Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 51

Joy is actually possible, right where you are.

Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT. Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.

What if Brokenness is the Path into the Abundant Life?
You don’t have to be afraid of broken things — because Christ is redeeming everything.
There’s no other authentic way forward — but a broken way — right into a profoundly abundant life.

Journey into a deeply meaningful life with this devotional and take sixty steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance. The Way of Abundance — is the way forward every heart needs.

Be the Gift is a tender invitation into the next step of deeper transformation, less stress, more joy and abundantly more peace & purpose. You only get one life to love well…to Be The Gift.

[ Print’s FREE here: ]

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.

Resource: The Message Compact Bible

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Published on January 29, 2022 04:26

January 26, 2022

About Crutches, Jesus, & Secrets to Really Walking into 2022 Fully Living

When I look at the calendar mid-week and it winks back at me that it’s already the 25th day of January, when I wonder where in the world the first month of the new year has up and gone, I exhale slow and just remember how tired we are all from the surreal last two years, how we are all limping a bit and just trying to find our pace and rhythm again.

Go ahead and let the well-meaning gurus keep shilling whatever they want, like they do every shiny new January, but it’s the the old trusted sages that aren’t wrong:

There’s only one sure way to walk into a new year: Leaning wholly on the Way Himself.

Now, to be honest:

My Grandpa used to say that Jesus was just a crutch for the weak to get through the world.

Yet it was Einstein, one of the most brilliant men to ever breathe, who said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Which is to say: It is life without God that is lame, and any God without awe for His ordered, scientific mind everywhere is blind.

Resource: Wooden Hands

Is it possible: What actually makes you lame is to think that this universe has no Lord.

And what makes you blind is to deny the systematic mind that works behind the mystery of our being.

The only honest way to begin a new year, an authentic new way of being, is to begin every day with the only One who was there in the beginning and can write new beginnings.

I tell myself that when the alarm goes off:

Word In
Before
Work Out.

The only honest way to begin a new year, an authentic new way of being, is to begin every day with the only One who was there in the beginning and can write new beginnings.

Word In
Will transform your life more than
Work Out.

Jesus is not a crutch to get through this world.
Jesus is the core of the real world,
Jesus is the crux of a new world,
And Jesus is the constant coherence of the actual world.

Jesus is not some fictional comfort mustered up by the foolish and delusional — but all the wise minds realize there is a Mastermind behind the skies.

Today:

Your heart will beat over 100,000 times, pumping more than a gallon of blood through more than 60,000 miles of blood vessels within you every single minute.

And every single second — less than a blink of time — right inside your very own body — 25 million new cells are made. Count to 15, and your body has made more new cells than there are actual human beings in the whole of the United States of America.

To think this whole shebang of our being is just an accident is how you end up needing a crutch called Pride.

I painfully confess firsthand: Pride’s the weak crutch that always lets you fall.

Not sure if Grandpa ever knew it:

Anyone can try to live in some alternate reality of their own creating, but the only realest reality is saturated with the Creator’s divinity.

Whatever the dimensions of your one and only life, why not decide to live in the dimension of the Divine?

Resource: The Message Compact Bible

This universe’s choreographed to the verses of the Word, and you, right in this moment, are a literal masterpiece that’s dreamed up and sculpted by the Master Himself, and all the stars spin to the love song that He can’t stop singing because of you. Feel the reality of that.

“He celebrates and sings because of you,
and He will refresh your life with His love.”
~Zephaniah 3:17 (CEV).

What refreshes your deepest hopes, your very life is sitting each morning with His fresh mercies, His deepest love.

I thought of Grandpa when I watched the sun rise this week, glorious light lifting all the dark, and thought of how C.S. Lewis said: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

The only way to see the way through to what could still be with your one and only life, is to steep in the Words of the only One who gives the blind sight and makes the lame walk strong.

… it’s never the size of the steps that matter, but the direction and consistency of the steps that can change a whole life

The steps forward can be small but they can change the direction of everything — because it’s never the size of the steps that matter, but the direction and consistency of the steps that can change a whole life:

Lay out the Psalms at the coffee pot, so every time you get a cup, drink Living Water.

Write His Words on a cue card every morning, carry like a very real compass throughout the day.

Make it your daily practice to grab hands and pray out loud with your people, before the day begins or before bed, but before the day is over, because this how we practice our faith, practice the Kingdom of God, practice for heaven, practice walking in the Way.

Learn an old hymn and sing it with your people during dishes every night and pass on the tried-and-true legacy of faith.

Slip your phone into a pocket size Bible and carry both with you, because if we can always remember to keep our phones close, why not keep the phone in a pocket size Bible, so we keep His Word close, so we keep keeping company with Him?

These are not inconsequential, trite things for only the perfectly saintly, these are intentional things that shape and form the consequences of the lives of the gritty and real who are imperfectly practicing their faith, the sinners tasting the deep joy of being wholly and holy remade. What do we really want with our only lives?

When I look at the calendar at the end of January, I smile brave. There is a sure way forward.

I once asked a man with a smile and a limp why He was leaning hard on Jesus, but he didn’t even have to answer, because I could tell by the glory glint there in his eye:

It’s only when you live in the presence of God, that you get the present of actually living.

*****

Joy is actually possible, right where you are.

Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT. Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.

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Published on January 26, 2022 10:03

January 24, 2022

The Sabbath Road to Happiness

Courtney Ellis believes in the beautiful wisdom from Mary Poppins: a spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down. It’s why she’s so passionate about God’s gift of playfulness—the joyful opportunity to connect, celebrate, and just have fun. Play is much more than a luxury item: it’s a necessity for healthy souls, families, communities, and churches. In seasons of difficulty, play can help refill our empty tanks, reenergizing us for the work ahead. She’s grateful to her three young children—her best playfulness examples!—as well as to her husband, Daryl, who often wakes her up with songs about breakfast ham. It’s a grace to welcome Courtney to the farm’s front porch today…

Guest post by Courtney Ellis

Oh, did you want coffee?” my husband Daryl smiled at me with our youngest baby, Felicity, on his hip. She’d woken up again at 4:45 am, a time of day that should never be witnessed by a human who isn’t either in A) college or B) active labor. He’d graciously taken her out for a post-dawn stroll around the neighborhood, but I hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep. I stumbled into the kitchen at 5:30, freshly showered, completely exhausted, and totally grumpy.

I stared blankly at Daryl. He held up the empty coffee pot.

“Coffee,” he said. “Did you want some?” I blinked and willed my mind to focus.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “Of course I want coffee.”

“I’m joking, Court,” he said, shifting our little rooster of a child onto his other hip. “I’m brewing it right now.”

“Oh,” I collapsed into a kitchen chair. “I’m sorry. I just… I am so tired.” This wasn’t the first morning that week we’d had a 4:45 am wake-up call. Nor would it be the last. We’d tried everything to put an end to these early risings, from giving Felicity an extra nap (was she overtired?) to taking away her nap entirely (perhaps she wasn’t tired enough?) to feeding her a high-fat, high-protein snack right before tucking her in (maybe she was just hungry?). No dice. Just misery.

He poured the water into the coffee maker’s reservoir and started the machine.

“I know,” he said. “I’m tired, too.”

“I know,” I said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I love you too, baby girl,” I said to Felicity, tickling her pajama-toed foot. “But if you want parents who are any fun at all, this has got to stop.”

As I began seeking out a more playful existence, I quickly stumbled across what keeps so many of us from play: life can be quite exhausting. Time feels short, loads weigh heavy, and the immediate and important quickly drown out the ideal and hoped-for. It can seem formidable—if not impossible—to pursue happiness when there are so many other essential tasks begging for attention. How are we supposed to embrace play when finances are tight, friendships are strained, and flu season (or worse!) is here? What about when our boss is impossible? When the rent increases, the refrigerator breaks, or the student loans come due? When—and I’m speaking hypothetically here—a toddler decides that sleep is for the weak? Not to mention the difficulties we face in the more desperate or devastating seasons of life when grief arrives, illness turns chronic, or all hope seems lost.

And herein lies the first invitation of playfulness: to play well, we must rest well. It is nearly impossible to accept the invitations of play if we are completely exhausted. Without our most basic needs—food, water, shelter, and sleep—being met, playfulness becomes a serious uphill battle. First, we rest.

“And herein lies the first invitation of playfulness: to play well, we must rest well. “

Because God knew we would need this spiritual reset, a regular, repeated break from the labor of our lives, he gave us the gift (and command!) to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. By engaging in regular Sabbath rest, we slowly learn that joy begins in acquiescing to our limits and accepting the invitation to let God restore our souls. This is, in its own gentle way, a type of play. On the Sabbath, we give ourselves permission to rest in the loving embrace of the Savior who created and sustains us. We release ourselves to God, in whom our happiness exists.

Even when we admit how very much we need it, it is hard to accept the invitation to Sabbath. Stress, trauma, and hardship easily fool us into thinking rest is a luxury, something we can finally get to when all the other work is done. Our default isn’t to stop or recalibrate, even when we have desperate need to do so. Yet crisis work is endless. The work of life, even relatively normal, everyday life, is ongoing. And when we fail to set our labors aside for even a short time, we will find that we are not endless.

And this is the true beauty of Sabbath rest—we don’t have to work at it; instead, it will work on us if we simply cease our labors. Letting God take the reins for the day is a profoundly playful act. (Of course, God holds those reins every day; but in acquiescing to Sabbath, we remind ourselves in an even deeper way that God is ultimately in control.) As we stop and rest, we take our hands off the wheel and leave the steering to the One who can see the whole road ahead. In leaving emails unsent, laundry unfolded, and errands un-run, we begin to learn that God can be trusted, that we aren’t what we do, and that our God-given limits are grace, not burden.

And this is the true beauty of Sabbath rest—we don’t have to work at it; instead, it will work on us if we simply cease our labors.

Our family’s weekly Sabbath reminds me in a profound and fundamentally important way that I am not irreplaceable, and that the work of God and the church—even without me! who knew?—will always go on. What grace to be reminded of our place in the world—infinitely loved and of priceless value, and yet not the only cog in the grand mechanism of God’s big, beautiful world or even our little churchy corner of it.

Much like our churches are sanctuaries in space—worshipful places to meet regularly with God—the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time. As Eugene Peterson notes, “Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything.”[i] It is nearly impossible to overstate its gift and importance. If we never put down our heavy yoke of toil, worry, and striving, we will always struggle to play.

Perhaps that’s why God made the Sabbath an imperative—out of love, and knowing us a little too well. If a gentle invitation and a divine nudge won’t do, perhaps putting it in a list of commandments will. If permission isn’t enough, maybe requirement will be.

After all, what do you have to lose but your ragged edges?

Courtney Ellis is a speaker, pastor, and author of Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul and Happy Now: Let Playfulness Lift Your Load and Renew Your Spirit. Happy Now chronicles her journey from all-too-serious to seldom-not-smiling as she learned to embrace God’s gift of play. Courtney lives with her husband Daryl and three young children in southern California, where, after 18 months, they finally returned the class parakeet they took home “for the weekend.”

[ Our humble thanks to Tyndale House for their partnership in today’s devotion ]

[i] Peterson, Tell It Slant, 82.

An orthopedic surgeon goes back to Zimbabwe to care for those who do not have adequate medical services. #bethegift

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Published on January 24, 2022 04:54

January 22, 2022

Only the Good Stuff: MultivitaMins For Your Weekend [1.21.22]

Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:

The stillness of winter time. The Glory of the sun rising every morning.

The promise of God’s goodness to us each day. Glory soak.

Photo by Thirdman from Pexels

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We have probably all had a Zoom meeting mishap or two…

Photo by Timea Kadar from Pexels

An 84 year old saves a neighborhood from the bulldozer by painting every street with joyful colors…

puppies having a snow day!

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Surfer writes names of people’s lost loved ones on his surfboard so they can take one last ride…#bethegift

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Olympian using her athletic abilities to shine for Him…

a desert snow…beauty

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A post shared by Dogs | Videos | Friends 🐶 (@dogzlegacy)

Just some cute puppies and ducklings for a smile today…

Love these snow shoveling athletes…#bethegift

Dad creates inclusive children’s book for daughter with a disability.

How could I express all my gratitude?

Books for Soul Healing:

Joy is actually possible, right where you are.

Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT. Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.

Journey into a deeply meaningful life with this devotional and take sixty steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance. The Way of Abundance — is the way forward every heart needs.

Enjoy free tools and printables by visiting here

Be the Gift is a tender invitation into the next step of deeper transformation, less stress, more joy and abundantly more peace & purpose. You only get one life to love well…to Be The Gift.

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.

Doing hard things includes a little self talk and also encouragement from along the road “you got this”.

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Published on January 22, 2022 06:22

January 15, 2022

Only the Good Stuff: MultivitaMins For Your Weekend [1.15.22]

Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:

Photo by Anna Cospe r

Photo by Anna Cosper

Oh The beauty of God’s good creation, a little winter reflection

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Also? Practice gets you closer to perfect…

A beautiful story of how music helps clam their fears...

You can have one bad day, but there is always Light at the end of the tunnel…

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sweet naptime

…when someone see a needs and works to fill it!

Change Your Stressed Days With This Life Plan…a Manifesto to Stay Sane — our blog this week

a clever cat

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a barber who helps a sweet boy who is on the spectrum get a haircut…

Eleven-year-old from Kenya and her creativity…

...”generosity made me want to be a better human”…Atlanta piano man inspired by a stranger’s kindness

A family business – The Lincoln Tunnel Motel – serving those in need

But by the grace of God, we’ll see each other’s heart…

Books for Soul Healing:

Joy is actually possible, right where you are.

Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT. Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.

Journey into a deeply meaningful life with this devotional and take sixty steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance. The Way of Abundance — is the way forward every heart needs.

Enjoy free tools and printables by visiting here

Be the Gift is a tender invitation into the next step of deeper transformation, less stress, more joy and abundantly more peace & purpose. You only get one life to love well…to Be The Gift.

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.

Life isn’t an emergency. It’s a gift.

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Published on January 15, 2022 06:51

January 12, 2022

Change Your Stressed Days With This Life Plan: A Manifesto to Stay Sane

So I’m a mess and we’re all failures — at least all the honest of us are.

And the truth is, no one ever runs before they take baby steps.

So I scratch down these 25 points, like my own sanity manifesto, and there are a thousand different ways in a thousand seasons to make a life glorify God.

I scrawl out mine, which would be different than most wayfarers and sojourners, who knows, but I make a place for it on the fridge and it’s not a law, but a scaffolding for the shaky, struggling days.

I don’t write it as a checklist, like these are things I have to do, one after another, but I write the manifesto, fluid, like limbs on a tree, to reach for just the next one I need right now.

And I write it in big letters, right at the top, what I need to whisper on the days when I don’t know how to keep going because everything’s going wrong: Forward!

So, it’s there on the fridge for all the days when I just need some kind of a map, and for all the days in between, my 25 Point Sanity Manifesto.

Forward!

The Grace Crafted Home

1. First things first: Word in. Work out. Work plan.

Open your eyes every morning and just do three first:

Word in: Get into God’s Word and let it get into you.
Work out: Work out. Even 5 minutes of moving is better than nothing. (baby steps! together we can do this!)
Work plan: Write out the work plan. And then work the plan.

2. “What a heart knows by heart is what a heart knows”

Write your memory verses on a sticky note, on a chalkboard, for your pocket.

Because when you are memorizing Scripture, quiet time with the Lord — becomes all the time. (Who doesn’t want that?)

3. Flame first.

Light a candle first thing in the morning.

So you remember: You are the light that is put on a stand so that it gives light to everyone in the house.

4. Your work is art: it needs a soundtrack.

Find your music.

Play your music.

Sing your music. This is profound.

Vincent van Gogh said: “When sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, they all sing together to keep them up and give them vim. That’s just what artists lack.”

5. Step on the Snake Before Breakfast

Before breakfast, crush one hard thing that is tempting you to think there are impossible things.

Before breakfast, crush that one thing and prove that all things are possible with God.

6. Stay in the pool

Michael Phelps said it in an interview: “You’ve just got to stay in the pool longer than others.”

Set the timer. Get in the pool. Stay in the pool. Do your work. Don’t get distracted. Don’t flit from one thing to another and back.

Don’t get out of the pool, don’t leave your work, until the timer goes. The way to win is to stay in the pool.

7. Clean a space = clear headspace

Keeping the workspace clean, clears your headspace to think.

8. Go Slow. Life Zone. Life isn’t an Emergency: It’s a gift.

Life’s so extraordinary it warrants going slow, held in reverential awe.

Only the slow see their lives. Which makes it seem longer and richer.

9. Make Laughter Your Chocolate

The more you laugh, the longer you live. You can’t afford not to laugh more. Make laughter your chocolate.

10. No songs without rhythm

Every song needs a rhythm; every week needs a routine. Tie certain tasks to a day or another activity.

Always memorize after breakfast or always make a double batch of soup on Saturday.

Your life makes music when you play a string of tasks always together.

11. On 25, Take 5

For every 25 minutes “in the pool” working – take 5 minutes off. Live by pomodoros. Really. Life-changing.

12. Unplug to plug into your purpose

Only if you want to plug into peace and purpose and your big picture – then unplug for certain hours everyday.

Constant connectivity effects productivity like a marijuana high.

13.Watch Your Nos & Your Yeses will take Care of Themselves

Everything you say yes to, you say no to something else.

Are your yeses forcing you to say no to what really want to say yes to?

Don’t have guilt over a no – because every no is saying a better yes.

14. Daily Stillness Appointment

When is your 5 minute stillness appointment everyday?

Write that midday time in stone. No cancellations allowed. For 5 minutes midday, be still and cease striving.

Know He is God and the day looks very different.

Slow down: You only pass by this way once.

15. If the Heaven’s Declare, get out there.

The whole of the sky and the world is speaking endlessly of His glory.

When you step outside and listen, your soul revives. You need that.

You really need one walk outside a day. Even it’s just out the door to get the mail or walk the dog around the block or a walk around the yard before you have to get in the car.

16. Work on your Wall before Noon

Like Nehemiah who worked on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, build your wall, building whatever God has uniquely called you to — a particular work project, a creative project, homeschooling, homemaking, a ministry. Everyday before noon, work on your wall, laying down 3 stones before noon.

If you don’t intentionally work on your wall, the tyranny of the urgent can make your life a rubble heap.

17. Envision the End Goal

Like God gave Abraham a vision of the stars of the sky and told him he would have that many children, hang up a picture so you always have a vision of your goal.

18. Everyday, not Every Now and Then

Random acts of greatness pale in comparison to habitual acts of faithfulness.

It’s not what you do every now and then, but what you do everyday, that changes everything.

Do something at the same time everyday and you find yourself a new person.

19. Hard Stops

The only way to get anywhere safely is to make complete stops.

Make hard, complete stops at set times throughout the day to pray. Otherwise you’re risking a crash.

9, 12, 3, on the hour, might be times to set an a gentle, chime alarm for – and just stop and pray.

Praying at set times throughout the day is how both Jesus and the early church lived their days: God marking time.

20. The Holy, Happiness Habit {Count Gifts}

Write down 3 things a day you are grateful for. Hunt for His glory. Look for the beauty. Count 1000 gifts.

All research says that giving thanks is guaranteed to make you 25% happier. Who. Doesn’t. Want. That.?

Thank Him for this is definitely God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Take the Joy Dare! Make right where you are your happy place.

21. Ebenezers for the Efforts

Mark little milestones! Celebrate! The little things!

A treat at the end of the day, end of the week, end of the project, end of the term.

Hang a bunting. Taste something sweet. Take a happy, thumbs up picture to mark your progress!

Make an album of a year, of the process, of the overcoming.

22. Father Affirmations

You need these everyday. Whisper them aloud, who you really are if you are IN Christ:

I am complete in Christ. Colossians 2:9-10
I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4:14-16
I am free from condemnation. Romans 8:1-2
I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances. Romans 8:28
I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated from the love of God. Romans 8:31-39
I am confident that God will complete the good work He started in me. Philippians 1:6
I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

23. Breathe

Breathing in and breathing out like this will radically change the quality of your life. Breathe.

24. Hard and Bad Day? Hot Bath

An evening routine of a hot bath at the end of the hard and bad days?

Yes.

25. Rest so you can have the rest of God.

Sleep is more than your friend — it’s your God-given fuel.

Tomorrow always begins with the night before, so turn in early so tomorrow can turn out well.

Guest Post by Rachel Lewis

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Published on January 12, 2022 05:41

January 10, 2022

When Loss Causes You To Doubt God—But You’re Afraid Of Admitting It

What do we do when life has demanded from us the very thing desire most to keep? After the loss of five babies in pregnancy as well as saying good-bye to a foster son, my new friend Rachel Lewis is well-acquainted with this and all the questions loss hurls at us. Her story challenges us to embrace our questions and invites us into a safe space to navigate what comes next. It’s a pleasure to welcome Rachel to the front porch today…

My theology of God used to go like this: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Of course, this was not what I professed or what I learned while earning degrees in Bible and theology.

But in real life? Absolutely. And why not? Up until that point, I’d done all the “right” things, and God had provided.

But my life—and my faith—changed when my baby died during pregnancy, ushering in a long season of recurrent loss and grief.

The loss of my baby did not just cause me to question my faith. It eroded it. Slowly. Each disappointment, each month trying and not succeeding, each subsequent loss. Chip. Chip. Chip.

This loss, unwanted as it was, proved to be the very thing that allowed me to ask the hardest questions. And yet what I did not need was for anyone to tell me the answers. All my life, I’d been handed the answers before I even knew to ask the questions.

Maybe you have experienced this.

You question, “How could a loving God leave me on this earth without my hoped-for and loved child?” And someone replies, “God will never give you more than you can handle.”

Your heart cries, “Why did he let my child suffer? Is he a cruel God?” and a loved one says, “God reserves his hardest battles for his strongest soldiers.”

Your arms are empty and aching. “Why my baby?” you wonder. And the reply is quick in coming, “God needed another angel.”

It’s infuriating, isn’t it? Your life is devastated, leaving you with nothing but empty questions—and others give answers that cost them nothing.

And yet it’s in asking the questions that we express and explore our faith. Being honest about what we don’t understand means we accept that God is big enough and compassionate enough to embrace our humanity. Our questions matter.

“A healthy relationship with God comes with honesty on our part.”

I wonder how God feels when I claim to have faith but refuse to question and refuse to admit my doubts.

In human relationships, it is a greater act of faith to say, “I am deeply hurt. And I love you and trust you enough to be honest about how this has affected our relationship” than to pretend and say, “Everything’s fine!” when we know deep down it is not fine and our relationship is broken.

It is a greater act of faith to be honest than to pretend, to be transparent than to perform.

A healthy relationship with God comes with honesty on our part.

Perhaps our greatest act of faith is not to tell God what we think he wants to hear—but instead to be fully honest about our pain.

And perhaps when we come clean with our doubts and questions, we can experience a more intimate understanding of God.

God was never so real to me as when my family endured a different kind of child loss.

“Do you know what this feels like?” I asked God angrily. Impatiently.

Our family was getting ready to say good-bye to our foster baby whom we had raised for the past year and a half. And I’d had my fifth pregnancy loss just four months before. The losses kept piling up, and I was helpless to stop them. I was afraid he wouldn’t be safe. Devastated. Angry. Despairing.

I never heard God’s voice in answer to my question. Not audibly anyway.

But I felt it in my heart.

“I know.”

At this point, it didn’t matter that I’d heard the story of God’s son dying on the cross a million times. What mattered was that God knew my pain intimately because the pain of child loss was also his. I wrote these words on the following Good Friday, months after our foster son had left, as I reflected on God’s bereavement:

While it was the Son who died, it was the Father who looked on, no doubt wishing he could change places with his Son.

While the Son felt every physical pain, the Father felt the deepest pain of separation and loss—a feeling he, no doubt, had never experienced to that extent before. Especially when he turned away.

“What keeps me coming back is that God understands my pain.”

While the Son rose after three days, the Father took on the role of a bereaved parent and will forever know what it feels like to lose a child.

While Good Friday used to only point me to the Son, the beautiful sacrifice so we could know the Father—I now look at Good Friday as the day the Father made the even greater sacrifice—letting go of his one and only Son.

On this Good Friday, I remember not only the death of the Son but the bereavement of the Father. Not only did the Son share in our weakness, but the Father shared in our grief.

There is still so much I don’t understand about God or faith. When my friends suffer devastating loss, when senseless tragedies occur, my heart always questions why God allows such pain to exist in the world.

What keeps me coming back is that God understands my pain.

And on my darkest days—the days when I can’t see hope, or light, or goodness—I can go to him and tell him about all I’m feeling. And he knows. Because he’s been there too.

He sits in my brokenness with me, as only another bereaved parent can.

*****

Rachel Lewis is a foster, adoptive, and birth mom. After a five-year battle with secondary infertility and the losses of five babies during pregnancy, she now has three children in her arms and a foster son in her heart. When she’s not chauffeuring her kids around, you can find her drinking far too much coffee, eating gluten-free treats, and writing about grief and healing on her blog, The Lewis Note, or on her Facebook support group, Brave Mamas.

Find further wisdom from Rachel Lewis in her book, Unexpecting: Real Talk on Pregnancy Loss.

Rachel Lewis is the friend you never knew you’d need, walking you through the unique grief of baby loss. When nothing about life after loss makes sense . . . this book will. Purchase Unexpecting here.

[ Our humble thanks to Baker Publishing for their partnership in today’s devotion ]

A little joy and giggle to start…

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Published on January 10, 2022 04:58

January 8, 2022

Only the Good Stuff: MultivitaMins For Your Weekend [1.8.22]

Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:

Photo by Roie Galitz

Photo by Rupert Kogler

Photo by Pam Dorner

Photo by Terje Kolaas

These photos are from the Nature Photographer of the Year Awards

Oh The beauty of God’s good creation. His care for each one He has made.

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Image: Annie Otzen / Getty

Need some direction for how to pray in the New Year? Here are 10 Prayers to ignite that flame

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A little more snow fun for this wintery January

..a mother’s love

…the ingenuity and servant heart of an 11 year old to serve her family

When you don’t feel like doing that thing today…a blog post from this week

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Oh a father’s love

a 13 year old boy is recognized for his care for his community…

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…friends & love & cuteness

.. .a family kitchen serving their community since 1937 with some surprising twists…

Some good news from Thailand battling against trafficking of young girls…

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baby laughing joy

oh to be reminded that He is For us...

…Our blog this week with lovely printables to help you plan for 2022 &

ask God to help you do hard things this year

Books for Soul Healing:

Joy is actually possible, right where you are.

Take the dare to discover: Life is not an emergency…Life is a GIFT. Life is too short to do anything but truly savor it — to count all the ways you truly loved.

Journey into a deeply meaningful life with this devotional and take sixty steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance. The Way of Abundance — is the way forward every heart needs.

Enjoy free tools and printables by visiting here

Be the Gift is a tender invitation into the next step of deeper transformation, less stress, more joy and abundantly more peace & purpose. You only get one life to love well…to Be The Gift.

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.

guest post by Jon Bloom

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Published on January 08, 2022 06:34

January 5, 2022

What To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Doing Anything At All: How To Stop Procrastination

Inviting Mr. Jon Bloom, President of Desiring God, today. When I met Mr. Bloom at his office — I was deeply moved by his humility, his genuine warmth and down-to-earth grace — this was a man who genuinely, gently, walked with Jesus. Mr. Bloom authentically lives what he so compellingly writes. It’s a grace to welcome Jon to the farm’s front porch today…

What do you not feel like doing today?

You know what I mean. It’s that nagging thing weighing on you.

You know you should do it.

If you did it, it would honor God because it obeys his law of love (John 15:12), or it’s a work of faith (2 Thessalonians 1:11), or it puts “to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13).

You know it would be good for your soul or your body or your family or your vocation or your neighbor or your church.

But you don’t feel like doing it.

At all.

You know that God promises you more blessing if you do it than if you don’t.

But you’re struggling to believe that promise because it feels difficult.

It’s like you have weights on your ankles and wrists. You don’t want to muster the energy it’s going to take. And every distraction glows with attraction.

The Strange Pattern of Progress

While it’s true that this feeling has its roots in our remaining sin nature and is a weight we must lay aside (Hebrews 12:1), the experience of “not feeling like it” also can become for us a reminder of a gospel truth and actually give us hope and encouragement in this battle.

Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:

Healthy, nutritious food often requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food is convenient, tasty, and addictive.Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes moderate indulgence to go to pot.You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing but intellectually challenging book while flipping on the TV or popping in a DVD is as easy as coasting downhill.You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping in or cleaning that clutter or checking Facebook just has a gravitational pull.Learning to skillfully play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.Excelling in a sport requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.Learning to write well requires writing, writing, writing and rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. And usually voluminous reading.It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain vocational opportunities possible.

You get the idea.

The pattern in everything is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and difficulty and pain—things you must force yourself to do when you don’t feel like it—while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are as inviting as couch cushions.

Why is this?

Why the Struggle and Difficulty and Pain?

Because God, in great mercy, is showing us everywhere, in things that are just shadows of heavenly realities, that there is great reward for those who struggle through and persevere (Hebrews 10:32–35).

He is reminding us almost everywhere to walk by faith in a promised future and not by the sight of immediate gratification (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Understood this way, each thing we don’t feel like doing, great or small, becomes an invitation from God to follow in the faithful footsteps of his Son, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

Those who are spiritually blind only see futility in these struggles.

But for those who have eyes to see, God has woven gospel hope right into the futility of creation (Romans 8:20–21). Each struggle to overcome becomes a pointer saying, “Look ahead, past the struggle itself, past the temptation of the puny, vapor joys to the great, sustained, substantial Joy set before you!”

Endurance, Not Indulgence

So, back to that thing you don’t want to do today.

Don’t let “not feeling like it” reign as lord (Romans 6:12). It’s not your master; you don’t have to obey it.

And even though it’s counseling comfort for you, it’s not your friend either. It’s a whiny, lying joy-stealer. It’s pointing you to feeble joys and away from deep delights.

Instead, through this feeling see your Father pointing you to the reward he has planned for all who endure to the end (Matthew 24:13). Transpose it from reluctance to a reminder that God is calling you not to indulgence but endurance.

Then lay this weight aside and run with faith the race he has set before you. God will meet you with the grace you need (2 Corinthians 9:8).

And the thing is:

This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

Do it for the joy!

When he sent me an early manuscript of his book to read, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, I read slowly. Captivated by the stories of Scripture all over again. I made notes. I re-read. The chapters, 35 imaginative retellings of Bible stories, made me hungrier for God, His Truth, the company of Christ. Mr. Bloom’s Scripture saturated lines stirred a trust in God’s promises instead of personal perceptions.

I humbly encourage you to pick up Not by Sight… penned by a man who quietly, authentically lives what he so compellingly writes. Perfect devotional reading for your morning cup of espresso or tea — for a joyously productive 2022!