The struggle is real! We all go through trials. Some seem to have more than others sometimes, but we all have the opportunity to choose whether we will be formed or deformed by our most difficult experiences in life. Our friend, Andrew Eberhart, shares some of the most harrowing trials he has experienced and five key things he has learned through it all.
What actually happened when the first humans ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Our friend, Duke Walker, shares some interesting insights into the dynamics of the fall and the damage it has caused every single moment since, including our damaging choice to pridefully condemn one another.
Even when we pray for God to help us love someone, are we not really praying for God to change that person and make him or her easier to love? But what if I am the one in need of a change? Patricia Taylor shares insight on loving others in the midst of disagreement.
How in the world can we talk with our children and help them understand death when we don’t understand it ourselves? The topic makes us uncomfortable and afraid. It touches pain inside our own hearts from the questions we have that remain unanswered. Ellen Martin offers helpful, solid advice for helping our children death with death and grief.
Today’s post features Martha O’Reilly, author of Beyond the Deception of Depression. Here, she talks about the inspiration for her book and her hopes for those who will read it.
We are always told that we need to be forgiving. What in the world is forgiveness anyway? Patricia Taylor shares what she has learned about what forgiveness is, what it isn’t, and how it works.
For many people, Mother’s Day is not a day filled with celebration. For those of us who were abandoned or have lost their mothers, it can be downright painful. In today’s post, Kathy Milans shares six ways to survive (and even grow) through a painful Mother’s Day.
In the marathon of life, we’re all running the “first one,” and it is filled with countless challenges, unknowns, and “walls” that seem insurmountable. Each of us desperately needs a community that will surround us, love us, encourage us, and remind us that we can do it, to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Will I ever be healed completely on this side of glory? I don’t know. That is why it is essential for me to take daily self-inventory and ask myself what is in the closet of my heart. That is why it is so essential for me to give Christ lordship over the whole of me, including the closet space where it is sometimes uncomfortable to let Him in.
“The good news is that beneath this wilderness is the creative Spirit of God beckoning us toward transformation.” Kathy Milans encourages us to stay the course and walk through the wilderness with Christ, trading the discomfort for transformation.
As I reflect on my experience of being in seminary and how I have grown, I have come to realize that there existed a heart of divisiveness and spiritual superiority in me. I look back and feel the peace within me and thank God for showing me how to be humble and consider the differences I see in others as a good and beautiful gift from God.
My mind began to wander, and by some divine hand, it began to journey to the cross. I began to see her life and mine in the light of the suffering—the whip-marks that tore his flesh—the stripes that He says will heal me. I saw my tormented heart reflected in his agony. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow.”
