Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 199
July 25, 2015
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [07.25.15]
SimonTrnka
SimonTrnka
SimonTrnka
ah, it’s all too miraculous not to go see
Joseph Sohm
then bask here? every summer needs to go to the best beaches across America
a home that will inspire you to make art today
a fun summer project?
incredible acts of kindness – from all over the world?!
now this is one pretty spectacular idea! – the Gratitude Project
“Letter-writing day makes me happy. Growing older makes me happy.
And, according to my son’s birthday cards, the older I get, the happier I am.”
um, wow!
Loïc Lagarde
Keeboon Tan
Damien Borel
maybe your soul is craving a slow walk through beauty too?
Calvin Seibert
inspiration for you and some water this weekend?
when you just want to see some beauty
yamaiki
who knew this happened to flowers when it rains?
this police officer spends his last day on the job — giving gifts to strangers
AngelsAmongUsPetRescue
why this hug — saved their lives
the kids found this amazing? Lightning in slow motion
TheNester
How to invite people over when you live in your house and it shows
a tree that grows 40 kinds of fruit?
Emily Gibson
…and all of the splendor of this? Snowflakes in July
so…did you know that…. ?
A must see look at the book of Numbers in the Old Testament
saving a life is always good news
because we all are made to make art, & there’s no disability when you create — amazing!
this: a story of love and generosity
Randi Ang
okay…. sea slugs that look like cartoon lambs? the whole earth is full of His glory!
who doesn’t need the inspiration of ordinary people doing THIS this summer?
WBTV
life after losing both of their boys? on faith & forgiveness in a heartbreaking new normal
What could happen IF women everywhere came before God to pray? Interested in hosting or attending one this year? Our souls need to gather for this, for such a time as now: www.ifpray.com
Post of the Week from these parts here:
…yeah, honest? maybe things look all sparkly perfect for some fine, lovely folks, but there’s a whole tribe of us who are hopers & hurting & life isn’t all neat & things haven’t all worked out quite as we’ve prayed or or dreamed or hoped… this:
‘when things aren’t working out at all as we’d hoped..’
we could love each other like this
all from the Spring of 2015 – storm chasing adventures across 15 US states, displays of the Milky Way over desert landscapes, and the amazing Aurora Borealis over Canada — gather the family?
an absolute must see
over 3 million FB views in a handful of days?
yeah, today? just 3 powerful words to stop comparison from stealing our joy:
I. get. enough…
because I get enough Jesus — and Jesus for me is enough.
because I get enough God — and God in me is enough.
because I get enough grace — and His grace to me is enough.
because I get enough Love — and His Love all around me, for me, in me, is enough.
I’m enough… because I get enough — because I get enough Jesus and He’s enough for me.
#IGetEnough
[excerpted from our devotions in our little Facebook community … come join us?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
July 24, 2015
when you’re more than ready to get to Wake Up Singing
Liz Curtis Higgs, the humble, wise (funny!) author of more than 30 books, is one of my soul sisters, my mentor and prayer sister. I couldn’t love this woman more — she’s about as down to earth and warm and happiest grace as it gets. And her latest book, It’s Good to Be Queen, is knocking my socks off as she just knocks it out of the park. Lizzie gets women. Full stop. She gets women’s hearts like no one else quite does — and when you read her? You feel our Father’s heart for His daughters. So the beauty of this post from Liz? Well, have a seat on the porch with us & exhale —
guest post and some photos by Liz Curtis Higgs
The hour was late, and the air was soft with murmured prayers.
Two dozen friends on a hot summer night were draped over couches and stretched across rugs, ending our day together in holy conversation with the One who always listens.
I rested my cheek against a wingback chair, straining to hear the words being spoken around the room.
As the minutes ticked by, their voices grew faint — and my eyelids grew heavy.
Without meaning to, I stepped from the land of the living — into the land of the sleeping.
And the snoring, no doubt. And the drooling.
[Oh, Ann, you were there, with our (in)courage sisters, seated on the other side of the room. Please tell me you didn’t notice. Please?]
I’m not certain whether I slept for two minutes or twenty minutes. But the next thing I knew, I was singing. Loudly.
The transition from sleep to song happened in an instant. I found myself sitting up – eyes open, fully alert – with music pouring through my lips. Thank goodness everyone else was singing too as we offered a familiar chorus to end our evening together.
One thought kept running through my mind: This is what stepping into heaven will be like.
A moment of sleep, and then a glorious awakening. Darkness, then light.
Night, then morning.
And oh, that welcome we all long to hear. “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21). Every word will be a rich reward.
Well? Wonderful.
Done? Hooray.
Good? Only because of God.
Faithful? That’s His doing too.
Servant? What an honor.
Living well matters. Ending well matters even more.
Look at the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 1:10-13).
She sought wisdom, she asked questions, she listened, she was humbled, she marveled, she spoke truth, she encouraged, she gave, she received, and in the end she sang God’s praises. Sheba understood the joy of finishing well.
You may know someone like that. Or want to be someone like that. The kind of person who has no fear of the future because they know it’s safely in God’s hands.
An online friend wrote, “Ending well does not mean everything tied up with a pretty little bow. But it does mean ending with beauty.”
Yes.
On the last Sunday in January, my mother-in-law turned eighty-six. This was what we’d prayed for: that she would live long enough to celebrate her birthday. Though honestly, celebrate wasn’t quite the word for it.
Mary Lee Higgs was dying. All of us could see it. The frailness of her body, the shallowness of her breath. No appetite, little thirst. It’s heartbreaking to watch someone endure that level of pain.
The three men she loved most were in the room—her husband, her only son, her only grandson. And me, the woman who took too many years to realize what a treasure her mother-in-law was.
As I looked down at Mary Lee, sorrow broke against me in a huge, enveloping wave. The Higgs men, with their tender hearts, stood watching from a bit of a distance, not certain how they might care for her needs.
That’s when Beauty slipped into the room.
All at once, the love and grace and compassion of Jesus overwhelmed me.
I bathed Mary Lee’s face and moistened her lips with balm and rubbed lotion into her parched hands.
I combed her hair and smoothed my hand lightly over her brow, then took her to the rest room, honoring her privacy, helping where I could.
I rearranged her pillows and straightened her bedding and gave her sips of water, then fed her when the aide came by with dinner.
Beloved, you would have done all those things and more. But care giving doesn’t come naturally to me.
My son watched from her bedside, dumbfounded. “Where did you learn this stuff, Mom?”
I told him I’d worked in a nursing home when I was a teenager. But in my heart I knew that wasn’t the full story. This wasn’t Liz, a trained nurse’s aide, doing her duty. This was Beauty making His Presence known.
We said good-bye to Mary Lee that Sunday, thinking we would see her again soon.
When the phone call came five days later, I wept with sorrow, softened only by the memory of spending one last afternoon with her and the assurance that she had just stepped into the arms of her Savior.
Despite the pain and suffering that came before it, I have seen what ending well looks like.
It looks glorious. Like a sunrise. “Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar” (Isaiah 33:17).
At her own great awakening, Mary Lee surely broke into song, her voice clear and her eyes shining.
Home.
Liz Curtis Higgs has one goal: to help people embrace the grace of God with joy and abandon. She’s written more than thirty books with 4½ million copies in print, including Bad Girls of the Bible and her latest, It’s Good to Be Queen: Becoming as Bold, Gracious, and Wise as the Queen of Sheba, unveiling timeless wisdom from the remarkable queen of Sheba. Every page here sparkles not only with wit and warmth but with Liz’s signature, unmatched insights. Liz Curtis Higgs is the comforting, courage-giving friend every woman prays for. There’s no voice like Liz’s. And there’s no woman who can afford to miss the epic wisdom of the queen of Sheba in It’s Good to Be Queen. Every woman’s summer needs the pampering & soul refreshment of It’s Good to Be Queen.
July 23, 2015
for all us hope-ers: when things aren’t working out as we’d hoped
So… it didn’t work out.
You know — That Thing.
You got that letter that said no to that thing that you were dreaming of, praying for, hoping about.
No to what your heart was holding on to though your head was telling you not to, no to that dream that you kept telling yourself it was foolish to even dream but you couldn’t — for the life of yourself — stop yourself.
You opened that envelope and you stood there with that paper in your hardly trembling hands and you skimmed the words, and you got the gist of it—that you were, frankly, a little wild to ungist.
Or, you got that call and you heard the words that you prayed against, begged against, braced against. You found it hard to hear, your heart banging like a sledge hammer, trying to pound its way out.
Or… you never got a call at all. The silence about drove you mad.
There’s only about one thing worse than a no — it’s an unknown. It’s this hanging in the balance that can make you lose your equilibrium.
And it’s being deemed not even worthy of a response that can leave you with questions that you cannot gag quiet.
Waiting can feel like an insane asylum of its own.
I got a call this week, a letter, and I was wild to send the words back, rearrange them so that maybe that a secret, hidden 20 year-old impossible hope might unfold.
Standing there feeling it all implode felt like some dark roof caving in that I couldn’t stop. I choked on the disappointment caught like dust in my lungs.
For days, I distracted with this mad, futile racing to hold up my house of cards that refused to stand. At night, sleep wouldn’t come.
In the dark, in the middle of the night, it gets very clear:
He who is hurried by worry, delays the comfort of God.
You can want someone to reach over and touch your unspoken broken, your thin bruised places and smooth out the pain you can hardly speak of:
Pain begs us to believe that only action can end our ache — when actually only God can.
Action doesn’t end pain — God does.
It takes incredible courage to wait on God in what feels like a wrong place— until He gives us the incredible gift of the right action.
And the making of one’s whole life takes time. Goals take longer than you think; the ways of God take longer than you want. It takes time, a lifetime, to turn the ache of our longings toward Him.
You don’t want to know how many nights I laid there, letting the tenderness of it massage out the knots of my worry:
We can simply want our situation solved — when God simply wants to be our answer.
And the best situation — is always what makes God your best hope.
In the middle of things seemingly not working out for us —- God is working out something in us.
Do not ever fear, ever. Simply do not ever stop patiently wait on God.
“But hope that is seen is no hope at all.
Who hopes for what they already have?
But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Roman 18:24-15)
This is the epiphany that comes straight up through a thousand dark places:
The Spirit is married to patience.
Be impatient — and you drive a wedge between you and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
In a world of fists and demands and tight grips for control — patiently waiting with open hand is a radical act — a radical art.
Open hands defy the dark — and testify to a radical act of trust.
Grace beyond our imaginings can fall into open hands.
New things will happen to us — unknown, unwanted, unexpected things — and we can name those things grace.
In a world preoccupied with control — the most radical act is openhanded trust.
It’s happening slowly now: I am learning to fall asleep with hands open, palms waiting and open to the willing sky.
* * * * *
One evening this spring, walking home from the woods, I’d paused to watch a butterfly slip the casing of its jewel of a cocoon.
The sun was warm on my back. I waited. I wanted.
I wanted to see wings, I wanted to see fluttering and soaring, I wanted a miracle to unfurl. I had expectations of glory.
I waited more. The sun slid down my back. The butterfly stirred, then paused, rustled slowly— impossibly, frustratingly slowly.
I exhaled. Warm breath on the waiting.
The cocoon case cracked a bit. And I exhaled again, impatience unleashed.
Each impatient exhale on that cocoon — kindled the butterfly and you can come to think that you can grow a miracle on your own timeline.
Then it all tumbled faster than life, on the kind of timeline I like — the case split open, the butterfly braved the outside — and right there was the crumpled horror — wet and wrinkled wings that the trembling butterfly heaved relentlessly, pointlessly, to unfold.
I had forced my way, my timing — instead of letting things unfold in His perfect timing, under the gradual warmth of the sun — and it didn’t bring forth life.
I’d stood there, nauseated, and I could touch the truth of it:
Impatience always inflicts injury to wings.
The wings in my palm flailed.
Wanting things your way — can destroy any way at all.
Its whole body quaked with the effort to make wet and hurried wings impossibly part and lift.
It takes courage to listen with our whole heart to the tick of God’s timing, rather than march to the loud beat of our fears.
The butterfly shrivelled soundlessly in the palm of my hand…. stilled… died.
I hadn’t known. I had never seen it as clearly:
All sins and brokenness — turn out to be watered by impatience.
Walking up through the grasses home, it’s like every blade, every leaf, ever aching, broken, hoping place knew it, murmured it:
We cannot make things grow… ours is only to grow in grace.
Ours is only to let God grow good things in us.
One could learn to walk with the palms open, walk that way in broad daylight. It could change, it could be different. When I opened the back door, that followed me in too:
There’s never been anything so far gone — that hopefulness can’t come back.
The air turned right then.
True, debates rage about abortion and Iran and racism, and Facebook streams scream with opinions and rhetoric and rage, and headlines burn with all this unimaginable and it all scalds our hearts, and the world feels mad.
And on the margins, we touch our own wounds that no one sees, we trace the outlines of our own unspoken broken — but we rise. We all rise.
Together we all rise.
We can laugh right in the face of hopelessness — because we are held right in the arms of God.
Links for 2015-07-22 [del.icio.us]
"Everything that happens in the world is an opportunity for us to move in love towards God and others." @_K_Atkinson
What I want you to know about what it's like to be poor
"Being poor is isolating. And stressful. And then you add in kids." well worth the read...
July 22, 2015
Links for 2015-07-21 [del.icio.us]
... so much here to prayerfully consider...
They Shall Know Us by Our Parties
this...
'World's best teacher' does not believe in tests and quizzes
... she won the title of Global Teacher prize... and how she approaches teaching is inspiring!
July 21, 2015
why it’s time to be done being ‘safe': when you’re ready to live Real & Dangerously
My Gran, she’s taking slow walks outside the hospital now.
Her heart’s growing stronger, beating certain.
I wash down the cupboards in the kitchen.
I pray for Gran’s heart attack recovery, for each step she keeps taking, ninety-one and frail-boned and Irish-determined.
Life’s a risk and maybe she’s stronger than I am, accepting each heart beat, each step, as ridiculously dangerous — and wanting it anyways.
I wear gloves, carry this spray bottle with me from cupboard to cupboard.
The cleaner has this emblem on the front of a skeletal hand, the words DANGER blazoned in white. The Farmer found it in the automotive section. It’s a degreaser. It’s cathartic to scrub hard.
Like I am scrubbing things away. Like a working out of faith.
The Farmer told me today in the kitchen, me bent and relentlessly scouring with that potent cleaner, that sometimes dangerous is good — when fully understood, when rightly lived.
That our God would only be safe if He were dead.
But He is the Living Word and His Word is a flashing, double-edged sword and He doesn’t write Himself into neat five-point outlines but He is like the wind —
and He speaks in parables that subvert, and poetry that ignites, and metaphors that jolt and there is nothing safe or small or stiff about Him.
Click here to continue reading how my world dangerously blew up
Links for 2015-07-20 [del.icio.us]
"We are born in Love, we die into Love, and we are held in Love all the days of our lives." @sarahthebarge
I Quit Liking Things On Facebook for Two Weeks. Here’s How It Changed My View of Humanity '
well... there's an experiment worth trying...
July 20, 2015
unwrapping summer: the secret of learning to love what must be done
Summer’s not some string of tight square boxes on a dog-eared calendar that get stuffed with random, blurring miscellany — but these small, holy gift boxes.
Summer’s made up of these moments, flecks of glittering sand that we shake out of those gift box of days.
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 becomes a gift.
A gift from His hand — that ushers us into the vast grace of His heart.
Ruth Simons, mama to 6 boys, and one breathtaking artist (our walls sing with her gorgeous, edifying prints), is a mentor to me in many soul, life-giving ways… and she unwraps a bit of summer for us… sees the present gift of now.
guest post and photos by Ruth Simons
T he last of the breakfast dishes get rinsed and put away while the littlest of my six man cubs chase each other around the house with foam swords.
Big boys start a load of laundry and make their beds while reminiscing that glorious afternoon of catching 9 german brown trout on last weekend’s epic fishing trip.
I hear them recount crisp mornings by the roaring river, the campfire that wouldn’t die out, the meals that always taste better in the woods, and the thrill of going days without showering or changing their clothes.
It’s a man cub’s dream, best kept alive by repeating every detail, smell, and sound.
Left up to themselves, summer would be one long fishing trip and schoolwork and chores would be no more.
And left up to myself, summertime would be continually slow and restful…
…and dirty dishes would be no more,
…fussy children would be no more,
…unfinished projects would be no more,
…piles of laundry would be no more,
…difficult relationships would be no more,
…and doing what we’re called to do would feel easy.
Maybe we’ve been tempted to hope in weekends, vacations, summertime, retirement, or making a life doing what we love doing. We live in a world that tolerates and survives the mundane because we can’t imagine that miracles of hope can happen in the smallest and simplest of places.
But redeemed people living in a manger-rejecting world can more than just survive.
When our summertime looks less like colorful beach blankets and snow cones, and most often like readjusting expectations, peacemaking between children, and learning to love what must be done– God faithfully shows us that He equips and sanctifies in quiet and secret places.
We learn to see the everyday as He sees them: Holy.
There’s a cadence to being transformed in the rigor and rest of what we call mundane, but He calls by design.
When you look up and take heart… the same majestic forest sky from which a million bright stars bid us to rejoice and forget our worries by campfire, calls us to finish the last of tonight’s dinner’s dishes —
and quiet this ordinary house on a simple summer’s night with grateful praise.
Ruth Chou Simons is an unlikely mom to six young boys and wife to a very patient man. Online, she’s an artist, writer, and speaker, who shares her journey and how God’s grace intersects daily life at her blog + shoppe at GraceLaced.com. In her everyday life, she washes 8 loads of laundry a week, cooks for large crowds, and educates her children from home part time through the classical Christian school she and her husband, Troy, founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Have you seen Ruth’s paintings? Four of these exquisite wonders hang on walls in our home… and one of those paintings, God to lead us through the hardest season… and her instagram feed? her blog? can be like a gift of summer manna.
July 18, 2015
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [07.18.15]
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:
Suya Imagens
who doesn’t really need a 5 minute vacation right off the top?
“She taught me how to love the Savior, how to die to myself, how to love my husband and children, how to do the next thing.” This
perhaps the most perfect accidental flip?
Justin Morris Photography
okay, who can’t be inspired by this — at 101?!
yeah, so let’s go make a difference
so what if we all made unlikely friends
Guillaume Amat
seriously — this is crazy fascinating
yeah, what is love really? answers from 0 t0 105…
Piano Around the World
so I wanna do a bit of this when I grow up
in a league of their own – I need this kind of inspiring
teachers caring way outside of the box like — yep, #worldchangers
Photos courtesy of We Are Family DC
what if we all did this? really, really great things happening here… love!
Réhahn Photography
Réhahn Photography
Réhahn Photography
really — I wanna visit a village like this — who’s in?
found this fascinating
..yeah, so not easy to talk about… but you can find yourself in real dark places.
Darker than you ever imagined… darker than anyone even knows:
when you want to find hidden graces in the dark places
one absolutely gorgeous heart
So our lovely farm girl, Hope? She’s in Rwanda with Africa New Life … and my mama heart’s been bursting at what God’s doing and I’ve been pretty undone with what’s happening
Want to be part of the story with our Hope-girl?
God does stuff like this
Post of the Week from these parts here:
… yeah, you & me both.
When you’re really done with that comparison thief robbing you of joy?
3 Words that will arrest comparison…. just stop it right in its tracks
so they set out to do a big thing — must see
searching for what matters
Light
“In 2014, a woman tweeted that she would be faced with “a real ethical dillema” if she became pregnant with a baby with Down Syndrome. Richard Dawkins responed “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”
Also in 2014, we had a beautiful little girl with Down Syndrome and two heart conditions. We named her Lucette, which means ‘light.” Lucie has taught us how much every life matters.
This song is for her and all the beautiful people on this planet with special needs.
We think that you make this world a better place.”
Hey Soul? yeah, true, it may not feel like it, but really —
Today’s a new hope, and you’re being remade & made new, and He’s cupping your chin right now & turning your face toward His and the sun: “My loyal love for you can’t run out, My merciful love for you could never dry up.They’re created new for you every single morning. My faithfulness to you is great.” [Lamentations 3:22 MSG]
And it’s right out of His Word, what all us Brave will just keep saying today:
“I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).” [Lam.3:24MSG]
Yesterday’s packed away with grace, and Today’s a fresh day with fresh hope, fresh possibilities, a new you, a new falling in love with God, a new refrain playing on gentle repeat in our head — ‘We’re sticking with you, God.’
When morning breaks,
it breaks all of the mistakes of yesterday,
breaks right through our dome of dark —
so all His fresh mercies can flood in.
The disease of not-enough… is cured when you give thanks for more than enough grace.
#PreachingGospeltoMyself #FreshHope
[excerpted from our devotions in our little Facebook community … come join us?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
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