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The Cure for “Facebook Envy”: Be Thankful
If I admit it, I’ve always been this way-the coveting type. I envy others’ sense of style, popularity, fun personality, job, or life in general. You’d think I’d have outgrown this ridiculous habit. It’s not like I don’t know that there isn’t a single person who hasn’t been touched by this fallen world. Time and time again, I have idolized a person's life just to learn of a heart break they’ve endured, usually something much more tragic than I’ve never even come close to experiencing. Broken relationships, wayward children, contentious relationships, debt, discontentment-dysfunction is rampant, even in the lives of those who have the most convincing Facebook photos.
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A Small Act of Faithfulness
While I don’t know what legacy I’ll leave behind, I can be certain of this: God will use me to exalt his great name. He will use even my small acts of faithfulness for his kingdom purposes. I don’t want to miss out on the moments God has given me to be a small encouragement to those I encounter, whether it be for a lifetime, a season, or one brief moment. https://t.co/yVVv7J11BU?amp=1
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Everything for my Ever-Changing Life (and Godliness)
As a teacher, my emotions ebb and flow with my ever-changing schedule. Actually, the seasonal changes resemble the gravity-defying roller coasters I loved to ride in my youth. At the beginning of every year, I grieve that my own children are getting so old-they go to high school and middle school this year-and frantically prepare my room and curriculum, reminding myself find time to pray for my students, the most important part. I relish in the enthusiasm of my students in the fall, brace for the winds of change as soon as the holidays are in view, and bolster every ounce of enthusiasm I have to combat the lethargy and…
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Reflections on an #Unproductive #Garden: Facing #disappointment in our everyday lives
Now, Lord willing, I will have a thriving pumpkin plant soon (they always surprise me), but I hate waiting. I want immediate satisfaction, no snags (or slugs), immediate success. I don’t know about you, but I feel the same extreme impatience in many areas of my life. I want immediate results in my relationship with my husband, my prayers for my children, my mentoring relationships, and my educational and professional goals. I know, I know, we live in a fallen world ruled by God’s purposes, not mine. But when I pray, I want an answer, when I make an effort in a relationship, I want results, when I make a…
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I Lift My Eyes
In the year 2000, I began a six year stint as a teacher in a treatment facility. I had just moved back my home state of Montana, after spending 6 years in Oklahoma and Texas, when my Grandmother died tragically. I missed my family, and I was really questioning how I had spent so many years in the flat lands, so I moved home. That year I began a six year stint as a teacher in a treatment facility. My experience in this setting is and was invaluable. As I taught, worked in the residential lodges, and helped lead worship with the students I taught, I was educated in what…
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My Recent Post on Weakness by Connect PCA
When I consider my own temperament, I often question why God chooses to use seemingly difficult dispositions to accomplish his plan. Well, we may never have the answer to that question this side of heaven, but there is good news! The fathers and mothers of the faith were human too—personality flaws and all.
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My newest article in Servantsofgrace on the #miracle of #forgiveness .
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I Don’t Know About You, but I Need Some #Rest
Fortunately, God is in the business of rest. Not the kind of rest after the source of stress is already eliminated, but the rest that happens in the middle of the storm, when the waves are still crashing in, disrupting plans and lives, rest for the truly weary.
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Do They Know It’s Christmas?
We hear it every year. That song reminding us of those in third world countries, Africa, to be specific, who don’t have any of the material reminders of Christmas that we have. Recorded by singer Bono, with a focus on a particular famine in Ethiopia in 1984 and recorded in 2004 and 2014 for other causes, it has lines like “Where the only water flowing/Is the bitter sting of tears” and “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time/The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life”. While highly criticized for several reasons, the song does propose a good question: In the midst of the busy consumerism of…
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Why We Public School: A Christian Perspective
I couldn’t be a Christian parent in 2020 without being a part of the eternal discussion of how to school our children. Many of our believing friends home school or private school, and with COVID, many more are opting out of public education for many valid reasons. As a public school teacher and believer, I thought I had heard all of the sides of the debate in their entirety until recently when a well-known Christian organization published a post in favor of Protestant schools over all others, especially public school. The contents of the post were moralistic in nature, focusing on purely behavioral and marital statistics rather than the gospel,…