What Girls Get Wrong

One day I thought God didn’t care about me, and I almost died. Okay, that might be a little melodramatic. But I almost got into a bad accident. I was going through a rough time. God felt distant, like He merely observed what was happening to me, but didn’t care enough to do anything. I started to think that maybe He didn’t care. I was in zombie mode getting ready for work. I had slept fine, but everything just seemed meaningless. I got in my car, and headed down my street. I reached the stop sign, and turned on my left directional. The guy coming from my right stopped, his directional indicating he wanted to turn onto my street. I waved to him, and eased up on the brake. I looked just in time to see the car coming 50 mph from my left. I hadn’t pulled into his lane yet. The car went by without any issue, the other guy turned, and I pulled out onto the street on my way to work. But I was shaken. And to this day I’m convinced God let that happen to jar me out of thin...

“LORD, You alone are my portion and my cup; You make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” ~ Psalm 16:5-6, NIV Sometimes, I have to beat that verse into my head. I have to repeat it over and over, insisting that I accept it, forcing myself to believe it. Because there’s a lot of times when I don’t.   When bitterness and hopelessness threaten to take over. You may be feeling the same way.   You may struggle with chronic health issues.   You may have lost all your earthly possessions.   Your life may not be going at all how you planned it, or how you would like it to go.   And yet that verse still stands. But you find yourself questioning, like I do, “Are my boundary lines really in pleasant places?   Do I really have a delightful inheritance?” Yes. If nothing else, all of God’s children have the promise of eternal life with Him in Heaven  ...

A lot of us want to do something big for God.   We feel like we’re not serving enough, not doing enough, and we want to push ourselves to do more for God and His kingdom. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.   It is good to desire to serve God.   But I think we get it wrong with what exactly it means to serve God in a big way. Sometimes, serving in a big way means serving in little ways.   Sometimes doing great things for God means doing the small things. Take Ruth for instance. She is called a virtuous woman ( Ruth 3:11 ).   Her praises are sung by the local women.   These women call Naomi blessed to have such a daughter-in-law, better than “seven sons” ( Ruth 4:14-15 ).   Ruth is one of the most highly-praised women we read about in Scripture. What was this marvelous thing she did?   Surely she served God in a mighty way.   She must have had a three-album deal while being the soloist of her chur...

We are quick to judge people. We're fast to look at someone who's overweight and think they're a glutton, without considering that while they could overeat, it could also be they suffer from a medical condition that makes their body gain weight easily. We look at someone who is sickly, and think they're living an unhealthy lifestyle filled with junk food and devoid of exercise. And while that could be true, we rarely acknowledge that they could also be suffering from food intolerences yet undiscovered, that they could be trying their best to take care of their bodies to little or no effect on their condition. And I'm sure all of us girls have had that friendship with a girl who looked pretty and maybe was even popular, who seemed kind and likable, the perfect friend. But we soon found out that, while she might be a good friend for someone, it wasn't a good friendship for us, either because she was a horrible person or we had nothing in common. Some of u...

"You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You." ~ Isaiah 26:3, NKJV This verse has been running through my head a lot the past couple of weeks. When my heart has been anything but peaceful as I watch the health of two of my three cats slowly fail. Letting go of them, who I love so much, have had for so long, it hurts. And besides that, there have been other things going on in my life which tear at my heart and fill my mind with doubt and fear. Chances are, fear and doubt are plaguing you too. Maybe you're watching a parent or a grandparent's health fail. Maybe your parents are going through a divorce. Maybe you're going through a divorce. Maybe you're struggling with school or work or illness. Maybe what's bothering you is something else. I think about when Isaiah penned this verse, under the inspiration of God. He started his ministry in the same year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1). He lived throug...

We all know what a trap comparison is, we've heard enough about how we shouldn't compare our lives, looks, etc to other girls, that Facebook inflates what our lives look like. But I haven't heard nearly as much about comparing our faults to those of others. That is a trap I've recently discovered in my life. I've always had an issue with comparison, if I'm honest. I think most of us do. We live in a sinful world, and from babyhood we're taught to look/act/be a certain way. We're indoctrinated with comparing ourselves every time we turn on the T.V. pretty much. We've used comparison lots to tell ourselves where we lack. We also use it a lot to pat ourselves on the back, to convince ourselves we're doing okay. But whereas we know by now how dangerous it is to compare ourselves to others as a standard of what we lack, the dangers of comparing our faults and mistakes to those of others to make ourselves feel better is much more slippery. ...

There's a lot of lies that Satan wants you to believe. In this series, we've looked at lies about God , Satan , Pain , and  Sin . There's many more we didn't look at, both in the topics listed, and in others. Today, to end this series for now, I want to focus on three lies Satan desperately wants us to believe about ourselves. 1. My worth is based on what I can do, have, who I'm with, etc. "He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time" ~ 2 Timothy 1:9, NIV I'm a very driven person. But I struggle with chronic pain and fatigue. I have goals, dreams, plans, that I want to accomplish. I write novels, and have plans for how fast I will put them up on Kindle. And when I don't reach my idea of how much I should get done in a day, I often beat myself up. Because I too often forget that, whi...

It's been a while since I last posted. Between the holidays and other family craziness, my life's been a little swamped. But now it's time to get back in and try to finish this series. So as we all know by now, Satan excels at lying. He tells us lies about lots of different things and people, including God and himself. Last time I posted, it was about the lies he tells us when we're dealing with pain . Another area he like to tell a lot of lies about is sin (yes, we're finally going to look at this area. No more delays). If I'm honest with you, I struggled not only writing this post, but also in deciding whether I should still post it after so long. Should I continue this series? Should I move on? Am I being one of those people pointing to dust specks when I'm carrying around a 2x4 in my spiritual eye ( Matthew 7:1-6 )? But after praying, I decided this was important to talk about, that even though this post will be riddled with errors (because I'm...

Last week, when I mentioned three lies Satan tells us about himself , I said we would talk about three lies about sin this week. But I’m going to save that for next week because I feel I should talk to you about something else instead. You see, yesterday I had to put my cat Smokey to sleep. And I prayed that God would give me strength because my heart was breaking. I mentioned in a previous post about my cat MeMe , who was not doing well. By God’s grace, her health is much better, and I thank you all for praying for her and me. Smokey was her brother, a sweet little boy who I called “the cat of instant purr.” You practically just had to look at this cat and he would purr. Even in his last minutes, when my dad held him before the vet gave him the final shot, my beautiful little buddy was purring. I thank God that by His abundant mercy Smokey didn’t suffer long. It was really only the last three or four days of his life that he seemed like he was suffering at all. But ev...

Satan has a repertoire of "gifts," including inciting rebellion and convincing Christians and the unsaved alike that they should care about themselves more than they should care about others. One of his greatest skills is lying. Last week's post was about some lies he tells us   about God . But it doesn't stop there. Satan tells us multiple lies about himself. 1. He's as powerful as God. "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." ~ 1 John 4:4, NKJV Don't get me wrong. The devil has great power. But it's nothing compared to God's. Remember the story of Job? Satan wanted to crush him, to hurt him so badly that Job would take it out on God and say all kinds of rotten things against Him. But Satan couldn't lay a finger on him unless   God gave the green light . Job lived thousands of years ago, but that truth remains unchang...

We all know Satan is a liar. Jesus Himself tells us Satan invented lying . But why do we still get caught up in his lies? I think our main problem is we don't know how to spot them, or that they're so small, phrased just right, that we began not to notice they are contrary to what the Bible tells us (one of the reasons it is VITAL to have a daily time in the Word!). And they tend to play on our emotions. Satan knows he can get to us easier through our feelings than our brains. So for the next few weeks, let's take a look at some of the different lies we're told, and what the truth really is. This week, let's take a look and see what three lies Satan wants us to believe about God. 1. If I mess up, God's done with me/I have to earn His approval. "That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is ...

This coming election is a mess. That's no secret. I've yet to find anyone who is strongly for Trump or Clinton who isn't delusional. I mean, we're talking about the presidency of the U.S.A., a position which used to be reserved for the most qualified, most able candidate. Here in 2016, we have two candidates who are neither qualified or able, who have committed deeds and made statements that past generations wouldn't have allowed of town mayors, let alone the president of the United States. The only chance we have of having a decent president may be if a write-in or third party candidate gets elected, and even then it's probably a long-shot. It doesn't end there. Just looking at the direction this country has been heading is kind of scary. We started out as a country where most of the founding fathers at least acknowledged God's existence and power. How did we end up as one where for a Christian to express his or her beliefs is now labeled "intole...

She was just supposed to go in for a checkup and blood draw before she got a dental done. No big deal, routine for a 14-year-old cat (that's an old fogie cat FYI). She was little, but she is a runt, she's always been little. Only when she was rather fat was she more than 8 pounds. 6-7 was a good weight for her. My little babe I sat in the waiting room, my fur baby in her carrier beside me, giving me her signature stink eye glare. She'd ignore me the rest of the day when we got home, but I was just over the flu, and gave more thought to how much longer we'd be waiting than what mood my cat would be in when we got back home. When we were called back and the tech weighed her, she was a little light. Closer to 5 pounds than 6. But she was old, and cats tend to lean out when they get old. The vet was a little concerned, but thought it might be a thyroid issue. They drew blood, and sent me on my way after scheduling MeMe's dental. The blood work showed high ...