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Everyday Blooms | Whitney Putnam

Everyday Blooms SB Header 2-01-01

I encountered her first through Hope*Writers, and have since watched – rather awe-struck at times – as she’s leaned unabashedly into her passion and calling, courageously putting her heart out there, linking arms with other women as she’s led the charge.

Her desire to run hard after God is refreshing.  But her willingness do so, bravely and imperfectly, is what has made all the difference.

Meet Whitney…

 

EB - Whitney Putnam-01

 

WHAT’S YOUR STORY, MORNING GLORY?

At the wise-old age of 26-years-old, God called my husband and I from a mega-church in Houston, Texas, to serve at a little white church on a hill next to a peacock farm. We had wild dreams of witnessing revival and a full parking lot. Just get us there, we thought, and great things will begin to unravel.

Can you begin to see the pride? The self-promotion? The human flaw? Have you ever had a dream and declared, “If I just work hard enough, long enough, wise enough, it will come to fruition?”

Yeah, me too.

We are still serving at that little white church on a hill and we still have wild + messy dreams for revival (because we believe in a God who calls Himself I AM.) But He has taught us a thing or two along the way.  He redefined me and continues to shape me by teaching me what His Word declares as real success, dependence and my purpose. He keeps whispering to me what I should really fear (Him, not man) and that my worth is not in what I produce but who I am.

He redefined brave for me because my other definitions of brave weren’t holding the test of time. I wrote it all down in a book called Imperfectly Brave.

In my desperate attempt to stay the course in all this redefining, I called women to pray alongside me — for our church, for our city, for each other. We started gathering every Monday morning while the sun was just beginning to run its course across the Kansas City sky.

Since then, we have seen soul revivals, extraordinary changes and miracles. I’ve watched friends step into their God-given callings. We’ve wept through our marriages, our own self-inflicted prisons; we’ve whispered the quiet, dark hidden places of our souls.

And then we return them to God, because He will heal us (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Thus, the ministry of Imperfectly Brave was birthed. God took a dream I once held (a booming church) and made it into something entirely different. Imperfectly Brave is now a lifestyle where we believe our bravest place is in God’s arms.  And it’s so simple. Gather your people and pray. God will show up. He promised He always would.

 

WHAT DID YOU DISCOVER ABOUT GOD’S CHARACTER IN THE PROCESS?

I discovered that when you seek Him with all of your heart, you will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).

For the longest time, I tried to add God into my life. I kept inviting Him into my plans; tossing Him on top of salad that I already made, rather than asking Him what He had for me, or even, (GASP!) letting Him be enough.

Simply stated, I knew He was my delight and my portion, but I don’t know if I ever felt like He was my delight and my portion.

In redefining brave, He kept reminding me that my bravest place is really only and wholly with Him. And as I’ve practiced that, my whole life has changed and I’m braver, more passionate, and more tuned into who I am as a daughter of the King.

 

WHAT HELPED YOU OR SERVED YOU MOST PRACTICALLY IN THIS SEASON?

It’s still helping me today: my prayer group. God made us for community. And not just a community that gathers quickly on a Sunday morning to check it off our massive list in order to be thrown into the hurricane of our life. No. We were meant to know the insides of each other. Our struggles, doubts and insecurities. We were meant to celebrate and champion each other.

Community keeps me closer to Christ then and it keeps me closer to Christ now.

 

HOW DID THIS EXPERIENCE EFFECT OR SHAPE YOUR PASSION TODAY?

Let it be said, and let it be said loudly: we can get off track easily. Any shake of doubt or fear or crack in the sidewalk can throw us off course. By living my imperfectly brave lifestyle and gathering in prayer week in and week out, I have:

Warm accountability
Sisters who cheer for me
Scripture being read over me
Reminders of what God has already done
Reminders of what He is singing over me life
Truth being poured over me
And the beautiful promise that His burden is light and I can move into my week…
Free.

This type of community is better than any self-help program out there. God longs to hear from His daughters. And He longs to be glorified in His Church. Gathering together and laying down my requests, meant God was continually honing and sharpening my mission. I never stopped coming to Him and He never stopped speaking to me.

 

IF YOU COULD SUM UP YOUR STORY IN ONE SENTENCE WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Your bravest place is in God’s arms – run there and bring others alongside you.

 

WHAT ROLE HAS MENTORING PLAYED IN YOUR LIFE AND WHAT IMPACT HAS IT HAD ON YOU?

I meet monthly with a woman that I can crawl broken into her home. She sits and listens and points me to God. And let me say this: I had to seek this out; it didn’t just come to me. If you want a mentor, don’t wait for someone to pursue you. Take charge. Ask someone you admire and just start getting coffee. Don’t make it more complicated then it needs to be. (Confessions of an over-complicator).

 

WHAT ARE 2 THINGS YOU ARE LOVING RIGHT NOW?

My Work of Heart hat by My Etched Life

Lisa Bevere’s book, Without Rival.

 

THANKS WHITNEY!   WHERE’S THE BEST PLACE FOR READERS TO FIND YOU?

You can find my friends and I at www.imperfectlybrave.com.

If you are in the Midwest, join us at the Imperfectly Brave Weekend on October 28-29. We would love to have you! And if you want to join a prayer group, you can! Just sign up at www.imperfectlybrave.com/prayer-groups.

 

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Related posts:

  1. Everyday Blooms | Jennifer Swoish
  2. Everyday Blooms | Marlene Lawson
  3. Everyday Blooms | Latonya Esau
  4. Everyday Blooms | Ali Grace
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Everyday Blooms, Faith, Friendship, Quotes and Scriptures, Uncategorized

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Simply Bloom exists to empower women to embrace their stories, live out their passion with purpose, and leave a legacy of love.
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Hello there! I'm Joy. Speaker, designer, author & coach, and creator of the #weROARproject. Welcome to Simply Bloom Co., where passion & purpose collide.

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I am regularly overwhelmed by the kindness of God I am regularly overwhelmed by the 
kindness of God in the small + simple.

Things like twinkle lights + Christmas jazz,
scraping out the peanut butter fudge pot
all by myself while sitting on the counter,
and walking around the corner to find my
loin fruit snuggled up together over tea.

They may fight like cats + dogs at times,
but their bond is deep and true and sweet.
Happy release day, @dralisoncook 💛 Written at Happy release day, @dralisoncook 💛

Written at the intersection 
of faith and psychology, 
this book is yet another 
soul-nourishing,
heart-healing, 
boundary-fortifying 
gift from Alison Cook
(if you’ve had a heart-to-heart
with me in the past two years,
you know how much I loved 
‘Boundaries for the Soul’). 

As an enneagram 2 who was raised 
in the church, this book was a timely
and liberating read. Pure balm for the 
weary, recovering-people-pleaser soul. 

I am beyond grateful for the wisdom, 
compassion + experience that Alison 
brings to all she shares (and it was
such an honor to be on her launch 
team for this beautiful new book).

Need a survival guide for your growth
and healing journey? Here you go! ✌🏼

#thebestofyou #thebestofyoubook #womenoffaith #healthyboundaries #healthyyou #healingjourney
Find yourself a tribe of people who will, togethe Find yourself a tribe of people who will, 
together, spend a beautiful Saturday
morning pulling this workout off:

• 20 mile run
• 340 tire flips
• 2,000 air squats
• 1,000 pull ups
• 1,500 box jumps
• 2,200 pull ups
• 600 devil press
• 3,300 sit ups

Brutal. Amazing. 
Exhausted.
So grateful for these two - their friendship, enco So grateful for these two - their friendship,
encouragement and wise counsel over the
past decade of being our pastoral couple
has been such a gift to our family 💛

Congrats on your retirement, dear friends!!
“Over the years, I have come to realize that t “Over the years, 
I have come to realize that 
the greatest trap in our life is not 
success, popularity, or power, 
but self-rejection.”
 :: Henri Nouwen

Somewhere along the journey of 
life, we start to believe the lie that - 
despite being made in the very image 
of a good and beautiful God - who we 
are is inherently bad and broken, and 
we learn to cover that deep sense 
of inadequacy (and the shame that 
accompanies it) with performance.

Because our visceral 
human response to 
‘bad + broken’ is 
‘reject + conceal’.

We think it’s the rejection of others
that cuts us to the core, but the truth
is…most of us walk around wounded 
by a constant and unrelenting sense 
of self-rejection and self-loathing.

Want to know why we feverishly seek 
out the approval and validation of others?
Why we desperately want others to like us?

Because we’re out of touch with our
inherent value and worth, and we’re
not sure that we even like ourselves.

We resent our weakness,
and abandon ourselves.

/ / /

But this good + beautiful God of ours…
He is drawn to our weakness like a
moth to a flame, swooping in to
bring strength and grace.

Paul writes in Corinthians 12:9 that 
he learned to delight in his weakness 
because it was when he was week that
“His strength is perfected in me”. 

Or, as the Passion Translation so 
stunningly puts it, “my weakness 
becomes a portal to God’s power”.

Precious ones, we can shun our tender
still-in-process places, pretend to have 
it all together, and hustle for our worth…
OR we can drop the masks, offer kindness 
and curiosity to our hurting, broken parts,
and learn to live fully seen and known.

But we can’t have both.

And yes, it’s scary.

Today may we choose
…grace over perfectionism
…curiosity over shame
…acceptance over rejection
…gentleness over judgement
…wholeness over pretense

You are loved.
And they’re off! Alathea is in 10th grade and A And they’re off!

Alathea is in 10th grade and
Aiden is heading into 8th grade.

Here’s to a year full of grace,
discovery, friendship + growth 🙌🏼
"Faith isn't the ability to believe long + far i "Faith isn't the ability 
to believe long + far 
into the misty future. 
It's simply taking God 
at His Word + taking 
the next step."

:: Joni Eareckson Tada
Day 15 | Beach Day + Travel Prep We fly out late Day 15 | Beach Day + Travel Prep

We fly out late tomorrow evening so today
has been a lazy day of laundry, laying in the
sun, a petshop visit (where Aiden fell in love 
with a cute rat + I discovered zebra finches), 
an impromptu stop for bubble tea + stuffed crepes [oh my word, were these delicious!!],
shopping [I found the best, comfiest - Joe
would argue ‘ugliest’ - romper at the thrift
store that I can’t wait to wear on our long
journey home], and Aiden is currently off
doing his thing: fishing right from the pier.
Our view from the lodge last night ✨ Our view from the lodge last night ✨
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