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The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life
How can it be? When we’re naked and ashamed and alone in our brokenness, Christ envelopes us with his intimate grace. When we’re rejected and abandoned and shattered beyond wanting, Jesus cups our face, “Come close, my Beloved.” When we’re dirty and tear-stained and despairing, Jesus Christ proposes undying, dying love: “All that you painfully are and are carrying—I’ll take. All that I perfectly am and have—is yours. Just take me.”
There is a wooing that washes our wounds. Falling into this intimacy with him is the one thing we pray to never recover from. This kind of intimacy can only be tasted and swallowed, and it burns a holy yes through our begging veins.
Am I willing to take all that I have, break and give to Him?
Because all that He is, He broke and gave to us.
There is a wooing that washes our wounds. Falling into this intimacy with him is the one thing we pray to never recover from. This kind of intimacy can only be tasted and swallowed, and it burns a holy yes through our begging veins.
Am I willing to take all that I have, break and give to Him?
Because all that He is, He broke and gave to us.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2016
1431 people are currently reading
7169 people want to read
About the author
Ann Voskamp
92 books1,369 followersAnn Voskamp is a farmer's wife, the home-educating mama to a half-dozen exuberant kids, and author of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, a New York Times sixty-week bestseller..
Named by Christianity Today as one of fifty women most shaping culture and the church today, she's a global advocate for needy children with Compassion International, a loser of library books, a stirrer of soup, a loud laugher, a kid snuggler, a Jesus lover and honestly, a bit of a mess. It’s okay really. Grace is the most amazing of all.
Her online journal, one of the top 10 most widely read Christian blogs online, is a relief of quiet vulnerability and an oasis of sacred, seeing God in the everyday ugly beautiful.
Connect with Ann on:
AnnVoskamp.com
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Named by Christianity Today as one of fifty women most shaping culture and the church today, she's a global advocate for needy children with Compassion International, a loser of library books, a stirrer of soup, a loud laugher, a kid snuggler, a Jesus lover and honestly, a bit of a mess. It’s okay really. Grace is the most amazing of all.
Her online journal, one of the top 10 most widely read Christian blogs online, is a relief of quiet vulnerability and an oasis of sacred, seeing God in the everyday ugly beautiful.
Connect with Ann on:
AnnVoskamp.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 730 reviews
May 22, 2017
I was admittedly not terribly crazy about Ann's first book, primarily because of her writing style. I got really annoyed at the melodrama of some portions (running through fields chasing the moonlight and then falling prostrate in the mud because it was so overwhelming? Ugh. Just get up and look at the moonlight like a normal person.) From a grammatical standpoint, I just wanted to scream at her to PLEASE USE AN ADJECTIVE OR ARTICLE OR VERB CORRECTLY! But that's just my personality and preferences.
But this book. Oh, this book! Not one single person will ever be immune from confronting pain and heartbreak and suffering. And we all struggle to make sense of it and to know what to do with it. Ann's vulnerability here is compelling. From the first chapter on, there were tears or a million underlined sentences or just a portion that grabbed me with the piercing reality and compassion of it. You can't help but come away from this book experiencing (not just intellectually knowing) the truth of Christ loving you deeply, sharing in your pain, absorbing your heartbreak and wounds. Ann's writing has calmed down; she mostly uses parts of speech in the correct way and her style is less distracting than in One Thousand Gifts. I could keep going but this is a book you shouldn't even bother borrowing. Just buy it because you will want to refer back to it often.
But this book. Oh, this book! Not one single person will ever be immune from confronting pain and heartbreak and suffering. And we all struggle to make sense of it and to know what to do with it. Ann's vulnerability here is compelling. From the first chapter on, there were tears or a million underlined sentences or just a portion that grabbed me with the piercing reality and compassion of it. You can't help but come away from this book experiencing (not just intellectually knowing) the truth of Christ loving you deeply, sharing in your pain, absorbing your heartbreak and wounds. Ann's writing has calmed down; she mostly uses parts of speech in the correct way and her style is less distracting than in One Thousand Gifts. I could keep going but this is a book you shouldn't even bother borrowing. Just buy it because you will want to refer back to it often.
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December 3, 2016I will let others rate this book, because I just can't. No one can give so many stars to a raw and honest conversation in which a friend's soul is exposed in such a vulnerable way. Ann is my friend and this book felt more like a letter in which she shares so much of her life, deep wounds, and heart with "me." I love her more now and I am richer because of her; and even though our differences are many, our Savior is the same. We both hold fast to One true God, one Faith, and one Baptism.
November 4, 2016
I really tried to like this book. Though I didn't love the writing style of One Thousand Gifts, I loved the message behind this first book of Voskamp's, and reading it actually made me a more thankful person. So, I decided to read The Broken Way, expecting the same outcome.
Honestly, her writing style in this one is even more difficult to read. I love the quotes that she uses from other writers, but I don't love her writing. I understand the point she is trying to make in this book, but she goes in such roundabout ways to get there that the book seems over dramatic and unrelatable. It's hard for me to understand how this author is a best-seller; I guess you either love the way she writes or you hate it! I trudged through the first half of the book and then skimmed to the end because really, I don't want to waste my time on finishing a book out of sheer principle.
Honestly, her writing style in this one is even more difficult to read. I love the quotes that she uses from other writers, but I don't love her writing. I understand the point she is trying to make in this book, but she goes in such roundabout ways to get there that the book seems over dramatic and unrelatable. It's hard for me to understand how this author is a best-seller; I guess you either love the way she writes or you hate it! I trudged through the first half of the book and then skimmed to the end because really, I don't want to waste my time on finishing a book out of sheer principle.
November 19, 2016
Sometimes I wish that I could sit and have coffee and just talk with Ann, stripping away all of the words that she wraps herself in as a writer. Ann's love for words, for her own thoughts, is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that too often she dives into her prose, seeking poetry rather than substance. The blessing comes in those moments when she leaves the overly-dramatic monologues of life, leaves the searching for profundity, and simply states truth -- and oh, what treasures of truth. We share much in common, particularly chapters 11 -end.
This. If just this, it would have been enough:
"The broken way begins with this lost art of lament and until we authentically lament to God, we’ll never feel authentically loved by God. Lament’s not a meaningless rage, but a rage that finds meaning in His outrageous love. Lament is an outrage . . . that still trusts in God’s good outcome. Lament’s this articulation of the ache at God’s abandonment, then an acquiescence to His ache, and finally an abandonment to His will. Go ahead, child. Lament carries brokenness in its hands straight into the heart of God and asks for His arms. In the midst of suffering, no one needs clarifying arguments as much as they need to feel arms close. So He gives an experience of Himself instead of mere explanations, because He knows explanations can be cold comfort and His arms are warm."
Here are some more of the blessings I found in this book:
-Who doesn’t know what it’s like to smile thinly and say you’re fine when you’re not, when you’re almost faint with pain? There isn’t one of us not bearing the wounds from our own bloody battles.
-Is there a grace that can bury the fear that your faith isn’t big enough and your faults are too many? A grace that washes your dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies? A grace that embraces you before you prove anything—and after you’ve done everything wrong? A grace that holds you when everything is breaking down and falling apart—and whispers that everything is somehow breaking free and falling together.
-“The seed breaks to give us the wheat. The soil breaks to give us the crop, the sky breaks to give us the rain, the wheat breaks to give us the bread. And the bread breaks to give us the feast. There was once even an alabaster jar that broke to give Him all the glory.”
-“Never be afraid of being a broken thing.”
-Our Savior—surrounds. Our future—secure. Our joy—certain. When we know Christ.
-Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, also holds the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Joy. And that was what the quest for more has always been about—that which Augustine claimed, “Without exception . . . all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.” 2 Deep chara is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo—the table of thanksgiving.
-remembrance, anamnesis, does not simply mean memory by mental recall, the way you remember your own address—but it means to experience a past event again through the physical, to make it take form through reenactment. Like the way you remember your own grandma Ruth by how your great-aunt Lois laughs, how she makes butterscotch squares for Sunday afternoons too, how she walks in her Birkenstocks with that same soft heel as Grandma did, her knees cracking up the stairs the same way too. The way your great-aunt Lois acts makes you remember in ways that make your grandma Ruth real and physically present again now. There’s a cupping grace to it—how remembering becomes a healing. We welcome remembering, we hold remembering, we let remembering wrap around us and carry us like a dance that need not end. We are never abandoned when we hold on to remembrance. Gabriel García Márquez had scratched it down once, like words sealed in a bottle and sent back to the world: “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” 6 That’s it. What matters in your life is not so much what happens to you but what you happen to remember—and how that will influence how your life happens. What and how you remember will determine if your broken, dis-membered places will re-member you in your broken places. So how to continuously re-member? Re-member your broken and busted heart, remember Him crucified and who you are and your real name: the Beloved. “Continuously do this in remembrance of Me.” The truth of anamnesis is “to make Me [Christ] present.” That’s the truth of what He was saying: “Continuously make Me present.”
-Do this in remembrance of Me. Continuously make the ever-present Christ present. Continuously be part of the re-membering of brokenness.
-In shattered places, with broken people, we are most near the broken heart of Christ, and find our whole selves through the mystery of death and resurrection, through the mystery of brokenness and abundance. We are the body sustained by His brokenness, His givenness, sustained by this Last Supper that for centuries was called simply “the thanksgiving”—the eucharistias.
-“Ultimately it comes down to this, that the real cause of our trouble is failure to realize our union with Christ,” Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote.
-Peace isn’t a place—it’s a Person. Peace isn’t a place to arrive at, but a Person to abide in. “I myself am your peace,” says Jesus.
-Your time is limited—so don’t limit your life by wanting someone else’s.
-Your time is limited—so don’t limit your life by wanting someone else’s...Time looks like light caught in the limbs of willing trees, I think, like laugh lines bracketing a thousand brave smiles, like a steady current of wrinkled sheets and slow dawns, of steam rising off bowls, of opening and closing back doors and the click of thousands of last lights out. Time is always a stream of God’s “unbounded Now,” C. S. Lewis wrote. 2 It looks like a river of Nows. Unbounded. Broken free.
-Hauling out the large bag of wheat used to make bread, I stand in front of the pantry and measure out four cups of kernels. We pour them, careful not to drop the jar. “There’s your 25,550 days,” I say. Our girl rolls the jar between her hands. There’s your life, I think. How will you live with your one broken heart? The kernels of wheat rain against the glass. Take your one container of time and believe it contains exactly the time you need for a meaningful life. “How many kernels do I have to take out?” she whispers. “The ones that are already gone for me, that I’ve already lived.” That are already gone... No one can measure the length of your life, but you can always determine that your life has meaning. She’d murmured it like we were in a holy place: “All we are . . . are these grain days.” These grain days. These grace days. All I can think is, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” 3 There’s a way to multiply your life. You let every kernel die.
-Maybe temporary time is made for dying to self—so your eternal self can really live. Have the hands of the clock stopped moving there in the kitchen? It takes courage to listen with our whole heart to the tick of God’s timing rather than march to the loud beat of our fears. Time can’t dictate dreams or hijack hope or determine destination. It can’t force us into living anything but what we believe. No matter what the hands of the clock say, underneath us all are the everlasting arms, and time’s arms are too weak to rob any hope, steal any prayers, destroy any joy, or crush any purpose. Time never heals wounds like God does. It’s God hands that control the universe. The hands of the clock are bound by the decisions of our hands. And He has made our hands free to be His.
-The measure of your willingness to be given—is the measure of your capacity for communion.
-learning the art of living is learning the art of giving. For God so loved that He gave . . .1 The art of giving is believing there is enough love in you, that you are loved enough by Him, to be made enough love to give. For God so loved that He gave . . . Is there any word more powerful than giving? Thanksgiving. Forgiving. Care-giving. Life-giving. Everything that matters in living comes down to giving. “Giving is true having,” ...
-"Why do you people always say it’s about having a strong belief in God? Who sits with the knowing that God’s belief in you is even stronger than yours in Him?” I’d put down my Styrofoam cup of black coffee and tried to read the rabbi’s face. He’d leaned forward in his seat and tilted his head so he could look at me directly. “You may believe in God, but never forget—it’s God who believes in you.” He looked out the window and pointed. “Every morning that the sun rises and you get to rise? That’s God saying He believes in you, that He believes in the story He’s writing through you. He believes in you as a gift the world needs.”...Was I living my life like I fully believed that?
-truth: no change in circumstances can change your life like meaning and purpose can. No certain place can give you abundant life like a certain purpose can. Like purpose and meaning and connection can.
-“You know what? Dr. Reid said the last time I was in here, that in our human bodies, the cells that only benefit themselves are known as cancer.”
-The meaning of being is givenness. Ask Christ.
-Letting yourself be loved is an act of terrifying vulnerability and surrender. Letting yourself be loved is its own kind of givenness. Letting yourself be loved gives you over to someone’s mercy and leaves you trusting that they will keep loving you, that they will love you the way you want to be loved, that they won’t break your given heart.
-To-do lists can become “to-love” lists.
-It’s the longing for a comfortable safety that stands between you and everything you really long for.
-You are to pay special attention to those who by accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you. SAINT AUGUSTINE
-I don’t know how to smooth out angst or stress or worry, but I know you either leave your worries with God . . . or your worries will make you leave God.
-Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Giving yourself to joy is a choice. Choose well.
-“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day . . . “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you . . .” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” --- chapter 11 is very real for me
-“Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice . . . The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.” 6 Nothing pleases God more than letting Him touch the places you think don’t please Him. God is drawn to broken things—so He can draw the most beautiful things.
-There are dishes stacked on the counter like memories tonight, and there are kids sprawled across the front-porch swing trying to read the same book at the same time. And there’s the wheat that’s now sitting back in the jar in the windowsill. And there’s me cutting our son’s hair one last time before he drives away from here. And for crying out loud, there is only so much time to be broken and given and multiplied. I never expected to get so much wrong. I never expected love like this. I never expected so much joy. Be patient with God’s patient work in you.
-If repentance isn’t a daily part of your life, how is grace a daily part of your life? Repentance is what keeps turning you around, around, sanding you down, re-forming you, remaking you—making you into real.
-Why is it that only once you face life without the loveliness of those you love, you can finally see how much you love? Why is the clearest way to love your life only to imagine losing parts of it?
-Why hadn’t I been that gift more often? The ministry of presence is a gift with an expiry date. Everything proves it now: this is unexpected happiness, to be broken and given to bless.
-Why hadn’t I been that gift more often? The ministry of presence is a gift with an expiry date. Everything proves it now: this is unexpected happiness, to be broken and given to bless.
-“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times,” penned Martin Luther.
-Love is the willingness to be interrupted. Interrupt comes from the Latin word interrumpere, meaning “break into.” Love is the willingness to be broken into. There are never interruptions in a day—only manifestations of Christ. Your theology is best expressed in your availability and your interruptability—and ability to be broken into.
-Do the next thing. When nothing feels simple, simply do the next thing. “You don’t judge your feelings. You simply feel your feelings.”
-Can I remember to let feelings be fully felt and then fully surrendered to God? Emotions are given to move you toward God. Can I remember? I don’t have to fix things, I don’t have to deny things, I don’t have to pretend away things. Could I simply feel the brokenness of things—and feel that’s okay? Could I feel okay being un-okay, trusting that Christ is always making a way?
-“If we all listen long enough to the voices about who we should be, we grow deaf to the beauty of who we are.”
-Activity for God—is not the same as intimacy with God or identity in God. And it is your intimacy with Christ that gives you your identity. You can’t experience the power of Christ, the mission of Christ, being made new in Christ, until you know who you are in Christ. Your identity literally means “the same”—that regardless of changing circumstances, the core of you is unchangeable, stable, the same. When your identity is in Christ, your identity is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Criticism can’t change it. Failing can’t shake it. Lists can’t determine it. When your identity is in the Rock, your identity is rock-solid. As long as God is for you, it doesn’t matter what mountain rises ahead of you. You aren’t your yesterday, you aren’t your messes, you aren’t your failures, you aren’t your brokenness. You are brave enough for today, because He is. You are strong enough for what’s coming, because He is. And you are enough for all that is, because He always is.
-Nothing anyone says can malign you, assign you, or confine you. Your Maker’s the only one who can define you
-How we are is not who we are. Who we are is who He is.
- I am crucified with Christ, unified with Christ, identified with Christ. Full stop. Full story. I am who He is. I am not the mistakes I have made; I am the righteousness He has made. I am not the plans I have failed; I am the perfectness He has finished. I am not the wrongs I have done; I am the faultlessness He has been. I am not the sins I have chosen; I am chosen by the Beloved, regardless of my sins. In Christ, I am chosen, accepted, justified, anointed, sealed, forgiven, redeemed, complete, free, Christ’s friend, God’s child, Spirit’s home.
-Why do we rush to defend God to a broken world, and not race to defend the image of God in the world’s broken?
-“Reweaving shalom means to sacrificially thread, lace, and press our time, power, goods, and resources into the lives and needs of others . . . The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority, or the community frays and the fabric breaks.” 5
-The world changes when we don’t categorize, polarize, and demonize people with broad brushstrokes—but when we apologize, empathize, evangelize, and prioritize people with these quiet brushes of grace.
-Sometimes it helps in the moment to think: people aren’t being difficult—they are having difficulty.
-Never become a container for anger. Anger is the only toxin that destroys what it’s carried in.
-If we want to genuinely practice our faith, don’t we need to genuinely listen? How would the world change if we all became masters in the art of hearing heartbeats? God’s and His people’s.
-‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience,” like C. S. Lewis wrote.
-Why do I keep forgetting? Life isn’t overwhelming when you simply understand how to serve in this minute.
-we don’t need answers to why God allows evil as much as how to hold on to the goodness of God amidst unanswered questions...The focus of God’s people is not to create explanations for suffering, but to create communities around suffering, co-suffering communities to absorb suffering and see it transform into cruciform grace. This will cost us. This will remake us into the image of Christ.
-Evil is always a function of distractions, a turning away from God. Make the ever-present Christ present . . . by being present. Evil is to experience suffering without meaning, without God. Perhaps the “problem of evil” is more importantly a problem of not seeing meaning, a problem of not seeing God. Hopelessness is what flings one into the presence of evil.
-“My name is Compassion7 and I will not break you, but I will break Myself for you. I am the compassionate Shepherd calling a thousand heroes to carry the light of My compassion to the broken. I will come across a thousand fields with an army of brokenhearted light-bearers for you. And you are never safer than when you feel Me redeeming your unspoken broken. “And if you forget this? I will never forget and I will never forget you and this is what My unstoppable compassion does: Behold, I have engraved you, you, on the palms of My hands.” 8 There is nothing to fear in the wilderness of suffering—it is the land where God woos. The crush of crisis is but a passage into communion with Christ.
-My name on His hand. His name on mine. I am His and He is mine. Is that what I’m doing with this ridiculous experiment of penning a cross on my wrist? With just those two cross strokes, it’s like I am writing my way and my name and my identity: Enough. There is enough. Abundantly enough. I am enough, because I have enough of Him and He is always enough, and that is enough for anything. I am signing my name and my identity and being signed by the Cross One, the Risen One. I am shaping my life and letting my life be shaped, writing it down into me so it literally forms me: a passionate life is a sacrificial life. A life that wants to embrace Christ is a life that must embrace suffering. A life of giving is ultimately the most life-giving. And every single time I sign that cross on my wrist, I’m guaranteeing I can always find my sign from God, pointing the way forward—given. Broken and given into communion with Him and a thousand ways to reach right out and give it forward into the broken community of the world. A signed and sealed sign that there isn’t anything I can possibly do to make Him love me more. And in everything I am loved more than I can possibly imagine.
-the cross on my wrist pulses through my skin with that one word, like everything moves and falls down around and breathes and orbits and spins and unfurls and breaks free with that one word beating like a cry at the brave center of everything: Given. Given. Here is my brokenness. Given. Here is my battered life, here is my bruised control, here are my fractured dreams, here is my open hand, here is all that I have, here is my fragile, surrendered heart, here I am, a living sacrifice. Broken. Given.
-When I’m no longer afraid of brokenness, I don’t have to control or possess anything—dreams or plans or people or their perceptions. I can live surrendered. Cruciform. Given. This feels like freedom.
-The cross isn’t some cheap symbol of faith; it’s the exact shape we embody as the life of Christ. When we won’t see the suffering—who are all of us—we never form our lives like our Savior’s. A Christ-shaped life is not a comfortably shaped life, but a cross-shaped life.
This. If just this, it would have been enough:
"The broken way begins with this lost art of lament and until we authentically lament to God, we’ll never feel authentically loved by God. Lament’s not a meaningless rage, but a rage that finds meaning in His outrageous love. Lament is an outrage . . . that still trusts in God’s good outcome. Lament’s this articulation of the ache at God’s abandonment, then an acquiescence to His ache, and finally an abandonment to His will. Go ahead, child. Lament carries brokenness in its hands straight into the heart of God and asks for His arms. In the midst of suffering, no one needs clarifying arguments as much as they need to feel arms close. So He gives an experience of Himself instead of mere explanations, because He knows explanations can be cold comfort and His arms are warm."
Here are some more of the blessings I found in this book:
-Who doesn’t know what it’s like to smile thinly and say you’re fine when you’re not, when you’re almost faint with pain? There isn’t one of us not bearing the wounds from our own bloody battles.
-Is there a grace that can bury the fear that your faith isn’t big enough and your faults are too many? A grace that washes your dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies? A grace that embraces you before you prove anything—and after you’ve done everything wrong? A grace that holds you when everything is breaking down and falling apart—and whispers that everything is somehow breaking free and falling together.
-“The seed breaks to give us the wheat. The soil breaks to give us the crop, the sky breaks to give us the rain, the wheat breaks to give us the bread. And the bread breaks to give us the feast. There was once even an alabaster jar that broke to give Him all the glory.”
-“Never be afraid of being a broken thing.”
-Our Savior—surrounds. Our future—secure. Our joy—certain. When we know Christ.
-Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, also holds the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Joy. And that was what the quest for more has always been about—that which Augustine claimed, “Without exception . . . all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.” 2 Deep chara is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo—the table of thanksgiving.
-remembrance, anamnesis, does not simply mean memory by mental recall, the way you remember your own address—but it means to experience a past event again through the physical, to make it take form through reenactment. Like the way you remember your own grandma Ruth by how your great-aunt Lois laughs, how she makes butterscotch squares for Sunday afternoons too, how she walks in her Birkenstocks with that same soft heel as Grandma did, her knees cracking up the stairs the same way too. The way your great-aunt Lois acts makes you remember in ways that make your grandma Ruth real and physically present again now. There’s a cupping grace to it—how remembering becomes a healing. We welcome remembering, we hold remembering, we let remembering wrap around us and carry us like a dance that need not end. We are never abandoned when we hold on to remembrance. Gabriel García Márquez had scratched it down once, like words sealed in a bottle and sent back to the world: “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” 6 That’s it. What matters in your life is not so much what happens to you but what you happen to remember—and how that will influence how your life happens. What and how you remember will determine if your broken, dis-membered places will re-member you in your broken places. So how to continuously re-member? Re-member your broken and busted heart, remember Him crucified and who you are and your real name: the Beloved. “Continuously do this in remembrance of Me.” The truth of anamnesis is “to make Me [Christ] present.” That’s the truth of what He was saying: “Continuously make Me present.”
-Do this in remembrance of Me. Continuously make the ever-present Christ present. Continuously be part of the re-membering of brokenness.
-In shattered places, with broken people, we are most near the broken heart of Christ, and find our whole selves through the mystery of death and resurrection, through the mystery of brokenness and abundance. We are the body sustained by His brokenness, His givenness, sustained by this Last Supper that for centuries was called simply “the thanksgiving”—the eucharistias.
-“Ultimately it comes down to this, that the real cause of our trouble is failure to realize our union with Christ,” Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote.
-Peace isn’t a place—it’s a Person. Peace isn’t a place to arrive at, but a Person to abide in. “I myself am your peace,” says Jesus.
-Your time is limited—so don’t limit your life by wanting someone else’s.
-Your time is limited—so don’t limit your life by wanting someone else’s...Time looks like light caught in the limbs of willing trees, I think, like laugh lines bracketing a thousand brave smiles, like a steady current of wrinkled sheets and slow dawns, of steam rising off bowls, of opening and closing back doors and the click of thousands of last lights out. Time is always a stream of God’s “unbounded Now,” C. S. Lewis wrote. 2 It looks like a river of Nows. Unbounded. Broken free.
-Hauling out the large bag of wheat used to make bread, I stand in front of the pantry and measure out four cups of kernels. We pour them, careful not to drop the jar. “There’s your 25,550 days,” I say. Our girl rolls the jar between her hands. There’s your life, I think. How will you live with your one broken heart? The kernels of wheat rain against the glass. Take your one container of time and believe it contains exactly the time you need for a meaningful life. “How many kernels do I have to take out?” she whispers. “The ones that are already gone for me, that I’ve already lived.” That are already gone... No one can measure the length of your life, but you can always determine that your life has meaning. She’d murmured it like we were in a holy place: “All we are . . . are these grain days.” These grain days. These grace days. All I can think is, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” 3 There’s a way to multiply your life. You let every kernel die.
-Maybe temporary time is made for dying to self—so your eternal self can really live. Have the hands of the clock stopped moving there in the kitchen? It takes courage to listen with our whole heart to the tick of God’s timing rather than march to the loud beat of our fears. Time can’t dictate dreams or hijack hope or determine destination. It can’t force us into living anything but what we believe. No matter what the hands of the clock say, underneath us all are the everlasting arms, and time’s arms are too weak to rob any hope, steal any prayers, destroy any joy, or crush any purpose. Time never heals wounds like God does. It’s God hands that control the universe. The hands of the clock are bound by the decisions of our hands. And He has made our hands free to be His.
-The measure of your willingness to be given—is the measure of your capacity for communion.
-learning the art of living is learning the art of giving. For God so loved that He gave . . .1 The art of giving is believing there is enough love in you, that you are loved enough by Him, to be made enough love to give. For God so loved that He gave . . . Is there any word more powerful than giving? Thanksgiving. Forgiving. Care-giving. Life-giving. Everything that matters in living comes down to giving. “Giving is true having,” ...
-"Why do you people always say it’s about having a strong belief in God? Who sits with the knowing that God’s belief in you is even stronger than yours in Him?” I’d put down my Styrofoam cup of black coffee and tried to read the rabbi’s face. He’d leaned forward in his seat and tilted his head so he could look at me directly. “You may believe in God, but never forget—it’s God who believes in you.” He looked out the window and pointed. “Every morning that the sun rises and you get to rise? That’s God saying He believes in you, that He believes in the story He’s writing through you. He believes in you as a gift the world needs.”...Was I living my life like I fully believed that?
-truth: no change in circumstances can change your life like meaning and purpose can. No certain place can give you abundant life like a certain purpose can. Like purpose and meaning and connection can.
-“You know what? Dr. Reid said the last time I was in here, that in our human bodies, the cells that only benefit themselves are known as cancer.”
-The meaning of being is givenness. Ask Christ.
-Letting yourself be loved is an act of terrifying vulnerability and surrender. Letting yourself be loved is its own kind of givenness. Letting yourself be loved gives you over to someone’s mercy and leaves you trusting that they will keep loving you, that they will love you the way you want to be loved, that they won’t break your given heart.
-To-do lists can become “to-love” lists.
-It’s the longing for a comfortable safety that stands between you and everything you really long for.
-You are to pay special attention to those who by accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you. SAINT AUGUSTINE
-I don’t know how to smooth out angst or stress or worry, but I know you either leave your worries with God . . . or your worries will make you leave God.
-Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Giving yourself to joy is a choice. Choose well.
-“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day . . . “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you . . .” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” --- chapter 11 is very real for me
-“Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice . . . The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.” 6 Nothing pleases God more than letting Him touch the places you think don’t please Him. God is drawn to broken things—so He can draw the most beautiful things.
-There are dishes stacked on the counter like memories tonight, and there are kids sprawled across the front-porch swing trying to read the same book at the same time. And there’s the wheat that’s now sitting back in the jar in the windowsill. And there’s me cutting our son’s hair one last time before he drives away from here. And for crying out loud, there is only so much time to be broken and given and multiplied. I never expected to get so much wrong. I never expected love like this. I never expected so much joy. Be patient with God’s patient work in you.
-If repentance isn’t a daily part of your life, how is grace a daily part of your life? Repentance is what keeps turning you around, around, sanding you down, re-forming you, remaking you—making you into real.
-Why is it that only once you face life without the loveliness of those you love, you can finally see how much you love? Why is the clearest way to love your life only to imagine losing parts of it?
-Why hadn’t I been that gift more often? The ministry of presence is a gift with an expiry date. Everything proves it now: this is unexpected happiness, to be broken and given to bless.
-Why hadn’t I been that gift more often? The ministry of presence is a gift with an expiry date. Everything proves it now: this is unexpected happiness, to be broken and given to bless.
-“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times,” penned Martin Luther.
-Love is the willingness to be interrupted. Interrupt comes from the Latin word interrumpere, meaning “break into.” Love is the willingness to be broken into. There are never interruptions in a day—only manifestations of Christ. Your theology is best expressed in your availability and your interruptability—and ability to be broken into.
-Do the next thing. When nothing feels simple, simply do the next thing. “You don’t judge your feelings. You simply feel your feelings.”
-Can I remember to let feelings be fully felt and then fully surrendered to God? Emotions are given to move you toward God. Can I remember? I don’t have to fix things, I don’t have to deny things, I don’t have to pretend away things. Could I simply feel the brokenness of things—and feel that’s okay? Could I feel okay being un-okay, trusting that Christ is always making a way?
-“If we all listen long enough to the voices about who we should be, we grow deaf to the beauty of who we are.”
-Activity for God—is not the same as intimacy with God or identity in God. And it is your intimacy with Christ that gives you your identity. You can’t experience the power of Christ, the mission of Christ, being made new in Christ, until you know who you are in Christ. Your identity literally means “the same”—that regardless of changing circumstances, the core of you is unchangeable, stable, the same. When your identity is in Christ, your identity is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Criticism can’t change it. Failing can’t shake it. Lists can’t determine it. When your identity is in the Rock, your identity is rock-solid. As long as God is for you, it doesn’t matter what mountain rises ahead of you. You aren’t your yesterday, you aren’t your messes, you aren’t your failures, you aren’t your brokenness. You are brave enough for today, because He is. You are strong enough for what’s coming, because He is. And you are enough for all that is, because He always is.
-Nothing anyone says can malign you, assign you, or confine you. Your Maker’s the only one who can define you
-How we are is not who we are. Who we are is who He is.
- I am crucified with Christ, unified with Christ, identified with Christ. Full stop. Full story. I am who He is. I am not the mistakes I have made; I am the righteousness He has made. I am not the plans I have failed; I am the perfectness He has finished. I am not the wrongs I have done; I am the faultlessness He has been. I am not the sins I have chosen; I am chosen by the Beloved, regardless of my sins. In Christ, I am chosen, accepted, justified, anointed, sealed, forgiven, redeemed, complete, free, Christ’s friend, God’s child, Spirit’s home.
-Why do we rush to defend God to a broken world, and not race to defend the image of God in the world’s broken?
-“Reweaving shalom means to sacrificially thread, lace, and press our time, power, goods, and resources into the lives and needs of others . . . The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority, or the community frays and the fabric breaks.” 5
-The world changes when we don’t categorize, polarize, and demonize people with broad brushstrokes—but when we apologize, empathize, evangelize, and prioritize people with these quiet brushes of grace.
-Sometimes it helps in the moment to think: people aren’t being difficult—they are having difficulty.
-Never become a container for anger. Anger is the only toxin that destroys what it’s carried in.
-If we want to genuinely practice our faith, don’t we need to genuinely listen? How would the world change if we all became masters in the art of hearing heartbeats? God’s and His people’s.
-‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience,” like C. S. Lewis wrote.
-Why do I keep forgetting? Life isn’t overwhelming when you simply understand how to serve in this minute.
-we don’t need answers to why God allows evil as much as how to hold on to the goodness of God amidst unanswered questions...The focus of God’s people is not to create explanations for suffering, but to create communities around suffering, co-suffering communities to absorb suffering and see it transform into cruciform grace. This will cost us. This will remake us into the image of Christ.
-Evil is always a function of distractions, a turning away from God. Make the ever-present Christ present . . . by being present. Evil is to experience suffering without meaning, without God. Perhaps the “problem of evil” is more importantly a problem of not seeing meaning, a problem of not seeing God. Hopelessness is what flings one into the presence of evil.
-“My name is Compassion7 and I will not break you, but I will break Myself for you. I am the compassionate Shepherd calling a thousand heroes to carry the light of My compassion to the broken. I will come across a thousand fields with an army of brokenhearted light-bearers for you. And you are never safer than when you feel Me redeeming your unspoken broken. “And if you forget this? I will never forget and I will never forget you and this is what My unstoppable compassion does: Behold, I have engraved you, you, on the palms of My hands.” 8 There is nothing to fear in the wilderness of suffering—it is the land where God woos. The crush of crisis is but a passage into communion with Christ.
-My name on His hand. His name on mine. I am His and He is mine. Is that what I’m doing with this ridiculous experiment of penning a cross on my wrist? With just those two cross strokes, it’s like I am writing my way and my name and my identity: Enough. There is enough. Abundantly enough. I am enough, because I have enough of Him and He is always enough, and that is enough for anything. I am signing my name and my identity and being signed by the Cross One, the Risen One. I am shaping my life and letting my life be shaped, writing it down into me so it literally forms me: a passionate life is a sacrificial life. A life that wants to embrace Christ is a life that must embrace suffering. A life of giving is ultimately the most life-giving. And every single time I sign that cross on my wrist, I’m guaranteeing I can always find my sign from God, pointing the way forward—given. Broken and given into communion with Him and a thousand ways to reach right out and give it forward into the broken community of the world. A signed and sealed sign that there isn’t anything I can possibly do to make Him love me more. And in everything I am loved more than I can possibly imagine.
-the cross on my wrist pulses through my skin with that one word, like everything moves and falls down around and breathes and orbits and spins and unfurls and breaks free with that one word beating like a cry at the brave center of everything: Given. Given. Here is my brokenness. Given. Here is my battered life, here is my bruised control, here are my fractured dreams, here is my open hand, here is all that I have, here is my fragile, surrendered heart, here I am, a living sacrifice. Broken. Given.
-When I’m no longer afraid of brokenness, I don’t have to control or possess anything—dreams or plans or people or their perceptions. I can live surrendered. Cruciform. Given. This feels like freedom.
-The cross isn’t some cheap symbol of faith; it’s the exact shape we embody as the life of Christ. When we won’t see the suffering—who are all of us—we never form our lives like our Savior’s. A Christ-shaped life is not a comfortably shaped life, but a cross-shaped life.
April 22, 2025
Poetic writing and good theology
In The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp offers a beautifully written and deeply personal reflection on what it means to live fully in the midst of pain, loss, and imperfection. With her signature lyrical style, Voskamp explores the paradox that brokenness can be the very path to abundance and healing.
This book feels more like a spiritual companion than a self-help manual. It’s rich in vulnerability, drawing from Voskamp’s own experiences with grief, anxiety, and the everyday ache of living in a broken world. Her writing is poetic and metaphor-heavy, which may not be for everyone, but those who resonate with her style will find her insights moving and profound.
At its heart, The Broken Way is an invitation—to live cruciform, to give generously, to let wounds become the place where grace leaks out. While some parts meander or repeat themes touched on in One Thousand Gifts, there’s still fresh wisdom here, especially for those looking to make peace with their own brokenness.
A recommended read for anyone craving depth, hope, and a reminder that even shattered things can be beautiful when surrendered to God.
In The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp offers a beautifully written and deeply personal reflection on what it means to live fully in the midst of pain, loss, and imperfection. With her signature lyrical style, Voskamp explores the paradox that brokenness can be the very path to abundance and healing.
This book feels more like a spiritual companion than a self-help manual. It’s rich in vulnerability, drawing from Voskamp’s own experiences with grief, anxiety, and the everyday ache of living in a broken world. Her writing is poetic and metaphor-heavy, which may not be for everyone, but those who resonate with her style will find her insights moving and profound.
At its heart, The Broken Way is an invitation—to live cruciform, to give generously, to let wounds become the place where grace leaks out. While some parts meander or repeat themes touched on in One Thousand Gifts, there’s still fresh wisdom here, especially for those looking to make peace with their own brokenness.
A recommended read for anyone craving depth, hope, and a reminder that even shattered things can be beautiful when surrendered to God.
March 21, 2017
This book is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
It's a raw, deeply personal, beautifully reflective exploration of how to navigate suffering as a Christian, and if you are going through something right now this book will absolutely speak to your soul. I cannot recommend it enough for those of you who are undergoing suffering of your own.
And even if you aren't, still read it! It will fuel you for a time when suffering comes your way.
There were so many moments where I had to stop and read a phrase out loud to myself, slowly, and reflect on it before reading on, because it hit me so hard. Ann Voskamp is one of the most talented writers alive today, and reading her writing is a unique experience unlike anything else.
I have a feeling this will be one of my most-read, battered, scribbled-in-the-margins books in the years to come.
It's a raw, deeply personal, beautifully reflective exploration of how to navigate suffering as a Christian, and if you are going through something right now this book will absolutely speak to your soul. I cannot recommend it enough for those of you who are undergoing suffering of your own.
And even if you aren't, still read it! It will fuel you for a time when suffering comes your way.
There were so many moments where I had to stop and read a phrase out loud to myself, slowly, and reflect on it before reading on, because it hit me so hard. Ann Voskamp is one of the most talented writers alive today, and reading her writing is a unique experience unlike anything else.
I have a feeling this will be one of my most-read, battered, scribbled-in-the-margins books in the years to come.
November 21, 2016
I have such mixed feelings about Ann Voskamp's books. I am not a fan of her writing style--it is too flowery for me, and the fragments drive me crazy.
I always get some good points from her thoughts, however, and this book was no exception. Once I got six or seven chapters in, I was being challenged to grow in love in a way that I hadn't been challenged before. I especially liked her points about real love making people safe, like a house over someone, a safe place where people connect intimately, give the gift of time, and are willing to be inconvenienced--for the sake of others, yes, but ultimately for the purpose of exalting Christ and expending oneself for Him. She talked a lot about choosing to love even when it's hardest, to sit with others in their suffering and to realize that love, if it's really love, will involve a part of you dying.
I also really liked her points about finding our identity in Christ alone and seeing Christ in others. And I had never heard hospitality summarized as "sharing our time, our space, and our heart" but I love that sentiment. I think she is really onto something with her perspective that our brokenness provides an opening both to give and receive love and I'm glad to have read this even though I sometimes had to struggle through her writing style.
I always get some good points from her thoughts, however, and this book was no exception. Once I got six or seven chapters in, I was being challenged to grow in love in a way that I hadn't been challenged before. I especially liked her points about real love making people safe, like a house over someone, a safe place where people connect intimately, give the gift of time, and are willing to be inconvenienced--for the sake of others, yes, but ultimately for the purpose of exalting Christ and expending oneself for Him. She talked a lot about choosing to love even when it's hardest, to sit with others in their suffering and to realize that love, if it's really love, will involve a part of you dying.
I also really liked her points about finding our identity in Christ alone and seeing Christ in others. And I had never heard hospitality summarized as "sharing our time, our space, and our heart" but I love that sentiment. I think she is really onto something with her perspective that our brokenness provides an opening both to give and receive love and I'm glad to have read this even though I sometimes had to struggle through her writing style.
January 27, 2023
It isn't Voskamp's writing style that bothers me in this book; it's the way she utilizes it. She doesn't seem to understand when less is more, when she's veering into kitschy Christian cliches. There are a few good moments in The Broken Way, but there are far more spent reiterating overwrought and underbaked maxims ad nauseum. Too much fuss is made about "our unspoken broken" and the beauty of "givenness" and how, in Christ, we can become "the impossables doing the newly possable". Too many italics and em dashes and (I believe unintentionally) self-congratulatory anecdotes make appearances. The book is, proportionally, more cringeworthy than edifying.
In short: the premise is decent; the execution falters.
{2.5 stars}
In short: the premise is decent; the execution falters.
{2.5 stars}
August 23, 2018
Ann Voskamp's style is hard for some people to take. Her books are prose poetry, and those who are interested in a strictly academic systematic theology will be disappointed. I find that her writing style is the most common criticism by people who don't like her books. I, however, love the way she writes. It's like an amalgam of T.S. Eliot and Bonhoeffer.
Another criticism I've heard of Voskamp is that her theology is heretical mysticism that perverts the gospel. I read one "discernment" blogger saying that she could hear the whispering of the serpent through Ann Voskamp's writing. I honestly don't get this one at all. I didn't find any trace of bad doctrine in this book. Maybe she emphasizes things in a different way than I would, maybe she uses non-standard theological vocabulary, but what she is presenting here is a pretty solid theology of suffering such as Martin Luther would have undoubtedly approved. She's also probably more well-read than most of her critics. When I read One Thousand Gifts, I commented that I'd love to get my hands on her commonplace book. That goes for The Broken Way as well. She quotes Augustine, Luther, Calvin, a host of Reformers, C.S. Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard...even Peter Leithart gets a citation here.
I would say the two basic ideas communicated in this book are:
1) suffering is not something to be avoided at all costs as if it's some great evil, but rather is one of God's main tools in sanctifying us and changing the world. By hiding our personal struggles and brokenness from others and pretending that we're living a life of glory, we miss out on the real blessing of Christian community and koinonia fellowship.
2) Christ is all-sufficient for all our trials and struggles, and Christ most often ministers to us through His people. The Church is a community of suffering sinners lifting one another up in Christ; it's a community of compassion.
This is a great book to help you refocus on the importance of the Church and the way we ought to be responding to one anothers' struggles and suffering as we live in community together.
Another criticism I've heard of Voskamp is that her theology is heretical mysticism that perverts the gospel. I read one "discernment" blogger saying that she could hear the whispering of the serpent through Ann Voskamp's writing. I honestly don't get this one at all. I didn't find any trace of bad doctrine in this book. Maybe she emphasizes things in a different way than I would, maybe she uses non-standard theological vocabulary, but what she is presenting here is a pretty solid theology of suffering such as Martin Luther would have undoubtedly approved. She's also probably more well-read than most of her critics. When I read One Thousand Gifts, I commented that I'd love to get my hands on her commonplace book. That goes for The Broken Way as well. She quotes Augustine, Luther, Calvin, a host of Reformers, C.S. Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard...even Peter Leithart gets a citation here.
I would say the two basic ideas communicated in this book are:
1) suffering is not something to be avoided at all costs as if it's some great evil, but rather is one of God's main tools in sanctifying us and changing the world. By hiding our personal struggles and brokenness from others and pretending that we're living a life of glory, we miss out on the real blessing of Christian community and koinonia fellowship.
2) Christ is all-sufficient for all our trials and struggles, and Christ most often ministers to us through His people. The Church is a community of suffering sinners lifting one another up in Christ; it's a community of compassion.
This is a great book to help you refocus on the importance of the Church and the way we ought to be responding to one anothers' struggles and suffering as we live in community together.
January 13, 2018
Ann is a master at taking everyday objects and making them pregnant with spiritual truth:
* A clay sculpture of Jesus, with his hands broken off, illustrating the fact that we, His people, are to serve as His hands on this Earth.
* A mason jar containing 25,000+ wheat kernels, representative of the number of days in a typical lifespan.
*A red bucket, filled with gifts for a hurting family, depicting a life that is meant to be filled and then emptied again and again on behalf of others.
No one likes to be broken. In our church, we sing a song, " brokenness is what I long for, brokenness is what I need," and I have been known to stop singing at that place in the song because I don't want to ask for this gift--- if gift it can be called! Ann would argue that brokenness brings the gift of koinonia (deep communion with others) if it is embraced and not feared.
Jesus broke bread, blessed it, and distributed it to multitudes. This becomes an allegory: if we allow the broken pieces of our lives to be given to others, they will be nourished and we will receive the miracle of koinonia.
Ann's writings are rich and obviously the result of much meditation. She writes in a sort of lyrical fashion, very unique--- mostly refreshing but sometimes a little overwrought. Still, her thoughts become deeply imbedded in my own and I find myself mulling them and thinking of them long after the book has ended.
* A clay sculpture of Jesus, with his hands broken off, illustrating the fact that we, His people, are to serve as His hands on this Earth.
* A mason jar containing 25,000+ wheat kernels, representative of the number of days in a typical lifespan.
*A red bucket, filled with gifts for a hurting family, depicting a life that is meant to be filled and then emptied again and again on behalf of others.
No one likes to be broken. In our church, we sing a song, " brokenness is what I long for, brokenness is what I need," and I have been known to stop singing at that place in the song because I don't want to ask for this gift--- if gift it can be called! Ann would argue that brokenness brings the gift of koinonia (deep communion with others) if it is embraced and not feared.
Jesus broke bread, blessed it, and distributed it to multitudes. This becomes an allegory: if we allow the broken pieces of our lives to be given to others, they will be nourished and we will receive the miracle of koinonia.
Ann's writings are rich and obviously the result of much meditation. She writes in a sort of lyrical fashion, very unique--- mostly refreshing but sometimes a little overwrought. Still, her thoughts become deeply imbedded in my own and I find myself mulling them and thinking of them long after the book has ended.
April 20, 2017
Blown away.
Yep, once again Voskamp's amazing writing style kills me with a thousand different phrases. I totally mutilated this book with highlights and dog ears and tears. Here are just a very few of the awesome things Ann had to say . . .
"Who doesn't know what it's like to smile thinly and say you're fine when your'e not, when you're almost faint with pain?"
"There are graves coming, there is dark coming, there is heartbreak coming. We are not in control, and we never were."
"Great grief isn't made to fit inside your body. It's why your heart breaks."
"Maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest in wisdom."
"What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it."
I could go on and on but what's the point? Go buy the book already!
Yep, once again Voskamp's amazing writing style kills me with a thousand different phrases. I totally mutilated this book with highlights and dog ears and tears. Here are just a very few of the awesome things Ann had to say . . .
"Who doesn't know what it's like to smile thinly and say you're fine when your'e not, when you're almost faint with pain?"
"There are graves coming, there is dark coming, there is heartbreak coming. We are not in control, and we never were."
"Great grief isn't made to fit inside your body. It's why your heart breaks."
"Maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest in wisdom."
"What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it."
I could go on and on but what's the point? Go buy the book already!
November 24, 2016
Voskamp invites her readers into the broken moments of her life as she beautifully explores the answer to "How do we live with this one broken heart?" This stunning book leads the reader into a journey of seeing Grace, Thanksgiving, and Joy in their broken moments and how God shines in our weaknesses. Have your highlighter, pen, and journal ready as you read!
February 6, 2017
I love her books and read them over and over. She's a gifted writer!
October 19, 2016
"The Broken Way" is a guide into abundant life through self-sacrifice.
A logical progression from Ann's first book, The New York Times best-selling "One Thousand Gifts," this new book answers the question "How do you live with your one broken heart?"
This is one of just two or three books which has helped me to change the way I live even while I'm still reading it. Ann's combination of storytelling, theology, practical application, and winsome vulnerability provide just the right combination to move readers past their own broken patterns and into a new way of thinking and living.
Some of my favorite quotes are from chapter 6, entitled, "What's Even Better than a Bucket List."
“Experiencing the whole world will not fill your bucket like experiencing giving yourself, and finding the meaning that will fill your soul.” - p.92
“What if living the abundant life isn’t about having better stories to share but about living a story that lets others live better?” - p.92
“Live for something worth dying for. Let love break into you and mess with you and loosen you up and make you laugh and cry and give and hurt because this is the only way to really live. Bucket list or not, don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less. Don’t waste a minute on anything less than what lasts for all eternity.” - p.95
Thank you, Ann, for giving yourself away in order to bless broken readers like me.
A logical progression from Ann's first book, The New York Times best-selling "One Thousand Gifts," this new book answers the question "How do you live with your one broken heart?"
This is one of just two or three books which has helped me to change the way I live even while I'm still reading it. Ann's combination of storytelling, theology, practical application, and winsome vulnerability provide just the right combination to move readers past their own broken patterns and into a new way of thinking and living.
Some of my favorite quotes are from chapter 6, entitled, "What's Even Better than a Bucket List."
“Experiencing the whole world will not fill your bucket like experiencing giving yourself, and finding the meaning that will fill your soul.” - p.92
“What if living the abundant life isn’t about having better stories to share but about living a story that lets others live better?” - p.92
“Live for something worth dying for. Let love break into you and mess with you and loosen you up and make you laugh and cry and give and hurt because this is the only way to really live. Bucket list or not, don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less. Don’t waste a minute on anything less than what lasts for all eternity.” - p.95
Thank you, Ann, for giving yourself away in order to bless broken readers like me.
November 22, 2018
Ann Voskamp is a poetic writer and a courageous survivor. If anyone knows about "The Broken Way..." it is definitely this author. The greatest takeaway from this book for me, is the need to share our own brokenness with others, if we want to be close with them. Like Voskamp, I am a champion at being there to listen to the stories of the pain of others, but I have been very bad about sharing my own pain.
Through this book, I began to better understand the need to come clean about our own heartache in order to have more intimate friendships. That said, the trust issue regarding confiding in others still has to be dealt with, keeping healthy boundaries, and only sharing with those that have your best interests at heart.
The most beautiful quote in this book for me, although the book is full of them, because of Voskamp's writing style is, "...no one is really dead when obituaries or read or headstones or bought or flowers are brought to the grave; death only happens when one is forgotten." Pg. 133
The Broken Way - Ann Voskamp
Through this book, I began to better understand the need to come clean about our own heartache in order to have more intimate friendships. That said, the trust issue regarding confiding in others still has to be dealt with, keeping healthy boundaries, and only sharing with those that have your best interests at heart.
The most beautiful quote in this book for me, although the book is full of them, because of Voskamp's writing style is, "...no one is really dead when obituaries or read or headstones or bought or flowers are brought to the grave; death only happens when one is forgotten." Pg. 133
The Broken Way - Ann Voskamp
May 21, 2017
Honestly, this book was annoyingly repetitive.
I liked her book about gratitude, but this book feels like she tried to write a poetic blog entry that lasted the length of an entire book. So many phrases were repeated and repeated and repeated, in such a way that felt too emotional and unclear.
Sorry Ann, I wanted to like this book. I really liked the beginning when it left me feeling like you were going to tell me what to do next after developing a deeper practice of gratitude. But I never felt engaged with this book.
I liked her book about gratitude, but this book feels like she tried to write a poetic blog entry that lasted the length of an entire book. So many phrases were repeated and repeated and repeated, in such a way that felt too emotional and unclear.
Sorry Ann, I wanted to like this book. I really liked the beginning when it left me feeling like you were going to tell me what to do next after developing a deeper practice of gratitude. But I never felt engaged with this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2016
Ann Voskamp does it again.
She takes your heart, wrings it out and then masterfully fills it back up with a broken, holy, beauty saying "The miracle happens in the breaking." The breaking of bread or the breaking of our hearts. These are split wide open, and in the splitting, the "not enough" becomes more than enough.
Thank you, Zondervan, for the Advance Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.
She takes your heart, wrings it out and then masterfully fills it back up with a broken, holy, beauty saying "The miracle happens in the breaking." The breaking of bread or the breaking of our hearts. These are split wide open, and in the splitting, the "not enough" becomes more than enough.
Thank you, Zondervan, for the Advance Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.
January 18, 2019
Ann Voskamp takes thoughts we all have and wrestles them down to their roots. God is good all the time, so why do I not feel His goodness in my circumstance? Why is brokenness present, persistent, and permanent? She comes full circle through personal heartache and social injustice that it is only through our brokenness that we find communion with God and others. There is no way but a broken way.
July 12, 2018
More like 4.5 stars. I would have given a 5, but her writing style is difficult for me. I couldn't follow her stories at all in each chapter. However, when she came to "the meat" of her chapters, they are gold. Our brokenness is not a disgusting disgrace to Jesus, but the way He allows to find Him bigger, sweeter, more wonderful than we ever imagined. The way God heals the world is not through whole, perfect, put-together saints, but through broken sinners, finding their own wholeness in a wounded Savior. Thankful.
August 4, 2019
I started this book coming out of one of the most broken years I’ve had in my life. And I read the majority in the recent weeks going through a crisis in our family. This book ministered to my soul deeply through both seasons. I enjoy her writing and the way she tells her stories. I do think it helps to make her points hit the heart. I appreciate her own vulnerability and brokenness that gives her a platform to speak.
December 28, 2022
The prose in this book is exquisite. Voskamp has a poetic style that makes you want to keep reading. Almost every page has a “mic drop” moment, with deep honest reflections.
I found her point about “God believing in us” a bit questionable, but other than that, the book was great.
I found her point about “God believing in us” a bit questionable, but other than that, the book was great.
March 15, 2017
Amazing insight.
March 20, 2021
A book that needed to be written. Openness about hurting and pain in the Christian world needs to be normalised. Still too many of us think that it shows weakness and sin to be suffering and doubting. I so admire Ann Voskamp’s vulnerability in sharing some very dark moments of her life with the reader and I hope that it will encourage thousands to do the same.
From what I have seen her writing style seems to divide opinion. Marmite. You get on with it or you don’t. I really enjoy listening to her talks and reading short blog posts by her but I’m afraid I struggled with an entire book. I just didn’t come away with a clear picture of what she was trying to communicate and if someone asked me to summarise the book I would have difficulty giving them an answer.
However, she made some excellent points, particularly those about relationships with others. I think she models what Christian relationships with each other should be and I know I’ll come away from this book trying to live differently, which I suppose was the end goal of writing the book!
From what I have seen her writing style seems to divide opinion. Marmite. You get on with it or you don’t. I really enjoy listening to her talks and reading short blog posts by her but I’m afraid I struggled with an entire book. I just didn’t come away with a clear picture of what she was trying to communicate and if someone asked me to summarise the book I would have difficulty giving them an answer.
However, she made some excellent points, particularly those about relationships with others. I think she models what Christian relationships with each other should be and I know I’ll come away from this book trying to live differently, which I suppose was the end goal of writing the book!
January 19, 2021
Ann Voskamp's lyrical writing is as much her signature style as her vulnerable honesty. She only writes what she lives, and this authenticity is part of the power and charm of her work. She knows she is a broken being, reacting out of past pain, fear and longing, highly sensitive to the mood of her environment, and strong in her desire to honour God and love people. As she writes of embracing this brokenness in the light of the 'broken way' that Christ lived, she gives us a chance to watch what that looks like and the grace that emerges unexpectedly from it.
This is a profound, beautiful and somewhat difficult book, as was her first (A Thousand Gifts) - intense, raw, using a less than direct approach quite different from the usual Western cultural fare, and well worth the emotional and spiritual effort invested to really listen to the words.
This is a profound, beautiful and somewhat difficult book, as was her first (A Thousand Gifts) - intense, raw, using a less than direct approach quite different from the usual Western cultural fare, and well worth the emotional and spiritual effort invested to really listen to the words.
July 13, 2017
I have not read "A Thousand Gifts" but I heard that Ann Voskamp's writing can be difficult. And I would definitely have to agree with that. Her sentence structure can be odd and she gets a bit too poetic. And she runs through wheat fields which sounds a little odd.
There are definitely some theological notes I take issue with (the reason peter sank when walking on water wasn't because he didn't believe Jesus but because he didn't believe Jesus believed in him. What??) but she had a lot of good things to say. Very convicting about not running from suffering and entering into others pain with them. I enjoyed the book for the most part but I can't say I would recommend it. Maybe in a few circumstances but not many
There are definitely some theological notes I take issue with (the reason peter sank when walking on water wasn't because he didn't believe Jesus but because he didn't believe Jesus believed in him. What??) but she had a lot of good things to say. Very convicting about not running from suffering and entering into others pain with them. I enjoyed the book for the most part but I can't say I would recommend it. Maybe in a few circumstances but not many
February 10, 2017
Vulnerable. Powerful. Life-changing. Love-changing. For me, all of these things describe Ann Voskamp’s latest book The Broken Way. The insights she shared have helped me feel God’s love and grace in a deeper way and have also challenged me to love in a deeper way. This is a book I’ll need to reread at some point – or at least review all of my underlined portions (which is a great deal of the book!) I’m giving the book 4 stars rather than 5 because parts of it felt very repetitive, but overall it’s definitely worth the read.
July 30, 2017
Almost unreadable. Ann's prose is so convoluted that I can't follow her and by the end of her story I've forgotten the beginning.
March 8, 2022
,,Mamă, inima ta este frumoasă-mai ales fisurile ei pe unde lași dragostea să intre.”
September 21, 2019
As always, Ann’s words are overflowing with life, with hope. Here are a few of my favorite passages:
He is invting me to heal but also to see my most meaningful calling: to be His healing to the hurting: my own brokenness driving me into Christ’s is exactly where I can touch the brokenhearted. The most meaningful purpose can be found exactly in our most painful brokenness. We can be brokers of healing exactly where we have known the most brokenness.
Never be afraid of being a broken thing. Why have we swallowed the lie that we can only help if we’re perfect? The cosmic truth sealed in the wounds of the broken God is that the greatest brokers of abundance know an unspoken broken.
It’s the broken and the limping, the wounded and the scarred, the stragglers and the strugglers, who may know best where to run with wounds. It’s only the broken who know where the cracks are and how our broken wound can be the very thin places that reveal God and allow us to feel His safe holding hand.
Those who’ve known an unspoken broken can speak the most real healing.
Stay weak and dependent. This is how you stay strong in God.❤️
“He comes as the homeless guy, the refugee, the child drinking fithy water. What the world says is weak and small may be the place where Christ revealas to you most of all. God shows up as the little people nobody’s got time for. You miss Jesus when you’re not looking for His two disguieses: the smallest and the Servant. The mistery of ministry is that the Lord is to be found where we minister. (H. Nowen) Our care for people: the way we meet the Lord.”
“The seed breaks to give us the wheat. The soil breaks to give us the crop, the sky breaks to give us the rain, the wheat breaks to give us the bread. And the bread breaks to give us the feast. There was once even an alabaster jar that broke to give Him all the glory.”
He is invting me to heal but also to see my most meaningful calling: to be His healing to the hurting: my own brokenness driving me into Christ’s is exactly where I can touch the brokenhearted. The most meaningful purpose can be found exactly in our most painful brokenness. We can be brokers of healing exactly where we have known the most brokenness.
Never be afraid of being a broken thing. Why have we swallowed the lie that we can only help if we’re perfect? The cosmic truth sealed in the wounds of the broken God is that the greatest brokers of abundance know an unspoken broken.
It’s the broken and the limping, the wounded and the scarred, the stragglers and the strugglers, who may know best where to run with wounds. It’s only the broken who know where the cracks are and how our broken wound can be the very thin places that reveal God and allow us to feel His safe holding hand.
Those who’ve known an unspoken broken can speak the most real healing.
Stay weak and dependent. This is how you stay strong in God.❤️
“He comes as the homeless guy, the refugee, the child drinking fithy water. What the world says is weak and small may be the place where Christ revealas to you most of all. God shows up as the little people nobody’s got time for. You miss Jesus when you’re not looking for His two disguieses: the smallest and the Servant. The mistery of ministry is that the Lord is to be found where we minister. (H. Nowen) Our care for people: the way we meet the Lord.”
“The seed breaks to give us the wheat. The soil breaks to give us the crop, the sky breaks to give us the rain, the wheat breaks to give us the bread. And the bread breaks to give us the feast. There was once even an alabaster jar that broke to give Him all the glory.”
May 17, 2019
3.5 stars
I appreciated One Thousand Gifts, and I thought that in many ways this book was more than just a sequel -- it seemed to really be the second half of the gratitude equation, with a larger scope that also tackled some of the same difficult issues as the first. I know some find her writing style difficult -- I liked the poetic style of her first book, and this one as well, though I think here the back-and-forth between physical reality and abstract thought was a bit more jarring.
In some ways I think Voskamp is too good at what she does, because sometimes the descriptions of anxiety and its causes fed my own anxiety. Still, these drawn out meditations often went back and forth between sobering and uplifting -- unwilling to gloss over human brokenness, but also unwilling to linger too long in pain and suffering. There's hope -- I suppose that's the message in a nutshell.
Even though nothing in here sounded explicitly anti-prosperity-gospel, I think this book provides a good counter to what many of us come to believe about faith -- that it's a way to avoid pain. This book is a reminder that "abundance" comes from brokenness -- not from materialistic "name it and claim it" teachings that many of us either believe or simply absorb as a matter of course.
I appreciated One Thousand Gifts, and I thought that in many ways this book was more than just a sequel -- it seemed to really be the second half of the gratitude equation, with a larger scope that also tackled some of the same difficult issues as the first. I know some find her writing style difficult -- I liked the poetic style of her first book, and this one as well, though I think here the back-and-forth between physical reality and abstract thought was a bit more jarring.
In some ways I think Voskamp is too good at what she does, because sometimes the descriptions of anxiety and its causes fed my own anxiety. Still, these drawn out meditations often went back and forth between sobering and uplifting -- unwilling to gloss over human brokenness, but also unwilling to linger too long in pain and suffering. There's hope -- I suppose that's the message in a nutshell.
Even though nothing in here sounded explicitly anti-prosperity-gospel, I think this book provides a good counter to what many of us come to believe about faith -- that it's a way to avoid pain. This book is a reminder that "abundance" comes from brokenness -- not from materialistic "name it and claim it" teachings that many of us either believe or simply absorb as a matter of course.
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