Just before we welcomed our first grandchild into our family, a friend remarked, “The first time you see that child, you’re going to turn into a different person.” This from a grandmother who gleefully shared grandchild stories and pictures as thoug…
Read MoreEach time I have hit bottom – I am left feeling broken and weak. What is even more painful for me is that I have no one to blame but myself for my present condition so I feel nothing but shame and guilt. But I have learned that whenever I find myself…
Read MoreThe topic of conversation was laughter, but you never would have guessed it from our friend Don’s expression. A successful businessman with more to do than the hours to do it in confessed – “I don’t know how to see the lighter side of life…
Read MoreIn her book, A Joy I’d Never Known, Jan Dravecky shares “...valuable lessons I could not have learned by staying on the high road where the sun shines.” I’m grateful Jan joins us for a second week of sharing some of those life lessons…
Read More“…and I think this means, among other things, that we are to bear the burden of each other’s imperfections.” Francois Fenelon. One precious treasure I uncovered was learning not to expect perfection in relationships…
Read MoreWe don’t normally expect to find treasures in the darkness of adversity or riches in the valley of suffering but God gives us rich rewards even in these desolate places. One of the greatest riches God prepares for us in the valley is the discovery of the treasure of relationships.
Read MoreIt is not good for anyone to do life alone, but there was a time in my life when I thought I didn’t really need relationships. Sure I appreciated my family and friends but I had no idea that having healthy relationships was absolutely essential to a healthy life…
Read MoreSo I asked God – after the imposter had been identified and my masks were removed – who am I? I learned that I am a child of God – not just any child – but Abba’s child..
Read MoreI asked God to show me. Show me the masks I have worn. Show me why I began to wear them in the first place. Show me the evolution of my imposter. I asked God – as King David did…
Read MoreI have struggled off and on with depression all of my adult life. For years now I have pleaded with God to remove this “thorn in my flesh.” After years of counseling and many attempts to get off my antidepressant I had resigned myself to the fact that this was the way…
Read MoreLong term illness has more than one victim. Naturally, the priority of energy and time must be the person who is ill. But what about the rest of the family, especially the spouse who walks beside the sick loved one?
Read MoreHow can my heart be glad though? How can my whole being rejoice? How can I find joy now that my husband is gone? Sometimes it all feels like too much. Too much suffering. Too much sadness. But then I come back to this deep truth…
Read MoreI have a tendency toward depression. I have experienced three significant times in my life when I needed to take medication to help me as I worked through times of grief. So knowing that Mike’s illness was progressing I went to see the doctor before his death and resumed the medication…
Read MoreThis is my favorite verse in the Psalm. “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” The lines in this Psalm would have been about land portions. The land would be the inheritance that God is giving King David…
Read MoreIn suffering, there is a choosing. You choose whether the Lord will be your portion and cup or if you will run after another god, another idol. There are multitudes of idols we can run after when we are scared, hurting and suffering…
Read MoreAnother part of being preserved came from the community of believers around us. The day Mike and I learned he had internal melanoma with a terminal diagnosis, we drove back to our home church and our place of ministry trying to process this dire information.
Read MoreIn January 2013, our world was rocked with a diagnosis of internal melanoma with no external site. My husband was given 6-12 months to live by the local oncologist. We were given a referral to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa “just on the outside chance they could help”.
Read More“Mike has been diagnosed with deadly melanoma. He has been given 6 – 12 months to live.” My friendship with Sherry Kendrick began over twenty years ago when Mike was a church planter and Sherry asked me to speak at a women’s event…
Read MoreAt the beginning of my motherhood journey, I was very much tangled up in fear and the desire to be perfect. I believed with Michael’s Master of Divinity and my degree in early childhood education, we would be able to be strong enough parents…
Read MoreI trained for my first half marathon in 2014. I completed short runs throughout the week, and on Saturday mornings I would meet our church’s women’s running group for long runs out on the bike trail. One particular morning, we were meeting earlier because of the anticipated heat...
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