Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 8
April 14, 2025
What If I’m Wrong? How Can A Daughter Work through Her Father’s Legacy?
Heather Thompson Day, a heartfelt storyteller and bestselling author, has dedicated 13 years as a college professor to teaching the art of Christ-centered communication. Her profound insights have been spotlighted on reputable platforms like the Today Show, Christianity Today, and Newsweek. In her latest book, “What If I’m Wrong?: Navigating the Waves of Fear and Failure,” Heather invites us to reexamine our perceptions of struggle. Are we truly drowning in our challenges, or are they pivotal moments steering us towards a deeper connection with God? This excerpt delves into the notion that these struggles may be guiding us to uncharted, divine intimacy. It’s a joy to welcome Heather to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Heather Thompson Day
I’M DROWNING.
I wrote these words in my prayer journal.
No context.
No amen.
Not so much a prayer as a cry for help.
Two words that felt like a metaphor for the chaos that was devouring my hopes, dreams, and vision for my future. Passion should come with caution signals. It’s a strong wave over all who dare to greet it.
I learned about passion from my father. His lessons have haunted me my entire life. There is a fine line between faith and delusion. I can’t always tell which side of it my dad was on. I’ve never known anyone who trusted God more fully. Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was twenty-five. He never once complained. But I’ve done enough complaining for both of us.
When Dad was seventeen, he went into show business. He’d play his guitar outside the office of whatever record label executive he hoped would sign him. Sometimes he was kicked out, other times he was welcomed. He got a part in his first Broadway show by memorizing the dance routine in one of the numbers, then running onto the stage from the audience and performing it beside the cast. The bouncer kicked him out, but not before a producer gave him his card. My dad believed that risk was a small price to pay for reward. He also believed that God placed gifts within humanity and that using them honored God.
I know what it feels like to have your dreams bury you beneath them. That’s why I was drowning. I jumped headfirst into the waves of passion, thinking it would bring me safely to my purpose. But passion does nothing safely. It’s a harrowing front stroke into deep water with a strong current. It offers only risk, pain, and reward. Stay on the shore if you want safety.
Biblically speaking, the word passion literally means “to suffer.” It is about doing what we feel called to do, even though it brings us great suffering. The word finds its root in the Latin word passiō and the Greek word pathos. Both communicate suffering. That is why they called it “the passion of Christ.” I don’t know if it is even considered passion until the suffering starts.
“Watching the person you love slowly forget everything they always knew changes what you remember.”
For Dad, his dream was to be an actor on Broadway. He starred in shows like Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair. One day, however, he felt a deeply supernatural call to leave New York City and pursue ministry. He packed everything up, including my mom and my sister (this was before I was born) and moved to a small Midwestern town near Lake Michigan, where he would spend the rest of his life devoted to that call. One day he was on the late show with Johnny Carson, and the next day he became the man I saw tiptoeing down into the basement to groan before the Lord.
Who knows what could have happened for him career wise had he stayed in New York? He traded Broadway stages and lights for an old blue van we all piled in. He only made enough money to fend off the bank, but dad felt rich in purpose.
I don’t think my mom ever doubted my dad’s choice to give everything to his passion. At least not until the Alzheimer’s.
Watching the person you love slowly forget everything they always knew changes what you remember. All our happy memories have a twinge of sadness now. When I think about who my dad was to us, I have a parallel image in my mind of who the disease has made him become, and it sets fire to the background of a lot of my memories.
Dad didn’t know when he taught me to pray how those prayers would one day consume me. That I would pace my block for weeks and years begging God to reveal his goodness toward my family in some way that made my dad’s Alzheimer’s feel justified. Like God had made an even trade. I needed redemption for the broken pieces.
“I think that while I was praying for stability, my dad was praying to serve humbly and with integrity. God honored those prayers. And God will honor yours.“
I texted my mom one day. I needed to share my feelings with someone who shared the experience. “I watched Dad devote his entire life to ministry, and a pain point for me is knowing he has nothing to show for it,” I wrote. “You say Dad has nothing to show for it?” she said.
“He has you to show for it. If you are continuing his passion, then it doesn’t really end with him, does it? It just keeps going, from generation to generation. Heather, what if you’re wrong?”
It’s a question I haven’t stopped asking myself since my mother sent that text message. It’s easy for me, on a bad day, to look at my life and wonder if I’ll ever have anything to show for it. I often worry that all of this passion will eventually drown me. But what if I’m wrong?
I’d be willing to bet that there is fruit on the branches of your life. Maybe it isn’t money or power. Maybe you don’t feel important. But what if those types of fruit aren’t the fruit of heaven anyway?
I think that while I was praying for stability, my dad was praying to serve humbly and with integrity. God honored those prayers. And God will honor yours.
QUESTION TO CONSIDER:
What was your parents’ faith like?Where do you find your stability?What are you passionate about?
Have you ever considered that the hardest things in life might be our greatest areas of passion, through which we find fulfillment in everything we do? In What If I’m Wrong?, from bestselling author and speaker Heather Thompson Day, you’ll discover that we might just be wrong about our biggest fears and failures. They aren’t drowning us; they are part of God’s plan to make us stronger.
Heather Thompson Day is a gifted communicator, a bestselling author, and, as a 13-year college professor, she is passionate about teaching people the art of Christ-centered communications. Her latest book, What If I’m Wrong?: Navigating the Waves of Fear and Failure, is now available everywhere books are sold. Heather has been featured in media such as the Today Show, Christianity Today, and Newsweek, and she has earned accolades as a contributor to the Barna Group and Religion News Service.
{Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotional.}
April 12, 2025
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend {04.12.2025}
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
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:
Exhale… the good shepherd is leading us through All the winds, to safe pastures, quiet waters… such photos of our little sheep flock back on the river farm, captured on a windy spring day by the lens of Levi Voskamp
Heart Vitamins for you this week:How to Remain Faithful with Priscilla Shirer You don’t want to miss thisYou are Never Separated From GodTUNE IN: WATCH HERE“Fresh Hope Is Rising Across Canada This Easter Season”
WOW: READ HEREYou aren’t just going into work this week…
THIS, THIS: LISTENSoul strengtheners for you this week“Choosing Contentment” WATCH HERE“God’s Word Above All “YESSSSS! The best!We need to take notes!
So encouraging! WOW! WOW! SO GOOD!
YES! THIS!!Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord: PRECIOUS GOLD
Pretty incredible! So Beautiful!!
On repeat!! Praise Jesus!!
AMEN! AMEN! On Repeat Over here!
What a picture of God’s love! Resources for you this week:Free Study: He Loves Women
Grab your free one HERE!You’ve Got to Watch this!
I Found this so movingHOLY WEEK: TUNE INTO ALL 5 Episodes this coming week! Co-Hosting on 100 Huntley & our Journey to the Cross every day of Holy Week
BOOKMARK THIS LINK TO TUNE INMARK THIS ONE: JOIN US EVERY HERE ON 100 HUNTLEY STREET DURING HOLY WEEK & WE WILL WALK TO THE CROSS
3 Favorite Traditions to Prepare For Easter
These 3 traditions are our family’s absolute favorite to really enter into Easter in a meaningful way
EVERYTHING YOU NEED RIGHT HERE FOR EASTER & HOLY WEEK
just a bit of wonder This is Who our God is!
READ HERE:Only He can!!
Stories like this so get me… and after the fire here
And Aurora, on her birthday, & 1 month after the fire 
… and Aurora’s heart is really incredible and deeply moving…
Ready to smile this weekend?!!Can it get any Sweeter?
On repeat! Yes!! This!!
This is AMAZING! Raw Talent!!
I can’t stop watching this! this is so beautiful!
WOW!!So Beautiful!!
LET”S LEARN TOGETHERSo funny! And so Convicting
How much are we like her? This is for the mommas A trip down memory lane
Tender & Beautiful… So so incredible!!
PLEASE DON’T MISS THIS: Thoughts to Really Ponder this weekI Want to Love My Body BUT…Sometimes It’s HardDon’t miss this: What “Yes, Lord” Looks Like- Revive Our HeartsDoesn’t this resonate: LISTEN“What Haggai Taught Me About Priorities”
READ HERE“Suffering and Serving in the Shadows”
DON”T MISS THIS:What we’re Listening to on the Farm this week“Come and Rest”“Only Jesus” Post of the Week From Around These Parts: “What to Think When You Think of the world, Ukraine, & the Heart of Jesus in the Closing Days of Lent”
What to think of Ukraine? The state of the world? And what’s our part & the state of our hearts right now?
I went to that part of the world to ask questions, lean in and learn, try to really understand from people right there on the front lines — and I can’t stop thinking about what I learned…
Really — don’t miss this one…
“What to Think When You Think of the world, Ukraine, & the Heart of Jesus in the Closing Days of Lent” on the book stack at the farm
In What We Find in the Dark, award-winning author and pastor Aubrey Sampson writes through the illness and death of her best friend of over twenty-five years, offering raw, real, and fought-for spiritual wisdom and practical insights for loss, grief, and doubt. What We Find in the Dark not only helps us locate ourselves on the journey but gives honesty, hope, and direction for what’s ahead. You do not need to walk this path alone. Learn to navigate through the darkness while holding onto hope.
We Shall All Be Changed is a companion for those experiencing the lonely season of suffering and death. In this book, Whitney reaches across the pages to hold the hand of the caregiver. Walking through death with a loved one can be incredibly isolating and unsettling. This book reminds us that we can experience God’s very presence in life’s dark and deep valleys
wow! Look at us all Reading this together (!!!)
got yours? gifted one to a friend? GET YOURS HERE
We can’t get over all your Beautiful Messages of how God’s using this one to literally change lives!
what others are saying about loved to life:
GET YOURS HERE
Pick up Loved to Life: A 40-Day VISUAL Pilgrimage with Jesus, that will:
give you enlightening insights to calm your real worriesground your identity in who you really are, regardless of failuresspeak to your deepest doubts in a profoundly steading wayand walk you in fresh, intimate ways with Jesus, Love Himself, that will grow your soul into real LIFEBonus FREE gifts:
This bonus free 40-day habit tracker is an invitation to cultivate rhythms of prayer and presence. Each day,
as you engage in your chosen sacred rhythm, you’ll fill in a quilt square — stitching together a beautiful life woven together with Christ’s love…
“40 Ways to Abide in Jesus” comes in TWO DIFFERENT, BOTH Bonus FREE, PRINTABLES (one as original beautiful art prints by my beloved daughter-in-law, Aurora (!!), to place around your home, or as one stunning cross-centered compass to frame and hang) —
24 “Who I am in Christ” cards with original woodcut illustrations 40 illustrated ornaments from the life of Jesus, for your own Easter tree —40-Day Bible Reading PlanPocket Prayers for your PilgrimageA Complete “Loved to Life” Community Pilgrimage Guide With the 7 I AM Statements of Jesus — to do a Lent Pilgrimage with your people 40 Days of Seeing Yourself in Jesus’ Story: Captivating artwork paired with prompts to help you personally – and very powerfully – step into the very scenes of Scripture, immersing your life in Jesus’ storyand so many (truly incredible!!!!) more deeply spiritually formative, profoundly helpful tools coming that will help grow us in connection to each other and the Vine of Life Himself…
My heartfelt thanks for your support of ordering “Loved to Life” here, where you can also claim all the deeply formative and soul-nourishing THANK YOU gifts… from my heart to yours, connecting us all to His.
ORDER LOVED TO LIFE & CLAIM ALL YOUR BONUS THANK YOU GIFTS And YOU REally DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS:Can you even believe it?!Nope, we can’t either! And none of us want to miss out on all these beloved leaders who are joining us live during Lent!
This has never happened quite like this before! A fresh, new live way to interact, where these beloved leaders will jump in with us weekly, as Companions during our 40-Day Pilgrimage with Jesus during Lent, & you’ll get to lean in in real-time, ask questions, face-to-face, & we’ll all fall more in love with Jesus together, as Jesus changes us, & Loves us to Life! It’s about Jesus… and You…and Love. Every single week of Lent, right up to the empty tomb & Resurrection Sunday & living the fullest life!
Weekly livestream conversations! Incredible companions on this 40-Day Pilgrimage! We’ll be face- to- face so you can join us, ask questions, and journey through Lent in real community! Grab a friend, the book, and let’s do this together!
ScreenshotYou Really Belong. And You Do Not Want to Miss This! COME JOIN US!Slow Down & Get all the inspo to create something: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.
April 11, 2025
Want to Make Even Your Hard Story into a Good Story?
You can only write your own lines in the story.
Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is still write your best, into your lines, in the hardest story
You can’t control how anyone else’s lines in the story will go, you can’t control how the whole of the story will unfold — but what you can control is how you will write good with your lines of the story.
During the course of one long painfully tender year, the marriages of two friends imploded, while the family of another fractured.
I sat on my front porch with one friend, and ached for all that just kept breaking. We had known each other since high school, known each other’s families since we were teens with all the teased hair. Life had worn us all down and all I could just quietly offer was gentle hope:
“You’re doing it even now. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is still write your best into your lines in the hardest story… ”
You can’t take people’s pain away — but there’s always a way to somehow offer people withness and witness.
When a friend I’ve known for more than a decade-and-a-half calls me every morning for nearly a year, I pick up, like I’d want someone to pick me up when everything’s falling apart. We all need someone we can count on to be there when we’ve lost count of the heartbreaks.
She’s woken up to yet another day in the valley of the shadow of sadness and she’s desperate for someone to walk with her, to somehow walk less alone.
You can’t take people’s pain away — but there’s always a way to somehow offer people withness and witness.
You only get to write your lines in this story. What would it look like today to write more good into this story with your lines — the only lines you get to write?
When someone gives us withness, it mends a bit of the brokenness, and when someone gives us witness, we see how healing can happen here.
So I sit on the other end of the line and walk with her through the depths of questions and worries and sadness. We have history together: She called me more than a decade ago to ask whether I thought she should think about more babies, and when that baby now blows out more than 10 birthday candles, I grin, thinking he was one of my best prayers for her. When you’ve got years of friendship behind you with someone, you walk with them through whatever they have ahead. And I’m a slow learner of Jesus: Sometimes the best way to be a good friend is simply to be a good listener.
When there’s space for my line in the conversation, that’s the line I keep returning to:
“You only get to control your lines in the story. You only get to write your lines in this story.…
How do you write your lines in a way that you have peace at the end of the day, at the end of your life? And what would it look like today to write more good into this story with your lines — the only lines you get to write?”
No matter what the gurus may say, your life isn’t a story you alone fully get to write: Your life is a story that, in part, you are given.
You don’t get to write the whole of your story — you don’t get to write whether you get sick or whether your family breaks apart. You don’t get to decide whether the economy crashes or a business files bankruptcy or someone rear ends your car or if the call comes after your tests with a diagnosis that you don’t want.
You get to make every single one of your lines, in your story, into a line of love. So your story, no matter what, reads like a love story, on your part.
And true: You don’t get to put words into anyone else’s mouth, you don’t get to choreograph their next move, you don’t get to craft or manipulate or dictate anyone else’s next response in the story that is your actual life.
You don’t get to write all of your story —- your story is given.
But? What you do get to do in that story that you’re given — is write your own lines.
You get to decide how to make your lines into the best lines. You get to decide how you’re going to respond, how you’re going to forgive, how you’re going to live cruciform and sacrifice, how you’re going to reach out with grace, how you’re going to let love be your goal, how you’re going to set up wise boundaries, how you’re only going to speak words that make souls stronger.
You get to make every single one of your lines, in your story, into a line of love. So your story, no matter what, reads like a love story, on your part.
Agency is the ability and autonomy to act — and in every act of your life, you always have agency for good, for love, with your lines in the script.
Agency is the ability and autonomy to act — and in every act of your life, you always have agency for good, for love, with your lines in the script.
By God’s grace: You have agency to make your lines into good lines — which makes the hardest stories, into redemptive stories that point to a good God.
And by God’s grace: You can walk someone through a valley, through a hard chapter of their story, and their story may not at all turn down the roads you hoped or earnestly prayed for, but the grace of every story is:
You always have agency to be an agent of love.
In Christ, it’s always in your power, to be a powerful agent of the Jesus’ love in every chapter of your story.
You always have agency to be an agent of love.
And love isn’t about agreeing in every way with someone, but finding meaningful ways to somehow sacrifice for someone.
So no matter what the scene or scenario, every single one of our stories has an Author, and He is the Word, and He ultimately only writes good stories… and He’s giving us courage to keep writing goodness and cruciform love into every single one of our lines in His sovereign, redemptive story of grace.
Winter slowly gives way to spring, the tulips bloom, the peonies bud, painfully tender seasons give way to better ones.
And hard stories soften into beautiful ones…. one brave, good line of ours at a time.
Thinking about how to move from one chapter to the next?
Even when others may choose lines in the story that you wish were different?
Jessica N. Turner, a long-time very kind friend, who’s shown me nothing but real grace and much love when I’ve chosen very different lines and roads, choices and decisions, in my own story and life, than she has chosen, transparently shares her own personal journey and choices she’s made, and how she’s moved forward with grace, forgiveness and empathy, during a very hard season in her one life where she endeavors to always love large.
April 10, 2025
What to Think When You Think of the world, Ukraine, & the Heart of Jesus in the Closing Days of Lent
When I meet a good friend for a walk through the streets of the Romanian city where liberation began, she tells me about where she was the day when the oppressive regime of Communism fell — and what ended up rising up in her, and keeps rising, especially now, in days like these.
It’s my third visit to Romania, my second to meet Elena, a Romanian believer who leads a Bible study, who’s involved with counselling at her church, whose kind young son went on a long park run with my son during my last visit to serve in Romania.
“I was 9,” Elena tells me.
Under Russian Sovietization after WWII and communism, life for working-class families was brutal, the hardships unending. The Communist Romanian government exported its produce and food to the world, while the Romanian people struggled with rations, with empty shelves, with a shortage of eggs and grain and meat.
This was 1989, not that long ago.
“There were cities where mothers, fathers, had to stand in lines since before three in the morning just to try get milk or bread,” Elena walks along the cobbled streets in central Romanian city of Timisoara in the warmth of early March sunlight.
“But it was more that you couldn’t speak freely, that you had to hide what you’re thinking.” People lived in fear of standing up, of speaking out.
“…When you truly follow the One who walked the Via Dolorosa to right wrongs, you’ll be the believer who stands in the streets, in the way of wrong, to not just be on the right side of history, but to rightly usher in more of the Kingdom of God.“
Elena and I walk from Union Square to Liberty Square in this city where the first protests against communism began in the days just before Christmas in December of 1989.
A faithful pastor had dared to speak up against the policies that were hurting working-class families.
The oppressive government had planned to deport Laszlo Tokes — but 30 to 40 of his congregants of the Reformed Church gathered at his home, on a side street of Timisoara, as a shield of prayer. The cross of Christ always loans courage to true disciples of Christ to stand for righteousness, like Christ, because of Christ.
However, Romania’s oppressive leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, pushed forward and ordered his administration to evict and deport Pastor Tokes. But neither the leader or the administration had anticipated how hundreds of those from the collective body of Christ, across denominational lines, would gather, lining the streets in front of Pastor Tokes’ residence, because when you truly follow the One who walked the Via Dolorosa to right wrongs, you’ll be the believer who stands in the streets, in the way of wrong, to not just be on the right side of history, but to rightly usher in more of the Kingdom of God.
Thousands of Christians poured into the streets to protect the pastor who dared to speak truth to power. Though the mayor of Timisoara instructed Pastor Tőkés to tell the thousands of gathered Christians to go home — Pastor Tőkés faithfully led the rising body of believers to pray the Lord’s Prayer together. Late under the winter night sky, the followers of Jesus prayed as one voice: “Deliver us from evil!”
“That day, in a village south of Timisoara, I was hiding in the house with my Grandfather, away from where neighbors could see or hear us, to listen to the radio “Free Europe,” Elena’s walking next to me, through these historied streets of Timisoara, remembering. “Because people felt this is the moment that is shaking something in the Romanian regime… And the government, they were afraid of this…. and they wanted to scatter the people.”
Whenever we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we are walking closer to the heart of God.
Elena slows, her walking, her words.
“And first, shots were fired in the air— and after that they started to shoot the people.”
I turn to find Elena’s eyes.
“I was just a little girl, so when we heard what was going on from the radio, I was thinking about all those children, and I remember how I was very sad, thinking about all those children whose parents were shot and who had to hear all the guns and the shooting.”
Whenever we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we are walking closer to the heart of God.
And when we dismiss what it feels like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, can we actually claim to walk with God?
“I couldn’t, as a little girl, believe it was really happening. And my grandmother had come into the room where we were listening to the radio — and I remember, she tried to give me a candy she had saved for me. But I wouldn’t take it, I couldn’t eat it. Because all I was thinking about was how there were children who were suffering. They suffered because of bad news, because of the shooting, because of everything that was happening. How could I eat the candy?”
I stop in the street.
I try to read what Elena’s eyes are saying, the story she’s lived, and can still see glimpses of the nearly 9 year old girl, huddled close to the secret radio with her grandfather the day an oppressive regime shot praying parents down…who refused tasting a rare candy for herself, because she can imagine how the regime’s bullets struck down men and women who were parents, who had children just like her…. children who were now tasting unimaginable grief and loss.
“When you can feel compassion for even those who are far away, you are not far from the heart of God. “
When you can feel compassion for even those who are far away, you are not far from the heart of God.
Compassion tastes the salty tears that stream down another’s face.
Compassion is the very first virtue God uses to describe Himself the very first time He speaks of His own character: “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God….” (Ex. 34:5).
When God speaks the first time about who He is, the first word He utters as a self-identifier is: Compassionate.
And that Hebrew word God uses first to describe who He is, is “rakhum,” which is closely related to the word “rekhem,” which is nothing less than the word in Hebrew for “womb.”
Like a mother intimately feels how her child within her moves, so God’s intimately moved by what moves us, what pains us, what terrifies us. Before anything else, God says He is a compassionate womb of cradling protection from everything else. Christian compassion is the womb that delivers more of Christlike-life into the world. If we are not known as people of compassion, is our faith painfully barren?
While there may be those who argue that the critical flaw of contemporary culture is compassion, the reality is, if our compassion shrivels, it’s proof that our culture is dying, and there’s nothing left within us that can reproduce and grow any thriving life.
The absence of compassion is proof of the presence of a contagious culture of death.
“The absence of compassion is proof of the presence of a contagious culture of death.“
“Elena, why do you think Romania, the Romanian church, has been open to help Ukranian refugees?” I ask Elena as we sit down on a park bench in Liberty Square. While Romania and Ukraine share nearly a 400 mile border on one side, Ukraine and Russia are warring along more than a 1000 long mile border on the other side. A flock of winging pigeons settle down across the square, eating the crumbs a man quietly feeds them from a crumpled bag.
“Why have we so cared about the Ukrainian refugees? Because we are sensitive to pain. Because we’ve been under the occupations of the Ottoman Empire, of the Russian troops who didn’t want to leave Romania after World War II, and we know what they can bring… We have come through this hardship with communism and Russia, and it’s very important not to forget this. It’s part of the culture of Romania, of the Romanian church, to see how it is for Ukranians and really be sensitive to their pain — we know what it’s like, and we know it could be us.”
The man with the bread crumbs kneels down closer to the pigeons.
When you remember pain, you remember how to be compassionate to others in theirs. But if we grow distant and desensitized to pain, we dehumanize others in theirs — and become less than human ourselves.
“There’s a direct relationship between a person’s grasp and experience of God’s grace, and his or her heart for the poor and marginalized,” is the line of connection that the theologian Timothy Keller drew. (Is 58:5-7; 1 Jn 3:16-18)
The deeper you’ve tasted of grace, the greater your heart enlarges for those on the margins.
“The deeper you’ve tasted of grace, the greater your heart enlarges for those on the margins“
The more you grasp God’s grace, the greater you will reach to pass on that grace.
Those who’ve tasted amazing grace, will go to amazing lengths to ensure others taste the grace of bread.
Elena shares with me the ways her church family have reached out and welcomed, served, and supported Ukrainians since the Russian invasion 3 years ago, the free Romanian language classes that a colleague’s offered to Ukrainians, the committed assistance with job searches, securing accommodations, processing trauma, and the long-term work of integrating into society.
“We’re all called to do the work of helping,” Elena’s voice is steady, sure.
And I’m nodding.
In a fractured and polarizing world, our work is not to be on missions of retribution, but to be ministers of reconciliation, not to cause any more suffering to the oppressed, but to serve in any way we can, because that’s always the call when you’ve been blessed.
“If we turn from compassion, this holy call to co-suffer with others, our own hearts suffer, our witness suffers, our world suffers, and the gospel of Jesus Christ suffers.“
It’s those who focus on self first who experience the hardening of their own arteries in any heart of compassion, which leads to heart failure, which is the ultimate life failure.
If we turn from compassion, this holy call to co-suffer with others, our own hearts suffer, our witness suffers, our world suffers, and the gospel of Jesus Christ suffers.
The strong win little that matters, and lose any real strength that ultimately matters, when they have little compassion for those in need.
A father and his little girl linger near the man feeding the pigeons, watching too. And I think of how, as every child is intimately sustained in a womb, with the mother not expecting anything in return, so biblical compassion — rakhum, womb-like compassion — is more than mere feeling, it’s a deep intimate connection with others that stirs us toward giving and sacrificing in ways that sustain hope — both theirs and ours.
Elena and I both smile, watching along with the father and child, as the kneeling man feeds another handful to the pigeons.
This a world of heartache, and yet there is the relief of the sweet taste of compassion.
Then, in a moment, the flock of pigeons take to the air — and hope rises on the wings of compassion.
Soaring birds fill the sky, in these final days Lent.
Our freedom in Christ is the freedom to feel the compassion of Christ.
You aren’t alone. God knows what it feels like to be where you are, where you have been. God Himself knows how hard this broken planet is―He’s walked where you’ve walked. But out of those hard, dusty roads emerges a way into the exhilarating life you’ve longed to fully experience.
This is the truest story in the whole universe: God is the only One who has ever loved you to death and came to resurrect you into the fullest life you always hoped for.
Embark on a 40-day spiritual pilgrimage following the entire life of Jesus through the Gospel of John — a 40-day pilgrimage to move you from barely getting through―to passionately living the fullest life.
April 7, 2025
4 Ways that God Surprised Me in the Night: Here’s What Happened When I Searched for Found Things
I ache because my friend Aubrey Sampson, who I admire and adore, has walked through heart-wrenching grief. A truly incredible writer and thinker, my heart swells when I see how God uses her suffering to comfort others on the trail. Her new book, What We Find in the Dark: Loss, Hope, and God’s Presence in Grief, reveals the raw pain that Aubrey processed in the early stages after her best friend’s death. I wish this cup was not hers to bear, but it is, and it is an absolute honor to welcome my sweet friend Aubrey to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Aubrey Sampson
When you’re sadder, lonelier, and more confused than you have ever been, when loss has stolen your person, your dreams, your will, and your faith, when you are on a precipice—go on a hunt for found things.
“Things Found in the Dark” is more than a clunky list. For the heartbroken night-wanderer, a list of found things is a way to tune our souls to the sound of God.
A list of found things is a tiny way for the disengaged to gently reengage with life.
A list of found things is faith when you have none.
Here are the first four items on mine:
1. The letterOne afternoon, a few weeks after my best friend Jenn’s passing, we arrive home after spending time with her family, and there is an envelope lying out on the middle of my kitchen island. An envelope with Jenn’s familiar loopy handwriting on it.
It is an old card, sent a couple of years ago. It begins with “My precious friend.” In it, Jenn is thanking me for loving her family and taking care of her when she was first diagnosed with cancer. It is full of soft, kind words.
“God surprises us in the dark night, letting us know we are seen. “
This card wasn’t there before we went to see Jenn’s boys. But it is here now.
Before Jenn died, we joked about her haunting people. She said, “I would never do that; I would never scare anyone.” So I don’t think this is a haunting. Maybe the wind blew the letter from its resting place in my kitchen, or maybe someone put it there and forgot.
I might sound superstitious or crazy. But maybe the veil between here and her is thin. Maybe God’s love reaches across that invisible boundary line, reminding us that we are seen and not alone in our pain.
I jot this down on my list: God surprises us in the dark night, letting us know we are seen.
2. Directives from friendsI spend the week before Jenn’s funeral fretting that I don’t have the right bra or outfit or shoes to wear. So I try to go shopping.
Do not go shopping in early grief. You will make decisions like a zombie, but a zombie with big emotions, a zombie in a grief fog. You will make bad decisions.
I end up buying seven pairs of black boots to try on with the dress I am planning to wear for the funeral. Not one. Not two. Seven.
I know I am not searching for items; I am searching for Jenn. I am looking for hope.
“God provides us with wise people of clarity, friends who help us take a next small step.“
I finally text my friend Hollie for help:
I can’t make a decision.
Which boots should I get?
I can’t keep all seven.
I think I have grief brain.
She responds, Get the leather boots with the zipper and move on. Those are cute. Get some tights and try them on with your black dress and your camo sweater. We’ll all be wearing camo to honor Warrior Wednesday. That’s a good outfit for the funeral.
Then,
Be kind to yourself.
Clarity from friends. Is this the sound of God’s love in the dark night, too? I write this down so I will remember it: In grief, God provides us with wise people of clarity, friends who help us take a next small step.
3. The hawkIt’s Galentine’s Day. Jenn’s holiday.
This was her day to celebrate the women in her life, especially the single moms. Today sucker-punches me. But I have to pull myself together to go to work.
As I back out of my driveway, I notice a hawk perched on my front porch railing, just staring at my front door. Later, a friend stops by my house and sends me a photo. Did you know there is a hawk staring at your house? This afternoon, the hawk has moved to the tree in my front yard, still watching my house. The next day it is gone. I haven’t seen it since.
“God gives us signs and wonders.“
That same friend sends me a text, “Do you know the hawk is often considered a sign from heaven, a sign of protection?”
And look, I know, I know. There was probably an unsuspecting mouse or squirrel that my hawk was hunting. And there’s all these theological debates about “signs from beyond.”
But also, maybe God does this kind of inexplicable thing especially when we hurt so deeply. So I add this to my list of found things: God gives us signs and wonders. Some might think these are just coincidences.
But I don’t.
Not today.
4. Sabbath delightToday, on a girls’ trip to a mountain resort just outside Seattle, I am sabbathing with my dear friends closest to Jenn besides me. As I look back on the day we spent together:
I wrote outside in the morning while drinking coffee.
We went on a hike, soaking in the creation-beauty of the mountains.
We went to lunch and visited a local bookstore.
“Stillness, surrender, pleasure, playfulness—these can be found in our dark nights when we are ready for them. “
We drove around looking at the Pacific Northwest’s luscious scenery, the rivers, the mountains, the farmlands.
We actually threw axes. (I hit several bullseyes. Like, I might be a natural ax thrower).
We laughed and played and ate a backyard dinner of charcuterie.
We ended our sabbath with an evening ride on electric scooters and a hot tub sit.
It was a full day, but not a busy day. The hours were luxurious. And I haven’t rested in so long. Since Jenn died, my internal motor has been on, always on, driving me even while in idle. This has been my body’s defense against time, against grief.
I add this to my list as well: Stillness, surrender, pleasure, playfulness—these can be found in our dark nights when we are ready for them.
My list of lost things is longer than my list of found things, or at least it’s heavier, weighted on that side.
But I have these found things, and they have given me a taste for more.
Sometimes the dark nights of life and faith have strange gifts.
In What We Find in the Dark, award-winning author and pastor Aubrey Sampson writes through the illness and death of her best friend of over twenty-five years, offering raw, real, and fought-for spiritual wisdom and practical insights for loss, grief, and doubt. What We Find in the Dark not only helps us locate ourselves on the journey but gives honesty, hope, and direction for what’s ahead. You do not need to walk this path alone. Learn to navigate through the darkness while holding onto hope.
Aubrey Sampson (MA, evangelism and leadership) co-planted and serves as a teaching pastor at Renewal Church, a multiethnic congregation in Chicagoland. She is passionate about helping hurting Christians find God’s presence in their pain, and speaks at churches and conferences around the country. She is an award-nominated author, a coach with Propel Cohorts, and the cohost of The Nothing Is Wasted Podcast. Aubrey is the author of several books, most recently What We Find in the Dark: Loss, Hope, and God’s Presence in Grief, and the children’s book, Big Feelings Days: A Book about Hard Things, Heavy Emotions, and Jesus’ Love. She and her husband, Kevin, and their three hilarious sons live, minister, and play in the Chicagoland area. You can connect with Aubrey on her website, aubreysampson.com, and on social media @aubsamp.
{Our humble thanks to NavPress for their partnership in today’s devotional.}
April 5, 2025
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend {04.05.2025}
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
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:
Sean Pierce
Le Mucky
Exhale… And gaze in Awe at the splendour of our King… glory, glory, glory! Heart Vitamins for you this week:Overcoming Fear and understanding purpose in the pain You don’t want to miss thisBetter Together – “How To Develop a DEEPER Connection with GOD” TUNE IN: WATCH HERE“Teaching Children to Love What Is Good”
WOW: READ HERE“HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE IN CONTEXT”
THIS, THIS, THIS! READ HERESoul strengtheners for you this week“Confession is really Kingdom work”
She’s amazing: WATCH HERE“It’s all by grace through faith”
YESSSSS! The best!“Jesus comes to us in our broken, messy Lives”
A MUST LISTEN! Ruth Cho Simons- “The Power of YET”
Playing on REPEAT! Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord: so Beautiful!!
Pretty incredible! Crazy Talented!
On repeat!! Two Generations Praising!!
AMEN! AMEN! On Repeat Over here!
What a picture of God’s love! Resources for you this week: Bible Study Resources
Grab yours HERE! “Revelation” By Jen Wilkin
CLICK TO JOIN US! just a bit of wonder the (Hidden) whole story
Did you see this!Only He can!!
Stories like this so get meReady to smile this weekend?!!This is so fun!
On repeat! A fun Easter Craft!!
This is AMAZING! This is Adorable!
I can’t stop watching this! Give me all the giggles!
Soooo cute! Thoughts to Really Ponder this weekTurning our aching plea to assurance?
Don’t miss this: READ HERE “Keep Reading Your Bible, even when you Don’t get it”
Doesn’t this resonate: READ “Making Sense of God’s Sovereignty”WATCH HERE“How to Apply the Gospel to Your Family Life”Tune in hereWhat we’re Listening to on the Farm this week“Such and Awesome God”“Shout to The Lord “Post of the Week From Around These Parts: “What Unexpected Thing is Actually Happening in Pain & Suffering?”
thank you … it doesn’t seem like enough, but please know how deeply we mean those two words… From our family to yours… just… beyond words… moved beyond words…thank-you…
Absolutely hushed and flattened with gratitude, with grateful love to each of you... how you have loved our family and Levi and Aurora, who have moved in with us in the wake of burning down of their home, and we are stunned and undone with thanksgiving… Each of you — your withness, with us, and your witness, for us — means more than you can ever imagine & what holds us together through trauma, is each of you being the hands and feet of Jesus to our family. We can never thank God enough for each of you — truly…
“What Unexpected Thing is Actually Happening in Pain & Suffering?”
AND OUR FREE GIFT, with OVERWHELMING THANKS
READ OUR DEEP THANKFULNESS TO YOU ALL & OUR FREE PRINTS FOR YOU AS OUR DEEP THANKS TO EACH OF YOU
“What Unexpected Thing is Actually Happening in Pain & Suffering?”
on the book stack at the farm
In Every Home a Foundation, Phylicia Masonheimer invites readers to reconsider their view of home. The Christian home is an image of both a coming spiritual reality and the existing spiritual reality of our family, the church. Through Christ, we can heal and build a home that brings joy to us and love to others.
We Shall All Be Changed is a companion for those experiencing the lonely season of suffering and death. In this book, Whitney reaches across the pages to hold the hand of the caregiver. Walking through death with a loved one can be incredibly isolating and unsettling. This book reminds us that we can experience God’s very presence in life’s dark and deep valleys
wow! Look at us all Reading this together (!!!)
Have you got yours? gifted one to a friend? We can’t get over all Your Beautiful Messages of how God’s using this one to literally change lives
what others are saying about loved to life:
Pick up Loved to Life: A 40-Day VISUAL Pilgrimage with Jesus, that will:
give you enlightening insights to calm your real worriesground your identity in who you really are, regardless of failuresspeak to your deepest doubts in a profoundly steading wayand walk you in fresh, intimate ways with Jesus, Love Himself, that will grow your soul into real LIFEBonus FREE THANK YOU gifts for your Support:
This bonus free 40-day habit tracker is an invitation to cultivate rhythms of prayer and presence. Each day,
as you engage in your chosen sacred rhythm, you’ll fill in a quilt square — stitching together a beautiful life woven together with Christ’s love…
“40 Ways to Abide in Jesus” comes in TWO DIFFERENT, BOTH Bonus FREE, PRINTABLES (one as original beautiful art prints by my beloved daughter-in-law, Aurora (!!), to place around your home, or as one stunning cross-centered compass to frame and hang) —
24 “Who I am in Christ” cards with original woodcut illustrations 40 illustrated ornaments from the life of Jesus, for your own Easter tree —40-Day Bible Reading PlanPocket Prayers for your PilgrimageA Complete “Loved to Life” Community Pilgrimage Guide With the 7 I AM Statements of Jesus — to do a Lent Pilgrimage with your people 40 Days of Seeing Yourself in Jesus’ Story: Captivating artwork paired with prompts to help you personally – and very powerfully – step into the very scenes of Scripture, immersing your life in Jesus’ storyand so many (truly incredible!!!!) more deeply spiritually formative, profoundly helpful tools coming that will help grow us in connection to each other and the Vine of Life Himself…
My heartfelt thanks for your support of ordering “Loved to Life” here, where you can also claim all the deeply formative and soul-nourishing THANK YOU gifts… from my heart to yours, connecting us all to His.
ORDER LOVED TO LIFE & CLAIM ALL YOUR BONUS THANK YOU GIFTS And YOU REally DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS:Can you even believe it?!Nope, we can’t either! And none of us want to miss out on all these beloved leaders who are joining us live during Lent!
This has never happened quite like this before! A fresh, new live way to interact, where these beloved leaders will jump in with us weekly, as Companions during our 40-Day Pilgrimage with Jesus during Lent, & you’ll get to lean in in real-time, ask questions, face-to-face, & we’ll all fall more in love with Jesus together, as Jesus changes us, & Loves us to Life! It’s about Jesus… and You…and Love. Every single week of Lent, right up to the empty tomb & Resurrection Sunday & living the fullest life!
Weekly livestream conversations! Incredible companions on this 40-Day Pilgrimage! We’ll be face- to- face so you can join us, ask questions, and journey through Lent in real community! Grab a friend, the book, and let’s do this together!
ScreenshotYou Really Belong. And You Do Not Want to Miss This! COME JOIN US!Slow Down & Get all the inspo to create something: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.
April 4, 2025
At The End of Myself, I Ran Headfirst Into Christ
Whitney K. Pipkin lived with the possibility of cancer taking her mom’s life for much of her childhood. But the grief of loss still came as a surprise. She sees now how it lowered her to a new vantage point, one where she could see her suffering Savior more clearly. In this excerpt from We Shall All Be Changed, she writes about what the days of fresh grief felt like and how the Savior who was broken open for us met her there. It’s my joy to welcome Whitney to the farm’s table today…
Guest Post by Whitney K. Pipkin
What surprised me about grief was that it could not be reasoned with.
I would tell myself that it’s normal to lose a parent, that I am not the only one going through something. At least I had that extra twenty years with her, and we knew this was coming, right? Right?
And then I would try to call her.
Sometimes it would take a couple rings to realize what I was doing. It felt so final, taking her number off my speed dial list, but I couldn’t seem to train my thumb to stop wandering to her name.
Longing is felt more fully, more achingly, when it can’t be satisfied. I had never longed for my mom, for her voice and her advice, as I did in those early days of grief. I had grown up and left and cleft—only to be returned to this primal state of infancy, crying for the one who could no longer comfort me.
What surprised me about grief was how it took up residence in my body. Like rioters camping on the steps of City Hall, it kept chanting at me from within, “You’re. Not. Okay.” The insurgency took my immune system and the prefrontal cortex of my brain hostage too. I got cold sores, joint pain, and bizarre rashes, one after the other, not to mention the migraines. Executive function began eluding me. The pediatrician could stump me by asking for all three of my kids’ birthdays at once. Google Maps became mystifying. I couldn’t even remember which side of the car the gas thingy was supposed to go into.
“I sensed what she already knew: that all the feelings would catch up to me if I stopped moving, that the real work in me would begin.“
It was like the newborn haze, but more sinister. I would wake from a full night’s sleep, exhausted. Cooking, which had long been a source of comfort, became a semi-hazardous sport. I was chopping romaine lettuce in my parents’ kitchen the week of the funeral when I sliced my index finger down to the nail. Less than a week later, on Christmas Eve with my husband’s family, I did the same to my middle finger with a bread knife—and wept uncontrollably. Every bleed left me longing for the one who had bandaged so many of my wounds. Every misstep felt like cruelty, like this body I needed to carry me forward was only interested in sabotage.
And then grief surprised me by masquerading as anxiety. I took two months off of work that winter to be with baby Ruby and, you know, get this grief thing over with. But suddenly, I could barely hold still long enough to journal. Instead, I printed out the floor plan of our house and began maniacally organizing, highlighting every drawer and corner after I decluttered it to track my progress. I was desperate for progress.
When I relayed my frantic doings to a counselor over Zoom that winter, she suggested I try “being still” instead. I had a lot of questions. Does being still while walking count? While driving? I sensed what she already knew: that all the feelings would catch up to me if I stopped moving, that the real work in me would begin.
“From here, I can better see the suffering of my Savior standing out from the dark backdrop of my circumstances.“
I would not have volunteered for the grief of loss. But I see now how it lowered me to a new vantage point. From here, I can better see the suffering of my Savior standing out from the dark backdrop of my circumstances.
I have experienced Christ in suffering not because I chose to, but because I was desperate. There was no other way through it. I read my Bible like one being nursed back to health: I could take in only small morsels; yet one turn of phrase would sustain me for a week. “You have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul,” I prayed with the Psalms. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,” I read in return, “and I will give you rest.” At the bitter end of myself and my ability to change the ache within, I ran headfirst into Christ.
“At the bitter end of myself and my ability to change the ache within, I ran headfirst into Christ.“
At the Maundy Thursday service the spring after Mom’s death, I closed my eyes in the third row and found myself imagining Christ seated across from me at a table. The tenderness in His eyes felt familiar as scenes from the previous weeks flashed across my mind: me crying in the car, in the grocery store, into the carpet of my office floor. And I realized, as if for the first time, He knows. He knows what it feels like to be broken open.
“This is my body,” my pastor read over us, “broken for you.” I wondered if this is what it means to share—to literally fellowship in—the sufferings of Christ. I wondered if here, seated across from the One who drank the cup I could not bear, I might find the strength to drink the one I’d been given.
1. As Nicholas Wolterstorff writes, “Through the prism of my tears, I have seen a suffering God.” Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987) 81.
2. Psalm 31:7b; Matthew 11:28.
3. Philippians 3:10.
Whitney K. Pipkin lives with her husband, three children and a dog named Honeybun in Northern Virginia, where they are longtime members of Grace Bible Church in Lorton. She works as a journalist. After losing her mom to the cancer she wrestled with for 20 years, Whitney wrote We Shall All Be Changed: How Facing Death with Loved Ones Transforms Us a book she prays will serve others walking similar roads.
We Shall All Be Changed is a companion for those experiencing the lonely season of suffering and death. In this book, Whitney reaches across the pages to hold the hand of the caregiver. Walking through death with a loved one can be incredibly isolating and unsettling. This book reminds us that we can experience God’s very presence in life’s dark and deep valleys. As Whitney draws from her own experience, she sheds light and hope. She shows that we are not alone. And she reveals the mysterious way that God ministers to and transforms us through death and suffering. You can find her on Instagram @whitneykpipkin and sign up for her newsletter at whitneykpipkin.com.
{Our humble thanks to Moody Publishers for their partnership in today’s devotional.}
April 1, 2025
What Unexpected Thing is Actually Happening in Pain & Suffering?
“When grief’s deepest, words are fewest, so that His presence & withness can speak love the clearest. “
Even the smallest reaches of kindness can begin to break through the tenderest kinds of brokenness.
When the sun dawns over our farm fields the day right after the fire, Levi & Aurora, our son & daughter-in-love, sit across from us at our old barn beam table, and there isn’t one of us that’s slept that much.
I offer Aurora a cup of coffee but what I’m desperate to do is just about anything to take away the stunned, sad ache in her eyes.
When grief’s deepest, words are fewest, so that His presence and withness can speak love the clearest.
“What if Jesus doesn’t alway take away our pain, because that would take away a door to access the heart of the Way Himself, that can’t be experienced any other way? “
Aurora’s eyes meet mine … and I gently nod, wanting nothing more than to reach over and just gather her up. Nothing breaks your heart quite like watching the breaking of the hearts of people you love.
What I want to do is take away their pain — like I would have taken away Hagar’s pain too, which would have taken away her getting to name God, whom she got to experience as the God who sees.
Like I would have taken away David’s pain too, which would have taken him away from getting to be a man with a heart like God’s, whose own divine heart has experienced deep suffering and loss.
Like I would have taken away Elijah’s pain too, which would have taken away him getting to be fed and sustained by God, who can be tasted as otherworldly goodness, in unexpected darkness, that can’t be experienced any other way.
Levi hands me down his own coffee cup. We all have our cups to take up.
“What if Jesus removed every calamity and cross we’ve ever had to carry – would we then be following Him only just for comfort and convenience, rather than for intimate communion with Him, the One who carried a Cross too?“
What if Jesus doesn’t alway take away our pain, because that would take away a door to access the heart of the Way Himself, that can’t be experienced any other way?
What if Jesus removed every calamity and cross we’ve ever had to carry – would we then be following Him only just for comfort and convenience, rather than for intimate communion with Him, the One who carried a Cross too?
What if we are most interested in God taking away pain — when God is more interested in giving to us in the midst of pain? What if there is more than taking away pain; what if God is about giving a way to be raised up through pain?
What if God’s more than a taker — but is actually more of a Giver?
Is there any word more powerful than giving? Thanksgiving. Forgiving. Care-giving. Kind giving. Life-giving. Everything that’s about giving surely leads to fuller living.
“There are times that instead of God taking away painful loss, God is the Giver who gives ways to experience presence and love through the loss. “
When Mrs. Bouma heard about the fire, she, first thing, sorted through clothes and boxes and housewares to put together a generous care package and then sent her kind Dutch husband, the village optometrist, on a drive through the countryside and right up our farm lane before we were even finished breakfast, so Aurora & Levi might have a few more shirts than just only the ones on their backs.
Sue Nelson, and her fine husband, Mike, had the ministry of soup and they showed up on the porch with steaming crocks and loaves of bread to make sure we were all well-fed, and Mrs. Martin, our thoughtful neighbour at the farm next door, she came in right after, with the gift of a big 9 by 13 dish of lasagne. Sue Nelson’s soup tastes like grace. The last of Mrs. Martin’s lasagne is eaten straight out of the pan. Where suffering is shared, communion is tasted.
When community comes to sit with you in your fire, it’s all kinds of hopelessness that gets extinguished.
Everyone needs someone to be with them in the burn, because that can turn flames into a burning bush of holy presence.
Pain may not be taken away, but His presence is tenderly given. Ache might not be erased, but angels of ministering grace are daily dispatched to attend to you.
The smoke’s still rising from the wreckage when the town florist generously flings open their doors and invites the whole community to come in for cut flowers and every penny of the proceeds across the two days, they offer to donate to Levi and Aurora, who’s one of their very own bouquet makers. And it’s the very men and women of the local volunteer fire department, who’d all valiantly fought the blaze in that brutal northwest wind, who come into the town florist to pick up bunches of tulips and daffodils and snapdragons. And then those same volunteer firefighters turned around and gave their bouquets to other firefighter families who were marking their own painful losses.
There are times that instead of God taking away painful loss, God is the Giver who gives ways to experience presence and love through the loss.
Pain may not be taken away, but His presence is tenderly given.
Ache might not be erased, but angels of ministering grace are daily dispatched to attend to you.
And your cross may not be lifted, but Jesus comes to be the lifter of your chin, and to co-bear the weight and ache, and this cross that He gives gives the gift of making our hearts shaped more like Christ who is Love Himself.
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Your cross may not be lifted, but Jesus comes to be the lifter of your chin, and to co-bear the weight and ache, and this cross that He gives gives the gift of making our hearts shaped more like Christ who is Love Himself.
Mrs. Van Sligtenhorst brings an old glass bottle she found during the renovations of her old house, for Aurora to maybe dip her paint brushes in. Before she goes, she slips into Aurora’s hand too, a wooden spoon she carved from a broken branch in her orchard, for Aurora to hold in her own hands the repurposing of brokenness, for her to imagine stirring soup at her stove someday again soon, and there are countless ways to loan hurting folks sure hope.
When we come to be with someone in their fire, the Other who comes into the fire with us is no less than the holy presence of the Shekinah who fights fire with fire, who fights the fire of loss with the holy fire of love.
When we brave entering into someone’s fire, we torch the dark and set despair ablaze.
And when we enter into someone’s fire, we do more than just bring the Shekinah blaze of God’s love into the flames– we ourselves enter into the mystery of experiencing the igniting heat of Love Himself. Because “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me” (Matt. 25:40). Which is to say: When we give, we get God.
When we enter into the grief and mystery of someone’s burn, we not only give the presence of God, but we get to experience the mystery of the presence of God Himself too.
When we sit with anyone in their burn, we sit with God Himself and how can our hearts not burn within us?
God is committed to being more than just the taker of pain, He’s vowed to be the Giver of a greater blaze: He gives a Shekinah flame of love that no dark could ever put out.
Once you dare to take the broken way, to stay with the broken in their fire, to daily give forward even in your own brokenness, through your own flames, your broken heart is enlightened—it becomes light.
God is committed to being more than just the taker of pain, He’s vowed to be the Giver of a greater blaze: He gives a Shekinah flame of love that no dark could ever put out.
Shiloh shyly slips up beside me in the kitchen, with a bag in hand, and she cups her hand to whisper soft and warm at my ear — “Can I give Aurora all my new paints and brushes from Christmas?”
And I kiss the dear child’s forehead and, in the 4th week of Lent, the ash and trauma of Levi and Aurora’s blazed house hasn’t yet been taken away, but grace and love and community and compassion have been given in abundance, and even in the midst of it, the rising begins even now.
The Lord who gives life, He gives grace, gives mercy, gives hope, gives His body, gives community, gives love, gives Himself. Less than a taker, God is infinitely more a Giver….
From a cup of deep sadness, you can still taste the deep joy of the Lord.
The warmth of the sun surely keeps rising.
thank you … it doesn’t seem like enough, but please know how deeply we mean those two words…From our family to yours… just… beyond words… moved beyond words…thank-you…
Absolutely hushed and flattened with gratitude, with grateful love to each of you... how you have loved our family and Levi and Aurora, who have moved in with us in the wake of burning down of their home, and we are stunned and undone with thanksgiving… Each of you — your withness, with us, and your witness, for us — means more than you can ever imagine & what holds us together through trauma, is each of you being the hands and feet of Jesus to our family. We can never thank God enough for each of you — truly…
Last night, after making bouquets in at the town florist, Aurora sat under the warm glow of a lamp here at the farm, and, with a heart overflowing with gratitude, she painted this for each of you, a little free printable, as a card or a print, or as a bookmark for your own journeys, as the smallest token of all of our deepest thanks for all your love… with all of our love.
Free downloadable printable for each of your here, with all of our grateful love, from the bottom of our hearts
March 29, 2025
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins For Your Weekend {03.29.2025}
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Let yourself smile, be crazy inspired, laugh, love & really live the gift of this life
just a little bit more this weekend…
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:
Exhale… breathe in the sea air… glory, glory, glory! Heart Vitamins for you this week:Yes, Priscilla Shirer! “God is With You in Seasons of Suffering”You don’t want to miss this“You Can Choose To Rejoice.” Wisdom from Ruth Chou SimonsTUNE IN: WATCH HEREUNKNOWINGLY PLANTING SEEDS. God’s always working!
WOW: READ HERE faith is less like a checklist & more like a real adventure!
THIS, THIS, THIS! READ HERESoul strengtheners for you this week“Count it all joy.” Have you tried verse mapping?
She’s amazing: WATCH HEREBreakfast with Dads — and those who stand in as dads
YESSSSS! The best!Be Awed by God this weekend!Would you do this to get close to wonder? So fun!
Pretty incredible! when she wasn’t allowed to be baptized by immersion…
They did this & look at her JOY!what he said from space — YES!
AMEN! AMEN! You are loved like this — WOW!
What a picture of God’s love! Look Where We’ve seen God’s Glory this week!WOW! God is moving!
Did you see this? READ HERESo moved by their worship!
Stories like this so get meReady to smile this weekend?!!A daddy and his daughter
StunningDiverted to Brother!
Isn’t this kind of amazing? A Father’s Love
I scrolled through tears!Dogs with Babies? Yes!
Soooo cute! Thoughts to Really Ponder this week“BUILDING THE HABIT OF FAMILY WORSHIP”
Don’t miss this: READ HERE“Trading Cell Phones for Community”
Doesn’t this resonate: READ “Aging Is a Discipleship Issue”WATCH HERE“Marriage & Ministry”Tune in hereWhat we’re Listening to on the Farm this week“When I Fall”“I Thank God “on the book stack at the farm
In Every Home a Foundation, Phylicia Masonheimer invites readers to reconsider their view of home. The Christian home is an image of both a coming spiritual reality and the existing spiritual reality of our family, the church. Through Christ, we can heal and build a home that brings joy to us and love to others.
Every Season Sacred meets you where you are, offering weekly reflections to ground you, breath prayers to center you, and Scripture to guide you. Each week includes two prayers to share—one for kids and one for adults—along with thoughtful discussion questions to reflect on your own or spark meaningful conversations in the comings and goings of your days.
wow! Look at us all Reading this together (!!!)
Have you got yours? gifted one to a friend? We can’t get over all Your Beautiful Messages of how God’s using this one to literally change lives
what others are saying about loved to life:
Pick up Loved to Life: A 40-Day VISUAL Pilgrimage with Jesus, that will:
give you enlightening insights to calm your real worriesground your identity in who you really are, regardless of failuresspeak to your deepest doubts in a profoundly steading wayand walk you in fresh, intimate ways with Jesus, Love Himself, that will grow your soul into real LIFEBonus FREE THANK YOU gifts for your Support:
This bonus free 40-day habit tracker is an invitation to cultivate rhythms of prayer and presence. Each day,
as you engage in your chosen sacred rhythm, you’ll fill in a quilt square — stitching together a beautiful life woven together with Christ’s love…
“40 Ways to Abide in Jesus” comes in TWO DIFFERENT, BOTH Bonus FREE, PRINTABLES (one as original beautiful art prints by my beloved daughter-in-law, Aurora (!!), to place around your home, or as one stunning cross-centered compass to frame and hang) —
24 “Who I am in Christ” cards with original woodcut illustrations 40 illustrated ornaments from the life of Jesus, for your own Easter tree —40-Day Bible Reading PlanPocket Prayers for your PilgrimageA Complete “Loved to Life” Community Pilgrimage Guide With the 7 I AM Statements of Jesus — to do a Lent Pilgrimage with your people 40 Days of Seeing Yourself in Jesus’ Story: Captivating artwork paired with prompts to help you personally – and very powerfully – step into the very scenes of Scripture, immersing your life in Jesus’ storyand so many (truly incredible!!!!) more deeply spiritually formative, profoundly helpful tools coming that will help grow us in connection to each other and the Vine of Life Himself…
My heartfelt thanks for your support of ordering “Loved to Life” here, where you can also claim all the deeply formative and soul-nourishing THANK YOU gifts… from my heart to yours, connecting us all to His.
ORDER LOVED TO LIFE & CLAIM ALL YOUR BONUS THANK YOU GIFTS And YOU REally DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS:Can you even believe it?!Nope, we can’t either! And none of us want to miss out on all these beloved leaders who are joining us live during Lent!
This has never happened quite like this before! A fresh, new live way to interact, where these beloved leaders will jump in with us weekly, as Companions during our 40-Day Pilgrimage with Jesus during Lent, & you’ll get to lean in in real-time, ask questions, face-to-face, & we’ll all fall more in love with Jesus together, as Jesus changes us, & Loves us to Life! It’s about Jesus… and You…and Love. Every single week of Lent, right up to the empty tomb & Resurrection Sunday & living the fullest life!
Weekly livestream conversations! Incredible companions on this 40-Day Pilgrimage! We’ll be face- to- face so you can join us, ask questions, and journey through Lent in real community! Grab a friend, the book, and let’s do this together!
ScreenshotYou Really Belong. And You Do Not Want to Miss This! COME JOIN US!Slow Down & Feel Loved this weekend: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 28, 2025
When Discontent Knocks at the Door, Remember the Faithfulness of God
I just absolutely love, love, love this woman and have been discipled by her anointed wisdom time and again. Phylicia Masonheimer is a wise teacher who shows us how to anchor our faith in the “why” behind the Word. Phylicia is a blogger, author, speaker, and podcast host with a passion for helping believers truly know what they believe and live it with fearless boldness. She lives with her husband, Josh, and their three children on a northern Michigan farm. It’s beyond a deep joy to welcome Phylicia Masonheimer to the farm’s table with this tender reassurance for our restless hearts: that maybe the home we have is exactly where Jesus wants to meet us.
Guest Post by Phylicia Masonheimer
Every year during Easter I call Good Friday “Black Friday.”
I confused them once and my mind can’t undo it. For some reason “Black Friday” sounds more appropriate for a crucifixion than for a day dedicated to mass materialism. I’ve always found it highly ironic that Black Friday, a day dedicated to shopping, comes less than twenty-four hours after we gather to give thanks for what we have.
It’s tempting to scroll through the endless gift guides: for him, for her, for the kids. I love seeing the recommendations.
I tell myself I do in fact need that ice machine; the one in our fridge keeps clogging up. Or maybe an air fryer instead? Those are all the rage. Could I use some cute pajamas? I’m sure Josh is tired of me wandering about the house looking like the ghost of grandmas past in my floor-length white nightgown. And there are the books, for which I have no limits on budget or amount.
In the midst of these gift guide suggestions, there’s always one slide that stops me: for the home. Here I find sheets, candles, acrylic chairs, centerpieces, cast iron pans, wooden spoons, trendy trash cans, and throw pillows all beckoning my attention. All promising me: Once you buy this, your home will be worthy.
Discontentment and envy blind us to the goodness of the home beneath our feet, the provision already in our hands.
And the battle for Christians in today’s society is to “keep [our] lives free from the love of money and be content with what [we] have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5 NIV).
“…the key to contentment is a strong faith that God will take care of us.“
The author of Hebrews told us that the key to contentment is a strong faith that God will take care of us. We can be free of the love of money and be fully content in the homes we have when we are confident that God will not leave us.
If we flip the argument, the author of Hebrews implied that envious, discontent people believe God is untrustworthy.
When we choose discontentment, we’re essentially saying: “What You’ve given me is not enough. I don’t think You really love me. You won’t take care of me, so I need to take care of myself.” This kind of discontentment is often flanked by anxiety and urgency; a desperation to grasp the thing we believe will calm our roiling desires.
So when Black Friday sales offer up yet another perfect home, our anxious hearts become blind to God’s provision.
If I only had a kitchen like that, I would have people over.
If I had a closet like that, I would feel confident in myself.
If I had a living room like that, I would take better care of my house.
“Discontent always lives in the future, never in the present. It consumes every good thing and is unable to see the beauty right in front of it, chewing up the goodness but hungry for more.“
Discontent always lives in the future, never in the present. It consumes every good thing and is unable to see the beauty right in front of it, chewing up the goodness but hungry for more. If I had this, if I had that, if it were different prevents I’m so glad I have . . . , I’m so grateful for . . . , I’m living an answered prayer.
Discontentment is an insatiable beast, which is why it depends so much on envy; envy keeps it alive with a daily reminder of what is lacking. To kill discontent we must first kill envy. To do that, we must return to Hebrews 13:5: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’” (NIV, emphasis mine).
The author of Hebrews commanded us—in God’s authority— to reject materialism and to choose contentment. But he does not do so arbitrarily. He told us we can obey these commands (he assumed our success) because God will never leave us. He was not saying to recite verses or tell ourselves God won’t leave. He was saying: God is not leaving you, and that is your present reality. Will you trust this is true or not? Because God will not leave you or neglect you, you can choose contentment. You can trust God’s heart for you. You can reject an urgency about money and status because God is for you.
You don’t need the Instagram house to be loved by Him. The espresso machine is not evidence of more or less favor. More money, a nicer kitchen—these are not sinful. It is not wrong to be rich; it is not wrong to be poor. But it is wrong to place ourselves in God’s rightful role as provider: Jehovah-jireh.
Discontentment destroys a good, beautiful, and true homelife. Only those whose eyes can see beauty in the most average, mundane places will find fulfillment in the regular days of home.
“If Jesus saw humble homes as worthy of His presence, worthy of good work, worthy of feasting, who are we to say they are not?“
This is why discontent is so evil. It robs us of eyes to see. It keeps us from seeing the ways God is already providing. It tells us our blessings aren’t good enough. It isolates us, locks our doors, empties our table, and turns us self-centered—making us paranoid and insecure. Discontent is a liar, a robber, and a cheat, and God offers us a way out: faith. We can’t move to a deeper, richer theology of home until we deal with this lack of trust in our hearts.
I often think about the homes Jesus entered during His ministry. Humble homes, wealthy homes. Accepted homes, unaccepted homes. Jesus displayed no favoritism when it came to the tables at which He dined. He dined with prostitutes (Luke 5:30), dishonest government officials (Luke 19:1–10), and members of the religious elite who would eventually have Him killed (Luke 11:37–54). Jesus did not hesitate to gather with people and speak truth and love, regardless of their financial status. If Jesus saw humble homes as worthy of His presence, worthy of good work, worthy of feasting, who are we to say they are not?
God’s provision, and our reliance upon it, brings contentment and restores our joy.
Recognizing that we are not owners but stewards should encourage us to be faithful with the precious little God has given, knowing that our faithfulness with what is small builds character for greater stewardship down the road.
This is nitty-gritty. It’s as practical as making the effort to care for the hand-me-down furniture, setting up a cleaning routine for your week, and doing the dishes after each meal so they don’t pile up for your spouse or roommate. Stewardship grows diligence, patience, and a grateful heart. These attributes are gifts in themselves, but they also grant a lovely side benefit: the ability to love the home you have.
“Loving the home you have is an act of defiance against discontent. “
That’s what contentment is, really. Learning to love the goodness in what you’ve been given rather than striving for more and better. Contentment doesn’t end our dreaming or dash our hopes; it simply looks with grateful eyes on the beauty already here.
Loving the home you have is an act of defiance against discontent.
God has given each of us a little something—a little corner of a house or perhaps a large and sprawling abode.
Whatever He has given is meant to be loved and stewarded well, then shared with others so they can experience His goodness too. As we live out a content, grateful posture, we often find that the things we thought so ugly, so inconvenient, and so subpar have worked a change in us that a perfect kitchen never could have accomplished.
Maybe the home you have is the kind Jesus would have liked to visit. Can you love it, just as it is?
I cannot recommend this book highly enough!
Phylicia Masonheimer is a blogger, author, speaker and podcast host teaching Christians how to know what they believe and live it boldly. Her heart is to teach women the history and depth of the Christian faith; the “why” behind the Bible. Her social media and blog cover topics ranging from sexuality to motherhood to Bible study and faith in seasons of grief and loss.
In Every Home a Foundation, Phylicia Masonheimer invites readers to reconsider their view of home. The Christian home is an image of both a coming spiritual reality and the existing spiritual reality of our family, the church. Through Christ, we can heal and build a home that brings joy to us and love to others.
Every Home a Foundation will transform readers’ view of home from a place of boredom to a place of purpose, train them to find joy in their daily tasks, and equip them to use their home to love others well. Home is much more than a physical structure—it’s a place of belonging and connection that has been strongly tied to God’s mission from the beginning. God wants to build a home for His people, emphasizing the importance of homes as central for the Christian life.
{Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotional.}
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