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What I Fear
What are your greatest fears? It’s not often I’ve feared for my life but several memories remind me I’ve had a few. Traveling home from Belize with one of my 10 year old twins as we flew through a terrible storm was terrifying. I was not sure we would make it safely back to Houston. Once in a hotel while traveling for work, someone tried to enter my room. Coming out of a dead sleep I instinctively screamed at the top of my lungs, “Get out!” Last December, there was this ride…and I love big, fast rides. Not this one! For the first time I got off vowing “Never, ever,…
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New Year’s Blessings
Thank you for reading my posts in the past. I am so grateful if anything the Lord is teaching me ministers to you. Truly, what you read is not what I’ve mastered, but what He is teaching me, often for the hundredth time! I pray that this coming year, the Lord will use me to continue serving and encouraging you. No matter what we face in the months ahead, glorious joy or the depth of despair, Jesus will walk with us through it all. We will be changed, and we will become stronger in our faith, if we will trust Him completely, even in pain and fear. We will learn…
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The Cost of Leadership Part 6
Please start with the first 5 posts in this series if you haven’t already. The fifth aspect of the cost of going deep is prayer, and the time it takes to pray. Deeper for me was when our daughter walked away from our family for 8 years. And God called my husband and me to continue walking and serving faithfully when the waves we had to cross got even bigger. We continued to pray for years that the Lord would bring her back, keep her safe and draw her to Himself. Sometimes as we serve and lead, God does not answer for a long time. But He is at work even…
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The Cost of Leadership Part 5
Please start with the first 4 posts in this series if you haven’t already. The second aspect in the cost of going deep involves laying down our fears through our faith in Him. For me, the deep, was when He first called me to speak in front of my church. If you know me, you’ve heard me say, I’d never be a public speaker. Deeper was when the Lord called me to LifeWay to continue serving out the call to disciple women, this time training church leaders across the country how to effectively develop ministries for women that help them grow deep! Laying down fear takes courage. Just look through…
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Dealing With Anxiety
It’s everywhere! Maybe you are experiencing this right this moment. So much has been written about this, but how are YOU dealing with it? There’s only a couple of times in my life I came close to having a panic attack (other than a short lived one as I feared for my life and there was a true reason for this panic! Check out my Hurricane Sally series.). I do remember those times and felt, “I just cannot do all this!” I was the mom of twin daughters, in school, and very involved in ministry in my church, even serving in a part time position on the staff. My heart…
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Are You Listening Now?
Right now, I feel like this is what God is asking me…in so many ways. “Are you listening to me NOW?” Perhaps it’s the end of a long year we just experienced, a year of changes, cancellations, concerns and SO much more! Maybe it’s the uncertainty of all that is happening in our nation today. We don’t have a clue what will happen tomorrow. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because God is telling us to open our ears, listen and watch Him do His work in our world. Over and over He has shown his sovereignty to me personally and I am hanging on that even as I…
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More Lessons From Hurricane Sally
I’m till processing and learning from our experience of riding out Hurricane Sally. This is the third, and probably (although I’m not promising) the last post on this. I’d encourage you to read the first two posts (Part 1: Peace Over the Storms, here and Part 2: My Cornerstone here) before you start this third post. Sometimes it takes a while to process an experience and see God’s hand in it all. I believe with all my heart God is sovereign and not one thing happens without His permission as well as His purpose. So I’m warning you, this is not a short post since I process God’s lessons partially…
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MY Cornerstone!
Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash As I write this series following Hurricane Sally, I’d love to encourage you to read the first post, Peace Over the Storms, here before you start this second post. When a building is constructed, it has what is called a cornerstone to make it secure and give direction to the building. It unites two masonry walls and is the starting place for construction. It’s absolutely essential, or indispensable, to the building. Personally, I am so grateful for the cornerstone in the 18 floor (we were on 16) condominium we were in while on vacation in Perdido Key when Hurricane Sally chose make landfall in…
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Peace Over the Storms
Normally, by now, during our extended time at the beach each fall, I’ve had a number of “beach lessons”. Until today (September 14, the day I began this post), this year I’d not had what I consider a beach lesson, although I’ve had lots of balcony Jesus time. This morning, this was the scene I watched as tropical storm Sally was about to become hurricane Sally. This is the third coastal hurricane we’ve experienced, but it’s not something we ever look forward to by any means! Waves were crashing and, yet, I felt safe sitting on the 16th floor balcony of our condo looking down at the churning water. All…
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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…
