What Type of Influencer Are You?

by Gwen Smith | | 4 comments

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I like preparing things. I like to cook. I love hosting gatherings, planning party details, and preparing for guests. When my kids graduated from high school, I spent countless hours prepping for the celebrations we hosted. When my son got married, we hosted a bridal shower and the rehearsal dinner. Each party was packed with preparation, and each was wonderful.

When presidents, dignitaries, and heads of state are going to visit a particular town they often send people ahead of them to make sure the area is made ready for their visit. This is a different type of preparation than my domestic kind. They are serious about vetting each location regarding security. They vet out the people that will

A Way Out

by Suzie Eller | | 16 comments

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It started innocently enough. A friend said something. I disagreed. For whatever reason, her words hit a tender spot. It was important that we talk about it because she mattered to me, yet I was hit with a myriad of temptations.

I was tempted to make her see it my way.

I was tempted to keep talking until she “got it.”

I was tempted to let my frustration simmer between us.

Don’t do it.

A gentle nudge in my spirit asked me to consider a different way.

Can we be honest that we are all tempted from time to time? In today’s passage, Paul reminds us of that fact.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful;

Living Love

by Gwen Smith | | 7 comments

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Several years ago, when our neighborhood hosted a garage sale, I rallied my family to set up a water/soda stand to raise some money for a local charity. While this may sound somewhat noble and exciting, I assure you, it was a brutal battle of stubborn wills. My kids fought me the whole way to the curb and tested my love-o-meter to the max.

Quite frankly, I wanted to fold up my card table, put away the homemade signs, write a personal check to the charity, and call it a day. It would’ve been easier. Yet in the tangled middle of my frustration, I felt God nudge my heart.

I was reminded that in order to serve Jesus I needed

Struggling Together in Prayer

by Sharon Jaynes | | 83 comments

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I am so glad that God gave us girlfriends who will struggle with us in prayer. Paul wasn’t a girlfriend in God, but he certainly understood struggling together in prayer.

He wrote: “Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to join in my struggle by praying to God for me” (Romans 15:30 NLT).

The New Testament was originally written in Greek and sometimes looking at the original definitions of the words can give us great insight. The Greek word Paul uses for struggle in Romans 15:30 is sunagonizomai, which means “to struggle in company of, i.e., to be a partner (assistant), strive together with.” The root word means “to endeavor to accomplish

You Can Walk With Confidence Today

by Katy McCown | | 12 comments

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A few years ago, my family and I teamed up with our local church family and went out into our community for a week-long event complete with bounce houses, food, music and God’s Word. We’d never attempted anything like this before.

For months we prepared. We hung signs about the event and held training sessions for our workers. When the week of our community block party finally arrived, I scurried about with my clipboard making sure everything went as planned … What I did not do was clean my car.

As the week went on, my car accumulated trash, crumbs and anything else I didn’t feel like dragging into the house. (Let’s be honest – it wasn’t all that different from what I do

The Squeeze is On!

by Mary Southerland | | 6 comments

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What is really inside will come spilling out for all to see when life puts the squeeze on us. My Mama used to say, “What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.” In other words, a crisis will usually reveal what is really in our hearts. What is down in the well of your heart will come up in the bucket of your words.

It is easy to do and say the right things when life is calm and everything is going right, but what we say and do when chaos hits and the pressure is on tends to paint a more accurate picture of who we really are. It is kind of like sponge theology.

Suppose you

Joy Is On the Way

by Joanna Teigen | | 13 comments

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Each morning on her way to work, my mother would drop me off with my sitter, Mrs. Derryberry. I’d skip to her door, ready for the playmates, cookies, and hugs waiting on the other side. Summer meant a yard full of flowers with a swing set and wading pool for sunny afternoons.

One summer day, the scent of Mrs. Derryberry’s roses drew me around the side of her house. Breathing in the fragrance, my eyes landed on a cluster of lilies standing nearly as tall as me. Eager to smell more beautiful blooms, I poked my nose into the orange petals. Yet instead of a sweet scent, pollen filled my nose with burning pain. Tears streamed down my cheeks

How to Successfully Walk the Tightrope of Life

by Sharon Jaynes | | 4 comments

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“Blondin” was the stage name for Frenchman Jean-Francois Gravelet. He was a young man who migrated to the United States with a troupe of acrobats employed by Master Showman P.T. Barnum. In 1858, the thirty-five-year-old Blondin visited Niagara Falls as a tourist and there conceived the preposterous idea of walking across it. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself walking between the two countries, the United States and Canada over the great gorge on nothing more than a rope pathway taut between the two.

Harry Colcord became Blondin’s agent and promoter, selling his product, “The Great Blondin!” On June 30, 1859, Blondin planned to make his first historic trek across the falls.

A 1,300-foot long, three-inch diameter manila rope stretched

Sitting at His Feet

by Mary Southerland | | 12 comments

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Every moment of every day is focused on someone or something. We either set the focus through which we live, or we allow it to be set for us. A balanced life is focused on God as a result of sitting at His feet.

What does it mean to “sit at the feet of Jesus”? First, we must stop. The lives of Mary and Martha are great examples of this truth. Mary stopped helping Martha in the kitchen to sit at the feet of Jesus. Martha complained that she had been left to do all of the work while her sister was wasting time. There will always be someone who misunderstands or complains when you choose to do what

Holy and Higher

by Melissa Spoelstra | | 3 comments

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During my children’s elementary school years, they had chore charts to give them structure and responsibility. However, when one of them didn’t accomplish all their tasks, my husband and I would have a conversation about allowance reduction or possible consequences. Can you imagine if one of my children said, “I know I’ve been slacking off recently, if I get all my chores done every day this week and even do some of my sibling’s chores, can I remain your child?” They understood that they were assigned work because they were part of our family, not that they were working to stay in it. Sometimes I can bring a “working to earn my place in the family” mentality