Letters about 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 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)

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.

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 Word… and 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).

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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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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.

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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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,

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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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.

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?

 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?

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.

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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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.”

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?

 <a href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/10/a-bloggers-prayer-upside-down-kingdom-blogging/" mce_href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/10/a-bloggers-prayer-upside-down-kingdom-blogging/"><img alt="I'm an Upside Down Blogger" border="0" src="http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff162/annvoskamp/blogbuttons/UpsideDownBlogger.jpg" mce_src="http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff162/annvoskamp/blogbuttons/UpsideDownBlogger.jpg" /></a>

(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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