1000Gifts
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moreHow To Get Through Cancer, Dark Times, & Suffering {…and an interview @Desiring God}
On Monday, March 25 th, 2013So this Palm Sunday weekend found me gathering with the women from Perimeter Church. Where songwriter Laura Story, and her soul beautiful friend,Tiffany both attend…. and I pray their God stories in the midst of suffering forever change me: {Consider muting Mr. Nevue’s music ...
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moreHow to find Happiness in the Dark
On Monday, March 11 th, 2013Right after I read the story, I go looking for an old horn to screw right to the wall. There are things worth the proclaiming, you know? And after I find one, I walk around the house with the horn in hand trying to figure if it looks best on this wall? Or the back of this door? The Farmer raises his eyebrows. “A horn on a wall?” He’s grinning boyish. Joshua is playing sca...
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moreBecause His Daughters’ Hearts Beat with His
On Wednesday, February 27 th, 2013I’m still ringing with yesterday’s heart cry: Gratitude has never failed to radicalize the radically grateful and when you are radically grateful for what you have, you will go to radical lengths to share it and when you’re overwhelmed with the goodness of God to you — you overflow with the goodness of God to others. Fire in the belly can come f...
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moreHow Women Can Get Radical For Their Sisters
On Tuesday, February 26 th, 2013When you pick up the garbage in the streets of Minoterie, there’s the sun burning up the back of your bare white neck. And crumpled tin cans and sucked-dry water bags and an AIM toothpaste box and empty rum bottles. And barefoot boys kicking a ball, and boys begging you for just one swallow water, and boys lacing their fingers around your sweaty hand. You can bend down li...
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moreWhy Life isn’t a Race & What Success Really is
On Monday, February 11 th, 2013So, we’re sort of in the midst of this. What it looks like to pack for a family of 8. Am I crazy? Uh… Don’t answer that And when you’re Canadian? And don’t have a TV? And have never watched the Duggars pack? You just pray a lot when packing for 8 — and use various tape to kid-color code...
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moreBest Prayer App, NYTimes, Good Reads & the handling of Stress: 10 Links for an Amazing Weekend
On Saturday, February 09 th, 20131. Best Prayer App or Journal: This is changing my life. Because The Sister Promise? I’m taking it seriously and I’m making it and I’m sharing it. But how to organize your prayer life so you really stand in the gap for your sisters? This beautifu...
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moreGod Made a Mother and You — So Farmer On!
On Monday, February 04 th, 2013I sat beside a girl in Mr. Seuter’s grade nine math class who said she was getting out of here. She was getting out of this no name little farming town and she was getting out of this hick place with its hick boys and she was getting free of everything her daddy ever was. I knew her daddy. He was known for planting row...
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moreHow to Breathe Through the Hard Times
On Tuesday, January 22 nd, 2013They were born the same week. Both of them, days apart, two miracle years ago this week. My scribbly little book and her loveliest little person. And my sister had said to me, said into the phone, during early labor — “Tell me I can do this.” And I wait for her to breathe heavy through the mother wave crest...
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more5 Things You Need to Know Before You Begin Your 2nd Term of Life
On Monday, January 21 st, 2013It felt like the second term to her. Her 39 and him about 40, and the first half over, now the beginning of the second. Or of the end — depending how you looked at it. You don’t get to make up most of your story. That’s what she thought at the stove over eggs, over all the cracked and broken things. ...
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moreHow to Keep in Time with God
On Monday, January 14 th, 2013There wasn’t a morning that she didn’t flick off her bedroom light and find it right there on the edge of the table outside their bedroom door. One round vitamin C that he’d leave out for her, before he went to the barn and his udder-dripping sows. Like he thought she could just take it and keep the day from being infected with grief. Like there was a way to i...
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moreWhen You Don’t Want A New Year but A New You. . . {Camera Giveaway} *UPDATED with winner
On Tuesday, January 01 st, 2013How Maggie Pluim knew to ask that question, I’ll never know. Grace has it’s unending ways. True, I had told her straight up that I had no intention of showing up for the church’s annual New Year’s Eve party with Marian Brubacher’s caramel popcorn and Viola Gingerich’s raspberry punch and Mr. Vaness’ countless rounds of Dutch Blitz. R...
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more2012: A Year in Photos {and 7 Links for 2013}
On Saturday, December 29 th, 2012From calendar page to calendar page, the moments are our lives and the years are blinks. {just a few photos from the farm and 2012:} ...
