Cultivate Scholarship Opportunity

I believe that we’re all called to create for God’s glory, and am so excited to host and lead the first Cultivate Women’s Retreat at @triplewrenfarms this summer. 

We’re designing this 3-day/2-night event to be an immersive floral experience, for women who are creative “makers” of any skill level and any media to come to the farm and rest, study God’s Word, worship, feast, refresh their hearts, and reset their creativity. 

There are more details on the Triple Wren website, and space is very limited, so please check it out and be ready for Registration on March 14, 7AM Pacific Time if you’d like to come. 

Because this special retreat is all-inclusive, it is a significant investment, and we recognize that not everyone is able to financially absorb an event like this into their annual budget. For this reason, we’re announcing today one scholarship to our 2020 Cultivate Retreat that will cover glamping lodging meals, and all sessions (including the Cultivate Women’s Evening with Ruth Simons!). 🌿 We want to reach out and help one inspiring individual in order to encourage them on their journey. {Transportation to/from the farm is still the responsibility of scholarship winners.}

Here are the details of how you can apply for a scholarship:
1. Like and Share this post to your (public) Instagram feed and/or this post to your (public) Facebook feed. 
2. Tag as many friends as you’d like on this post to let them know about the retreat and scholarship!
3. Email our team info@triplewrenfarms.com a 200-500 word short essay describing how God has called you to creativity and where you are in your journey to encourage others. Feel free to include your personal story, but know all details will be kept confidential and anonymous as our team works together to select the scholarship winner. Deadline to enter: midnight Pacific Time on 3/10/2020.
4. Optional: Post a video in your (public) stories on Instagram or Facebook telling us why you want to come to the Cultivate Retreat and tag @triplewrenfarms for extra brownie points in the scholarship process!

The scholarship winner will be announced before midnight on Thursday, March 12, 2020. Registration for the Retreat (and for the Women’s Evening!) officially opens at 7AM Pacific Time on March 14, 2020.

We hope to see you soon at the farm!

Creativity

At our 3-day Cultivate Retreat in July, we’re taking a good bit of time to talk about doing heart-work that brings vision and bravery and helps push through resistance and fear. In some ways, this is the flip side to taking time to rest and and retreat.

We need to remember that Jesus calls the weary to come to him and rest, but he also calls us to abandon crippling fear, cast off thoughts of worthlessness, and actively follow him. He calls us to remember that He is with us (Joshua 1:9), He will take care of us (Psalm 91:4), and that He doesn’t call us to fear but to power, love, and self-control (II Timothy 1:7). Let your heart take courage, says Psalm 27, and be strong! 

God’s Word calls us, among other things, to glorify Him, to love him and our neighbors, and to LIVE. He gives us specific instruction in Genesis 1:28 to take care of the earth and develop our human culture, and he creates us uniquely. He gives us specific gifts and gives us the individual freedom to serve him creatively out of those gifts. For too many years I was afraid of embracing the freedom God gives us to serve Him, but God’s call to me to mimic his creativity in my own, small way is unmistakable. He calls us to excellent (Proverbs 22:29), diligent (Colossians 3:23), good (Ephesians 2:10) creativity. 

From these Scriptures and more, it’s clear that God has a plan for us to be creative, but for each of us that may mean something specific and different. Some of us he has called to be makers, or artists, some community-builders, some word-weavers, some musicians, some delightful chefs, some gardeners, some listeners, some bold speakers. We may all do some of these activities in the course of our lives, but if God has gifted you to do them especially well, then capitulating to the fear of failure, the unknowns of small business, your self-doubt, or anything else is no excuse for not adding skill to your gift and serving others with your creativity. 

I am so excited to learn about each of our guests’ creative lives at the retreat, and to work through these verses together and discuss how humility, joy, patience, love, peacefulness and more flow out of a creative life that’s obedient to God.

I know that this retreat is an investment, but I sincerely challenge you to look at it exactly that way – as an investment that you could make for yourself. It’s not for everyone, and there are only a very few spots available in it, but if you are ready to dig into God’s word, rest, worship, feast, soak in the beauty of our flower farm, and delve into some floral skills to refresh your creativity, then please consider joining us at the farm.

And one more quick thing – on Monday, March 2, we will announce a scholarship opportunity for the overnight Cultivate Retreat, so stay tuned for more information soon!

What song are you singing?

I’ve just finished Andrew Peterson’s new book Adorning the Dark this morning, and it spoke so deeply to me. In it Andrew discusses his creative process and instructs aspiring writers wisely, and the very end of the book left me weeping. I’m sharing it here, and it’s a long quote, but friends – this is truth. This is what we are trying to do, at @triplewrenfarms, more overtly this summer than ever before, and it feels like we are finally realizing the WHY behind all the blood, sweat, and tears that lead us to this point in our lives.

We are singing the song of Jesus’ beauty and how it has changed our lives, and we feel our hearts are bursting with the joy of it. Please read and enjoy, and I think you’ll find your own heart similarly challenged.


“One holy way of mending the world is to sing, to write, to paint, to weave new worlds. Because the seed of your feeble yet faithful work fell to the ground, died, and rose again, what Christ has done through you will call forth praise from lonesome travelers long after your name is forgotten. They will know someone lived and loved here. ‘Whoever they were,’ they will think, ‘they belonged to God. It’s clear that they believed the stories of Jesus were true, and it gave them a hope that made their lives beautiful in ways that will unfold for ages…. This is why the enemy wants you to think you have no song to sing, no story to tell, no painting to paint: he wants to quiet you. So, SING. Let the Word by which your Creator made you fill your imagination, guide your pen, lead you from note to note, until a melody is strung together like a glimmering constellation in the clear sky. Love the Lord your God, and your neighbor too, by making worlds and works of beauty that blanket the earth like flowers.”

P.S. Ok friends, listen: go buy this book or grab it on Audible. There’s no affiliation, I just think it’s fantastic and that we should support brave authors and makers who speak truth into the world like this.

Jesus says to the weary: Come to Me

This week I’m highlighting some major themes from our 3-day Cultivate Retreat at @triplewrenfarms (July 23-25, 2020), and truly, they’re nothing new to this feed. I’m building the retreat around what God’s been teaching me over the past year as an artist, businesswoman, mom, wife, and friend, and I’ve been writing here about exactly that! So if you’ve been following along, it’s probably no surprise that a major theme of the retreat is “Cultivating rest and structure as essential tools to prevent burnout.”

Somehow in our hustle, the drive to succeed has eclipsed the bliss of rest. The balance has disappeared for too many of us. {Too much rest is laziness, but too much work is miserable; but where is the happy middle?!} I’ve written more about rest and what it means for productivity, health, and joie de vivre here than probably anything else, but I still have more to say, because I’m still learning more about what it means!

Right now, I’m reading author Paul Miller’s book A Praying Life and it’s impacting me powerfully. Miller’s words on rest captured my attention:

“Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy. What does it feel like to be weary? You have trouble concentrating. The problems of the day are like claws in your brain. You feel pummeled by life. What does heavy-laden feel like? Same thing. You have so many problems you don’t even know where to start. You can’t do life on your own anymore. Jesus wants you to come to him.”

I’m so excited to sit together and rest at the farm, to spend time talking to Jesus together, to dig into God’s word, to feast together, and to experience the refreshment of creating together.

I’m so excited to sit together and rest at the farm, to spend time talking to Jesus together, to dig into God’s word, to feast together, and to experience the refreshment of creating together.

Are you weary? Is your creativity flagging? Maybe a few days together is exactly what you need.

We’re praying for the perfect group of women to come together for the Cultivate Retreat and for it to be truly restful, God-centered, and refreshing on all levels. Will you pray for that along with us?

Seeking and Sharing Beauty: a Cultivate Retreat Theme

This week I’m excited to talk more about the main themes of our Cultivate Retreat (July 23-25, 2020) which is designed for women artists/makers of any skill level. We’re offering this floral-focused Christian retreat to refresh our guests’ creativity and souls in a really special way. 
The retreat (with cozy glamping ccommodations) is situated at our lovely 22-acre flower farm @triplewrenfarms in northwest WA state, right in the middle of tens of thousands of blooms. We’ve carved out a flower paradise from an abandoned farm, and it’s the heart of where We Share Beauty. 
Our Creator is unmatchably beautiful, and his creation reflects his glory. At the retreat, I look forward to unpacking the way that seeking and sharing beauty with others gives life to our own weary souls. If the heart of my focus is to reflect God’s creative beauty, a depth and richness emerges that is unparalleled! 
The very last session of this 3-day retreat is our “Cultivate Women’s Evening”, and even if you can’t invest in the full retreat (which is limited to only a few spots), you can purchase a ticket (on sale March 14, 2020) and join us to hear guest speaker Ruth Chou Simons share her heart! Ruth is a bestselling and award-winning author, artist, entrepreneur, and speaker, using each of these platforms to spiritually sow the Word of God into people’s hearts. Learn more about her and about both the 3-day Cultivate Retreat and the 7/25 Cultivate Women’s Evening. We hope we get a chance to share beauty with you this summer at the farm!

The Cultivate Women’s Retreat at Triple Wren Farms

Seven years ago, we began teaching farm workshops at Triple Wren, all designed to explain the mechanics and business of growing flowers or floral design. This year we are preparing for two overnight Flower Camps which will teach these topics in a deep and thorough way, and we are also adding a NEW workshop at the farm – one that flows out of my heart in a completely different kind of way. 

We are creating the Cultivate Retreat at Triple Wren: a Christian floral retreat for creative women of any skill level and any artistic medium, who are looking for a season of restoration where they can refresh their creativity and soul.

I believe that every Maker should bravely foray into new realms of artistic expression from time to time in order to more fully explore their own artistic specialty. An immersive experience of playing with the elements of his creation, such as the lush, gorgeous flowers from Triple Wren Farms, can give a reset and refocus for future work. 

Retreating to the farm on July 23-25, 2020, for Christian worship, beauty-saturation, farm-to-table feasting, sunset yoga, floral design exploration, and comfortable glamping accommodations can give you a reset and refresh for future clarity of mind in your work. It can provide a respite from the bustle of daily schedule in order to tune up your heart to more clearly sing God’s grace through your creativity.

I plan to teach six distinct themes during the retreat, and will write about each of them over the next few days, so stay tuned for more details!

For the final session on Saturday, July 25, Cultivate Retreat Attendees will join into Triple’s Wren’s “Women’s Evening” as VIP guests at 4:00PM, and will enjoy a sweet ministry from guest speaker Ruth Chou Simons as we culminate our retreat with a time of worship together. 

Spaces at the overnight Cultivate Retreat are limited, so we are opening up lots of tickets for just the evening session with Ruth, so if you are local keep your eyes open for opportunities to be a part of this amazing evening. Registration opens on March 14, 2020. We hope to see you soon at the farm!

Called to Create

We all echo our Creator by “making” in different ways. Some weave communities and build relationships with their unique gifts. Some are called to craft spectacular visual art. Some quietly nest at home and make a haven where their family thrives. Some weave rugs, some weave words. Whether combining ingredients or managing a company, we’re all busy making in one way or another. We’re following the original Creator’s way and Making, because he made us to be creative.

My goal as a parent is to encourage the unique gifts of my children, without pressuring them to perfection (without allowing them to pressure themselves to perfection!) and to remind them that they’re echoing Jesus in it. Our creative work can be holy work, just as much as the most overt ministry can be holy work. By fulfilling our calling, we’re glorifying God.

Married flower farmers

Steve and I met when we were students at Bible college, and when we fell in love, we had no idea that our “life plan” would be radically different than what we expected. I tend to divide our life into the great “Before” we started farming and the “After” we started farming. Before, we were in full time ministry. We had babies. We were younger and carefree, had free time. We had even worked our way into being debt free… and THEN we started a small ag business. After that, we quickly had startup debt to our eyeballs, zero free time, and were unprepared for the way the business could control our lives. 
When we started flower farming in 2012, I began the venture as a hobby while Steve worked off farm, but by the middle of 2013, he came home to work on Triple Wren full time. Working together, living together, married together, parenting together: those first few years were an intense period of personal and marital growth unlike anything I’d ever anticipated. If I’d known the stats for divorce among couples who farm, we might not have even tried. There were many days when it wasn’t pretty, but with God’s Word as the foundation for our lives, and his grace to keep adjusting, stop sinning, keep short accounts, and to walk forward in faith, we are in a healthy place today.
We’ve had to work through boundaries and dependencies and trust and love and respect. Starting a business together was the best thing that could have happened to our marriage, but that’s only by God’s grace. He holds us together and helps us lay down pride and selfishness and learn deeper lessons about love. And we absolutely have to stay vigilant on these same issues. I don’t think anyone ever “arrives.” We all have to keep working every day, with our spouses, children, siblings, friendships. 
My heart aches for women-entrepreneurs who are walking where I’ve been in the past few years. Are you listening to the lie our culture trumpets that you can and should be ON all the time? Do you feel pressure to be the beautiful wife, Pinterest mom, stand-up friend, faithful leader at church, hostess with the mostest, serving on the best boards, and rocking the successful business woman (marketing, producing, accounting, strategizing, and more) ALL AT ONCE?! Friend, I’ve been there. I’ve pried my eyelids open every day and forced myself to keep going even when the joy was gone, and my body and soul were parched and weary. I’ve written over the past year about my journey out of that pit, and I’m thrilled for the opportunity to keep sharing what God’s teaching me about it all. I’m so “in-process,” so still on the journey, but maybe God can use some of what I’m learning to help you too. I’ll keep writing here, but on Saturday we’re announcing even another way I’ll be sharing. And to say I’m SO excited about it is a complete understatement.

After years of hustling, I’m changing my approach.

This coming Saturday is a special day for us. We’re looking forward to a BIG announcement at Triple Wren, and it fits really well as an announcement here in my personal feed too, because it flows out of my heart in an intensely personal way.

You know why? Because after years of hustling, I’m changing my approach. Jesus’ words about rest, wise counselors’ words about margin, the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice in my heart, my body/mind’s response to years of not enough sleep + adrenaline-fueled sprinting… all are harmonizing. Even my own personal growth to view rest as not selfish, not wasteful, not *nothing* is ripening and I’m finally ready to pace myself, to take my own advice and remember that I’m human.

This is working out in thousands of micro ways at home, in tiny, daily decisions, and it’s working out in macro ways as I step back from working so much IN the farm fields and working more ON the farm, behind the scenes. Don’t get me wrong – my hands are still in the dirt! I’m pruning hundreds roses this week and beginning the huge project of moving our perennial field (to make room for more dahlias!), BUT I’m doing it on a schedule. I’m making a plan, with boundaries for work AND play AND rest, and not allowing the work to rule my daily decisions.

It’s not that the work was so domineering (although it can be a crushing weight at any farm or small business!), but my *response* to the work has been the problem. I let it control my personal life, our family life, and my workaholic tendencies have been out in full force. I’m actually super happy in the moment when I’m digging through a mountain of challenging work, but it’s because I have tunnel vision for the work. This can be a big positive character trait when focus is required, but it can be a BIG negative when trying to balance the rest of life and work.

Please keep an eye here as I write and talk more this week about what’s coming, and WHY it’s coming, and please keep encouraging us as we walk forward in God’s grace! Thank you for your support, friends!