life. faithful.

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...