Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 33
May 1, 2023
Struggling with Mental Health Issues Doesn’t Mean Your Faith Is Flawed
Since we met over a decade ago, sharing a love for words and Jesus, I have been inspired by my soul-sister’s kindness and beautiful heart of encouragement. She is a phenomenal writer because that’s the kind of person she is–writing out of the depth of character and passion and true beauty. I once held Bonnie Gray’s hand, praying for God’s words to flow fearlessly through her in her first book. So, it is with great joy I invite my beloved friend to share her deep wisdom and life-giving practices learned on her journey to heal from anxiety to help us find our joy with God’s peace. A trusted Soul Care guide to many, her newest fourth book, Breathe: 21 Days to Stress Less and Transform Chaos to Calm, is maybe what we all need to restore calm to our emotions and our bodies in a world longing for beauty and rest. It’s a grace to welcome Bonnie to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Bonnie Gray
During one of the happiest chapters of my life, I suddenly started having panic attacks and debilitating insomnia. I was happily married with two young boys, had an optimistic view of life, loved God, and was part of a strong community. Yet the panic attacks came. They appeared completely out of the blue, and I didn’t know why.
As I discovered God’s view on healing, I realized my hardship wasn’t caused by flawed faith.
When I did try to share about my struggles, I was often told I wasn’t praying enough or wasn’t applying the Bible correctly. Speaking up about my emotional pain was like running into a wall.
But mental health issues happen to everyday people—even to believers who are strong in faith and have friends. I know because it happened to me.
Unfortunately, some Christians made me feel ashamed about my emotional struggles.
But as I discovered God’s view on healing, I realized my hardship wasn’t caused by flawed faith. It was others’ views toward mental health and faith that were incorrect.
Still, I didn’t want anyone to think I was broken, so I kept quiet and prayed it would all go away.
But God wanted to heal me, not shame me.
My therapist Dr. P, who specializes in PTSD, explained that a soldier doesn’t experience trauma when he is brave and fighting on the battlefield. But when the soldier finally returns home, he can face what was
too difficult to process at the time.
God wanted to heal me, not shame me.
The panic attacks weren’t coming because my faith was faulty, but because God loved me and it was time to heal from the past.
This is actually God’s design to protect us when hurt, fear, and loss are too overwhelming to comprehend. Our healthy nervous systems automatically shield us in the moment, compartmentalizing pain, so we can get through hard things… temporarily.
But I was confused. I had never experienced physical abuse or anything as horrifying as combat.
What Dr. P said next stopped me in my tracks: “Did you know emotional abuse and verbal abuse have the same impact as physical abuse? Emotional wounds need healing too.”
Feeling emotionally broken is not a sign that your faith is weak. In fact, healing your heart may be the most powerful act of faith that God is calling you to today.
The panic attacks weren’t coming because my faith was faulty, but because God loved me and it was time to heal from the past.
To encourage you, here are three myths and truths that transformed my journey of healing into beauty and meaning:
1. Myth: Jesus commanded us, “Do not worry.” If you worry, you are sinning.
Truth: Jesus was encouraging us not to worry so much about money.
In Matthew 6:25, Jesus was not issuing a command that makes worry an act of sin when he said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry.” Jesus was giving us the encouragement not to worry because God will provide for us, like the birds of the air and flowers in the field. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NLT).
2. Myth: Trust God and you’ll have peace and joy. If you don’t have peace or joy, then you’re not trusting God enough.
Truth: Emotional honesty is an intimate act of trusting God with your real self, instead of hiding how you feel or trying to do or be more.
Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me strong, cheerful, calm, and untroubled.” It’s the opposite. We’re invited to come to him weary—whether confused, numb, anxious, angry, or stressed. Jesus tells us to simply come, just as we are. Imperfectly his.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (ESV)
3. Myth: If you read God’s Word more, pray more, praise more, give thanks more, and rejoice more, you will have peace that surpasses all understanding.
Truth: Faith is not emotional amnesia.
Faith gives us courage to face the brokenness of life and heal from the losses we’ve suffered. Jesus himself obeyed, prayed, praised, and gave thanks perfectly. Yet he suffered emotional trauma, overwhelmed by impending physical and emotional abuse, abandonment, and betrayal. He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” Mark 14:34 (NIV)
You matter to God, and how you feel matters to God.
Breath Prayer: Cast Your Cares
Jesus tenderly whispers, You are worthy of peace and joy. You are worth taking care of. I will take care of you.
One practical way to calm anxiety is to breathe in God’s love and breathe out your worries to Him using this soul care tip: Intentionally write down God’s promises from Scripture. His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. (Psalm 119:105)
Then use Scripture to pray a “breathe prayer,” a simple way to pray using the natural rhythm of your breathing and God’s Word. Breathe prayers will oxygenate your soul with God’s peace and restore calm. Hand over your problems to Jesus as you pray this breath prayer from 1 Peter 5:7: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Inhale: I cast all my cares upon you.
Exhale: Because you care for me.
With each breath you take, name each worry to release it to God in prayer.
Be Mindful When You Worry: God Cares for You
Today, when you feel anxious and worried, stop and breathe.
Jesus tenderly whispers, You are worthy of peace and joy. You are worth taking care of. I will take care of you.
In Jeremiah 31:3, God says,“I have loved you with an everlasting love.” Especially when you’ve been hurt, He wants to take care of you with His powerful, healing presence.
Moving by faith with Jesus toward wellness is unique to each woman. For some, healing with Jesus means being more honest when we pray and receiving God’s comfort instead of hiding our emotions.
Healing may involve asking Jesus to give you courage to draw healthy boundaries in toxic relationships so you can flourish instead of living in constant stress and fear.
Healing with Jesus also includes breaking the code of silence. When we share with faith-filled women for support, encouragement and prayer, our hearts heal. And if you, like me, have suffered emotional trauma or loss, God can give you strength and wisdom to investigate and heal your wounds with the help of a Christian therapist or counselor.
God’s Word will give you strength to heal, with His hand holding yours.
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18, NIV)
Let God love you. You are beloved.
Jesus, please give me courage to take steps to heal today. Thank You for loving me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Bonnie Gray is a Soul Care coach, author of four books, and host of The Breathe Podcast, guiding women to flourish in wellness using soul care, Bible Study, and prayer. She and her husband live in Silicon Valley, cultivating a counter-cultural lifestyle of rest and faith, raising teenage sons where hikes, waffles, and friends create an stress-resilient family.
How do you break free from stress, worry, and anxiety? Bonnie Gray’s Breathe: 21 Days to Stress Less & Transform Chaos to Calm teaches powerful life-giving practices using scientific and scripture-based methods to help you stress less, care for yourself, and create new wellness habits and rhythms of rest.
Filled with 21 beautiful Breath Prayers, discover soul-filling applications in Breathe for refreshing your spirit with God’s loving words of affirmation, releasing the stress that has been keeping you stuck, and restoring peace and joy to your body and emotions. Start your wellness journey to fully relax in your loving Savior’s embrace in daily rhythms of rest. Whatever your circumstances, it’s never too late to heal your heart.
Filled with 21 beautiful Breath Prayers, discover soul-filling applications in Breathe for:
Refreshing your spirit with God’s loving words of affirmationReleasing the stress that has been keeping your stuckRestoring peace and joy to your body and emotionsReflecting on important life-giving truthsSavoring your days as you nurture your inner selfAt the heart of Breathe is Jesus’ invitation to find rest: learn 21 stressors and 21 biblical solutions in four areas of emotional, physical, spiritual, and social wellness. Start your wellness journey to fully relax in your loving Savior’s embrace in daily rhythms of rest.With each order of Breathe in May, for Mental Health Awareness Month and Mother’s Day, Bonnie is offering FREE Gifts: a five-day guided devotional to refresh weary hearts + five guided audio prayer quiet times, along with printable breath prayer cards inspired by Scripture . Click here for more info!Whatever your circumstances, it’s never too late to heal your heart. You can add these inhale-exhale prayer practices to spark God’s peace into the rhythm of your days.[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
April 29, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [4.29.2023]
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:
Catrin – Photographer
Catrin – Photographer
Catrin – Photographer
Catrin – Photographer
Catrin – Photographeroh my — take a moment to inhale this beauty
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Tara Sun Snyder (@misstarasun)
– what a rich & meaningful time together –
View this post on InstagramA post shared by NT Wright Online (@ntwrightonline)
…oh I needed these very words this week!
Why Christians Should Read Old Books – THIS!
“Books allow us to see the world through so many other people’s eyes.”
“Kindness Can Have Unexpectedly Positive Consequences”
This is just way too good– we can’t help but smile. A real MUST READ this weekend!
“Jesus it’s an honor to cast down these crowns
What a privilege to lay my life down
Cause I know that all that I’ve gained will fade
But you will remain”
You get it: Loss is part of living, & all of us, & everyone we know, is walking through some kind of loss.
But how do we mark the hard anniversaries of loss — so that we actually heal a bit more?
I’m over here facing a brutally hard anniversary of loss this week… & the 4 parts of this ancient Jewish tradition is a tried & true way to face & mark hard anniversaries.
Worth saving & passing on this Jewish tradition — because we all have hard anniversaries that can actually become candles to warm us through our darkest valleys…
Dear You Marking That Hard Anniversary:
Read the Post Here
Ohh, this is just happy, happy, happy!
Why indie bookstores are making a massive come back in the UK and how they’re coming back so purpose-full.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Sarah E Koch (@sarah.e.koch)
…on the beauty in brokenness, and these words are just a soul-refreshing feast
This right here is all we really need for God to move mountains…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Well-Watered Women® (@wellwateredwomen)
tips to increase our understanding of the Bible… yes, please!
Lemonade on the Porch: The Gospel in a Post-Christendom Society
“But for most people, these “God-shaped holes” in the soul—for meaning, beauty, love, truth, identity—are not so much an argument as an existential problem. On the church porch they get to see how Christianity gives unparalleled resources for them all.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by TODAY (@todayshow)
Oh this is just way too cute!
The Library at Home – this! What a phenomenal idea!
“My parents insisted on reserving an entire room in our small house for books. Reading expanded my world and shaped my future.”
these choirs tackling loneliness — and what a beautiful way to be the gift, to be the hands & feet of Jesus
Post of the Week From Around These Parts
You know, really, this turns out to be the most important question you can ask yourself every day & I can’t stop thinking about it (it’s changing things for me as we flail on) — because, no matter what, in the midst of all our hard impossibles, you absolutely cannot afford to lose hope:
The Most Important Question To Ask Your Soul Everyday
So You don’t Lose Hope
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Babey l Moments l Resources (@babeycorner)
too much cuteness!
Beware of the Birds: How Satan Sabotages Sermons
“As the preacher begins to scatter the good seed of God’s word about the congregation, it meets the path — the hard and trampled, unplugged and unhumbled heart.
Disinterest, distraction, carelessness, laziness, ignorance all keep the seed out.
”
Our Big Problem is Not Misinformation; It’s Knowingness
“Knowingness, then, might be a way to manage the flood of information. There is so much we might know, that we perhaps ought to know, that it’s often easiest just to act as if we do.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jennie Allen (@jennieallen)
Great reminder for our weekend…
One of the best Mother’s Day Gifts I’ve Ever Received: 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:
It’s just so full of glory–come along with us?
“Hallelujah
I’ll live my life in remembrance
Hallelujah
Your promise I won’t forget“
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
End of the week,
and no matter what hard thing you’re facing
or how much it feels like God doesn’t hear your prayers,
this is what you need to know:
Jesus is praying for you. (John 17:6-9)
The One who breathes stars breathes prayers for you,
the One whose words spoke the world into being uses priceless words over your being,
the One who made time, lives beyond time, controls all of time,
uses all of His time to pray for you, because you are priceless to Him.
Your prayer warrior is more than any warrior —
He is the king of Kings and He has already won.
Jesus lives to endlessly, relentlessly and flawlessly pray for you (Hebrews 7:25),
and your prayer partner is the One who possesses all power,
and what He is praying for is your protection (John 17:11),
your interconnection (11), your God-satisfaction (13),
and your always-sanctification. (17-19).
Jesus is praying for your holiness
because He knows holiness
is your ultimate happiness.
Jesus is praying that you’ll be set apart
from what threatens to take part of your heart.
Because He knows:
When you just want Him —
then you always get just what you want.
Jesus is praying that you’ll be brave when you’re about to break,
that you’ll turn from what’s tempting,
that you’ll stand against what’s strangling,
that you’ll escape into Him instead of trying
to escape in a thousand unfulfilling ways.
Hard times don’t need to understand what God’s doing —
like they need to know God’s standing with us,
that He’s kneeling in prayer for us at all times.
Nothing makes you more fiercely brave
than knowing Jesus is fiercely praying 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.
April 28, 2023
Dear You Marking that Hard Anniversary:
You have made it this far, and you are going to make it, and you are making it, and that has got to make you know how brave and strong and carried you truly are.
It’s strange how loss can feel like the very heaviest thing of all to carry.
I know, it’s felt impossible on so many days — too many days — in so many ways.
I never get over it, and how it feels: It’s strange how loss can feel like the very heaviest thing of all to carry.
Unbidden memories can come flooding back at the most unexpected moments— sometimes it’s just a few notes of an old song, or a particular phrase tossed out in a certain way or just that time of year and the way the world spins on its axis — and, in an instant, you ache to be right back there, turn back the hands of time, write a different story with your fingertip there in the sands of time, and get a do-over before it’s all over.
Why does your mind strangely still think for one startling split second that you can still call them, hear their voice one more time, that you can still turn around and walk right back into your glorious life as it really once was?
I don’t pretend to know the purpose of why it all happened the way it did.
And you may never know why it all happened, the way it all happened, but you have to know that none of this marks your end, or the end. Though, frankly, there have been more moments than you can count when you’ve silently wished that somehow the world would just quietly fold up shop and everything would just end, because the courage to keep on going on is beyond exhausting.
And yet: Though there has been a shattering end to what was, but there can never be an end to the love.
“Though there has been a shattering end to what was, but there can never be an end to the love. No death can ever slay love. When someone lives on in our memory, in tender ways, they still live on and never die.“
The love that was, it will always be, and it will always go on, and that love can’t be snuffed out or erased or dismissed or belittled or made small because love is always the greatest of all and can never be stopped at all.
No death can ever slay love. When someone lives on in our memory, in tender ways, they still live on and never die.
And the love you knew — it has no known end. That long ago love that was, it can still come, and hold you long now, hold you for forever now. Let all that love tenderly hold you while you just let all that you feel and remember come.
Right here, right now: You get to mark the anniversary of the hard, because you lived mark every single day. Everything’s changed now, because you’re changed now, and time doesn’t heal all wounds, but time often only deepens the wound, because you come face to face with the reality that that no matter how much time passes, this loss will never pass, this loss will never end, this loss is permanent, this loss is with you always, till your own story ends.
The permanence of your loss can make it permanently painful to breathe.
And, in so many tender ways, the loss only expands, deepens, widens over time, because as you step into new moments — a family celebration, a graduation, a wedding, another spring of daffodils nodding in the wind — the ache compounds, because here is yet another place you meet the grief and loss face to face. You are now here, and they still aren’t anywhere, and loss can grow so large and loud. You may keep moving forward, but loss is always your companion now. The love never ends, but neither does the grief ever end.
Turns out: When you have to learn to live with loss, you become a life-long learner. Living with loss is a form of learning. Living with wounds and loss leaves you relearning a whole new broken world. How do you learn a new way of being when the loss has changed so much of your life’s meaning?
“Deep grief may be deeply complex, but the deep bonds of love continue for always.“
You may feel like you’ve lost part of yourself, because, in part, your brain’s literally rewiring parts of itself to navigate a world that no longer includes that story, that person, that life. And because you feel like you’ve lost a part of yourself — you’re having to find the bruised new you now are.
Every loss means a loss of self — and a birthing of new scarred and marked self.
Who are you when you are no longer their daughter, their son, their mother, their father, that person, anymore, and never will be again?
But the deepest true is that nothing can break the heart bonds between them and you. You never leave the heart of the people you love behind; their love and all the memories will be with you always. Deep grief may be deeply complex, but the deep bonds of love continue for always.
I think of that when I think of how the Jewish community has a tradition called yahrzeit, that literally translates “time of year” and “is a Yiddish word meaning anniversary of a death” — and there are all kinds of deaths, of hopes and dreams and relationship and people we desperately love, and that time of year comes begging for a marking.
A great life is like a brief candle — it gives all of itself, to give all kinds of others warmth and light to keep going on.
And when that time of year comes every year, to mark that hard anniversary, like the Jewish community, you could mark the “yahrzeit,” as they do, by lighting a candle at sundown, lighting warming love just as the long dark night begins, and let the flame burn on for a full 24 hours.
In the weight of loss, lighting a candle of memory, can lighten the soul.
And as you live with that yahrzeit flame for a complete day, as the earth makes one full rotation around the sun, you could feel the brightening epiphany of it too from the holy Book, there in Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD…”
In the face of great loss and grief, there it is the epiphany:
A great life is like a brief candle — it gives all of itself, to give all kinds of others warmth and light to keep going on.
During the anniversary of the hard, you could take a bit of time with that dancing candle yahrzeit’s flame and pick up a pen and write down even just one remembrance that warms your hurting heart. You could mark up a page with how you’ve been marked and changed by grief and loss and love and life.
Making space for memories makes space for love to come and carry you through.
“When you take the time to remember whoever and whatever you’ve loved and lost, what you are actually doing is letting your broken heart be re-membered and mended.“
When you take the time to remember whoever and whatever you’ve loved and lost, what you are actually doing is letting your broken heart be re-membered and mended.
On the anniversary of the hard, you could also let your life that was, before the loss, or their life, before they left, be a light as you mark the anniversary by giving to a cause, to honour that light by lighting countless other flames: an organization, a charity, a flaming work in a dark world, that would be a contagious blaze of igniting love. Supporting a cause in someone’s memory can be a way to let the light of their love and life still support you.
Even now, loss can have a legacy of light.
As the yahrzeit candle burns low across 24 hours, after you’ve done some writing to remember and re-member, after you’ve passed on light into the world by supporting a cause, you could close the marking of the hard anniversary by holding a plate of food that holds all kinds of memories, by sharing some food that takes you right back to a memory that you hold dear, so you can feel dearly held: a big slice of apple pie with a bit of cheddar cheese, his absolute favourite on an autumn evening, or butterscotch ice cream with strawberry sauce, like you used to have all together around the table on Sunday summer afternoons before life as you knew it ended.
Even in this season, when you’ve tasted too long the burning saltiness of hidden tears, when your whole body, that holds all this trauma, has wearied from having to keep standing and withstanding all this loss, even now you could reach down and hold your broken heart close, so it might drink down rich memories from a bottomless cup of love.
“Even now, loss can have a legacy of light.“
And that drink could burn in your belly, those memories could kindle your whole being into flame…. so long after your memorial yahrzeit candle burns out, you feel how you have enough love to make it all the way through the dark, warmed by a light that softens all the hardest things into a brave and tender hope.
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 time before?
How… can you find a way for your broken heart to heal?
The practical tool to begin true life-transformation for a different way of life start here:
April 25, 2023
The Most Important Question To Ask Your Soul Everyday So You don’t Lose Hope
The leaves of the citrus tree that sits beside my desk keep soundlessly dropping, whispering to the floor like silent tears.
“Maybe the most important question to ask your soul every day is simply: Where will you set your hope today so you don’t lose it?“
I am beyond baffled and kinda desperate as to why it’s slowly dying right in front of my eyes, like a metaphor for all the painful ways life here keeps unexpectedly turning, and how, in some ways, you have agency to do something, anything — and in other ways, all you can do is surrender and bear faithful witness and bear what comes with grace.
It’s cold here and snow fell defiant again just last week, smothering the coming delphiniums out by the picket fence and the unfurling climbing David Austin roses at the gate, all under a flattening blanket of white.
Can hope slowly die, ebb away, be buried, right on the cusp of spring?
I have no idea where the red-breasted robins flew when the winds blew again with the whirl of winter white flakes.
But, as I set down my cup of coffee next to that sacred Spirit Book, that ancient Book that is the only Living Book that speaks His Word, set it down there at the windowsill this week, this is what I know to be true:
Hope is a thing with feathers is what Emily Dickinson painfully wrote — as if hope can up and abscond into thin air, as if it can take wing, take flight and take leave of you, leaving you looking for your long lost hope.
“Hope doesn’t have a mind or will to head out on its own — hope will always be where you had a mind to set it, wherever you have your heart set on.“
But the truth is: Hope is a thing you set down. Because isn’t that what you always do with hope? Set your hopes, set your hopes, set your hopes.
Hope is a thing that you choose where you set down. Hope isn’t a thing that has leg or wing, a thing that can run off on you, run out on you, fall apart on you, escape and get lost on you. You can’t lose your hope — you hope is always exactly where you set your hope last down.
Where is your hope? Wherever you last set it down.
Set your hope on people and they, made of but dust, will give way and let you down. Set your hope on dreams and they can blow away with one turn of the weather vein, ash in the wind.
Set your hope on a timeline and it can turn out to be a kind of noose that leaves all your hopes hanging.
Set your hope on something that is immoveable — and you will never lose your hope. You can only lose your hope, if you set your hope down on something that can fall apart, implode, high tail it out of there.
“Where will you set your hope today so you don’t lose it? “
Hope doesn’t have a mind or a will to head out on its own — hope will always be where you had a mind to set it, wherever you have your heart set on.
“Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13.)
Our Shalom, she had spoken that verse over us the other night after dinner, as she recited the first chapter of 1 Peter from well-worn memory paths in her mind, as it’s our spiritual practice to close a meal with the real dessert and lasting sustenance of His Word — and I kept savouring those three words, turning them over and over again in my mind like the last bit of apple pie:
Set your hope.
Maybe the most important question to ask your soul every day is simply: Where will you set your hope today so you don’t lose it?
This question of where you will set your hope every day is of the utmost importance because if you start to lose your hope, you will start to lose your will to live.
Always set every bit of your hope in the person of Jesus — and the person of Jesus will always give you hope in everything.
“There is an old expression that says, ‘As long as there is life there is hope.’ As Christians we also say, ‘As long as there is hope there is life,’ “ is what the theologian Henri Nouwen wrote.
If it matters most where you set your hope, then maybe setting one’s hope is much what like my grandmother and all the wise mothers used to say: “Everything in its place and a place for everything.”
Always set the keys in the drawer at the back door — and lo and behold, where do you always find the keys? Always slip your charge cord in the back right pocket of your bag — and, a modern day miracle, there she be, every time!
Always set every bit of your hope in the person of Jesus — and the person of Jesus will always give you hope in everything.
Others may look around and end up feeling hopeless, but if you look up to Christ and set all your hope in Him, you end up having endless hope.
Others may look around and end up feeling hopeless, but if you look up to Christ and set all your hope in Him, you end up having endless hope.
Our hope isn’t set on how things work out, but our hope is set on the One Who finished the work and keeps us safe in Himself.
It’s true — winds blow hard and chilled darkness settles in and hearts break and souls grow weary of trying to be brave. But when your hope is set real close in Jesus who is closer yet, whenever you grieve failing, you can know that your every failing is fully covered with His grace, whenever you dread the future, you can feel His safe, protective arms holding you closer, and whenever you think all Hope is lost, you can hear Him whisper: “Never fear, all your Hope is right here in Me.”
Set your hope in Jesus, set all your hope right there in His hands, and your hope always stays right with you… Because Jesus always stays right with you.
The only safe place to set your hopes, expectations, is in the hands of the One who will never leave you, who loves you to death, the only hands in the universe that has your name inscribed right into them and will hold yours every step of the way to Home.
The whole windowsill and the corner of my desk are littered with even more dropped leaves this week from our waning citrus tree. My journal is a scribble of heart cries and begging prayers, for twists and turns in our story that could twist a heart into a relentless ache of knots.
But too at the corner of my desk, by the window, my worn Bible’s set down right there.
Leaves and life can wither and fall, but your hope can be set in Him who always rises.
How do you practically, actually SET YOUR HOPE in Jesus — instead of feeling like you’ve kinda lost all hope?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and entrust everything into His hands?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being?
The practical tool to begin true life-transformation for a different way of life start here:
April 22, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [4.22.2023]
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:
Justin Minns – Photographer
Justin Minns – Photographer
Justin Minns – Photographer
Justin Minns – Photographer
Justin Minns – Photographeroh my — take a moment to inhale this beauty
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Tim Challies (@challies)
this! what a gift!
Lord, let our wonder lead us to worship You this weekend
Don’t miss these beautiful words on God and the expansive, mysterious depths of the ocean
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jay Shetty (@jayshetty)
…I don’t know how many times we watched this, Shiloh & I… but goodness, every time we watched, we hugged each other tighter!
now this! this is so the hands and feet of Jesus…
“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe,
sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow”
…from our dear friends at Mercy House Global and the best thing is… every purchase helps
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Wouldn’t this just make the best gift? Join us and receive your own Grace Case of quarterly cases with amazing fair-trade products from artisans around the world and help fund the work of dear friends and sisters at Mercy House Global.
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absolutely breathtaking! have you seen pictures of California’s superbloom?
just wow! what a creator!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Гавриил Щербенко (@gavriil_scherbenko_)
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Гавриил Щербенко (@gavriil_scherbenko_)
They both are just kinda the happiest kind of joy — keep making music in your life because other people need the kind of song your life makes!
on living with courage–and it has everything to do with normal, everyday living…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by bible & brush (@bibleandbrush)
oh how we all need this reminder, don’t we? such a truth to let sink in our hearts.
Post of the Week From Around These Parts
Honestly? You kinda sometimes doubt God is really real?
Well — straight up: I’m kinda done just believing in Jesus. I’m going there. Read the whole post right here:
Sometimes Doubt God is Really Real? I’m Done Merely Believing in God. This is What I’m Doing Instead.
these… if you’re not feeling God’s love, not totally sure… these 3 keys are gold… for all of us!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Wendy Brunner (@wendy_speake)
… needed words for our hearts …
this one! how this man is being the tangible hands and feet of Jesus, loving like Jesus right in his very work place! #BeTheGift
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
Okayyy! Who needs a good smile this weekend?!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News (@tanksgoodnews)
– these little buddies are just the cutest –
On The Book Stack At The Farm
Make sure to read Katie Davis Major‘s recent guest post: What If We Were Safe All Along? Trusting God’s Provision When We Feel Overwhelmed
Don’t miss K.J. Ramsey‘s recent guest post: The Possibility Within Your Pain
Who’s ready to come along with us? Grab a cup and just exhale for a moment.
glory, glory, glory!
This song… just linger here a moment and let the words draw you back to Him?
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
If our moments aren’t sparking joy,
shift perspective to focus on the One who blazes with Glory.
If you let something steal your joy–
you let something steal your strength.
Fight for joyfulness
by choosing the lens of
thankfulness.
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.
April 21, 2023
What If We Were Safe All Along? Trusting God’s Provision When We Feel Overwhelmed
When I first met Katie Davis Majors, she was a single twenty-three-year-old mother of thirteen daughters. Katie warmly welcomed me to the front porch of her home in Uganda, where she had moved a few years earlier to create an organization that cares for vulnerable children and their families. What struck me most in that first encounter was Katie’s exuberant, radical love for Jesus and people. In the years since, I have seen that love displayed in action and words again and again as Katie continues to pour her life into God, her family, and her community both in Nashville and overseas. It’s a grace to welcome Katie back to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Katie Davis Majors
Our family stood on the banks of the Nile River, one of our favorite places to be.
The rush of the rapids, the breeze off the water, the laughter, and an occasional shriek from one of our children carried up the riverbank, and I stood in awe, deeply grateful for all that God had carried us through over the past two years.
He sees all that He is doing in each situation, working all things for good.
My husband, Benji, and I had sent seven children to college on a different continent, where they were navigating new cultures and foreign lifestyles. We had added another baby to our crew, which now totaled fifteen children, teens, and young adults. We had faced more than one medical emergency that left every member of our family reeling and had us spending more time apart than together.
Like many other people, we had endured months of our country being fully locked down due to a global pandemic.
And really, these are only a few of the things that were going on, added to the daily grind of just being humans trying to love each other and our neighbors well, trying to navigate online schooling and Zoom meetings and how to get groceries while not being allowed to drive a car due to pandemic restrictions in Uganda.
And now, for the first time in more than a year, we were together.
Benji and one of our teenage daughters strapped on life jackets and jumped into the water. They swam around and then let the circular tide bring them right back in to where the rest of us were standing.
Looks easy enough, I thought, and I convinced our daughter to go again with me.
But here’s the thing about rivers: They aren’t exactly predictable.
About halfway around the bend, the water shifted. We found ourselves fighting the current, swimming with all our strength toward the shore but instead being pushed farther away.
When I finally grabbed hold of a branch, I turned to reach for my daughter. But she was too far away, her arms outstretched, her head barely visible over the white foam of the rapids.
I’m not quite sure now if I was yelling it or only crying out in my mind: “Jesus, Jesus, save her!”
I had no idea what was around that bend in the river. Benji had mentioned falls up ahead, but I didn’t know how far, and all I could do was imagine the worst.
I realized the tree branch might not support my weight much longer.
Slowly, I pulled myself up onto a boulder in the beating sun. I don’t know how long I sat there. My mind filled with thoughts of having to search the river for a body.
Then a set of footsteps came running from a path on my right.
I caught a glimpse of her yellow swimsuit. I heard her voice. There she was!
She ran toward me and I shouted her name as she stumbled into my arms.
“Are you okay?” I yelled, even though my face was right next to hers. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were gone!”
The same phrase kept dropping into my mind as I looked out at what I had once thought to be perilous: we were safe all along.
“Yeah, I’m okay!” she chuckled nonchalantly. “Some fishermen came and pulled me out. They put me on the shore just over there.” And she bounded off, laughing with her sisters, joking that they were done swimming for the day.
Fishermen? People don’t fish in water this fast.
I hadn’t seen any fishermen or fishing boats on this stretch of the water our entire trip (and I didn’t see any after that day either).
I held it together for another minute before heading back to camp. But when I got midway up the hill and found my husband’s embrace, I let myself fall apart.
“I couldn’t reach her,” I sobbed. “I couldn’t get to her. I lost her. I thought I lost her.”
“It’s all right. She’s okay. You’re okay,” he whispered.
We stood like that for a long time while my breathing slowed and I let my panic fade. Then, ever gentle and kind, Benji took my hand.
“Come on. Let me show you something.”
He led me to the top of the riverbank, where I could see, way down below, my life-saving little tree sticking out just before the river opened up into all its glory—roaring, wide and expansive.
We walked farther up, to a place I couldn’t have seen when I was in the water.
As we stood looking out, Benji pointed to all the additional places our daughter would have been able to get out had the fishermen not pulled her to safety.
There was a tiny island she might have been able to swim over to. There was a break in the current where she could have headed toward the next little bay. Long before the falls, which turned out to be more than half a mile away, there were several calm places where someone could have gotten out of the current and to safety.
The fishermen were behind our miraculous rescue that day, and I will forever believe that God sent them specifically for us.
But from the top, looking out at the whole picture, it was clear that even if He hadn’t sent those fishermen, He had also provided many other paths to rescue.
The same phrase kept dropping into my mind as I looked out at what I had once thought to be perilous: we were safe all along.
What if, even as the waters of life rise around us and our loved ones, we could live in the confidence that I’d known that day on the bank—that we were, indeed, safe all along?
For many weeks after that, I kept reliving my fear as the water crashed around me, as I watched my beloved child swept around the river bend out of my sight. Then I’d remember my relief when I changed perspectives and could see the river from above, the whole picture.
I realized it isn’t so different for the difficult seasons that we pass through in this life. Caught up in the storms and rapids of challenging circumstances, with the waves at eye level, our uncertain situations often seem impossible to escape. From inside the current, we can see only a very small piece of the river, and it is scary.
But God sees the whole picture: all the twists and turns, the places where the rapids swirl, the places of calm where we could swim lazily, the islands and tree branches that provide a place to rest, the people along the way who provide encouragement.
He sees all that He is doing in each situation, working all things for good.
At eye level, the circumstances of your life may feel overwhelming right now.
But what peace could be ours if we went through life having first seen the view from above, the entire plan? If we could see all the ways that hard things would grow us and strengthen our faith? If we could be certain that at the end we really would all be okay?
What if, even as the waters of life rise around us and our loved ones, we could live in the confidence that I’d known that day on the bank—that we were, indeed, safe all along?
Katie Davis Majors is the New York Times bestselling author of Kisses from Katie and Daring to Hope. Her most recent book, Safe All Along: Trading Our Fears and Anxieties for God’s Unshakeable Peace, explores what it looks like to place our confidence in God so that whatever happens to us doesn’t change what God is working in us.
The mother of fifteen, including thirteen adopted daughters, Katie is the founder of Amazima Ministries, an organization that cares for people in Uganda through education, food, medical care, vocational training, and spiritual discipleship.
[ Our humble thanks to Multnomah for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
April 19, 2023
Sometimes Doubt God is Really Real? I’m Done Merely Believing in God. I’m Doing This Instead.
The truth is, after a brutal couple of years, I have decided I do not simply believe in Jesus. I am done with that life. Mainly because it turned out to be guttingly empty and hollow — and, frankly, not enough.
After years of navigating all kinds of personal heartbreak, and family trauma, and the whole lot of us living through global upheaval and political and cultural divisiveness and polarization, this is where I find myself landing:
I do not merely believe in Jesus, I live in Jesus.
“I do not believe in Jesus, I live in Jesus.”
In this polarized war over what is truth, what is reality, what is identity, what is Christianity, what is evangelicalism, what is wrong, what is right, what is left, all I’ve got left is this:
Jesus is not a belief to me, He is breath to me, not some theory, but all my gravity, not a lens for my life, but He is my life. The Triune God is not one sphere of some multi-dimensional life — He is atmosphere, terra, lung and the only way to not suffocate in self.
People may almost universally believe that Jesus is a good person, but the only way to have a good life is to choose Jesus as your whole universe.
Live in a universe where the sun revolves around you, and eventually you find your life just withering up and dying in a thousand painful ways.
Create your own alternate god — of self, of some identity, of political power — and you end up living in an alternate reality.
The only way to not live in some parallel universe, but in the one and only real world that is our Father’s world — is to come to the Cross of Christ.
Only when your life revolves around the Son is there any hope of real life.
“People may almost universally believe that Jesus is a good person, but the only way to have a good life is to choose Jesus as your whole universe.“
These past few years has led me to realize:
We aren’t good news, evangelical Christians, if we believe the fake news that Christianity is only the mental assent of faith in Jesus, without requiring the lived allegiance of faithfulness to Jesus.
The Gospel truth is that believing in Jesus is about having a faith that is committed to a life of faithfulness.
It’s the covenantal faithfulness of Christ alone that saves us, and we respond to His saving faithfulness, by covenanting our own faithfulness to Him. (And just because we will be faithless, doesn’t mean that it’s less important that we commit to reorienting ourselves back toward faithfulness.)
For too long we have lived a cheap faith, instead of a costly faithfulness.
Cheap faith says one only has to believe.
When the truth is:
“For too long we have lived a cheap faith, instead of a costly faithfulness. Following Jesus means a cost will follow.”
Believers, by the Scriptures own account, aren’t the ones who are really Christians. Even the demons belie ve.
Real Christians aren’t merely the believers; Real Christians are actually the faithful followers.
We can say we pay allegiance to Jesus, but that is cheap talk; we aren’t paying allegiance to Jesus unless it costs us something.
Following Jesus means a cost will follow.
Following Jesus will mean a cost of comfort, cost of reputation, cost of relationship, cost of status, cost of self, cost of things near and dear, and though it may feel like a rendering in two, any cost for Jesus is only gain for now and all eternity. I’m betting the farm and staking my whole life on the cost of following Jesus is worth it because Jesus is worthy.
I’m daring to believe it and desperately trying to live it:
Following Jesus will cost you laying down the kingdom of self to give you the upside down kingdom that has only upsides for all eternity.
“We aren’t good news, evangelical Christians, if we believe the fake news that Christianity is only the mental assent of faith in Jesus, without requiring the lived allegiance of faithfulness to Jesus..”
True, one can try to make up their own reality, in their own universe, but Jesus-followers daily follow Jesus in only real world, that is our Father’s world. Any other reality or universe of our own making is vaporous mirage.
Why believe that this is our Father’s world, instead of believing in any another universe of our own imagining? Why believe there is one real God in this universe?
And if the universe has a beginning that has a cause, it must have its beginning in that which is uncaused, beyond time and space, which means: “In the beginning, God…. “
This world, caused by God, absolutely cannot be a product of chance.
h o p e …. Bracelet: at The Keeping Company
Perhaps the most impressive example of how incomprehensibly precise the existence of our planet is that “the initial distribution of mass energy to give the low entropy throughout the universe necessary for life is fine-tuned within1 part in 10 to a factor of 10(123). That means? If you took a sheet of paper and filled it with zeros, then reproduced zeros on sheets of paper lined up across the entire universe, 15 billion light years across, that number would still be smaller than 10 to a factor of 10(123).” And THAT’S the preciseness we need for any life on this planet.
“It takes far greater faith to believe that this universe is a product of chance than it takes to have faith in God as the Maker of this Real Universe.”
It takes far greater faith to believe that this universe is a product of chance than it takes to have faith in the one real God as the Maker of this universe.
Dr. Anders Sandberg of the Future of Humanity Institute recently reported of his team of researchers analyzing the likelihood of life such as ours anywhere else in the universe, “to get estimates of just how unlikely the steps could be,” and confirmed: “We feed in data about when things happened on Earth and a guess of how many steps there were, and in return we get the most likely levels of difficulty.”
He concluded?
“[The data] turns out to indicate that, yes, we are an unlikely planet.”
In all the universe, ours is an unlikely planet — because this is a world made by Love Himself… by a Love that is beyond this universe.
But can there be a God — when we wrestle with the the Problem of Evil in this universe?
The truth is: If there is no God — there cannot be any objective moral values. If atheism is ultimately true, then there is ultimately no basis to argue anything is objectively evil. But the human heart knows that murder, rape, violence against children is objective evil, and objectively exists in this universe. And if one believes in the reality of evil, one is faced with the reality of God.
The problem of evil is answered by the fact that there is no believing in evil unless there is believing in God.
“The problem of evil is answered by the fact that there is no believing in evil unless there is believing in God.”
And yet, one always has the gift of options — one can exit this one real world that is our Father’s World, and try to live in an alternate universe of one’s own imagining, because we all get to decide if want to do it our own way, have our own Kingdom where we make up our own laws of nature and morality, and yet I can testify from the scars of my own wayward life:
Defying the ways of God is like trying to defy the law of gravity.
During this past wildly hard season for us all, a popular, lead Christian musician went to his Instagram community to humbly and honestly offer that he no longer believed in God and, genuinely heartbroken, I was deeply struck when I read the last few lines of his walking away from God:
“My wife and I — we didn’t enjoy going to church. We didn’t enjoy reading the Bible. We didn’t enjoy praying. We didn’t enjoy worship. It all felt like obligation and our lack of enthusiasm about those things always made us feel as though something was wrong with us. Now I don’t believe anything was wrong with us. We simply didn’t believe — and we were too afraid to admit that to ourselves.”
“Enjoyment in God is evidence of attachment to God. Enthusiasm for the Word of God is powerful proof of being in the God of the Word.”
I ached with their tender vulnerability and the courage of their confession: again and again, they didn’t — enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. They lacked enthusiasm for God.
And I found myself struck with the deepest conviction:
Lack of joy in God, reveals lack of belief in God. Enthusiasm itself means “in God” — entheos; Lack of enthusiasm for God means one likely isn’t in God.
Enjoyment in God — is evidence of heart-attachment to God.
Enthusiasm for the Word of God is actually powerful proof of being found in the God of the Word.
h o p e …. Bracelet: at The Keeping Company
My Word for the Year: h o p e …. Bracelet: at The Keeping Company
h o p e …. Bracelet: at The Keeping Company
When the sun rises again in a ball of glory over this planet and floods morning light across all our old floors, there it is:
“In these strange days: There is more than believing in God. There is enjoying living in God.”
Hope only exists in this world because death has been killed at the Cross, and life has meaning beyond the walls of this earth, because Hope has a name and rose from the grave and engraved your name like a love note on the palms of His hands. Alternate man-made universes, with their alternative facts, can’t offer any meaningful alternative to genuine Hope.
In these strange days: There is more than believing in God.
There is fully enjoying living in God.
There is enthusiastically taking a one long, deep breath — and feeling your lungs expand with the joy of being fully alive in this moment, in the reality of Jesus here, right here, with you.
With the joy of more than merely believing in Jesus, but the joy of actually getting to live in His oceanic love and all this horizonless amazing grace.
How do you practically, actually live in Jesus — instead of just merely believe in Him?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and entrust everything into His hands?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being?
The practical tool to begin true life-transformation for a different way of life start here:
April 17, 2023
The Possibility Within Your Pain
K.J. Ramsey knows what it’s like to ask for healing and just keep hurting. She lives with seven diseases and the scars of spiritual abuse and used to believe her body was a barrier to freedom and joy. But when healing didn’t happen in the way she begged for, she started to encounter the broken body of Jesus in ways she never had before. And in the cross, she found the courage to want more than a cure. Through valuing her own humanity and body as much as Christ’s, she began to heal. It’s a grace to welcome my friend KJ to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by K.J. Ramsey
It takes courage to hope for healing.
There’s a woman in the gospels whose hope holds mine. She bled for 12 years, spent all she had on help, and only got sicker. When she heard about Jesus, she knew in her gut—if she touched even just the hem of his clothes, she would be healed.
Healing happens when hard things are heard and held in safe spaces.
She never gave up on herself.
This past winter marked 14 years since I first started crying out for healing. Sometimes we talk about what we’d say to our younger selves to give them hope. But over one weekend this winter, my younger self spoke to me.
I was in bed, recovering from a particularly hard treatment of intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG). Frankly, I was sinking into my pillows from the lead weight of hopelessness on my chest as much as the post-infusion fatigue. My recovery wasn’t going as well as the time before, and I felt stupid for hoping it could get better.
I opened up my own book of prayers to the story of Jesus healing the woman who bled for twelve years (Luke 8:43-44), and I let the self who wrote the following words over a year ago pray on behalf of my present self:
Jesus,
you who lived so aware
you could sense a woman’s dare
to touch the hem of your robe in trust
that in your orbit her suffering
could scatter like dust:
you are the one
who honors those
who risk hoping
to be well.
Help us hear
that you have noticed
we are here
so we can receive
what you promised her,
a life that is healed and whole.
Amen, our Healer and Lord.
—The Book of Common Courage, p. 62
Bearing witness to my own weariness ushered me into the crowd with the woman who bled, where I could sense the strange and holy wonder that God sees me.
I want you to know that healing and curing are two different things, and the presence of pain doesn’t block you from the promise of healing.
My slightly younger self—who could bless our audacious hope to heal—carried the hopeless self of that day toward the hands and heart of Christ.
I am not cured, but I am healing.
I’ve had prayers thrust on me like daggers to cut away the distress of my diseases as though faith is the fine edge of a blade we take to our brokenness. No unasked for prayer has ever lifted my burden or vanished my vulnerability. But every time someone—including my own self—bears witness to the beauty of how, like this woman, I never give up on wholeness for my own body, I heal.
I want you to know that healing and curing are two different things, and the presence of pain doesn’t block you from the promise of healing.
When we conflate curing with healing we miss the slow miracle of wholeness. What I have studied and witnessed time and again in my own life and as a trauma therapist is that the wounds we wish we could excise from our lives are actually the way into wholeness.
The way into wholeness is through the wound.
So much of our pain is a prompt, a knocking on the door of our dismissed and defeated adult selves to hear and hold the little children within us who are still afraid, aching, and angry for being harmed and not being fully held.
When we answer the door, we welcome back home into the heart of God the parts of ourselves that have felt too orphaned and alone to hope.
And when we answer the door, we welcome back home into the heart of God the parts of ourselves that have felt too orphaned and alone to hope. Your body will not have to knock so furiously with pain on the door of your consciousness when she knows you will always answer the door.
Healing happens when hard things are heard and held in safe spaces.
When the woman who bled for twelve years was healed, Jesus said it was her faith that made her well.
Religious folks ostracized her as too unclean to belong and she spent everything she had for help. But she never labeled herself as unworthy of healing.
We only see the giant grace at the end of twelve years of grit, but the miracle includes the majesty that she never gave up on herself.
Healing isn’t praying away the parts of ourselves that hurt.
Healing is the slow miracle of never giving up on yourself.
You do not need to think
your way to faith
fierce enough to frighten
fragility into a footnote.
You do not need to lace
your lips with lustrous prayers
or pound your chest in penance
for the puzzle of your pain.
You do not need to be
hopeful or pleasant,
stumbling severed from your story
and the truth your body bears.
You only need to let
your hidden hurt
come with you
and reach your fingers
toward the Love who stands
with scars still on his hands.
Your body brings
your story
everywhere you go.
And faith says
come with me;
I won’t leave you
alone.
Come whole,
weary, weak
to the corners
where you’ve long
been pushed aside.
Come with the courage
of the crucified.
His body brings
his story
everywhere
we go.
And faith says,
he comes with me;
he won’t leave me
alone.
Your body brings
your story
where Christ
makes you
his home.
—The Book of Common Courage, p. 60-61
Dare to bring your brokenness with you into the crowded corners of your own mind. Let all the judgmental voices of the crowd you’ve internalized for years fade away as you tune in to the courageous knocking of your younger self at the door of your heart—no matter what form her knocking takes.
Healing is the slow miracle of never giving up on yourself.
Pain. Anxiety. Panic attacks. They are all pleas to find shelter inside.
Watch the wonder of what happens as you practice hospitality toward the parts of yourself that are in pain.
Be astounded by the slow miracle of treating your ache as something worth anointing.
Settle into the safety of Christ making you his home.
And then open the door to everyone still stuck in the storm.
K.J. Ramsey is a beauty-seeker and big nerd who is so amazed at the presence of Love in this world that she can’t stop telling people about it. Her work as a licensed therapist with specialization and certification in integrative somatic trauma therapy gives her a front row seat to watching the slow miracle of healing. KJ is the author of The Lord Is My Courage and This Too Shall Last, as well as her newest book, The Book of Common Courage: Prayers and Poems to Find Strength in Small Moments. As both a survivor of complex trauma and a woman living with daily pain and disability, KJ offers words that honor weakness as the astounding place where we get to see the Word-Made-Flesh is really with us.
In a world that equates courage with the absence of fear, The Book of Common Courage is an invitation to bless your fear and pain as places where Christ—and his courage—are already present, ready to companion you into strength. Walk through the wilderness of your own wounds with with short, Psalm 23-inspired prayers, poems, and stunning full-color photos from KJ’s surroundings to find a flicker of strength on the days you feel stuck or shattered. Come with the courage of the crucified.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
April 15, 2023
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [4.15.2023]
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:
Lucy Hunter – Photographer
Lucy Hunter – Photographer
Lucy Hunter – Photographer
Lucy Hunter – Photographer
Lucy Hunter – Photographerwhat a delight to enjoy this spring beauty…
If you feel a bit alone this weekend … read this.
there’s a beautiful invitation right in the middle of the loneliness
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Kristin Nave | All Things Bible
(@shelovesbible)
– the gift of His Word –
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jackie Hill Perry (@jackiehillperry)
oh this is SUCH a great reminder! listen through the end because it’s gold we all need
Just really don’t miss this—Tim Keller on revival: DO IT AGAIN, LORD
oh oh oh! what this boy did to help other kids “smile on Easter”–the best!
perfect for the week after Resurrection Sunday–to practice resurrection & speaking of seeing the Risen Christ!
Look What’s Here! This Quarter’s Grace Case!Isn’t this just LOVELY for spring? Join us and receive your own Grace Case of quarterly cases with amazing fair-trade products from artisans around the world…AND AT THE SAME TIME…
Empower women around the world and care for women,
orphans and refugees with every purchase. It all makes the most perfect gift!
Not only does your Grace Case purchase provide dignified work for artisans around the world, but 100% of the profits go toward funding the work of Mercy House Global, whom we love, love, LOVE!
In search of solace? After they lost their son… these lines are tender hope.
this doctor bringing some extra special, creative cheer to her patients
#bethegift
View this post on InstagramA post shared by bible & brush (@bibleandbrush)
yes!!
we’ve all been there, haven’t we? thank God for grandmas and helpers!
what happens when you let the kids design their own school? now this is just plain FUN!
hint: it doesn’t at all look like what you see above!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Meshali Mitchell (@meshali)
< tear up every single time >
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Better Together TV (@bettertogethertv)
this is gold right here–a call to recalibrating our lives
Post of the Week From Around These Parts
What in this busted world does Resurrection Sunday actually do, actually mean, on the hard, ordinary days after we stop greeting each other with “He is risen, He is risen indeed”?
How do we actually “practice resurrection” and are really the Rising People when we honestly can hardly keep standing for our hearts hurting in this world of loss?
Read for your heart right here:
How Does Resurrection Really Matter the Week After?
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
How we can make good memories for each other! #BeTheGift
these 81 year old grandmas who visited 80 countries?! their zest for life is contagious!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jim Kwik (@jimkwik)
ohh love this!!! Who are you surrounding yourself with?!
-this is just the sweetest!-
< ohhhh tears!! > This military dad surprising his daughter when he fakes a lost zoom connection
On The Book Stack At The Farm
Don’t miss Jenn Hesse‘s recent guest post: How Hope Makes a Path in the Pit
Read Mark Batterson‘s recent guest post: Learning to Take a Deep Breath & Praise God for Partial Miracles
isn’t this just stunning? glory, glory, glory!
This song… is a song for the week after Resurrection Sunday… Because the lyrics… the lyrics are part of how we “practice resurrection.” Have it on repeat here:
by our friend Ross King
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
…so the thing is, today’s not your huge mountain to scale—
your huge *God* is the mountain Who scales everything,
so you see your *problems* as so *small*.
He’ll give you exactly what you need,
He’ll make you strong for exactly what you have to do,
and He’ll make you brave for exactly whatever you have to climb this week.
“You can be *SURE* that God will take care of everything you need” Phil. 4:19
Thank God we are kept from what we wanted —
like escape, like an easier road, like an easier time of it…
and that He keeps giving us what we didn’t know we *needed* —
like more courage, like more joy, like more grace, like more of Himself.
Thank God we are kept from what we wanted —
and He keeps giving us what we didn’t know we *needed.*
Because God will give you everything you need —
all you need is to keep giving everything to Him!
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.
April 14, 2023
How Hope Makes a Path in the Pit
Hope can be a slippery slope to anyone grieving a collapsed dream. Jenn Hesse knows the fallout that comes from seeing negative pregnancy tests year after year. God led her through that prolonged heartache to show her the goodness of waiting on and with him. Jenn and her coauthor, Kelley Ramsey, have walked with thousands of women and couples facing infertility, miscarriage, adoption, and childlessness. Together with their team at Waiting in Hope Ministries, they comfort, encourage, and equip the hurting to find true hope in Christ. It’s a grace to welcome Jenn to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Jenn Hesse
Excerpt from Waiting in Hope: 31 Reflections for Walking With God Through Infertility
The sun sank below the dusty window ledge. I didn’t bother getting up off the couch to turn on the lights. All I wanted was to stay curled up in my husband’s arms, our toy poodle nestled against my neck. For hours, our little family sat there, grieving in the dark.
Going through a failed round of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) crushed me. After months of trying other fertility treatments, my husband and I reluctantly decided to do IVF as a last-ditch effort at pregnancy.
Knowing the procedure had a 50/50 chance of success, I wasn’t planning to rush out and buy a ton of baby clothes. I had prepared for the test to come back negative. I had not prepared to get a call from the doctor saying, “We didn’t get any embryos.”
No embryos. No baby. No hope.
This is where I hit rock bottom.
Though I had been a Christian for a long time, infertility led me to doubt God. He had the power to give me a baby but chose not to.
Exasperated, I asked him, “Why are you doing this, Lord? Have you forgotten me? Do you even care?”
In despair, I cried with the psalmist, “You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths” (Psalm 88:6).
God gradually rescued me from that dark place, though not in a way I could expect. He had to lift my eyes from my pain to see the needs around me.
“This is one way God gives purpose to our pain––by working through us to comfort others.”
My outlook shifted the day I met Don and Pam.
Our paths crossed at an adoption seminar where the married couple shared their story. When they were going through the adoption process, God gave them the idea to start an infertility support group. What began as a handful of people gathered at their church eventually grew into a citywide ministry.
As Don and Pam spoke, I heard the passion in their voices. It was clear that leading the support group had given them purpose in their struggles.
For the first time in two-and-a-half years, I felt a spark of hope.
Finally, here was something I could do with my grief. The thought of helping people brought exciting possibilities. If God could use Don and Pam to encourage those hurting, maybe he could use me too.
This is one way God gives purpose to our pain––by working through us to comfort others.
The God of all comfort doesn’t leave us to ache alone. Instead, our Father draws close to us with compassion, applying his mercies like balm on our wounds.
Paul explained this in 2 Corinthians 1:3–4: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
The God of all comfort doesn’t leave us to ache alone.
Instead, our Father draws close to us with compassion, applying his mercies like balm on our wounds. As God comforts us, he wants us to pass the comfort to others. We receive so we can give.
Paul received this kind of comfort in all types of affliction. He was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, and almost starved. Throughout his near-death experiences, Paul believed his suffering was for the sake of God’s people. “If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer” (2 Corinthians 1:6).
It’s not through our strength but through our suffering that others see hope.
I love how Ann Voskamp described our calling in brokenness: “He’s inviting me to heal, but also to see my most meaningful calling: to be his healing to the hurting. My own brokenness, driving me into Christ’s, is exactly where I can touch the brokenhearted.”[1]
This is God’s invitation to us.
“It’s not through our strength but through our suffering that others see hope.”
He says, Come to my Son, who was broken for you. As you receive comfort from him, your brokenness will become my instrument of mercy to others.
When we’re feeling broken, beat down, and forsaken in the pit we can trust that God has more in store. Our pain could be someone else’s path to Christ.
Later in my journey, I met with one of the pastors at my church to ask about starting an infertility support group. To my surprise, he told me another woman had just brought up the same idea. That woman became my dear friend and coleader of the first infertility support group in our community. Her name is Kelly.
Eight years later, the Holy Spirit nudged me to form an online community for encouragement during infertility. As I was doing research, I came across a ministry that offered in-person and online support groups. The founder and I messaged back and forth, praying and dreaming of what God could do through us working together.
“When we’re feeling broken, beat down, and forsaken in the pit we can trust that God has more in store.”
She is my coauthor, Kelley Ramsey—cofounder (with her husband, Justin) of Waiting in Hope Ministries.
This is what happens when you become God’s broken instrument. You get to watch the Spirit move in ways only he can orchestrate.
Whatever struggle you’re walking through right now, you can be sure God will place opportunities for you to help others.
Trust me, you’ll be blessed if you take them. Serve the hurting people you meet. Give from the reserve you don’t think you have, which comes from the Spirit dwelling within you. He’ll help you be someone’s lifeline in the pit.
[1] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 221.
Excerpt from Waiting in Hope: 31 Reflections for Walking With God Through Infertility. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Jenn Hesse is the content director of Waiting in Hope Ministries. She leads local Bible studies and has a passion for shepherding hurting women. Kelley Ramsey is the founder and visionary of Waiting in Hope Ministries. She is a speaker and leader with a heart for seeing women come to love and live for the Lord more intimately.
Their book, Waiting in Hope: 31 Reflections for Walking with God Through Infertility, gives women an uplifting, accessible companion through the journey of infertility. Filled with biblical wisdom, testimonies, and personal narrative, Waiting in Hope helps women believe they can live a life of purpose regardless of how their wait ends.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]
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