Category: Christian

There is not a place on this Earth that we can be and still not find ourselves in the very presence of God! Even before God spoke our very world into existence, we know from Genesis 1 that God’s presence was there! As God has always existed, therefore His presence has as well. In Psalm 139, the very question was asked, “Where can I go from your presence?” And the conclusion to this question is that there is no place where God is not there. We cannot escape His presence, and knowing and dwelling upon this truth has brought me tremendous peace.

From my childhood until now, I have faced and dealt with loneliness. Although my reasons for feeling lonely have varied throughout the years, they were not always due to the absence of people in my life. I have been in crowded rooms and I have not been spoken to; I have been to youth and adult functions and I didn’t feel like I belonged; I have battled storms that were not understood by those closest to me; and in all of these scenarios, I have been left to feel alone, distraught, and discouraged. Though all of these feelings are legitimate, they are all based on what I didn’t receive from earthly things and people, and I failed to remember that God, my Heavenly Father, has a boundless presence and He does not fail to remain present- even in times of loneliness.

After I shift my focus from the things of this world that fade away to our everlasting God, hope begins to shine ever so brightly, quickly snuffing out those feelings of loneliness, despair, and discouragement. I think at some point in life, everyone seems to encounter loneliness for many different reasons. Whatever these reasons may be, Jesus desires to lift this heavy weight from our lives. In fact, He beacons us to come to Him when we are heavy with burdens and exchange them for what He has to offer . When we make this great exchange of giving over what weighs us down, we actually make a tremendous gain that, in effect, lifts us up. This exchange allows us to gain a peace that surpasses all understanding that guards our hearts and minds , we gain rest in knowing that He is our ever present help in our time in need , we gain timely comfort in any and all situations because God is the God of all comfort , we gain assurance because God is faithful and never will He leave or forsake us , we gain trust because Jesus is a friend like no other , and we gain seamless community and connection to the Father because in Christ, we have constant fellowship with the Holy Spirit .

When those times come, for whatever reason they may be, and loneliness strikes, know that you are not alone. When your heart breaks over the loneliness you feel, begin filling in those broken places with the unwavering truth of God’s word. As you begin filling in those places with this truth that sets us free, you will begin to feel God lift this weight of loneliness from your life. He longs for you to run this race and not become weary, walk and not grow faint! God’s word is true, it does not return void, and He is sure to fulfill every spoken word. So stand firm on His word and rest in His presence, because He is always there!

Shortcomings… we all have them you know. You spend any amount of time with anyone and the shortcomings in us all will just rise to the surface. It’s inevitable and it’s human. Although we all have these various shortcomings, it’s what we do with them that makes all the difference.

If you grew up in the church, most likely you are familiar with Romans 3:23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Although this verse is dark and heavy, it allows us to see the beauty of the verses surrounding it. The contrast of the verses found prior to it and following it enables us to admire the radiant light the verses bring to this well known portion of scripture and to relish the heaviness that is being lifted from our shoulders. Verse 22 explains to us that we have a righteousness that has been given to us by God through Jesus for ALL who believe. Then verse 24 tells us that our faith in Jesus and his great act of redemption gives us a gift of grace which then justifies us before holy God!

God’s work in our lives is continuous and when the shortcomings arise, and they will, my prayer is that God would always give me the strength to acknowledge them. Why? First, there is freedom and forgiveness accompanied by our confession (1 John 1:9), but also when we acknowledge our shortcomings, our sins, we gain an opportunity to share God’s grace. Being justified freely is a tremendous act of grace that has been given to us through Jesus redeeming us. The price for sin must be paid and Jesus paid our price so that we can stand before God justified, being freed us from all our guilt.

So when your shortcomings arise, use it as an opportunity to give God glory and share how you have received His greatest act of love and grace in your life, even though you fall short. And if you happen to notice the shortcomings of another, be an extender of grace, because just as He has given abundant grace to us, He calls us to give it to another! We are an imperfect people serving a perfect God and I thank God that He is not done working on me!

Romans 3:22-24
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

When we make what God thinks about us and our situations most important to our hearts and minds, we will begin to experience a tremendous peace and stability.

Not everyone will understand you or approve of you, but if we live our lives according to God’s calling and in line with His absolute truth, that’s all that matters!

As one who struggles with people pleasing and desiring acceptance and approval, I have to constantly remind myself to care more about what God thinks!

Although God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, the beautiful thing here is that He has made His thoughts readily available to us to read and know. Once we read and know His thoughts, we can then experience Him transforming our thoughts to be more like His!
May God help us to know and treasure His thoughts above all others!! His word is truth!

Have you ever wished that time could stand still? Have you ever felt life moving on without you and the constant demands and responsibilities you have continue to swirl around you, but all you want to do is hit pause for a bit so you can process and catch up? I have. Maybe you have too. I think that hardships can leave us feeling that way and because life continues to move on, it’s easy to feel alone when you still find yourself trying to stand still in “that place” or “that moment” trying to catch up.
I have been there and being there doesn’t feel good. Although it doesn’t feel good, I have seen and experienced the goodness of God while being in that place. I learned while being in that place that God is a God of His word and when He says He is close to the broken hearted and binds up their wounds, He does just that! I learned that these are not just “feel good” words, but that they are actually true. I learned that when I was in this place and I felt alone, in the sense of having people around me, that in actuality, God was showing me that there was a fulfillment that couldn’t be filled by people, but only by Him. I learned that this time of feeling alone was really a means in which God had me only fixing my eyes on Him. During this time I learned to go to God’s word constantly for the answers I needed and to pray harder and more often than I ever had before. I learned that there can be beauty in pain because of having the presence of God and His promises, and that going through trials without the presence of God only leaves you with pain. I learned to have a sincere thankfulness for God’s presence.
I learned that during times of difficulty, God was filling me up with His truth, and that as I was seeking Him, I was really finding Him. During this time, I got to know God as my Heavenly Father and feel His embrace, and as He embraced me, He then moved me from trying to stand stagnantly in “that place” to being able to move forward.
So I ask you today, are you finding yourself in “that place”? If so, know that God’s presence in your life can bring beauty to your pain and His embrace can bring you the comfort you need, that only He can provide. Continue to seek God today and know Him as Heavenly Father! We have a Heavenly Father that never abandons His children! Our God is a God of Hope!

My husband and I love when we come across a store that has been dedicated to selling pottery made by local artists. It doesn’t get any more original than that! We love looking at it all: plates, platters, bowls, coffee mugs (our fav!), etc…! The fresh, original designs are so beautiful and intriguing to us! We are always amazed at each artists’ skill level. Even though coffee mugs are our favorite pottery find, neither one us would enjoy the shop as much if it were filled with only mugs, but rather it’s the variety of items that the potter has made that makes the experience so enjoyable.
How reflective this is of life! So much so in fact, that the potter and clay relationship is used as an important illustration in the Bible. Our society today sends an urgent message of finding your identity in order to have a fulfilling life. But to find true fulfillment and our true identity, we must look to the one who fashioned us. “We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work for you hand.” Isaiah 64:8
We are all the intentional work of His hands and when we take hold of this fact we find significant purpose! Looking to God as our Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, keeps us from glancing to our left or right to play the comparison game with our brothers and sisters in Christ to see how we measure up. It keeps us from categorizing our calling as “noble or common” but instead it causes us desire obedience and commitment to God Himself. When Jesus is the center of our focus and the driving force of all that we do, we find all the purpose in life that we could ever need and a beautiful partnership with other believers. As we realize that we have been pursued by our Heavenly Father, saved by His amazing grace, and made purposefully for Him, classification no longer matters!
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Not only to do just any random acts of good works, but works that He Himself prepared in advance for us to do! Our potter, God, has fashioned us with full intention to be who He created us to be for His glory!
God, help us to be moldable in your hands and rest joyously in who you have purposed for us to be!

It’s taken me a long time to be okay with being who God created me to be. Psalm 139 used to be a tough one for me, so just I avoided reading it… Fearfully and wonderfully made??? Definitely not me! Growing up, I just never really fit anywhere, always the square peg so to speak. Then add in coming from a divorced family that was always surrounded by strife, and you meet somebody who was completely lost and had no self-worth.
I remember one day walking by someone I knew and I kind of coward my head down and walked by without speaking. I suddenly realized that I did that a lot! I remember being aware in that moment that my natural thought process was that when I saw someone I knew, I automatically assumed that they wouldn’t notice me or wouldn’t remember me, so I would just walk on by. As unimportant as I felt, I realized that I needed to overcome this habit and be courageous enough to speak up with a simple hello. After that time, I went through this phase when I would first address people by saying, “Hey! Do you remember me?” And the response would always be something like “Well, yes, of course I do!”
But that was me! My struggle with being okay with who God created me to be occurred daily. As God began steadily flooding my heart and soul with the light of His truth, I began to slowly accept that I too had been fearfully and wonderfully made for His good pleasure and purpose; my many quirks and all! For the first time, beginning in March of 2004, God began the process of really healing me… Not just changing my behavior, but true healing by way of transformation.
The process was slow to start with, but His steady and faithful work in my life became more and more evident over time. For years I had struggled with a horrible eating disorder. There was a time in my life when I thought that this would be a battle I’d fight forever, but I remember waking up one morning in May of 2005 realizing that God had set me free from its’ chains! I wrote this moment of freedom down in my Bible next to 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 as a memorial of what God had done in my life, because I never wanted to forget how He had set me free!
There are times when my insecurities want to arise again. As God calls for me to write, I am guilty of saying, “Okay God, I have said enough lately. It’s time for me to be quiet and lay low for a while. I don’t want to be under scrutiny of others and their opinions of me.” And then God says, “No, I have more for you to share. I’m not done.”
As God laid this heavily upon my heart this morning, I couldn’t resist His prompting to share. I know that there is someone who needs to know and remember that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb. 6:18), that He sanctifies us through the truth of His word (John 17:17), and He says that YOU, yes YOU, are fearfully and wonderfully made! He thoughtfully put YOU together in your mother’s womb and YOU have had the personal touch of Jesus as He formed your very being!
God lovingly meets us where we are, shortcomings and all, and as He begins His good work, He WILL faithfully finish what He has started! Bring your struggles, hurts, and wounds, and lay them at His feet today!

How can one be full of hope in the midst of feeling hopeless? It may come as no surprise to you, but HOPE is one of my favorite words. Hope is often times associated with “wishful thinking,” but the hope that God gives us is much different! Instead, God’s hope allows us to be filled with confidence! It is being able to have a confidence that God will fulfill all of His promises, and that His faithfulness is steadfast! When we find ourselves confident in God, we find a great assurance of our lives abiding in Him!
So, I ask again, how can we be full of hope in the midst of feeling of hopeless? We can have hope when we feel hopeless because God’s hope is not wishful. His hope is rock solid, absolute, and can be fully trusted. We are whatever we fill our minds with, and therefore, to be full of hope we MUST be full of truth!
I urge you to fill your hearts and minds with God’s word so when those moments of hopelessness come and try to knock you off your feet, you will instead find yourself still standing confidently because you have been constantly filling yourselves with the HOPE you have in Jesus! Keep running this race fueled and ready!

Last week, I spent several hours, almost every day, pulling up the many invasive weeds that had found their way into all of the flowers beds surrounding our house… and as strange as it sounds, it was absolutely wonderful. It was a job that I had dreaded at first, but surprisingly, come to love once I got started. The week was filled with beautiful weather, and the sounds of my children playing happily in the backyard provided me with sounds of peace and enjoyment. For hours each day, I pulled weed after weed, and all the while, I found myself in a state of worship. Dirty gloves on my hands and dirt flinging everywhere as I pulled up each invader, seemed like an unlikely place for worship, but yet for me, this is what it provided.
With each pull, I knew I was a little closer to my desired result, and with each continued pull of weed after weed, I also found myself reflecting on the work that God has done in my life. You can go from person to person and ask them about God, who He is, and what they think of Him, and you will most likely get a different answer from each person. In our culture today, relative truth is more acceptable than absolute truth, and sadly it has many standing on a pile of sinking sand. Regardless of what each person says about God, thankfully there is an absolute truth of who He really is, and it rises above all of our varied opinions. The truth is, God is the God of great deliverance, the God of restoration, and the God who rescues us from sin. As I pulled and removed each weed, these truths began to flood my heart and mind. Through this reflection, I became overcome with gratitude for God’s work in my life and that He doesn’t leave us as we are.
This God who rescues came to me at a time when my life was overrun with highly invasive weeds, but thankfully this God of deliverance and restoration has a presence that is much more invasive, and He graciously began to remove each invader, one by one. As I saw these weed infested flower beds, I saw a picture of my life, and I couldn’t help but find myself in a state of worship. As I worked diligently to clean out each area, I was surprised at the weakness and strength that some of these weeds had. Big, huge, and tall growing weeds caught my attention first. I had my spade in hand, ready to dig if necessary, but to my surprise, a simple pull was usually all that was required to remove these types. It was the low growing weeds, the ones that didn’t draw as much attention, that were the ones that were so difficult to remove. These were the ones that required the use of the spade.
The strongholds in our lives vary from person to person, and we all have them. Our greatest struggles often feel the most painful as God works to remove them from our lives, and yet it’s in these places I have seen God’s greatest acts of grace and love in my life. I’m thankful that God doesn’t stop that the weeds in our lives that are easiest to remove, but instead He digs deep to remove the ones with the strongest roots and then fills those gaping holes up with more of Him. As I continue to recognize the weeds in my life that God is continuing to show me and remove from me, I will kneel in worship to the One who has not left me as I am but is continuously making me new!

Is today the day that God may be saying to you that it’s time to stop praying?…. What a bogus question to ask, right? Or is it? Now, before you write me off for asking something so outlandish, please hear me out. I promise there is good reason for asking a question such as this.
I truly love praying! Cast ALL of my MANY cares upon the Lord??? Umm…. YES, PLEASE! Prayer is a privilege and it allows us to commune with God. He calls us to come to Him with all sorts of prayers and requests at all times of the day! Time and time again, I have gone back and read through my prayer journals and I have enjoyed reading past prayers and then recognize that God has answered so many of them in amazing ways. Even small little prayers that I had forgotten all about! Praying and watching God lovingly respond, is such a blessing and is a major faith builder for me.
But, is there a time when God calls us to stop praying about something? And surprisingly, I believe the answer is YES. If you are familiar at all with the book of Exodus then you already know that this book is all about God’s deliverance. I never get tired of going back and reading this book! How in the world can reading about God splitting the Red Sea so that He could lead His people out of a land of slavery get old? It’s such a faith builder and it helps me keep a true perspective of God as it beautifully puts His power on display.
But as I was reading this week, I stumbled across some verses that had never stood out to me before. Just as the Israelites were nearing the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s army continued moving closer to them. Fear quickly overtook the large crowd of escapees and Moses assures them that on this very day they would see the deliverance of the Lord.
But it’s the verse following this that really grabbed me.
Exodus 14:15 says, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you still crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.”
Wow! “Why are you still crying out to me?” This is what the Lord asked Moses as they stood in front of a large body of water with a massive army getting closer to them by the minute. I believe I would have still been crying out to the Lord too!
But what God was saying to Moses here in the middle of an intense, scary, and chaotic moment, is that there is a time when we are to stop praying and to start walking in faith! God had heard the cries of His people and their prayers were being answered with each passing step. They just had to trust the God who was delivering them and allow their faith to be greater than their fear.
So could it be that God is asking us the very same question, “Why are you still crying out to me?” Maybe you have continued to pray about something and as God is answering your prayer, He is calling you out into the unknown and to trust Him.
I think that it’s important to ask ourselves, and to recognize if today is the very day that God is saying it’s time to stop praying and it’s time to start walking!

We highlight or underline in books what we have found to be profound and worth remembering. We highlight or underline so that as we flip back through the pages, those statements will grab our attention in order that our minds may dwell upon its’ riches once again.
Highlighting Hope was inspired by Hebrews 10:23 which says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” In the midst of a difficulty, I read this verse and it gripped my heart. Although this storm was big in appearance, it was miniscule in the presence of my Savior. I prayed for months on end for God to remove this thorn in the flesh, and when it remained present, I knew that God was calling me to trust Him and to hold unswervingly to this hope that can only be found in Him.
Proverbs 13:12 tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick.” Our need for hope is great and yet that is exactly what Jesus offers, and He longs to meet this need in our lives! He is our living hope and the beauty here is that this is just the beginning! Colossians 1:5 tells us that faith and love springs up from this hope that Jesus offers!
As I have sought hope and have watched God “highlight” all around me this hope that I have in Him, I have come to realize that hope is just the starting point. As we read about, see, and experience His hope, it is a means in which He produces a greater faith and love in our lives! Praise God for His exponential work continuously being played out in us!