Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 77
July 15, 2020
Sick & Tired of Waiting: Secrets to the Art of Waiting
There is a time for everything, and yet —
Waiting for the right time, can feel like everything is going wrong.
“The sacrament of waiting can feel the hardest of all.”
You can bet on it these days, every morning when we rise and look at the calendar, we think: How long, Lord, how long?
How long till the price for our crops, our pigs, turn around, how long till the next rain for the wheat in the fields, how long till we all get to breathe even a little bit easier?
The sacrament of waiting can feel the hardest of all.
They say waiting is the drumming of impatient fingers, the unbearably slow watching of the face of the clock, the long sitting in front of indifferent calendars that have minds of their own, and you keep hoping for something to change your heart cracks.
“Hoping can feel so much like hurt.”
Hoping can feel so much like hurt.
But, the brave and battle-weary will flat-out tell you, if you’re waiting in front of a stretching calendar, waiting beside a hospital bed for any kind of stirring, waiting for the word you need to finally turn off this endlessly-stretching dead-end road, waiting for change that is moving slower than old molasses frozen in the depths of December, you know waiting isn’t an uninvolved twiddling of thumbs because you have felt it:
“Hope is a buoyancy — and waiting is what splits you wide open to fill with the rising waters, so everything can rise. So you can rise.”
Hope is a buoyancy — and waiting is what splits you wide open to fill with the rising waters, so everything can rise. So you can rise.
Waiting isn’t passive — waiting is passion: waiting is loving long enough to suffer.
Waiting is the patience of the long suffering of letting go. Letting go of the plan, the dream, the map, the vision. Letting the ground of things, the things that you made your ground, letting them give way.
Waiting is a letting go to let something grow.
The combine is waiting in the shed for the wheat harvest to come.
The Farmer stands at the front window in the early morning light, waiting for any rain clouds to move in from the west. His Bible is open on the sill, like it’s a rail shielding him from the edge of things in a world that’s tilted in all kinds of ways. Our early hours can all be the same, day after day, before the throne of grace: our hands may seem tied, but our knees never are.
“Waiting is a letting go to let something grow.”
His eyes hardly ever leave the sky. Will we get enough sun, enough rain, will we get enough of what we need? Frost will be here by early to mid-September. You only have so many days to grow a crop, to grow hope.
And those empty squares on the calendar are always harshly blunt. I try not to think how so much of this year has been waiting. Hoping. It can feel like hope is running out.
His eyes looking toward the west, over the wheat, the Farmer speaks soft:
“This is not about us growing a crop — but about God growing us.”
All this waiting isn’t destroying us — the waiting is growing us.
“Nothing is lost in the waiting process — because waiting is a growth process.”
Waiting isn’t loss — it’s enlarging.
The longer the heart waits, the larger the heart expands to hold the largeness of the abundant life.
The waiting is widening us — so Hope is never running out — but more hope in Christ is running in.
I turn toward the sky and feel it:
“The waiting is widening us — so Hope is never running out — but more hope in Christ is running in.”
Nothing is lost in the waiting process — because waiting is a growth process.
Waiting is gestating a greater grace.
Waiting is the sacrament of the tender surrender, the art of a soul growing large.
And it’s true, even here:
Life has no waiting rooms — life only has labor and delivery rooms. Waiting rooms are actually birthing rooms and what feels like the contraction of our plans can be the birthing of greater purposes.
The Farmer only pulls on his farmer’s cap when he heads to the barn, out past his waiting fields, out to his waiting mama sows. His head’s bowed low into gusts of wind blowing in, and God’s ways coming down. Waiting is the sacrament of the tender surrender and this is the art of a soul growing large.
Every waiting moment is heavy with the weight of glory and all our waiting midwifes a fuller life.
You find yourself at a crossroads every day — in a place of looking at the sky and wondering why? And what you need to know — is the way to abundance.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be in the midst of what is?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
July 13, 2020
When Friendships Hurt
As a society, we not only want instant gratification- we expect it. But growing in our relationship with Christ isn’t necessarily quick. There is no instant download to encountering God. Teresa Swanstrom Anderson knows this better than most. An unlikely mom of six (2 bio + 4 from Ethiopia) and a pink-haired theologian, she’s learned the hard way how to choose the path of steady spiritual growth; and seen the fruit come forth in her family and friendships. It’s a grace to welcome Teresa to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Teresa Swanstrom Anderson
Friends breathe life into my soul, just as I’m sure they do yours. But like any healthy relationship, true friendships sometimes have growing pains.
There will be moments when we find ourselves in conflict and need to figure out what to do in the midst of it, right? We need to learn how to grow deeper as friends through difficulty, rather than allowing it to break the closeness.
Recently, a friend and mentor accused me of something that made my heart incredibly heavy. I didn’t see it coming and didn’t understand how she thought that of me.
I literally felt sick all day and went to bed early with a migraine. My thoughts and prayers swirled through the afternoon and evening hours as I went first to God, and then to my husband and dearest friends, placing this person’s accusation at their feet for examination.
“Here’s the evidence. Look at it. Sift through it; dig deeply,” I told them. “Did I do this? Am I doing this?”
I was doubled over in anxiety as I asked the Lord and my friends who know me best to share honestly.
I wanted to know the truth so I could grow and ask forgiveness if indeed this accusation was true. Because if so, I had some serious heart-searching to do. What I was being accused of is not reflective of the type of person I want to be.
“What I was being accused of is not reflective of the type of person I want to be.”
I called my best friend to tearfully vent, and toward the end of our phone conversation, she said something like this:
“You need to stop and seriously ask God to show you the insides of your heart. Lean into it, even if it’s hard and yucky. Who are you at the core, really? Ask Him, being honestly willing to hear His response. Take time in silence with the Lord and go through everything in your mind like you’re unpacking a suitcase . . . taking items out, one by one. Let Him show you if there is sin here.”
What wise advice. I just love having friends that are deeper and wiser than I.
I am still completely and totally devastated. And truthfully, I am really embarrassed that someone would think this thing of me. But I don’t believe I did what she has said.
I did take my heart to God, and I’m okay with what He unearthed in response. (Not that I don’t need to grow in areas, of course. We all need to grow, right?)
If I were laying my story next to David’s in Psalm 59, though, I’d tell you quite honestly, I felt that this person was ready to attack. And she did, to some extent.
“In the wake of lies, death follows.”
Let’s look at Psalm 59:3 (tpt):
See how they set an ambush for my life.
They’re fierce men ready to launch their attack against me.
O Lord, I’m innocent; protect me!
In this situation with my friend, I was worried she was going to start spreading her thoughts and lies through our mutual friends. I was afraid she was going to post it on social media and disrupt my ministry. I was scared, and, like David, I felt ambushed.
Yes, my situation is tame compared to David’s. Thankfully, I don’t have mercenaries stationed outside my home just waiting to kill or capture me the moment I walk out my front door.
What I do have though, is a situation where I was afraid the lie was going to swirl around and touch many aspects of my community.
Has someone ever spread venom or lies about you, in jealousy or malcontent? How did you handle it? Did you wig out and try to fix things yourself?
Or did you drop to your knees and plead that you would feel the Lord’s presence as He walked beside you in it? Or were you like me and do a bit of both?
“God offers us encouragement, hope, consolation, and direction when we come to Him in the midst of our struggle.”
In the wake of lies, death follows. In 1 Samuel 15, the story Psalm 59 emerged out of, Saul thought something incorrect about David (that he was trying to steal the throne), and he tried to kill him. My friend and mentor thought something incorrect about me, and she severed all ties. The death of that friendship breaks my heart.
What can you draw from any hurt you may feel?
Are you able to see God moving through it in spite of it . . . or because of it?
Can you praise Him for walking with you through this pain? Are you able to see the love and kindness of others as you’ve lived through it? Or are you feeling lonely and abandoned, like He’s the only one you have left?
God offers us encouragement, hope, consolation, and direction when we come to Him in the midst of our struggle.
He speaks to us through His Spirit, equips us with self-control, reminds us of His love, and surrounds us with people who can speak life into our darkness.
To say yes to God, no matter what season or situation we’re in, we have to first be honest with Him about the reality of our pain.
We’ve all been hurt and lied to and deceived—and we’ve all had jealousy coursing through our veins at times too!
God isn’t dismissive or judgmental of our honest pain.
He wants us to bring it to Him so He can help us pursue life and healing.
Teresa Swanstrom Anderson is an unlikely mom of six (2 bio + 4 from Ethiopia). She is a community builder, party and beauty lover, author, speaker, and huge Bible nerd. Her passion is helping overwhelmed women learn to slow down with Scripture, say YES to God, lead wherever they are, and create a life they love.
The Get Wisdom Bible Studies, Saying Yes in the Darkness: 7 Weeks in the Book of Psalms, Living for What Really Matters: 7 Weeks in the Book of Philippians, and Leading Where You Are: 7 Weeks in the Book of Joshua, are rich in depth and approachable for new and longtime readers of the Bible alike. They don’t skim the surface but go deep into the truths of Scripture. We don’t have time for fluff!
[ Our humble thanks to NavPress for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
July 11, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [07.11.20]
This weekend? Feels like we are walking into new hope, new change, new possibility!
Some real hope in these days — for us all to the real, sustained, needed work & more of the real Kingdom of God to come into a hurting world. Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Kyle Fredrickson
Kyle Fredrickson
Kyle Fredrickson
inhale deeply and enjoy your weekend
Sarosh Lodhi: Instagram / Twitter
gather the family! What do you think: which zebra is in front? Left one or the right one?
this right here is all you need this weekend. Amen and amen.
we always love amazing transformations:
Home Renovation Transforms a Dusty Attic Into a Walk-In Closet
so who knew? passing this along in case you may need…
this security guard is called a hero for doing this… love it
found this fascinating…the relative difference between the rotations of the various planets in our solar system
cheering for him!
Of all the world’s wonders there is perhaps none greater than God’s creation of human life. But what does it mean to bear the image and likeness of our Creator?
Explore this mystery and its profound implications in this important video
Thank you, The John 10:10 Project
love all of her ideas: Lightened & Brightened for Summer
there is still hope…never, ever give up
heart fireworks: 5 Helpers Caring for Kids Behind the Scenes
so we circled ’round this one… and could not stop watching!
be encouraged! Aging is a woman’s secret power — and the data proves it
This advantage isn’t simply a feel-good rallying cry to give older women a self-esteem boost, but based on qualities and traits they develop over time.
must come meet ‘The Dad Gang’: doing great things
Yuri Vaysgant
Discovering Your Purpose in the Midst of Pain
what he’s done for 58 nights? kinda speechless
Your home longs to tell the best stories.
Stories that empower a sister, change the lives of a whole family, free another soul from darkness.
What kind of stories do you long for your home to tell? Stories of freeing captives? Stories of deliverance from oppression? Stories of life transformation?
When you choose a Grace Crafted Home — you’ll not only know the stories of your mugs, your blankets, plates — you’ll know you’re entirely changing someone else’s life story —- and a bit more of the story of the world. His story.
100% of proceeds go to help fund Mercy House Global’s work in Kenya
never silence your pain: “A pain shared is a pain halved”
glory, glory, glory
many tears, just the best…love really does conquer all
Post of the week from these parts here
Dear Self and me and you and us,
I know you’re brave …and you’re scared. But really, it’s all going to be okay. You’ve got to keep going.
Promise:
Dear You: 3 Keys to be a Long Hauler in a Hard Season (instead of feeling discouraged)
a treasure from 2018: How to Deal with Dark Times
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: Who You are to me
…you’ve got big, hard things coming at you from every side. You may not even be saying it out loud — but really? It’s hard to keep showing up when it’d be easier to give up.
But can you hear Him?
‘Just Call to Me. I guarantee I will answer you.
*I will make you strong & brave.*’
“On the day I called, You answered me;
And You made me bold and confident with [renewed] strength in my life.”
(Psalm 138:3 AMP)
Ask Him — He will come & make you strong & brave for the Hard Things.
So that’s the plan: Be Brave.
And do not pray for the hard thing to go away.
But pray for a Bravery to come that’s bigger than the Hard Thing.
[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.
July 10, 2020
Discovering Your Purpose in the Midst of Pain
Something is just not right. It’s that feeling we get when someone’s voice changes, when the air suddenly feels heavy, or when your gut tells you something is not as it should be. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson remembers the day she realized the world was different, heavier, and that as a young African American girl, there would be pain. But like Moses, she also discovered that out of places of vulnerability and pain, God can bring passion and great purpose. It’s an unspeakable grace to welcome Natasha to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
It was a forbidden conversation.
“Carmen, Momma says I have to always be there for you,” I told my younger sister.
“Some white people are not going to like you because you are black, and some black people are not going to like you because you are light skinned.”
I had waited a long time before sharing this information that my mother had relayed to me in secret.
“People don’t like me.”
I was only a child, in middle or early high school. I didn’t really understand the significance of these words, and I don’t know how I expected my little sister to respond when I told her this truth.
But I was surprised and even shocked to see tears well up in her eyes, fall down to her cheeks, and land in the palms of her hands as she began to gasp for breath and cry uncontrollably.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused and uncertain now.
As she tried to control her body, she looked up at me and said,
“People don’t like me.”
I didn’t know what to do with that response.
Yuri Vaysgant
It wasn’t until many years later that I became aware of the brown paper bag tests.
Author and professor Michael Eric Dyson wrote, “In fact, New Orleans invented the brown paper bag party—usually at a gathering in a home—where anyone darker than the bag attached to the door was denied entrance. The brown bag criterion survives as a metaphor for how the black cultural elite quite literally establishes a caste system along color lines within black life.”
For black people in general, it’s the epitome of self-hate brought on by the reality that we are not white in a society that normalizes all things white as pure, right, and better.
For the black elite, the test was a way to maintain the pride, self-righteous assurance, and soothing comfort of knowing that they were not poor.
There was no need for social mingling with black people who were dark skinned or impoverished, because those people were not marriage material.
“Thank God my sister and I had a loving mother—a black woman who would not set her black daughters up for failure.”
Thank God my sister and I had a loving mother—a black woman who would not set her black daughters up for failure.
As we grew, she told us the truth about the hardships we would likely face in this world, and she didn’t hold back.
My mother warned us about the setup of systemic racism and cultural biases (although she did not use those terms), and she had a hope for a better future for us all.
So there I was, sitting next to my younger sister trying to have an adult-like conversation.
At the time my sister’s lighter skin color would have passed the brown paper bag test, and my browner complexion would not.
In that moment, the message “People don’t like you” is not what I wanted to communicate at all. I saw my sister’s tears and thought, What on earth have I done?
“As we reflect, we come to understand that Moses’ story and ours are all a part of God’s redemptive story.”
What I wanted her to hear was, “My sista, don’t you worry about a thing because no matter what happens in this world and who stands against you, I have your back. You can trust that, and you can trust me.”
There is truth in the statement “When one person hurts in a family, everyone aches. And this is always the choice: pain demands to be felt—or it will demand you feel nothing at all.”
My sister was born a light-skinned black woman in America, and this would be the source of her pain. To some extent, I suppose this was the source of my pain as well.
Along with that pain, I felt my first yearning of leadership in my longing to protect my vulnerable little sister. Yet I couldn’t even safeguard myself. And I was powerless to defend her.
This was the moment I realized that things were not quite right in this world.
Miriam’s story resonated with me because she too was charged with watching her younger sibling.
We meet Miriam at the beginning of the book of Exodus keeping a vigilant eye over her baby brother, Moses, as he drifts down the Nile River.
Miriam was a servant and faithful witness, but she seems to appear only as a footnote in the story.
“For godly people and leaders specifically, pain is often the tool God uses to help us realize our passion and purpose.”
At first glance, we all think this story is about baby Moses.
But the story is actually bigger than Moses, and it’s bigger than Miriam.
To better understand Moses’ journey, we have to start at the beginning because what happens in our formative years has a way of shaping our adult lives.
As we reflect, we come to understand that Moses’ story and ours are all a part of God’s redemptive story.
God’s big story of creation, fall, and redemption is steeped in pain.
For godly people and leaders specifically, pain is often the tool God uses to help us realize our passion and purpose.
Being exposed to the reality of racism as a child and feeling helpless to do anything about it revealed my pain. For Moses, the pain was revealed in the basket that held his three-month-old body afloat in the water.
It was not a pain that he bore—not yet anyway—but it was the pain of his community.
In reading we learn quickly that the Exodus narrative is not just a story about Moses or his sister, Miriam.
Exodus teaches us about what God is doing in the midst of a people group to accomplish His will on earth.
God had heard the cries of the enslaved Hebrew community, and He intended to do something about it.
God would use Moses to deliver His people out of their pain.
Natasha Sistrunk Robinson is the founder and chairperson of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Leadership LINKS, Inc. She is an international speaker, leadership consultant, diversity and mentoring coach with nearly 20 years of leadership experience in the military, federal government, church, seminary, and nonprofit sectors. She has authored the books, Mentor for Life: Finding Purpose through Intentional Discipleship and Hope for Us: Knowing God Through the Nicene Creed.
She is a doctoral student at North Park Theological Seminary, and a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Charlotte (cum laude, M.A. Christian Leadership) and the U.S. Naval Academy. She has served as a Marine Corps officer and employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Natasha is also the host of A Sojourner’s Truth: Conversations for a Changing Culturepodcast.
A Sojourner’s Truth: Choosing Freedom and Courage in a Divided World is an African American girl’s journey from South Carolina to the United States Naval Academy, and then to her calling as an international speaker, mentor, and thought-leader. Intertwined with Natasha’s story is the story of Moses, a leader who was born into a marginalized people group, resisted the injustices of Pharaoh, denied the power of Egypt, and trusted God even when he did not fully understand where he was going. Along the way she explores the spiritual and physical tensions of truth telling, character and leadership development, and bridge building across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender lines.
July 9, 2020
Dear You: 3 Keys to be a Long Hauler in a Hard Season (instead of feeling discouraged)
Dear You,
Dear Self and me and you and us,
Really, it’s all going to be okay.
You’re going to be okay.
Promise.
Remember when you were 16 with that ridiculous hair?
And how you’d thought that by the time you got to here, to now, it was going to be good? That by now everything would be all good.
That by now you’d know down in the very marrow of your bones, what it’s like to really live loved. That you’d be known. Fully known. And wholly embraced.
That the Big Dream would have happened, that the peace and the purpose and the Big Point would be under your skin, that the awkward would be gone and that you’d finally fit and that your life made a real difference, you’d made a real mark, and that you really mattered.
“And every day, with every word, we get to decide: Do we mar the world, or mark the world?”
You don’t have to worry: We all get to take our life and make one unforgettable mark. And every day, with every word, we get to decide: Do we mar the world, or mark the world?
In the midst of everything: Why in the world disdain the small? It’s always the smallest strokes that add up to the greatest masterpieces.
Because the thing really is: Do we ever really know which mark we make — that will matter the most? The extraordinary things happen nowhere else but in the everyday and today can always be the beginning:
That card you signed and sealed and put in the mail.
The way you smiled and nodded to the white-crowned woman bent over the still-green bananas, the way you dug around in the dirt and and left that seed or that gift of the knees and that prayer whispered for a stranger or that glass of water you handed to someone and winked because you just knew.
Believe it: Every tremor of kindness might erupt in a miracle on the other side of the world.
“Believe it: Every tremor of kindness might erupt in a miracle on the other side of the world.”
And the only way to ever leave beauty marks on the world is with bits of yourself — and this will cost you some sacrifice.
Dear you, and self, and me, and us, — Just For Today — take these words, words of Dag Hammarskjold[image error], Secretary-General of the United Nations, words that you can take to the bank, take to eternity: “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for … the masses.”
Christ left the ninety-nine for the one.
Where you are — with that one child, on that one street, under your one roof, living with your one family — it is a noble, Christ-called thing. It only takes one person to change the world — and one individual, one soul, can be all your world.
Really, beautiful You: The most exquisite marks anyone makes with their life — are the marks done in secret. The mark that no one — but One — will ever see.
So in a hard season, when you feel forgotten and invisible and unimportant, gather yourself up with the truth of this: So the celebrities get their celebration here.
But the wise are the hidden who hold out for heaven — and the applause that comes from God.
“The wise are the hidden who hold out for heaven — and the applause that comes from God.”
This is to choose the far greater.
I know you’re brave … and you’re scared. Because you keep doing big things that seems so small and you wonder where all this is really going and you only get one life here —
And though you’re weary, you do hard things and you keep getting out of bed and this is always the hardest part — and you keep believing that Christ didn’t leave this world until He showed us His scars — and He won’t ever let you leave this world until you leave your most beautiful mark. To show Him.
So Just For Today — listen: you’ve got to keep going.
His Kingdom is Upside Down and in Him your part is large and lovely and needed and art.
So go get the milk and take out the trash and throw in the laundry and wave giddy to the neighbors because there is a plan and there is a purpose and there is a God in heaven who didn’t just ink you onto the palm of His hands but etched your name right into Himself with nails and He’s hasn’t just got your number, He’s got your heart.
He sees you, hidden in Him, and you aren’t ever forgotten because God can’t forget those right in Him.
You’ve never missed the boat when you’re holding onto the Cross.
So really — you’ve got to believe it for your 16 year-old-self and 56 year-old-self and for yourself right now: really, it’s all working out okay.
“You’ve never missed the boat when you’re holding onto the Cross.”
Because God’s writing your story and He never leaves you alone in your story, and His perfect love absorbs all your fear and His perfect grace carries all your burdens, and your story is a happily ever after because Christ bought your happily ever after so you always know how this story ends:
You’re going to be okay.
Dear Self, tuck this away to read again whenever you need to know it again — and promise me, you’ll laugh and sing and dance a bit today?
Heaven and His Kingdom and The Feast is coming! — so go ahead and pass down a huge piece of cake and let’s just savor the grace of even here now.
Love,
Me.
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
July 6, 2020
We Disagree, Therefore I Need You
I have said often that books by Scott Sauls should be in the hands of every single Christian without exception. Very few pastors or theologians have more spiritually formed our family than his, and his every word is read under our roof. Scott is the preeminent voice for fractured, polarized times. No voice speaks with such fresh hope, clarifying wisdom, rooted orthodoxy, all from a posture of unifying grace. And very few books could change the conversation around our office watering holes, our family dinner tables, and across our aisles and fences across the globe like this one. It’s a grace to welcome our friend, Scott Sauls, to the farm’s front porch today…
In today’s fractured times, I think that the people of Jesus have a unique opportunity to offer something different to the world and to each other.
What if, instead of participating in all the us-against-them talk and cancel culture, we returned to a path and posture that mirrored the One we love and follow, the One who described Himself as “gentle and humble in heart?”
What if, in a world that’s turning in on itself with outrage, we gave a gift to the world and each other, the gift of “a gentle answer, (which) turns away wrath?” (Proverbs 15:1).
Unlike the essentials which are best summarized in ancient consensus statements like the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, and which also include those things about which Scripture speaks unambiguously—i.e., don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, believe in Jesus, we are saved by grace not works, husbands love your wives—non-essentials are matters about which Christians may disagree freely while enjoying unbroken friendship and holding each other in high esteem.
Wherever the Bible does not speak with certainty on something, wherever the Bible leaves room for varying perspectives, such matters should be treated as a non-essential.
I am told that the Theologian A (I’ll leave names out to avoid distraction) once gave a guest sermon about how God brings people into a saving relationship with Himself.
On this particular issue, Theologian A is well known for emphasizing the sovereign, initiating grace in the salvation of humans.
Others, like Theologian B, are known for emphasizing human free will. While Theologian A would say we chose God only because God first chose us, Theologian B might say that God chose us based on His prior knowledge that we would one day choose Him.
“Sincere believers can disagree on certain matters, sometimes quite strongly, and still maintain deep respect, honor, and affection toward each other.”
This is an intramural and friendly debate between sincere believers, and ought to be treated as such. It’s an important debate, but on whichever side a person lands, it will not determine his or her standing with a God who saves not by our perfect doctrine, but by His generous grace.
During the question and answer time after Theologian A’s talk, someone asked him if he thought he would see Theologian B in heaven, to which he replied, “No, I don’t believe I will see Theologian B in heaven.”
Of course, there was a collective gasp! But then he continued, “Theologian B will be so close to the throne of God, and I will be so far away from the throne of God, that I will be lucky even to get a glimpse of him!”
What Theologian A demonstrated is that sincere believers can disagree on certain matters, sometimes quite strongly, and still maintain deep respect, honor, and affection toward each other.
It is no coincidence that the longest recorded prayer we have from Jesus is His famous high priestly prayer, in which He asks that His wildly diverse band of followers be united as one. Those followers included Simon, an anti-government Zealot, and Matthew, a government tax collector.
Can you imagine loving and doing life together every day with your political opposite?
Likewise, it is no coincidence that the Apostle Paul would begin his letters with the two-part salutation, “grace to you” (the standard Greek greeting) and “peace to you” (the standard Jewish greeting).
It is significant that he would insist that Jews and Greeks, slaves and free people, men and women, are as one through Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:28). All three pairings represented the deepest forms of relational hostility to the first century reader.
In that world, Jews looked down their noses at Greeks, and Greeks disdained Jews. Men were dismissive and demeaning toward women, and women were injured by men. Free people saw slaves as sub-human, and slaves were injured by free people.
Paul confronted to such divisions because Christians are in many ways a band of opposites, who over time grow to love one another through the centering, unifying love of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit concurred with Paul.
In a world where pious Rabbi’s prayed, “Thank you, my God, that I am not a slave, a gentile, or a woman,” the Holy Spirit made sure that the very first three converts to Christianity were a slave, a gentile, and a woman. You can read all about it in the book of Acts.
But there is more to unity than the cooling down of hostility.
“What’s more, I don’t know where I would be without the influence of others who see certain non-essentials differently than I do.”
There is also much that Christians from differing perspectives can learn from one another.
I treasure the fact that some of my closest pastor friends are from traditions other than my own. Besides being excellent company, these friendships are meaningful and necessary for my own development as a pastor and as a believer.
What’s more, I don’t know where I would be without the influence of others who see certain non-essentials differently than I do.
I need the wisdom, reasoning, and persuasiveness of C.S. Lewis, though his take on some of the finer points of theology are different than mine.
I need the preaching and charisma of Charles Spurgeon, though his view of baptism is different than mine. I need the Kingdom vision of N.T. Wright and the theology of Jonathan Edwards, though their views on church government are different than mine.
I need the passion and prophetic courage of Martin Luther King, Jr., the cross-cultural wisdom of Mika and Christina Edmondson, and the Confessionsof Saint Augustine, although their races are different than mine. I need the reconciliation spirit of Miroslav Volf, though his nationality is different than mine.
I need the spiritual thirst and love impulse of Brennan Manning and the prophetic wit of G.K. Chesterton, though both were Roman Catholics and I am a Protestant.
“We must allow ourselves to be shaped by our “other” brothers and sisters for Jesus’ sake.”
I need the hymns and personal holiness of John and Charles Wesley, though some of our doctrinal distinctives are different.
I need the glorious weakness of Joni Eareckson Tada, the prophetic fire of Christine Caine, the trusting perseverance of Elisabeth Elliott, the longsuffering of Amy Carmichael, the transparency and thankfulness of Ann Voskamp, the theological precision of Kathy Keller, and the warmth and kindness of Patti Sauls, though their gender is different than mine.
In non-essentials liberty. And to this we might add an open-minded receptivity.
We must allow ourselves to be shaped by our “other” brothers and sisters for Jesus’ sake.
We will be the richer for it.
Scott Sauls is senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Before CPC, Scott was a lead and preaching pastor alongside Tim Keller with New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. He lives in Nashville with his lovely wife, Patti, and daughters, Abby and Ellie. He blogs regularly—seriously bookmark him—and can be found being humble light on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
About A Gentle Answer, Rebekah Lyons says, “This book could not have come at a better time, as we navigate a culture of polarization…this is a heart-changing book!”
I deeply concur. A Gentle Answer is a roadmap, first into the gentle heart of Jesus, and then into a world that is aching for a gentle answer to bring relief from so much hostile, hurt-filled noise. This is an absolute must-read that I cannot recommend highly enough.
July 4, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [07.04.20]
This weekend? Feels like we are walking into new hope, new change, new possibility!
Some real hope in these days — for us all to the real, sustained, needed work & more of the real Kingdom of God to come into a hurting world. Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Mary Anne Morgan / farmdoodles
Mary Anne Morgan / farmdoodles
Mary Anne Morgan / farmdoodles
huge welcome to your weekend right here… hug someone tight
this will help you smile today: “Good Morning! Have a Good Day!”
cheering wildly here… From K-12, this valedictorian never missed a day of school
“I knew I couldn’t miss a day…it just felt wrong.”
never, ever give up
This dad and son? just kinda the best
15 festive finger food recipes for your weekend
a beautifully honest interview with Mike Fisher and Carrie Underwood
“So you have to get to a place where you place what you do know about God ABOVE what you don’t know about the future…”
just so grateful, Jennie Allen with Christine Caine: ‘Made for This’ podcast
let’s love one another…
About the Pandemic, Vaccines, and Faith
a fascinating conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s boss, Dr. Francis Collins
How it all began and how it will never end. The story that redeems all stories.
IF: Lead 2020
We’re coming to you in your living rooms with a
one-day, digital event!
You are a leader. Whether you’re a mom, a boss, or a Bible study leader, you are influencing others around you. Let us equip and encourage you to continue using your influence for God’s glory with our annual leadership event, IF:Lead.
We want to personally invite you to pull together a few friends in your living room for a day of dreaming about the days ahead with this sisterhood of women God has given us called IF:Gathering on August 15. Tickets are on sale now! Invite your friends and join us online in August!
just so humbling… Of Fingertips and Galaxies
July is here!
Maybe in this new month, easy, doable ideas for the whole family to Give It Forward Today — to be the G.I.F.T. Love is a verb and that verb is give. For God so loved the world — HE GAVE. You only have one life — to love well.
And just for you, when you grab the “Be the Gift” book? Your farm girl here will immediately email you your own gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar link to download and print from home!
Love is a verb and that verb is give. For God so loved the world — HE GAVE. You only have one life — to love well.
Pick up #BeTheGIFT — Then receive your own #BeTheGIFT printable calendar by letting us know you picked up a copy of “Be the Gift” here
Love is a verb and that verb is give. For God so loved the world — HE GAVE. You only have one life — to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to this year
why he won’t be walking across town to work anymore…
thank you, Compassion International: Top Picks for Thoughtful Summer Entertainment
Deep Dive into Bible Translation
Why is Bible translation such a complex task? Why can’t we use Google translate? How does the Bible actually impact the communities receiving Scripture in their language for the first time?
This behind-the-scenes video will connect you with the powerful ways God is moving through Bible translation.
think you can do this?!? hold on for this one
Lies Christians Believe About Themselves
so needed, so helpful: Race & the Bible
baseball’s past to help us through difficult times
husband and wife kidneys side by side to save a life… a truly enduring love story
Post of the week from these parts here
… kinda crazy year to celebrate freedom, but hope maybe never mattered more:
Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.
There isn’t one of us who doesn’t need to hold on to:
What Freedom Really Means In 2020
thank you, Priscilla Shirer… “what makes us dare to think He doesn’t have our lives covered…”
needed words from Pastor Scott Sauls...Being the Church in a Global Pandemic
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: Have My Heart
…let’s just go ahead, Braveheart, & leap into our Monday, leap into the new week, take that leap of faith & do not be afraid — never, ever be afraid.
No matter what’s in front of you today: You Can! Because He Did!
Dare to draw nearer to the One who is so taken with you —
that He will take you in His arms & carry you through today.
Abandon the strangling fears today & abide in the safe expanse of Your Father.
Sit with it: You can abandon all your cares because Christ will never, ever, ever abandon you. You can let it all go — it is safe to trust. He is safe to trust.
Fear not — Believe… Those are the Words that the Maker of the World has given the entire world.
Fear not a grim forecast — Believe in the casting of a vision for more grace, more goodness, more God.
Fear not all the unknown things — Believe the God who knows all things.
Fear not each other — Believe in the best of each other.
Fear not — Hope always!
[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.
July 3, 2020
What Freedom Really Means In 2020: This Can Happen
H
istoric.
In a week of fireworks in all kinds of ways, there’s no doubt that we are living through historic days.
I mean, I’ve got no idea when somebody actually made the declaration that this whole shebang of these days are of historic proportions — I just know there’s a whole world of us living in uncharted territory this year.
Turns out wherever we are right now, we are all living in the land of the brave.
Turns out that the spring rains and all the things started in March — they didn’t stop.
Come the first of July, the corn might be knee-high, even waist-high, but we’re all still in this downpour of all kinds of lockdowns, and economic storms, and a flood of surging pain.
“Nothing is lost in the waiting process — because waiting is a growth process.”
But I watched the Farmer don a mask day after day this spring, determined to drown all fears in faith, and while we counted day after quarantine day of waiting for things to finally change, he kept planting and murmuring it day after day:
Nothing is lost in the waiting process —- because waiting is a growth process. Waiting is growing us.
Waiting is gestating a greater grace.
“When God said, ‘Let My people go’ — He didn’t mean for people to go their own way, or the easy way, or the well-travelled wide ways — but to go His way.”
Always:
Longing is enlarging.
And we believed:
Hope for a window of opportunity for things to change, will let you see a land of opportunity.
When storms finally relents, when our window of opportunity to plant hope finally cracks open, all spring, the whole countryside was this exodus of tractors and planters moving out into the land.
Dust rolls like freedom rolls.
No matter what feels like it’s breaking or broken: We can shut down despair and we can break open to plant hope.
People can rise to the occasion the way all people should always rise: together.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Living in the land of the hardworking brave looks like an exodus out of the land of fear to forge forward into the land of the faithful and free. Looking out across these fields, this land, to see a crop still rising in July after all the unparalleled storms we’ve all been through this year, that’s all I can see:
Real freedom plants more of heaven here.
“Real freedom is the hallmark of Christendom, and it releases victims, and it revolutionizes systems and it destroys racism, and it ushers in more of the Kingdom.”
When God’s people were between a rock and a hard placfe and God said, “Let My people go” — He didn’t mean for people to go their own way, or the easy way, or the well-travelled wide ways — but to go His way.
Real freedom brings more of the Kingdom.
Real freedom releases you into all of God.
When God beckoned us all out of a land of oppression and into a land of freedom, He said, “Let my people go — that they may worship me…” (Ex. 7:16)
So it has always been:
Real freedom
sings a worship anthem.
Real freedom
knows that no matter what is going on, we can keep on worshipping God.
Real freedom
is the hallmark of Christendom, and it releases victims, and it revolutionizes systems and it destroys racism, and it ushers in more of the Kingdom.
When God meant to set the people free and plant them in the Promise Land, He said: “Let my people go — that they may serve me” (Ex. 7:16)
Real freedom means we get to freely serve.
“Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.”
Real freedom ultimately frees us from being self-serving, to serving others and God with all of our being.
Real freedom frees us from being servants to our rights, our comfort, our ways — to freely serving to bring others comfort because this is the right way.
Real freedom releases us from all bondage to self, and bonds us to the heart of God.
Watching a whole countryside of generational farmers, essential workers, move out into the land this year, move together to work the earth and grow food and freedom and more of His glory in all this light, there is this undeniable feeling, this knowing, of being planted, rooted, in truth:
Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.
And the soil under us is always alive and fertile, and now is the window of time we’ve been given to plant possibility of hope, of kindness, from the farmers’ midwest fields, to the winding vineyards up the western coast, to the school playgrounds ringing with our kids’ laughter on small town back streets, to the abandoned lots made basketball courts in the downtown core where our kids’ shoot hoops till the stars come out, to every single down-trodden heart that is struggling for a place just to safely breathe.
Levi Voskamp
“The greatest freedom we have across this land is the freedom to come right to God at any time.”
Now is the time to sow seeds of hope and kindness across this land exactly when a storm of things feel impossible, to waiting classrooms where teachers pray for students to keep finding a way to struggle through, to food banks where forgotten vets try to scrounge up their next meal, to nursing home dining rooms where the faithful giants, on whose shoulders we now stand, feel achingly lonely, to the the reaching hands of the oppressed and marginalized desperate to be seen as fellow image bearerest of God — because we can never stop working for freedom in places overwhelmed with despair, because we can never give up even when it seems like the crises won’t let up.
The greatest freedom we have across this land is the freedom to come right to God at any time.
Whether we’re standing in flooding fields or burning the midnight oil to keep things afloat, or taking another shift to pay the bills or fighting systemic injustice, fighting to keep our families together, fighting addictions, or fighting to stay awake in prayer:
No matter where we stand in this land, we’re all standing on a foundation of faith.
Yep, you can bet there isn’t a farmer working this land who doesn’t know the adage of generations of essential farmers: Corn’s gotta be knee-high come first week of July.
And you can count on it, this July:
There are generations of men and women living their faith on their knees, generations standing neck-high in hard times but raising hands higher in praise, generations whose freedom in the land has so grown their hearts that they can’t bear anything less than sharing that freedom with those buried in hopelessness.
When the last light ignites across all this land planted even now with hope, it’s like this fireworks of faith.
Freedom can keep cracking through dark and not be stopped when the brave live a faith of epic, historic proportions.
This land can fill with glorious light that keeps on reaching right out.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be in the midst of what is?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
June 29, 2020
Black Girl. White World.
Right now our nation and world is wrestling with questions of race, injustice and centuries of pain experienced by and inflicted on African Americans. Nona Jones has attained success in the corporate world and church world by navigating spaces where she is often the only Black person and her unique perspective is instructive to all of us who seek to be allies in the work of righting the wrongs of the past and present. It’s a grace to welcome Nona to the farm’s front porch today…
I was eight years old the first time I was called a nigger.
I was playing basketball with a white neighbor who was a few years older than me and I somehow managed to score a basket despite being entirely uncoordinated and unfamiliar with the game.
While in a hazy glow of happiness for my good fortune, he turned around, looked me square in my little face and said, “so what! You’re just a nigger anyway,” before storming into his house.
“Mom, what’s a nigger?”
I didn’t know what that word meant, but the way he said it told me it wasn’t good.
I picked up my bike from off of the ground and rode the few blocks home prepared to ask the question many black children have asked unprepared black parents.
I found my mom laying across her bed and said, “Mom, what’s a nigger?”
She glared at me with an intensity that scared me as her eyebrows furrowed and her lips curled into a frown. “Where did you hear that word,” she asked.
“Scottie said I was a nigger.”
She gathered herself, stood up and walked past me to the front door. Once she reached it, she turned to look over her shoulder at me and said, “come on.”
I followed my mother as we made our way back to his house.
She knocked on the door and, when his father opened it, my mother said, “your son thinks my daughter is a nigger. Where did he get that from?”
His father turned bright red and struggled to respond without stuttering and stammering. He shared his shock and confusion, then said he would have a talk with his son because, “I don’t know where he could have gotten that from.”
As I reflect on the arc of my life as a black woman raised in a predominantly white neighborhood who attended predominantly white schools and worked in predominantly white organizations at senior levels of leadership where I was usually the only black person in a decision making chair, I’ve come to believe that many people “don’t know where he could have gotten that from.”
But while many have made this statement… few have actually asked the question; where could he have gotten that from?
My children attend a private Christian school. It’s important to me and their father that they have a Christian world-view; one that understands and trusts the Word of God to be true.
I had noticed that the school didn’t celebrate Black History Month in February, and when I asked about it, I was told they didn’t observe any heritage months.
“My little boys, my beautiful black little boys, were being taught that the man who fought to keep them in the chains of slavery was… great.”
I thought that was odd, but decided not to press it. Instead, I made it a point to invest in my son’s learning of their own heritage by taking them to places like Washington, DC, Atlanta, GA, and Detroit, Michigan to visit places key to the black experience in America.
I bought them countless books about their history, games about black heritage, and even joined a monthly subscription program that delivers child-friendly resources spotlighting different black figures throughout history.
One day my third grader came home from school and I asked him what he had learned in school that day. “We learned about Robert E. Lee,” he said.
Intrigued I asked, “oh really? What did you learn?” My sweet, eight-year-old boy looked up at me with bright, twinkling eyes and said, “we learned that he was a great General and loved Jesus.”
My heart sank. “What? Can you bring home your history book tomorrow,” I asked. He nodded yes. And when I finally read what my little boy was being taught, I was incredulous.
“And for me, a black woman privileged to teach the bible around the world in predominantly white spaces, I have prayed for a day like today.”
Right before my eyes, in black and white, I read the words “The Northern and Southern states had been arguing for a long time. Part of the argument was over slavery in the South. Although Robert E. Lee was a southerner, he thought it was wrong to own slaves. The biggest part of the argument was over the rights each Southern state thought it should have.
For four years, General Lee and his soldiers fought a brave fight. Although General Lee was very wise, the Union army was much bigger and stronger. Lee has to give up. The North won the Civil War. But both the North and South agree that like General George Washington, General Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest American generals who has ever lived.”
My little boys, my beautiful black little boys, were being taught that the man who fought to keep them in the chains of slavery was… great.
My little boys, my black little boys, were being taught that Confederate soldiers who raped their great great grandmothers, murdered their great great grandfathers fought… bravely.
This is where Scottie got it from.
This is where America got it from.
The idea that racism isn’t real and isn’t true is etched in the black and white words of history books that so grossly stretch the truth of our past they are more science fiction than history.
And for me, a black woman privileged to teach the bible around the world in predominantly white spaces, I have prayed for a day like today.
A day when my white brothers and sisters would begin to ask the question “where could we have gotten this from?”
This idea that racism isn’t real.
This idea that black people are collectively hallucinating.
“Right now we have an opportunity as a body of Christ to confront and dismantle racism in America once and for all, but strongholds require the denial they exist to persist.”
The idea that injustice is simply a misunderstanding when, in fact, it’s an issue of design.
Right now we have an opportunity as a body of Christ to confront and dismantle racism in America once and for all, but strongholds require the denial they exist to persist.
My prayer and plea to every person is that we will get beyond statements to ask questions.
When our experience doesn’t allow us to understand someone else’s, that doesn’t give us license to say their experience isn’t real; it gives us an invitation to experience it for ourselves.
When the Lord asked Cain in Genesis 4:9 where his brother Abel was, Cain’s response was telling.
Not only did he say “I don’t know,” he added “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain was annoyed at the idea that he would be asked about the welfare of his brother, but the fact that God asked him the question should give us all a glimpse into the heart of our Savior.
God knew where Abel was; in verse 10 God told Cain that Abel’s “blood cries out to me from the ground.”
God is asking us all the same question; where is your brother? Where is your sister? Will you, like Cain, shrug off responsibility or will you, like God, be moved by their cries?
By our cries.
Jesus said we wouldn’t be known as His disciples based on our grasp on the complexities of theology or our perfect attendance at church services or the number of projects we volunteer for.
He said in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
May we show the world whose we are by our love for one another.
Nona Jones is a rare combination of author, speaker, preacher, pastor, business executive and worship leader. She is the Founder of Faith & Prejudice, a movement for Christians who are committed to loving and leading with radical humility while confronting and dismantling racism in America.
In Success from the Inside Out, Nona Jones takes you on a personal journey to discovering the difference between success that empties, and success that fills.
Many of us aspire to achieve position, wealth, and notability in the hopes that those things will erase the pain of the past. But for those like Nona Jones who have experienced trauma, success requires more than a changed mindset–it requires repairing a broken spirit.
She is the author of Success from the Inside Out, a memoir that shared her story of overcoming a childhood of physical and sexual abuse to become a global voice of hope for trauma survivors.
June 27, 2020
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.27.20]
This weekend? Feels like we are walking into new hope, new change, new possibility!
Some real hope in these days — for us all to the real, sustained, needed work & more of the real Kingdom of God to come into a hurting world. Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
“The whole of the life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.” ~One Thousand Gifts
it’s a grace to share your gifts of stunning beauty… thank you, Mary Anne Morgan
Big Universe. Bigger God.
Man Saves Woman’s Life After She Collapses in Grocery Store: ‘I Just Jumped in to Help’
deep in the woods, this mailbox stores letters dedicated to fathers who’ve passed away…
How a humble Tennessee scientist became a worldwide hero during the coronavirus pandemic
In honor of Indigenous People’s Day this past week: Acknowledging and bearing witness to the people who came before
yeah, you & me both
When you’re really done with that comparison thief robbing you of joy? You want to be unafraid to be you too?
Consider this:
The moment you trust in Jesus’ story of rescue, God comes near and won’t ever leave
The Story Maker animated children’s film is a Spread Truth project aimed at helping children understand the metanarrative of Scripture and also help them share the Gospel story with their friends and family.
Billy Flanigan has pedaled 3,000 miles, delivering one smile at a time
“He’s just the perfect example of how a little act of kindness can go a long way.”
We rise as one, we will not give up
you’re so not alone… How Do I Find Freedom From Worry?
glory, glory, glory
Mary Anne Morgan: Farmdoodles
Mary Anne Morgan: Farmdoodles
Mary Anne Morgan: Farmdoodles
come on! who doesn’t need all this joy right about now?!
…let it be known, in You alone, my joy was found
IF: Lead 2020
We’re coming to you in your living rooms with a
one-day, digital event!
You are a leader. Whether you’re a mom, a boss, or a Bible study leader, you are influencing others around you. Let us equip and encourage you to continue using your influence for God’s glory with our annual leadership event, IF:Lead.
We want to personally invite you to pull together a few friends in your living room for a day of dreaming about the days ahead with this sisterhood of women God has given us called IF:Gathering on August 15. Tickets are on sale now! Invite your friends and join us online in August!
Leading with Empathy – (Latasha Morrison from IF:2019)…had to share, her words are just so needed
please don’t miss this one!
Recent protests are sparking questions from children. Not shying away from those conversations is the first step in raising an anti-racist child.
As of June 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — has now been watching the Sun non-stop for over a full decade. From its orbit in space around the Earth, SDO has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the Sun, amassing 20 million gigabytes of data over the past 10 years.
The Hidden Figures of the Church
From Fannie Lou Hamer to Breonna Taylor, black women can no longer be erased from the push for racial justice.
how simple human presence is the cornerstone of caregiving
learning here from this honest conversation…thank you, See Hear Love
Choosing Joy & Faith While Living With Incurable Cancer
so good…The Story I’ll Tell
thank you, Maverick City Music
We got a room for our 26th.
Just one small room in our little tiny house, back in the woods here on our farm, one small room to pour a cup of coffee together, watch the sun rise, light dappling through the stilled quiet of the trees.
Turns out? You don’t need much & you don’t need to go far. You need what my therapist said:
You need someone who will stay in the room.
You need your people who will stay in the room when you’re losing your stuff & your ever loving mind, when your whole fragile world is crumbling, when you are at your very worst, because they don’t care what hits the fan, they care about you & they’re gripping your hand.
Every life needs Lifers.
THIS: The Bangladeshi MacGyver Turning Trash Into Robots
what is God doing?
Know that God is working and His plan is unstoppable
Turns out? All our homes tell a story.
Our July Grace Flame candle is now available for new subscribers! Citrus Joy: Sweet Nectarine, is a fresh and summery candle that combines the luscious fruitiness of sweet nectarine, bergamot, and orange blended with enchanting floral notes of pink coral, gardenia, and violet petals on a drydown of soft, soothing musk. July’s action card offers 31 practical ways to discover simple joy, from reading a Psalm every morning to picking a bouquet of wildflowers.
Sign up by this Sunday, June 28th, at 11:59PM ET to receive the July candle!Each Grace Flame candle is lovingly hand-poured by Muna and her mother Nadja, Syrian refugees resettled in Houston, Texas, in 2019 after fleeing war in their home country. 100% — every penny — of your Grace Flame subscription is giving grace back to those in need.
Wherever there is a place of Grace — we find more of Home. Come see.
this one-armed archer is aiming high
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 a King
…you made it to the weekend. And you can feel the wearying of it: Our minds process 105,000 words a day — the equivalent of 2 complete books — about 550 pages of words — but how many pages of His Word do we read, digest, meditate on, sit with, incarnate?
God’s Words alone never fall to the ground and evaporate (1 Sam. 3:19). God’s Word always literally, concretely, take up space in space — the only question is: do we make space for His Word in us?
God’s Word never goes away, passes away or falls away —- but is always given to show us The Way.
When God speaks — He does not speak hot air, or heated opinions, or highfalutin commentary. God’s Words are the only words that create reality, shape reality, remake reality — all other words risk being fake realities.
So as we head into the weekend, let’s cling to this & remember: God’s Word is the only thing that never falls apart — and holds us when we are falling apart.
Quiet all the other voices around you today — and listen to God’s Word about you…open His Word & hear Him tell you He loves you.
Never let the noise of the world around you,
drown out God’s Word about you.
[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
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