In 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…
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Another 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.
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In 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”.
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“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…
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At 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…
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I 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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I have done many things in seasons of rebellion, but my most plaguing, ongoing sin is my desire to be perfect all of the time. At times, I am a slave to perfectionism. I let the unrealistic expectations I have for myself and others tangle up the way I see the world…
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After the death of my mother, I became deeply wound up in shame. Through my tangled-up desire to appear tough and strong, I became rebellious. I struggled with addiction that helped me temporarily escape my pain. This did not make me very popular with the Christian kids in my high school…
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My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was seven years old. When I was fourteen years old, that same cancer metastasized to her liver, then her brain. This major life event, which some would call childhood trauma, has shaped
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Everyone has a story. We are all living products of the moments we have experienced in our past; how we interacted with these moments mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, shapes the way we live in the present day. In order to better understand how we see ourselves…
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I first met Rachel Craddock through her book, Slowly Unraveled, Changed from the Inside Out. While most of us might believe becoming unraveled is a bad thing, Rachel’s eventual responses to the hard places in her life give us hope that maybe the unraveling can be good.
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This week as we have considered the treasures of the gospel, have you noticed that they don’t stand in isolation? Fellowship with God is impossible without forgiveness of our sins, forgiveness is out of our reach without Christ’s propitiation…
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Anyone who knows me knows that I love jigsaw puzzles. Gradually discovering a whole picture made up of a multitude of smaller pieces is fascinating to me. This week we have been walking through the treasures of the gospel: fellowship with God and with one another…
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Yesterday we explored the treasure of propitiation. We are forgiven of our sins because our sinless Savior substituted himself for us when he died on the cross, thereby turning away God’s wrath and causing him to look upon us with favor.
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Yesterday we rejoiced in the treasure of forgiveness: a gift of God’s grace. By this grace, our sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ so that we may walk in God’s light. I know this to be true and can quote the verses that declare it…
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Have you felt the discouragement described by Jeremiah? I sure have, and so did my Lisa. The remembrance of my own sins bows my soul down when I consider the countless ways I have failed to love God with my whole heart and my neighbor as myself…
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Daily Treasure; what a fitting description of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For the gospel is not only a treasure on the day when a believer’s heart is opened by grace to receive the gift of faith, nor is it merely a treasure awaiting a believer on the final day of their earthly pilgrimage, but…
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For many of my younger years, I was not interested in theology. Instead, I was drawn to Bible studies on personal application. However, each time life took a sudden turn into a place of fear or loss, I began to better understand the critical need for sound theology as the grid through which I viewed life.
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Recently at a concert with our son, lyrics appeared on a big screen in the front of the auditorium. The words grabbed my attention: “Somebody went to the throne of Heaven; Somebody lifted my name; Bringing me into His Holy Presence; Saying what needed said”
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I wanted our children to stay children as long as possible. Being a mom with young children was a role I enjoyed. But childhood is the very time we must prepare our children for adulthood. We spend time encouraging them with schoolwork.
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