Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 37

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [2.18.2023]

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:

Chris Burkard – Photographer Chris Burkard – Photographer Chris Burkard – Photographer Chris Burkard – Photographer Chris Burkard – Photographer

oooh, beauty! Come stand in awe and take a deep breath with us?

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– All this glory! Astounding! –

Don’t miss this on being a woman of bold prayer – we could all use more of this!

Okay– now you just HAVE to read this. HOPE stories in the midst of crisis in Turkey.

A love-letter to libraries — this will do your heart good.
< deep exhales over here >

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Thank God for His kindness and forgiveness! A revelation of this can make us ALL teary.

Ohh don’t pass this one by! This is a great word for us!

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a humbling delight to be included in Trinity Forum’s round-up of “special listens” — For your weekend podcast listening: Ann Voskamp on What Sabbath Looks Like for Her, and Relying on the Provision of the Lord

What this man does to tackle loneliness in retirees? We like this!
And what else could we do to combat the needs we see? #bethegift

Post of the Week from Around these Parts

Honestly? Marriages are extremely fragile things, not an accomplishment to be proud of,
but a miracle to be extremely thankful for.

And every wedding aisle is a narrow way:
Love is always the narrow way that limits in some ways — but in other ways, deeply expands & fulfills one’s soul.

And maybe this is what the deepest heart of all the lovers — both old & young — really just need to share together today:

What All the Lovers, Old & Not-so-old-At-All, Really Need Today

Words for Lovers Young & Old — Don’t miss this

THIS: “Christianity is cruciform-shaped. It cannot be anything else. And the impulse we feel within us to try to contort that cruciform shape, to make it more effective, more viral, more powerful in a mass-media age, is an impulse that can only end in disaster.“
The Mark of Church Health We Often Omit

The groan and glory of our work — God doesn’t diminish our work or it’s value — He values deeply what each of us put our hands to. Really great, encouraging read.

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Who just needs some JOY this weekend?! (Sound up on this one!)

the return of the bookstore – cheering wildly for all of this!

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Now these teachers? Being the gift?

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When someone goes out of their way to love well.
Yeeees!!!

oooh! now this is so good!
“…surrounding ourselves with unread books enriches our lives as they remind us of all we don’t know.  The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits.”

This mama going after her big dreams and graduating in her 40’s?
listen up– IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO START CHASING YOUR DREAMS!

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– This is just too cute –

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Who wants to come see this with me? Just beautiful!

On the Book Stack at the Farm

Read Kate Bowler‘s recent guest post:
When We Don’t Feel Very #Blessed

Don’t miss Wendy Speake‘s recent guest post:
An Invitation to Feast

A Gentle Nudge to Keep Creating & Dreaming

“You either bury all your fears in real faith. Or you’re burying all your real talents.”

You know that thing you wanted to make, create, write, dream into existence — but there’s always a million reasons why it feels impossible?

And every time you look at the blank page, the blank screen, the blank canvas–
you see a crowd of critics & mockers rolling their eyes back at you?

And you’re tired of making excuses — but aren’t sure how to really start– or keep going?

The one’s that your heart – & the art you always dreamed of making —
will thank you for reading right to the end:

– Read the whole thing right here –If You or Your People – Little or Large – need a hug & More Courage to do the Thing You’re Made to do, You Need — Your Brave Song —
To Sing God’s Love Song About You on Repeat in Your Heart.

We created this one for YOU, and especially for:

the uncertain and not surefor the outsiders and all who aren’t sure where and how they belong for the all the littles and bigs — who all need the freedom of being child-like for everyone who is a maker – all of us! – who need to know a love so large it pushes out all their fears! Order Your Brave Song Today – & Have a Brave Soundtrack for All of Living

Come along and enjoy this with us?
So much glory and goodness in this place.

“Even in the silence
Jesus you’re working
And I believe it still
I believe it still
So let your promise be fulfilled”

[from our Facebook community – join us?]

Frankly? Fear is one brute of a conniving monster,
and fear tends to defend itself with the roaring mask of anger….
or fear disguises itself with a bloated, sauntering pride ….
or fear goes around relentlessly shaming,
thinking if it piles on enough shame,
it can flatten you till it reshapes you into being someone better.

But really?
Shaming those anxious, fearful parts of your souls —
fails to actually calm those parts down.

And this is what actually, gently, helps:
Instead of trying to beat parts of you into being braver, calmer, better …
give those parts of you the beats of a greater love song to dance to.

Because this is one of the very deepest truths in the whole of the universe:
When Love sits down
with fear —
so many things
calm down.

When Love puts its arm around fear — so many fears melt.
Only Love Himself is large enough to enfold fear.
What refreshes your life —is the fresh wind of His love.
When you know Love Himself holds you —
courage takes hold of you and you rise to meet the moment.

You can rise to braveness,
when you feel the depths of your belovedness.

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. 

When We Don’t Feel Very #Blessed

We live in a world that demands relentless perfection. Happy marriages and easy friendships. Bucket list–level adventures and matching family photos. But what if our actual lives don’t feel very #blessed? Might our everyday existence be worthy of God’s blessing too? Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie’s new book of blessings, The Lives We Actually Have, offers a landing spot for weary souls, with blessings that focus on the full range of human moments: garbage days, lovely days, grief-stricken days, and even (especially) completely ordinary days. It is a wild (!!) grace to welcome Kate and Jessica to the farm’s table today.

“My prayers changed from relatively elaborate confessions of faith… into simple, raw hopes: God, save me, save me, save me. And, God, if you don’t, love me through.“

I turned to the language of blessing when I realized that I needed bigger categories to describe my own surreal experiences.

When I was thirty- five, I was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. For the first few years, life was a crisis, a series of difficult, often life-or-death decisions that kept me and everyone who loved me in a state of perpetual fragility. As much as I am loath to say I “learned lessons”—I hate how suffering people are forced to say this—I did learn a great deal about my faith. 

I came to understand more about the beauty of a God who accompanies you to the very edge.

My prayers changed from relatively elaborate confessions of faith (I am a professor in a divinity school, after all) into simple, raw hopes: God, save me, save me, save me. And, God, if you don’t, love me through.

But then?

Then what was supposed to be a crisis turned into days and weeks and months.

And I needed to learn the language of the God who appears occasionally on a Tuesday, but seems absent the rest of the week, yet who has something to teach me when I’m actually pretty busy running errands, thank you. I needed God to be a part of my mountaintop and valley moments, but whose love was recognizable to me the rest of the time too.

“But a blessing is more than a flush of gratitude for life’s great gifts. Or a spiritual language for triumph… the language of blessing is much wider and deeper.“

There is a beautiful and instructive language that we can use for naming that strange mix of awful and divine experiences in our lives. It’s the language of blessing. 

American society is not a culture of blessing; it’s a culture of #blessed. (If you want a brief education in the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, search for #blessed on social media and come right back once you stuff your eyeballs back into their sockets. It is . . . a lot of information.)

Got that beach body by summer? #blessed.

Trip to Maui on the calendar? #blessed.
Is your family delightfully conflict-free and each child a scholarship recipient? Congratulations. You are #blessed and have thereby won social media. 

Our society has taken a very precious truth about gratitude—that sometimes we feel so incredibly fortunate that we want to yell at the top of our lungs that God is good—and made ourselves the proof instead. We seem to be saying: Aren’t we actually pretty good too? Didn’t we happen to put ourselves at the right place at the right time doing the right things, to be so lucky?

But a blessing is more than a flush of gratitude for life’s great gifts. Or a spiritual language for triumph. According to Old Testament scholar Stephen Chapman, the language of blessing is much wider and deeper. 

“Blessings put our spiritual house in order, even when our circumstances are entirely out of order.“

What is a blessing? Chapman begins by explaining that, in its most basic form, a blessing is a particular kind of spiritual act of speaking. But blessings are not simply expressions of thankfulness or affirmations of what God has done. We don’t have to simply say that we are blessed for what we have already received. 

The act of blessing is the strange and vital work of noticing what is true about God and ourselves. And sometimes those truths are awful.

Like, blessed are those who mourn. I mean, Scripturally it’s true. Jesus said it. But does any of that feel true when our worlds are ripped to pieces? No.

Or, blessed are the poor. Again, it doesn’t feel true at all. But in the act of blessing the world as it is and as it should be, we are starting to reassemble what we know. Maybe, God, You are here in the midst of this grief. Maybe, God, You can provide for this specific problem or be discoverable when I’m buttering this toast.

For that reason, Dr. Chapman calls the act of blessing a kind of spiritual “placement.” This goes here. That goes there.

We are beginning to fit this moment into the larger order of things, the divine story of God’s work and purposes.

I find that language of placement and re-placement to be incredibly satisfying. Blessings put our spiritual house in order, even when our circumstances are entirely out of order.

When I bless the actual days I am living, I suddenly find I have a great deal more to say that is honest.

I am mourning. I am bored. I am exhausted. I am apathetic. I discover that I am freed from the need to declare everything #blessed. Good or bad, I don’t have to wait to say something spiritually true. 

I can simply bless it all instead.

So bless you when you just need to put one foot in front of the other. Bless you when you need a little hope. Bless you on a garbage day or on a lovely day. 

Bless you. Bless you. Bless you. 

God is here with us, too. In our actual life. On whatever actual day we’re having. So here’s a blessing for this ordinary day: 

Lord, here I am.

How strange it is, that some days feel like hurricanes

and others like glassy seas

and others like nothing much at all.

Today is a cosmic shrug.

My day planner says,

rather conveniently,

that I will not need You,

cry for you, reach for you.

Ordinarily, I might not think of You at all.

Except, if You don’t mind,

let me notice you.

Show up in the small necessities and everyday graces.

God, be bread.

Be water.

Be laundry.

Be the coffee cup in my hands

and the reason to calm down in traffic.

Be the gentler tone in my insistence today

that people pick up after themselves for once.

Be the reason I feel loved

when I catch my own reflection

or feel my own self-loathing

fluttering in my stomach.

Calm my mind,

lift my spirit,

make this ordinary day

my prayer of thanks.

Kate Bowler (a fellow Canadian), PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change.

At age 35, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, causing her to think in different terms about the research and beliefs she had been studying. She penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved), which tells the story of her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character.

Jessica Richie is a producer and writer. She serves as the executive director of the Everything Happens Initiative at Duke University and the executive producer of the Everything Happens podcast, which hosts wise, funny, and tender conversations between Dr. Kate Bowler and guests about lives that don’t always work out. 

Kate and Jessica offer creative, faith-based blessings that center gratitude and hope while acknowledging our real, messy lives. Formatted like a prayer book, “The Lives We Actually Have”, is an oasis and a landing spot for weary souls, with blessings that focus on the full range of human moments: garbage days, lovely days, grief-stricken days, and even (especially) completely ordinary days. These heartfelt blessings are a chance to exhale when we feel everything from careworn to restless, devastated to bored. Let’s have a reminder that we don’t need to wait for perfect lives when we can bless the lives we actually have.

{Our humble thanks to Penguin Random House for their partnership in today’s devotion}

How You’re Actually An Artist: 10 Keys to Create What You’ve Always Dreamed Of & Stop Making Excuses

When I meet an artist for breakfast in a quirky cafe, she looks like she walked right off a storybook canvas and I’m hungry to know the whole story.

We find this table that fits quiet in a bit of a corner. She’s a palette of color slipping into her chair, and I can’t stop smiling how just her presence is art: Quit trying to fit. Why try to squeeze all your extraordinary into ordinary?

When we stop fearing failure, we start being artists.

And while lovely Amy’s savoring her warm biscuit slathered in piled peach preserves, she says these three words that are kinda like a sweet life-preserver themselves, that I’ve been returning to feast on again and again:

“Honestly, Ann? It’s just hours,” she says, her voice warmer than the biscuits.

“All art is just hours. When I start to feel anxious about creating or making or painting, when I think I might somehow fail in someway, fail someone’s expectations, fail my own, that’s what I tell myself: It’s just hours.”

Amy’s paintings are the illustrations of our book together: Your Brave Song Amy Grimes in her studio: Photo by Russ Grimes

I nod and smile and I can feel a bit of a emancipation in what Amy’s saying:

If you put in the hours, the hours will give you art. Trust the process. Put real time in, and watch real art come out.

Why? God made woman to be a maker, to open her empty places and let art come from within her.

Creativity, it’s good theology; it’s what God did in the beginning.

And that word “art”? As in Thou art? Art, it’s the second person present indicative of the verb to be. Art is a way of being — and when you make your life art — thou art.

You are — as you make your life your own kind of art.

And somehow that sounds terrifying, like the making of art is more than just time invested, and more like all of our fears manifested.

You either bury all your fears in real faith. Or you’re burying all your real talents.

True: The essence of creativity is essentially risk, believing enough to leap into the yet unseen. The theological terms for this is faith.

But have faith in the Maker who made you in His image to make. “It’s only hours.“ Trust that your time in the hands of the Maker will be made into beauty and art.

When you sit down to the blank canvas, the blank screen, the blank page, the blank space — you’re not looking into the face of the critic, you’re not staring into an abyss of fear, or at some crowd ready to mock, scorn and howl with laughter, or worse, straight up tar and feather you — what you’re looking at is that it’s all just hours. That’s all.

When we stop fearing failure, we start being artists.

When we put in the hours — the joy of art will be ours.

Because this is the thing:

You either bury all your fears in real faith. Or you’re burying all your real talents.

Amy Grimes in her studio: Photo by Russ Grimes
Amy’s paintings are the illustrations of our book together: Your Brave Song

Amy sips her coffee slow.

She tells me about her steady and sure creative rhythms, and how she faithfully orders her day so she can put the hours in, and I’m leaning in, mesmerized by this artistic wonder of a woman who captured with the tip of a paintbrush the essence of our littlest daughter who we call couldn’t love more.

And maybe that is always the creative process:

Every person is made by love and we are love and we can’t stop making. Love makes.

What you make is miraculous because it’s never existed before. What you create is miraculous because it was impossible to exist before you.

God is Word because He must express, and we are made in His image, His poiemas and we must express. Our Shiloh at home, she daily draws, and I scratch down a word now and then, and Amy magnificently paints. There are no two identical persons on the whole of the planet. Anything created, that expresses the essence of a person, is wholly and entirely original. And whenever we look at a creative work, what we are looking at is the impossible created. Because before those hands created it, it was impossible to have ever have been created before!

What you make is miraculous because it’s never existed before you. What you create is miraculous because it was impossible to exist before you. Your art is its own kind of masterpiece because you are one of a kind wonder made by the Master. Make without fear!

This is not just true of oil and watercolors and manuscripts: All of life becomes art when we attend to it. When we put the time in — what comes out is art.

Amy Grimes painting in studio: Photo by Russ Grimes

But how do you make your life art, how to be an artist, a person of faith, a creative?

Grab a lifeline by stepping offline. Be okay with not being seen or heard. It will let you hear and see better.

I don’t know much, but maybe it’s a bit of how Mary Oliver put it: “Instructions for living your story for His glory: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell About It.”

Turn off screens. Be still. Grab a lifeline by stepping offline. Put in the hours; it’s just hours. Be okay with not being seen or heard. It will let you hear and see better.

Live everyday like you’re terminal. Because you are.
Live everyday like your soul’s eternal. Because it is. 

Pay attention — and let go of perfection.

Perfectionism is slow death by self. It will kill your skill, your spark, your art, your soul.

Pay attention, Be astonished, Tell others About It — about Him —- and don’t waste a moment because these are your startling gifts. Start now. Not when your schedule opens up a bit, because it won’t, not two weeks from now when it gets easier, because it may not. Simply begin: It’s only hours.

You get to pay attention and be astonished and you get tell it to all — how story whispers our truest name: Beloved.

Live everyday like you’re terminal. Because you are. Live everyday like your soul’s eternal. Because it is. 

“You know? One of the most comforting things to rest in, Ann?” Amy gently rests her hand on my shoulder. “When I feel overwhelmed about creating, when I think I might get it wrong? I just smile and think: I am really just very small.”

And I close my eyes and smile…

When you know you’re small like a child, you can create largely uninhibited. It’s when we think we have to impress, be larger than we are, that our fears of creating grow large.…

When you right-size you and your art, your joy becomes the largest.

“When you know you’re small, you think: My mistakes aren’t really that large in the grand scheme of things, and our God is certainly big enough for any of my small wrongs,” Amy’s eyes are gently smiling, holding mine.

When you know you’re small like a child, you can create largely uninhibited. It’s when we think we have to impress, be larger than we are, that our fears of creating grow large.…

It’s maybe one of the most beautiful way to live a creative life — the most powerful way to make the whole of your life into art… to simply frame you life with the words:

“I am completely small, and God is completely not — and His great love completely covers everything.”

And we can all be the artists, the friends, the parents, the creatives who can be small and child-like, and make art out of love, for Love, that point to Love and how, in a thousand ways, God’s singing a love song over the whole world.

Because every person, large or small, made in the image of their Maker, is a maker who needs their own brave love song to keep making and creating love in countless, fearless ways.

When you deeply know “thou art loved” — fear finally flees, and you make art.

And your very life becomes a masterpiece in the eyes of the Artist who who never stops singing His love song over you.

How to know if you’re really an artist? Thou art loved — so you are called to make art

The wondrous artist, Amy Grimes, and I together, created this little book, “Your Brave Song” for

the uncertain and not surefor the outsiders and all who aren’t sure where and how they belong for the all the littles and bigs — who all need the freedom of being child-like for everyone who is a maker – all of us! – who need to know a love so large it pushes out all their fears! If You or your People – Little or Large-need a hug & More Courage to Do the Thing You’re Made to do, You Need Your Brave Song — To Sing God’s Love Song ABOUT YOU on Repeat in your heart. Order Your Brave Song Today – & Have a Brave Soundtrack for all the Making!

What All the Lovers, Old & Not-so-old-At-All, Really Need Today

God is love, but if we get it turned around, and make being loved into our god – we get lost in an ocean of grief.

Marriages are extremely fragile things, not an accomplishment to be proud of, but a miracle to be extremely thankful for.

Back on that day when we pledged forever love to each other, standing there at the altar, facing that Farm Boy with a ring in his pocket, I could glimpse Grandma out of the corner of my eye, sitting there in her sage-green dress on the other side of Dad, gently patting the arm of his gray suit, comforting her son, nodding at me, like she’s nudging me to go on, go on.

I looked up into Farm Boy’s eyes.

How much did my heart realize in that moment that to give your life to someone—Someone—is the work of a lifetime?

There is no easy way to give your life to someone.

Every wedding aisle is a narrow way.

Love is always the narrow way that limits one’s options — but expands and fulfills one’s soul. And to give your life to someone every day for the rest of your life means giving intentionally every day.

And then Farm Boy began to nervously recite vows that he’d written, that he memorized by heart, but he inadvertently stumbled on right at the beginning: “I give you this Ann, ring.”

Making your spouse your person is what can make your marriage happy.

Guests chuckled. Farm Boy closed his eyes and laughed with this endearing embarrassment. And all I wanted was to reach out and caress that cheek of his and say, “Come here.”

Every forever is made up of all the everydays.

In a humble chapel, the pews full of Dutch farmers with worn hands, sitting beside wives wrangling toddlers in laps, Pastor Dixon, with Albert Einstein hair and a handlebar mustache, was preaching a wedding sermon, but something sacred echoed, and it’s true: “Marriage is a sign of all things in heaven and on earth coming together in Christ,” wrote N. T. Wright. All the married are signposts.

This is what every marriage is: We are signposts pointing the way to the union that is forever and as real as feeling His fingers slip through yours and the palm that birthed the stars pressing warm against yours.

It was like he read my eyes. He stepped closer. And began again, like we always get to breathe deep and begin again.

And he vowed love that he’s promised to me again countless times over the last two and a half decades: “I promise to dig deep channels of communication the rest of my life between my soul and yours.”

All marriage vows are made by broken people who break promises, and this can break a heart, but this is always the mysterious way of marriage. Marriage breaks us and remakes us, and out of wreckage can come resurrection.

Promises made, and then we’d have to breathe life into them with our days. Two fresh-faced kids, but still we vowed, in essence, promises as holy-wind-wild as this — and we keep promising each other this, day after day:

There will certainly be an ocean of impossible that lies between us, and I promise to dig deep channels of communication between us, knowing the only way to dig deep channels of communication is with shards of a broken open heart.

There will certainly be life-ambushes that will press us up between a rock and a hard place, and I promise courage to break open my heart in vulnerability—so we can walk out into a deeper intimacy.

There will certainly be anxiety and stress, and in the midst, I promise to be careful, and care-full, and full of care with your heart—because giving your hand in marriage means handling another soul with the deepest care.

There will certainly be letdowns, and fallouts, and I promise to destroy shame and never you—because shame says things can never change.

Shame beats down and grace lifts up, and shame is a bully and grace is a shield, and cruciform love makes a way through.

There will certainly be wrong turns, yet I promise to live forgiveness because nothing else is life-giving.

Because forgiveness gives oxygen to the soul.

And no matter the days we feel like we’re lost in a wilderness, I promise to keep stumbling back to wear a habit of gratitude for you —because thanksgiving gives us a way out of entitlement and judgment and control management, and gratefulness makes for a greater life.

We don’t have any inkling of the shattering reality when we say those love vows.

All marriage vows are made by broken people who break promises, and this can break a heart, but this is always the mysterious way of marriage. Marriage breaks us and remakes us, and out of wreckage can come resurrection.

And there it was — at the beginning, the first vow was “I do.”

There always has to be a dying for there to be loving. Look at Love Himself.

Where two hearts repair a heartbreak by grafting together, they can be the strongest right there at the break.

And now — after all these years — the vow is simple and as profound and steadying as: “I’m here, right here.” After all these years, our scars now bear tender witness: Marriages are extremely fragile things, not an accomplishment to be proud of, but a miracle to be extremely thankful for.

And we know this grace-miracle now too: Where two hearts repair a heartbreak by grafting together, they can be the strongest right there at the break.

He; the one who knows all the edges of my story that bruise when touched, the places that are fractured and fraught, the spaces within me that ache tender with emptiness. He knows what shames me. He has seen all of me. And I don’t mean the sagging and the cellulite—I mean ugliness and spewed words that can’t be stuffed back into any bottle, sins that have marred and scarred long stretches of my soul—and his.

These days, our old eyes hold each other. There’s an old love that sees with a kind of holy double vision—that remembers a young lover in all their seeming infallibility, and sees your aged lover in all their beautiful humanity. This must be what it is to be naked and unashamed.

Passionate love is far more than falling in love. Passion literally means to suffer—which means: Lovers are the longsufferers. Which is to say its the old lovers who’ve suffered through much who are the most passionate of all.

We tell all the young kids, all our kids: Passionate love is far more than falling in love. Passion literally means to suffer—which means: Lovers are the longsufferers.

Which is to say its the old lovers who’ve suffered through much who are the most passionate of all.

It’s the old lovers who have suffered tenderly through crises and kids and the countless blur of days and untold heartaches, who live the most genuine nonstop passion. It’s the old lovers whose willingness to suffer for each other has made all their other suffering bearable. It’s the old lovers who have passionately suffered
long for each other, with each other, who have grown the most passionate, companionate love of all.

It’s the suffering, passionate, companionate love—the easy laughter and sure reliability and steadiness of companionship and friendship and withness—that makes for the happiest love of all.

And it’s the old love that is the most suggestive love of all because it suggests that the whole of us is actually seen and known, and we are still wholly loved. It is only in being really known, in ways that we wish nobody ever knew, that we ever really know what it means to be loved.

What could be more risqué than risking aging with someone and being worn down to your bare souls?

So I’ll take the boring love of decades of him helping with the dress zipper there at the nape of the neck, the sharing of the same table, and passing down the pitcher of water night after night, and then washing up the white everyday dishes and turning out the light because the truth is:

The real romantics are the boring ones—they simply let another heart bore down deep into their own, until the two become one.

The real romantics are the boring ones—they simply let another heart bore down deep into their own, until the two become one.

I could weep over the depth and beauty of old boring love like this.

Wholeness is falling in love with the same old sacred rhythms, the same old places, the same old miraculous people every day all over again. This is the way of Love Himself. The One who is Love can’t stop loving the same sun dancing across these same skies, day after day, can’t stop wooing this same world around in the same spinning choreography of moon and stars and space and infinite grace. It never grows old for Love Himself to keep falling in love with His same old loves.

Marriage is achingly hard and complicated and not all marriages last and there can be deeply good and holy reasons for this, and regardless of one’s marriage story, it’s always true: Marriage isn’t about always being happy—marriage is about always growing in the good direction. Life isn’t about avoiding trauma and suffering; life is about growing through it. And even the oldest love, the hardest days, can know slow growth, in our own singular ways, for those who have eyes to see.

Wholeness is falling in love with the same old sacred rhythms, the same old places, the same old miraculous people every day all over again.

Any ecosystem that remains always the same—never changes—is stagnant and dying. If a relationship isn’t changing, growing, even slowly—it’s dying. Pursuing an unchangeable state of happiness will lead you to a stagnant state of despair. Happiness-centered marriages implode—because that shifting center won’t hold. And honestly, there’s no such thing as unchanging happiness; happiness comes and goes like waves—and the only thing that is unchanging is change itself. And healthy relationships have a healthy relationship with waves, with the rising and falling, and trusting that there will still maybe be someway, another way, to rise.

The two become one to become stronger, to persevere and suffer and change and be sanctified and grow, rising to a new life together.

It is not the absence of infatuation that makes any marriage unhappy — but the absence of deep attachment.

This is the unspoken miracle of marriage: You vow to keep loving the same old person who keeps growing in their own way into a stranger. God knows, this is the deeper vow: “I’m here, right here.”

It is not the absence of infatuation that makes any marriage unhappy — but the absence of deep attachment.

After all these years, he and I are still settling into it: What turns a marriage, a life, around is choosing in a million small moments, instead of turning toward some distraction, some screen, some addiction, to turn toward the face of the other.

Making your spouse your person is what can make your marriage happy.

Falling in love is only the wild rush before the soft landing into a far deeper canyon of companionship through any pain and suffering that leads the actual way into real bliss.

The passion of the Christ is the ultimate passionate love; so stay in Christ… so there’s hope to stay in love.

All the young kids may not know it like the old ones do: Honeymoon love is an exhilarating part of it all, but it’s the staying loving that makes a love story.

I could weep and be wholly healed, for the reality of it:

The passion of the Christ is the ultimate passionate love; so stay in Christ… so there’s hope to stay in love.

My eyes don’t leave his. His don’t leave mine.

And all the old lovers keep sharing this kind of holy double vision… old hearts still lighting.

~Adapted excerpt from WayMaker, Find the Way to the Life You Always Dreamed Of

If you’re looking for the deep and realest love? Looking for a way to change all kinds of things? A new way for all kinds of stories? Looking for more than just a way through, but a new way of being?

For every person who is looking for a way through to real love, WayMaker is your sign.

Your sign that there is hope for real love, that there are miracles, and that everything you are trying to find a way to, is actually coming to meet you in ways far more fulfilling than you ever imagined.

Grab Your Copy of WayMaker — and begin the journey your heart’s longing for …

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [2.11.2023]

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 – Photographer

all this Valentine’s sweetness to start your weekend off right

“You don’t have to be useful– only loved.”
The reminder each of our soul’s need.

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A post shared by Wendy Speake (@wendy_speake)

these words! so much YES!!

Okay! This man trying to woo the beluga whales with song & they actually started singing back!

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A post shared by bible & brush (@bibleandbrush)

With God –ALL- things are possible.
What impossibility are you praying for? We’re praying this weekend, too.

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A post shared by TODAY (@todayshow)

Now this is just the sweetest!

these words! this beauty! true soul food right here! Love, love, love Ellie Holcomb!

Post of the Week from Around these Parts

I just really need to quietly tuck these words into your hand, hoping they can maybe lodge in a crack in your heart & be used to fuse together & mend a bit more of the fractures of your own heart?

With other tools in my toolbox, this tool is what’s powerfully curing me from a whole lot of fears — because there’s a whole lot of battling a whole lot of anxiousness & this is part of healing:

What’s Curing A lot of Fears For Me, From A Recovering Agoraphobic

When you feel anxiety rise — you might just need THIS

“Why I gave up fasting for lent” – reviving the meaning of the season.
Great words to ponder with lent right around the corner.

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A post shared by Elliott Blackwell (@intotheforestdark)

– we couldn’t agree more! –

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A post shared by Collide (@we.collide)

Yesssss! The “small” things you do matter to God too.

So many ways to encourage and love, isn’t there? We just love this!
How one man is giving back… and in a very PRETTY way!

7 marathons in 7 days in 7 continents – and in a wheelchair no less!
Wildly inspiring!

The superpower we all need — hint: it really isn’t what you think ;)

This mama’s joy about her daughter graduating? Just too good not to share!

What this 89-year-old accomplishes! Inspiring!
Whatever your dream is, KEEP GOING!

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A post shared by Good News Dog (@goodnewsdog)

Goodness, how can we be the love and kindness of Jesus for someone this weekend?
#bethegift

An ice cream for EVERYONE – even those who can’t pay.
This has us grinning wide this weekend.

Because Our Hearts Need to Know How to Bend Toward the Song of Love God Sings BECAUSE OF Us!

The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.

Which is exactly the refrain of OUR VERY FIST CHILDREN’S BOOK (!!) Your Brave Song!

We all need a hope song,
a courage song,
a song that assures that our our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us,
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.

Your Brave Song includes:

 A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book

 Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes

 Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ

 A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day

Only 1 More Day to get all the free gifts
for Ordering Your Brave Song

We’ve put together one glorious bundle of FREE gifts for you, so we can put some joy into your hands, especially for you and the brave hearts in your life, to profoundly thank you from the absolute bottom of our hearts for ordering Your Brave Song.

When you order by February 12, you’ll get, all as free bonus gifts!

  Printable Lunchbox Cards with words of affirmation (also make great Valentines cards for friends!)

  Identity in Christ Pocket Cards: Print these & tuck in your pocket or purse or backpack, & you get a new playlist in your head and heart, of who you really are in Christ!

  Identity in Christ Art Prints: to rest that In Christ you are: Soul-Safe, Brave, and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Seen, Heard, Free, Known, and Redeemed. Accepted and Protected,  Strengthened and Strong, and you Belong. You are held in the arms of God who sings a love song over you, for you, because of you. And today you are a love song back to Him.

  “You Are Loved” Printable Party Pack : a HUGE 50-page printable kit with everything you need to throw a “You Are Loved” party for ANYONE in your life. This kit includes party invitations, favor gift tags, photo booth props, cupcake toppers, a cake topper, a coloring page, note cards / table tents, 8×10 artwork/signs for decorations, & a “you are loved” banner!

Get all the details & give us your deets, to get ALL your free gifts over on the Your Brave Song book page — & Have God’s Song ABOUT YOU on Repeat in your heart. Order Your Brave Song & Get ALL Your FREE Gifts

Okay, now this is just too much glory & beauty & peace.
Don’t miss out on the goodness of this one.

Ohh! This one! Take five minutes to listen to this one!

Behold the wounds of grace
Upon His hands and feet
Oh the Lamb of God on Calvary

Isn’t He worthy?
Forever worthy
The Lamb who was slain

[from our Facebook community – join us?]

Deep breath. Love is patient.

And it’s true: You only love as well as you embrace your inconveniences.

When I embrace all the inconveniences of the moment –
instead of resisting them, fighting them, fearing the upheaval of them –
and embrace whatever the moment holds as a gift from a loving Father –
that’s when I actually love.

The reason love is first of all patient –
is because it first has to slow down enough to embrace what is.

When you’re patient enough to embrace the moment –
the moment opens up its arms and surprises you with a gift.

Which is to say:
Every moment holds a gift –
and if you’re patient enough to hold space for the moment and not rush on –
you’ll get to hold its gift.

That’s always the challenge,
to trust that there is treasure hiding in every single moment –
and that if you’re patient enough to sit in the moment –
the moment will turn and put the treasure in your open hand.

It’s true.
The patient live in the present moment –
and receive the present held in the moment.

Patient people dare to accept people where they are,
grateful for who they are now, appreciative of works of art not yet finished but still deeply loved.
Aren’t we all just that?

Deep breath. Love is patient.

And it can only be patient when it is first receives the fleeting present as a present… grace.

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. 

The Secret Key to Patience…& Patience is the Key to Loving Well, Especially When You’re At the End of Your Rope

Only because I am a mother who is long on love and, too often, far too short on patience, I’ve only had to ask it a couple of hundred times: 

You only love as well as you embrace your inconveniences. 

Why in the world does that “love chapter” in the old holy Book say that first: “Love is patient.“

Why is patience actually the very first qualifier of love? 

I mean, why not first, “Love is gentle,” or “Love is tender?” Or, better yet (to my feeble mind), “Love is a flash of divine revelation, a supernatural infusing of the spirit of God.”

Love is all that, yes.

But first, of utmost importance – and yep, I’ll trust the order of the inspired sacred Word –  love is patient. That means love is nitty gritty. Hard.

That is what I was thinking on midweek morning, as we poured pancake batter into the griddle on a wintry morning, back when our house was full of all half a dozen wild kids, all rowdy and loud, under the age of ten. 

When you’re patient enough to embrace the moment – the moment opens up its arms and surprises you with a gift.   

The youngest kid loomed dangerously close to the heat of the frying pan. A preschooler anxiously slops in more batter. A lanky kid flips a pancake prematurely, batter oozing, dripping. The very sensitive child bursts into tears that the pancake hearts are all smeared, the rings mashed. The Oldest, with egg poised to crack, asked if I want more?

More? More what? More of this careening ride, when I am about at the end of my rope? I sensed a howl (of laughter? Of pain?) surging too close to my lips.

The Spirit soothes, strokes gently at the frayed edges of the moment: “Love is patient.”

How can I be patient in the tipsiness of the chaos of the day? How can I be patient in the overwhelm of now, whatever “now” looks like? When the clock keeps ticking steadily on, and we just keep stumbling along and falling further behind, while everyone else is sailing on far ahead? 

Deep breathe. Love is patient. And it strikes me, an epiphany over the fry of bubbling pancakes:

“Love can only be patient – if it’s first grateful enough to embrace what is right now.”

It is true: You only love as well as you embrace your inconveniences. 

When I embrace all the inconveniences of the moment – instead of resisting them, fighting them, fearing the upheaval of them – and embrace whatever the moment holds as a gift from a loving Father – that’s when I actually love. 

That’s always the challenge, to trust that there is treasure hiding in every single moment – and  that if  you’re patient enough to sit in the moment – the moment will turn and put the treasure in your open hand. 

The reason love is first of all patient – is because it first has to slow down enough to embrace what is. 

Henri Nouwen suggests that: “[t]he word patience means willingness to stay where we are, and live the situation out to the full, in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”

When you’re patient enough to embrace the moment – the moment opens up its arms and surprises you with a gift.   

Which is to say: 

Every moment holds a gift – and if you’re patient enough to hold space for the moment and not rush on – you’ll get to hold its gift. 

That’s always the challenge, to trust that there is treasure hiding in every single moment – and  that if  you’re patient enough to sit in the moment – the moment will turn and put the treasure in your open hand. 

Nouwen offers that: “Patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present….”

The patient live in the present moment – and receive the present held in the moment. 

It’s true: 

The patient live in the present moment – and receive the present held in the moment. 

Patient people dare to accept people where they are, grateful for who they are now, appreciative of works of art not yet finished but still deeply loved. Aren’t we all just that?

Deep breath. Love is patient.

And it can only be patient when it is first receives the fleeeting present as a present… grace.

How to be grateful when overwhelmed? I’m a slow study and still learning:

Love Trusts there are Actually few emergencies

Emergencies are wildfires, screeching sirens, and gaping wounds. In everyday life, we rarely experience emergencies.

“Waiting patiently…is the foundation of the spiritual life.”

~ Simone Weil

Then why do we need to holler, fly, rush off? 

As Simone Weil writes, “Waiting patiently…is the foundation of the spiritual life.”

Really, what catastrophe will befall if we’re 5 minutes late or dinner is on the table 15 minutes after six? 

Sure, you’re late and sweet girl can’t find her other shoe, or the soup needs seasoning and toddler wraps like vine up a parental leg, or a teenager is giving a slow blow by blow of some convo – and we get to take a deep breath. This really isn’t an emergency. Hold space for the moment and you’ll get to hold the gift that this moment holds. 

Now is good.

Now is not an emergency to rip through, but a moment to embrace with gratitude.

Hold space for this moment and you’ll get to hold the gift that this moment holds. 

Love Trusts there are Always gifts everywhere

But it’s easy to let fears grip tight right here under your own roof, because a lot is on the line in parenting, in familying, in relationships: Souls. Futures. Joy. And fear of failure at all these things that matter prods, pierces, weighs.

And when fears close in, impatience grows large.  

When fears fill the room — there is no room for patience.

And don’t I know it: 

If I fear that this moment actually holds that which is to my detriment, harmful, either currently, or for my envisioned future, then I am anything but grateful, anything but patient. Anything but loving.

When fear closes in, impatience grows large.  

True to the flight or fight theory of response, my fears too often feed either anxious fleeing — or angry fighting. 

I keep waking to this in my own life:

The more afraid I am, the harder it becomes to express gratitude, the harder it becomes to practice patience.

The harder it becomes to love.

But again and again: When you let the Voice of Love Himself embrace the fears – fears can melt away. What’s there to actually fear when God only gives good gifts — and if it doesn’t feel like a good gift yet, have patience — the gift is still a work-in-process and will be worked into good in the end.

In all kinds of ways, life and kids and time crushes in, and I can grin.

I think I get it, the order of love, the preeminence of patience.

Love is first patient.

Because Love first slows down enough to embrace the surprise of God in this moment.

* * *

Because we all need to Slow Down To Hear God’s Love Song Over US, Which gives us our Brave Song, RELEASING THIS WEEK!:

The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.

Which is exactly the refrain of our very first children’s book Your Brave Song!

We all need a hope song,
a courage song,
a song that assures that our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us,
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.

Your Brave Song includes:

 A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book

 Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes

 Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ

 A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day

Look (!!) All that You get free
for Picking up Your Brave Song Just this Week!

We’ve put together one glorious bundle of FREE gifts for you, so we can put some joy into your hands now,especially for you and the brave hearts in your life, to profoundly thank you from the absolute bottom of our hearts for ordering Your Brave Song.

When you order just this week, before Feb. 12th, (Your Brave Song will arrive just after Feb. 7th, perfect for Valentine’s Day!) and you’ll get, all as free bonus gifts, just in time for Valentines!

  Printable Lunchbox Cards with words of affirmation (also make great Valentines cards for friends!)

  Identity in Christ Pocket Cards: Print these & tuck in your pocket or purse or backpack, & you get a new playlist in your head and heart, of who you really are in Christ!

  Identity in Christ Art Prints: to rest that In Christ you are: Soul-Safe, Brave, and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Seen, Heard, Free, Known, and Redeemed. Accepted and Protected,  Strengthened and Strong, and you Belong. You are held in the arms of God who sings a love song over you, for you, because of you. And today you are a love song back to Him.

  “You Are Loved” Printable Party Pack : a HUGE 50-page printable kit with everything you need to throw a “You Are Loved” party for ANYONE in your life. This kit includes party invitations, favor gift tags, photo booth props, cupcake toppers, a cake topper, a coloring page, note cards / table tents, 8×10 artwork/signs for decorations, & a “you are loved” banner!

Get all the details & give us your deets, to get ALL your free gifts this week over on the Your Brave Song book page — & Have God’s Song ABOUT YOU on Repeat in your heart. Order Your Brave Song This Week & Get ALL Your FREE Gifts

What’s Curing A lot of Fears For Me, From A Recovering Agoraphobic

I am not sure about saying this on the internet ….

But when I think of just your tender heart?

When Love sits down
with fear —
so many things
calm down.

I just need to quietly tuck these words into your hand, hoping they can maybe lodge in a crack in your heart and be used to fuse together and mend a bit more of the fractures of your own heart?

There’s a part of me that’s still that 5 year old girl who walked into her first day of school carrying a Neilson’s milk bag for her book bag and didn’t know what to do when she walked into the wrong classroom of grade twos, and her face flushed fiery red and she wanted the floor to open up.

Fear goes around relentlessly shaming, thinking if it piles on enough shame, it can flatten you till it reshapes you into being someone better.

And this farm girl who went to college in the big city, and was diagnosed with agoraphobia, that fear of avoiding places that “might cause panic and feelings of being trapped, helpless or embarrassed”?

Yes, she’s still in there, and you can catch a glimpse of her more often than now and then. There were several months, back when I was 20, that part of me needed some wise and good medication to regulate, and then later, therapy and a toolbox of helpful responsive tools.

And I can still low-key panic in a room full of minglers and dazzling extroverts, and feel the heat of nerve blotches breaking all up my neck. And yet what I keep discovering is:

Shaming those anxious, fearful parts of your souls — fails to actually calm those parts down.

And this is what actually, gently, helps: Instead of trying to beat parts of you into being braver, calmer, better — give those parts of you the beats of a greater love song to dance to…

Because this is one of the very deepest truths in the whole of the universe:

When Love sits down
with fear —
so many things
calm down.

When Love puts its arm around fear — so many fears melt.

Only Love Himself is large enough to enfold fear.

When Love puts its arm around fear — so many fears melt. Only Love Himself is large enough to enfold fear.

Frankly? Fear is one brute of a conniving monster, and fear tends to defend itself with the roaring mask of anger…. or fear disguises itself with a bloated, sauntering pride…. or fear goes around relentlessly shaming, thinking if it piles on enough shame, it can flatten you till it reshapes you into being someone better.

But for all it’s ferocious huffing and blustering and shaming — fear is small and finite. And it’s Love alone that’s infinite.

Only Love is large enough to hold fear, to carry tantruming, bullying, shaming fear to the curb — where Love will hold it and console it and calmly fold it into a safe space.

Honestly, I was this-year-old, this past summer, when I spent a handful of days, with a handful of women — and this interior fear part of me went wild, grabbing hold of this narrative and ranting loud down the neural hallways in my head, banging around in the chambers of my heart: I didn’t belong, I wasn’t enough, I was failing, failing, failing… as if fear wildly setting off all these interior alarms would somehow rally a rescue from somewhere else.

What refreshes your life — is the fresh wind of His love.

But then, unexpectedly, I actually felt the exhale of being rescued — because I could hear my rescue, the baritone of God, right there from Zeph. 3:17, soothing my soul with this most divine love song that came to the tender, anxious parts of me, like an enfolding:

“The LORD your God wins victory after victory & is always with you.He celebrates & sings because of you,and He will refresh your life with his love.”

The wooing love of God wins over the wounded and wound-tight parts of us.

For four days… I just kept repeating that singular verse, that refrain, that reality, over and over to myself, letting the closeness of His love console all the worried parts of me.

Because it turns out that you can be about shamed, labeled, ghosted, mocked, abandoned, cut off, humiliated, guilty, vilified, charged, devastated, grieved, wrecked, and left for dead in a million ways, and this is at the floor of all being:

“When you know you are fully known by God and still fully loved by God, nothing can truly scare you in all the world. 

There is a reason that God is Love and He is with us: Because this is what we need most. 

God is Love, and love is at rock bottom, love is underneath everything, and when everything falls away, and God is with us, and Love HIMSELF is BOUND TO us.

The worst-case scenario is that all the very worst things happen, and you are still loved — so there is no real worse-case scenario.” (~Excerpt from WayMaker )

In Christ, the real crisis is over, and you are soul-safe in Him forever. 

Because regardless of our age, 4 or 94?

It’s Love that wraps fear in the longest embrace — and all fears melt away.

What refreshes your life — is the fresh wind of His love.

You can rise to braveness, when you feel the depths of your belovedness.

And in that little retreat house with a handful of middle-aged women, where this 40-something-year-old woman didn’t feel like she fit, didn’t feel like she was enough, felt more like she was a flapping fish out of water, flailing for a rescue —- the small, afraid parts of me were found by the most elemental, primary song, the one I want my heart to know still by heart, right till my very last breath:

Jesus loves me, Makes me strong…
In Him, I’m brave & I belong…

And that little girl within me sang it over and over and over again.

And when more fears are hushed with a love song — you can finally live more brave!

I breathed deeper… smiled wider… and settled into my skin, settling into His love — all of me, and all the tender, anxious parts of me, held close.

I could feel it in the calm, steadying beat of my heart, beating to the sureness of His love song over me:

When you know Love holds you — courage takes hold of you and you rise to meet the moment.

You can rise to braveness, when you feel the depths of your belovedness.

And honestly? There’s no fear just saying it here or anywhere, that there is one song stuck here on repeat in my head…

The one song that makes me and all the honest kids brave.

* * *

Because we all need a Brave Song, RELEASING TODAY!:

The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.

Which is exactly the refrain of our very first children’s book Your Brave Song!

We all need a hope song,
a courage song,
a song that assures that our our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us,
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.

Your Brave Song includes:

 A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book

 Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes

 Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ

 A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day

Look (!!) All that You get free
for Ordering Your Brave Song Just this Week!

We’ve put together one glorious bundle of FREE gifts for you, so we can put some joy into your hands now,especially for you and the brave hearts in your life, to profoundly thank you from the absolute bottom of our hearts for ordering Your Brave Song.

When you order this week, before Feb. 12th, (Your Brave Song will arrive just after Feb. 7th, perfect for Valentine’s Day!) and you’ll get, all as free bonus gifts, just in time for Valentines!

  Printable Lunchbox Cards with words of affirmation (also make great Valentines cards for friends!)

  Identity in Christ Pocket Cards: Print these & tuck in your pocket or purse or backpack, & you get a new playlist in your head and heart, of who you really are in Christ!

  Identity in Christ Art Prints: to rest that In Christ you are: Soul-Safe, Brave, and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Seen, Heard, Free, Known, and Redeemed. Accepted and Protected,  Strengthened and Strong, and you Belong. You are held in the arms of God who sings a love song over you, for you, because of you. And today you are a love song back to Him.

  “You Are Loved” Printable Party Pack : a HUGE 50-page printable kit with everything you need to throw a “You Are Loved” party for ANYONE in your life. This kit includes party invitations, favor gift tags, photo booth props, cupcake toppers, a cake topper, a coloring page, note cards / table tents, 8×10 artwork/signs for decorations, & a “you are loved” banner!

Get all the details & give us your deets, to get ALL your free gifts over on the Your Brave Song book page — & Have God’s Song ABOUT YOU on Repeat in your heart. Order Your Brave Song & Get ALL Your FREE Gifts

Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [2.4.2023]

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 – Photographer

oh this stunning work of art! come enjoy the beauty this flower hunter captures?

okay – now how amazing is this?! the science of awe?
and isn’t this just what He wired us for? *AMAZING*

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A post shared by Peter Bence (@bencepetermusic)

what. a. DELIGHT!

what this man did to create a FUN and accessible space for his daughter?
TOO. MUCH. FUN. #bethegift

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A post shared by Well-Watered Women® (@wellwateredwomen)

– what a phenomenal perspective of the holy, beautiful words of God –

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A post shared by John Derting (@johnderting)

Wow! Just wow! How stunning is God’s creation?!

when this daughter finds her dad’s bucket list after he passes away?
now THIS just has us all weepy happy!

don’t miss this song! we need these words! this is soul food!

Post of the Week from Around these Parts

If you’re ever parented, yep, you how it’s more joy than you ever imagined,
is a greater responsibility than you ever imagined,
and is more challenging than you ever imagined —
and you really need to give yourself a break.

Your brave parenting heart might just really need
and thank you for reading the exhale of this:

What We All Need to Know About Our Parenting & Giving Ourselves a Break

15 Parenting Keys you don’t want to miss — TO GIVE YOURSELF THE BREAK YOU REALLY NEED

And what can we the church learn from the Barnes and Noble turnaround!
Trevin Wax is always a must-read for me & this post is no exception!

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A post shared by Propel Women (@propelwomen)

*what are YOU believing God for?*

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A post shared by Soli GoRo (@mamasoli_go)

this is just too cute!

Really, truly exceptional words to ponder.
And for the start of our year, making new habits? There’s no better time than NOW.

Now this family? Don’t miss their extravagance to provide for their autistic daughter and help her THRIVE in her abilities! Simply amazing!

Okayyyy. These groomsmen when they see the Bride for the first time? This is just too good!

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A post shared by The School of Greatness (@greatness)

well this is just too adorable!

These retirees have got some pretty good surprise blessings up their sleeve!
Read this one to find out what they’re up to! #bethegift

there’s always a way to add a little joy to life, isn’t there? let’s aim for joy like THIS!

When your home country is war-torn and you’re in California but want desperately to help–
what this Ukrainian young man is doing to help his fellow Ukrainians, create work, and showcase their innovation and creativity – standing ovation!

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A post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)

– there’s always enough time to pause and ENJOY for a moment –

Because Our Hearts Need to Know How to Bend Toward the Song of Love God Sings BECAUSE OF Us!

The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.

Which is exactly the refrain of OUR VERY FIST CHILDREN’S BOOK (!!) Your Brave Song!

We all need a hope song,
a courage song,
a song that assures that our our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us,
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.

Your Brave Song includes:

 A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book

 Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes

 Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ

 A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day

Look (!!) All that You get free
for Pre-Ordering Your Brave Song now

We’ve put together one glorious bundle of FREE gifts for you, so we can put some joy into your hands now,especially for you and the brave hearts in your life, to profoundly thank you from the absolute bottom of our hearts for pre-ordering Your Brave Song.

When you pre-order, (Your Brave Song will arrive just after Feb. 7th, perfect for Valentine’s Day!) and you’ll get, all as free bonus gifts!

  Printable Lunchbox Cards with words of affirmation (also make great Valentines cards for friends!)

  Identity in Christ Pocket Cards: Print these & tuck in your pocket or purse or backpack, & you get a new playlist in your head and heart, of who you really are in Christ!

  Identity in Christ Art Prints: to rest that In Christ you are: Soul-Safe, Brave, and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Seen, Heard, Free, Known, and Redeemed. Accepted and Protected,  Strengthened and Strong, and you Belong. You are held in the arms of God who sings a love song over you, for you, because of you. And today you are a love song back to Him.

  “You Are Loved” Printable Party Pack : a HUGE 50-page printable kit with everything you need to throw a “You Are Loved” party for ANYONE in your life. This kit includes party invitations, favor gift tags, photo booth props, cupcake toppers, a cake topper, a coloring page, note cards / table tents, 8×10 artwork/signs for decorations, & a “you are loved” banner!

Get all the details & give us your deets, to get ALL your free gifts over on the Your Brave Song book page — & Have God’s Song ABOUT YOU on Repeat in your heart. Order Your Brave Song & Get ALL Your FREE Gifts

who wants to enjoy this beautiful place with me? pretend we’re savoring the English countryside?
glory, glory, glory

oh how we love this one! on repeat over and over and over again…

[from our Facebook community – join us?]

… so, yeah, we may not know how tomorrow’s going to go,
but we could lean on the One who always goes before us & already knows.

And, yeah, we may not have the foggiest idea how we’re going to make it,
but there’s a Hand that reaches through the fog, takes ours & He makes a way —
because that’s His name. *He is The Way.*

And, honest, though we may be downright weary of the heartbreaks,
the headlines, the hard roads, God cups our faces:
He doesn’t demand us to carry the weight of understanding everything —
He only asks we stand close to Him & let Him undertake everything.

God never lays the weight on you to be amazing.
He only invites you into the most profound choice in all the universe: Rest.

Rest in His strength to do it,
rest in His ways above ours,
rest in Him who is with you, in you & is 100% for you.

Leave all the amazing to Him.

And His Amazing Grace finds us where we are right now and is taking us —
even right now — where we’ve only dreamed.

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. 

What We All Need to Know About Our Parenting & Giving Ourselves a Break

If I could wind back time to when I was running hard after half-a-dozen kids, 10 and under, I think I’d like to just grab the hand hand of that younger Mamaversion of me and gently ask her:

What matters to God isn’t seemingly perfect families — but deeply cruciform ones.

Why would anyone think they can be such exceptional parents that parenting will never cause heartbreak — when all of God’s children have broken God’s, without exception?

If the perfect Father’s fatherhood is marked by trials, why would anyone think their parenting won’t be?

Anyone selling some formula to raise kids into some mirage version of perfect human beings, better go ahead and cold call God and let Him have it — because God Himself doesn’t have that kind of family.

What God does have is a family marked by amazing grace.

And I sat up late this week, long after I hugged and kissed the last kid goodnight, and I whispered it again in a dark house where we’ve spent more than the last 25 years raising a tribe of kids:

What matters to God isn’t seemingly perfect families — but deeply cruciform ones.

Because it’s true, I will fail, they will fail, this is a world that does not fail to ache. And all I know is this:
You may be busted up and bent — but what matters is that your bent is always toward love.

You may be busted up and bent — but what matters is that your bent is always toward love.

The pressure in parenting — and, really, the pressure in life — is to bend to the pressure of optics, bend to the pressure of appearances, bend to the pressure of accolades, whatever the cost.

But the bend of cruciform parenting isn’t toward optics; the bend of cruciform parenting is outward, pointing to the love of the Cross.

In the stillness of a sleeping house, worn with decades of raising more than half-a-dozen kids, we are all being worn down to the love that is real:

The goal of a Christian family isn’t to be a picture-perfect family —— but to be a family that is a picture of the gospel.

No one’s called to be a Billboard Family for Jesus, as that’s a way to be driven by wild control — but rather, the call is to be a Sign Post Family for Jesus, pointing to His perfection, driven by wild grace.

And that young Mama stirring soup with a baby slung on one hip, while simultaneously dictating spelling words and desperately trying to break up a posse of boys wrestling each other to the death on the kitchen floor, has now grown into the old Mama who knows certain steadying things in her bones about what it means to live out the verb of familying:

15 Keys to Parenting that a Mom of 7 Wishes She Knew Sooner & is Still Learning Because it’s Never too Late to Grow & Give Yourself the Break of His Grace:

1. Only speak words that make souls stronger.

2. A mother’s labor and delivery never ends — and you never stop having to remember to breathe.

3. There is no formula for parenting, there is only faith that there will be sufficient grace for every day.

4. Anger is contagious. And so is grace.

5. The way to raise children is to not raise your voice. Souls are fragile. Raising your voice can raze souls to the ground.

6. The moment when you are most repelled by a child’s behavior, that is your warning light to draw the very closest to that child.

7. Don’t let your children’s successes go to your head, and don’t let your children’s failures go to your heart; your assignment as a parent is to simply keep going to your Heavenly Father no matter what.

8. Parenting is never about training your children to be so good they won’t ever fall —- it’s about letting them see you fall in love every day with a good God.

9. The parent must always self-parent first, self-preaching always comes before child-teaching.

10. God gently leads those who have young, because He is leading us on a journey, that journeys alongside our children, who are on a journey of their own.

11. Parenting comes with no guarantees —- except the guarantee that God will be with you, no matter what comes. Nothing you bring into any child’s life guarantees any particular outcome.

12. Parenting is never about how your kids turn out. It’s always and only about you as the parent keep turning — how you keep turning toward your own children and toward your heavenly Father.

13. Your children aren’t yours for a lifetime, just for a little bit of time — and you owe them a debt of gratitude for the gift of that time, and they don’t owe you anything for that time.

14. Never stop eating, tasting, savouring God’s Word, morning, noon, and night — because though there will be days you taste tears, His Word make the tears still taste like hope.

After more than 2 and a half decades of parenting, and one, and a half-dozen kids, this is all I really know about parenting, regardless of age:

Every parent has to give the best they can — and every child has to forgive the best they can.

And at the end of the day, it’s okay, you really do get to give yourself more than a break — you get to receive the lavish grace that Jesus gives you.

And you really do get to go ahead and tear up that parenting score-card that you think you’re failing — because the only thing that matters is that your name is scored into the perfect hands of Christ —and His name is scored deep into your heart.

Because What Matters Is That We All Know How to Bend Toward the Song of Love God Sings Over Us!

The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.

Which is exactly the refrain of our very first (!!) children’s book Your Brave Song! 

We all need a hope song, 
a courage song, 
a song that assures that our our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us, 
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.

Your Brave Song includes:

 A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book

 Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes

 Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ

 A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day

Look (!!) All that You get free 
for Pre-Ordering Your Brave Song now

We’ve put together one glorious bundle of FREE gifts for you, so we can put some joy into your hands now, especially for you and the brave hearts in your life, to profoundly thank you from the absolute bottom of our hearts for pre-ordering Your Brave Song.

When you pre-order, (Your Brave Song will arrive just after Feb. 7th, perfect for Valentine’s Day!) you’ll get,
all as free bonus gifts!

  Printable Lunchbox Cards with words of affirmation (also make great Valentines cards for friends!)

  Identity in Christ Pocket Cards: Print these & tuck in your pocket or purse or backpack, & you get a new playlist in your head and heart, of who you really are in Christ!

  Identity in Christ Art Prints: to rest that In Christ you are: Soul-Safe, Brave, and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Seen, Heard, Free, Known, and Redeemed. Accepted and Protected,  Strengthened and Strong, and you Belong. You are held in the arms of God who sings a love song over you, for you, because of you. And today you are a love song back to Him.

  “You Are Loved” Printable Party Pack : a HUGE 50-page printable kit with everything you need to throw a “You Are Loved” party for ANYONE in your life. This kit includes party invitations, favor gift tags, photo booth props, cupcake toppers, a cake topper, a coloring page, note cards / table tents, 8×10 artwork/signs for decorations, & a “you are loved” banner!

Get all the details & give us your deets, to get *ALL* your free gifts over on the Your Brave Song book page — & HAVE GOD’S SONG ABOUT YOU on repeat in your heart. Order Your Brave Song HERE & Get ALL your FREE gifts

An Invitation to Feast

Few people I know are as passionate about the Word of God as Wendy Speake. As an author, Bible teacher, and leader of the annual online 40-Day Sugar Fast, she has long led the way in calling us to give up the things that never truly satisfy and turn to the only One who can make us whole. In her new book, The 40-Day Feast, she invites us to truly taste and see the goodness of God’s Word by learning to dig deep into the Scriptures and apply them for ourselves. It’s a grace to welcome Wendy to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Wendy Speake

In my jewelry box are small tokens of love, given to me mostly by my husband and my mother over the years. I value them greatly and wear them regularly.

But within that box is something I prize most of all; not a pendant of gold, but something much more valuable: the torn and partially eaten corner of a thin Bible page.

When my firstborn child was only a few months old, he was rolling around and batting at toys as I sat beside him, reading my Bible on the living room floor. Without warning, my baby boy rolled onto his side, stretched out his chubby hand, and ripped out part of the page I was reading.

In one fluid motion, he shoved it into his slobbery mouth. Quickly, I reached in after it, pulled it out, wiped it off, and attempted to flatten it. Eighteen years later, that torn Bible page is taped to the inside of my jewelry box, and it is more valuable than anything else in residence beside it. No rubies, diamonds, or gold can compare.

Speaking of gold, before my son ate that page, I had used a golden highlighter to mark these words: “Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in behalf of your servant; save me, because I serve you just as my mother did” (Ps. 86:16 NIV).

How beautiful the irony.

Of all the pages and all the prayers, this was what my baby grabbed and ate.

Today, I pray that my infant son’s literal example inspires us greatly. All day long we stuff our mouths and stuff our eyes and ears and stuff our minutes and our days with just about anything we can get our hands on. But nothing else, save the Word of God, can save us; and nothing else can satisfy or sanctify us either.

Nothing else, save the Word of God, can save us; and nothing else can satisfy or sanctify us either.

God called us all out on this one through the prophet Jeremiah when he said, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2:13 NIV).

I can’t be the only one who knows it’s true.

We all tend to go from one broken cistern to another. We run from sugar high to sugar high instead of turning to The Most High. With a phone in one hand and a fork in the other, we consume all day long, but never let His Word consume our lives. We don’t have the time to ingest our Bibles. And if we do ingest them, we don’t know how to digest them—to understand and apply them to our lives.

So we take ourselves back to those broken wells, utterly weary and heavy laden. On the backside of another caffeine crash we hop on over to Amazon Prime, or we hop in our car and drive to Target, only to miss the bullseye, again.

As we pinpoint our wayward tendencies and follow my son’s literal example, it is my hope that you commit again, here at the start of another year, to prioritize time at the table, feasting on God’s Word, that you might taste the sweetness of God for yourself.

We were made for more. We were made for God. And our Bibles are where we find Him.

Oh, He is good, and His Word is true. Yet many miss out entirely because not all Bible-believing men and women are Bible-reading men and women. As a result, we’re a malnourished bunch.

The irony of being spiritually malnourished is that many of us are also overfed on cultural junk food. We are consumers who overeat and overdrink by bingeing shows and social media, online shopping and retail therapy, video gaming and YouTube watching. But none of those things have ever worked to fill our holes and make us whole—or holy.

When we turn to food and drink, screens and shopping, to meet our deepest needs, we end up unsatisfied and hungrier than ever. We are a generation of consumers who never learned to consume God’s Word. We scroll through our phones and scour our cabinets, hungry for something to satisfy, but nothing we find there ever does. We were made for more. We were made for God. And our Bibles are where we find Him.

Only in our Bibles will we find the help, hope, and healing we’re desperate for.
In our Bibles we find light for the path we’re on and bread for the day ahead.
In the pages of God’s holy communication, we encounter not only conviction but transformation—and grace.
In our Bibles we taste the sweetness of grace, the very goodness of God’s redemptive love.

Only in our Bibles will we find the help, hope, and healing we’re desperate for.

As we feast on His forgiveness, we find ourselves forgiven and forgiving.
As we open up our Bibles, we discover not only the message but the Messenger—the book but also the Author.
As we read, believe what we read, and confess it with our lips as our own belief, the Holy Spirit, who wrote the Word and dwells in it, lifts off the page and then drops into our hearts like a deposit.

He opens our minds to understand that our sins are forgiven, then gives us the strength to stop sinning. It’s all there, from Genesis to Revelation. All we have to do is consume it.

Long before baby Caleb put that Bible page in his little mouth, God instructed others to eat His words. The very same prophet I mentioned above also said, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16 ESV).

Here at the start of another year, consider this your invitation to the table where God’s Word is set. Nothing else can satisfy your hungry heart. It’s time to feast!

Adapted from Chapter 10, pages 59-62 of The 40-Day Feast by Wendy Speake.

Wendy Speake is a trained actress and heartfelt Bible teacher who ministers to hearts through storytelling and biblical life application. As host of the annual online 40-Day Sugar Fast, she invites men and women to set down their sugary treats and FEAST on the sweetness of God’s Word every January. In her new book, The 40-Day Feast, Wendy offers her Jesus-hungry friends an additional forty courses to whet their appetites for more of His sweet and satisfying, saving and sanctifying Word!

The question Wendy dares you to consider is: Are you ready to get hungry for God’s Word? Are you willing to feast on your Bible instead of the fluff and false-fillers we all tend to culturally consume? From Starbucks to Target, Amazon Prime to Netflix, we are a generation of overfed, spiritually malnourished consumers. It’s time to get hungry for the only thing that can satisfy and save!

Join Wendy for The 40-Day Feast this Lent! Set down what it is that you typically turn to so that you might turn (or return) to Him. This is your invitation to taste and see just how good He is! Find out more at wendyspeake.com/feast.

[ Our humble thanks to Baker Books for their partnership in today’s devotional. ]