She reminded us of the power of joy with her book 1000 Gifts. And now she’s back with powerful insight on navigating life when it feels like the waves of challenge and change just keep coming. Ann Voskamp joins Julie Lyles Carr for an incredible episode you don’t want to miss!
Listen to “What To Do When Life Feels Sideways with Ann Voskamp” on Spreaker.
Interview Links:
Find Ann Online | Instagram| Facebook | Twitter
Books: 1000 Gifts | Waymaker
Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr: You’re listening to the AllMomDoes podcast where you’ll find encouragement, information, and inspiration, for the life you’re living, the kids you’re raising, the romance you’re loving, and the faith you’re growing. I’m your host, Julie Lyles Carr. Let’s jump into this week’s episode.
Julie Lyles Carr: I am giddy. I have to admit I’ve got a whole girl crush going on. I’m just trying to calm myself down because today I have someone on the podcast who, for me, as a writer, you know, you have those people that when you get to read their words, oh, my, and that is who I have on today. Ann Voskamp, as she is a curator, a purveyor of incredible words, and heart, and just has such a passion for speaking to women and for helping them in our complex, sometimes bumpy, sometimes messy spiritual lives. Ann Voskamp, welcome to the podcast today.
Ann Voskamp: I am so blessed. I’m the luckiest, luckiest, luckiest to get to hang out with Julie and all of your great people today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Julie Lyles Carr: Well, I am absolutely thrilled, and I just have to believe that most of my listeners know exactly who you are and where you live in the world and all those things, but let’s just for those who may be finding you for the first time, give us a small snapshot of your life and where you live and your loves.
Ann Voskamp: Yeah. Julie and I were just talking before we came on here that she is in the beautiful, warm climate of Austin, Texas, and I am in the great white north in Canada. I am looking out my window right now at about two feet of snow. Uh, yesterday we were somewhere around seven degrees Fahrenheit. So we’re kind of nippy up here right now. And my husband and I farmed over a thousand acres, and we have 600 sows out there in the barn, so we always have a thousand baby piglets out there. Liz Curtis Higgs once told me, you shouldn’t have written a book called 1000 gifts but call it 1000 baby pigs.
And, um, and we have seven kids that run in ages from 26 down to seven years of age. So we have seven kids that stretched just about across 20 years. So, I have kids on one and getting married and kids on the other end who are just learning to read. So, I am in the thick of mothering, right alongside of you.
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. You know, I I’m in those similar stages because with our eight, we’ve got 17 years between our first and our youngest. And so, now I’ve actually cleared the seven-year-old thing, but I’m telling you, Ann, we are still running arithmetic facts. I can’t, I’m not sure when that wraps up in the mother page, but it is interesting, it is interesting the way that our kids, when, and this is becoming more and more common for a lot of families, whether they, or having larger families or they have more space between their kids or they have families that they’re combining are these generational experiences of mothering. It’s pretty fascinating to me.
What are some of the things that strike you from the time that you were mothering your oldest kids to where you’re at now with your baby?
Ann Voskamp: I think it’s, I would encourage anyone the generational gap between like kids going off to university. Like I remember, um, our youngest child is adopted. I remember the first weekend she was home with us and I was changing her diapers. Well, I had one of the boys at the door saying, hey mom, I’m just, I’m just coming to say goodbye. I’m headed back to the university right now. And I thought, oh my goodness, here, I am stretched across this. But I think the way the generations, the older kids love younger kids, the way the younger kids bring something out of the older kids, the way it glues us all together, is one of the greatest gifts I have ever gotten to experience. And I think it creates a sensitivity, but older kids going, huh? We all on and play this game. What’s that like for the youngest, and the youngest gets to experience older kids in a way that she wouldn’t either. So, I think sometimes it does feel like you’re getting stretched kind of thin across both. But I I’m with you, Julie. I really believe that those, when we feel stretched, then those can be thin places where we see more of the face and grace of God. So, it has been it’s wild, but it’s really, really good all at the same time.
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. Yeah. It is a sweet thing. And I, I think one of the things that I’m finding that’s interesting, particularly for my younger kids, is I find that things that maybe didn’t get discussed as much, or my older kids didn’t have as much of a window on, even though we thought we were trying to be really and really prepare them, man, these younger ones… how do you know about 401 K’s?
Ann Voskamp: The great thing is that there’s sometimes something will come out of a seven-year-olds mouth. You go, oh, that’s because they have much older siblings that they can go ahead and track with all of this. But I think the way that the sensitivity and the way that we get to love each other is really beautiful. And even yesterday, my 26-year-old was walking through the living room and I was sitting there reading to our youngest and, and he said, oh, wow. I can remember you reading those books to me. And I just think it’s really tender for, and then for the littlest one to go, oh wow. Like you’ve done this, how many times with all of the kids. And I just think it’s just a real grace and a gift to get to do this all over again.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. I love too that when our kids get to see us with our younger children or, you know, I’ve got some listeners who are like, well, I’ve got these kids, but I also have grandkids that are coming up. It struck me the other day when I think about my mom and my mom is a mother. I don’t know that I often recognized that she was learning real time alongside me being her child.
Ann Voskamp: So good.
Julie Lyles Carr: You know, it’s, it’s really fascinating to go back and to look at pictures of her, with me as a child, and think we were doing this together. In our kids’ minds, we always think, oh, mom and dad have already got this. Like they’ve already done this thing. They already know how to do it. Yeah. There and to have that window, and for your oldest to get to see you with your youngest and have that recognition of, wow, I’m seeing her mothering real time in a way that’s a different perspective than I had as a kid. I mean, what a gorgeous thing.
Ann Voskamp: And I think I’m so deeply moved by the gift of grace that the older kids grant us as parents to go, oh, you did this with us, and I see your growth and how you’re doing it differently with the youngest. I’m not going to say, well, you did it this way with me, so you have to do it. I see that you’ve grown, and you’ve changed. And I support that, and I applaud that and I encourage that. And I’m just so humbled as a parent. Yeah. But my, my older children can say, ah, yeah, my mother always says, it’s not that you’re not going to get it wrong, it’s what you do with it afterwards. And there were things with my older kids, I got wrong and I’m doing different with our younger children and for the older kids to say, hey, I see you. And I hear you. You wished it was different for us and I’m, I’m behind you as you do it differently now. So I just think the grace that we get to always meet each other with is a really healing restorative thing.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right, right. So beautiful. Ann, in your wildest, did you ever think that this little book that you put together a few years ago that was encouraging people to look for things to be grateful for, did you ever think…?
Ann Voskamp: Never in a million years, but I think it speaks to, I think, 1000 gifts and that dare to pick up a pen to live gratefully, right where you are and start to see the good. Not that I could when I was writing, 1000 gifts, my youngest was like three years old at the time. So, I had six kids, 14, 15, and under, um, and it’s all it’s coming so intensely, those parenting years. Everywhere, whatever stage we’re in, we all have to decide, how am I going to fight for joy? How am I going to be intentional about how my perspective? A lot of times we can’t change our circumstances, but we don’t have to change our circumstances. We need to change our perspective of our circumstances and, and taking, picking up a pen, slowing down enough to write down the good and the grays and the gifts in front of me, shifted my perspective.
Joy is a function of gratitude. Gratitude is a function of perspective. So, if I can change my perspective to find something to be grateful for, and there is always, always, always something to be grateful for, that changes the topography of my life. So, that means that joy is always, always, always possible. And I think that resonated for a million plus people who decides, you know what, I’m going to pick up my pen and you see my pen as my sword to fight for joy because the joy of the Lord is my strength. And if I let something steal my joy, I’ve let something steal my strength, and I’m not going to do that. The Lord asks us to give thanks and everything because he knows that gratitude is the way we can live through everything.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. What strikes me about 1000 gifts, your first book that came out a few years ago, is that although it was very much predicated on the spiritual journey to joy and very much predicated in those of us who walk in a Christian faith, it found such resonance with people who didn’t know the gospel, which I think is really interesting. We come to the idea that we’re going to tell people about Jesus, and we need smoke machines and we need clever videos and we need all these different things. Who would have ever thought that a tool that would resonate so profoundly with those who might not know God, or might have a complicated relationship would be gratitude?
Ann Voskamp: It is so true. Julie, just this summer, I, um, I took a, um, a pottery class from a lovely, lovely Potter. Um, who said, you know what? I am not a Christ-follower, but I picked up your book several years ago and read it and it resonated so deeply with me, I’ve been keeping a gratitude list and I have recommended it to multiple of my friends who aren’t believers either, but I haven’t done a ton of thing.
This book is all based on Jesus at the last supper taking what is given to him. If he’s facing the cross, taking it as a gift and giving thanks for it. And here’s someone who’s not a believer passing it on. And I’ve gotten so many letters from people who said, you know what the book was given to me. I wasn’t a believer. Somebody handed it to me and said, you know what? This might really help you in your fight for joy. And I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, and you’re thinking, wow. So, I think, I think we know whether wherever we are in our journey, we know we want to say thank you to somebody because this world is truly miraculous and amazing.
And when we get to well, thanks. But thank what well, thank you. Well, who is the you that we are thinking? So, I think, I think it just resonates with people because we are made, oh, wired to be in awe. We are wired to give thanks because we, we are made for joy. And I think that’s just the natural progression and journey that it leads you into the grace and arms of Jesus.
Julie Lyles Carr: Just, just incredible. And I think for me, it helps remind me that wanting to be whatever I can be in terms of those people in my world who are not walking a faith walk with Christ, maybe I’m, over-complicating it. Maybe if I can just live from a place of being joyful and being grateful and kind, uh, you know, maybe that’s maybe that’s like the best evangelistic secret out there in the midst of all the things.
Ann Voskamp: I mean, exactly. Julie J K Chesterton says the great secret of Christianity is joy. We should be the most joyful people on the planet. So, I think as we step into living a life of gratitude, living a life of deep joyfulness, right where we are, that’s contagious, that people go like, what’s the secret to that?
Like, what is the secret to contentment? What is the secret to your, where you are? And I think as we live this Eucharistic life, this life of gratitude, we get to share that secret.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. You know, we were talking a little earlier in our parenting journeys, how, when we become parents, we’ve never been parents before.
And we’re learning at real time. We have an audience of kids who are assuming that we went to some, you know, we at least maybe took an e-course. Maybe there was some signs we somehow got certified. You know?
Ann Voskamp: I was so amazed. My, my I, my first baby at 21. You need, how many hours of drivers training to drive a car? And I’m allowed to walk out of a hospital with no papers, knows it with a human being, a soul. Yeah, here we go.
Julie Lyles Carr: We’re walking out. I know. I know. And I have found myself basically restating that to my kids over the last couple of years going, hey, listen, I’ve never done a pandemic guy.
Ann Voskamp: Yes, yes, yes. And know to grant ourselves the grace that Jesus extends to us. I’ve never been here before. And I really truly believe grace is always coming to me. All of us, right where we’re at.
Julie Lyles Carr: Absolutely. And I, I find that this experience of the last couple of years and here’s, what’s crazy. And somebody said to me the other day, you do realize that when we think about calendaring time, we’re entering our third season. I was like, I was like, did you want to say that? I was like, well, we’re coming around the corner of year two. Do you have to like the third season? Like it’s a broadcast. Or in the third season. Oh. But you know, it makes me reflect on the fact that there are times that we are in seasons, that we wanted to be a sprint. And as it turns out, God has called us to be a long-distance athlete.
This has certainly been one of those experiences for us globally, and we’re still in it. But there are seasons in our lives, even if they’re things that we’re going through individually and not as a world community, that we had hoped that him going before us meant he was going to kick open a lot of doors and we could actually get in the self-checkout lane, or the 15 items and under lane, and instead we’re at the clear back of the obstacle Costco, and we know it’s going to take a long time. What have you noted about seasons? When we had hoped it’d be short and sweet, and we find out that it’s going to take a whole lot more to get through.
Ann Voskamp: Yeah. Um, as I write about and way maker, I think we, we each have these internal expectational positioning systems. So, EPS instead of GPS, and that expectational positioning system. I expected I would be here by now. I would be at the front of the line. I expected that my life wouldn’t have this detour or this obstacle. I expected, expected when I graduated from university that I would marry this kind of a person and my life would look this way. My family would look this way. Like we, and if we’re really honest, a lot of times at EPS, that expectational positioning system, not only says, I thought it would be here by now. It also says there’s a comparison element that’s happening there, thinking I thought I would be disbarred compared to that person over there.
And to come to the realization that the measuring sticks are always self-harming and comparison as a way to self-maim, and to realize that maybe my expectational system, that EPS, needs to reroute, reroute, reroute, because my expectations, the map I have in my head, doesn’t reflect the reality or agree with the topography of life with the ground under our feet. So Waymaker, it really is about life isn’t hard because you’ve done something wrong. Life is hard because we’re human. There is suffering because this is a broken world. So, we life in itself is a season. Heartache and heartbreak. And there are challenges and valleys.
I say throughout Waymaker, life is waves. They come. There’s mountain tops, crests, and Evans, and it comes back and forth. And the art of fully living is, do you have a way through the waves? Do you have a way to ride the waves? And I think lots of times we want a way through that hard season or even a way out of that hard season.
And really the truth is more than meaning a way out, the reality is the way through means I need a way of life. A way of life, a cadence of life, a rhythm of life, my spiritual disciplines, my habits that keep me in company with the way himself, and that as long as I’m have a way of life, a rule of life that leans me into Jesus, he will carry me all the way through. And I know my own life, Julie, I think lots of times when we say God will make a way, I confess the subtext for that has been, God will make my way. God will, God will take me to what I am imagining my dream, my vision, some promised land that’s a Mirage on my horizon. I imagine that that that’s where my road should go.
So, God will mink away to that. And to realize that God is making a way, not to a destination. We’re not trying to arrive at a promised land. God is making a way to a relationship. God is making a way to himself, a person who is our promise land. So, Waymaker really is about regardless of whatever season you’re in. And sometimes that’s a season where my expectations haven’t been realized. Sometimes as a season of disappointment. Sometimes as a season of deep suffering and trauma. Regardless of whatever that season looks like Waymaker is handing you a compass, a practical compass that gives you a way of life to see that what is in the way, and every person knows what is in the way for them in their own minds towards what they hoped for expected or dream of, what is in the way… god is using that to make the way just like the Israelites in Egypt, look to the red sea and said, oh, that’s in the way. We’ll know what is in the way was actually going to make the way. Can I,
I have a compass in my own heart that says the obstacle in my life, the thing that appears to be in the way, that obstacle, is the miracle. God is going to use that obstacle, as the miracle in my life. And please hear me, sometimes those obstacles are so profoundly painful and heartbreaking and traumatic. And you don’t, sometimes those obstacles, you don’t even quite even know how am I going to live through this obstacle, but to trust the heart of the Waymaker, the heart of God is to take that obstacle and use it in as a miracle in your life to draw you into a far deeper, more richer communion and intimacy with him than you ever would have dreamed or imagined was possible any other way.
So, I think for me, And I mean, I’m with you trying to, trying to parent through a pandemic, I was like, I’ve never been here at kids, have expectations and I have actually changed and that’s complicated by all kinds of losses during the last two years in all kinds of different ways. And I think we have to look at when there’s going to be tsunamis of crisis, tsunamis of fear, the waves are just going to keep coming. Do you have a practical, intentional tool, a way of life, because when you have that spiritual rhythm, those spiritual disciplines, a way of life that you have over, and that actually, literally will hold back the waves? Will keep you in close communion and connection with Jesus so that you literally can walk on the waves,
Julie Lyles Carr: You know, Ann, I have a confession to make. I know some people have their reality shows they like to watch. I went for a long period that what I wanted to watch was deadliest catch. And the reason I wanted to watch deadliest catch was because I am somebody who gets very motion sick. And so, you know how sometimes you’re drawn to those things that you’re like, I don’t even understand why they could possibly. And one of my great takeaways from deadliest catch was the notion that as these huge waves Would be coming against these ships, they would point their nose into the wave. If they went sideways to the wave, they were going to get swamped. And there are so many times in my life that I see something coming and I just want to try my shoulder to it. Right? Like I don’t, and I can get swamped instead of going. Okay. The waves coming. Maybe I anticipated it. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe it was somewhere. I love that expectation system. That’s amazing.
Maybe, maybe I had some notion of this in my EPS. Maybe I didn’t, but the power of just leaning into the wave, that’s coming your way instead of trying to be avoidant. How often do you think that part of what can divert as part of what can take our eyes off of God being our Waymaker, is when we try to divert away from the waves it’s coming?
Ann Voskamp: Exactly. I think life is never really made unbearable by the road itself, but by the way, we’re bearing the road. Whether you’re going to go ahead and turn yourself up against the wave charges to divert or whether you’re going to face it head on. And it’s, it’s not really, it’s not really the hard roads that slay.
Well this is the expectation that this road, isn’t what we expected or hoped it to be. And when those waves are coming towards you, we, we want to, we want to run, right. We want to turn away. And I think really all of life turns on the turn. All of life, really depends on which way am I going to turn when I face the crisis. Am I going to turn away either? Not really embrace what God has for me. Am I going to try to divert run escape, numb myself out? I think so much dysfunction is trying to deny the wave that’s coming at you. I think all of life turns on the turn. What direction am I going to turn in the middle of this crisis?
When I go in and face the wave, it means I am living cruciform. It means I am embracing what God is giving to me. I’m living formed and shaped like a cross. Surrender to what he’s giving to me, trusting him that he is going to use this for deep, deep, good in my life. And then we face that wave, we can go deep underneath the waves so that regardless of how chaotic the water looks above, we can be safe deep at the bottom of the wave in Christ. Grounded and anchored and rooted in him. So, I think when the crisis has come, when the waves hit, which direction am I going to turn? Towards God. And then I’m going to go deep into God. I’ve got a way of life that’s going to take me deep underneath the way that’s going to keep me steady and stable in him, because that is the way through the waves.
Julie Lyles Carr: Hmm. Beautiful. Let me ask you this. We have those waves that come at us that are truly crises of very traumatic, natures. Things that we didn’t see, ways that life is turning out. Illnesses, challenges, all those kinds of things. I think there’s another sea that we sometimes navigate, and that is the sea of a crisis that happens when it’s really not that it’s a trauma,
it’s not a tragedy, it’s just disappointment. It’s a sea where the waves that come out as things are not turning out the way that we wanted and nothing’s horrifically wrong, but it doesn’t necessarily feel right. So, how do I know when I’m in a season on that kind of a sea, how do I keep, do I, am I supposed to just keep going forward? Because you know, we live in a culture, right, Ann, that says, if you want this thing, You know, I’m the one who said, sometimes this is a long distance sport, but you gotta keep, you got to stay the course, you got to stay, and then maybe after a period of time, God will bring to fruition that thing that you wanted.
But you know, sometimes you and I both know people we’ve experienced in our own lives that we’ve stayed the course we’ve done the thing. And the answer was still no on the other side of these waves of disappointment that have come our way. You speak to it in terms of the woman who realizes that the marriage is going completely sideways or the dream she had for biological children are not coming to pass, or whatever those things are.
So how do we know, how do we help discern when God may be saying I am the way maker, but this way that you wanted to go is going to be a no, versus, knowing when to operate out of a spiritual constitution of perseverance and hanging in there, and operating in faith and hope. Where is that thin line?
How do we determine what’s what?
Ann Voskamp: I think ultimately, I write about it in Waymaker, where I actually went to Shiloh, which is, um, where Hannah went to pray for Samuel. And she wanted something desperately. I mean, she, she prays so earnestly and fervently. I mean, they thought she was drunk and thank God, answers her prayer. She gets this baby that she, she desperately craved and begged God for. And what does she do? She gives him back. I mean, don’t you just want to weep?
Who does that? Who prays for something away so desperately and then gets the way they want it, and hands it back to God? The person who does that is the kind of person who wants God more than they want their own way. And I think we need to think about in our Hannah prayers, whether it’s seasons of, of just low-grade disappointment, or whether it’s seasons where it’s like, I have this, this constitutional hope that God is going to go ahead and provide for this. In both of those seasons, we need to really examine our hearts. Do I want Jesus? More than I want anything else. Do I want a relationship with him? And I think lots of times, you know, we, we want a sign from God to say, this is the way. like, I want like a neon marquee that says like here, or like a banner in the sky. Like God is going to make a way through this. So, you just have to hang in there and persevere, or you want the sign that says like, actually the door is closed, that’s actually not going to happen.
So, you need to like re-route… I’ll go over there. And I think, I think, you know, I tell the story in Waymaker where one of our kids, we had a pond at our little country church off to the side, and she was really concerned that, you know, how far could, how close could she go to the, to the pond? Like, this way was right or was that way right? And my husband had said to her, you know, like, There is no fence around the pond saying exactly where you can go and where you can’t go. But what you need to do is stay close enough that you can always hear my voice. And I think in a situation where you’re like, do I keep on praying and hoping in this direction?
Or do I turn another way and accept that that door is closed? Like, we want clarity and God wants communion with us. We want a road map. And God wants a relationship. We want answers and God just, he wants our hand and to move us closer. Like God didn’t give Abraham a map. He gives Abraham a relationship. And, and why, honestly, we’re back to like, what do we do? We really want relationship with him. Why would God give a map when he can give himself? And I think we need the person of God more than we need the plans for our lives. So, I think that the heart of faith really is our ear, and for us to stay so close to our father’s heart that we actually say no more than you are telling me which way to go, I want you as my way. So, I might not know what the road ahead of me holds Lord, but I know that you are my road and I know that you will me, regardless of what comes.
Julie Lyles Carr: It makes me mindful of when God takes Abraham out of the tent and asks him to look in the sky and the sky in that era of world history, that was a map. That was how people navigated. And yet that’s not what God instructed Abraham to look for in that night sky. He instructed him to have vision for what the problem was.
Ann Voskamp: And I think, I think, I think all the time. We can’t lose hope, but because Jesus has hope himself, Jesus, we can’t lose hope because Jesus never loses track of us. And in the midst of difficult situations, do we have a poverty of imagination? When, when Abraham went out and he looked up at those stars, he did the exact opposite of a poverty of imagination. He could hardly comprehend or imagine the children that God was going to give him. So, think even, even when we believe, you know what, maybe this door is closed, that doesn’t mean that we’re ready to give up our imagination for the way the Waymaker can still reroute the road.
He is still for us and we, no matter what the season looks like, he is for our flourishing and are thriving and are producing real fruit in him. So, I think regardless of the way, go ahead and nourish your imagination through reading scripture and see, my Wavemaker, his hand is always at work. Even when I don’t see that he’s working is working.
So nourish that imagination through reading. All through the Old Testament, into the new Testament and trust, even when I don’t see you’re working the way maker is working. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, he is working his way closer to me to hold me the whole way home.
Julie Lyles Carr: Just beautiful. Ann Voskamp, what an honor to get to have you on the podcast. Tell listeners where they can find out more about Waymaker your newest book that’s coming out.
And of course, the base of this gorgeous conversation we’ve had today, and all of the beautiful things that you do online, the way that you inspire community, the way you have the heartbeat of women, where can listeners go to the best place to find you?
Ann Voskamp: We are at annvoskamp.com online, or Ann Voskamp on Facebook or Instagram, where we try to go ahead and, and point people to Jesus every single day. What we really are about is trying to get a compass in your hand so that you have a way of life to keep company with the way himself. And we just, if we can do life with you, the nitty gritty, the messy, we are all in it with you, because God who is with us, carries us all the way through.
Julie Lyles Carr: Ann, thank you so much for being with me today. We’ll make sure and get those links in the show notes that Rebecca puts together. Ann, what a joy. What a great way to spend what here is a very sunny afternoon. I know it’s a snowy afternoon where you are. Thanks for your heart, your ministry for all you.
Ann Voskamp: Thank you for your voice and your leadership and the way you’ve come alongside women down in the trenches for the glory of God and our deep good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Julie Lyles Carr: Bless you. Bless you, sweet Ann.
Check out the show notes for all the links, info and other goodness from this week’s episode, with a big thank you to our content coordinator, Rebecca. I’ve got a request, please go like, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really does make a difference in helping other people find the show. And I’ll see you next week here at the AllMomDoes podcast.
