Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 63
April 2, 2021
After a Crash & Burn Year: Why Care More Than a Hill of Ashes about Good Friday
T here’s a burnt and charred Cross that hangs over my desk, like the whole world’s been more than a bit burned this year and everyone’s kinda staggering to foot of the Cross.
“Only the Cross says that there is a Way through, but it won’t look the way we’d thought, but in every one of His ways, He’s working in a thousand other ways.”
Like a whole blistering world of us has come with all the scorched dreams for our people and the torched hopes of our former lives.
Come with our soot-smeared relationships and the cinders of the story that now won’t ever be.
Come with more than our own stories, but come with each other and the injustice of all the starved and parched, come with the collective heartbreak of the fragile and fractured, come with the weight of a whole world of bruised and ruined.
Come with the incinerated bits of your one smoldering heart.
Come to the Cross because there is nowhere else in the world to go with this lament of all our cremated hopes.
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: Bracelet from The Keeping Company
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Because in all the world:
Only the Cross is stretched wide open enough to hold and embrace an ache like ours.
“Only the Cross can breathe life across the dying embers of our dreams because He is working in more ways than it seems.”
Only the Cross can breathe life across the dying embers of our dreams because He is working in more ways than it seems.
Only the Cross says that what feels like darkness-at-noon moments can be part of destroying all of the dark.
Only the Cross says what looks wrecked can resurrect.
Only the Cross says that there is a Way through, but it won’t look the way we’d thought, but in every one of His ways, He’s working in a thousand other ways. Trust all of His ways.
And Good Friday says believe in the better mysteries:
Believe death killed death.
And the born can be reborn.
Sin can be consumed by Love,
Debt can be erased by Grace,
And The Nailed One can nail it, kill it and resurrect all of it better than our wildest dreams because His new Kingdom right now is defeating any of evil’s venom.
“In a world that desperately needs good news — there is Good Friday and a revolutionary Sunday morning coming with a new world order and that is the realest news.”
Because only this King, on this Cross, can become the lever that turns the cosmic axis of this world and our lost souls right around and begin a revolution.
Good Friday doesn’t just change our own story — Good Friday changes the whole world.
In a world that desperately needs good news — there is Good Friday and a revolutionary Sunday morning coming with a new world order and that is the realest news.
The world outside our doors feels charred from the hardest year, through the veil of smoke, this stands, this remains:
The Cross is our only Hope.
On Good Friday morning, through the searing haze of these days, we see — really see with the wide open eyes of our heart — and I reach out to touch that charred Cross over my desk and feel it:
Come to the Cross and the passion of the Christ —and let the heart ignite with a love that cannot be razed, our love song rising far higher in a glory blaze of its own.
April 1, 2021
Nobody Can Afford to Miss this Memo & Mandate for Holy Thursday
“T here’s a reason He called us His Body and not His Estate.”
That’s what Tib Pearson told me.
Tib with his Red Wing work boots and worn John Deere hat and hands weathered and etched like a greying cedar rail.
“A Body is connected with sinew and vein — and an estate is divided with fences and line.“
He said it with his hands, the way a man of the land does, and you could see how his hands knew rusted wire and gnarled barbs and how to free things caught in fences.
“You gotta cut down the fences –or you cut up the Body.“
I’m not saying Tib knew anything, really.
Just maybe saying something about how to open up the earth and suffer a bit, so there is yield, how the Christ had commanded on Maundy Thursday, maundatam Thursday, Thursday of the new mandate, that command of the Last Supper:
“As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
A new command I give you: Love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34–35)
The way we live that?
You’d think it was some flimsy, take-it-or-leave-it suggestion.
You’d think disciples are actually known by the number of points of their creeds, or the acceptable books on their shelves, or the right conferences on their calendars, or the approved names they drop in the church foyer.
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
You’d think Christ’s own were known by who they avoid, who they disdain, who they call out, who they label. You’d think being known by your love was being known as a liberal instead of a Christian, and there are thousand things backward about this.
Do you tell a man like Tib Pearson that you think we’re all getting torn apart?
That it feels like someone is trying to rip us brothers and sisters apart at the holy limbs, that love is laughed at as the anemic brother of muscular truth, and that acerbic rhetoric seems like the blood flow through the Body, not love?
And there is Jesus before Calvary, Christ crushed beneath that Cross, begging that prayer of Maundy Thursday:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message….
that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity.
Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20–23)
Only those who love, are sent by Christ.
Without love — Christ didn’t send you.
Who will keep His new commandment and who will be the answer to Christ’s prayers? Who will love as He lived?
And I once laid awake for weeks, thinking of how someone misunderstood me. Sometimes instead of shooting someone a clarifying question – we shoot arrows. I thought my heart might bleed to death.
The Farmer, he pulled on this t-shirt “My Wife Rocks” – not his typical farmer vernacular or his typical farmer attire – but it was his broken way of standing with me, dying for me, and he just drew me close when the pain of it all made it hard to keep standing.
I had laid awake at night and it hurt to inhale.
“Christians need to be most careful with words if we are the most Christ-full.”
And I groped around that thought and I repented and prayed I wouldn’t forget: Christians need to be most careful with words if we are the most Christ-full.
And what a heart knows by heart is what a heart knows and mine pounded out in the dark, the memory of Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers – for they will be called children of God.”
If I didn’t live peace – whose child would I be then?
It took me several nights of laying awake — but finally one night — I got up out of bed. My fingers trembled but wasn’t His command to love one another anyways? And I tapped out an email to that person whose words had bled me open. I sent an invitation to dinner.
Not a rebuttal, not an explanation, not a defence.
I invited their whole family to come over and sit across the table.
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
“When a relationship starts to break down, instead of breaking fellowship — always ask to break bread.”
The Body of Christ has a thousand angry opinions, a thousand fractions and divisions and circles, all these cliques of circles, all these walls. But not one of us are not broken.
And acknowledging our own brokenness is what makes high walls between people crumble. Because when you are broken– it’s always your pointing finger that is broken. You can’t point at anyone else anymore as the only sinner.
Brokenness breaks us from our need to be “right” and breaks us open to our need to extend the grace we have been given.
While I was yet sinning directly against Him, Christ reached out wide to me and directly took the nail and literally drained Himself for me .
“Obedience to the law of Love is the most expedient way to preach the gospel.“
If we truly believe someone’s soul is in danger — why do we demonize them instead of evangelize them?
And laying there in the dark, thinking about how one fence had been torn down by love, and how I could tear down another fence and love someone different than me — He can give you eyes to see and it’s like you can read the writing right there on all the walls between us:
Obedience to the law of Love is the most expedient way to preach the gospel.
There’s Christ before Calvary, Christ crushed beneath that Cross, and what did He do but live the law of love?
What does God do but live the law of love: “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”
God loves while we sin, God holds out His hand to the disobedient, and love is what makes God the most potent of all. Love is the the most radically subversive activism of all, the only thing that ever changed any one.
“Love is the the most radically subversive activism of all, the only thing that ever changed any one.”
We never have to be afraid to love — as if love might gag truth and kill God.
Love never negates truth. Because love never silences Truth.
Love is the very foundation of Truth: without love, Truth crashes, a clanging gong. Without love, Christ didn’t send you.
Love is the language of Truth and grace is the dialect of God and Truth is only understandable if spoken with understanding love.
Christ prayed that new mandate on Maundy Thursday, that we might be brought to complete unity — and unity doesn’t mean that we paper over our differences. It means we open the papers of His Word and dialogue — not open fire and destroy.
It could happen like this: We could stop confusing unity with unanimity. God’s people may not have doctrinal unanimity, but we must have definite unity, if we’re ever to have deep credibility.
The eminent theologian, J.I. Packer, he had prayed like my friend Tib, for the “visible church as a single worldwide, Spirit-sustained community, within which ongoing doctrinal and denominational divisions, though important, are secondary rather than primary.”
True, there is always this tension between practicing Unity and preaching Truth – but it is the tension of two people hanging fiercely on to each other, like the tension of a bridge, that the Gospel might go forth into all the world. If we let go of each other — the Gospel goes nowhere.
What can wound Christ more than Christians cannibalizing each other?
“ I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree together, to end your divisions, and to be united by the same mind and purpose.
For members of Chloe’s household have made it clear to me, my brothers and sisters, that there are quarrels among you.
Now I mean this, that each of you is saying, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” or “I am with Cephas,” or “I am with Christ.”
Is Christ divided?” ~ 1 Cor 1:10–14
Is Christ divided?
Puritan Richard Baxter in his work The Reformed Pastor brazenly wrote:
“He that is not a son of Peace is not a son of God. All other sins destroy the Church consequentially; but Division and Separation demolish it directly…”
Division and separation demolish the Church directly.
Tib Pearson, he knows what every farmer knows. If you want a field to yield, you have to tear out the fences.
Is the internet, is the Body of Christ, too scared to break down walls and reach across lines? Aren’t I chief among sinners? Scared that if I reach out to that person– some will conclude that I agree with all of their theology.
What if I was just loving the person?
That’s how the enemy tries to cut the Body with two wires:
If you disagree with someone on one point – then you must disdain or dismiss them entirely. And if you acknowledge or affirm someone – then you must agree with them entirely. This is a lie. Break it.
“Having Christian convictions can’t ever negate having Christ’s compassion.”
Christ was never scared of guilt by association.
Sure, the watchdogs asked, “Why does he eat with sinners and tax collectors?”
Because He was loving them.
Maundy Thursday’s there on the calendar today, and Christ carries His cross, and this is the call of God in this hour to the Body of Christ in this world: Instead of drawing dividing lines in the community of Cross believers -–the broken are called to demolish the walls of division.
And we are the brothers and sisters who can’t be torn apart, who rise up with Beth Moore’s wisdom: “We break our sinful stereotypes in Christianity the same way we break them in the world – we get to know people we’re prejudiced toward.”
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
We are the People of the Cross who are ready obey the mandate of the Thursday before Good Friday, who live the new commandment of Maundy Thursday and find one person different than we are and us broken people who start breaking down walls and we reach out to someone of a different denomination, a different political leaning, a different nationality, a different culture, a different orientation, a different skin color –a different religion.
We are the People of the Cross who take seriously enough the Maundy Thursday commandment to actually love one another that we invite someone to our table from the other side of the fence.
If there’s someone we wouldn’t want at our table, we need to see who Jesus wanted to sit beside at the Last Supper table. If Jesus can dip from the same bowl as Judas, we can share the same table, the same space, with anyone, with grace.
“If Jesus can dip from the same bowl as Judas, we can share the same table, the same space, with anyone, with grace.”
Because we are the People of the Cross who instead of waging attack on the implicit issues of another’s faith life — spend our lives openly encouraging an explicit faith in the living Christ.
We could be the ones in Christ who are done with fearing guilt by association and ready to live grace by association.
Why be afraid of guilt by association – because if we don’t associate beyond the walls, how will anyone ever come to know the wonders of His grace?
We could be the ones who know that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Gal.5:6) The people who know not just in our cerebral synapses but in the chambers of our bravely pounding hearts: that if we have right doctrine, but have not love, we are nothing more than a clanging gong.
I could tell Tib that.
That the only barbed wire the Body ever knows is like those barbed thorns pressed into His brow.
How that Maundy Thursday Lord, that Good Friday Christ, broke His own body on that cross to break down the walls of hostility that can no longer separate us at all.
This one’s for those who dare to trust that what looks like a whole lot of broken pieces — can actually be the beginning of the abundant life.
Pick up our story of The Broken Way and in the midst of heartbreak, dare to step into the abundant life.
March 30, 2021
1 Word That Will Revolutionize Your Holy Week — & Your Life
No one word has more radically changed my life — or saved me from ending my life — than that one word, and that rarely happens over the whole of a lifetime.
True, it was a word that once was all Greek to me, but it became the word that came before all the miracles.
And it’s the one word that unfurls Holy Week for me — and not just Holy Week, but all the days and weeks of our lives, making even the hardest things into holy grace.
“And on the night He was BETRAYED…
Jesus He broke bread & lifted it up & GAVE THANKS.’” 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
“Without exception … all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.”
Augustine
“In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”
The root word of eucharisteo is “charis”, meaning grace. Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks.
But there is more: Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, “charis.” But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word “chara,” meaning joy. Joy.
That might be what the quest for more is all about—that which Augustine claimed, “Without exception … all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.”
I breathe deep, like a sojourner finally coming home.” ~One Thousand Gifts
Joy Prouty
Eucharisteo Bracelet: at The Keeping Company
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
On the night Jesus was betrayed — He gave thanks.
“If Jesus chooses to Practice Thanksgiving in the face of incomprehensible dark — why do we think there is any other better weapon against the dark?”
On the night when the prodigal sliced open your heart, on the night when you lost your job, when your person slammed out the door, and the toilet stopped flushing, and the dog gagged and puked all over the back mat, on the night when it looked like the dawn would never come again — there is always a choice, and why not choose what Jesus did?
Because when Jesus had to fight through dark, staring right into the most impossible situation of the Cross — what does He do?
Out of a universe of supernatural options at the tip of His fingers — what does Jesus do?
On the night when Jesus was betrayed — He gave thanks.
If Jesus can give thanks in that — you can give thanks in everything.
If Jesus chooses to Practice Thanksgiving in the face of incomprehensible dark — why do we think there is any other better weapon against the dark?
“If you want a strong and resilient joyfulness, you have to practice thankfulness precisely when it’s hard.”
If Jesus believes that the Practice of Thanksgiving is the right response when He is about to be punished for every unimaginable evil that the world has or ever will ever know — how can we imagine that somehow thanksgiving isn’t the right response for whatever dark we’ve ever known?
If Jesus chooses to give thanks before He carries His Cross — why do we think we don’t have to practice gratitude and yet we can still carry ours?
Giving thanks is what gives us strength to carry our crosses.
If you want a strong and resilient joyfulness, you have to practice thankfulness precisely when it’s hard.
When you turn and open your eyes to see gifts in the hard, it’s your mind that grows more open and flexible, and it’s looking for the brilliance of God in the dark that grows you in resilience for tomorrow’s hard times.
“Giving thanks is what gives us strength to carry our crosses.”
How you give thanks now, is how you get resilient and strong for tomorrow.
What good you choose to pay attention to today, is the good your mind will remember tomorrow, which is the good that your mind will be trained to be looking for next week.
Paying attention to grace today pays your soul dividends tomorrow.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy ProutyIt’s been a long decade since first writing down one thousand gifts and all these daily gratitude lists: We’ve stood under the white lights of ER to find our one child’s pancreas was dead and we’ve had to become a manual organ day and night to keep our diabetic kid alive.
“Joy is simply a long thankfulness in the direction of God.”
We drove another child to the city hospital to have a thyroid radiated and embark on the daily and relentless calibration of meds to be a manual thyroid for life.
Another child’s chest has been sawed open twice for heart surgery and we keep giving blood thinners and beta blockers daily, and keep our cardiologist appointments to monitor when this palliative half-a-heart will start to fail, and we never stop begging God to give a long life.
I’ve fallen hard and smashed holy things I didn’t know how to put back together.
I’ve driven Mama to biopsies. We’ve stood at gravesides and watched caskets bearing bodies of people we desperately love lowering down into the cold earth. I’ve gotten phone calls that were my literal worst nightmares — and there is no waking up.
I’ve fought self-hatred and failure and the ache to self-harm. But I’m still standing at the end of this decade to testify: Joy is simply a long thankfulness in the direction of God.
Giving thanks isn’t for the pushover pollyannas — giving thanks is for the pillars of strength who have trained their souls to see that God is always a pillar of fire ahead of them, making a way of grace.
I meet a woman named Lisa and she shows me a photo of her seven gratitude journals where she writes more than 1000 gifts a year and she’s throwing a party when she writes more than 10,000 and the art of eucharisteo, the practice of giving thanks, has given her the richest life of joy, even in the life she has, right where she is.
I keep track through the years of a young football-loving Texan named Nick who read One Thousand Gifts one long decade ago now, and he tells me that every single year since, he leads the College Group of boys he disciples through the daily practice of gratitude, sharing how eucharisteo revolutionized his life.
College guys text their gift lists to each other each night. And Nick texts me how young 20-something guys fight through grief and loss with a pen in their hand, writing down gifts, year after year, after year, young guys who have lost family through the COVID pandemic writing: “Seeing that making those lists over the past four years has always centered my heart back on the presence of God.”
This is realest reality:
Gratitude says the goodness of God is greater than grief of this world. This may be a world of trouble, but this is a world that has been overcome by the goodness of God. Keep looking for the good around us, and we see God’s keeping company here with us.
And if God and His goodness is still here with us, how can we not still give thanks?
“Gratitude is a state of mind — that changes the state of your life because it changes how you see your life.”
Gratitude is a state of mind — that changes the state of your life because it changes how you see your life.
Practicing thankfulness is a perspective workout — training your eyes to see how God is working out all things together for God. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (MT 6:23)
Gratitude is a reframe — so we stop framing God, and start framing our lives as a masterpiece of grace by God.
Even now, I dare to believe.
It is no small thing in hard times, and on the hardest days of our lives, that we will all one day face:
Individuals who practice the habit of thankfulness are proven to have better emotional coping skills. Because thankfulness is a state of mind that opens your mind to all kinds of possibility, potential and perspective. “The idea is that our minds actually work better when we are grateful — allowing us to be more creative, more optimistic, and more capable in our endeavors,” writes clinical psychologist, Dr. Lillian Nejad .
Which is to say: Your brain on thankfulness leads to the full life.
“Doxology or dark — the choice is always ours.”
Your heart on gratitude leads to God. Where else do you want to go?
Doxology or dark — the choice is always ours.
It’s the 10th anniversary since our little book about eucharisteo flew out into the world and landed like hope on a feather into the hands of more than a million and half gratitude warriors, and then winged further around the world into more than 20 languages and revolutionized countless little worlds, mine chief.
Because on the days when the dark had me in a chokehold and kids and marriages and hope was crashing and burning, I didn’t just grab a pen and write down the easy things as gifts — I purposefully wrote down the very hardest things, one after another, and intentionally counted the very hardest things I was facing as good gifts because unless you count the hard things as good gifts you’ve miscounted.
Counting the hard gifts as good gifts is my quiver to make all the dark quake.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Eucharisteo Bracelet: at The Keeping Company
Joy ProutyGratitude isn’t some optional, in vogue notion; it’s an actual unstoppable weapon in Christ. The daily Practice of Gratitude is for the warriors who are committed to seriously wielding a weapon against the dark, to slaying all the dark.
“There is no invitation more urgent than that of returning thanks — because this is what turns all our dark around. Because it turns everything around to face God.”
Because: The one thing the dark can’t ever hold a candle to, is a heart kindled with thanks to God for being a good God.
There is never anything to fear. Thankfulness is the sleek feathered arrow that strikes at the dark heart of doubt. This is the weapon that never runs out. This is our Father’s world and there is always evermore to be thankful for.
“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks,” wrote Ambrose of Milan.
There is no invitation more urgent than that of returning thanks — because this is what turns all our dark around. Because it turns everything around to face God.
Jesus will break the bread this week. He will face hell on earth, look the devil squarely in the eye and defy him with His thanks for the goodness of God.
And it will happen: Thanksgiving will precede the miracle, and that old impossible stone will turn and roll, and the awed revolution will happen and the whole of creation and us will rise, and how can anything rise from our lips in the face of all this grace, but that one word that begins every resurrection, every new life:
Thanks be to God.
Download Your Complete Joy Tool Kit Here
After you’ve picked up the new collector’s edition of the 10th Anniversary edition of One Thousand Gifts with a beautiful ribbon marker and all new introduction from Ann — which makes a perfect gift for mom, sister, grandmother, or special friend —download the Complete Joy Tool Kit — our Free gift to you!
The new 10th Anniversary Edition of One Thousand Gifts with ribbon and new introduction
March 29, 2021
When Holy Week is Far from Perfect
So we waved our pine branches found in the woods — no palm fronds here on the farm — and sang our Hosanna! Hosanna! — literally Save Us! Save us! Because here we pushing through these last days of a global pandemic believing God can literally save us all in the realest ways, even now.
“However hard this week is, this was Jesus’ hard week and He overcame and if we come to Him, we can too.”
If our soul is safe, all is safe.
I try to keep the news a bit at bay, but most of our grown kids children sit down at our dinner table eager to slice and dice the headlines like they are ready cut up their pork chops, savor what is good, and then spit out any bones.
While they talk about how the news is this week, I light the candles on our Lent wreath.
It’s is the beginning of the Holiest Week of the year.
Whatever numbers, news, headline peaks this week, we can stay communing with Him on an interior mountain peak.
“After a year of losses, this Lent asks us to embrace the depths of loss — and embrace all of the Hope of God.”
And it’s still true in many places around the world, there are many still shuttered behind closed doors, praying for the angel of death to pass over us.
This is the week too, all around the world, we prepare all that we need to prepare a Passover meal.
I prepare, rubbing marinate into lamb, blood ponding on plate, my hand massaging the lamb, fingers pressing out more of that impossible red, all the necessary essence of Easter, all very non-Hallmark.
And the nostrils fill with this scent of blood and wretched stench of sin, and this heart beating in my chest’s hurting for the only God whose wild love had Him pass over us by splaying open His own heart, by tearing open a vein and becoming a lamb dragged to the slaughter without bleating or begging…
to cleanse the bloody mess of all those who’ve fallen, fallen behind, fallen in a thousand ways.
At the beginning of Holy Week, this the scarlet hope that’s stained deep into skin.
After a year of losses, this Lent asks us to embrace the depths of loss — and embrace all of the Hope of God.
Whatever we are facing this season, this Lent, this end of one surreal year, Hope is actually here:
“Whatever cross we’re carrying, it grows light when we let Jesus carry us.”
No matter how deep our waters, the waves won’t pass over us, because with Jesus, there is now only passing through.
I move the figurine of Jesus carrying the cross forward on the Lenten wreath.
His back’s bent, His shoulders bearing, His heart breaking. Jesus never stops crying with us. I linger, memorize Jesus’ cross-carrying silhouette.
Whatever cross we’re carrying, it grows light when we let Jesus carry us.
However hard this week is, this was Jesus’ hard week & He overcame & if we come to Him, we can too.
To Set a Simple Table for a Christian Passover:
1. matzah (or Wholewheat Unleavened Bread)
2. juice of the vine (wine, grape juice, non-alcoholic wine)
3. sprigs of lush green parsley
4. horseradish (bitter herbs)
5. chopped apples and raisins (called haroset)
6. heavy shank bone of lamb
7. boiled egg
8. small dish of salted water
Make it a Simple Menu:
Roast Leg of Lamb with Rosemary
Baked Asparagus with Balsamic Butter Sauce
Haroset (Chopped Apples & Raisins) for Passover
Baby carrots
And for dessert: New Life
A Christian Passover Meal and program printable:free for you to download and print here
When Holy Week is Far from Perfect & You Just Need a Perfect Lamb (CHRISTIAN PASSOVER SEDER MEAL: PRINTABLE & MENU PLAN)
So we waved our pine branches found in the woods — no palm fronds here on the farm — and sang our Hosanna! Hosanna! — literally Save Us! Save us! Because here we pushing through these last days of a global pandemic believing God can literally save us all in the realest ways, even now.
“However hard this week is, this was Jesus’ hard week and He overcame and if we come to Him, we can too.”If our soul is safe, all is safe.
I try to keep the news a bit at bay, but most of our grown kids children sit down at our dinner table eager to slice and dice the headlines like they are ready cut up their pork chops, savor what is good, and then spit out any bones.
While they talk about how the news is this week, I light the candles on our Lent wreath.
It’s is the beginning of the Holiest Week of the year.
Whatever numbers, news, headline peaks this week, we can stay communing with Him on an interior mountain peak.
Hyatt Moore
And it’s still true in many places around the world, there are many still shuttered behind closed doors, praying for the angel of death to pass over us.
This is the week too, all around the world, we prepare all that we need to prepare a Passover meal.
I prepare, rubbing marinate into lamb, blood ponding on plate, my hand massaging the lamb, fingers pressing out more of that impossible red, all the necessary essence of Easter, all very non-Hallmark.
And the nostrils fill with this scent of blood and wretched stench of sin, and this heart beating in my chest’s hurting for the only God whose wild love had Him pass over us by splaying open His own heart, by tearing open a vein and becoming a lamb dragged to the slaughter without bleating or begging…
to cleanse the bloody mess of all those who’ve fallen, fallen behind, fallen in a thousand ways.
At the beginning of Holy Week, this the scarlet hope that’s stained deep into skin.
After a year of losses, this Lent asks us to embrace the depths of loss — and embrace all of the Hope of God.
Whatever we are facing this season, this Lent, this end of one surreal year, Hope is actually here:
“Whatever cross we’re carrying, it grows light when we let Jesus carry us.”No matter how deep our waters, the waves won’t pass over us, because with Jesus, there is now only passing through.
I move the figurine of Jesus carrying the cross forward on the Lenten wreath.
His back’s bent, His shoulders bearing, His heart breaking. Jesus never stops crying with us. I linger, memorize Jesus’ cross-carrying silhouette.
Whatever cross we’re carrying, it grows light when we let Jesus carry us.
However hard this week is, this was Jesus’ hard week & He overcame & if we come to Him, we can too.
To Set a Simple Table for a Christian Passover:
1. matzah (or Wholewheat Unleavened Bread)
2. juice of the vine (wine, grape juice, non-alcoholic wine)
3. sprigs of lush green parsley
4. horseradish (bitter herbs)
5. chopped apples and raisins (called haroset)
6. heavy shank bone of lamb
7. boiled egg
8. small dish of salted water
Make it a Simple Menu:
Roast Leg of Lamb with Rosemary
Baked Asparagus with Balsamic Butter Sauce
Haroset (Chopped Apples & Raisins) for Passover
Baby carrots
And for dessert: New Life
A Christian Passover Meal and program printable:free for you to download and print here
March 27, 2021
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.27.21]
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:
Christiaan van Heijst
Christiaan van Heijst
Christiaan van Heijst
Christiaan van Heijst
Christiaan van Heijsthe brilliantly documents and shares our world from the skies
just some basics for those who have never had the opportunity to learn: How to read music
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
this is everything right here
If you watch anything in the next couple of weeks, make it this movie Minari. If you care about being part of another, more hopeful narrative, Minari is a movie for our times.
What my friend, Helen Lee, writes here is profound and needful and I’ve been sitting long with her wisdom.
Our family is leaning into “The Wonderful, Wonderful Healing Power of Minari.”
Do you struggle to know what to say to God in prayer? A great way to guide your prayers is by including God’s Word. Meditate on the truths and promises of Scripture and then turn them into prayers. God loves when you speak His language!
Thank you for this, Joni Eareckson Tada…
Before and After Safe Water: 20 Powerful Photos which may change your perspective when you take your next drink
Jesus’ work and ministry culminated in a week of controversy leading up to the celebration of Passover
In this video, we’ll explore the Gospel of Luke 19-23, and how it came about that the innocent Jesus ended up being executed as a revolutionary rebel against Rome. We’ll also see how Jesus was not at all surprised because He believed that His death would open up a new future for Israel, and for all humanity.
… classic loveliness in our Fair Trade store, Grace Crafted Home:
using these items every day here on the farm
Your home and life can tell a story — that’s changing the story of the world.
(100% of proceeds go to help fund Mercy House Global’s work in Kenya)
glory, glory, glory
30 Amazing Winners of the World Nature Photography Awards
This week on Better Together’s, Lisa Harper discusses what scripture actually says about women.
Join the conversation as Melinda Doolittle, Natalie Grant, Jamie Ivey, and Nona Jones join Lisa Harper to discuss how we’ve been taking passages in the Bible out of context regarding women and how God views women.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Juli Wilson (@itsjuliwilson)
profoundly said…one to read again and again:
Maybe you need this reminder today too: It’s okay to not have all the answers. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to cry. God never said we’d have a pain free life, He actually gave us a heads up that we’ll all face hard times. His story never ends there, though. He is a restorer at heart and He specializes in redemption.
just too good not to share: Less Like Me
You Don’t Need to Understand Now
We don’t need to understand God’s purposes now; what we need to do is trust God’s purposes now.
thank you for this, Jon Bloom
stories like these? never, ever get old… don’t miss this one
Believe it: Every day is a fresh start
a moving, life-changing love story…they share their hard yet hope-filled truth
Resource: Our Heirloom Lenten Wreath
Post of the week from these parts here:
The details of our hard may be different, but all our need for courage is the same.
Right. There. With. You.
How To Live Through Hard ThingsDo You Have to Belong to Israel to Be Saved?
Ephesians 2:11–13
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.
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 intivation 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.
on repeat this week: When We Fall Apart
Early in the morning, first thing, there’s this turning on of a lamp and this sacred encounter with God:
Today, let’s pine after the heart of God:
Want the One who wants you more than anyone else.
I have found this true, especially at the bottom of all kinds of unspoken broken: God is never an obligation, but always worthy of anticipation. Time with God isn’t an action on some to-do list but an act of Love with Someone.
God isn’t a duty when you are attracted to His beauty.
I can not help it, because this has been my story:
Fall in love with the One who erases all of your falls.
Pine after the One who hung on a tree for you,
the only One who ever loved you to death and back to the realest life.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
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 26, 2021
Faithfulness When Heaven Feels Silent
Diana Gruver knows what it’s like to be in the dark. Her personal experience with depression sent her on a journey to learn from others in church history about what it looks like to follow Jesus faithfully in the midst of depression’s darkness. You won’t find easy fixes or cliches here—simply an unrelenting hope that you are not alone. In the life of Mother Teresa, Diana finds a picture of what faithfulness looks like when heaven seems to have gone silent. It’s a grace to welcome Diana to the farm’s front porch today…
The world knows her name. Mother Teresa. The saint of Calcutta.
But under the surface, behind the wrinkled smile that graced the suffering, was a woman who herself was suffering.
From the time she first obeyed God’s call to begin her life as a Missionary of Charity, the intimacy she enjoyed with Him disappeared.
“As I read her words—her prayers, her questions, her doubts—I hear refrains of my own cries from the dark.”Emotion gave way to numbness. The fullness of God’s presence morphed into a vacant shell. She cried out to the heavens, “Do you see me here? Why have you forsaken me?”
But then she wondered if there was even anyone to hear her call. She fumbled in the dark, hoping she would not lose her way.
With the exception of one month of respite, she remained in this dark night of faith for nearly fifty years, all the way until her death.
Hers was a journey of faith, not sight.
As I read her words—her prayers, her questions, her doubts—I hear refrains of my own cries from the dark.
I don’t know if Mother Teresa was depressed, but many of us find in her a fellow sojourner, with spiritual trials akin to what we have experienced in depression.
She speaks to us wisdom of how to navigate the spiritual life when heaven seems to have gone silent, when prayers echo into the void, when the consolations of faith disappear.
Regardless of her feelings, Mother Teresa continued to turn to Jesus in prayer.
But prayer (and other spiritual disciplines as well) looked and felt different in the dark than they had in seasons of light and warmth and delight.
The oneness she had experienced with God in prayer and the sense of being in His presence dissipated to the extent that she insisted she did not pray, could not pray any longer. Her lips shaped words, but they no longer brought a sense of connection or peace.
“She wrestled with God’s very existence, but still she directed all of these thoughts and feelings to Him—still she prayed.”She wrestled with God’s very existence, but still she directed all of these thoughts and feelings to Him—still she prayed.
She prayed, and Jesus met her on the way. He met her in her stifled words. He met her as she was surrounded by the prayers of her sisters during their community prayers. He met her as she walked the streets of Calcutta.
She prayed boldly of her pain, even telling God she didn’t know if she believed in Him. Regardless of her feelings, she brought her thoughts, her questions, and her hurt before God.
In this sense, her letters and prayers remind me of the lament psalms in the Bible. She didn’t know what to pray and sometimes wasn’t convinced that God was listening or that He was even there. But she turned her aching heart to Him, kept praying, kept calling out. She pounded on heaven’s door, begging God to listen, begging Him to appear.
This did not remove her pain. It did not bring instant light to her darkness. But it did keep her in the right place—at His feet.
“Depression does not show some of us to be more obedient or faithful than others.”And that small, simple, childlike faith and dependence was enough to keep her going for a lifetime.
Another practice that helped Mother Teresa find her way in the dark was obedience. She had once heard God’s call. She had been called to dedicate her life to His service, to follow Him in serving the poor, to lead a religious congregation, to care for Him by meeting the needs of the suffering. So, even when her interior life became “icy cold,” even when all within was “darkness,” she carried on in “blind faith.”
She did not understand everything. She did not have answers to why she suffered. But she continued to follow her last marching orders, taking steps each day in obedience the best way she knew how. The knowledge that she was doing God’s work was reassuring when all else felt lost.
Mother Teresa’s attitude is inspiring, but I’m left wondering how I’m to emulate it. Our situations are so different. I’m not a nun, bound to obedience to my religious superiors. I do not have a clear, specific call as she did.
I also know how debilitating depression can be. Like any illness, it affects each of us differently. Like any illness, it forces some of us to “walk with a limp” and leaves others flat on their backs. Some of us may be able to continue in our jobs or keep muddling through our activities and responsibilities. Others of us can barely get out of bed each day.
Depression does not show some of us to be more obedient or faithful than others. I do not want to use Mother Teresa’s example to say that we must will our way to wholeness or that those of us incapacitated by depression are weak, disobedient, or faithless.
But I think Mother Teresa still has something to teach us here.
We, too, can seek to be faithful and obedient in the midst of our deep pain.
“We, too, can seek to be faithful and obedient in the midst of our deep pain.”This does not need to be a grandiose act—and it does not need to lead to guilt over all the things depression keeps us from doing. (We have enough guilt already.)
It may be as simple as getting out of bed, choosing life by putting our feet on the floor.
It may be taking our medication as prescribed by our doctors or taking the brave step to ask for help.
It may be exercising or letting that friend take you for coffee.
It is taking the next little step already at your feet.
God has created you with unique passions and skills, with a beautiful way only you can image Him to the world. He has invited you to participate in the work of His kingdom.
“Obedience” to this “call” is living each moment in faith that you still believe this to be true, even when your world and your vision of that kingdom is dim.
Follow Jesus there, in those tiny, faltering ways.
This is what it means to be faithful.
Diana Gruver writes about discipleship and spiritual formation in the every day. Her passion is encouraging and nurturing disciples of Jesus, giving them a vision for how He speaks to every aspect of the story of their lives. She serves as a writer and communications director for the Vere Institute, and lives in south-central Pennsylvania, where she can often be found singing in the kitchen with her husband and ever-curious daughter.
Diana’s first book, Companions in the Darkness, tells the stories and shares the wisdom of seven “saints” throughout church history who struggled with depression and doubt. They are stories she wishes she had known when she first walked through depression’s darkness. Drawing on her own experience with depression, Diana offers a wealth of practical wisdom both for those in the darkness and those who care for them. Not only can these saints teach us valuable lessons about the experience of depression, they can also be a source of hope and empathy for us today.
March 24, 2021
How To Live Through Hard Things
When the woman reached out to hug me just before I got to the door, she whispered it in my ear and I barely heard it through what was leaking down her cheeks, “I don’t know if I’m going to live through this.”
She pulled back and looked me in the eye:
“How do you keep taking one step after another — when you want to be on another road?”
“Maybe it’s — I just don’t know how — to live through this?”
I read her eyes and she reads mine and how do you hear the voice of the Shepherd still calling your name when the lies from the pit keep calling you names, and you can’t breathe for the shame?
How do you live through this hard thing — that’s effecting everything? How do you keep finding a way forward — without losing your hope along the way?
How do you keep taking one step after another — when you want to be on another road?
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: Our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: Our heirloom Lenten Wreath
The woman brushes her cheeks with the back of her hand.
And I don’t know what grief that’s got her cornered at every turn, or if it’s a prodigal child she’s begging to make a u-turn, don’t know if it’s a mountain she’s got to take, or if it’s something that’s trying to take her — but I know that I know that overwhelmed look in her eyes and I feel the cracking ache in her brave voice and the details of our hard may be different, but all our need for courage is the same.
“The details of our hard may be different, but all our need for courage is the same.”
The prodigal has gone off the rails, but your love isn’t going anywhere.
The situation just keeps going south, but you aren’t taking your eye off He who is your North star.
The job offer doesn’t come through, but you don’t offer to back down from life one iota.
The scale doesn’t move a digit, but your determination doesn’t budge an inch.
The letter doesn’t come in the mail, but you don’t accept that this any dead end.
The knot in your gut that was there last night, is right there strangling you a bit tighter as soon as you open your eyes this morning, but you grab hold of that rope and you just tie it to the next thing and the next thing and you make that knot in your gut into a knotted lifeline from one moment to the next.
And I cup her face in my hands. And I nod, because I feel it too:
Everyone is fighting a hard battle — but there are a whole lot of us fighting hard battles, after losing a whole string of other battles. Sometimes it’s not even about battling to win, or about battling forward. It’s about battling to breathe.
“Life is one hard battle — and there’s no walking off that battlefield called life.”
We’re bone tired. And the truth is: Life is one hard battle — and there’s no walking off that battlefield called life.
You have to keep hanging on, when you don’t know how to go on.
I look her in the eye and only want to tell her:
You’re winning the battle — when you stay in the battle.
And I tell her that I’m with her, with her, and I nod and I mean it.
And she nods and squeezes my hand.
Because what all our brokeness needs: we all need in our battles is with-ness and witness.
Brokenness needs with-ness and witness — someone to stand with us and someone to see us.And as the days move us closer to Holy Week and Calvary, we all have SomeOne who stands with us and SomeOne who sees us. God’s wrath become nail-scarred hands that wrap up our wounds, and God’s bare given heart becomes the beauty that heals us, and God’s witness of our brokenness, and His with-ness in our brokenness — breaks our brokenness.
“Wherever we feel too far gone, there is One who is the Way who comes and finds us.”
Wherever we feel too far gone, there is One who is the Way who comes and finds us.
Your hard place isn’t beyond God’s tender heart and there is no place that you’re ever left alone. God is with you in your darkest pit, your loneliest corner, your deepest need, your greatest failure. Grace wouldn’t have it any other way.Grace would have it no other way — but to come find you when there seems to be no way.
And the outreach of the Cross reaches you no matter the mess of things, and if He has removed your busted sinfulness as far as the East is from the West, you aren’t beyond the love of God — you are called the Beloved of God.
Grace would have it no other way — but to make a way.
And how can grace not choke the busted up — because who can swallow the audacity of a love like this?
And she smiles the bravest and I whisper right there close to her ear: “You will live through this.”
Because the truth about every blasted battle is:
“Grace would have it no other way — but to make a way.”
What you don’t know how to live through — Jesus died for.
Where you don’t how to go on — Jesus already went through.
What feels hopeless — is where you meet more Jesus.
And that’s what ended up following me all the winding way home under a smattering of spring stars. What they call the dark night of the soul may feel as endlessly black as the limitless cosmos — but darkness isn’t God, darkness isn’t infinite. Darkness has limits, darkness has an end, darkness has borders.
Resource: Our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: Our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Resource: Our heirloom Lenten Wreath
“All darkness has shores and there is always laughter on the other side. You have to believe this.”
And sometimes you exhale like the expanse of a night sky, like even your breath calls your Father’s name, YWHW.
And you breathe: All darkness has shores and there is always laughter on the other side. You have to believe this.
And when you can’t believe— just breathe. Next breath, next thing, next step — and you will get through now.
He knew: He made your every breath to be the sound of His name, the endless song that comforts your only soul.
Just before dawn this past week, we wake early to stand in the dark and witness the Lyrids, part of the comet Thatcher, shower across the night sky. We have to wait in the dark, wait for our eyes to adjust to the pitch black, wait to see the cascading light.
And when it comes — there is this catching of breath:
Nothing is ever too far gone for hope to come find you. Grace would have it no other way — but to make a w ay.
And we watch how the meteors live through the dark. And win the night. And on the other side, there’s the rising dawn.
Resources for your Lenten Easter Season:
Pick up our story of The Broken Way and in a broken world, with a whole bunch of broken dreams and busted plans — discover the way through a brokenhearted world.
This one’s for the brave and the busted and the real and dreamers and the sufferers and the believers — and the ones who desperately need real hope.
This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way… into abundance
Keep company with Jesus with a Lenten to Easter wreath… and keep company with Jesus by turning the pages of these soul healing books 
March 22, 2021
Should Your Heart Be Tested or Trusted?
We all struggle with temptation, but are you essentially good, bad, or somewhere in between? Should your heart be tested or trusted? And if you’re born of God’s Spirit, what do you really look like on the inside? Here’s an interesting take from bestselling author and pastor Andrew Farley. It’s a grace to welcome him to the farm’s front porch today…
I found myself lying on the floor of my apartment, begging God for answers.
I had tried everything to make my Christian life work. I was reading my Bible four or five hours a day. I was in church every time the doors were open. I was sharing my faith with everyone I met. And I still wasn’t growing spiritually.
I didn’t feel close to God either.
“I had tried everything to make my Christian life work.”
Where had I gone wrong?
There was no lightning bolt of revelation out of heaven. What followed was more like ten years of replacing old thoughts with new thoughts. God began to teach me afresh what life in Jesus is really all about.
And at the center of it all was the freedom of living from my new spiritual heart.
I had heard my whole Christian life that we have “deceitful” and “wicked” hearts.
I had been taught that I needed to be sure not to have a “hardened” heart. I was even told to regularly “test” my heart to make certain it was in right standing before God.
All the while, I also heard that – as a believer – Christ lived in my heart.
I never really saw the contradiction. Maybe I thought I had two hearts? A good one and a bad one? No one really talked about it, so I just moved along and didn’t question it.
But anytime I pictured my heart before God, I saw it as dirty or at least in need of regular spiritual “touch-ups.”
Is Your Heart Good?
Apparently, I wasn’t alone in my confusion. Many of us Christians seem convinced that our hearts are “deceitfully wicked.” We even think we’re being humble to see ourselves that way. But I’ve learned that real humility is saying the same thing about yourself that God says—no more and no less.
“I’ve learned that real humility is saying the same thing about yourself that God says—no more and no less.”If you truly want to understand your heart, you need to inquire of the God of the universe:
The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and the word of God is able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
So, imagine we were to open you up on a spiritual operating table. What would you look like on the inside? There’s a place within you where Christ lives. It’s a pure place much like the holy of holies from the Old Testament. This is how you’ve become the temple of the Holy Spirit. God cleaned house, and then He moved in.
Do You Want to Sin?
If you don’t fully understand what I’m saying about your new heart yet, I want to offer you one thought to really drive this home. I invite you to wrestle with the implications of it. Here it is:
“I don’t really want to sin.”
“Every ounce of the instruction we see in the New Testament is a perfect description of who you already are at the core.”This may be difficult to say. It may feel impossible to believe. But let’s play out the possibility, as well as the popular alternative.
If your heart truly, deeply, and irrevocably desires to sin— anywhere, anytime—then frankly, there’s no hope for you on this side of Heaven. It is impossible for you to live contrary to your own true desires. Jesus said that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12:25).
However, if you’ve experienced a spiritual heart transplant, then your desires have been exchanged. And this is exactly what happened to you at salvation:
“our old self was crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6)
“consider yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God” (Romans 6:11)
“you became obedient from the heart” (Romans 6:17)
“you became slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:17)
Your old spiritual self is gone. You’re alive to God now. Your new heart is obedient. You’re addicted to righteousness.
Have you noticed? During temptation, there’s a stirring within you. Something is not quite right. You’re not ready to move forward with the idea of sin. Then, after you give in to temptation, are you at peace with what you’ve done? Or do you ask, “Why did I do that?”
You don’t really want to sin. Your heart is not in it. That’s a newsflash in much of the Christian world today. A lot of teaching starts with the premise that you want to sin, but you shouldn’t:
You’re essentially sinful, but you better not sin.
Your heart is wicked, but don’t do anything wicked!
God is not asking you to fake anything. Every ounce of the instruction we see in the New Testament is a perfect description of who you already are at the core. God is simply saying, “Here’s the best way to express the deep, heartfelt desires I implanted within you.”
The Perfect You
Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)
What does this say about your heart? It suggests the purposes of your heart are good and fully aligned with God’s will. Say that one aloud:
“The purposes of my heart are aligned with God’s will.”
Paul says the goal of his instruction is love from a pure heart (1 Timothy 1:5). How could that even begin to happen unless your heart is new and pure?
Likewise, Peter writes, “let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:4).
How could you afford to let it be “the hidden person of the heart” if your heart were bad? You couldn’t.
In passages like these, God is essentially offering you a spiritual X-ray machine.
He’s showing you who you are on the inside.
Romans 5 says the love of God has been poured into your heart. Is the love of God residing in a wicked heart? Ephesians 3 says that Christ dwells in your heart through faith. Does Christ dwell in a dirty place? Galatians 4 says God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your heart. Did God send the Spirit of Christ to live in a filthy-hearted sinner? No.
“God longs to convince you of the true nature of your spiritual heart. He will stop at nothing to reveal it to you.”
God Longs to Convince You!
So, do you as a believer have a hardened heart? No, you may have some hardened attitudes (in your mind), but your heart is new and obedient (Romans 6:17; Ezekiel 36:26).
Do you need to test your heart? No, but you may need to test some of the attitudes (in your mind) that you’ve adopted (Romans 12:2).
Still, your new spiritual heart is to be trusted, not tested!
God longs to convince you of the true nature of your spiritual heart. He will stop at nothing to reveal it to you.
It is His heart’s cry (and yours!) that you taste the essence of who you are in Him and all the beauty that is spiritually simmering below the surface.
God wants you to embrace and enjoy your new-hearted self—the perfect you.
Andrew Farley is helping millions of people discover the beauty of their new identity in Jesus Christ. He serves as lead pastor of Church Without Religion, a non-denominational Bible church on the high plains of west Texas. Andrew is also the bestselling author of seven books including “The Naked Gospel” and “Twisted Scripture.” Andrew Farley LIVE, a nationwide call-in radio program, airs on Sirius XM and across North America every weeknight at 8:00pm Eastern.
Andrew’s most recent book is The Perfect You: God’s Invitation to Live from the Heart . Do you – as a believer – have a “deceitful” and “wicked” heart? Should your heart be tested, not trusted? If that’s what you believe, your spiritual experience will be one of duty and obligation, only a faint imitation of what Jesus promised. This provocative book invites you to a radically different approach, an inspiring move from head to heart.
Knowing the perfect you means no more waiting for closeness with God. Living as the perfect you brings a newfound freedom like you’ve never experienced before.
[ Our humble thanks to Salem Books for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
March 20, 2021
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [03.20.21]
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:
Esther Havens Mann
Esther Havens Mann
Esther Havens MannShe captures our world like no one else I know…
because we all need a friend…
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Hannah Hudson Petrea (@hannah_petrea)
cheering for those doing really great things: could not love this more!
you must come meet them! Father who lives with a physical difference bonds with adopted daughter who has her own
who else would love this?! Work From Home on the Go
pause and ponder this one…until the whole world knows…
Teacher left homeless by pandemic gets help after former student recognizes him on street
“It is an experience of my life that will be kept for the rest of my life. I carry it in my heart…I felt that something was going to happen, that things were going to change, and it happened suddenly when I least expected it.
I tell the students when they have a project, keep going despite the difficulties, don’t give up. Do not give up. Don’t quit.”
so who knew?! The benefits of a bilingual brain
‘Broke and hungry?’ This restaurant is offering one free meal a day, no questions asked
a classroom without walls: learning in a multi-sensory environment
…when the pain feels almost impossible to bear and impossible to process… we can became desperate to find a piece of ourselves. Need to hear there is life after shattering devastation? This woman is handing us the key right here:
How To Begin Again After Shattering Devastation
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Good News Movement (@goodnews_movement)
Surprises like this never get old!
come along for a virtual tour with us? glory, glory, glory
10 Talented Young Entrepreneurs Who Dreamed Beyond Poverty
Beyond grateful for the life saving work of Compassion International
… classic loveliness in our Fair Trade store, Grace Crafted Home:
using these items every day here on the farm
Your home and life can tell a story — that’s changing the story of the world.
(100% of proceeds go to help fund Mercy House Global’s work in Kenya)
“when you have something that you can share – that’s an honor”
You Are Who God Says You Are
‘Miracle Mom’ has 2nd Child after Stroke, embraces ‘new life’ God allowed
After miraculously surviving a near-fatal brainstem stroke at age 26, life for Katherine and Jay Wolf changed forever – and so did the way they viewed the world.
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Levi Voskamp
Resource: our heirloom Lenten Wreath
Post of the week from these parts here
… Living with a string of unknowns? With some hard question marks? Life kinda feeling all up in the air? Pulling out all the stops right here:
How Your Question Marks & Unknowns & Life Feeling a Bit Up in the Air — Can Still Be the Best Kind of LifeUntil Unity, with Francis Chan
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.
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 intivation 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.
on repeat this week:
there is power in the name of Jesus
… and we know it, days like these can be filled with anxiety. And anxiety can cause you to forget God. Forget God, and you lose your mind and your peace. Forget God, and all you remember is anxiety. Forget the face of God, and you forget your own name is Beloved.
Beloved, you are the remembering people. Find your feet. Find His face—His broken-wide-open heart of communion.
Always remember: there can be unwavering peace today
when an uncertain tomorrow
is trusted to an unchanging God.
If we have Him today — nothing can steal our peace today.
“When you call on Me, when you come & pray to Me, I’ll listen… I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady” Jeremiah 29:12, Isaiah 41:10 MSG
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
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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