life. faithful.

It seems I've been doing this a lot lately--staring at a blank piece of paper (or screen in this case) with no idea what to write. I know I need to write. I can feel something inside me withering because the words haven't been coming lately. Every time I try to, though, I just get...lost. The words seem to be getting stuck somewhere, and I'm not sure if it's the wiring in my head, heart, or hands that keeps getting crossed. Maybe it's a mix of all three. In all honesty, I'm at a bit of a loss right now. A loss for words, but that's not all. I feel a bit lost in general. Does that come as a surprise? It has to me, to be sure. 11 and 1/2 years into my marriage, after 2 kids and 2 degrees, and now after we've moved back "home" to the hills of Arkansas I feel a bit like I'm wandering aimlessly with no idea what direction I should be going. You would think that after writing a devotional all about following the Way when you can't ...

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." ~Michah 6:8 Mercy. In the dictionary and concordance in the back of my Bible, it says mercy is forgiveness or compassion. In another sense, though, we have an opportunity to "love mercy" in a very tangible way. If you've never heard of the Mercy House, you should hop over there and check it out. To give you the short version, the Mercy House is a place for young ladies who are about to become mothers. They move into Rehema House (Rehema=Mercy in Swahili) where they are loved by beautiful servants of God, and where they are shown that their lives and the lives of their beautiful babies are full of promise because of God's love for them. It is the result of one woman (and her family) saying yes to a crazy dream God put in her heart. Now, though, God has opened doors that lead all over the world...

It feels like the world is falling apart. In all honesty, it's been falling apart since the moment sin entered the Garden. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that order tends to chaos, meaning an ordered system will become disordered over time, and that's exactly what has been happening since this earth began. We've been sheltered here in the United States, to be truthful. We've had the chance to live in a country founded on belief in the Creator, started by men who knew that only God's blessings and mercy could sustain such a country. But now, it seems as if our country--and those leading it--has turned its back on God. We've redefined life, marriage, love, right, and wrong, things that were never ours to define to begin with. We've accepted sin--even condoned it--in every facet of life: greed, sexual impurity, envy, deceit, gossip, arrogance, disobedience, and faithlessness are all commonplace (see Romans 1:24-32 ). As we look around at our country an...