Category Archives: Prayer

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Strong in the Lord and Fitly Framed Together

Friends would say to me, “You’re such a strong woman, you’ll get through this.”  But it wasn’t working to convince me. How could they stand there and say such words when my insides felt like mush, my heart felt broken into a million pieces and my knees were so weak I could barely stand?

They would not be saying these words if they saw how I collapsed in bed, hopelessly crying night after night. How could they possibly think I was strong?

They knew because they served the same God I did and had experienced their own painful struggles. And with the Lord’s help, they too were able to get through them.

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Write it Down, Make it Plain

It used to be hard for me to write things down – the kind of things that are personal and for my eyes only.

Years ago I wrote something so private and meaningful, and a person close to me not only found it, but they read it and belittled me for the words I had written. I was left crushed and silently vowed I would never write my thoughts down again.

Some of this mindset changed when I became a Christian. I love beautifully designed journals and I actually started collecting them and writing in them.

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You Just Have to Believe!

It’s Christmas time and there are signs of it almost everywhere you go. I keep noticing a particular phrase in holiday decorations. The phrase is simply one word – “Believe.” And if that isn’t enough, there are even Christmas songs telling us to “believe.”

The phrase is catchy and even fun for children as they wait for Christmas to come. One day as I was walking through a store and saw a piece of wall art with this phrase, it occurred to me how God asks us to believe Him for many things all throughout His Word.

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How are You Asking God for What You Want?

My granddaughter and I have this ongoing banter every time we see each other. After tons of hugs and kisses, she will come straight out and ask me if I will buy her a toy.

I always tell her I will, if she buys me a pair of shoes. With all the confidence of a four-year-old, she excitedly tells me she will buy them!

She’ll ask again two or three more times if I will buy her a toy, and we go back and forth between toys and shoes until she gives up and moves onto something else.

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Keeping In Sync With God

I recently bought a fitness tracker through my insurance company because of the benefits they offer for meeting certain fitness goals. The device has to be synced to a computer or via Bluetooth on my phone in order to record daily fitness data.

Initially I would sync the device through the computer but I wanted anytime access so I downloaded the app to my smartphone. The first time I tried to sync to the app instead of through the computer, I kept getting a “FAILED” message.

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Preparing for the Storms of Life

I was recently reminded of hurricane preparedness on my way home from a trip. It was a marquee sign on the interstate and I wondered why we were still seeing this message when the end of hurricane season was about to end.

In life, we don’t always know when a storm is going to hit us and we certainly will not have a marquee flashing a warning to be prepared for the oncoming of one. Though storms are inevitable, we can prepare for them, whether they are financial, emotional, physical or relational.

The first thing to understand is we will all face storms in life:

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Sometimes God Says “No”

My sons invited some of their friends for a sleepover and they were laughing and wrestling when suddenly I heard the funniest yet profound thing. One of my sons kept asking his friend a question over and over and his friend kept saying “no.”

My son kept pestering him to point that the young boy turned to my son and asked, “Which part don’t you understand, the N or the O?”

We all began to laugh hysterically because of what he said and the way he said it – with clarity, certainty and humor.