"I've been waking up feeling depressed," I admitted to my mentors. Shifting in my rocking chair, I set down my drink of raspberry mint tea and sighed. "During the day, the yucky feeling goes away and I'm able to function. But it's hard to get up in the mornings when I feel so awful." Being …
Category: Hearing God
God’s gifts
The blog has been quiet for a bit, but hopefully that is about to change since the UPS man arrived yesterday. What does the UPS man have to do with my blog? Simple enough. He brought me a present from God. About a month ago, Elijah picked up the computer from the end table beside …
Open Hands (by Victoria Miller)
I fight desperately--straining, tugging refusing to release this gift that I demand is mine. I hold on for dear life to what I crave but it slips and I feel the whiplash from my fall. I lie, face planted into the ground my fists still clenched in rage. “Give me! Give me what I need!” …
Plenty of Room
On Mother's Day, I'd like to share a tiny piece of my family history with you. My mother did not have an easy life. She raised nine children, four of whom were deaf. Her gentle but tenacious spirit pressed through the difficulty to equip her children to live the best lives possible. She spent hours …
Notes scribbled on the back of a church bulletin
Thoughts are like birds that circle far overhead, and when they swoop down close enough to touch, you have to grab a few silky feathers before they vanish into the atmosphere. I won't tell you where I was when the thoughts came circling, but I rummaged through my purse and found a pencil and a church bulletin. …
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All Things New
Stepping out onto my front porch, I smelled smoke. My heart stopped. Dear Jesus, not this again! But there it was, smoke billowing on the horizon, clouding over the sky. I sat on the porch swing and prayed silently. We had just gone through this a year ago when one of the largest wildfires in …
God’s Voice and the Inspiration of Scripture
After writing my series on hearing God's voice, I got some pushback from readers who thought that I was undermining the importance of Scripture. In the series, I describe God's voice as something that comes to us in a variety of ways, as modeled for us in Scripture. I was a bit puzzled by the reactions …
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Being Filled with the Holy Spirit: a personal testimony
I woke up one night last week to see the moonlight edging through the curtain in my bedroom. Unable to drift back to sleep, I decided to read for a while to get my sleepy brain to override again. So I read Simon Fry's article on Being Filled with the Holy Spirit. Guess what? My sleepy …
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Being Filled with the Holy Spirit (by Simon Fry)
In 1855, a young man was born again and gave his life in service to the Lord. He was fervent and zealous in his work, starting children’s ministries and preaching to thousands. He started a church and traveled to other countries sharing the gospel. Many were saved because of his efforts. He poured himself into …
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No longer a slave
As I mull over the mixed response of God's people to the needs of refugees, immigrants, and terrorists, I realize that the surface disunity is but a symptom of a much deeper malady. This malady is the terrible disease of fear. Fear has been coddled in many conservative churches for years in the name of "keeping …