Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 90
December 1, 2019
About All The Hopeless Things: Hope on the first Sunday of Advent
You can wake on the first Sunday of Advent — & feel the stark reality of being alone in your own skin, like any real Hope of change, of belonging, of Light, got lost somewhere along your long way.
Hope? After the losses you’ve battled through?
Hope? For rusting dreams? For genuine reconciliation? For being fully seen & still deeply loved?
Hope? When things are never like you kinda imagined they would turn out?
You can be all brave & put on a real good front, but you can feel like Lazarus who’s only real best friends were just the dogs licking his wounds.
Sometimes you don’t hold out much hope for tomorrow — only to find Hope Himself is already holding you now.
The Wonder of the Greatest Gift: Best Devotional & Gift Book of the Year, CBA, 2019
Unwrapping the Greatest Gift (Family Edition): Best Inspirational Book of the Year, CBA, 2016
The Greatest Gift (adult edition): Best Devotional of the Year, ECPA, 2014
And when Lazarus died? He was consoled, deeply consoled, for all of forever & a day.
“Hope isn’t about about thinking something will get better. Hope is about believing Someone better is already here.”
But that rich man? Every easy, indifferent step of luxury here — was another step into an eternity of misery. (Luke 16:19-31)
Yet for Lazarus: Every brave step of fierce hopefulness here, was another step into an endlessness of happiness.
Heaven or hell begins here.
Every step here is your eternity.
Every choice now is arriving where you’ll always be.
Your mental framework today — is framing up your forever.
How you walk through each day— is walking into your forever.
On the first Sunday of Advent, you can begin the walking to heaven now: Every moment, every thought, every word, every action — is your arrival already.
Though behind the mask, you may feel abandoned, with no one closer than the dogs to like your wounds, you can choose to be close now to the One who wants you close to Him for all of forever.
Though you may feel the weight of things, you can defy bitterness & choose hopefulness.
“Jesus is coming — and we are becoming what we will have for all eternity.”
Though things aren’t always what you wanted, you are desperately wanted by Him. You’re aloneness ends whenever you’re alone with Him.
Simply want Him. Heaven can begin now.
Hope in Him, wait for Him, reach for Him — and heaven begins here.
Hope isn’t about about thinking something will get better. Hope is about believing Someone better is already here.
Jesus is coming — and we are becoming what we will have for all eternity.
Turn toward Him to burn back all your dark — & feel the warming light of Hope gently healing all your wounds.
Come experience a Christmas that restores your Hope again
Jesus came down — and a bit of heaven can begin now, even here. With every step, we are walking into our forever now. Come let Jesus touch your wounds & heal your hurt with His tender Hope.
This Advent, Stay in the Story that the rest of your year, your family, will need.
3 Award-Winning books for the Whole FamilyThe Greatest Gift (adult edition): Best Devotional of the Year, ECPA, 2014
Unwrapping the Greatest Gift (Family Edition): Best Inspirational Book of the Year, CBA, 2016
The Wonder of the Greatest Gift: Best Devotional & Gift Book of the Year, CBA, 2019
(pop-up edition with your own 14 inch tree, 25 days of readings, 25 day advent flap calendar, hiding all 25 Biblically inspired ornaments! For any age)
When our holidays are about Staying in the Story, being with Him —
Hope finds us again — and we have ourselves The Greatest little Christmas yet!
November 30, 2019
Advent Edition: Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.30.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend! Advent Begins!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! 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:
Jakub Kozioł / Kuba Kozioł Fotografia
Jakub Kozioł / Kuba Kozioł Fotografia
Jakub Kozioł / Kuba Kozioł Fotografia
enjoy the wonder of life this weekend
smiling: 88 piano keys and oh so many lights!
Warren Keelan
Warren Keelan
Warren Keelan
you know you need to exhale & enjoy this on
he captures our waters like no one else I know…
tears
an extraordinary invitation to fly
The Love of God…More Than A Second-Hand Emotion
please don’t miss… had to share
Often the history shapers, who play the biggest role and make the biggest sacrifices, are the names of those we never hear or have ever thanked.
Translators had to be anonymous people, and if their work was done well, they remained invisible.
You Are Going To Want This: How to Have A Starry-Eyed Christmas (with the Whole, Free Printable “Night Before Advent” Kit)
Advent begins December 1st, this Sunday! So Saturday? Light the Starry-Eyed Wonder of the Season:
Have your own “Night before Advent” Party!
The Whole “Night Before Advent” Kit, Poem, All-Things-Hot-Chocolate-Party is Free for you here
because who doesn’t need a group hug
really: You Can Be Anxious About Nothing
Lift up your eyes – you are loved
Come experience a Christmas like you’ve always dreamed?So come Christmas morning — you’ve unwrapped the greatest gift you yearn for — more of Him.
You’re never too late: there’s still time!
Gather around the Greatest Story this year for the whole family with all 3?
Download your own free Jesse Tree ornaments to wait for Jesus’ coming
The Greatest Gift (adult edition)New York Times Bestseller and 2014 Winner Christian Retailing’s Best Awards
The Greatest Gift is your invitation to come closer. A journey of 25 readings through December, an Advent practice that puts Christ right at the center.
We are called to do more than believe in Jesus — we are called to live in Jesus. A NYTimes bestseller, this book takes you there during the sacred season of Christmas.
One startlingly fresh reading for every day of December — that will usher you into His heart quite unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
Advent Resource: The Jesse Tree Ornaments
Unwrapping the Greatest Gift (family read aloud edition)New York Times Bestseller and ECPA Award Winner. Over 150,000 copies sold!
Unwrap the greatest Gift with your family this Advent season!
Like it’s own larger-than-life 25 Day Advent Calendar person by person, story by story, retrace the lineage of Jesus. Beginning right from the Genesis Creation to the Manger Coming.
Fall in love with Him all over again as you experience God’s plan of salvation for us―from the Garden of Eden to the manger and beyond. This book is an expanded presentation of the timeless Advent tradition of the Jesse Tree so families can celebrate together.
Every page unfolding the Greatest Love Story Ever Told — and it’s a Love Story all for you! — every page whispering: He’s Coming. He’s Coming.
The Wonder of the Greatest Gift (pop-up edition)What matters more? Our children will know their whole story, know their beginning, know their roots, know their place in the family tree of God — there, right next to His heart. Beloved.
Christ came and claimed us and we claim our inheritance of the land of the really living and all the wonders of His love.
This is an heirloom, a Christmas tradition, a gift of hope — a wonder for the child in all of us!
So you don’t miss out on Jesus this year & the The Greatest Christmas
When our holidays are about staying in the story, being with Him — we reclaim the wonder:
and have ourselves The Greatest little Christmas yet!
the gift of seeing in color for the very first time
He loves us, restores, us, makes us clean: this Christmas find freedom, this Christmas be seen.
THIS! a Light Friday sale that lasts until Tuesday!
Our family here and our fair trade team at Grace Crafted Home, are kinda giddy happy to beckon you into a story where Jesus and His grace gets the glory for days and days and forever.
Our LIGHT Friday sale is happening now! Shop fair trade and bring LIGHT to the world!
Each and every one of our fair trade items has a good story to tell.⠀
And maybe the most creative Gift-giving idea? Print the artisan information from the product page from The Grace Crafted Home to share with your people your thoughtful, life-giving gift!
Not sure what to give this year? Maybe we can help with a few suggestions here!?!
#FairTrade loveliness from our Grace Crafted Home
Savannah Napkin
Hand-Knitted Hot Pad
Jute Floor Tote
Coupon code LIGHTFRIDAY expires on December 3rd at 11:59PM CST.
Choose to craft a home that is not only beautiful —
but crafts a meaningful, powerful and beautiful story in the world.
Choose a Grace Crafted Home
and some more really good news?!? Receive a FREE set of wrapping paper with any purchase while supplies last!
oh, oh, this: 13 year old thanks his parents for adopting him
you’ve got to meet him: an amazing coach that gives and loves in extraordinary ways
just a gentle reminder: this Christmas, may you be grateful for all of the gifts around you
Post of the week from these parts here:
3 Keys to the Best Family Advent:
How to Have a Wonderful Life (Even In Brutally Hard Things)
Make Room in your heart this Christmas!
More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.The Jesse Tree Ornaments which use the artwork from Unwrapping the Greatest Gift.
Advent Resource: Joywares.ca
This year, let His wonder to awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart!Come experience a Christmas like you’ve always dreamed?
So come Christmas morning, you haven’t missed Him?
This Advent, Stay in the Story that the rest of your year, your family, will need.So you don’t miss out on Jesus this year & the The Greatest Christmas.
When our holidays are about staying in the story, being with Him — we reclaim the wonder — and have ourselves The Greatest little Christmas yet!
on repeat this week: The Reason for Christmas Day
…yeah, our broken hearts can stop beating any blink second and the time we get to hold on to each other is but a flashing minute and I’m telling you, as a parent of 7 and mama to children facing grave diagnoses, I don’t need any monitors or alarms to tell me what this heart of mine now knows by heart:
You face life differently when you’re daily facing how short life could be. Your priorities getunbelievably clear, when it’s clear life could be unbelievably short. Because time here is short, you have to know the long game that wins forever.
Life is a vapour and wisdom is knowing how to inhale every breath.
So now more than ever, while there is still time:
Be WayFinders & WallBreakers
Be the WayFinders who never give up because He holds us up, who always find a way, because He is the Way and our God never stops making a way, the WayFinders who practice rising, practice resurrection, who doggedly keep practicing our faith that always determines the healing Way forward.
Be the Wallbreakers who break masks, break pride, break prejudice, break oppression, break otherness, break hopelessness and break brokenness.
Be the Wallbreakers who break down high walls around hearts so that hearts break free around here, and down the street, and across the world.
You break down a wall in the world, every time you break down an idol in your heart.
Comfort isn’t king — Jesus is King, and the King of Kings said the Kingdom of God rises where you lay down your crown at the foot of Jesus and pick up your cross and come die to rise.
[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.
November 29, 2019
You Are Going To Want This: How to Have A Starry-Eyed Christmas (with the Whole, Free Printable “Night Before Advent” Kit)
When I found this little ceramic Christmas tree from the 70’s — that had no star?
Just a table-top tree with translucent multi-colored bulbs, up on the upper shelf of a piled and tilting thrift store?
Yeah, I rescued a sting of childhood memories and brought that chipped star-less tree home.
“Love always lightens us.”
Because it’s almost December the 1st and the beginning of Advent — and the hype ends now, like someone, thank God Almighty, duct-taped all the grating noise and made a sacred space of sane stillness.
These are loud and wounding days of right reckoning. News streams are a torrent of pain. A lady yells at me on the way home with this blister of 40 tongue-lashings. And I’m telling you: When we dash one person’s light — we dash a world of light, because we tend to pass on our pain, instead of passing the peace.
Maybe when we are most disillusioned with each other, is when most need to be blaze illumination for each other.
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
I sit that little tree out in the stilled dark of the front porch, set it up in an urn, like it’s a live tree, and plug in that way-too-long orange extension cord, and the little tree lights up and all these memories live on.
For about all of my first twenty years, when you drove up Highway 45 this time of year, turned down the Grafton Road and headed toward Centerton, you’d see my grandma’s little ceramic Christmas tree sitting out in the front bay window of their 1950’s ranch, that ceramic, multi-coloured tree lit like light can poke holes straight through the story of the dark.
“Advent is a whole lot more than passively waiting for the King — it’s about participating in the work of the Kingdom of God.”
Light’s poking holes through the dark’s story everywhere — and there are Light Pokers everywhere we turn: Women telling the truth, igniting with freedom. Men standing for justice, blazing down stories that must stop.
Families welcoming in a child, a stranger, a refugee. Whole communities doing hard and holy and right things, exploding into supernovas right in the night of things, and starting to changing the story of everything.
Light Pokers, all of us.
It’s the Light Pokers — poking holes in the dark, poking holes in the dark’s story —- who stir up a flame to draw people to the passion of the Christ.
This is about the coming of Christ, this is about the coming of the Light of the Kingdom of God.
Advent is a whole lot more than waiting for Christmas, Advent is a whole lot more than preparing for Christmas —- Advent is ultimately about preparing the way for the Light of Christ in a world dying for light.
Advent is a whole lot more than passively waiting for the King — it’s about participating in the work of the Kingdom of God.
The First Advent of Christ began the reconciliation of everything — and that now begs our daily participation.
And the Second Advent will be the consummation of everything — and that now begs our daily anticipation.
Advent is about the daily practice of ardent participation in the Kingdom of God — and the ardent anticipation of the King.
Practicing daily participation and daily anticipation is how we daily practice Advent.
There’s a deep comfort and warmth in it: The practice of Advent is participating in the ancient expectancy of the Messiah — and ardently expecting Him again.
A house full of little trees light up and it’s true: This is the season where the nights are longest. And this is the season — to look for the light. This is a season to look for the light, to be the light, to be a Light Poker, poking holes in the dark and stoking an ardent flame of light — and to actually: live light.
This season where there are no heavy burdens, no crushing pressures, no more things or stuff or lists to carry. Love always lightens us.
And the Light is coming, and He is grace, and His grace is light — and always:
Be still on the first day of December and you can hear it, can’t you? If you listen with the inner ear of your soul? The hype ends and the hush enters in. Less hype, more holy.
The chaos carnival can keep on spinning its crazy —and you can wave your sweet adios and get off the whole spun spectacle and breathe in the hush of the holy hinterlands with the people who are brilliant — the ones who are light.
“The brilliant are always the ones who simply live like light.”
The lovers and Givers and Gifters, the advocates, the servers, the foot-washers and the cup-of-cold-water-bringers and the Great Commissioners, the justice warriors and the peacemakers and the light-igniters, the cruciform and the Christ-followers and the Gospel-incarnaters and the Advent keepers and participators and anticipators.
The brilliant are always the ones who simply live like light.
The Littlest One here, she stands at the window, looking out at that little thrifted and redeemed ceramic tree like my old Grandma Ruth’s, and I pray this one too will be a Light Poker, poking holes in the dark’s story and stoking ardent faith flames, that she will live out a real advent: faithful participation in the Kingdom and fervent anticipation of the King.
She points out at the little ceramic tree:
“It needs a STAR, Mama — a STAR!”
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Free Tools to help make this The Greatest Christmas
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Free Tools to help make this The Greatest Christmas
Free Tools to help make this The Greatest Christmas
And before I tuck her in for the night, we open up The Wonder of the Greatest Gift — and there it is — she has a tree, her very own tree, right in her lap.
“The practice of Advent is participating in the ancient expectancy of the Messiah — and ardently expecting Him again.”
And we read December 1st’s reading — and she holds in her hands the story of her family tree, the family tree of Jesus, the grafted-in family tree of the people of God — and her eyes light, and she opens the first of those 25 Advent flaps, and hangs the first Advent ornament, and I can’t help blink it back in all this light.
“Can I, Mama?” She looks up. “Can I take out the star, Mama?” And I nod and she cups the star in her hand and beams.
And I don’t notice it until I tuck the covers in underneath her chin, stroke her hair back, brush one last kiss on the top of her head: she’s fallen asleep holding the star in her hand.
The Girl’s becoming a little Light Poker.
The Girl’s sleeping with Light. The Girl’s becoming Light. All His light.
Now is the season to be a star that shatters the dark.
You see it everywhere you turn these days of Advent:
What breaks any dark —
is the courage of just one star.
Advent begins December 1st, this Sunday! So Saturday? Light the Starry-Eyed Wonder of the Season:
Have your own “Night before Advent” Party!
The Whole “Night Before Advent” Kit, Poem, All-Things-Hot-Chocolate-Party is Free for you here
November 26, 2019
3 Keys to the Best Family Advent: How to Have a Wonderful Life (Even In Brutally Hard Things)
The paramedics that rush into our house late Friday night come in past the light of the little Christmas tree.
There’s usually no warning when your life will flicker dark and you’ll need the light of a Tree.
Malakai’s continuous glucose monitor starts alarming of a life-threatening low sometime just before 1 am, jolting us hard out of normal.
“Sometimes the best way through our pain, is to not be afraid to live with it.”
Type 1 diabetes is this beast that relentlessly slinks into our home in the night and tries to wreak havoc with seizures, threatens with comas, flashes the spectre of death. Everyone tries not to panic, to just breathe and take it as it comes.
Sometimes the best way through our pain, is to not be afraid to live with it. Because: when your life is about avoiding pain, you end up avoiding your life.
But when you hold space for your pain, you find your pain taking up less space.
Please God, let this not be the night, let. this. not. be. the. night. The paramedics bend over Kai in bed and my Mama’s praying, reaching over to grab my hand because we get to lend each other courage and this is always the way through, like inhaling and exhaling: Be with God & Be Brave. Being with God is how you be brave.
Communion gives courage.
I turn toward mama, hoping she can read my eyes: It’s okay to not feel okay and still trust that we are all going to be okay.
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Just upstairs, our baby girl who takes 3 beta blockers every day to slow down the pound of her racing heart, who takes her blood thinner every morning for her literal half a heart, who will one day be waiting on a list for a heart transplant before her own broken heart finally fails, she sleeps and I pray she doesn’t wake up to the wild emergency of this.
“You face life differently when you’re daily facing how short life could be.”
Our broken hearts can stop beating any blink second and the time we get to hold on to each other is but a flashing minute and I’m telling you, as a parent of 7 and mama to children facing grave diagnoses, I don’t need any monitors or alarms to tell me what this heart of mine now knows by heart:
You face life differently when you’re daily facing how short life could be. Your priorities get unbelievably clear, when it’s clear life could be unbelievably short. Because time here is short, you have to know the long game that wins forever.
Life is a vapour and wisdom is knowing how to inhale every breath.
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Advent Resources: Joywares.caAnd these 2 kids of ours fighting against diagnoses for long lives, they’re the Wonder-Lifers who make us write our own kind Anthem for a Wonderful Life, a refrain of what ultimately matters and defines who we all yearn to be no matter how short our time is:
1. Be WayFinders & WallBreakers
Now more than ever, while there is still time: Be the WayFinders who never give up because He holds us up, who always find a way, because He is the Way and our God never stops making a way, the WayFinders who practice rising, practice resurrection, who doggedly keep practicing our faith that always determines the healing Way forward.
“Be the Wallbreakers who break down high walls around hearts so that hearts break free around here, and down the street, and across the world.”
Be the Wallbreakers who break masks, break pride, break prejudice, break oppression, break otherness, break hopelessness and break brokenness.
Be the Wallbreakers who break down high walls around hearts so that hearts break free around here, and down the street, and across the world.
You break down a wall in the world, every time you break down an idol in your heart.
Comfort isn’t king — Jesus is King, and the King of Kings said the Kingdom of God rises where you lay down your crown at the foot of Jesus and pick up your cross and come die to rise.
The wall breakers get to be the idol breakers and the ground takers and kingdom shakers and the freedom makers.
2. Be WordKeepers & Worshippers
Now more than ever, while there is still time: Be the WordKeepers, because only they keep to the straight and narrow, be the Wordkeepers because only they know how to keep calm and carry on, be the WordKeepers because this is the only way to keep hope, keep sane, keep brave, keep company with Christ.
“Keep reading the Word to keep the lights on.”
It is the WordKeepers who are this old dim world’s lightkeepers.
Keep reading the Word to keep the lights on.
And be the Worshippers because worship is existence and every word, thought, act, reveals what we really worship.
What you think is worth it, is what you really worship, and you’ve got to worship right things, because every single one of us is wired to worship something and worship the wrong things and it’s your life that goes wrong.
The choice is always worry or worship.
One drives out the other and determines the course of your life, and you get to choose the life you want: worrier or worshipper.
3. Be With-ers & Wonderers
Now more than ever, while there is still time: Be the With-ers who stand with people because solidarity is revolutionary and with-ness is what makes this world turn and turn around , and our God is Emmanuel, the With-God, who calls us to be the With-People, who stand with the unwanted and unpopular, and if we’re not standing with them, we’re not standing with God.
With-ness breaks brokenness, and it’s showing up for people that forces pain into a showdown, and the With-ers are the Wonderful Lifers because good relationships makes a good life.
This is the Anthem to a A Wonderful Life: Be the WayFinders and the WallBreakers, be the WordKeepers and the Worshippers, be the With-ers and the Wonderers.
“It’s worth risking wonder, because we can brave a culture of cynicism and outrage, but we can’t live in a culture devoid of wonder.”
It’s worth walking with a holy, persevering wonder through a world of hurt so we don’t lose our way home.
They say Steve Jobs last words were: Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow! Maybe those last words are words to live by — a holy, persevering wonder of wow, wow, wow.
Because ultimately: There is no wisdom without wonder.
And yes: The spiritual practice of persevering in wonder takes courage but it makes the very most of all our moments: Be Brave & Be with God. God in all these moments. Be awed by God.
Nothing wonderful happens in our lives without wonder.
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
Advent Resources: Joywares.ca
After the paramedics walk out again past the little Christmas tree, ambulance driving out the pitch black farm lane, after Kai is stable, we pace the house through the wee hours, trying to work through the adrenaline, monitoring Kai’s glucose monitor endlessly, pacing back and forth in front of the blazing little Christmas Tree, determined to be the Wonder-Lifers who will rise to live another day as the WayFinders and WallBreakers, the WordKeepers and Worshippers, the With-ers and Wonderers because we only have so much time to live A Wonderful Life.
And when morning light finally comes, when Malakai sits down at the breakfast table grinning grateful relief to get to see the sun come up, when Baby Girl with her own brave heart wakes up and sleepily crawls up into his lap, I lean over, blink it back, and hug them both :
“Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.”
Wonder makes this all a wonderful life.
And the little Tree in the window sparks with a glory that dwarfs all the dark.
This Advent, Stay in the Story that the rest of your year, your family, will need.
More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.
This year, let His wonder to awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart!Come experience a Christmas like you’ve always dreamed?
So come Christmas morning, you haven’t missed Him?Gather around the Greatest Story this year for the whole family with all 3?
The Greatest Gift (adult edition),
Unwrapping the Greatest Gift (family read aloud edition),
and The Wonder of the Greatest Gift (pop-up edition with your own 14 inch tree, 25 days of readings, 25 day advent flap calendar, hiding all 25 Biblically inspired ornaments! For any age)So you don’t miss out on Jesus this year & the The Greatest Christmas.
When our holidays are about staying in the story, being with Him — we reclaim the wonder — and have ourselves The Greatest little Christmas yet!
November 25, 2019
What your Thanksgiving Needs: Gratitude Over Grumbling
When Tricia Goyer and her husband adopted seven children, making her a mom of ten, she knew the core issue of many of her kids’ character issues was discontentment, instead of gratitude. With a goal to lead her children in a grumble-free year, the challenge intensified when Tricia’s grandmother broke her back on Thanksgiving Day. Tricia longed to seek God’s face as she guided her kids, but now she became a full-time caregiver, within her home, to her grandmother too. In her book The Grumble-Free Year, Tricia shares how God taught her how to praise—and how to lead her children to do the same—in seasons of hardship as well as joy. And Tricia’s heart-lesson all started with the sound of her grandmother’s voice, rising up from the bedroom. I invite you to consider how God desires for all of us to lift our faces, and our voices to Him, even in the midst of life’s biggest struggles. It’s a grace to welcome Tricia to the farm’s front porch today…
Last month I had been thankful that I was able to bring Grandma home from the hospital after she’d broken her back on Thanksgiving Day.
This month I was still thankful for that, but I was getting weary.
Oh, Lord, I prayed often, day and night. I don’t feel as if I have anything left in me.
“How am I going to teach the kids about not grumbling—my goal for the year—when I’m exhausted from daily life?”
How am I going to teach the kids about not grumbling—my goal for the year—when I’m exhausted from daily life?
I wish I would have received a clear answer. Wouldn’t it be nice if a No Grumbling curriculum showed up on my bookshelf next to all the rest of the homeschooling curriculum?
It didn’t, of course. This was a journey I was on with God, attempting to seek His face as I tried to guide my kids.
The thing was, it took me a while to realize that He was actually sending clear lessons in the midst of our circumstances.
After the therapist left and Grandma was again settled down in her bed, propped up with pillows and her back brace off, something else interrupted our homeschooling lesson time. This time it wasn’t a visit from a therapist. Instead, it was singing.
“What is that?” Grace asked, turning her head toward Grandma’s bedroom. “Is she playing music?”
“Actually, it’s her. Grandma’s praising Jesus.”
I immediately recognized the sweet soprano voice I remembered from my childhood.
I always liked to sit next to my grandma in church growing up, mostly because I loved to hear her sing.
“Even as she lay propped in bed with an aching back and limited mobility, she thanked God.”
She didn’t have the prettiest voice in church. No one ever asked her to sing a solo or join the choir, but it was beautiful to me. She’d lift one hand as she lifted her voice. Her eyes would be closed too.
Many times she wasn’t reading the projected words on the wall but instead was mixing in her own praises, singing to Jesus from deep in her heart.
And that’s what she was doing this day too.
Grandma sang with a mix of lines from her favorite hymns and her own praises and thanksgivings to God. Yes, thanksgiving.
Even as she lay propped in bed with an aching back and limited mobility, she thanked God.
She thanked Him for life.
She praised Him for His goodness.
Her praises didn’t erupt because of all the wonderful things happening in her life in that moment. Instead, they sprouted from a heart that understood God was worthy to be praised, no matter what.
Grandma knew her praises were about Him and not her situation. She sang because she was thankful for life, no matter how frail her body was.
More than that, she was thankful for the eternity to come: an eternity without an aging body, pain, or confusion. She sang about that too.
As I listened I realized all the kids were listening too. I could tell from their furrowed brows that they were trying to make out her words.
“She’s thanking God. Singing to Him.” Maddie smiled.
“God was worthy to be praised, no matter what.”
“Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up to hear her praying aloud, thanking God for all He’s done for her,” I told them. “She also prays when she is hurting and her body doesn’t move the way that she wants it to. In fact, when she’s really hurting, she prays in Spanish.”
“Spanish!” Buddy shouted the word as if it were the most amazing thing he’d ever heard.
“Why Spanish?” Aly asked.
“Well, that’s what she learned to speak first.” I paused, realizing how little I’d told the younger kids about Grandma’s life. “Her parents were immigrants from Mexico, and they spoke Spanish. Her mother never really did learn English her whole life.”
“Tell them about the boxcar, Mom.” Grace’s head bobbed.
More than any of the other kids, Grace often liked to spend time in Grandma’s room, watching movies with her and asking her stories about her life.
“What boxcar?” Buddy again exclaimed.
I settled into my chair. “Grandma was born during a time called the Great Depression. Her family actually turned a small boxcar into a house, and they lived in that for all her growing-up years. Grandma, her two brothers, and her parents in that little space. Well, until her father died when she was just eight years old. Things got even harder after that.” I stopped there.
“Had she learned to praise instead of grumble as the chapters of her life filled with both joy and hardship? Was this my lesson now?”
I could see this was difficult for the younger kids to take in. They were used to their great-grandma sneaking cookies and telling them to stop running in the house.
Yet she’d been a little girl who faced challenges just like they had. And as an adult, things hadn’t gotten easier.
As a young mother of three children she’d once become so ill her family was told she wouldn’t make it through the night, and yet here she was.
Had all those years of hardship changed her heart?
Had she learned to praise instead of grumble as the chapters of her life filled with both joy and hardship? Was this my lesson now?
“Yeah, we have nothing to complain about,” Grace mumbled. Then she turned her attention back to the homework in front of her.
“You know, I was thinking the same,” I responded.
“Can Sissy and I watch a movie with Grandma when we’re done with our homework?” seven-year-old Aly asked, brown eyes large and round as she looked up at me. Aly could be just as loud as the other kids, but she could also be quiet and sweet. Her love language was quality time.
“Although I’d fallen short at trying to work on this grumble-free thing, God had been working on it all along.”
I knew this gesture was a way to connect with her great-grandma and to show her love.
“Yeah! The King and I,” Sissy piped up. “Or maybe The Unsinkable Molly Brown. That’s her favorite.”
“Of course you can. Let’s hurry and finish this.” I smiled.
And as I returned to the lesson, I realized that, although I’d fallen short at trying to work on this grumble-free thing, God had been working on it all along.
What other kids had such an example of a great-grandmother’s faith shining strong, even in the midst of hardship?
Yes, Grandma grumbled at times, especially when her television wasn’t loud enough or when the therapist wanted her to do five more arm lifts than she wanted to do, but, as everyone saw, the core of her heart was one of thanksgiving.
She’d walked enough steps on this earth to become familiar with drawing close to God and leaning on Him.
When she couldn’t remember much of anything else, she remembered this.
USA Today bestselling author Tricia Goyer cares for her passel of children, and ministers to inner-city teenagers, from her home near Little Rock, Arkansas. Tricia processes the life-challenges she faces—and others have faced—through her novels, parenting books and blog.
Not satisfied with “good enough,” Tricia and her family embarked on a yearlong quest to eliminate grumbling from their home and discover a healthier, more thankful approach to life together. With grade-schoolers, teenagers, and a grandmother who believes children should be seen and not heard, plenty of room exists for flunking the challenge. Add to that seven children being homeschooled together in close quarters, and what could possibly go awry?
In The Grumble-Free Year: Twelve Months, Eleven Family Members, and One Impossible Goal, the Goyers invite readers into their journey as they go complaint-free and discover what it looks like to develop hearts of gratitude. They share their plans, successes, failures, and all the lessons they learn along the way, offering real-life action steps based in scripture so that readers get not just a front-row seat to the action but also an opportunity to take the challenge themselves and uncover hearts that are truly thankful.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership on today’s devotion ]
November 23, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.23.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! 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:
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
just cannot get enough of all that she captures:
she’s calling this collection ‘a little mix of extraordinary in the ordinary’ amen
come see how they made it a beautiful day in the neighborhood
One Heart For Women & Children
How a Homeless Mom of 2 Beat Addiction and Now Helps Thousands Going Through the Same Battles
“…I knew that was the purest sign that somebody loved us. Someone who didn’t even know us.”
smiling through tears at this welcome
Instagram: BrandonMatthewsGolf
Golfer Brandon Matthews Embraces Fan With Down Syndrome Who Yelled During His Backstroke
“I am completely blown away by the support and kindness of everyone around the world who has reached out to me about what has transpired over the last 48 hours. I can honestly say that I never expected any public attention from what happened and am completely humbled by it. The most important thing that I have learned in these crazy last few days, is how such a small act of kindness can go so far and touch so many people. I can only hope that in any similar situation, anyone would do the same. Thank you to everyone who has followed my career and cheered me on #biggerthanthegame.”
well if this doesn’t make you grin…
A rare, treatable form of dementia – that’s often mistaken for normal aging
pause with them here? just beautiful
can you even?!? Teacher adopts 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome after his mom dies of cancer
stunning: the second place winner at the National Gingerbread Competition
Titled: Perspective
When you’re wondering what in the world to do with your own sin…
believe: “God Only Knows” / “There Was Jesus” / “Faith”
Just Drop the Blanket: The Moment You Never Noticed in A Charlie Brown Christmas
Saddleback Church
grateful for how Kay Warren is leading:
Moms of Kids with Mental Illness Need Christ and Community
cheering for these amazing dads
Louise Johns
Louise Johns
Louise Johns
A Thanksgiving Story That You Won’t Forget
Beyond grateful for the saving work of Compassion International
their selfless mission? to shoulder the burden of American grief
YES: when a quarterback shares in a press conference about his love for Jesus
no words…tears
Post of the week from these parts here:
Go ahead & hit a reset & trade the kids’ grumbling in for gratitude — & get the gift of a changed family:
(14 Ways) How to Raise Grateful, Thankful, Joyful Kids: When You’re Tired of Kids Complaining
glory, glory, glory
A re you ready to begin—or begin again—a life-changing habit of daily gratitude?
This is absolutely amazing & completely unexpected but our friends at FaithGateway (!!! Sister site to Biblegateway!!!) have chosen One Thousand Gifts as their next FREE (!!!) online Bible study, now and leading right up to Christmas.
It’s not too late to sign up right here —
and you’ll get access to all the learning videos (sent to your email each week of the study), and a whole bundle of free beautiful tools to make lasting life change.
Be one of the more than one MILLION people who have stepped into the life-change of this experience.
Let’s do this, friends!
Let’s end the year strong in joy as we count all the ways He loves us!
It would be a grace to have you join in!
And click here to grab a FREE seat for this course on giving thanks —
and see how things can look up —
for the rest of your one wild and beautiful life.
600 music educators at a conference? I could listen all day to this special moment
Books for Soul Healing
Need freedom not only beyond the fear & pain, but actually within it? The Broken Way
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be? 60 steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance: The Way of Abundance
Give yourself the gift of grace that He already has — and give yourself the beauty of: Be the Gift
The answer to anxiety is the adoration of Christ… and my story of just that: One Thousand Gifts
and the 60 DAY DEVOTIONAL with 1000 numbered lines to count your #1000gifts: One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflecting on Finding Everyday Graces
on repeat this week: Your Name is Power
“Don’t be anxious or get discouraged. God, my God, is with you in this; He won’t walk off & leave you in the lurch. He’s at your side ” 1Chron.28-20 MSG
“Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude.” Col.4:2MSG
No matter what’s coming at you today, the thing is:
No amount of regret changes the past,
No amount of anxiety changes the future,
Any amount of grateful joy changes the present.
#1000gifts
[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.
November 21, 2019
(14 Ways) How to Raise Grateful, Thankful, Joyful Kids: When You’re Tired of Kids Complaining
H
ow long do I really have to figure it out with my kids how to live a joyfilled, grateful life?
So my husband might find himself married to a woman he loves being with. A woman who knows how to laugh at the days to come?
So our children have these memories of a mama who smiles easy, listens long, makes jokes and praise and all these good days out of crazy messes.
So the Christ in me, Joy Himself, “the gigantic secret of the Christians,” (Chesterton) is apparent to the world around me, Joy to the world, rescuing the world.
Perspective can always adopt gratitude — and gratitude is what always parents joy.
When the kids were all knee high to grasshoppers, it kinda just looked like this: Each day when they came for dinner, Shalom would pass around the the pad of sticky notes and Levi would write down: “I am thankful for my Dad. For rain today making the wheat grow. For hot soup and good bread.”
Because teaching kids to do this, it’s more than just about being grateful and joyful, if that in itself isn’t enough:
“When we give thanks, we gain joy. All of us.”
“Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.”
A friend tells me her high school students too are filling a whole window with sticky notes of thanks — and the results? Her sophomore English students “have better attitudes and more energy.”
So, we just kept trying to keep at it, we write out daily 7 Gifts. Malakai started his own 1000 Gifts in handwriting big and sure, graphite pressing into the paper, and now that he’s a 6ft 4 17-year-old? The boy uses the Day One app to daily keep his gratitude list on his phone, snapping a picture to remember all the ways God is good, and personally to him, right here in his own life.
And yesterday, our littlest girl and I, we sit down to write a thank you note to someone who remembered her in prayer, and I leave out a basket of blank cards at the end of the table, waiting for us to express gratitude.
Steven Toepfer of Kent State University, Salem, had students in six courses write letters of gratitude to people who had positively influenced their lives.
Over a six-week period, the students wrote one letter every two weeks. After each letter, the students completed a survey to gauge their moods, satisfaction with life and feelings of gratitude and happiness.
The result, Toepfer said, was dramatic:
“The more thank-you letters they wrote, the better they felt.”
When we give thanks, we gain joy. All of us.
“Focusing on what is beautiful, good, true — isn’t this the truest education?”
Because what will the math really matter if they are bitter? If the house is immaculate — but my attitude a mess? If they can count — but they don’t know how to count all things as joy? If we get the lists done, but have lost happiness in Him?
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right —- think about such things” (Phil. 4:8).
Focusing on what is beautiful, good, true — isn’t this the truest education?
.
6 Reasons Why to Teach Kids to Be GratefulThe research can only support Scriptural Truth:
Better Attitudes:Children who practice grateful thinking have more positive attitudes toward school and their families (Froh, Sefick, Emmons, 2008).
Better Achieve Personal Goals:Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.
Closer Relationships, Greater Happiness:Professor Froh infused middle–school classes with a small dose of gratitude—and found that it made students feel more connected to their friends, family, and their school:
“By the follow–up three weeks later, students who had been instructed to count their blessings showed more gratitude toward people who had helped them, which led to more gratitude in general. Expressing gratitude was not only associated with appreciating close relationships; it was also related to feeling better about life and school. Indeed, compared with students in the hassles and control groups, students who counted blessings reported greater satisfaction with school both immediately after the two–week exercise and at the three–week follow–up.”
Better Grades:Gratitude in children: 6-7th graders who kept a gratitude journal for only three weeks, had an increased grade point average over the course of a year.
Greater Energy, Attentiveness, Enthusiasm:A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others).
Greater Sensitivity:Children who kept gratitude journals were more sensitive to situations where they themselves can be helpful, altruistic, generous, compassionate, and less destructive, more positive social behaviors, and less destructive, negative social behaviors…
“Gratitude is good for the giver, and good for the receiver,” Professor Emmons said. “This has been documented in friendships, romantic partners and spouses. One study showed that the mere expression of thanks more than doubled the likelihood that helpers would provide assistance again.”
And if We Don’t Practice Gratitude?
On the other hand, research shows that youth who are ungrateful are “less satisfied with their lives and are more apt to be aggressive and engage in risk-taking behaviors, such as early or frequent promiscuous activities, substance use, poor eating habits, physical inactivity, and poor academic performance.”
All Research: Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier
Why does gratitude do all of this — how can it, really? Because we were made to live in gratitude to God, giving glory to God.
We were made to live in a posture of grateful worship, and when we live in praise, we live our purpose, and all the pieces fall in place, us all falling down in thanks…
“The way to counter apathy is to count the ways of God.”
We hand our children a torch when we hand them a pen, a JoyDare to hunt for Him. Sparks fall and the world catches and they see light everywhere, God-glory igniting everything. Hand them a pen. Hand them a pen.
The way to counter apathy is to count the ways of God….
A child who is afraid? Count blessings so Who can be counted on…
A child who is angry? Anger is always just this: the bleeding of a deep wound. Wrap up wounds intentionally with the gentle bandage of God’s unending love, His daily, tender graces.
A child who needs to learn pray? “The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with thankful lips. Prayer, to be prayer, to have any power to change anything, must first speak thanks: “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6 NIV, emphasis added).” ~One Thousand Gifts
So we try this:
14 Happy Ways to Grateful, Joyfilled Kids
1. Make Space for Thanks: As a family fill a whole window or wall with sticky notes of thanks to Him — shaped like a tree, a heart, a happy face, anything at all.
Hang a craft paper banner at the back door and invite the whole family to fill it in a month with their gratitude, just grabbing the pen and writing down one or two gifts every time they come in or out the door. Paint a verse or a Grateful Tree right on a wall and encourage kids and visitors to write their thanks right on the wall, or in painted leaves, a visual testimony of your thankfulness to all who come or go. Be intentional about taking Joy!
2. Leave out a basket of thank-you notes, an invitation to always give thanks to someone.
3. Have everyone make their own gratitude journal {click here for free printables for your own gratitude journal}
4. Sing the “Count Your Blessings, name them one-by-one” around the tableafter one meal every day — and after the chorus, call out the name of a family member, who then gives thanks for a blessing or two… then sing the refrain and call out someone else’s name.
5. Leave a Family Gratitude Journal permanently open on the counter: Encourage the whole family to write out a few more of the 1000 Gifts in your 1000 gifts Gratitude Journal.
6. Tuck a copy of of the one-sheet free download booklet 7 Gifts: Good and Perfect into a lunchbox or a coat pocket for kids to fill out at school and keep their focus on what’s pure and lovely. Share their finds every night at dinner? Somehow, in your own unique way: Establish a daily ritual of sharing thanksgivings!
7. Take the Daily Joy Dare: Print out each month’s Joy Dare and put it on the fridge. In the morning, share that day’s dare of 3 gifts to look for and dare the kids to go on a God Hunt that day and keep their eyes open to find those three gifts. Make it part of your evening routine to share where you found those 3 gifts that day.
8. No Complaining Day: Dare to go all day (week? month) with no complaining. Slip a rubber band, bracelet, on your wrist (or use your watch) and every time you complain, move it to the other wrist. Dare everyone in the whole family to go the whole day without moving your wrist reminder. Celebrate with a special treat when the whole family can go the whole day with no complaining!
9. Play the “What’s Good & Lovely” High-Way Game: Make it the game you play in the car. One person calls out a person’s name, anything seen out the window, anything at all: and each person has to take the High Way and think of one ‘good & lovely” thing about what was called. (Ideas of what to call out: Bill! Our country! Our family! Your body! Mondays! Sisters! Moms!)
10. Make Great-Full Jars for each member of your family: Your Go-to Pick-Me-Up:
Easy for children to make — Great-full jars: grab a pretty jar, box, container and some lovely paper. Cut the paper into slips.
Write down things you are grateful about the recipient. Example: 5 funny memories with Dad. 4 Things I love about Mom. 7 Reasons Why I love having you as my sister. Write down each memory, reason, gift, on individual slips of paper. Fill the jar with the great notes of memories and joys and love, noting why you are so grateful for that person. Give the jar with a note to the recipient, letting them know that this is the gift that keeps on giving: over and over again they can come to their Great-Full jar and remember why they are loved as a great gift to their family.
11. Make Family Thanksgiving into Thanks-Living: Each Week choose a Family Thanks-Living Project. When we live lifestyle thanksgiving — our very lives become thanks-living. Our lives overflowing with gratitude for the blessings, that we ourselves become the blessing, make our life a gift of joy to someone else.
12. Every week choose a Family Thanks-Living Project: Volunteer to help a shut-in? Make a meal or a sweet treat for a family? Offer time at local charity? Write it down on the fridge, what the Family Thanks-Living Project is for the week — a way to live out our joy. Because it is even Better to Give the Blessings than Receive the Blessings!
13. If you or your older kids/teens are carrying a phone during the day, consider downloading the Day One App, so you can capture photos of your gifts during the day, jot down your gratitude list for the day — and at the end of the year or the season — there’s a feature in the app to print out all of your gratitude lists into a printed, bound book!
14. Model Gratitude Yourself: More is caught than taught. Intentionally purpose to live wholesale gratitude & personally take the Dare to write 1000 gifts! Have them maybe see you counting gifts in your own One Thousand Gifts Journal, (or reading One Thousand Gifts?) Let them see your joy!
So we gather the last of the apples from the orchard, bring in the last of the harvest from the garden and I don’t know how long I have to live full of His joy but I know do have right now.
And if perspective can always adopt gratitude and gratitude always parents joy, I pick up a pen and bow the head and pray to be that kind of parent.
The one laughing at all the crazy days to come…
Kids watching me choose gratefulness again and again, and all these ticking moments great and full….
It’s not too late to begin!
This is the season to wake up to real living —
the journey to joy begins this week!
More than a MILLION people have already stepped into the life-change of this experience.
A re you ready to begin—or begin again—a life-changing habit of daily gratitude?
This is absolutely amazing & completely unexpected but our friends at FaithGateway (!!! Sister site to Biblegateway!!!) have chosen One Thousand Gifts as their next FREE (!!!) online Bible study, now and leading right up to Christmas.
Want to reset, refresh, reboot your life and literally rewire your brain?
Did you know? Researchers said of those who do this one thing of keeping a gratitude journal:
“Participants who’d kept a gratitude journal felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the future … they were a full 25 percent happier than the other participants. They sleep 1/2 hour more per evening, and exercise 33 percent more each week and felt more joyful, enthusiastic, interested, attentive, energetic, excited, determined, and strong.”
That’s exactly what writing down 1000 gifts did to me. It woke me up to really living.
This dare to count a thousand gifts from His heart, it became the ultimate love dare, counting all the ways He loved me. So this is the thing, friend: What if finding love is as simple as recording 1000 gifts?
We may be weary. We may be wounded. But we are wooed.
Who doesn’t long to be loved, to be treasured, to be showered with gifts? A thousand — more!
It’s not too late to sign up right here —
and you’ll get access to all the learning videos (sent to your email each week of the study), and a whole bundle of free beautiful tools to make lasting life change.
Be one of the more than one MILLION people who have stepped into the life-change of this experience.
Let’s do this, friends!
Let’s end the year strong in joy as we count all the ways He loves us!
It would be a grace to have you join in!
And click here to grab a FREE seat for this course on giving thanks —
and see how things can look up —
for the rest of your one wild and beautiful life.
November 19, 2019
The Season of Your Words: Knowing What to Say When
The power of words is what has moved Blythe Daniel to devote her life’s work to helping others shape their words, specifically how they write and speak. Watching her mom deal with her grandmother’s anger and spewed words of disapproval helped shape her relationship with her mom and the necessary adjustments they needed in their relationship, learning to ask forgiveness, not giving unwanted advice, and forging a new path in communicating, even in harder times that the two share in their book, Mended. I invite you to open your heart to the words they share and welcome Blythe to the farm’s front porch today…
I have always loved words. I used to sit and tell my dolls what to say. I would intervene when they weren’t acting like they were supposed to.
“Sometimes we hold within what we are too scared to live without.”
Words have found me. I suppose that it’s a little easier than speaking face-to-face at times.
The way many of us communicate today is by email or text. It takes the face out of our space of words.
It’s necessary, we say, so that we can get to everyone and everything pulling on us.
But what about the words in our heart that we never get to speak? “They won’t really understand. They won’t be able to respond to me, or even hear me.”
Sometimes we hold within what we are too scared to live without.
We’ve held onto hurt – possibly for a lifetime.
What we really want is the bounty of rich relationships with each other.
I’ve seen this in the context of mothers and daughters perhaps more than anything because I’m a mother and a daughter.
I’ve had the opportunity to invite women into my home where we talk about these delicate relationships.
“She longed for a mom who she could share memories with rather than the distance of their differences.”
Many of them have experienced hurt layered upon grief, layered upon disappointment that they have lived within the rigid walls of performance and protection, living without the affirmation and love that a mother, by nature, is to provide to her daughter.
And that a daughter would respond warmly to a mother.
My mom, Helen, was one who sought to please her mom but ended up feeling torn apart. Brushed past in words. Words that hurt so deeply that she didn’t feel she could do anything right or that she didn’t have enough of what her mom was looking for to accept her.
Words between them were few after her mom would ignite her disapproval.
My mom didn’t know how to speak back; words failed her. She didn’t know how to make it better.
She longed for a mom who she could share memories with rather than the distance of their differences.
Helen
I didn’t know what to say to my mom much of the time.
I didn’t really see what was going on in me until my son Bryan, and then a year later Blythe, went to college. I knew things had been difficult but I wasn’t connecting the dots as an adult.
I realized the issues in our family were serious because I was so profoundly sad and experienced a deep sense of loss.
“I had to begin to take a hard look at my issues and I knew I had to choose to change my relationship with my mom.”
I had to begin to take a hard look at my issues and I knew I had to choose to change my relationship with my mom.
Even though I’m not able to speak with her today because she’s no longer alive, I would probably say something like this to her: “Mom, I want us to do well. We’ve hit a hard place again, and I’m not sure what to say.”
I didn’t know how to ask her to talk to me. Maybe unraveling her story would have helped her.
Mom probably did need my validation as a way to show that she mattered, but I didn’t how to give it when I felt so isolated from her.
Talking or addressing issues are huge gifts to relationships if we do them well.
But so many times we think the easier thing to do is not address it so as not to bring on more discussion and possible hurt.
Ignoring has a place when we are overlooking something we are not called to discuss. This might be someone’s own issues they need to take ownership of that you don’t have responsibility for.
When you know you need to discuss what’s between you or respond to your mother or daughter but you don’t know what to say, you can say: “I don’t know what to say, but I care about you.” It’s open and humble.
Another sentence I have often encouraged mothers and daughters to say is, “I don’t know what to say or do in this difficulty. What do you think we need to do to make things better? What role do you see me playing?” The initiation of questions is powerful!
You don’t have to be the one to know what to say – you can invite the other to speak.
“You don’t have to be the one to know what to say – you can invite the other to speak.”
Part of being wise is knowing when to speak.
Silence can be golden but not if we are mute at the wrong time. We don’t want to talk too much, but we don’t want to seem uncaring by our silence.
Another really good thing to say is, “How do you see me helping you?” You can’t force yourself in, but you can offer.
It may be the opening thread that helps tie your relationship together at some point down the road that you can’t see right now.
Blythe
I’ve made the mistake of bringing up a conversation with one of my daughters at precisely the wrong time (before school, during gymnastics practice, you know, the places that are hurried, not graceful space).
And you’d think I would learn to hold my words closely as much as I think about words!
But how easily I slip into thinking that if I just tell them now, I get it off my pounding chest and they’ll have a heart to receive it. Perfect harmony doesn’t follow; and in fact, it typically creates distance between us.
Make sure your need to talk isn’t more important than your mother’s or daughter’s need to hear it.
“He is always ready to give an answer when we ask and help us give an answer to those we love.”
Isn’t it reassuring that even when we don’t know what to say or what to do, God has already provided a way?
The Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say (Luke 12:12).
Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).
We come to Him in bold prayers, asking Him to speak through us. And to help us hear His words more than the words coming out from our mother or daughter.
God is not a substitute for when we don’t know what to do—He is the one who sets all of life in motion.
He is always ready to give an answer when we ask and help us give an answer to those we love.
Continue to seek the Lord about how you can implement an honest posture of “I don’t know what to say” into your conversations.
What are you seeing about how He wants you to recite His scripture when you don’t know what to say?
How will you use this to season your speech at just the right time?
As mother and daughter, we have learned the value of asking if it’s okay to give feedback to the other or make a suggestion, and to assure the other that if it doesn’t meet with their spirit, to let it fall to the side and not pick it up if they don’t discern God affirming it.
This gives much freedom in the relationship because we don’t feel that either is forcing their words on us.
We’re free to listen and to take in what feels right.
This can become a healthy practice you model for others as well.
Blythe Daniel is a literary agent and marketer. She speaks at writers conferences and writes for publications like Focus on the Family. Her passion is helping authors share their unique stories. She is the daughter of Dr. Helen McIntosh and co-author of the book Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters.
Dr. Helen McIntosh (EdD, Counseling Psychology) is a counselor, speaker, educator, and author of Messages to Myself and also Eric, Jose & The Peace Rug. Her work has appeared in Guideposts, ParentLife, and HomeLife magazines.
Mended walks readers through the steps to reconciliation and guides mothers and daughters toward openness, grace-filled confrontation, and restoration to put relationships ahead of the need to be right, confront past hurts with humility and grace, and use hard places in the relationship to seek closeness with God and each other.
Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters addresses the self-examination, prayer, and effort needed to replace damaging generational patterns with new, healthy patterns for your family. Blythe and Helen want to inspire hope that those relationships can be healed and the knowledge of how to initiate that healing. Mended explains how Christ’s restoration can extend to mend wounded mother-daughter bonds.
[ Our humble thanks to Harvest House for their partnership in today’s post]
November 18, 2019
Thanksgiving is More Than a Holiday: It’s Meant to Change Your Life
Some days I pick up a camera and the lens is my ink, for cameras have sensor eyes, and pixels record.
I slide it into a pocket, the camera in phone, and find another way to chronicle, to force the lids open; another way to receive the moment with reverential thanks.
When he comes in from the barn, The Farmer Husband finds me leaning over a plate of cheese grated and sitting in sunlight. It is true. And yeah — I do feel foolish.
I mean, it’s curls of mozzarella and cheddar piled high in a pond of golden day.
And I’m changing the settings to macro, increasing the ISO, pulling in for a close-up frame.
He’s fed 650 sows with one strong arm this morning, flicked on a welder and melded the steel. So it is quite possible that the God-glory of a ring of shredded cheese may be lost on him.
It isn’t.
“I like finding you just like this.” He wraps one arm around my bowed middle, draws me close and up into him strong.
“Crazy like this?” I blush with my silliness, and he brushes close with the four-day stubble. He laughs.
“Perfect like this.” He nods toward the cheese plate. “You being happy in all these little things that God gives. This makes me happy.”
Happy in all these little things that God gives. Ridiculously happy over slips of cheese.
That I am, and it’s wild, and, oh, I am the one who laughs. Me! Changed! Changed by giving thanks and surprised by joy!
God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.
And gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.
Do not disdain the small. 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.
“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.”
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.
I, too, had read it often, the oft-quoted verse:
“And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).
And I, too, would nod and say straight-faced, “I’m thankful for everything.”
But in this counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life…
If gratitude is an antidote for anxiety…
and giving thanks is a real cure for stress —
why relegate thanksgiving to a holiday when giving thanks can revolutionize our whole lives?
I do this, record the gifts, gather the moments like manna.
“Joy is always a function of gratitude — and gratitude is always a function of perspective.”
It’s could be this feast everyday — a Thanksgiving Feast everyday.
People who keep gratitude journals are 25% happier. Twenty-five percent happier.
Is this why God commands us to always give thanks? What sane person doesn’t want to be 25% happier?
Why in the world don’t we do this?
Joy is always a function of gratitude — and gratitude is always a function of perspective.
If we are going to change our lives, we’re going to have to change the way we see.
This recording our gratitudes, this looking for blessings everywhere, this counting of gifts— this is what changes what we are looking for. This is what changes our perspective.
Thanksgiving is the lens God means for us to see joy all year round.
The light’s igniting a plate of cheese and there’s sunlight falling in planks across the floor.
The stress untangles.
“Thanksgiving is the lens God means for us to see joy all year round.”
The moment’s a gift, a grace…
The sound of kids laughing and my mama’s knitting needles clicking and the girls baking in the kitchen….”
and speed slows to wonder.
Why miss our lives? Why miss a ll the ways He loves?
This is the gift all the children want: us all here and awake to crazy Grace.
Us all in this world addicted to speed, unwrapping the real secret of time management, unwrapping the fullest life:
In the stressful times : seek God
In the painful times : praise God
In the harried times : hallow God
In the terrible times : trust God.
And at all times — and at all times –
Thank God.
“Wherever you are, count your blessings, collect gifts, count it all joy.”
Because Thanksgiving is more than holiday–
It’s the season to Wake up to Really, Fully Living.
Wherever you are, count your blessings, collect gifts, count it all joy .
The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.
This thanks for the minute, it is to say the prayer of the most blessed of women about to participate in one of the most transformative events the world has ever known.
Mary, with embryonic God Himself filling her womb, exalts in quiet ways: “My soul doth magnify the Lord” (Luke 1:46 KJV)….
And when I do this, give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me. This, this, makes me full. I “magnify him with thanksgiving” (Psalm 69:30 KJV) — and more of God’s glory enters the world.
What will a life magnify? The world’s stress cracks, the grubbiness of a day, all that is wholly wrong and terribly busted?
Or God?
There’s no way to enter into His courts but through the gates of Thanksgiving — and it’s only in His presence is fullness of Joy
And I snap a picture of cheese.
This is the season to wake up to real living — the journey to joy begins TODAY!
More than a MILLION people have already stepped into the life-change of this experience.
A re you ready to begin—or begin again—a life-changing habit of daily gratitude?
This is absolutely amazing & completely unexpected but our friends at FaithGateway (!!! Sister site to Biblegateway!!!) have chosen One Thousand Gifts as their next FREE (!!!) online Bible study, beginning TODAY and leading right up to Christmas.
I’ll be helping to start things off on tonight, live on my FB page (click here) at 9pm EST! It would be a grace to meet you there!
Want to reset, refresh, reboot your life and literally rewire your brain?
Did you know? Researchers said of those who do this one thing of keeping a gratitude journal:
“Participants who’d kept a gratitude journal felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the future … they were a full 25 percent happier than the other participants. They sleep 1/2 hour more per evening, and exercise 33 percent more each week and felt more joyful, enthusiastic, interested, attentive, energetic, excited, determined, and strong.”
That’s exactly what writing down 1000 gifts did to me. It woke me up to really living.
This dare to count a thousand gifts from His heart, it became the ultimate love dare, counting all the ways He loved me. So this is the thing, friend: What if finding love is as simple as recording 1000 gifts?
We may be weary. We may be wounded. But we are wooed.
Who doesn’t long to be loved, to be treasured, to be showered with gifts? A thousand — more!
It’s not too late to sign up right here —
and you’ll get access to all the learning videos (sent to your email each week of the study), and a whole bundle of free beautiful tools to make lasting life change.
Be one of the more than one MILLION people who have stepped into the life-change of this experience.
Let’s do this, friends!
Let’s end the year strong in joy as we count all the ways He loves us!
You belong with us tonight, as we talk all things about a life of thanksgiving, live on my FB page (click here) at 9pm EST tonight!
It would be a grace to meet you there!
And click here to grab a FREE seat for this course on giving thanks —
and see how things can look up —
for the rest of your one wild and beautiful life.
November 16, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.16.19]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! 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
Mary Anne Morgan
Mary Anne Morgan
pause and ponder the moments in your weekend
Riikka Hedman and Sampy
Riikka Hedman and Sampy
Riikka Hedman and Sampy
Finnish Cats Living Their Best Winter Life
because some of us need an everyday hero
too good: at 14? For each cupcake this baker sells, he gives one away to someone in need
after class? this 10 year old is an in-demand working artist
Takka Jordan/ Twitter
yes: Teen prays for rival player whose mom is fighting cancer
Absolutely Stunning Street Transformations? had to share
for everyone who loves their local library: Why Libraries Have a Public Spirit That Most Museums Lack
anyone else wanna go visit here!?
Stone Artist Akie / Instagram
Stone Artist Akie / Instagram
Stone Artist Akie / Instagram
look what this artist can do with an ordinary stone
Nothing but the blood of Jesus…
THE (Best!) SURPRISING SUBSCRIPTION BOX: (and the perfect gift!)Curated by the Voskamp family — with a new editions in every one of your boxes of the story booklet, ‘The Case for Grace’, written by Ann
Think of your sister, Monica. 5 children. Farmer husband. 15 years weaving experience. And now her children are able to have an education that she has never had. Her phrase to live by: “Tomorrow will be better.”
Made in Ghana Natural straw basket with handles made of goat leather naturally dyed
Noah’s Ark book stand made in India of mango wood
When you prop up this handcrafted book or tablet stand think of Ajmal: Gave up his studies, his school dream to become an expert woodcraftsman — so that he could support his younger brother to attend school. Supporting his brother’s dream of getting a diploma. The stand that supports your book is supporting a brother so he can support his brother.
There are just a few openings remaining! We’re waiting for YOU!
Embrace The Grace Case — and become part of a movement of Grace all around the world.Receive a new box of varying themes, 4 times a year. Be surprised by grace on your doorstep!
Empower and employ artisans all around the world. Absolutely 100% of profits fund the Mercy House’s Transition Home.
we couldn’t help but smile with her: this story will encourage you to get up and out this weekend
Inspiring Millennials: How This 25-Year-Old Built a School for Children in Poverty
glory, glory, glory
Starting Monday! Are you in?!?
Our friends at FaithGateway have graciously chosen One Thousand Gifts as their next FREE (!!!) online Bible study, beginning Monday, November 18th and leading right up to Christmas.
We are inviting you to walk all over again – or maybe for the very first time? – through the discipline of counting gifts and finding joy – right. where. you. are!
I hope you will join in this life-changing, life-transforming opportunity that could change the rest of your life!
never, ever forget…the wonder of sight
“I learned that people are willing to help, and that it’s okay to be different”
never, ever, give up
an extraordinary story of compassion … and healing. #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
thank you, John Piper…Grace Is Power, Not Just Pardon
Post of the week from these parts here
World Kindness Day! And, straight up, from this farmer’s wife who misses some friendships & deeply understands the fragility of friendships — & who believes it’s never too late to rewrite the story you tell yourself in your head about you and friendship:
How to Find & Make Good Friends
(#WorldKindnessDay: Celebrating Friendship)
tears… a love of 80 years
Books for soul healing
Need freedom not only beyond the fear & pain, but actually within it? The Broken Way
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be? 60 steps from heart-weary brokenness to Christ-focused abundance: The Way of Abundance
Give yourself the gift of grace that He already has — and give yourself the beauty of: Be the Gift
The answer to anxiety is the adoration of Christ… and my story of just that: One Thousand Gifts
and the 60 DAY DEVOTIONAL with 1000 numbered lines to count your #1000gifts: One Thousand Gifts Devotional: Reflecting on Finding Everyday Graces
on repeat this week: Alive
“Don’t be anxious or get discouraged. God, my God, is with you in this; He won’t walk off & leave you in the lurch. He’s at your side ” 1Chron.28-20 MSG
“Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude.” Col.4:2MSG
No matter what’s coming at you today, the thing is:
No amount of regret changes the past,
No amount of anxiety changes the future,
Any amount of grateful joy changes the present.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
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