Rethinking Christian Life

Defiance: How to Fight for Joy

Today I almost cried as I read a book aloud to my kids. The scene wasn’t poignant. No one lay dying nor was anyone confessing unrequited love. Still the darkness pressed in around my heart. The heaviness of life, friends fighting cancer, the ton of feathers falling on my shoulders, and my ongoing battle to…
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Silent Grief: Pregnancy Loss, Grieving, and Hope

It still hurts and I can’t explain it away. There are these babies who crawled into my heart, but died in my womb. And a part of my heart still beats for them 13 years later. Even thought I only held them in my body a short time, I began the process of planning their…
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Letting Go to Grow: the Startling Secret to Contentment

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24 ESV “God, I don’t understand why Sandra has a beautiful green leaf and I am stuck in this hard shell,” Lucille prayed. “We were seeds…
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Rest and Watching: How to See God Move in Life’s Challenges

 I [Jesus]  have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.   John 16:33 ESV Life’s challenges. Physical injury. Plumbing leak. Saying good-bye to some really dear friends. Transition in my husband’s office. At times emotions…
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Broken and Brave: Standing Up Afraid

“You have such a good attitude about your foot,” said a friend as we discussed my crutches. She had no idea my struggle only the day before. I stood on one foot in front of my bathroom mirror as I attempted to apply eye-liner with my crutches tucked under my armpits . “Everything is harder…
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Choosing Your Portion: How to Trust God with Your Life

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.  Psalm 16:5 ESV A portion, a meal, sustenance, what fills our bellies, and nourishes our bones. This psalmist says that he chooses the LORD to feast upon, to sustain him through all his days. I wonder, what is my chosen portion? What…
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Remembering the Fallen

Today we remember. We remember those who gave their lives for our country. We remember men and women who volunteered or were drafted to serve. People who gave their lives in service of their country. How can we as a country say thank you to those who gave their lives? To their family left incomplete? We…
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What to Do When God’s Promises Don’t Seem to be For You

My right foot throbbed as I stood singing in the choir loft. When I sang, “You carry my healing in Your hands…” my heart jerked. Where’s your healing? It’s been nearly a year…Isn’t it hypocritical to sing of healing when you aren’t healed? My rebellious mind whirled. Your tubal pregnancies, failed IVF attempts, where is the healing there?…
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Obedience, Running, and Calling

“So don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised…But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.”     Hebrews 10:35-36 and 39 CSB I’ve been silent for…
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A Season of Silence: Experiencing God’s Peace

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.” -William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing Words have been hard for me lately. Silence is easier. I wasn’t so full of joy I could not share like Claudio in the above quote. The big emotions – all of…
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The Hope that Does Not Disappoint

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces…
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Sovereignty: Three Ways to Trust God When Failure Looms

Last week I watched Clemson trounce Alabama in the NCAA’s Football National Championship game. Clemson was up 31-16 at halftime and never looked back. After a botched fake field goal at the beginning of the third quarter Alabama’s loss seemed imminent. Failure, at least in that game, was coming. Still Alabama did not walk off…
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The New, the Not Yet, and the Gone: How to Live Fully When Now is a Struggle

“The struggle is real,” is our snide mantra over laughable “struggles” like not having coffee in the morning. But real struggles do exist. Depression turns just getting out of bed into a war. The struggle for parents to love, guide, discipline, and direct children who want their own way. The battle to overcome addiction. Physical…
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Newly Broken: How to Live Fulfilled

2018. A year of breaking. God broke my comfortable world. He called me to teach high school seniors (a leadership class), enroll my kids in the school where I work, and step back into nursing by becoming a school nurse. Nothing felt comfortable. Nothing normal. In the midst of all the change my brokenness became…
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Hope and Character: How to Find Lasting Hope

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope… Romans 5:3-4 ESV Character produces hope… I always thought imagination produced hope. Imagination that figures out a way through a difficult situation. Or an imagination that dreams big dreams. But God tells us character…
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The Day After: How Hope Changes Everything

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake…
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Depression: How to Explain It to Others

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted     and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 ESV Looking back I can see it plainly. I was depressed and desperately clinging to my faith. No one from the outside could see it. They knew I injured my foot. They knew my house had to have all the…
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New Beginnings: Grace, Growth, and Gratitude

Behold, I am doing a new thing;     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness     and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19 ESV God is in the business of doing new things in our lives. Why? For our good and His glory. So that this world…
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