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Gina DiMartino

~ finding beauty in pain

Gina DiMartino

Tag Archives: Ann Voskamp

don’t miss the magic

04 Friday Dec 2020

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Advent, Ann Voskamp, Hannah Brencher

I’m again reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. And going through Advent books by Ann Voskamp and Hannah Brencher. I know. Those don’t really relate to each other or go together but bear with me. Today in the Advent reading, Hannah was talking about not missing things in the mundane.

“Our God is a God who orchestrates redemption stories. He is constantly up to something. Where we see random days, he sees so much purpose. Where we see lines in a story, he reads between those lines and fills our days with all kinds of serendipity.” Hannah Brencher

We have to be present. We have to look up from our phones. We have to be watching. If we don’t want to miss it. How much are we missing by crashing on the couch and watching tv? This season has been hard and it has been so easy to just be numb and ignore everything. To veg out in front of the television, ignore the news, ignore the pandemic, and escape into another world for a few hours. Obviously there is nothing wrong with this. I fully support binge watching shows. Especially funny ones that make you laugh.

But now I am pondering… what am I missing out on?

Elizabeth Gilbert says; “ The courage to go on that hunt in the first place – that’s what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one. The often surprising results of the hunt – that’s what I call Big Magic.” I know. she isn’t writing from a Christian perspective. I’m not in any way saying that. But if you haven’t read Big Magic I do highly recommend it. From a creative/writing perspective it is an inspirational book that makes me want to wildly pursue my dreams and never look back.

Separate the mundane from the enchanted. Separate normal every day life from what God sees in between the lines. Fill our days with serendipity. Isn’t that what we are longing for? To see the world as God see it? To see the magic?

Mary Oliver, whom I have recently come to love, asks the question “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your. one wild and precious life?”

Covid has made this hard. I know. Pursuing dreams seems inaccessible. Out of reach. It feels like we have had to press pause on our entire lives. Did you think it would last this long? Did you think, oh we will have a few weeks of this, maybe a month and then we will be back to normal life? And I refuse to call this life our “new normal” because that is what they called our lives after the bombing and it is a huge trigger for me. My life after the bombing was my new normal. A leg that doesn’t work, pain, trauma, ptsd. That is my new normal. I won’t go back to how I was before the bomb. Covid will go away. There are many vaccines. In a year or two we won’t be thinking about it much. That is not a new normal. That is a temporary (terrible) trial that we are enduring, walking through to the other side.

When lockdown started it was sort of nice right? We don’t have to go anywhere. We can curl up on the couch and binge watch shows and eat whatever we have delivered to the house. And it was kind of like a terrible vacation where you didn’t know when you would go back to work or if you would, but if you forgot all of those things… It was sort of this break from the world. Right? And now we are 10 months into this pandemic and we are heading into a new year and people keep saying I can’t wait for 2021. (As if covid will disappear as soon as the clock strikes 12). Which it won’t.

My point is, it was ok during lock down to veg out and ignore reality and put a pause on your dreams. Because everything was crazy. Everything was so unknown. We had to focus so hard on just living. And NOW, it is still crazy and still unknown, but have your dreams been on pause for 10 months? Have you been waking up each day wishing it was time to go back to bed? And I am not minimizing the trial of this time. It has been HARD. But I know that I need to stop trudging along through each day just hoping to get through it. I hope we get through today, and tomorrow, and this season, and this pandemic. But when you look back on 2020 what did you do? What did I accomplish? Where was the magic? It is there if you try to see it. Make a list. Mine looks something like this…

  1. I got to really know my neighbors and develop relationships with them
  2. I spent more time with my family
  3. I got to spend months in Texas with my family there building relationships with them that have made us closer than ever
  4. I saved enough $ to buy a new car
  5. We had home church during lock down and that was such a sweet time. It was a blessing to grow close to a smaller group of people

I am trying to put things into place. I am trying to start seeing between the lines. I am trying to not miss the magic. Tell me. “What is it you will do with your one wild and precious life?” Lets go into 2021 seeing the magic. Seeing God’s hands at work. Let’s pursue our dreams as much as we can. Let’s walk into it with open hands. Pandemic or not! Let’s figure out what we are learning through this hard time and put it into words or art or music or a podcast or a blog or an encouraging conversation with a friend.

Start small. Start with a half hour a day. Open your eyes. Look around you at the grocery store. Notice other people. Look in their eyes and smile. (they can tell, even if you have a mask on I promise)

“This is a time that won’t come again. God will never duplicate it in this lifetime. And I believe he wants to show up and show off for us throughout this Advent season. [And this pandemic]” HB

So, show up. Look between the lines. Try to see what God is doing. Try to see the magic.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

breathe

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

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Advent, Ann Voskamp, blessing, breathe, slow down, The Greatest Gift

Today started all sorts of wrong.

My Fiddle Leaf Fig tree has not been doing well, so I have been trying to hard to help it. I bought it a warm-mist humidifier and when I got up this morning it had dropped two more leaves.

I picked up the tree skirt and vacuumed up all the needles from the tree, put the tree skirt back and a million needles fell all over my vacuumed floor and clean tree skirt. Fail.

I put Christmas lights up on my front porch and they look so cute, but they KEEP FALLING DOWN. As soon as the tree dropped needles all over my freshly vacuumed floor a noise outside startled me. Most of the lights had decided to give up and fall down onto the porch.

At this point I decided to put on some music as loud as possible because I just needed some Jesus in my frustration. But my speaker, which normally works just fine, would not play the music. It was in and out, every other word. OH MY GOODNESS. I finally just let my phone play the music.

I had to print something to mail for a friend, and it needed to be mailed today. Of course, you guessed it, my printer will not work.

So now it is 11 am. I have cried three times and feel like I have accomplished NOTHING because everything keeps going wrong. I wonder why I even got up this morning. Should I just go back to bed?

I gave up on everything, sunk down into my desk chair and started reading the devotional for todays advent.

“This is the gift that wraps up all the stresses quiet:

I will bless you.

…the weight of everything melts like thinning snow in the heat of His words: “I will bless you.” He will not burden you. He will not break you. He will bless you…”

“So slow down to feel the wind. Listen to the carols just a little bit longer. Linger in the quiet and taste the grace of now, and know that He is good and He is God. Name them in this moment – gift upon gift upon gift – and listen for the echo in everything: I will bless you.”

Sigh

Breathe

So here I am at noon, with nothing accomplished in my day, but with this reminder now wrapping me up and reminding me that I am blessed. God will bless me. And all my stupid, trivial, annoying things that go wrong don’t really matter. I just need to slow down and breathe.

Breathe.

The Greatest Gift

20 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by ginamd in Book Reviews, Uncategorized

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Advent, advent devotional, Ann Voskamp, Christmas, christmas devotional, daily devotional, jesse tree, The Greatest Gift

I know Thanksgiving was this week, but now that everyone is in the Christmas mood, I wanted to put this out there so you could get it in time. I have read this book the past two Christmas seasons and I think its the perfect way to put your heart and mind in the right space for remembering what Christmas is really all about. Ann has a poetic voice, and the short devotionals for each day leading up to Christmas are beautiful and bring peace and focus to this crazy holiday season. There’s one short chapter for each day of December, be sure to get your copy soon so that you have it in time! I’d love to know what you think!

the wound is where the light shines through

09 Friday Dec 2016

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Advent, Ann Voskamp, Boston Strong, Christmas, Christmas time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Switchfoot, Wounds

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

 

 

where are you?

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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Advent, Ann Voskamp, Christmas time, The Greatest Gift

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, Ann Voskamp, Christmas time, The Greatest Gift

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, Ann Voskamp, Christmas time, The Greatest Gift

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

Christa Hesselink

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

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Ann Voskamp, author launch, Christa Hesselink

A friend from the Author Launch class did a guest blog for Ann Voskamp. How awesome! Check it out here. Christa also has a book, Life’s Great Dare, coming out soon that I will be doing a book review for very soon! You can pre-order copies now, it comes out March 31st.

Advent Day 18

18 Thursday Dec 2014

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Advent, Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift

Come to the King

Screen Shot 2014-12-18 at 10.06.53 AMEsther was the queen. And her people were in danger. She didn’t know what to do but Mordecai told her “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” He challenged her. He believed God gave her a gift, He put her in a position of power  so that she could save His people. And Mordecai was right.

God gives us all gifts. “they were given to be a lifeline to others – or you lose your life…if your gifts don’t give relief, you don’t get real life.”

So I sit here pondering my gifts. What has God gifted me with and how am I using them? Am I even using them? Sometimes it comes naturally. Like cooking dinner for people, or covering a shift for someone at work, but sometimes its harder and an effort needs to be made. I’m not even always sure what my gifts are. Do you know yours?

“You are loved and carried and secure, and what else do you need when you have Him? You are free, free, to lavishly give away your gifts when all your value, worth, joy, and riches are in the greatest of gifts.”

Find one person you can help today using your gifts. What has God given you for “such a time as this”?

“Why would anyone inside the gate seek to be rich, and great, and honored in that world where his Lord was poor, and mean, and despised?”
George Muller

 

Advent Day 17

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by ginamd in Uncategorized

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Advent, Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift

Lifting up the little and small

Screen Shot 2014-12-17 at 10.51.06 AM

 

Lately I have been so stressed. So worried. Things are constantly on my mind, weighing me down. This book has been such an encouragement. Every day it speaks directly to my soul. It says exactly what I need to hear. God knew that I needed this book for this time.

The one thing that totally jumped off the page today:

“When the King rules your world, you cease to rule or worry. All worry dethrones God. All worrying makes your King and God incompetent. There is a King born in Bethlehem and on the throne. You can breathe.”

Jesus is coming. He is coming to “rule the earth and make all the sad things untrue.” AMEN

AMEN

AMEN!

Make all the sad things UNTRUE.

I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THAT DAY

“The wonderland is unfolding even now, Kingdom coming, because His Word “will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:11-12) The dance of the sugarplum fairies just withered a bit.”

What worries do you need to surrender to God, knowing He is FIRMLY on His throne?

 

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