Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 47
July 27, 2022
A Garden Maker’s Creed: How to Make A Garden And Tend Your Soul
Christie Purifoy is a writer who loves to grow flowers and community. Seriously, her garden is BLISS. And her book Garden Maker is both poetic and practical. I genuinely LOVE this book! In its beautiful, photo-filled pages, you’ll find everything you need to get started growing your own flowers, and you’ll drink deeply of the wonder and wisdom our God offers us only in the garden. It is with deepest gratitude and joy that we welcome Christie to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Christie Purifoy
Flower gardens don’t begin with flowers. They don’t even begin with seeds. They begin with desire and vision, and they begin with ordinary dirt.
“Flower gardens don’t begin with flowers.”
Of course, most gardeners never use the word dirt. They speak of soil, and they speak of it with a connoisseur’s finely nuanced vocabulary. The poet-gardeners talk of loam, clay, sand, gravel, humus, and marl. The scientist-gardeners mention lime, phosphorus, nitrogen, and acidity, and they fiddle around with test tubes and color strips. I love the litany of earthy garden words, and I have never scooped soil into a test tube.
All are welcome in the garden, and there are no garden police to force test tubes on you if you do not want them.
Whether you lean toward poetry or science, your first task is the same: cast your eyes over your bit of earth and run it through your fingers. When you grab a handful after a summer rain does it ball up like a bit of potter’s clay? Is it already dry like sand in a child’s pail? Is it crumbly and black like something sweet from grandmother’s cake pan? Roses will appreciate the sticky clay that holds onto nutrients and water. Yarrow and cosmos will be happy in the quick-drying, nutrient-poor sand. Just about every flower will love chocolate-y loam.
If your eyes are already glazing over, if this already sounds like too much technical detail for you, take a deep breath and dig in.
Photo: Christie Purifoy, Maplehurst Gardens
Photo: Christie Purifoy, Maplehurst Gardens
Photo: Christie Purifoy, Maplehurst GardensGarden rules are only guides, and there is an exception to every rule. It is true that roses love heavy clay, but Rugosa roses love sandy soil near a salt-sprayed beach.
“If you care for the source—the soil—your garden will shrug off pests and grow.”
Take a look at the flowers growing so well in your neighbor’s garden, then give them a try in your own. You will get to know your soil over time. You might even create your own language to describe it.
There is also no need to learn the technical terms printed in minuscule type on bottles and bags. I recommend avoiding chemical fertilizers. It is best to feed your soil rather than your plants. Step away from the sprays with pictures of angry bugs. If you care for the source—the soil—your garden will shrug off pests and grow.
Feed your flower beds autumn leaves you’ve chopped up with the lawn mower. Feed your garden black compost from your backyard pile. Layer cardboard over the worst of the weeds and cover it with aged manure you’ve brought home from the garden center.
“the earth requires a steady diet of rot and decay if it is to continually erupt with new life.”
I live in mushroom-farming country and every winter I shovel out truckloads of the steamy, stinky soil that remains after the mushrooms are picked. If left to sit and cool off for a few months, mushroom compost is just the thing for hungry flowers.
Perhaps you have pine needles in abundance or a friend with a chicken coop or rabbit hutch. There is science behind every choice, but even the poets intuitively know that the earth requires a steady diet of rot and decay if it is to continually erupt with new life.
Photo: Christie Purifoy, Maplehurst Gardens
Photo: Christie Purifoy, Maplehurst GardensIn “The Burial of the Dead,” the poet T. S. Eliot reminds us of this difficult truth:
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire.”
“Gardens grow because death can be fruitful and resurrection is real.”
Past and future meet and mingle in the ground of a garden. What died and was left to lie on your soil last year? What form of new flowering life do you hope will grow next spring?
Gardens grow because death can be fruitful and resurrection is real.
A garden maker may recite no formal creeds, but she lives them. Everything I practice in the garden says, I believe, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
What is true in the garden, is true in the whole earth. What is true in the stem of a flower is true in our own arms and legs.
Do you want to live? The same voice that spoke green things into existence spoke in the accent of Nazareth, promising if we lose our lives we will find them. Christ is our perfect gardener, and he bids us come and die. It is a loving invitation.
How then to prepare? How do we make gardens and how do we tend our souls?
We do not run away from suffering and death but receive them. We water the ground with our tears. We spread dark death (mushy leaves, rotted manure, shredded branches from a local tree trimming company), and we reap new life. We layer on the old (brown cardboard, pine needles, grass clippings), and trust that deep down in the dark and the wet, earthworms are tunneling and webs of mysterious fungi are spreading and all of it—however dirty, stinking, and gross—is also beautiful, true, and good.
And so very much alive.
Christie Purifoy is the author of two memoirs, Roots and Sky and Placemaker, as well as the recently released Garden Maker: Grow a Life of Beauty & Wonder with Flowers. She earned a PhD in English literature form the University of Chicago before trading the classroom for an old Pennsylvania farmhouse called Maplehurst, where she loves to welcome guests to the Maplehurst Black Barn. Each Wednesday she co-hosts a new episode of the Out of the Ordinary podcast with her longtime friend Lisa-Jo Baker, and she also shares her gardening expertise with members of the online gardening community the Black Barn Garden Club.
Much more than a how-to flower gardening book (though you will learn how to), Garden Maker is for those who want to grow beautiful things that reflect the glory and majesty of the Creator and bring a little bit of heaven down to earth. In word and photo, Garden Maker welcomes readers to a place where ordinary soil grows a glorious song.
July 23, 2022
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [7.23.2022]
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:
Esther Havens Mann – Photographer
Esther Havens Mann – Photographer
Esther Havens Mann – Photographer
Esther Havens Mann – Photographer
Esther Havens Mann – Photographercontagious joy! can’t get over how she captures our world full of beautiful people!
< Need a little HAPPY for your weekend? Think this little guy can help! >
oh. my. goodness! A bride who wildly loved her dress — and then gave it away on Facebook?
And then all these other brides jumped in & followed suit?! This is how we could do things, folks! #BeTheGift
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Mubiru David (@peace_david_mubiru)
oh goodness, THIS! All the nations will sing His praise!
what these parents do for their sweet baby girl in the NICU? heart melt!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News (@tanksgoodnews)
*truly inspiring!* what a way to keep dreaming and conquering fears
What are we called to do,how are we called to live?
Don’t miss this:
It was a ridiculous joy to welcome our oldest son and our daughter-in-law, Caleb and Melba, of The Keeping Company with all their legacy ways of keeping company with Christ, from where they are the other side of the world, to the farm’s wide front porch this week!
3 Practical Ways for You & Your Family to Glorify God& Leave a Legacy of Glory
As summer ripens like a golden wheat field, Caleb and Melba continue their work in Italy and the thermometer shows over 100F most days.
The blazing Tuscan sun is relentless; while the heat and dust are less than ideal for conducting research and exploring Florence, the heat is perfect for the growth and abundance of the fields in the hills around the city, turning the wheat white for harvest…
Read the Full PostFor You! And Yours! An invitation!
The Keeping Company is having its Biggest Sale of the Year
All resources at The Keeping Company are between 25-50% off! Now through the end of July!
Resources designed to encourage you to keep Christ constantly close at hand,
keeping close company with Him:
Hewn Cross
Carved Wooden Hands
Clinging Cross with prayer card
“Eucharisteo” silver bracelet, also available in “Hope”, “Grace”, “Cruciform”, and “Jesus”Plan ahead for an especially meaningful Christmas and Easter
and create unforgettable family traditions year after year!
Hand Carved Nativity Set
Messiah Manger and The Light Gift Bundle
The much requested hardcopies of our beautiful Advent and Lenten devotionals: these gorgeous books – a true labor of love accompanied by tears of both conviction and joy – are designed to guide you and your family through a daily walk with Christ during the preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent.
New Christmas Tree Bead Strand
Numbered Beeswax Candle with Cradle to Cross WreathDon’t miss the beautiful work Caleb and Melba are doing at The Keeping Company
Come, it’s never to late to aim to leave a generational legacy of Glory !
THE KEEPING COMPANYView this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
double dare you to watch this & not feel your heart burst happy!
Cheer someone on today —- all our hearts are so tender!
when you’re 8 & only 1 person says they can come to your birthday party —-
& you’ve just lost your Mama to cancer? BUT THE INTERNET JUMPS IN & SHOWS UP!
(so I teared up when I got to the part about the lady who drove in with her horse for pony rides! 🙌😭)
Yep, this is how we can do things & keep using socials to really love each other ! #BeTheGift!
need to be reminded that He loves you so tenderly? Read this.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jimmy Darts (@jimmydarts)
oh my – what a surprise! the generosity strangers showed this woman? Let’s love like this. #BeTheGift
who doesn’t love a good reunion?!
Post of the Week from around these parts
Really Don’t Want to Waste Your life? Do This.When we end up flying within 4 degrees of the Arctic Circle, to take up the invitation of one of my dearest classmate friends from grad school at Wheaton, to visit her in the Faroe Islands, she surprises us with this hike up this farm mountainside where the infamous character James Bond apparently died, in a movie ironically named, No Time to Die.
Don’t want to waste your days? Read the rest here
*breathe deep. a little soul exhale for your weekend*
just awe-dropping amazing! get a rare glimpse of one of God’s beautiful creatures.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 (@majicallynews)
what a little *cheering* for each other could do for our hearts!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Brittany & Lily (@brittikitty)
some plain and simple cuteness for your weekend
come along for this soul exhale – glory, glory, glory!
For Our Tender places, For our Hard Stories, For All of Us looking for More than a Way Through, but a New way to actually Be, a New way of Life
PICK UP YOUR COPY OF WAYMAKER
PICK UP YOUR COPY OF WAYMAKERTHIS SONG to reorient our hearts & turn our eyes upward. *so powerful*
“And the angels cry, holy
All creation cries, holy
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever!
Your name is the highest
Your name is the greatest
Your name stands above them all”
…so, honestly, it turns out, everywhere we turn,
that hopes & plans & people can let us down,
that the world’s shifting sand & crazy & unsafe & a gone a bit mad with all this brokenness, Lord —
and You, Father, are beckoning to all of us:
“The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
the righteous run into it and are safe.” Proverbs 18:10
People will fail us sometimes —
but You never fail anyone, anytime, Lord.
People aren’t ever strong towers —
You alone are, Lord.
Your name is our home no matter what the news screams,
You are the strong tower for Your people,
You are the safe haven for our hopes,
You are the shelter for our storms, our wounds, our disappointments, our dreams.
And when we run to You —
not to numbing distractions or loud debates or shielding cynicism —
when we run to You —
we are safe.
Safe. Safe. Safe.
Safe to love dangerously,
safe to grant grace lavishly,
safe to rest…
safe to rest in the rest of God.
[y
ou can find this post and other encouragement
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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.
July 21, 2022
3 Practical Ways For You & Your Family to Glorify God & Leave a Legacy of Glory
So, all our little kids have kinda grown up here, story by story, post by post, photo by photo, and it’s a humbling thing to now witness their stories unfold. Each child comes into the world as a love story — and then they write the legacy of their own love stories, and as parents we get the holy joy of honoring their own life stories with our committed withness and witness. It’s a ridiculous joy to welcome our oldest son and our daughter-in-law, Caleb and Melba, of The Keeping Company with all these legacy ways of keeping company with Christ, from where they are the other side of the world, to the farm’s wide front porch today!
A conversation with Ann, and Caleb & Melba of The Keeping Company
As summer ripens like a golden wheat field, Caleb and Melba continue their work in Italy and the thermometer shows over 100F most days.
The blazing Tuscan sun is relentless; while the heat and dust are less than ideal for conducting research and exploring Florence, the heat is perfect for the growth and abundance of the fields in the hills around the city, turning the wheat white for harvest, just like wheat harvest begins at the homefarm in Canada.
And on a warm afternoon last week, Caleb and Melba wandered through a nearby vineyard that has been tended to, nurtured, cultivated, grown by one single family for the last 26 generations. They shook their happy heads, smiling, to discover this vine farming family is one of the ten oldest family businesses in this little old world.
As they drove home, driving past rows of grape vines, olive groves, and wheat fields, they turned to each other and long pondered what it means to be a faithful steward for so many long generations.
What does it mean to plant, tend to, and steward something, not for a couple of weeks, months, or even years, but for generations?
What is the legacy to which Christ calls us, when He blesses and instructs us to be wise stewards, to raise up our children in His way, to live with the purpose of eternal glory?
“What legacy are we instructed to leave?”
As they passed wheat fields and vineyards, they pondered – and so we ponder – Christ calling us to remembrance in the bread and the wine, His body and blood.
All the wheat fields bowed their heads, hushed and still and listening, and we too bend low and into that old conversation that begins with that age-old question of the generations: What are we called to do, how are we called to live?
What legacy is ours to leave?
Carved Wooden Hands from The Keeping Company
Cradle to Cross Wreath
This last year has been one of deep reflection on the idea of stewardship and the legacy to which we are called.
It has been a year of grief and lost loved ones…. and a year of tender grace, and gained family members.
We’ve seen our two families merge in this creation of a new one, and we have spent many long days writing, creating, and dreaming of ways to number our days, ways to keep company with Christ, and remember the birthright to which we are all called as beloved children of God.
In the past six months and this process of pondering and creating, we have come to a firmer realization that there is only one fundamental purpose to our lives here on this earth. That is, simply, to bring glory to God, our Creator.
We are called to steward our time, to mark our days in an endeavor not measured in generations, centuries, or millennia, but to mark our days by actually being blazing markers, signs, pointing to God’s glory.
“The crop we plant, the harvest we tend to, the legacy we leave is that of bringing Glory to God.”
Our purpose of bringing glory to our Creator is an eternal one, a legacy we are called to pass on to the generations that come after us, a family endeavor of keeping company with Christ, that’s continued through all the ages by the children of grace.
The crop we plant, the harvest we tend to, the we legacy we leave, is that of bringing Glory to God.
Which is much of what that great theologian Abraham Kuyper startlingly points to:
“Whatever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand – in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science – he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of God. He is employed in the service of his God. He has strictly to obey his God. And above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God.“
It’s never too late to aim.
Never too late to aim your days at the legacy of giving glory to God.
For generations, upon generations, it’s all of us, the family of God, who have tended to, nurtured, cultivated, grown this with our days:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” ~Deuteronomy 6:5-9
And if farming families, in wheat fields and vineyards from Italy to the other side of the world, can practically gather up a harvest, generation after generation — how do we all, as a family of faith, practically leave a legacy of glory to God, generation after generation?
“I am the Bread of Life” Breadboard
New Tasseled Bead Strand
“Eucharisteo” silver bracelet, also available in “Hope”, “Grace”, “Cruciform”, and “Jesus”
Hewn Wooden Cross
The Light Gift
from The Keeping Company
3 Ways to Keep Carrying On a Family Legacy of Glory:
1. Keep Making the Biggest Deal of GodThat’s what glory means, writes our kind family friend, Sally Lloyd Jones –“to make a big deal of.”
When we keep making a big deal of an infinitely big God, none of the problems in our lives seem like such big deals.
So we lay it out on a table, or there by the kitchen sink, or on an open Bible on the counter, a wooden Clinging cross, or a Hewn Beaded Crosses, as a way to tie our wandering minds to the big deal of God, as way to tie symbols of the very big, glorious deal of God “on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.“
We literally cut our daily bread on Breadboards engraved with God’s Word, “I am the Bread of Life” and we daily wear Bracelets with the engraved word “eucharisteo”, or “Jesus”, or “cruciform”, or “hope” — writing the Word of God not just on doorframes or gates, but right into our hearts and our days.
Because every single little one of our little moments is meant to make a big deal of God.
“The person who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ… will not have any real desire to see that glory in heaven. What sort of faith and love do people have who find time to think about many other things but make no time for meditating on this glorious subject?,” wrote that esteemed wise man of God, John Owen.
When our everyday moments keep making a big deal of God — we are kept soul-safe knowing none of our everyday problems are a bigger deal than He is.
2. Keep Habitual Rhythms of His GraceEvery rhythm in our life — is telling more of the story of God.
And the question always is: Does this daily rhythm ours tell more of the story of God’s glory?
When our hands habitually turn to hold screens over and over again — how does this rhythm tell what a big deal God is?
But when our rhythm is to set out Open Wooden Hands, to intentionally, daily, habitually slip a prayer card into those open Wooden Hands, to have a daily rhythm of writing a verse on a card, or jotting down what we are grateful for on a card and slipping it into those Open Wooden Hands, a daily offering back to God — we are keeping a rhythm that keeps making a big deal of God, that keeps our hands and hearts, the whole of our lives, living an open-handed posture before God.
Every home and heart needs habits of His grace, to “[i]mpress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.“
The practice of faith is to practice habitual, endless conversations about God.
And when its our habit to talk about everything in our lives, in our families, with Open Hands, to literally have reminders throughout our home and days, that we are habitually leaving our hopes and prayers and people we love, all in Open Hands before God —we open the very story our lives to being filled with more of God’s glory.
3. Keep Company with ChristEvery day: Keep Calm & the only way to Keep Calm is to Keep Company with Christ.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? … Walk with me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace… Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” is what our very Lord Jesus said.
We glorify God by keeping daily company with Him, by daily beginning in His Word, by daily lighting a candle, by shining His light to those around us, by teaching His ways to those we love.
“We glorify God by keeping daily company with Him, by shining His light to those around us, by teaching His ways to those we love.”
We keep company with Christ by keeping these practices of faith, of laying out this unique Cradle to Cross Wooden Wreath every Advent Season, every Lent Season, every day moving the Candle in the wreath another day ahead, lighting the Candle and reflecting on who Christ is for us, what He has done for us, and why He is the most supreme greatest deal in all this glorious universe.
When we have tangible ways to keep company with Christ, we tangibly experience Christ keeping us. Through everything. This changes everything!
And when a family has practical ways to keep company with Christ, they not only know how they are kept by God –— but they keep closer to each other.
Numbered Beeswax Candle with Cradle to Cross Wreath
New Hand Carved Nativity Set
New Christmas Tree Bead Strand
“Hope” silver bracelet, also available in “Eucharisteo”, “Grace”, “Cruciform”, and “Jesus”
The Light Gift
Advent and Lenten Devotionals featuring classical artwork and names of Jesus
And in all these truly practical ways to glorify God, by keep making the biggest deal of God, by keeping habitual rhythms of grace, by keeping company with Christ, we grow this deep hope that when we move on from this temporary earth, we may say with confidence, that we have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith.
As we keep company with Christ, we keep the faith, and He keeps us.
As the seasons wax and wane, as crops are planted, grown, and harvested all over the world, in all our homes, we keep considering where our treasures are stored, and what we are passing on to those we love.
And we earnestly commit and pray to to daily tend the eternal harvest, and leave a legacy of Glory.
“Embracing and practicing true religion… is expressed by glorifying God, as though that were the sum and end of the whole matter,” is what Jonathan Edwards powerfully concluded.
And as we keep driving the long roads home, through wheat fields and vineyards, there it is, what keeps us through everything:
Whatever God gives us, He promises to only give us a way through that can lead to the greatest glory for Him.
For You! And Yours! An invitation!
Clinging Cross with prayer card
Carved Wooden Hands
Messiah Manger with Cradle to Cross WreathOur Breadboards, Bracelets, Wooden Hands, Clinging Crosses, and Hewn Crosses are thoughtful and meaningful birthday, anniversary, and Christmas gifts, and all our resources are designed to encourage you to keep Christ constantly close at hand, keeping close company with Him.
Plan ahead for an especially meaningful Christmas and Easter, counting down the days with this unique candle light, setting out our new hand-carved Wooden Nativity Set, a rare holy-days centerpiece, and reading aloud from the much requested hardcopies of our beautiful Advent and Lenten devotionals: these gorgeous books – a true labor of love accompanied by tears of both conviction and joy – are designed to guide you and your family through a daily walk with Christ during the preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent. We are thrilled to offer them both as complimentary downloadable PDFs, and – as they were meant to be experienced – in large, full-color, physical format as a bundle, perfect for reading aloud to the entire family.
This will be our best sale of the year! Our singular heirloom Cradle to Cross wreath is 25% off, and the accompanying Messiah Manger and The Light Gift Christmas Story make unforgettable family traditions.
Messiah Manger and The Light Gift Bundle
New Handmade Beeswax Numbered Candles
New Hand Carved Nativity SetCome, it’s never to late to aim to leave a generational legacy of Glory !
THE KEEPING COMPANYJuly 20, 2022
Really Don’t Want to Waste Your Life? Do this
When we end up flying within 4 degrees of the Arctic Circle, to take up the invitation of one of my dearest classmate friends from grad school at Wheaton, to visit her in the Faroe Islands, she surprises us with this hike up this farm mountainside where the infamous character James Bond apparently died, in a movie ironically named, No Time to Die.
It’s a strange thing to find yourself sitting on a peak with wandering sheep on this tipsy top edge of the world & kinda half-smiling at the very real gravestone for the imagined Bond, with that etched abbreviated exhortation of Jack London’s full quote:
“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
Visiting Farmer John who owns the sheep farm on this edge of the world, where the James Bond movie was filmed: John @kallsgardur 
Farmer John’s sheep farm where the James Bond movie was filmed: John @kallsgardur
I look over at my grinning Farmer, and all these glorious grooved lines of time lining his face, an underlining of a lifetime of our memories, and I try to memorize this moment here at the jagged raw cliff at the end of the world, and there’s this feeling it:
When you realize that time is all you have, you realize all that you don’t want to waste your time on.
Do not waste your days wanting more days.
It’s like the wind at the top of the world hushes everything, to ask the only question that matters:
What’s the wisest way to live before you die?
The wisest way to live is to know you have no time to waste.
When you realize that time is all you have, you realize all that you don’t want to waste your time on.
Because:
You don’t have a house… all you have is time that you spend on where you live.
You don’t have a vocation… all you have is time that you choose to give away to a vision, a work, a dream.
You don’t really even have a family or children or your people, in the sense that you don’t have, possess, own them … all you really have is time, fleeting time, to say you love them.
All time is for, is to love — because Love is for forever.
That is to say: When you make time into love, you conquer time, because Love is what goes on forever and without end.
When you realize all you have is time, all you have is one decision: what ways can you make your time into Love?
Running my hands along the engraved lines of the granite gravestone marking the end of Bond, that imagined spy, I can hear the windswept top of the world whispering its secrets to those of us with very real graves coming sooner than we could ever imagine:
Use your time only for what is useful, and it’ll be your very soul that’s left feeling used.
You don’t have to waste your life wanting more days — when you can simply enjoy the days you have more.
Use your time for more than just what is useful, but for partnering with God to make all things beautiful, and you won’t have anything to fear at your funeral.
The greatest function of humanity is to not merely exist, to not merely exist for self, to not merely exist for enjoyment, the greatest function of humanity is to exalt the God who exists, who births stars and everything into existence, and make all of existence about the beauty of enjoying Him.
The way to live and not merely exist is to make every moment simply about deeply enjoying — deeply enjoying the relentless love and beauty of God.
Because He knows:
Enjoying is what enlarges.
You don’t have to waste your life wanting more days — when you can simply enjoy the days you have more.
Farmer John sharing with us on his sheep farm where the James Bond movie was filmed: John @kallsgardur
Now is the time, right now:
Enjoy drippy ice cream and hollyhocks swaying in front of crooked picket fences and laugh too loud with someone today and feel how joy expands your lungs with life while there is still time.
Enjoy the glory of sky over you, and earth under you, and the wonder of Almighty God in the finiteness of you — and feel how He must love you to make His home in you.
Enjoy this moment and the way the light’s warm at your feet right this instant and you will, if you’re unexpectedly blessed, get to hear you love’s footsteps come back to you again today, and you will find their eyes and you will smile, and your heart will explode a bit, that you get all this miracle at least one more time.
Enjoy all this amazing grace, and make every second of all your time into the love that lasts forever.
Every moment that we love has eternity in it.
At the top of this big ole windy world, James Bond’s very real gravestone may have written it in granite, that we aren’t here to merely exist, but to live, that right now we have the time to live, fully live.
And you can feel it, there within, written across your ole thrumming ticker, written there by the finger of God, eternity written right into your fiercely beating heart.
Every moment that we love has eternity in it.
Looking for the way through to a deeply meaningful life — that doesn’t waste your only life?
“If there’s a deep disconnect in what we believe and how we actually live —
is it maybe because we’ve forgotten the way to live actually and intimately connected to God?
Our walk will only match our talk when we live attached to His heart.
This is how we live, fully live, live the love story of our dreams.
This is the way of all the epic Love stories.” ~ from WayMaker
July 18, 2022
Wanna Run the Race of Life Well? How The In-Between is Shaping Who You Are
You’ve been there, right? When those seasons of life aren’t unfolding like the story book you imagined them to be? When you find yourself thinking, aggravated at the oversight, “How did no one tell me it would be like this?” The seasons that make you feel the least equipped and the most alone, like you’re the only one who has ever experienced these moments? That’s when you need someone to sit you down at her kitchen counter, slide over a slice of cobbler fresh out of the oven and say, “Nope. Not true. I’ve been there. Here’s what I learned...” I just absolutely love this woman right here & how she connects with hearts: Callie Holland will run laps when she hears women leave the “I’m fine” at the door. She loves creating community spaces to pour into all of those coming behind us, who need to know some seasons are just really stinking hard – but you’re not the first to walk through it. Because, really, hindsight is most powerful when it’s shared. It’s a grace to welcome the brilliance of Callie to the farm’s table today…
At 5:15 a.m., four mornings a week, my alarm does its best to pull me from my REM cycle. I do the quick mental math, calculating the cost to my day if I stay under the covers five more minutes, eventually sliding out and shuffling toward the shoes and socks left by the bedroom door.
Gently closing the door behind me, I make my way down the hall to the living room, slipping on my shoes, I step onto the treadmill – rarely with excitement.
Let me be clear here – I am not a competitive runner. I’m more of the “are we done yet” variety. So when my mom called and asked if I’d celebrate the year she turned 60 by running a race with her every month – the yes was a bit shaky.
We ran half marathons, 5Ks, 10Ks, an 8K (I’m still unsure how far that actually was).
Pinning our numbers to our shirts and joining the crowd at each starting line, always heading to the back so I could build some confidence passing the lady who’s knocking out a 5K for her 100th birthday – we would wait for the flare to go up.
Callie with her mom
Everyone cheered, waved – trying to distract those of use who were wondering what in the world we’d gotten ourselves into. And when the flare went up, we went forward…or tried to. Those of us in the back would start doing this weird trot in place as we all moved forward as one giant blob.
Eventually, you’d find your stride. Miles go by and the finish line would come into view. Pushing your shoulders back, lengthening your stride to look more runner-ish – you’d hear the cheers getting louder, signs waving, the clock over the finish line keeping your time as you break into a sprint. Crossing the finish line, they’d give you a banana and a cookie because if we’re going to do physical activity there needs to be some sort of reward system.
“Everyone cared how you started. And everyone cared how you finished.
But few paid attention to the space between.“
But every race was the same:
Everyone cared how you started. And everyone cared how you finished.
But few paid attention to the space between.
After the crowds thin out and the runners start separating. When you can be on a stretch of road completely alone for miles. It’s here, in that space, you become a runner. You learn how to breathe easier, you figure out how your foot needs to strike the ground, you learn how to believe your body can do what your mind is saying it can’t do.
Many of us are living in the space between.
You got in the school. You got the job. The ring. The promotion. The pant size. The house.
The child. The grandchild.
And everyone celebrated.
“The space between when you start and when you finish…This is the space for refining. Defining. Who will you be?“
Now, you’re on that long stretch of road, the one with markers like:
Can I actually do this?
Should I have made that decision?
Why is this so hard?
When will it not feel like this?
I thought this would be different.
Am I doing enough?
Am I doing too much?
The space between when you start and when you finish…
This is the space for refining. Defining.
Who will you be?
“Our lives can feel as if they’re shifting into idle, and in this space emerges idols.“
Putting in the next load of laundry.
Starting another dinner.
Turning in an assignment.
Clocking in.
Dropping the kids off.
Our lives can feel as if they’re shifting into idle, and in this space emerge idols.
These holding patterns, the steady beat of our feet against the pavement of our everyday responsibilities…
The rhythm we’re pounding out becomes the rhythm of our hearts. And out of our hearts, our lives flow.
For longer than I care to admit, I thought of idols only in the sense of the Israelites in the Old Testament, worshiping a golden calf.
This particular calf-idol was born in the space between.
Starting Line: The Red Sea splitting.
Finish Line: The Promised Land awaiting.
But, in between the start and finish, while Moses sat on a mountain, talking with God?
The Israelites grew restless.
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1 NLT)
The Israelites gathered their gold, melted it down and shaped a calf, declaring, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:2 NLT)
Their eyes were no longer set on the Creator.
Their future was now fueled by their creation.
“God knows what leads to sin, what us-made altars we’ll bow to. He knows which things we will attach hope, joy and peace to.”
Just twelve chapters earlier, God had said, “I am the Lord your God…You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2 NLT)
God knows what leads to sin, what us-made altars we’ll bow to.
He knows which things we will attach hope, joy and peace to.
Tim Keller wrote about why the first commandment was first in his book Counterfeit Gods:
“We would not lie unless first we had made something—human approval, reputation, power over others, financial advantage—more important and valuable to our hearts than the grace and favor of God.”
Careful though, the idols we build are rarely constructed intentionally.
We aren’t thinking, “Oh, new day, new idol. What can I give the throne of my heart to today?”
“Idols grow as awareness erodes. In those steady rhythms of the in-between.”
Idols grow as awareness erodes. In those steady rhythms of the in-between.
Schedules fill, milestones marked, relationships built, professional ladders climbed – until we look up and realize these good things have become faux-holy things. Elevated and positioned in our lives to be what we look to for definition and direction.
I wish I would’ve known the ease in which we lay the foundation of our idols with good intentions, slowly adding bricks of Yes’s, mortared with appreciation and admiration.
Keller says our hearts are idol making factories. And he’s not wrong.
After a decade at a job I loved, I saw what I had created: An idol.
I lived on the fringes of God’s work, because my work came first. I was so busy becoming – I lost sight of His Kingdom coming. Putting in the extra hours, sacrificing relationships, apologizing to family for missed dinners…
“What, if removed, leaves you unsure of who you are?”
We’re doing good things, but are those good things defining things?
What, if removed, leaves you unsure of who you are?
Chances are your answer is your idol.
Slay it. Crush it. Demolish it.
Over and over – until only God alone is over all.
You started with your “Yes” to Jesus.
Now, here you are, in the space between – and you’re tired.
It’s okay to loosen your white knuckle grip on those mile markers.
Mile markers hammered into the soil of your soul based on the race someone else is running. Based on the pace this world shouts at us to maintain.
“The way you keep pace in the space between? Let nothing in between you and Him.”
Set your pace with faithfulness, run with open hands.
The One who created those hands can place in them what you really need and remove what really gives you more glory than Him.
The way you keep pace in the space between? Let nothing in between you and Him.
And we do all of this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
A few years ago, Callie Holland met a girl in the Nursing Mother’s Room at church. She was overwhelmed, exhausted and completely unsure of herself as a mother. Callie was let into a corner of this girl’s life and was able to say: We all feel that way. See, no one had told her what she was feeling was normal. No one had told her about all the women before her who had felt exactly what she was feeling. Callie couldn’t stand the thought of one more person slogging through a hard season without someone saying, “You’re not alone.”
She is passionate about creating community spaces to pour into all of those coming behind us, who need to know some seasons are just really stinking hard – but you’re not the first to walk through it. As host of the No One Told Me Podcast and The Collective, Callie has created beautiful and safe places where you can find others who have walked your path before you. Callie and her team of contributors gather and share the stories that shaped them most, in an effort to make those coming behind them feel a little less alone in whatever they’re walking through.
July 16, 2022
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [7.16.2022]
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:
Jacqui Wakelam – Photographer
Jacqui Wakelam – Photographer
Jacqui Wakelam – Photographer
Jacqui Wakelam – Photographer
Jacqui Wakelam – Photographersimply gorgeous! her Dutch Master-inspired work leaves me marveling at creativity and our Creator
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Food and Travel | Canada 🍁 (@foodtraveleisure)
oh, what a beautiful view!
… so I read this one out loud to the Farmer & the kids — and got kinda choked up & it was so much more than the Bambi part….
that we could all keep giving it forward like this. #BeTheGift
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Tracy Wilson Writing Life (@tracy_wilson_writing_life)
love this! *you’re doing good, you’re gonna be okay…*
Looking for the good life? It might be in some surprising places.
this 7-year-old inspiring all of us!
“I love You, Lord
For Your mercy never fails me
All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands…
I will sing, of the goodness of God”
We love, love, LOVE what Mercy House Global is doing!
Empowering and discipling women around the globe to follow Jesus – and every beautiful product they make
is fair-trade & supports these women and this mission.
oh what things could change in our own places & spaces if we all looked for ways to be *radically generous* like this?
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
< happy tears >
sheer joy! it doesn’t get much sweeter than this!
what a way to spend a birthday!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by CAITLYN | TRAVEL WEDDING & ELOPEMENT PHOTOGRAPHER (@okerlundphotoandfilm)
*marriage goals, legacy goals*
Post of the Week from around these parts
What You’ve Got to Know About Nasa Webb Images & God Birthing Stars
When we look to the skies, God doesn’t explain
with answers to all of our whys — instead:
God explodes art
and all the glory of a trillion galaxies of stars.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Ann Voskamp (@annvoskamp)
View this post on InstagramA post shared by DeborahJ.Flora~ADelightfulGlow (@adelightfulglow)
< the way of delight… little wonders that lead to worship >
…when we take time to slow down…oh the glory we may find
talk about being the GIFT!! Just…WOW!
In just two years, he’s fixed up and GIVEN AWAY 64 vehicles to people in need! You’ve got to read this story!
the best tears – we’re all cheering for this sweet one!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Bulldogthings (@bulldog_things214)
maybe we all need a little bit of lighthearted joy this weekend. you too?
On the Book Stack at the Farm
Read Mandy Hale‘s recent guest postWhat Sunflowers Teach Us About Letting Go
Read Jennifer Ford Berry‘s recent guest postWhy More Stuff Won’t Fill an Empty Heart
Read Amy Julia Becker‘s recent guest postWhen the Love Goes Deeper than the Wounds
…sometimes we just need the pause & exhale of seeing God’s good world…
glory, glory, glory!
PICK UP YOUR COPY OF WAYMAKER
PICK UP YOUR COPY OF WAYMAKER**oh this song! let this be our anthem**
“O Christ be magnified
Let His praise arise
Christ be magnified in me“
…there might not be a bone in your body that wants to deal today.
And the kids might be darn grumpy today or you’ll get to church & then
it’s somebody else’s kids falling apart & the pastor’s had a hard week
& he’s winging it a bit & it’s all falling flatter than he’d care to admit.
And you’re straggling in feeling, honestly, a bit disheveled & bruised from a week
that’s got you swinging on the end of a fraying, thin thread of faith alone,
and it doesn’t matter if you’re wearing your brokenness bold for the world to see today,
or if this is the week you, or anybody else, has it all together
& is burying the brokenness under pressed & ironed clothes —
Every single one of us is The Busted who need a space of grace,
every single brave, beautiful one of us is The Busted
who need a space at the table to feast of great platters of grace
& heaping dishes of mercy & brimming pitchers of hope, even for us.
So, let it happen, this swinging open of the doors of the sanctuaries,
this making the Table longer, this laying out a spread of grace —
The Busted who are the Beloved just coming together for a washing of wounds
and a communion of refreshment and endless draughts of great grace.
[y
ou can find this post and other encouragement
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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.
July 15, 2022
When the Love Goes Deeper than the Wounds
When Amy Julia Becker was a kid, she knew the love that comes from approval and performance, the love that comes from accolades and awards. It was a love that left her empty and wounded. It was a fragile love that could be lost at any moment. When her daughter Penny was born and diagnosed with Down syndrome, Amy Julia began to understand love differently. She began to understand what it means when God’s love is bestowed upon us rather than awarded to us. As she describes in her most recent book, To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope, Amy Julia began a journey of healing with Jesus, who invites us all to know the love that runs deeper than all our wounds. It’s a grace to welcome Amy Julia to the farm’s table today. . .
Guest Post by Amy Julia Becker
Sometimes my life as a Christian feels like a series of self-improvement efforts underneath a veneer of spiritual language. After years of spiritual direction and therapy and studying the stories of Jesus’ healings in the gospels, I began to wonder when “self-care” became self-indulgence, whether healing was truly possible, and whether I had the energy for it. I mentioned my weariness to a friend. She smiled and nodded and said, “Well, the only way healing happens is if the love goes deeper than the wound.”
“The only way healing happens is if the love goes deeper than the wound.“
The only way healing happens is if the love goes deeper than the wound.
Her words helped me to see that Jesus isn’t inviting me to more healing because he wants me to work harder. Jesus invites each one of us to more healing because he wants us to know God’s love more deeply. And the way Jesus gives us to know that love and receive that healing is through understanding our inherent belovedness as children of God.
“Jesus is not trying to assert patriarchy or take away God’s other roles—king, judge, Lord, creator. He is simply claiming that the primary way we are to relate to God is as children of a loving father.”
In contrast to the way God is usually named throughout the Jewish Scriptures, Jesus calls God Father. Exclusively. The only way Jesus prays is by calling God Father. In invoking this term, Jesus is not trying to assert patriarchy or take away God’s other roles—king, judge, Lord, creator. He is simply claiming that the primary way we are to relate to God is as children of a loving father.
Jesus instructs his disciples to pray using the words, “Our Father.” Elsewhere, Jesus compares God to a father giving bread to his children. He describes God as a father running to greet his wayward son with great joy. Jesus even calls his disciples “little ones,” as if to emphasize their status as children of God.
As theologian Janet Martin Soskice points out, “God is described as ‘father’ more than 170 times in the New Testament, and is never invoked in prayer by any other title. God is designated ‘father’ only eleven times in the entire Old Testament, and is never invoked as such in prayer.”
When I think of God as a father, I think of us as toddlers learning to walk. Imagine a little one who takes two tottering steps and then falls over. How does a loving mom or dad respond? Her mother doesn’t chastise her for being unsteady on her feet. She doesn’t scowl at the failed effort. She whoops with delight. Her father helps her off the ground. They take a video to commemorate the moment and celebrate.
For years, I called God Father every week at church and in my own prayer time, but I didn’t live with the certainty of that grounding love. I still tried to earn it. Then, after our daughter Penny was born and diagnosed with Down syndrome, I experienced my own deep delight in our child. I knew Penny would not grow up with the same accolades I received as a kid. She would not be valued for her grades or athletic achievements or high earning potential.
“I didn’t need to work to love her. And there was nothing she could ever do to make me love her less.”
Yet every day brought a reminder of her belovedness. Her soft skin, her sparkling eyes, her sweet expressions of care and encouragement for other people, her perseverance, her love for reading—I loved her for all the things that made her who she was. I didn’t need to work to love her. And there was nothing she could ever do to make me love her less.
I began to see that it is this type of love that Jesus wants us to receive when he insists we call God Father.
As I recognized my own deep need to receive God’s healing love, I began to pray with the simple words: God is love. Or, I am loved. Or, Love is patient. Or, I have a loving Father. I did this for many months until one day I had what I think I can call a vision. I saw myself walking toward God, and being invited to climb up into God’s lap like a little child. Before I accepted the invitation, I decided to bring God a few things. I brought my diplomas from college and seminary. I brought our three children. I brought the books I’ve written. When I was done presenting God with my accomplishments, I was ready to climb up.
I had a very clear sense of what God wanted me to understand at that moment. There’s no room for you on top of all these achievements. If you want to know my love, you’ll have to take them away.
And so I took everything away, until God’s lap was empty and I could find a place to rest. To receive God’s embrace. To be the beloved.
“We are all struggling to believe that amid our frailty and sin, we approach a God who rejoices in us.”
I told that story to a friend, and she laughed. “It would never cross my mind to bring God my accomplishments,” she said. “But I can see myself never getting onto his lap, because I insisted that other people go ahead of me. I would miss out on that invitation because I never believed it was really for me.”
We are all like bumbling children taking wobbly steps forward and falling over. We are all struggling to believe that amid our frailty and sin, we approach a God who rejoices in us. But when we begin to live in that love, when our actions flow from that love, when our behavior is transformed by that love, we receive healing. We are restored to ourselves and to God. We, the ones who are called and known as beloved, are then called and equipped to pour that same love out into the world. We become a part of God’s healing work, as we encounter the love that goes deeper than every wound.
Adapted from To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope by Amy Julia Becker. Used by permission of Herald Press. All rights reserved.
Amy Julia Becker is an award-winning writer and speaker on personal, spiritual, and social healing. A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv), she hosts the Love is Stronger Than Fear podcast and is the author of To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope, White Picket Fences, Small Talk, and A Good and Perfect Gift.
In To Be Made Well, Amy Julia Becker weaves together her own story with reflections on biblical accounts of Jesus’ healing work, providing fresh insight into both the nature of healing and the pathway to healing, then and now. This book is a powerful invitation to personal, spiritual, and social healing as we reconnect to our bodies and souls, to God, and to our communities. For anyone struggling with pain or loss, for anyone concerned about the things that divide us, this book goes beyond wellness and beyond miraculous physical transformations to explore how we can—personally and collectively—be made well.
July 13, 2022
What you’ve Got to Know About NASA Webb Images & God Birthing Stars
When we look to the skies, God doesn’t explain
with answers to all of our whys — instead:
God explodes art
and all the glory of a trillion galaxies of stars.
When we pause in awe
over these staggering stellar nurseries where bona fide stars are born,
who can blithely say all this is mindless accident —
rather than this is clearly a cosmos birthed into being?
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
And when we sit stunned with these images of the shimmer
of literal star birth, here in this universe birthed into being,
we know it, that this is a created cosmos,
and because this is a created cosmos,
we must have a Creator.
Now, even us, us who’ve seen only dimly, now we see into the enormous nebula nursery where supercolossal stars are being birthed, see through the glowing dust, see all these inflamed fireworks, see the passionate heart of God exploding with love, birthing baby stars.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Out of the auroral dust, God births newborn stars, and out of the spheral dust, God made us.
Blazing stars, and our beating hearts, are both made of the same dust, both the art of God.
Out of the auroral dust, God births newborn stars, & out of the spheral dust, God made us.
Blazing stars, & our beating hearts, are both made of the same dust, both the art of God.
And in the hands of God, all that’s been ground down into dust can be made to breathe with possibility, can be made to burn with brilliancy. This is a universe of hope.
This is a universe teeming with more than just galaxies, this is a universe teeming with God’s glory.
“We can’t take [an image of] blank sky,” is what James Webb Space Telescope Operations Scientist Jane Rigby said when the NASA released these deepest ever image of space. “Everywhere we look, there’s galaxies everywhere.”
There is not one fraction of an inch in the universe that is blank space, every minute planck of space in the whole of the universe is a canvas for the Maker’s masterpiece. Galaxies everywhere, God’s glory everywhere.
Yet who are we, that He is mindful of us, and who is He that all of us can see the glory of Him?
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
This is more than a Goldilocks universe of all the “just right” properties for life, this is a God-glorious universe of all these rightly-designed properties for life, made by a God who fits just right into the God-sized hole in all our longing hearts.
Know that this universe is no cosmic jackpot. Know that the word cosmos itself means “order, good order, arrangement.” Know that none of this cosmos happened by accident, but by order, by the good order of a good God.
Go ahead: Across the whole of the known universe, stretch out one long, flimsy measuring tape with one marked dash to “represent the acceptable value of the force of gravity” suggests the physicist-philosopher Robin Collins.
And if you shift that one dash, symbolic of the acceptable force of gravity, even but a mere inch — on that tape that spans the expanse of the unfathomable universe — and all that exits everywhere in the universe could no longer exist anywhere in the universe. Let the full gravity of this make God the gravitational centre of your life.
Let your belief in there being a Maker of heavens and earth be unmovable.
Let the soul go ahead and see it: The needed degree of the exact ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force for this universe to even exist — is one part in ten thousand trillion trillion trillion. Let the soul truly see how the odds of this ratio can in no way be any cosmic accident:
Know that there are impossible odds that this universe exists apart from being made by God.
Imagine laying down enough dimes to cover every square inch of the whole of North America, says astrophysicist Hugh Ross — and then on each and every one of those dimes, stack up enough dimes to touch the silvery moon — 238,000 miles high on each and every dime. And then — rinse and repeat for nothing less than one billion silvered North Americas.
And then?
Blindfold yourself, spin yourself around, and reach out, across a billion dimed continents that are dimed right up to the moon — to rightly pick out the one and only dime marked with a red dot. What are the odds? Exactly the same as needed ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force for this universe to even exist: One in ten thousand trillion trillion trillion.
Know that there are impossible odds that this universe exists apart from being made by God.
If, like astrophysicists suggest, more than 322 conditions have to be miraculously met to make a planet like Earth, there is only a 10-304 chance to ever find a planet like ours in all these glorious whirling galaxies.
Which is to say: Even if there are a billion trillion planets across all this lit cosmos, the odds of a planet like ours is, according to the astrophysicists, is one in a million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion.
In all the universe, there is only one word for those kinds of odds:
God.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
So now, even us, us who’ve but seen only dimly, we see how these galaxies, like diaphanous, delicate skeletons, these cosmic bodies, reach toward each other, close to merging, like the whole universe is made for union and communion and connection with souls and God.
Now, now we can see how galaxies spin in this intimate gravitational dance, imitating the intimate, invitational dance of the Trinity.
Now that we see in ways humanity has never, ever seen before, as we dare to unravel more of the cosmic mysteries of the universe and God — dare we see that we can’t afford for this world to unravel anymore with all kinds of global and interior wars —— that we are all tied to each other and glory of stars and the marvel of God?
Ready to intimately know this Maker of heavens & Earth, this WayMaker?
“The great and universal end of God’s creating the world was to communicate Himself. God is a communicative being,” wrote the tried-and-true theologian Jonathan Edwards.
God’s deepest desire is also ours: to be known.
Because God wants to be known by us, He communicates with us, and He communicates through creation around us, through our conscience in us, through Christ with us even now.
All the world’s a seashell, and if you lift it up and really listen —
you can hear the ocean of God.”
July 11, 2022
Why More Stuff Won’t Fill an Empty Heart
True story: For over 20 years, Jennifer Ford Berry has helped people organize their homes and lives. But it’s not just organization for organization’s sake. Jennifer knows that when we have our space, time, energy, and money in order, it makes room for us to discover and pursue our true God-given purpose in life. It’s a grace to welcome Jennifer to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Jennifer Ford Berry
When Desiree was a little girl, she played Barbies in her room constantly. She loved setting up her Barbie dream house with furniture, organizing the clothes, accessories, and handbags in her carrying case, and pushing Barbie around in her convertible. What Desiree loved most was fantasizing about living this kind of life when she was grown up. She couldn’t wait until she was an adult living in her own mansion by the beach, with a closet full of designer clothes and accessories, married to her handsome “Ken” and driving around with the top down.
Though Desiree was only a young girl, she had already been taught by society that possessions were extremely important. They made you feel rich, powerful, and well-liked.
“Our biggest treasure should be our relationship with God.”
In Matthew 6:19 and 21 we read, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.. . . Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
I don’t believe that this passage from Matthew 6 is saying we shouldn’t love anything here on earth, but I do think it is telling us to be careful about what we treasure. We should be cautious of putting too much emphasis on our possessions.
Our biggest treasure should be our relationship with God.
Do you find that your material possessions affect how you feel about yourself and how you live your life? Do you find yourself longing for that trendy handbag, those new sneakers, or the latest cooking appliance that will definitely be the one to make your life easier?
“I want you to know there is a bigger calling for your life than how many things you can accrue.”
I want you to know there is a bigger calling for your life than how many things you can accrue. Yes, we are here to collect—but not clothes, appliances, documents, or money. We are to gather wisdom, memories, positive character traits, ways to do God’s work, love, and so much more. None of which has anything to do with how many things are in our homes.
I have had the experience of emptying countless homes. Clients have hired me to do this for them when a loved one has passed away. I have also done this for both of my grandparents’ homes. It can be very overwhelming. But each time I have done this, the same thoughts go through my head. I imagine how many hours that person worked to obtain their possessions and how many hours they spent cleaning, rearranging, and moving things in and out. And yet even though they gave so much of their lives to these things, here the stuff remains on earth when they are gone.
What is it all for? My sincere prayer is that it was all worth it, and that these material items gave them joy while they lived with them. But in the end, we all leave here empty-handed.
What is in our hearts and how we contribute to making the world a better place are what matter to God. After all, someday all your possessions will be gone, and at that point, what will be left of your time here on earth? How will people remember you?
Trust me, you will not be remembered for how many pairs of shoes you owned. Rather, as the Bible says,
“Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” (Heb. 12:1)
Imagine your home.
Think about the colors of the walls, the layout of the furniture, and the trinkets all around. Now, think about how you feel about your space.
Is your home a true external reflection of who you are on the inside?
Does your mind feel as cluttered as your home looks?
“What are the things you own costing you?”
What are the things you own costing you?
Have you ever realized that everything you own or bring into your home uses up some amount of Space, Time, Energy, and/or Money? Think about it. We only have so much S.T.E.M. in our lives. I think it is super important that we become intentional with how we spend our S.T.E.M.
Here are two ways to assess your relationship with material possessions.
1. Freeze your spending.If you want to get really radical, I recommend trying a spending freeze. A spending freeze means you stop buying nonessentials for a while. It can be very helpful when you are working on getting your home organized. Initially, it will make your life easier, because buying more adds to the work! It will also reboot your mind so you can start viewing your possessions differently.
If you are feeling extra overwhelmed by clutter, the best thing you can do is get organized and reduce the number of items in your home.
2. Engage your marketing awareness.“We will always want more and more, because true contentment only comes from a personal relationship with our Creator.”
Did you know that we see about five thousand marketing messages per day? The purpose of these messages is to get us to want more and think we need more. The people behind these messages know how to do this well. It is crucial that we become aware of how these messages affect us. Most of them are lies: we don’t need more. Most products will not improve our lives.
Many times, our desire for more or better possessions is really a longing to fill an empty place inside of us. We can work hard to gather more and more stuff, but without God as the center of our lives, we will never stay satisfied.
We will always want more and more — because true contentment only comes from a personal relationship with our Creator.
More and more stuff arrives at our homes all the time, and it takes up an incredible amount of our space, time, energy, and money.
Certified professional organizer and bestselling author Jennifer Ford Berry says that instead of living for our stuff, true joy is found in knowing and living out our purpose. In Make Room: Take Control of Your Space, Time, Energy, and Money to Live on Purpose, Berry shows you how to have a more meaningful and intentional life by defining your purpose, planning your time, decluttering your home, and much more.
If you long to get rid of what distracts you from living out your God-given calling, Make Room is your roadmap to success, offering principles to recognize and eliminate anything that is cluttering up your life.
[ Our humble thanks to Baker Publishing for their partnership in today’s devotion. ]
July 9, 2022
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [7.9.2022]
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:
Andrew McCarthy – Photographer
Andrew McCarthy – Photographer
Andrew McCarthy- Photographer
Andrew McCarthy – Photographer
Andrew McCarthy – Photographerwow-magnified shots like this simply magnify HIM!…
oh yeah, a great way for us all to start the weekend! 6 Bible verses to help you rest this summer
This! When a community’s bent on doing good and helping neighbors in tough times.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Gospelmetrics (@gospelmetrics)
this well-earned wisdom right here!
oh these words!
“Even when I doubt Your truth holds
Even when I’m lost You won’t let me go
When my heart is dry Your grace flows
No matter where I run, I’m not far from home”
Just had to share this beautiful (FREE!!) opportunity to discover the spiritual practice of breath prayer:
the 5-Day Breath Prayer Challenge: a FREE email series
ease your anxiety while strengthening your faith
Give breath prayers a try for 5 days and see how they can improve your mental and spiritual health by helping to calm the physical symptoms of anxiety while turning your mind toward Christ through prayer.
Learn more & Sign Up Today!Post of the Week from around these parts
Dear Me: Lines to the Person I Want To BeDear Me,
Lines to the person I want to be… just a few jotted down lifelines to the me I long to be:
Rise gently, to everything rise gently.
The sun knows how to rise — follow its lead.
Even if it feels like nothing is turning out as you ultimately hoped,
He who is Hope Himself is turning things around for your ultimate good.
And will you join us?
What lines would YOU write to the person you want to be?
“Dear Me, Lines to the Person I Want To Be”…from friends around the globe
“You did it.
You finally embraced yourself for who you are.
No more doubts.
Insecurities bashed.
Redeemed the hours wasted, thinking about all the things you weren’t.
Finally, fully walking into all that you are.“
Read Shelly’s full post
Read Emilee’s full post“You are worried about so many things when only one thing really matters.
I want you to make beds, make resources that nourish hearts, make love, make spaces that echo the love of God. I want you to give your money to help translate the Word for those who don’t yet know. I want you to take a younger woman in the faith and adopt her as your own…”
“Compassion. Love. Hope.
My fingers press against the words lettered in the journal in my lap.
Why is it so much easier to heap condemnation, critique, and criticism on my heart, my mind, myself?
And in so doing, really, I’m mired in myself. I may not admire myself, but self-absorption shows up in a myriad of ways.”
Read Deborah’s full post
Read Anna’s full post“Be still.
In every season of life, you will find that your world ebbs and flows with chaos. And in your day-to-day–the wax and wane, the same old same–you will find yourself lost in the abyss of “one day.”
So be still.“
“Like brush strokes on a canvas,
mark upon mark, bringing a picture into focus,
I will be a woman marked by the beauty of Christ,
Always shaping more to His ways.
Habits, humility, wonder, gratitude.
Mark upon mark.”
Read Katy Rose’s full post
Read Sharonda’s full post“Be kind and grant grace…to yourself, to your loved ones and to others.
Give in to the nudges from the Holy Spirit and answer the call God has given.
When you don’t feel like you are enough, lean into God’s grace and love so you can endure through seasons of the unknown.”
“Slowly sip and savor the coffee in the light of each new morning
Lay awake with the windows open, stilling your heart and mind
Listen to the sounds
Feel the breeze
See the glory in every sunrise—for not one is the same“
Read Sarah’s full post
Read Allison’s full post“When you need a formula: bless…press on…speak kindly (1 Corinthians 4).
In love, let the record go.
Long to hear His thoughts, to understand and believe them, to live them. Because when life is uncertain and askew and untold, you’re held together by what’s at your center. Tending to your soul-center is your life’s greatest calling.”
“These truly are the days.
Each day swelling with hard and maxing capacity. But also with holy and smiles and joy if we’ll just train our eyes to see.
These are the days. Don’t miss a single one...”
Read Amy’s full postWhat lines would you write to the person you want to be?
We would truly *LOVE* if you wrote and shared your “Dear Me” letter!
Tag us @annvoskamp on Instagram or Facebook, and hashtag #dearmeletter so we can see and share your beautiful words, too!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Upworthy (@upworthy)
oh my! just a bit of pure joy for this sweet girl
this reflection on Sabbath will get you out of bed on Sunday. *Simply beautiful.*
View this profile on InstagramUpcycler and Salvage Hunter – Ireland ☘️ (@sixat21) • Instagram photos and videos
ooh! this Irish home is upcycler heaven! not to mention the beauty – just wow!
what this man does at 100! it’s always better to give than receive
< wow! how these boys spring into action-say Jesus was with them? tears >
“It’s okay if you’re not okay”
a beautiful reminder: you’re never far from hope
On the Book Stack at the Farm
Read Brittany Salmon‘s recent postWhen It Takes More Than Love
Read Timothy Willard‘s recent postOf Dragon’s and Beauty
Read Dan Wilt‘s recent postHow to Have the Real Freedom of a Life of Prayer
Come with us over The Alps? Can’t you just see God in every detail here? Truly glorious.
For Our Tender places, For our Hard Stories, For All of Us looking for More than a Way Through, but a New way to actually Be, a New way of Life
PICK UP YOUR COPY OF WAYMAKER
PICK UP YOUR COPY OF WAYMAKER*Would You Come Join Us?*It’s not too late to come Join our Community on the Wayas we continue a 6-Week WayMaker Online Bible Study
Signing up for the Online Bible Study is FREE!your sign up includes:FREE access to the exclusive Facebook Group – a whole community, led by our friends at Faith Gateway, to walk through the SACRED Way together June 13 – July 30FREE access to all 6 Bible Study Sessions with Ann (emailed to you weekly)FREE PDF download of Session One from the Study GuideFREE Wayfarer’s Compass printable: a daily guide to the SACRED Way of lifeFREE lettered quotes to printJoin the Free Online Bible Study & Get Your Free Gifts!this song is just the reminder we need this weekend…
“You’re still my First Love,
You’re still my only One”
…so this is what we’re doing here today:
simply being grateful for that one small thing…
& one more small thing…
& one more small thing —
just taking back ground one grateful step at a time
till the battle is WON.
*Gratitude wins our wars.*
Because gratitude isn’t only a celebration
when good things happen;
Gratitude’s a declaration that God is good
*no matter what happens.*
Today, listen to your absurdly glorious life.
Listen to the holy heart of your one sacred life.
You need to take time to listen to your life —
so you can make the life you need.
Life’s not about growing in status—
it’s always about growing your soul.
Be small and love large:
because getting to be present
to love your people’s hearts is a great gift.
Let’s be still long enough to drink down all this ordinary glory
and hear your heart keep beating how *all is grace*.
[y
ou can find this post and other encouragement
in our
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community … will you come join us?]
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.
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