Category: Christian

When I go to different garden centers, I realize that most of the plants I really love do not belong in my yard! My house has little to no shade, and it seems that every plant that I am drawn to requires a lot of shade. I have been tempted to buy these plants anyway just to see what would happen, but I quickly realize that I would just be throwing my money away on something that would never survive at my house! Instead, I have to search for what will work for our yard and that will bloom and flourish once it’s planted.

Just as plant placement is of utmost importance for the success of the plant, so is God’s placement for our lives. As we look around at the beauty of the lives of those around us and as we watch them flourish and grow where God has planted them, we can have several responses. We can be filled with discouragement because we don’t look as mature in our growth, we can become envious over where they are planted, or we can be filled with excitement and encouragement to see the beauty of God’s work being put on display around us.

God is the master gardener and we can trust that His placement for our lives and those around us is perfect! Bloom and grow confidently where God has you planted today, and do so knowing that it’s all for His glory to be put on display!

“I can never let anyone know that I am battling this. I just need to keep this to myself and just get through it.” That’s what I told myself when my battle with anxiety began. I was full of confusion and fear because never had I faced anything like this before. Secrecy seemed logical, because surely no Christian with a true faith in Jesus could ever battle something like this to such a great extent! This was the lie that I wholeheartedly believed.

This sudden plague of anxiety felt outside of the norm, especially when I was surrounded by other believers whose lives seemed normal, so to speak. I suffered in silence for a while, only disclosing my struggle to my husband- until I could bare it no longer.

God blessed me with sweet moments with dear friends and family members (you know who you are! 💖) who encouraged me with scripture, prayed with me, and encouraged me. I don’t like feeling needy and I like to be a “do it myself” type of person, but this I could not do on my own. Although the storm raged on, God’s hope continued to shine ever so brightly, in spite of anxiety’s constant brewing, as I began taking in and dwelling on His truth.

Keeping my struggle a secret was the worst thing that I could do. Because this struggle was so great , so was my need for help. Isolated, lonely, and discouraged is what this storm and struggle brought me when I tried walking it alone, and that is exactly what the enemy wanted!

My disclosure to others helped me to have a knowledge of what I was dealing with, and I learned that I was not alone. In fact, there are so many more people out there, brothers and sisters in Christ, that are suffering in silence.

Maybe you can relate…

Whatever your struggle is today, don’t suffer in silence. Don’t succumb to isolation and discouragement. God was so gracious in His formation of the church, in that we belong to a beautiful body of believers where we can encourage one another and build each other up! These loved ones in my life served as voices of truth that I so desperately needed to hear when finding my way was difficult to near impossible. Find someone that you know that will speak God’s truth to you, and watch God begin shining His hope into your life ever so brightly! He is faithful to do it!

There have been a few days this past week when my son has come to me needing a few extra hugs. The past several days have been pretty busy and they seemed to have really caught up with him. The look on his face showed a feeling of being overwhelmed and tired, and so he would come and sit next to me to get a hug and then just rest his head on my shoulder. He didn’t have much to say, and I don’t know that he really knew how to say how he felt. But sitting there quietly with me and getting a warm embrace was what he needed, and as parents, we still understand our children and their needs even when they are silent.

I too have found myself stopping before my Heavenly Father, sitting silent before Him not really knowing what to say. As I have knelt in silence, I know I can find that rest and warm embrace that I am in much need of, all the while knowing that my Father “just knows.”

It’s okay when you find yourself being at a loss for words, because God not only hears our prayers, He also sees our hearts. As a child of God, it’s a beautiful assurance that He too understands us in our silence! What a good, good Father!

May 2008 I reached an exciting milestone in life. I had finally graduated from college and I could start my career as a teacher. There were times during this pursuit that the finish line seemed to get farther away rather than closer, and when the day finally came that I actually crossed that finish line,I felt a great sense of relief and happiness! I had done it!!

The Saturdays spent behind closed doors working on paper after paper was finally over! The thought of never having to write another paper made me extremely happy and yet here I am, 12 years later, longing to be behind closed doors so that I can write. Only God can take something that you use to dread and turn it into a passion!

God has given us all some sort of “voice” to share the hope that He has to offer. Some can use their literal voice to speak or sing, while others use some other art form. In this season of life, mine seems to be writing.

I do not write and share because I have all the answers. I write and share to point to the answer! Jesus is that answer! In every season He is always the answer! That’s the purpose of Highlighting Hope- writing to make known the living hope that Jesus offers us everyday!

The hope that God gives is breathtakingly beautiful and it offers life. The hope that God gives completely captivates the heart and, once you learn of it, it becomes your heart’s overflow. Today, I pray that you find your heart overflowing with hope! 💖

Sometimes what we see as a set back is really God cutting back areas in our lives in order to make room for the new growth that He desires to see take place! As God works to remove and heal what’s damaged, trust Him as He works! He knows what He is doing, and it’s for your good, but ultimately for His glory!

My daughter developed a fascination with the moon around the age of two. Her fascination soon grew to a love and she eventually named the moon “Finder.” For years our family would look for the moon on a regular basis and watch it “shrink” or “grow”, as it cycled through its phases, and of course the full moon was always our favorite find. We have stopped at red lights or even stood out on our driveway countless times, looking with awe at “Finder’s” beautiful glow against the dark night sky. As beautiful as “Finder’s” glow may be, it is a light that is not his own. I can still remember the shock that I felt as a child when I finally learned that the moon produced no light of its own, but it merely reflected what was shining upon its’ surface, and only giving off more light the more its surface became fully exposed to the sun.

The moon’s light only being a reflection of the sun’s light is actually what makes it beautiful and breathtaking. In Philippians chapter 3 Paul writes about how those of us that are in Christ are to “shine like stars in the universe.” As God continues working in us for His good purpose and pleasure, He begins the process of refining our character, and as we walk in obedience we will shine like the stars. Not that we are the star, but rather we will shine like one!

Just as the moon possess no ability to produce this beautiful, radiant light on its own, neither do we! God has allowed us the privilege of coming into His presence and then He instantly begins to shine His light upon us so that we can reflect His glory and out pouring of love, grace, and mercy. When we position ourselves fully before God, reflecting His light will be the inevitable result. Remain in God’s presence and shine His light for the world to see!

“Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” Psalm 34:5

Training a child up in the way they should go is hard work, and honestly, it can be downright tiresome. By 8am this morning, I am already finding myself mentally worn out! I spent the majority of this morning, all before getting the kids to school, explaining to my son that correction is not the same as defeat, but instead it’s a necessary part of what God is doing to make us fruitful. As frustrated as I felt deep inside my heart after trying to explain this to him, for what seems to be the thousandth time, I wondered how many times has God felt the same way towards me? How many times has God corrected and pruned me, only for my attitude to result in feeling defeated? How many times has God said to me, “It is correction! Not defeat!”
As parents, our aim in teaching our children, especially in the hard places of their lives, is not with the intentions of raining down defeat on their heads, but rather with efforts to build them up and shape their hearts. When my attitude towards God’s correction in my life results in an attitude of defeat, I realize two things are happening in my heart. First, I have made God’s correction about me instead of having a heart that desires obedience towards Him. Secondly, when I am wallowing in defeat, I am totally missing the acts of God’s grace in my life. God doesn’t just save us; He begins making us new! Apart of being new means taking off what is old. Although taking off all of the old stuff is hard and taxing, it’s certainly not for the intention of putting us down. Instead, God is working to build us up and making us more like Him! While God’s correction may have feels hard at the time, I look back on my life and I am able to see all that He has saved me from. How many additional hardships and heartaches would I have experienced in my life if it were not for God’s gracious correction intervening in my life?

Some seasons of our lives require lots of correction and lots of pruning. Even though this process is uncomfortable, it is necessary and it is for our good! In the discomfort of our spiritual growth, we cannot miss seeing God’s grace in our lives! For His correction is a gift of grace that is being given, not defeat!
Hebrews 12:15, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

The message of hope, the need to be filled and immersed in hope, is not just for moments of hopelessness and hardship, but rather it’s a message that is needed for everyday living! Seek to build up a harvest of hope within your heart. Each day is a God given opportunity to do so! Let your storehouse be filled to the brim and even running over with the hope that God desires to supply to you, so that in every season you will find that you are filled and ready. Don’t wait for winter to come and scramble around to find what you need. Instead, seek to always be filled with God’s loving supply!

We discovered last week that our sweet puppy, Huck, had developed an ear infection. After his constant clawing at his ear, I finally took a look in his ear and was shocked to see how red it was on the inside. Apparently it’s not uncommon for a dog to get an ear infection, and our vet quickly set us on the right track to getting his ear well. It would require drops in that ear for a week and a good ear massage after each application to make sure the medicine settled well in his ear. After the first couple of days, his ear appeared to be the same. It was still just as red as when we took him in to be examined, but after continued use of the medicine, his ear is beginning to look back to normal. The trickiest part in treating Huck has been getting him to be still long enough to get the medicine in and rub the outside of his ear long enough before he tries to shake all the medicine out. As I have made attempts to pacify Huck and to keep him still long enough to treat his ear, I find myself being able to relate to his restlessness and resistance to being still.
Being still is hard for me and it’s been an ongoing lesson I have been in for quite some time. When I was a very young teen, I battled a lot of things people should never have deal with and endured hardships that left my heart wrenched and aching. I journaled a lot during this time of my life and the pages of my journal were often stained by tears that would fall continuously as I wrote. Although I do not believe I was truly saved until several years later, I would find myself praying a lot during this time, and there was a seeking and longing in my heart to be filled with Jesus.
I look back on this particular season, and I realized I was, in fact, stopping and being still before the Lord often. Not many people in my life understood my pain, my confusion, and how lost and lonely I was, but God did. God saw every tear, He heard every utterance I made, and He saw the wounds that greatly afflicted my heart. I whole heartily believe that even then, at 14 years old, God began pouring out His grace and mercy upon me in those moments when I found myself, knelt on the floor, writing in my journal, and crying out before Him. In these moments knelt before the Lord, I believe small amounts of healing were already beginning to take place, although still unseen, because in the presence of the Lord and being still before Him, there is healing to be found.
Although looking back and remembering certain times of life can sometimes be extremely painful, I am learning to look back with the intent of seeing the evidences of God’s presence and ways that He was already at work. In hard, painful moments, there is always beauty and hope woven through out by the hands of God. We just have to have the unveiling of our eyes to see! I thank God for the lessons I can obtain by remembering the powerful moments of being still before Him and how He faithfully has provided healing every time I have stopped with the purpose of being still before Him.

I sat down to read John 15 yesterday. I have lots of favorite passages of scripture and this is definitely one of them. After reading, I went about my day, but continued to dwell on what I had just read and the Holy Spirit literally overwhelmed my heart and mind with these words I am sharing with you today. It was as if the Holy Spirit was sharing with me the kind, loving whispers of Jesus. I know when these moments occur, it’s undeniable that God is speaking! I pray that as you read, it will bless you!

“Sweet child of mine, come stay, abide, and rest in me. Here in my presence you will find all you will ever need.

I have made an impossible way to lead you home, and to forever atone for that sin stood in the way. That iniquity that first was made, caused my Father to depart and go a separate way. Yet, grace and mercy continued to pour out from the heart of the Father, and He sent Me in your place.

Yes, I have made an impossible way to lead you home, and in my Father’s house there is a place waiting and ready just for you. I must forewarn, that the path that I will take you down is one least taken, but with this path comes an everlasting light and life. This light will show you the way in which to go, always revealing where every footstep should be placed, and will lead you to your forever home.

Abide in me a while. Let me grow a beauty I desire to place and produce within you. What is dry and has already perished in your life, I will at once remove, for it is only serving to block your view. And if what’s dead should remain, it would only be standing in the way of the many things I desire to do and bloom within you.

So sweet child of mine, come abide in me forever! Come stay and find an everlasting rest, and in my continued presence, you will always find all you will ever need.

Come, come sweet child and abide in me forever!”