Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 284
October 9, 2012
When You Feel Like You’re Battling Hard {Crazy Joy: 9}
It’s when one of the boys pulls his hoodie up and slumps over Scripture like it’s some vanilla page of Dick and Jane.
The dining room window frames this skirmish of summer and October sky, The tissue-thin pages I’m holding onto, they’re open to Paul writing to the Ephesians to put on their armor.
And some kid detonated the words moron and loser in the kitchen this morning and only grazed off part of a soul and most of the morning.
Why does the dog tear open the garbage like a pinata over the back steps and teenagers shrug indifferent to sibling savagery and time evaporate like a mocking mirage and the sound bites of the evening news devour most of the day’s good?
Why do I keep failing? Why do these kids keep falling? What can read like a rhetorical question can feel like a heart howl.
Am I certifiable crazy to think joy can be found in the insanity of here?
The Farmer pushes back his empty plate, and pulls the real food close and he reads the words slow, like a door opening up:
“13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
Rain’s falling on the window now.
The counter sags with crusted pots and sweet potato peelings and the cut off remnants of garden tomatoes.
And in the stilled sigh of the house, the Farmer waits.
And it’s all I’ve got:
“Life’s biggest kill joy is expectations.”
I run my hand across the Word, smoothing out me.
When did I start expecting successful Christian living to be smooth sailing instead of stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm?
When did I start thinking that good Christian living looked more like a holiday than deployment?
When did I start thinking Christianity was about putting on accessories instead of putting on armor?
Life’s not hard because you’re doing anything wrong: Life is a battle. Put on your armor.
The kid at the end of the table looks like he’s dozing over verses instead of studying them.
And I take a deep breath…
When you know the call is not to be comfortable but to be Christ-formed, then the answer is joy.
The dog and the kids and the mess, this is His doing in me and for me, and every inconvenience of Christ’s making is an instrument of Christ-shaping. Sure, some who say this is trite cliche — but the bruised and brazen know it’s Christ-truth and they still stand.
I sit there with a Bible on my lap and the Farmer praying over his empty plate and the pages laying wide open and I look past the skulking and the dozing and the pots and dishes and pans — and something inside of me unties like the whole conquering sky.
Life is battle and the weak and the weary have this weapon: The Joy of the Lord is my Strength.The joy of the Lord is not mere sentiment; the joy of the Lord is the muscle that keeps you standing.
And I get up and gather the enamelware bowls with bits of squash still in them and I stand at the sink and there is warm water and light in the corn and leaves falling, falling, confetti through the sky and it’s everywhere: The joy of the Lord cannot be contained. The whole earth is full of His glory and this battle’s won. And I stand at the sink and I wash.
The joy of the Lord is our strength.
And I can feel it –
The mirth of God, it roars loud through the veins and it keeps us standing, louder than all that presses.
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Related: The One Habit that Radically Changes a Family
Day 9: Catch the whole 31 Days to Crazy Joy series right here
Like some crazy joy? (Anyone not want more joy?) Tap in your email to not miss a day of
your guidebook to 31 Days to Crazy Joy
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 2012-10-08 [del.icio.us]
offered here again...
Someone say Fall? {FREE Printable}
... @pen and paint blog... such autumn fun! :)
October 8, 2012
Best Tips for Effective Time Management
(Take time today for the Thanksgiving Chair?
Best use of time… to live like this.
If reading in a reader or email, view the video here… Consider pausing the music directly under the header?)
On Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend…
Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
… they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress…
Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!..
~Psalm 107 ESV
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Day 8: Catch the whole 31 Days to Crazy Joy series right here
Like some crazy joy? (Anyone not want more joy?) Tap in your email to not miss a day of
your guidebook to 31 Days to Crazy Joy
and counting more of the One Thousand Gifts
that never end… thanks for Christ who does it all, gives it all…
#4445… real kids who laugh and who tease and who fall and help each other get back up
#4446… light in the trees after rain
#4447… Caleb offering a few wreaths again
#4448… medication for a bronchial infection
#4449… sleep. sleep. sleep.
#4450…mama’s soup
#4451… a day of no fever
#4452… #13 on NYTimes … that God would keep daring His people to fully live a life of joy
#4453… my brother hand-delivering turkeys to all the neighbors to wish them a happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
#4454… considering the steadfast love of the Lord in a thousand, countless ways…
Free October Joy Dare: Look for 3 gifts each day to give thanks for. Print for the fridge. Dare the family to Joy!
{Join as we share our Joy Dares here every day & enter to win the monthly Joy Dare Basket…. and the Nikon D90… Looking for the collection of the Whole Year of Joy Dares?}
Will you join us? And happily change everything by keeping your own crazy list of One Thousand Gifts? 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!
October 6, 2012
How is Joy in Suffering Possible? {Video}
{Please consider clicking off music slider just below top nav bar to worship with this song?
RSS readers can view ‘video’ of Mr. Keller here… }
“In this you rejoice,
though now
for a little while, if necessary,
you have been grieved by various trials….”
May the joy of the Lord meet and surprise you all over again this weekend, friends…
Day 6 of Crazy Joy: Catch up on the whole 31 Days to Crazy Joy series right here
Like some crazy joy? (Anyone not want more joy?) Tap in your email to not miss a day of
your guidebook to 31 Days to Crazy Joy
Click here to download the FREE JESSE TREE Advent Family Devotional {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}
October 5, 2012
Starting Now? The End to the Cynicism
Just before twilight and all the dark, there’s this going to to the woods with the dog and the girl, because really, there’s just too much light not to go.
She cuts the stems of the berried plants.
She sings hymns.
And I pick grasses and listen to her, how she sings and it’s bold, and just for a moment I wonder if there’s need to ask for forgiveness?
Do you apologize for the chorus of hymns to those who hurt and cry from the ache? Joy can feel like naivete at best and neglect at worst and it’s easy to think only the dim-witted feel joy at all. A blue jay cries from somewhere in the trees.
And she sings clear and high, her head bowed over her work : “How Great Thou Art…”
I lay dead grasses into this bouquet.
The cynics and the sarcastics, the critics and the condemning, they speak loud, like they speak the language of this fallen world.
And the diatribes of doubters, dissenters, detractors, this can read like it’s some deep intelligence, the way a tongue, a sharp word, can cut everything back. It means that, I’m told: sarcasm means “to rend the flesh.” But cynics aren’t surgeons and the sarcastic aren’t specialists and why is it so hard to think joy’s a real medicine?
The thing is: The cynics, they can only speak of the dark, of the obvious, and this is not hard. For all it’s supposed sophistication, it’s cynicism that’s simplistic. In a fallen world, how profound is to see the cracks?
The sages and prophets, the disciples and revolutionaries, they are the ones up on the ramparts, up on the wall pointing to the dawn of the new Kingdom coming, pointing to the light that breaks through all things broken, pointing to redemption always rising and to the Blazing God who never sleeps.
The brilliant don’t deny the dark but they are the ones who always seek the light in everything. This is not ignorance. This is imperative:
Always first the eyes. The way we see is the way we’re saved.
True, there’s no getting around it: There are raw edges everywhere and we’re shattered and serrated and we’d be fools not to moan and bemoan for a doctor. But the Truth is: we have One.
And we lament visceral pain, the way injustice lances and bleeds. But praise God that there is a doctor in the House! And He knows your name and He holds the stars and His girds underneath and He never lets go and He is Joy and He is Light and He is the warrior who defeats the dark.
The language of genuine Biblical lament, this needs learning. But we’re freed from our mother tongue of complaint when we know our Father’s heart.
I had written it once and then tried to live it:“I will not desecrate this moment with ignorant hurry or sordid ingratitude.” And I scratch it now underneath: I will not profane His offer of joy with jaded pessimism.
She hands me the berries.
Light is the radical thing in a dark world.
And nothing of this world wants any of us to live in real joy.
Because Joy is dangerous — it’s igniting and contagious and otherworldly and it wins demon wars.
And it’s mere ploy to say joy is Pollyanna– because joy is revolutionary: it goes straight against the way this dark world spins.
“But why are they called chinese lanterns?” She climbs out of the ditch behind me.
And I kneel and I show her:
“Because inside ….” and I turn the stem….
“…when everything else dries and withers away, there is this seed – this light inside that will scatter, that will multiply everywhere.”
And she points to the light that breaks through all things broken…
And we gather the grasses and berries and lanterns into arms and walk home through the woods, through a dying, fallen world, —
nothing stopping even the trees from enflaming joy, all glory.
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Related: New winds blowing here and here
How to See God: The Light of Brokenness
Day 5: Catch the whole 31 Days to Crazy Joy series right here
Like some crazy joy? (Anyone not want more joy?) Tap in your email to not miss a day of
your guidebook to 31 Days to Crazy Joy
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 2012-10-04 [del.icio.us]
@ Family Life Today: Dennis Rainey's favorite question to ask men is, "What is the most courageous thing you have ever done?" And this video? Thank you, Lord!
October 4, 2012
How to Make Joy in the Hard Places {Printables}
A bird flew straight into the kitchen last night.
Perched right on the top of that weather van on the mantle.
And I looked up from the sink and thought it was you right there –
your heart pounding right there out of your chest.
It’s hard to be overwhelmed.
What if we could do that — hand each other Joy in a Box?
That one overwhelmed swallow perched there on the arrow of the vane.
On the weather vane on the mantle, eyes flashing, lost and only silently wild.
Drying dish hands on the edge of my apron, I can see it, that singular pounding of that one feathered breast.
The tremor of one heart, it can shake a whole house.
The whole earth it does that, the whole earth quakes.
What if we did that — stand with arms stretched right out and point in the right direction, point in the direction of the best place to to land?
Grace could line our days and Joy can be a nest.
The Puritan Thomas Watson
wrote, “He who takes a review of his blessings, looks upon himself as a person engaged for God… He dedicates Himself to God.”
This way. This way, I tell the sparrow. Pointing in that direction, the direction of grace, gratitude, joy — this is the best gift. The way to crazy joy.
She who re-views her blessings, re-views herself — sees herself as beheld by her Beloved.
When you re-view blessings, you view your life right and you re-joice — and who doesn’t want joy over and over again?
Rejoice – it means that: to swell with joy again, again, again. Who does this, who lives in a repeating joy? Sparrow with your wildly thumming heart in a very big world – do you know this? Repeat the sounding joy.
The thing is: we only repeat the sounding joy, re-joice, re-joy again and again, when we remember to give thanks — and again repeat.
And when I remember to give thanks in a fallen and broken world, this is what re-members me and I am put together again.
That sparrow, I can see it’s beautiful shadow on the wall, how she opens her beak, her mouth, but she is too tired, too scared, too lost, and there is no sound. She is looking for song… right where she is.
Richard Wurmbrand
, imprisoned in communistic Romania for His joy in Christ, he had said it — how he’d used his chains for Christ to make songs of praise to Christ.
It could be like that.
I watch the sparrow that and it could begin with me: Followers of Christ take the inconveniences of plans and make them into instruments of praise.
Followers of Christ take the inconveniences of life — and make them into instruments to love.
The sparrow on the weather vane, she turns and the weather vane it does, it creeks the highest notes.
We watch. We wait.
Will that sparrow…?
Sometimes you feel caged when really you’re only cupped.
And then she does — she spreads her wings and she finds out: He is the air of this world and she’s meant to soar.
She swoops right towards the open window and I can hear it, re-joy, those wings that take the difficult and thrum with thanks again and again and again.
And this is how a sparrow flies…
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4th day of having a fever here — thank you for grace as I post from the archives…
Day 4: Catch the whole 31 Days to Crazy Joy series right here
Like some crazy joy? (Anyone not want more joy?) Tap in your email to not miss a day of
your guidebook to 31 Days to Crazy Joy
Give the Gift: Joy – in- A – Box
How to Give Joy-in-a-Box
To download the Complete Joy-in-a-Box & 1000 Gifts Journal Kit? Head right here for the whole happy thing!
Or… download individually:
1. Print out & cut out a Joy Bunting (or the Eucharisteo Bunting) — tuck into a box with tissue paper…
2. Print and cut out the bookmark on 10 Reasons on Give Thanks and Find Joy. Punch a hole in the end and slip a pretty ribbon through. A perfect — oh, so necessary — reminder on how to find Joy on the Hard Days. {I’ve soul amnesia and need to preach the gospel to myself everyday…}
3. Print out all these free gratitude journal graphics to beautify, pretty up, customize and make lovely your own 1000 gifts journal. Customize your own journal — or make one for a friend and tuck into the box? Or print out several copies and slip them all into the Joy Box so she can have the happy fun of creating her own. {Send a blank journal too?}
4. Print out this recipe and bake up a few of the bird nest cookies, just a sweet treat and prayer for her to nest in His constant care….
5. Print out and send the whole year’s collection of monthly Joy Dares — (oh, do the dare!) a dare to find just these three gifts every day. To begin to shift perspective and look for His grace everywhere… a hunt for His glory right where we are! {Invite her to join the community at facebook.com/onethousandgifts where we share the gifts found each day. Count 1000 gifts in 2012 and at year’s end enter to win a Nikon D90 camera?)
6. Print out the Free 7 gifts, Good and Lovely, booklet and tuck it into the Joy-in-a-Box too? To put in her pocket and write down His graces throughout the day? {Or download the free app?} Maybe include the free Year of Graces Calendar, a space to write down joy everyday?
7. The Best Part? Print out and tuck the 4 JOY Bible verses into the Joy in a Box — to direct one beating heart back to Him in all things. Just hit print and ta-da — Joy-in-a-Box! Our happy, free love gift to you!
8. You might too, at the last, wrap in some tissue and tuck a feather in the bow — a gift book: Finding JOY in what really Matters — with of photographs from the farm
and joy words from my heart, all these joy words — easy to read, simple excerpts from One Thousand Gifts, and each page full of God’s full color art: Because if joy is a matter of gratitude, and gratitude is a matter of perspective, then giving thanks changes not only your perspective — it changes your life.”
Joy can be our wings. I just want you to take to the sky… to find Joy in Who really Matters…
For all the overwhelmed ones to find the sky…
{If you share the Joy -in-a-Box – will you share a photo of it over at the FB Joy Community at One Thousand Gifts … We’d love to see your creativity with these printables and we can all be inspired to share joy?!}
Soar, friends,
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 2012-10-03 [del.icio.us]
@ The Huffington... how I wish there were more pictures with the kids. Just. this.
October 3, 2012
When You’re Feeling a bit Lost: How to Find Your Way back to Joy?
‘You look a bit lost, girl.”
I sink down beside her on the kitchen floor and I know sinking. The cork floor’s cool.
“You feeling lost, Shalom?”
She’s got her arms wrapped around her knees, pulling everything right under her chin, those curls of hers spiralling down everywhere, everywhere spiralling.
Shalom, her name means wholeness, delight, the fullness of the way things ought to be. And here she is balled up in the corner of the kitchen feeling nothing is the way it should be.
I know this — how do the Shalom people find their way out of anti-Shalom lives?
How do we find our way back to Joy?
I slide up beside her, between the stove and the fridge, wait for her to slip words out through the keyhole of whatever’s locking her up.
From down here, the windows over the table unfold the sky like a Jacob’s ladder, blue giving way to blue to darker October blue.
“Just. such. a. loser.” She mumbles the words into herself, crinkling her nose, shaking all those curls down like she’s shaking herself hard. What game was she playing with brothers that landed her here?
Shalom tilts her head and her curls part and she lets me in:
“If you’re a loser, are you lost?”
Oh girl.
It’s like there’s an echo, her heart throbbing my life.
Do I tell her –
that everyone’s looking for signs and wonders and falling is disorienting and who isn’t fallen and just a little bit lost and none of us are alone? We’re all heartbroken.
Do I tell her that the Gospel means you are done with the exhaustion of trying to be earn anything, that the good news is that you don’t have to earn good.
To somehow wrap around this fallen world’s fragility in just this:
Christianity isn’t a ladder the good climb toward being better — Christ’s a lifeline that the bad hold onto in their failure to be good.
Because the truth is: in Christ, that two way street living of “this for that” is over — because that kind of living always comes to dead ends.
True, we live in a two-way crazy love
– all God’s love directed towards us, all our love directed back toward Him.
But maybe everyone feeling lost and spun and looking to find their way Home, maybe they just need to know this too:
Real Joy is found on a one-way street: Every good gift comes solely from God, and flows simply through us into the world, and is our only gift back to God — that made by the very grace He alone gave.
Real Crazy Joy is found on a one-way street.
Everything is from Him and through Him and to Him.
In the Kingdom of God, all the arrows go one way — and all the roads circle.
He is the only source, the only fuel, the only way. He is the Journey. And He is the destination. In His presence is fullness of Joy — crazy, encircling, joy.
“Shalom?”
She nods. She knows her name — who she’s called to really be.
“Honey — ” and I scoop her up on my lap.
“Every time you feel lost, the map back to happy is really simple:
Jesus’ grace is the one-way love that gets you back to Joy.
Jesus takes you. Jesus takes you.
And He’ll take you all the way Home.”
And it comes in the kitchen, comes to a young girl and an old girl with arms wrapped around each other, comes like pure relief —
Blessed assurance, Jesus assures: You don’t have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps — you only have to pull close.
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Day 3: Catch the whole 31 Days to Crazy Joy series right here
Like some crazy joy? (Anyone not want more joy?) Tap in your email to not miss a day of
your guidebook to 31 Days to Crazy Joy
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
For the next 3 weeks: The Practice of Joy…. What does it mean to choose Crazy Joy? How do we authentically walk through hard times? How do practice the “gigantic secret” of Christians? We look forward to your Scripture study, stories, encouragement….
Today, if you’d like to share with community The Practice of Suffering … with Joy.. 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.
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