Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 287

Links for 2012-09-17 [del.icio.us]

A Love Story In 22 Pictures

... oh.
Because Dreaming Together Is More Fun

@ jumping tandem ... doesn't this look soul-nourishing?
MASTERING the CURVE

@ Lore Ferguson: Do you ever feel like you’re not enough?
If you ate today... Harvest The Big Picture - Boston.com

@ Boston Big Picture... then thank a farmer. Reading through the caption on these 20+ photos of farmers all over the world unexpectedly choked me up... us all relying entirely on the sovereignty of God.

When Everything’s Pressing in a bit Too Much & You’d Just like Some Answers

I sat across from a woman who just kept looking up at the ceiling to keep herself from falling apart.

Looked at the ceiling like she was looking for answers from somewhere on high.

Looked at the ceiling and told me that she loved God and she hated God and right now was best of times and the worst of times and — that’s when she dropped her eyes hard like a gavel and half-demanded an answer—

and why does God strangely bless us when we’re half-estranged from him?

It came out of her in one breath, like the exhale of a life.

And I waited.

Looked into her, not quiet knowing how to breathe. Sometimes the proof that God exists is that lightning doesn’t strike but quiet grace rains straight down.

Sometimes it’s incomprehensible grace that shakes you awake.

And when she bent her head low, chin to chest, and she breaks open like a rain and there was no hiding it, I went around to her, and I held her.

I held her.

Because six years can be an exhausting eternity when you’re in that ring dodging the horns of job loss and long hours and looming bills and accounts disappearing invisible.

When you need a new septic system, a new alternator, a new dream — and a possible one this time because the old one’s been busted and crazy glued one too many shattered times.

When everybody else has found their niche and their address and their way and you’re wondering if Someone has lost your number because you keep waiting and your’s never gets called and why does it feel like everyone else is moving ahead and everything in your world is falling behind and apart?

I hold her and sometimes it is best to re-break so you can heal right.

Arm around her, around the shoulder-wracked sobs, I can feel her finally feeling, feel all the weariness letting go, all the wounds bleeding clean, and this is where healing begins.

Why is it always much easier to forget that He loves us? Why is it always much easier to forget that He likes us?

Is this is why we need to keep counting, counting blessings like gifts, counting all the ways He loves?

It’s true, it can seem much too easy — juvenile — but doesn’t the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who come like a child and counting a thousand gifts adds up to joy but I guess anyone can decide they don’t want joy? Naaman, he didn’t want to wash seven times in the river either.

Sometimes the great thing that heals us is doing a small thing again and again.

It isn’t a week after I held her that I hold our Levi, the one with pneumonia. And he’d known how the Spirit exhales and he had called to me in the dark, in the still of the lateness and the lights all out, “Mama? Moooom?”

And I had come to the boy thinking fever and his bottle of pills and a glass of water and he had coughed hard, shoulder wracked, and then he’d said it raspy, “They sang this line at Sunday evening church and I knew when I heard it that I had to tell it to you, Mom…”

He’s called me to come for this?

And he coughs like he’s breaking open, breaking like a storm, right into the crook of his bent arm:

“If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.“

And he rolls over into his pillow. Rolls into sleep holding his chest hurting hard. He’s sick. He says it hurts to breathe. But he’s called me in the middle of the night because that’s what’s urgent:

If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.

Why does He strangely bless us when we’re half-estranged from Him?

And I lay my hand on our boy’s back. He doesn’t know that I know that song — because I don’t always live like I know that line. And it’s for the cough wracked boy and the sob wracked sister and a time wracked world swathed in this atmosphere of amnesia:

God’s mercies are new every morning — not as an obligation to you, but as an affirmation of you. It right there in there in the sky every morning: Every sunrise proves the burn of His passionate heart.

The car can fail today and the kids and the dog and fire detector and the dishwasher and the doctor and the whole free democratic world and it’s entire economic system but the mercies of God cannot and will not fail and His faithfulness is not merely great–  it is unwavering.

And the God who so loved this cracked world that He gave, He hasn’t ever stopped giving, and He won’t stop giving today and it’s His very mercy that gets us from one moment to the next and we’re all walking around in an atmosphere of brazen affection.

Why does He strangely bless us when we’re half-estranged from Him?

Any Grace at all is always the most amazing of all.

I rub Levi’s back.

And that’s the answer I will tell him in the morning, tell him in the new mercies of the morning, the answer I will tell the woman asking why is it so hard to live loved?

That the word in Romanian for thank you, it is mulţumesc [multsu'mesk], a contraction of the Latin phrase ‘multum est’ meaning ‘it is much’.

That the word in Romanian for thank you is “It is much.” Like “It is enough and it is more than enough — it is much.”

A woman from Romania, she’d told me: “How much my life has been crippled by anxiety, guilt, self-condemnation and all the ugly rest! All because I hadn’t known I was so utterly cherished by God.”

All because I hadn’t know much I was loved God.

Why is it so much easier to forget that He loves us? So much easier to forget that He likes us?

Mulţumesc. Thank you. Say it — and then the remembering: It is much.

His love is so much.

When I feel like I’m sinking, there’s a way to know that I’m sinking in an ocean of grace…  Count. each. gift.

And that’s what the Romanian sister had written me, “It’s such an astounding joy to find the way out of the vicious circle — I am up to #1500 now… ”

Multumesc. Thank you. And I remember: It is much. His love is so much.

Nothing is too much to handle when I think about the so much from His hand.

And the way out of the pressing “too-much” — is to whisper thank you for the providential “so-much”.

Levi breathes. He breathes pneumonia hard. And this world is hard as nails and Christ knew it and that’s why He came.

He strangely blesses the half-estranged — because the half-estranged are His beloved.

It is much — and that is the answer for every question in every language.

And Levi inhales. It is strange and for all the breaking ones and so-much real:

We inhale and we live loved —

the healing coming with each breath in all this ocean of grace.

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Related Post: The Problem of Evil? The Greater Problem of Good? 

 

…. that He would give any gifts at all when the gift of salvation alone is far more than what I deserve — more of His endless, One Thousand Gifts … thanks be to God for all of these blessings:

… for picking apples fresh off the tree for the morning’s porridge {#4409}

… for boys that come home {#4410}

… for a friend who forgives and keeps pressing into community with me, craziest grace {#4411}

… for a husband who laughs loud with me at midnight {#4412}

… for a kind mama who comes and helps us make big pots of chicken soup for all the coughing here {#4413}

… for this chronic illness   — hard eucharisteo again and again and I will give Him thanks for this is His will for me in Christ Jesus {#4415}

… for hardly daring a murmur for this because it’s always about the flame and not about the wick being burnt up: … #3 at the NYTimes and may there thanks to Him in every tongue and a revolution of gratitude in every language and every knee may bow to Him with thanks on the lips:

… and this in English… with Romanian subtitles:

{Please consider clicking off music slider just below top nav bar to hear in English… see in Romanian. RSS readers may view video here… }

Mulţumesc. Thank you. It is much. His love is so much.  {#4417}

that Naaman did the the thing that seemed much too easy and he got in the river and dipped 7 times… and I can pick up a pen and count blessings one thousand times and the answer always is that His so-much love overcomes the “too-much” that overwhelms….  {#4418}

 

Many have asked about translations for family and friends?

One Thousand Gifts in Romanian

One Thousand Gifts in Chinese

A website for the French Edition of One Thousand Gifts

A website for the Korean edition of One Thousand Gifts

and I’ll try to quietly update when these in-progress translations are complete:

Dutch, Indonesian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, German and Hungarian …

Thank you for grace.

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!

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Really — Take the crazy Joy Dare!

Print it out for the fridge {and the kids} : use these prompts to give thanks for these gifts from God.

Why bother?

When thanks to God becomes a habit, so joy in God becomes your life.

Because those who keeping a gratitude list:

1. Have a relative absence of stress and depression. (Woods et al., 2008)

2. Make progress towards important personal goals (Emmons and McCullough, 2003)

3. Report higher levels of determination and energy (Emmons and McCullough, 2003)

4. Feel closer in their relationships and desire to build stronger relationships (Algoe and Haidt, 2009)

5. Increase your happiness by 25% — (Who wouldn’t want a quarter more happiness!) (McCullough et al., 2002)

6. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thess. 5:18

Who doesn’t want all that?

Click here to print out September’s Joy Dare Put it on the fridge! Dare the Kids!

Count three gifts a day, 1000 gifts in 2012 (and be entered to win the NikonD90 camera?) 

Thank-you is a word that can change you, your world — the whole world!

HOW TO ENTER August’s GIVEAWAY:

Each day of August, either share your gifts on on Twitter {label with #1000gifts #JoyDare so we can find you!}, or with us in the gratitude community at Facebook , or on Pinterest (#1000gifts).

Each day, 3 people will who share their gifts via Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest will be randomly selected & entered into a drawing for JOY BASKET: a gift card @ Amazon {100$} & {signed copies of One Thousand Gifts, the photographic gift book, the DayBrightner, and the family gratitude journal} Give thanks to Him in the assembly!

Join us? And happily change everything by keeping your own crazy list of One Thousand Gifts?

weekends are for seeing beauty

“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

you formed me in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, High God — — You’re breathtaking!

Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

I worship in adoration—what a creation!…

Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with You!”

~ Ps. 139, MSG

Weekend Inspiration:

Kitchen Love for the Weekend: Whip this up — with just four ingredients! Perfect welcome to a bit of fall? Just 4 Ingredient Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt  …. mmmmmm.

Kid Fun for the Weekend: Free Printable Weather Station : a perfect way to get kids — the whole family — paying attention to the whole earth full of His glory!

Reaching Out for the Weekend: Just do it. Pick someone this weekend as a family and Just. Do. A. Little. Something. Send A Hug  — isn’t this the greatest idea? (you could take a photo of the whole tracing affair and send that too?)

Happy for the Weekend: Go tickle someone or tell a joke… really! Why you Really Need to Laugh, laugh, laugh this weekend… Print this one out to remind who you are… laughing at the days to come

Free Printable for the Weekend: If you know Christ — this is so for you. Print this out and tape to the door of your closet. Then print it out for one woman you know and surprise it by taping it to her mirror, car window, front door this week… let’s tell our sisters how soul beautiful they are!

Read for the Weekend:No matter your past — God knit you together and beautifully formed you for such a time as this. Have you read Christine Caine’s Undaunted: Daring to do what God calls you to do? (Oh. my. I’ve read twice now, cover to cover.) Here, my friend Christine preaches hope for all God’s Daughters because you are beautifully and wonderfully made and called:

{Please consider clicking off music slider just below top nav bar to hear this song of worship. RSS readers can view video here… }

Prayer for the Weekend: Right now — just pray this. You will be so deeply encouraged in our God who encourages you. Praying it with you… slow.

Worship for the Weekend : Treasured. That’s your name. Play it often this weekend…. and know it. In His sight, you are so treasured:

{Please consider clicking off music slider just below top nav bar to hear this song of worship. RSS readers can view video here… }

May the grace and truth of our Father surprise you all over again this weekend, friends…

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-09-14 [del.icio.us]

Dog stands guard over deceased owner’s grave for six years

Oh. my. Beautiful... (HT: Sophie)

What Women Need to Say to Each Other… because it’s what every woman needs to hear

IIt’s when you came up behind me and put your arms around me in the kitchen last night while I was making food for your Dad.

The way you laid your head on my shoulder and you held me, mama in the daughter arms after all these thirteen years. I reached up and laid my hand on your cheek, and it only takes a moment and mother and a daughter aren’t far apart anymore.

You know we come from a long line of women who have struggled in their own skin, right?

Girl, you’ve come from this long line of women —

Women who shunned anything silk or feminine because they never wanted a man to notice them because men did things you didn’t want them to and took things that weren’t theirs to take.

Women who wore bulky sweaters and baggy pants and walked around hoping a lot of yardage might make their souls invisible and avoided mirrors like an allergy that might make it hard to breathe. Why is it that any reflective surface makes a woman see pounds and deflating ugly?

Did I ever tell you that I once followed a recipe in Seventeen magazine for DIY mousse? And went around with this sticky mess of hair that had sugar shaking out of it all day like a medical emergency case of dandruff.

And all the years the other girls were jaunting about in pink jelly shoes?

I had to wear black orthopedic shoes for an aching spine and have you ever tried to make black orthopedic shoes look right with white shorts? Numbers on tags have seemed like undeniable proof of ugliness and standing in a room full of primped women can make the self-hate gnaw right up your blushing insides.

Swim suits can taunt mean and clothes can mock loud and I’ve stood in front of mirrors and looked right in those eyes and whispered it out louder: Loser.

The boys called me barn-board straight Annie.

Being a woman every day can be this mind field in self-maiming thoughts.

I’ve cut my skin with glass and blades and words and hated myself enough to write down a plan to die.

Remember that part in that book you read, our Hope-girl? When Annie told us how she’d yelled at that girl in the mirror that she hated her and she found a roll of duct tape and tried to tape herself thin?

And she wound all those sticky expectations and the tape so tight around her middle that she couldn’t breathe?



Every woman should breathe peace in her own exquisite skin.

It was after reading Annie’s story of Jesus doing gentle, healing business with her and grinning that He’s made her perfectly unique from head to toe — it’s after reading her book, that I see it in you — how you sparkle again.

How you’ve revived and how you laugh again and no glossy, media-induced, photoshopped lies can steal away your God-given joy in being you.

Your soul is made to perfectly fit your skin… and you glow.

The way you’ve been going around here smiling, you make me think this, daughter of mine, that women could be this to each other:

We’ll tell our daughters at the sink and at the mirror and at the door, that your Father made you fearfully and wonderfully and uniquely and You are the perfect-sized you for a God-sized plan.

And we’ll say it in the dressing rooms and to the shaming thoughts behind closed doors and we’ll say it to every woman who hides: that God’s daughters fit in any swim suit, dress suit, shimmering suits, because they are suited up in the armour of Christ, and no arrows from the media or the past or ourselves can harm us.

We will be sisters to each other and we won’t ever judge another sister and we will see each woman’s face as pure God-masterpiece because it’s the truth and we’ll tell each other what every woman needs to hear: You have the prettiest eyes.

Because it’s always first the eyes, always first the perspective and the way we see, and if the eyes have light, the whole body is full of light. We have to help our sisters see who they are in light of Christ — so radiant. 

So we’ll say it a dozen time a day, to every woman who we meet because it’s the truth and she needs to hear it and no matter if she has a man saying it, she has sisters speaking into her scraped and bleeding places: You are so beautiful — so soul beautiful. And we’ll watch our sisters’ eyes light, always first the eyes.

And we won’t ever let one of our sisters ever forget and we won’t leave even one woman behind:

The curve of a smile is a woman’s most perfect curve and the only tag that matters is the one that says Robed in the Righteousness of Christ.

It may not be easy to be a woman in this world. But it is always perfect to be a woman in His hand.

Hope-girl? When we held on to each other late in the kitchen last night?

We are the women who let go all the woman-baggage that came behind and hold onto each other and affirm in the firm grip of Christ and did you hear me stand there in the kitchen and whisper to you what I heard the Father whisper about you?

You are a treasured possession, and love is being lavished on you and you aren’t ever rejected but loved everlastingly and over you, over you — God sings this everlasting love song.

It’s the last thing I thought of last night after the lights were out —

how you smiled and just shone.

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Related Post: A Letter to all the World’s Beautiful Daughters

 And Annie Downs’ book: Perfectly Unique: Praising God from Head to Foot —

it may not only have given us back our daughter, changed our daughter — God may have used it to emotionally save our daughter.

A book for every one of God’s daughters: Because every one of God’s daughters needs to know how soul beautiful she is — a woman of Christ being made into a woman of grace.

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-09-13 [del.icio.us]

Family Matters @ The High Calling

"We want to talk about the joys and challenges of whatever God gives you to do..." Because we're all working... wherever we are.... and it really matters eternally.
When Compassion Becomes a Gold Rush

... There's this goal: The goal is 3,108 children sponsored between Sept. 1 and Sept. 30 through Compassion. We could do this... really do this -- in Jesus' name. Because this story? When Compassion becomes a Gold Rush? Changed. My. Life. Good to read with the kids again...
Healing Others by Showing Up

...“Mentors win by showing up.” Yes, this.
Press Release: Ann Voskamp & Toronto Cantata Chorus Teaming to Help Filipino Children

Would love to see you there! Come help us?

Baby Steps: Just. Do. Something.

 

 

 

Click here to download a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-09-12 [del.icio.us]

The Gospel And September 11....

@ Radical with David Platt... definitely worth listening to while working in the kitchen...
Videos To Astonish and Amuse You

Really! :) (HT: Patricia) ... and that piano player!
New, Free Devotional App @ Desiring God

... "just a moment each day and come away with something solid to feed your joy in God." Grace!

The 1 Habit We Can’t Afford to Forget

It’s after the Farmer checks over the combine that I crawl in the cab, in beside him in that ratty old t-shirt.

Something about a man who wears his work with no shame.

“Ride a few rounds with me?”

The engine’s drowning out that quiet voice of his.

I sit closer, my shoulder pressing against his.

His dirt-lined hands man that steering wheel around and he turns the combine around into the light, into that field of soybeans east of the bank barn.

The field rattles with dry pods, rattles like a stirring of the dry bones, and hope, it can split right open in the dry places and yield up life.

Shalom, she sits at my feet on the floor of the combine cab. “What’s the moisture, Dad? Are they dry enough?”

She asks it in her deep “I’ve got 4 brothers and I listen to these farm conversations” voice. She crinkles the freckles of her nose all smart, waiting on her daddy to dish her the beans about the beans. The Farmer grins.

“Should have been here sooner, really.” The Farmer glances up from his steering wheel toward the numbers on the monitor. ”They’re running a bit too dry. Closer to 14% moisture would have been better… they are more than ready.” He bends again over the steer wheel.

Yesterday, the number on the thermometer said he’d had a fever of 102. Shalom pats his knee, the ragamuffin child comforting her daddy like a mama…

And hunched over a steering wheel, over the beans feeding into that combine reel, he talks of teenagers and the barn and feeding sows and what would God have for us.

And I talk of boys’ bathrooms and reeking socks and choir schedules and new homeschool routines and I sit there with a camera in my lap and nothing framed at all, and I start to feel this pressure build, all the things I need to clean and cross off the list. And sitting there beside him in the combine cab, us both watching out the window, watching the pods shell open and the harvest of beans roll in, all my insides pacing like this tomcat caged and I half howl:

“I really should go do something.”

And the man turns away from the harvest and the Farmer says to his wife:

“Being with me is always doing something — the right thing.”

The pig farmer’s wife, she nods sheepish, and I lay my hand on the knee of his threadbare jeans and his one hand lets go of the steering wheel to find mine.

It’s in the settled space of just being that it comes.

Like a pod breaking into an answer, right there in the middle of harvest.

“I told Moses that I’d fast and pray.”

The shelled beans are filling the bin behind us, and it sounds like a rain, all these round nuggets of gold.

“You know that Haitian man who I asked if he could get out of Haiti, all that poverty? And he was the one who turned to look me right in the eye, who said, “I’m Moses. I do not leave my kin.” That man.”

Now, just today, someone had written me with a project in Haiti that perhaps we could help with…

The Farmer slows down at the end of the field, turns on the headland for another pass. Levi’s crawled up high on the combine platform beside us.

“But you know how it goes.” I’m watching Levi watching the beans, looking out across the field, his face straight into wind.

“How do you know how to best invest your life? How do you know what’s wisest and where’s wisest and who’s neediest and is any of this even the point?”

The Farmer glances quick behind his shoulder to see that the stream of beans are still running in the bin, that the harvest is still coming. I keep going:

“And not an hour after I had said it out loud, that I’d told Moses I would pray about Haiti and if and how and when of the helping… I get this parable sent to me by a friend who found it buried 2 years deep in the internet – this parable about Americans finding a pile of rubble and hearing Haitians crying from under the rubble.”

I’m shaking my head. Why do I ever doubt that God hears and starts coming before you even cry out?

“So in this parable, the Christians start digging. And after several hours, they get out three Haitians: one dies of cholera, one straight up takes off without time for Jesus or thank you ma’am or nothing and only one’s kneeled down to help.”

“What’s cholera?” Shalom crinkles that nose again. “Aren’t all the parables in the Bible?” And I explain and the point of the parables is to get out of story and get right under our skin and what was that parable about giving a glass of water to the least of these?

“So then the parable has all the American Christians stop digging and have a meeting. Reasses. Are we doing this wrong? Are we being wise stewards here? Maybe we jumped in here too fast and need a better plan?”

Me or the parable — who is echoing who here?

Levi’s walking the field now. I can see Levi stopping to count pods, to just count pods.

I squeeze the Farmer’s knee:

“And I get this not an hour after I say it out loud, that I’m with Haiti’s Moses and I’ll pray and see what’s wisest — when people are dying.

The whole thing’s like — like God pushing a note under my door.” I swallow hard. Sometimes the only way you hear if God’s knocking is if you are standing right by the door — ready to go. The beans keep streaming in right behind me, harvest ready and pouring.

“So the Christians have all this talk of stewardship and timing and plans and politics — all amidst the cries of people who are actually dying under the rubble…”

That’s what the parable read:

Then one American Christian bends down and begins the work again of freeing those who are trapped. He works frantically with energy, passion and tears.

The others look at him for a moment and then one asks him, “Brother, where have you found this energy for the task? Are you sure you know what you are doing?”

“Don’t you see, loved ones?  My heart is trapped beneath this rubble, too. We are all in danger if we do not respond to this need. We are all in grave danger – those who are below the rubble and those who stand above….

My witness before the throne of Jesus lies beneath this rubble.”

And the Farmer who’s working at a harvest, he turns to me:

“Sometimes if you wait until you really know what you are doing — means you don’t know really God and what He can do.”

We are all in grave danger.

Those who don’t respond are the ones in grave danger.

“Tell your Moses yes.” The Farmer in the tattered t-shirt, he wears the habit of harvest and isn’t the habit of harvest the one habit that Christians need to cultivate most? The Farmer’s speaking loud over the engine now, over everything that threatens to drown out our yes.

“Tell your Moses that we haven’t forgotten our kin and we aren’t hard or deaf and we’re going to do something.”

Something? Even if we still aren’t sure it’s the best thing?

And I answer my own question.

When someone stops doing nothing and just starts doing something, anything — this is what starts to change everything.

I’m done with excuses that stand in the way of a harvest — when it’s time to stand in the gap for the harvest.

Being with Christ as He goes to the lost and the least is always doing the right thing. 

The harvest of beans is running loud in me and now is the time, not later,  and the harvest is ready and we can’t afford to be sick one day longer. It’s time to split right open.

The world says, follow the right people and be a success. And Jesus says follow me and be crucified — and this is success.

The world says get rich now — or at least very soon. And Jesus says give it away now — because “soon” might be too late.

The world says you find your best life when you spend it all. And Jesus says whoever loses his life for me will find it — and if you try to save your life, you’ll lose it. Does anyone believe Him?

Keep your life safe, save up life, hoard all this good to make your life good — and you will lose your life. That’s what He said.

Whoever wants to save his life will definitely lose it.

Right into twilight, the beans break themselves wide open and there is the harvest and my heart is trapped beneath all this rubble too.

It’s time to break myself, break into harvest, break wide open — break free.

And when Malakai stands at the end of the field in the last of the light, while there is still day, while there is still light —  he splits open a pod, rolls the gold beans around in the palm of his dirty hand and the habit of harvest means you get dirty and there is no shame but relief.

The boy just raises his hand. And it’s like the whole rattling dead field is rising right alive and he holds his palm up to the sun just in time.

Like an offering of yes burst into flame.

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If you want to be part of the harvest right now

Related: 10 Ways You Could Really Change the World — Right. Now. 

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 Suffering…. What does it mean to pick up a cross? How do we walk through hard times? How do we participate in the sufferings of Christ?  We look forward to your Scripture study, stories, encouragement….

Today, if you’d like to share with community The Practice of New Habits … 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 a free Easter Devotional : A Trail to the Tree {please give it a few moments to download… thank you for grace!}

Links for 2012-09-11 [del.icio.us]

When one man brands hate onto his face...

@ Daily Mail... "But there are moments of grace.... a black woman embraced Mr Widner in tears. 'I forgive you,' she cried." Such. a. story. (HT: Jessica)
In Memoriam

@ the beautiful due.... prayerfully remembering 9/11 ...
How To Remain Faithful At A Secular University

@ Bob Russell ... "He began by making up his mind in advance." Encouraging.