For about eighteen months I carried a decision I had made. One I couldn’t undo, one that had affected people I loved, one that I had genuinely repented of and made as right as I possibly could. And I kept picking it back up anyway, putting guilt and grace in the wrong order. Not consciously, […]
There was a woman in my life a few years back who made it difficult to choose compassion over judgment when she spoke to me. She had a gift for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. I don’t believe she did it maliciously. She just had a consistency that made every interaction feel […]
There was a season in my life when I stopped praying. It wasn’t really a conscious decision. I just quietly withdrew, the way you might stop calling a friend after you’ve done something you’re too ashamed to explain. My guilt had me believing I was unforgivable. Knowing what I’d been told for years that mercy […]
I have a friend who knows me well enough to tell me hard things. The relationship we’ve built over years of showing up for each other has created a kind of trust where we feel safe with honesty and not threatened in any way. There’s a gentle encouragement that leads to action when either of […]
At the beginning of this month about God’s favor, I asked myself two questions that I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to answer. How do I steward what God entrusts? And what does obedience in relationship look like? I’ve been sitting with both of those questions for the past several weeks. Through the writing, […]
I am, by nature, a somewhat task-oriented person. I like lists. I like progress. I like the satisfaction of moving something from the undone column to the done column and knowing exactly where I stand. But lists don’t work so well when stewarding relationships. People don’t work like lists. They’re beautifully, sometimes exhaustingly, unpredictable. And […]
I had a picture in my mind of what God’s abundance would look like when it arrived. Margin in my schedule. Breathing room in the budget. A season where the demands slowed down enough that I could finally feel like I was getting ahead rather than just keeping up. I waited for that season for […]
A few years ago someone told me I was a good encourager. Not a writer, not a speaker. An encourager. Honestly, my first reaction was to brush it off. It didn’t feel like a gift in the way I understood gifts. And it certainly didn’t feel like something that would fall under my stewardship of […]
For a long time, I believed that God’s favor was something you earned. Not theologically, of course. I knew better than that. But the way I approached my work and my days held an undercurrent that said if I just did enough, showed up enough, produced enough, then maybe things would go smoothly. Maybe doors […]
I moved nine times before I turned fourteen. New schools, new neighborhoods, new everything. Over and over again. For a long time after we stopped moving, I tried hard to find freedom from the past and the struggles of figuring out who I was. I thought those constant fresh starts were just disruptions. But they […]
Sign up for the chance at FREE products and the opportunity to share your ideas with us. Also, receive nonprofit spotlights, first announcements of our latest word additions, and fun extras.
