I’m reading a book about a man I’ve never met. But, deep down, I feel like I know him, you know? I keep reading his story and parsing it for meaning. There’s definitely something there. He led a nation after their first real leader died. And this nation he led? Nomadic. No country of their…
following Christ
Two Days, One Word
Yesterday, I opened my Bible to the passage in Hebrews 12 I’m studying with my Bible study group, and I read it a few times before closing my Bible and thinking, “Well, that felt a little pointless.” At 5:30 a.m., my brain was foggy, my thoughts were tangled up with both the events of the…
Parenting, Unpictured
I remember what I was wearing the first time I held each of my children. Not hospital gowns, for my kids didn’t come to me that way. With my oldest, I wore a black blouse with white stitching around the neck and arms. I had a short, angled bob with blonde highlights at the time….
Feed the Better Hunger
Someone asked me recently, “How do we remain faithful to the Lord when the world is just so distracting?” Without saying it, I knew this conversation was about input. Between my phone, computer, podcast app, and television, I can get to the end of a day and wonder what in my life fed my faithfulness…
The Other Side of the Fence
I have a recurring dream that I’m driving through my hometown looking for a coffee shop that doesn’t exist. If you know me personally, you know how apropos this dream is. On the hunt for a mythical coffee shop in a town I love? That sounds about right. In this dream, I make turn after…
The Real Reason We Don’t Practice Spiritual Disciplines
If coming up with excuses not to do things was a marketable skill, I’d have the best-looking resumé around. Take laundry, for instance. I never have more dishes to wash, books to read, shows to watch, or emails to return than when a mountain of clean laundry is piled on my bed waiting for assimilation…
Pruning
I had to watch a YouTube video first. I had never dead-headed a rosebush before, but the razor-sharp secateurs in my hand promised to make it an easy job. I watched the man on the video three times to be sure I had the process right. Grab the dead-head, go down to the first five-leaf…
More and More
One night at dinner last month, my husband asked our kids what the term “sanctification” means. We’d been reading 1 Thessalonians together and got to chapter 4 where Paul tells us what God’s will for our lives is: our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3). I don’t know if I ever noticed this verse until a few…
No Silver Bullet
Every Thursday, my friend Dora comes over for lunch and accountability. We catch up on life, talk about what God is teaching us, and confess our sins to one another. Our pastors are preaching through the book of Galatians this fall, and Dora and I find ourselves coming back to the sermon on Galatians 5:16-26…
Losing Youth, Gaining Growth
This morning I realized a universal truth for women: under-eye concealer only goes so far. I’ve tried a lot of beauty products over the last few years to slow the visible process of aging, but no matter what concoction I slather on my face every night or sponge around my eyes in the morning, the…