Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 98
July 15, 2019
HEART EYES: Because His Amazing Grace is Prime!
So — interrupting our kinda regular programming around these parts to share grace that’s just too great to keep to ourselves:
And maybe? In the midst of all the good stuff happening in all the places, the greatest prime days — are the days when we live like Jesus & His amazing grace is prime, and honestly, who can pass up getting a chance to pass on His amazing grace by choosing fair trade — and make the story of your life tell a beautiful and fair story.
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 prime glory for days and days and forever.
Softest. PJs. Ever. 75% off!All heart eyes — our girls reach for these favorite compfy PJ pants at the end of the day. #FairTrade
Softest. PJs. Ever. That’s what these are. Put them on and you might find yourself wearing them to the grocery store. Comfy Pajama Pants marked down to $22 ($88 value)–no code necessary, limited sizes & quantities available: Grace Crafted Home
Batik Boutique offers training to marginalized women in Malaysia. One of these women is called Sumarni. She now heads Batik’s Quality Control department and for this particular set of pajama pants, she led the team in dealing delicately with the hand-dyed textiles. Each pajama pant is unique in design and crafted by an artisan with love.
Comfy Pajama Pants marked down to $22 ($88 value)–no code necessary, limited sizes & quantities available: Grace Crafted Home
Additionally, each purchase directly benefits the woman who made it, providing her with safe work at Batik’s sewing center.
These pajamas are ready-to-wear-in-public, donning a classic black and white color palette in a trendy pattern. Nevertheless, who doesn’t need a soft pair of PJ pants?
These Ballet Flats are business in the front, party in the back.
And by party, we mean, gorgeous embroidered pattern.
Yep! 58% off!Packed only one pair of shoes when I spoke last spring in Romania and France –> These flats right here.
And you can only imagine how they walked thousands of steps each day — & if I had to pack only one pair of shoes all over again. Yep, only these, all over again. #FairTrade
These flats are business in the front, party in the back. And by party, we mean, gorgeous embroidered pattern. Ballet Flats marked down to $49 ($118 value)–no code necessary, limited sizes & quantities available
The Root Collective shoes are made by hand by various, skilled residents of Guatemala City, Guatemala.
These flats are business in the front, party in the back. And by party, we mean, gorgeous embroidered pattern. Ballet Flats marked down to $49 ($118 value)–no code necessary, limited sizes & quantities available
Otto, a skilled resident who was born in a slum called La Limonada and raised in a culture of gangs and violence. Despite his surroundings, Otto became a shoemaker and was able to rise above his surroundings and even help transform his own community. His dream is to teach former gang members his skills in hopes that those who come after will not have to grow up in such dark conditions.
Ballet Flats marked down to $49 ($118 value)–no code necessary Once these are in your closet, it will be hard not to reach for them every single day, because they look great with just about anything.
Leather Clutch 50% off!
Sleek, slim & stylish— hand-made to be a gal’s favorite accessory.This is my go-to clutch. To Zehrs’ grocery in town for the weekly grocery run. To our little stone church on Sunday mornings. To the doctors’, the coffee shop, prayer meeting — you name it, this clutch goes with everything and goes everywhere with me. Because, I mean — Look at the story it tells!
Leather Clutch marked down to $44 ($89 value)–no code necessary, limited quantity available
Leather Clutch marked down to $44 ($89 value)–no code necessary, limited quantity available
Sleek, slim and stylish—this clutch was hand-made to be a gal’s favorite accessory. Exquisite embroidery supplements this luxurious clutch in the chicest way. Leather Clutch marked down to $44 ($89 value)–no code necessary, limited quantity available
Each clutch is 100% hand-embroidered with the centuries-old technique of Tatreez, an art that deals with fine fabric, small holes, and lots of time. When you purchase a product from Darzah, you are enabling an artisan in Palestine to help sustain their family through safe, dignified work.
Leather Clutch marked down to $44 ($89 value)–no code necessary, limited quantity available
Annnndddd — 10% off entire order at Grace Crafted Home!
(no minimum purchase necessary)And because Jesus and His grace is PRIME — every single item at The Grace Crafted Home is 10% off too — just till tomorrow night — with 100% of proceeds supporting Mercy House Global and young, vulnerable mothers from the slums in Kenya. Because the grace we’ve been given is absolutely amazing enough to pass on and share with those in need.
Straight up: these artisan-crafted home resources? Are my favorites every single day in our farmhouse. When I do laundry, grab a cutting board, bake with the kids, exhale with a cup of coffee — it’s more than working with handmade art that it is beautiful. It’s knowing that what’s in our home — is changing and empowering families around the world. It’s passing on His amazing grace — that can make all our days kinda amazing.
We’re all in with you: Our home too is committed to being a Grace Crafted home. Because, I mean — it could come true: The story of your life can tell a beautiful & fair story — and change the story of the world.
Our favorite couch blanket, #fairtrade love: 10% off entire order (no minimum purchase necessary): From our Grace Crafted Home
10% off entire order (no minimum purchase necessary): at our Grace Crafted Home. Use coupon code GIVEGRACE10 at checkout. One use per customer. Offer ends Tuesday, July 16th at 11:59PM CST.
Since its beginning, Prescraft has enabled hundreds of disadvantaged handicraft producers to sell their products within the fair trade market and become self-reliant. As a project of the Presbyterian Church, Prescraft’s goals are to provide employment for rural artisans, stem migration from the rural areas to the cities, preserve traditional craft skills and cultural heritage, and to instill self-confidence in artisans.
I want more memories like this — moments that write a good story with her — and a good story in the world. 10% off entire order (no minimum purchase necessary): at our Grace Crafted Home
Weekender Bag: 10% off entire order (no minimum purchase necessary): at our Grace Crafted Home
Favorite Resource for a Meaningful, Beautiful Home: Grace Crafted Home — 10% off entire order! (no minimum purchase necessary)
I can’t even begin to tell you how SERIOUSLY smitten I am with this Measuring Spoon Set and Raashi Coffee Mug: Grace Crafted Home — 10% off entire order! (no minimum purchase necessary)
100% of all funds not only empowers artisans around the world, but partners with Mercy House Global to support several homes for young women and their babies in crisis pregnancies in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya
Your home — your life — can tell a story–that’s changing the story of the world.
a wonderful sale to pass along to you — for a limited time?[ The Leather Clutch, Pajama Pants, and Ballet Flats – ALL AMAZING SALE right now:
**plus a free Travel Cord Clutch ($18 value) with any $50 minimum purchase** ]
10% off entire order (no minimum purchase necessary). Use coupon code GIVEGRACE10 at checkout. One use per customer. Offer ends Tuesday, July 16th at 11:59PM CST.Every piece in our Grace Crafted Home collection is:
* fair trade
* dignifies, honors and empowers the artisan
* has a good story to tell — a story you’d not only want to know, but a story you’d want to tell — so you are part of changing story of the world for better
* 100% of all funds not only empowers artisans around the world, but partners with Mercy House Global to support several homes for young women and their babies in crisis pregnancies in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya
* 100% — every penny — of your Grace Crafted Home is giving grace back to those in need — and writing a fair, grace story not only in your home, but around the world.Annndddd — free, free, FREE!
FREE Travel Cord Clutch ($18 value) with $50 minimum purchase–no code necessary, while supplies last. Offer ends Tuesday, July 16th at 11:59PM CST.
Make Grace Prime today, choose a #fairtrade Grace Crafted Home today &
Pass on some of the Amazing Grace We’ve Known!Check out all the sales at our fair trade store: The Grace Crafted Home
The Unsung Life: when you’re serving without being seen
One of the most significant decisions we make as believers, over and over, is choosing to live surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. As we yield our wills and walk in step with the Spirit, we experience freedom and intimacy with God. Woven throughout the pages of Open Hands, Willing Heart – a new book by my friend Vivian Mabuni – I found stories of encouragement, hope, and the challenge to live like Caleb and Joshua, as believers who follow God fully. It’s a grace to welcome my friend and sister Vivian to the farm’s front porch today…
“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9 ESV)
During high school my younger sister, Claire, developed an inexplicable burden to pray for the country of Albania.
Thanks to a countries-of-the-world shower curtain and Claire’s scribbles and circles with a Sharpie pen, I learned that this small country of 2.3 million is nestled next to Greece in southeast Europe. In 1967 the dictator of the country declared Albania “the world’s first atheist state.”
Claire began to pray earnest, God-sized prayers in and out of the shower. She prayed for doors to open to the gospel. She prayed for the remote villages inaccessible to outsiders. She prayed Albania would one day send Christian missionaries to the Muslim world.
From a human perspective these prayers made no sense, as the country remained locked to the outside world, seemingly impenetrable.
Finally, five years after Claire began praying, the communist regime fell, and in 1992 an opportunity opened up for my sister to take part in the first Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) summer mission to Albania.
Claire applied, raised financial support, got all the necessary immunizations, and with high expectations set out for the country she had circled with a Sharpie and bathed in faith-filled prayer.
She had the worst summer of her life.
“Sometimes God asks us to take steps of faith and trust Him without knowing how our words, actions, and decisions might affect others.”
The instability of the government led to an economic crisis, which resulted in food shortages. Several nights Claire went to bed hungry, not knowing what food would be accessible the following day. Illness, swarms of attacking insects, verbal abuse from the Albanian nationals, and all sorts of chaos surrounded my sister throughout the summer.
An Albanian national, Alma, served as a translator while the team worked in the capital city of Tiranë.
The team decided to split and cover more ground the second half of their time in the country. Claire, already stretched from the trials she experienced, hoped she would be assigned to the team going to beaches in the nicer northern part of the country, as she had formed a good connection with those team members.
Instead, the leadership placed her on the team headed south. Alma would go with Claire and the southern team as they traveled to Vlorë, a spiritually hardened, Muslim-majority part of Albania for the remainder of the summer.
As they headed south, so did Claire’s emotions.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy ProutyThe mission ended with little to show for all the effort and prayer and expense for the southern team.
The spiritual ground was rock hard, and the Albanian nationals didn’t appear to be interested in learning about God.
“As we try our best to serve God and others, we may do so without being praised, or even noticed, for our efforts.”
The team in the north, however, experienced tremendous openness to the gospel. Claire returned to the US dejected, depressed, and carrying parasites in her intestines.
Obeying Without Seeing
Sometimes God asks us to take steps of faith and trust Him without knowing how our words, actions, and decisions might affect others.
Seven years after Claire’s miserable summer, Alma, the Albanian translator, was introduced as the first Albanian national staff member at a Cru staff conference.
When asked how she began a relationship with Jesus, Alma shared in front of five thousand staff members about the summer of 1992 and how Claire had led her to place her trust in Christ.
All those years had gone by without Claire having any idea of the outcome of her service.
Alma and Claire got together at the conference to catch up, and Claire marveled as Alma disclosed all God had done from the point of her surrender to Jesus.
A surrender that came from a conversation with Claire.
Alma became a spiritual leader in Albania and discipled nearly one hundred women. Albanian nationals joined her staff, and teams showed the Jesus film in obscure mountain villages.
Albania started sending missionaries to the Muslim world, just as Claire had prayed, first to neighboring Turkey and then beyond. God had turned the officially atheistic country into one in which 96 percent of the people had opportunities to hear the gospel!
“Most of us won’t get to hear the end of our story of impact this side of heaven.”
Many of us can become disheartened when we don’t see evidence of our actions making a difference in the world.
As we try our best to serve God and others, we may do so without being praised, or even noticed, for our efforts.
We pray, we have spiritual conversations, we show up week after week at the food bank or Sunday school, we drive carpool, bring meals to neighbors, host the youth group, pay for someone’s drink in the drive-through, tutor, write blog posts, sit in meetings, balance ledgers, mop floors, plan events, design websites, style hair, teach calculus, run corporations or nonprofits, meet with clients suffering unspeakable trauma.
The list goes on and on, but our good deeds may go unsung.
For some this might not be a big struggle, but for those who are wired to value acknowledgment for their contributions or who thrive on words of affirmation, this state of invisibility may be particularly difficult.
“Our jobs, despite not always knowing how the story will end, is to surrender.”
Most of us won’t get to hear the end of our story of impact this side of heaven.
More often than not, we won’t be privy to how our decisions to show up, share our resources, teach the Scriptures, and share our faith result in changed lives.
That the Lord would allow Claire to hear firsthand about the answers to her shower-curtain prayers is a gift of grace.
Our jobs, despite not always knowing how the story will end, is to surrender.
To lay down our plans for His and to say, “Jesus, I trust you with my prayers, my dreams, my life. Make them yours.”
We have no control over the outcome of our surrendered lives.
What we do control is whether we will choose to live for ourselves or for God, because when we open our hearts, we see a beautiful transformation comes when we live with our hearts and lives yielded to the King.
Vivian Mabuni is a national speaker and writer with a passion to influence college campuses, families, churches, communities, and the world by sharing the hope and life found through knowing God. Her first book,Warrior in Pink, details how she found a deeper intimacy with God in her journey through cancer as a young mother of three.
Her new book, Open Hands, Willing Heart: Discover the Joy of Saying Yes to God, provides an authentic look at what it means to willingly risk saying yes to whatever God asks — and highlights a practical path to the deeper joy of a yielded life. With thirty years of ministry experience on staff with Cru, Vivian loves teaching about the Bible and highlighting its practical application to ministry and life. She’s discovered that open-handed living starts with an intentional posture of the heart. Through surrender to His will, we draw closer to God in a way that makes our day-to-day lives more purposeful, powerful, and pleasing to Him.
With Vivian’s warm encouragement in Open Hands, Willing Heart, you’ll learn how to step out in courageous trust as you invite God to give and take—and move and work—in your life as He sees fit. Along the way you’ll discover true joy and serenity that will carry you through every circumstance.
[ Our humble thanks to Waterbrook for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
July 13, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [07.13.19]
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 right here:
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
Jessica Walker
maybe get out and explore with the kids this weekend?
“I am sorry for all of the ways I have ever made you feel less that what God’s love proves you are worth” AV
Well Said: The deeper cause of OCD
so who knew?!? turtles and their shells
now this school is really onto something: cheering wildly
They give students PE credit for doing yard work for the elderly and people with disabilities
at 7 years old? he’s got it right #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
Summer is upon us, bringing with it the perennial combination of redolence and indolence.
Here’s is a quiz on words related to this laziest time of the year. How did you do?!?
because sometimes we all need a little bit of help
Dean Mason Wildlife Photography / Facebook / Instagram
Dean Mason Wildlife Photography / Facebook / Instagram
Dean Mason Wildlife Photography / Facebook / Instagram
just had to share! 35 Photos of Harvest Mice Living Their Tiny Lives
bus stops — AND bees stops? what an idea!
so there was a special celebration this week – as the oldest person on record in the US turned 114!
Beg God to Move Again: Seven Marks of True Revival
He simply wanted to help. So he did what he could with what he had.
what can we go do today?!
What does amateur photography look like today versus 68 years ago?
Same Pictures. Same Places. 68 Years Apart.
In iconic locations, they recreated New York Times photos from 1951.
just — breathtaking
To a Grace Crafted Home — the kind of home you’ve always longed for.
Your home can tell a story — that’s changing the story of the world.
100% of proceeds go to help fund Mercy House Global’s work in Kenya
they each found the friend they needed – from an accidental phone call
up against so many odds: a deaf couple is opening a pizzeria in with all deaf employees
‘The Beating Heart of Jerusalem’:
Newly Discovered Pilgrimage Road Gives Glimpse into Life During Jesus’ Time
This woman right here is a woman who loves other women so well. And what she says here? Just kinda knocks it out of the park:
The Scale is Not The Boss of You
at 97? yup, he’s still working – must come see
Michael W. Smith discusses a recent interruption… but maybe there was a divine reason…
Is it possible to be totally free? Amanda Jane Cooper shares her story
Levi Voskamp
Post of the week from these parts here
You can be okay
even when you don’t feel okay
because who you are
is not how you are.
Your heart can kind break more times than you can count
which only means
your heart has been made into abundantly more.
This can be your story — even when things aren’t okay:
How to be okay even when things aren’t okay
Can’t thank @qideas and @gabelyons for sharing this
The words “Agriculture is the foundation of manufacture and commerce” are written across the official USDA seal, but farming is not what most people think of when talking about successful business. A century and a half ago, 90% of Americans were farmers. Today, that number is 2%.
What has happened to farming in our Industrial Age? Farms may be struggling in modern America, but with the growing organic market and a renewed interest in agrarianism and localism, is there a creative way forward for farmers?
please click here for the full talk (3 min)
mann_nz/Instagram
dbobbit/ Instagram
How do you live a genuinely abundant life?
In sixty vulnerably stories, the tender invitation of The Way of Abundance moves you through your unspoken broken — into the abundant life.
Pick up your own Way to Abundance & start your journey to the abundant life
Can You Trust God in Your Pain? Job 1:1–12
on repeat this week: Build my life
…yeah, sometimes it’s bafflingly hard to know how to live through the stuff we’re facing & it’s crazy easy to just want Someone to hand us a map, a way, through everything.
So maybe this is it: 1. no matter what, 2. all the time, 3. no matter what happens, just these three things, because He says this is the way He wants us to live today:
“(1) Be cheerful — no matter what;
(2) pray — all the time;
(3) thank God — no matter what happens.
This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.” 1Thess5:18
This. is. the. way. God. wants. us. to. live.
There’s your map through right now — because this way leads you closer to His heart.
Being intentional about being 1.Cheerful, 2. Prayerful & 3. Thankful — keeps the day from unintentionally becoming 4. Awful.
Unless we are intentional about giving God glory throughout the day,
our days *unintentionally* give way to grumbling.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
July 12, 2019
The Scale is Not The Boss of You
I’ve shared meals with Lisa-Jo everywhere she’s lived, in airports and hotel rooms and in between kids and chaos. Here is a woman who loves other women well. Here is a woman who helps us all to stop worrying about whether or not we have remembered to seize the day and reminds us instead to focus our eyes so that we can actually see the day. Lisa-Jo sees beauty in all the parts of ourselves we wish we could hide, change or disguise. She is the first to share her imperfections in order to point us always back to the amazing reflection of God in us. Her newest book is the best gift to give yourself to change the way you see yourself and your one so-called ordinary life. It’s a grace to welcome Lisa-Jo to the farm’s front porch today…
My dad was turning seventy, so our family was making the trek back to South Africa from Baltimore to Johannesburg via Detroit and Amsterdam.
To be back with my people. The people who were my first home.
We were ordering gifts and getting new suitcases and planning all the family we wanted to see.
But deep down I was wasting my anticipation because I was drowning in self-conscious worry. Worry I wished I could turn off like the dripping faucet it was.
“My days filled up with self-beratement about my lack of discipline and why couldn’t I survive on less calories and why do I love food so much?”
Here’s the thing—just one summer earlier I was at the healthiest, fittest weight I’d been in years. Then I faced some crushing work deadlines and mainlined candy corn, cotton candy, carbs, and other assorted forms of sugar to push myself through.
There are things a forty-plus-year-old body does not recover from quickly. Or even slowly.
Heavy, sustained sugar and carb intake combined with zero exercise is one of them. No matter that I panic-joined a gym and actually went several times a week. No matter that I cut out the late-night binging on French bread and Brie cheese.
But, no matter that I was really, really trying—the scale was still depressingly stubborn every morning I stepped onto it.
And I felt my heart sink with every pound I hadn’t lost yet.
My days filled up with self-beratement about my lack of discipline and why couldn’t I survive on less calories and why do I love food so much?
You see, I’m a joy eater.
Combine my two favorite things—a dear friend and her kitchen—and I will bliss out entirely.
Serve me up heartfelt conversation alongside homemade biscuits and I could easily kill a decade of time like that.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy ProutyMy mother was a terrible cook but a gifted curator of conversations, people, and comfort food. These are my happy places.
“So while the kitchen was my confidant, the scale became an angry voice in my head.”
So while the kitchen was my confidant, the scale became an angry voice in my head. A voice that despised my thighs and my belly and spoke ruthless criticism at both. And I listened. And tried really hard to obey.
And it sucked the life and marrow out of this long-anticipated trip home.
Then one Thursday I woke up and decided I was tired of it.
I got on the phone with my dad and fessed up. I told him just how tired I was of feeling tired of worrying about my weight. I said, “Well, Dad, we’re coming home chubbier than we would have liked, and we’re hoping you guys will just take us as we are.”
My dad. My dad who was turning seventy and is a fantastically health-conscious doctor and runs five miles a couple of times a week and is raising adopted kids the same age as mine while still consulting hundreds of patients a week and who probably never binge-ate anything in his life.
My dad.
But the guilt and judgment never came.
“It’s about knowing that you are unconditionally loved no matter what you look like, weigh in at, sound like, talk like, think like.”
Instead, I could feel the love unfurling across the miles of phone lines and into my ear as he said, “We’ll love you just the way you are. And we hope when you’re home you’ll let us add on a few more pounds for good measure, of all the foods here that we know you miss!”
I was so surprised, a belly laugh bubbled up out of me.
I was surprised by the joy that so easily eclipsed the worry and burst out into laughter. I cradled the phone against my ear and it was like being home already.
Listen, this isn’t about food or weight. Well, it is in the sense that healthy matters and great company is just as great with way less carbs. That’s all true.
And moving our bodies matters because they thrive with exercise and it gets every part of us firing on all cylinders. I get that.
I hear you preaching the importance of healthy food and consistent exercise—I really truly do—and I will keep at it.
But it’s also about much more than that. Really. It’s about that old love story.
It’s about believing that you are unconditionally loved. No, it’s more than that.
It’s about knowing that you are unconditionally loved no matter what you look like, weigh in at, sound like, talk like, think like.
Do you know what that means? Beyond the cliché that we are so good at brushing off? Let me spell it out for you the way I had to spell it out for myself:
Unconditional love = you are loved, no matter what.
No matter what the scale says or your performance review says or your passive-aggressive relationship says or your bathing suit says or the voice in your head says.
You are loved beyond pounds or fit or style or perfection.
You are loved because you are.
“You are loved because love is the DNA of the stuff you were made from.”
Period. End of story.
You are loved because you were created by a God who is love.
You are loved because love is the DNA of the stuff you were made from.
You are loved because love is the blood that runs in your veins and the sway of your hips and, yes, even the rub of your upper thighs against each other—love, love, love, left, right, left right, swish, swish, love, love, love. Even in the sticky sweat of summer in places you wish weren’t sweating.
You are loved because love is what pumps in your veins like a drumbeat reminder that this is your name and there is no other name than love, love, love.
Somehow between the scale and my favorite jeans that don’t fit this summer, I forgot that.
My daughter was stroking my belly this morning and whispered into its curves, “I love this belly.” And my dad said the same thing using different words on the phone this morning. And my husband said it when he called to say he missed me while he’s traveling this week.
This throbbing harmony of how loved we are. If only we would listen.
If only we would stop listening to our measuring sticks and scales and start listening to our promises. For God Himself has said, “I will never leave you or abandon you”(Hebrews 13:5, csb).
But there are some voices that we do need to quit.
“If only we would stop listening to our measuring sticks and scales and start listening to our promises.”
Don’t get me wrong—I will continue on this journey to be healthy for my kids and for the calling God has entrusted to me. I will practice curbing my sugar cravings and leaning into better choices in my fridge and in my heart. I will keep moving my body and reminding my muscles that they are made for more than sitting behind a computer all day.
But at the same time, I will leave behind the voices that are robbing me of the joy of that journey.
Don’t ever let the scale tell you different.
And I will practice being loved, more than I practice being careful what I eat.
I will look into the eyes of my family and let them have the last word, because I already know what my Father has said: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).
And before I step onto a scale, I will repeat those words out loud and let them, and only them, be the weight that defines me.
With her ability to laugh at herself and her mistakes, Lisa-Jo Baker continues to gather women around her into a community that is tired of hearing how things are supposed to be (perfect or easy) and passionate about hearing how things actually are (hard, scary, stretching, and wonderful). A former attorney and longtime community manager at (in)courage, Lisa-Jo is the best-selling author of Never Unfriended and Surprised by Motherhood.
Her newest book, The Middle Matters: Why That (Extra)Ordinary Life Looks Really Good on You invites us to get a good look at our middles and gives us permission to embrace them—because Lisa-Jo knows that the middle might be the best part of the love story of life, kids, faith, doubt, marriage, failure, wonder, and the muffin top—and that these are all good things.
GIFTS FOR YOU!
PreOrder The Middle Matters before July 23 and receive these gifts:
$10 gift card to shop at DaySpring.com.
Audio book excerpt read by Lisa-Jo
Digital album of all the photos behind the stories Lisa-Jo tells
Exclusive Behind the Book Podcast — Meet Me In the Middle: Confessions of a Carb-Loving Author
Click here to preorder and claim your free gifts — just enter your information into the “Redeem PreOrder” form here.
[ Our humble thanks to Waterbrook for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
July 10, 2019
How to be okay even when things aren’t okay
So you can look up at the calendar today and exhale:
“It’s okay to feel bone tired — you have One who gives His bone and His body for you and beckoned: Come Rest.”
It’s okay to feel bone tired — you have One who gives His bone and His body for you and beckoned: Come Rest.
It’s okay to feel disillusioned — you have One who destroys cheap illusions of perfection and offers you His.
It’s okay to feel done — you have One who listens to the last nail be driven in and proclaims all the hellish things finished.
It’s okay to feel battered and bruised — you have One who storms your battles, takes back everything that needs a comeback, and proves His side won.
It’s okay to feel a bit like a fool — you have One who proves that real love always makes anyone the wisest fool who gives more, lives more, forgives more, because love defies logic, because love is the self-giving, cruciform foolishness that is the ultimate wisdom of the universe.
It’s okay to feel behind — you have One who is the Head and the Author and the Maker and the Finisher and the Carrier and the Warrior and nothing is over until He carries you over the finish line.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Joy Prouty
Levi Voskamp 
Joy Prouty
Levi Voskamp 
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Levi Voskamp 
Levi Voskamp
Joy Prouty
Levi VoskampIt’s okay to feel on the outside — you have One who is passionate about you on the inside, who wants to be with you so desperately, He moves into you, gets into your skin, so you’re never alone, dwells in you, moves into your empty places, your rejected places, your abandoned places and fills you with chosenness and wholeness and with-ness — because He knows the fulfilled life is an inside job.
“You have One who left the clamor of the 99, to find you, remind you, remake you, rename you, release you.”
It’s okay to feel spent — you have One who pays you all His attention, who says you are worth costing Him everything — and then He bought you back from the pit because you are priceless to Him.
It’s okay to feel whatever you feel — “because you don’t judge your feelings; you feel your feelings—and then give them to God.”
“Feelings are meant be fully felt and then fully surrendered to God.”
“Pain begs to be felt—or life will beg you to feel not one emotion at all. Emotion means movement — and emotions are meant to move you toward God.” ~ The Broken Way
It’s okay to not feel okay — because you have One — who made you His one.
You have One who left the clamor of the 99, to find you, remind you, remake you, rename you, release you.
You have One who is more ready to forgive what you’ve done, than you are to forget,
“His love for you is magnetic, His welcome of you is galactic, His purpose through you is cosmic, His commitment to you is stratospheric, and His hope in you is meteoric.”
One who is more ready to give you grace, than you are to give up,
One who is more than ready to always stand with you, than you are to run.
One who is a greater lover, rescuer, saviour, friend— than you have ever imagined Him to be even when your love for Him is most on fire.
This week, these worries, this world, may leave you feeling a bit depressed — but you have a God who is obsessed with you.
His love for you is magnetic, His welcome of you is galactic, His purpose through you is cosmic, His commitment to you is stratospheric , and His hope in you is meteoric.
It’s beautiful how that goes:
Whatever the story is today — it’s okay. Because we know the ending — and how it will be the beginning of the truest happily ever after.
Whatever the story is today — it’s okay. Because the Writer of the story has written Himself into the hardest places of yours and is softening the edges of everything with redeeming grace.
You find yourself at a crossroads every day — and what you need to know is the way to abundance.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
July 8, 2019
Meeting Mother Teresa: Facing Shame and Finding our Way
Hal Donaldson’s story is one that illustrates what it means to be on a journey—to experience tragedy as a child and then face it on a much grander, global scale as an adult. It’s not always easy to find our life’s mission, but I believe we can learn from one another what it means to hear God’s still, small voice and respond with obedience. In his book, Disruptive Compassion, Hal takes us on an adventure – from distributing groceries to the working poor from the back of a pickup truck to the establishment of an international nonprofit organization. On the front lines of poverty and suffering, he reveals his private struggles and frank conversations with God. But, through it all, he became the revolutionary he was born to be. And that’s just it – we were all born to be revolutionaries. The only question is, what’s holding us back? It’s a grace to welcome Hal to the farm’s front porch today…
Zombie phobia kicked in as I climbed the hospital’s dimly lit cement steps.
For some reason, every hospital scene in every zombie movie I’d ever seen came flooding back.
But this was no ordinary hospital or hospice. It was Mother Teresa’s Home for Dying Destitutes in Kolkata, India.
I had arrived in the city just twenty-four hours earlier to write a book on legendary missionaries Mark and Huldah Buntain.
They had arranged for me to interview Mother Teresa—the chance of a lifetime.
“They had arranged for me to interview Mother Teresa—the chance of a lifetime.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’d heard stories of her work my entire life. I guess I imagined she had a halo over her head.
I said to myself, I’m just a kid—I don’t know the proper etiquette. Am I supposed to bow, shake hands, or kiss her cheek?Trying the latter seemed risky, so I decided to wing it and follow her lead.
Garbed in her distinctive white and blue sari, she shuffled to a bench. Smiling, she asked, “What’s your name, young man?”
Several beats passed before I could respond. “Hal Donaldson.”
“Where are you from and what do you do?” she asked.
“I’m a writer from the United States. I came to Kolkata to write a book on Mark and Huldah Buntain.”
Her face seemed to light up. “They have helped many in our city.”
“Yes, they have big hearts. May I ask you a few questions?”
She nodded. “If it will help them and their work.”
For the next twenty minutes, I scribbled her quotes in my reporter’s notebook, trying not to miss one detail.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty“It’s all because of God”
As I wrote I thought, I feel like I’m talking to my grandmother—without the milk and cookies—rather than a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Repeatedly she deflected my praises. “It’s all because of God,” she said.
As our time came to a close, she leaned forward. “Young man, can I ask you what you do to help the poor?”
Her question wasn’t accusative, demanding, or condescending. It was just a question. But to me it felt laced with expectation. If I lied to Mother Teresa, I was surely putting my life in jeopardy.
So I told the truth. I glanced away and said, “I’m really not doing anything.”
She could have condemned me, chastised me, or struck me with a lightsaber and I wouldn’t have blamed her.
Instead, she smiled and said, “Everyone can do something.”
“Everyone can do something.”
Internally I launched into protest: I feel enough shame already. Take away my milk and cookie privileges. Or ask God to give me a cavity or two. But please, no more guilt trips.
Little did she know how devastated I was by the sight of children living in tiny hovels, lapping water from streams filled with sewage, and climbing atop garbage heaps.
I was new to this scale of poverty, and my emotions were being squeezed.
Meanwhile, I was staying at the opulent Oberoi Grand Hotel. I had never seen such a display of marble tile, brilliant brass fixtures, ornate pottery, and crystal chandeliers.
Nightly, from the safety of that luxurious room, I heard the cries of hunger and moans of disease from Kolkata’s homeless population outside my window.
I tossed and turned in the plushest of beds. I wish I could say sleep eluded me because I was asking, “How can I help them?”
But in reality I was plagued by a very different question: “Now that I know, how can I carry on with my life the same way?”
“Sometimes you don’t have to go looking for your mission—the mission finds you.”
I visited Kolkata prior to the present government’s rise to power. Since then, India has made great strides and become an economic force. In the 1940s, Kolkata was decimated by famine and disease.
So, in response, Mother Teresa and the Buntains started feeding programs, medical clinics, and schools. They defined their mission and, despite adversity and great risk, pressed on to meet their objectives.
As with them, sometimes your circumstances determine your mission. In other words, sometimes you don’t have to go looking for your mission—the mission finds you.
Mother Teresa came to Kolkata as a teacher and headmistress at a school.
The Buntains came to the city as missionaries to establish a church.
When confronted with poverty, disease, and illiteracy, they didn’t throw up their hands and say, “It’s someone else’s problem.”
They didn’t curse the darkness and walk away.
They took action.
The first (and most important) steps to accomplishing a mission are to recognize a need and accept responsibility for doing something about it.
“The first (and most important) steps to accomplishing a mission are to recognize a need and accept responsibility for doing something about it.”
Trekking across a schoolyard with Mark Buntain was like accompanying a rock star through a crowded arena. Children dashed toward him, clamoring for a hug or a pat on the head. He greeted each one by name and offered them snacks from his pocket.
“Do you ever get tired of this?” I asked.
“No, they’re our mission. They’re whey we’re here.”
“Do you ever feel like you’ve given up a normal life? I know you’ve sacrificed a lot.”
I struck a nerve with that question.
He turned and locked eyes with me. “This isn’t sacrifice—this is a privilege.”
Hours later, I sat alone in my hotel room, fending off tears, confusion, and shame.
I felt like swearing at the world and punching the walls until my knuckles were bloody—anything to redirect the pain.
Some people can easily block out the images of hungry children begging in the streets. I used to do that too.
But now that I was here, I couldn’t. I wanted to run down to the streets, round them up, welcome them into my suite, and order every item on the room service menu.
“This isn’t sacrifice—this is a privilege.”
Instead, I closed my eyes and soaked my pillow with tears.
Today, I look back on this experience and realize it was about far more than simply realizing the depth of poverty around the world.
Facing Mother Teresa was a turning point in my life – a time at which I had to question the way I’d been living and begin to ask the tough questions.
I’d encourage you to take the same step in your own life.
Dare to ask yourself today: What’s holding me back from becoming the revolutionary I was born to be?
Identify what’s in your way and have the courage to step forward – step out – and see what happens when you step into disruptive compassion.
Hal Donaldson has authored thirty books and serves as founder and CEO of Convoy of Hope, an international, faith-based humanitarian organization. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Jose state University and a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies from Bethany University. He and his wife, Doree, have four daughters, a cat and a dog (both male…so Hal’s not totally outnumbered).
Disruptive Compassion dares to declare you can spark real and meaningful change. You can be the change you want to see in the world. The kind that comes through acts of kindness and compassion.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
July 6, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [07.06.19]
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 right here:
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
exhale right here – weekends are soul refreshment
can you even?!? because we all need a hug…
beautiful: Will you push me, Mama?
so we couldn’t stop watching!
The Bible’s Impact on Human Rights
The ideas of human dignity and respect for all didn’t develop in a vacuum
so who knew?!? The World’s Shortcut: How the Panama Canal Works
…it was a grace to share with Focus on the Family… listen in?
we’re discussing how a painful past has helped shape my spiritual journey and find a richer, more fulfilling relationship with God… an honest, deeply personal discussion based on the message in The Broken Way: A Daring Path Into the Abundant Life.
this farmers market on wheels? it’s good food on the move
Randy Alcorn is such a man — such. a. man. You walk away from him thinking:
He is so much like Jesus.
And what he and his wife Nanci have done here? Absolutely unforgettable.
some are returning to their roots as they research their heritage
Refresh the Hearts of Those You Love
glory, glory, glory
“The Singing Doctor” who serenaded over 8,000 babies honored after 40-year career
“To me, it’s a wonderful thing in my hand, the miracle of life,” he said. “And… it’s a beautiful world we live in. We forget about all the crisis going on everywhere for a moment when you see that miracle of life in front of you.”
when ‘family’ helps and loves in ways you’d never expect #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
Ryan Johnson
Ryan Johnson
Alexander Whittle
Photos That Humanize a Humanitarian Crisis
so deeply grateful for the work of Compassion International…
“These are just a few pictures of children, moms and dads, who live in some of the most dangerous places on earth. They are also places of great beauty and worth.
We hope looking into the eyes of these people created in the image of God will help us see people the way God sees them.
That it will awaken compassion in us.
this young immigrant shares his emotional journey to citizenship –
and now he’s helping others coming behind him
at 11? she’s really onto something here – let’s be more like Ruby
Throughout history, ordinary people have believed the scripture to be so important, they gave up their time, their liberty, and even their lives to ensure it’s faithful translation from culture to culture and generation to generation.
Thank you, Seed Company – for the work that you do.
We wouldn’t have a Bible today without the sacrifice of people who passionately believed that everyone should be able to read and understand God’s Word for themselves.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Post of the week from these parts here:
Real freedom ultimately frees us from being self-serving to serving others and God with all our being.
Real freedom releases us from all bondage, and bonds us to the heart of God.
Bottom line:
Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.
When freedom really means something to you — this right here is what actually happens
“No matter what has happened to you, no matter what your background is, no matter what your past is…
bad things do happen, but that doesn’t mean they need to define us or destroy our life.”
July is here!
Maybe in this new month, we all just need the gift of Joy… a bit of Hope? To stand together — FOR each other — knowing that an act of kindness, giving it forward, can be more powerful than any sword in starting movements that move us all toward Love.
Want the gift of light breaking into all the broken places, into all the places that feel kinda abandoned?
These pages are for you. It’s possible — abundant joy is always possible, especially for you.
Break free with the tender beauty of The Broken Way & Be The Gift …
And if you grab a copy of Be The Gift? We will immediately email you a link to a FREE gift of THE WHOLE 12 MONTH *Intentional* Acts of Givenness #BeTheGIFT Calendar to download and print from home or at your local print shop! Just let us know that you ordered Be The Gift over here.
You only get one life to love well.
Pick up Be The Gift & live the life you’ve longed to
thank you, Christine Caine… “Stay committed to the process…of God doing His work in you…”
It would be a grace to meet you here next month!
How God Changes our Minds: Philippians 3:15–16
Revelation is not new knowledge that no one knew before. In this lab, John Piper reminds us that revelation is making crystal clear what was before us the whole time — that Jesus is the Son of God.
on repeat this week: Battles
The greatest freedom we have across this land is the freedom to come right to God at any time.
And? Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
July 5, 2019
Discovering your passion and purpose in the midst of pain
Something is just not right. It’s that feeling we get when someone’s voice changes, when the air suddenly feels heavy, or when your gut tells you something is not as it should be. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson remembers the day she realized the world was different, heavier, and that as a young African American girl, there would be pain. But like Moses, she also discovered that out of places of vulnerability and pain, God can bring passion and great purpose. It’s an unspeakable grace to welcome Natasha to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
It was a forbidden conversation.
“Carmen, Momma says I have to always be there for you,” I told my younger sister.
“Some white people are not going to like you because you are black, and some black people are not going to like you because you are light skinned.”
I had waited a long time before sharing this information that my mother had relayed to me in secret.
“People don’t like me.”
I was only a child, in middle or early high school. I didn’t really understand the significance of these words, and I don’t know how I expected my little sister to respond when I told her this truth.
But I was surprised and even shocked to see tears well up in her eyes, fall down to her cheeks, and land in the palms of her hands as she began to gasp for breath and cry uncontrollably.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused and uncertain now.
As she tried to control her body, she looked up at me and said,
“People don’t like me.”
I didn’t know what to do with that response.
Yuri Vaysgant
Yuri Vaysgant
It wasn’t until many years later that I became aware of the brown paper bag tests.
Author and professor Michael Eric Dyson wrote, “In fact, New Orleans invented the brown paper bag party—usually at a gathering in a home—where anyone darker than the bag attached to the door was denied entrance. The brown bag criterion survives as a metaphor for how the black cultural elite quite literally establishes a caste system along color lines within black life.”
For black people in general, it’s the epitome of self-hate brought on by the reality that we are not white in a society that normalizes all things white as pure, right, and better.
For the black elite, the test was a way to maintain the pride, self-righteous assurance, and soothing comfort of knowing that they were not poor.
There was no need for social mingling with black people who were dark skinned or impoverished, because those people were not marriage material.
“Thank God my sister and I had a loving mother—a black woman who would not set her black daughters up for failure.”
Thank God my sister and I had a loving mother—a black woman who would not set her black daughters up for failure.
As we grew, she told us the truth about the hardships we would likely face in this world, and she didn’t hold back.
My mother warned us about the setup of systemic racism and cultural biases (although she did not use those terms), and she had a hope for a better future for us all.
So there I was, sitting next to my younger sister trying to have an adult-like conversation.
At the time my sister’s lighter skin color would have passed the brown paper bag test, and my browner complexion would not.
In that moment, the message “People don’t like you” is not what I wanted to communicate at all. I saw my sister’s tears and thought, What on earth have I done?
“As we reflect, we come to understand that Moses’ story and ours are all a part of God’s redemptive story.”
What I wanted her to hear was, “My sista, don’t you worry about a thing because no matter what happens in this world and who stands against you, I have your back. You can trust that, and you can trust me.”
There is truth in the statement “When one person hurts in a family, everyone aches. And this is always the choice: pain demands to be felt—or it will demand you feel nothing as all.”
My sister was born a light-skinned black woman in America, and this would be the source of her pain. To some extent, I suppose this was the source of my pain as well.
Along with that pain, I felt my first yearning of leadership in my longing to protect my vulnerable little sister. Yet I couldn’t even safeguard myself. And I was powerless to defend her.
This was the moment I realized that things were not quite right in this world.
Miriam’s story resonated with me because she too was charged with watching her younger sibling.
We meet Miriam at the beginning of the book of Exodus keeping a vigilant eye over her baby brother, Moses, as he drifts down the Nile River.
Miriam was a servant and faithful witness, but she seems to appear only as a footnote in the story.
“For godly people and leaders specifically, pain is often the tool God uses to help us realize our passion and purpose.”
At first glance, we all think this story is about baby Moses.
But the story is actually bigger than Moses, and it’s bigger than Miriam.
To better understand Moses’ journey, we have to start at the beginning because what happens in our formative years has a way of shaping our adult lives.
As we reflect, we come to understand that Moses’ story and ours are all a part of God’s redemptive story.
God’s big story of creation, fall, and redemption is steeped in pain.
For godly people and leaders specifically, pain is often the tool God uses to help us realize our passion and purpose.
Being exposed to the reality of racism as a child and feeling helpless to do anything about it revealed my pain. For Moses, the pain was revealed in the basket that held his three-month-old body afloat in the water.
It was not a pain that he bore—not yet anyway—but it was the pain of his community.
In reading we learn quickly that the Exodus narrative is not just a story about Moses or his sister, Miriam.
Exodus teaches us about what God is doing in the midst of a people group to accomplish His will on earth.
God had heard the cries of the enslaved Hebrew community, and He intended to do something about it.
God would use Moses to deliver His people out of their pain.
Natasha Sistrunk Robinson is the founder and chairperson of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Leadership LINKS, Inc. She is an international speaker, leadership consultant, diversity and mentoring coach with nearly 20 years of leadership experience in the military, federal government, church, seminary, and nonprofit sectors. She has authored the books, Mentor for Life: Finding Purpose through Intentional Discipleship and Hope for Us: Knowing God Through the Nicene Creed.
She is a doctoral student at North Park Theological Seminary, and a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Charlotte (cum laude, M.A. Christian Leadership) and the U.S. Naval Academy. She has served as a Marine Corps officer and employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Natasha is also the host of A Sojourner’s Truth: Conversations for a Changing Culturepodcast.
A Sojourner’s Truth: Choosing Freedom and Courage in a Divided World is an African American girl’s journey from South Carolina to the United States Naval Academy, and then to her calling as an international speaker, mentor, and thought-leader. Intertwined with Natasha’s story is the story of Moses, a leader who was born into a marginalized people group, resisted the injustices of Pharaoh, denied the power of Egypt, and trusted God even when he did not fully understand where he was going. Along the way she explores the spiritual and physical tensions of truth telling, character and leadership development, and bridge building across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender lines.
July 4, 2019
When Freedom Really Means Something to You, This Happens
Historic.
Yeah, I’ve got no idea when somebody actually made the declaration that this whole shebang is of historic proportions — I just know there’s a whole bunch of us living in uncharted territory this year.
Living in the land of the brave.
What I do know is that when the rains started in March — they didn’t stop.
It’s been the wettest 12-months in recorded history. More rain this year than in 120 years of record-keeping.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
“Nothing is lost in the waiting process — because waiting is a growth process.”
Seemed like the rains this spring might wash our farm straight away. It felt strangely biblical, standing there at the farmhouse back window watching it pour, waiting for our window of opportunity, waiting to plant a crop, waiting through 40 days and 40 nights of rain.
But the Farmer drowned all fears in faith, and he kept murmuring it while rain thrummed the roof day after day:
Nothing is lost in the waiting process —- because waiting is a growth process. Waiting is growing us.
Waiting is gestating a greater grace.
“When God said, ‘Let My people go’ — He didn’t mean for people to go their own way, or the easy way, or the well-travelled wide ways — but to go His way.”
Always:
Longing is enlarging.
And we believed:
Looking for a window of opportunity will let you see a land of opportunity.
When the sky finally relents and parts, when our window of opportunity finally cracks open, the whole countryside is this exodus of tractors and planters moving out into the land.
Dust rolls like freedom rolls.
The land breaks open to plant hope.
Families and neighbors rise to the occasion the way all people should always rise: together.
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi Voskamp
Levi VoskampLiving in the land of the hardworking brave looks like an exodus out of the land of fear to forge forward into the land of the faithful and free. It’s like the waters have parted and we’re all moving out into dry land and it’s all I can see, across fields, across the land:
Real freedom plants more of heaven here.
“Real freedom is the hallmark of Christendom, and it releases victims, and it revolutionizes systems and it destroys racism, and it ushers in more of the Kingdom.”
When God said, “Let My people go” — He didn’t mean for people to go their own way, or the easy way, or the well-travelled wide ways — but to go His way.
Real freedom brings more of the Kingdom.
Real freedom releases you into all of God.
When God beckoned us all out of a land of oppression and into a land of freedom, He said, “Let my people go — that they may worship me…” (Ex. 7:16)
So it has always been:
Real freedom
sings a worship anthem.
Real freedom
is the hallmark of Christendom, and it releases victims, and it revolutionizes systems and it destroys racism, and it ushers in more of the Kingdom.
Real Freedom
is welcome.
When God meant to set the people free and plant them in the Promise Land, He said: “Let my people go — that they may serve me” (Ex. 7:16)
Real freedom means we get to freely serve.
“Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.”
Real freedom ultimately frees us from being self-serving to serving others and God with all of our being.
Real freedom releases us from all bondage, and bonds us to the heart of God.
Watching a whole countryside of generational farmers move out into the land, move together to work the earth and grow food and freedom and more of His glory in all this light, there is this undeniable feeling, this knowing, of being planted, rooted, in truth:
Independent of what comes, we are dependent upon God and that is the greatest freedom of all.
And the soil under us is always alive and fertile, and now is the window of time we’ve been given to plant possibility, from the farmers’ midwest fields, to the winding vineyards up the western coast, to the school playgrounds ringing with our kids’ laughter on small town back streets, to the abandoned lots made basketball courts in the downtown core where our kids’ shoot hoops till the stars come out, to every single down-trodden heart that is struggling for a place just to safely breathe.
Levi Voskamp
“The greatest freedom we have across this land is the freedom to come right to God at any time.”
Now is the time to sow seeds of hope across this land exactly where there seems to be none, to classrooms where teachers pray long after the last student leaves, to food banks where forgotten vets try to scrounge up their next meal, to nursing home dining rooms where the faithful giants, on whose shoulders we now stand, to the reaching hands of desperate families in a global refugee crisis of image-of-God-bearers that keeps growing — because we can never stop working for freedom in places flooded with despair, because we can never give up even when it seems like the crises won’t let up.
The greatest freedom we have across this land is the freedom to come right to God at any time.
Whether we’re standing in flooding fields or burning the midnight oil to keep things afloat, or taking another shift to pay the bills or fighting systemic injustice, fighting to keep our families together, fighting addictions, or fighting to stay awake in prayer:
No matter where we stand in this land, we’re all standing on a foundation of faith.
And yeah, there isn’t a farmer working this land who doesn’t know the adage of generations of farmers: Corn’s gotta be knee-high come first week of July.
But this time around, because of the rains that forced a late start, the corn may not be knee-high — but there are generations of men and women living their faith on their knees, generations standing neck-high in hard times but raising hands higher in praise, generations whose freedom in the land has so grown their hearts that they can’t bear anything less than sharing that freedom with those buried in hopelessness.
When the last light ignites across all this land planted even now with hope, it’s like this fireworks of faith.
Freedom can keep cracking through dark and not be stopped when the brave live a faith of epic, historic proportions.
This land can fill with glorious light that keeps on reaching right out.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be in the midst of what is?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
July 1, 2019
The Remedy to Insecurity: the key to getting out of our own way and living the life we’re made to live
Empowering women. That’s the heart behind what Jordan Lee Dooley does. In doing so, she has become a go-to source that hundreds of thousands of women around the world look to for daily inspiration. Her unapologetic love for Jesus and her passion to help women overcome the lie that you can’t live your God-given purpose until you reach a certain goal or milestone is a powerful message we all need to hear. It’s about who we are, not what we do. And it’s a grace to welcome Jordan to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Jordan Lee Dooley
Have you ever wondered what it really takes to live a meaningful life?
More than that, do you ever catch yourself feeling overwhelmed by a thought along the lines of what gives me meaning?
I remember as a teenager sitting in my bedroom, which had been ever so stylishly painted hot pink and covered in zebra stripes, feeling overwhelmed by approaching life changes such as high school graduation and college applications.
“God, who am I?”
The impending responsibility and decisions ahead made me look at my life and ask, Who am I? What am I even supposed to do?
Well, at least I had the questions in the right order.
I believe we must know who we are if we’re ever going to discover what we are made to do.
While my faith was not yet personal (nor was it very strong), I thought perhaps it would help to ask God the questions I was wrestling with in my heart.
I clearly remember looking up to heaven (well, actually it was my ceiling fan, but you know what I mean) and asking out loud, “God, who am I?”
I genuinely expected to get a response with a running list of affirmations such as, You are a hardworking student. You are a good big sister. You are a talented athlete. (Okay, that last one might have been a stretch.)
To my dismay, I didn’t get any of those answers. In fact, I didn’t get anything at first. Do you ever feel as if God sends your prayers to voice mail when an answer doesn’t come right away? That’s what I thought in that moment. Nevertheless, I tried again: “God, who the heck am I?”
Immediately, one single word came to my heart: Mine.
“It changes everything when I understand that who I am is not based on what I do but rather on who God says I am.”
I was so taken aback by such a simple, profound answer that in the moment I didn’t know if it was really God or just my own thoughts. I’ve since pondered that—for years, I might add.
Looking back, as well as taking into consideration other times God has touched my heart, I’m now convinced it really was God giving me the core lesson I needed to learn for life. This one word coming to my heart was a very distinct, defining moment of my journey to understanding both myself and my Creator.
So why do I bring this up?
I bring it up because it changes everything when I understand that who I am is not based on what I do but rather on who God says I am.
Seventeen-year-old Jordan wasn’t the sum of her accomplishments, titles, or labels. In fact, all that was secondary.
If I believe that’s true—if I actually believe that who I am holds more value than what I can prove—shouldn’t that change everything?
That one key truth gives me value, worth, authority, power, and confidence. I found my answer to life’s biggest question in a dialogue so profoundly simple that many of us don’t even dare to have it.
I’m not claiming to understand everything there is to know about God. In fact, I still wrestle with doubts and hard questions I’ll probably never have answered. That’s part of being human. That’s part of faith. You can’t have faith if you have all the answers.
I don’t know about you, but I have seen enough evidence in my own life to know there is more to me than what I do.
“I don’t know about you, but I have seen enough evidence in my own life to know there is more to me than what I do.”
The Creator of the entire universe sees me in the middle of my mess and says, “ That one. She’s Mine.” And I believe He says the same about you.
The Antidote to Insecurity
I’ve been writing in a local coffee shop recently, and the other day I ran into Zach, a family friend. Round tables, big windows, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee surrounded us as we caught up over cold brew. I told him about this book and how I was trying to piece together words that make sense, and he filled me in on some projects he and his wife, Megan, were working on.
As we talked about purpose and destiny, as well as confidence and dreams, he said something that was so simple but so profound: “We always live out of who we believe we are.”
Whoa.
I stood up as I exclaimed, “That’s it! That’s it!”
“What’s it?” he asked.
“Identity is the remedy to insecurity. It’s the key to getting out of our own way and living the life we’re made to live!”
If I’ve learned anything about myself, it’s that I fail to live with purpose when I feel insecure, especially when I allow my insecurity to become my entire identity.
I put myself in a box when I let my circumstances or the expectations I believe I must live up to dictate my identity and, therefore, my destiny. I lock myself inside the box of labels and limiting beliefs when statements such as “I feel insecure about ______” begin sounding more like “I am insecure.”
When insecurity becomes an identity, we’ve got a major problem.
Without fail, when I forget who I truly am, I get stuck.
“Without fail, when I forget who I truly am, I get stuck.”
If I look back on times when I felt most insecure, I notice something profound: it wasn’t when I was failing but when I was on the verge of stepping into my destiny that insecurity tripped me up and held me back.
If I believe that the opposite of insecurity is a secure identity as a child of God, then actually living as though that’s who I am (rather than just nodding in agreement when my pastor says so) is also a prerequisite for living with purpose.
I can do what I’m made to do only when I know who I am.
Perhaps the reason we so easily find ourselves feeling insecure is that we tend to get that backward. We try to derive our worth and identity from what we do and the labels we wear, rather than letting our lives reflect who God is in us and who He says we are.
I find it interesting how quickly and eagerly we bear the image of the world, such as by sporting a new out t and proudly representing our favorite brands, yet how reluctant we are to fully embrace our identity.
That’s where so many of us get stuck.
“The key to overcoming insecurities, expectations, and the pressure to prove, then, is knowing and living out of our true identity.”
That’s why we wander about asking What is my purpose? when we should be asking How can I live out of who I already am?
When I find my identity in the things of the world—such as my circumstances, appearance, accomplishments, reputation, or status—purpose will always be out of reach because putting my identity in such places leads to insecurity.
Why? Because those are not secure places; they don’t last.
Our status or circumstances might change, our accomplishments are temporary, and we cannot take our accolades with us when we breathe our last breath.
The key to overcoming insecurities, expectations, and the pressure to prove, then, is knowing and living out of our true identity.
We always live out of who we believe we are.
Jordan Lee Dooley has built a massive online following by sharing creative and practical tools to help women reach their potential and cultivate a purposeful life. Embracing her Indiana roots, Jordan shares a simple life with her husband, Matt, and their dog, Hoosier.
Does it ever seem like you still have to find your purpose or that you’re stuck with “unfigured-out dreams”? Do you feel the pressure to prove yourself or worry about what others will think? You are not the only one. Own Your Everyday is an empowering girlfriend’s guide to a purpose-driven life.
[ Our humble thanks to Waterbrook for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
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