life. faithful.

Tuesday, my brother would have turned 36. I would have teased him tremendously, poking fun at the fact that he was inching closer and closer to 40 while I was still closer to 30. I would have complained about having to have that gooey red cherry stuff on top of the cheesecake again --but I would have grinned while I ate it. Instead, I was a little too quick with an answer when the kids at school asked for the date. "The 6th" is what I said, but in my head the answer went on with my big brother's birthday. I didn't say it, though. Sometimes I hesitate to say anything about him because I'm not sure how other people will react, but I can usually count on a look of pity, an "I'm sorry," followed by an uncomfortable silence while I smile to show that they don't have to be sad. His birthday is hard. It makes me wonder what he would be like at 36...maybe a couple gray hairs for me to make fun of? A few extra pounds around the waist? Smile...

You hear it all the time: "I'm not going to vote, because one voice won't matter." How about 90 million voices? Because, you see, that's the approximate number of eligible voters who didn't stand up to be counted for the last election. And among those 90 million voices, at least 4 million are evangelical Christians. As believers in and followers of Christ, we know that God is ultimately in control. He knows exactly how this election is going to turn out. The thing is, we shouldn't be using that as a cop-out to excuse not going to the polls tomorrow. You see, God uses His people to carry out His will. If we don't stand up and speak out, we aren't doing our part. Yes, God can use anyone and anything to fulfill His plans. If He wants, He can change people's minds when they start filling out their ballots. But here's the kicker: sometimes, God lets us get our way. Sometimes, God gives us exactly what we're asking for so that we fig...

So, I just realized that it has almost been an entire month since I last wrote...ouch. I have to tell you, I can feel that it's been that long because I can feel a little bit of my sanity melting away. My husband will tell you--I'm a much better person to be around when I write. In the past he's called writing my therapy, and I guess there are a lot worse things I could do to decompress. I have to admit, though, lately words just haven't come easily to me. For a long time now I've been struggling with the thought that I'm a bit lost in the grand scheme of things. I've been begging for God to show me where I fit in His plan, but for some reason He seems to be silent on the matter. Have you ever felt that way? So often, I hear people talk about finding God's will as if it is a simple thing: just say a prayer, and God will tell you exactly where He wants you. Can I be totally honest? Sometimes, those people make me want to pull my hair out. Because...

I'm big on self-reliance. My whole life, from the time I was little bitty, my mantra has been, "I can do it myself!" One of my dreams is to one day have a self-sustaining farm, one on which we can totally support ourselves and our loved ones without counting on anyone else. Worldly self-reliance isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, God tells us to work and to support ourselves so that others won't have a reason to speak against us-- "make it your goal to lead a peaceful life, mind your own business, and keep your hands busy in your work, as we have instructed you. That way you will live peacefully with those on the outside, and all your needs will be met without depending on others." (I Thessalonians 4:11 & 12, VOICE). The problem comes, though, when my self-reliance comes ahead of my reliance on God. It usually sneaks in a little at a time, starting with something tiny, something I can handle on my own without "bothering" God abou...

I've written a few times about songs that have meant a lot to me in some way, from childhood songs that God's used to remind me of truths I'd lost sight of to songs that helped me through some of the darkest moments of my life. Recently, I heard a new song that really got to me. It's by Addison Road, and it's called “What do I Know of Holy?” If you haven't ever heard this song, here's a video. I highly recommend listening to it. I can't get blogger to work with me right now, so you'll have to watch at youtube. I'll try to fix that soon... https://youtu.be/N6J5TzSE_18 I have to admit, the first time I heard this song it was as if somebody had stepped into my thoughts: “I tried to hear from Heaven, but I talked the whole time.” Wait a minute—so that's not just me? Other people tend to carry on entirely one-sided “conversations” with God, too? I can't tell you how many times I've begged and pleaded for God to tell me so...

Sometimes, life breaks you. It gets to be too much, pressing you flat to the ground with your face in the dirt. You know what you're supposed to do—pray--but you just can't seem to find the words. Everything has crashed down around you, overwhelming you, and you feel like you can't breathe. People tell you, “Everything will work out. Just have faith.” But what if your faith is broken? What if you simply don't have it in you to “just have faith”? I've been there. I've found myself down in the depths while the people around me are saying all I need is the faith that everything happens for a reason (please believe me when I say that those words are seldom comforting) and that it's all part of God's plan. I've had my faith shattered into so many pieces that I didn't think it could ever be repaired. “if we are faithless, He will remain faithful...” ~2 Timothy 2:13a God knows that we will face things that shatter our fai...

I saw something this morning that I've never seen before--a rainbow in the middle of the sunrise. Believe it or not, I've seen a lot of sunrises. When Pop and I would milk in the mornings, we got to watch quite a few of them. There were even a couple of times when I was in the milk barn when Pop came in and had me stop to walk outside and watch the sun come up. Every sunrise I've seen was beautiful; if you haven't seen one in a while, it wouldn't hurt to take the time to get up early one day and watch. It's a whole different world at that time of the day--it's quiet and calm and gorgeous. I've seen amazing rainbows in the past. In our little corner of the Ozarks last spring, we got to see a double rainbow that stretched from one side of the sky to the other, touching bright green rolling hills on each end. The bright colors were spectacular against the bright blue sky.   This morning, though, there was something amazing about seeing the sky on ...

People are living in darkness--some because they've chosen to scamper back into the darkness after they've seen the light, others because they've never seen the light and don't know there's something other than the darkness they've always been in. Our job is to walk fully in the Light so that other people will see our deeds as being from God. We are called to love because He loves; we are called to speak the truth. Judgement will come to the earth and to everyone who has ever walked on it. We are promised that over and over again, and reminded that it's a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God (Hebrews 10:31). All of us will face judgement for what we've done, and by our actions we are all condemned to death. On our own, we are far from worthy. In fact, we're closer to being worthless. God's judgment--His wrath--is a terrifying thing. It is unrelenting and absolute, and no one can stand under the scrutiny of the Perfect Judg...

I've written before about how different songs have had an impact on different phases on my life. Music has always been a huge part of my life, starting with the songs my mom and her mom taught me when I was little— The B-I-B-L-E, He's Still Working on Me, Mares-e-dotes, Sunbeam, Jesus Loves Me... the list could go on for a while. In school, my first heartbreak came when I didn't make the elementary choir in 5 th grade and one of my proudest moments came when my high school choir teacher looked at me in shock during my audition one year and asked, “Where did that come from?” Music has a way of reaching all the way to my heart. I've fallen to my knees listening to a worship song that broke me, I've been lifted high by another that made my heart soar. I've had songs of all genres made a difference in my life. My now husband but then boyfriend told me how he felt about me with Coldplay's Yellow. I've sung along with songs that said what I couldn...

I'm so tired of all this mess. from wonderopolis.org I'm tired of hatred being spewed in the name of “progress.” I've tried to simply ignore it, taking the ostrich approach of sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will all just blow over. Surely, we're better than this—smarter than this. Surely, people will get tired of the fear-mongering and race baiting and police blaming. Surely we'll look at those who stand up and rant about how we can't "discredit one person's experience" (though it is perfectly fine to discredit the experiences of millions of others) and see them for what they are—pitiful, insecure, lost people. The thing is, that's not happening. While I'm trying to ignore the chaos and hatred, it's tearing everything down around me. It's taking this country that I have always loved, the country that my brother fought and died to defend, and it is twisting it into something dark and scary that I don't...

From the very beginning, Satan's best trick and favorite method seems to be to tell us, "Sure, God said this, but you're smart enough to know that what He really meant was..." We get ourselves into the most trouble when we start thinking that we are somehow smarter than God, that we know better than He does. We chase after our own plans as if somehow what we have in mind for ourselves is better than what God has had planned since before time began. We take what God has said, and we twist His words to fit our own purposes. We take what He has spoken out against--greed, envy, lies, sexual immorality, hatred, anger--and we try to say that He isn't really against those things. We say that His words were meant for a different time, and that they don't apply today. What makes us think we're smarter than God? Why do we think we need to interpret His words, that somehow we've "evolved" to be above what the Scriptures tell us? Jeremiah 10:...

I've got a treat for you today—instead of my words, I've asked my dad to share his thoughts on Independence Day. So without any other introduction (because his words speak pretty clearly for themselves), here are Pop's thoughts. *** picture from history.com “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Someone has called this sentence the most consequential statement in the history of human politics. As we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence—the declaration that we are free from the king of England and the beginning of our national history—a careful reading reveals a clear implication that the Founding Fathers included in the document another declaration: a Declaration of Dependence upon the Sovereign God that, as Benjamin Franklin said, “guides the course of human affair...

So, I did something hard yesterday--I visited the Pea Ridge Battlefield. from encyclopediaofarkansas.net That may not sound hard to you, but for me it made my heart ache. Not just for the soldiers who fought and died on those grounds, though that in itself was enough to make my heart hurt. No, it was hard for a whole other reason. You see, my brother was a Civil War scholar. He studied the Civil War--reading books, taking part in reenactments, watching movies--basically anything he could get his hands on. I remember going to the Pea Ridge Battlefield when we were little. I remember going to reenactments, where Michael was adamant that his hardtack be authentic, where his haversack was hand-sewn, and where everyone was thrilled when someone mashed a finger in the cannon because that meant they could have real blood on their bandages. Yeah, I know. Craziness. I'm in Bentonville right now, wrapping up the last of my 3 weeks of teacher training. I spent the first 2 weeks ...

"I still remember the way you clung to Me in your youth; in the early days of our union. Like a young bride, you loved the vows you made." ~Jeremiah 2:2b Newlyweds. Everything they find out about each other is exciting and new. They can even be annoying with all the crazy things they point out about each other, the things that would drive any sane person up the wall but that are somehow "so cute" in the early days. They want nothing more than being together--the rest of the world could fade away and they wouldn't mind. In fact, they would just about prefer it if that would happen. All they need is their love for each other. And then they start spending less time focusing on that love. Life starts getting in the way--the kids, the jobs, the money issues, the dreams they wanted to pursue but aren't realistic now--and, though it happens without conscious thought, they drift apart. It's not that the relationship becomes unimportant--it's j...

"But Mom..." How many time have you either said or heard those words? They're usually only partially decipherable, stretched out and masked with a whine. Typically, they come about because the Mom in question didn't give the speaker what he or she wanted, holding her ground about something. If we're honest, it's usually something Mom's right about--though when you're the one asking, that's hard to see and admit. How often do our prayers sound like that? How often do we plead with God to just do what we want Him to do? We may not use the words, but I wonder if God hears our prayers sometimes start off with "But God..." poured out in a whine? Of course, the words probably sound different. We tend to fill our prayers with pretty words, as if our choice of words will be the deciding factor in whether or not we talk God into answering our prayers the way we want Him to. Do you think that sometimes we just sound like little kids tryi...

I'm praying one of the hardest prayers for a control freak like me to pray. I say praying, because it's not a “one and done” kind of prayer. It's one of those prayers that I'll have to repeat time and time again—not because I think I need to repeat it for God's sake, but because it will take repetition to get it through my own thick skull and heavily guarded heart. God, let my pride take a backseat to Your purpose. Since I was little, I've wanted God to use me. I listened to missionaries talk about their time in exotic countries; I worked VBS on a regular basis; I went on mission trips with the KS-NE Acteens to Wyoming and Tennessee. I dreamed of being the one in the field, of living in a grass hut somewhere far away, of having a Story (with a capital S) and doing the Hard Things. I wanted--still want--the adventures. The thing is, not everyone does the big things. Sometimes, the hard thing is to be right here in the middle of your own story (l...

I've gotten the opportunity to listen to just Christian music every day while I've been in Bentonville, and it has been wonderful. It may sound odd, but I've found that I've been more optimistic (not all the time—I'm human), less stressed, and more settled. Okay, I know I'm sounding a little bit like I'm trying to sell snake oil...but there's a purpose to my story. The station I've been listening to is holding a contest right now called “Dear Younger Me,” based on the song with the same name. The idea is to write a letter to yourself, and the winner of their contest gets concert tickets to a show at the AMP in July. I've decided to hold my own contest. In the comments, submit your own letter to your younger self. It can be written out in the comment, it can be a link, or you can send me an email—it's entirely up to you. I'll leave the contest open through the weekend. Then, the winner will get to pick a couple of my books for...

I didn't want to write this blog post. Well, that's not entirely true. At first when I read the verse, I knew it needed to be a post. But when I started thinking about why it needed to be a post, I didn't want to write it anymore. It hit a little too close to home—honestly, it stepped on my toes and I just didn't want to have to admit it. I started reading Revelation again. I've tried it before, and it's just plain hard to muddle through. There's so much stuffed in that book, and a lot of it goes over my head or seems to be just out of my grasp. There's this crazy thing that happens when you read the Scriptures, though. Even the stuff that's so dense that you just can't understand has some little nugget hidden in there that can hit you in the gut. Can you tell I'm procrastinating? I really don't want to have to write this. I even changed what I was writing in my notebook and started writing my thoughts as a prayer instea...

I don't know about you, but for me suffering makes me draw away from everyone and retreat into myself. I've spent a lot of years trying to “be strong” for those around me, and as a result I tend to try to deal with heartache on my own. Or more accurately, I don't deal with it—but I do it on my own. When it comes to dealing with heartache and suffering, we have the ultimate example to follow: Jesus. As the oldest son of a carpenter, I doubt anyone would say Jesus was weak. And even when He knew the cross was coming, He didn't walk away. His heartache was so intense that night in the garden that He sweat drops of blood. No matter what I've faced, it's never been that intense. Jesus stood on “trial” where He was mocked and beaten. The flesh on His back would have been ripped apart by the whip, the thorns on the “crown” shoved into His scalp and forehead. Through all of it—the nails being driven through His hands and feet, the excruciating pai...