What I'm Reading
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Blogs to Enjoy
During September I am taking a little writing vacation, but I want you to keep reading great blog content, so I am going to share some posts I think will be a blessing! Use Care Groups to Stay Connected During COVID-19 Here are some ways to use what you’ve learned during the quarantine that you may continue to use even after the pandemic. 5 Things Younger Leaders Can’t Stand About Older Leaders No matter your age, you are older than someone! It may hurt to hear these, but it never hurts to listen! The 21-Day Invitation: Steps to Reconnect to God We all struggle sometimes in our daily walk with…
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6 Month Check Up
In January, I shared what I felt God had laid on my heart for the new year in Focus 2020 , but during the pandemic, the Lord has expanded my focus and built on what He had already been teaching me. These themes were added to my focus this year…prayer, preparing for the return of Jesus, and bolder witness in the mean time. My D-Group finished studying the book of Revelation during the quarantine. Our isolation, along with the culture of our nation in general, made me want to say, Come on back, Lord! But what He said to me was, “not yet, more need to know me.” And as…
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Created for Purpose
We are told in Genesis 2 that God formed man from dust…of all things! Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 Later we are told in chapter 2 that He made woman from the man’s rib! So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to…
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Good News on Social Media
I began a social media journey while serving at LifeWay as Women’s Ministry Specialist. Not because I wanted to, but because I HAD to! When I first arrived at this new position in 1994, email was the biggest thing I had to figure out. After 22+ years, technology had progressed in BIG ways! Since my generation wasn’t raised on the technology of today, it was a continual process of learning…often from younger people I worked with! And, it still is today. After retirement, I have continued using social media, sometimes to stay connected and know what my friends and family are up to. Other times it’s to serve the Lord…
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Are You Listening???
Do you ever wonder if God hears our cry for Him to do something? Perhap’s it’s been a long season of praying and not seeing any answers. Do you think, maybe He’s not listening, maybe He doesn’t know, maybe He doesn’t want to fix this? I think the real problem isn’t whether or not He hears us, but whether or not, we hear Him. Too often, I just miss His answers, or maybe I’m just not intentionally looking for them. And I too often look only for answers as I want them to appear! Daily we see people listening intently through ear buds of one kind of another. We put…
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Behind the Clouds
Years ago I was captivated by how God got my attention one morning as I drove to work in downtown Nashville. Reading Adore by Sara Hagerty I was brought back to that morning as she shared her own cloud story that led her to “adore”. No doubt I’ve written about this experience somewhere in the past, but I couldn’t help but relive, and write about, that morning again after Sara’s reminder! It was such a tough season for many reasons: my mom’s declining mental abilities, heavy work and travel load, family crises all piled up. This was also the week of our annual LifeWay Women’s Leadership Forum, our largest training…
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Who Really Knows You?
For women, one of the biggest issues I hear over and over is something that is connected to their identity. It shows up in many forms in the lives of women, but it stems from an understanding, or lack of understanding, of who I am, who I am supposed to be, and what am I supposed to do in life. So many women have lived all of life trying to figure it out. For some, it’s like being anonymous in a sea of people. For others, it’s questioning who their ancestors are and how that impacts them. Sometimes it’s a person seeking significance from the world. But whatever is the…
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Living in the Not Yet
Today I read Psalm 47 which seemed to connect so much with my New Testament reading of Revelation: God reigns over the nations;God is seated on his holy throne.The nobles of the peoples have assembledwith the people of the God of Abraham.For the leaders of the earth belong to God;he is greatly exalted. Psalm 47:8-11 What a comfort and hope this message is…one day this will be reality! It really WILL! Having just finished Revelation with my D-Group, (I wrote last week’s post on The Hope of Revelation) I see how very timely it’s message is for where our world is today. News continues to show pain, chaos, fear, and…
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The Hope of Revelation
My D-Group had finally made it to the book of Revelation! To get here, we are using Foundations F260 for the Old Testament, then we stopped and began Foundations NT260 for the New Testament. We began in January 2019 and have arrived at our last few weeks together as a group. One of the hardest books to understand is Revelation, so I am SO grateful this plan ends with the Gospel of Matthew! Very refreshing after trying to understand a very difficult book in the Bible. In preparation for our weekly meeting, and for my own deeper understanding, I’ve read numerous commentaries with my daily reading. But one book that…
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What’s Your “Go To”?
What is your first “go to” when you struggle? We’ve seen recently what some people go to when they are upset or angry. Violence and hatred brings even more harm to an already unjust situation. But maybe you go to something less harmful like chocolate? Isolation? Running away? Despair? A friend? Usually we all default to something when things do not seem right in our world. As a Type A perfectionist-leaning woman, I think my big default is trying to control the situation. But God has shown me over the years that I am NOT in control even when I think I am, but I can fully trust that in…
