Have you ever had a friend reach out to you in a hard season and you didn’t know how to help? You felt ill-equipped with what to do or what to say. Maybe you tried to be supportive and did more damage than good. How do we help without hurting? A few years ago, I…
You’ve probably heard the cliché that motherhood is a gift—and it is, I’ve learned, but not always in the way I expected. Sometimes it feels like the Christmas I got socks and a toothbrush in my stocking. If it’s such a gift, why do I feel so bad at it? Is it this hard because…
Have you ever had to change your mind about something important? Have you ever had a conviction that you thought you would never lose, only to completely change your mind later on? We all change as we age, but sometimes we tend to get stuck in our thinking. We may have developed core beliefs at…
“Did a big fish really swallow Jonah?” my seven-year-old son asked as I closed his children’s Bible. Barrett recently took up fishing, so bass and bluegill are on his mind a lot these days. He watches tutorials on fishing lures and practices tying them in the garage. He also studies the saltwater species. We know…
I’ve written before about the difficulty of receiving God’s blessings freely and with gratitude. I still wrestle with this, especially on days when I read the news. While so many people in the world are suffering, why is it that I am blessed with a comfortable home, a loving marriage, the children I dreamed of,…
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14 NIV) Over the summer, a friend shared with me how her family is experiencing…