Control Relinquished

Many of us are in week three of our quarantine to stop the spread of COVID-19. If you're like me, you have processed and prayed a lot in these last three weeks. Life has a new, disjointed feeling. For instance, it took me five stinkin' hours to vacuum my house today. On a day I have the house to myself, that was a task that simply took 30-40 minutes. But under our new circumstances, I had to help multiple children with schoolwork. And then I had to be sensitive to the phone calls and video chats of my children with their teachers and my husband with his job. Before I knew it, I had to prepare lunch...and the disjointed schedule just continued!! The ebb and flow of the stream of normal life feels like it has completely disappeared. In fact, much like this stream I recently encountered on a walk: In one moment the stream is trickling along and the next moment it's completely gone. It leaves a dry and exposed creek bed. My father-in-law has lived most of his life ...

We are currently two weeks into the new year of 2020! New years can bring differing emotions: excitement, expectation, and passion to fulfill new goals and experiences. But it can also bring feelings of fear, worry, and overwhelmedness at the unknowns that lie ahead. There has been a situation in my own life that has felt burdensome over the past week. I've covered it in much prayer, trusting in God's faithfulness. But God kind of felt silent; I knew He was hearing my prayers but I wasn't seeing any amazing breakthroughs. Doubts and lies began to creep in about His goodness and I felt tempted to "fix" the problem by my own power. Then on Monday night, I experienced God in a way I haven't in years. He clearly spoke to me through a dream and vision in my sleep! In my vision, I found myself with the Israelites escaping the bondage of Egypt. We came to the Red Sea and only saw the sea of impossibility. We were being pursued from behind and felt trapped becaus...

I am honored to be featured as a guest blogger on a dear friend's series on Repentance! I have known Abi since high school and she is an inspiration to me! She is a powerful Spirit-led worship leader and speaker. Her recent series on repentance includes meaningful stories of where God meets individuals right where they're at and rescues them from the pit of destruction. Feel free to follow and subscribe her writings at  https://myhopeanew.blogspot.com Even from a young age, I did not handle change well. I can remember coming home from a weekend vacation, unable to sleep with dread for the next school day. I remember tears, anxiety, and prayers with my parents. Fast forward many years and similar battles later, I can recognize and understand the trigger to these episodes. Since those childhood years, I have faced two major bouts of anxiety brought on by change, stress, and health-related concerns. People often comment that they're surprised that I deal with anxiety bec...

Each summer our family makes a mini bucket list where each member chooses something they'd like to do together. Things like bike rides, trip to the beach, mini-golfing typically make the list. This year I put geocaching as my desired activity. Everyone was pretty skeptical of this, so I bragged it up based on stories I heard and read from others! Recently we had a Saturday evening with no plans and I convinced my family that this would be a fun way to spend our evening...my husband wasn't so sure! We headed off to our first hunt and to my excitement we found it pretty easily! My kids brought along items to "trade", but the size box was much too small to contain tradeable items. They were disappointed but excited to try another one. So we headed off on a new hunt, with our recent success spurring us on! We found ourselves in the parking lot of Shady Maple. Any locals will know that this smorgasbord is a hopping place on a Saturday. We looked like a bunch of crazie...

** Today I am honored to be featured on Rock and a Hard Place blog and below is the post that was shared. Please give Kara's blog {  https://therockandhardplace.blogspot.com/  } a follow too...great God stories of His faithfulness! ** On a cold, windy night in March my husband, daughter, and I were traveling home on some icy drifting roads. Suddenly, our already-bald-tires were spinning rapidly in a frantic effort to find traction on the icy, uphill road. To make matters even more stressful, we began sliding backward down the hill—we weren't even in reverse! Thankfully, oncoming traffic gave us the space we needed and we were able to turn around and go home another way. As I reflected on that unnerving experience, I felt as if I could compare that to our daughter's journey with severe scoliosis. That feeling of everything spinning out of control began in January of 2018 when we realized the severity of her 49 degree spinal curve. The fears, the unknow...

Last week we had a Paint Night with the 4th-6th-grade girls from our church. If you've never done a paint night with friends, I highly recommend it! It's relaxing, fun and always neat to see how each person's painting turns out a little different! It was during the painting time that I overheard various conversations that have stuck with me the past several days and caused me to think and reflect. When we were wrapping up and nearing the end, I heard one girl comment, "Isn't it crazy that we love our painting and are happy with it, but then we start looking around at other paintings and suddenly we don't think ours is very good anymore?" The other girl replied, "Yeah, I guess that's called human nature." Hmmm...So much truth and sadness rolled up in that statement! Human nature does compare and robs us of joy and contentment. How quick we are to compare our bodies, our strengths and weaknesses, our homes, our families, and ou...

This morning I pulled into Wal-Mart and as I parked, I heard a very loud, ringing bell. The sound seemed similar to that of a fire alarm, so my eyes scanned the area for unusual activity. I saw nothing abnormal, so I proceeded into the store. I expected to see or hear chaos or receive some sort of acknowledgment or explanation for the disruption. Instead, I was greeted by normal activity. In fact, everything seemed so normal that I began to wonder if I was the only one who could hear the obnoxiously loud bell ringing from the entrance! Isn't that how the messiness of life is? We have the obnoxious, blatant reminders of our shortcomings blowing up in our faces and yet we somehow seem to tune it out, ignore it, and continue on as normal. I'm talking about our misbehaving children, a difficult diagnosis, a crumbling marriage, financial pressures, discontentment, jealousy, rage. We hide it all too well. Our insides are falling apart, but we plaster on that smile and say al...