren’t translating into my everyday life. I knew I needed God to intervene.
But there was pain before there was peace.
That night in the car with my sister-in-law, I just felt weighed down. I had convinced myself I couldn’t change, so why bother? I bared my soul to my sister-in-law: “Jesse would be happier with someone other than me. My kids deserve a better mother, one who can at least keep the house clean.”
I began to feel that my worth as a person was reflected in windows that sparkled and floors that glistened.
“Has Jesse ever said that he wants a different wife?” my sister-in-law asked.
“Well, no,” I admitted.
She looked me right in the eyes and said, “No one has the authority to tell you who you are. Not your husband, not anyone. Only God has the authority to tell you who you are.”
And just like a hammer crashing into a glass window, she shattered the lie that my worth was determined by my cleaning abilities.
It slowly sank in.
I don’t define who I am, cleaning doesn’t define who I am, my husband doesn’t define who I am, certain ideas of biblical womanhood don’t define who I am [although I didn’t realize that last one until later];
only God can tell me who I am.
I wasn’t exactly sure who that was yet (that’s been a process), but I knew that I would no longer equate my identity with cleaning.
If you struggle with keeping and maintaining a home, I want you to know today that you are loved regardless of your cleaning ability or lack thereof.
God knows exactly who you are; He made you. He knows every weakness, every strength, and He loves you the same.
If you know Him, you are being gently molded into maturity and Christlikeness. He will do the work in you.
You surrender and trust that work. He is kind and gentle and will complete what He began in you.
Exhale.
Cease striving. Know that He is God.
You are loved.
Keep on.
And remember; only God has the authority to tell you who you are.
And friend, you are loved.
Sarah Mae has a past that would be her present if it weren’t for Jesus. His wild saving grace and gentle leading keep her in awe. She is the author of the new book, Having a Martha Home the Mary Way: 31 Days to a Clean House and a Satisfied Soul.
If you believe in the noble mission of making a home, but you struggle with and are overwhelmed with all to keep up with in a home, this book is for you, friend.
Written with vulnerability, humor, and understanding, Sarah Mae speaks to the heart of the woman who struggles under the weight of home work, but who wants to create a place where love is sown in and grace takes root…and where there is space to walk without tripping over things. Included in the book are 31 days of challenges: Mary challenges, which encourage the heart using Scripture and questions that uncover the soul, and Martha challenges, which help you to get some actual cleaning done in a fun way. Her profoundly encouraging words will inspire you to find a happier, healthier . . . cleaner way to live. If I could hand this every woman who’s just trying to make a home — with all her brave heart .
[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
Links for 2016-03-15 [del.icio.us]
FurnitureYouCanAfford.com has low prices, free shipping(in the continental U.S.), and a large selection of awesome furniture.
March 15, 2016
when you’re done with all the anger: the relief we really need
Ayear ago this week, I met this farmer with beat-up hands, 9 miles southwest of Bethlehem.
He asks me what I do.
I tell him I’m a farmer’s wife, daughter of a farmer, grand-daughter of a farmer — yeah, farmers are about the only thing our family tree has ever known.
(Well, that, and a whole mess of ridiculously crazy kids — and fruit. We are praying that somewhere along the line, yeah — that there might just be a bit of actual, edible fruit.)
To get to the guy’s field, I have to push through this herd of goats straggling down the road.
While I’m pushing through goats outside of Bethlehem, there’s clashes in Jerusalem and suicide bombers ripping through the rib cages of children in Iraq. Who knew what would be happening in Syria a year later, in a refugee crisis of epic, heartbreaking proportions , the fracture lines that would split far closer to home?
Daoud has this rock, right there at the gate to his farm, like it’s an anchor, like it’s his own ballast in the midst of one rip-roaring world, right there at the end of his lane.
The rock, sunning bare-faced and unashamed, feels warm under my hand.
“We refuse to be enemies.”
That’s what the words etched into the rock say:
We refuse to be enemies.
At the end of the lane, all the goats separate from the road and turn to the left.
God only knows where the rest of us stragglers are veering?
When Daoud kneels down in the dirt and digs in trees, fruit trees, right ahead of us, to replace the hundreds of his apple trees that were cut down and buried in the dark by the nameless —
I’m standing there wondering if he tries to imagine their faces?
Does he try to imagine himself growing in grace?
How do you grow in grace in the face of those who grow in resentment toward you?
That’s not some sweet little rhetorical question you pluck off some easy, low hanging branch either.
Get down on your knees with a Lutheran Palestinian Christian farmer.
Go a few miles south of Bethlehem, a few miles from where God pulled on some thin skin and birthed Himself into a very specific place on this bruised planet, and get some real dirt under your filed fingernails.
Wrestle with the grittiness of being alive in a broken world that explodes shrapnel through headlines, that has cold wars of its own around our own family dinner tables, and yeah —
Struggle with it because you’re desperate to bear some real fruit instead of bearing the grief of being some cheap masquerader.
How in the world do you grow in grace in the face of those who grow in resentment toward you?
The farmer moves his hands quietly when he talks, like he can cut through the air, cut through the all the flung dung without any drama and get right down to it. His voice is low and gentle and slow.
His fruit trees have been cut down. His water has been cut off. His electricity has been shut off. He has deeds, all the deeds, to his land. What if the deeds of everyone else around you don’t care a thing about your deeds?
“All we want is to just stay on our land.
We come from a long line of Christians, Lutherans — and my Grandfather didn’t want to just live in the village and work the land, like all his neighbours. He wanted to be on the land, he wanted to live out on the land, he wanted to raise his children out on the land — so he came out here and lived on the caves in these fields, so his children would be grow up close to the land, the land always under their feet.”
And I nod real slow — I can hear the man reverberating in the spaces between the marrow of my bones.
Farmers get it in a peculiar kind of way: There is nothing quite like land, because it is that which we come from and that which we will return and that which feeds us in between. We’re all dust and we grow out of this earth’s dust and we’re connected to the earth like it’s a kind of kin. Strangely enough: Until we come to peace with what land is, we live in conflict with what living is.
My grandad always said it: Grounded people care deeply about the ground — because they are rooted from that which they came and all that will end up being and they know who they are.
The word humility comes from humus, comes from the earth that lies underneath us.
It’s only when you know you come from humble dirt that you can bear any honest fruit.
Like heaven, we all want a bit of earth.
When Daoud tells me that they can’t ever leave their land, I catch his eye and hold it steady with what I know in my bones, what you sorta know once you’ve turned over and tilled a bit of earth and it’s got in under your fingernails, when it’s gotten in to you—
My dad always said, “There’s a lot I may love — but my land….my land.” My dad always said that selling away your land is like selling away your soul.
“You understand? We cannot leave our land… and we cannot be enemies.”
Our eyes don’t leave each other — we all belong to each other and to this dirt — and what happens next rips through my rib cage like the force of God.
The light catches his eye and his life grows into this blazing grace:
The only thing that can overcome evil is good. Returning evil with evil — just overcomes us.
That’s all we’ve got here:
Being enemies is not an option.
Being human beings who belong to each other is the only option.
And it doesn’t make one iota of difference if you’re living in the middle of global war zones or some battle zone in your own church, community, kid or marriage — or if you’re fighting a battle inside yourself:
You can either ruminate like a beast over the injustice of it all, till you feel some literal heartburn and the scorch of the whole thing searing off real layers of your soul — or you can plow the pain into purpose.
Farmer Daoud had grabbed that plow: “We take all our frustrations over injustices and we drill them into soil to grow incredible possibilities.”
Yeah.
All our people have let us down and all our people who mean something to us have said things that read as mean.
I’d written it on a sticky note and stuck it on a mirror, like I could glue it to the limbs of me:
Channel negativity into creativity.
The ancient land of Israel and Palestine had seemed to open up under us and hand all this warring world astonishing wisdom for every messy dispute:
Don’t pick a side. Pick a person — the Person of Jesus. And go pick His ways.
Where there’s conflict — we don’t have to condemn the other, we don’t have to curse the future, we don’t have to circumvent the circumstances.
Where there’s conflict, there’s an opportunity — to practice being like Christ.
The world would change if, like Jesus, we chose
a donkey over a steed,
a cross over a crown,
a palm branch over bitterness,
and grace over guilt.
Nearing Holy Week, and Jesus walked this same land of Farmer Daoud and He turned and He had cursed a fruit tree — because it was nothing but a non-fruit producing fraud.
I’d scrawled that across a journal with this dying, splotchy pen:
Are our lives really bearing real fruit — or are we duct-taping on fruit to really impress others with our lives? We’d all sat with that on Daoud’s , shaken.
For weeks, we’ve all been shook with what Jesus said: “I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.” (Matt. 5:43)
Let your enemies not bring out the worst in you — but the best in you, the fruit in you.
When the sun set over the fields of Daoud’s fruit trees, you could see Jerusalem where Jesus had walked through the crowds that were against Him.
You could hear the goats far off to the west.
Related:
Journey to Iraq through Israel: How There is Hope in Our Hidden Hells
The Wake-up Call that is ISIS: Who in the Church is Answering
A 40 Day Journey: The Call To the People of the Cross
grateful to the amazingly talented Christine Anderson for several photos
March 14, 2016
when the world & everybody’s feeling a bit of an Unspoken Broken come Spring Break
There’s still snow around these parts as we head toward spring, as people take off for spring break.
A dusting, a sugar snow, an Easter snow.
As if the whole busted-up world is really frozen, even if the calendar says spring break.
Doing whatever it takes, over and over again, to stay numbed to the pain.
A 14-year-old boy shoots himself right through and two mothers gasp for air.
Try breathing through that. Try walking to Easter and resurrection with that.
A man I’ve known since we were kids, he tells me depression has sapped his wife of anything warm blooded and pulsing, that she lies in the dark all day and won’t eat
That he carries her like a limp rag doll to the bath, that he goes to the barn and weeps where no one can see. I don’t know what to say. So my heart just fractures. I tell him I’ll pray, that I’ll ask everyone to pray.
A friend’s first born heaves on a ventilator, lungs seared. He tells me that he hasn’t left that bedside for six days.
Watch your child struggle up for air and you think a lot about Christ drowning in His own blood, the slow gurgle of grace.
You don’t give a flippant shrug about mocking chocolate bunnies and strangling pastel silk ties.
You could care less about floral centerpieces when you’re breaking into pieces behind closed doors.
This whole smashed world’s a mess and there are people right outside your window, right behind those velum thin walls all down the street, living this slow, soundless bleed, and life can feel like a hell.
And that’s why He came.
Come spring break, we go to the woods where they pierce the trees.
Where they drive spikes for the sap right up through the willing bark.
The man who tapped the trees for sap, for maple syrup? He says you have listen for a whistling leak of air in the sap lines, you listen for the hardly howl.
Listen for it.
He says if you want any syrup, you have to walk through the woods listening, looking for the broken air leaks in the sap line. You have to go to the broken places and people, you have to clamp the leaking places with grace. There are howls everywhere, in the pulsing lines of all the living, all the feeling.
It’s part of living:
Love will always cost you grief. Love is always worth the price.
And all I can think of is, oh, the Love that bought us, the steel driven into the trees, even these trees leaking, crying…
Levi’s studied the poetry and hymns of Isaac Watts all week. He keeps humming hymns through the woods, like a mingling with bark.
“The sap will run straight through now till about Good Friday,” That’s what the burly, grey-haired maple syrup maker tells us. “The trees usually run till Good Friday.”
The trees cry until God hangs upon the tree.
The world moans loud, but He hears your howl. The world smiles thin, but He touches the depths of your deep grief. The world moves on, but His love moves you. He takes the nails to take your pain and He runs liquid with you.
Shalom holds a finger over a sap pail, waits.
Then there it is, there it is, and she takes it, straight to her lips.
His tears are sweet to us. Because our God’s acquainted with grief, He is intimately acquainted with us, with our thorns hidden and driven deep. We don’t cry alone.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Sap fills a bucket, makes the emptiness hum with a weeping offering. We never cry alone.
Sure — everyone loves a Christmas Tree. But it’s that bent Easter Tree that guarantees His love for us.
Levi bends over the bucket, listening — and I hear him —- I hear what he’s humming and I don’t even think he knows he’s humming it, like this unconscious plea:
Alas! and did my Savior bleed And did my Sovereign die?…
Was it for sins that I have done he groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree.
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away….
Trees are tapped for sap to make sweet.
And Christ is nailed for love to wash wounds and our hearts are right broken here for heaven’s sake.
And we ’ll go home and put a lamb on the table and He took the cup and He gave thanks for it and He begged:
Do this in remembrance of me.
For heaven’s sake, do this:
Take your broken heart and give thanks for the heart of God who bleeds with yours and this is how your broken, dis-membered heart is re-membered – when you remember to count the ways He loves.
Count, like you’re taking your own pulse, like you’re determined to keep breathing.
Remember the one thousand ways the Scarred God’s loves you, give thanks for Him in the midst of an almost hell — and your dis-membered heart re-members.
Come toward the middle of Lent, the bloodied and limping, the bruised and the sinners, the howling and soundless–
all us broken, we will remember to give thanks for His breaking and pouring out and this giving thanks is what re-members us.
“Did you hear how he said it, Mama?” Malakai asks me at a syrup dinner of pancakes in the dark of candlelight.
“How the maple syrup runs just until the frogs sings?”
His face is lit in shadows.
Like the frogs know something, like all of heaven knows, and it sings relief for the sacrifice of the Tree.
Levi hums the hymn on — “Thus might I hide my blushing face while His dear cross appears — dissolve my heart in thankfulness, and melt mine eyes to tears…”
And I pour out more of the dark maple syrup and I taste the sweet on my tongue.
And our God is not a God to merely believe, but to experience,
not to only believe in, but be held by.
A God who not only breaks for you — but breaks with you,
a God to not only have creeds about — but to have communion with,
a God who not only who dies for you, but who cries with you,
the God who touches you and binds you and blesses you and heals you
and re-members you because He let Himself be dismembered
and He is the God we not only believe in— but we know.
We know – know beyond a shadow of doubt, death or despair.
He has touched our tears. He has cupped our broken hearts with His scars. He has whispered to the howl, “I know, I know. And I’ve come to begin the making of all things new.”
We believe. Because we know. He knows our grief. We know His goodness. And the truth is – we don’t need an explanation from God like we need an experience of God.
And that is exactly what we get.
We get that experience of God when He stretches open His arms on that Cross and cries,
“For you. For all your regrets and for all your impossibles,
for all that will never be and for all that once was,
for all that you can’t make right and for all that you got wrong,
for your Judas failures and your Peter denials and your Lazarus griefs,
I offer to take the nails, the sharp edge of everything, and offer you Myself because I want you, to take you,
you in your wild grief,
you in your anger and your disappointment and your wounds and your not-yet-there,
you, just as you are, not some improved version of you, but you –
I came for you, to hold you, to carry you, to literally save you.”
The thanks, the yes — it could come like sweet relief.
The broken hearts — they could re-member.
The lament — it could be absorbed in love.
And I taste of what of runs from that Tree, taste and experience grace and He is good.
All this Easter snow, this sugar snow, coming down like the purest redemption.
Related: One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are moves deeper into the meaning of those days before Easter, eucharisteo, communion, being re-membered — finding joy in what really matters…
Resource: the 40 Day Lent/Easter wreath
March 12, 2016
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.12.16]
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:
Eastlyn Bright
Eastlyn Bright
Eastlyn Bright
go enjoy your life today – right where you are!
nope, it’s not everyday you’re chased by an…ostrich!? for real!
Corduroy
#oldestlivingcat and you’d never know it
Life of Pikelet
Life of Pikelet
as a family fosters ducklings Penguin & Popinjay…they found that
some of the best friendships just happen
Captain Supachat
just some fun facts on why it hurts so much to step on a Lego
Randy Olson
a colossal trek through all 48 continental states that visits 50 different landmarks
what started as a block of wood? just plain fun
Iris Scott
Iris Scott
Iris Scott
stunning vibrant oil paintings — all created with her fingers
Lithuanian officers pulling women over for the most beautiful reason
when you feel like you’re in a death valley, a wilderness — you’ve got to believe in miracles coming
Luke Tyree
Luke Tyree
Luke Tyree
super helpful – let’s take better photos with our smartphones
something to ponder?
okay, maybe she’s on to something here?
because no one wants to feel like they’re alone
71 years later? pretty…. unbelievable!?!
one of the best stories you’ll read all week
a girl…and her uh.. yeah… duck?
“To the Strangers in Whole Foods
Who Surrounded Me After I Heard the News of My Father’s Death”
we all belong to each other
you’ve gotta watch this… because sometimes you just have to say yes to adventure #sayyesadventureawaits
Post of the Week from these parts here
… thinking all of our hurting, brave hearts just need a bit of that, in the most unexpected way:
how to keep falling in love again & why it matters
a beautiful story of mutual rescue
Kelle Hampton
prepare to have your heart busted beautifully open. I was all in.
So — I’m telling you. Come be all in with me?
If you didn’t read that post ^^ above … don’t leave the internet without watching this — best thing I’ve seen all week — and then, beg you, go read that ^^ post above…. Hero dad. Undone. This? Is unforgettably beautiful. And true.
I’ve only read about this a dozen times this week. I wanted to write about it… that one image of a dad with his arm out — struck something deep in me, in all of us: hero dads everywhere
on repeat here this week:
you are loved more than you know — more than you could ever hope for
…the stress, the fear, the panic?
Isn’t worth it — because the CEO of the universe’s with you.
He’s the expert pouring some real strength into you right now.
He’s the coach helping you see the next thing, do the right thing, overcome the hard thing right now.
He’s the friend holding you up with the steadying warmth of His hand right now.
When you say, “The Lord is the strength of my life”
you get to say, “There is nothing to be stressed about in my life.”
Fear can’t get to us, panic can’t upend us, worry can’t undo us.
Stress doesn’t unload today of its struggles.
It undermines today of its strength.
And prayer always erases panic.
[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.
March 11, 2016
1 Remarkably Simple Way To Live Good Faith: when society thinks people of faith are irrelevant & extreme
Now and then you meet a rare pioneer, an uncommonly thoughtful leader for these times. Gabe Lyons came to the farm and I was deeply struck: he isn’t afraid to ask hard questions. He leans in & listens to people who think differently, creates real spaces for people to hear each other respectfully and convenes these moments across culture and church for life-giving good. I have found a place to think and wrestle and get it wrong and listen better and be a better thinker because of Gabe Lyons and Q. The community around Q are my people — because they are about the dialogue and the living of Good Faith — how do we live out humble, loving, Good Faith? Is there a more pressing question for our times? Everything Gabe Lyons engages… I want to lean in & listen. A grace to welcome Gabe Lyons to the farm’s front porch….
My transatlantic red eye brought me into the Netherlands for my first-ever visit to Amsterdam.
I had never been there, but my wife’s family heritage traces back to the Dutch and I was excited to see the low country for myself.
In my imagination, the Dutch were traditional people, living the old way of life.
Pale, sweet-faced women wore wooden clogs (Klomps, to be exact) and blue and white dresses (and perhaps performed a graceful stomp dance, if there is such a thing).
Quaint as that picture looked to my mind’s eye, it doesn’t represent modern Amsterdam—a city notorious for its red-light district and anything-goes morality.
The Netherlands trailblazing legalization of abortion, euthanasia, and prostitution paved the way for many other European nations to implement similar laws.
Their modern society is a long way from my stereotypes of clogs and stomp dances!
I met with several Christian leaders across the Netherlands—mostly church planters and entrepreneurs motivated by faith to advance the gospel in their city—and learned a lot about engaging post-Christian culture.
In the Netherlands, religion is seen as merely irrelevant tradition. Anyone who takes it too seriously is considered extreme. This has forced the faithful to adopt an almost-forgotten essential of gospel living.
Hospitality.
The church leaders shared stories of how conversations about faith were happening because of hospitality.
Whether hosting refugees passing through from the Middle East or inviting a colleague over for dinner, the themes of welcoming, celebrating, and humanizing the stranger emerged again and again.
In Amsterdam, hospitality is a standout, countercultural idea.
It’s nothing new—actually, it’s quite old, confiscated by modern life when hotels, hospitals, and homeless shelters institutionalized hospitality. (We even have a “hospitality industry.”)
But it’s a clear biblical priority, even mentioned as a spiritual gift.
Perhaps because it’s so rare in our times, welcome beautifully expresses God’s vision for human relationships. In a culture that emphasizes fast meals, online friendships, and casual hook-ups, hospitality is a truly countercultural experience.
Showering tangible love on those we know—and on those we don’t—allows people to experience the love of Jesus in ways they don’t see coming.
Hospitality is good faith in action.
Jesus practiced welcome in ways that confounded the religious.
He ate in the home of a tax collector, fellowshipped with “sinners,” and enjoyed long meals with His disciples. He was so good at showing up at parties that He was accused of being a drunk.
Then Paul took it to a new level.
In his letters, he introduced the concept of “households,” groups of assorted believers in all stages of life, pursuing godly living together.
As Pastor Greg Thompson points out, “Many of us are not used to talking about households. And in Christian theology, while the household includes families, it was never limited to them.
It not only included all who call on the name of Jesus, but those who needed to find shelter within them.”
Open-Door Policy
You may have heard of the reality series Duck Dynasty? Behind the cameras and scripted storylines, Willie and Korie Robertson try to sincerely and authentically model the virtue of hospitality.
Recently my family visited the Robertsons in West Monroe. Everywhere we turned — we heard another story of hospitality.
However they are perceived, what I witnessed in those 24 hours inspired and convicted me.
The web of relationships—family and friends—Willie and Korie have woven is countercultural in the most astonishing, genuine and inviting, way.
I encountered three unique relationships in West Monroe that offer a vision of what a modern-day “household of faith” could look like.
First, we met Brian, a 26-year-old man who moved to Louisiana to take care of his mom.
When he began looking for a job, he had no luck. He had a criminal record, and employers didn’t think twice about skipping right past his name. Unfortunately, discrimination against former inmates still gets praise in many communities. But Brian was looking for a fresh start and was willing to take any job.
When one of Willie Robertson’s companies, hired him out of hundreds of other applicants, Brian was blown away with gratitude.
The Robertsons didn’t mind his history because they saw his potential. And given the opportunity, he did an outstanding job. He grew in his skills and recently became a manager of another of their businesses.
As we talked Brian said to me, “I love Willie. He saved my life and introduced me to Jesus. I’ll never work for anyone else!”
Then there is Rebecca.
Her friendship with the Robertsons began her junior year of high school when she was a foreign exchange student from Taiwan who came to live with their family. In time, she was fostered and then naturally folded into their family.
Today, at age 27, she helps run a designer fashion boutique and is actively pursuing adoption so she can give to someone else what was given to her.
Third, when Korie recently became aware of a 12-year-old boy who needed a permanent home, she instantly said, “Yes!” With their oldest son heading off to college, her response was, “We have a free room opening up in the house, let’s welcome another family member.”
This is how good faith Christians do family: as a household of faith, with an open-door policy.
You may not think you have the capacity, space, or resources to continually expand your household the way other folks do.
But each of us can invite a new friend or acquaintance over for dinner, go out of our way to support adoptive families, and invest time in the life of a child, teen, or young adult.
You might even consider fostering a child without a permanent home.
Each family has its own unique dynamics, but Christ calls us beyond our fears and desire for comfort to trust Him,
confident that when we welcome the stranger,
we are welcoming Jesus into our midst.
Hospitality creates households of faith —
where every person can belong.
And there is nothing any of us longs for — quite like the best kind of belonging.
how to live Good Faith:
Gabe Lyons is author of unChristian and The Next Christians. He is the founder of Q, a learning community that educates and mobilizes Christians to think well and advance good in society. Called “sophisticated and orthodox” by The New York Times, Q represents the perspective of a new generation of Christians. Gabe speaks on cultural issues where faith intersects public life.
Good Faith: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re Irrelevant and Extreme breaks it down: Many Christians today feel overwhelmed as they try to live faithfully in a culture that seems increasingly hostile to their beliefs. Politics, marriage, sexuality, religious freedom–with an ever-growing list of contentious issues, believers find it harder than ever to hold on to their convictions while treating their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even family members who disagree with respect and compassion. Readers will discover the most significant trends that offer both obstacles and opportunities to God’s people, and how not only to challenge culture but to create and renew it for the common good. Now the bestselling authors of unChristian turn their data-driven insights toward the thorny question of how Christians talk with people they know and love about the most toxic issues of our day. This will be the go-to book for young adult and older believers who don’t want to hide from culture but to engage and restore it. A book I want to hand out to every believer: Cannot recommend the message of this book highly enough. Five star read.
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March 10, 2016
when you just want to find God in the ruins of everyday life
Matt Bays has faced the darkness and pain of life with honesty and courage. His story of abuse, addiction, and loss have helped many understand how the gospel is more powerful than the waves of grief and loss that may wash over us. He leads us to see that if we strain our eyes amidst the shifting shadows, we will find Jesus there: and though every detail of His face might not be recognizable, His form is unmistakable. It’s a grace to welcome Matt to the farm’s front porch today…
My sister and her boyfriend, Chuck came for a visit this past weekend.
As soon as she climbed out of their truck, I could see the effects the chemo had taken on her.
Her body was not her body.
She had gained quite a bit of weight from the steroids, and her face was no longer the shape of my father’s face, as it always had been.
It was swollen and odd.
A friend of mine who was a nurse told me not to look at Trina with “the death stare.”
So I decided that if I needed a moment to gather myself throughout the weekend, I would escape to my closet or go sit in the backseat of my car, both of which I ended up doing several times.
I had a group of friends gather while she was in town to pray for Trina’s healing.
We collected our love and prayers around her and as we prayed, tears streamed down her face and ours.
Afterward, while everyone waited their turn to talk to her, I overheard her tell a friend of mine that not having hair was great for riding on the back of Chuck’s motorcycle because she didn’t have to worry about how she looked when she took off her helmet.
It was what I had always loved about her: her ability to believe the best in any situation.
And even with the room littered with cancer, threatening her life, showing itself in her warped body, swollen face, and hair loss, her sense of hope hadn’t changed one bit.
She put on her makeup just as she always had, as if she were just as gorgeous as she had always been.
These things—these incredible things—I carry them with me.
I have so many of them locked away in a Special Jar—a Jar filled with the things in this world that seem to be pointing me to something greater, to someOne greater.
Sometimes it feels as if God has invited Himself into my pain, when I had hoped to be invited into His healing. We want a God who heals our wounds, but it seems we have a God who heals our hearts.
I realized over the weekend that I might know her better than anyone ever has. We had come up in the same family, drawn together as survivalists in the war zone. And as survivors often do, we had formed a bond that would never be broken.
She is not replaceable as my sister.
The thought of losing her is absurd.
I am writing this too early to know what will happen to her. And if she passes, I don’t know what will happen to me.
It is impossible to gauge whether I will completely fall apart or discover some kind of new strength, which I don’t want if it only means losing her.
As far as God is concerned, I have gone down this road before.
I have lashed out, unbelieved in Him, accused Him, and sworn to back out of any deal I’d made with Him.
But in the end, I have found Him capable of restoring my faith because He knows me better than I even know my sister. He’s shown up, amid the visceral pain, in powerful ways I could not excuse, leaving me fully aware…
that He’d been there.
I can’t possibly begin to know that I will always believe Him, love Him, forgive Him, let Him in, but so far, in the midst of the most difficult personal circumstances…
He has not left me.
He hasn’t answered all of my questions, and He certainly hasn’t “worked all things out for the good” in any way I would’ve expected.
But once when I was at an all-time low, He entered into my broken world so unexpectedly and in a way that was so tangible even my peculiar heart couldn’t deny His presence.
This heavenly encounter and the personal gift He arrived with will forever remain in my Special Jar.
If my sister doesn’t survive her fight with cancer, I will be wrecked, and I won’t pretend I shouldn’t be. I will tell God what a liar He is and shake my fist at Him for all the bad things that happen. I will tell others He’s a fraud and that He kills the people other people need. I will walk my cul-de-sac in protest. I may even abandon Him.
But then I imagine He will do what He always does. In some unexpected way, He will show up—show up for me, and in your pain, show up for you. And together we’ll find Him.
We will find God in the ruins.
After watching a YouTube video that so moved me the other day, I looked down to see the remarks others had written about it. There were several, but my eyes focused on one:
Me encanta.
It was one of the few phrases I could still recall from my college Spanish class. Someone had watched the same video, and I imagine had a moment for which they had written only two words: “Me encanta.”
I love.
Those things left unredeemed in us are unfinished stories we’re desperate to punctuate, hoping to turn the page and see “The End.”
But tragedy will always be with us, as will disbelief, fear, abandonment, and the abysmal injustices we see every time we turn on the television.
At times the adversity and pain of this world have siphoned off whatever belief was left in me.
But then I go to my Jar and I conjure up the image of my dearly beloved sister, riddled with cancer from head to toe, talking about the benefits of not having hair as if even the storm cloud that is cancer has a silver lining, and I don’t hear unbelief at all or even death.
Instead I hear two words:
Me encanta.
I don’t know why I hear them, but I know I can’t shake them. And truth be told, I don’t want to.
They are imprinted into the spiritual DNA of who I am, and they speak to my tragedies, my doubts, and my personal failures.
Time and time again, I hear them called out to me in the tiniest voice—a voice so small it could fit only within the most peculiar crack of my heart.
Me encanta. Me encanta. Me encanta.
I love.
Do not miss this video. Just — absolutely do not. Me Encanta.
Matt Bays is a writer, speaker, and musician with a passion to call people out of their hiding places. In ministry for twenty-one years as a worship pastor, he now joins the ranks of writers such as Ann Lamott, Donald Miller, and Ann Voskamp in offering readers an honest, raw, funny, creative, and insightful compassion for sorting through the struggles and joys of life. He and his wife, Heather, live in Indianapolis with their 2 teenage daughters.
Finding God in the Ruins: How God Redeems Pain will usher you into a life where gratitude overpowers anger, hope overcomes despair, and hunger for God replaces indifference to God. Unlike memoirs of traumatic life stories, Matt’s approach is as a pastoral companion, reaching out to anyone who struggles with where God is when it hurts. Full of unforgettable stories of loss and healing. This is a gripping, powerful read and Matt is a tremendous writer.
[ Our humble thanks to David C. Cook Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 9, 2016
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