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When You Feel Broken: 4 Ways to Find Hope
When you feel broken inside, it’s not easy to find hope to hold onto. I’ve lived through some broken seasons, and today we’ll talk about where to turn in these difficult times. I invite you to join me on a day when I felt deeply broken, and we’ll learn to unburden our brokenness together. When You Feel Broken It’s a grey March afternoon, and I drive down the Interstate feeling numb. I’m on my way to a doctor’s appointment that will offer glimpses into our family’s future. Our unborn child has a heart defect. Today, a pediatric cardiologist will determine how serious the defect is and offer a prognosis. I’m…
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10 Refreshing Bible Verses for the Weary and Burdened
The translucent breath of heaven lingers on the morning window panes, and the burdock lifts barbed hands toward a grey sky. Sometimes this season of darkness leaves us all feeling just a little too threadbare. We crave light and warmth. If this is you today, I invite you to soak in these refreshing Bible verses for the weary and worn. 10 Bible Verses for the Weary and Burdened As I prepare my heart to walk through this season, I’m reminded of the burdens our little family faced throughout past winters. Our past few winters have been difficult. We have faced struggles that often felt beyond our strength. We have faced blustery…
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How to Find Strength in God When Life Is Tough
Winter was bearing down on us with a stranglehold that left me breathless at times. Every morning, I sat beside the window and wondered whether our family was about to walk down the most broken road we’d ever known. Day after day, I opened God’s Word in hopes that I might to discover how to find strength in God as we faced our storm. There was a medical prognosis on the horizon, and I was terrified. I’d been standing on Truth that held the power to slay the giant of fear. I’d been rebuking, taking back ground, worshiping, and fixing my eyes on the pure and good. Nevertheless, as I…
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10 Things God Wants You to Know
There are sailboats on the water today, and I know this season won’t last much longer. I remember where I was last season at this time: suffering quietly in what felt like a never-ending valley of despair. Maybe you’ve been here, too. Perhaps you know how it feels to wonder about the things God wants you to know when life is hard, when you can’t hear his voice. Sometimes the quiet valleys of suffering are the most difficult of all. They’re the valleys no one sees, the ones no one understands, or even worse, the ones you’re just expected to endure. Regardless of whether you’re sailing beneath sunny skies or…
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How to Embrace Change: 8 Mindsets to Help You
It happened on a balmy August evening with locusts droning on like a reminder that the earth would keep spinning, even if my world had shifted in an uncomfortable direction. It was time to learn how to embrace change, and it wasn’t going to be a lesson that came easily. We will all face seasons of drastic change in life, and that August evening threw me like few others. In a matter of minutes, every dream I’d been dreaming – every plan I’d been carefully laying down like a piece of some giant puzzle – fell to the wayside, and I was left alone with a radically shifted set of…
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10 Bible Verses About the Unknown Future
I sit among the aspen as they flutter quaking hands toward heaven. I’ve come to the woods to pray through my fears about the future, and I open my Bible in search of some comforting Bible verses about the unknown. Lately, I’ve been looking ahead with anxiety. I want to trust God with the future, but I often feel paralyzed by fear and worry. Comforting Bible Verses About the Unknown How do we live without fear of the future and plant our feet on solid ground? The Biblical Example of Fear-Fighting As I sit among the aspen, my mind is drawn to two men who decided to stand on God’s…
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How to Let Go and Let God Lead You in Life
I take a long walk with a friend beneath the golden rays of summer sunlight. We talk about what God is doing in our lives, about plans and the future and how we want to be on board with whatever he has for us. “I want to learn to let go and let God lead me,” I tell my friend, “but I’m struggling with what this looks like on a practical level.” We want to be holy women, women sold out for a kingdom purpose that’s bigger than ourselves. We want to be women who love well and listen well and aren’t afraid to climb difficult summits for the sake…
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How to Feel Your Feelings but Stand on the Truth
She pedals alongside me on her purple princess bike as I push her cheese-curl-munching brother in the faded brown stroller. I have no idea she’s about to teach me a very grown-up lesson about how to feel your feelings. Little ones seem to have a way of imparting life lessons without knowing it. “I’ve decided not to let myself miss Daddy today,” she says. Her dad has been out of town for work for three days, and we have three more to go. “Why’s that?” I probe. “When I let myself miss him, it just ruins the day. I was sad all day yesterday, so I’ve decided not to be…
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Why You Don’t Have to Fear Being an Outsider
It’s a brisk Thursday morning, and as the alarm clock sounds, I consider backing out of the commitment I made last week. I told a friend I’d join her at a new group for moms. Today, I want nothing more than to stay in my sweatpants all day and avoid the awkward feeling of being an outsider. As I lie motionless in bed, I pause to be brutally honest with myself. I decide I’m done wearing a mask, fitting into a mold, and attempting to straighten my curly hair—all to avoid being an outsider in a world of insiders. C.S. Lewis on Being an Outsider Most of us learn about…
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Easter Encouragement: Let God Lift Your Head
We go to the woods on a cool spring morning. The first bulbs are climbing through the earth to speak secrets known only to those who live long through dark winters. We’ve known dark winters here. We’ve wept over broken ground and shattered dreams, and we need a dose of Easter encouragement this year. As our children search earthen hollows for plastic Easter eggs, I think of the empty tomb. I think of the mystery of healing from brokenness and the miracle of life from death. Easter Encouragement As we search for the eggs, I remember Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what…
