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If You Need to Remember: God Sees You

September 4, 2013
| 27 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement

Birds circling

I drive over the top of the hill and come down the other side.  The earth opens up wide before me.  Highway 70 between Hermann and Columbia, MO  is lonely.  If it weren’t for the corn, I could be in a desert.  But here in this one spot I rush up what feels like a mountain compared to the flatland I’ve been through  and at the top, the earth opens up and I drive into a deep valley. Green rolling hills dotted with darker shapes of cloud shadows. Vultures fly almost below me it seems….

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Digging to Expose the Abundant Life

August 29, 2013
| 20 Comments
| Categories: Spiritual Growth

shovel in sand

I stuck my feet in the sand and she buried them deeper…again.  How many more ways to pass the time could we come up with in the sand volleyball court while waiting for brother’s baseball game to end?

I watched the leaves rustle and the tree limbs sway against the wind.  Children were playing all around me.  Not a parent to be seen (except for me).  Only in Rhineland, MO.   Kids playing free.  I felt safe and content and happy.  But something was bothering me and it wasn’t…

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Divine Design Part 2

August 21, 2013
| 12 Comments
| Categories: Divine Design

god creating

In his book, The Call, Os Guinness beautifully defines the term calling basically as this:

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and  everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.

Do you believe that you were designed by a unique God for a unique purpose?

Last week, I ended my Divine Design Pt. 1 post asking this question:

How do we now live as we grow…

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Divine Design Part 1

August 14, 2013
| 35 Comments
| Categories: Divine Design

Funny isn’t it?  How a simple comment…or lack of comment… in an everyday conversation can stick with you like sticky bread dough on the hands.

There have not been too many times that I’ve shyly bore my insides and let someone in to know that I..I…I want to be or am working toward being a writer or an artist or a counselor.  I want to do what I love.  I want to do what I am…not be what I do.  A few times I’ve walked…

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His Care, A Child’s Response

August 7, 2013
| 18 Comments
| Categories: Ministry and Serving, Spiritual Growth, Yielding and Waiting

jesus-holding-girl

I was a young Christian just beginning to serve the church.  I had just finished teaching my preschool Sunday School class when I saw the commotion.  I went back inside my room because I knew who this child was and what was going on. I knew that she experienced seizures frequently and that her mother was used to handling them.

My co-teacher, Jenny, had already raced to her aid.  Jenny was one of those friends who always seemed more capable than myself.  I was often amazed but also a bit fearful around her as she was highly…

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Christmas In July – Free E-book!

July 31, 2013
| 18 Comments
| Categories: Jesus, Spiritual Growth

adorati1

Does Christmas bring out the crazy in you?

Do you give what you don’t normally give? Create what you don’t normally create?  Think about Jesus a bit more than you normally think about Jesus?

Well…I was filled with a little last-minute Christmas-in-July crazy this morning.

I was inspired early this morning to compile and finalize the Christmas devotional that I wrote last year on my blog, in order to get it on my website once and for all.

Do you need a mid-year pick-me-up?  Would you benefit from a reminder of the deep purposes of…

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If You Long to See God Work

July 25, 2013
| 25 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement, Spiritual Growth

DSCN1615

Did that title resonate with you?  Does your heart long…even ache…to see and understand God’s work in your life?  Those who are in Christ, I believe, naturally desire that.

I’m on vacation this week so…giving you an old story from the past year.  It is a timeless reminder of our need to expect to see God’s work in our lives and to be amazed by it through a visit to the big top.

We made our way to the big top…expecting excitement.

Two rows behind the one ring soon to be filled with…

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Choosing to see Victory

July 17, 2013
| 31 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement

fortress

I sit as far back as I can in the row of pews without looking too unsocial.  I volunteer at a Vacation Bible School (VBS) each summer and this is the week.  This year I’m saved from rigorous planning.  All I have to do is show up and work in the nursery.  It’s painless really.  But this is also a challenging week for me.  It’s actually been quite a challenging year but this week…this week is sort of a culmination of it.  Last week my husband and a friend pointed me to the story of Joseph.  A man…

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The Radical-Ordinary

July 11, 2013
| 34 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement

DSCN0187

Do you ever need strength and courage to live just an ordinary day?

Sometimes I feel like I’m washing dishes all day.  Like today.  I could almost promise you that I stood at the sink non-stop.  I’m not complaining really.  I’m thankful that I have dishes to wash because that means we had food to eat.  I’m just saying that some days it seriously feels as if I washed dishes all day.  Some days I feel joyful about that.  Some days I feel like I might go crazy.

Tonight my little girl…

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A Declaration of Dependence

July 4, 2013
| 8 Comments
| Categories: Encouragement, Spiritual Growth, Who we are in Christ / Identity of a believer, Yielding and Waiting

jesus feet I love my country and the people who serve and have served me…us…with their lives.  I join today with others with thanks to God for our freedoms and our nation.  We are blessed. But I can’t help to think each Fourth of July about how I feel a bit strange declaring our independence.   Is it because I think perhaps that is what is wrong with us?  More and more of us in this country and the culture of our country are declaring our independence from God.  It characterizes…

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