Regular Girl: Recent Episodes
Kellye Smith
What happens when regular people decide to step into the promises of faith? Tune in for truth, encouragement, and reminders about what we’re all called as Christians to do.
On today's episode: "In Genesis, it is written that Joseph’s brothers hated him so much it drove them to sell him into slavery. The path that he later took to rule over Egypt as second in command to Pharaoh is at the top of the list of the greatest comeback stories."
On today's episode: "Are you disappointed because that person is supposed to make you happy and they don’t? Guess what. They never will. They’re not supposed to. But God."
On today's episode: "It could just be me, but I can feel the tension in the air. I’m wound tight. My kids seem to only hear me break up their “affection” for one another when I raise my voice with an exasperated tone. There is literally nothing from the outside that displays this command for the world to see. How many people, including my own family, have seen my actions and walked away never seeing the love of Jesus on display?"
On today's episode: "It’s easy to say God is good when the healing comes or the diagnosis comes back favorable. But what about when those things don’t happen? What then? We seem to have taken a God that defies all human comprehension and diluted Him down to being connected to our own unique experiences. Our individual lives control our perspective of God."
On today's episode: "I believe that the single most important way we can build our faith is through our everyday pursuit of God. I do believe He will speak through His Word, but more than anything, it’s probably going to be a fairly simple affair of opening your Bible and reading the words for yourself."
On today's episode: "If you are believing that grace is reserved for everyone else, but not you, you are undermining the purity and unbelievable truth of the Gospel. He died for you. That big thing that you feel is unforgivable, He died for that."
On today's episode: "As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he weeps. The words He speaks are haunting. “If you knew this day what would bring you peace...” Luke 19:42. He knew all along, but so many were blind. Then a couple of verses later, my heart nearly shatters. “...because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.” Luke 19:44. I hang my head in sorrow as I think about my own self. Would I have seen it? Would I have believed?"
On today's episode: "For me, the thought that brought me to repentance was the memory I wanted my family to have of me at such a precious time. I was filled with tremendous sorrow as I considered my attitude toward the man I promised to cherish and the incredible blessing of these children that were looking to me to learn about the world. It was as if I had looked at these blessings that brought immeasurable joy to my life and said to the Lord they weren’t good enough."
On today's episode: "Most often, I think we see this Scripture asking us to ponder ourselves in relation to status or possessions in life. But for me, I think it has application to our anxiety and our to do lists. We worry about the things we cannot control in an effort to figure it out so that we can gain access to this idea of freedom. What we fail to see is that our stressing over our lack of control is the very minute we’ve lost sight of what really matters and we lose our life. We stop standing in freedom of the truth of who we are in Christ and we know as Believers that is the most important thing."
On today's episode: "Without fail, the children get stuck in their present circumstance of how upset they are that they didn’t get what they wanted. They project that upset toward me as a mean and heartless Mommy who takes everything away and always says no. The no is so big that they forget about all the times I did say yes. Sometimes even that very afternoon. Sometimes the no is for something they really, really wanted. Like going to the birthday party or buying the toy that they’ve been pining after for some time. Can you see where I’m going with this?"
On today's episode: "I can cope until I can’t. When I can’t, I feel myself slipping away. The girl that knows herself, stands confident and brave in the face of adversity, with the armor of God, she starts to take a knee until she’s on her back, tears streaming into her ears, crying out that she can’t do this anymore."
On today's episode: "I am consistently amazed at how time and again the response that Jesus gives to those that would sin is simple kindness. It’s love. Sure, He detests sin, but His response was kindness upon the undeserving and it is through that kindness that the undeserving are led to salvation and redemption."
On today's episode: "All of those bad things in this story represent every “wrong” thing that’s present in your life right now. The stuff that hurts, makes you angry, tests you, and on and on…those are always going to be present. But the diamond is still there...which is every small thing (and big!) we have to be thankful for."
On today's episode: "The whole point to anything we do as Believers is to bring people to the Kingdom. If we were able to accomplish anything great by our own might, virtue, talent, ability, we get the glory. But when things just don’t make sense, it’s a crazy act that defies every law, and there’s no way THAT person could have done the thing, God gets the glory."
On today's episode: "He screamed, thrashed, kicked, and all but bit me as I worked to wash him. And you need to know that in the midst of his fighting against me, I was in there with him, holding him, and working around his thrashing, kicking, and screaming, while I washed him clean. In my frustration, I had a minute with the Holy Spirit, because if you are a parent, you know that sometimes it’s only God Himself that can get you through the tough times. I felt this whisper of “You know, this is just like you.”"
On today's episode: "But I chose to extend love and grace in this moment because as a Believer, I’m called to. It’s in moments of inconvenience and frustration that I feel more and more of a tug and whisper of the Holy Spirit asking me if I see Him. It’s funny because we so often cry out for mercy when we’re the ones begging for it in light of a mistake. We can be so stingy with the extension of it when we’re on the giving end. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we’ve all been given so much grace and mercy that we never deserved and can’t ever repay."
On today's episode: "It's all this time later that I can finally see Romans 8:28 clearly in this situation. When we stand in the current time and glance back over the big scary things we’ve faced in the past, I hope we can recount all the countless ways that God pulled us to the other side."
On today's episode: "But return to that opening verse? “…he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand.” That seems to be a tiny detail that we gloss over when we talk about the great Moses and the work he did for God’s Kingdom. We forget where he came from. We overlook the fact that he was a simple man and committed a big, mortal sin. He murdered, and then he tried to cover it up. In fact, it wasn’t until years later when he was doing the menial jobs of tending his Father in Law’s sheep that God spoke to him. Think on that task. He was a regular run of the mill dude shepherding sheep that weren’t even his. And then? A bush erupts into flames and we know how the rest of that story goes. (Exodus 3)"
On today's episode: "My heart began to fill with possibility. What might the world look like if every single Believer truly embraced what it means to live with the power of Jesus within them? What then might happen for the lost that lived with THAT reality being what they experienced in the world day in and day out?"
On today's episode: "There are times when the hurt is too deep to form words. The pain is too blinding to complete the thought. It’s too much and we don’t even know what to pray. So much is wrapped up in such a simple statement. “God, be with her.” Even now, as I type, I can feel the profound sense of nothingness settle into my soul. It’s like every human emotion collides at once until they combust into devastating emptiness. On the other side of that, I can hear God whisper to me. “Just wait.”"
On today's episode: "I have dreams, sure, but if I’m not careful, the pursuit of something that seems to be a priority will quickly steal my joy and make me a grump. Here’s the thing. This house, this family, these “obligations”, represent the multitude of blessings I prayed for many times. I don’t have to clean. I get to."
On today's episode: "This is where the hope of the Gospel can make way to take a breath. I don’t have any good answers as to why suffering exists in the world, but I feel this incredible sense of simple, yet profound joy spring up when I think about how God loves us so much that He sent His Son to live and die. He made a way for true reconciliation. For us to return back to Him. So we can look beyond all of this to a day when He will wipe away every tear."
On today's episode: "What does it look like when we show up in our lives and try to make the day an opportunity to serve as many people as we can? In my experience, that’s a win every time."
On today's episode: "If my children asked me those questions, I think I might fall apart. Simply, there is nothing that my children could ever do to make me stop loving them. My love for them is not contingent upon them behaving in any which way. It’s a bonus, and the days they do listen to me are really good days, but I don’t ever use the really bad days when they seem set against me from the sunrise, as a measure of how much I love them."
On today's episode: "The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we’ll remember, but we rarely do. When my boys are grown, I’m nervous that the only thing my three sons will remember is all the yelling and instruction giving. “Mom sure did tell us to put pants on a lot.” Our perception of a situation can oftentimes be shaded by how we felt at the time or what we assumed others felt. So, it’s important to me that I give my kids a good look at the behind the scenes. Maybe then, they’ll also have a fair share of “Oh yeah! I remember that.” Or “I had no idea Mom felt that way.”"
On today's episode: "Soon enough, Mother’s Day arrived and that white-blonde haired boy came stomping into my room, shouting “Happy Mother’s Day!”, and practically bounded onto the bed, gift in hand. The day had come. I carefully unwrapped and uncovered a precious treasure clearly selected by him."
On today's episode: "Last year, he’d literally be pulling his hair out as we sat to complete frustrating homework assignments. The shortest of blonde hairs collecting on the seat and floor beneath as he pulled them out handfuls at a time. The year before that? We could barely sit long enough to do anything. Years before that, when I wanted nothing more than to just sit and read to him, it was impossible for all the screaming and thrashing on his part. I prayed for this. I can’t count the number of silent prayers or all the times I whispered “Jesus” through tears because I couldn’t even think of the words to begin to tell God about it."
On today's episode: "That purpose you’re looking for? That fulfillment? Satisfaction? Happiness? You can keep searching for it in things, relationships, activities, accolades, and achievements, but you will always come back to empty. Nothing in this world will give you what you’re looking for like He can."
On today's episode: "There’s a different heart stance when we simply show up and look for all of the ways we can help and serve. We stop keeping a tally of the things we’ve done for others in hopes they might one day pay us back. We get excited about outdoing one another in honor (Romans 12:10) and we begin to actually become this manifestation of love."
On today's episode: "So I decided to read my Bible. Every day. Old Testament to New Testament. Cover to cover. Chapters at a time. More than a daily verse. I’d put the whole thing in context. Everyday, I committed to reading and through that small act of discipline, everything changed. People keep asking me what happened. Am I a new Believer? Well, honestly, there’s never really been a time that I’ve not known the Lord. He’s always been there. But this change? I committed to learning as much about who He is instead of just learning a bunch of stuff to keep in my head so I could say the right things."
On today's episode: "You know them well enough that when you hit bumps in the road with your relationship and misunderstandings come up, they’ve shown you enough of who they really are so that you can more easily see their intentions behind it all. You’ve hopefully learned enough about their history that you understand why they do the things they do. If you base your assumptions on what you learned by coming into their lives intermittently and don’t stick around to fill in the middle, you’ll misunderstand."
On today's episode: "You lead with love and grace. That’s the stuff that makes people curious enough about Jesus that they want to learn more. When people get around Him, He’ll do the heavy lifting to bring correction. That’s why we enter into a personal relationship with Him. He is the only one that can bring true transformation. And it’s funny, when you’re more concerned about the log in your eye, you can’t even see the splinters in another’s."
On today's episode: "Which is, you were never intended to carry around all of that burden. Those very feelings causing you to pause are a reminder that absent His authority in your life, you’ll never be enough. We were not created to live in isolation with a do it all attitude."
On today's episode: "What I’ve learned is that the more authentic I’ve been in who He created me to be, the less I feel like I’m struggling. Awkward and too much for people, sure, and that’s a hard feeling to combat at times, but it’s certainly less tiresome to just feel that way, instead of feeling that way and still pretending to be someone I’m not."
On today's episode: "But consider what it would be like to step into a space with a warm and gentle reminder that “it is finished.” When that veil was torn, our need to do very specific and actionable atonement tasks was squashed. When He took His final breath, He made a way for His Spirit to take over that dark space that shame says you’ll never be removed from."
On today's episode: "So then, if you have accepted salvation, are the words you are about to speak or write teeing you up to speak life? To disciple? To guide the lost and lonely? The tongue has the capacity to speak the sweetest words of life and encouragement to the lost and suffering."
On today's episode: "Just as my children have no reason to doubt that I am their mother, we should have no reason to doubt that God is our Father. If we want what is best for our children, how much more does He want what’s best for us? Instead of doubting and questioning and being angry at God, why not simply choose to believe that He knows better than you?"
On today's episode: "If those things are true, it steals the beautiful and insane nature of the gift of salvation. It makes zero sense to us, but it’s not supposed to. This is a case where love truly wins."
On today's episode: "If I had been more concerned with making sure he knew how right I was and how wrong he was in his opinions, would that have opened up the moment in time for discipleship? Would it have put me in a character stance to present a life and eternity changing faith that was in line with who I am in Jesus?"
On today's episode: "I’ll just come right out and say it. We are arrogant. We really believe that we can navigate this life and do a sufficient enough job by simply believing in the name of Jesus and not actually pursuing Jesus in the ways that Romans 12:2 suggests."
On today's episode: "Consider then, if the absence you feel from God, is actually absence. Maybe it’s more like patience and is but another tactic of our great Father to bring more of His children into His embrace? Your unique story was meant to speak to others in a specific way that no one else could."
On today's episode: "It is no small thing, this royalty we possess through our salvation. I look at Christ and the example He gave us in walking through the same hardships of life as a man. The way He loved people, even in death as He asked God’s forgiveness for the people who’d been shouting for the very suffering and death he sustained."
On today's episode: "When we feel weak and powerless against the world and against our flesh, let us cling to this truth. Lift your head and broaden your chest. You are equipped with the tools to fight against the things of this world that pull you back into slavery. The Spirit Himself testifies on our behalf!"
On today's episode: "To be honest, it caught me off guard. I felt confident that He’d led me to the exact place where I was because He had work for me to do. I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t want to tell God no, but it was all so confusing. And it scared me. Who would I be if I wasn’t Zumba Kellye?"
On today's episode: "He had and still has no idea I was at the door the entire time. Nor, does he know I kissed his sweaty head and tucked him in when he finally surrendered. I never left him. I had enough patience to wait it out because for my baby, I have the time to wait for that. For all he knows, I walked away completely, because he couldn’t see me, hear me, or feel me. But I was there the entire time."
On today's episode: "And let me start by saying that I am not that girl. I am not that kind of Christian…the devoted disciple of Christ that is compelled to pursue Jesus at every turn and talk about Him incessantly. Or at least my idea of who that type of person is and what they look and sound like."
On today's episode: "In our lives, this same question can apply to the area we compare most often. Who told you that you had to throw a Pinterest party? Who told you that you had to wear a size 4? Who told you that you had to make homemade, organic anything? Who told you your house had to look a certain way? Or my favorite...Who told you that you had to get your life cleaned up before Jesus would ever entertain your relationship? Who told you these things? Because if you’d actually stopped long enough to ask God His opinion on the matter, He’d probably tell you exactly where He wanted you to spend your time and energy."
On today's episode: "And it seems that in our own lives, less big sinful offenses, we walk around with a great deal of shame surrounding things that aren’t at all shameful. You ate the indulgence that wasn’t on your diet plan. Shame. You can’t fit into the dress or the pants or the bathing suit and look the way you think you should look. Shame. You said no to the thing someone expected you to say yes to. Shame. You took time for yourself. Shame. What of these really are deserving of shame? I’ll give you the answer. None of them."
On today's episode: "Towards the end of the year, I’m tempted to get really distracted. A to-do list of lots of fun and fulfilling things, quickly becomes a deep well of anxiety. Feeling overly anxious leads to an inability to rationally pursue any other conflict in my life with the peace and calm that I normally might be able to. And where one conflict rises, it sure feels like others are close behind."
On today's episode: "Is the question you’re asking, “why did God put me through that?” Perhaps, instead, the statement is “Look at all the Lord has brought me through.”"
On today's episode: "Your job is not to police bad behavior. Your job is not to school people on what they should and shouldn’t do. How they should act and yes, I’ll say it, when they decide to decorate for the holidays. Your job is not to correct the wrongs of the world and go all vigilante world justice changer. Your job is simply to love people."
On today's episode: "And here’s the thing. I am a weirdo. I’m odd. Awkward. Intense. But, everyone else is too, in their own way. It’s part of what makes us so endearing. When God created man, He didn’t place some caveat on His creation that He’d make us all uniformly perfect and incapable of doing any of the weird stuff we do. He made us all unique little snowflakes on purpose. The thing that we get twisted is believing this lie that our uniqueness is somehow bad. What’s more, that it makes us an exception to the gift of salvation. He did that for everyone."
On today's episode: "You know that little nugget of something within you that you sometimes feel like you’ll absolutely spin into orbit if you don’t share? The world needs you to share it. Because somewhere, someone is waiting on you to take that first step to pave the way for them. The same God who created an incredibly diverse and creative universe is the same God who created you."
On today's episode: "As humans, despite our greatest attempts, our creativity is still limited. We take a situation and if you’re at all like me, I believe that if only step 1 and 2 will happen, the natural consequence will be step 3. My prayers mirror that logic and I plead with God that the outcome will be such and such. When step 2 doesn’t at all look like the one I begged for, my knee jerk reaction is to consider the prayer failed. How could it possibly work out otherwise?"
On today's episode: "So often in our lives, we can only see the bad situation in front of us that we can’t see any way out of. But know this, God provides a way. Instead of seeing the impossible and vast body of water in front of you and the army of oppression behind you, remember every time God rescued you before and understand that He is a God that delights in showing His children His limitless power."
On today's episode: "Walking through the front door, it all came charging back as he reached for me with panic in his stance. Suddenly, it was as if I was peering into the eyes of that same helpless 2-year-old that wanted answers as much as we did."
On today's episode: Today, there are a lot of opportunities for us to do the things that line up with what it “means to be a Christian.” But none of those outward things will ever do the incredible work of what happens when we really spend time with Jesus. The really intimate, soul-changing stuff is usually what’s happening in the dark and lonely hours when you don’t have to pretend. Don’t get me wrong, church is worth your time because you grow as a Believer. Tending to mission work is absolutely something worthy of our time. But even through the big gestures, it’s still possible to completely check out and never once check in with Jesus. It’s a matter of your heart’s posture.
On today's episode: When you find yourself in this place, you have to see it for what it is and fight tooth and nail to see that satan comes like a lion to kill, steal, and destroy. But he’s only like a lion. He tries his best to puff his chest and scare you. But, guess who is standing in front, beside, and behind you? That’s right. The real deal. The Real Lion! The One who fights our battles and even satan must bow to.
On today's episode: I felt a whisper. “It was then that I thought of you.” There was nothing, and He created everything. On this journey, sometimes walking, sometimes sprinting, sometimes (or a whole lot of the time) falling flat on my face and rolling, violently, down a hill, I’ve seen one truth come into focus more sharply than anything. God’s love for His children is unbreakable. In the dark void before anything, He thought of us.
On today's episode: Right now, there’s too much that we don’t know. There are labels we can throw around, to be sure, but at the end of the day, none of us know. This hope that sits in my heart and has become so much louder than the roar of fear or sadness, tells me that I can trust in God’s goodness in my life. And not goodness in a sense that I’ll get every prayer answered, but His goodness.
On today's episode: "Right now, our family has some dinosaur-sized worries. There are a lot of answers that we seek, but we don’t have and we don’t know when we’ll get them. It feels a lot like we just ran in circles, looking for the car in the crowded parking lot and we still can’t find it. The rain is coming soon, we can see the blackness of the sky, and we don’t know where we’ll take cover. In this current place, there is so much angst and anxiety and fear. But God."
On today's episode: "Knowing what’s coming and how things will turn out takes no faith at all. It takes zero trust in the One who gave us every reason to trust. Clarity puts the ball in our court and makes it about us. No, no. We don’t need clarity. We need more faith in a God that provides for our every need in a way that we’ll never understand. It’s not about you."
On today's episode: "The plan was always that she’d move in with us if the time ever came that her cancer returned. It wasn’t until one morning soon after the biopsy came back as I moved the small amount of my youngest son’s things into his big brother’s room that it hit me."
On today's episode: "Honestly, this next thought is what pushes me to my knees. I didn’t deserve it either. If we go around believing that the thing someone did to us is somehow worse than the things we’ve done, we missed it. In our sin, the Lord saw fit for us to be forgiven. The truth and beauty of the Gospel is that. He died for us while we were still sinners. Let that sink in."
On today's episode: "It’s going to take some time, but eventually, you’re going to realize that you spent the majority of your life parading around as someone you aren’t. And then, you’re going to get sick of it. You’re going to get tired. Something is going to snap and you’re finally going to open your eyes and your ears to see and hear the beautiful things that Jesus has always thought of you."
On today's episode: "I’ll be honest. When the news came that my Mother in Law had one to three months left to live, it hit me in the gut so hard, I actually gasped out loud “I can’t do this!” It’s not the caregiving or having her living in our home that’s hard. It’s the gut wrenching agony of the days leading up to and after losing someone that makes me fret."
On today's episode: "There is a promise that I cling to. A promise of what awaits us after we take our last breath here. Lately, I close my eyes and the tears come as I imagine the beauty that awaits us. To bask in His presence. Sit at His feet. Worship Him for all of eternity. To be whole. Gosh, what that must be like! And she’s right there on the edge of it. She knows. We know. And my heart could nearly burst when I think on the beauty and overwhelming peace."
On today's episode: "But let me tell you something. I’m weak. I am not strong, by any means. I’m disciplined, for sure. Like building a muscle, I have learned to be obedient and through that, disciplined to follow Him. But strong, I am not."
On today's episode: "There was an end-of-life kit in my refrigerator. A collection of medicine to ease a loved one on into death when the time comes. Hospice delivered that along with other medicine to ease her suffering. And I’d been relatively fine all while caring for her, comforted by the knowledge of what was awaiting her. She was getting ready to meet Jesus, and that is everything to me. But then I remembered making a sheet titled “Morphine Log” and I couldn’t breathe."
On today's episode: “is the way I’m living pleasing Jesus?” Because if we live our Christian lives in pursuit of doing the work of the Lord, really and truly pursuing Him, it’s going to get messy. You will be misunderstood far more often than understood.
On today's episode: "So often, we do the same thing, don’t we? We feel the pull of the Lord asking us to do something, and we dismiss it because we think who are we to do anything? We’re not anyone but a sinful, hot-tempered, barely Biblically literate, if at all, person that just wants to live a good life and be comfortable. What we’re forgetting is that it really doesn’t matter who we are. This story isn’t about us."
On today's episode: "As I sat to reflect, my eyes grew wide with wonder. My heart thumped as I really sat for the first time and truly tried to imagine what it must be like to experience Heaven. No more cancer. No more pain. No more suffering. Can you even imagine what it must be like to open your eyes and rest them on Jesus? That thought alone is the one thing that always pulls me from the depth of sadness and into joy."
On today's episode: "Hospice picked up everything from our house. The oxygen. The hospital bed. The table. The wheelchair. The medications. The disposable gloves. I am putting away walkers and throwing away A&D ointment, Icy Hot, and Biofreeze, 3 smells I don’t care to smell anytime soon."
On today's episode: "But then, that bit about making the image of the calf they bowed down and sacrificed to....the forgetting...we do that same thing today. Pick anything that you run to for comfort. Pick anything that you can’t seem to put down and walk away from. Pick the thing that when you can’t have or do, you feel more than disappointed. Sin has a really subtle way of creeping in sometimes. Even people with the best of intentions succumb to creating idols to place in their lives and they worship them."
On today's episode: "We pray for an answer, a solution, or a need. When that doesn’t come in the way we think it should, how often do we consider that prayer unanswered? As we see in this verse, God answered the prayer, but not at all the way they probably hoped and wanted. Given the track record of the Israelites, they needed something that would continue to bring them into the majesty of God’s provision. And so, He’ll give us the tools, but it’s up to us to use them to meet the need. How’s that saying go? Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish..."
On today's episode: "Was it just another Mom talk? Perhaps. However, things have felt different over the last three days. Their attitudes seem more open, compassionate, welcoming, and patient. It starts at home, friends. It started with me as I grew aware and humble enough of the log in my own eye to allow the Lord to convict me and then open the question to call them into being more like the men I know they are capable of being. More than anything, I want these boys to be a light into a really dark world. We can’t change how the world views this Jesus culture. That’s not our aim."
On today's episode: "We can feel like our lives don’t really matter to Him or we shouldn’t take up His time with our pesky prayers over minor upsets. But y’all? He’s not limited like that. He’s not sitting with list in hand marking off the number of “silly prayers” we’ve uttered. Just like I adore when my boys excitedly tell me about the little details of their day because THEY ARE TALKING TO ME, I believe the Lord feels the same."
On today's episode: "I think we do the same thing with God, or are tempted at least. At passing glance, we can be so focused on our bigness next to our struggles. We feel isolated and alone in our struggle. We hyper focus on our inadequacies and failures. God, at a passing glance, might just be this comfortable “thing” that’s always been there, so we approach Him in prayer with a limited view or we roll off our to do list of prayer, out of obligation."
On today's episode: "Not many see the effort put into cleaning the floors that always immediately seem to get dirtier than they were before you cleaned them. No one is standing behind you applauding the clean out of the outgrown closets you had a spare 10 minutes to tackle, so you did. There’s no telling the number of times you sacrificed your sleep and your health, your body and your mental health to make it happen for the people in your life."
On today's episode: "Do not forget your humanity. You’re a broken person and so am I. Don’t think for one second that you’re not capable of some of the very same awful things that you’ve judged other people over. If you haven’t yet, just wait. Live long enough and you will. This is where humility comes in. The moment we elevate ourselves to a place where we’re better than someone else, we forget just how desperately we need the crucifixion and resurrection as much as the next person."
On today's episode: "If we considered the tremendous gift of salvation, what it means to be saved, to step into the identity of a child of God, what would change? The bothers and annoyances of the world suddenly become less so when we posture ourselves with this setting the tone. It’s impossible to do on our own, but pursuing Him daily sure does help."
On today's episode: "If I learned anything from that season, it’s that we have every reason to trust the Lord and while the circumstances can often seem grim, what He’s cultivating as a byproduct of that circumstance is something you’d never obtain otherwise. Jeremiah 29:11 has never been more real to me than from where I stand today."
On today's episode: "In front of him is all his fear and all of his desire that the suffering would be fixed. All he can see is the present circumstance, which just feels so overwhelming. He’s so consumed with it that he can’t see the solution standing right in front of him. After a gentle reminder of who he’s speaking to, we see this desperate prayer from the father to please help his unbelief."
On today's episode: "Life is funny like that. We get so consumed with “our” plan for our lives, that we can’t at all see it another way. (Hands up if you’re a Type A Planner!) There have been so many struggles we’ve walked through, but we’re still standing. We’re better for it. The wisdom we’ve gained from walking those difficult steps and catching our breath when we thought we’d never breathe again, have shown us that, truly, if you’re not dead, God’s not done."
On today's episode: "My spirit is growing so weary of tying little bow ties and cleaning white button downs to prepare 3 precious boys for another burial. My arms can never quite reach around all of them to comfort all that need comfort. I still believe that God is good and that He has a plan for everyone’s lives."
On today's episode: "As my birthday nears, I am reminded of a truth in life. The mess you see in front of you. The toys that you step over. The noise of the chaos. All of that comes with this very beautiful package of the people who cause it. Sometimes we need a little shift in perspective because as we’re frustrated with the “stuff” we “have” to do for everyone, we must never forget that the opposite could be true."
On today's episode: "They turned off the lights and began to sing to me. As the melody of that old, familiar tune floated into the air and my ears, I gazed at the flames and my soul lit up at the same intensity. One candle on that cake and lit into the darkness doesn’t produce near the flame of 37. With each additional candle, the brightness of the light intensifies so that the sum collective of those lit candles produces a light that is not easily put out."
On today's episode: "Please hear me. He knows every single hair on your head and your thoughts before you think them. He already knows who you really are and He still wouldn’t change His mind about you. He chooses you. He knew exactly what He was and is doing. There’s nothing you could do to shock Him. You don’t have to continue proving your case and “good workings” it till you have nothing left. This is the incredible gift of salvation. The good work has already been done. Once and for all."
On today's episode: "One thing follows another, and the hits keep coming. Change. The painful and sobering changes we have felt in such a condensed time have shown me that there is one constant in life, which is nothing in this life is constant. Things continuously change. Ecclesiastes 3 has never been more real to me. “There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1"
On today's episode: "I had a knowledge of God. I prayed to Him, but on this side of things, I realize that the god I was talking to was more like an extension of myself. Prayers were heartfelt and genuine, but limited. I know what I am able to do, or what I hope I will be able to do, but I am not God. So, when I prayed it was like I knew of the bigness of God, but how could a God of that magnitude care about little ol’ me and answering my prayers or even hear me. Didn’t a God that big have far better things to do than to listen to me?"
On today's episode: "This is eternity at stake and as hard as it is to see with a new perspective, there is a greater good on the line. Your life can serve for His glory. Your circumstances are part of this plan. And perhaps, like Esther, you have been elevated to this place for such a time as this. (Esther 4:14)"
On today's episode: "My hands started to lift and the tears came like a flood. It didn’t matter how anyone looked at me or what they must have thought. I’m sure I looked a wreck to my peers, but to my God, I was a broken and needy child that just wanted all of my Lord. I needed Him. Every part of me aching and longing for something I couldn’t articulate. Every cell in my body cried out for His embrace and in one moment of choosing to lean into the truth that He is WITH me allowed me to combat the countering and obey what He was calling me into."
On today's episode: "When we’re living out our faith, it’s easy to see how others are living out their calling and think if we aren’t doing that, we must not be called or we’re doing something wrong because we don’t feel led to do those things. But just as we see in this example, some are called to go, while others are called to stay. You aren’t doing something wrong if you haven’t felt that call to go. The Kingdom of God has a unique job for every single person to live out. The big and noteworthy examples of missions and service are no more important that the work you can do in your own community, or even in your very own home."
On today's episode: "I don’t at all mean to diminish what you went or are going through. Believe me. I’ve been through some things too. But, on the other side, I can tell you the outcome when I chose to worship God throughout my struggle versus turning my back on Him. Scripture tells us exactly what satan’s end goal is. “…steal and kill and destroy…” (John 10:10) That same verse also tells us exactly what the goal of Jesus is “…I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”
On today's episode: "Sin is too crafty and the noise of the world too loud. We’re too weak and easily distracted to stand in strength on our own. Spending time with Him daily not only strengthens our reliance on Him, but it builds our understanding of the slippery slope our independence can create. We should be so dependent on Him that before we make any decisions, we mistrust our instinct and go to Him first."
On today's episode: "Here’s the thing. You can’t pick and choose what parts of the Gospel you want to believe. It’s a package deal. You can’t believe that God is who He says He is and not believe you are who He says you are. Because if you are created in His image, then how could you be anything less than everything He says you are? If you received a new identity when you accepted His gift of salvation, and therefore, you became a new creation, how then can you continue to believe the lies connected with your old identity?"
On today's episode: "We don’t live lives in service to our King because of what we get out of it. We live our lives in service to God because He deserves our undying and restless affection. When I think of my own children and my love for them, it makes me want to do everything I can for them. How much more does our Father in Heaven love us? Exponentially more."
On today's episode: "That was me for a long time, until I started pursuing Him in a way I never had before. And that’s when everything changed. The miracle of the rescue came into focus and I finally saw myself as He’d always seen me. I had known Him by name, but then I really got to know Him. My goodness, it is beautiful. To be loved like that, it changes you."
On today's episode: "We know God is for us, but what if this plan includes a fair amount of failure in the lesson. We’re cool with others taking a step of faith and living in boldness because we can safely watch from the sidelines. But when it’s us, maybe we didn’t hear God clearly."
On today's episode: "In one line, God totally drops the mic on the shortsighted perspective we have of our lives. “Where were you when I established the Earth?” He could honestly end it there, but he continues for 129 verses, hitting Job (and the reader) with concepts and truths that we’ve likely never even considered. "Does the rain have a father? Who fathered drops of dew?” And on and on and on, until you realize what an arrogant and entitled person you are for never considering just how much more God knows about our lives and how that all plays into the grand scheme of things."
On today's episode: "Look at the rain in your life and take a deep breath. Maybe God is washing away the trash. Maybe He’s preparing the soil of your life for the harvest. Maybe He’s begging you to turn your eyes to His protection so you stay dry in the downpour."
On today's episode: "Two years after I got my Zumba Teaching license, God asked me to give Him that class. After that, there wasn’t a class I taught where the Holy Spirit didn’t show up. He was there. With us. Delighting in the chains of self-doubt, insecurity, and body hate breaking."
On today's episode: "It seems that now is a perfect time to remember. He did it once and He’ll do it again. You are no less His beloved than you were back then. Don’t be so shortsighted to believe that because you can’t “see” or “feel” Him at work in your life, that somehow makes that belief true."
On today's episode: "If you really want to interrupt the flow of discontent that comes from riding the more train, take a minute and really reflect on what youactually need in life. We need surprisingly very little, it seems. Meditating on how grateful I am for my needs being met and literally listing out everything I can be thankful for, I suddenly see an incredible abundance where there may have been none before."
On today's episode: "Your spouse. Your kids. Your family. Your friends. None of them should have the power of holding your happiness, nor should you be holding the reigns of someone else’s happiness. Why? Because every single one of us will fail at that task. People are the most disappointing bunch in creation and when our goal in life is to just be “happy”, we’re channeling our brain to live a very self-centered life."
On today's episode: "Today, and every day, we must ask ourselves if the current activity in our lives reflects the sincere appreciation we have for what the Lord has done for us? Are the habits and behaviors we engage in providing the best witness? Are the things we spend our time on reflective of how we really feel about Jesus?"
On today's episode: "I think a fair amount of us are living our lives in a constant state of referred pain. And when I say a fair amount of people, I mean all of us. Ever since the beginning of time when the fall of man occurred, and Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden, there’s been a physical separation from God. As humans, we have so many needs. We feel so many things and a lot of the time, we just want to make the discomfort and pain go away, so we spend a lot of time masking and coping and covering up our pain with temporary solutions. Only none of those ever actually fully satisfy. That’s because they weren’t meant to."
On today's episode: "And then, my Mother in Law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and of the 1 to 3 month prognosis the doctors gave her, we had 1 month and 2 days. That 1 month and 2 days was the most blessed time in my life, because, friends, we have been in the fire and come out without a lick of smoke to our frames."
On today's episode: "The seeming absence of His action and justice at the time of the wrongdoing, do not mean He is actually absent. Scripture tells us thatthe Lord is patient, but not just in the ways we conceptualize patience. He is patient so that all of His children may come to know Him and not perish. (2Peter 3:9)"
On today's episode: "but sometimes, I just want to sit and escape into my thoughts. I want to sit alone and not talk to anyone. But you and I both know that’s a shining example of the opposite of what God is calling His people to. So I started collecting myself to realize that I really have nothing to fear when He’s calling me to do something, I got up and went over. “Mom, tell me about your baby.” Before I could keep track of the words I wanted to say, the Holy Spirit took over."
On today's episode: "But what He wants more than anything is our whole heart. He can make and do anything He wills, but He can’t force us to give Him our whole heart. That’s something He left up to us. When we give that up to Him, it’s an act of pure love and it’s not something manufactured or something forced upon us."
On today's episode: "Suddenly, I go from isolated and coincidental incidents that seem to be related, into a full-scale attack on who I am. Every seemingly strained encounter where I assume the reason people are distracted or not as engaged with me is because I’ve done something to make them mad or they never really liked me to begin with. My identity in Christ is fileted on the altar of destruction the enemy built for me. All he needs is one tiny foothold and he can do his thing."
On today's episode: "You too have been given a calling. It may be to disciple your children and boldly tell them your own testimony. It may be to walk away from the gossip or the recreational relationships that don’t glorify God. There are so many ways to live out your calling right where you are, but by all means live a life worthy of that calling."
On today's episode: "The acceptance of that incredible gift, and I want you to really consider what a gift was given to us, we are so moved and transformed by the Holy Spirit and compelled out of love for Him because He first loved us, to do things for our fellow man out of that same love."
On today's episode: "There is so much that is hard and challenging about being a human in the world, and that’s a truth as old as time. The more things change, the more they stay the same, but let me remind all of us that our God does not change. His goodness, His kindness, His love and pursuit for His people never dips in intensity. He has seen exactly what is happening to you right now and is not surprised. He is watching the struggle and already knows what’s going to come of it. But it’s all in His time."
On today's episode: "Yep, that one sure does it to me. When I think about the constants in life, there is so much we are not guaranteed. So much changes. People are disappointing because we think they’ll act one way, only to find they don’t at all. But God! He never changes. Faithful."
On today's episode: "Every single one of us have things in our life that don’t reflect what we would say the Lord and our salvation means to us. We may be engaged in them without recognizing them for what they are. But when we do, we need to see them for what they are and then repent of them."
On today's episode: "Until my salvation became the treasure that it is, I couldn’t understand the urgency behind being concerned for another person’s salvation. It matters and my heart and stomach drop to think someone may have it all wrong and any of us who know better hold the truth and aren’t doing our part to point others the right way."
On today's episode: "Until our hearts break over our sinfulness and are full of suffocating sorrow over our broken humanity, we will never fully understand how desperately we need Jesus. We will never live our lives in true pursuit of what it looks like to follow Jesus. We will never grasp how incredible it is that our entiresalvation is due to a tremendous gift that we did not earn and never could. It’s not faith plus works that redeems us. We cannot good deed our way to overcome the wrongs we’ve committed."
On today's episode: "We do this with other things in life, don’t we? We live our lives in constant pursuit of the next goal, achievement, accolade, event, or day. The anticipation of what’s to come keeps us holding on with hope and excitement. For things that really matter to us, we’re willing to do the hard work, to sacrifice, to do whatever is necessary to get us closer. For the really, really big things, you might look at our lives and think that everything in our life is about that one thing."
On today's episode: "But it’s an important conversation because if we never address the elephant in the room, we might get so comfortable with sin’s presence that we desensitize ourselves to how destructive it is or how detestable it is to God. If we spend all of our time proclaiming the goodness of God without ever also addressing sin so that we can all repent and rid ourselves of it, it’s possible that the same desensitization to sin will occur for the unbelievable extension of grace we are extended.
On today's episode: "Then, other times, which if I’m being honest is most of the time, He shows up in quiet moments like on a school field trip where the sun is breaking through the trees in a blinding way, as if to say “Peek-a-Boo! I see you!” It’s these moments when I have to catch my breath in gratitude that, as a Believer, His Holy Spirit lives within us so we can talk to Him as often as we like! He is with us always! Everywhere we go."
On today's episode: "We absolutely must get to work as Christians, showing the world what we’re for and not so much what we’re against. Because eventually, when people get acquainted with the measureless love that comes from Jesus, they will want to know more and Jesus will work out those details and convictions. But how can we be successful in inspiring a curiosity for Jesus when what they associate with His believers is condemnation and judgment, as if believers are perfect people without need of the crucifixion and resurrection every single day."
On today's episode: "He isn’t going to wait to address you as that when you mature or take certain steps. He’s calling you by that today, right now, exactly as you are. Because He sees the true you and your potential."
On today's episode: "If we conducted a poll for how we expected our closest friends and family act, we might give a textbook answer. We expect kindness and loyalty and other common things. In reality, however, our expectations are actually much higher for those same people. If we flipped the script, often we don’t hold ourselves to those same impossible standards for how we demand others treat us."
On today's episode: "Those smaller chutes will never grow to their full capacity, if the older, almost dead parts aren’t cut off from the root of the plant. You literally have to get in there with scissors and cut them off, so they can no longer rob the inner parts of a chance at full life. Even though those older and outer leaves are dead, they’ll still pull important, life giving things away from the center. There are other parts that seem to still have life in the stem, but the outer partof the leaf shows there’s only death on the way."
On today's episode: "It felt like a slap in the face. How could her life be cut so short? But then, The Holy Spirit reminded me that every single one of us is terminal. Each day is borrowed and no matter how soon any of us is called Home, we’re never guaranteed another. We all have a finite number of days on this Earth. Sure, putting a label on it makes the clock tick a bit louder, but each of us is walking around in early death. We are all terminal."
On today's episode: "Could anyone take a small peak at your life and walk away knowing you must be associated with Jesus? Could anyone take your conversations, your habits, your entertainment, what you’re pursuing, and walk away in confidence that you’re the one they can bring their questions about faith if they don’t yet know Jesus?"
On today's episode: "Wherever you are on the spectrum of struggle, let me encourage you that the outcome that will soon be revealed already exists in some way. Your knowing about it doesn’t somehow quicken your ability to control it. You have no control. One of the healthiest attitudes we can adopt is a surrender of our control and full recognition of who does hold the wheel."
On today's episode: "We can’t seem to just exist for all the striving to become something more. Apart from this message that society feeds us, on our own, we have always had a deep longing for more. We ate the fruit of the tree, despite being told not to, and we built towers to get us closer to Heaven. Somewhere in our broken humanity, we have forgotten that we don’t need to become God. God is the Master, everything else is just a cheap copy."
On today's episode: "But what if they did? What if the worst possible scenario did come true? What then? What if instead of fighting against the unknown thatyou began to meet it, accept it as a possibility and then turned your perspective to inject hope that maybe there is just as much probability that things could turn out completely opposite of your worst fear."
On today's episode: "When my boys started understanding more about the English language, I was so excited to hear what they had to say. As they’ve gotten older, I can’t wait till they get home from school to tell me about their day. When they are struggling or upset or happy, I want to be the one they talk to. I want to hear from them because if it matters to them, it matters to me. Did you know that God feels this way about you?"
On today's episode: "Basically, the stance of your legs will determine how stable you are before proceeding with the next step. Same goes for taking a punch. A stable or unstable foundation can be the difference maker in how you respond, whether you block, counter, or fall. No matter the physical prowess of the fighter, without a strong and stable foundation, you can’t stand up against an opponent with a strong foundation."
On today's episode: "Wouldn’t it be a shame if this situation you’re in was nothing more than just a hard place to be? Wouldn’t it be terrible if you walked away never learning anything more about yourself, how strong and compassionate you can be, or it didn’t bring you any closer to the people in your life you hold so dear? Wouldn’t it be a tragedy, more than anything, if you walked into the fire, and came out, never having actually seen the face of the one who kept you from complete destruction whilst being licked by the flames?"
On today's episode: "My kids have grown up trusting that their needs will be met. They’ve never had room to doubt. It’s become instinctual for them to seek me out, despite their knowledge that they are capable. How sweet! Every surface level “needy” request, is actually a deeper expression of “I trust you”."
On today's episode: "We way over complicate the process and think if we don’t get ourselves clean enough to come into the presence of the church and the Lord, then we aren’t fit for the cleaning. But here’s the good news. None of us will ever be clean enough or holy enough or righteous enough. Ever. It is only through the blood of Jesus that we are able to come before Him."
On today's episode: "Hanging onto this reality, the truth of our wretchedness, certainly puts into perspective that none of us is more superior than any other. I don’t mean we need to wallow in self-pity for our wrongdoings, but we can never forget what we’ve done if it means we start to compare another person’s list of failures and wrongdoings to our own elevating ourselves above them."
On today's episode: "When we are suffering, we may have a tendency to ask God why. With anger and sadness in our hearts, we shake our fist because we demand to know why our plans didn’t pan out. I can think of too many people I know personally or heard about that their terrible news is all a head scratcher. But I keep going back to a reminder that we don’t know and aren’t meant to. We’re meant to do the work and throughout the struggle keep our eyes fixed."
On today's episode: "It’s been a long time since I wrote those letters and dreamt of owning a bank, but some things never change. Here I am all these years later, still writing letters and praying for change. That legacy I was so concerned with has shifted to a desperation that people will know the Gospel. As an adult, I have learned it really is the only thing that matters."
On today's episode: "It’s a different lens to look at people and the world when you realize how much you have to learn. The facts about a situation lend themselves to more questions, so it’s hard to establish an opinion when you simply need more information about it all before you arrive at any conclusions."
On today's episode: "Listen, if God closes a door, you really don’t want what’s on the other side of it. If He closed it, there is nothing on the other side that’s for us. We try to sit at tables and with people we’ve been rejected from and consider it a loss, but if God shut that door because that’s a table Jesus would’ve flipped, is it actually a loss?"
On today's episode: "Who wins when we decide that our story is not good enough or our past is too tarnished to qualify us for Kingdom work?"
On today's episode: "One month after, her youngest brother very unexpectedly passed away. One month after that I got the first initial headache that would end up staying with me 24 hours of every day for the next 2 years. That headache would be just one of many awful life altering symptoms. It felt like we couldn’t exhale for fear that the moment we let the breath out something else might sweep us away."
On today's episode: "As followers of Christ, we’ve been commanded to look different than the world. We live different for the promise of the coming of an upside down Kingdom marked with love, generosity, forgiveness, grace, and mercy. We have our part to play in this, but unlike our goals we aren’t on our own to solely do the work."
On today's episode: "There should always be a sense of urgency when it comes to getting our stories out, but the panic that we’re not doing enough has no place. That panic is not a far reach to me putting all the work and all of the burden on me alone, as if I could ever have enough power or influence to do any of that on my own. No, it’s Jesus. It’s all Jesus."
On today's episode: "After three years, I heard the words from a doctor that I’d longed to hear. “You’ve had this your entire life.” This was the final answer to the long list of questions that plagued us while I suffered from a mystery illness for nearly two years. We had a diagnosis, but even in that diagnosis it opened Pandora’s box of wanting to understand so deeply the root cause as a hope to ward off a relapse. How could a person go their entire life and then suddenly be struck with a debilitating illness that doctors couldn’t explain or offer durable treatment to solve?"
On today's episode: "The last set of text messages they’d sent to me over two years ago had been awful, abusive and unrelenting, at a time when I was at my lowest. Text messages that came out of nowhere and for no reason other than to hurt me. But now, they were hurting, deeply, and sometimes kind, supportive words with a whisper of “you’re not alone” can be just the thing we need when we hurt the most."
On today's episode: "Each time one of these trials rendered a verdict of suspicious or unbelievable, I found myself beginning to doubt my own experience. Was I making it up? Was there some part of me that wanted to be sick? Maybe I was just anxious and this was a manifestation of some deep-seated mental illness. But then at the root of everything I knew myself well enough to know that none of that was true. I was truly suffering and it was only a matter of time before we found the right person or team of people that knew enough about the right set of things to unlock all of the understanding we needed."
On today's episode: "Over and over he cried and wedged himself into a corner making it all but impossible to pull him out to wrap him in a hug so he could feel the depths of our love and security. All pleading was met with deaf ears as he continued to cry and speak the anxious and panicked thoughts racing through his head. “How do I know it will hurt less than an ant bite? How do I know it will only hurt for a very short time?!!! HOW DO I KNOW?!!” His cries reaching crescendo as I fought with the reality that even after sixteen years of parenting, I was at a complete loss as to what to do."
On today's episode: "But God. He’s just different. He is not like us and even on our best day, on our own, we cannot love like this. Maybe we get close, but even still, I just don’t think we really have it in us to love like this. I know people who’ve gone their whole lives never really knowing what it must be like to be loved in a faithful way, and so can any of us even begin to unlock what this must truly mean to be loved with a faithful love that endures forever?"
On today's episode: "I certainly don’t know everything, but one thing I do know for certain is that this is enemy territory. That enemy being the devil and our tender hearts are ripe for the picking. Ever notice how it can take just one small mistake and suddenly we’re so confident of every negative thing that could ever be said of our character, our abilities, and our intelligence?"
On today's episode: "I all but barricaded myself in the bathroom and leaned into my hands over the counter. In an exhale, I let out "Lord, help!!!" I inhaled in everything I know about the Lord...every promise I've read in Scripture...every good thing that my future holds with eternity and in a few breaths, there it was...exactly what Psalms 91 describes. Sometimes, even when we don’t feel what’s true, we have to speak it anyway."
On today's episode: "It’s what our lives were always meant to reflect. We live in His truth because that is what we were made to do. The creatED always point back to the CreatOR! To live outside of that within a lie that another of the creatED uttered falsely is living outside of your calling and purpose. I liken this to an employee telling a coworker some alternative version of a rule that they misunderstood from the very beginning. Who do we trust with the accurate definition of the rule? The boss or the coworker?"
On today's episode: "When I was walking through my 2-year mystery medical condition and would intermittently lose the ability to walk without assistance, I found my greatest contentment. So much was out of my control, which was a fact that was so visible and evident to me. There was something so sacred about that time. From the outside looking in, I should have been a wreck. Plenty of people would look at me with confusion and ask me “how are you okay with this?” It was all a gift from the Holy Spirit that I was not only fully aware of my lack of control over what was happening to me, but my complete surrender to it."
On today's episode: "I had been an adult for more than a decade before this sunk in. I had gone so much of my life, fixated on my world and the people and things in it. If plans didn't go the way I wanted, there was this annoyance and anger that things didn't go my way. I'm not just talking about some Willy Wonka but I want a golden goose! mindset either. I'm talking about big things. Heartbreaking things. Things that left me poured out and dried up and it felt like God may not actually love me. Would it be far off for me to wonder if perhaps maybe you've felt that way too?"
On today's episode: "After the shots were fired, I’d made a couple of decisions. One of which was that I needed to immediately forgive them. But over a year later I would feel anger or sadness rise up in me over the whole thing and I’d find myself running right back to the cross asking God to take it from me because it was too painful to carry on my own."
In today's episode: "I wish I could tell you that when I asked God to lessen the physical ailments that plagued me that He did. I wish I could tell you that somehow magically the pain subsided, and I found myself completely pain free. That just wasn’t how it went for me. Instead of removing the pain though, He gave me eyes to see Him more clearly. He gave me an understanding that this earthly body was not my home. He gave me a heart that beat to the rhythm of eternity. He gave me exactly enough faith to make it through that day. He gave me daily bread."
On today's episode: "Why then are we still caught up in the rights and wrongs of today? At least the petty slights and annoyances of each day? Why are we still worried about how anything will turn out? If Jesus can bring the dead to life, you can trust that He will work out this situation. Just as He called you, He can also call your children or your parent or that friend or anyone to this same salvation. He is patient and not at all hurried and bothered by our timelines. Have faith to believe that He’ll do it in His own time."
"While I do believe the Lord pulled me very close to Him, it was this concept of Romans 1 that changed my perspective. I viewed that time as a true living sacrifice. I looked at my situation and thought “what if someone could be drawn closer to the Lord for the way I choose to walk this path?” And so I did. Truly, this is the calling for the Christian: to point others to Christ."
"The definition of worship is to show reverence and adoration. Period. Full stop. It’s so easy to worship when we get the answers to our prayers. But what about when we don’t? Where does our worship rank when we’ve lost greatly and our hearts are gripped with fear that there’s no way we’ll ever be okay? Are we able to disconnect what we want from the pure and unbridled adoration of God for what He has already done for us?"
"The created was not meant to be separated from the Creator. In unity with Him we are whole, at peace, and living out our true purpose. Yet it seems we are confused and constantly choosing everything but Him."
"There are so many things I’m praying for and feel like I have been for some time. As a parent, there are prayers my heart aches to have answered for my children. Knowing the journey my boys will have to take on their own causes my breath to get stuck in my chest as I consider how many ways they could be lost along the way. How many of their choices will I be unable to rescue them from?"
"For the most part, things are physically back to normal, but every so often I’ll notice something that is slower than it once was. If I walk too fast, my left foot likes to get a little loose in the socket and I have to focus really hard on the basic mechanics of walking. I’m back in the gym working on building all the muscle that I lost and while I know this is definitely one of those things they would coin a “marathon, not sprint”, it’s easy to get frustrated with my body when it doesn’t do what I want it to do."
"Ask yourself if the things you’re spending your time on are worthy? Are they leading you to holiness? Are they helping you grow closer to God? Are you ever “denying thyself” and fighting against what your flesh wants you to do?"
"How often have we been mad at God for the way we perceive something will go or is going? How often do we assume God is completely hands off from our lives because we cannot imagine a different scenario? How often do we get the situation completely wrong? God is always working. He never stops. Just as we can’t know what the future holds, we can never truly know how God is using our circumstances for our good and for His glory."
"If you’re curious, I did run late. The whole purse reassembly did put me further behind and while on the road, realized that I did, in fact, forget my phone cord. When I left the house, my attitude was less than stellar, and I can assure you that no prayers were uttered in the car on the way out of town for work. Every amount of traffic, every person I encountered, every “inconvenience” made me angrier and angrier. I’d snapped at everyone in my house in my hurry to get out the door. They’d done nothing wrong, but all of my own actions were now somehow their fault."
"How often do we overlook this as part of our calling as Christians? How many of us are settling to simply exist? We claimed the gift of salvation and called it good. One and done, right? But did we miss the next part and are we daily leaning into the smallish sins that we think don’t matter all that much? Are we running hard into what it means to be sanctified? Are we fleeing from sin?"
"We probably don’t have to focus too hard to imagine what they felt because many of us have probably been there. On our knees, tears pouring from our eyes, as we beg and plead to the only one who can fix it, to fix it. Prayer can feel like we are making requests to our personal genie and we need to phrase our question in the right way to get the answer we desire. At the end of the day, that’s how our flesh is wired. We want what we want and it’s often not for purely selfish reasons, but we want to feel better, pay our bills, and have the people we love around us forever. Spiritual maturity means recognizing that there is something more to our prayers than the request we are making."
"When you’ve been praying for what feels like an eternity and you still haven’t gotten the answer you so deeply desire, an answer that you feel so intensely would do nothing but glorify God, it feels really hard to even eek out an ask to God that He would just fix the parts of your life that are broken. It’s a tender wound that you’re scared to open up again out of fear the next time you’re injured, that’ll be the one that takes you out. You perhaps even begin to believe that maybe you’re not worth the thing you’ve dared to hope for. You think, “No, that’s for everyone else. They get the happy ending, not me.”"
"When I was at my sickest, resigning myself to never getting well, I prayed for more faith, and God sent me friends to pray for me when I could not. He surrounded me with a community of people who were willing to stand in the gap of my broken heart and pray for the healing I’d given up on ever seeing. He pointed me to dive deeper into His Word to remind me of the eternity I could look forward to because my faith was focused on THAT and not on my earthly situation."
"It’s true that they could, but a statement that things could be worse didn’t help my situation improve. At the end of the day, things were bad for me and we truly were no closer to answers for why I was sick and how I’d get better. I had a healthy outlook and perspective, but sometimes you need to let the steam off and speak openly about the realities you’re faced with. Sometimes you don’t need someone to put a rosy spin on things. You need them to see what you’re seeing and agree that it’s awful." Today's episode is live! Click below to listen.
"Most importantly, it prepared me for a time in my life that I could never have seen coming. I shudder at the thought of what that season of my life would have looked like had I not followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit to show up every day and read His Word so many years prior. It was such a simple act but it changed everything and prepared me better than anything else I could have done." Tune in now for today's episode!
"With instant access to news and opinions, our battle against things that are not flesh and blood can quickly turn into a battle against our fellow believer and convincing them and others how right we are and how wrong they are. The most important commandment is to love God. The second is to love others. That’s it. Can you imagine if every person who professed a belief in Christ would make that their mission?" Check out today's episode in the link below.
"Salvation is the most incredible gift, free to all who would accept it. It feels like we couldn’t possibly need more than that, but God is generous. Far more generous than we could ever think and He not only wants us to have salvation at the end of our lives, but here NOW, He wants us to experience all that He has to offer." Click below to listen!
"I remember standing there at the foot of the stairs and feeling like my world was literally falling apart. I’d been caught red-handed coming in well after curfew on Halloween (of all nights!) and knew the consequences would be heavy. I barely slept a wink as I contemplated what the next half of my life would look like. Surely, my days were numbered." Today's episode is live. Click below to listen.
"From the beginning of time, this same cycle has replayed over and over. God loves His people. So much so that He gives them instructions for how to live in relationship with Him. He knows that His ways will always point to more life and living outside of that is a path of destruction. When His people screw up, He makes good on His promise for consequence. But then! He makes a way for restoration." Tune in now for today's episode.
"There were some tremendously dark days during that season of torment. I really began to feel like I would never get better. There were so many days when I closed my eyes begging that I wouldn’t wake on this side of Earth for the pain and burden on my family. I stopped praying for healing. I stopped holding my breath that tomorrow would be any different. That the next doctor would know anything more than the last. I’ll tell you what I did do though. I prayed for more faith." Tune in now!
"Think back over your life and the number of times someone has sinned against you or something horrible happened to you and you thought “Where was God in that?” He was there, but again, He honors the free will He gave us. Perhaps He tried to speak to that person and they ignored Him. Perhaps He tried to get you to listen and you chose to ignore? Sometimes the consequences of our actions or the actions of others are disastrous and hurtful. How often do we attack God when the blame belongs on the sin of the people? God gave us free will. God also gave us common sense and commands that we should not test Him. And yet, we test Him everyday." Listen now to today's episode.
"You know, you don’t have to listen to God. No, really. You don’t have to. But I can tell you, it’s always better if you do. God will never lead you into a place that isn’t meant to deepen your trust and reliance on Him. He will never lead you away from something when He doesn’t have something else that’s meant to glorify Him in a greater way. He will never block the path that is ultimately leading to your sanctification through Him." Today's episode is live! Tune in today.
"Loss is one of the hardest concepts to reconcile as a Believer because it feels like once we came into belief, what happened to all that stuff we were supposed to get? What happened to all of those desires of our heart that God promises? As we mature in faith, we hopefully recognize that was a mix of cultural Christianity and prosperity gospel and not necessarily The Gospel. At least our distortion of it anyway. So where do we land?" Today's episode is now live! Tune in by clicking the link below.
"I’ve spent the better half of the last year attempting to reconcile the trauma my body has been through with the healing that’s finally found me and how different that same body looks. It’s amazing that I even have to remind myself that the miracle of what I’m living should trump any associated negative feelings about my body feeling and looking heavier, lumpier, different. I know better, and yet, it’s almost a daily battle to fight against the temporal and what I’ve been conditioned to feel shameful about. So it seems that even old habits die hard." Tune in now for today's episode!
"We want signs and wonders, which I fully believe God is still in the business of doing, but on the average day, I think His movement and His answers to our prayers are much simpler than that. It’s a million little practical things in our everyday that move in just such a way that the outcome happens in His perfect timing and way." Tune in to today's episode by clicking the link below.
"But then one day, things lighten and you realize your heart simply doesn’t ache as much. Or, you’ll find yourself sleeping better and you’re just not so worried about that thing that used to keep you up at night." We're officially half-way in our journey of 365 devotions! Join me with this timely reminder. Access today's episode by clicking the link below.
"There is rarely a day that goes by a worry doesn’t pop into my mind out of the blue. As a Mom of three children I often catch myself ruminating on their future. Am I doing enough as their Mom? Will this come up in therapy one day? Then there’s work. Bills. An election season. Who do I vote for and do I know enough about enough of the platforms to make an educated decision? Do we choose to live life now delaying long-term security for the memories we’d make with a short-term thrill? Are we saving enough? Was my tone weird to that person? On and on and on." Do you ever worry? Join in for today's episode and perhaps this might help!
"When did you lose your wonder? When did you lose hope? When did you begin to believe the lies instead of truth? There was a time when you looked through the lens of possibility and proclaimed you were here and nothing could stop you. Now, those are only memories." Today's episode is live! Click below to listen.
"This is the simplest of things because doubt is real and the enemy is always working, but Christianity boils down to one thing. Do you believe it?" Join me in today's episode now.
"The last year and a half had been a game of holding hope just at the right distance from myself. Believing He worked miracles, but anxious to link them to me. That stuff felt true for other people, but for me? I wasn’t so sure. Daring to hope and believe God would move the mountains in my life felt like I might turn to dust if He didn’t answer." Today's episode is live!
"What’s more, have you been led to believe that in order to be a Believer you have to do x, y, and z to please God? God wants our obedience to His Word. He wants our trust. He wants our whole heart. If actions x, y, and z don’t line up with those, I’m happy to release you and remind you that Pharisees have been doing that since the Old Testament. When Jesus walked, He sure didn’t seem to want much to do with them." Listen to today's episode by clicking below!
"There’s a place for conversation that can produce repentance and reconciliation, but if our only motive is vengeance to make others suffer at our hands, we should take heed. If we are God’s people, we have to come to terms with our own God complex. God’s justice will always be far more fair and just than anything we could do." Today's episode is live! Click below to listen.
"Fear has a way of creeping in when we have a lot riding on an outcome. Fear gives way to doubt and worry. It can cause us to make decisions that reflect how alone we feel. It creates a sense of independence in that if we don’t do it, no one else will. I can look back on my life and see so many times I’ve taken a different path because of fear. Feeling alone when I wasn’t. Forgetting everything that the Lord had done to make a way." No matter what you're facing, I hope these words can provide comfort. Listen in now!
"We don’t carry out any number of things because we think we couldn’t possibly carry out the Lord’s work with the rap sheet of sin under our name or the deficiencies of our personality and abilities. We think the work of the Lord is surely designated for a select group of people, but that’s simply not true." Listen to today's episode by clicking the link below.
"At this point, we just seem to be walking in a big circle, wandering in the desert. Every day a reflection of the day before. When you live with anything chronic, it’s really quite remarkable what you can learn to cope with. It’s incredible that anyone can actually live their life with what feels like debilitating symptoms. But you do. You have to. You can’t just give up. You have to find a way to keep living." Today's episode is live! I hope you'll join in and listen.
"And maybe that’s what we all need to hear. You aren’t entitled to a quicker result than anyone else. You’ve got to walk the road and you’ll get there when you’re supposed to get there." Tune in to today's episode now.
"Culture tells us that extreme and excessive lifestyle is okay. It’s all “you do you” and “you only live once”. The mantra prevails that life is really short, so we need to soak up every ounce of what this life has to offer. And I don’t think it’s necessarily all that bad when it’s put in check, but left to bloom without boundaries it’s a recipe for disaster." Please click below to listen to today's episode.
"All of a sudden though, I found myself staring at weekend after weekend of torrential rain. So many sessions were cancelled. Time after time after time. In my frustration I prayed questions to the Lord and pretty quickly He reminded me that I’d asked for rest and margin. He sent the rain." Click below for today's episode.
"What’s more, even if God did give us specifics, don’t you know we’d still question Him every step of the way. Where’s your heart today? Do you need to remember that God actually is as faithful as He claims? Do you need to remember that He is sovereign? That He is Holy? That He is just? That He has already forgiven you? That you are His, bought with an incredible price that we could never repay?" Join me in today's episode by clicking the link below.
"Yes, it’s true that only God can judge and the Lord knows our hearts, but if we go on living in intentional sin, we’ve missed an incredible opportunity for basic discipleship. What’s more, if we’ve truly been transformed by the Holy Spirit, shouldn’t something happen so it’s evident to the outside world?" Today's episode is ready! Click below to listen.
"Perhaps all of your flaws are everything to boast in because it shows that it is impossible if the success of it hinges on us. No, it’s our weakness God delights in because it will serve as an example to all that He did it. Not us." Click below to listen!
"Have you ever found yourself in an awkward, even bad situation and felt angry because you didn’t deserve to be there? Perhaps you’ve even taken that anger to God and lashed out because you don’t understand how any good could come from it. We get stuck in a cycle of frustration because we don’t understand why God would allow this." Today's episode is live! Click below to listen.
"What has always struck me as so incredible is the passion people who have encountered God speak with. Truly, there is no denying the power that overcomes every doubt when you have seen Him and there simply is no academic replacement or anything that can explain away the transformation that occurs deep in a person’s guts when they’ve been affected by the Holy Spirit." Click below to listen!
"The dove had a purpose in it all though. His release, never to return, was the key that Noah needed to know that they could safely disembark and start the next chapter of their lives. Not only that, but to start the next chapter of God’s plan for the entire world." Listen to today's episode by clicking the link below.
"And how do we have an assurance of these things? How do we trust in this promise? We grow in our knowledge of Him. We answer the call of the Holy Spirit and take one step in obedience which He then multiplies ten-fold, if not more." Today's episode is live now. Click below to access.
"We also see that even the things that were so hard and awful ended up being the very things that made us more compassionate, generous, flexible, and honest. Like an olive in an olive press, it’s the pressing and destruction of the olive in its original shape that provides the gift of olive oil. Isn’t it interesting that olive oil is one of the healthiest oils for your heart? You can buy synthetic olive oil, but they’re a cheap and damaging substitute for the real thing." Listen by clicking the link below.
"This is sweet. It requires making a choice. Do you or don’t you believe. But life gets so complicated, doesn’t it? We find ourselves in really hard situations where we’re called to endure suffering for what can feel like and sometimes is a really long time. We all agree that what we need in those situations is more faith to persevere. But how?" Listen to today's episode by clicking the link below.
"Hope. Even just saying the word begins to fracture through the darkness to let a little light in. “An anchor for the soul” I imagine the biggest of ships setting that anchor down to the depth of the ocean floor and that ship will not be moved. “Firm and secure.” Now that is a good word!" Today's episode is available through the link below.
"Except sometimes I lie to myself while grocery shopping. “These are for the kids.” I’ll tell myself and really convince myself that I won’t have a battle every time I get the craving for something junky and sweet. As it turns out, double stuffed Oreos will actually call out my name. Needy and mouthy little cookies, they are! It’s not that junk food is bad. It’s just my relationship with junk food is problematic. I seem to lack the thing that allows one to be satisfied with just a taste or bite." Click below to listen!
"As a parent, to hear all the whining and complaining sure does make me feel like everything I’ve ever done to get us to this vacation must be for naught because my kids are bent on only seeing their discomfort and displeasure for being in a place, temporarily, that they don’t want to be. We really have no idea how deeply God loves us. Nor do we consider the temporary suffering meant to prepare us for the place He is taking us." Click below to access today's episode.
"I was walking backwards. Completely out of control with my body. It was as if an invisible force clung to my feet and with each step this force pulled my feet backwards. I don’t understand it and every time something like this happens, I am flooded with uncertainty and anxiety for the future. How much longer will I have my independence? How much longer until my mind isn’t working? Is my speech next? How much longer?" Click below to listen!
"It’s a sobering moment when we realize that what we held so true we were willing to shout it into the face of another person or type an angry response to someone with an opposite opinion that we may actually be wrong. We may actually be wrong. You may actually be wrong. It’s hard to scream and yell when you come to terms with this. Every argument can then turn into an actual conversation instead of an angry yelling match set out to prove you’re right and everyone else is wrong." I hope you'll join me for today's episode!
"I think one of the most damaging things the enemy can speak to a Believer is “who do you think you are?” Those words hit me as a silent missile when I’m talking to someone and recounting the beautiful things I’ve seen God do in my life as an encouragement to them. I can feel my joy and confidence dismantling as the enemy’s accusation unfolds." Click below to listen to today's episode.
"Where is God? I imagine lots of people can relate to that feeling embodied in a question mark. Pain. Uncertainty. Trauma. Heartbreak. Where is He? If He was so sovereign, wouldn’t He just...? But that’s not how God works. We have a choice in the midst of the waiting to believe what we choose. This is the guts of faith. Do we believe?" Click below to listen!
"What grew instead was a pleasant surprise…an ombre face of red, orange, and yellow! As I glance out my window at the tall stalks and multi-colored faces, I can’t help but think of the incredible metaphor of our own growth and well-being when we turn ourselves to continuously point towards Christ, or in stark contrast, our well being when we don’t live like that." Tune in to today's episode now!
"Consider that just as no one can really know your thoughts or your motivations, even more so we cannot know God’s thoughts. We have the Bible to understand qualities and characteristics of God, but we can never fully know the Lord’s mind." Click below to access today's episode.
"My Mother in Law was dying. Cancer was having it’s way with her, but as we sat and talked, there was this peace like a flood that overwhelmed us both. Faith does this." Tune in to today's episode if you need a reminder of what the tough stuff is there for.
"He pushes us to sit in our fear so that we miss the gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit only to say yes or no to the things that are for our good and for His glory. How often do we ignore the beautiful promises the Lord has given to us because the tried and true tactics of the enemy steal our attention?" Click below to listen!
"Before I knew it though, not only was I learning the actual skills of the Art, but something else was taking root with each class I took and test I passed. I grew frustrated with the time it was taking to learn. I grew insecurity when compared to others. I grew more concerned with everything I hadn’t learned. My focus shifted from being motivated by my original intent and I grew restless. It was enough to make me want to walk away. Thankfully, I was reminded of the reasons I began that journey and with endurance, I earned my 1st Degree Black Belt." Listen to today's episode now.
"I’d be willing to bet that we can all recall something that was said to us that still hasn’t fully healed. As we lick our own wounds and consider the hurt done to us, we overlook that we’ve done the exact same to someone else. Sadly, there is likely another that feels the very same about us and the hurt we caused them." Today's episode is live!
"My Pastor once preached a series on the one question that could change everything about our lives as Believers. It’s a simple question, but carries a heavy load of action if you let it lead your every motive.
What does love require of me?" Listen now!
"I often wonder about the many miracles that happened all around me that I was never aware of. How many times was the prayer I prayed the one that would only benefit me and not His Kingdom? How many times has my no meant a yes for someone else? How many times has my no positioned me and everyone else aware of it for a front row seat for the miraculous?" Click below to access today's episode.
"Perhaps that’s where you are today. Your hope is fizzling. You’ve got this deep down, pit of the stomach confidence that something is coming and yet, time tells you maybe you were wrong. But consider this: The Lord has a plan and a time and a purpose and He is faithful to complete His plan in His perfect time. Not ours." Today's episode is ready. Please click below to listen.
"For a moment, I almost forgot the abundance of hope and truth that lives on the sacred pages of this precious treasure in my Bible. Truth that reminds me that every single bit of the hardship and suffering in life is on borrowed time." If you feel like an inconvenience or simply forgotten, I pray today's episode ministers to your heart. Click below to listen.
“As I walked I could barely hold back the tears. I couldn’t decide which was worse, being honest when people asked me how I was doing or lying through my teeth. It wasn’t that I had a hard time telling the truth, it was just exhausting to prepare for the held breath as the person on the other end of the phone struggled to find the words. You could hear the panic in their silence as they wrestled with how to respond." Click to listen to today's episode.
"Books on books and quotes on quotes will motivate you to be all you can be and do more and be better and boss it out in your life. I think it’s great to have motivations in place that keep us going and help us push past self-imposed limitations. Tough times don’t last. Tough people do, right? But the question I want us all to consider is have we elevated ourselves and our indomitable will above God’s?" Click below to access today's episode.
"This one though? There’d been no conversation because I completely forgot. When I asked my youngest about it, he grew sad and my heart sank. He felt forgotten. I scooped him up and made many apologies, but the damage had been done and I said one of those parent prayers that God’s love and time would heal what hurt." Have you ever felt forgotten? Click below to listen to today's episode.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about a word that many recoil from: criticism! If you have a hard time with criticism, this episode might just give you some food for thought. Listen in by clicking the link below.
Have you ever bargained with God because you were about to face the consequences of something you’d done? You know reality is about to bite back hard and you run to prayer promising God that if He’ll just make this one thing work out or go away, you’ll never do that thing again. Ever. Listen to today’s episode now.
“There’s a dirty little lie that refuses to die and has snuck its way into even the most well-intentioned Christian heart. Perhaps you’ve heard it. “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” In today’s episode, I’m talking about why this is a lie and what we’re meant to do with our struggle instead. Listen in by clicking the image below.
“We build borders where Christ meant to rip the walls down.” Listen to today’s episode by clicking on the link below.
I am of the opinion that the world will forever be changed by this. We, as a people, are changed from this. Most certainly, our children will be changed by this. Listen to today’s episode by clicking on the link below.
“In times like now, it is easy to get bogged down in the consuming feelings that we are not in control. If you come to a full stop on that notion, this total lack of control, you’ll be surely overwhelmed and taken under.” Listen in now to today’s episode.
“Do you know you are thought of? Do you know just how often you are thought of? In the loneliest and darkest of times when you are at your worst, you are always in His thoughts.” Tune in now for today’s episode.
“Before the suffering, my faith was very shallow. Concepts like trusting God and resting in His Word, retreating to Him in desperate prayers, surrendering my will to His, always seemed like such great ideas, but to put them into practice…how does one do that?” Listen in to today’s episode now.
“We ended the call and I remembered that we, as Believers, are not helpless. It’s true that we can’t fix this situation, but we can sure play a part in shining a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.” Today’s episode is live and at the start of a new year, I think it’s a perfect reminder. Click below to listen.
Even now, I believe a great exodus is happening in our lives. How many times has He removed toxic people and environments from our life only for us to return to them? How many times?” Listen in to today’s episode.
“Did He really promise you the thing you are heartbroken over? Or, did you unfairly assign Him a promise out of alignment with His intentions as our Father?” Listen in to today’s episode.
“Thinking back to that time in my youth, I can look upon years that I felt the same as a child toward my parents. As a parent, I can look back and see how I invited the consequences that took place, and more than that, the times my parents did extend grace when I likely deserved discipline.” Today’s episode is live! Click below to listen.
“It’s now been more than two decades later and I see that those desperate prayers have all come true. Though not at all the way I would have thought.” Click below to listen to today’s episode.
“Stopped at a red light, his words rolled through my head. “There’s nothing more I can do for you.” Every time they travel through my brain, it’s like the rug keeps getting jerked from under me. Time brings perspective and God is so kind to meet me in the depth of my sadness and sit with me, not coaxing me out until ready.” In today’s episode, I’m talking about some of my medical journey and a particularly disappointing clinical experience during my pursuit of diagnosis. For people who have no symptoms, normal test results are a gift. For those that have all the symptoms, normal test results are quite the opposite. If you feel like God has left you, this is a must listen. Click below to listen.
One day I could walk. The next I couldn’t. I mean, I could, but it was clumsy, awkward, uncontrolled, and slow. If I was seated, one might never know anything was wrong with me. Upon standing though, it was clear something wasn’t right. Although it brought on a lot of assumptions about me, I was always happy to bear the brunt and suffer the pain to stand and sing of the Lord’s goodness. In my heart, I always hoped you would see me standing firm in my faith through all the hard stuff and perhaps hope would be born and you could find your faith once again. Click below to listen to today’s episode.
Merry Christmas! In today's episode, I'm talking about what making bread taught me about my own seasons of waiting. If you're in a season like that or know someone who is, I think today's message is perfectly on time. Click on the image below to listen.
I love birthdays, but not for the reasons you might think. It's not the gifts or the cake, but the intentional show of love to someone that tells them we're happy they're alive. On one of my birthdays, my condition had caused me to need a wheelchair and as my youngest son climbed easily into lap, wrapping his arms around me, something dawned on me. Were it not for my condition, I wouldn't have been in proximity to him so he could easily climb and sit. In our lives, we always have a choice in what we see in situations. Listen in to today's episode as I hopefully guide you into a different way to see your life.
Have you ever just wanted to punch a hole into the Earth and scream down into it? No? Just me? Alrighty then. I don't know much, but I'd be willing to bet that we've all been in a place where it felt like all the cards were stacked against us. Sometimes life just feels really unfair. But what if we have it all wrong? Listen in to today's episode.
What started as an exercise in discipline evolved into a practice of worship. For so many years I called myself a Christian. I would have told you that I was a follower of Christ, that I loved God and Jesus, and I think I really thought I did. Yet it is interesting to me that I didn’t even so much as apply myself to the true study of God’s word to learn more about who He is. My faith was built on what I’d been told about Him. In today's episode, I talk through what it means to truly love someone and what actions occur as a result. Click the image to listen!
Have you ever been so sure of someone or something and the good they/it could do that you were willing to stand on the rooftops and scream their/its name. Stand on the street holding a sign and have a willingness to tell others and hype them up so they believe in whomever or whatever you support. We do this with all sorts of things that have positively impacted our lives. But do we take the same time and apply the same enthusiasm in our relationship with God? Tune in to today's episode!
Have you ever had someone make unfair and false assumptions about the motivation behind your decisions? What about your own unfair and false assumptions about the motivation behind someone else's decisions? We've all done it and I believe we do this quite often in our relationship with God. But how can any of really know why God does any of the things He does? In today's episode, this is exactly what I'm talking about through the lens of Job. Click below to listen.
When I first began my pursuit for a diagnosis, I kept running into doctor's offices with this incredible bubble of hope that surely this visit would be the one that cracked the code to why I'd gotten so sick. But, one closed door after another soon revealed to me one of the greatest gifts that chronic illness could provide. Tune in to today's episode as I reveal the gift that closed doors gave me.
Can we honestly look at our lives and answer that the work of the Lord is the most important thing in our lives? How easy would it be for others to know you are a servant of the King from an outside looking in glance at your social media feed, your interactions with others, the conversations you speak in a whisper, the way you spend those idle hours of the day, the way you respond when no one of note is watching? Could they tell?
For the one who places their trust in the Lord and depends on Him for everything, the resolution to their struggles will always be victory. There is no defeat for those that put all their eggs in one basket of God being Lord of their life. There will be ups and downs and battles that feel completely lost, but God will always be with the one who retreats to Him.
Romans 3:23 is pretty straight and to the point. Lest you think you’re an okay person because you haven’t committed an atrocity like murder, let me remind us that every single ounce of sin makes us fall short and unworthy. What should God give us? I’ll let you decide what that answer should be. But, praise God, what He should give us and what He has given us are two different things and separated as far as the East is to the West.
"But the life focused on Him is one rife with peace and joy through unimaginable suffering. It is one with eyes set on the prize. The seemingly zealous Christian that won’t stop talking about Jesus is doing so for your benefit; with the hope that the people they love might know what a life full to the brim is like. The real question is that if you are a Believer, why aren’t you talking about Him more?"
These days, you can't go far without seeing the advice and guidance from self-help gurus. There’s certainly no lack of experts to help a person become all that they can be. But when it comes down to it, who should we listen to more than anyone else and are we only simply deluding ourselves into believing that life will ever be without struggle?
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, everything falls apart and when we arrive there, it can feel a lot like "what’s the point?"
The bigger question though...what if all of it is meant to develop a deeper trust and reliance of Him? What if every valley we crawled through was meant to cultivate a character that separates us as a people set apart?
Man has a tendency to get confused. Culture is partially to blame, but it’s our own insecurities that fill in the rest. We get confused as spouses, parents, children, siblings, friends, employees, and community servants. We continue to place ourselves in spaces we were never meant to be. If you aren’t you who is achieving or doing the thing you feel is important to your identity, who are you then?
Often, when we pray for something, we make up our minds as we pray what the answer should be. We must be careful to understand that God’s plan and man’s plan are not the same. We lack comprehension for what it truly means for God’s will to be done. We speak it and say it, but do we truly believe it?
In this episode, I talk about one of my favorite Bible verses because it tickles me every time I read it. Once getting over those giggles, I ask some questions that might point us in a different direction...one that perhaps leads us a little closer to Jesus.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I can certainly tell you from my own life that I didn’t begin to see the tangible effects of the Holy Spirit in my life until I was confronted with that big scary Jordan River moment. You will never fully know God’s word is true unless you allow Him to show you it is. You’ll only ever be standing on the edge wondering if you should put your toe in the Jordan River, and never actually stepping in to see God stop the water.
Our time is not God's time and when we try to place ourselves over and above God, we'll always get frustrated things aren't moving as fast as we think they should. Listen as I give you some homework on how to fix this part if you're feeling impatient and overwhelmed.
What is fair? What is right? What is just? How we answer those questions can be telling of where our heart is. When the Lord is in charge, we have little to fear. Listen in as I remind you that the security of your salvation rests in what He alone has done.
Family relationships can be very complicated. There are many who don't have a great or any relationship with their earthly Father and that can sometimes create a false projection of who God is. Listen in to this encouragement about who God is and why we should never feel shy about coming home again.
We are constantly confronted with becoming better versions of ourselves, evolving, and setting and crushing goals. But where on our list does transforming into the people we were called to be as Believers? Listen in as I discuss.
"David was a man. He was flesh and bone and even though he tried his very best, we later read in Scripture how David messes up pretty badly. It was not a flawless life that made him a man after God’s own heart. Rather, it was his knee-jerk reaction to go to the Lord first in every situation. It was a clear understanding that the qualities he needed to not just thrive, but simply survive, could only come from the Lord."
"This is love though. It’s redirecting someone and taking the hits because the outcome is greater than the suffered blow to the ego that will cause the wounded to speak from hurt..."
My relationship with food and my body had always somehow struck me as something I couldn't ask God for help with. However, something happened when I decided to take this part of me to God that I'd always kept to myself. Something seemed to soften the edges of what I'd always felt was so black and white. Tune in as I share the epiphanies that came to be over some peanut butter one morning.
In one sentence, Saul summarizes the crushing reality that far too many of us know all too well. “...Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them.” (1 Samuel 15:24) If only we lived our lives in a way that boldly proclaimed we fear no one or thing more than the Lord. Or what’s more, we love no one or thing more than the Lord. Does our life, our actions, our words, line up with what we've been called to do? Listen in now!
There’s this attitude Christians carry that we like some of the Bible, but not all of it. We like that God saves. We like that He’ll never leave us or forsake us, that He’ll fight our battles and He loves us the very most. We are so focused on what we get out of the relationship that we forget that’s not what this is about. We are all about the good parts, but we take a hard pass on the bits that convict us and make us uncomfortable because they fly in the face of what culture says is appropriate and acceptable. What happens when we decide to lean in to embrace it all? Tune in to find out.
Rejection stings, doesn't it? Sometimes, we mistakenly project how our fellow man feels about us onto God. God hasn't rejected you and maybe today's reminder is right on time for how you're feeling. Tune in!
Today's episode brings such an encouraging reminder of where we stand with God. Declared. Saved. Proclaimed. Listen in to be reminded of how God feels about you.
We're all a bunch of control freaks, but how we can convince ourselves that God needs our input or control is a fascinating thing. Tune in if you need this reminder today.
Isn't it interesting how we've been promised that we will go through troubles in this life and yet, when those troubles arise, it's almost like we're offended and caught off-guard that anything bad would ever happen to us. Listen in to today's episode as we discuss the furnace of affliction and how that can give us hope in times of trial.
Many of us view success through the lens of what we're able to obtain or achieve. What happens when we choose to look at success through a different lens? Listen today!
When I submitted myself to truly understanding what the words in the Bible meant, everything changed. I'd been a Christian for a long time before this, but this one act fundamentally changed everything about how I moved through the world. John 13:35 is a fairly short verse, but it's one that we should all spend time reflecting upon. How might we change our behavior with that one co-worker that challenges us? What would happen with our responses via text and on social media? Tune in!
Today, we're celebrating 100 episodes! Thank you so much for joining me on this ever evolving project and today's episode is digging into one of the more complex and painful aspects of our faith. BUT, I pray that this perspective will help you put your heart into right posture.
We need to be in tune with daily conviction and repentance for the things we do that are directly out of line with God. Tune in to today's episode as we dive into some questions we should all be asking ourselves about the faith activities we participate in and the motivation behind them.
I believe the second half of our life begins when we release the need to sit in the judgement seat for everyone else's behavior. Listen in to today's episode to find out why.
If we knew someone had a lengthy reputation of lying and destroying every good thing put into practice, do you think we should trust them now? Surely not, lest we want history to repeat itself. In today's episode, I'm making some comparisons and I'm hopeful this might just be the thing that helps you defeat the enemy's grip on your life.
Satan is pretty clever. He knows exactly how to get to us to create enough of a foothold to confuse us, divide us, and try his worst to separate us from God. We have to be vigilant and never let our guard down for his tactics. Listen in as I explore one of the easiest ways he does this work.
If we were to poll the average adult, most of us would probably categorize ourselves as pretty accepting and open-minded. If we're Believers, we might even say we strive to always love others. But does that truly apply to the "least of these"? How about the people who look, think, and act differently than us? What about those whose political affiliations are in stark contrast with our own? In this convicting episode, I'm going for it as I encourage us to get back to the simplicity of what we were called to do and be.
There's a lie that culture tells us about marriage. It's all about how "in love" we are with a person and how they make us feel. What happens when we enter into the everyday routine though? When the honeymoon ends and we find ourselves face to face with a person just as sinful and broken as we are? Listen in as I start to unravel this lie and a better way to approach relationship.
In today's episode, I begin a thought experiment on what would change if Believer's truly comprehended what it means to live as a co-heir with Christ. What would change if we truly understood what that means to have a royal inheritance? Listen in as I challenge you to move beyond petty slights and offenses to step into what has been promised and sealed through the blood of Jesus.
As someone who spent the majority of my youth trying their hardest to fit into a mold that I was never meant to fit into, I wish someone had lovingly taken me to the side to drill this into my head. God created us all very uniquely, with a specific purpose in mind for us. If we spend our whole lives trying to manipulate ourselves to look and act in a way we were never intended to, we've sadly missed the beauty that comes from the calling God has for us. Tune in for some encouragement if you're feeling a bit like you can't quite fit and you don't know how to hurry the process along.
If you really want to get me on a roll, get me started about health & wellness. More specifically, diet culture. We are a people set free and yet, many of us have put ourselves back in chains. Diet and body shame is not just a health issue, it's a heart issue. Listen in to this very important episode that just might change your life.
In order for God to create the universe, He had to be there before it's creation. Kind of hard to wrap your head around that one, isn't it? Although the creation of everything was a long, long time ago, this can and should give us tremendous comfort and reassurance that our surrender to Him is in very safe hands. Listen in as we discuss.
The grocery store was undergoing a major renovation, which meant the aisles were all out of order and nothing was where I was used to it being. Then, the gym changed early morning staffing, which meant it opened later. And then....we could probably go on and on with a list full of inconveniences to complain about. Sometimes we don't need to voice the complaint. Rather, we need a reframe. Tune in as we explore!
One of the most life-giving and faith building exercises I ever participated in was reading the Bible from cover to cover in chronological order. More than half of the Bible is comprised of the Old Testament. Why is that and why should everyone take this practice on? Tune in to find out.
Hebrews 10:26-39 delivers a stern warning about deliberate sin for those who have heard and accepted the truth of the Gospel. What are we to make of this and what are we being called to? Tune in to listen!
"You will seek me and find m e when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13
Many of us have heard this verse, but do we really get what it means? If we look at our lives, do we see the evidence of God's hand on us through the way we live and interact with others? Do we see the fruit of our salvation and proof that we are continually being sanctified? Tune in to today's' episode as we explore this topic.
If you want to turn everyone off, talk about sin. It's definitely a topic that can make even the most devout and faithful servants to God squirm in their seats. But do we really get it? Do we really understand why sin is so bad? Listen in as I discuss.
In today's episode, we find our friend Jeremiah confined in chains when the Lord speaks to Him. I have never been bound in chains, but I can't imagine it's comfortable. I can only compare it to my figurative chains in life and how uncomfortable that has been. I'm certain we've all had times of struggle where we just felt stuck with no easy way out of it. Listen in as we explore the blessing that can come from this.
Today, what are your prayers about? How do they elevate His Kingdom? How do they further His Kingdom? Are they furthering your relationship with Him? Your hunger for Him? Your thirst? Your reliance on and intimacy with Him? Have you praised Him? Tune in as I talk through one way we get it wrong about God.
Over and over and over again, the Lord has a way of showing me how I continue to put my trust in things I can see. If I'm honest, those things give me security and so I hoard all of my resources like time, money, and knowledge. I believe we all have a way of doing this, but as always, God commands us to live differently. Tune in as we explore what God urges us to do instead.
There are parts of the Bible that I think I could read over and over and still come no closer to understanding what the words actually mean or reveal about God. I feel so lost sometimes, but wouldn't you know God always provides rescue. Tune in to explore what just one part of the Old Testament revealed to me about God's character.
The phrase “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future” is not just a profound and figurative statement. The people we associate with and activities we pursue are laying the groundwork for our future selves. Listen in as we explore how this relates to how God sees us.
One day I was holding my baby boy, the one who looked to me for everything up until then, and he reached for Daddy like I was chopped liver. My heart broke. Nothing quite feels like the day we realize we’re second, especially when we’ve given nothing but our best. Reading through Ezekiel, I had to look at multiple translations to ensure I was reading it correctly. Could God be crushed by His people choosing everything but Him? Listen in as we explore the complexity of God's love for us.
When we think through the commands that God issues for His people, it's easy to think that Christianity is just a bunch of rules. When we learn more about God's character, I hope we can begin to see those rules are lovingly issued to give us life, keep us healthy, and bring us closer to our Father. What about Sabbath though? Why should we Sabbath and how on Earth do we do this? Tune in to find out!
There are so many things that God has called me to do that are so contrary to the type of person I am and have been. The things I often feel Him ask me to do are hardly ever things that come naturally to me. How did I become this person? The person who washes the feet of my dying Mother-in-Law or is able to feel an incredible peace when I wake up and find I can no longer walk without the assistance of a cane. It can only point to the power of Him who lives within me. Listen in as I talk through this process.
One of the hardest parts of Christianity is recognizing that Jesus died for all of us, even the ones who hurt us as deeply as they did. In spite of the sins we have and will commit, He chose crucifixion for us and at some point, we must confront ourselves with a question. Is the hurt we're holding onto greater than the sacrifice of Jesus to free us from it? Tune in as we talk through this and more.
Like an old suitcase stored on the top shelf of my closet, there were some things tucked away in my heart that needed my attention. On this episode, we begin to explore what forgiveness is actually meant to do.
Have you ever felt misunderstood? Been blamed for things you weren't responsible for doing? What if all the things we've blamed God for are actually just some big misunderstanding? Tune in to listen as we unwrap this gift.
There are things in our lives that just aren't good for us. We know it deep in our guts and yet, something compels us to hold onto those things, keeping them far longer than we should ever have kept them. In today's episode, I'm talking about this stuff and why it's so important we get it out. Tune in to listen!
The older I get, the more value I see in simply not always saying the thing I want to say. Sometimes, silence says more than any word could. It's also been in my silence that I've grown closer to God in learning more about Him. In the listening, what can we hear Him say?
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to walk away or to keep silent when we feel like we're being attacked. But do we always need to speak up and speak out to correct unfair assumptions? In today's episode, I get a little vulnerable about my own experience with this and why we can rest in God's truth over shouting about our own.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped praying for my healing. I stopped feeling frustrated at the lack of answers and movement. I started to pray more for my friends and loved ones to see God's incredible love for us instead. I still pray this to this day.
When someone is suffering, it can be scary to rush in out of fear we might unintentionally say the wrong thing and further injure the person who is suffering. How can we best love others during their trials? Tune in to learn one of the most effective ways to support those we love when they are hurting.
What do we make of difficult seasons when our support systems seem to dwindle? Perhaps there's a bigger reason the Lord has pared our community down? How can the lack point us to God?
Look through the news any day of the week and you're likely to see a collection of tragedies the world around that can leave us asking "where is God in this?" Tune in to this episode to explore this topic and some better questions to ask instead.
"It's not that we want what's right, it's that we want to be right."
Sometimes when another person hurts us, we have a compelling need to jump in and inflict judgment and justice. What we often forget is that God sees all of our actions and the ones done to us. In the end, our own feelings will always cloud of ability to do what is the most fair and just thing. In today's episode, how can we view conflict as a call to trust the Lord even in our deepest hurts?
In today’s episode, listen as I most likely butcher the names in today’s verse. Once again, I’m a regular girl doing some work I feel the Lord has called me to do.
I was talking with a friend recently who was struggling in their marriage. Things had turned pretty regular. It felt like there wasn’t any excitement anymore and life seemed to be filled with all these routine things. It began to mess with their head because the lie they’d believed was that life would somehow be more magical after marriage and kids. Where is God in that? I believe we have lessons to learn from some of the hardest books of the Bible. The ones filled with lists of geography and numbers. What’s the lesson and where is God?
Sometimes things just don’t make any sense. Instead of getting bogged down in the litany of detail that we were never meant to understand, perhaps we have a different place more deserving of our focus.
When the tribes all got their inheritance, do you think the Levites felt like they were slighted? It’s easy to feel that way when we’re comparing, but what’s the one question that can set it all straight. Listen and let’s find out.
I have to wonder how the Israelites felt when God gave the instructions on how they’d take down the wall surrounding Jericho. I’m certain they must have had quite a few questions, but I’m so thankful they had a leader that empowered them to listen and obey more than to fall victim to unproductive questions. I think we see this in our own lives and in today’s episode, we’re talking all about that.
I’m today’s episode, I reveal why I can say with confidence that everything will be alright.
I’m today’s episode, I’m talking about all the sweet ways that God provides and how we can make sure to see them
God always answers prayers. Sometimes, the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. Sometimes it’s not yet.
In today’s episode I provide a little update on my health. I also talk about the disconnect we have between good/bad things in our lives and how that relates to God’s goodness.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about the attitude we can and should approach the work that comes from our blessings
In today’s episode, how does training to become a fast runner have anything to do with our training as Christ’s disciples?
“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalm 56:8
“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept the apologies you’ll never receive.” Robert Brault
When things look bleak and we have no idea what’s happening or why, we lean harder on God’s understanding.
In the awaiting and in front of a bigger mountain than the last one God moved, we have to press on.
I relate so much to Moses when the Lord spoke to him from the burning bush. How does God take a murderer...an insecure, stuttering man and use him to rescue a His people? How does He do this with any of us? I hope we all will remember that God has a knack for taking the most unlikely and using them for His glory. Who's to say He won't do that with you?
It can be difficult to remember what God has done in our lives when the obstacle in front of us seems too big. What’s more, we often forget that the hardest of our days can be used for incredible good. Get ready! God is working.
The Israelites saw the blessing of manna in front of them and felt like they deserved so much more. In what ways do we do the same?
In cultural Christianity, we’ve taken God and compartmentalized His character. He is so much more and defies simplicity.
When people look at our lives, do they see the distinction of people marked by God’s holiness and forgiveness?
In today’s episode, be warned that I do talk about some dark things, but it does have a very happy ending. What is the promise of God?
Those Israelites were so quick to forget the last instruction given to them by God. In what ways are we doing the exact same thing?
“If we’d just had more tune…” but you did. You’ve been given days upon days upon days. Don’t squander it.
If we want purpose…for our lives to mean something more…I can think of no better way than this.
Sometimes the last thing we want to remember is the awful places we’ve been. We want to shield our hearts from the hurt, but what if we instead shifted our thoughts to the miracle God gave soon after. We can’t fully embrace the wonder of the miracle without seeing the depth of the despair.
There is real darkness that threatens to overtake the light, but it’s not more powerful than God. Join me as I talk through one of the scariest moments of my CSF Leak journey.
In the scheme of fighting negative statistics and very real probabilities, don’t be afraid. Only believe.
This is the question I think I’ve gotten the most since publishing. I’m telling you all my secrets.
When we’re at the lowest we could possibly be, can we consider there might just be something God wants us to see?
If anyone were to take a look at your life, could they easily see Jesus all throughout?
I’m certain you’ll notice my name is off-center on the book cover and other notes about imperfection