Love and encouragement from an imperfect mom and her fun teen daughters. We welcome you to live life with us.
Some topics are heavy like emotional healing or sexual harassment, and these topics are for the older gals.
God is showing me I can have compassion for those who hurt me without surrendering my heart to further attacks. I don’t want to fall into two different but equally wrong responses to those who hurt me. I don’t want to run away, fearing or hating those who hurt me with no regard for their … Read more Comfort my Enemies?
Ripping rotten roots out of my heart, God was a master gardener, with his pruning discipline after I refused to listen to his wise counsel. Some of the bad choices, like weeds, looked so innocent at first, but they were deadly, and I needed God to yank them out of my life. Even “good” aspects … Read more God’s Discipline: Weeds come when we disobey God
As I grow in my Christian faith, God showers me with his love and disciplines my sins, often through Bible verses I read. The love is a wonderful, easy gift. The discipline is also a blessing, albeit a painful gift. God is gentle, so he does not show me every sin at the same time. … Read more Seeing Myself in Proverbs: Ouch!
I discussed the trouble I had forgiving difficult people in my two last posts “Struggling to Forgive” and “Struggling to Forgive, part two.” I explained my ongoing forgiveness for a person who is now dead. I needed to get past her faults and understand her hidden pain. Outwardly she lived a charmed life, but because … Read more Continuing to Forgive (part 3)
I am expanding last week’s post “Struggling to Forgive.” I talked about misconceptions (lies or myths about forgiveness) and explained that even when we truly want to forgive, we pay a huge price for the wrongs others did to us. Those wrongs hurt badly and make forgiving much harder, since it comes at such a … Read more Struggling to Forgive, part two
Why do we struggle to forgive some people? I find most people easy to forgive, except people who got close to me and then wounded me badly. If I knew these people for a long time, or if I still have to relate to them, I struggle with forgiving them more than I do forgiving … Read more Struggling to Forgive
Our sinful flesh causes many problems, but we might only be aware of the obvious areas, the “lusts of the flesh,” (over-eating and sins of lust.) I had not realized how many aspects of our lives are actually ruled by our flesh, until I struggled with my temper while dealing with inanimate objects. God showed … Read more Hidden Problems the Flesh Causes
In last week’s post “Deceived by False Doctrine” I discussed some specific false doctrines, about God, that have deceived me and other people. Whether a church directly teaches errors or people misunderstand the truth and come up with wrong ideas, the false doctrine pulls them away from the true heart of God. This week I … Read more Fighting False Doctrine, part two
Masculinity is not ever toxic; a false idea of masculinity (often in sissy-men who bully others) is the true, toxic problem. We must never confuse these two groups or blame all men. Truly masculine men are strong and kind. Yes, even good men make mistakes, but they take responsibility for their mistakes. True masculinity breeds … Read more No Such Thing as Toxic Masculinity
I ended my post last week saying that we need to surrender our concerns to Jesus, but surrendering can be so scary, some people never do so. They are terrified of facing their pain and afraid that Jesus might judge them. Oh how sad these ideas are, since they keep us from the One who … Read more Surrendering our Concerns