What breaks your heart?

 

It’s the question this letter is centered around. It’s the question we can’t let go of. It’s the question that we are asking you today.

 

Before you answer, maybe you’d like to know what breaks our heart?

 

• Our hearts break when we see families struggling.

• Our hearts break when we see confused and hurting kids.

• Our hearts break when we see fathers who are angry or not present and moms who battle exhaustion and guilt every day. Or vice versa.

• Our hearts break when we see deep emotional pain that isn’t healed.

• Our hearts break when we see distracted communities and shallow relationships.

• Our hearts break when we see evil being called good, and good being called evil.

• And our hearts break when we see the truth being twisted in the name of love.

 

It should not be surprising to hear us say that we are living in a world where chaos seems to be the new normal. We wake up and long for the days where tragedy and heartbreak didn’t top the newsfeed every morning.  The mental health crisis is rising, and our children are suffering under the weight of the emotional turmoil around them. It’s all so heartbreaking.  

 

Does this list break your heart too?

 

We wish we could sit down face to face with each one of you to talk about what’s on each of our hearts. It would bring us so much joy to share with you the way that we have seen God move in our life through our own heartbreak and in the lives of those we have walked alongside, and to hear how He is moving in your life! But until we get to see you face to face, we want to share a little bit about how God has used our heartbreaking pain for His transforming purpose.  

 

Working in ministry and missions opened our eyes to what real joy looks like. It wasn’t about stuff, or money, it wasn’t about vacations or luxury cars. We could see that real joy was about relationship, and we began to feel the call to change the way we were living. 

 

Our life looks a little different now than it did ten years ago, as we have both been called into new roles in mental health counseling and spiritual direction, as well as writing, teaching small groups and one on one mentoring and discipling and we have been walking this out in our daily lives over the last few years. 

 

And we know we are being called to more.

 

As we look ahead and are preparing for our empty nest years, our greatest desire is to pour into young families all that would have helped us from the beginning of our own marriage. When we were asked to have the hymn “Holy Ground” be played at our wedding, we agreed without understanding how pivotal it would become down the road as we quickly found out that we had both been given some of what we needed to grow, but the seeds that were planted were on rocky soil. Starting out on Holy Ground would have helped.

 

Learning from Matthew 13, we know now that the seed falling on good soil is what will multiply in the hearts of families, and the good soil is a tender heart turned towards God and one another. But turning over hard soil takes intentional time and we want to help families dig in.

 

“Ground for Growth” is the name for the vision that God gave us through specific prayer. And isn’t it funny with Andy’s background in landscaping, dealing with tough soil is a subject he’s very familiar with. God is so good like that.

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We are writing to you today asking you to help us launch this ministry and share our story of finding real joy the midst of a world where the truth is being twisted and love is slowly losing its real meaning. 

 

We have seen what was needed in our own marriage and family and now we long to see it in the community around us. We want to continue investing in relationships by going deep with a few, trusting God will lead them to go wide and multiply.   

 

Your contribution isn’t just a donation, it’s a step towards healing the hearts of our society. Every dollar will go towards our time and investment into caring for the spiritual, emotional, and relational crisis we see breaking down the heart of families. Rooted in Biblical Truth, Ground for Growth is a 501c3 non-profit organization that will help communities thrive by offering our services at subsidized or no cost, never allowing money to become an obstacle to growth.  

 

We want to equip marriages, parents, churches, and schools to deeply understand the effect that the healing love of Jesus can have in our communities. So, what breaks your heart?

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• Will you allow God to use that heartbreaking pain to be a path that leads others towards Him?

 

If your heart breaks like ours, we hope you will join us on mission to invest in intentional family ministry, sharing stories and helping others find real joy in deep rooted relationship.

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In Him, 
Andy & Megan 

 

PS- Want to hear more of our story or a word of inspiration?  You can find it over on Megan’s blog: www.mudbucketbeautiful.com