Monthly Archives: December 2016

the wound is where the light shines through

09 Friday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 9

“When you are brave, you give yourself the gift of facing and touching the torn places. The places where we’re torn to pieces can be thin places where we touch the peace of God…
What was intended to tear you apart, God intends it to set you apart.”
Ann Voskamp

“A prison cell, in which on waits, hopes… and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When have you seen God take what was torn and turn it into a gift? I’d love to hear your thought

*All quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

 

 

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Love came down

08 Thursday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 8

“Sometimes you’re just the most tired of trying to be strong…When you are wrung out, that is the sign you’ve been reaching for rungs. The work at the very heart of salvations is the work of the very heart of Christmas: simply rest…
The wonder of all this – God looks at you at your lowest and loves you all the way up to the sky.”
Ann Voskamp

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas,
When it’s mighty Founder was a child himself.”
Charles Dickens

How would your perspective on the dailyness of life change if you could see that here is holy?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

“to provide” means “to see”

08 Thursday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 7

“You don’t need to climb mountains named I Will Perform.
You don’t need to climb mountains named I will Produce.
Every mountain that every Christian ever faces, the Lord levels with sufficient grace:
The Lord Will Provide.”
Ann Voskamp

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burn offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place [Yahweh-Yireh] The Lord Will Provide. 
Genesis 22:13-14

Name the ways God has provided grace for the gaps in your life.

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

oxygenated grace

08 Thursday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 6

“That ache is not the last word for those who believe God. Jesus is. Jesus is the last word, and we rejoice and rejoice again and re-joy again because grace is our oxygen now.”
Ann Voskamp

“You have as much laughter as you have faith.”
Martin Luther

What impossible thing are you longing for?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

all is grace

08 Thursday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 5

“Only when you first unwrap the gifts of blessings to you can you be wrapped up as a gift of blessing to others. Only when you are overwhelmed with the goodness of God can you overflow with the goodness of God to others…The greatest gift God graces a soul with is His own presence.” Ann Voskamp

“It is no use for  you to attempt to sow out of an empty basket,
for that would deb sowing nothing but wind.”
Charles Spurgeon

What are some ways you can be a blessing to others?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

Rise

08 Thursday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 4

“Every flood of trouble remakes the topography of our souls – making us better or bitter.
Every trouble is a flood, and we can either rise up or sink down… Grace – it, too, has floods of its own… The way of heaven comes down so we can rise.”
Ann Voskamp

Strange, this familiar Father of prodigals whose love, too much for one lifetime, will that we shall share the feast of forgiveness and joy in the epilogue of eternity.
Strange, this day of advent of EMMANUEL.”
J. F. Wilson

When have you felt flooded, overwhelmed by the waters rising around you?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

 

 

where are you?

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 3

“We only find out where we are when we find out where He is. We only find ourselves… when we find Him. We lost ourselves at one tree [the garden of Eden]. And only find ourselves at another [the cross]. Wise men are only wise because they make their priority the seeking of Christ.”
Ann Voskamp

“When the year dies in preparation for the birth of other seasons, not the same, on the same earth, then saving and calamity go together make the Advent gospel, telling how the heart will break. Therefore it was in Advent that the Quest began.”
C. S. Lewis

What places deep within your soul do you long for the Lord to seek out during this season of Advent?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

ravished with wonder

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 2

“You are made of the dust of this earth, and you are made of the happiness of heaven, and you are flesh and you are spirit, and you are of two worlds longing for the home of forever and Him. No matter your story before, this is your beginning now: you were formed by Love…for love.”
Ann Voskamp

“We must be sure of the infinite good that is done to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that we may be ravished in love with our God and inflamed with a right affection to obey Him, and keep ourselves strictly in awe of Him.”
John Calvin

What does it mean to you that you were made out of the overflow of God’s love?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

God-glory breaking in

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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Advent Day 1

“Just where you are, look for the small glimpses of God-glory breaking in, breaking out, sprouting, shooting, unfurling, bearing fruit, making a Kingdom, remaking the world.
Slow and still. And see the shoot that bears witness to God – the hardly noted child, the hymn hummed over the sink, the unassuming woman bent at the register the dog-eared
Word of God becoming from the shelf…This slow unfurling of grace.” 
Ann Voskamp

“The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”
Frederick Buechner

What are you waiting for, yearning for this season?

*all quotations and questions taken from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp