Ann Voskamp: The Beauty of Brokenness (LIFE Today)

the following program is sponsored by friends of Life outreach international next on life today Sheila Walsh reflects on a discussion she had with an vasca about some of life's most haunting questions God Himself enters into the suffering he weeps with us he cries with us we look at broken as the ones that walk why is this happening we may not understand the reasons why but we know that it must be a very good reason because God Himself is willing to experience that with us to weep with us to walk with us to actually suffer with us we see that on the cross [Music] hey welcome to life today I'm Sheila Walsh glad you stopped by I hope you'll stay for the whole program because today we're gonna actually be talking to a really good friend of mine you know I have the privilege of interviewing so many people and I'm touched by each one of them but every now and again one of them becomes a close personal friend and that's why I'm I'm gonna actually show you an interview I did some time ago you'll be able to tell that because my hair is different and the sets different and I'm wearing an outfit I will never wear again having just seen it but anyway the interview I did was with Anne Voss camp I Anna's one of the most it's like I feel like I'm looking at a crystal when I look at Anne because the way she reflects the light and the love of Christ but what you maybe don't know about her story is that she came from a place of desperate brokenness I mean she has gone through so much in her relatively short life but it's out of those places that she writes with don't a few don't follow an voss camp on Instagram you need to start because even just her little posts it's like each word weighs so much and that's why it's a real it's a real joy to be able to revisit this interview so I know you're gonna enjoy and if you stay tuned I'm gonna let you know hey hold up her book but let's watch and together in my first memories Sheila is my little sister being killed and from my mother and I she was run over by a truck in our front yard and killed my growing up years I was terrified death seemed like it was possible around any corner I couldn't sleep this a little girl I was terrified what if I didn't wake up um I had ulcers by the time I was seven teen years I was cutting by the time I was 18 19 I was having panic attacks University anxiety and fear just seemed to hound me but if you wear a mask over all of that the weight of that mass almost killed z1 and I got to the place where I realized that when I wore a mask what ultimately got masked was the power of Christ in my life well if I could just take the mask off and say I am broken I have fears I am wrestling I am Jacob clinging to God I could take that off the power of Christ could be seeing that in my weakness he got to be all the strength that I got to say I could let go of trying to hold on and sometimes when you're control freak but the energy that doesn't take to try to control for me just to let that go and say I am broken and Jesus is taking all the shards of my life and making a mosaic of Christ Christ got all the glory and I could just lean into him I didn't have to be perfect want you to do was let him press my runes into his wounds and by his wounds I am healed so it really came to a place of grace is weightless and could I just come to the place I need to take off all of the the mass all of the the pressures I'm feeling super me to perform to be perfect and step into the weightlessness of His grace Jesus is finished at all you know what's interesting though and I sometimes think you know you know if we could just go away and live in the desert in a cave and be holy you're a mom of how many children to seven gives now seven kids that you homeschool yeah farm gritty and dirty and wild how do you live that level of vulnerability and brokenness with your family I think that's one of the most important places to live it I think it's to let the kids know I'm preaching gospel aloud to myself all of the time I'm gonna have to go ahead and hold on to this first and preach it back to myself after go ahead and say wait a second what kind of be great before in this moment when I'm messing it up and I'm rant and rave enough about kids who say mama what can you be grateful for right now I think to go ahead and model in front of our kids because they're the kids no they don't have it together so if mom and dad look like they have it together there's a disconnect budget well what's wrong with me but I think when we can go ahead and model mom what doesn't happen together and I need Jesus desperately that creates a safe space for everybody to go ahead and bring their brokenness we know where to take we take it to the cross I think I think it's good and right for us to just being a posture as parents of loneliness and humility that it's note that we don't get it wrong it's what are we gonna do with it afterwards and have a kind of attitude with the kids were I apologize to them and I can show them the mama messed it up I'm going back to Jesus you know a lot of I can imagine some people watching into thinking you know honestly I don't really want to be broken but but if you can in the midst of that brokenness trust that in the broken places God's making abundance the brokenness makes abundance look at all through Scripture what is it those broken loaves and they're broken they get multiplied the multiplication happens in the brokenness I think everybody wants to get to the place I want change in my life I want transformation you can't get to change or transformation without brokenness our lives are like seeds if we want change if we want yield if we want a new life out of those places a seed has to be broken to bring forth news life let me say we want to be the fragrance of Christ there's nothing franklin's only comes from things precious beautiful things that are crushed and broken so don't be afraid of broken things those are places of where things can be resurrected don't be afraid of broken things those are where everything is being redeemed so I think if we can I know culture around this escape from suffering escape from Breakfast and numb do whatever you need to do to hide and bury it but you the level to the degree to which you can embrace brokenness is the degree to which you will experience abundance the degree to which you can embrace brokenness is the degree to which you can embrace intimacy because everybody's walking around with a broken heart usually your broken heart down on the table shortest distance between two hearts is sharing that brokenness we want communion in intimacy it comes out of being real and vulnerable and transparent with our brokenness I just think the metaphor we see through Scripture is that Last Supper we won't communion What Where does communion look like the bread being broken the wine the grape being crushed into the wine and being passed around communion comes out of places we're willing we're willing to be and given its all brokenness redeemable I believe so there is bad brokenness brokenness that is not brokenness that hinders us brokenness that doesn't hate flourishing in our lives but when we good brokenness breaks bad brokenness if we can say I'm the brokenness of humility the brokenness of vulnerability the brokenness of generosity those are all good brokenness so we take good brokenness and pour it into places of bad brokenness the brokenness that doesn't create human flourishing that begins to break the bad brokenness and create redemptive stories resurrection places you were named Christianity today named you as one of the 50 most influential voices the shaping Christian culture and that's important and and your blog is one of the top 10 I one of my concerns at the moment is I feel like sometimes as Christians in this nation our voices are getting louder but our compassion is getting less what do you have to say to that I think sometimes quieter voices can carry greater weight we don't need to raise our voices to be heard God calls us to be still and know that I am God let's go to quiet places and hear what God is saying I think we see all three through the New Testament Christ the character in most models is compassion compassion literally means no it's not to be hit like God you're actually moved with compassion if that bending for new compassion when you break down with the word means go suffering passion means suffering if we are going to as a church as believers have compassion we all want that but we want to step into places where we go suffer with other people I really believe that we're called as Christians to be compassionate people that'll be like like Jesus like God God says I am Emmanuel God with us compassion means you're gonna Co suffer with someone you're gonna come alongside them in broken places I really believe it if we're living like a manual with us witness breaks proculus we look around at people around you who are broken and say I'm gonna walk with you I'm gonna stand with you and that means that but as Christians we have cross shaped lives not comfort shaped lives so how can I live really shaped like a cross cruciform and that means stepping into places of suffering and being like Jesus stretching out my hands and reaching around somebody and pulling them close some people struggle with the idea of a loving God and the weight of suffering that there is in the world what do you say to that I think that's the pounding question of so much as where is a good God and a brokenhearted suffering world and I think he calls us as the church to be the answering to that suffering that we get to go ahead and and look at what God Himself does God himself enters into the suffering he weeps with us he cries with us we look at broken as the ones that walk why is this happening we may not understand the reasons why but we know that it must be a very good reason because God Himself is willing to experience that with us to weep with us to walk with us to actually suffer with us we see that on the cross so then we as Christians as believers how what's the answer to suffering we step into those suffering places and be like Jesus the hands and feet of Jesus and walk through those suffering places with people so as Christians we're not supposed to try to escape suffering we're gonna call to embrace that suffering because we know a broken hearted healer who heals that suffering some way I wanted to quote it says quote of yours you said what matters most is not if our love makes other people change but that in loving we change we change it's oftentimes we're result-oriented it that if I love you this sometimes we get in the NICU whatever and our love oh yeah I love you because I'm hoping that this is become as opposed to I love you unconditionally what God has left me and we didn't the loving you I'm the one that gets changed and become more cruciform more shaped like a cross I'm the more like Jesus and surrendering and sacrificing myself I think ultimately what we all long for scripture says love bears all things that word bear means stay go love becomes like a roof for somebody but I would go ahead and sort of break myself like a roof to take the storm to take the winds so that you have a safe place but I'm not gonna manipulate you or try to make you into what I want but it's a safe place for you to come and the love will change me I'll become a roof and you have a safe place to be real and vulnerable I'll be stay goal for you what do you do and on the days when you're just more night I was yesterday me too you know what I'll go back to the songs over and over again I think David's vulnerability his lament with God his own as with God he talked about his soul being so downcast and broken and then as you read through the each song and then the Psalms as a whole again and again yes we come with our brokenness and element and Jesus did I mean yes hard stops Jesus does nine o'clock six heart stops for prayer where he's going back and he's reciting songs I think if we can model that that if we didn't have hard stops during day not rolling stops because then it sort of crash and burn but if times you say I'm gonna stop at nine o'clock I'm going to stop and I'm gonna stop at six I'm gonna open up the Psalms I'm gonna be really honest with God about the brokenness of just today how today I've tripped and fallen and things have been messy but about the time you get to every song you're back to who is God I can worship God I preach the gospel back to myself the truth about who God is and who I am in God so I think I think going back to the Psalms models what do we do with our brokenness we are real with it and then God becomes more real to us as we're just opening transparent with him I think that one of the things to me that David models is that to the level that you're willing to be honest with God indicates the level of intimacy and trust that God actually look sees and you experience the communion if you want real communion with God you need to be deeply honest with God he's big enough to take it he wants the honesty would you say there's some news watching in maybe just flipping through another tale and thinks well that's lovely for you nice to Christian ladies but God's not gonna like me who's sitting here with half a bottle of Jack Daniels if you knew the level of my brokenness why I call it unspoken broken I think we're all sometimes high-functioning with our unspoken broken but deep down we have broken is that we don't even know how to articulate and I think there is more grace in Christ than there is guilt you say that just whatever I hold on to it there is more grace in Christ then there is guilt in me Jesus is drawn to the brokenhearted Jesus the places with it I don't want to draw attention to Jesus is drawn to those brokenhearted places because he wants to draw something beautiful in those places the places that I most don't want us anyone to see God most wants to touch those places so I think the church we need to strip off the masks because the outside world knows we come I am so broken here's my vulnerable places let me tell you about things that I'm gonna whisper they're so broken but can I take you to Jesus he's got scars and he wants to press his scars into our scars that's the only place that I know to take my suffering and my brokenness so I think I think we as the church if we can be really honest about our brokenness that person sit in a hotel room knows that if the church isn't for the suffering the church isn't for Christ the church is the safest place to come with your brokenness that will be stay go for you we will be a safe place for you to come and be really real and we will love you unconditionally always the price has left us in their own world difference you know and as well as having a huge family as well as homeschooling them you then decided there was room in your heart for one more little girl from China who to you broken how is she doing she came to us at the literal broken heart she has half hour and I guess it was she was about Lee knowing my own broken heartedness my own realization about I've been abandoned in so many ways and Jesus adopted me Jesus crafted me and Jesus wouldn't me or nobody else so adopting Shiloh has been about me understanding and getting to live out exactly what I've experienced you you are never abandon you are placed where you are so goddamn rich I was doing shadows broken heart has healed so much of my own broken heartedness therefore morning would I to go to change her she's - I get her dressed she has this big scar down the midst of her chest where they have had to actually open up her her chest she's had two broken heart to open-heart surgery she's got one more in front of her and she goes mama Shiloh's brave look mama shine I was brave I think all of us have our own scars but nobody sees and every day we have to be so brave just get out of bed and put one step in front of the other and Jesus reaches over and takes his hand and says I am with you you're never abandoned you're never alone and when you can't take one more step well I think that last sentence was for one of you right now you know watching and thinking you know nobody cares about me nobody nobody we were worse off if I wasn't on the planet anymore and maybe Anna's words reach into that darkest place and you and let you know you are not abandoned you are loved and see the hard thing is there's so much brokenness in life that you think well you sit there and you talk to me about a God of love and and a God who cares but if he loves me and if he cares and why did I go through these things and I will not even pretend to come up with an answer I don't know I really don't know but what I do know and what I believe as deep as the marrow in my bones is that God sees you that God knows you that God loves you and he will use your very brokenness to be a conduit of love to other people I have a little kind of stone that my son made for me when he was four or five it's in the yard it's called you know cement and lots of little pieces of broken glass and broken pottery and and then he wrote with his little finger I love you mom and I have it there obviously because I love it my son made it but I have it there because it's a daily reminder to me when I go out with my coffee that it's amazing what God will do with a broken life if you give him all the pieces and that's for and shows us the beauty of brokenness and I've encountered that in a lot of places just even in the last year and one of those places is a place I'd like to take you with me I want you to come with me all across the world to Africa and I want you to introduce you to some people who need a new kind of normal [Music] so they walk all this way and this is what they come to Wow look at the flies and all that nasty yeah and it's so filthy yeah it's so hard I mean watching them pull this up knowing that potentially this could make them so sick he just won it she drinks in it but the thirst dates all they're gone the thing I find horrifying honestly ralph is not one of these children has ever had a glass of clean water not one in their whole life that's just that may it's wrong it's hard it's very dangerous even deadly we've heard stories of death this is normal for these children they have to do this two or three times every day so this water this contaminated water they think this is normal that's all they've ever known but when when we come in with life today and we drill a well deep down encase the well suddenly clean water will become their new normal I would never let my child drink water from this and I don't a beast children to do anymore would you help us drill a well so that for the first time in their life they have a new normal fresh clean but we need your help and the need is urgent we need your help now so I saw both of those things on the same day you know during the day we were in a village where that literally was all they had and it was it's just horrifying everything within you whether your mother or father are just a human being everything with the new revolts against watching children drink water like that knowing that many of those little ones have already lost siblings because the water was so filthy and they could not survive but then later as we were driving back to the little place where we were staying they said do you want to see a place where one of our life outreach wells has gone in and I'm like yes I can't tell you what it was like the contrast to get out of our little truck and there was this well in the village with life outreach International and the kids were you know getting water from and they gave me a glass to drink and I drank it I drank every single drop and I drank it with joy and I drank it with a prayer of thanksgiving for people like you who have faithfully helped us through the years but the need is still there it's great we are praying that we will be able to finish our commitment this year for water for life but we still need to be able to drill 150 wells now that might seem like an impossible task but it's not you've done it before and I believe that we can do it again and here's how we do it we do it by you doing your part and me doing mine so if you could give $48 that will give clean water to ten children I mean can you imagine ten of those little ones that for the first time and their life they will drink a glass of clean water I mean I I saw some of these I'm never like wow this is oh this is amazing and I think sometimes I'm always saying to myself I should drink more water I should drink more water forgetting that there are people in the world dying literally dying to have a drink of clean water so if you could give a bit a bit more a hundred and forty-four dollars will give clean water for 30 children if you're able perhaps with your family or your small group or your sunday-school class get together and do I determine that you're gonna do a whole well that's $4,800 and that will give water for a thousand people in a village for their life so please well you you call that number on your screen will you just give whatever you can if we all give whatever we can or go online but please give the best gift you can so that when we go back the next time to Africa we can bring back more footage and let you see the difference that you have made so please call that number go online and just give the best gift that you possibly can give water for life in Jesus name dirty diseased filled water out desperate what a mother need to be to consider giving this contaminated substance to her child for many mothers and their families living in extreme poverty this is their only choice with your help they won't have to make this choice ever again Mission Water for Life provides clean disease-free water for thousands of children and their families giving them a life free from the fear of death with your gift today you can help drill and establish the final 150 water wells this year your gift of $48 will help provide water for ten people seventy two dollars will provide for 15 one hundred forty-four dollars will help provide life-giving water for thirty people for a lifetime and a gift of 48 hundred dollars will help sponsor a complete well serving up to one thousand people with your gift will send you today is a good day seasonal devotional sets broken out into the four seasons of the year this beautiful set features the daily scripture inspirational thoughts and a place for you to journal your own thoughts prayers and insights from God's Word with your gift of $100 or more requests the leather-bound life-giving proverbs journal filled with wisdom and daily encouragement from Proverbs including lions pages for Bill personal notes finally please consider a gift of twelve hundred dollars to help provide water for 250 people or a gift of $4,800 to help sponsor a complete well and you may request a mother strength bronze sculpture please call write or make your gift online you know these are beautiful children and beautiful families that have come here to contaminated water sources and and you know with your help we're giving not only here in Africa help to people but in countries all over the world where people are are dying of diseases from contaminating water we can drill wells in scores of countries if you would just help grill one well maybe you could drill a well or join one or two other people to drill one but we need every person watching to do your part in helping provide families like this and children like this water sources non contaminated water clean water in nations throughout the world and every time we do it we inspire others to join us so would you be that source of inspiration in health by making the best gift you can today thank you so much if the lines busy just be persistent keep calling and for any gift at all we will send you an amazing book the broken way a daring path into the abundant life you know you can tell when you read a book from someone who has written out of the depth of their pain that there's kind of the such an anointing on this book so we'd love to send that to you or also if you would like to get for any gift we'll send you our four seasons devotional and for $100 gift we'll send you our beautiful journal with proverbs like some of the greatest teachings and the Word of God from Proverbs trust in the Lord with all your heart lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight proverbs 3:5 and 6 it's a promise we love you and we'll see you next time on life today [Music] [Music] tomorrow Grammy award-winner hip hop recording artist Lecrae explains that his journey of life inspires his music and motivates him to help others life today is made possible by the supporters of Life outreach International your gift will be used exclusively for the exempt purposes of life the ministry features specific outreaches as examples of the program's it supports and conducts gifts are considered to be without restriction as to use unless explicitly stipulated by the donor the ministry is a member at the EC FA

Channel: lifetodaytv

Views: 5,200

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: life today, james, robison, christian, television, tv

Id: QjOO7OHhADg

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2020