Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 32
May 16, 2023
How A Trip Down Memory Lane Can Get Our Faith-Journey Back on Track
Kristen Welch and I are sorta, kinda, soul sisters? As I served on the board of directors of the ministry Kristen founded, Mercy House Global, and we serve together to dream up for you the best #FAIRTRADE beauty of The Grace Case and the Grace Flame Candle subscription that supports local refugees while funding the Kenyan maternity homes of Mercy House — so I get to see it first hand again and again, what we can all do together to change the world for women, if we say our brave yes. I absolutely love this woman with all my heart — it’s a grace to welcome my soul sister, Kristen, to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Kristen Welch
This is a spiritual discipline: to remember. It creates space in our heart and mind when we recall a memory and remember moments of redemption; to not forget who we were before we met Jesus on our journey.
I always go back to a specific moment in time—heart shattered– whenever I share the story of starting Mercy House Global, a nonprofit that empowers vulnerable families by creating opportunities that provide hope.
I close my eyes and force myself to remember.
I smell the raw sewage that ran through the first slum I visited in Kenya; I remember the feel of the squishy layers of dump beneath my feet, the feeling of heavy tears splashing my muddy boots. I see the upturned hands of hungry children and hear the explanation of new words I learned that day: words like “survival prostitute” and “orphan-led home.”
And then the next memory is always my anger at God and the burning question that rose from the slum that day: God, how can you allow so much human suffering?
I didn’t expect Him to answer, but He asked me the same question and it melted away my anger and left me with a desire to do something.
This was the moment that changed everything for me thirteen years ago and the distractions of our culture, the busyness of life, the pursuit of the American Dream, the tyranny of every day– put me at risk to completely forget it.
This is a spiritual discipline: to remember.
He does not want us to forget who we were before we met Him or what He has done for us.
It creates space in our heart and mind when we recall a memory and remember moments of redemption; to not forget who we were before we met Jesus on our journey. The root of remember is to “keep in mind or to be mindful or to recall a memory.”
This is why there are more than 500 commands to remember throughout Scripture—to write it on our hands, to place an ebenezer stone, to build an altar of remembrance.
It’s dangerous to forget and God created rhythms and offered warnings so that we wouldn’t.
He does not want us to forget who we were before we met Him or what He has done for us. There are constant reminders throughout the Bible because we are at risk of doing exactly that.
In Deuteronomy alone, there are 22 reminders to remember the vulnerable. Why? Why would God make marginalized people the main characters in this good story of redemption? Why does He tell their stories of exile–from Adam and Eve to the Israelites? Why is the narrative in so much of the Old Testament about refugees, the poor, oppressed and vulnerable? Why does God ask us to remember them?
Here’s why: Their story is our story, too. The Word of God appeals to our memory so that our care of vulnerable people will be magnified. Remembering the marginalized reminds us that without God, we are vulnerable, too.
Remembering creates space. We need to create space to grieve the dark things that happen to vulnerable people so that we don’t forget our story before we met God.
We need to create space to grieve the dark things that happen to vulnerable people so that we don’t forget our story before we met God.
Memory lane is a lifeline and walking down it can provide needed course correction.
Before we met Jesus, we were orphans in spirit.
Before we followed God, we were fatherless.
Before redemption, we were wandering in our wilderness.
If we remember our story, we will not forget those who are pushed aside and forgotten.
If we remember the vulnerable today, we will remember our own vulnerability; we will not leave people in the margins because we don’t want to be marginalized.
If we forget our story, we will forget others. Tim Keller says, that “If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. This is God’s poetic justice.”
The reminders in the Bible come with a warning: Woe to a culture who ignores the vulnerable. Gandhi said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
If we remember our story, we will not forget those who are pushed aside and forgotten.
God wants us to remember what He did for us so we can do it for others. He gives us more than we need so that we can provide for those with great need. Think about the story of Ruth (who was an orphan, a widow and a refugee!) and how caring for her by leaving extra grain behind for her to pick up was law at the time. God defended the vulnerable. We are to do the same.
This cycle (that God wants us to be stuck in) keeps us in the sweet spot of where God wants us to be.
When we care for those in the margins, it reminds us of our own past, our own rescue, and how God provides for us. The simple act of remembering makes us want to do the same for those in the margins today.
“A society without memory is like a journey without a map. It’s all too easy to get lost,” unknown. The call to remember the vulnerable isn’t just for volunteers or nonprofit leaders—it is a command for every believer.
Today is She Is Priceless. It’s a day when Mercy House Global remembers the plight of women, the most oppressed people group in the world. We have empowered thousands of vulnerable families in Jesus’ Name and this is your invitation to walk down memory lane, to remember just how vulnerable we were before we met Jesus.
It’s an opportunity to do something practical, tangible, to respond to vulnerable families today.
Don’t forget.
Do you ever wonder what it would be like if every girl and every woman knew she was unconditionally loved, valued, and worthy? It is our WHY. It’s the reason we exist. It’s the reason we keep fighting for the vulnerable.
Today is She is Priceless Global Giving Day—would you consider how you can partner with us to support the work of Mercy House Global and remind every woman around the world that She is Priceless? We LOVE and trust and support the work of Mercy House Global and would LOVE if you join us in supporting and loving these vulnerable women around the world.
Mercy House Global exists to engage, empower and disciple women around the globe in Jesus’ name. We fund two residential maternity homes and a transition home in Kenya for pregnant teens. Mercy House Global also supports over 40+ faith-based nonprofits in 30+ countries by helping these organizations sell products that employ women artisans through four subscription clubs.
Would you give your best gift today to help Mercy House Global meet urgent needs?
May 15, 2023
Mourn to Move Forward
I’ve sat beside this woman for years as a a classmate at Wheaton, and she’s been like Jesus to me through some deep valleys and she’s cheered up some steep mountains and Christine Caine is not only a speaker, activist, and best-selling author, she’s a relentless follower of Jesus and disciples the body of Christ all over the world. She and her husband, Nick, founded the anti-human trafficking organization The A21 Campaign, and Chris also founded Propel Women, an initiative that is dedicated to coming alongside women all over the globe to activate their God-given purpose. You can tune into her weekly podcast or television program to be encouraged with the hope of Jesus wherever you are. It’s a wild grace to welcome Christine to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Christine Caine– Article adapted from Don’t Look Back, by Christine Caine
Our lives are filled with transitions, some that we anticipate and some that catch us by surprise, but in all of them are opportunities for us to look back and get stuck—or to look ahead and keep moving.
Not every transition is hard, of course. Many of them are easier to move through than others, perhaps because they are things we’ve prayed for, dreamed of, or worked hard for.
But for the transitions we did not pray for, did not hope for, did not desire to ever happen, there needs to be a season of mourning first—mainly because something has died.
But for the transitions we did not pray for, did not hope for, did not desire to ever happen, there needs to be a season of mourning first—mainly because something has died.
What’s more, it’s important to keep in mind that mourning isn’t just reserved for when a person dies; it’s for when anything dies—a dream, a hope, a plan, a goal, a relationship, an expectation. It’s for when anything changes that we weren’t ready for.
In all the transitions I’ve lived through, I’ve learned that just because something has died, God’s promises, plans, and purposes for my life have not. I know there are times when life upends us and we have to accept what we don’t want to accept, but I have found that if we can separate the circumstances we’re facing from God’s overall purpose for our lives, then we can have the hope we need to keep moving forward.
The degree to which we can prepare our heart to go, move on, and keep laying hold of God is the degree to which there is more room for opportunity and resurrection, for renewal and life in the future. If we get stuck there, then perhaps there’s less of a chance that something good can come from a bad situation, or that hope can come from a hopeless situation, or resurrection can come from what looks like a dead situation.
I was nineteen when my father died from cancer. To say that my brothers and I were lost wouldn’t begin to describe it.
My dad was kind and gentle and funny. Where my mother would get worked up about things, Dad was more even keeled. Though we loved him dearly and could have never forgotten him, as time went on, so did we, but in many ways my mother didn’t.
The degree to which we can prepare our heart to go, move on, and keep laying hold of God is the degree to which there is more room for opportunity and resurrection, for renewal and life in the future.
It might have looked like she did from a distance because she did go on with her life, but inside our family we all knew she got stuck in a place where none of us could get her out.
For years, she would not move any of my dad’s things from their bedroom. Because it was like going into a museum, I avoided her room when I could.
If I did go in and try to move anything, she would get visibly upset, as if she was keeping him alive by moving nothing. All we could do was sit back and watch.
As much as we invited her or promised to go with her, she wouldn’t go on and experience new things without Dad. She did show up for most every family party or grandchild’s game or school play, but there were times when it felt like she showed up physically, but mentally and emotionally, she was still living in a past that no longer existed. It hurt to know that she was missing elements of a stunning future full of life and hope with us all.
In the Bible, Jacob responded to the reported loss of Joseph the same way Mum responded to losing my dad.
“Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.’” (Genesis 37:34-35 NIV)
Jacob was in a state of perpetual mourning.
At some point in life, when we lose someone we love deeply or something we’ve invested in greatly, we can easily be tempted to do the same. We can get stuck in that place, and unless we purpose to do otherwise, there we will remain.
When we find ourselves in such a place, we need help.
We know from Scripture that the prophet Samuel loved King Saul deeply; after all, he was the first king Samuel ever anointed. But when Saul disobeyed, God set in motion a plan for a new king. Saul grieved deeply, so much so that God asked Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem because I have selected for myself a king from his sons.” (1 Samuel 16:1) God wasn’t asking out of callousness, but out of kindness. He was helping Samuel move on.
He wants us to trust in what we do know and trust him with all that we don’t.
How long are you going to mourn?
It’s a good question, and one we might need to ask ourselves, lest we get stuck looking back. It’s one that I’ve had to ask myself when I’ve had to walk through a transition that I wasn’t ready for: Christine, how long are you going to mourn?
I’m not suggesting that we pretend things never happened, or that we move on and ignore the pain in our hearts. No, not at all.
But I am saying move. Move through the place of perpetual mourning. Move through the past to the future God has for you.
I know there are times when such a suggestion feels impossible; that we can’t possibly accept it’s the end of an era; that it doesn’t seem we could ever stop looking back and start looking ahead; and yet, I believe it is possible, because God doesn’t expect us to do it alone. He wants us to trust in what we do know and trust him with all that we don’t.
He wants us to find it possible in him.
In the hope he is. (Jeremiah 29:11)
In the hope he gives. (Revelation 21:4)
With his presence. (Psalm 34:18)
And through the power he provides. (Psalm 73:26)
Adapted from Christine Caine’s latest book, Don’t Look Back, Getting Unstuck and Moving Forward with Passion and Purpose.
Christine Caine’s latest book, Don’t Look Back, encourages readers to let go of the past and trust God with their future as they move on and into the promises and purposes He has for their life.
We may not know all God’s plans for us. We may not know where we are going, how long it will take us, or what we will encounter along the way, but with the strategies in this book, we can move on from where we are to where God wants us to be.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
May 13, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [5.13.2023]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Come along with us here because who doesn’t need a bit of good news?
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Meg Loeks – Photographer
Meg Loeks – Photographer
Meg Loeks – Photographer
Meg Loeks – Photographer
Meg Loeks – Photographerthe glory and groan of motherhood — just beautiful
View this post on InstagramA post shared by brianna ✿ (@thehoneydesignco)
oh this picture! these words! just. hold. on.
Breathtaking photos of mothers around the world from our friends at Compassion…
& just a little bit of wisdom from of the strong mamas, “Keep on praying and never give up. Even though the whole world is against you, you should not give up. You should know that God is with your family and they will be all right.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 (@majicallynews)
oh oh oh! the best kind of surprise!
When Mothering is Hard: Pt. 1
We are not defined by our failures, but by Christ’s victory –this is a must read! right to the end!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Rich Villodas (@richvillodas)
THIS! SO GOOD!!
now this man deserves some kind of award — how we steps in to love his neighbor who is a newly single mom & he just looks so much like Jesus!
DEAR MOM…
Just a puddle of tears! “Dear Mom…”
Being Renewed by Motherhood — the beautiful & refining gift that it is
“Motherhood has shaped me into the person I was always supposed to become, and my son continues to change me.”
Getting Out of Bed is an Act of Worship — this!
“…why get out of bed? Even when it feels like a burden, your life is a gift from God—a gift he created and sustains moment by moment in an infinite act of love. The goodness of this gift does not depend on how we feel or what we experience. But our challenge is to live out that gift each day, even amid our mental suffering.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 (@majicallynews)
This little baby–just too sweet!
From couch to pew: a church re-entry plan & these words are just what we need. We need each other deeply.
“In a post-pandemic world, the temptation is to continue in our pandemic survival mode ways. But as followers of Jesus, we must not forget our hardwiring for communion.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Richard Franks (@richardfrankscomedy)
this is just too real! we’re all howling with laughter over here!
For every time a mom has felt under pressure … thanking all the moms who felt under pressure to raise us
Renewal Through Gospel Centered Forgiveness
“… a more general problem is at stake: once offended, the human heart loves to act as judge and jury, rendering the maximum possible sentence — sowing the seeds of resentment and the grounds for further hostility for years to come. …but what, we may ask, lies beneath it, and how can we break the cycle?”
Free Parenting Manifesto: This is One Free Gift to Put on the Fridge to Make Parenting Easier Every Day
WHat Every Mom Wants This Weekend: A Way to Make Her House A House Of Prayer… A Free Gift For You! Print out Your Own Little House of prayer, to pray for your Family — the Gift you Want Most is more God for all of you! 
And What You Can’t Be Without this Weekend — What Your Heart Craves Every Day:
A TRUCKLOAD OF GRACE — Free Printable for your Bible
Grab all your FREE Gifts here, from our hearts to yours: Just sign up here for Free Access to our Whole Library of Printables & you Receive All Three Gifts you need for the (FREE!) perfect way to Disappointment-Proof this Mother’s Day
Just pop your email in this link and you’ll get access to our whole library of (free!) printables, sticky notes and other goodies. Just as a thank you to YOU!
I get how this week is hard, how parenting is hard, how regrets & relationships & the relentlessness of time is hard, & you don’t have to do this week alone – we are going to do it together…
And the real hard work of mothering is really, honestly, just this:
Mothering is never about how your kids turn out.
It’s always & only ever about how you keep turning toward your kids and their Maker.
The thing every mother so desperately wants this week, *always* — they actually really get.
Every Mama needs the relief and exhale of this:
Read What You Actually Really Want Most for Mother’s Day, When Mothering is Kinda Hard & Tender: Pt2For You, Mama…I Once Ran Away on the Eve of Mother’s Day: Of Loss & Time & Regrets & Getting Do-Overs (Part 3)
Because Mother’s Day holds loss for all of us,
how can we be kind and hold each other with an all enlarging love?
If you’re feeling tender about about loss & regrets and the passage of time & you want to know how to get a do-over? Your heart might just thank you for taking this read into your weekend:
View this post on InstagramA post shared by ET Baby (@et__baby)
just for big smiles this weekend…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Upworthy (@upworthy)
the ways this man goes out of his way to love & how might we all find ways to create a sense of belonging for others?
Looking for the Perfect Gift for…Summer Birthdays, Young Kids Going Off to Camp or Brave Adventures, Kids Celebrating the End of the School Year?
Give them a thoughtful give, a timeless gift, a gift of bravery with this
heirloom, wooden music box from the Keeping Company, and their very own brave words in our first-ever Children’s Book, Your Brave Song
Order your very own heirloom music box gift hereOrder a copy of Your Brave Song & get your very own brave wordsOn the Book Stack at the Farm
Read Amy J. Brown, Sara Clime and Carrie M. Holt‘s recent guest post: How to Move From Fear to Trust
Don’t miss Bonnie Gray‘s recent guest post: Struggling with Mental Health Issues Doesn’t Mean Your Faith is Flawed
Make sure you read Katie David Majors recent guest post: What If We Were Safe All Along? Trusting God’s Provision When We Feel Overwhelmed
Celebrating my dear friend, Jenn Tucker‘s, little book this week & this is a book you want on your coffee table & in hand to gift a friend. Grab your own copies right here.
come along with us? glory, glory, glory
“I will not boast in lesser things
But I will boast in Christ my King
If my life speaks then let it say
I will glorify Your name“
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
Yeah, it all seems big, I know, but you can’t lose today:
“With God on our side like this, how can we lose?
If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us,
embracing our condition & exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son,
is there *anything else* He wouldn’t *gladly* and *freely* do for us?”
Romans 8:32MSG
You may feel out of your league,
*but God’s got your game.*
You may feel right overwhelmed,
*but God’s arms are right under you*
You may feel like it’s you up against everything,
*but God’s got you up against Himself.*
God is for you when everything else seems against you —
and if *God* is for you, what can stand against you?
God’s mercies are new every morning,
not because God has some *obligation* to you —
but as an *affirmation* of you.
At any point today, look up — God affirms you,
*God is firmly for you.*
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
May 12, 2023
I once ran away on the eve of Mother’s Day: Of Loss & Time & Regrets & Getting Do-Overs (Pt 3)
I once ran away on the eve of Mother’s Day.
Is it safe to say things like this out loud?
There are times and seasons that Mother’s Day can feel like a lose-lose, no matter what your people or you do.
Because either you have to face being given these exquisite gifts that make you feel like a heel because you don’t feel like a good enough Mother at all to receive…. or you have to face the empty, rejecting ache of not any gifts that genuinely acknowledge how hard the work of being a Mother really is.
It’s true:
For all of us, Mother’s Day holds loss. Loss of what never was and what may now never be.
Every mother is not all the mother she quite hoped to be, and every woman has a mother who wasn’t quite all she needed her to be.
And for all of us, Mother’s Day holds loss. Loss of what never was and what may now never be. For some of us, it’s the relentlessly aching and devastating loss of not ever getting to be a mother. And for others of us, it’s the raw loss of not wholly being the mothers we desperately wanted to be.
For some, it’s more the loss of not having a mother quite like we some days direly needed, while for others of us, it’s the painful loss of the very children, and fractured relationships, who made us mothers.
And yet for others of us, it’s the heartbreaking loss of the mothers we’d do anything to hold again for just one more long, lingering moment and never have to let go of ever again.
Because Mother’s Day holds loss for all of us, how can we be kind and hold each other with an all enlarging love?
Because Mother’s Day holds loss for all of us, how can we be kind and hold each other with an all enlarging love?
On that tender eve of Mother’s Day, I had run away to the foot of a mountain. Sometimes when a heart holds much emotion, it can’t help but find itself in motion — and it’s never that much emotion is the issue, as much as it is where do we turn, what direction do we go, with all that emotion.
All kinds of loss and regrets can make you look back and desperately want a do-over.
This is the last week of high school for the last child I birthed into this tilted old world, seventeen blinking years ago.
The girl’s giddy. And I keep smiling and blinking it back, like there’s a way to go back.
She keeps counting down these final days with a poignant mixture of awe and sadness and wonder and unabashed tap dancing and I keep hoping she never stops tapping my shoulder because I’d do about anything for this feisty, flame of a girl aptly named the peace of Shalom.
To be a mother is to feel time run through your fingers like water, but nothing could ever stop you from trying to drink down that same water as the sweetest taste you’ve ever known.
While it may be just 3 days before Mother’s Day that last child we walked out of a maternity ward room with will turn and waltz her way out of her last class of high school — it’s only the the day just before Mother’s Day that our firstborn will blow out his ring of 28 birthday candles and I’ll try to stay standing.
To be a mother is to feel time run through your fingers like water, but nothing could ever stop you from trying to drink down that same water as the sweetest taste you’ve ever known.
There’s no way for you to just bottle up time and carry around the heavenly scent of your child’s newborn skin like your own signature perfume, but you’d sign away your life in a heartbeat to give them life — and countless days that’s exactly what it felt like you did, and those were the days that you were the fragrance of God.
I carry their Mother’s Day cards in my Bible.
It’s your children’s words, with your heavenly Father’s Word, that can form the story of a mother’s life – and form all of your life cruciform.
A child never stops being this brilliant star in a mother’s constellation, pointing a mother home to God.
In the bottom drawer of my dresser I keep my favorite two black sweatshirts, both gifts over this last year from our oldest daughter. One reads in all caps M A M A … and on the other one, she had a black and white photo of us all as a family emblazoned on the front and the words, “To the moon and back” in a bold font scrawled there across the back.
The world blurred when she handed them to me. I held her twinkling eyes with my brimming ones, and I flung my arms tight around her neck.
A child never stops being this brilliant star in a mother’s constellation, pointing a mother home to God.
True, when you look back, there are losses and there are regrets and there is a far greater hope:
You get a kind of do-over when you don’t overlook real moments of grace in what was, and what is, and what might yet be.
You get a kind of do-over when you let everything you do now be completely covered over with the love of God . God stands outside of time, and He holds you with a love that outlasts time, and He can make the love in everything you do now miraculously work its way through all of time.
You get a kind of do-over when you don’t overlook real moments of grace in what was, and what is, and what might yet be.
You get a kind of do-over when you realize you’ve changed over the years, and you’ve grown, and you now won’t let anything be prioritized over your values, over your people, over your God.
You get a kind of do-over when you now start doing things differently, and consistently, over time.
And always? You get to deeply lament and grieve, and you get to feel deeply relieved that there is still infinite love to encircle every loss and all that never was.
I set out graduation clothes.
You don’t get to go back but you get to trust God has your heart and your back and takes your hand to walk you into amazing grace ahead.
I kiss grinning Shalom there on the forehead, tuck one of her ringlets behind her ear, and in a blink, she’s 3 all over again. How did she become all grown up already and where in the world does time go and what I’d do to get to go back and pull that baby girl up onto my lap just one more glorious time and memorize the moment for all I am worth.
She hugs me tight like she knows.
You don’t get to go back but you get to trust God has your heart and your back and takes your hand to walk you into amazing grace ahead.
I ran away once on the eve of Mother’s Day.
And in the face of loss and regrets, I found the face of God there at the base of a mountain and He smiled gently and caught every tear.
You may feel like you’re running out of time, but what matters in this moment now is that you feel the joy of running with God.
How do you find a way through when you want a do-over and a different story?
How do you find the way toward HOPE?
How do you find a way to run forward with God? A genuine new & wholer way of being now?
The practical tool to begin true life-transformation for a different way of life start here:
WayMaker: Finding the Way to the Life You Always Dreamed Of
Related:
PART 2: What You Actually Really Want Most For Mother’s Day, When Mothering is Kinda Hard & Tender:
May 11, 2023
What You Actually Really Want Most For Mother’s Day, When Mothering is Kinda Hard & Tender: PT 2
H
onestly, you don’t have to know what you’ll do when it happens, when the kids grow up, buy you a Mother’s Day card, while they tell their friends, their therapist, and their kids, that you got so much wrong.
You just have to know that you’ll humbly own it.
Because they aren’t wrong.
It’s tender and true:
You could have held them longer after they grew too big for your arms: held space for their pain, held their eyes, held them up in relentless prayers.
You could have said yes to more campfires, jumped more on the trampoline and been known more for your loud, you could have asked more honest questions and lingered longer, simply honouring them with listening space. You could have said yes. And No. Both at the right time.
Where you tried and fell short, they now trip and fall and have bruises to prove it.
Much dysfunction is a function of denying brokenness. The madness of much dysfunction ends now, ends with our owning it.
Yes, things were broken. And: All the brokenness can be the tender breaking open of a seed to grow better.
No matter their age or your regrets: You can tenderly own that you took some wrong turns and it’s never too late to simply turn toward the Light.
Life always turns on the turn.
“The work of every parent is to give the best they know how now — and the work of every child is to forgive their parents the best they can now.”And it’s worth writing down by the kitchen sink: Mothering is never about how your kids turn out. It’s always and only about how you keep turning toward your kids and their Maker.
It’s okay: Motherhood is never about training your children to be good so they won’t ever fall — it’s about letting them see you fall in love every day with a good God.
And even after you’ve fallen hard — they see you keep falling hard for God.
Simply: The work of every parent is to give the best they know how now — and the work of every child is to forgive their parents the best they can now. Our work will look different, but we both have growing work to do.
There is always grace coming to meet all of us.
I became a mother on the eve of Mother’s Day. I was a wide-eyed girl of 21.
“Motherhood is never about training your children to be good so they won’t ever fall — it’s about letting them see you fall in love every day with a good God.”He was 4 weeks early. I wasn’t ready, he was tiny, a curled soul in my hand, and I had no idea how to unfurl him into a man.
That boy who made me a mother now turns 27. I’ve now been a mother for a quarter of a century. I had no idea I’d end up becoming the mother of one and a half dozen kids — which is a tongue-in-cheek way of saying I’m the mother of 7 kids — while saying that a whole lot of days that felt more like mothering 18 kids.
I have lived through days —countless of them — that were unashamedly our actual dreams come true — and I have lived through honestly our very worst nightmares.
Rejections. Diagnosis. Needles and daily injections. Constant meds. ICUs. Self-harming. Open heart surgeries. More than once. Mental health fractures. Mine and theirs. Car accidents. More than once. Drop outs. More diagnosis. Wilderness Wanderers. Sleepless nights. Prayer pacing and soundless tears at 3 am. More than once.
Seven miraculous kids has meant non-stop riding seven roller coasters with all of the wondrous, exhilarating heights — and heart-dropping plunges.
“Motherhood is never about training your children to be good so they won’t ever fall — it’s about letting them see you fall in love every day with a good God.”Our nightmares end when we accept that where we are can be where dreams still come true.
And a thousand times I return to what I learned about mothering that first long, sleepless night of being a brand new mother.
It wasn’t wails of the brand new baby that kept me awake, but my terror that was kinda palpable: How do you mother and raise an actual living human being?
I’d opened up the most Holy Book that I had brought to the hospital with me and I had traced a trail of words that had been worn down as tried and found true for centuries:
“God gently leads those who have young, because He is leading us on a journey — that journeys with our kids who are on a journey of their own.”“He carries them close to his heart
and gently leads those that have young.” Isa. 40:11
In the shadows of a dark room of a neonatal ward, I’d laid there wide awake with this Mother Epiphany:
You need to carry out your mothering the best you can, but the Shepherd carries your babies close to His heart, and He is the one responsible for carrying your babies home.
God is ultimately the shepherd of our children, we just have to keep faithfully carrying on.
God gently leads those who have young, because He is leading us on a journey — that journeys with our kids who are on a journey of their own.
No parent gets to decide a child’s outcome — we only get to decide to always come alongside our child. We only get to offer our child with-ness and witness on their way — we don’t get to determine their way.
We can only relentlessly pray that they will choose the only One who is the only Way.
“No parent gets to decide a child’s outcome — we only get to decide to always come alongside our child.“It’d taken me years to realize Parenting 101:
No shock, no shame, no matter what they do.
Only share with them the sheltering arms of the Shepherd.
Parent or child, we are no different, we are all wandering sheep who are easily lured, who all need the rescue of the Shepherd from the lostness of lesser loves, into the embrace of the greatest Love, Love Himself.
When a mother stops seeing herself as the shepherd who needs to be good enough get her child safely Home, but instead sees her and her child both in need of a Good Shepherd, this is how she always stays safe in the home of God.
“Parenting 101: No shock, no shame, no matter what they do. Only keep sharing with them the sheltering arms of the Shepherd.”When I’d turn toward the expanse of dark hospital room windows, there was my reflection, a mother desperately fearing she was not enough, backlit by the glow of hospital hallway , and there was clear Heart of the Father:
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Ps. 23:1
Mother, in the arms of your Father:
You are not lacking.
You lack nothing.
You. do. not. lack.
I brimmed….. dropped my eyes, shook my head…..
On the eve of Mother’s Day, my hours old newborn son slept soundly, and I cried quietly in the arms of my Father and it would take me a long quarter of a century and 7 kids later to know it fully:
“God’s a perfect father with His own prodigal kids — and He only has perfect grace for prodigal parenting of imperfect, glorious kids.”God’s a perfect Father with His own prodigal kids — and He only has perfect grace for my prodigal parenting of these imperfect, glorious kids.
It would take me more than a quarter of a century of mothering to find the relief of it:
If we don’t turn inward — it all turns out in the end.
Just turn outward — toward your children, and toward your Shepherd — and in the end, it will all turn out. All will be alright, all will be all redeemed, all will be all restored.
You will get things wrong, you the prodigal parent with kids who will both make wrong turns, only to turn and find the arms of the Shepherd who left everything to come and find you and gently lead you all the way through.
So no matter what any Mother’s Day Card says this year, there is a Shepherd who gives every tender Mama what she longs for: More than Enough Grace.
You get more than enough grace to bury your fears that your faith isn’t enough, and that your faults are too many. You get more than enough grace to wash your dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies.
Grace that says you doesn’t have to try to measure up to anyone else because Jesus came down — and He measures you as good enough, as worthy enough, as loved more than enough.
Grace that embraces you before you prove anything — and after you’ve done everything wrong.
Grace that holds you when everything else falls apart — and whispers that everything is really falling together.
Grace that loves you when you are at your darkest worst — and wraps you in the best light.
Whatever has happened in the past can’t change it, and nothing in the future can intimidate the reality of it:
you are always sufficient — because God always gives you His all sufficient grace.
You don’t have to be afraid —because you have a Father, and you don’t have to know how to do it all, you just have to choose to be all here with Your Father who is here, right here, with you.
His grace meets you in every moment — and you will miss it if you are worrying about future moments.
When you focus on living only in the grace of this moment — is exactly when you get the grace of a momentous life. Live in the moment — and you get a momentous life.
That is all…
Honestly, you don’t have to know how to be awesome and do everything.
You simply have to believe that the One who is Awesome will love you through everything.And when all the mothers did more than open up their Mother’s Day cards, but actually opened their hearts to that kind of grace, and unfolded all of His more than enough Grace, and let themselves be completely enfolded in it….
All kinds of wounds healed in a thousand tender places.
* * *. *
What Every Mother Wants Most: More than Enough GraceThis Mother’s Day Get What You Really Want for Free :A Truckload of Grace, A House of Prayer, a 10 Point Parenting Manifesto
All Three Free Gifts have profoundly impacted my years of parenting — so I just really wanted to wrap it all up & give to ((YOU)) as a free gift from my mama heart to your brave one — or for your own mother — a deeply meaningful gift that you don’t have to go out anywhere for, or spend any money on — kinda perfect — and it’s exactly what every mama want the very most: a 10 Point Parenting Manifest for JOY (regardless the age of your kids), everything you need to literally make your house into a house of prayer (especially needed in days like these) — and a printable that gives every mama what she wants most: a Truckload of Grace. … Just sign up to our whole library of free resources to find this whole free Mother’s Day Package.
Sign up Here for Free Access to our Whole Library of Printables & you Receive All Three Gifts you need for the (FREE!) perfect way to Disappointment-Proof this Mother’s Day
The Grace & Prayers & Help You Need As A Mother, The Whole Free Mother’s Day Package is here For You, Just Sign Up For Our Free Tools & Framables Library (AND GORGEOUS FREE EZINE) – all exclusive tools we’ve made just for you — all designed to maybe make your life more than a bit easier– make it more HOPEFUL! I promise — so much good coming your way, always more hope, always more grace! All That you really want most this Mother’s Day
May 10, 2023
What to Do When Mothering is Hard: Pt. 1
“You just make it all look so easy.”
I’d turned when I overheard the words directed toward a young mother, with wailing baby straddled on her hip, chubby fingers clinging to her neck, and the young mom had darted forward to try to catch the hand of her blurring-dash of a toddler.
She’d smiled thinly and I read her eyes:
Pretend something’s easy and you undermine what a feat it actually is.
Mother’s Day is hard, because mothering is unbelievably hard, and the real hard work of mothering is to keep staying soft.
Her and I both know what day is there on the calendar the end of this week and the reality is:
Mother’s Day is hard, because mothering is unbelievably hard, and the real hard work of mothering is to stay soft.
Stay soft when the baby is squalling and flailing and you’re at your frazzled wits end.
Stay soft when you’re bleary-eyed with relentless sleepless nights and some kid is pounding your leg like a drum, beating you to get their shoes, their juice, their Dr. Seuss, and get it all 5 minutes ago. Stay soft when some bickering, some rant, some temper tantrum is making it all hard to think.
Stay soft when the tween rolls his eyes and slams the door on your directions mid-sentence.
Stay soft when you’ve pried behind a kid’s story and found some bloated, stinking lie. Stay soft when things grow hard and cold with apathy or silence.
From the moment the uterine walls of a mother grow hard with contractions, a mother’s real holy work in the world is to keep staying soft.
Wooden Hands- The Keeping Company
Wooden Hands and Cross – The Keeping Company Pretend something’s easy and you undermine what a feat it actually is.
One of the most profound truths I’ve held on to as I’ve mothered 7 children, is this one image that my midwife loaned me and I wrote down in my own labor and delivery journal before the birth of our sixth child:
Through every wave of contractions, your uterus will grow as hard as basketball —- but just breathe – and imagine that you have a hole in your sock, there at your big toe, so just let go and imagine all the air of that basketball quietly singing out of that hole – so you can just stay surrendered and soft.
Translate:
Don’t fight the waves, don’t let the labor of mothering make you tense, don’t let the work of mothering tighten you with harshness when they’re all scrapping, don’t let the way of mothering make you hard when all kinds of things get hard….
Just breathe…. Just let go of what comes… Just stay soft.
Because hadn’t I experienced it how many times by babe number 6: With every labor, I had this counter-productive tendency to brace myself hard through the contractions. If contractions came hard? I’d prove I had the mettle to be harder, steelier, stronger. I’d overcome the strength of the hard contractions by being ever tougher and harder still.
But growing harder ultimately slowed labor down and made the exhausting marathon of labor even longer – even more painful.
My gentle midwife assured a better way through: Just breathe, just keep imagining the contractions that are hardening your uterine walls are doing exactly what they need to do, that they are doing a good, delivering work; don’t brace hard against them as they are doing the birthing work – but let those hard contractions just come and let them pass over you, pass through you, and, yes, you just let all the air of that hardening basketball seep out and away…
So when I faced round #6 of labor and all the waves of contractions tightened excruciatingly hard to birth our sixth child, I purposed to keep that one image in mind.
It’s not hard to let yourself grow hard, but it takes far greater strength to stay soft.
It turns out: You have to really stay focused to really stay soft.
It’s not hard to let yourself grow hard, but it takes far greater strength to stay soft.
Ultimately: You have to stay in community to stay soft.
Because mothering is unbelievably hard, because it’s unbelievably easy for a mother to let her heart grow hard, a heart has to stay beating close to all kind of other hearts to stay soft.
I may have read all the books, written out my plan in my labor and delivery journal, even experienced five prior childbirths – but I needed my midwife, my husband, to stay close, to stay coaching me, to help me stay focused through every hard contraction:
Don’t brace yourself hard against whatever hard comes: just breathe… just let go… just stay soft….
A mother’s labor and delivery never ends and you never stop having to remember to breathe.
Wooden Cross- The Keeping Company A mother’s labor and delivery never ends and you never stop having to remember to breathe.
What if, just as a woman labors and delivers a babe with the help of a midwife, every woman had a midmother to labor with her through the hard seasons, to help her stay soft and ultimately deliver her as a mother?
Midwife, in Old English, literally means, “with – woman,” (mid literally means “with”… and wife actually just meant “woman”) … every midwife is a with-woman, who stays with the woman giving birth.
What if every mother had a midmother, a “with-mother”, to stay with her as she stays laboring for decades, for a lifetime, a midmother through every hard season, breathing with her, showing her how to stay soft, so she delivers into the sanctified and cruciform mother her Father meant her to be.
What if we all belonged to a fellowship of mothers, to help make it through all the hardships of mothering?
When I went to a pastor in the midst of a flattening mothering failure, that shepherd of souls nodded and gently said, “You need to meet Debbie.”
What if we all belonged to a fellowship of mothers, to help make it through all the hardships of mothering?
For years, Debbie ended up midmothering me with early morning texts and late night prayers to preach gospel courage to my soul, and I couldn’t believe when I opened the the box she’d mailed across the miles: she knit me a soft white prayer shawl to tenderly wrap round myself in the early morning dark as I prayed for each of our children.
What all mothers need are midmothers to pray with her, and for her, and to keep wrapping her in the love of her Abba Father whose lovingkind heart keeps a mother’s heart soft.
More than half a dozen years ago now, I’d stood under a 2 am star-studded sky and turned to ask a mother what our next parenting season looked like, and her eyes didn’t leave that diamond-shimmering sky and she spoke a word:
“We are going to do exactly what we’ve always done: we won’t ever make an idol out of our children and we will keep loving them like Jesus, because we will never stop following Jesus who is Love Himself.”
And then when I went quiet with mothering ache this winter, she was the one who called an emergency meeting of six other midmothers, for us all get on the phone, and they were a circle of safe for me to come unpack my tender mama heart.
What all mothers need are midmothers to deliver us from the lie that we haven’t laboured hard enough, or good enough, or been enough.
Wooden Hands- The Keeping Company 
Wooden Cross- The Keeping Company “We won’t ever make an idol out of our children & we will keep loving them like Jesus, because we won’t stop following Jesus who is Love Himself.”
And as I sat on a midmother’s front porch under blankets this past weekend talking till nearly midnight with one of my oldest friends who’s known me since we were teen girls — since before we ever swayed fussing swaddled newborns together at the back of the church — who’s called me in the middle of the night when her own mothering heart could hardly breathe through the hard, and who’s held me on my own front porch when I’ve been bent over, bawling through my own mother-laboring, and I turned to her this weekend with all this brimming, grateful love:
What every mother needs is a faithful midmother to coach her through the painful contractions of being birthed into a tender family story that’s harder in ways one would never have expected, but is actually delivering one deeper into the heart of Father God.
What mothers need through all kinds of hardship is far more fellowship, with no more comparison but far more co-operation, with no more hurtful stereotyping, and far more honest championing.
After supper dishes are washed up and the day’s chores done, late the other night I call my own Mother, the woman who not only labored and delivered me more than a few moons ago, but who has become my own long suffering midmother, who has stayed with me long after I was last heavy with-child, to keep listening and coaching me through the endless labor and delivery of a mother – just breathe, just let go, just stay soft. And I can hear it in her voice when she softly tells me for the millionth time that she loves me:
There is no genuine way to make mothering look easy because it is genuinely hard, but there is a way for us together to find the greater strength to keep staying soft.
“Thank you, Mom – for all the ways you’ve mid-mothered me through years of my own labor and delivery into even more joy as a mom,” I whisper it … and re-commit to thanking a midmother, being a midmother, raising up more midmothers, because what gives us invincible strength as mothers — is to stay in a community with mothers.
Because what mothers need through all kinds of hardship is far more fellowship, with no more comparison but far more co-operation, with no more harmful stereotyping and far more honest championing.
You can see it in your mother’s hands, when you touch them, when you hold her hand in yours — this luminous softening…. how everywhere, after all these years, she is softening into this luminous love.
It’s a strange and sacred paradox, and what all the real work of mothering is, as we just keep breathing through the laboring and keep letting go:
The softer you stay, the more strength you have to do the hardest things.
How… can you find a way for your broken heart to heal and stay soft?
How do you find a way of being — when even being is hard?
How do you find a way forward… when so much of your heart wants to go back to a better time before?
The practical tool to begin true life-transformation for a different way of life start here:
May 8, 2023
How to Move from Fear to Trust
Parenting can bring a special type of fear into your life, but parents of children with special needs face unique and trying challenges in addition to the regular doubts we may face. Today’s devotion highlights some of those doubts, but more so, it highlights the strength and power of our Savior. It’s a grace to welcome Amy J. Brown, Sara Clime, and Carrie M. Holt to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Amy J. Brown, Sara Clime, and Carrie M. Holt
Have you ever felt like you’ve worn out your welcome with God, that he gets tired of you asking him for strength, courage, or energy?
When I began to explore the source, I found that my anxiety was rooted in the lie that we had finally worn God out, that he was tired of repeatedly healing our son after every surgery, every medical crisis.
Several years ago, my son’s shunt (a device in the brain that drains excess fluid the brain produces) wasn’t draining correctly, and his abdomen became enlarged. To ensure there wasn’t an infection that could travel to his brain, we sat in the hospital for two weeks as he received antibiotics and had the fluid drained.
By this time in our special needs journey, our son’s surgery count was reaching the mid-forties, and at the end of those two weeks, he would require surgery again to put the shunt back inside his body. During that time, I struggled with fear over our son’s survival.
The fear seemed irrational. The current crisis wasn’t that critical.
He talked, laughed, ate, and got bored from sitting in a hospital bed. What was the source of my fear?
When I began to explore the source, I found that my anxiety was rooted in the lie that we had finally worn God out, that he was tired of repeatedly healing our son after every surgery, every medical crisis.
Fear is often rooted in lies. I believed the lie that God was getting tired of me, our prayers, and healing our child. I forgot about who he is and the truth of his character.
The truth is that God doesn’t get tired. “Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (Isa. 40:28).
God understands your human heart and the difficulties of your circumstances. He doesn’t grow weary of you coming to him.
Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow because he wanted to show us how we should always pray and not give up. My favorite version says so we won’t “lose heart” (Luke 18:1 ESV). God doesn’t get tired of us coming to him with our problems. So don’t lose heart; keep going to him in prayer.
God doesn’t get tired of us coming to him with our problems. So don’t lose heart; keep going to him in prayer.
Fear is also entrenched in the lie that we can control tomorrow.
Jesus tells us in Matthew that we’re not to worry about our lives, that even the birds of the air are taken care of, and that we have more value than they do. “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt. 6:27).
Trusting God means leaving tomorrow in his hands, believing that he knows what we need and will provide it.
George Müller, who started several orphanages in Bristol, England, in the nineteenth century, was a man of great faith. He kept a daily journal of his requests and how God answered each one. He did not believe in fundraising for his orphanage but prayed daily for God to provide.
One morning three hundred children sat down to eat, but there wasn’t any food. George prayed and thanked God for what he would provide. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. A baker couldn’t sleep the night before and thought the orphanage would need bread, so he had gotten up at 2 a.m. and baked it for them.
Just as the children enjoyed the bread, a milkman’s cart broke down. He needed to lighten his load to fix the wheel, so he donated the milk to the children. Maybe you require not daily bread but strength, sleep, soul rest, or a break. Ask him for what you need.
Fear can take root when we take our eyes off Jesus.
He may not prevent the storms from coming, but he wants to walk through them with us.
My favorite story is when the disciples are in the storm, and Jesus walks on the water toward them. They think he is a ghost and cry out in fear. However, Peter calls to him and says, “If it’s really you, call me out on the water.” Jesus tells him to come, and Peter steps out of the boat. In the middle of a raging storm, Peter has the courage to climb out into the waves because he knows who Jesus is. He begins to sink only when he takes his eyes off Jesus and focuses on the storm around him (Matt. 14:26–31).
One of the most significant ways to combat fear is to fall in love with Jesus and know who he truly is.
As he did with Peter, Jesus is reaching out his hand to pull us up out of the waves. He is asking us to come and take a step toward him in faith.
He may not prevent the storms from coming, but he wants to walk through them with us. His peace is not of this world; it is divine. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
He is asking us to release our fears to him, gaze on him, and trust him. When we do, the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds (Phil. 4:6–7). Trust that he is near.
Amy J. Brown, Sara Clime, and Carrie M. Holt are three mothers who have a combined experience of over thirty years of raising children with physical, medical, mental, and emotional special needs. They are the hosts of the podcast Take Heart Special Moms and authors of The Other Side of Special: Navigating the Messy, Emotional, Joy-Filled Life of a Special Needs Mom. In this book, they take a deep dive into the most common emotions you feel, acknowledge the hard things, celebrate the unique joys, and offer encouragement for the journey of a special needs mom.
[ Our humble thanks to Revell for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
May 6, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [5.6.2023]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Come along with us here because who doesn’t need a bit of good news?
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Zoe & Sue Field – Photographer
Zoe & Sue Field – Photographer
Zoe & Sue Field – Photographer
Zoe & Sue Field – Photographer
Zoe & Sue Field – Photographer– These spring beauties are just a feast –
Too Busy for Beauty? How Productivity Can Starve a Soul
Really great read to inspire our weekend!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Better Together TV (@bettertogethertv)
beautiful words on waiting & hope
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Wholehearted (@wholeheartedquiettime)
so much yes!
In case you need a little convincing? Why Play is Important (& Healthy!) for Grownups
Don’t pass this one by… a great inspiration… and we might have a little joy to add to our weekend! ;)
@jenessawait Another amazing testimony of the power of obedience. With Easter coming up, now is the time to invite people to church and share with them the power of the gospel!!#fyp #christianity #christiantiktok ♬ Spontaneous Instrumental Worship – Deeper Heaven Music
Yes!! This!
12 Old(ish) Books to Read When You Are Young (or any age–what a great list to glean from)
For Mother’s Day: Give Mom A Beautiful Way to Place Everything Into God’s Hands
Nothing could be more powerful than giving Mom a visual way to pray for her family, with photos & Scripture tucked into wooden prayer hands… because there’s no greater gift than communion with God.
With several of these wooden prayer hands throughout our home, this is a gift that changes generations… and impacts all of eternity:
Give Mom the most meaningful gift, a gift that could change generations: The Gift of Praying Hands
This man discovered a huge need when his homeless uncle passed away.. and how he let it move him to action and loving others and creating FAMILY? This is just the best!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 (@majicallynews)
all choked up on this one. dare you not to cry.
Who taught this 6-year-old to be such a gentleman?! The way he sees his classmates? Oh, this is priceless!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by John Bevere (@johnbevere)
Such a solid truth to carry with us this weekend — God is so other than us. And this is really such great news.
THIS! crucial in tiring, hard, or long seasons.
on adding pockets of joy in the midst of everyday life…
“Adding little pockets of joy into our actual, messy, real lives is something we all can do.“
Why we must read fiction even as terrible times loom – a really great read for this weekend
“…reading can take us into unfamiliar worlds and better prepare us to live in our own.”
Spend your one life relentlessly only trying to climb higher on some ladder, and your soul runs out of oxygen and your joy can’t really breathe. This is the stress of Climber’s Distress.
BUT THIS? THIS is one way–the way–you can cure Climber’s Distress and GET BACK YOUR JOY & WONDER.
This right here is for each of us who feel soul-weary, hard working, tired of chasing ladders & achievements…
An Unlikely Cure If You’re Tired of Climbing Ladders
& Trying to Win at All the Things
Read this post for your heart right here
“What a black man discovered when he met the mother he never knew” — this is deeply, deeply powerful. Make SURE you read all the way to the end.
“My lifetime reading plan… how I educated myself through books” and some tips for you too!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Soulseeds (@soulseedsforall)
oh this is just the BEST!!
Making dreams come true.
Can we all just exhale together for a minute here, because we all made it to the weekend, & who doesn’t need a real spa for their soul this weekend?
We are not human doings working to make ourselves spiritually acceptable. We are s piritual beings resting in Christ to do what is humanly impossible.
There’s a rhythm of rest that can save your life.
READ FOR YOUR SOUL RIGHT HERE
A regular customer heard this Dunkin Donuts cashier was getting evicted from her home and she just went above and beyond for the family! My oh my! She is just the tangible hands & feet of Jesus. #BeTheGift
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Discover California | Nature, Travel & Food (@discover_california_)
Just a gentle reminder to take in the beauty of God’s creation this weekend.
Spring beauty AND hymns? Come along with us and enjoy for awhile?
Such glory…
“I’m fighting a battle that You’ve already won”
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
You are meant for greatness–
and greatness is about serving greatly.
You aren’t meant for self-gratification.
You were meant for soul greatness.
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
May 5, 2023
A Spa For Your Soul: 5 Proven Secrets to Rest & Revive (Instead of Being Overwhelmed & Exhausted)
Mrs. Martin, she was my grade 2 teacher, and she said I couldn’t keep any rhythm to save my life.
She’d be standing there in that red pleated dress of hers, tapping glossy black patent leather pumps:
“For there to be any real rhythm — there has to be real rests. You’ve got to listen know where the rests come,” and she tried to show my little grade 2 self in my scuffed up Mary Janes and green polyester pants, how to clap it out.
Beat, beat — rest. Beat, beat — rest.
But I’ll just straight up confess that I never quite got the hang of the rhythm of music and moves, and I am far older now than Mrs. Martin was then — but when I saw Mrs. Martin the other week in the produce section of Zehrs grocery, checking out the firmness of the tomatoes, I wished I’d been brave enough to tell her what I kinda get now:
Life beats you down unless you get the rhythm of the rests.
Wished I’d slipped up beside Mrs. Martin and helped her pick out the best tomatoes and told her how I’m still a slow learner, still learning how to still, so I hear the music in rhythm of things — still realizing:
Rest is a rhythm
you have to keep
so your soul can breathe
all the notes your life was made to sing.
Rest is a rhythm
you have to keep
so your soul can breathe
all the notes your life was made to sing.
Because …
Iftherearenospacesandpausesofrest —-
life loses its meaning.
But? If we make S P A C E in the middle of the PACE of things we find P E A C E.
It’s true: Work has its own rhythm — a steady pace of 30 minute work session, 60 minutes, 90 minutes.
And then? After the work beats — there are rest beats. There are Rest Rhythms — islands of 10, 15, 20 minutes — to sit in a hammock, a bit of time suspended in space, close your eyes, listen to the wind make a song of its own through chimes, pen something that speaks the language of your soul, breathe long and deep and be more about being — and less about doing.
I’d tell Mrs. Martin that I am really daily working on these:
5 Secrets to DAILY Master the Art of Rest & Recharge1. Daily Glory Soak: Sit outside and stare at the sky.
So there is this rest rhythm — even 5 minutes in the middle of the day to: Look up into the limbs of a tree and stretch out your own arms and breathe in deep. The Japanese call it “forest bathing.”
But Believers can have a way of life, a way of being in the world, what I call:
“Glory Soaking.”
Daily Glory Soaks cleanse the mind so the heart can fill with thanks.
We humans have tendency to brood, known as “morbid rumination,” which can often makes us fixate and brood on the negative aspects of our lives, which and can lead to worry and angst and dark days — but research has found that when we walked in quiet, wooded areas, we lower the activity in the brooding portion of our brains.
When the heart is full of trouble, step outside to see that the whole earth isn’t full only of trouble, but ultimately is full more of His glory.
“… Nature walkers showed cognitive benefits including an increase in working memory performance, decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect,” is what the research reports.
Adoration of God’s glory short circuits rumination of our problems.
If you want to heal more of the losses in your life, make it your way of life to get outside every day to hear what God means to tell you: “The heavens are telling the glory of God” ( Psalm 19:1 ).
That means?
That means God sings close over us with spread of sky, God stuns and awes with painted sunrises, God unravels stress with His choreographic dance of stars, God enfolds us everywhere in surround sound: “Glory, glory, glory, I am glory and I fill everything with glory so why fill with worry?”
When the heart is full of trouble, step outside to see that the whole earth isn’t full only of trouble, but ultimately is full more of His glory.
2. Daily Gratitude List:
It been a habit of more than a decade for me and it has profoundly transformed my life in every way: Curl up with your journal and write down just three things every day that you’re grateful for you and you increase your happiness by 25% — for free!
Life moves fast, but gratitude & counting gifts catch life & slow it down long enough to taste & savor the joy of it.
You may not see God right in front of you,
but when you write down your thanks for His gifts of grace,
you’re tracing His hand right here.
Life moves fast, but gratitude & counting gifts catch life & slow it down long enough to taste & savor the joy of it.
Life may feel like it’s racing by — but counting gifts is how you glimpse all the good in it.
Counting gifts helps lift….whatever weight you’re carrying.
I keep returning to it, season after season: “Joyfulness is a function of how we see, and how we see is a function of how we look at everything with gratefulness.” One Thousand Gifts
Take time to give thanks to God — and you give your soul what it wants most: Joy in God.
3. Daily Good Tunes:
I keep finding: Good days need a good playlist.
Music reduces the stress hormone cortisol, strengthens one’s immune system, and decreases one’s sense of pain. Music is free medicine and soundtracks can help keep your soul on track.
Feel the rest between the beats, and your heartbeat gets the rest it needs.
Good tunes, good times.
You are your mental playlists. Good days need a good playlist.
And it turns out? You are your mental playlists.
In a loud world, you need a louder, surer song, the song that sings far beyond the walls of this small world and straight across the expanse of this whole reverberating universe.
What you need to do is turn down the song of inferiority in your head and turn up the song of identity, of who you really are, that’s sung over you, that’s sung because you.
This song is as real as the oxygen filling your lungs right in this moment.
“The Lord your God … is always with you.
He celebrates and sings because of you…” Zephaniah 3:17
The Divine sings the most divine love song because of you, because His heart cannot silently contain His love for you. The God of the heavens is not far off, but here, right here, and the wonder of your presence moves the Maker of the universe to burst into song!
The reality of His soundtrack can literally resonate off the walls of your soul.
So crank the worship, like these tunes and these songs and this soundtrack , and turn up your face, and you turn up your joy!
4. Daily Givenness:
It’s a true thing: Taking the time for intentional acts of givenness, instead of merely the one-off random acts kindness — is how to intentionally let your soul exhale.
The best way to de-stress it to daily bless.
Research indicates that living given makes you happier than getting more.
Intentionally give it forward in one way every day, and you decreases stress and strengthen mental health.
“The best way to de-stress it to daily bless.” The Broken Way
Live given, be the GIFT and give it forward today:
Speak words that make someone stronger, give someone a coffee, choose Fairtrade and live a fair and good story and give someone the gift of empowering hope.
Live given with your life, live given to the wind of His spirit and rest in the music He makes through your life.
5. Daily God Meditation:
Turns out: A recent study indicates that Bible readers are less stressed than the general population, which is what His Word promises: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you“ (Isaiah 26:3).
It’s only when you make time to encounter God, you make the discovery that you can count on the arms of God carrying you through. God’s Word to you is never a passing word or line — God’s Word is your very lifeline. There is nothing like knowing that the Communicative God wants to communicate with you.
It’s only when you make time to encounter God, that you make the discovery you can count on the arms of God carrying you through.
In tumultuous times, there is only one Voice that can calm seas.
When the sun comes to your window every morning, it comes on fire with a message it can’t contain: The One who is the Word wants to have a word with you.
The One who spoke you into being is a Communicative Being who longs to keep speaking to you.
And in a world that’s hurrying and hurtling, faster and faster, you can reach for your Bible first thing — because when we reach for our first love first, we are assured everything turns out right in the end.
When the world is all stirred up, a soul can be stirred up to meet with God.
Meditate on a verse from His Word all day and you rest in the rest of God.
We are not human doings
working at looking supernatural,
but spiritual beings
doing what is humanly possible
and looking to Christ to do the supernatural.
I’m thinking Mrs. Martin may be one of those who already knew it in her bones:
We are not human doings
working at looking supernatural,
but spiritual beings
doing what is humanly possible
and looking to Christ to do the supernatural.
We are not human doings working to make ourselves spiritually acceptable. We are spiritual beings resting in Christ to do what is humanly impossible.
And the music can come even now, and you can feel the expanse of it right within you, the way twilight seems to exhale at the end of the work: A soul doesn’t work without a Sabbath.
Be still
and know God —
to not forget who you are.
There’s a rhythm that can save your life.
Looking to recharge and restart your joy?
Glimpses of grace that will lead you into your own lifestyle of Christ-focus and communion. Into how your desperate need of Him every moment is wildly met with His extravagant love for you.
As practical as profound, these 60 devotionals offer real life transformation with a numbered, lined journal, your own intentional space to count gifts and begin the radical habit of thanking God for your own one thousand gifts.
Pick up a pen and the One Thousand Gifts Devotional Journal– and change your life.
Take the dare to fully live! God’s just waiting to bless you with the greatest gift of all – more and more of Himself.
May 4, 2023
An Unlikely Cure If You’re Tired of Climbing Ladders & Trying to Win at All The Things
If he told me once, he told me enough times that this one line has tried for decades to take up permanent residency in my head:
“Only play the games you know you can win.”
But how I’d like a dime for every time I’ve wanted to ask that man I knew a long time ago:
But what do you do, and where do you go, when all you seem to do is lose? Lose people you love, lose the story you thought your life would be, lose badly at being the way you long to be?
“I’ve got this haunting voice in my head that I’m not the best at all the things I’ve got to do,” a woman told me in passing last week.
Spend your one life relentlessly only trying to climb higher on some ladder, and your soul runs out of oxygen and your joy can’t really breathe. This is the stress of Climber’s Distress.
I could see it in her eyes because you can see it everywhere, the pressure deeply immense and intense:
Have the best romancing love-life, have the best, knock-out achievements, have the best Instagrammable dream house, have the best fairy-tale life. You have to win at all the things, if you want to amount to anything.
This can be exhausting. This noise can get loud between your ears in the middle of the night:
If you’re not on a certain rung of the ladder by now, how does your life matter by other’s standards?
When you aren’t where you thought you’d be in your life, are you who you hope to be accepted in other people’s minds? What if low-grade disappointment with how your story’s going – is making your soul sicker than any low-grade fever that goes on forever?
No matter what the hustle gurus say, the tried and true Way across the ages testifies: Spend your one life relentlessly only trying to climb higher, and your soul runs out of oxygen and your joy can’t really breathe.
This is the stress of Climber’s Distress.
This is a stress every soul is susceptible to, because we all begin in the same place:
Every single one of us is born looking for someone — something, anything — to fill this empty hunger within… so we begin climbing. Because we think if we climb higher than where we are now, climb higher than others, climb to be the best at something, then we will finally find what we’re looking for – find someone looking deeply into us, find someone fully loving all of us – which will fill the emptiness. So we keep climbing, hustling to try to find it before anyone else.
Focus only on climbing ladders and you climb out of all potential joy and right into certain disappointment. Climber’s Distress is cured by kneeling down to love. Your soul can always breathe easier when you kneel down and sacrifice for someone.
But no matter how high you climb, no matter how you try to be the best, the truth is:
Nothing you find on any ladder can ever fulfill real emptiness.
The reality is: Every time you think you’re not yet on a high enough rung on your ladder, you end up feeling low, and it’s your own joy that gets wrung right out.
Focus only on climbing ladders and you climb out of all potential joy and right into certain disappointment.
It’s Climber’s Distress that causes stress cracks across our days, our hearts, our life.
Souls aren’t meant to climb ladders; soul are meant to be dead to the climbing of ladders and go lower to be sacrificial love. Whatever you’re looking for won’t ever be found on any ladder but is only found in lowering yourself to serve.
Everywhere that you kneel down and serve someone, love someone, sacrifice for someone, you’ll finally find right there what you’ve been looking for: fulfillment.
It’s a strange and holy paradox, and this is what hushes the worry that we’re somehow falling behind:
Climber’s Distress is cured by kneeling down to love. Your soul can always breathe easier when you kneel down and sacrifice for someone.
After all kinds of loss these last few year, if there was a wayI could sit down with that man who told me “Only play the games you know you can win” – I think I’d gently find his eyes and tenderly tell him now:
Life isn’t about being the best, life is about being love.
Life isn’t about climbing to the top of your field, but about loving how you get to be on the field at all. If you think life is mostly about the joy of winning, you’re missing out on the joy of simply living.
Life isn’t about being the best, life is about being love. Life isn’t about climbing to the top of your field, but about loving that you get to be on the field at all.
You don’t have to be the best in whatever field; the point is you get to be on the field in this moment at all, that you get the grace of feeling the wind in your hair and the wondrous grace of being alive with breath in your lung and sun on your face and the hands of your people there at your back, and you get the grace to be out there on the field of all the living where the grass is greener than on the other side of the fence with its graves.
Feeling entitled to more can end up only leaving you more discouraged; it’s when you have a sense of entitlement, that you can lose all sense of direction toward joy.
And honestly? Your worst day would be, in many ways, someone else’s best day. What you consider your failure, someone else may consider their finest, and the woman who doesn’t make her finish line like she wanted, is she really a failure when others would give their eye teeth to even just get that far?
Whatever you think you aren’t doing well, someone else would be wildly grateful just to get to do at all.
For every single one of us, life is truly complicated and nuanced and no one is interested in toxic gratitude that poisons our very real need to lament. Every one of our griefs and wounds and loss are very real and deep and daily, and for all of us: our gratefulness can’t nullify our griefs, nor can our gratefulness negate our very honest griefs, but all grief and gratefulness, in turn, inform each other, and together, they both form us authentically human.
Tulips bloom blush pink in these early May days.
Flickers flash their scarlet feathers on back lawns, and stumbling, flailing women like this one make dinner tired over old stoves.
No matter what the grass looks like on the other side of the fence, as long as you’re on this side of the grass today, this moment is an astonishing gift of grace.
No matter what the grass looks like on the other side of the fence, as long as you’re on this side of the grass today, this moment is an astonishing gift of grace.
What would it look like to be content with all the kind ways of your Creator — instead of comparing yourself to the ways of all kinds of content creators?
And what I keep discovering when I dare open my gratitude journal, choose to pick up a pen, even in the messy and failings of every day life is that: When you’re sitting with tender losses but Jesus’ heart has won yours forever, there is always something – the richest eternal and permanent things — to be infinitely thankful for.
This feels like the best kind of winning:
What cures Climber’s Distress is kneeling down in gratitude for all that still is.
What cures Climber’s Distress is loving all that God has bent down to give.
Why ever tire of writing down thanksgiving for all His gifts of grace, when thanksgiving genuinely proves to be the most life-giving?
Early May daysBlush pink petals Light in eyes and honest smiles Loving the person right in front of meGetting to be and breathe out on the field of life today at allThe gift of now and all the hope and possibility of even this moment right hereIt’s a strange wonder how that can happen, how when you lose entitlement, you can win joy, how giving thanks for the gifts of grace right here, and getting to be at all, gives space for joy to move in and take up permanent residency in your heart.
And the blush pink tulips out in the May flowerbeds never stress with climbing higher, but at the end of the day, as the sun lowers itself, I can see from the window how they simply bow their heads with thanks and everything looks best in a grateful light.
How do you dare to live fully right where you are?
How do we find joy in the midst of the life you already have?
there was a way of seeing that opens your eyes to ordinary amazing grace,a way of living that is fully alive,and a way of becoming present to God that brings you deep and lasting joy?What if joy is always, always, always possible, right where you are?
Dare you to live fully. Dare you to joy!
This new collector’s edition, 10th Anniversary edition of One Thousand Gifts, the 60 week plus New York Times Bestseller with more than 1.5 million copies sold, now with a beautiful ribbon marker and all new introduction from Ann makes a perfect gift of LIFECHANING JOY for a mom, a sister, a friend, any woman in your life who needs to know she’s loved and she can open one thousand gifts of joy!
Ann Voskamp's Blog
- Ann Voskamp's profile
- 1368 followers
