life. faithful.

 There's a ministry I'm thankful to be part of called Higher Ground. It's a weekend retreat geared entirely toward providing an opportunity for people to draw closer to God, with 6 weekends offered each year--3 for men and 3 for women. One small part I get to play involves putting the words, "In God's Love" onto handmade wooden crosses. If you don't know this about me, one skill I can say I mastered in pursuit of my master's degree was procrastination. As a result, yesterday morning was Friday and I still needed to do the lettering for Sunday. But as I said, it's the one skill I mastered, so it will be done on time (deadlines and I have a sort of...understanding). So I sent a text that said, "Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten the cross." It was a perfectly harmless statement about a simple piece of wood, but it got me to thinking. Don't you just hate it when that happens? Can I honestly say that I haven't fo...

  Isaiah 41 details how God will deal with the enemies of Israel. Right in the middle, there are a couple of verses that I love: " Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." (verse 10) "For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'" (verse 13)  Look back at the specific wording there. Verse 10 says God is upholding you with His right hand, then verse 13 says He is holding your right hand. Can you picture that for a second? It's like when you were little, and your dad would sit you on his lap and let you "drive." You weren't really doing anything--he had ahold of the wheel, even though it was at the bottom where you couldn't see. He was completely in control, but it sure made you feel big, like you were accomplishing something amazing. These two verses together show God d...

There's been something that's bugged me for a long time but I've put off writing about it because I know I'm going to step on some toes. I know looks are a touchy subject for us. I'm not immune from the insecurities, let me tell you. When I look in the mirror, I see each and every flaw--every tiny thing I think is "wrong" with my looks or that I'm bugged by. I won't wear a shirt if it touches me in the wrong places. I'm definitely not a fan of being in a swimsuit, even though I love swimming and would live in the water every summer if I could. I gave up wearing my contacts--not because they bothered me, but because my little boy very innocently told me one day, "You look a lot younger when you wear your glasses, because then I can't see the wrinkles around your eyes." Boys. Good grief. But my goodness, ladies, can we please stop posting highly edited pictures on social media? You know the ones--beauty filters that erase every impe...

  You probably know the story of Lazarus--he was sick, and his sisters sent word to Jesus. Jesus loved these three siblings...but He waited two more days after He got word about Lazarus' illness. By the time Jesus got to the town of Bethany, He received word that Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb for 4 days. This is the story that gives us one of the most fun sentences to read in the King James version: " Lord, by this time he stinketh" (John 11:39) Don't ask me why that amuses me, I guess I just have an odd sense of humor... Anyway, the story of Lazarus ends when Jesus commanded Lazarus to walk out of the grave, and that was exactly what happened. Tucked into the story, though, is something that caught my attention recently. We met Mary and Martha before the story of their brother's death, when Jesus had visited Bethany earlier. That visit showed Martha rushing around, doing all the work to make sure Jesus and His disciples were comfortable and fed, while Mar...

  Thousands of years ago, centuries before the brilliant minds of Galileo, Newton, Schrodinger, and Einstein helped to reveal hidden aspects of the universe, the men God used to write the Scriptures tucked physics into the pages. Have you ever noticed it? We'll start at the smallest level, with subatomic particles. There are people who study these and have named all sorts of particles out there, but we'll just focus on the main 3: protons, neutrons, and electrons. For all practical purposes, these 3 particles in different combinations make up everything in our universe, from the sun to the flowers to you. So these tiny, invisible particles? They are talked about in Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the universe was created at God's command, so that what was seen was made of what was unseen." So these tiny particles can be thought of as tiny little one-sided magnets. Neutrons are neutral, so we'll ignore them right now, but protons and electrons are lik...

 It's springtime in the Arkansas Ozarks, so that means it's time to play in the dirt! Well, I guess it's not technically playing in the dirt...I was actually working on prepping the ground for our garden. We've had a small garden the past few years, one we've tried to extend a tiny bit each year.   And because this is Arkansas, expanding a garden means digging up a whole lot of rocks. Sometimes, I think that's actually what my garden grows...just rock after rock. I've tossed rocks out each year that I've worked the ground, but that doesn't stop them from working their way up to the surface. I don't mind it too much, though. There's something almost meditative about tossing the little rocks out of the soil, knowing that it will make my garden better. This year, though, I decided I wanted to try something new. We've got a bunch of farm animals, and I would love to be able to grow some of the things we feed them through the winter when they ...

  Here in my little corner of the woods, the election yesterday left us facing a lot of uncertainty. It leaves us with a ton of questions about the future, both immediate and long term, and it affects a lot of the people I care about. There are a whole lot of people facing choices they never intended to make. When you're in the middle of uncertainty, the questions seem to hang over your head like storm clouds. Your thoughts race, but they are just circling the same things over and over. It's hard to focus on anything else, despite the fact that the rest of the world with all its problems just keeps right along spinning. But God is still good, and God is still in control. No matter what life throws at you, that doesn't change. So I'm sharing my prayer, hoping that if it is your prayer, too, you may find it helpful. *** God, My mind is racing right now, but my thoughts aren't making any progress. I know you are in control. I can look back through the years and see wit...

Here in Arkansas, it's definitely not spring yet...but there are glimpses of it. The first thing you see are the jonquils, and they seem to pop up out of nowhere. They are bunched across the countryside, along back roads and creek beds, many planted by early settlers to the region and a whole lot of others that have spread through the decades along flood paths.     Then there are the frogs singing at night--not loud yet, but there, calling out with tentative voices. The chickens take notice of the days growing longer and egg production starts to pick back up. They also take notice of the green starting to sprout--oregano is a favorite.   But inevitably, the hint of spring is followed by another freeze. It comes almost every year, the false spring that leads to early buds on trees and the danger of frost killing off the delicate buds. I've heard people talk about how bad the false hope is, how these early nice days only serve to get their hopes up and then the winter retur...

  The story of David and Goliath is a familiar one, even if you don't really know a whole lot of stories from the bible. It's referenced all the time, a picture of standing up to the giants in your life, facing your problems head-on, knowing you can conquer anything you come up against. Or at least, that's the common understanding. We're shown David, a young man, who isn't afraid to fight the giant no one else will stand against. And on the surface, that's true. But what really matters is what we see when we dig a little bit deeper. Yes, we're shown David. We're told he was a young man (though I tend to think he was a bit older than is usually depicted, possibly closer to 20) who was home tending his father's sheep instead of serving in the army. We know that God had used his time in the fields protecting the sheep as preparation for what he would face--he had killed both a lion and a bear, and he was willing to stand against the giant. It's easy...

We're a week into 2026, and I'm glad to see you here :) At the beginning of the week, I received a newsletter from Story Warren that took a different approach to the start of a new year. Instead of focusing on change and resolutions, she gave a reminder of things that are still true heading into 2026. Following her lead, I would like to give you a list of 6 things for 2026. My prayer is that it will bring you some peace, reassurance, and encouragement as we start another year. 1.  God isn't surprised by any of the stuff that catches us off guard. There's nothing that will pop up in your life this year that will make Him say, "Well crud--I didn't expect that. Now what?" Isaiah 46:10 tells us, "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'" So whatever happens, God knows. He's there in the midst of it, even the worst of the worst. 2. ...

 We see the Christmas story in a neat, polished picture: a serene young mother, Mary, with her doting husband by her side as they adore a peaceful new baby while the animals watch quietly; beautiful angels singing in the night sky to a group of shepherds who then bow around the manger; 3 kings decked out in all their splendor. We speak of peace on earth and depict the birth of Christ as a moment solely of peace and joy and all the happy feelings. But the peace of Christmas isn't about a neat, polished story where everything is going perfectly. The young mother? She was far from home with only her new husband, expecting a baby that had most likely made her the subject of rumors since she first started showing. She had endured a trip of around 70 miles at the end of her very first pregnancy, not really knowing what to expect or when the baby would come. She got to a new city where she was given a place in a stable instead of a room, then gave birth to her first baby far from home in ...

When I started looking into the weekly themes for Advent, I realized there's not really a uniform list... so I guess I just get to pick and choose what I focus on ;) So I'm using this list from Focus on the Family a few years ago: Last week was hope, and this week I want to look at faith.    One of the most famous places to look at for faith in the bible is Hebrews 11, often called the "faith hall of fame." In the Voice translation, the chapter starts off with this: " Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen." (Hebrews 11:1) What follows is an amazing list of some of the heroes of the bible: Abel Enoch Noah Abraham Sarah Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Rahab Gideon Barak Samson Jephthah David Samuel We all love to hear the great, dramatic stories of faith. We are thrilled to hear about miracles and people standing for their faith in the face of great persecution, like Daniel when he was...

 It's the season of Advent, the time set aside for celebration and reflection as we count down to Christmas day. "Advent" means (from the American Heritage Dictionary) "The coming or arrival of something or someone that is important or worthy of note." As a tradition, the celebration of this season has been around for at least 1,500 years...but it's not something I grew up with in a Southern Baptist/Methodist family. This year, though, I feel drawn to focus in these days leading up to Christmas. This first week, my focus is hope. When we generally talk about hope, our meaning usually leans more toward wishing for something. We talk about something we would like to see happen, but something we're really not sure about...we  hope  for our team to win a game, we  hope  to get a certain gift, we  hope  to get to go on a vacation, we  hope  for a certain political outcome. There's a secondary definition of hope, though--to have confidence or trust...

 I'm revisiting something I haven't written about in a while--education. I've been involved in education in one way or another throughout my entire life. My dad was a teacher and coach when I was born, I was in college for what seemed like an eternity (it encompassed my years from 2002 until 2015, with a small break when Nathan and I moved to Oregon for his time in the Coast Guard), I spent a few years in high school classrooms, and I've worked in higher education since 2019. Recently, UCSD released the results of a study on their math remediation course. Besides a massive increase in the number of students required to take remedial math, their study showed that a majority of students in that course couldn't solve middle school math problems. While so much of the world was shocked by the results, I just nodded...because I (and probably anyone teaching math or physics) have known that was true for years. To be honest, the decline started a long time ago. I would argu...

 There's a man who claims the role of pastor who has recently announced that polygamy is biblical, and in fact he himself has taken a second wife and is expecting his 8th child with her. His argument isn't one I really want to get into, though there's definitely plenty to say. Instead, I want to look at what I think is the bigger picture here: what does it mean for something to be "biblical"?  It seems like we hear that argument thrown around a lot lately. This most recent example is polygamy, but this isn't a new method for trying to justify things. It goes back centuries...I would argue that as long as the Jewish Law has existed, people have twisted and manipulated it to say what they want. The fact that God placed regulations around slavery was used to justify slavery as "biblical." The fact that men in the Old Testament had multiple wives is being used to say polygamy is "biblical." It's the same story, different tune. But the fact ...