Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2 “What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just…” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can…
Unashamed Brokenness
Unashamed Brokenness So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me His prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. — 2 Timothy 1:8 I get to lie right next to our baby girl every night. Sometimes we have to pull close, to…
Thanking God for Yadah Abundance
It is a good thing to give thanks [yadah] unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. — Psalm 92:1 KJV “Whatever.” The Wednesday morning before folks eat turkey and pie and browse the Black Friday flyers, I wake up to this smothering of fog and this teen muttering it…
Risky Living {Ann Voskamp}
Risky Living But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. — 2 Corinthians 12:9 When my dad called this morning, he said his farming friend, Alan Bertrand, was “just trying to figure out whether to spend the years he’s got left restoring another one…
Be the Gift: Cruciform and Blessed
Cruciform When we walk in the back door from Sunday service, from the breaking of bread and thick intimacy of exchange, there’s this black pen lying on the table. I pick up the pen and turn my wrist over. How many years had I cut that paling wrist, wearing my brokenness on the outside? I pick…
Comforting Grace
Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts His people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. — Isaiah 49:13 I hear it on Sunday, thinking our preacher’s looking straight at me, me trying to look away: When God moves us out of our comfort zone — into places that are way…
The Love in Givenness
The Love in Givenness The happiness of givenness is a balm that works its healing even days and weeks later, and givenness does not define or prove our value but lets us feel the defining value of love. Givenness changes our body because we become part of His Body. And we are even fed communion…
Be the Gift: Jesus Believes in You
Editor’s Note: Ann Voskamp, in One Thousand Gifts encouraged readers to live a life of thanksgiving and to chronicle the gifts from God in their everyday lives. In The Broken Way, she reminded us that freedom is not found beyond fear and pain, but within it. Now, in Be the Gift, she unpacks and chronicles the next step to…
Giving Thanks in the Small Things
Some days I pick up a camera and it’s a hammer. The lens is my ink, for cameras have sensor eyes, and pixels record. I slide it into a pocket, a thin point-and-shoot, and find another way to chronicle, to force the lids open; another way to receive the moment with thanks reverential. When he comes in from…
Amaryllis Grace: Joy is Worth the Wait
Editor’s Note: Welcome to Sit & Listen Saturdays at Devotionals Daily! Enjoy reading as well as listening to this message today from One Thousand Gifts Devotional by Ann Voskamp, read by Ann Voskamp. Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand. — Isaiah 14:24 Why…