I didn’t even plan this consciously, but today’s Becoming podcast is about expectations in marriage. You’ll want to hear this one, where David Dwight talks about camping trips go wrong and I talk about getting mad at Dave for not cleaning our garage. It’s all about expectations and communicating those unwritten rules between one another. Check it out!
And don’t forget to leave your BEST first date ideas over on Renee’s interview…something for everyone here today! Woop!
I wish emotions came one at a time. But in ministry, in leadership, in life it seems, joy often shakes hands with pain; sweetness and bitterness swirl. This Sunday was one of those times, a mix of weird and wonderful and hard and good in a way that shouts “life is complicated.”
It was 7:09 pm when they arrived in front of the church, shaken, muddy, some in blankets. The oldest daughter held her fingers up in front of her, palm up, in a hastily applied splint, her long skirt smeared with mud and her hair falling out of its bun. The state trooper who attends our church had been at the accident scene. A dozen teens and twenty-somethings stumbled into our modern concourse at Hope just as our high school youth group was getting started. They were a small group of Mennonite young people, on their way home from serving at a children’s home in western VA. The van had careened off the interstate just a couple of miles from our church, landing five feet from the James River. The driver had suffered a major heart attack and clung to life at one hospital. The front passenger was flown to the trauma hospital downtown. And what was left were these dozen.
What do you do when strangers stumble into your midst? You care. Our volunteer team, there to laugh and be silly and make connections for the 80 or so high schoolers in our group, sprung to action. They went from clowns to caregivers, feeding the shocked group, creating a quiet space for them to breathe, offering drinks and prayers.
I drove the children of the parents (the drivers) to the hospitals, first to the father and then to the mother. Others took over leading our own high schoolers, who began to worship and to pray and to fervently intercede for this little band of Mennonites. It was a Grey’s Anatomy Episode. It was the beginning of a great novel. It was Modern Family meets Anne of Green Gables. It was wild.
Our own Hope students were deeply moved. We usually study the Bible, but that night, we lived the Bible. While I cared for the family by being a presence in waiting rooms and in silence, they cared for the rest of the group. Some prayed. Some offered food. Some cleaned out their wrecked van. But all–all–practiced hospitality in a way that embodies exactly what Romans 12:13 says: “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice Hospitality.”
These were God’s people. They look different and live different. But they–and us–love the same Jesus. So now, 48 hours later, we continue to care–our big church in the suburbs offering meals, lodging, prayers, and presence to a little group of young Mennonites ripped from their normal surroundings and doing everything they can to trust God in the midst of a chaotic and difficult situation.
I am so proud of our volunteers who loved so well.
I am so proud of our students who pray with all their might and flexed with one crazy change of plans.
I am so thrilled that I have friends and coworkers who never forget the one true thing is love.
But I am in pain for this family.
I am sad for this tragedy.
I am bewildered by the chaos and confusion and difficulty that they face as they navigate a strange city and two big hospitals.
And so, after a big day of ministry, the exact thing I believe God calls us to, I’ll go cry.
I’ll cry tears of joy and of pain, of gratitude and of confusion. I’ll rest in God’s presence and cry some. And then, I’ll take Jesus’ words close to my heart, ones that are familiar and true, and I’ll vow to live just this:
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own troubles. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34.
He is sufficient for today. Christ is enough. And that’s a simplifying truth for a complicated world.
If you remember, can you pray for the Mobeley family today? The father is in critical condition as they see what his heart can handle. The mother is being fitted for a brace for her fractured back and will be discharged hopefully tomorrow. She has not seen her husband since the accident. The ten children (ages 17-adulthood) are here in Richmond doing their best to navigate this difficult situation. Please pray for their peace, unity and guidance as they make important decisions in the next few days.
Oh, readers, does anyone else have the lifelong issue of always thinking they can accomplish more in one day than womanly possible? I like to throw the word “just” in front of my many to-dos:
I’ll just run to the grocery store and grab that…
I’ll just fold the laundry before I meet you….
I’ll just finish these emails…
I’ll just have a quick playdate for my kids…coach my daughter’s cheerleading squad…bring snack for the basketball game…plan a bridal shower...
They are all fun but darn it if I don’t know how to manage how much time they take! So let me get to the point (as you are thinking, I’ll just read a quick blog post….)
1. I am so excited to be teaching a four-week series on Proverbs 3 at Hope Church beginning next Thursday (January 26). Thrive meets at 10am and 7pm at Hope. Come one, come all–this is an open invitation regardless of whether you attend Hope. It might help if you live in Richmond, though. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I know what I believe in my head but sometimes my heart and soul aren’t living it,” then this series on trusting God will be perfect for you. I cannot wait to share what God is teaching me through this study!
2. We are starting a podcast that begins on Feb. 1st called Becoming. The podcast is based on this quote by Martin Luther: “this life, therefore, is not being…but becoming” and it’s on all things about figuring out our lives and our faith. I’m the host and my senior pastor David Dwight is the main character. (He actually is kind of a character.) You can download the free podcast series on itunes and decide for yourself if I’m as funny as I apparently think I am, based on the amount of guffawing I do.
3. I’ll be reviewing Jen Hatmaker’s book Seven next week on the blog. Short review: this book is incredible. Not only will I give you a longer review than that (AND give away a couple of books), I’m also going to be hosting a seven-week blog series as I travel through the book with a small group of friends. Why don’t you join us as we examine the areas of excess in our own lives, from food to clothing to media….you’ll hear more in the upcoming weeks but I promise you: you want to be part of this!
4. I had a weird God-ish moment yesterday regarding this article. Not sure what will happen next, but read it to see if you can figure out why it freaked me out (in a good way).
Off to a weekend of celebrating my hub’s birthday. Hard to believe I was celebrating with him when he turned 18. He didn’t like me so much then, but hey, I won that battle. Here’s to 19 years of birthdays and decades more to come! I’m so thankful this morning for the craziest things: a blog where I can connect with you from all over the place, twitter where I can read articles about women named Nikole and Eunice, coffee (always coffee), great friends to laugh with, and a God who takes delight in me just because he made me, not because of anything I can do. Amazing.
I’ve always been bothered by wind, and more bothered by the fact that wind bothers me. I consider myself a lover of change, and since wind is often equated with change, well, why wouldn’t I like it?
Maybe my ideas of change involving the plans I make and the actions I take. Maybe my idea of change is a bit naive and idealistic and is affected more by my privilege and youth than by wisdom or experience.
My idea of change is more like a journey by train. You pick the route and you check the plan. You buy your ticket and you get on, and unlike any other mass transport, the train only has one direction: it gets on a steel rail and chugs off. There may be stops or delays along the way, but the track doesn’t just change course. The train doesn’t just veer left and head toward Albequerque when you were headed for Albany.
But wind, like the one blowing today, blows from all angles. It calms down and the sun warms your skin, and then it kicks up and blows your hair across your face. Wind cuts through your clothes and chills you to the bone. It knocks over stuff. Wind shakes things up.
So perhaps my change as a train metaphor is stupid, and change is in fact like the wind. Which makes me like it a bit less.
In some ways, nothing has changed over here. I still get up every morning. I load and unload the dishwasher, or thank my husband for doing so. Lunches must get made. Laundry must be folded. I go to work, and then I write. I love and laugh at my children, and sometimes yell. I get tired. I sleep. I rise, and the rhythm continues.
But in other ways, the winds of change blow. They come when you least expect it. They can knock you off your feet. And no one looks dignified when they are getting blown over by a gust of wind. So as I watch my children get older; as I get ready to launch a book into the black hole of amazon ratings and bookshelves, as I feel the pain of loss around me and within me, as I taste the bittersweet joy of close community with all its drama and burden and dreams and pleasures, I admit I’m not as good as change as I would think.
I find that change comes with gifts but also with losses. I find that change means that there are things to rejoice and things to mourn. I find that change is not dignified and it’s not a one-rail destination. So I wrap my sweater more tightly around me and put my head down. Sometimes I hide under the covers for a bit but emerge ready to face the wind. And I tell myself, with words like this and prayers of surrender, that I must focus on the wonder and the power of change as much as the bluster and the chaos.
And so I stumble along, undignified, moving forward, blown sideways, and then continuing on. I lose my way and find it again, and discover I have no choice but to trust. The Maker of the Wind knows where all this is headed. The one who chooses when to let the winds of change blow and when to withhold them is powerful and unexpected but altogether good. It is the one thing that remains true, and faithful, steady and strong. His dwelling place is an impermeable shelter in my soul, the whisper that affirms what the saints through the years have proclaimed: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, all matters of things shall be well” (Julian of Norwich).
It’s not too late to join the One Word community. Check out our word picture here.
In the midst of the celebrating, the ball-dropping, the friend-gathering, I am aware of something else.
There are many who are hurting in this season. I know who you are. I read your Facebook status or tweets, I get your text messages, I see it in your face. Some of you wear your hurt like a shield, holding it out in front of you, an angry, red, weeping wound that you use to keep others away, because you couldn’t bear to hurt anymore than you do.
There are some of you who wear your hurt quietly. I catch the pleading look in your eye even when you tell me you are “fine.” When I hug you and I hold on a second too long it’s because I know.
And there are some of you that even I, with all my counseling training and insight therapy and blabbity-blah, still miss. There are some of you who are fooling everyone, trapped into your own prison of keeping up that happy appearance on the outside while inside you are wasting away.
The hurts may be self-inflicted: you who’ve wandered away from what’s true and lovely and have found yourself stuck in a pit full of empty promises and broken hopes, still grabbing onto anything that you think can pull you out of that mess and onto a solid rock, grasping at every little shoestring and frayed rope that anyone (or thing) lowers down into your misery.
The hurts may be other-inflicted: you who’ve endured scratches and bruises and gaping open wounds of the heart. No wonder you have turned in on yourself, hopelessly self-centered. You are closing over the wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. You are in survival mode. The violence of words or hands causes the bleeding but the deeper hurt is that you feel betrayed and alone, left behind and tossed aside by those you trusted the most. No wonder you don’t believe anyone can help you or heal you.
Your hurts, that you feel here on the cusp of a New Year, are probably a combination of both. We all wander.
And so, if you today is a day where you hurt, I would like to tell you something.
We, (your leaders, your pastors, your spiritual guides, your “elders”) have also wandered. We’ve spent much time in the desert wasteland of our own souls, making circles, lost, wandering, wondering. Helpless, hopeless, and guide-less.
We’ve wondered if God is real. We’ve wondered if He’s turned his back on us. And we’ve certainly, also, more often than anything else, turned our backs on Him. We’ve decided that his promises to be loving and faithful would mean that this guy would never break up with us or our parents would never scream at us or our friends would never talk about us behind our back. We’ve thought that God being loving and faithful would mean that we would get into our dream college or we would win that scholarship or we would have that job we’ve always wanted. We’ve thought that God being loving and faithful means a steady paycheck and a faithful spouse and respectful children and purposeful community. We’ve thought that God being loving and faithful would mean that we would have that friend or lover who would know us fully and delight in us constantly. We’ve thought God being loving and faithful would mean that we wouldn’t hurt like this.
I tell you that we have been there so that you know that there is a land beyond the desert. That even if you have been wandering for what seems like forever, there is a deliverer coming. You cannot wander beyond his reach. Even if you’ve turned away for the tenth or hundreth or thousandeth time, when you turn back, when you drop to your knees and put your head in your hands and call on Jesus, He will answer you. He will be there with his love. He will quiet you with his mercy. He will wash peace over you like a warm blanket. Your sleep will be restful and your heart will be calm. Come back to Him. Tell him that you are sorry for your sins, for the way you’ve hurt others, even if it’s been in self-protection. Tell him that you are sorry for not believing in his promises: the promise that He says about giving you a full life, of being faithful to you, of meeting your needs. Tell him that you are sorry that you keep following your own path again and again and AGAIN and that even though you don’t understand and are still a bit angry and feel unsure, you know that He’s the only true thing.
In John 6, Jesus gets popular. A bunch of people start following him because he’s the cool new thing. So he lays into them some hard truths: about laying down their lives to follow him, about him being the only way to eternal life with the Father. And many, many of them walked away. I think Jesus was sad, grieved that so many people came for the instant fix and didn’t stay for the relationship. He turns to his closest followers and says, “you don’t want to leave too, do you?” And Peter says, “where would we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” Peter says that like a guy who knows what it’s like to wander. And if you read on, you know that Peter does in fact wander, betraying Christ and denying his name.
So if you are hurting, if you’ve wandered, take these words from Peter, a guy who knows what it’s like to be hurting, to walk away, and to come back to the only true life there is:
…Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven – and the future starts now!
…The Day is coming when you’ll have it all – life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.
…As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life…You call out to God for help and he helps – he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father….
Today you hurt, perhaps even more than yesterday. Today you begin 2012, perhaps hopeless and joyless. But today is a day that you can fling yourself into the only true one, the faithful, good, constant, pure, fierce love of Jesus. Turn away from the hopeless things of today and entrust your heart to the Healer, the Deliverer, the Peace-Giver, the True-Life-Giver, the Savior.
I have found myself quiet around these parts during Advent.
It’s not holy, really. It’s more about the fact that the work required for a mom at Christmas times increases expontially, the math equation of which would look something like this:
Free Time / (12 dozen cookies + three classroom parties + one ornament exchange +one first grade play + hosting twenty-five for dinner + stacks of Christmas cards + stocking stuffers + teacher gifts + coach gifts + Santa) EQUALS recipe for disaster.
And I don’t want to hate Christmas. I don’t want to be stressed by it, I don’t want to complain about it or stay up too late every darn night. I don’t want to be the mom hustling around the kitchen and ignoring the fact that this moment and this month is about Jesus.
I want to sit in the waiting. I want to look at my Christmas tree and remember every story behind every homemade preschool ornament. I want to eat too many cookies and laugh too loud and hug my friends and family tightly. I want to spend more time–yes more time!–reading the Bible so I can be reminded every day that it’s all about Jesus.
And somehow, in the midst of that, God’s Word brings me back to the magnitude and glory of Jesus’ birth. Because without his birth, we wouldn’t have the cross. Without his birth we wouldn’t have promises like these:
He set us free through the Son and forgave our sins. (Col 1:14)
God made you alive in Christ (Col 2:13)
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1)
Christ is our peace. (Ephesians 2:14)
Without his birth I wouldn’t have access to his peace.
I would hate Christmas without Christ.
Without Christ, Christmas would be a massive list of obligations and to-dos. It would be a little goodwill and a whole lot of greed. It would be transitory peace found in a sugar coma or a pretty light display or a brief moment of entertainment.
But with Christ, it is everything.
and so, I hear in the inner parts of my heart, the place where Christ dwells, these reminders:
That’s enough. I am God. (Psalm 37:1)
The Lord will fight for you. You just keep still. (Exodus 14:14)
So I embrace the stillness even in the hustle. I thank the “I AM” that He is always enough, that he’s fought for me (and WON). And I keep rest, knowing that “to us” God sent his Son.
And that makes all the difference.
O Come, O Come Immanuel. Because you yourself are my peace.
Throughout this post, I’ve used verses from the Common English Bible, a new translation that aims to appeal to a broad variety of readers and cultures. I’ll be giving away a bible this week. Just leave a comment naming one of your favorite verses at Christmas time, and I’ll enter you to win!
Puttin' a little creativity in the Nativity!
There’s so much to say.
I wanted to upload a picture from our recent family photo session with Kate–because the picture is so precious to me in the way it captures my kid’s personalities, and because Kate has become a dear friend and a young woman who makes me want to scream like a cheerleader at a pep rally, watching her go and be exactly who God’s made her to be. (can you hear those poms shaking?!?)
…But I guess that picture is for my eyes only because it won’t upload.
I wanted to throw a few pictures in from my talk I gave five times over this week…
first in Georgia, then at my home church to both women and high schoolers–but I’m too lazy to get up and find my iphone cord. And the pictures and my words won’t do justice to the joy I’ve felt at getting to share my best/worst Christmas story ever with so many people.
..so I’m working on uploading a video clip at least. 
I wanted to tell you about some of my favorite places for gifts this Christmas…
and paint you some pretty word pictures about how cool these companies and these diligent founders are–but there are little people in my home who don’t care where the gifts come from, and who, oh by the way, still have basketball and cheerleading and gymnastics and playdates and homework and posterboard projects that CANNOT be completed without a parent’s help, no matter how many times the teacher tells me they can.
…so I only tell you one: go check out I Won’t Watch. $16 watches. good cause. Bam.
Then I wanted to enlighten you with some great words about something…
some leadership or mothering or a little insight I had with the Lord…but honestly, I’m thinking, like you, about Christmas Cards and Candy Cane Sugar Cookies and Stocking Stuffers and Parties and the Best White Elephant Gift Ever (I can’t wait to tell you what I came up with!)
…so for today, and maybe even for this month, I’ll leave you with a few other posts I’ve written around the web, about hating women and brash leadership. I want to write about my One Word 2011 , like I did gangbusters here and here and here and then died out…but it didn’t die out in my heart. So hopefully I will, but if i do it, (not when, see that little bit of grace I’m trying to give myself?) it will be between bites of homemade cookies and laughter and love among my family, as it should be.
Here’s a writing roundup:
“How Did Jesus Teach” over at Gifted for Leadership: “Ambition isn’t unique to women. Men strive to get ahead just like we do. But within women’s leadership circles, I’m noticing a troubling trend: In our rally cry to gain a place in the pulpit, we may be losing something else—our heart for servanthood.”
“Woman Haters” over at Fullfill, “Why would I, a woman, choose to distance myself from my own gender? Perhaps it’s because I recognize how I’m sometimes like the women I dislike. Maybe it’s because I’m ashamed of women like this and don’t want to be classified as the same. I also know that I’m resentful of women who’ve led in unhealthy ways before me, leaving a path of destruction that has made it hard for me to find my way. But maybe, more than anything, I’ve slowly allowed this crazy worldview of women to creep into my own; I’ve seen that woman equals weakness and I’d rather not be associated with thatthankyouverymuch.”
And with that, Merry Christmas. May your December be filled with bits of wonder, with glimpses of miracles that happen from the inside-out, and with sweet communion with our Father God. See you around these parts as soon as I finish planning a holiday party, ringing in some cheer and spending sweet time with the Lord on just what 2012 will bring.
I wrote this post two years ago and stumbled on it again. It still rings true.
It’s a mystery how it all gets on the bottom shelf. Behind the week-old leftovers and the month-old orphan hot dog, lurks the most mysterious of fridge-dwelling creatures.
If you hadn’t moved the fridge in yourself, you would swear the last homeowners must have left it there. When did I need hoisen sauce and red curry paste? Why did I buy a gallon-sized jar of roasted red peppers and capers? And what in the name of organic chemistry is living in that Gladware?
This was the state of my refrigerator yesterday. And after twelve years of marriage, my husband and I are beginning to communicate directly about such things:
Husband: “Hey, all the kids are in preschool now and you promised I’d be able to tell. Do you think you can clean the refrigerator?”
Now, for you lovely ladies who are bristling with righteous indignation, let me tell you a little about my husband. He cooks. He cleans. He does laundry. He never ‘babysits’ our kids, he parents them. He has joyfully paid for my graduate school, paid for my childcare while I volunteer, and generally been the husband-of-the-year for the past decade or so. So when he gives it to me straight, I generally try to take it. And he’s right. I’m the designated cleaner-outer of the fridge, cause I’m into disinfecting, and I have a strict rule about expiration dates.
So yesterday I flung open that fridge door and started cleaning out and cleaning up. I sighed deeply though. And I didn’t like it. At that very moment a week before, I was gearing up to head to Atlanta for some speaking engagements. I wondered at that time if I’d really like traveling to speak, if I’d do OK, if I would love speaking to strangers as much as I love teaching at my home church. And *SIGH* it was awesome. Better than I could have expected. So enjoyable, so fun to be with other women. *SIGH* Because I felt like I was doing what God’s really made me to do. *SSSSSIIIIGGGGHHHHHHH* And, strangely enough, cleaning out my refrigerator from disgusting items just doesn’t feel the same. I thought of a devotional I read recently, where the author quoted Brother Lawrence, about doing everything for the glory of God, “I turn my little omelet in the pan for the glory of God.” Oh, one more sigh.
It just doesn’t always feel that way, does it?
So I tried to set my mind to understanding how cleaning my fridge was for the glory of God. I stretched my brain while I scrubbed old meat juice from behind the produce drawers. I thought while I wrinkled my nose at the smell of decaying broccoli. I thought some more as I pried congealed potatoes out of the bottom of a Corningware. Hmmm. Still nowhere near as enjoyable as talking to a bunch of women, seeing them nod along with me, feeling the sense of the Spirit encouraging us along in an almost palpable sense.
And then I remembered some passages from the gospels, where the disciples seem to consistently miss the point with Jesus. When they tried to send children away from him, and he corrected them, bringing the children to himself and blessing them. When they were impatient to know what Jesus’ kingdom would look like, and what big roles he would give them, and who among them would be great. And Jesus replied:
“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but so serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42-44
I think I want Jesus’ words to make sense immediately. I want to see the results of my service. I want to feel my influence, and see how my fridge cleaning plays out into the lives of my husband or my daughter as she helped me. I want guaranteed results. I want to know that it’s worth the effort.
But that’s not what Jesus promises. That’s not what he requires. So much of my life is about reasoning it through, understanding. In the little book I’m reading now, Looking for God, author Nancy Ortberg says that our modern day mode of operating is to view things with a Hellenistic, or Greek, perspective. We tend to believe that insight promotes change. I know that’s a big ol’ lie. I can think all I want about how I should be different about X,Y, or Z, but most of the time, thinking about changing just isn’t enough. So I still can’t make the fridge cleaning more enjoyable, even if I think about it for a thousand years.
But a Hebrew way of thinking, the way Jesus would have lived and taught, says obedience first, understanding later.
Maybe I’m thinking about it too much. Just obey. Just choose to serve. And let God handle the rest. Do I think that changes my position on the joy of teaching and speaking? Not at all. But in the off days, in the in-between spaces, I will keep cleaning the fridge. And praying that God will help me find his glory, even in mystery meat.
Your turn:
What tasks today are difficult to find the “glory of God” in? Invite God into the task with you, and rest in the knowledge that when we serve others, we please God.
I would think I’d be out of words by now.
I just spoke, for hours, really, on what it means to trust God. And like every time I speak, I run through emotions as wide as a runway.
I start off really excited about the trip to the Tennesee mountains to teach about God.
I quickly swing to complete bewilderment on what I could possibly share with a group of women.
Bewilderment turns to wonder as I begin to study.
Wonder turns to terror as I realize I need to make sense.
And so it’s no small thing to speak for hours and then ask a group of women to let me know what they thought about all those words. But because I’m trying to figure out just what kind of teacher I am, it helps when people tell me (clearly my emotions alone are not to be trusted.)
And so as I unfurled a stack of papers, the joy I feel at a weekend of teaching God’s words is pierced with that terror again, bringing me flashbacks of harsh-but-true assessments from my aerobic instructor days. In those days, my clients were women looking for a good workout, and they would write evaluations, gripping pens with sweaty hands. They all agreed I had energy. But from there, their evaluations diverged wildly, ranging from praise like “masterful” to criticism like “maniacal” (maybe they aren’t that different).
But then, this. The question was, “what did you learn?”
You yourselves are my letter.
Because when I taught a fitness class, the best I could hope for was that my women had fun, worked hard, and were empowered. But now, in God’s way of leading us down paths we never saw coming, I get to fling open a window for women, offering them a breath of life from God.
And so these words, offered back to me, are a gift. It is not about me at all, but about our glorious God who gives me this wildly extravagent gift of stepping into women’s lives, of holding their hearts for a moment, and of reminding them how much their Heavenly Father loves them. The apostle Paul told the church at Corinth that the people of that church, the way they lived and loved, was a letter of recommendation for the work that he did. And, in one small way, I got to experience that this weekend.
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
Thank you, ladies of Brainerd, for embracing God’s word this weekend.
Today I’m on my friend Kelli’s blog talking about the why, when and how of fasting. She’s working through some different spiritual disciplines and wanted me to come talk about my experience with the 5 Day Challenge. If you’ve ever wondered if or why you should fast, come check it out!
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