life. faithful.

 Moms and dads, we are failing our daughters. The world is telling them how to dress and how to carry themselves, and we're allowing it. We are letting Hollywood and social media teach our daughters how they should look, how they should speak, how they should carry themselves--and in that world, for some reason the only voice telling them they should be "demure" comes from an overweight man pretending to be a woman. What are we doing?! The world is telling our daughters that their value comes from how others perceive them . They are being told that they should dress "to catch a man" from childhood. They are shown women with unrealistic body types and told that if they don't measure up, they are somehow not good enough. I see teenage girls every day who are wearing skin tight leggings or booty shorts with tight, low cut tops. They are being taught to reveal every curve of their bodies while simultaneously being taught to conceal every perceived imperfection o...

There's a verse in 1 Peter that I hadn't really noticed before. It's funny how that keeps happening to me...books and chapters I've read many times, on pages with underlining or notes, but all of a sudden I read a verse that I've somehow missed. This time it was while we were studying at church Sunday morning: "For the time for judgment has come, and it is beginning with the household of God. If it is starting with us, what will happen to those who have rejected God’s good news?" (1 Peter 4:17) I've been listening to Pastor Allen Jackson a lot lately. I highly recommend that you do the same, but I'll warn you first--he's probably going to step on your toes. One thing he has been pointing out a lot lately? We as professed Christians can't blame the decay in our nation on "them". Our nation is in free-fall because we--those who claim to be followers of Jesus--have failed. We have let a nation founded on biblical truth and biblical...

 You've heard all this "God stuff." You've listened to the preachers up on the stage in their 3-piece suits, talking about how God loves you. You've seen all the little church ladies, heard them talk about how God will take all the things in your past and wash them away, leaving your soul white as snow. You've heard the testimonies, how people came out of lives of sin and darkness, how broken lives were put back together and relationships were repaired. You've tried listening to "Amazing Grace" on repeat. But there's still that nagging feeling, that voice telling you over and over again that God's grace can't reach you. Your sins are too dark, your mistakes too big, your past too much, your future too hopeless. Sure, God forgives...but that forgiveness is for people who are really good at heart, people who just messed up, who didn't mean to do the awful things, people who really didn't have a choice. God doesn't really wan...

  Like every generation before us, we bemoan the current state of the younger generation. And like every generation before us, it's our fault. Go back a couple generations to those known as the "Silent Generation," and you find a group of men and women who grew up with a focus on work. Their parents knew the struggle of the Great Depression and the Great War, and the Silent Generation was taught to rely on themselves and their families. These are the ones who "walked uphill both ways" to school, the ones who often dropped out of school to work and help take care of the family. They grew up and had kids, and many of them wanted to make things better for their kids. After all, their parents were hard on them, so they don't want to be so hard on their kids. The Silent Generation had to work hard, often missing out on the small joys of childhood because of the family responsibilities they had to take on, so they wanted to make sure life wasn't as hard for t...

For the past few years, our little church has been reading through the Bible in chronological order. We took the outline put together by the Blue Letter Bible that schedules the whole reading for a year. I think it took us almost 3 years to make it through the first time... and this time through is taking even longer! I have to tell you, though--it is a wonderful study, and you're invited to join us. We meet in the tiny white building across from the salebarn in Green Forest. Breakfast and coffee at about 10:15, then the study right after. Come sit around the table with us. Eat, talk, laugh, cry, and truly study God's Word. Right now, we are starting Paul's letter to the Ephesians. I was reading through the first three chapters this morning in preparation for our study this weekend. When Pop introduced the letter Sunday, he asked us to read and take note of how many times Paul wrote about things being "in Christ." Just in the first few verses, you can see why he p...

I was listening to a message given by Nabeel Qureshi, a man who was raised a devout Muslim and later came to know Jesus not as a distant, promised Messiah in Islam but as the personal, crucified, and resurrected Messiah of Christianity. He was talking about the heart-wrenching moment when he told his parents he had converted to Christianity and watched it break their hearts. He spoke of how he fell to his knees after they left, crying out to God, asking why he hadn't just been allowed to die when he first believed because it would have saved him and his parents so much pain. He said that he then heard a Voice say, "Because this is not about you." Those words struck me. Not because I have a testimony like Nabeel's... but because I don't. It's something I've struggled with for a long time, and something a lot of us who were brought up in the church have struggled with. We hear dramatic testimonies--people who were in dark, dangerous places who experience Go...

 On my drive in to work Monday morning, I heard a couple of songs I've heard a bunch of times but haven't heard in a while. The combination stuck in my head and spurred thoughts I want to share. First the lyrics that stuck out, then my thoughts: *** " There's a sign on the door, says, "Come as you are" but I doubt it 'Cause if we lived like it was true, every Sunday morning pew would be crowded But didn't you say the church should look more like a hospital A safe place for the sick, the sinner and the scarred and the prodigals Like me Well truth be told The truth is rarely told Oh am I the only one who says   I'm fine, yeah I'm fine oh I'm fine, hey I'm fine but I'm not I'm broken And when it's out of control I say it's under control but it's not And you know it I don't know why it's so hard to admit it When being honest is the only way to fix it There's no failure, no fall There's no sin you don...

 Last Christmas, my parents gifted all of us season passes to Silver Dollar City. A couple weeks ago, we decided to surprise the kids with a day at the amusement park. It was a beautiful day--we let them sleep in, then took them out for burgers before heading up to Branson. The park was all decked out for fall, full of carved pumpkins, fall colors, and the tastes of the season. The rides were open after dark--and oh my goodness, there's a whole different feeling when you're on a roller coaster and can't see the track ahead of you! We had a wonderful time making family memories (though as is always the case, things weren't quite as perfect as I had hoped: notice that one kid is missing from the pictures because he had no interest in going). We had arranged for a day off of work in advance, then gave the kids an unexpected day off of school. What we hadn't realized, though, was that one of our kids missed a test that day. When he got back to school the next week and a...

I heard an excerpt from a Christian podcast a few days ago and it hit me wrong. Two women were talking and one said something along the lines of, "I wish I had lowered my expectations for my children." She went on to explain how that was the better, more loving thing to do--how we should make it a point to welcome people just as they are and reassure them that however they show up is good enough. I call bull (sorry if you think that's too blunt). Maybe it's the years I've been in education, but there's not much that makes me more frustrated about parental behavior than parents who have low expectations for their kids. I sat in a conference once where I listened to a mom talk about all the things her daughter wasn't capable of. I could only watch the tears welling in the 14-year old girl's eyes for so long before I spoke up, and I'll never forget the look on her face when I chimed in with what I thought she was capable of. I've been on the rece...

 More--do more, be more, have more. It's all around us all the time, pushing us to push harder, that constant feeling that it's simply not enough . Do you hear that voice in the back of your head like I do? Call it perfectionism, imposter syndrome... or just be honest and call it insecurity. The feeling that I'm just not enough is something I've dealt with my whole life. Every grade, every project, should have been better. Every meal cooked or room cleaned. Every important conversation with one of my kids. Every gift given. Every accolade won. Every promise made. All of it should have somehow been more... I should somehow be more, fit more into every day, figure out how to give my kids more. I should be able to be the best at work and give more, then turn around and be the best at home and make sure my house looks like the magazines (or at least like a tornado hasn't just come through the living room), then keep the farm running. I should be able to find a way to h...

The United States is headed down a very dark and dangerous path. It's nothing new--we've been moving that direction for decades--but it sure seems like we've gone into free fall with the things that are going on right now. Though many would have us believe otherwise, the United States was founded as a nation whose goal was to please God. This was a country established on a declared dependence on God the Creator and on the idea that our rights are not dependent on something being granted by an earthly government, but instead they are granted solely by the One who created us. The Declaration of Independence states clearly that our pledge to each other is made possible only by " a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence." Let me be clear here--I fully believe that Israel is God's chosen nation. I don't pretend that the United States has taken that place; God made a promise to bless Abraham, and His promises are never broken. However, I also fully...

I'm a stubborn and highly independent person. I want to always be able to do everything myself, and I've been that way since I was little. I hate having to rely on anybody else for anything--if I'm not capable of taking care of whatever needs to be done on my own, then I make it my goal to figure out how to do it. Sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes, though, it gets me into trouble. I've talked quite a bit about how I have a hard time trusting. The thing is, lately I've realized that my issue isn't with trust, exactly. Instead, what I have a hard time doing is giving up control. When things start to go wrong, I grab on a little tighter. When life knocks me for a loop and I slide down to the end of my rope, I put all my strength into holding on with everything I've got. But what if I'm not supposed to hold on? We drive by Rule Baptist Church on Sunday mornings, and last week this is what their sign says: At the end of your rope is t...

The first time I ever remember Pop getting mad at me, I was sitting in a tree. I can't tell you exactly how old I was, but it was early elementary school some time. I was on a limb, wanting to get down, so Pop reached up for me and told me to jump. I wouldn't. He kept telling me to jump, assuring me that he would catch me--I had nothing to worry about. All I needed to do was let go of the limb and push myself forward. Instead, I was in tears, sitting in a tree. No matter how many times Pop assured me that he would catch me, I couldn't do it. He had never let me down, never given me a reason to think he would let me fall. I couldn't just trust him. Trust. That's something I still struggle with, despite all my efforts. I know that God is worthy of my trust. I know His promises are true, and that when His word says that He guides my steps--well, that's true, too. The problem is, I just can't get my feelings to line up with my knowledge. We just fin...