One sunny afternoon last summer, I took the kids to the neighborhood pool. We spent most of our summer days there. All the boys could swim well and were comfortable swimming in the deep end. This day was an unusually busy afternoon. My youngest wanted to go home, so my oldest had just taken her back home to be with her dad, and I was near our stuff at the deep end. All of a sudden, I heard my youngest boy coughing and sputtering and I saw his head bobbing up and down in the water. I called his name twice to see if he was playing around or struggling.…

It seems to be a common trend for people to choose a word of the year. I started having a word of the year a few years ago, after a close friend referenced hers. Since then, each year, I get a sort of “focus” word or phrase for the year. My word of the year usually ends up being an area of growth where I need to focus in order improve in one way or another. It is typically a flag to alert my attention as I’m hearing various messages. It’s something to keep me on track with my personal and spiritual growth journey. This year my word for the…

“I’m Afraid to Make the Wrong Decision. I don’t want to miss God’s Direction.” Not too long ago, I was wrestling with these thoughts while I was trying to make a decision regarding my career. I really wanted to be following God and his plan for my life. I didn’t want to quit something that I thought he had called me to do. Making the right decision was a real struggle. I couldn’t figure out if he was calling me to walk away or if it was the enemy trying to hold me back. I wanted to make sure that I took the right path and made the right decision.…

“I don’t like ___. It’s too hard,” is a common phrase I hear. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is from one of my toddlers, or a full grown adult, I tend to hear the phrase often. In our house, my response tends to be, “It’s ok to do hard things.” However, adults often don’t think that message applies to them. Our culture seems to promote that we should always be happy, or comfortable. If we are uncomfortable, everyone around us should change so we can be comfortable, or we should remove ourselves from the situation. Yet, I believe perseverance is an important character trait. If we always quit…

I have always been a high achieving, performance based person. Goals were things to be conquered and I had a lot of them. I spun many plates at the same time and prided myself on being able to balance it all. Eventually, I realized that I had an unknown, underlying theme to working so hard. I thought that if I performed well enough, or worked hard enough, I would be accepted. Maybe the people around me would love me more. Maybe God would approve of me and bless me because I was doing enough to please Him. There was some sort of acceptance that I was trying to achieve through…

How do you love difficult people? It’s easy to love people who are similar to us. In fact, the Bible even tells us that everyone loves people who are like them. The challenge comes when we have to love someone who is different from us, or even our enemies. Our society celebrates connecting with people like us. It celebrates finding your tribe, your culture, or your people, and unfollowing people who have different beliefs than you on social media. Connecting with people whom we easily get along with is great. I like connecting with like minded people and growing and becoming better. I also believe that we are called to…