Category: Blog posts
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Faith that Thrives: Should Church be at the Core?
Should church be at the core of a faith that thrives? To be honest, I have answered both yes and no at different points in my life. How about you? Our choices are rarely clear to us until they are challenged. For many of us, Biblical and meaningful membership of a local church can be…
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Top 5 Reads for Encouragement in Endurance, Lament, Forgiveness, and Motherhood
We are already almost halfway through the year! Can you believe it? One of the things that stands out to me at this mid-way point is the opportunity to take stock. So often some aspects of the first half of the year have gone as well or better than anticipated but there are inevitably some…
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Practicing Faith in the Rhythms of Everyday Life
Have you been surprised by how much faith everyday life can sometimes require? Few things have made me aware of this reality as much as motherhood. Emerging from a busy holiday season and trying to enter the New Year intentionally, I found myself questioning everything I set my mind to do. Would it work? Was…
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Bridging the Gap between Thankfulness & Contentment
November in the US is a month buzzing with thoughts and ideas on gratitude. I have enjoyed practicing intentional thankfulness as a lifestyle for a few years, but this year I have wrestled with how to have a heart that is supremely thankful for God for His own sake not just for His gifts. I…
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Lessons from Our Marriage: Why Church & God’s Word Matter
If you had 5 minutes to talk about how God has worked in your life lately, what would you say? My husband, Tony and I, recently had the chance to answer that very question during the morning Sunday School Hour at our church.
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Faithfulness in a challenging season
Have you had an experience that exposed your limits? I have had experiences like this a few times, but the most recent time was at the beginning of a season of living apart from my husband while he was in training for 4 months. Coming into this season, I had a 2.5 month old and…
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Start in the right place this year
One of the things I love about spending time with children is their delight. However, it does not take long to realize that a child’s enjoyment of good things needs to be directed. My toddler loves books but needs instruction on how to enjoy a book without destroying it. When she receives my instruction well,…
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How to pursue intentional worship this Christmas
Christmas often tempts me to do more than I can reasonably accomplish. For the last 3 years, however, God in His sovereignty forced me to slow down and practice simplicity in a season overflowing with good possibilities. One year, God used a demanding job to move me toward simplicity. Two years in a row he used a…
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Sow thankfulness, reap joy
When I penned my first words to quantify how a practice of intentional thankfulness had changed me, I didn’t imagine that they would still ring true over 5 years later. Over 5 years later, thankfulness is still a life-changing practice. God has taken my mustard seed effort at intentional thankfulness and given me a harvest of…
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Our home birth story
When we found out we were expecting a baby toward the end of last year we were both thankful and wary. Having miscarried a baby just a month prior to this wonderful news, the wounds of grief were still pretty fresh. Even though we experienced God’s comfort in indescribable ways, the loss of our second baby…
Her Faith Thrives 