Dear Me,
Lines to the person I want to be… just a few jotted down lifelines to the me I long to be:
Rise gently, to everything rise gently.
The sun knows how to rise — follow its lead.
Even if it feels like nothing is turning out as you ultimately hoped, He who is Hope Himself is turning things around for your ultimate good.
Write it down somewhere and lean into, live into, the change of this:
Eye the good. And you’ll expand the good.
Focus on what’s failing — and you’ll grow a rash of failures.
Steam in sunlight — the steam of oatmeal, or coffee, or all things piping hot — is like a soul exhale. Take the time to do this often.
You get to linger. You are a living, holy soul, not a spiritless appliance. Beloved, you get to be loved into being whole.
“Gazing on glory is gloriously healing.”
Get up to watch a sunrise now and then — it’s worth it. Glory is always yours to witness. Life is too short to not choose awe. Choose awe and you choose one awesome way to heal.
Gazing on glory is gloriously healing.
Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Welcoming joy is your choice. Choose well.
Eat ice cream. It’s summer — and it melts away faster than anything in a cone.
Believe that change is possible.
Believe that grace works.
Believe that today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Don’t give up — just give everything up to Him.
“Don’t give up — just give everything up to Him.“
Turn the worship up louder to force the worries to be quieter.
Consistently be consistent. Grittiness decides successfulness. And faithfulness is another way to say grittiness. Grittiness and faithfulness is successfulness.
Befriend endurance — if you ever want to know abundance. Stop looking for comfort in a zone instead of in the Holy Spirit. Move out of your comfort zone once a day — and watch the Holy Spirit comfort you in the very places that you once thought impossible.
“Do the hard things you don’t want to do — they are holy things that get where you want to be the most.“
Do the hard things you don’t want to do — they are holy things that get where you want to be the most.
Always, always, always: Stay in the Story.
Live in His Story, breathe His Story, reflect on His Story, let His Story shape yours, share His story, let your story be His.
And read stories — to little people, to old people, to someone — read words out loud and sit in the shared space of a bit of wonder.
Skip more of the news this week and sit with more of the Good News. Your soul needs this kind of exhale.
Drink water. Especially the Living kind. Thirst more for Him than anything else.
This is hard but healing:
Forgive to give freedom.
Forgive to give yourself the key out, forgive to give what you’ve been given.
Forgive to give what you will need to get a thousand times so you can get to go on.
“Love is a verb and that verb is give.
You’ve been given so much — so how can you not live given?”
Love gives. So live given.
Love is a verb and that verb is give.
You’ve been given so much — so how can you not live given?
Give thanks and live given — this is how you get joy.
People love attention more than anything else.
So give attention more than anything else.
Lavishly give attention.
Pay attention — spend everything on attention — and you will have the best things that money can’t buy.
And when you want what isn’t happening — want grace more.
The grace that washes wounds,
the grace that carries you,
the grace that always carries you forward,
that carries you to better things around the next bend,
the grace that makes you brave.
The grace that covers all the things you didn’t do,
and makes all things into the right you hoped things to be.
Want His arms more than wanting what isn’t.
Rise gently and set gratefully — settle everything with relentless gratefulness.
Like the sun gives itself in a freeing surrender to the ways of God.
– Love me,
Your Ann-girl
Dear Me — lines to the person I want to be….
So… we wanted to hear from you all & invited more journallers and women of the Word and words to our farm table to join in writing their own letters to themselves, lifelines to the person they long to be. A small collection of those letters is included below and we’ve saved a chair just for you, to pull in and share too! We’d love to hear from you and your own journal and your own “Dear Me” letter to the person you long to be. Share your letter on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #DearMeLetter #SummerOfJournalling and tag @annvoskamp, so we can share your words and be encouraged and inspired together!
Dear me,
When you need a formula: bless…press on…speak kindly (1 Corinthians 4).
In love, let the record go.
Long to hear His thoughts, to understand and believe them, to live them. Because when life is uncertain and askew and untold, you’re held together by what’s at your center. Tending to your soul-center is your life’s greatest calling.
Nourish your life on this present moment, for it’s the richest, realest gift you have. Press into this given moment and celebrate the beauty right here, right now.
In a world perpetually tired and tiring, rest your heart in Jesus.
Always slow down on Sundays. Slowing down is never a mistake because it helps you pay attention to His heart. And what you pay attention to is what you mostly give your heart to.
You are not yet who you ought to be, but in Him, you are becoming. When insecurities rise, let Grace rise higher.
Life is not a problem to be solved or a crisis to manage through a white-knuckled death grip. Life is a gift to be lived in His good grip.
God is taking your messes, your dying hopes, your washed-out wishes and making you GOOD.
“Revision isn’t just a writing hack; it’s a life-saving skill. Re-vision is re-seeing. And Grace is the master revisioner.”
You might feel like you’re cracking wide open–and you are–but it’s Grace Himself cracking open deep wells of Life within you.
Revision isn’t just a writing hack; it’s a life-saving skill. Re-vision is re-seeing. And Grace is the master revisioner.
Death gives way to rebirth, and then rebirth gives way to life, and life gives way to hope. And in surrendering, you will rise again. Instead of silver linings and white-washed platitudes, He is pointing you to resurrection.
Your grief is not lost on God. Press into the story to see Jesus. Then tell the whole world the story because in telling, there is healing.
God is authoring your story…and it is good because He is (Psalm 116:7).
In Him, in His goodness, in His completeness, be fully satisfied.
When in doubt, write it out. Read the Word. Pen the Word. Write your heart back to the Word.
– Allison
Dear Me,
Lifelines to the me I want to be…
Be kind and grant grace…to yourself, to your loved ones and to others.
Give in to the nudges from Holy Spirit and answer the call God has given.
When you don’t feel like you are enough, lean into God’s grace and love so you can endure through seasons of the unknown.
“Trust God’s way more than your own. He holds every second of the ordinary and extraordinary in His hands.”
Forgive easily and let go of the grudges that taint your heart.
Trust God’s way more than your own. He holds every second of the ordinary and extraordinary in His hands.
Celebrate every accomplishment, every milestone and every blessing.
Know that there is nothing you can do to cause God to love you more or less than He ever has or ever will.
Don’t allow fear and doubt to cloud your faith in God’s promises for you, for your family or for others.
Enjoy every small moment, big moment…just all the moments. Those moments make memories!
– Sharonda
Dear Me,
Lifelines to the me I want to be—who I am growing to be:
Slowly sip and savor the coffee in the light of each new morning
Lay awake with the windows open, stilling your heart and mind
Listen to the sounds,
Feel the breeze,
See the glory in every sunrise—for not one is the same.
Pray. Never miss praying.
Pray relentlessly, unceasingly, passionately, sweetly, authentically.
Putting on a façade for the Father is never going to work. He knows you—from the deepest, darkest, and most hurt crevasse of your soul, to the highest peak of your war-torn heart—He knows you and still died for you.
Trust His love, His lead, and His guide.
It is a holy and glorious gift to believe in the God of the Bible.
It is good to remember a life given to Jesus will be led by Jesus—even in the unmerited miraculous.
Surround your days in the Word. Feed your body with the Bread of Life.
No greater sustenance is attained in this life.
“You don’t have to match the volume of the rhetoric to matter.”
It doesn’t make you less of a Christian to be the quiet voice whispering raw truths of the Word in the space of the world’s pause—when it must breathe amidst the screams.
You don’t have to match the volume of the rhetoric to matter.
Savor time with your blessings…
Play.
Laugh.
Never let a day go by without saying “I love you.”
These sweet little ones are the arrows in your quiver you’ve been called to form and shape with the Truth. Life isn’t less because it is simply and fully devoted to them—it is full and worthy because of it.
Sanctification happens on the journey. Don’t ever miss that. Don’t ever wish it away. Don’t ever covet someone’s perceived “ease” because God chose you to walk a unique “hard.”
Sing. Always sing. It is a gift God has given, taken, and restored ten-fold. May you never stop singing for the One whom your song was created for.
See the breath of God in the creation around you. Notice Him magnified through each wave crashing, every tree rustling, and each whisper of morning snow as it finds rest on earth. It was all created by Him and for Him—SEE it through what your finite eye can behold.
Offer the words of your fallow heart and soul on every page. In the offering, He is faithful to till the dust of which you have been created so seeds of Him may be sown deeply into the richness of all you’ve become.
Bake the cookies. Eat every single one.
Wear your linen overalls.
Play in the rain with your girls.
Be wild with the earth.
Paint without talent.
Write without audience.
Bake without recipe.
Create forever.
Never stop living—truly living.
For you have been given this one life, and He is faithful to see His promises to completion.
– Sarah
Your turn! Pulling in real close, and finding your eyes, and goodness, we’d all love to hear lines from your journal and your own “Dear Me” letter to the person you long to be. Yep, just go ahead and share your letter on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #DearMeLetter #SummerOfJournalling and tag @annvoskamp, so we can share your lifelines of words to your own soul– this is our summer of journaling to preach goodness and hope to our own souls — and be encouraged and inspired together!
