Jesus
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Caught and Held Accountable
Aaaa! The prayer that many parents have prayed, “our children will be caught and held accountable for their actions.” And I won’t tell how I know that God takes this prayer seriously, but HE DOES, 1000%! Truth. Lies. Grace. Shame. These are just words that we flippantly throw around. “Half truths,” “little white lies or sins,” “shameful lies or sins”… defining these words are strongly influenced by how they were approached growing up. Our core right and wrong feelings and emotions begin before we can even speak or crawl. The reactions of those caring for us initiate the first lessons in molding our opinions and thoughts in these important areas…
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Grief and Grace
The wonderfully crazy little thing called life caught up with me last week, and forced me to rest. My last post, I had written about how some first times are also the last time, by God’s wonderful grace we don’t know this at the time. To be able to have the memories period, becomes a huge place of gratitude for those who experience these first but last times. I know I have written before about the very real physical side of grief, and the toll it can take on your body. Having just gone through and recovering from a really hard week of this form of grief, let me just…
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Courage to Venture
Allow this to soak in for a minute or two. By the way, I recommend this movie. You can read about it in the link above. Two things that you should know: 1. it’s three hours- so create space and time to watch. 2. Be alert to the almost identical parallels to today’s world. The scene that this quote comes from is a scene of a painter who is painting the Biblical frescoes in a church. He spoke this and I believe my heart stopped for a couple seconds and I had to stop and find exactly what he said in writing. As the article states, the whole movie points…
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Peace like a Child
I come to you today, having had a vast array of emotions and feelings over the past several days. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get into why or who or what my emotions and feelings are towards, because the truth is peace can’t be found from people, places, things, policies, etc. However, I will begin by sharing that I have allowed people and policies, especially, to really disrupt my peace. And I have had to ask for forgiveness and confess I have lost sight of the ONLY ONE who can provide perfect peace, my Abba Father. Who when I have become quicker to run to as the week has…
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A Bible, A Window, and A TV
“When I am resting because my body is weak, I need to remember that I’m not wasting the day doing nothing. I am doing exactly what I need to do. I’m recovering.” We are fifteen days into 2025 and I don’t know about you, but I am emotionally, physically, mentally weary and fatigued. This is not a complaint, but a fact about the happenings in our state, nation, and world. It’s a fact about my personal health and health of my family. Fact is fact. I missed writing you last week, because if you remember my Christmas post I had mentioned I was referred to a cardiologist. Everything is fine!…
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All You had to do was Ask
“God kept me close and gave me space all at the same time: to ask the questions, to express my anger, to tell him I didn’t understand. He didn’t, and doesn’t, hold it against me or use it to manipulate me into belief. God used this horrific, awful, inexcusable thing that happened to me to replace my shallow faith with one that could, and did, persist through anything. It doesn’t mean the pain hurts less, or that my disability doesn’t still affect my life every single day. It doesn’t even mean the PTSD and the anxiety and fear come any less often. It does mean when those things come and…
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Look. See. Ask. Receive.
Everybody has your heartbeat… Every sunset is a stained glass window… Every park bench is a pew…. There’s a sanctuary everywhere that I go… When my eyes are open… I see you. I see You, JJ Heller What a week it has been. I am struggling for words honestly. The devastation and destruction that Hurricane Helene brought is absolutely heart shattering. It’s been a week of holding your breath just hoping an update will come from family and friends. And yet, still waiting. Years of clean up ahead. People’s lives completely up ended. I have been thinking a whole lot about Noah and his family (hang with me – I…
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Word vs words
“The grass wither, the flowers fade. But the Word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8 I come to you today with lots of words swirling in my head, but truly wanting the Word to break through the swirling. So I am going to give it a whirl 😂 I have stated that I am not going to get political in my writing, and I am going to stick to this, not endorsements here. However, I am going to share a few quotes that have been triggering emotions in me that I’ve not quite ever had to the degree I am experiencing this week (election season). I will even be…
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Age to Age
Have you ever heard of Demas in the Bible? Let me just take you down memory lane for a moment. Back to my eighth grade retreat, while attending a Christian school. I’ve established myself as a homebody, so it would be safe for you to assume that camps, retreats, group trips, most field trips… these were not times of excitement in abundance as it was for most of my peers. However, eighth grade retreat was going to be different. The speaker was going to be our Young Life area director and I was at least excited for what he had to teach us! The whole other camp experience I could…
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Learning Alongside
I’m Back! Today, I have some statistics and some general ideas that I have gathered in my love of history and longings for my generation and the generations to come. I’m not one to dwell on the past or look to far into the future, I tend to focus on the present or near future, simply because life has dealt me experiences to remember this is all we are guaranteed. That’s a fact and a discipline that doesn’t come naturally to my body or brain. However, I do love seeing where we have come from and the hope of where we can go and the impact we can have. Disclaimer:…
