Love and encouragement from an imperfect mom and her fun teen daughters. We welcome you to live life with us.
articles on making and keeping friends
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
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
We may have learned false doctrine in church, as it was taught, or by misunderstanding the truth and coming up with wrong ideas on our own. Either way, false doctrine harms our Christian walk, until we re-learn the truth. In posts I have written earlier, I mentioned some wrong ideas I developed about God, due … Read more Deceived by False Doctrine
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 closed last week’s post on surrender (“Surrendering our Concerns”) by saying acceptance is the second step in this Spiritual growth. After we stop resisting and finally surrender our weakness to God, we might demand an instant fix for our problems, instead of truly accepting how difficult (and how long-lasting) problems are when we surrender. … Read more Acceptance a Close Cousin to Surrender
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
Recognizing Patterns in Your Sin Last week I closed my post mentioning that some stubborn Christians do not want to face and heal their pain. These gals and men are moody or irritable all the time, not on occasion. These people may actually have different chronic problems too, whether that means always being angry, fearful … Read more Breaking Your Personal Strongholds: