When one of my children was a newborn, I was home listening to worship music while my family attended church services. In the living room, as I rocked the baby nestled in my arms, I remember volunteering for the Lord’s service after Mercy Me’s “Here Am I”. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah hears the Lord ask,…
Do you slow down to connect? How do you spend quality time? How do you have a meaningful relationship? To have a healthy, strong relationship requires time. Spending time together is important whether it is with your spouse, your children, your friends, or with the Lord. Have you ever felt disappointed when time you were…
Have you ever been in prison? Have you ever felt trapped, stuck, chained to mistakes or insecurities? Have you ever just wished that you could wipe the slate clean, start over fresh, and be a new person? I have. I was trapped in my prison for years, and what a joyous day it was when…
Weeds. Nasty, troublesome things. They seem to dig in deep and take a lot of effort to dislodge. If they intertwine themselves with the garden plants, eradicating them is impossible for fear of tearing out the good with the bad. This spring as I surveyed my ever bearing strawberry patch, I found bare spots where…
Staying focused is key to not losing our peace, whether we’re following in traffic or walking in faith. Whenever I have to follow my husband in traffic—usually when I don’t know where we are going so I have a fear of losing him—I become very intent on keeping my eye on him. This isn’t as…
Sometimes I’ve gotten the impression that my gift or talent doesn’t count much in church. I’ve even thought that maybe I didn’t have any to offer because mine was so different from the majority. That isn’t true, of course. Believing such a lie can lead to discouragement and depression. I have discovered that sharing our…
I tend to overthink and cause myself more stress than necessary when making a decision. I procrastinate because of my fear of making a mistake. It’s annoying since I end up wasting time and making myself tired and overwrought for no real reason. Sometimes I opt for practical or predictable rather adventure and daring. Then…
I was just going about my life. Everything was going well. Then we decided we needed new life insurance policies because ours had gotten excessively expensive. I’d recently had doctor appointments that all reported good results so I didn’t foresee any problems. We had to have more health tests and underwriting. Easy peasy, I thought.…
Shoving my brother forward and shouting, “No, take him!” and watching as the vampire dragged him into the coffin, the lid creaking shut, and the scary haunted house sounds echoing around me was seared into my memory one Halloween during my elementary years. I’m sure my dad thought we would have fun being scared silly.…