Calming Restlessness

by Gwen Smith | | 2 comments

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Cammie is a children’s ministry director at her church. One day, as she was preparing for the lesson she would teach on Sunday morning, she had an idea for a fun illustration that would require a few props. She asked her four-year-old daughter to help.

“Hey, Taylor! Can you please bring me a few of the Fisher Price people from your dollhouse?”

This reply came from her preschooler who was sitting across the room…

“No, Mom. They just want to chill out. They’ve had a long day.”

So funny… yet so not funny.

My word, people! When our children’s toys need a break, you know that it’s time for you and me to hit the pause button.

And, truth be told, I live smack

Cupcake Spirit

by Arlene Pellicane | | 8 comments

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There’s something my husband James calls the cupcake spirit.

It all began years ago when I promised to bring cupcakes to my child’s classroom. I was up late baking those cupcakes because I didn’t have any time earlier in the day to get it done. It made perfect sense to me. I was doing it out of necessity. James thought it was a ridiculous use of time.

“Why don’t you just buy cupcakes tomorrow morning?” he asked as I fired up the oven well past 10. “I planned to make cupcakes and that’s what I’m going to do!” I huffed. Truth be told, I didn’t want to make those cupcakes, either. I just wanted to go to bed. I’m not

A Love That Meets You in Lonely Places

by Gwen Smith | | no comments

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I’m needy when it comes to love.

Remember that game Hungry Hungry Hippos? Well, I’m pretty much Hungry Hungry Gwenno. (Don’t remember that game? Google it and then buy it for your four-year-old nephew, neighbor, or grandkid. You’ll thank me.)

It seems our old friend Moses was a bit of a hungry hippo too.

In Psalm 90 he asked God to fill him and God’s people full of love: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14). Love this! Note that Moses connected the love of God with a satisfaction that put a song in his heart and a skip in his step.

Yes. I want this

Leaving the Land of Disappointment

by Sharon Jaynes | | 4 comments

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I was so disappointed. I had worked really hard on a project, and to be honest, it was a flop. It seemed that not as many people loved it as much as I did. And it made me just want to pitch a tent in the land of disappointment and quit!

I think the women on Jesus’s ministry team must have felt the same way. They had committed their lives to the Messiah and believed that He would restore Israel. Mary Magdalene and a handful of other women had followed him for more than three years. But life had not turned out like they thought it would. Their hopes and dreams were nailed to a cross, and the lifeblood

Can You Really Count on God?

by Mary Southerland | | 7 comments

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We do a lot of laundry at the Southerland house. There always seems to be a load in the washer that needs to go in the dryer, a load in the dryer that needs to be folded and a load of dirty laundry waiting to begin the process all over again.

Our washer and dryer have numerous settings for everything from hand washables and fine delicates to cotton and permanent press. After a few loads that yielded pink male underwear and sweaters shrunk to fit Barbie dolls, we decided to wash everything on one setting. Heaven help anyone who dares to change that setting.

When a life crisis comes, we generally have an automatic setting of fear and anxiety. The

What’s Your Magnifying Glass Focused On

by Jill Savage | | 2 comments

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My grandpa had a magnifying glass he kept on the table beside his chair. It was a heavy-duty lens and as a child I loved positioning it over different items and looking at them in larger-than-life form.

When you look at something under magnification it looks bigger than it really is. The magnified image is no longer congruent to real life because you’re seeing one thing larger than the other things around it. Magnifying something gives a warped sense of how it really is.

This happens when we look at an object under a magnifying glass. It also happens when we look at relationships under a magnifying lens.

The people we live with are imperfect human beings. They have faults. They

My Letter to God

by Suzie Eller | | 4 comments

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The letter from my dad was on my pillow. He was not a man of words. I held it in my hands, knowing it was rare and precious. I still have the tattered pieces of that letter today.

I also have other letters that I treasure, and they are just as tattered.

Years ago, when I was learning about God, I longed to go deeper in my faith. I found a black notebook and colorful markers, and each morning I would sit and write all the things I wanted to say to God. If it was just a few moments, that was okay. If it led to a longer time, that was good too. I hoped to meet with Him as

When You Feel God Has the Wrong Girl for the Job

by Sharon Jaynes | | 4 comments

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Have you ever been in a situation when you felt God calling your name to a particular task, and at the same time you felt that He had the wrong person for the job?

I remember when I felt God calling me to become a counselor at a Pregnancy Care Center during a time when I was going through infertility struggles. “Lord,” I said, “You’ve got the wrong person for the job. How can I talk to women who are in a crisis pregnancy situation when all I want is a pregnancy situation? Nope you’ve got the wrong gal.”

Moses felt the same way when God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

Why Holiness Matters

by Gwen Smith | | 12 comments

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When I think about the books in the Bible that encourage and inspire me, the Old Testament book of Leviticus would rank near the bottom. Not kidding. It’s a tough read.

But it’s important to approach God’s Word holistically, so I have to take the good with the bad… the easy-to-read chapters with the hard-to-get-through chapters. And I’ve found that in doing so, God reveals powerful, life-changing lessons.

Here’s a doozy He taught me recently that will change the way you approach your day.

Leviticus is a historical narrative that reveals God’s holiness in ways large and small. It’s intense. Full of complex instructions (detail upon detail, instruction upon instruction) given from God to Moses so the sins of the Israelites

Lord, I Don’t Understand!

by Mary Southerland | | 8 comments

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Life rarely turns out the way we want it to, does it? I grew up in a shack on the edge of a little town in Texas. In the winter, we stuffed newspaper between the boards in our walls to keep the cold air out. I always volunteered to sweep the floors because you could simply sweep the dirt through the cracks in the floor.

I can remember Mama saying, “We may be poor, but we can always afford a bar of soap.” Our house was always clean and so were we. I didn’t understand why my mother had to battle cancer for 20 years. It was her greatest fear, and it took her life.

Over the years, there are