One of the most enlightening and freeing times in my personal spiritual journey was when I began discovering the gift of God’s grace. I knew that God had extended His grace to the whole human race by sending His Son…

Often times when we are experiencing painful affliction it can seem as though we are sinking deeper and deeper into the muck and mire. We can be so overwhelmed that we feel as though we are going to drown in the rising floodwaters of pain…

I just had to share this entire passage because it is every bit of my experience in my walk with God. “Isn’t this also your experience?” I don’t know about you but this has been a constant struggle on my journey. What is that struggle? That struggle…

During my season of brokenness, I can’t tell you the number of times that I begged for God to remove my weakness. I remember crying out in my prayers to Him – “How can I possibly serve you and minister to others in my weakness? What good can come from this?”

Each 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…

The 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…

In 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…

“…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…

We 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.

It 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…

So 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..

I 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…

I 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…

Long 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?

How 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…

I 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…

This 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…

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…

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. 

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”.

 “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…

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…

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...

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…

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…

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

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…

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.

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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.

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”

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.

As you evaluate the values you want your child to have as an adult, is being respectful and showing mercy to those who are elderly on your list?  Do they see you value the skills of older people? Much of life is reactive, but why not be proactive? Be intentional about teaching this character trait.

I may never be called to give my life for a friend physically, but I am called to put my friend’s needs before my own needs at times. We can make our family a laboratory for learning and developing lots of things.   A significant character trait is a skill for interpersonal relationships.

Laughter is a gift that leads me to a grateful heart, a joyful heart.  Often laughter helps me see the fun in life or the silliness in our human condition.  Fun is not just something we do, it is an attitude. We can enjoy it with friends, but it should start with our family, the people God has given us directly in our circle of influence.

It’s time for our What She Said! Summer Series. I get such great feedback when guest writers share their thoughts on Daily Treasure.  It’s a pleasure to welcome back Sherry Bitler as our Guest Writer this week. For many years, Sherry served as Director of Children’s Ministry for her church…