Rethinking Christian Life

Obedience, Running, and Calling

“So don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised…But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.”     Hebrews 10:35-36 and 39 CSB I’ve been silent for…
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A Season of Silence: Experiencing God’s Peace

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.” -William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing Words have been hard for me lately. Silence is easier. I wasn’t so full of joy I could not share like Claudio in the above quote. The big emotions – all of…
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The Hope that Does Not Disappoint

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces…
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Sovereignty: Three Ways to Trust God When Failure Looms

Last week I watched Clemson trounce Alabama in the NCAA’s Football National Championship game. Clemson was up 31-16 at halftime and never looked back. After a botched fake field goal at the beginning of the third quarter Alabama’s loss seemed imminent. Failure, at least in that game, was coming. Still Alabama did not walk off…
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The New, the Not Yet, and the Gone: How to Live Fully When Now is a Struggle

“The struggle is real,” is our snide mantra over laughable “struggles” like not having coffee in the morning. But real struggles do exist. Depression turns just getting out of bed into a war. The struggle for parents to love, guide, discipline, and direct children who want their own way. The battle to overcome addiction. Physical…
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Newly Broken: How to Live Fulfilled

2018. A year of breaking. God broke my comfortable world. He called me to teach high school seniors (a leadership class), enroll my kids in the school where I work, and step back into nursing by becoming a school nurse. Nothing felt comfortable. Nothing normal. In the midst of all the change my brokenness became…
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Hope and Character: How to Find Lasting Hope

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope… Romans 5:3-4 ESV Character produces hope… I always thought imagination produced hope. Imagination that figures out a way through a difficult situation. Or an imagination that dreams big dreams. But God tells us character…
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The Day After: How Hope Changes Everything

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake…
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Depression: How to Explain It to Others

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted     and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 ESV Looking back I can see it plainly. I was depressed and desperately clinging to my faith. No one from the outside could see it. They knew I injured my foot. They knew my house had to have all the…
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New Beginnings: Grace, Growth, and Gratitude

Behold, I am doing a new thing;     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness     and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19 ESV God is in the business of doing new things in our lives. Why? For our good and His glory. So that this world…
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How to Love People

We are all fallen broken people. We bump into each others’ broken places causing pain, anger, frustration. Sometimes the brokenness itself results in angry outbursts or criminal behavior. Other times the brokenness manifests as promiscuity or extreme shyness. It is what we do with our brokenness that can make us hard to love. Oh but…
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What Message Are You Conveying?

I saw a car today with two bumper stickers. One said, “The more people I know, the more I like my dog.” I sort of chuckled inwardly at that. There are some people (me included) that are hard to love. Let’s face it most of us are hard to love in one way or another.…
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Love and Obedience

C.S. Lewis once wrote: “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is…
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My Side of the Bed

Do you ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Cranky. Irritable. Soul raw. My heart isn’t on cue with my mind. Before my feet hit the floor my to-do list becomes a mountain. My shoulders and neck tense. I begin to borrow trouble from tomorrow, keeping a record of wrongs against me,…
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Perseverance

I am just like her. Maybe that is why this behavior grates at my last nerve. I do it too. I arch my back or run off when something become the least bit difficult. I want it all to be easy…If I might fail or if something is difficult I have been known to not…
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I’m Tiny Now

Hope you enjoy my vlog…   If you need a good laugh check out some outtakes. Yes I am that…quirky. 😉
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A Guest Post and A Prayer

Welcome friends! If you are joining me from my friend Tyler’s blog Titus 2:3-5, I am so glad you stopped by. Today is my girls’ first day of school…So here is a prayer for the first day of school.   Father God, You are the creator of knowledge. You knit my child together and know…
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How Big is Your God?

Is your God easily understood? Does He fit in your preconceived ideas and work how you expect Him to? Is He scary? Is He just? Is He deep? If you had all eternity to get to know Him would it be enough? Does He love you, even the you that nobody else knows? Does He…
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For Your Battle…

I am praying for you. The you who is reading this blog post. You who are fighting the battles of this life… You who have lost a job, a loved one, your health. You who are dealing with uncertainty, becoming a care-giver, suffering loss. You who are battling the enemy of our souls as He…
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How to Say Good-bye to Guilt

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1 Her tears stream down her cheeks and splash onto her glasses. My mommy heart breaks as I watch her. My mind begins to reel. Am I too hard? Am I too soft? What if I am stunting her academic growth?…
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