Rethinking Christian Life

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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Protecting Your Joy

William Wilberforce. He is one man I desperately want to look up when I get to heaven. Why? At age 26 Wilberforce met Jesus. He never got over his first love. He fought as a politician for those who had no voice. He argued for fair wages for the poor in England. He fought for…
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Could it be Pride?

Josiah became king of Israel at the tender age of eight. When he was 16 he began to seek the Lord. Four years later at the age of twenty he began to tear down the places of idol worship. Six years later he began to rebuild the temple of God. When the book of the…
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My Husband, My Love

Just a smile from him and my knees go weak. He holds my hand and I lose my breath. He still makes my heart go pitter-patter. His voice calm and firm is the harmony that enriches my life song. I am better because of Him. He is God’s precious gift to me. My husband, my…
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Castle Geyser

Detours…Refined

Today I have the pleasure of being featured on Encouragement Cafe. They are doing a series on detours…My post is titled Refined. I hope you jump over there to read it. If you are visiting here from Encouragement Cafe. Welcome! Refined, purified, cleansed. It is the process God uses to make us more like Him.…
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When You Go God’s Way Part II

If you missed part one of my story check it out here. Miranda took off from the hotel with Kim her traveling buddy and two extra passengers, Melody and I. As she drove we did what any group of women would do. We talked. As soon as Melody spoke, I knew she was from Canada.…
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When You Go God’s Way Part I

“We are driving three vans and the next shuttle should be here in about fifteen minutes,” his words reassured me and about five other women who did not fit on his van. We walked back into the hotel to wait in the cool air-conditioning and waited. We had just attended Proverbs 31 ministries She Speaks…
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The Pitch Report

This past weekend I pitched…I threw out my book idea for one agent and two publishing houses. The pitch sounded much different than the one I posted earlier. It was simple, but direct. Want to know what I said? “Hi nice to meet you, I am Angela Mackey. I am writing a non-fiction Christian book…
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Focus Changes Things

My heart pounded, my knees knocked together so loudly they sounded like a rhythm line for STOMP. I wondered if my heartbeat was audible to the others in the room. I don’t normally get nervous like that before a talk, but this was different. I was getting ready to give a three-minute talk about a…
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Giving Thanks

I got home last night after 10 PM and I my body felt tired, but my mind was full of all kinds of God-stories that happened during the weekend. My sweet husband listened as I poured out story after story. I plan to tell you about how God worked in this conference over the next…
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I Need More of Him…Will You Pray with Me?

Tomorrow is the day. I will put on my business casual attire and walk into a room with a literary agent and tell her about the book I am writing. I will also meet hundreds of women all longing to use their gifts and talents to honor God. I will present a three-minute talk in…
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