Rethinking Christian Life

Last-Minute

I procrastinate. I get busy and I forget. No I haven’t left a kid anywhere yet. More often than I like to admit I am forced to do things last-minute. What is hilarious about my most recent last-minute episode is that I was actually ahead of the game on so many other things. I finished…
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Dependance

It starts innocently. I want to honor God with the gifts He has given me. So I step out and speak and blog and write. Soon others are blessed by what I do. I hear: “God has gifted you.” “I love your blog.” “You are a great teacher.” Those words encourage and build me up.…
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Acceptance

“Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?” Isaiah 2:22 My heart beat quickens. My stomach ties into knots. I fear the words I am about to say will sound…ridiculous. I nearly stutter as my words slowly tumble out of my mouth. I avert my…
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Ouch…Sometimes the Truth Hurts

On June 13 as I read my Chronological Bible I had one of those moments. Truth staring me in the face. The kind that comes as a warning. It whispered if you try to write your blog, speak your platform, push your book in your way this is what will happen to you. Want to…
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God’s Call

I have felt it for a while now. This call from God. This thing in my life that gives meaning and light to all of life.   I wrote about it once on a folded piece of paper. It must be at least eight years old. It says: “I LOVE to sing. I feel Your…
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How to Not Go Crazy

Two weekends ago I had a sweet family of 5 come to visit. We had a great time. This past weekend I had my sisters, brother, and parents come. That is 13 more people than normal. We had a wild fun time. Then yesterday I had a surprise over-night visit from my cousin and his…
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The Next Generation

“After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.”  Judges 2:10 I wonder how this happened. How only a generation after the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, God’s provision in the desert, the tablets…
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God-sized Prayers

Ordinary. That is how I thought of myself as a young girl. Plain, girl next door, nothing too notable about me. This ordinary girl gave her life to Jesus at the age of seven. I feared hell, loved Jesus for His amazing sacrifice, and opened the door of my heart to Him. I lived an…
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Seed

“I don’t want to,” I stamped my foot for emphasis and stormed into my bathroom. But storming and stamping did not change His mind. “It is just too hard and painful. I can’t do it. I won’t do it and You can’t make me,” I nearly stick out my tongue as I obstinately crinkle my…
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Summer Cleaning..Right

I am not a great housekeeper. In fact I would argue that I am not even a “good” housekeeper. I actually pay someone to help clean the house…I am unorganized and I ignore things. If I don’t like the piles on the kitchen island, I don’t look at the piles. I do not think I…
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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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