Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 48
July 8, 2022
What Sunflowers Teach Us about Letting Go
It can be easy when we find ourselves on the other side of lost love to also feel a little lost, ourselves. When a relationship died in Mandy Hale’s life a few years ago, she felt God urging her toward new life in a very visceral way. And as she watched the dirt to the work to the garden she planted, she felt God do an even greater work in her soul. It’s a grace to welcome Mandy to the farm’s table today…
After a difficult breakup, I knew I had also lost pieces of myself to my relationship, and I was desperate to reclaim them. I had forgotten that I determined my worth…not any man, or anyone (other than God). I had forgotten, as the old poem says, how to plant my own garden and decorate my own soul. And I was determined to remember how, in a very literal way.
I felt like I needed to create something, and to watch something be birthed from the difficult season I had just come through. I wanted to dig my fingers into the dirt and plant things, and watch new life spring up from the desolation of my still-fractured heart.
I decided to grow my own little garden, and I recruited my dad to help me.
After a day of scouting out garden centers, I had the makings of my mini-garden: a tomato plant, a bell pepper plant, and sunflower seeds. And with each little seed that my dad and I planted that day, I whispered a fervent prayer that someday soon, they would sprout…bringing beauty and hope and light with them. It felt almost symbolic to me.
If I could get these plants to grow, then surely I could resurrect my own independence and confidence and sense of self-worth.
“There’s something very visceral and restorative about literally getting your hands dirty to create something new that wasn’t there before.”
Over the coming weeks as I diligently watered my little plants and searched every day for new signs of life, tending to my balcony garden helped me work through my grief and heartbreak and resulting anxiety.
There’s something very visceral and restorative about literally getting your hands dirty to create something new that wasn’t there before.
And as I worked, God continued to place this scripture on my heart. He seemed to, time and again, keep bringing me back to this point:
“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” John 12:24 (MSG)
I was still trying to make sense of the things God was laying on my heart…but as I gazed upon my little sprouts one lovely spring day, it hit me that just a few days earlier, those sprouts were just seeds, tossed into dirt and buried on a wing and a prayer that something good would come of them.
“the darkness and the dirt was only the beginning of the story for those seeds…not the end.”
Buried in darkness and then forgotten. To the outside eye, that pot of dirt would have looked lifeless, hopeless, even a little sad. But the darkness and the dirt was only the beginning of the story for those seeds…not the end.
Something about lovingly tending to my garden was teaching me how to lovingly tend to my own heart. It was time to stop camping out in the safe WHAT IF of former love and live fully in the glorious unknown of the WHAT IS. And in what was still to come! It was time let the past die, and to let that failed relationship go. To even let my hopes for marriage go, knowing that if it was something God truly wanted for me (and I believed it was), the only way to bring it to life was to let it die, once and for all.
The only way to gain your life is by losing it. The first will be last. Die in order to live. Let go to hold on. Release WHAT IF and embrace WHAT IS. It’s all completely backwards to what the world teaches, but nobody ever accused Jesus of being a conformist. And that’s just one of the many reasons why I love Him so.
A couple of weeks later, my little seeds that I had buried in dirt began to spring. First it was the tomatoes, then the peppers…and I hoped soon, the sunflowers.
One day a couple of months later, when I was on vacation with my family…I received the most unexpected picture from my housemate.
My sweet little sunflower had BLOOMED! There it was, like a great big ball of sunshine, waving joyfully in the breeze.
By the time I got home from the beach and raced out to check on my garden, my sunflower plant had two blooms instead of one. Those stubborn little sunflowers would go on to stretch high into the sky, reaching boldly for the sun and bringing a smile to my face every time I saw them.
“Perhaps sunflowers really do hold the secret of life: Be patient, and turn toward the sun.”
Watching my little sunflower sprouts grow and change as I myself was growing and changing was such a beautiful thing. I loved how they were always turned toward the sun. Perhaps sunflowers really do hold the secret of life: Be patient, and turn toward the sun.
I learned so many lessons from that little sunflower. It taught me to trust that even in the darkest times, the light never leaves us.
It taught me that sometimes all you can do is all you can do…and then let it go.
It taught me that the biggest growth tends to happen when we just let all the many WHAT IF’s of life be and exist wholly and simply in the WHAT IS.
And it taught me that letting go and moving on looks impossible at the beginning, messy in the middle, and absolutely gloriously beautiful at the end.
Mandy Hale is a blogger turned New York Times bestselling author and speaker. Creator of the social media movement The Single Woman, Mandy cuts to the heart of single life with her inspirational, straight-talking, witty takes on life and love.
If recent world events have taught us anything, it’s that life doesn’t always look the way we want it to look. And while we can’t control the curveballs life throws at us, we can control our response to them. We can choose to loosen our grip on what we think life is “supposed” to be and embrace life for exactly what it is–messiness and mayhem and all. We can choose to stubbornly turn toward the sun, even as the storm rages around us.
If you’ve felt depleted or despairing as you’ve wrestled with circumstances beyond your control, Mandy Hale’s Turn Toward the Sun: Releasing What If and Embracing What Is will be a trustworthy guide through the storm.
[ Our humble thanks to Revell for their partnership in today’s devotion. ]
July 6, 2022
Dear Me: Lines to the Person I Want To Be
Dear 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.
Write it down somewhere and lean into, live into, the change of this:
Eye the good. And you’ll expand the good.
Focus on what’s failing — and you’ll grow a rash of failures.
Steam in sunlight — the steam of oatmeal, or coffee, or all things piping hot — is like a soul exhale. Take the time to do this often.
You get to linger. You are a living, holy soul, not a spiritless appliance. Beloved, you get to be loved into being whole.
“Gazing on glory is gloriously healing.”
Get up to watch a sunrise now and then — it’s worth it. Glory is always yours to witness. Life is too short to not choose awe. Choose awe and you choose one awesome way to heal.
Gazing on glory is gloriously healing.
Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Welcoming joy is your choice. Choose well.
Eat ice cream. It’s summer — and it melts away faster than anything in a cone.
Believe that change is possible.
Believe that grace works.
Believe that today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Don’t give up — just give everything up to Him.
“Don’t give up — just give everything up to Him.“
Turn the worship up louder to force the worries to be quieter.
Consistently be consistent. Grittiness decides successfulness. And faithfulness is another way to say grittiness. Grittiness and faithfulness is successfulness.
Befriend endurance — if you ever want to know abundance. Stop looking for comfort in a zone instead of in the Holy Spirit. Move out of your comfort zone once a day — and watch the Holy Spirit comfort you in the very places that you once thought impossible.
“Do the hard things you don’t want to do — they are holy things that get where you want to be the most.“
Do the hard things you don’t want to do — they are holy things that get where you want to be the most.
Always, always, always: Stay in the Story.
Live in His Story, breathe His Story, reflect on His Story, let His Story shape yours, share His story, let your story be His.
And read stories — to little people, to old people, to someone — read words out loud and sit in the shared space of a bit of wonder.
Skip more of the news this week and sit with more of the Good News. Your soul needs this kind of exhale.
Drink water. Especially the Living kind. Thirst more for Him than anything else.
This is hard but healing:
Forgive to give freedom.
Forgive to give yourself the key out, forgive to give what you’ve been given.
Forgive to give what you will need to get a thousand times so you can get to go on.
“Love is a verb and that verb is give.
You’ve been given so much — so how can you not live given?”
Love gives. So live given.
Love is a verb and that verb is give.
You’ve been given so much — so how can you not live given?
Give thanks and live given — this is how you get joy.
People love attention more than anything else.
So give attention more than anything else.
Lavishly give attention.
Pay attention — spend everything on attention — and you will have the best things that money can’t buy.
And when you want what isn’t happening — want grace more.
The grace that washes wounds,
the grace that carries you,
the grace that always carries you forward,
that carries you to better things around the next bend,
the grace that makes you brave.
The grace that covers all the things you didn’t do,
and makes all things into the right you hoped things to be.
Want His arms more than wanting what isn’t.
Rise gently and set gratefully — settle everything with relentless gratefulness.
Like the sun gives itself in a freeing surrender to the ways of God.
– Love me,
Your Ann-girl
Dear Me — lines to the person I want to be….So… we wanted to hear from you all & invited more journallers and women of the Word and words to our farm table to join in writing their own letters to themselves, lifelines to the person they long to be. A small collection of those letters is included below and we’ve saved a chair just for you, to pull in and share too! We’d love to hear from you and your own journal and your own “Dear Me” letter to the person you long to be. Share your letter on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #DearMeLetter #SummerOfJournalling and tag @annvoskamp, so we can share your words and be encouraged and inspired together!
Allison ByxbeDear me,
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.
Nourish your life on this present moment, for it’s the richest, realest gift you have. Press into this given moment and celebrate the beauty right here, right now.
In a world perpetually tired and tiring, rest your heart in Jesus.
Always slow down on Sundays. Slowing down is never a mistake because it helps you pay attention to His heart. And what you pay attention to is what you mostly give your heart to.
You are not yet who you ought to be, but in Him, you are becoming. When insecurities rise, let Grace rise higher.
Life is not a problem to be solved or a crisis to manage through a white-knuckled death grip. Life is a gift to be lived in His good grip.
God is taking your messes, your dying hopes, your washed-out wishes and making you GOOD.
“Revision isn’t just a writing hack; it’s a life-saving skill. Re-vision is re-seeing. And Grace is the master revisioner.”
You might feel like you’re cracking wide open–and you are–but it’s Grace Himself cracking open deep wells of Life within you.
Revision isn’t just a writing hack; it’s a life-saving skill. Re-vision is re-seeing. And Grace is the master revisioner.
Death gives way to rebirth, and then rebirth gives way to life, and life gives way to hope. And in surrendering, you will rise again. Instead of silver linings and white-washed platitudes, He is pointing you to resurrection.
Your grief is not lost on God. Press into the story to see Jesus. Then tell the whole world the story because in telling, there is healing.
God is authoring your story…and it is good because He is (Psalm 116:7).
In Him, in His goodness, in His completeness, be fully satisfied.
When in doubt, write it out. Read the Word. Pen the Word. Write your heart back to the Word.
– Allison
Sharonda CawthonDear Me,
Lifelines to the me I want to be…
Be kind and grant grace…to yourself, to your loved ones and to others.
Give in to the nudges from 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.
“Trust God’s way more than your own. He holds every second of the ordinary and extraordinary in His hands.”
Forgive easily and let go of the grudges that taint your heart.
Trust God’s way more than your own. He holds every second of the ordinary and extraordinary in His hands.
Celebrate every accomplishment, every milestone and every blessing.
Know that there is nothing you can do to cause God to love you more or less than He ever has or ever will.
Don’t allow fear and doubt to cloud your faith in God’s promises for you, for your family or for others.
Enjoy every small moment, big moment…just all the moments. Those moments make memories!
– Sharonda
Sarah KochDear Me,
Lifelines to the me I want to be—who I am growing to be:
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.
Pray. Never miss praying.
Pray relentlessly, unceasingly, passionately, sweetly, authentically.
Putting on a façade for the Father is never going to work. He knows you—from the deepest, darkest, and most hurt crevasse of your soul, to the highest peak of your war-torn heart—He knows you and still died for you.
Trust His love, His lead, and His guide.
It is a holy and glorious gift to believe in the God of the Bible.
It is good to remember a life given to Jesus will be led by Jesus—even in the unmerited miraculous.
Surround your days in the Word. Feed your body with the Bread of Life.
No greater sustenance is attained in this life.
“You don’t have to match the volume of the rhetoric to matter.”
It doesn’t make you less of a Christian to be the quiet voice whispering raw truths of the Word in the space of the world’s pause—when it must breathe amidst the screams.
You don’t have to match the volume of the rhetoric to matter.
Savor time with your blessings…
Play.
Laugh.
Never let a day go by without saying “I love you.”
These sweet little ones are the arrows in your quiver you’ve been called to form and shape with the Truth. Life isn’t less because it is simply and fully devoted to them—it is full and worthy because of it.
Sanctification happens on the journey. Don’t ever miss that. Don’t ever wish it away. Don’t ever covet someone’s perceived “ease” because God chose you to walk a unique “hard.”
Sing. Always sing. It is a gift God has given, taken, and restored ten-fold. May you never stop singing for the One whom your song was created for.
See the breath of God in the creation around you. Notice Him magnified through each wave crashing, every tree rustling, and each whisper of morning snow as it finds rest on earth. It was all created by Him and for Him—SEE it through what your finite eye can behold.
Offer the words of your fallow heart and soul on every page. In the offering, He is faithful to till the dust of which you have been created so seeds of Him may be sown deeply into the richness of all you’ve become.
Bake the cookies. Eat every single one.
Wear your linen overalls.
Play in the rain with your girls.
Be wild with the earth.
Paint without talent.
Write without audience.
Bake without recipe.
Create forever.
Never stop living—truly living.
For you have been given this one life, and He is faithful to see His promises to completion.
– Sarah
Your turn! Pulling in real close, and finding your eyes, and goodness, we’d all love to hear lines from your journal and your own “Dear Me” letter to the person you long to be. Yep, just go ahead and share your letter on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #DearMeLetter #SummerOfJournalling and tag @annvoskamp, so we can share your lifelines of words to your own soul– this is our summer of journaling to preach goodness and hope to our own souls — and be encouraged and inspired together!
July 4, 2022
How to Have the Real Freedom of a Life of Prayer
When someone writes a book that is so profoundly rooted in the life-giving words of the Word Himself, I linger long. Dan Wilt’s book, “Sheltering Mercy | Prayers Inspired by the Psalms” — has become a companion for me during my morning coffee. A doctoral candidate at Asbury Theological Seminary, Dan draws from the breadth of the Church to explore finding our identity in the love of God, following the way of Jesus, worship, the Spirit-filled life, and creativity. It’s a humble joy to invite the tender wisdom of my friend Dan to our farm table…
There are secret places I go to pray—places close by, and dear to my heart.
In the first, I sit by a silver, flowing river. It is springtime. The music of nature rustles in the air, and a tree—flourishing on the bank, its branches thick and heavy with fruit—grows wide and lush. I am in the company of saints, the Scriptures opened carefully on my lap, and I am aware of—keenly present to—One watching over my way on the journey.
In the second, a warm, kind wind dances across a plain of swaying grass on a starry night. My eyes are lifted upward, the Milky Way splitting big sky like a mist made of trillions of tiny flecks of light. Beneath it, the earth is at play; as morning breaks, thousands of creatures teem in the ocean depths while others leap and spin over open waters and spirited rapids. Horses nicker, cows low—and I am the object of Supreme Love.
“When we pray the Psalms, we realize they were never meant to be read—they were meant to be inhabited.”
In the third, I kneel outside a magnificent, artful cathedral. I am bowed hard in lament at the doorway, weeping and grieving heavy losses, full of envy, knowing the loose lipped prosper in the streets. I am close to failing, falling, faithlessly walking away—when the door opens. I am lifted to my feet by a hand unseen and walk into the radiant sanctuary. I begin to sing, and the song opens my eyes—I smile with hope, and God strengthens my heart once again.
I hope you recognize Psalm 1, Psalm 8, and Psalm 73. When we pray the Psalms, we realize they were never meant to be read—they were meant to be inhabited.
Inhabiting the Psalms in PrayerA few years ago, a dear friend and partner in prayer asked me if I wanted to join him in praying the Psalms.
With almost 40 years of loving the Psalms behind me, I have come to realize that these astounding gifts from the Creator are thickly layered truth, truth soaked in thousands of years of covenant story, truth that gives voice to our brightest joys, deepest laments, faithful confidences, and blossoming songs.
“To inhabit a Psalm is to linger in its words, to allow its covenant promises to infuse our own words, bodies, and emotions with Hope.”
To inhabit a Psalm is to linger in its words, to allow its covenant promises to infuse our own words, bodies, and emotions with Hope. Over a three-year period, what began as a devotional exercise between friends became a true and holy habitation for prayer, a long lingering in the presence of Jesus and the prayer book of his people.
As a painter stumbling on a beautiful vista gathers her paints and responds to the landscape in impressionistic art, so we proceeded to respond to each of the first 75 psalms in written prayers. As we prayed, hundreds of other Scriptures came forward to provide melodic and harmonic elements in the symphony of prayers we found ourselves writing.
The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms, a collection of prayers inspired by Psalms 1-75.
“Yes, the praise we find in the Psalms is often joyful. Exuberant. A tune fit for dancing. But there is praise of another sort—the praise of the forgotten. The destitute. The fearful. The guilty. For these, praise often looks like utter desperation. Immobilizing panic. Fury. Trembling lips and a stuttering heart. The Psalms pull no punches. …The God we serve—the One who is relentlessly present with us, even when He seems as distant as the peace we long for—is with us both in triumphant victory and in crushing defeat. In consolation and in desolation. In darkness and in light. In weeping and in rejoicing. In death and in life.”
The following prayer is the first in Sheltering Mercy and is a response to the beauty of Psalm 1.
River Tree
(Psalm 1)
Lord,
Your presence is life to me:
joy of my heart;
strength of my soul.
Grant me the grace to walk in Your ways;
to cherish Your friendship
over the fellowship of the fallen,
soul-shaped as I am by the company I keep—
pressed and formed,
for good or for ill.
I refuse to march with those who mock Your mercy;
who revel in the unraveling of sacred things.
They stumble down trackless wastes,
training others in the ways of their wandering.
But You will be my delight, Lord;
Your Word my mirth and meal—
and I like an oak,
drawing strength from fertile soil,
growing in grace,
safe in the circumference of Your mercy.
So I will flourish,
a river tree drinking from the deep—
fruit heavy on my branches;
leaves thrumming with life.
Though seasons shift around me,
I will stand.
The godless are lifeless:
withered stalks,
bent by the wind;
such are those who shun Your mercy.
They forfeit seats at Your table,
refusing Your wedding garments;
choosing nakedness over grace.
I won’t be counted among them—
not while Your River rushes for my good.
Lead me, Lord,
strength upon strength,
that at the end of my days I may look back
and wonder at the manifold mercy of God.
(Excerpted from Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms
by Ryan Whitaker Smith and Dan Wilt)
Inhabit a Psalm This WeekIf praying the Psalms is new to you, try choosing one psalm this week (perhaps a favorite), and linger in it, taking the time to enter its words and to allow its words to enter your heart.
In the spirit of the ancient prayer practice of lectio divina (“divine reading”) repeat one phrase from that psalm that moves you, slowly, two or three times, welcoming the Spirit to speak to you through its words.
Then begin to pray, in written or verbal form, the revelation stirring in your heart.
Praying the Psalms can help us become like Jesus on the path to life (Ps. 16:11); our Lord’s own words were woven through with their themes and elements—even as he knew he was the Light toward which they were pointing.
May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit meet with you as you pray with the Psalms.
Dan Wilt is a speaker, educator, writer, and musician who teaches on worship and spiritual formation through DanWilt.com. He has served as a pastor and encourager of creative leaders and has written several books, including Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms and A Well-Worn Path. Dan lives with his wife Anita outside of Nashville, Tennessee, and they have three remarkable adult children.
Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms, co-authored by Ryan Whitaker Smith and Dan Wilt, is a new prayer book from Brazos Press that helps us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. This book contains 75 prayers drawn from Psalms 1-75, providing lyrical sketches of what the authors have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning in the Psalms.
This artful, poetic, and classic devotional book features compelling custom illustrations and offers a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms.
July 2, 2022
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [7.2.2022]
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:
Marcin Zajac – Photographer
Marcin Zajac – Photographer
Marcin Zajac – Photographer
Marcin Zajac – Photographer
Marcin Zajac – Photographerwow – just pausing… truly lingering here for a moment to take in the glory of His creation…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jacob Coyne (@jacobcoyne)
what a powerful way to start the weekend!
Radical hope? In times like these? I lingered long with the expanse of this one.
“We need hope to live virtuously, to act with courage and patience;
we need hope to act at all. To survive, people must find another root of hope.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Morgan Harper Nichols (@morganharpernichols)
Morgan Harper Nichols just gets it! What our hearts need to hear…
cue the tears for this dream come true!
This song! YES, take it all to JESUS!
“Pack all your pieces, broken and bleeding,
all of your grief and doubt…
I know a place we could go right now…”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Katy Rose (@katyrosecollection)
oh my! THIS!
“Our master Creator allows us and compels us to create, and bonus, it actually helps heal us.”
The Keeping Company…Always in love with the beautiful heirloom pieces from The Keeping Company, with resources to help the soul keep company with Jesus, where their hope is “to provide beautiful handcrafted gifts for your home
while also providing God’s hope to those who have little”.
Don’t leave the internet today without reading this one, seriously.
Ukraine. Jesus. Real love.
THIS will change you — this is walking in the way of Jesus. Unforgettable.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Hope Rises Network (@hoperisesnetwork)
oh my – choked up for this one!
How do we all “rediscover the goodness of smallness and particularity”?
Because… “if we do not, we are in danger of trading depth for shallowness and discipleship for spectacle.”
Beautiful & powerful.
< all the smiles for this sweet one! >
Want to find more time to regularly read?
“Since becoming a parent, I have sought—haltingly, imperfectly—
to practice ritualistic reading in my own daily routine.”
*Dare you to read this one & not be truly inspired to try this to read more this weekend!*
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Amy Wiersma (@amycwiersma)
*goodness, sometimes we all just need the goodness of a reminder like this *
Who doesn’t want a healthier brain?!
*plus fun pictures from all around this big, beautiful world*
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Golden Retriever Puppies (@doggfeed_)
< the cutest roadtrippers you’ll ever see! >
how these amazing boys jump into action? *inspiring!*
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Memes (@kalesalad)
what if we all chose to cheer on others like this? :)
Unwind to the sound of waves and take in this beautiful sunset…
or better yet close your eyes + give your worries to the One who created the sun and the sea.
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!oh this reminder! He will *never ever* fail us
“When everything around me is shaken
I’ve never been more glad
That I put my faith in Jesus
‘Cause He’s never let me down
He’s faithful through generations
So why would He fail now?
He won’t”
…so here’s the thing:
Every single person around you, everyone you meet,
everyone you cross paths with today, every single one
is fighting their own hard fires —
so what if all decided to just be real gentle
with one another today?
What if we could say it together, like one Body,
say it all together to each other because there is not even one of us
who hasn’t lost something,
who doesn’t fear something,
who doesn’t ache with something.
So what if we turn to the hurting, to each other,
and promise it till we’re hoarse:
“We won’t give you some cliche —
but something to cling to —
and that will mean our hands.
We won’t give you some platitudes —
but some place for your pain —
and that will mean our time.
We won’t give you some excuses —
but we’ll be some example —
and that will mean bending down and washing your wounds.
Wounds that we don’t understand,
wounds that keep festering,
that don’t heal, that down right stink —
wounds that can never make us turn away.
Because we are the Body of the Wounded Healer
and we are the people who believe the impossible —
that wounds can be openings to the beauty in us.”
Let’s be the brave and speak up, speak the Truth and Love:
Shame is a bully and Grace is a shield.
You are safe here.
Write it on walls and on arms and right across wounds:
“No Shame.
No Fear.
No Hiding.
Always safe for the suffering here.
You can be different and you can struggle
and you can wrestle and you can hurt
and we will be here.
Because a fallen world keeps falling apart
and even though we the Body can’t make things turn out —
we can turn up.
Just keep turning up, showing up, looking up.”
If we only knew what fire every person is facing —
there isn’t one person we wouldn’t help fight
their fire with the heat of a greater love.
[y
ou can find this post and other encouragement
in our
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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.
March 22, 2022
When It’s Hard to be Patient as a Parent
Patience is hard for all of us, especially parents. Christina Fox, author of Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why That Matters for Our Parenting, shares her own impatient heart and how remembering how patient the Father is toward her changed how she saw her children’s growth and maturity. Our Father is a patient Gardener as he tends to our hearts. What if we reflected Him in our parenting? It’s a grace to welcome Christina Fox to the farm’s front porch today . . .
When you first have a child, friends and family often share stories of their own parenting experiences. They also give advice about everything from favorite gadgets and toys to the best way to get a baby to sleep through the night.
One piece of advice I heard from multiple parents was, “Enjoy every moment because it goes by so fast.” They likely looked down at my son snug in his car carrier and remembered when their children were small enough to carry around—children who had since grown up and left home.
A Mother’s Impatient Heart
“Soon enough, I found myself passing on the same wisdom once shared with me, having learned the hard way that time does pass all too quickly”
While I listened to their advice, I wasn’t so quick to follow it. I was impatient for my boys to grow. Instead of enjoying the current stage they were in, I looked forward to the next. I kept thinking, “I can’t wait until he sleeps through the night. Then we all can get some sleep too.” “I can’t wait until he can walk on his own, so I don’t have to carry him.” “I can’t wait until he can talk . . . is potty-trained . . . can ride a bike . . . can drive a car.”
Soon enough, I found myself passing on the same wisdom once shared with me, having learned the hard way that time does pass all too quickly.
But my impatience went further than just wanting to push fast-forward on the passage of time. I was also impatient with my children’s unique idiosyncrasies; the way they insisted on things being a certain way; their constant energy and curiosity; their resistance to change. I was also impatient with their behavior. I grew irritated when I had to repeat the same instruction or teach the same lesson. I found myself saying, “How many times do I have to tell you to . . .?” I responded in frustration over normal childish behavior—excessive excitement, mishaps, and general forgetfulness. As a result, one of my most fervent prayers was for patience. (Incidentally, it’s been a prayer I’ve heard my own children pray for me!)
Our Father, A Patient Gardener
Over the years of parenting, I kept coming back to my own impatience, looking at it from different angles and dissecting it. I wanted to be more patient, but it seemed so hard and I started to wonder if maybe I just wasn’t capable of it. As my children grew into the preteen years, the Lord gently reminded me of my own preteen years. Like Dickens’ tale, I revisited my past and saw how the Lord was patient with me throughout my life. I started to see the slow process of sanctification in my life—the starts and stops, the lessons learned and repeated, and how the Lord was longsuffering with me in that process.
One year in homeschooling, my children and I did a study on botany. We did an experiment with seeds, wrapping them in a wet paper towel and placing them in a few different plastic bags. We then placed those bags in various places around the house to see where the seeds thrived most. No surprise, they did not do well when placed at the top of the schoolroom closet! During that year, we studied all kinds of plants, learned how they grew, and observed various plants throughout the growth process.
When we consider all that takes place in the life of a plant—from the seed planted in the ground to the harvest of fruit—it is a long process. The plant’s growth does not happen overnight. There are many days of quiet underground before the first shoot makes an appearance. This infant plant must continue to grow before it is ready to bear fruit. How true this is of our own heart and that of our children!
God is like a patient gardener, tending the garden of our hearts and waiting for the harvest. He tills the soil of our heart. He plants seeds of faith in us and nourishes us with His Word. He watches over us with love and care. He doesn’t rush the process, knowing that our growth takes time. He prunes and trims away what doesn’t belong. He protects us from evil pests that threaten our growth. He doesn’t leave us on our own; He keeps us in the vine through all the storms of life. He finishes what He starts in us and ensures we bear the fruit of righteousness.
Be Patient as Your Father is Patient with You
“As God’s image bearers, we reflect the patience He has for us to our children.”
As God’s image bearers, we reflect the patience He has for us to our children. We are patient at each stage in our child’s development, not expecting more of them than they are capable and not expecting them to master something right away. Just because they are physically capable of picking up their toys, it doesn’t mean they are emotionally or mentally mature enough to know the right timing in doing so or even the best organizational methods to do so. There are tasks we will need to do with them over and over before they are mastered. It also means we don’t respond with anger or sarcasm when they stumble, make a mistake, or forget something they already know.
A person’s brain hasn’t finished developing until they are in their early twenties. This means we can’t expect our children to think, behave, and respond as an adult would until that time. This can be frustrating in the teenage years when our children appear mature on the outside. They may stand a foot taller than we do and look like a young adult, but their brain is still growing and maturing. We can’t be surprised by teens who make impulsive decisions or who lose track of time or who need to be reminded about things. They need patient parents who walk alongside them, teaching—then re-teaching—how to navigate the world.
Like our Father, the patient Gardener, we must patiently wait and watch our children grow and mature.
*****
Christina Fox received her Master’s in counseling from Palm Beach Atlantic University. She is a blogger, writer, and retreat speaker. She writes for a number of Christian ministries and websites, including Ligonier, The Gospel Coalition, and Revive Our Hearts. She serves on the PCA’s National Women’s Ministry Team and is the editor of their ministry blog, enCourage. Christina is author of multiple books including, Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why That Matters for Our Parenting.
[ Our humble thanks to Moody Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 21, 2022
This is What Happens (& Doesn’t) When You Have the Right Life Map
I mean, maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise?
“You have to know where your feet are actually at, to decide what map you actually have to get into your hands. Wrong Map? Wrong way.”
But if you’re holding a detailed, accurate map for Taipei? But your feet are planted on a good ole street in Tennessee? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that you can’t find your way to Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge across from the old historic Ryman in Nashville.
If you aren’t holding the right map for where your feet actually are, you can’t ever get to where you actually want to go.
Wrong map? Wrong way.
I can’t remember when exactly it happened, but this one phrase has lodged on endless repeat in my head and has radically reoriented my heart and feet and the direction of my life:
This is our Father’s world.
This is our Father’s world.
This isn’t an aimless rock floating haphazardly through the universe, and we don’t get to make up whatever laws or logic that we like.
Regardless of whatever any headline keeps blasting, whatever the sound-waves keep screeching, whatever all the social streams about drown us all in: this is not our world.
This is not the world of those with the big microphones or glaring cameras, this is not the world of the supposed big wigs or power-brokers or game changers, this is not the world of the stock markets or the suits or the smooth-talkers, this is not our world.
We don’t get to make up the way this world works, because we aren’t living in a world we made — we are living in the WayMaker’s world.
We don’t get to make up the way this world works, because we aren’t living in a world we made — we are living in the WayMaker’s world.
For all our thinking that this is our planet, the reality is: Not one person on planet earth has ever breathed life into lung, or sculpted dust into soul, or birthed a blanket of dancing stars out of absolutely nothing.
This is our Father’s world.
Don’t gloss over this: For your blood-clotting function to perform, neither of its key ingredients, vitamin K and antihemophilic factor, can be missing. Which means, your blood-clotting function is an irreducibly complex system — which causes, as writes, biochemist, Michael Behe, a significant “problem for Darwinian evolution.”
Listen to this: There wouldn’t even be one person on this whole spinning marble in space if there was even the slightest difference in how atomic nuclei bind together, as biophysicist Alister McGrath writes, “This force, which has a value of 0.007…if it “were 0.006 or 0.008, human beings could not exist.”
Everyone travelling through this word has got to know: This is our Father’s World.
Be mindblown by the reality: Change the force binding protons to neutrons by even five percent — and there wouldn’t be a human being on the planet.
Pay attention and be awed: The cosmological constant must be fine-tuned to one part in 101 to the 20th, in order for any life to actually exist on this pale blue dot in space.
How does anyone muster up enough blind faith to believe all this is accident?
Is our existence really some cosmic jackpot coincidence?
Honest question: How does anyone muster up enough blind faith to believe all this is accident?
You tell me: Is this all really a wildly lucky accident of physics, that water just happens to exist as a liquid, that chains of carbon atoms just happen to form complex organic molecules, that hydrogen atoms just luckily form breakable bridges between molecules?
Read this twice: Over thirty different cosmic parameters must be precisely set, like dials on a dashboard, to create a world like this, for life like this to exist.
Is our existence really some cosmic jackpot coincidence?
As Freeman Dyson, a mathematical physicist world renowned for his research in quantum field theory and nuclear physics, once remarked, “the more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.”
No one is going around making up the idea of God — God is the one who had the idea of us and literally made us. And because this universe is fine-tuned for life — the only way to fully live in this universe is to be fully attuned to God.
Look out your window right, look in the mirror, and see actual reality: The universe only looks like it was prepared for humanity’s coming, because there is One who created the universe precisely so humanity could come — and He Himself came for all of humanity.
There is no way to get around it: This is a planned planet.
This is our Father’s world.
Meaning: No one is going around making up the idea of God — God is the one who had the idea of us and literally made us.
And because this universe is fine-tuned for life — the only way to fully live in this universe is to be fully attuned to God. (And if the universe seems just fit for life — doesn’t that actually mean that God just fits into all the emptiness in our lives?)
It’s only when you know this is our Father’s world, that you know which map of the world you actually need in your hands, to know which way your feet should actually go.
It’s only when you know that you are breathing in the rarefied air of God, that you can reach for only map that makes sense of any of this old world, that this is all the sod of God.
I think of it often these days: During World War II, my grandfather was a messenger who was given maps and coded messages and maps from superiors to memorize and then deliver.
Night after night, he ran a dirt bike across unfamiliar terrain, just following the map in his head that he’d memorized, to deliver the encoded message, desperately trying to avoid interception from the enemy, carrying message and map only in head, so that if the enemy captured him, they’d find nothing in his hands.
One night, in the thick black dark, my grandfather, laying low on his army dirt bike that he ran without any lights so as to avoid detection, kept turning around and around, looking for a distinguished knoll that he had memorized from the topographical map, which would be his clear sign that he was supposed to turn and head north.
But in spite of backtracking and retracing his track, back and forth, spending precious hours looking for the knoll, he couldn’t find it, no way, no how.
My grandfather cut the engine.
Then he stood there with his dirt bike in the quieting dark, mentally analyzing the map he had in his head. And then he realized it like a flash of light in the dark:
If the map in your head doesn’t match what you see under your feet, then you’re working with the wrong map.
Epiphany for life.
If things keep going wrong, maybe the map in hand might actually be wrong?
If you aren’t where you want to be — what are the ways your map might not reflect the way of the earth under your feet?
When the map in our heads doesn’t agree with the earth under our feet, there is a way —a sacred way — to have God’s right map in the heart, which always, always, always leads the right way through.
Because this is our Father’s world.
It’s only when we know that this is the WayMaker’s world, can we ever expect to finally discover the way we dreamed through the world.
This one is for all of us who want a real way through…
For every person who has faced a no-way sign on the way to their dreams, WayMaker is your sign, that there is hope, 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.
Gr
ab Your Copy of WayMaker — and begin the journey you’ve secretly been hoping for.
March 19, 2022
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [3.19.2022]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
…because sometimes we have to whisper to each of us just hanging in there who need to hear it…when we’re tempted to fill with despair, Hope whispers that God will fulfill His promises. And when you know God is trustworthy — you know today is worthy of Hope. Come along with us here because who doesn’t need a bit more hope-filled 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:
In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Psalms 95:4-5 (NIV)
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
Oh that we would run to the father the way this sheep runs to the arms of its neighbor!
What a joy it is when you are blessed to be a blessing.
This is a generous and heartfelt way to #BETHEGIFT
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
Yes! A celebration!
Think of the stories they share from day after day of their love in action for each other.
“…small acts of love can brighten the heart even in difficult situations.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
This moment?! This is precious, careful and kind love. How Sweet?!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Pets & wild🐕🐘 (@cutepetswild)
Awwww! Listen to those adorable giggles!
So this happened…
Utterly flattened by gratitude & awed by the surprising, laying-low ways of God 😭🌊
Thursday, deep in the middle of book launch week for WayMaker, (the day we all got the news that you moved our little book to #7 at Amazon) we were stunned & undone to find out in the sheep barn, lo & behold, 5 completely unexpected days early (!!) — two little wobbly lambs looking wide-eyed up at us! A St. Patrick’s Day surprise! Did you weigh on what you think we should name them?
See full post on Instagram
As spring is upon us and life sprouts all around us, may we all bloom!
Even in the darkest moments, there is a way to share a glimpse of light.
Oh, how we need you, Lord!
This, this right here. Lighting the candles every night on this Lenten Wreath from The Keeping Company is my absolute favorite practice of this season, focusing & turning my heart …to keep company with Him.
H onestly? Every night I don’t want to blow out the candles… just want to linger in the light and the light of His Word… and gaze upon the way Jesus went the whole long way for us.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
Sometimes kindness comes in the most simple ways and yet it means a great deal.
The thoughtfulness of this little one for his furry friend is love in action.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by KindNest Quest (@kindnestquest)
This moved me deeply. In the midst of heartache and war, an offering of song.
A mother’s hope, a stranger’s kindness, a child’s journey… so thankful and yet still praying.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Heather Crockett Oram (@heathercrock)
The gift of family can come in so many ways.
Join us as we walk the SACRED way together …
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Post of the week from these parts:
Feel Like You’re Too Much? This One’s for UsEver felt like you’re too much? That all your feelings and passions and hopes and dreams and heart — are kinda — too much?
A story that, turns out?
I will break his heart in a thousand ways.
I will end up utterly shattered and broken by my own heart-twists and turns.
Read the whole post
You aren’t too much to the people who choose to see all of you.
You do not have to shrink small. You do not ever have to make yourself disappear.
Your muchness may make you feel like not enough — but your muchness is your strength.
Your muchness isn’t a liability — your muchness is how you love much, how you love large.
Every woman’s muchness isn’t a vice — every woman’s muchness is her very strength.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart—
and with all your soul—
and with all your very, very, much.
Love much with all your very muchness.
Your real muchness is your real strength.
–Excerpt from WayMaker: Finding The Way To The Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of
Pick up Your Own Copy of WayMakerquieted & undone & laid low…
& you are all SUCH people &…..thank you
Grab Your Copy of WayMaker?View this post on InstagramA post shared by Ann Voskamp (@annvoskamp)
It’s impossible for us to please God — unless we trust God with the impossible.
Can we just sincerely thank you for your grace with us this week as we released WayMaker into the world… Thank you for your real love, genuine kindness, carrying prayers — for being with us in this.
I’d love to invite you to join us on the way as we walk with The Way, no matter how the Way goes.
If I could just hand deliver from my heart to yours…
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.
March 17, 2022
About My Dad Being Killed & Believing We Have A WayMaker
T he actual date my dad was crushed and killed it was right there in the top right hand corner of every single page of that version of the WayMaker manuscript the publisher had returned to me for edits:
WayMaker: 04/29/2021
There was the date, every time I opened WayMaker.
And all over again, I am back to noon on April 29, standing in the cold spring rain on the farm I grew up, my father’s farmyard full of police cars and all our eyes shell-shocked and empty.
And our Dad gone.
How could Dad be crushed and killed exactly the same way my baby sister was crushed and killed — the very same way, on the very same farm?
How could we lose my own dear dad, Bryan L. Morton, in such an incomprehensible, traumatic way?
WayMaker? A waymaking God?
Who writes a story line that goes this way? How is this the staggering way our story goes?
Could I still truly believe:
There is a WayMaker who makes wrecked ways into ways for resurrection.
Could I, all through my line by line edits of WayMaker, wrapped up in this softest blanket, sent by the kindest of editors, still not only see my way through — but could I trust the Way Himself?
There is a WayMaker who makes wrecked ways into ways for resurrection.
I ached through a daze of grief.
And with every page of editing WayMaker, I could actually feel myself growing stronger, and standing still on it, standing even surer:
The ways we don’t understand are truly safe in the hands of the WayMaker who always stands with us, His very arms truly under us.
Crushed hearts can still trust:
There is a way through, because we follow the Way Himself.
We’d lost my father, Bryan L. Morton, in the most bewildering, traumatic of ways.
A nd you can lose your people and your hopes and dreams — but you don’t ever have to lose your way.
And then just this past week?
The way the WayMaker makes may not make sense to you —
but you can’t see how every way is connected to the way of everything else.
Only a few days before WayMaker launches out into the world, the loveliest woman’s walking just a few steps ahead of me, both of us strangers to each other, both of us guests at a luncheon, both of us about to walk out the door, and forever go our own separate ways.
But just before she gets to the door — can she sense me right there, close? — she turns, a bit startled — but her eyes find mine and she asks real earnest:
“Oh! Would you?”
And there in her hands, she’s extending an early, open copy of WayMaker toward me to sign, and I feel shy and awkward, but I reach for it.
It’s the very first copy of WayMaker I have ever held in hand to sign.
And I smile, and ask her gently?
“Your name, ma’am?” Just a first name, please, and I’ll dedicate the very first signed copy of WayMaker right here to you, your first name, just right here in the corner.
But she leans in to say what I could never have expected, her ocean clear blue eyes glint as she smiles and says, not just her first name — but her whole name:
“Betsy Morton.”
Betsy Morton?
My father’s name was Bryan L. Morton.
All I can sense the WayMaker Himself here, right here, so close.
And everything brims and blurs. And I inscribe the very first copy of WayMaker, before it even releases, for Betsy Morton — Betsy Morton who will read the story of our WayMaker that I believe even deeper in my bones after losing my Dad, Bryan Morton, in the most unimaginable of ways.
I hand the first inscribed and dedicated copy of WayMaker to Betsy Morton, smiling sure through tears and we are all carried through:
You may not see why your story has gone the way it has — but you can trust the Way Himself sees you — and is still writing a good story in powerful ways for you.
The way the WayMaker makes may not make sense to you — but you can’t see how every way is connected to the way of everything else.
How can we know how the way this story intersects with the way of that story over there, that changes the way of that story over here, that would totally effect the way of that story over there?
The Way is Who He is — and the Way is what He does.
As long as you have the WayMaker — you always have a Way.
This is a world of ways, this is a world of a million, billion, trillion ways and the only one who can navigate all the ways, orchestrate all the ways, understand all the ways — is the Way Himself, the one who says, “I AM THE WAY.“
How would understanding the reason for suffering
matter more
than knowing God Himself
stands with us in it?
You do not not have to understand the ways of God, you only need know that the Way stands with you — and He can’t stop making a way, because that is who the Way is.
The Way is Who He is — and the Way is what He does.
As long as you have the WayMaker — you always have a Way.
And up there, in the corner of everything, are the sacred signs everywhere, of a sure and steadying grace.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DO PARTS OF YOUR WAY FEEL KINDA TENDER… WRECKED?
THE WAYMAKER‘S MAKING A WAY TO YOU & FOR YOU
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March 14, 2022
Feel Like You’re Too Much? This One’s for Us
“L ook.” He’s standing there at the edge of the kitchen table, hurt and honest
“When I try to get close to you at all, Ann? You just snap my head off, and I’m just kinda done with it, Ann. Done.”
It’s all too much. Way, way too much.”
“Maybe what we all are most deeply afraid of is feeling too much.”
Too much? What exactly is he saying is too much?
Me? Is he saying I am too much? Is he saying my feelings are too much? –
Is he trying to say that he can’t handle what I’m feeling because it draws him into feeling, and that terrifies him? Maybe what we all are most deeply afraid of is feeling too much.
“I just really need—space, Ann.” And he turns away.
I throw in a load of laundry. Fold a pile of towels. Say nothing. Space? I can give him all the space in the world.
Difficult? That looming one word from those ancient counselling files that the therapist forecasted for our marriage. Is it happening? Is this becoming a difficult marriage?
One night after I’ve kissed kids’ foreheads goodnight and they’ve all burrowed under blankets and I turn out the lights, what’s deep into the dark places of my mind, what I think he thinks, on replay, in all the ways:
I am too much. I am too much. I am too much. And I am not enough, not enough, not enough. Somehow, who I am will have to disappear.
This is the way of how many women? Feeling like you’re not enough can be just one way of saying you feel like you’re too much.”
“You’re never too much to be loved and you are always more than enough to be loved.”
Why can’t he want more of me, instead of less of me? Why can’t I be more for him, more of what he needs? Why doesn’t he cup my face and whisper, “You’re never too much to be loved and you are always more than enough to be loved”?
Why can’t I lean into him and say, “I want all of you and trust you with all of me”?
Why does it feel like we’re losing the promised land and waking up back in Egypt, choking dry sand in our mouths?
Fear that I’m too much, fear that I’m all wrong, fear is driving a lot of my wrong turns and sharp curves, and it turns out that all the wrong turns compound.
One small wrong turn here, one slight wrong curve there, leads to largely different destinations. Ever so imperceptibly shifting habits begins to dramatically shift who you are.
As the sun has the power to thrive or shrivel a leaf, so relationships can either heal trauma or actually cause it.
I don’t know how many weeks later that I find myself curling up in a chair in the corner of our bedroom, weeping.
He eventually comes, finds me, but before I even let him begin to apologize, I’m shaking my head, a wave of words rising, swelling, breaking, and breaking us both.
“You say you’re done with it all being too much, that it’s all far too much? Well, you know what? I hear what you’re saying, loud and clear. I hear you saying that I’m far too much. And I hear you not saying that you like me. I hear you not saying that you love me. Well, guess what? You win, you win. You? You maybe don’t need to be stuck with me after all.”
He’s too hurt, wounded—stunned—to say anything.
Doesn’t want to get too close to my edge.
And I walk out the door, wishing I could find a way out of all of this… out of me.
A story that, turns out?
I will break his heart in a thousand ways.
I will end up utterly shattered and broken by my own heart-twists and turns.
I will end up flat on a hospital bed in literal heart failure… before the narrative that had been screaming loud in my head for months and months —years? —- finally is choked out through tears in a hospital room:
“When I heard that I was too much . . . I just wanted to take all of me and just . . . go another direction, any other direction, and not be a burden, not be an obligation . . . just . . . not be at all.”
The hospital heart monitor quiets.
“Whatever was said,” His voice is hushed but earnest, honest, “can you hear me now, really hear me?”
“You feel much, see much, love much—but you aren’t too much.” He’s stroking my hair.
“You feel much, you love much—but you aren’t too much.”
“Remember?” The Farmer’s trying to find my eyes. “Remember what that Messianic Jewish teacher, Arie Bar David, once asked you, like a test, what Jesus said was the beginning of the greatest commandment of all?”
“Yeah . . . ” I’m remembering, “and I had tentatively offered the commandment that echoed the Shema, the most important prayer in Judaism: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength’” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
“And our guide had interrupted you,” the Farmer’s nodding.
“Yes, and he’d used both hands while he was talking,” I can see it all over again, like the guide was was giving me clear directions.
“You aren’t too much,
like the stars are never too bright,
like the moon is never too large or luminous,
like the wonders of the world are never too much.“
“Listen. In the original Hebrew,” our guide had said. “Jesus quotes the most important prayer to God’s people, the Shema: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart—with all your feelings and affections—and with all your soul—with all your life-breath, your whole self—and with all your very, very, much. With all your very muchness.’ Me’od—muchness.”
Our Messianic Jewish teacher, Arie, had smiled.
“Love the Lord your God with all your very, very much.”
All your very, very much — is made to love God much.
To hesed-love God. To hesed-love in the right direction.
Everything starts to brim and spill.
You aren’t too much,
like the stars are never too bright,
like the moon is never too large or luminous,
like the wonders of the world are never too much.
You aren’t too much to the people who choose to see all of you.
You do not have to shrink small. You do not ever have to make yourself disappear.
Your muchness may make you feel like not enough — but your muchness is your strength.
Your muchness isn’t a liability — your muchness is how you love much, how you love large.
Every woman’s muchness isn’t a vice — every woman’s muchness is her very strength.
Your real muchness is your real strength.
Every woman’s muchness isn’t a vice — every woman’s muchness is her very strength.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart—
and with all your soul—
and with all your very, very, much.
Love much with all your very muchness.
Your real muchness is your real strength.
And I looked up into his eyes — and the way of everything — starts to completely turn around.
–Excerpt from WayMaker: Finding The Way To The Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of
If you’ve Ever Felt Like Too Much… WayMaker Is Here to Turn the Way Of Everything Around
And, on this last day to PreOrder WayMaker & receive the free 40 Day Audio Devotionals, could I invite you “On The Way” to love Jesus with all your very beautiful muchness…….
Could we walk together, through this season toward the Cross and Easter? Can we journey through the high waves of our Red Seas and through the long lonely stretches of our wildernesses?
Spring is coming. Easter is coming. Hope and newness of life arises!
This journey I’m personally inviting you into is ultimately about keeping company with Jesus, The Way Himself, so we walk out of Resurrection Sunday morning, truly made new. What an honor it would be to travel with you — our humble gift & thanks for your preorder of WayMaker
Join the journey in two easy steps:1) Pre-Order WayMaker
2) Then sign up at WaymakerBook to receive the free 40 Audio Devotionals in your inbox
(P.S. Today’s the last very day to Pre-Order WayMaker & receive all the PreOrder gifts as our family’s thanks, including the 6 episode family video series from the farm!)
THIS PRINT, AND OTHERS, AVAILABLE WITH EVERY PREORDER!
March 12, 2022
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend [3.12.2022]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Let’s not let the everyday routines numb us to the miracle of living every day! Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything. Never, ever give up…there really is hope, even for us.
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.”Luke 12:27
Photo by Anna Cosper…some bits of budding hope to end your week…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Upworthy (@upworthy)
…serving others and making them laugh, all at the same time…
Finding ways to #BETHEGIFT to those in need…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Pupworthy (@pupworthy)
This smiling farm friend is sure to bring a smile to your face today!
…no matter where you are,
you can always find a way to be the hands and feet of Jesus…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by COWS (@cows_my_love)
Just a little uncontainable cuteness to end your week on…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Upworthy (@upworthy)
Need a little weekend motivation?
This 7-year-old motivational speaker is sure to do the trick!
…oh the JOY of God’s creation!
What a gift of beauty this man worked to give the people of his community!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News & Stories (@brightsideofig)
This man had never gone sledding before this stranger invited him to-
the JOY in his face is contagious!
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
His face says it all!
We can’t help but rejoice with this child and his forever family…
…the Word of the Lord-
the Word that lends to a way, The Way.
Read how this man found his way through tragedy.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by 𝗠𝗮𝗷𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 (@majicallynews)
The daddy/daughter dance she’ll never forget…
…the joy of music,
bringing hope to those who never thought it possible…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Daily Good News! (@delightfulnews)
…sometimes, all we need is someone to walk alongside us and tell us we can do it
–
step by step.
The most beautiful thing we can give our children-
hearts to serve others for the glory of God!
Weary traveler, restless soul, be lifted up in knowing you are not alone…
Clinging to the Cross… this cross in my hand, praying this prayer with The Keeping Company
Join us as we walk the SACRED way together –taking a prayerful, reflective Lenten Journey
from Ash Wednesday right up to Easter Sunday.
Whether you’ve never intentionally walked through this season of Lent before Easter, or if your heart desperately longs for it every year – may we gently and intentionally walk with you?
Forty days – on the way of the Way Himself.
For a beautiful, reflective, immersive experience – including audio devotions delivered right to your email, along with other exclusive content – join our journey, and see all the lovely and helpful free gifts we’re so very humbled to share with you, our friends, with simply pre-ordering WayMaker
Last weekend to Pre-Order WayMaker and Join our Audio Lenten Devotionals Emailed Right to You
Beautiful artwork by Katy RoseAbsolutely gorgeous free downloadable print, one of the many free bonus gifts included with the On The Way Lenten Journey, free when you Pre-Order WayMaker.
Lighting this candle every night on our Advent & this Lenten Wreath from The Keeping Company every night is my favorite practice of this season, focusing & turning my heart …to keep company with Him.
Keeping hope alive: Lessons of Hope Learned in the Storm
Storms happen to all of us sooner or later…
Hope comes when we remember His promise to be with us until the end of the age. He will never abandon us to ride out the storm on our own.
“With God, hope is always justifiable. God will slice an ocean of waves in half to find a way to be with you.
Where there seems to be no way—is exactly the way to miracles.”
This is the very last weekend (!!!) to Pre-Order our next new book: WayMaker
$75 of Free Gifts When You Pre-Order WayMaker
As our family’s way of thanking you, we’d really love to get all of these gifts into you hands
These pages, this one — is especially for you,
for everyone on a hard road, & looking for a real honest way through:
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Ann Voskamp (@annvoskamp)
Honestly, all our heartache, grief, suffering, obstacles, they all come in waves. There is no controlling life’s storms; there is only learning the way to walk through the waves.
In WayMaker, the most tender, vulnerable love story I know how to tell – there is this deeply practical, daily compass that points the way through to the places we’ve only dreamed of reaching, by a way we never expected.
For the marriage that seems impossible, for the woman who longs for a child of her own, for the parents who ache for the return of their prodigal, for the sojourner caught between a rock and a hard place, and for the wayfarer who feels as though there is no way through to her dreams –It’s really possible: We can encounter the WayMaker in surprising ways and even now, the Way is making the way to walk through waves and into a life more deeply fulfilling than even our wildest dreams.
Get WayMaker and hold a compass that doesn’t just point to the way through –
but shows the way to a whole new way of being!
The way the WayMaker makes may not make sense to you —
but you can’t see how every way is connected to the way of everything else.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Ann Voskamp (@annvoskamp)
No matter how our hearts break —
we are always going to make it.
Because we have a WayMaker who is with us in it.
And a free printable for you from the WayMaker Art Collection when you pre-order WayMaker
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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