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How to Wrestle Well | Asking the Hard Questions
I am so incredibly glad I didn’t commit to reading the Bible through in a year. If that had been my resolution, failure would fall pretty hard right now. I’m not just chapters behind, I’m books. As in plural. As in way behind. But I didn’t commit to reading the Bible through in a year. I resolved to read the Bible. And I have. Not every day, but I always regret it when I don’t. My days feel off and I feel the sledgehammer of self fall hard, and self is an ugly thing. I’ve been sitting in three chapters or so in Genesis for over a week and just…
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Journaling Bible Giveaway!
Not too long ago my journal pages were filled with questions. I was at a point in my life where I seemed to have every dream fulfilled. I had a husband who loved me, one I prayed so long for. I had a precocious little boy, a child I had prayed so long for. I had a great job that worked with me when I expressed my desire to work part-time. I had it made. All my dreams had come true. And yet, there was this lingering sense of unfulfillment. Such guilt sat with me as I looked at all these precious blessings from God, but satisfaction still evaded me.…
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Trailblazing Pioneers | How to Run When You Don’t Feel Like Running
I don’t like to run. I actually hate it. I hate it…with a passion. I overheat easily and my legs get red and itchy. It’s in fact a miserable experience. So when I read any type of metaphor about running in the Bible, I have to disassociate it with my full-hate relationship of running as a choice of exercise. And yet, I couldn’t seem to get Abraham out of my mind. Even after I turned the page on his death. I couldn’t shake the repeated phrases of him running to the visitors in Genesis 18 or how he rose early and saddled his donkey to obey God when God seemed…
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Rouse My Soul | Encounters with God on the Dusty Road
I jolt up out of bed fumbling to turn off the alarm. I woke earlier, but decided to rest my eyes for another fifteen minutes and must have fallen back to sleep. I quietly grab my glasses from the nightstand and slip into dining room. The notebook covered table makes me smile. This is my watch-tower – where I meet the Lord in the mornings. Long before the alarm clock ever goes off, he’s already there warming the chair for me. I squint my eyes against the light and rub the blur away. My eyes may be foggy and I may have had a sluggish start, but as I sit…
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Slime Slinging and a Woman Named Damaris
My son recently discovered the joy of building blocks. He painstakingly gathers both pieces in his chubby baby-not-quite-toddler hands and angles them together to connect. Sometimes the ends don’t fit and he grumbles in frustration, but when they do, he looks up with his big blue eyes to see if anyone noticed. He’ll hold up his stack of blocks and smile, full of self pride. We cheer like any good parents…but then our hoorays turn into muffled giggles when the blocks inevitably fall apart and he wrings his hands in the most dramatic fashion to express his supreme dissatisfaction. Through the multi-colored building blocks, my sixteen-month-old has already learned a…
