Spiritual Growth >
I think I’ve become a relationship agoraphobic, afraid to venture beyond the threshold of my life. I’m Miss Havisham of Great Expectations fame, letting one (or many) jiltings securely lock me inside the safe walls of my home, hoarding my heart to myself. Sometimes it takes a friend and a ...
Spiritual Growth >
My hunch is that your greatest source of stress comes in the form of relationships, whether friendships or family or church. I can handle all sorts of stress, but if my relationships are wonky, my heart follows. In the midst of some of that turmoil, I penned this prayer a ...
Spiritual Growth >
I hadn’t spent enough time with my youngest daughter Julia, so I decided to speak her love language (shopping) and hang out with her. We started our excursion as all good southerners do, by stopping by Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Even at 1:00, the place was shoe-horned by people. We had ...
Spiritual Growth >
Currently, I’m in South Africa! Johannesburg to be exact, teaching at the Beauty for Ashes conference. The last time I was in South Africa was for the Cape Town 2010 conference, which rocked my world. You can read about it here. I’d so appreciate your prayers this weekend. Today I ...
Spiritual Growth >
To keep short accounts helps me to live with joy throughout what would’ve been a haunted day. What that means (keep short accounts) is to settle issues quickly. In the accounting world, if I spend a little time each week working on reconciling my books, it’s an easy, simple task. ...
Spiritual Growth >
I’ve spent the past several years worrying about making money at this writing ministry. And to be quite honest, I’ve let the fluctuations of that reality affect my mood and worth. You may have even seen traces of that here on my blog. I won’t reiterate all that because I ...
Spiritual Growth >
I drove my high school kids to school recently. As we left our development, we noticed my friend who teaches at the school, pull out behind us. A few days prior, I worked on invitations for a party here at my house, and I’d forgotten to invite her, though she ...
Spiritual Growth >
I watched the movie 42 last week, and I cried several times. God used the movie to speak to me profoundly, and in some ways I’m not even sure I can put words to paper about the change in me. You see, God has shown me something way down deep. ...
Spiritual Growth >
I get a lot of emails asking perplexing, painful, amazing questions. Today I’m going to attempt to answer (if there is such a thing as a “correct” answer) a question I’ve wrestled with for years. See if you relate to Amy’s dilemma. Hi Mary, Thank you for your blog. I ...
Spiritual Growth >
Sometimes my life is so full of people, I don’t have time to run back to my computer and share my report. Such has been my life of late. Recently I spent a day with a group of women for a women’s retreat, but how it came about surprises me ...