You may have some cute trick-or-treaters visiting you this week. While it’s fun to take on different personas with zany costumes, as COVID has shown, masks can be limiting and suffocating. Physical masks shield us from some airborne pollutants. But wearing figurative masks to protect our image or hide our insecurities creates distance and loneliness. Certain situations and people draw out our sense of inadequacy. When surrounded by more successful, better informed, or more polished Continue Reading
The Opportunity You Can’t See Yet {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
You look around and nothing seems promising. The only way ahead, it would seem, is to keep trudging along. It feels wrong and it sounds hopeless. No opportunities have come up and you’re running out of ones to dream up. Hang in there. Nothing is impossible with God. That means that when there is no way, He makes one. Have you ever been in a life-size maze? It’s a little terrifying. Every turn you make could be a dead end. Each decision could have you traveling for a long time, lost and Continue Reading
When Anxiety is a Focus Issue {The Atlanta Journal-Constitution}
We have all been around overly anxious people. Some have good reason to feel anxious. Facing unemployment or severe illness, concerns about basic needs, life and death may fill their minds and rob their peace. Others may experience extreme stress brought up by somebody else’s decisions. Likewise, many people suffer from a chemical imbalance in their brain caused by prolonged stress, chronic disease, or an immune system disorder, creating an afflux of erratic thoughts, fear, and Continue Reading
4 Things That Never Define Us {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
It seemed like she looked right through me. You’re the pastor’s wife? You’re not what I expected. Have you ever been anyone’s “not what I expected”? If you’ve lived any amount of time on this earth, it’s highly likely. And this certainly wasn’t my first rodeo for not meeting someone’s expectations, and it wouldn’t be my last. The Wrong Definitions Because all the wrong ways others attempt to define us, or we attempt to define ourselves, have circulated for countless ages. Really, Continue Reading
Heart Shift – When Our Hearts Drift Away from God’s {Recharge Wednesday}
For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’ Jeremiah 29:10-13 (NASB) The theme for the weekend Continue Reading
The Divine Dance Between God’s Sovereignty and My Responsibility {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
Jackie is a dog whisperer. She calls herself a dog trainer, but if you watch this four-foot, eleven-inch woman handle a 150-pound dog, you’d know what I mean. I wanted Jackie to help me train our five-month-old puppy, but I couldn’t find her. I’d searched my emails and phoned where she used to work before running out of leads. I do interior design work on the side. Every time I planned to visit the seamstress, something interfered. On a whim, I called another gal. On the way to her workroom, Continue Reading
