Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 184

when your heart’s aching for a bit of a Christmas Miracle in the midst of a lot of mess

That one doctor thought it was a bit of a miracle before they even cracked open the chest and cut a way at his heart.

Because who in the world figures out you’ve got a tumor plugging up an entire cavernous heart chamber when you’re blithely driving kids to hockey on Tuesday night?

Or fine-tuning a tractor engine on Thursday and sitting in the front pew on Sunday?

Maybe you only figure out your heart’s failing when you yell at the kids over state-of-disaster floors?

Or when you feel like a first-class Christmas failure in the age of Pinterest, or when you and yours never get through the holidays without a whole mess of family drama — and don’t ask me how I know.

Sometimes the only thing you know by heart is that your heart knows it hurts.

So when the general practitioner in the small country clinic had suspected a tumor in the Farmer brother’s heart?

The city specialist could only say he couldn’t really believe it — how had the country doctor guessed it right — that he could only think of it as a bit of a miracle. People say that when miracles happen: “I can’t believe it! It’s a miracle!” But that’s always the best place for miracles: God meets us — right where we don’t believe.

When our believing runs out, God’s loving runs on.

They roll the Farmer’s brother into the operating theatre to do surgery on his heart and that tumor at 1:27 in the afternoon.

We can’t think. We watch the clock. The Farmer calls his Dad down in Florida. They pace together.

My mother calls. We pray. I keep glancing up at the minute hand, the way it keeps ticking.

Ticking.

“Did I ever tell you what Max said?” Mama’s got to be eating something. I only hear her nhuh huh.

“Well, yeah, Max clapped the Farmer’s shoulder and said we really might be the only pig farmers he’s ever met and we laughed. And at the end, he prayed over us just like you’d think Jesus would.

I told the Farmer that on the way home — that it’s not very often that you meet someone and walk away thinking: “He was so much like Jesus.”

“Uh huh?” Mama’s got to be eating almonds.

“But it’s that story Max told — ”

Can I get through this without choking up? Max’s Texan drawl was as smooth as the back of my Grandma’s Oil of Olay hand.

And he said that Taylor Storch’s family had headed to Colorado for a little skiing. That the 13 year old had laughed loud coming down the mountain. That Taylor had fallen — crashed — down a straight rocky slant of the earth.

By nightfall, she was gone, slipped off this earth and Home.

Her parents, Tara and Todd, signed papers to give away Taylor’s still-warm heart.

Mama’s quiet on the other end of the line.

She’s watched them a dig a hole in the earth for her own girl.

“Max said they ended up giving Taylor’s heart to a woman in Arizona whose heart was failing so weary that she couldn’t get off the couch anymore — Patricia Winters.” There’s snow falling out the window.

There’s been ugly sin this week and there’s been dead weary and there’s been more than a few moments I haven’t known how to go on.

“Taylor’s mama had only one request.” I lean against the window sill, head against the cool pane, tell my Mama what Max had said, how he had shown us a photo of Taylor with her mama.

How Taylor’s mama had called Patricia Winters and asked her if she could come hear her heart.

“Oh my.” Mama murmurs what only a mama can feel. The clock’s ticking on the wall.

And Max had told us how Taylor’s mama flew from Dallas to Phoenix and knocked on Patricia Winters’ door and Patricia Winters walked right past the couch and she opened the door and she opened her arms and she welcomed them in.

And Taylor’s mama fell into her arms and the two mothers just held each other, Taylor’s heart beating right there next to her weeping Mama’s.

And then Patricia Winters reached over and handed Taylor’s Mama a stethoscope.

And she laid that stethescope up against Patricia Winters and she could hear it, right there in Patricia as clear as a beckoning bell:

Thrum. Thrum.

Taylor’s mama could hear it loud and long, right there in her ears… Thrum.

Like a thunder vibrating right through her — Thrum.

Her daughter’s still-beating heart.

“Oh… I can’t…” Mama chokes out the words. “I can’t even imagine.”

Can’t imagine. Can’t Believe…  Miracle.

And then Max had asked us slow and quiet. “What was Taylor’s Mama really hearing?”

“It indwells a different body, but that heart is the heart of her girl…. ” Max said. “And when God hears your heart, that’s what He hears — the still-beating heart of His Son.”

The clock’s ticking on the wall.

Doctors will be cutting into the heart of the Farmer’s brother right now.

“Mama?”

“Oh — I’m here.” Her voice’s breaking up. “Just — listening.”

Ticking. Beating.

“I was thinking this week — you know when we were in the hospital with Levi?”

I turn from the window, turn the sink tap on, fill the sink as if I could fill an ache. “You know — she was the first one to come visit?”

I don’t say who the she is. Mama knows.

“Yes.” Mama doesn’t have to say anything more.

She knows who I mean, how it it’s been over a year and a half. That cards and letters get returned and invitations go unanswered or declined.

The strangest pain that never goes away is estrangement.

“She loved us, Mama… and I don’t know what went so impossibly wrong but I know that I miss them impossibly…”

Mama whispers it like she wishes she could make the words do more, “I know…. ”

The sink water’s not much better than lukewarm.

“I sure wish I knew how to fix this — I shake my head, turn the water hotter. “Because I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

In a heart beat.

I stop. Hands in hot water.

I can hear it in me.

Thrum. Thrum.

Me with a tumor, me with heart blockage, me with a failing heart…

That’s the point:

Your heart can’t forgive the tactless no-so-great Aunt.

Your heart can’t forgive the words that should never have been said, your heart can’t forgive the remark that was more like a blade and left a mark how many years later. Your heart can’t forgive the step-mother, the side joke, the backhand, the over-the-top family that just gets under your skin.

Your heart can’t forgive. That’s why He gave you His.

When you don’t think you can forgive what she’s said about you —-

When you don’t think you can forget what he’s done to you —

When it’s His heart beating in you — you can forgive in a heart beat.

I look up from the sink.

The Christmas tree is there by the fireplace — and it’s right there, what all the hard relationships, gatherings, families need at Christmas:

The Tree is where God’s grace does heart transplants:

God takes broken hearts —- and gives you His.

I would tell Mama that later.

That they cut a 3 inch tumor out of the Farmer’s brother’s heart.

That only four days later the Farmer drove his brother back home to his own farm.

That they prayed thanks for startling grace.

 That it’s really true: Right where you don’t believe…  is where  God meets with a miracle. 

That miracles can really happen in a heart beat.

 

 

 Jesus/Manger photos credit

Related:

when your heart needs a Christmas miracle of its own: The Greatest Gift and Unwrapping the Greatest Gift

Free Printables for December: 25 No-Stress Manifestos Sticky Notes For Your Soul along with all kinds of free tools & ornaments at The Greatest Christmas

Advent Week 1: The Video Devotional for the First Sunday of Advent: Hope 

Advent Week 2: The Video Devotional for the Second Sunday of Advent: Peace

Advent Week 3: The Video Devotional for the Third Sunday of Advent: Joy

Video Devotional: How to Have the Best Christmas

A Bit of What I Wish I Knew When I Was 27

So Relevant Magazine started a conversation:  “If you’re one of those people who feels God calling you, one of the smartest things you can do is learn from the wisdom of those a little further down the road.

We asked some of the most creative, innovative and odds-defying people we know, “What do you wish you knew when you were 27?” ~Relevant Magazine

So — when Relevant knocked on the farm door here and asked me for a just few lines, I was thinking I wish I’d known this at 27:

Hey, younger you, you at 27, you doing hard things, you pouring it out? You in the midst of things?

The size of your ministry isn’t proof of the success of your ministry.

The very Son of God had a ministry to 12.

And one of them abandoned Him.

Forget the numbers in your work and focus on the net value.

The Internet age may try to sell you something different — but don’t ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness.

Ultimately, what seems like futile work that’s taking an eternity today —  is exactly what may make the most difference in eternity.

And whatever you do, make it a regular practice to retreat to the “back side of the wilderness.”

Because when you do not need to be seen or heard— you can see and hear in desperately needed ways.

 

Need some serious encouragement? Check the amazing advice & words from the other Brave Travellers over at Relevant Magazine: What I Wish I Knew When I was 27

 

how fears can strangle Christmas — and how to crush all that fear [& free colour Christmas Story Ornaments]

The kid’s got no idea that the world’s been kinda blowing up lately.

He just rolls out of bed when his dad crows like a strangling rooster from the top of the stairs every morning, grabs his jeans, shimmies a shirt over his head and stumbles to the barn to feed his sows.

Half the time the kid comes in from the barn smelling like a pig. Because that’s the half of the time he lets the barn shower run for a whole 3 seconds and he never even reaches for the shampoo.

That would also be the same half of the time that I send him back to that barn shower and make no bones that the water has to run for 5 minutes and the kid better figure out that life is about knowing when to lather up — and when it ain’t worth your time to get all lathered up about.

The kid pays no mind to any stirred up stink. But you better believe he makes sure he knows about things like when they’re calling for snow in these parts and how to sharpen the rusted blade of a saw to take back to the woods to hack down some sad looking cedars and what pocket he’s got that Red Swiss Army contraption of his that would bust you out of any Houdini nightmare and the kid comes to me the other night because he says he’s sure of this:

“You know what I’ve been praying about, Mom?”

The kid’s standing in the evening living room, his face lit by the brave glow of the Christmas tree.

“I’ve been praying about it for awhile now,” he stuffs his hands in his pockets, his head down. “That I’d be one of the ones that lay my life down. And thinking there are a lot of ways to lay your life down.”

He looks up at me.

“Fear’s an ugly thing and why wouldn’t you lay down your life rather than be poisoned by fear to hold on to your life?”

Whadya say to the kid standing there in the light of a Christmas tree? I wanna grab him, pull him in close…

Wanna bury my face in his mop of hair and what do you say to fears that loom over Christmas, what to you say to the latest breaking news that shouts louder than the news of Advent breaking in, what do you say to the rising anger in the streets instead of a rising chorus of Christmas carols out on the street corners? Joy to the World…. Let heaven and nature sing….

I’m standing there looking into the eyes of a 13-year-old kid looking right into me.

The kid’s telling me that he’s been praying for a way to lay down his life.

What happens when you pray to lay down your life with a welcome larger than weapons, with an incarnational hope larger than any imagined hells, with a brave faith larger than any beastly fears?

Does the kid have any idea?

Does the kid know that the hawkers out on the street corners keep lathering folks up because they know it: Fear Sells.

And The Maker of the universe knows it since He breathed it into the atmosphere: Faith Saves.

Fear is what’s at the base of all our debates.

Fear Of Missing Out is what drives all our consumerism.

Fear of losing is what’s actually making us lose the most.

Unless we let Love drive out fear, our fears will drive out Love.

But the kid knows it, because that’s we’re doing here through Advent — Unwrapping the Greatest Gift and purposing not to be undone by any news cycle or fear mongers:

Fear Sells —- but there is a Story that Saves.

Fear may sell policies or garner votes or hawk hardware — but there is a Story that Saves.

And that’s the story for a kid to stay in.

When the kid cuts out ornaments that tells The Story from the beginning ….

That tells the Story of the Coming across the waters, the deep calling to deep, the Coming of glory through the drought of the wilderness wanderings, the Coming of relief up through all our failings and fallings and skinned kneed impossibles — the kid’s coming into a Braver and Truer Story than anything that’s being sold at half price at Walmart or being hashed out by all the pundits on the 6 o’clock news.

The kid knows that he gets the Real Story mixed up whenever he mixes himself up with fear and dehumanizing and demonizing any human being because all human beings are made in the image of God. Because dehumanization may be a message of war, but it’s never the message of the Gospel.

The kid’s keeping his story straight because He’s staying in the gospel truth Story — no matter how loud any of the noise gets he’s staying in the story that says Jesus has been coming since the beginning for everyone, the story that says Jesus is chasing down every person on the planet with His love —

and He invites us into the Real Story if we’re willing to let Perfect Love kick a Poisoning Fear to the curb.

The kid’s cutting out ornaments to tell the Story —

to tell the Story that has but one line repeating agin and again, more than any other line, a line like it’s own refrain in the midst of a world where all our natures refuse to sing: “Do not be afraid.”

It doesn’t matter what fear the world’s selling. The only Story that matters keeps repeating it: Do Not Be Afraid.

Do not be afraid of the unknown when you know the One who does the impossible,

Do not be afraid of what could fail when His arms are stronger than any failure & He cannot fail or let you fall

And do not be afraid of any evil because greater is He who is in the depths of you and breathing the wild courage to love right into your bones.

Do not be afraid to see the face of God in the dark where you did not expect Him.

Do not ever be afraid of suffering because suffering can birth a greater resurrection.
Do not be afraid of laying your life down in a thousand ways because this is the only way to ever rise.

Do not be afraid to pack nothing and only pick up your Cross.

The boy looks over at me and, for a moment, just the way he turns, the way he says it, he doesn’t sound like a kid:

“You know, Mom —- I don’t think that there was any playing when He said: ‘Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’”

I nod slow, fighting back this blurring and brimming.

He lays his scissors down on the table. Hangs the ornaments from The Story on the tree, like the kid’s grafting himself into something greater.

I want to tell the kid that — but I think this is what he already knows because it’s the gospel truth of The Story we’re staying in this Advent:

When you hold bravery in one hand and vulnerability in the other, you hold wholeness. . The wholeness of true humanity.

The fear-peddlers will claim only fools would walk with such a posture in an evil-pocked off-kilter world. The fear-strident rally that you have to carry this cheap veneer strength that morphs into meanness and smallness and harshness.

But the Truth never changes:

You never defeat any monster by becoming a monster.

The Truth and Real Strength came into a violent world as the most vulnerable — as a scandalously gentle baby. Jesus came as a vulnerable baby into a scuffling, warring world — so no one was intimidated, so all could come close, so no one was discounted, so all could hold him & feel the way His backbone curved.

Backbone that has real strength like God’s —- bends to lay down your life for those who don’t love you at all.

The essence of true humanity is to let the backbone curve low and hold vulnerability in one hand and bravery in the other. Because this is essentially all the same thing.

The kid’s take the ornament of a great light rising in the darkness, takes it in hand and hangs it on the tree, knowing that the uncontainable God who cracked an amniotic sac and swam a birth canal to get to us would one day hang naked vulnerable from a tree, the epitome of brave — the way the bravery of vulnerability always shatters the dark.

Advent is about the coming of God and the end of fear.

And the boy becomes more than a man with one line to his old mama:

“Nothing, Mom —- Nothing’s going to stop me from praying for ways to lose and lay my life down.”

And in flash of light, it’s like all the preoccupation with fear blows apart and there’s this shimmer of holy things coruscating around us like the wings of a brazen glory.

The way hearts open brave.

 

 

Related:  

Readers of Unwrapping The Greatest Gift: Print out the 24 FREE Color Jesse Tree Ornaments that tell the whole real gospel truth Story — & you & your people can stay in the Story that crushes fear.

Give the Story and the free Ornaments, give the gift of no fear to another family, give the Gospel. Give & Unwrap the Gift that breaks the fears. Because: The only Story that matters keeps repeating it: Do Not Be Afraid.

[Readers: click here for the 24 Free Story-Telling Ornaments — please sit in the peace of a holy Advent wait, waiting for the download of this color-rich printable] 

 

A Gift Guide to a few of my favorite things: Give Gifts of Meaning

And here are a few of my absolute favorite things:

Favorite T-Shirt: So Loved

From Morning Star Foundation: Okay, these So Loved T-Shirts? Us girls here cannot stop wearing these. Yeah, perfect under a plaid flannel or a denim, perfect to tell a friend in a hard place how loved they are, perfect to wear as little PSA to the world: YOU ARE SO LOVED. Voskamp farm girls here saying these are favorite t-shirts. (Shalom may have to be told to wash hers because its the only shirt she wants to wear anymore.)

How this Gift of Meaning Changes the World:

Wait for this. This is my favorite. These t-shirts make heart surgeries happen for orphans in China. Babies abandoned because their hearts were too broken and parents couldn’t afford the heart surgeries these babies need. Yeah. A T-Shirt. For a Heart Surgery. For orphans. With broken hearts. Saving Lives. For Little People who need somebody, anybody, to be their People — so they can get life-saving heart surgeries.

Shalom’s So Loved T-shirt? Got a thank-you from Benjamin. You do know Ben, right? From Jen Hatmaker’s #Benstagrams? Okay, now that your heart’s about split from the cute of all the Orphans at Morning Star Babies — Go Wear Love & find your new favorite T — and fix an orphan’s broken heart. It’s like giving to Jesus.

Some Favorite Necklaces:

From RwandaMade: When our Hope-Girl and I were in Rwanda, we met the man, Abraham, who handmade these necklaces along with several of his Rwandan friends, and these have become our favorite simple necklaces that we reach for time and again.

T-shirt and a plaid flannel — and one of Abraham’s RwandaMade necklaces. Done. Simple, quiet, works with everything from t-shirt & a plaid to a little black dress to a denim shirt. These necklaces are real staples for us farm girls.

How this Gift of Meaning Changes the World:

Support Rwandan families to stay together, flourish together, send their children to school and boosting the entire economy of one community in Rwanda.

Favorite Ways to Stay Warm:

From Noonday: Honest Confession — I may have worn this scarf and these arm warmers for 3 days last week? The handmade scarf and loveliest arm warmers were a gift from the kindest friend on a week when I was at ER and terribly sick and on IVs and filling prescriptions and just could not get warm — until I pulled on these. Ahhhhh — it’s like walking around wrapped in a blanket — but without looking like a bear. (Wearing this with plaid flannel? Bliss!) A pop of colour — and all cold and damp be gone!

How this Gift of Meaning Changes the World:

Noonday’s blowing things up everywhere and changing the world. Noonday “partners with talented artisan entrepreneurs to make a difference in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. By developing artisan businesses through fair trade, we empower them to grow sustainably and to create dignified jobs for people who need them. Together we’re building a flourishing world where children are cherished, women are empowered, people have jobs and we are connected.”

Favorite Christmas Tradition:

From our boy over at JoyWares: There’s few things I’ve valued more in our home than our family’s little creative tradition: a one-of-a-kind, 24-hole heirloom wooden Advent wreath.

Because the story goes that — the world’s very first Advent wreath was created by a Protestant pastor in Germany, Johann Wichern, who was pioneering an urban mission among poor children who kept waking every morning of December, asking eagerly, “Is it Christmas yet?” So Johann Wichern took an old wooden cartwheel, and drilled 24 holes around the wheel, for 20 small candles and 4 large candles.

Each day of Advent, the children gathered round to watch the lighting of one of the small candles. And every Sunday of Advent, Mr. Wichern lit one of the wooden wreath’s large candles. And so the tradition of the 24-hole advent wreath began & grew —

Into our tradition of a similar 24-hole wreath — with the addition of a wooden silhouette of Mary on a donkey. Each day we, we light the next candle in the 24-hole wreath, move Mary on a donkey figurine further around the circle & closer to Christmas — and read that day’s epic story from either adult’s The Greatest Gift, or the family edition, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift.

A simple & memorable family tradition to focus powerfully, beautifully, on Jesus… (that also extends into a 40 hole Easter wreath with a silhouette of Jesus carrying the Cross.)

How this Gift of Meaning Changes the World:

Look at the 14 kids that are sponsored through Compassion through this project and the 30 water filters donated to Africa!

And — nothing slows us down through Advent and creates a gathering place for us all every evening like this 24 Day Advent Wreath.

Favorite Bag:

From Fashionable: So I’ve wanted a big old brown leather tote for forever. And when I was hugging Rebekah Lyons bye last spring, I happened to tell her how her tote was soon worthy — and the girl went and dumped everything out of her bag — and handed me her bag. I felt like a fool, insisted she take it back, but she laughed like she’s made of the loveliest happiness that she is, winked and waved.

Every single time I use this bag — I think of how friends can love us in the most healing, beautiful ways. Every single time I use this bag — I think it’s the best bag ever. It feels like an old friend when you throw it over your shoulder (perfect with a farm plaid shirt! Ummm… there may be a pattern here? Lame pun sorta, kinda, intended. Not.) Could not recommend this bag highly enough. By far my favorite bag ever.

How this Gift of Meaning Changes the World:

Well — go see for yourself. Fashionable is doing local and global work that’s pretty ridiculously amazing.

Favorite Christmas Gift of Meaning to Give:

and… from a farmhouse to your house:

“Going through your book for the third year and completely loving my time with the Lord this advent. #Thegreatestgift #slowChristmas” ~ Michelle

“My church has never formally celebrated Advent, but this morning my pastor started a new series to teach the meaning of Advent. And at the end of every service (there are five weekend services plus two satellite extension campuses), my pastor put on the large screens a picture of ” The Greatest Gift” and encouraged everyone to get a copy — women and men. He invited everyone to read through “The Greatest Gift” with him this Advent season. Then he pulled out a copy of the “Unwrapping the Greatest Gift” and he asked parents to take their kids on a journey through Advent with this book… and he’s very particular about the books he recommends from the pulpit.” ~ Denise

“Your book is exactly what I needed this year. I lost my mom when I was 21 and without her, Christmas lost its wonder. So for 13 years, Christmas was a time of depression for me. I couldn’t even pull it together for my own girls. This year, and the first year I will be without my girls for Christmas and I had all the more reason to be lost and lonely, and then your post about Advent lead me to your book. I’m a believer. But Advent never was shown to me as a time of hope the way you have shown it.” ~ Heather

or I’ll read to you and the kids (or to anyone you love) on the busy nights, the crazy night, the just-bone-weary nights — and we’ll Unwrap the Greatest Gift together. “This is the best part of Christmas with our kids!” ~Jamie

And the Loveliest & ABSOLUTELY FREE BEAUTIFUL THINGS COMING THIS WAY TOMORROW — that we’ve been dreaming about for a long time and cannot wait to share with you! Stay tuned!

 

Light the Candles. Advent Devotionals. Week 03. JOY. [VIDEO experience]

Disclaimer: This ain’t all together or professional slick or anything… Just a simple, homemade video, taped by our Hope-girl, because God pressed it hard on our hearts to make a space for folks who may not have a community to celebrate the wonder and beauty of Advent? If you’re looking for an updated, fresh story, professional version, it’s our humble joy to serve you here

Join us and not Miss Him this year?

Hush the hurry… and find the holy… consider journeying with us through December with  The Greatest Gift , named the Best Devotional of 2014  & NYT bestseller  (free download of 25 ornaments with the book) —  or the brand new family read aloud edition,  Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, — a fresh, all new unwrapping of The Love Story — your love story … … God starting a Christmas revolution, us all turning toward Jesus.

And if you’d rather a professionally recorded, beautiful DVD Christmas experience here on the farm? There’s the professional, fresh, all-new material of  The Greatest Gift DVD Experience to truly hush the hurry and find the holy in December:  4 weeks of Advent: 4 holy sessions. Recorded on the farm. At the woods. In the barn. By the manger.  Come away from the whirl. Come into the candle light. Into the snow falling. Into the quiet of the barn & the depths of His Love.

Sit in the straw, in a circle of flickering candles, and feel the illuminating awe of God’s Word through the unfurling of the greatest love story ever told — Christmas’s full love story, right from the beginning of  His-Story, like you’ve never quite heard it told before.

Next Sunday? The Love Candle …  

Related: The quiet joy of having  The Greatest Christmas : How to Have the Best Christmas 

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [12.12.15]

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:

Kristen Kill 
Kristen Kill 
Kristen Kill

 There is the loveliest quiet to be had if you’d like…

yep, dare you not to laugh (keep your eye on the dog on the right)

go ahead and have one of those days

Change Please

brilliant! 

possibilities for friendship exist where you’d never expect them. ‘Tis the season to look for them

Eve and Ruth Oosterman – “Collaborations with my Toddler”
Eve and Ruth Oosterman – “Collaborations with my Toddler”

possibilities for beauty are everywhere — with anyone

one note. changed his perspective on parenting

a town tries to absolutely eradicate any possibility of this 

possibilities for fun? are about everywhere. SERIOUSLY.

LOOK AT YOU  BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE! 
 remember that Giveaway from last week?

Where we invited you to share how you & your beautiful people are  Unwrapping The Greatest Gift and savoring The Greatest Gift?

You’re choosing to focus on Him, to not miss Him this year & bravely have The Greatest Christmas this year!

Thrilled for Giveaway Winners of The Audio CD Edition of Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: Meaghan B., Heather M., Kris C.

Love…

Spotted on Instagram : Yeah, that. 

okay, no stress allowed —  because it’s just all about sharing, that’s all

Free gift tags and gift boxes!

Click over to The Greatest Christmas and 

Check out our whole library of free printable ornaments, Christmas cards,

gift tags, gifts boxes, scavenger hunt, Sticky Notes for Your Soul, Advent Calendars  and more —

our gift to you for The Greatest Christmas! 

this woman is just too much. Couldn’t love this more! 

more joy, please

Justine Bowen Facebook

“Negative will always make the news but positive rarely ever does. Today, I couldn’t be more thankful…”

glory

Want to preach Gospel to yourself through what can be the hard & hectic month of December?

Yeah, you and me both — I’m such a mess with chronic soul amnesia, who has to constantly evangelize myself everyday, preach Gospel back to myself every day — so I scratched out these because I desperately needed them for me: free 25 No-Stress Manifestos for every day of December,

Like an Advent Calendar for Big People, so we unwrap *Jesus* & not *stress*, so we unwrap the joy of the Gospel and not more of the weight of this world … just for you:

Free Stress-Free Holiday Sticky Notes for Your Soul, right here: No Stress Holiday Manifesto

 because there’s always the possibility of: Alleluia

Post of the Week from these parts here

and, honestly, who doesn’t need a whole lot of HOPE these days

“when you’re hoping for things to change for the better”

this completely undid us here

don’t leave the internet without watching this. 

because this is happening tomorrow

so go sign you & your people right here 

Millions of refugees will never leave the Middle East. Love them. Because we’re not guided by fear but by 

by Scripture and one person named Jesus Christ, who He Himself was a refugee.

 The Farmer and I watched this twice. Listened to the words.  

Because that’s part of the Christmas story: the Jesus was a child refugee.

Yes: “If you are missing a loved one this Christmas season,

okay, thinking every kid should say this pledge every morning (WOW!)

SURPRISE! undone

Weary mamas? Wound-up kids? This December? Could be The Greatest Christmas!

A gift of home …  so I choked up on this one. Twice. 

 just pure beauty

okay, maybe right now? we just need to hear it like a whisper in the midst of all the noise:

“What was intended to tear you apart– God intends it to set you apart.

What has torn you — God makes a thin place to see glory.

The places where you’re torn to pieces can be thin places where you touch the peace of God.

God is never absent, 

never impotent,

never distant.

You can never be undone.

No matter what intends to harm you?

God’s arms have you.”

If God can transfigure the greatest evil into the greatest Gift, He intends to turn whatever you’re experiencing now into a gift. You cannot be undone.

And we could feel it right now– His everlasting arms underneath of us…

~excerpt from The Greatest Gift

[ print’s free for you here ]

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.

how to see your way through things right now

Matt Brown is a regular kind of guy who has dedicated his life to simply, humbly, daily spreading the gospel. His latest book Awakening is about opening eyes to the wonder and beauty of the gospel in fresh, unexpected ways.  It’s a humble grace to welcome Matt to the farm’s front porch today…  

by Matt Brown

My wife Michelle and I visited San Francisco a year and a half ago.

It was our third trip there, and we really have fallen in love with the area.

On this recent trip, through a series of unexpected moments, we ended up by the bay at America’s Cup yacht races, where we heard the story of Alex Thomson, who had sailed solo, non-stop around the world multiple times.

To give some perspective:

3,000 people have climbed Mount Everest;

500 people have been to space;

but less than 100 have sailed solo nonstop around the world.

Alex had done this multiple times as part of the Vendée Globe, an 80-day solo race around the world.

Nearly half of the racers don’t finish the race.

Racers can’t get more than 20 minutes of sleep at a time for the duration of the race because they are single-handedly racing such a large boat, which typically takes 16 or more people to sail.

Racers consume more than 5,000 calories of freeze-dried food per day and endure a test of will, strength, and stamina that is unparalleled in the sports world. If the boat capsized out in the frigid waters, escape would be virtually impossible… he would die.

Thomson shares about this experience, when he’s out in the middle of the Ocean all by himself, as the waves pound on every side, he is “overcome with a feeling of smallness. He realizes how insignificant he is in the midst of the surging, awe-inspiring waves.”

Imagine his epiphany out there in the middle of the massive Ocean!

I couldn’t help but think about how I needed a moment like this.

How we all need a moment like this.

Maybe we could skip the freeze-dried meals and crazy sleep schedules, but if we could all be hit with his moment of the realization of his own tiny smallness… if we could be overcome, and left breathless as we are surrounded by the awe-inspiring working of God all around us.

Psalm 42:7 says, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” Prophet Habakkuk says “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

John Piper says, “God is always doing 10,000 things in our lives, and we may be aware of 3 of them.”

But what if we could be more aware of what God is doing all around us?

What if we could have an awe-inspiring, glorious moment like Alex Thomson in the middle of the raging Ocean waves?

What if we could see like Dr. Piper says, even 3 more of the 10,000 things God is doing that are in answers to countless prayers we have prayed, and tears we have shed.

Isn’t this what Christmas teaches us more than anything?

That: God’s greatest mercies often come in the most unexpected packages.

The Christmas child born in the forgotten little town far away from the hustle and bustle of the earth’s important empires.

Even the little inn didn’t have a room, so He entered the world among the farm animals. And there was very little fanfare.

Yes, some angels did sing, but only some lowly shepherds and their sheep were around to catch a glimpse of the most historic and earth-shattering day in all of eternity.

Yes, some wise men sought Him and brought the Christmas child gifts based off their ancient foretelling and the path of the stars. There were hints along the way, but you couldn’t see it without looking.

The announcement was there, but you had to catch it. You had to care.

What if instead of worrying about the 10,000 things we have to do this Christmas season, we spent it looking for more of the 10,000 things God is already doing in our lives? 

There are endless treasures (Ephesians 3:8) that have come to us in the Christmas child, but how often are we too busy to notice?

God wants us to have faith in His nearness, and that He will reward us when we earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Our eyes are so bleak sometimes. We all struggle with some degree of spiritual blindness.

Paul tell us, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Maybe this is why we will never stop worshiping the Christmas child in heaven – not to robotically follow along, not because singing is the only thing to do, but because the veil will be removed, and we will finally see…finally see God for the all-glorious, unbelievably infinite, soul-overwhelming Being that He is.

My friend Rich Langton explains, “God doesn’t just do good, He’s the definition of good. Everything we think of as good ultimately reflects Him!”

Another leader has shared, “When this season of life is finished and the full story is told, we will not have even one small complaint with the leadership of God.”

In heaven, we will finally be fully seeing the One who has carried us far more often that we ever realized, and kept us far more frequently than we could ever imagine.

Worship is a result of seeing.  The more we truly see God through the foggy, darkened mirror of our sinful souls, the more our souls cannot help but bend to worship and thank.

Paul explains further in his second letter to the Corinthian church. As a spiritual father, he wants them to see the glorious light of all God is and does:

“The god of this age has blinded… minds… so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. …

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians  4:3-6)

This is what it means to see – to become aware of God and His goodness and astonishing working all around us so that the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Seeing changes everything. We need God to open our eyes.

This is what the advent season is all about.

Looking with anticipation toward the Christmas child, and asking our Father in heaven to clear our foggy eyes so we can see some more…

stopping, seeking, caring…

so that we won’t miss the Christmas child in all His humble glory and splendor.

“I pray your hearts will be flooded with light —

so you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called.” (Ephesians 1:18)

 

 

Matt Brown’s new book Awakening: How God’s Next Great Move Inspires & Influences Our Lives Today

is a thoughtful trustworthy guide to help you see what God is doing all around you.

It’s an invitation to a way of seeing the wonder and beauty of the gospel in unexpected ways that revive the soul. Awakening is a book that at every turn awakens believers to God’s amazing work, and how they can be inspired to see the the hand of God in their own community and church. This could be an advent of Awakening…

when you’re hoping for things to change for the better

She’d dropped her voice when she told me that first Sunday of Advent that the kid had tried to kill himself.

That there had been texts, photos of a rope, proof of how it was going to be done.

And then this call to 911.

This was the part that she didn’t have words for.

Her hands flailed a bit, like she was drowning, like her flooding tears were drowning her, and she choked and flailed, reached for words to steady herself, as if she could just find words, she could drag herself up out of the depths.

How do you make words stretch around an entire ocean of ache?

When your heart is detonated on an unassuming morning in December and this whole dam lets go and you’re swept away in this flood of pain?

She stood there in front of me like a woman underwater, like a woman underwater who kept talking, as if words were coming out, as if I could hear them, but there were no sounds. Only this death gurgle.

There was nothing that seemed right except to look right into her eyes and not look away. Death gurgles can’t be helped up to air by words, by mere, smothering words.

Death gurgles only gasp relief with the gift of presence, by someone taking you close, lifting you with the soundless warmth of themselves.

I reached for her hand. We found our legs and stood. We went for a walk. Yeah, no chocolate therapy. Neither one of us drink. So you do what teetolaters and 40-something women who don’t need anymore calories can actually do – I asked her if she had time to step into the conservatory down by the river.

The butterfly conservatory on the first Sunday of Advent. The first Sunday of Advent when everywhere there is this lighting of the Hope candle. When hope rattled more like a death gurgle in her and the boy was somewhere in the bowels of a pyschiatric ward where they try to wrench you from ropes and bed sheets and your own strangling demons.

Maybe if she saw the lighting and flying, maybe she could believe in things unseen?

I held the conservatory’s door open for her.

It’s what hit you when you first stepped into the glass dome — the lightness of the air in here. Here, for a moment, she could breathe here. The waterfall kept murmuring of things coming from somewhere else. Wings, everywhere wings, lighting and lifting, a thousand wings.

She did put one foot in front of the other. This can be biggest brave.

And what she was feeling were actual facts — the boy had been pummelled. People who should have loved him had abused him of all dignity. Places that should have carried him had mercilessly, mockingly crushed him. Promises that should have helped him up had laughed loud and kicked him in the gut. How busted up can you be before your only future is to bust up everyone else?

How do you sand down the razor shards of a shattered heart and piece them together enough so they don’t go around blithely slashing everyone else? How do you hope unlikely things because you love someone to death?

We stood for a long time and stared at the chrysalises.

Thin sheens hung by threads. It didn’t seem possible – that out of silken threads, wings unfolded wet. But we watched it happen.

There were no words. Simply witnessing. We sat at the waterfall. We waited.

“A blue one….” she said it quiet.

“I need just one photo of a blue morpho butterfly, and then we really have to go.” Yes, the morpho butterfly — whose very name means changed. We all need to believe that things can change.

So we tried.

Like wanna-be hunters on some scam safari, weilding cameras for just one shot, we slunk up quiet to this bloom with its mouth opened like a candy bowl of tempting nectar, we snuck behind that lily and this leaf, and the whole farce was good comic relief, us looking more like bad detectives in a cheap 1970’s rerun. Everywhere morpho butterflies slapped shut their inner blue wings, stared back steely at us with their drab outer brown wings.

Please, Lord – just give her one open spread of blue wings. For crying prayers out loud, just a bit of hope to take out of here.

We waited. Did what the wisest have always done: Waited and Hoped. And the morpho butterfly just outwaited us.

Flitted blue now and then, always a flash on the periphery, glanced us with possibility, but wherever we spun, it locked us out with a determined bland brown.

We’re standing there with our waiting cameras and our frames of brown, without a hint of blue —

and I look over at my friend and you can read it like a headline, her flat resignation.

Like she’s struggling to breathe again.

A walk through a butterfly conservatory that was supposed to be this metaphor of hope — is fast turning into this mockery of hope.

Sometimes believing in a miracle feels like living in a mirage. You can feel like a fool, walking around with your pitcher. Waiting for a picture.



Really, God? Really?

“My battery is about dead…” She looks down at her camera. She doesn’t have to tell me that there’s a lot more deadened than that. “Let’s go.”

I turn my camera off, nod. What else do you say to a woman who just can’t stand the teasing evasiveness of hope mocking her one moment longer?

So I duck under some leaves across the conservatory walkway and a conservatory park ranger brushes past me and I look for the door – and the park ranger whispers: S.T.O.P.

“One of the morphos has landed on you. Right on you.”

I don’t move. I turn slow to look for his stubborn outer brown wings.

“And he’s wide open blue.” The park ranger kneels. “You don’t understand — they don’t do this. They’re the ones that don’t land on people. And they about never rest in their wide open blue.”

My friend nods, she knows, mouth wide open, raising her camera, she knows.

She clicks, snaps, shoots, takes more. More people stop, take more photos. The park ranger asks for my camera, takes a few more. “You don’t understand,” he whispers… “it’s about impossible to get photos of them with their wings in their open blue.”

I nod – whisper it over the indigo wings open there on my shoulder: “And then sometimes — the impossible unfolds into the possible.”

I look over at my friend… who is brimming. Spilling.

Tears are never a sign of weakness. Tears are always the sign of an open heart.

And I mouth it to her, like it’s more certain without any sound, like I don’t want it to slip away from either one of us:

“HOPE.”

It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Hope candles are lit everywhere. God is giving you Hope. 

Hope — for you. 

For you with the kid that seems to have no way through, for you with the heart beaten right down, for you with so much black in front of you that you can’t find the light, for you who can’t see tomorrow being any glint bit better than today —

Hope lights on you and Hope’s just up ahead nodding that it’s going to be okay — you will be okay.

My friend, she’s nodding at me. Nodding at this wide open blue butterfly on my shoulder. And her face is right wet, an ocean of ache running like a waterfall of hope now, right off the edge of her chin, and she chokes it out — “How could we ever not believe? How can we ever not hope in impossible things now?”

The butterfly refuses to close its wings — refuses to do anything but remain open. 

And I nod yes, yes because it’s a paradox: the way to hold fast to what you’re hoping for, is to hold that Hope with openness.

With openness, hold fast to that Hope —  for if the Hope ebbs away, you become a broken wing who cannot fly.

No matter how we’re hurting — it’s only when we lose hope that the real horror happens.

She’s shoulder wracked, wet, heaving with the relief of it and I pull her close and pray like we’ve been touched, like He’s come near the very first Sunday of Advent and Hope candles blazing everywhere unwavering and there’s a boy who can believe — and live —  and there’s a weary woman who’s rising and there’s Christ who comes to give us the gift every one wants more than anything — a future and a hope.

“25 minutes.” She whispers. “That morph butterfly has sat on your shoulder for almost 25 minutes.”

And I nod. Of course.

The very least you can do with your life is welcome in Hope. And He has a name.

And the very best you can do with your life is build a life with Hope.

Live right under a roof of Hope.

Sure, hope feels risky. Sure, hope feels like you’re under a fragile roof that could implode, a roof that could get ripped off and leave you staring up at the sky.

But then you’d just stand and look and trust you were meant to see stars.

You’d just stand and look and trust that you were meant to soar. 

The morpho butterfly  rests with these open wings on me.

And we rest with these open hands in Him.

And we walk on through, the winged thing never leaving, never leaving, never closing, and it’s a bit like what Dickinson said, but different, and it all still clings to me–

“Hope is the thing with wings

That lands at the end of you

And shows you how to open to possibilities

So you never close again.”

 

 

Related:

How to Have the Best Christmas (video)

The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas

Click over to The Greatest Christmas and Check out our whole library of free printable ornaments, cards, gift tags, gifts boxes, Sticky Notes for Your Soul, Advent Calendars and more — our gift to you for The Greatest Christmas! 

when you have no idea how to hope for things to get better in this world

She’d dropped her voice when she told me that first Sunday of Advent that the kid had tried to kill himself.

That there had been texts, photos of a rope, proof of how it was going to be done.

And then this call to 911.

This was the part that she didn’t have words for.

Her hands flailed a bit, like she was drowning, like her flooding tears were drowning her, and she choked and flailed, reached for words to steady herself, as if she could just find words, she could drag herself up out of the depths.

How do you make words stretch around an entire ocean of ache?

When your heart is detonated on an unassuming morning in December and this whole dam lets go and you’re swept away in this flood of pain?

She stood there in front of me like a woman underwater, like a woman underwater who kept talking, as if words were coming out, as if I could hear them, but there were no sounds. Only this death gurgle.

There was nothing that seemed right except to look right into her eyes and not look away. Death gurgles can’t be helped up to air by words, by mere, smothering words.

Death gurgles only gasp relief with the gift of presence, by someone taking you close, lifting you with the soundless warmth of themselves.

I reached for her hand. We found our legs and stood. We went for a walk. Yeah, no chocolate therapy. Neither one of us drink. So you do what teetolaters and 40-something women who don’t need anymore calories can actually do – I asked her if she had time to step into the conservatory down by the river.

The butterfly conservatory on the first Sunday of Advent. The first Sunday of Advent when everywhere there is this lighting of the Hope candle. When hope rattled more like a death gurgle in her and the boy was somewhere in the bowels of a pyschiatric ward where they try to wrench you from ropes and bed sheets and your own strangling demons.

Maybe if she saw the lighting and flying, maybe she could believe in things unseen?

I held the conservatory’s door open for her.

It’s what hit you when you first stepped into the glass dome — the lightness of the air in here. Here, for a moment, she could breathe here. The waterfall kept murmuring of things coming from somewhere else. Wings, everywhere wings, lighting and lifting, a thousand wings.

She did put one foot in front of the other. This can be biggest brave.

And what she was feeling were actual facts — the boy had been pummelled. People who should have loved him had abused him of all dignity. Places that should have carried him had mercilessly, mockingly crushed him. Promises that should have helped him up had laughed loud and kicked him in the gut. How busted up can you be before your only future is to bust up everyone else?

How do you sand down the razor shards of a shattered heart and piece them together enough so they don’t go around blithely slashing everyone else? How do you hope unlikely things because you love someone to death?

We stood for a long time and stared at the chrysalises.

Thin sheens hung by threads. It didn’t seem possible – that out of silken threads, wings unfolded wet. But we watched it happen.

There were no words. Simply witnessing. We sat at the waterfall. We waited.

“A blue one….” she said it quiet.

“I need just one photo of a blue morpho butterfly, and then we really have to go.” Yes, the morpho butterfly — whose very name means changed. We all need to believe that things can change.

So we tried.

Like wanna-be hunters on some scam safari, weilding cameras for just one shot, we slunk up quiet to this bloom with its mouth opened like a candy bowl of tempting nectar, we snuck behind that lily and this leaf, and the whole farce was good comic relief, us looking more like bad detectives in a cheap 1970’s rerun. Everywhere morpho butterflies slapped shut their inner blue wings, stared back steely at us with their drab outer brown wings.

Please, Lord – just give her one open spread of blue wings. For crying prayers out loud, just a bit of hope to take out of here.

We waited. Did what the wisest have always done: Waited and Hoped. And the morpho butterfly just outwaited us.

Flitted blue now and then, always a flash on the periphery, glanced us with possibility, but wherever we spun, it locked us out with a determined bland brown.

We’re standing there with our waiting cameras and our frames of brown, without a hint of blue —

and I look over at my friend and you can read it like a headline, her flat resignation.

Like she’s struggling to breathe again.

A walk through a butterfly conservatory that was supposed to be this metaphor of hope — is fast turning into this mockery of hope.

Sometimes believing in a miracle feels like living in a mirage. You can feel like a fool, walking around with your pitcher. Waiting for a picture.



Really, God? Really?

“My battery is about dead…” She looks down at her camera. She doesn’t have to tell me that there’s a lot more deadened than that. “Let’s go.”

I turn my camera off, nod. What else do you say to a woman who just can’t stand the teasing evasiveness of hope mocking her one moment longer?

So I duck under some leaves across the conservatory walkway and a conservatory park ranger brushes past me and I look for the door – and the park ranger whispers: S.T.O.P.

“One of the morphos has landed on you. Right on you.”

I don’t move. I turn slow to look for his stubborn outer brown wings.

“And he’s wide open blue.” The park ranger kneels. “You don’t understand — they don’t do this. They’re the ones that don’t land on people. And they about never rest in their wide open blue.”

My friend nods, she knows, mouth wide open, raising her camera, she knows.

She clicks, snaps, shoots, takes more. More people stop, take more photos. The park ranger asks for my camera, takes a few more. “You don’t understand,” he whispers… “it’s about impossible to get photos of them with their wings in their open blue.”

I nod – whisper it over the indigo wings open there on my shoulder: “And then sometimes — the impossible unfolds into the possible.”

I look over at my friend… who is brimming. Spilling.

Tears are never a sign of weakness. Tears are always the sign of an open heart.

And I mouth it to her, like it’s more certain without any sound, like I don’t want it to slip away from either one of us:

“HOPE.”

It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Hope candles are lit everywhere. God is giving you Hope. 

Hope — for you. 

For you with the kid that seems to have no way through, for you with the heart beaten right down, for you with so much black in front of you that you can’t find the light, for you who can’t see tomorrow being any glint bit better than today —

Hope lights on you and Hope’s just up ahead nodding that it’s going to be okay — you will be okay.

My friend, she’s nodding at me. Nodding at this wide open blue butterfly on my shoulder. And her face is right wet, an ocean of ache running like a waterfall of hope now, right off the edge of her chin, and she chokes it out — “How could we ever not believe? How can we ever not hope in impossible things now?”

The butterfly refuses to close its wings — refuses to do anything but remain open. 

And I nod yes, yes because it’s a paradox: the way to hold fast to what you’re hoping for, is to hold that Hope with openness.

With openness, hold fast to that Hope —  for if the Hope ebbs away, you become a broken wing who cannot fly.

No matter how we’re hurting — it’s only when we lose hope that the real horror happens.

She’s shoulder wracked, wet, heaving with the relief of it and I pull her close and pray like we’ve been touched, like He’s come near the very first Sunday of Advent and Hope candles blazing everywhere unwavering and there’s a boy who can believe — and live —  and there’s a weary woman who’s rising and there’s Christ who comes to give us the gift every one wants more than anything — a future and a hope.

“25 minutes.” She whispers. “That morph butterfly has sat on your shoulder for almost 25 minutes.”

And I nod. Of course.

The very least you can do with your life is welcome in Hope. And He has a name.

And the very best you can do with your life is build a life with Hope.

Live right under a roof of Hope.

Sure, hope feels risky. Sure, hope feels like you’re under a fragile roof that could implode, a roof that could get ripped off and leave you staring up at the sky.

But then you’d just stand and look and trust you were meant to see stars.

You’d just stand and look and trust that you were meant to soar. 

The morpho butterfly  rests with these open wings on me.

And we rest with these open hands in Him.

And we walk on through, the winged thing never leaving, never leaving, never closing, and it’s a bit like what Dickinson said, but different, and it all still clings to me–

“Hope is the thing with wings

That lands at the end of you

And shows you how to open to possibilities

So you never close again.”

 

 

Related:

How to Have the Best Christmas (video)

The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas

Click over to The Greatest Christmas and Check out our whole library of free printable ornaments, cards, gift tags, gifts boxes, Sticky Notes for Your Soul, Advent Calendars and more — our gift to you for The Greatest Christmas! 

Light the Candles. Advent Devotionals. The Second Sunday: PEACE. [VIDEO experience]

Disclaimer: This ain’t all together or professional slick or anything… Just a simple, homemade video, taped by our Hope-girl, because God pressed it hard on our hearts to make a space for folks who may not have a community to celebrate the wonder and beauty of Advent? If you’re looking for an updated, fresh story, professional version, it’s our humble joy to serve you here

Join us and not Miss Him this year?

Hush the hurry… and find the holy… consider journeying with us through December with  The Greatest Gift , named the Best Devotional of 2014  & NYT bestseller  (free download of 25 ornaments with the book) —  or the family read aloud edition,  Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, — a fresh, all new unwrapping of The Love Story — your love story … … God starting a Christmas revolution, us all turning toward Jesus.

And if you’d rather a professionally recorded, beautiful DVD Christmas experience here on the farm? There’s the professional, fresh, all-new material of  The Greatest Gift DVD Experience to truly hush the hurry and find the holy in December:  4 weeks of Advent: 4 holy sessions. Recorded on the farm. At the woods. In the barn. By the manger.  Come away from the whirl. Come into the candle light. Into the snow falling. Into the quiet of the barn & the depths of His Love.

Sit in the straw, in a circle of flickering candles, and feel the illuminating awe of God’s Word through the unfurling of the greatest love story ever told — Christmas’s full love story, right from the beginning of  His-Story, like you’ve never quite heard it told before.

Next Sunday? The Joy Candle …  

Related: The quiet joy of having  The Greatest Christmas : How to Have the Best Christmas