Letters about Words

How the Words of Friends can Carry Us to Healing

How the Words of Friends can Carry Us to Healing

Each Tuesday, my dear friend Ann Voskamp and I are writing a series of letters about loving Jesus and others with our words. We'd love to hear your heart too. Will you join us?_____________________________________________________________________________Monte Ne Ruins photo by Clinton Steeds

Dear Ann,

Several summers ago I stood in a place called Monte Ne on the shore of a lake drained low.

When you walked toward the center and turned back, you could see the ruins of an old town exposed—an amphitheater, foundations, a long-forgotten hotel standing watch above them.

I thought of Monte Ne last week, of that shoreline, because it seemed drought came to my words and took them all away.

And all I could see was brokenness.

It seems we all have those moments, don’t we? Those times when our words have disappeared or our hearts feel as if a drought has come.

What do we do then?

As I started asking that question, I thought of more ruins. This time not in a place but in a life…

Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.

Mark 2:3-4

You know the rest of the story don’t you? The man is forgiven and healed. But what stopped me in my tracks was the phrase that came just before the healing…

When Jesus saw their faith (Mark 2:5)

{Will you read the rest with me at Ann's today? Hint: I wrote about beautiful YOU. To get there, just click here.}

 

Also, have you seen this yet? (if a video isn't below, click here)

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Why You Need Words

Why You Need Words

Each Tuesday, my dear friend Ann Voskamp and I are writing a series of letters about loving Jesus and others with our words. We'd love to hear your heart too. Will you join us?_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Holley,

It’s hard to know where the road is.

I had to drive through a snowstorm to get this letter to you. It’s coming down heavy, snow hushing our internet connection on the farm. January wraps like a shroud and I hardly know where the road falls way to the ditch and where the sky begins, heaven coming down.

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You can see them up every country lane here in winter, Holley — markers. Steel stakes marking where the road is. Marking the way through.  Marking how to get from here to there.

They’re dark lines on white snow —- like lines on a page.

Letters on paper.

Is that what all words are, Holley — markers? Markers determining the directions of our lives. The curve of letters winding the way we take. Coming through a blizzard, Holley, glancing up at the hydro poles now and then, using them as markers for the road, that’s what I’m thinking —  that this is it, Holley —  why words matter. Because the words we listen to, the words we read — they’re marking out our very lives.

Every word we pick up, scan through, skim over, listen to —- the words are sending us somewhere.

The words of our life determine the destination of our life.

I had slowed right there on the road, Holley.

Is there anything I need to be wiser about in my life than words? Words send us somewhere.

That’s what there was in the beginning, the creative, generative power of God in the cosmos — words.

In the beginning was the Wordand the Word was God.

Words have that much power, they can turn and direct and wield whole lives. They’re whispering everywhere, words telling us our worth, what do to, how to think, what to believe, what decision to make. We need to mark our lives out with the right words.

I’m memorizing the book of Colossians this year, just 2 verses a week. The world’s a blizzard and His Word are stakes in the snow. I feel my way through by holding onto His lines.

Yes, words are like stakes in the snow and that is why the stake are so high — because every word sends us somewhere.

 And the words we speak, the words we write — they’re shaping lives too, directing very souls. What we speak into others, this is what they become. What we speak into others sends them somewhere — either closer to heaven — or far in the other direction. 

I thought about that all the way through the white, into this little village, looking for connection to patch this message through to you.

Words —connecting us. Markers — directing us. Words — the power to give life — or death.

Oh, Holley, to pray about our words! Yes, to only speak words that make souls stronger.

I think of Isaiah — woe am I — a man of unclean lips. In the midst of life snowstorms, I am grateful for the seraphim of grace to bring the live coal of God’s word to touch my mouth, my words, and make me clean. White as snow.

My words need purifying more than anything else.

I am headed home now through the snow, Holley…

The Word God who let the stakes be driven through His hands for me… He’ll keep me on the road…

I send you words of life, my friend…

All's grace,
Ann
www.aholyexperience.com

 
Looking for life-giving words? Words that just might change your life — radically transform it?  Come join us at the Bloom (in)courage Book Club. Ann's new book, One Thousand Gifts, is the first selection. It's a book will give you one word from the Bible that will send you right into the arms of God. And Ann will be joining you every week, for every chapter, via videos. Check out all the details at DaySpring (and get a special price on the book for just this week).

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
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Last week we invited you to share your posts about words here with us. You can link yours up below–a new post or one from your archives. If you don't have a blog, you're welcome to share by leaving a comment. We're so grateful for you…

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Why You and Your Words are More than Enough

Why You and Your Words are More than Enough

Each Tuesday, my dear friend Ann Voskamp and I are writing a series of letters about loving Jesus and others with our words. We'd love to hear your heart too. Will you join us?_____________________________________________________________________________________

Ann,

It snowed a little last night. The white is spread out like icing over the brown of leaves. It brings to mind another kind of icing on another kind of morning when you and I shared a sweet, sticky cinnamon roll in a tiny bakery in the center of my town. Do you remember that?

Earlier this morning I thought about all the hungry hearts in the world that need to be fed with words. It felt as if God might as well be asking me to care for every snowflake outside the window.

Snowy Field by Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience 

And then it seemed He whispered, “Just offer what you have. I will make up the difference.”

Yes, of course!

The loaves and fish.

You know that story. It’s the one where Jesus is teaching a huge, hungry crowd and there’s nothing to feed them. All anyone has to offer is five loaves and two fish. But in the hands of Jesus…

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. Mark 6:42-43

Yes, in the hands of Jesus a little is a lot, even more than we need.

 

Will you read the rest with me over at Ann's place today? Oh, thank you! To get there, just click here…

Next Tuesday: We're inviting you to write a post about words on your blog and link it up here with us. Oh, would you please? We would love to hear your heart. If you don't have a blog, you can share in the comments section that day.

written with love for you by holley

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Why Your Words Matter Most

Why Your Words Matter Most

On the brink of a new year, we're thinking about fresh starts and how do we begin again and how your words matter. Whether you write, speak, or want to connect with the hearts of those you love, this year, The Word in your words can change the world. My friend, Ann Voskamp and I have been talking and praying about words. How to serve with them and use them well. We’re writing our thoughts as a series of letters each Tuesday and we’d love for you to be part of the conversation too. Will you join us? ::


Dearest Holley

When I cleaned out that basement drawer on the first day of the year and unexpectedly found that old card with all the prints of their bared, inked hands, I had crumpled to the floor.

Ink loosens bones and can make one fall apart.

Where does all the time go and how is it that ink can line our skin and outline our souls?


Picnik collage

I had forgotten all about that card, Holley. How I had made their handprints for our Christmas card that year, when we had four, three boys and a girl. The oldest then five. The youngest — seven. Seven days. I could hardly unfurl him.

He’d kept curling his natal fist when I went to make his handprint with the ink pad. Thus, the singular foot print. How could his toes ever been those string of black beads? I can remember how he felt, warm next to me — a sunning stone.

I had wanted to remember them all, just like that — the dimpled cheeks, the fine blonde hair, the bellies that jiggled when they giggled, and they giggled over everything — to somehow frame the art of now. I had used ink. I had pressed their hands, and that one wrinkled pink foot, to the pad — and they left their mark in ink. Pressed their wonder right into me.

A decade and one year later, and they are tall now. Those hands are big, carving out a life. The oldest and the girl both with feet larger than mine. I am sitting in a ring of lamp light, holding lines of their sworling ink. Of them long ago little. All that was. Sometimes I think I know where time goes — straight way to a bittersweet ache.

 

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I don’t know how long I sat there tracing those black lines, Holley. Trying to find a way back in time.

And I don’t know which of the handprints I was outlining slowly when I realized: I don’t think now that we ever leave our mark in ink — It is the ink that marks us. It is the words that mark us.

It is all the ink and and all the words and and all the voices and and all the stories that stain us and make us who we are.

All the words I had ever spoken, they are making my children who they are. What we speak into others, this is what they become.

The Word God breathed life into us who are made of the ground and our lives are literally this: living letters. I sat there a long time, Holley. Not moving. Hardly breathing. Wondering what letters I had written on the skin of all the people in my life. I just kept tracing their inked fingerprints with my finger. The Word was made flesh and we are made of words.

Is that why He tells us that His Words are to be our very life? So that His Words permeate us and become the words of life we speak into others? You are what you speak and you are what you hear and we are our words and our tongue is the tail of our heart. Sometimes it is our own sin that makes us ache.

I think it was sitting there, Holley, tracing the ink of my children’s lives that made me think of Jesus, the Word, and how we have only one account of Him writing anything at all. It was with his finger too, and it was only this: Jesus “stooped down and wrote on the ground.” (John 8:6-8)

When God came to earth, He didn’t inscribe one word in a tablet of stone. No granite for God. Nor books or blog, not even one letter, signature or song. Jesus wrote no documents — He only scrawled in dirt. He etched His Word in shifting granules of dirt.

Writing in dirt — it seems so — fleeting. How can words in dirt survive anything?

And yet —

All words are really only shaped in dust.

Whether encouraging a child, phoning a hurting friend, publishing a blog post, writing a book — all our words can ever do is just this — inscribe dirt. For isn’t this what lives are made of?

Our words holler across the house, blink up on a screen, scroll across a page, but ultimately they’re written in dust — right onto skin, right onto hearts of sand.

And in the upside down kingdom, it is not published books or shared blogs that endure, but it’s what is housed in the dust that is eternal; it’s the words we’re writing on hearts that last forever.

Our littlest, she came to me when I was sitting there holding the card, Holley, settled down in my lap, this one born many moons after these three handprints and a footprint. 

She'd placed her hand over this handprint, that one, and then had to ask.

"Could I do it too?" She turned her face to face me hopeful. I looked right into her, framed art here.

And I cupped her close and whispered happy words straight  into her.  

And she ran to get the ink.

 

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written for your heart, by Ann Voskamp @ A Holy Experience

Want to read a  related encouraging article?  Why You Really Are Living A Good Story Today

and then pick up your own free word strengtheners

~~~

O, tell us  a good, God-glorifying  story — who has written an encouraging letter on your heart? How did they do it? What strengthening words are you writing on the skins around you  these days? 

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Open the Door Anyway

Open the Door Anyway

On the brink of a new year, we’re thinking about fresh starts and fear and how do we begin again and how your words matter. Whether you write, speak, or simply want to connect with the hearts of those you love, this year, The Word in your words can change the world. My friend, Ann Voskamp, and I have been talking and praying about words. How to serve with them and use them well. We’re writing our thoughts as a series of letters each Tuesday and we’d love for you to be part of the conversation too. Will you join us?_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dearest Ann,

The Door by Ann Voskamp - A Holy Experience I don’t know how to write this series of letters without talking about fear.

I sometimes teach workshops at writing conferences, meet with those who come, and one question that seems to lurk behind whatever else they may ask is this:

Will I ever stop being afraid to do this?

My answer…

No.

You won’t.

Neither will I.

And this isn’t just about words—it’s any endeavor where we offer a piece of ourselves, lay bare our hearts for the world, give something we’ve held close.

You, dear reader on this journey with us, know what that is for you: words, art, music, a mission, a dream, a child, a relationship.

Maybe what we’re really asking, without even knowing it, is this: Can I do this and not be crucified?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24

We blush a bit when we think of it this way but didn’t even Jesus ask for the cup to pass from Him? No one wants this part of it. Not even the Son of God.

And yet it’s in the giving, the laying down, the opening ourselves up that we find a path to joy.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Yes, there are good things—such great things—on the other side of fear, the other side of dying to ourselves. But the only way from here to there is through it.

We try to make ourselves ready for the task. But there aren’t enough conferences, books, wise friends, experiences, degrees to take away that shaking in our knees.

Our only hope?

Do it anyway…

 

Will you please read the rest with me over at Ann's place today? Oh, thank you! Ann has also created free lovely Word Strengtheners just for you. To get there, just click here.

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The Gift of {Strong} Words

The Gift of {Strong} Words

Your words matter. Whether you write, speak, or simply want to connect with the hearts of those you love. My friend, Ann Voskamp, and I have been talking and praying about words. How to serve with them. How to use them well. We’re writing our thoughts a series of letters each Tuesday and we’d love for you to be part of the conversation too. Will you join us?_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dearest Holley, Christmas almost here, snow deep and quiet here in the north, us readying to celebrate the Word who takes on skin to touch our spirits.

And I think of you Holley, all our sisters, word-women at sinks and by hospital beds and behind desks, giving the gifts of living words to all those around, waiting for the gift of He Who is Letters made into the love of the God-Babe — The Word we can hold on to.

TheGiftofWords I keep thinking of this too, Holley — Zechariah who had no words for months before the arrival of John, the messenger of The coming Word. 

And you, Word-girl, you upended me with last week's letter — can words really change the world? Couldn't hardly see the screen. How did you know that I've begged God to let me help the world with a bent back and dirt under the fingernails? But yes, you are right — when we give even a clutch of kind words to this little child here, we are giving it to Jesus, and changing the world with His grace.

Someone asked me last week if I had any home-made gifts made up for my family? My heart hurt a bit, Holley — what can I give from my own hands to these people here I love so?

And then, Holley, this memory — it all came back to me:

How I turned the last child's light out that night and slumped down a door frame and how I cried quiet in the dark. The mother grief scalds the cheeks — but what washes away the mother grime?

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 That night I knew it: I’ve become the parent I knew as a child. The one I looked straight in the face and fierce vowed I’d never be. But my ears ring with the echo of my voice, that voice: Can’t you see what a mess this is? How many times do I have to tell you? What were you thinking?

How did I end up here and I want to muffle out me and the 24/7 forge of children that can liquefy the steely resolve.

I had wept molten. I beg God to burn off the soul dross.

How can a mother be frustrated her child is not as she longs him to be, when she herself is not as she longs to be?

I had run my fingers through my hair and I wail soundless. The clock ticks heavy.

When I find the pillow, my chest hurts hard and I know it: the only air non-toxic to humans is Grace.

I try to inhale it deep. I sleep.

When we wake, we read, for there is a Bread that can break the fast, and it’s the way this version of the text expresses it that unlocks the hard places:

"When you talk, do not say harmful things, but say what people need—words that will help others become stronger." Ephesians 4:29 (NCV)

Stronger. Stronger.

I had looked around the table and into their eyes. Into them. I had held them in my one hand, them pinked and swaddled, and I had made them strong with the milk letting down and the love, and I had witnessed the stretching of the spine, the first tottering steps and I had squealed wonder and I had offered the hand. Mamas make strong.

When we had finished the Bible reading, we reach for hands to pray, I feel little fingers again and couldn’t I do this again?

Just for today:

  • Couldn’t all the words out of my mouth only be the strengthening words? Words that nourish their bones and muscle their hearts.
  • What if I tried to change nothing in children but I focused on only this: Only speak words that make souls stronger.

Like oxygen, couldn’t just speaking strengthening-words change the whole of the atmosphere?

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When a brother had teased his sister and she rages, I grit-pray for grace and strengthening words: Family’s a boat and the world’s rough waters and family is meant to be the one safe place where no one pushes anyone out of the boat. Let’s hold onto each other folks.”

I get in there too, embrace them, draw them up out of the storm. And we hug each other until we feel soul strong.

And when an angry child had spit a fiery temper tantrum, I remember, and when there’s a heated debate over who gets to practice piano first, I remember and when in the course of five minutes a finger gets jammed in a door and a lego creation gets stomped on and the house erupts wild, I forget and a stream of exasperation weakens these walls and He reminds and I circle back and try to renovate my own tearing down with the edifying words.

We breathe grace. This oxygen changes everything.

The tongue is the tail of the heart. And a lashing tongue is the symptom of an anger riddled heart. It’s always the heart that whips the tongue hard and breaks the backs weak.

And I thought then that I was finally getting it: If Grace always pulses the heart, and love’s the blood coursing tender through veins, the tail of the heart, that tongue, it caresses and it strokes and it revives the soul until small ones stand up David-tall before Goliaths.

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It was a dark night weeks later, Holley, and I still remember it. I turned out the last light and a voice calls through the dark.

“Mama?”

“Yes?” I wait still in the black, hand on a light switch.

“Thanks…for the way you made me feel today.”

It's the words, the strengthening words, the I-will-build-you-up-until-you-stand-so-tall-you-can-see-Jesus- here-and-in-you-and-even-in-me-words. I lean into a door frame and tonight I get to smile and I fill with the full life, light in the dark.

Grace words make the weak-us stronger.

And that, Holley, that's when I thought of it — that is the heart-made gift I could give my family this year. To only speak Words that make them stronger.

That under the tree I could give them the gift of words that make them tall and strong… trees of their own with roots deep down into the grace and love and heart of Christ.

Words, Holley. Could there be a greater gift to give in honor of the Word made flesh?

I send these words to you with all my love. Grow strong, sister….

Ann Voskamp

Photo: us here with "By Grace Alone", by DaySpring's Blessings Unlimited Q

 

4U: What gift could you give with your words today? { If you'd like the graphic "Only Speak Words that Make Souls stronger" as a little token card to tuck in your pocket, to remind you to keep giving the gift of strong words, visit Ann's A Holy Experience site right here. }

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Can Our Words Really Change the World?

Your words matter. Whether you write, speak, or simply want to connect with the hearts of those you love. My friend, Ann Voskamp, and I have been talking and praying about words. How to serve with them. How to use them well. We’re writing our thoughts a series of letters each Tuesday and we’d love for you to be part of the conversation too. Will you join us?_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Ann,

It’s early. My coffee is warm and I’m sitting at the kitchen table wishing you, and all of those reading these letters with us, were here. I’m so glad we’re talking about words—how we they change us, how we can use them to change the world.

A few months ago I’d grown discouraged about words. It seemed everyone I knew was doing something amazing. Going to another continent to help needy. Starting a new church. Building an organization. I’d just come back from a trip where it seemed words were just about business. The contrast had me questioning everything.

I settled on to my couch to pray. I asked God if I should stop, if words really mattered, if perhaps I should be doing something more weighty and important.

And it seemed He took me to Isaiah 58

 

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe him,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness will go before you,

and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

 

 “Yes,” I thought, “See, I need to be doing something else.”

Just then I received two e-mails…

The first came from a woman who expressed on my blog that she wasn’t sure she wanted to live any longer. Through correspondence with her and encouragement from the online community, she’d taken steps to get help and had written to say thanks.

The second came from a woman running an orphanage in another country. She told me of how my words to help her keep doing what she was doing in that place.

And it seemed God whispered that in the Kingdom there isn’t much difference between a hungry belly and a hungry heart.

 

Will you read the rest with me over at Ann's place today? It means so much to have you with me. Thank you. To get there, just click here.

p.s. Ann's book, the Kindle Edition of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are releases from Amazon today, which means anyone with a computer may order a digital copy — and may gift anyone with a computer with a copy. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever read. And it will change your life.

 

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What is Always the First Step, No Matter Where You Are: Where the Best Words Always Come From

What is Always the First Step, No Matter Where You Are: Where the Best Words Always Come From

Your words matter. Whether you write, speak, or simply want to connect with the hearts of those you love. My friend, Ann Voskamp, and I have been talking and praying about words. How to serve with them. How to use them well. We're writing our thoughts as a series of letters each Tuesday and we'd love for you to be part of the conversation too. Will you join us? We'd love to hear your voice…

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Dear Holley,

You sent me words and people read your words, gather them up and carry them like morsels for the journey, and I have to ask you, is it words that make us truly human?

Words we serve to each other on platters of grace, words we read, breathe in, oxygen to the lungs, words we drink down when the soul is cracked dry — is it words that make us different than all other forms of life?

I had read it last week in a book and I immediately thought of you, our letters — that the phrase for a human being in the ninth century was this: “reord berend.” A “bearer of speech.

 

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All human beings carry letters, bear words, deliver lines, murmur heart sounds.

And this makes sense of everything, that it is words, “bearing speech,” — even groans and cries — that make us genuinely human: we bear the image of our Maker and He is Word.

Then this word-making matters — profoundly. By our words we are justified or condemned and words are what make us a certain kind of people to reflect the Word who made us.

How then do we speak? Speak words to others, write them down, send them off, offer them to the world? How can the words be all they were meant to be — making the speech bearer and the listener all that they were meant to be? How can the words of our mouths, our hearts, be pleasing in His sight?

I have returned to this again, again, Holley, like a child to the desert table at a potluck, what Lauren Winner said at The High Calling writer’s retreat.

She’d stood in the lodge’s dining hall and we sat at a dinner table and behind her, in the kitchen, I could see the plates and the cooks. Each meal, those cooks served us fresh bread. And Lauren told us how said she’d read one student’s words for a whole year but the next year she hardly recognized the same student’s words. Each line was far richer, deeper — life-giving. Gaunt souls can find filling on real words.

And Lauren had to know what had changed and she called the student and asked her outright, how the dramatic change in the quality of the words? Lauren had pushed her jewelled cat-eye glasses up the bridge of her nose and the words she said next have fed me for months: “This was what the student said was the one thing that had changed about her words — now, before she ever wrote a word, she entered into a time of earnest prayer.”

It’s only the breath of prayer that resuscitates our flat words.

Remember your mama telling you, Holley? “Listen before you speak.” Before you loose your tongue, listen with your ears. And Mamas, they’re right: Listen to the whisper of the Word God before loosing your words. Prayer alway before pen; bent knees before open lips.

All the words that give life are birthed in the nursery of the knees.

But then again — isn’t this always so, Holley? That prayer is always the first step in every walk of our lives — words and work, hearts and hurt:

“First of all, there should be prayers offered” (1 Tim. 2:1).

Prayer first; prayer before anything else or there isn’t anything else.

How is there communion with Christ who makes all things good and into His image, if there is not first prayer?

What if all words first went to the temple before out into the world, what if we were all Hezekiah, daily spreading our lines of letters out before the Lord, what if we of unclean lips prayed for the live coal of holiness, prayed that God may consecrate our words before we desecrated the day?

I have thought about this too, Holley— How might our words yield a more bountiful harvest if we gave God the first-fruit of our lips? (Heb. 13:15)

Do you think David spoke some of the richest words the world has ever known because he prayed to God three times a day and praised Him seven times a day?

I have a friend, Holley, a woman you'd love because she loves the Word, and she often closes her eyes as she talks, and true, it may just be a way to soothe nerves.

But as she speaks slow, eyelashes rested, I always think she looks like she's praying her words. 

She is one of the most beautiful human beings, speech bearers, I know.

You know, you're a lot like her, girl…

 

Write more soon? I am praying for you… for all our beautiful word sisters...

All's grace,

Ann Voskamp @ A Holy Experience 

 

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Holley is writing on (in)courage today about words and how we can use them to heal hearts instead of wound each other. If you know how words can hurt, will you come over and read with us?

 

I'm an Upside Down Blogger

 

(Photo & text: Ann Voskamp  a farmer's wife, mama to 6 kids, author of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (Zondervan). Everyday, she takes the wild dare. She writes about her struggle for joy at A Holy Experience)

 

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The Way to Feed a Hungry Heart: A Series of Letters about Serving with Words (especially in social media)

The Way to Feed a Hungry Heart: A Series of Letters about Serving with Words (especially in social media)

Bread photo by Ann Voskamp - A Holy Experience (used with permission) Dearest Ann,

Thank you for the words you sent my way last week in your first letter—I tucked them away in my heart like pebbles in my pocket. As we traveled the last few days I kept pulling them out, turning them over and over, holding them and feeling their beautiful weight.

You’re right, Ann, we’ve talked about what it means to be in this world wide web for a long time. And really, it’s not just the web we’re wondering about—it’s all words, yes?

What do we do with the letters, phrases, syllables, sentences that have been entrusted to us? That's a question not just for those with blogs, twitter accounts, and facebook updates. If having a message to share makes you a writer then we’re all writers in a way, aren’t we?

Yes. I think so.

Even if our words are just the ones we speak to our family and friends.

Even if our encouragement is just for the tired check-out girl at the market.

Even if we feel like we stumble in what we put on paper or what we say.

Genesis says, "In the beginning God created…."

And John says, "In the beginning was the Word…."

In the beginning the Word created.

And ever since we’ve been creating with the Word.

Will you read the rest with me over at Ann's place today? Just click here…

 

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written with love for you by holley 

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How To Avoid Getting Caught in the World Wide Web: Letters between friends about Social Media: #1

How To Avoid Getting Caught in the World Wide Web: Letters between friends about Social Media: #1

a letter from Ann Voskamp to Holley Gerth

::

Dear Holley, woman with a heart as wide as hope itself…

Do you remember first asking me —"How do you be in the world wide web but not of it?"

How can we navigate this cyberweb and not get caught in it?

Creating buzz while we are soundlessly being wrapped tighter and tighter…. till we are slowly eaten alive…

:::

::

I know. What does any of this web stuff have to do with anything real, really? The world wide web, these blogs, this thing called "social media" — isn't all just a little bit — virtual? Unreal? Disconnected to the stuff of our life, our hearts?

Media, it comes from the Latin word meaning "middle." This way we're communicating here, right now, on this screen, this is in the middle of us, you and I, the middle of our world right now, and social media is the medium by which we are gathering as a culture right now — readers on one side of the screen and writers on the other — and if this is at the middle of our society right now — how do we ensure God is in the middle of it?

When I got home from rooming with you at The Relevant Conference, Holley, I went looking for that note you wrote me, the letter with that question. Because what you said seemed to me be, yes, relevant. The stuff of hearts. 

I found it way back in the second email you ever sent my way.  We didn't even know each other. It makes me smile, Holly, to think how long you and I've been having this same conversation.  You wrote this: 

 

Dear Ann,

How do you be in the world wide web but not of it?

It's always there on the web, this temptation to make it about comments, numbers, traffic.

But our words are meant to be pure, from the heart, for Him and for them.

When you have a moment, can you tell me a little of what God has spoken to you about these things?

:

Who would have thought that a little over a year later, the farm hick and the word girl would be rooming together at a blogging conference, staying up late to discuss just this, how to orient our social media so God's in the center?

::

 

Our room was quiet, I remember that. How I'd offer you a wondering sentence about words and women and He Who's the Word made Flesh and you'd pick it up quiet… pick it up in prayer.

You'd wait. Listen. I remember the stillness of your listening. And then you'd offer words back. 

Yes, that was the essence of the quiet: the listening for His voice, the One that can only be heard in the echoing chambers of the heart.

I found it too, when I came home, Holley, the notes I'd written you in response to your second email. I'd like to talk about those thoughts, as we explore this, Holley…But I wonder now…

I now wonder if the answer of how not to get caught in the world wide web doesn't begin in another place?

I think this because of what I literally found in another place, just weeks before we roomed at Relevant, while I was at Laity Lodge, working with the team of editors from High Calling

::

::

It was that morning we sat our overlooking the Frio River. There in the dining hall by the windows and all that September light. 

Lauren Winner, our workshop facilitator, had looked around the table at the ten of us and then picked up her marker. The black Sharpie had squeaked across the paper of the easel. "Why Do I Write"  

She had turned to us, "Two minutes — go."

I had nervously yanked off the cap of my pen. Flipped opened the red journal. The ink kept blotting. My hand kept shaking. The words had just sort of puddled out:

Why do I Write:

I write to see Him. 

Without words, the Word, I grope, lost.

The only pupil I have is ink This is the pupil that makes me a student of God. This is the way I study being.

I write to encounter the Spirit, as Nouwen said. He is Word and I meet Him in words and these lines of words are my lifeline to Him and sanity. 

This is my handicap. I must live my life twice — once in the world, once in words. This makes my living slow. But in writing words, I uncover my own meaning and unveil God right here and He is my audience of One.

Writing is this way I let my blood, to heal and cleanse and diagnose all that boils and festers and flows within. It is my sickness and it is my medicine, it is my thorn and it is my healing. I take my medicine slow. 

I gag it down, I choke it up. It never gets easier. I am chronic and life's terminal and this is a salvation, the way the Word meets me.

I am not good at it.

 

"Okay…" Lauren had pushed her chair back across the floor, stood. 

No more time to figure it out? Really? But I had stumbled through this,given it only two minutes thought, not sure if any of it was right or made any sense. I had looked down at my last line. Yes, that was the ending that summed it up best.

"Now — if we just go around the table and each of you read yours out loud."

OH. My throat had constricted like a boa around a hog. And yet… maybe this is always the best place to begin, Holley?

If we're  ever going to find the answer of how not to get caught in the world wide web, don't we first have to know why we fly

Why do we write?

Perhaps we first have to unravel why we're on the web in the first place, if we want to figure out how to avoid getting tangled up in the trappings of the internet?  

Really, it's what Lauren said next that I keep turning over, that keeps turning me over, that undoes and releases me.  

But I've stammered on, so I'll leave that for now, Holley, for the next letter.

Because now, I wonder if the first step to avoid getting caught in the world wide web answer is to begin just with this: 

#1 To write a Web Mission Statement: Why do I Write 

 

We could talk about ways #2, #3, #4 to navigate the net… but I wonder if we first need to do #1– a mission statement. What do you think, Holley? How does knowing why you write, why you're on the web, help you find His Way? Do you have a web mission statement? How do you think begin to be of the www but not in it? 

::

I can see you now, Holley, how you'll take up these words, say them first as prayers– listening for Him.

I think of you, Holley, as one of those spinning silk gossamers of hope online, a place where we all trip — and fall right into the arms of Jesus.

You are so loved, sister…

By Father.

And this grace-bathed daughter.

 

All's grace,

Ann

 

Related: More of what Holley & I talked about while rooming at Relevant: living in the upside down kingdom

 

 

 

 

 

 

The backstory behind our friendship and why I think Holley's a rare gem 

Letter #2 on social media will be posted next Tuesday @ Holley's and Ann's

Photos and text: by Ann Voskamp

Ann Voskamp's a farmer's wife, mama to 6 kids, blogger of six years, and author of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (Zondervan). Everyday, she takes the wild dare and writes about it at A Holy Experience

 

 

 

 

:::

So how do you avoid getting caught in the world wide web?

Why do you write? What's your online mission statement?

How do you navigate social media?


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