life. faithful.

 Tomorrow, midterm elections are being held in the US. As an American citizen, each one of us has a right and a responsibility to vote. I've always agreed with the statement, "If you don't vote, you cant complain." As someone who grew up in a family with a long history of military service, I find it unfathomable that there are so many who choose not to vote in our elections--too many have fought and died in order for us to keep our rights. As followers of Christ, we are called to something more than just a vote for which candidate we like most. We are told as Christians to keep our religion out of politics, but that's not something anyone can actually do. No matter what you believe, those beliefs color everything in your life. Let me be blunt--if you can keep your beliefs out of your everyday life, you don't truly believe what you say you do. Everyone has a worldview , and that worldview is determined by each person's beliefs. Your worldview determines e...

 It was Galileo who wrote something along the lines of, "Mathematics is the language God used to create the universe." Learning math, then, is a whole lot like learning the alphabet and basic grammar rules of a new language--you learn the symbols and how to combine them, what can go together and what can't, what interesting new sounds come from those combinations...all the basic mechanics that lie behind how the language functions. If that's where you leave it, the language  exists  for you, but it hasn't really come to life. The next step, to continue the story of mathematics as a language, is to take the alphabet and start to form words. This is the world of mathematic expressions. It's where we realize that if 3(2) means we have 3 groups of 2, we can extend that to say 3x means we have 3 groups of some unknown number, x. From there, it doesn't take much to move to 3t + 4.9t^2 telling us that we multiply some number by 3, then that same number is multipl...

  I had all my kids home this past weekend, which doesn't happen very often any more since two of them are in college. We got to have an easy day at home, which also doesn't happen very often. There was nothing planned, nothing any of us had to do. Nobody had basketball or homework or any of the typical things that take up our time in this season. Nathan got up early to go sit in the woods for a couple hours...he calls it hunting, but I think the main draw may be time in the quiet, away from a house full of teenagers! Those teenagers got to sleep in and get caught up on some much needed rest. When everyone was up, a couple of my kids started looking for something to eat. I told them to wait a few minutes and I would make breakfast. That's a pretty common occurrence when all of us are home, so they know that when I say I'm making breakfast it is usually going to be a "stick to your ribs" kind of meal. I didn't tell them what I had in mind, though--they just...

 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. ...