God, I’m sorry you’re not getting the best of me these days. I was feeling discouraged with myself (DING! DING! DING! Discouragement with myself is the opposite of putting my trust in the Jesus, right?). I was discouraged with my “devotional times,” or lack of them. I don’t have a beautiful, daily, focused time of “devotion” in the prayer and the Bible, and I’ve definitely never been a morning person. My read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan petered out in 2 Chronicles ....
I have written about fear before (here and here and here, and here), and here I am again. We get into the car and I fear that we’ll get into an accident. A friend of a friend has cancer. What if that happened to me? What if we go to war and my son gets drafted one day (currently reading a World War 1 novel)? Little nagging fears, just sparks really. As I write, a wildfire still burns over...
Marriage can be a beautiful, but tricky thing. First of all, let me say that I’m so thankful to be married to a man who is a new creation in Jesus and who is always growing and learning. The two of us have the same Spirit, so in the end, God smoothes out our rough edges. But in the middle . . . well, we sometimes get splinters. Take this past Sunday morning. My husband grew up in a...
I had this idea for an illustration of some verses from Galatians 3, so I’m sharing the printable with you today! We are teaching through the story of God’s promise, or covenant, to Abraham (Genesis 12, 15 & 17) in Sunday school, and also happen to be studying the New Testament’s application of that promise in Galatians 3. “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There...
I am frustrated with my frustration. I am impatient with my own impatience. Why do I keep letting these little people get to me? We may all look put-together as we herd our scrubbed and somewhat-matching little duckies into church on Sunday morning, but I have a feeling we all say the same things come mid-Monday morning. Today we had a frustrating morning of attempting school while trying to keep the baby from climbing from the chairs to the...
Some weeks, I think of about a million things to write. Other weeks it seems that I’m just “done” and have nothing to say. I try to simply ask God what I should write and draw, and then listen for the truths that encourage my (often) weary heart. I read this the other day in a great little devotional, “Experiencing the Trinity” by Joe Thorn: “To be moved by the love of Jesus is not the arousal of...
