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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Desperation

My eyes darted wildly, fear etched lines in my forehead. Thoughts came one on top of the other, my skin felt incapable of holding in my heart and soul. Desperation. We all feel it at some point – when we are cornered or found out. Perhaps our child has wandered around a corner and we…
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Stoking Your Passion

Passion is a fire in your eye, a burning in your belly. I have talked about keeping your spiritual fervor here. How to find your passion here. Now I want to talk about keeping the flames of your passion white hot. I love fires on cold nights. The smell of burning wood brings fond memories…
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How to Find Your Passion

“Ugh, why do I just feel blah?” I wondered aloud. “I thought staying at home with my kids would be different, better, fulfilling, not…this.” SIDE NOTE: I would never trade staying home with my kids. It is the best think I could do for them, but it is the hardest job I have ever done…
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Living with Passion

Would you consider liking my Facebook fan page? Click on the Facebook icon under my picture in the right hand column. When you get to my Facebook page click the like button. My goal is 250 likes prior to July 15. I am getting close! Thanks for all your help!
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How to Maintain Zeal

Zeal: enthusiasm, excitement, passion… We, Christ-followers, are not often defined by our zeal. Unless it is passion for God’s commands or shouting at what is wrong in the world. Maybe we are zealous about the type of worship music sung, the order of the service, when the Lord’s Supper is offered. Sometimes we get excited…
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Do You Really Trust God?

Yesterday was our third day of Vacation Bible School (VBS) at our church. That day is the day we present the whole gospel clearly. This year we talked about Nicodemus and his discussion with Jesus. My fourth graders had some great questions. Questions that sometimes I failed to realize…   Did you know that Jesus…
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Pea Jackets

I was in the bathroom the door closed. You know getting some things worked out and having a little private time. As a mother of three there isn’t much “private” in “private time.” So it wasn’t long before I began having conversations through the door. Conversation with J who is potty training and on the…
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Slowing Down-ish

The world may be forever changed. Seriously. Two things happened this weekend that may change the way atoms react. 1. I said that Mark Cuban was gracious. FYI Mark Cuban is the owner of the Mavericks 2011 NBA CHAMPIONSHIP team. I love basketball and I lived in Dallas for a while. So the Mavs are…
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How to Gain from Loss

If you are visiting from Jessie’s House welcome. Thanks for stopping by. My regular friends I have a guest post at my friend Jessica’s blog. Really it feeds into this post… 😉 Elisabeth Elliot wrote this is not a direct quote, but it went something like: “God does not call us to die simply to die.…
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When Words are not Enough

Some things happen and there are no words. Winds tear apart cities, homes, families. Cancer spreads. Office politics crack and things change, maybe for always. Birth moms have rights that do not make sense when the spirit of the law is to protect children. Children die. Families mourn the gaping hole. Marriages crumble and shake.…
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