Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 271

When You Give Up, and You Break, You’ve Made It

So that’s what I told my pretty wondrous friend, Sarah Mae:

“My kids don’t need a SuperMama.

They need to see a Mama who needs a Super God.”

And  Sarah Mae, author of Desperate, she nodded — and she writes this story here today:

‘I don’t want to be a servant –

I want to be a Caroline.”

So says the three year old wonder-child who humbles me as a parent and makes me think deeper about life.

I want to be a Caroline.

That’s confidence, isn’t it? And freedom?

I love that about my girl; she hasn’t learned yet to try and be anything but who she is.

She doesn’t know that one day she’ll feel the pressure to be good enough, to be holy enough, to be quiet enough, or wise enough or all the “enough’s” that fill our head and make us neurotic about who we are and how we should live.

The “enough’s” make me tired.

And I think they make a lot of us are real tired, because in all the enough’s we begin to lose ourselves in order to be something else…something better…something expected…so far from who we really are that when we  fall apart, we just give up.

We stop trying. We think, “why bother, I will never change.”

And the lie sinks deep and we believe it for so long, and man it hurts.

But here comes the upside, the so unbelievably bright side: when you are just done, and broken, and tired, you’ve made it.

You are now about to experience the most profound, amazing, life-altering, freedom and grace that will set you so free you are going to fly.

I mean it.

I mean it.

When you are broken enough and tired enough and angry enough that you just can’t mold yourself, fix yourself, do better, be better, when you are just done, grace is lavished on you like nothing you’ve ever experienced.

The world opens up and humility surrounds you and compassion overtakes you because you realize that life is just so hard and “everyone is facing a hard battle”, and instead of trying to be kind, you just become kind.

And you become grace to others.

Because that’s what the Spirit does in a broken beautiful one: He does the work, you just accept the molding.

You walk, one foot in the front of the other by the faith that gives you the hope you are already changed, perfect (Hebrews 10:14) according to heaven.

And when you realize how much you can’t change yourself, you can see others as broken beautiful ones as well who are just trying to make it through this hard life, and you just want to love them and nod your head at them and say, “I know, I know. And I love you just the same.”

Funny, what happens when you stop trying so hard to become what you already are in Christ; you begin to exhibit the things you were trying so hard to do. I’ll tell you why: it’s because you really get love, and you really get loving God and loving others, and you so deeply get grace. When the Law of loving slays you good, you can do nothing but love.

You still make messes and wound hearts and say stupid things, but you never stop loving and extending grace, because it’s all over you now.

And you don’t have to choose between being a servant or who you are —  because you are both, in one, in One.

So come on, my broken, beautiful sister, and let’s walk side-by-side, not checking to see who is ahead or behind, or who seems to have it together, or who seems to really not have it together at all.

Let’s stop looking around and look up, and walk forward, and trust the One who does the molding in us all.

 

“But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free…” Galatians 5:1

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:3

 

 

 

Looking for some non-formula encouragement when it comes to mothering?

You might just be utterly relieved by  Sarah Mae’s new book (written with her mentor, Sally Clarkson): Desperate – Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe. It’s for you, for the mama who has ever whispered, “I just can’t be a mother today.” It’s for those who love their little ones to the depths of their souls, but who feel like parenting is way harder than envisioned. It’s for those who have watched their ideals slip through their fingers like water, unable to grasp them.

In Desperate, Sarah Mae shares honestly about the struggles of motherhood she currently faces, and  Sally offers her grace and insight into the years that He’s offering you like a gift.

{photo credit: my crazy talented sister & mama to 5 girls, Molly}

Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2013-01-26 [del.icio.us]

Confessions of a Homeschooling Mom

@ The High Calling .... encouraging!
Tennessee Homecoming King Nominees Give Crown to Another Teen

.... a read guaranteed to make your heart burst happy.
The Great Tiny Baby Rescue

@ Christianity Today .... I can't get this out of my head. Or heart.

A Life Plan When You’re Overwhelmed: Sanity Manifesto Printable

So I’m a mess and we’re all failures — at least all the honest of us are.

And the truth is, no one ever runs before they take baby steps. 

So I scratch down these 25 points, like my own sanity manifesto, and there are a thousand ways in a thousand seasons to make a life glorify God.

I scrawl out mine, which would be different than yours, and make a place for it on the fridge and it’s not a law, but a scaffolding for the shaky, struggling days.

I don’t write it as a checklist, like these are things I have to do, one after another, but I write the manifesto, fluid, like limbs on a tree, to reach for just the next one I need right now.

And I write it in big letters, right at the top, what I need to whisper on the days when I don’t know how to keep going because everything’s going wrong: Forward!

Because I keep bungling the day and  what that piano adjudicator said when Hope-girl muddled through her piano piece:

“So you forgot some notes! Fear and old habits and people pressure and your own interior playlist can do that — to all of us. But! When the piece started to fall apart?

You fell forward, Hope. You didn’t fret about the music behind you — you focused on the next bar.”

Hope had nodded slowly, like a dawning, smiling.

The adjudicator looked down the row of girls and budding pianists and said it with this steady beat.

“We are all going to botch it somedays. We all sometimes get the notes wrong. But the song only goes wrong when we keep thinking back to the wrong notes.”

“When a piece starts to fall apart — fall forward. Fall forward into the next bar. Moving forward is what makes music.“

And I sit there at the end of the year, on the end of the bed before the sock drawer with a lapful of holey, mismatched socks, and I can hear it, these notes that I might wear like a habit —

Failing? What feels likes losing is really gaining experience. Forward!

Falling apart? Fall into whatever. comes. next. Forward!

Fearful? Fear is always the first step of faith. Forward! 

Whenever you are lost, forward is always the way Home.

So, it’s there on the fridge for all the days when I just need some kind of a map, and for all the days in between, my 25 Point Sanity Manifesto.

Forward!

 

1. First things first: Word in. Work out. Work plan.

Open your eyes every morning and just do three first:

Word in: Get into God’s Word and let it get into you.

Work out: Work out. Even  5 minutes of moving is better than nothing. (baby steps! together we can do this!)

Work plan: Write out the work plan. And then work the plan.

2. “What a heart knows by heart is what a heart knows”

Write your memory verses on a sticky note, on a chalkboard, for your pocket.

Because when you are memorizing Scripture, quiet time with the Lord — becomes all the time. (Who doesn’t want that?)

3. Flame first.

Light a candle first thing in the morning.

So you remember: You are the light that is put on a stand so that it gives light to everyone in the house.

4. Your work is art: it needs a soundtrack.

Find your music.

Play your music.

Sing your music. This is profound.

Vincent van Gogh said: “When sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, they all sing together to keep them up and give them vim. That’s just what artists lack.”

5. Step on the Snake Before Breakfast

Before breakfast, crush one hard thing that is tempting you to think there are impossible things.

Before breakfast, crush that one thing and prove that all things are possible with God.

6. Stay in the pool

Michael Phelps said it in an interview: “You’ve just got to stay in the pool longer than others.”

Set the timer. Get in the pool. Stay in the pool. Do your work. Don’t get distracted. Don’t flit from one thing to another and back.

Don’t get out of the pool, don’t leave your work, until the timer goes. The way to win is to stay in the pool.

7. Clean a space = clear headspace

Keeping the workspace clean, clears your headspace to think.

8. Go Slow. Life Zone. Life isn’t an Emergency: It’s a gift.

Life isn’t an emergency. It’s a gift.

Life’s so extraordinary it warrants going slow, held in reverential awe.

Only the slow see their lives. Which makes it seem longer and richer.

9. Make Laughter Your Chocolate

The more you laugh, the longer you live. You can’t afford not to laugh more. Watch this. Make laughter your chocolate.

10. No songs without rhythm

Every song needs a rhythm; every week needs a routine. Tie certain tasks to a day or another activity.

Always memorize after breakfast or always make a double batch of soup on Saturday.

Your life makes music when you play a string of tasks always together.

11. On 25, Take 5

For every 25 minutes “in the pool” working – take 5 minutes off. Live by pomodoros. Really. Life-changing.

12. Unplug to plug into your purpose

Only if you want to plug into peace and purpose and your big picture – then unplug for certain hours everyday.

Constant connectivity effects productivity like a marijuana high.

13.Watch Your Nos & Your Yeses will take Care of Themselves

Everything you say yes to, you say no to something else.

Are your yeses forcing you to say no to what really want to say yes to?

Don’t have guilt over a no – because every no is saying a better yes.

14. Daily Stillness Appointment

When is your 5 minute stillness appointment everyday?

Write that midday time in stone. No cancellations allowed. For 5 minutes midday, be still and cease striving.

Know He is God and the day looks very different.

Slow down: You only pass by this way once.

15. If the Heaven’s Declare, get out there.

The whole of the sky and the world is speaking endlessly of His glory.

When you step outside and listen, your soul revives. You need that.

You really need one walk outside a day. Even it’s just out the door to get the mail or walk the dog around the block or a walk around the yard before you have to get in the car.

16. Work on your Wall before Noon

Like Nehemiah who worked on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, build your wall, building whatever God has uniquely called you to — a particular work project, a creative project, homeschooling, homemaking, a ministry. Everyday before noon, work on your wall, laying down 3 stones before noon.

If you don’t intentionally work on your wall, the tyranny of the urgent can make your life a rubble heap.

17. Envision the End Goal

Like God gave Abraham a vision of the stars of the sky and told him he would have that many children, hang up a picture so you always have a vision of your goal.

18. Everyday, not Every Now and Then

Random acts of greatness pale in comparison to habitual acts of faithfulness.

It’s not what you do every now and then, but what you do everyday, that changes everything. 

Do something at the same time everyday and you find yourself a new person.

19. Hard Stops

The only way to get anywhere safely is to make complete stops.

Make hard, complete stops at set times throughout the day to pray. Otherwise you’re risking a crash.

9, 12, 3, on the hour, might be times to set an a gentle, chime alarm for – and just stop and pray.

Praying at set times throughout the day is how both Jesus and the early church lived their days: God marking time.

20. The Holy, Happiness Habit {Count Gifts}

Write down 3 things a day you are grateful for. Hunt for His glory. Look for the beauty. Count 1000 gifts.

All research says that giving thanks is guaranteed to make you 25% happier. Who. Doesn’t. Want. That.?

Thank Him for this is definitely God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Take the Joy Dare! Make right where you are your happy place.

21. Ebenezers for the Efforts

Mark little milestones! Celebrate! The little things!

A treat at the end of the day, end of the week, end of the project, end of the term.

Hang a bunting. Taste something sweet. Take a happy, thumbs up picture to mark your progress!

Make an album of a year, of the process, of the overcoming.

22. Father Affirmations

You need these everyday. Whisper them aloud, who you really are if you are IN Christ:

I am complete in Christ. Colossians 2:9-10

I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4:14-16

I am free from condemnation. Romans 8:1-2

I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances. Romans 8:28

I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated from the love of God. Romans 8:31-39

I am confident that God will complete the good work He started in me. Philippians 1:6

I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

23. Breathe

Breathing in and breathing out like this will radically change the quality of your life. Breathe.

24. Hard and Bad Day? Hot Bath

An evening routine of a hot bath at the end of the hard and bad days?

Yes.

25. Rest so you can have the rest of God.

Sleep is more than your friend — it’s your God-given fuel.

Tomorrow always begins with the night before, so turn in early so tomorrow can turn out well.

 photo credit 1 and 2

 

To Download the Manifesto in aqua and brown : 

in  grey, burnt red, mustard   :  in various colors : 

in black and white : in red, black and white

 

Related posts for the manifesto to make sense:

Forward!

Daily Printable Work Plan (as photographed here on the clipboard)

Scripture Memorization: The Romans Project

How not to get distracted online

Life isn’t an emergency. It’s a gift.

What does “On 25 take 5″ mean

How to make hard, complete stops at set times to pray

How to really Breathe

Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2013-01-24 [del.icio.us]

Dance of the Servants

@ A Path Made Straight ... Elise's example here is beautiful for any mama.
The One Thing That Will Change Your Life

@We are THAT Family .... Oh. This.

Your Care Guide: 25 Point Manifesto for Sanity in 2013

Nearing the end of January here, first month of the year.

Now’s when things are starting to get hard, and new habits, those things that we wear, start to wear thin.

When you start feeling a bit overwhelmed and not sure how to overcome.

So we nail it to our doors — our 25 point manifesto for sanity in 2013.

1. First things first: Word in. Work out. Work plan.

Open your eyes every morning and just do three first:

Word in: Get into God’s Word and let it get into you.

Work out: Work out. Even 5 minutes of moving is better than nothing. (Baby steps! Together we can do this!)

Work plan: Write out the work plan. And then work the plan.

 

2. “What a heart knows by heart is what a heart knows”

Write your memory verses on a sticky note, on a chalkboard, for your pocket.

Because when you are memorizing Scripture, quiet time with the Lord — becomes all the time. (Who doesn’t want that?)

 

3. Flame first.

Light a candle first thing in the morning.

So you remember: You are the light that is put on a stand so that it gives light to everyone in the house.

 

 

4. Your work is art: it needs a soundtrack.

Find your music.

Play your music.

Sing your music. This is profound.

Vincent van Gogh said: “When sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, they all sing together to keep them up and give them vim. That’s just what artists lack.”

 

5. Step on the Snake Before Breakfast

Before breakfast, crush one hard thing that is tempting you to think there are impossible things.

Before breakfast, crush that one thing and prove that all things are possible with God.

 

6. Stay in the pool

Michael Phelps said it in an interview: “You’ve got to stay working in the pool longer than others.”

Set the timer. Get in the pool. Stay in the pool. Do you work. Don’t get distracted. Don’t flit from one thing to another and back.

Don’t get out of the pool, don’t leave your work, until the timer goes. The way to win is to stay in the pool.

 

 

7. Clean a space = clear headspace

Keeping the workspace clean, clears your headspace to think.

 

8. Go Slow. Life Zone.

Life isn’t an emergency. It’s a gift.

It’s so extraordinary it warrants going slow, held in reverential awe.

Only the slow see their lives. Which makes it seem longer and richer.

 

9. Take your Laughter vitamins

The more you laugh, the longer you live.

You can’t afford not to laugh more. Watch this.

Make laughter your chocolate.

 

10. No songs without rhythm

Every song needs a rhythm; every week needs a routine. Tie certain tasks to a day or another activity.

Always memorize after breakfast or always make a double batch of soup on Saturday.

Your life makes music when you play a string of tasks always together.

 

11. On 25, Take 5

For every 25 minutes “in the pool” working – take 5 minutes off. Live by pomodoros. Really. Life-changing.

 

12. Unplug to plug into your purpose

Only if you want to plug into peace and purpose and your big picture – then unplug for certain hours everyday.

Constant connectivity effects productivity like a marijuana high.

 

13.Watch Your Nos & Your Yeses will take Care of Themselves

Everything you say yes to, you say no to something else.

Are your yeses forcing you to say no to what really want to say yes to?

Don’t have guilt over a no – because every no is saying a better yes.

 

Keep reading all 25 Points of the Sanity Manifesto….  

because we all need a care guide.

Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2013-01-23 [del.icio.us]

The Sound of Our Breathing

.... @ Jason Gray. This.
Be Loved

@ Christy Nockels ... Yes. Rinse and Repeat.
Falling Out - A Beautiful Trench It Was

my friend, Sam Van Eman, he tells stories and we listen...
The People and Winter (with accompanying music)

.... on a cold day from the farm? Still! REJOICE!
Urban Farmers Planting New Life in Detroit's Vacated Landscape

@ Christianity Today .... "They say, 'See, this is how God works,'" Score says. He wants to make sure that people outside the church hear that God cares and God is working in their midst. "That," he says, "is the gap that needs to be bridged."

What Does a bit of Radical Christianity Really Look Like —- Right Where You Are? {Pt 2}

When I first read her story on the screen, I want to drive a for sale sign into the front lawn and sell all the pigs.

Mainly because I don’t think I can shoe horn a few hundred hogs into a suitcase —

and there’s now way around it: my heart’s already left on a jet plane for Africa.

Because here I am with the clean and the climbing in North America, and  Katie is with the dirty and lovely in Uganda and I lay in bed at night, listening to the coyotes howl in the woods, and I wonder where each of us is headed.

Isn’t up really down and down really up when you’re in Christ?

Isn’t the point that we want to give our lives away? How do we give our lives away? Is that what it means to be centered on Christ, the God who so loved, He gave?

I had walked through the rotting stench of a dump in Guatemala, step over open, running sewers, the carcasses of dead rats, try not to think about the bones of God, about the skeleton of my gaunt faith, and how do you grab your one stubborn life by the horns and turn it all around?

I measure the mudroom and go to the hardware store and we buy door jams and plywood and cans of paint and we build 2 new closets to hang hooks to hang coats and it comes in the mail that day — a letter and photo from our sponsored child, Xiomara in Guatemala.

How can I forget her kitchen and she had no closets?

I sit on the floor of our kitchen with running water, with her carefully penciled words right here in my hand, lean my head against the wall, and I close my eyes. The room smells like fresh paint.

How in the world to be the aroma of Christ?

How in the world can comfortable Christianity ever be Christ’s Christianity?

Is it even possible to be a radical Christ-follower — and own a mini-van, have more than one bathroom, order clothes from Land’s End, and lay your head down on a pillow when He had none? Really? What is the North American church really supposed to do? Anyone want to buy the hogs so we can go? What are mothers really supposed to do?

When Katie sends me the galley of her book, Kisses from Katie, I read it in the dark of a still house. We all have beds. Some share. The refrigerator does hum on and on. I don’t know at all what I am supposed to do.

I turn pages, read her story of forsaking the American dream for God-sized dreams. How she picks out scabies burrowing deep into brown skin. How she rocks malnourished babies and sings of Jesus loving them, this she knows. She tells me that if only 8 percent of Christians would care for just one more child, there wouldn’t be any orphans or needy children left.

Aren’t mothers supposed to do something about that? How can I not?

And there’s the soul bankrupt neighbors next door. The lonely widow at church that I last spoke to when there was snow on the ground. The terrified single mama of five who is battling an aggressive cancer and I haven’t got a meal to her yet? Can’t mothers do something about that?

Christ is with the poor and Christ-centric Christianity knows no other orbit but around the aching and the breaking — around the corner and down the street and across the ocean.

What does my life revolve around?

I can hear how Katie laughs love over bent, poor frames and I read her notes of giving thanks to God for all these graces and I see her smile and how everyday she simply wakes up and just says yes to what God gives her wherever she is and the only joy that saves the world is radical joy IN Him.

Can we only live lives for God if we purpose to solely keep company with God?

So is this the thing: after the heart is won to God, how do we keep the heart with God? Who has a real plan for this? Isn’t this what we have to figure out?

Because only a life contemplating the love of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.

Because all radical Christianity is first rooted in relationship Christianity — with Christ and His children. Right where we are.

And love always moves. Always rippling outward, onward, forever homeward.

There’s love in a loaf of bread.

I don’t know who I’m trying to kid — No one’s going to buy the pigs. The Farmer’s hands, they are made for dirt and I made the vow — where he goes, I will go.

And I pick up a pen and write a letter to Xiomara, to all our sponsored Compassion children.

Sponsorship is my very real, radical means of going now — of being one of the 8 percent of Christians caring for just one more child until there aren’t any orphans or needy children left. Write my letter and do relationship, because it’s not so much the funds that we donate that changes the world — but the love that we deposit.

Love is the only thing that ever changed me — and Love is the only thing that will ever change the world — and love is the thing that is the real radical.

I look in the mirror in the mudroom and this is what mothers can do: Love.

Mothers in North America doing what Katie in Uganda is doing: Loving.

Loving first and foremost Christ. Loving the people here, loving the people there, just loving everywhere.

Love has no limits and love can’t be contained and when we have a radical love for God, God takes care of the location of where that love goes.

Just radically, wildly, completely, wholly love. When someone stops doing nothing — and starts doing something — this is what starts to change everything. Do something. Love!

When I finish my letter to our little Xiomara, finish asking her about school and her Mama and her grandmama, I close with how Jesus loves her and I close up the edge of the envelope and I think of Katie loving on children… I can love.

and I seal that letter with a kiss.

::

::

:

Related: {I’ll be spending the next 4 weeks wrestling with Radical right where you are}

Sponsor a child with Compassion.

Write your sponsored child today

First in the series: When You are Weary of Watered-Down, Vanilla Christianity {Part 1 of Radical Series}

button code here

Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart. To read the entire series of spiritual practices

Next Week, might we explore: The Practice of Radical.  What does it mean to live IN Jesus, WITH Christ in the center of our lives?

Today, if you’d like to share with community: The Practice of Radical … just quietly slip in the direct URL to your exact post….. If you join us, we humbly ask that you please help us find each other by sharing the community’s graphic within your post.

Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

How to Breathe Through the Hard Times

They were born the same week.

Both of them, days apart, two miracle years ago this week.

My scribbly little book and her loveliest little person.

And my sister had said to me, said into the phone, during early labor — “Tell me I can do this.”

And I wait for her to breathe heavy through the mother wave cresting up around the child swelling and I say, “Yes, you can do it.”

She’s in labor over love.

Her body tightening, hugging a child into this world. It’s always fear that brings tension – the tension that brings the pain.

And then it’s the pain that makes us think that we can’t go on… So when the world contracts tight… breathe deep, and let it all come with no fear, no fear.

“Remember?” I whisper it gentle, what I told myself through all our six labors: “You’re a bag of sand and there’s a hole in your toe — and the sand just keeps trickling out.

Just let everything that comes on, trickle on through. Don’t hold on… Just breathe and let go.”

All the torn places in a life show us to how let go.

And the work of birthing a child is the work of raising a child –  knowing how to let go.

We breathe slow together, letting what He gives in this moment fill us, run through us, move on out into the world.

I don’t know how many times a day I still midwife myself and these children, “Just take a deep breath… Breathe.“

The beautiful labor over a child never ends. Our every breath is a murmuring of His name, YWHW.

“The letters of the name of God in Hebrew… are infrequently pronounced Yahweh. But in truth they are inutterable….

This word {YHWH} is the sound of breathing.

The holiest name in the world, the Name of Creator, is the sound of your own breathing. That these letters are unpronounceable is no accident. Just as it is no accident that they are also the root letters of the Hebrew verb ‘to be’… God’s name is name of Being itself.”

~Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

She’s inhaling now, soft whistle breath calling Him, her very existence an unceasing invitation for Him to come. And she exhales, breath returned to Him, a circular ventilation of the soul. YHWH. YHWH.

Breathe — and call the name of Being Himself. Keep breathing — and pray without ceasing.

This is how to labor over your child,  your life: breathe, inhale prayers, exhale prayers, breathe. YHWH. YHWH.

I breathe prayers all morning. I watching the hands of the clock and feel the everlasting arms underneath.

And when the phone rings, I catch my breath, and it’s her voice and I wait to hear and she whispers it happy– “A girl!”

And I throw back my head and laugh wonder! Five girls in a row!

 

And when the newest of our women folk, small and bundled, is placed into my open arms, this curl of warming wonder, I behold grace and breathe the unending prayer of women everywhere:

“O Thank you, Lord.”

And then God —

He orchestrates it that days after  that book of ours, One Thousand Gifts, delivers into the world, that my little days-old niece stops breathing.

She turns blue, color of heaven.

Would we still look up to the heavens and whisper what we’d written in the pages of One Thousand Gifts: God is always good and we are always loved.

The words we preach must always become flesh. Else they aren’t words, but lies.

We wait to hear from doctors in the critical care unit.

My niece breathes shallow and laboured.

One Thousand Gifts preaches what we stand by, over a year on the New York Times, preaching All is Grace — because Christ can transfigure all.

And we kneel with this wee one and thank God for even this, how He will use even this.God asks us not to only read or write words, but become them.

Will we live the hard eucharisteo, gratitude for that which makes no sense to us on this side? We eat the manna, the mystery of the moments, and thank Him that He alone is enough to sustain us. 

My sister emails an update from the monitors of the hospital room and this blinks across my screen:

I am grateful today, Sister for:

a husband who loves me even when I’m breaking

oxygen…oxygen…oxygen…

that days like today come to an end and that He is faithful to provide His grace for each suffocating moment…

I bite my the corner of my lip to hold it all from giving away.

The words we believe, they breathe. We are living it. The words on a page about thanks in all things again take on sinew and muscle and blood and skin and again we become words.

Our every breath is a surrender to His sovereignty: YWHW. YWHW.

 

And now, two years later this week, after all that He has brought us all through –

We all gather in the snow, my sister and I and my mama, with our very good men and her 5 girls and our half a dozen crazy tribe, and we sing happy birthday.

Sing Happy Birthday for the little girl, whose beginning, whose hard breathing and hard eucharisteo, were tied inexplicably to this gift of giving thanks in all things —

in all things —

 for this is the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. 

And it is a wonder —

A wonder that she twirls, mittens in the air, and wonder that we laugh, and wonder that there is the miracle of now when it might not have been at all, and wonder that all is grace.

And the snow falls around us like manna, breath of heaven come down.

 

 

{RSS Readers may click here to watch the video that started it all: How to Figure Life Out. Consider clicking off the music in the left sidebar, just a click of the speaker icon?}

Share the Video Dare — Dare your friends on Facebook?

 

Related:

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare To Live Fully Right Where You Are – {two years old this week!} – 40% off at Christianbook.com

and at: @ amazon @ daySpring @ barnes & noble @ nook :: kindle :: audio and the new DVD Study where we welcome you to the farm

Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

5 Things You Need to Know Before You Begin Your 2nd Term of Life

It felt like the second term to her.

Her 39 and him about 40, and the first half over, now the beginning of the second.

Or of the end — depending how you looked at it.

You don’t get to make up most of your story.

That’s what she thought at the stove over eggs, over all the cracked and broken things.

You don’t get to make him love you like you want to be loved.

You don’t get to make him listen, or laugh, or get it, or hold you.

You don’t get to make the kids avoid bent fenders, busted hearts, and mangled dreams.

You don’t get to force your life like a pot to bulbs, and you might never get to be a missionary in the mountains of Tibet, or bring a baby home from Ethiopia, or fling open the door on the life you thought you’d always have.

She picked out a broken shell from the scrambled eggs.

And everything quietly brimmed and blurred a bit over a frying pan. She hoped it looked like it was all because of onions.

Why does pain always come back again and why do parents grow old and sick and kids grow up but not any wiser? Why does a woman marry a man expecting he’ll change — and why does a man marry a woman expecting she’ll never change?

Why does no one tell you that once you start labor over a child, you’ll never stop, and you always must remember to keep breathing?

Why did she read and think and have questions at all and why was this being a woman hard and could she even say that out loud?

She scrambled the eggs.

She brushed away whatever was spilling and she scrambled the eggs.

And she took a deep breath and she smiled brave because this is how you answer His call.

You don’t get to make up most of your story. You get to make peace with it.

You don’t get to demand your life, like a given. You get to accept your life, like a gift.

Beginnings and middles, they are only yours to embrace, to unwrap like a gift.

But you get the endings. You always get the endings.

You get the endings and you get to make them a gift back to the Giver.

She told herself that, tucking falling strands behind her ear: Here wasn’t a glory to wrestle, but a grace to receive. Isn’t everything that is good always hard?

What if — She let herself be loved whatever way her Lord deemed best.

You’ve only accepted Christ as your Lord without reservation — as much as you have accepted your life as a gift without regret.

The ending of everything is always yours.

So she made the bed and and she made his favorite omelet and service isn’t about being a doormat but about being a door for joy to walk through.

And there at the beginning of the second half —  or whatever right then was right there in the kitchen — she stood in the light and opened her hand like a reception —

and made her life an inauguration of grace.

 

 

 

{more of the One Thousand Gifts (#4, 536-#4,545):  Saturday afternoon chores with the Farmer : cousins and candles and aunts this weekend : counting gifts and seeing it there on the wall, that Be Loved print and saying yes to His ways: prayers with a sister : home through last night’s snow storm : Romans 1:7-8 up on the chalkboard :  roast of pork in the slow cooker : snow falling : stack of books by the fireplace : inaugurating grace everywhere : that we always get to choose how we will live the endings…}

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 January’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!

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Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Best Way to Get Through Hard Times

It’s what I sang over dishes.

Sang on the days when I felt too weary to take another step, clean up another mess, change another diaper.

Keep singing when I need to keep going on.

It’s what I sing when the enemy attacks with lies, when I feel alone and scared, when I fear the future and whispers in the shadows.

It’s what my mother-in-law, a Dutch farmer’s wife and mother of nine, godly and with these big calloused work hands, said to do.

What she told me once hunched over this row of peas we were picking out in a June twilight:

“It’s what my mother said, Ann: When it is hardest — that is when you sing the loudest. The devil flees at a hymn.”

At the last, when the cancer wound tighter, folks would ask how she was — and my father-in-law would say, “Good! She’s singing all the time.”

And we knew how hard it was — and how good she knew He is.



She sang this and it’s what we sang to her at the last, all around the bed with hymn books open —-

and it is what I keep singing:

{Consider pausing the blog music by clicking the speaker icon in the left sidebar? If reading in a reader or via email, click here to view? }

Abandon the worries…  and Abide in the Word.

Abandon the fears…  and Abide in the Father.

Abandon the hurts… and Abide in His heart.

Abandon the cares…  because Christ will never abandon you.

It’s what I self-preach again and again to the fearful sinner who is me: Abandon and Abide.

I run water for the next stack of dishes.

Take off my ring and watch, leave them there on the counter.

And immerse hands in water, the tap still running.

Everything, everywhere quietly humming….

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Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}