Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [12.14.19]

Happy, happy, happy weekend!  

Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))! 

Serving up only the Good Stuff for you & your people right here:

Jakub Kozioł / Instagram 
Jakub Kozioł / Instagram 
Jakub Kozioł / Instagram 
Jakub Kozioł / Instagram 
Jakub Kozioł / Instagram 

pause at the breathtaking views he shares with us here

cheering loudly, Rend Collective!

when you’re grateful to be sharing the holidays with family and friends this year…

gather ’round? Here Are 25 Wildlife Photography Award Finalists – these photos are amazing!

Terrence has spent Christmas Day on his own for the last 20 years…

It was time to bring him some love at Christmas 

please don’t miss this one… tears

it would be a grace to meet you here early next year

An event designed for pastors and ministry leaders to explore what it means to shepherd and lead in the way of Jesus: the singular emphasis of this conference is to commune with Christ

please visit here for additional info

when love becomes an instinct… had to share

…you can make your last minute Christmas gifts the best gifts of all for those who are looking for someone to just show up…right where we are.

Let’s give presents that change lives this year:

There’s No Time Like the Present: Give the Gift of Presence This Christmas

 loving each other — is kinda the best

Want to preach Gospel to yourself every day through December?
Free Stress-Free Holiday Sticky Notes for Your Soul, right here: No Stress Holiday Manifesto

Print this set of 25 Note Cards, one for each day in December.

For mirrors and sinks and dashboards, for pockets and walls and office cubicles. For this Christmas.

Each card is an affirmation, a prayer, for each day this month.

They are quotes from The Greatest Gift and Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, rewritten to be words that you can pray every day,

to keep the focus…to celebrate Christ!

so many tears here… her Thank You Project — and her voice

Kellie Haddock is a singer, songwriter, wife and mom. As a former widow, she’s lived through tragedy and found new hope and joy on the other side.

Her music draws from real-life stories of beauty, heartache, hope and the celebration of life.

JoyWares 

… that wonderful time of the year to pull out one of our most favourite family traditions:

Our 24 hole wooden Advent wreath, with Mary on a donkey, headed toward the manger and the coming of Emmanuel.

five Julliard-trained pianists on Steinways? couldn’t stop watching this one

oh my heart

thank you, Scott Sauls…I’m Dreaming Of A Small Christmas

…unto us a Child is born and He shall reign forever more

Javier Elis

inspiring and beautiful…4 Things I’ve Learned From Living Without Hands

Beyond grateful for the saving work of Compassion International 

a story of hope and healing… and letting your light shine

oh yes! … an adoption party like no other?!?

cheering on good men who never give up

Our favorite family heirloom: wooden Advent wreath, with Mary on a donkey, headed toward the manger and the coming of Emmanuel.

The Wonder of the Greatest Gift: Best Devotional & Gift Book of the Year, CBA, 2019
Post of the week from these parts here

It can be lonely this time of year…

and sometimes we can feel deeply alone.

Hard time are given — but hard times alone are unbearable.

And we are given SomeOne who bears the hard times with us…

This is profoundly changing everything for me:

The 1 Unlikely Word that Heals All (Christmas) Brokenness

we circled ’round this one!

because sometimes we do the unexpected

Come experience a Christmas that restores your Hope again 

Jesus came down — and a bit of heaven can begin now, even here. With every step, we are walking into our forever now. Come let Jesus touch your wounds & heal your hurt with His tender Hope.
This Advent, Stay in the Story that the rest of your year, your family, will need.

3 Award-Winning books for the Whole Family

The Greatest Gift (adult edition): Best Devotional of the Year, ECPA, 2014

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift (Family Edition): Best Inspirational Book of the Year, CBA, 2016

 The Wonder of the Greatest Gift: Best Devotional & Gift Book of the Year, CBA, 2019

(pop-up edition with your own 14 inch tree, 25 days of readings, 25 day advent flap calendar, hiding all 25 Biblically inspired ornaments! For any age) 

When our holidays are about Staying in the Story, being with Him —
Hope finds us again — and we have ourselves The Greatest little Christmas yet!

again and again: O Holy Night

on repeat this week: Gloria

[ Print’s FREE here: ]

…whatever’s going down, fear can’t get to us, panic can’t upend us, worry can’t undo us—because when we exhale, we can hear Him like a warm breath:

“I am with you.

There’s no need to fear the big things, the little things, anything, for I’m your God.

I’ll give you strength when the weight of it all wears you down,

I’ll help you when you’re hurting, when everyone’s hurting,

I’ll hold you steady when everything wildly tilts,

I’ll keep a firm grip on you—

so you can rest tonight, because you are held.”

Even now, we’re just wild enough to dare believe that:

There is never, ever, ever ever anything to fear—

because there is nothing  ever, ever, ever

in the universe that can

ever—EVER—

separate us from

the loving hands of God.

And all the people

hold on to each other

because they belong to each other and they all behold a Grace

that holds them all and

we all whisper our brave

Amen.

[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]

‪ Dare to fully live!

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.