Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 251
December 1, 2013
Advent Devotionals. Week 01. Hope. [VIDEO]
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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 with? Just a humble space to draw closer to Jesus? So, thanks for coming anyways? Welcome to a simple space just to slow and reflect…
Join us and not Miss Him this year?
Consider journeying with us through December with The Greatest Gift … a New York Times Bestseller (free download of 25 ornaments with the book) – a fresh, all new unwrapping of The Love Story — your love story … … God starting a Christmas revolution, us all turning toward Jesus. A whole bunch of us who just want to open that present, moment by moment, all through Advent, the rest of our lives — the greatest gift of His Presence.
P.S. Next Sunday? The Peace Candle — maybe outside in the woods? out in the barn?
Related: How to Have the Best Christmas
Christmas at the Farm with Lizzie and Annie
24 hole wooden Advent wreath
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 29, 2013
Here’s One Plan to Have The Best Christmas [even in hard times]
With extraordinary thanks to More than Words Photography by Tammi & the pianist who always accompanies this blog, David Nevue, for sharing their gifts, as we all take our loaves and fishes and offer them as gifts back to the Greatest Giver. #BetheG.I.F.T.
Join us and not Miss Him this year?
Consider journeying with us through December with The Greatest Gift … a New York Times Bestseller (free download of 25 ornaments with the book) – a fresh, all new unwrapping of The Love Story — your love story … … God starting a Christmas revolution, us all turning toward Jesus. A whole bunch of us who just want to open that present, moment by moment, all through Advent, the rest of our lives — the greatest gift of His Presence.
P.S. Can’t wait to see you Sunday? {shy, praying smile) .
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 27, 2013
The Shortest, Surest Way to All Happiness
As stoves are turned on for feasts,
as thanks to God is quietly offered up to God from all over the world, as or , as homes and families prepare for a season of holi-days, holy-days, and the music is turned on low in the background –
from the classic, of old theologian, William Law, (1686 –1761), excerpted from his book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life:
‘If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness—
he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you.
For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.
Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it heals with a word speaking, and turns all that it touches into happiness.
… it be the noblest sacrifice that the greatest Saint can offer unto God.”
As you work and give thanks today in all things, as gratitude is this shortest, surest way to happiness, quietly turn the old radio dial over to Moody Radio?
Anita Lustrea and I would love for you to come over for an hour long conversation about the holidays on Midday Connection at 1 pm EST and at 3 pm EST, on for an hour with Chris Fabry Live.
And you and I can quietly just be today — preparing hearts for the holy-days — for happiness.
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 25, 2013
Ending the Stealing of Thanksgiving: A Parable
So there once was this Farmer.
Yeah, he could have been an electrician, a mechanic, a vet — and a story like this could have easily been about a salesman, a mother, a nurse, a teacher, a trucker because we’re all kin with stories that are kind of the same and we’re all the same kind of different.
So, yeah, there once was this Farmer — and the guy knew dirt.
He had dirt.
There’s not one of us that doesn’t.
When he found out that this is the way it goes — that he had to work out his own salvation – he stood on the edge of the field and looked across it like a man trying to find his way.
He could rest in it: You don’t work for your salvation, like you have to earn it — but you have to work out your salvation, like you have to turn over the earth, like you have to work dirt.
He’d work out his salvation like he’d work out in the fields – turning over the earth, turning up his open his hands. He tied on his beat-up steel toed boots. He pulled on his bent up John-Deere cap. He did this and went out every day. He broke up hard ground.
He plowed. The sun beat down. He believed in seeds. He believed the small things would yield. He said thank you a thousand times, the earth breaking up slow under the steely glint of the mirrored edge of the furrow.
The bills stacked on his desk. The dog died. One of his boys rebelled like he was part mule, part rattler. The kick and the sting of the whole thing just about killed him. He plowed anyways, his lips chapped and burning under the sun, murming his brazen thanks.
His wife held him in the dark. He clung to prayers.
He was tempted, but he didn’t get in the pickup and head west in his own cloud of rebellious dust. He was brave and he stayed everyday. He went out and did his work and he gave thanks when it made no sense because his God knows no bounds. God had to be in the hard, so he’d give thanks in the hurt – that he hadn’t been left alone, had never been left alone.
When the corn came up, a late frost killed every stalk. He planted again. He counted blessings and let thanksgiving be planted deep in him. He opened his hands. He received what God gave – and he gave thanks. His eyes opened and he got joy.
When the beans started to pod up, an army of aphids ate the crop. He plowed them down. He bowed his head and plowed his field and murmured thanks in sheer defiance of everything in him and around him that said this finally proved God wasn’t good. He opened his hands. He received what God gave – and he gave thanks. His heart opened and he got joy.
When the wheat was right ripe, a hail storm laid it flat and rain came down hard and made the kernels mold, and the Farmer brushed away whatever was falling down his cheeks and he turned over his hands and he gave audacious thanks as a subversive act against the dark that tortured him to scoff at God.
He opened his hands. He received what God gave – and he gave thanks. His life opened – and he got joy.
He’d let himself be broken up like a field. He let himself be made soft and open. He’d let himself be tilled til there was harvest.
His wife held him in the dark.
And he lay there in black and whispered how he could still see: Thanksgiving to God is the only thing that heals our view of the world.
She could hardly wrap her arms around him, his heart had grown so large. She could see how he kept going, how he kept seeing to keep going: Without thanksgiving, the world distorts.
He held her hand every morning before he went out to work out his salvation, before he went out to work his field his life. He would pull her close and whisper what they could not forget: The one thing we must pray to be great at is thanksgiving — because it’s the one thing that makes God great in our lives.
They were simple people, but they knew it because they had lived it:
No matter what the headlines shout, the world only has two stories: bless God or curse God.
No matter what the world tries to sell, we all only get to choose from two shelves: Give God thanks or Give God the door.
No matter what we’re facing, there are always only two roads: thanksgiving to God or dismissing of God.
They were simple people but they had decided – they would let not hard times steal their thanksgiving.
They would not let hard sells steal their thanksgiving.
They would not let hard knocks steal their thanksgiving.
Because the people living plain and down to earth knew it— if you let something steal your thanksgiving, you let something steal your joy, and if you let something steal your joy, you let something steal your strength.
The Farmer and his wife would let nothing steal their thanksgiving to God – so that in everything they could stand strong in God.
Simple people – keeping it simple. Sometimes they would pull each other closer in the dark and laugh quiet and brave, and she could feel the smile in them: we will give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of who He is.
No disaster, no storm, no cancellation, no termination, no catastrophe would stop them from giving thanks. Because the Farmer and his wife knew it:
No matter where they were, every thanksgiving always brought them home —-
giving thanks always bringing you home to the heart of God.
Join us? And happily change everything by keeping your own crazy list of One Thousand Gifts? Dare you to Joy! Take the dare to Fully Live!
1. Grab this month’s Free JOY DARE Calendar with 3 daily prompts to go on a scavenger hunt for God’ gifts … {or write down any gifts you choose. Use the free app.} 2. Count 3 gifts a day and you have over #1000gifts in 2013. Jot them down in the new numbered One Thousand Gifts devotional journal— The Farmer’s writing in his with a red pen and daily – the numbers in the journal already there! Motivating… 3. Share your gifts everyday in our beautiful Facebook community to enter everyday for the monthly $100 Amazon draw (or link to your blog post with your list of gifts). 4. Count #1000gifts in 2013 and enter to win a Nikon DSLR camera with lens. Slow Down. Savor Life. Give thanks. Believing something is one thing. But the Best only comes when you decide to Be Living it. Please, jump in, make your life about giving thanks to God! — Just add the direct URL to your specific 1000 gift list post… and if you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other in our refrain of thanks by sharing the community’s graphic within your post.
Give thanks to the Lord! His Love Endures Forever!
My own story of letting nothing steal thanksgiving, so nothing steals my joy, so nothing steals my strength:
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 23, 2013
Only the Really Good Stuff: 12 Links to Make Your Saturday
A family’s love story…
THIS: smiles, cheers and yes, you guessed it — tears…
God still loves you – shaking in your boots and all.
Are you willing to saddle up anyways?
Wow. Your insecurity does not disqualify you.
Calling all parents – this is for you…
I keep going back to this one: Ten recent psychology studies that every parent should know
A brief look at the amazing women FARMERS
For all the tired mamas.
Because it really is time to tell the truth.
An organic and beautiful friendship – #TheoandBeau
Must see photos of this adorable couple
Trusting and believing in God’s best.
A journey to wholeness most of us won’t ever quite understand
Give gifts that gives back to people in need:
The Art of Simple’s amazing list of resources: How to Shop Ethically
Lovely holiday printables – yes. love. these.
The beautiful gesture of a young man – that is circling back around and blessing all of us.
A must see that will encourage your heart.
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Right before WWII, Sir Nicholas Winton organized the rescue of hundreds of
Jewish Czechoslovakian children destined for the Nazi death camps.
Forty years later, those children have gathered to honor the man who saved their lives.
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More than enough…Jesus, You are all we need.
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Christmas at the Farm coming right to you —
Here’s a cup of hot chocolate — let’s make it a fun Saturday?
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Reads for a Meaningful Christmas, to Stay in the Story this year:
Annie’s The Greatest Gift and Lizzie’s perfect Women of Christmas
{Because you asked —
‘I’m aching for a different, simplified, Christ-centered Christmas.
Can The Greatest Gift help us have a deeper, more meaningful Christmas?’
“That is exactly our prayer. The Greatest Gift is 100% completely new Jesse Tree devotionals for adults to find the wonder and joy again, a fresh 25 day journey of readings through each day of December, each day unwrapping more of the full love story of Christmas, from Genesis to God-in-the-flesh– to experience the grace of His coming and grace is weightless. Want a Christmas that doesn’t feel like a burden? These 25 readings endeavor to take the weight off of you from December 1st to December 25th. (Free download of 25 ornaments with the book.)”
“A Jesse Tree tradition –for me — a tired–happy, yes, but tired–mama. Because that baby came in to the world for me, too. Ann’s powerful poetry of words are strung together so that I can be reminded on those dark, cold hours of Christmas that I have reason to rejoice just as much as my children. He is Emmanuel! Her words are a warm blanket during a busy season, reminding me to reflect, renew – and rejoice.” ~Tsh N. Oxenreider
“The Greatest Gift has 25 free ornaments to make a Jesse Tree for Christmas?
What’s a Jesse Tree?”
The Jesse tree is this tracing of Jesus’ family tree, with the name taken from Isaiah 11:1, in which Jesus is announced as as a shoot of grace coming up from the cut down stump of Jesse’s tree, the father of David. Each of the 25 devotional readings, one for each day of December, starting on December 1st, highlights a Scripture passage from the Old Testament and Jesus’ family line, a grace story of hope, a fresh, unexpected devotional to take you into the heart of Christmas, and is accompanied by an ornament to hang that day, so that you have a tree telling the story of Jesus’ coming right from the beginning, a grace tree, a gospel tree — the full love story of Christmas.}
“I sat in an idle, hot car for 15 minutes in 90 degrees heat for carpool while reading this — and literally had chills.
To walk through Advent with Ann Voskamp is to read The Greatest Story Ever Told written in the words of one of the greatest storytellers of our time.
I read and understood with a fresh perspective.
The Greatest Gift is the most meaningful gift you’ll buy all year. “
Lizzie and Annie’s Free downloads from Christmas at the Farm:
Our Free PDF Download of How to have a SIMPLIFIED, Sane & Sacred Christmas
(and our crazy recipes right here )
This could be Christmas like you’ve never quite experienced before —
but have always been yearning for.
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joice.
Share Whatever Is Good.
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 22, 2013
How to Get Through When You Want to Give Up
from Desiring God president, and author of Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, Jon Bloom:
“Grumbling is a symptom of a myopic soul. Selfishness has caused tunnel vision and has fixated on a craving(s). Grumbling is evidence of soul-vision impairment. Gratitude is a symptom of a healthy, expansive soul. The gospel of grace has given it panoramic vision, allowing it to see that this grace will be sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) to meet every need (Philippians 4:19).
Grumbling is the accent of hell’s language… Gratitude is the accent of the language of heaven.”
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 21, 2013
Webcast Christmas at the Farm is Live at 12 EST! {and where to find the replay}
CLICK HERE to jump into the Webcast Premiere of Christmas at the Farm
And we’ll talk How to have a Simplified, Sane — and Sacred – Christmas?
(with a free printable download and frameable art)
12 Noon Today, November 21st, tune in for
the web premiere and the live chat with Liz Curtis Higgs and I?
Come over the hills and fields of snow and talk with Lizzie and Annie!
Join in the LiveChat from the farm right now?!
{ No worries if that time doesn’t work for you –
the Farm Front door is always open for you and the webcast can be replayed here for many seasons to come }
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 20, 2013
{Tomorrow! Christmas at the Farm!} Your Video Invite to a Simplified, Sane & Sacred Christmas
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RSS readers please click here.
Because may this Christmas —
“You don’t want a Christmas you can buy.
You don’t want a Christmas you can make.
What you want is a Christmas you can hold.
A Christmas that holds you,
remakes you, revives you.
You want a Christmas that whispers, Jesus.”
Join us here tomorrow for Christmas at the Farm?
And we’ll talk How to have a Simplified, Sane — and Sacred – Christmas?
(with a free printable download)
12 Noon Tomorrow, November 21st, tune in for
the web premiere and the live chat with Liz Curtis Higgs and I?
Come over the hills and fields of snow and talk with Lizzie and Annie about
How to have a Simplified, Sane and Sacred Christmas…
and recipes, fun family traditions, the Jesse Tree —
which traces the family lineage taken from Isaiah 11:1, in which Jesus is referred to as a shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse, the father of David, with each of the ornaments on the Jesse Tree telling of Jesus’ ancestors and of
the epic love story of Jesus’ coming for you –
a bit from The Greatest Gift, The Women of Christmas, lots of ridiculous laughter — and a whole lot of Jesus.
Tomorrow! I’m feeling nervous and awkward and so grateful that I can save a seat just for you at
Resources:
Wooden Advent Wreath with Mary Figurine
Christmas countdown : “” Ornament : Light of the World and Morning Star Lantern : Nativity : Love Came Down Set : Lisa Leonard’s Letter Ornaments engraved with child’s name and year
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 19, 2013
When You’re Tired and Ready for a Christmas Revolution #UpsideDownChristmas
There must have been a blow-out sale on sheeny wrapping paper with dancing reindeer that year.
Because that’s what she’d wrapped everything in – flashy reindeer with bulbous red noses.
A whole herd of them circled under the blinking tree slathered with cheap tinsel and Grandma had scrawled our names in blotchy blue ink on each of the packages — To Jill. To John. To Ann – to all 14 of her plain-named grandkids.
The decades have irreverently erased whatever my brother John ripped into on that Christmas Eve.
But there’s no forgetting sitting on that red shag carpet down in Grandma and Grandpa’s rec room — with that oversized fly swatter from Texas hanging over the couch — and Grandma cracking her knees as she handed all the girl cousins our matching boxes.
Jill and I tore back those shamelessly nosy deers — and held up these matching green and black mottled sweaters–with tacked on strings of pink pearl beads dangling from one shoulder to the other like a drape of neon gaudiness.
No words. Weak, thin smiles. But no words.
What does a selfish 12-year-old say when holding up a sweater she’d never wear even on a cold day in Mongolia?
Apparently Grandma had a first rate degree in reading the minds of selfish 12-year-old girls.
“We can take them back. I have the receipts to The Met for both of them up there in the spare bedroom,” she was already getting up, cracking her worn out knees and moving toward the stairs, toward the spare bedroom.
“And we can just take them back – don’t rip off the tags — and you both can get something that you like.”
Like I didn’t like my own withered Grandma. Like I didn’t love everything about her. Like you could box up your bare heart and bravely hand it to someone in chintzy wrapping paper — and then everyone just decide it’s best to return it?
How did Christmas become something that we could return on Boxing Day – when Christ came to be. with. us.?
How did Christmas get handcuffed by chains of Big Box stores – when the Christ Child came small and subversively and for freedom?
How did Christmas get to be more about cheap stuff than a lavish Savior?
What makes us scared to do Christmas counter-culture — when it’s about God upending everything?
When a twelve-year-old girl was brave enough to bear down and birth God in a barn? When one man resolutely stood beside his pregnant girlfriend – big with a baby she confessed wasn’t his? When the God of the universe pulls on flesh and curls his deity into the helpness of a baby’s groping fingers? When the whole story flies straight in the face of the expected, cultural norms?
The crushing gears of Herodian forces can still tear families apart at Christmas, rabid materialism and cultural pressures hunting hard through every home to steal The Child.
I can remember Grandma’s gravelly voice, the way something had caught in her throat, something like her heart, the way she’d turned at the bottom of the stairs looking for those receipts.
I wish we had all been brave right then. I wish I had held those frail shoulders of hers, pulled that brave heart of hers close and told her that what matters is people being with each other, not people buying for each other.
Time together is too short to waste on long nooses of expectations.
Grandma’s ashes would be scattered under the oak trees down in Centerton for five long Christmases before I’d figure it out —
Before I’d be brave enough to return a gaudy imitation of Christmas — that had little to do with God.
Sure, I don’t feel one iota brave – more like a donkey fool – when I send the two youngest boys back to the woods to hunt me down a little cedar tree.
“Not more than 2 feet high or so, Levi.” I’m leaning out the back door, trying to show him with my hands stretched out like I’m telling some exaggerated fish tale.
He pulls down his hat, raises his eyebrows — as if eyebrows could hook his mother and yank her out of buffoonery.
“Because….?”
“Because I need an upside down Christmas tree, that’s why.” And I grin like the donkey that I am and close the back door behind me. The ole knees crack a bit going up the back garage steps.
I’ve got the fish wire all ready and laid out when Levi and Kai comes carrying in this sparse cedar tree. “And now what exactly are you going to do with it?” Kai’s got hands on hips, that stance that thinks it can force your heart to cough up what it wants to know.
“I’m going to hang it.” I grin. “Upside down. From that beam.” I point. “With fish wire.”
You bet, boys.
We’re hanging Christmas upside down this year, boys —
We’re hanging Christmas upside down this year so real love falls out of it.
We’re hanging Christmas upside down this year so no one gets hanged by debt.
We’re hanging Christmas upside down this year because we’re giving the whole Christmas season to Jesus and His Upside Down Kingdom, not just some tossed crusty edge of of it.
Because we can feel it — how we’re done with the malls and missing Jesus.
We are done with busy Christmases and brushing past Christ.
We are done with over-stuffed Christmases and we are desperate to give the gift of being overcome by Christ.
You can get tired enough that you’re ready for a Christmas revolution.
Levi holds that tree turned right upside down, holds it from the beam and I touch an old wooden cross beam and tie that upside down tree up with fish wire and you bet we’re hanging Christmas upside down this year — because the only thing that catches men’s hearts is to live upside down.
To give the gifts of time and memories and words and togetherness. To give to the least of these because it’s giving to Christ and who in the world’s birthday is it anyways, to invite someone lonely and lost and looking right up to the table and pass down the ham and ask them to linger with you a bit in the light that busted us all out of the dark.
To give funds to the kids – so the kids have the fun of giving to others – because it’s mindblowingly better to give than to receive and this isn’t some cute cliche — it’s how Christ-followers upend the cosmos.
Laying the Compassion Gift Catalogues out under the Upside Down Tree feels radically subversive and we’re a whole Esther Generation that is hungry to upend the fake version of the commercialized way to really live the Way, the Truth and the Life.
To upend the old exhausting burdens of the holidays that about strangle us — and string up some new traditions that are about as weightless as a tree suspended in thin air.
To spend Advent, this season of waiting for His coming, tracing the family tree of Christ, journeying 25 days through the Old Testament and into the New, reading how, in story after story, there is a Love that comes down, that comes after us and upends what was meant to harm us, that upends what was crushing us, that upends what just about has undone us.
I hang the , one from every one of these 25 unlikely, unexpected, upending grace stories, on our Upside Down Christmas tree, on our Upside Down Jesse Tree — and there’s a way to celebrate Advent that overthrows everthing that threatens to overtake Christmas.
Levi strings up the ornament with the babe, hangs it near the top of the Upside Down Tree. A Christ-centered Christmas doesn’t scale back Christmas — it scales up WHO Christmas is about.
“You’re pretty brave, hanging that up there, eh?” I ask Levi, Levi leaning off the ladder, Levi breaking into this silly grin. Maybe being pretty brave often looks pretty ugly.
“Well, you’re the one who always say we’ve gotta be brave.”
And I nod. Yes, sireee, son.
Be brave enough to return a Christmas that hurts.
Be brave enough to return the fake CHRISTmases and only bring home the real one that has CHRIST at the center of it.
Be brave enough to return any Christmas too small for the size of your soul — and only wear a Christmas large enough for real joy.
Be brave enough to turn Christmas upside down because this coming Christ ushered in the Upside Down Kingdom where
less is more and
weak is strong and
least is greatest and
consumers can get consumed and
giving is greater than getting.
Levi comes down the ladder.
I can hear Grandma’s creaking knees.
I pull the kid in close. He has her cowlick.
We weren’t when I was a kid — but we could be brave now.
The brave that turns everything upside down – to upright everything.
Related:
– a journey of 25 readings through December, an Advent practice that puts Christ right at the center
(with the 25 free ornaments for an Upside Down Tree that focuses on how Christ has upended this world with Grace)
When Christmas Gets Radical – Whose Birthday is it Really?
The Grateful Kids Christmas Project: 7 Ways to have More Grateful Kids this Christmas
Come to the free webcast Christmas at the Farm? This Thursday, 12 Noon EST with Liz Curtis Higgs — and we’ll talk
How to have a Sane and Sacred Christmas, fun family traditions, a weightless Christmas — and a whole lot of Jesus.
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
November 15, 2013
The Real Truth about ‘Boring’ Men — and the Women who Live with Them: Redefining Boring
So not every guy proposes with lip syncing, rolling cameras, and a choreographed entourage.
Yeah — so what if your Dad didn’t?
He just pulled that beat-up Volkswagon Rabbit of his over in front of Murray Reesor’s hundred acre farm right there where Grey Township meets Elma Township, pulled out a little red velvet box, and whispered it in the snowy dark: “Marry me?”
“He didn’t even get down on one knee or anything?”
You boys ask it incredulous, like there’s some kind of manual for this kind of holy.
And I’ve got no qualms in telling you no. No, he didn’t even get down on one knee – it was just a box, a glint of gold in the dark, two hallowed words and a question mark.
“Boring.”
I know. When you’ve watched a few dozen mastermind proposals on youtube, shared them with their rolling credits on Facebook, marvelling at how real romance has an imagination like that.
Can I tell you something, sons?
Romance isn’t measured by how viral your proposal goes. The internet age may try to sell you something different, but don’t ever forget that viral is closely associated with sickness – so don’t ever make being viral your goal.
Your goal is always to make your Christ-focus contagious – to just one person.
It’s more than just imagining some romantic proposal.
It’s a man who imagines washing puked-on sheets at 2:30 am, plunging out a full and plugged toilet for the third time this week, and then scraping out the crud in the bottom screen of the dishwasher — every single night for the next 37 years without any cameras rolling or soundtrack playing — that’s imagining true romance.
The man who imagines slipping his arm around his wife’s soft, thickening middle age waistline and whispering that he couldn’t love her more…. who imagines the manliness of standing bold and unashamed in the express checkout line with only maxi pads and tampons because someone he loves is having an unexpected Saturday morning emergency.
The man who imagines the coming decades of a fluid life – her leaking milky circles through a dress at Aunt Ruth’s birthday party, her wearing thick diaper-like Depends for soggy weeks after pushing a whole human being out through her inch-wide cervix, her bleeding through sheets and gushing amniotic oceans across the bathroom floor and the unexpected beauty of her crossing her legs everytime she jumps on the trampoline with the kids.
The real romantics imagine greying and sagging and wrinkling as the deepening of something sacred.
Because get this, kids — How a man proposes isn’t what makes him romantic. It’s how a man purposes to lay down his life that makes him romantic.
And a man begins being romantic years before any ring – romance begins with only having eyes for one woman now – so you don’t go giving your eyes away to cheap porn. Your dad will say it sometimes to me, a leaning over – “I am glad that there’s always only been you.” Not some bare, plastic-surgeon-scalpel-enhanced pixels ballooning on a screen, not some tempting flesh clicked on in the dark, not some photo-shopped figment of cultural beauty that’s basically a lie.
The real romantics know that stretchmarks are beauty marks and that different shaped women fit into the different shapes of men souls and that real romance is really sacrifice.
I know – you’re thinking, “Boring.”
Can you see it again – how your grandfather stood over your grandmother’s grave and brushed away his heart leaking without a sound down his cheeks?
50 boring years. 50 unfilmed years of milking 70 cows, raising 6 boys and 3 girls, getting ready for sermon every Sunday morning, him helping her with her zipper. 50 boring years of arguing in Dutch and making up in touching in the dark, 50 boring years of planting potatoes and weeding rows on humid July afternoons, 50 boring years of washing the white Corel dishes and turning out the light on the mess – till he finally carried her in and out of the tub and helped her pull up her Depends.
Don’t ever forget it:
The real romantics are the boring ones — they let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.
Be one of the boring ones. Pray to be one who get 50 boring years of marriage – 50 years to let her heart bore a hole deep into yours.
Let everyone do their talking about 50 shades of grey, but don’t let anyone talk you out of it: committment is pretty much black and white. Because the truth is, real love will always make you suffer. Simply commit: Who am I willing to suffer for?
Who am I willing to take the reeking garbage out for and clean out the gross muck ponding at the bottom of the fridge? Who am I willing to listen to instead of talk at? Who am I willing to hold as they grow older and realer? Who am I willing to die a bit more for every day? Who am I willing to make heart-boring years with? Who am I willing to let bore a hole into my heart?
Get it: Life – and marriage proposals — isn’t not about one up-manship — it’s about one down-manship. It’s about the heart-boring years of sacrifice and going lower and serving. It’s not about how well you perform your proposal. It’s about how well you let Christ perform your life.
Sure, go ahead, have fun, make a ridiculously good memory and we’ll cheer loud: propose creatively — but never forget that what wows a woman and woos her is you how you purpose to live your life.
I’m praying, boys — be Men. Be one of the ‘boring” men – and let your heart be bore into. And know there are women who love that kind of man.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t flashy – because love is gritty.
The kind of man whose romance isn’t about cameras — because it’s about Christ.
The kind of man whose romance doesn’t have to go viral — because it’s going eternal.
No, your dad did not get down on one knee when he proposed – because the romantic men know it’s about living your whole life on your knees.
There are Fridays. And the quiet romantics who will take out the garbage without fanfare. There will be the unimaginative calendar by the fridge, with all it’s scribbled squares of two lives being made one. The toilet seat will be left predictably up. The sink will be resigned to its load of last night’s dishes.
And there is now and the beautiful boring, the way two lives touch and go deeper into time with each other.
The clock ticking passionately into decades.
Related: 3 Habits Every Marriage Needs to Fall in Love Again
Click here to download the FREE EASTER / LENT Devotional: The Trail to the Tree{please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
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