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 ...