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
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:
In the last 2 weeks (except for the break I took at Christmas), I’ve been writing about my spiritual hunger and how it is strongest in my areas of greatest weakness. For example, I crave God’s love and affirmation more than some people do, because I am weak in this area. I overly-crave people’s affirmation … Read more Recognizing and Feeding Spiritual Needs all Day Long
Our identity in Christ includes many aspects of our life, including our role as women warriors in spiritual warfare. Be sure to check out last week’s post, “Warriors in Genesis’ Eden,” because I discussed our identity as spiritual warriors in that post. But I want to discuss several other aspects of our identity in Christ … Read more Misplacing Our Identity in Christ
(when they won’t repent) I was dismayed when a radio pastor said that although our world wants to shield the victims, they still have an obligation to forgive their attacker (abuser, oppressor, etc.) The pastor referred to unrepentant attackers. I was concerned about the pastor’s tone of voice and the use of the word “obligation,” … Read more Forgive and Let God Punish Them
Some people use religious phrases and pretend to follow God, when they do not. Wolves in sheep’s clothing have existed since ancient times and Scripture shows this. As such, we need to be aware of the frauds and also warn our friends. Pharaoh accused Moses and the Israelites “May the Lord be with you if … Read more Fake Faith and Pious Platitudes
Insidious deceptions of Satan When we read “We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ,” (2Cor.2:5), we assume we will recognize Satan’s blatant contradictions of Scripture. I wrote about this in my posts “So Many Negative Thoughts Planted by Satan” as well as “Yes, You Can Win the Spiritual Battle if You … Read more Take Every thought Captive:
As I studied Leviticus, I discovered God directly confronts the sin of codependence (though the Bible does not give it that name.) This sin causes well-meaning people to do things for others they should have done for themselves. This sin causes people to dwell in fear (extreme worry) about loved ones and even try to … Read more God confronts Codependence (Sin) in the Bible!