Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 99
June 29, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.29.19]
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:
Alex Robciuc
Alex Robciuc
Alex Robciuc
deeply exhale and surround yourself with beauty this weekend –
and his work he shares with us here? Too good to miss…
yup, at 94?!!? she’s doing this…
What can we go do today?!
such a brilliant idea! Rinse, read, repeat.
Come see how these laundromats are becoming libraries
cheering wildly: How this Teacher is Making Kindness Part of the Curriculum #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
This 13-year-old opened a bakery.
For every cupcake he sells, he gives one to the homeless
so could you do this? they’re jumping as much as they can
“View of the Sea at Scheveningen” (1882). (Photo: Wikimedia Commons [Public domain])
so thought this was interesting: 5 Real-Life Locations That Inspired Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings
a class of 1 – the last student from a small, remote island school graduates
Angela Moulton
Angela Moulton
Angela Moulton
couldn’t take my eyes off of her work here
this artist uses thick brushstrokes to create her paintings
Want to Raise Successful Kids?
They’re saying we should do these 5 things every day
just kinda beautiful: when family is together under one roof
LOVE what she is doing here: looking for MORE GOOD!
She’s been on a three-year road trip documenting acts of human kindness
Cannot WAIT to listen! THRILLING!
The Made for This Podcast with Jennie Allen releases July 1st! Two episodes release each week – one episode of Jennie teaching through Philippians and one interview.
Short. Fun. Truth. Real conversation about the struggles we face and the God that sets us free.
Set free and running with God, this is what you were made for. You were made for connection.
tears at his story: “Once you find your fit, you find your calling, then your purpose.”
This man shares his Journey from prison to college graduation
Anita Demianowicz /
Anita Demianowicz
Anita Demianowicz
so she traveled around the world to take photos of the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises
stunning — just had to share
glory, glory, glory
How the Gospel Redeems Our Feelings
when you see love on a battle field
what a story here: please don’t miss this one…
“no matter how broken you are, no matter how lost, keep going…”
“It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down in life, it’s about how many times you get back up that truly determines your quality of life.”
Post of the week from these parts here
…So kinda brimmed and spilled through this whole thing. Because everyone enters marriage expecting a forever thing — yet marriages are fragile things.
And I’ve known it…on some pitch black roads when I didn’t know where to turn or how to keep going, and undoubtedly, it could all gone another way, but it’s our story, in defiant spite of me:
What is the Secret Miracle of Marriage (And About Marriage Renewal Vows)
Your flourishing is going to happen with God, so know who He is.
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
This gentle book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.
Order Your Way to Abundance Here
on repeat this week: With You
…just for today — DO. NOT. WORRY. “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matt6:34MSG
Just for today: Be a prayer warrior–not a panicked worrier.
Worry is just the facade of taking action — when prayer really is.
Bottom line — keep breathing deep and give your worries to God — He’ll give you His peace.
His Word gently lifts our chins:
“The Lord bless you & keep you;
the Lord make His face to shine upon you & be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you & give you peace.” Nu.6
[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.
June 25, 2019
What is the Secret Miracle of Marriage (And About Marriage Renewal Vows)
My mama walked out on my dad on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary.
Today is the eve of ours.
We are married now as long as my parents were when their marriage ended with her driving away heartbroken in the middle of the night in a used Honda Civic he never knew she bought, and him devastated and begging we all tell him where she was.
It would be more than six months before any of us knew.
Marriage is a mystery often solved by grace.
“Marriage is a mystery often solved by grace.”
We were married the 25th of June, 1994.
My parents were married 23 years prior, on the 26th of June. And when we walked down the aisle, I think on some level, I thought I was mirroring their marriage. I just didn’t know how very nearly their story could have been ours.
I just thought, like them, we’d weather through any financial flattenings, the inevitable diverging of dreams, even if there was the coffin of a child, a walking away from the fresh dirt of a daughter’s grave.
But their nigh-unto-25-year marriage abruptly ended on our hardly-but-a-second-old 2nd wedding anniversary, and what the preacher man had said during our marriage ceremony should have been my premonition — for all of us.
Pastor Dixon looked over his glasses at me during our ceremony and said what we didn’t expect to frame our vows: “Ann. I don’t know if you know that John Denver song, Annie’s Song?”
Did he know that it was my father’s favorite song, the one that my mother played on the piano for him on Sunday nights on a piano in desperate need of a tuning but none of us even noticed for the glory of it?
I glanced past my veil to my dad brushing away the tears running down his cheeks, my mother squeezing his other hand.
“Did you know that John Denver had written those lyrics for his wife, Annie: “You fill up my senses — like a night in the forest … Come let me love you, come love me again.”
I could hear my mother singing, her voice rising with the notes, see my father laying tired on the living room couch on a Sunday night, asking her to play it again.
“Everyone enters marriage expecting a forever thing — yet marriages are fragile things.”
Love is an endless coming home.
“And the song so inspired musician James Galway —- that he wrote an album of love songs for his wife, named Songs for Annie — “ The preacher’s English accent had boomed across the sanctuary and I’d smiled nervous into my almost-husband’s eyes.
“And then John Denver divorced his Annie. And James Galway ended up divorcing his wife.”
I — hadn’t expected that turn in the story. For a myriad of shattering reasons, love songs can bleed into laments and marriages can not survive. That could have been us. That should have been us. That would have been us — but for the Grace of God.
Everyone enters marriage expecting a forever thing — yet marriages are fragile things. Marriage can be tough as nails, and yet still be vulnerably tender as a bare, beating heart.
I wish now I had looked over at my parents in that moment. Did they have any idea their own marriage would experience a fatal heart attack and die within two years?
Every single marriage is a miracle of grace. I’ve about wept over the unmerited grace of ours.
There were whole seasons, I drank the Kool-Aid of self-entitlement and didn’t water the relationship that is us. Long dry spells that I only saw what wasn’t, instead of who I could be. I broke promises, and about broke family, and I out and out broke hearts — mine and his both. It bears repeating: Marriage is never an accomplishment to be proud of but a miracle to give thanks for.
“Marriage is never an accomplishment to be proud of but a miracle to give thanks for.”
I couldn’t have known it when we said I do, but I’ve known on it on some pitch black roads when didn’t know where to turn or how to keep going, and undoubtedly, it could all gone another way, but it’s our story, in defiant spite of me:
The covenant that binds can be what sets you free to be.
The covenant that binds can be what holds when everything’s blowing up.
The covenant that binds can bond your heart to your one place of belonging, when everything else lets go.
We may have taken the rather unconventional route of writing our own vows, and I confess, I forget by and large most of what we vowed, which, yes, is perhaps proof positive that either why one should stick with the traditional vows, or alternatively, why one should frame their vows and vow them again every anniversary — but what I remember is this, because we’ve said it to each other countless times over the last 2 and a half decades: “I promise to dig deep channels of communication between my soul and yours.”
I would rewrite our vows now — because I am only still now coming to understand:
“Giving your hand in marriage means handling another soul with the deepest care.”
I promise to dig deep channels of communication between my soul and yours — and the only way to dig those deep channels of communication, is with shards of the heart.
I promise courage to break open my heart in vulnerability — so you can walk into a deeper intimacy.
I promise to be care-ful and full of care with your heart — because: Giving your hand in marriage means handling another soul with the deepest care.
I promise to take time and daily sit down with a cup and cup your heart — because: Give a marriage only scraps of time and it will about starve to death.
I promise to live forgiveness because nothing else is life-giving. Because: Forgiveness gives oxygen to the soul.
I promise to destroy shame and never you — because: Shame says things can never change. Shame beats down and grace lifts up and love makes a way through.
“Forgiveness gives oxygen to the soul.”
And I promise to wear a habit of gratitude — because thanksgiving gives us a way out of entitlement and judgement and control management and gratefulness gives us a fulfilled life.
And don’t I know it: Marriage makes promises but broken people break promises and this can break a heart.
But there is a God who is faithful when we are faithless, a God who walks through the covenants we stumble through, a God who keeps the promises that we keep trying to keep because Grace never fails to keep coming to meet us. No matter what happens — and this is all that matters.
Because He alone fulfills His promise:
You don’t need all the people to love you, but One to love you always.
How do you live through a grace you don’t deserve, except to try to serve that grace to everyone passing by?
Joy ProutyWhen I heard Annie’s Song the other day, for the first time in what seemed like decades, drifting achingly from a bedroom of one of the kids our love has made, I’d stopped at the top of the stairs, caught in a time-warp back to our wedding day.
“The fairytale weddings are actually the marriages that tell the full story of the Gospel.“
The man who married this farm-girl Annie 25 years ago tomorrow, he wouldn’t know the promises of Annie’s Song if his life depended on it, has never written a poem or a love song in his life.
But there are men who actually live their love song promises with a steady faithfulness that could be mistaken for boring — but the truth is:
Those who experience the boring love of one heart boring deeply into their heart live drunk with the grace from that well.
When we made our promises as baby-faced kids 25 years ago, how could we have known it:
The fairytale weddings are actually the marriages that tell the full story of the Gospel.
The ever-hope-after-everything story that simply says: Take my hand and I take yours and there is a Grace that takes even us now —
a grace that fills up the senses, on the eve of forever.
Pick up my raw story of The Broken Way and how to love when it’s hard. This one’s for all of us who have felt our hearts break a bit…
This one’s for the brave and the busted and the real and dreamers and the sufferers and the believers.
This one’s for those who dare to take The Broken Way… into the genuinely abundant life.
June 24, 2019
Because it’s Time to Shout Their Worth
When Heather Avis began to pursue motherhood, she had no idea it would find her three times, all through adoption. She had no idea she would have two children with Down syndrome and a child with a different color skin than hers. When Heather pursued motherhood, she had no idea she was pursuing the role of advocate, or as she likes to say, ‘shouter of worth’. Heather and I connected over broken hearts on a bus in Israel. As our friendship has unfolded it has been my pleasure to watch Heather not only step into her role as a mother but to watch her shout her kids worth for all the world to hear and in so doing, showing the world how God loves all the different people in it. Heather’s advocacy is creating spaces in this world, kingdom minded spaces, where everyone can belong. It’s a grace to welcome Heather to the farm’s front porch today…
I
have learned so much from my kids over the years as I’ve stepped into spaces I didn’t know existed.
And the longer I linger in these spaces, the more I’ve been exposed to the injustices people such as my kids are expected to live with.
And the more exposure I have to these injustices, the more determined I am to be an advocate for change, to shout the worth of my children and others who continue to be seen as less worthy based on their ability or the color of their skin.
Once, during a podcast interview, I was asked if I had always been an advocate or if I had character traits that naturally led me to advocacy.
“I always had a heart for the underdog.”
Before the interviewer asked the question, I hadn’t thought about it much. When I look back on my childhood, I can see I always had a heart for the underdog.
I believe this is because I often felt like an underdog myself.
Maybe it’s because I’m a middle child (and all the middle children nodded their heads), or maybe it’s because I’m an Enneagram Two (and all the Enneagram Twos nodded their heads).
But I really do believe that God was preparing me, even in childhood, to be a shouter of worth with a voice loud enough to step up onto a platform when needed.
It seems to me that advocacy is something very few people actually seek out, as was the case for me.
The Lucky Few
The Lucky Few
The Lucky Few
The Lucky Few
The Lucky Few
The Lucky FewBeing an advocate is almost always emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting. It’s a heck of a lot easier to live within our bubbles—where everyone looks and thinks and acts like us—than it is to burst those bubbles.
“If our view of people who are different from us is blurry, then our view of God is blurry as well.”
But do you know what happens when you live inside a bubble? It blurs your vision on everything outside the bubble.
In other words, you can’t see straight.
And if our view of people who are different from us is blurry, then our view of God is blurry as well.
As a middle-class physically and intellectually abled white woman, I was born into a pretty sweet little bubble.
It wasn’t until I took some trips outside the United States in my younger years and then later adopted Macyn, Truly, and August that I could recognize I’d been living in a bubble at all.
Once I could see the world a little more clearly, once I saw how the systems that had worked just fine for me didn’t work for my kids and so many others, I could no longer sit comfortably in silence.
And that’s how and when I became an advocate.
No, we rarely go looking for advocacy; rather she comes popping our bubbles and pounding on our door, and given the reality of our circumstances, we gladly let her in.
It’s only when our circumstances do not require advocacy that we get to decide whether we want to be an advocate.
And that ability to choose advocacy is a privilege—a privilege I once possessed, before kids with Down syndrome or dark skin entered my life.
Before Macyn, Truly, and August, when I saw certain injustices happening in the world, I could choose to raise my voice in opposition, or I could choose to remain quiet.
But now that these three babes are in my life, there’s no question what my response will be when a person or a system treats my kids as less than fully worthy—I am going to advocate for them by shouting their worth at the top of my lungs.
“Jesus was radically pro-underdog. He was and is the greatest shouter of worth.”
Jesus was the greatest advocate and shouter of worth to ever live. He entered the systems in place during His time on earth, and He said, “Nuh-uh! This is not going to work, friends.” (This exact wording may not be found in the Bible.)
His radical love of the underdog had all the system makers seething (remember the Pharisees?). He taught some pretty out-there stuff, such as love your enemy; forgive unconditionally; leave the many to save the one; people outside your ethnicity/gender/culture are your equals—these were, and let’s be honest, still are, radical ideas.
And He spent the majority of His ministry life on earth with the people who did not fit or even have access to the systems in place—women, people with leprosy, those who were differently abled, and so many other outcasts of society.
Jesus was radically pro-underdog. He was and is the greatest shouter of worth.
So if we love Jesus, if we are familiar with His work on earth, then we can no longer say we don’t know. Because we know.
And if we know, then we have the great privilege of choosing to step boldly into our roles as advocates for others.
As people who love Jesus and strive to be more like Him, none of us get to sit this one out.
Advocacy is not only for those of us born into a privileged space; it is for everyone. Even if you are among those who need others to shout your worth, there is someone sitting behind you who needs you to shout theirs.
“Just imagine, then, a whole world of people who love radically”
Just imagine, then, a whole world of people who love radically, who live a lifestyle of looking beyond their bubbles to see who’s left out, who scoot over to make some room, who shout at the top of their lungs, I see your worth!
You are worthy of life!
Worthy of a place to live!
Worthy of an education!
Worthy of a job!
Worthy of our love!
Worthy of our forgiveness!
Worthy of our positive assumptions!
When we use our voices to shout the worth of others, it drowns out all the other voices, and the world hears just one thing—the love of Jesus!
Narrative shifter, author and mama to three adopted kids—two with Down Syndrome—Heather Avis has made it her mission to introduce the world to the unique gifts of those pushed to the edges of society. She and her husband run, The Lucky Few, a social advocacy brand with an emphasis on shifting the Down syndrome narrative.
In her newest book, Scoot Over and Make Some Room Heather tells hilarious stories of her growing kids—spontaneous dance parties, forgotten pants, and navigating the challenges and joys of parenthood. She shares heartbreaking moments when her kids were denied a place at the table and when she had to fight for their voices to be heard. It is a part inspiring narrative and part encouraging challenge for us all to listen and learn from those we’re prone to ignore.
This book is an invitation to a table where space is unlimited, and every voice can be heard. Because Heather has learned when you open your life to the wild beauty of every unique individual, you’ll discover your own colorful soul and the extraordinary, abundant heart of God.
[ Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
June 22, 2019
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.22.19]
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:
Nathaniel Wise
Nathaniel Wise
Nathaniel Wise
adventure outside and enjoy your weekend – all the earth is full of His glory!
we can all learn from how they start their day!
Reading Aloud to Middle School Students
Hearing books read aloud benefits older students, enhancing language arts instruction and building a community of readers.
because sometimes spontaneous interactions are simply the very best
Man Spends His Life Documenting Every Animal Species in the World
so what do you think? Can Kids Navigate Their Way Across London Alone?
‘They love you for good reasons.’ Tacoma kindergarten teacher to retire after 48 years
there’s value in preserving the memory of all that came before
“Do you have any secrets to longevity and staying in shape?
To stay in shape, just keep active. Keep your weight down and exercise. Have a lot of passions, things that you are interested in. Keep interested in a lot of things to keep you busy and keep your mind busy.”
#1000Gifts
Israelis Welcome ‘Miracle’ Rains as Sea of Galilee Rises
See Your Life with Fresh Eyes:
Stop seeing your life through the eyes of the critic and start seeing your life through the eyes of the God who calls you beloved.
this blind mountain biker has taught himself how to see the world with sound
come and see!
This map shows the most commonly spoken language in every US state, excluding English and Spanish
reunions like these never get old
Abraham Lincoln Bible surfaces, offers clues to his religious beliefs
“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.”
she’s helping kids with disabilities get to their own starting line
Yes: Let Your Waiting Say, ‘I Trust You’
He already has a plan…thank you, Lord… and Amen
Photo: ESA-A.Gerst
the wonder of this! This is what a sunset on Earth looks like from above.
lost… but also found
The wisdom of a third grade dropout changed his life
a new kidney as well as a new dad by his side
Post of the week from these parts here:
… feel the weight lift right off with this:
Burnout Cure: 5 Secrets to Rest & Recharge
come along?! Glory, glory, glory
What do you do when you wake up and feel like you’re not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?
In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness.
Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world? These tender devotionals dare us to embrace any and all brokenness as a gift that moves us closer to the heart of God.
This gentle book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.
Order Your Way to Abundance Here
on repeat this week: I will send out an army to find you… I will rescue you
…today — Breathe Grace.
Grant Grace. Live Grace.
Inhale His Grace. Exhale His Grace.
Anger is contagious — so is grace.
[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.
June 20, 2019
Burnout Cure: 5 Secrets to Rest & Recharge
Mrs. Martin, she was my grade 2 teacher, and she said I couldn’t keep any rhythm to save my life.
She’d be standing there in that red pleated dress of hers, tapping glossy black patent leather pumps:
“For there to be rhythm — there has to be rests. You’ve got to listen know where the rests come,” and she tried to show my little grade 2 self in my scuffed up Mary Janes and green polyester pants, how to clap it out.
Beat, beat — rest. Beat, beat — rest.
But I’ll just straight up confess that I never quite got the hang of the rhythm of music and moves, and I am far older now than Mrs. Martin was then — but when I saw Mrs. Martin the other week in the produce section of Zehrs grocery, checking out the firmness of the tomatoes, I wished I’d been brave enough to tell her what I kinda get now:
Life beats you down unless you get the rhythm of the rests.
Wished I’d slipped up beside Mrs. Martin and helped her pick out the best tomatoes and told her how I’m still a slow learner, still learning how to still, so I hear the music in rhythm of things — still realizing:
Rest is a rhythm
you have to keep
so your soul can breathe
all the notes your life was made to sing.
Because …
Iftherearenospacesandpausesofrest —-
life loses its meaning.
But? If we make S P A C E in the middle of the PACE of things we find P E A C E.
It’s true: Work has its own rhythm — a steady pace of 30 minute work session, 60 minutes, 90 minutes.
And then? After the work beats — there are rest beats. There are Rest Rhythms — islands of 10, 15, 20 minutes — to sit in a hammock, a bit of time suspended in space, close your eyes, listen to the wind make a song of its own through chimes, pen something that speaks the language of your soul, breathe long and deep and be more about being — and less about doing.
I’d tell Mrs. Martin that I am daily working on these:
5 Secrets to DAILY Master the Art of Rest & Recharge
1. Daily Glory Soak: Sit outside and stare at the sky.
“If the whole earth is full of His glory, maybe our souls need a daily ‘glory soak.’”
So there is this rest rhythm — even 5 minutes in the middle of the day to: Look up into the limbs of a tree and stretch out your own arms and breathe in deep. The Japanese call it “forest bathing.”
And yet maybe —
If the whole earth is full of His glory, maybe our souls need a daily “glory soak.”
Our Grace Case Hammock Artisan: Mirna Hernández of Oyanca is a hammock producer from Masaya, the folklore capital of Nicaragua. She started in 1985 and now employs 25 artisans to execute each step of the hammock making process. The artisans are bringing you an experience of soft comfort and elegance, thanks to generations of traditional weaving by gifted Nicaraguan hands. The work of these hammocks helps to build a sustainable living for artisans and to maintain a traditional handcraft which is part of the Nicaraguan identity and pride.
Natural cotton hammock chair with Bohemian fringes and wooden cross bar. Reinforced hanging loop. Can hold up to 250lbs.
Bamboo and aluminum wind chime with a chevron design. Some aluminum tubes and portions of bamboo are stained dark brown for contrast. Eleven aluminum tubes produce varying tones.
Our Grace Case Windchime Artisan: The wind chime was made by a family enterprise lead by the couple, Daniel and Lourdes Rafon. Lourdes learned to make wind chimes through her cousin-in-law, and decided to begin a wind chime business with her husband in 1996, one year after they married. They now maintain a small number of workers whom they treat as part of their family.
Nothing says beauty quite the simplicity of grace. Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.2. Daily Gratitude List:
It been a habit of more than a decade for me and it has profoundly transformed my life in every way: Curl up with your journal and write down just three things every day that you’re grateful for you and you increase your happiness by 25% — for free!
“Joyfulness is a function of how we see, and how we see is a function of how we look at everything with gratefulness.”
“Joyfulness is a function of how we see, and how we see is a function of how we look at everything with gratefulness.” One Thousand Gifts
Take time to give thanks to God — and you give your soul what it wants most: Joy in God.
3. Daily Good Tunes:
I’m telling you: Good days need a good playlist.
Music reduces the stress hormone cortisol, strengthens one’s immune system, and decreases one’s sense of pain. Music is free medicine and soundtracks can help keep your soul on track.
Feel the rest between the beats, and your heartbeat gets the rest it needs.
Good tunes, good times.
Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.
Our Grace Case Journal Artisan: A few years ago, Lucy (not her real name) took my hand and asked me to come with her. She wanted to show me something.We walked the short block to her house. It was up on stilts and the stairs were questionable as to their capacity to hold me. But she beckoned me follow and I did. We ducked behind the rusty sheet of metal that acted as a door kept closed by the padlock on that moved from the outside during the day to inside at night. She wanted to show me the holes in the floor and how the rats have now eaten themselves a pathway into their space. He despair was over the way that they have now chewed into the thin mattress where her kids sleep. Full of shame and anger and overwhelming feelings of hopelessness she showed me. Not because she wanted pity. But because she wanted more work. More opportunities to provide for her family. That is what your purchase of these pro ducts does. It provides more work. More ways for families to provide for themselves and to build their kids a secure place to sleep at night. Today “Lucy” is building her 2nd solid block house. The first one she now rents to another family and this one she and her husband are building for themselves. Still so modest, but secure and clean. Lucy took in her own sister’s kids a few years ago when her sister died in childbirth. They are raising a family of five. Never doubt the impact of your hard work!
Nothing says beauty quite the simplicity of grace. Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.
Goat leather. Engraving “Grace Is Always Coming to Meet You”. Lined paper.
Our Grace Case Journal Artisans: “With endless need and limited resources, we partner with and invest in individuals and communities who actively seek to improve their current circumstances. Our partners are not passive recipients of charity, they are the primary change agent of their future. We are a catalyst for that change.”
100% oil tanned leather. Designed to hold a pair of headphones or a charging cable. Antiqued brass snap closure.
4. Daily Givenness:
It’s a true thing: Taking the time for intentional acts of givenness, instead of merely the one-off random acts kindness — is how to intentionally let your soul exhale.
Research indicates that living given makes you happier than getting more.
“The best way to de-stress it to daily bless.”
Intentionally give it forward in one way every day, and you decreases stress and strengthen mental health.
“The best way to de-stress it to daily bless.” The Broken Way
Live given, be the GIFT and give it forward today: Speak words that make someone stronger, give someone a coffee, choose Fairtrade and live a fair and good story and give someone the gift of empowering hope.
Live given with your life, live given to the wind of His spirit and rest in the music He makes through your life.
5. Daily God Meditation:
Turns out: A recent study indicates that Bible readers are less stressed than the general population, which is what His Word promises: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you“ (Isaiah 26:3).
Meditate on a verse from His Word all day and you rest in the rest of God.
Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.
100% of all profits from The Grace Case fully funds Mercy House’s transition home in Kenya for young mothers and their infants, young women who were victims of modern day slavery, oppression and poverty, who are now experiencing the redemptive dignity of work and vocation, and the responsibility and joy of learning to provide for their own child.
Nothing says beauty quite the simplicity of grace. Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.
I’m thinking Mrs. Martin was one of those who already knew it in her bones:
We are not human doings
working at looking supernatural,
but spiritual beings
doing what is humanly possible
and looking to Christ to do the supernatural.
“Be still and know God — and not forget who you are.”
We are not human doings working to make ourselves spiritually acceptable. We are spiritual beings resting in Christ to do what is humanly impossible.
And the music can come even now, and you can feel the expanse of it right within you, the way twilight seems to exhale at the end of the work: A soul doesn’t work without a Sabbath.
Be still
and know God —
to not forget who you are.
There’s a rhythm that can save your life.
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June 18, 2019
How to Find Contentment: A Powerful Life Transformation
John Cortines and Greg Baumer are two guys who get money. But far more importantly, they love Jesus and have allowed Him to renovate their hearts in a radical way. Their two families met at Harvard, which was the beginning of a transformation that took them from wanting more, to giving more. Their book True Riches: What Jesus Really Said About Money and Your Heart captures a new way to think about money, rooted in what Jesus taught. It’s a grace to welcome them to the front porch today…
guest post by John Cortines and Greg Baumer
S
eventy million dollars.
My friend shared the number in a matter-of-fact way, like he was giving us the time of day.
My wife, Megan, and I (John) were enjoying conversation with six Harvard MBA students in our Boston apartment in the fall of 2013.
We had just finished a fun-filled Thanksgiving celebration, and most of our classmates had gone home. A few were lingering to watch the end of a football game, and our discussion had turned to the question of “how much is enough?”
“How much is enough?”
Would we ever stop seeking more money, power, and influence?
Was there a point in life when it would be okay to stop pursuing more, smell the roses, and enjoy family and other pursuits?
It was the smartest guy in the room who was first to reveal his target: $70 million. We all had our own number, or at least a fuzzy idea of one.
At the time my friend shared his number I remember thinking, Gee. I must be a simple fellow. I’d be happy with a lot less.
But even though my number wasn’t even close to $70 million, I still had one in mind. And the truth is, no matter what number we all had in mind, if we ever reached it, we’d likely still struggle to cease our efforts reaching for more. It’s just the nature of this kind of thinking.
Do you have a number? If not a number, what about a concept of “enough”? Is there a size of house that you would never go beyond, or a type of car that you would never upgrade from?
Contentment, in contrast to the endless striving reflected above, is a posture of the heart that rests peacefully in our present circumstances, no matter what they look like.
It’s a healing balm that helps us feel satisfied, rather than restless.
But it can be hard to grasp, especially when we live in a culture driven so much by a consumer mentality.
Joy Prouty
Joy Prouty
Joy ProutyPerhaps the most pervasive evidence of our lack of contentment is the consumer debt problem.
In the most prosperous large economy in the history of the world, the United States in the twenty-first century, a large fraction of the population struggles to pay their bills and in fact falls further and further behind in their debts each month.
How is this possible? Perhaps the prevalence of consumer debt in our culture is merely the symptom of a deeper, hidden problem.
Could there be a sin pattern that is so pervasive, so normalized, that we’re blind to it, even as it consumes our lives and hinders our ability to connect with and serve God?
As a thought experiment, let’s imagine a Christian community with rampant and public sexual sin. Imagine standing in the church lobby and hearing a church elder bragging about cheating on his wife.
“Coveting, at its core, is simply the belief that if I had more, I’d be happy.”
Confused, you turn aside, then overhear a friend talking about flirting and making sexual advances toward a coworker. Could this church be a faithful church while tolerating such brazen sin?
This example sounds ridiculous, but our wealthy society has cultivated just this kind of public and pervasive normalization of another sin: the sin of coveting.
Some of us associate coveting with wanting someone else’s stuff. Coveting isn’t necessarily the desire to steal or take something from someone else, however.
Coveting, at its core, is simply the belief that if I had more, I’d be happy.
Think of it as striving, yearning, restlessly seeking more.
It is a form of idolatry that leads us away from God.
You may not hear people brag about sexual sin in the church lobby, but we’ve probably all overheard small talk about the things we want to experience or buy.
Being unhappy with our car and wanting a new one, chatting about so-and-so’s new house and how nice it is (and maybe what they paid for it), or comparing vacation plans—any of these seemingly innocent topics can be neck-deep in covetousness.
It might be easy to criticize young students at Harvard Business School, daydreaming about whether their “number” is $10 million or $70 million and debating the pros and cons of owning a private jet. However, when we experience envy over a friend’s kitchen remodel or a jealous twinge at the thought of someone else getting the newest smartphone, we’re guilty of the same sin.
“God invites us to become rich through the joy of contentment.”
Whether we’re chasing millions of dollars or just another day’s wages, each of our human hearts is prone to covet what others have, to continually be looking for more than we’re given.
Thankfully, God invites us to a greater joy—a path away from the treadmill of coveting.
As my pastor said, “There are two ways to be rich. One is to have a lot of money, and the other is to just not need a lot of money.”
God invites us to become rich the second way, through the joy of contentment.
John Cortines and Greg Baumer are a dynamic duo who passionately advocate for a grace-driven, Jesus-centered perspective on money. They each pursued a Harvard MBA in order to pad their lifestyles, but God intersected their journey and showed them the joy of simplicity and generosity.
In True Riches: What Jesus Really Said About Money and Your Heart, they invite us to explore the words of Jesus and experience four transformations in our financial journey with Christ.
[ Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
June 15, 2019
What Makes a Great Dad: A Letter to Your Husband
D
ear Father of our Babies,
To be honest with you, I fell in love with you when you were laying in a hospital bed with your arm around another girl.
She was curled into your shoulder and you were stroking her hair off her forehead and I’d have to be blind to not see how smitten you were with her.
I couldn’t have loved you more.
For five days, five nights, after what turned out to be her third open heart surgery, you held our youngest daughter in your strapping Dutch farmer arms, and you read her Chinese folktales and sang her old-time Gospel hymns, and you remembered how she likes all of her favorite foods and you told her bad Dad-jokes to try to ease some of the post-operative ache, and I can’t count how many times I heard you praying over her as she coughed and moaned and cried through the night.
“Dads aren’t made in delivery rooms, they are made by how they make room for their people every day.”
Dads aren’t made in delivery rooms, they are made by making room for their people every day.
Dads aren’t found on birth certificates like they’re forged every time there’s dying to self to let kids’ dreams be born.
Dads remember what it’s like to be a kid and remember what it’s like to be a child of God — and show their kids how to be both.
I’ve seen it a thousand times and I’ll go to the grave remembering it: you dog-tired but out there playing ball on the back lawn, you grinning sure to another round of hide and seek or Settlers of Catan, you staying up late to talk through big things going through little people’s heads — you being a roof for us all.
Don’t think for one hot minute that I miss it: You don’t merely work to the bone to support us — but you’re the one there to support our heads when we’re sick, support our hearts when we’re kinda broken, support our dreams when they’ve felt too heavy for any of us to bear.
You’ve done more than just carry our kids close — you’ve carried our world on your shoulders, you’ve carried our hopes like a lifeline that you’d rather die for than let go of, and there hasn’t been a day that you haven’t picked up and carried your cross because you know we are precisely made to bear the weight of glory and the load of a meaningful life.
“A Father doesn’t leave a legacy in monuments but in memories. A Father isn’t as concerned with bank accounts as he is about making deposits in hearts.”
The way you have lived your love has helped us all live. When boys pray to be half the man their father is, it’s because their father has loved wholeheartedly.
Pass down the campfire roasting forks and the box of fishing tackle and the way you laughed long on Sunday afternoons:
A Father doesn’t leave a legacy in monuments but in memories.
A Father isn’t as concerned with bank accounts as he is about making deposits in hearts.
A Father doesn’t pressure his kids to perform for him, but purposes to shape his life cruciform for his kids.
And I see you on the exhausting days, on the crisis days, on ordinary Saturdays, and the truth is: Every time you reached out to our kids, you reached out to me:
When a man loves the littlest of these, he has loved their mother.
How you’ve cared for the kids has cared for me.
“Dads don’t need capes —- their superpower to help us escape the dark is their hearts.”
On the morning of the 4th day post-op heart surgery, after you and I had gotten our baby girl dressed in her hero cape pajamas, you held her up in a tangle of medical wires and beeping monitors, helped her find her feet, and I watched her lean into you, watched you help her carry the weight of one agonizing step after another.
Witnessing the two of you inch down the hospital hallway, that was the moment I memorized:
Dads don’t need capes — their superpower to help us escape the dark is their hearts.
And I trace your heroic heart and what you mean to the family we have made:
You are our constant, like air in our lungs,
our always grounding, like a steadying gravity,
our shelter of shade in the beating heat of things,
and our constellation of courage that guides us toward Home.
When you and our littlest finally made it to the end of the hallway, she reached for you and when you scooped her up in your arms, I fell for you all over again and the way you carry us all on your supernatural cape of grace.
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [06.15.19]
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:
Warren Keelan
Warren Keelan
Warren Keelan
Warren Keelan
you know you need to exhale & enjoy all this wonder
he captures our oceans like no one else I know
because it is ALL kinds of beautiful:
One of the greatest joys of my life was to share these Bibles
The Jesus Storybook Bible — Now Available in 38 Languages
This 16th-Century Italian Church Is Built into the Side of a Cliff
he’s a one of a kind artist – who’s learned how to leave his mark
a book hotel? yup, you can sleep in a suite surrounded by books
Don’t. I. Know. It. So grateful for the love of a nurse…
cheering loudly for him:
He started as a custodian. Now he’s a principal in the same school district.
because some kinds of happiness need no words
Emily Gibson
Emily Gibson
Emily Gibson
sometimes the best way to honor someone – is to do something honorable
9-year-old boy pays off entire school lunch debt for his class after saving his allowance #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
come see how he’s learning to embrace his disability: amazing
An experiment with joy
Happy Father’s Day
Don’t hold back. Tell them now. Why are you grateful?
Unusual grace: How God showed one man a loving path to a family in mourning
an extraordinary invitation to fly
…as a mama of a child with a heart defect & another with Type 1 diabetes —
yep, this is kinda pure gold to love families doing all the medical things
they’re creating a positive change in Haiti
a loving community? makes all the difference
“His answer is ok, be weak, so I can be strong.”
Post of the week from these parts here
…okay, these are tender times, and in the midst of a lot of pain and unspoken broken, maybe this can’t really wait:
#MeToo: How to Raise Boys to be Real Men
YES: agree on Jesus
Maybe in this month of June, 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
on repeat this week: Good, Good Father
…yeah, when you’re the mother of four sons, when you’re wanting to raise up real men, when you’re reflecting much on fathers and what it means to be a real man, this #MeTooWeToo awakening in the church is not about somebody else…it’s about us. And it’s about time, right about now, for us to stand up and say hard and holy things to all our sons right now because this can’t really wait.
Because real Manhood knows the heart of God for the daughters of His heart.
And unless a man looks to Jesus, a man doesn’t know how to treat a woman.
When God decided to pull on skin and make His visitation into the world, He didn’t show up in some backroom of an inner boy’s club or insert Himself at a boardroom table with all the power brokers.
What God chose as best was to make His entry point into the world through the holy space of a woman, to enfold Himself inside of a woman, to be held and nourished and cared for by a woman that’s the jolting truth of how God loves women with His honor.
Christ never beat down a woman with harsh words or lusting eyes or sneering innuendos, but He stepped in and stopped a broken woman from the abuse of angry men
Christ didn’t degrade women in His talk, but He made women heroes in His stories. He invited a woman with a coin and broom to reveal the truth about the Kingdom of God . That’s how God loves women with His words.
Christ didn’t demonize women but He accepted the presence of a woman reviled by the self-righteous, and He welcomed the rejected though he lost the respect of the religious. That’s how God loves women with His grace.
When Christ stepped out of that black tomb, He still didn’t choose to first manifest Himself to prestigious officials, religious leaders, the Twelve, or to any man in any position — but instead He revealed Himself first to the women, He entrusted the veracity of His resurrection to the testimony of the women, He offered the privilege of proclaiming Christ as the risen Savior to the women, though no court at the time would accept their testimony. That’s how God loves women with His regard.
And know this…there are more than a few good men.
There are more than a few good men rising, more than a few good men doing hard and holy things, more than a few good men who elevate women because they’re about elevating Christ.
Real men like their Father who laid down His life for His priceless daughters.
[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.
June 12, 2019
#MeToo: How to Raise Boys to be Real Men
D
ear Boys We’re Raising to be Real Men,
When you’re the mother of four sons, when you’re wanting to raise up real men, when you’re reflecting much on fathers and what it means to be a real man, this #MeTooWeToo awakening in the church is not about somebody else…it’s about us. And it’s about time, right about now, for us to stand up and say hard and holy things to all our sons right now because this can’t really wait.
Honestly, this doesn’t begin with just understanding the necessity of consent or the concerns around alcohol or what it means to be a thoughtful man who thinks with his head and not his hormones.
Honestly, Sons — this begins with a woman like your mama bringing home a man-child in her arms and what it means to raise up a real man.
Joy Prouty
Levi Voskamp
Joy ProutyIt begins with one mama looking into her son’s eyes for the next 18 years and showing young men what it means to be a woman, showing every son what a woman is worth, teaching every son the value of a woman.
“It was a woman who gave you life, it was a woman who was the grace of God that kept you alive.”
I brought the first of you boys home when I was 21.
I cradled you, and a woman poured out of herself to keep you alive. You rooted hungry and it was the roots of a woman that nourished you. It was a woman who gave you life, it was a woman who was the grace of God that kept you alive.
Your mama held you when fever burned your forehead. And she stroked back your hair when your stomach churned and she cleaned up the both of you when you vomited all over everything. It was your mama who opened books for you and stoked your mind and unpacked a world before you and she laid down herself to make more of you and it wasn’t a sacrifice but the unexpected grace of motherhood.
We talked about life being much more than you can see, so you knew that a woman is always more more than you can see.
Your mama kept trying to be at peace in her own body so that you would always see women as more than a body. And I always told you that I’ve only ever met beautiful people. Ugly is only a state of soul.
I don’t know if I told you boys about that night I was 19 and I saw it in my rear view mirror, how a 20-something man reached over and started fondling a terrified 14 year-old sleeping girl. How the guy shrugged his shoulders when we confronted him, like he was brushing away an annoying fly.
How there were girls that whispered that he’d grabbed them too in the dark of a car when he drove them home from youth group, how there were all these shy and ashamed girls who were violated and forced and indifferently robbed.
I want to tell you, son we were all church kids. There was no alcohol. There were no parties. There were no jocks or big athletic teams or big name college campuses with rocking parties.
There were young men who opened their Bibles and didn’t value the worth of a God-fashioned woman made for glory, young men who sang worship songs and satiated their lust by ripping off the dignity of a sacred human being, young men who said women were the weaker vessel meant let’s drink them dry and be merry.
We went to leaders. A handful of us girls with one teenage boy who knew that he saw it too and wasn’t afraid. And we went to leaders and sat there with our hands literally shaking and our mouths impossibly dry and we tried to find words for what should never have to be said. My cheeks and throat burned.
“When the prevailing thinking is boys will be boys girls will be garbage.”
And it about kills me to say what happened next, but to stay silent is to let perpetrators perpetuate. And we are all better this, and want better than this, and we are committed to doing better than this.
When we spoke what we’d seen, how a man had violated a girl, we were looked in the eye, Son, were told:
“Boys will be boys.”
Son. When the prevailing thinking is boys will be boys girls will be garbage.
And that is never the heart of God.
That’s what you have to get, Son – Real Manhood knows the heart of God for the daughters of His heart.
Your Dad is one of those men. When he hears of men violating women with indifference and ignorance, he has said it to me time and again:
Unless a man looks to Jesus, a man doesn’t know how to treat a woman.
“Unless a man looks to Jesus, a man doesn’t know how to treat a woman.”
So this is what your dad and I want you to get, to get this and never forget it: that *when God decided to pull on skin and make His visitation into the world, He didn’t show up in some backroom of an inner boy’s club or insert Himself at a boardroom table with all the power brokers.
What God chose as best was to make His entry point into the world through the holy space of a woman, to enfold Himself inside of a woman, to be held and nourished and cared for by a woman that’s the jolting truth of how God loves women with His honor.
Christ didn’t degrade women in His talk, but He made women heroes in His stories. He invited a woman with a coin and broom to reveal the truth about the Kingdom of God . That’s how God loves women with His words.
Christ didn’t demonize women but He accepted the presence of a woman reviled by the self-righteous, and He welcomed the rejected though he lost the respect of the religious. That’s how God loves women with His grace.
When Christ stepped out of that black tomb, he still didn’t choose to first manifest Himself to prestigious officials, religious leaders, the Twelve, or to any man in any position — but instead He revealed Himself first to the women, He entrusted the veracity of His resurrection to the testimony of the women, He offered the privilege of proclaiming Christ as the risen Savior to the women, though no court at the time would accept their testimony. That’s how God loves women with His regard.
So Sons — when you turn the pages of the Bible, Son, let everything you read of women be shaped by how Jesus sealed His view and value of women.
“Real Manhood never objectifies women. Real Manhood edifies women.”
Let Christ shape you and not the magazine covers of the Walmart checkout:
Real Manhood never objectifies women. Real Manhood edifies women.
Real Manhood means you don’t get drunk, and a man can get drunk on a lot more than alcohol.
Men drunk on power, on control, on ego, lose more than all inhibition they lose The Way, their own souls.
Men drunk on anything can destroy everything and real manhood thirsts for nothing less than righteousness.
Real Manhood means any pressure only makes you stronger in Christ.
Real Manhood believes that in a culture where it’s the tendency to bend, you’ll stand. That in situations where there’s tendency to look the other way, you’ll look for help. That time and again: you’ll rightly divide the truth and unify the brokenhearted. And you will be humbly committed:
Christ is The Truth — and where there isn’t Truth, there isn’t Christ. So, even when we’re hurting, we won’t ever be afraid of the Truth
In Christ, you rise against injustice.
And Son?
Real Manhood means you take responsibility for your body.
Responsible men – are response-able. The responsible are response-able to make the right response at the right time. This is your job. Everyone else has their own responsibilities. Focus on yours.
“Real Manhood means you hallow womanhood.”
Your Dad and I need you to know:
Real Manhood means you hallow womanhood
The thing always is: Real Manhood means you hallow womanhood.
A woman isn’t a toy to amuse a man’s lusts, a thing to aggrandize a man’s ego, a trophy to adorn a man’s arm.
A woman is a man’s equal, and a woman has value not because she’s someone’s daughter but because she is made in the image of God.
The bottom line is: Any man who doesn’t hallow a woman with honor, makes his own life into a profanity.
Any culture of boys will be boys means girls will be garbage. And that trashes everyone’s soul.
And we were all made to rise to something more.
Like that teenage boy from youth group, who saw how girls were hurting and witnessed how they were violated in shadows and shame, who stood up with the wounded because he believed real men of God are men for the hurting?
That brave teenage boy, Son?
He’s now your Dad.
There are more than a few good men, Son.
There are more than a few good men rising, more than a few good men doing hard and holy things, more than a few good men who elevate women because they’re about elevating Christ.
Real men like their Father who laid down His life for His priceless daughters.
June 10, 2019
The Actual Best Gift for an Any Year-Old Kid
It’s a rare gift as to artfully, thoughtfully, and practically express the true meaning of “blessing”—a word that has become a cliché and an overused hashtag in American culture. Living overseas in Istanbul, Turkey for several years, Tina Boesch has experienced the deeply spiritual act of blessing. She joins us today to share what she has learned and put into meaningful practice to love those around her. It’s a grace to welcome Tina to the farm’s front porch today…
There’s a light on at the end of the hallway. I shuffle down and peer into my oldest daughter’s room.
Her form is lost, snug under a voluminous duvet. I sit on the edge of the bed, resting my hand somewhere near her knee.
“What do you think I’ll be when I grow up?”
She’s sleepy, but she has a question for me: “What do you think I’ll be when I grow up?”
I’m too tired to think deep and answer well. The first response that springs to mind is honest: “I don’t know.” But it sounds lame and uninspiring. Even as it flashes through my mind, I sense the inadequacy. It’s not the answer she needs from me.
I don’t want to dismiss her query, so I try to hear the question behind the question. What is she really asking?
I realize she’s asking if I see her. She’s asking what qualities and strengths I see in her and how I envision those developing in her life.
Answering her question with discernment requires me to look not at her, but into her, and even beyond her, to identify qualities that may now only be in their infancy but could become a force for good in her life and in the lives of others.
And, most importantly, answering the question well requires spiritual vision, because even when I look with all the intensity I can muster, I might miss something that God may be preparing her for if the eyes of my heart aren’t wide open.
If I see her with vision, and then find a way to express what the Lord reveals, then my answer becomes blessing.
“Now it’s my responsibility to invite her soul to growth.”
Oh Lord, I am inadequate for this. I cannot see the way I need to see to bless well, but I long to see, even as I long to be seen.
I begin to pray for insight into answering my daughter’s question. Her birthday is on the horizon. She’s nearly twelve, just on the cusp of adolescence.
This year, I’ve watched as her limbs lengthened. I’ve noticed as she’s withdrawn into her interior space, wondering about what all these changes mean.
She’s standing on a threshold, moving from one season of life into another.
When Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, they weren’t young children. The Hebrew word within the blessing sometimes translated “boys” or “lads” (Genesis 48:16) indicates young men of marriageable age. These young men were at a pivotal time in their lives. Hovering on the brink of adulthood, their futures had not yet been set.
“The blessing—composed, prayed, and spoken—is my gift given to her.”
They were just at the age when their decisions would have enduring consequence. What more essential time to be affirmed, valued, and reminded that God is a shepherd who leads and redeems?
My girl, since the first moment I held her, has illuminated my days.
Now it’s my responsibility to invite her soul to growth. Not just any blessing will do. I need to write a blessing that’s suitable to her.
To mark this special occasion in her life, I want to compose a blessing that shows her that she’s been seen and that she’s been loved through the seeing.
Ultimately, the blessing is not a vision of what she will be when she grows up, it’s about who she will become. It’s not about occupation, it’s about character formation.
“Ultimately, the blessing is not a vision of what she will be when she grows up, it’s about who she will become.”
In a notebook, I jot down memories from her childhood, Scripture that has informed our prayers, challenges I imagine she’ll face in the next few years, and truth I most want to affirm for her.
I write and then rewrite. Over time, the blessing emerges. When the words have taken shape, I write them for her on the first few pages of a new journal.
On the morning of her birthday, we all gather in the den, relaxing after a pancake breakfast. I read the blessing, emotion making the words full in my throat, but I want her to hear me say them.
The blessing—composed, prayed, and spoken—is my gift given to her:
Remember that evening when we were walking by the water just before sunset and you coaxed a wild bunny to eat from your hand? You knelt down in the green lawn and waited by some blackberry bushes, your open hand filled with some grass from the field.
You were only six, but you waited still, patient, and gentle as the rabbit hesitantly inched in your direction, and eventually nibbled the grass held in your palm.
Watching you that evening, I saw so many of the qualities we’ve been praying for since you were born—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. May our gardener God continue to plant and cultivate spiritual fruit in your spirit to nourish others.
Every day, I see you maturing in so many ways, some observable, some under the surface of your skin.
Realize the people God brings into your life share in helping you become the person you’re meant to be. May you be drawn to friends who delight in your particularities and encourage you to be yourself, rather than trying to shape you into their own image.
The best friends see your potential and help draw it out. They never shame, never manipulate, never belittle.
May you be the friend to others that you want others to be to you.
Over the years, you’ll meet so many different sorts of people—many will act differently, think differently, believe differently, and make choices you might not understand.
Even when you feel confused by the different, remember that God’s image is imprinted deep within each and every one of them.
May you honor the image of God in each person by relating to others with dignity, kindness, and love.
Like the wild rabbit you fed when you were so small, may you return every evening to eat from the Lord’s hand. May you meet God each day and allow Him to speak truth into your inner being about your inestimable worth and your welcome around his table as a beloved daughter in Christ.
I’m learning that blessing doesn’t just amount to words written on a page.
Blessing embraces the whole process of encountering God in prayer and worship, seeing and discerning nascent qualities that could be developed, expressing blessing in finding the right words –
and committing myself to her spiritual formation while releasing her into God’s hands.
Tina Boesch is the author of Given: The Forgotten Meaning and Practice of Blessing, a writer, editor, and designer who serves as an advocate for Baptist Global Response. She earned an MA in theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she studied Christianity and culture. She has lived in seven countries on three continents.
How do we express the good that God wants for those we love? How do we experience blessing through pain and suffering? Why would we bless even enemies? In Given, you will journey outside of your comfort zone, into a world of blessing as a relational calling―as a way God relates to you and a way you’re called to relate to others. You will travel across countries, cultures, and centuries of church history to expand your paradigm of a word ripe with significance. Along the way, you’ll be inspired to begin the essential Christian practice of being given by God as a blessing.
[ Our humble thanks to NavPress for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
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