After a four-month absence, I went back to the gym this morning. I had a significant surgery on my hand in early December, and the recovery was slow, but truthfully? I quit going before the surgery, and I could have gone back weeks ago. I also could have made accommodations for my hand and found…
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When Life is Hard, Keep Reading Your Bible
I once heard Tim Keller say that when life is particularly difficult and you’re struggling with your emotions or you don’t know how to feel about suffering, one of the most helpful things you can do is to turn to inductive Bible study.[1] It’s interesting advice because we often feel the need to dissect our…
You Have Time to Read the Bible in the New Year
One of the things I used to tell myself all the time was that I didn’t have enough time to read the Bible. In my mind, if I wanted to be serious about Bible reading, I’d have to get up at 5 a.m. and read for an hour. Granted, my priorities were mixed up, because…
Are you Afraid? Now is the Perfect Time to Trust God.
You never know when fear will come rushing into your heart. Maybe it hits as you open a bill you weren’t expecting, crushing you with the question of financial provision. Perhaps it’s the moment the doctor calls with those long-awaited test results. Maye it’s a knife that slices your heart with pain when your child…
Turn Back Your Clocks and Invest in Spiritual Growth
I’ve long used January 1st as the day I’m going to get my life together. New diet? Clean slate starts on the first day of the new year. Exercise plan? I’ll begin on the first of the year. Keep the Tupperware cabinet from throwing plastic containers at me every time I open it? Organization will…
Awaken Your Hunger
I cook dinner for my family most nights. I don’t mind cooking, and often I even enjoy it. But I have a little problem in the kitchen and that problem is tasting while cooking. If you’re the resident chef in your household, you likely know what I mean. I don’t usually follow recipes when I…
God Is Our Guide on Paths We Did Not Choose
I was twenty-nine when the pain started. It was subtle. Just a little soreness in my low back that began waking me up at night. But as the weeks turned to months, the pain increased steadily, growing from a flicker to a blaze that burned all night. Unable to sleep, I walked the floors in…
God’s Word is Good For You
I spent most of my twenties not reading the Bible. I was a Christian, I believed in Jesus, and I was even a pastor’s wife for the second half of that decade, but I did not have any regular habits of Bible reading. Like many churched folks, I knew that I should read and study…
Working with Faithfulness When Our Bodies Are Weak
As a work-from-home mom, I flit from task to task all day long. Whether it’s washing laundry or writing, meal planning or preparing Bible study materials, scrubbing toilets or waiting in school pick-up lines, my days are never the same but always full. I’ve long thrived on a sense of accomplishment at the end of…
Don’t Want to Go to Church? Go Anyway.
I didn’t want to go to church that day. You probably don’t want to hear that from your pastor’s wife, but the truth is on that particular Sunday, I was in a bad mood. I hadn’t slept well, I had been discouraged all week about both work and some relationships. The morning had spun out…