life. faithful.

Dear God, This world is crazier by the minute. It seems like every day there are new reports of all the ways people are turning away from You and against everything You have declared as good. It isn’t surprising—You warned us about just how bad things would get as the return of Christ draws closer. You told us about the selfishness, about how easily offended people would be, about betrayal and lawlessness and a lack of love for people. But like so many, I’ve been caught off guard by this being the world I’m preparing to send my kids out into. It’s so much different than the world I knew at their age, and in so many ways I feel completely inadequate when it comes to preparing them. They are facing so many challenges I never even thought possible. They are growing up in a world that calls evil good, truth a lie, love hate, and mutilation affirmation . They are told that the only way to be loving is to go along with someone’s confusion and delusion. “Boy” and “girl” are just meanin...

As parents, we want what's best for our kids. Most of us would do anything in our power to give our kids a great life. It cuts us to our core when we see our kids hurt or struggling with something, and we would love to be able to make everything work out perfectly in their lives. We love to see them smile and would be willing to go to war if something makes them cry--and these things seem even more true for moms. The thing is, our kids don't need us to constantly fight their battles. As moms, our job is to raise these little people who have been entrusted to us and teach them to be capable, productive adults who chase after God. Perhaps the largest part of that is teaching them how to deal with when things in life don't go the way they want. I don't know about you, but I think it's safe to say that in my life, I can point to a lot more times when things went wrong than when they went exactly how I wanted or planned for them to. It would be illogical for me to think ...

 "Too many of us in the Church are like Samson, asleep in the lap of Delilah." ~Adrian Rogers I'm sure you've heard about Samson and Delilah, though it may have been a while. It's typically a Bible story we learn as kids, though it's seldom something we hear about as adults. To refresh you memory, Samson was called by God to be a Nazirite. He was to be set apart for God's service, to take a vow that his life would be dedicated to that service, and (among other things) not to cut his hair as a visible sign of the vow he had taken. Then he met a girl... and after a bit of beating around the bush he told her that his hair was the source of his strength, and she shaved it all off. As followers of Christ, we are called to be set apart for God's service. We're not supposed to be like the rest of the world: we should look different, act different, be different . When we gave our lives to Christ, we made a vow to serve Him with our whole life and our whole...

 This season can be hard. When you're broken or hurting, the celebrations and decorations can just make you hurt more. The Christmas carols remind you of everything and everyone you're missing. The lights bring tears to your eyes. The bright packages just make you think of the one person you can't buy a gift for this year. The Christmas season can be an almost unbearably hard time when you're in a hard place. And feeling that way when you know everyone else is happy? It can make it worse. You start thinking that you're being a burden to those around you, that you're ruining their Christmas because you aren't happy. After all, "'Tis the season to be jolly," right? Let me remind you of something--despite what the world has turned Christmas into, that's not what it's about. It isn't about the decorations: snowmen, Rudolph, candy canes, candles, Santa, angels, or twinkling lights. It isn't about the carols. It isn't about the pr...