Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 197
August 14, 2015
August 13, 2015
when you’re trying to live through change … & finding joy is hard
so the next glorious installment of our Unwrapping Series (have you checked these out?) and today, one of my favourite people in the world, who has welcomed both our daughters around her table and I’ve sat around tables with her and her brilliant girls and shared hearts late into the night, the photographer, Mary Anne Morgan, who knows the art of of seeing the present moment as a gift. When we see calendars not so much as rows of boxes of things we have to do — but as boxes that we get to unwrap — the present moment always because a gift.
guest post and photos by Mary Anne Morgan
W hen we moved to our little farm 15 years ago, I was a busy homeschool mom with three children under my wings.
My life was wonderfully hectic. Katie was twelve, Annie was ten, and Johnny was seven. I was happy as the nucleus of our home, with life swirling round and round about me.
Then, one by one, my birdies did what I had been teaching them to do all along.
They flew away.
I felt lost, and not just a little. I could not find my bearings.
I was trying to find my place in this world again.
In 2012, I read Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts — and my perspective began to change.
The idea that I could continually unwrap gifts (that otherwise felt fleeting) just by writing them down and giving thanks for them was transformational for me.
So I began.
Katydids syncopating softly, rocking us to sleep.
Puffy cloud skies over the green pastures.
Bright red pajamas.
Reflections of the porch lights in my morning coffee.
Soft horse noses that smell like sweet hay.
And so it went.
I could feel my heart shifting from a sense of emptiness into a deep gratitude. The places I felt were barren were actually brimming with life.
It didn’t come overnight, but it did come with practice and the more I practiced the more I benefited.
Joy soon followed and, along with her, a return to my child-like heart.
I was not just a lonely woman who no longer felt she had a purpose. I was a child of the Living God who poured out His love to me daily in a thousand little ways.
It is now 2015 and my nest is still empty. My birdies do fly home occasionally to visit and then head back to their new respective flocks.
I sometimes find myself held captive by grief and anxiety as I navigate the waters of these awkward transitions. Counting graces always helps me to find my way home into worship. Once I can get onto the path of worship, my feet will carry me into the arms of God.
Thank you, Father.
I am grateful for:
glistening water from the garden hose,
summer lights hanging dreamily from a tree,
blue porches and red swings, ripe tomatoes on the sill, children snuggling chickens,
a butterfly warming her wings among Black-Eyed Susans,
fuzzy bumble bees satiated and sleepy,
summer puddles where heaven meets earth.
And on and on it goes.
I am rich indeed.
I may not always know my place in this world. Things are ever changing.
But in counting gifts I can always find my place in God.
In His heart.
He alone holds me as He continues to enfold me in His love.
Mary Anne Morgan is a writer and photographer and wife to a worship pastor in the Atlanta area. She is passionate about capturing the glory of God that is found in people and the earth.
I just simply love this woman and her tender heart. You can find her most days playing with her horses and dogs or chatting with her chickens. Her little corner of the blog world is one of my wells of life-giving inspiration: maryannemorganblog.com and on Instagram.
August 12, 2015
when our bigs plans & unspoken dreams aren’t turning out at all
So you know someone has something really meaningful to say when your 16 year-old daughter decides to pack up that book as the only one, excepting her Bible, that she takes all the way to Africa with her. I’ve met by Eugene Cho several times, and when the man speaks, my heart is moved. Convicted. Changed. And when our Hope-girl flew to Africa, the only book she took was his latest: Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World Than Actually Changing the World? , and she read it cover to cover, came home, and has kept it right with her Bible, re-reading and re-reading it. This is a man to listen to — because he’s listening to the Father’s heart. An incredible privilege to welcome Eugene Cho to the farm’s front porch today…
The day after Trinity was born, Minhee was still at the hospital resting and we were eager to return home.
In between visits to the hospital and our home, I made a quick visit to a local Barnes and Noble, the large retail bookstore, in search of a photo album for our new baby.
As I was coming out of the restroom, I ran into John—a congregant from my former church. To be honest, I was a bit embarrassed because he asked me how I was doing and, in particular, how the new church plant was doing.
I smiled, awkwardly dancing around the reality.
“Are you doing okay, Pastor Eugene?” John said.
“Yeah. Yeah … Actually, it’s been a roller coaster. Minhee and I just welcomed our second child yesterday. We’re thrilled, but we’ve been having a hard time starting the church. Actually, there is no church as of yet. I’ve actually been looking for a job for the past six months.
Keep us in your prayers.”
“Wow, Pastor Eugene. Congratulations on the baby, and I’m sorry to hear that it’s been so difficult with church and job hunting.”
“Yeah,” I say as I begin to retreat. “It’s cool. Great seeing you.”
“Actually, Pastor Eugene, wait a minute. If you want it, I can give you a job right now.”
“What? Really? What job?”
“I’m here at Barnes and Noble today to sign a contract. I run a custodial services company, and I just landed a contract to provide services here. Um, do you want the job?”
“Wow. Okay. Sure. Yes.”
And just like that, I began my new job as a custodian two days later. I could not help but chuckle as I was cleaning the toilet I had been sitting on two days before (I know — too much information).
After the first couple of days of excitement from just having a job, reality set in.
I thought, Wow. I’m a custodian. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being a custodian.
Nothing at all.
It’s just that this was the furthest thing I had envisioned when I left my previous church job to plant Quest Church. It wasn’t part of my strategic plan.
Furthermore, I quickly learned that it was incredibly difficult work.
I had to clean a 40,000-square-foot store, by myself, in the early morning hours between six and nine. There was no time to fool around, so I had to set up a strategy: bathrooms, vacuuming, and then dusting.
That was the game plan every day. When I arrived in the mornings, it was just me and the employees preparing to open the store.
I went straight to the janitor’s closet. I gathered my supplies and started working.
I first headed to the bathrooms because they needed time to dry out. I scrubbed the toilets, cleaned the urinals and then the sinks, wiped the walls, restocked supplies, and finally mopped the floors.
After cleaning the bathrooms, I quickly vacuumed. I needed to vacuum before the store opened at nine, so as not to disturb the customers. Dusting could continue once the doors opened.
I worked as fast as I possibly could. I sweated hard every day because there was rarely a moment to pause. It was all constant movement. For those three hours each morning, I experienced one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had.
On top of that, the job was humbling and not what I had envisioned as my post-seminary profession.
If I’m honest, I struggled with my pride.
My self-esteem.
How I looked at myself.
I had difficulties sharing with my family what was going on. I was always trying to hide how I was feeling. My responses were often, “I’m doing okay. Hanging in there.”
That time in my life, and in the life of my family, was difficult and one of the most trying seasons of our lives.
However, God surprised me by providing the Barnes and Noble janitorial job.
He surprised me with His grace and developed my character in the face of these challenges. I worked hard and was able to provide for our family. The Lord gave us enough.
This was indeed an answer to prayer.
After six months of looking for every kind of work, I could finally provide for my family. As a husband and a father, perhaps I place more emphasis on these things than I should. But it is important to me to take care of my wife, to take care of my kids. You see, during those months, Minhee and our kids were on a form of government-subsidized food stamp program—Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
This season wasn’t just about a job or just about paying bills.
It was about us learning to surrender and to trust God.
It was about learning to be still before the Lord and seeking His voice and presence in our lives.
My janitorial job lasted almost a year, but when I look back, it wasn’t just merely God providing for our family.
It was also the process by which He resurrected the dry bones of my life amid the scarcity of faith and trust, and the clutter of so much noise and self-doubt.
It was the journey by which God reignited my joy in, and reliance on, prayer.
I prayed in the most honest way I had in a long time.
When you are a minister or a pastor, you pray because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Perhaps prayer is the challenge for you too. Perhaps it is the challenge for all of us.
At six o’clock in the morning, in a big, empty store, you’re dusting, scrubbing, and vacuuming.
When you do this kind of work for several hours, you’re essentially all alone. No one watches you. There is no microphone or sound system. No video cameras. No one’s tweeting or updating their Facebook status about how much they love your teaching or illustrations. There are no expectations (beyond clean bathrooms and floors). There is not liturgy to read or lead.
What do you do?
What can you do?
Well … you pray.
At least that’s what I was compelled to do.
I had honest and raw conversations with God—a sequel of sorts to the prayer time that began in my office several weeks before I got the job.
The prayers in these early mornings were so terrifying, refreshing, and convicting. It was just me and God talking, beyond the religious jargon, beyond the phrases, beyond the Christianese that we sometimes hide behind.
God and me. Listening. Talking. Singing. Praying. Wrestling.
There were prayers of confession about self-reliance. About bitterness. About my schedule, my timetable (aka my Excel spreadsheet plans), my agenda, my dreams, and my will. The confession of the challenge of “my will be done versus thy will be done.”
As I hustled and sweated around that store, I prayed for Minhee, Jubilee, and Trinity, who was only weeks old. I prayed about the vision to plant a church. About wanting to listen to God well. Praying that God would bless this church.
But again, being mindful about listening well and resisting my natural tendency to go before God.
One of the best things that happened in that season of my life was that God used it to break me, to help me see and surrender to His will. I was reminded of these words from Henri Nouwen: “Just as bread needs to be broken in order to be given, so, too, do our lives.”
As I sought clarity, answers, strategies, His favor, and divine appointments, God simply prompted me to ask myself: To whom should I surrender? I love the wisdom in this quote from C. S. Lewis that captures this truth: “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer.”
We can go through times that seem like spiritual and emotional deserts. In the barren landscape of those uncertain times, there’s often a prime opportunity to pause. There’s prime opportunity to pray and to listen for the voice of God speaking comfort and assurance through uncertainty.
We need to allow God to break us. We need to escape our self-absorbed blindness and see life illuminated in the light of God.
In other words, let’s not be so consumed by our own visions that we forget the God who gave us those visions and dreams in the first place.
We worship God, not our visions and dreams.
We worship God, not our plans and strategies.
Heed these beautiful words:
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb. 12:1–2)
Indeed. May we fix our eyes on Jesus.
Eugene Cho is the founder and Lead Pastor of Quest Church – an urban, multi-cultural and multi-generational church in Seattle, Washington – as well as the founder and visionary of One Day’s Wages (ODW) – “a grassroots movement of people, stories, and actions to alleviate extreme global poverty.” Since its launch in October 2009, ODW has raised over $2.9 million dollars for projects to empower those living in extreme global poverty. He’s one of my favourite follows on Facebook.
Eugene recently released his first book, of which Louie Giglio said, “Real, Personal, and a Must-Read”: Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World Than Actually Changing the World? When you’re done talking about the gospel and are ready for your walking to be the gospel: Start here. I desperately needed this book. Five star.
August 11, 2015
when your family feels frayed & disconnected: the habit of a daily walk
so the next glorious installment of our Unwrapping Series (have you checked these out?) and today, a bit of a wander with a life-giving artistic woman, Laura Bastien, whom I’ve known since we only had 3 little ones, who has helped me navigate teaching and home educating, who has grown up a family with ours, and who knows the art of of seeing the present moment as a gift. When we see calendars not so much as rows of boxes to fill up with things to do — but as boxes that we get to unwrap — the present moment always because a gift.
guest post and photos by the lovely Laura Bastien
T his past June my husband, our four daughters (our adult son couldn’t join us), and I spent a week at a beach house on California’s Sonoma Coast.
And despite our oldest daughter developing a kidney infection that kept her house-ridden for most of our stay, our days were deliciously slow and full.
We spent hours on the beach everyday eagerly combing the sand for treasures to marvel at and happily tuck in our collecting bags to show big sister back at the house.
We found shells, whole and broken, worn smooth by the waves, satin smooth pieces of driftwood, and beautiful rocks that change color once dry.
We found bumpy sea stars and cranky crabs. We flew kites and built sand castles.
We raced waves trying to keep our feet out of the chilly water, and we got soaked by waves far bigger than we estimated.
We LIVED on the beach.
August 8, 2015
Links for 2015-08-07 [del.icio.us]
sharing good news: "...researchers believe they have found a cause for one form of the disorder."
August 7, 2015
Links for 2015-08-06 [del.icio.us]
@LysaTerKeurst... how Lysa writes about her son, David. Healing, lavish grace....
Collective Voices Rising about Abortion
@Christianitytoday.com... from all walks, and all stories, a grace-filled holding on of each other
August 6, 2015
An Honest Conversation About Abortion that Asks Us Not to Turn Away — from anyone: The Emmaus Option
When I get the message that Sozan wants an abortion, it feels like all the air got vacuumed out of my lungs.
But I get it.
I once sat in a doctor’s office and the atomic blast of my own pregnancy test ripped through me and I’m telling you, it was impossible to breathe through the shockwaves, the thermal heat.
I’ve sat with Sozan in Iraq, in the windowless, no-plumbing shipping container where, she, her husband, her children slept on the floor through the winter. I’d watched her rock her sick baby. I’d watched her eyes howl, heard the raw ache in her as she told me how ISIS began the blood bath genocide of her people.
“I will never forget what happened,” Murad Aloo said, who was there that day last August, when ISIS opened fire on the Yazidi people at the base of Sinjar mountain. “I saw mothers leaving their daughters behind, fearing for their own lives. I saw women and men being slaughtered, even pregnant women.”
There are a thousand ways to slaughter pregnant women.
One year later, one disorienting ride around the sun, in the horrific aftermath of that genocide, Sozan, looks around at a warring world, ISIS still slashing and burning its way across the belly of the Middle East — and she can sense it, what feels like hopeless desolation implanting right into the inner walls of her.
A string of nights, I can’t sleep, thinking of Sozan, thinking of her faced — strangled — with this impossible choice. First, she’s lived through the nightmarish holocaust choice to decide what child to leave behind as ISIS fires and decapitates and leaves a wake of bloody rivers that no one can seem to wake up and escape from —
and now what feels like this second impossible choice.
Abortion isn’t so much about a woman having a choice — but a woman feeling like she has no choice at all.
* * *
The first words I heard after I sat there reeling over those pink strips on my pregnancy test were:
“Have you thought about an abortion?”
The doctor, she was just trying to open a door. The room has no oxygen.
I’m a third-year university student. Starting my third week, of my third year. Just blown out the candles on my 21st birthday cake.
Married only a whole shaky 90 days.
Sheer terror can make people feel like all they have is terrible choices.
I had bent over the tiles of the doctor’s office like I might hurl.
Like I might lose everything.
The autumn leaves, they’d clung to the rain splattered window.
It’s not like I saw the doctor spin her chair or saw her lean forward. I just heard the mechanics of her rotation, the horrible spinning of everything.
“Really — have you thought about an abortion?”
For one lifelong moment, the atoms of everything split and spun and hung.
I couldn’t get out of the room — an atomic bomb had dropped, vaporized the future, titanic forces ripping through dreams, scalding heat liquefying everything, and there was no way out.
It felt like there was no way out.
* * *
I am not sure when I realized that I would best describe myself as thoroughly Pro-Woman: pro-woman in utero, pro-woman in a hard place.
Because ultimately — maybe that’s the point: How can we be Pro-Human — regardless of the environment of the human? How do we forge a way forward, that is the most authentically human — for both the human in utero and the human in a hard place?
It might be far more difficult, incredibly time-intensive, and profoundly challenging, but being for all human beings — is what it means to be authentically human.
The time has come to be done with either/or thinking and champion both/and thinking — being for both humans in utero and humans in crisis.… That’s what this generation is about — not turning a blind eye to any distress of any human anywhere.
This is the generation that’s ready to do whatever it takes to work toward the mutual flourishing of all humans, in all places — in utero and in crisis.
And as much as it is sometimes bandied about that the the abortion debate is about “values” rather than “facts” — the reality is that an authentic discussion around mutual human flourishing is about sound values based on scientific facts. We have to get our facts right so that we can get our values right. Thus, determining the scientific fact of when human life truly begins — is the beginning of a truly honest discussion… that is the beginning of the mutual flourishing of all human beings.
So maybe, ultimately, the question is: Is the unborn one of us? Are the pre-born — are they human beings like us?
The science textbooks in our universities testify to the facts: Based on universally accepted scientific criteria, “a zygote — an embryo, is the beginning of a new human being.”
Humans do not merely come from an zygote. Humans were once actually an actual zygote.
Humans do not merely come from a fetus. Humans were once actually an actual fetus.
No one says, “We are having a fetus!” — because we ultimately know we’re having a baby — we are carrying a human being.
We may be a smaller human in utero — but the size of a human being has never determined value of a human being.
We may be a less developed human in utero — but the developmental level of a human being has never determined that one has less worth as a human being.
We may be in a particular environment as a human in utero — but where a human being is has never determined whether one was respected as a human being.
We may be more dependent as a human in utero —- but being dependent on another human being for life has never determined that anyone can simply end your life. [see Stephen Schwarz‘s SLED.]
And because the life of the human in utero matters —- never negates how the life of a woman in crisis matters.
Like when twitter streams and streets fill with this cry that Black Lives Matter.
It doesn’t mean that all other lives don’t matter, it doesn’t mean a negating of anyone else’s life — it simply means that in this moment, in the face of great loss, we have the humanity to listen to real voices and say Black Lives Matter.
Saying one person’s life matters — doesn’t mean someone else’s life doesn’t matter. Or that only their lives matter —- but their lives equally matter too.
In 2012, New York City had more black babies killed by abortions (31,328) than there were born (24,758). Sit with that. That number of black babies accounted for almost half of all abortions in New York City. More blacks aborted than were born. Three American university researchers discovered that Planned Parenthood’s “primary consideration in placement of centres is not poverty but the percentage of blacks in the area.” Do we really believe #BlackLivesMatter?
Then human black lives in the womb matter.
And when we say that Human Life in the Womb Matters — it doesn’t mean then that the lives of Women in hard places don’t matter.
When we say that Womb Lives Matter — it doesn’t for one iota of a moment mean that women’s lives don’t count, don’t have a voice, don’t matter. When we say that Womb Lives Matter, we aren’t saying that only pre-born people matter and women don’t —- we are saying that pre-born people matter equally too.
It’s part of the DNA of true social justice: Humanity believes in mutual human flourishing — in the flourishing of all human beings.
History, genocides, Nazism, racism, haven’t they all proved at the very least this to humanity: It’s when we dehumanize anyone, that we can legitimize anything.
* * *
Graphic footage of pristine organs, a heart, a stomach, kidney — and a hand, a foot, legs — extracted from a 20-week-old aborted baby.
“It was a twin,” an employee says as she retrieves the body from the refrigerator.
Clearly developed hands and feet are seen in the dish, as the investigator pulls out a lung with a pair of tweezers.
“If we alter our process, and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, we can make it part of the budget” to cover “dissections” and “splitting the specimens into different shipments,” the director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melissa Farrell, says. “It’s all just a matter of line items.”
Line items?
Workers in a lab are seen sorting through body parts on a dish: a heart, stomach, kidney, and legs.
And then a medical assistant suddenly announces: “It’s another boy!”
It’s another boy? Like a human boy?
How does another human boy become line items of dissected organs, a split specimen into different shipments?
The video records it: A Planned Parenthood employee goes to lunch, says over her salad, that the fees paid for fetal human body parts adds tremendous “diversification of the revenue stream” for the Planned Parenthood affiliate.
How does a twin, another boy, a human, become dissected line items of body parts that adds “tremendous diversification of the revenue stream” of any civilization in 2015?
There are revenue streams that run like bloody rivers through our streets.
* * *
When I watched those videos, when I read the transcripts, of the blood and the babies and the cutting apart of of human body parts, straight up: I wanted to wish it away, close my eyes and just not bear witness.
But in bearing witness, we bear the weight of glory, of the God who bears sins and rises, and redemption requires testimony.
And maybe what could change this Pro-Choice, Pro-Life debate —- is that we all become Pro-Voice.
We could believe that every life has a voice — and we listen, no matter how much easier it would be justify, legitimize, or objectify. Listen to the voices of women, the voices of men.
And why raise our voices about these undercover Planned Parenthood videos, for the voices of the Voiceless Humans who soundlessly cry? Because when asked, “Have you seen or heard recent news about videos that supposedly show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of aborted fetus tissue, or not?”
“Only 27 percent said they had heard a lot.
Only 21 percent said they had heard a little.
But even now, after 5 released undercover videos exposing the dissecting of human bodies for financial gains by Planned Parenthood, 53 percent of respondents said they had not heard about the Planned Parenthood story at all.
And maybe for far too long we have turned away from these abortion videos because it’s us in the videos. It’s our babies, it’s our high school friends, it’s our sisters, it’s our own grief. As many as 1 out of 3 American women have had an abortion — and not one of this carries it alone. We failed them. This is our failure as a community. The tender mourning of all this is that: Abortion is always a failure of community. Every abortion is a failure of humanity: failing a human being in crisis and a human being in utero.
So maybe as a community, we just keep being Pro-Voice —- to listen and hear all the stories around abortion?
Realizing that our voice about women’s abortions — lacks authenticity unless we speak of male promiscuity.
How male promiscuity is about power and pleasure and no presence.
How male promiscuity is about sensuality and fertility and no responsibility.
How male promiscuity is about cultural instability.
Raising our voices about how when the Church is all about all the best looking good, instead of all the broken living grace, some of women don’t think we can take the shame. Some of us take an appointment.
Using our voices to ask: Why does the Church shame a woman for getting pregnant, shame her for aborting that baby —- yet what about realizing that it can be this shame for sin, that actually bullies into further sin, and what if instead of shaming — we weren’t ashamed of the Gospel of extravagant Grace?
The abortion debate offers that a woman is ultimately responsible alone for her child; the Gospel offers that no woman is ever alone and the Body of Christ is response-able to both woman and child.
The abortion debate is not so much about how we can somehow change the law, but how we can rise up and change how we show Gospel love.
To have any credibility in lobbying for laws against the abortion of babies, we must have the dependability of being the ones who open our doors for the welcoming of both hurting women and vulnerable children.
If the compassion of the world is “We do not want unwanted human beings born into the world” —- then the compassion of the Gospel has to be far more powerful.
The compassion of Christ-followers needs to literally and practically and sacrificially be: “We will not rest until all humans beings get to be born, because they are wanted.”
We will not rest until every single person in the church is stirred en masse to personally support one woman in need, one child in need, one family in need. Be it as a family for a woman who needs a safety net, or becoming a support for a fostering family, or becoming an adoptive family for a child.
We will not rest until there’s a pro-Human health centre in every single neighborhood, until we have not only talked about and modelled what it means not to confuse love and sex, what flourishing relationships really are, what healthy abstinence, sex education and birth control look like — and what making love really is, in the fullest sense of the word, so people don’t end up making babies they aren’t fully ready for.
We will not rest until we’ve all put our heads and our hands together to offer affordable, subsidized childcare, free preschools, no-cost or low-cost women’s full service health clinics.
We will not rest until we realize that it’s us who have to make ethical choices about our lives — from how we support viable minimum wages to where we buy our clothes and our food and our entertainment — if we are ever to ask women and men in unexpected places to make ethical choices about human life —- because it’s each of our unethical choices that effects the economy and the environment and the culture negatively — so that a woman feels like she can’t make an ethical choice.
We will not rest until we take the step after Facebook status updates — and get down on our knees and serve women who feel like they have no choice. Being Pro-Human will mean pro-human employers and educators who are pro-pregnancy, adapting jobs environments, offering paid maternity leaves, adapting educational options, offering real help and not leaving anyone in need.
Because being Pro-Human will mean that we will have to give up some of our choices — to show women that they any choice at all. Envisioning a world without abortions, means you have to envision a world in which you sacrifice so that women’s health needs are better met, so her future shines with brighter possibilities, so her dreams grow with wider and deeper hope.
Because being Pro-Human means putting our Gospel where our mouth and hands are — or, dare we say — stop bellyaching about how things are.
Because the call of the Church is never to stir up judgement, but to stir up love, stir up courage, stir up change.
And we will not rest from this way, though none of this will be breaking news, and it will mean we will have to break our plans, break our stereotypes, break our comfort zones, break our timelines, break our banks, to be broken and given and we will get to live The Emmaus Option. Maybe if we all lived The Emmaus Option — women would feel like they had real options.
* * *
And that boy of ours, that human being who was just beginning in me when the doctor asked me that question, asked me if I had thought about an abortion —- well, that boy messaged me this week, just a few weeks away from beginning his own third year of university.
“What would it take to enact true change?” he asks me after he’s watched the 5th video with its fingers and toes of a real little human, someone’s boy, sold as line items to offer tremendous “diversification a revenue stream.”
What does it say of our humanity when we place value on aborted human organs — but not on the human baby who had those organs?
We sit with that, how we failed woman and child. Every abortion is a failure of humanity: failing a human being in crisis and a human being in utero.
I get word — and exhale:
Preemptive Love has stood days beside Sozan. Listened to her fears and her worries, gave her voice — and offered to give her everything she needs. Including their unwavering hand. They live the Gospel, they pull skin up on to His compassion.
And Sozan isn’t faced with an impossible choice — but she faces an unspeakable gift — of a new child.
Something in me breaks open, spills. And I tell our boy: Change won’t be enacted until we all act differently — and we will not rest until there is change.
And outrage alone over abortions will never stop abortions; what always starts lasting change is outreach. Our humble outrage must grow into helpful, holy outreach — if we are ever going to help all humans grow and flourish.
And we will not rest because of the Sozans and the boys with dreams, because “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil… Not to speak is to speak. Not to act, is to act.” [Bonhoeffer]
A painting of one of Sozan’s people hangs on our wall — a little girl. I can’t turn away from the girl’s eyes, can’t turn away from the bunny rabbit brushed into the corner of the canvas, the voiceless dreams of a child — and the dreams of a mother for her child.
It’s strange how that is:
How when we don’t turn away — everything finally begins to turn.
Related:
To read further about these videos : partner with Preemptive Love to help women in Iraq receive the gift of Life : choose one Crisis Pregnancy Center & support it : a foundational post in my thinking: When You Need a Fresh Way Forward: The Emmaus Option
what your unlikely & unwanted places are looking for
the next glorious installment of our Unwrapping Series (have you checked these out?) so… an Unwrapping Summer post & gorgeous photos by Madyson Mayler
guest post and photos by Madyson Mayler
Summer is chock-full of long, sun filled days, spontaneous adventures and full hearts.
There is simple beauty in watching a sunset as waves crash or taking a bike ride through well worn trails.
If I could bottle it up, I’d hold onto a stash of these memories forever.
I’d store them away and hit replay, never letting go.
But I can’t store them all neatly and go back—and so I’ll choose to live each day fully. Fully invested and immersed where I am.
And to live invested means no room for worry or fear — but adventure and trust.
Moment by moment, sunrise by sunset, in the radiance of a sunflower, at the foot of a mountain—l’ll see His beauty.
His glory is a song and He teaches us to count His graces in step with the rhythm of His love.
Like the grace of long days started under the sun, ending with ice cream and sunsets. Baseball games or a field of wildflowers or journaling on a front porch swing.
In the most unlikely places, He meets us with who He is.
He pursues our fickle hearts with His glory in every season, so that our hearts may boast of His love alone.
And what a gift it is—to know and be known by Him, and to uncover His beauty each day.
Madyson’s Esty Shop “Beautiefull Things” was founded in January 2012 when two teenage sisters discovered an outlet to express their love for creativity and design. Madyson and Raegan’s prayer is that you will see what Christ can do in your life. His great power, might, glory. That you will see His love shining through them–even if it’s just a handmade scarf. He can take something ugly, and make it BEAUTIEFULL. You can find Maydson on Instagram here.
Links for 2015-08-05 [del.icio.us]
@TheNester.... this is a must read.
Earth's newest island
..."the 1,640-foot long volcanic island is still unexplored territory."
August 5, 2015
when you want to stop the very real suffocation of your soul
the next glorious installment of our Unwrapping Series (have you checked these out? Your soul & summer will exhale its thanks to you) so… an Unwrapping Summer post & gorgeous photos by The Soul Coach Emily Freeman
E very summer we head to the coast for a week or so.
Spend a little time letting the sea smooth out the jagged edges that have formed within and around us.
We let the salt burn the wounds, bury tired feet in the sand, let the salty nighttime hold us still and quiet until the first light of morning shows up with all her promises.
I stand on the shoreline and remember God’s words to Job when he spoke about the sea:
This far you may come and no farther. Here is where your proud waves halt.
That line of blue on brown where the sea meets land is a gift to my soul, a reminder that even something as wild as the sea has a limit, a line set by God.
When I look at my boundary lines in summer, I can sometimes get overwhelmed.
First it takes me a few weeks to even settle in to the different rhythms. And once I do, I sometimes don’t like what I’ve found. Summer makes it hard to plan, hard to find time alone, hard to predict what tomorrow might hold.
Here is where your proud waves halt.
I’m learning to embrace the lines and believe they have fallen for me in pleasant places.
And even though summer asks me to give up some things I think I need – like a schedule, like solitude, like the idea of a perfect vacation – she also invites me to open my hands and receive the gifts only she can offer.
So we take some chances and try a few things that need courage. We strap in to harnesses and fly over the warm Atlantic.
We stand on the edge of high dives and hold our breath as we step off the edge.
Mostly we look for water, both to drink and to float in.
Sometimes Daddys jump in pools to make children laugh and children do flips over sprinklers even though they get water up their nose.
Summer invites us to do what feels like the opposite of practical or useful. She is both simple and extravagant and I’m starting to like that about her.
Summer puts a warm hand on my shoulder and tells me to linger in the yard a little longer.
What’s good for my schedule — is often suffocating for my soul.
And so I’m listening for the whisper of the Spirit of God and learning to move to a slower rhythm.
It’s in summer when I learn this dance best.
Emily P. Freeman is one wondrous writer, a speaker, who lives with her husband John live in North Carolina with their three children, twins Ava and Stella, and their son, Luke. And she’s a rare listener who literally creates space for the soul to breathe. She is the author of four (pretty amazing) books, including her most recent release — that really is a soul exhale: Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World.
Have you checked out SimplyTuesday.com to watch a free video series Emily created– to give you practical ways to take a soul breath in the presence of Jesus even in the midst of your busy life. The fall shouldn’t start before you check these out — a perfect way to still unwrap summer. And her Instagram feed? Is a source of constant inspiration — and perfect soul exhale: @emilypfreeman.
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