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
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!
How can an evil person have good sides? Last week I talked about Luke Chapter 16, where the evil rich man had one good side. This rich man knew the beggar, Lazarus, was sick and starving to death, yet the rich man feasted luxuriously and watched this poor beggar die. Surprisingly, this evil man had … Read more Evil People can have “Good” Sides
(or your friend lacked one) God designed humans to have a safe, loving relationship with an earthly father (and mother, but today’s post is about dads.) What if you lacked this loving relationship in your childhood? While God has promised to be a father to the fatherless (Psalm68:5,) how can a gal (or guy) appropriate … Read more When you Didn’t have a Loving Earthly Father
Unhealthy neediness is ungodly and causes people to do foolish things, cling to people, make unfair demands and operate out of fear. In contrast, people can have healthy needs, such as babies, frail elderly people, and very close friends and spouses who let themselves express vulnerable needs to enable the relationship to grow. Neediness becomes … Read more Dealing with Needy Children, Friends and our Needy Selves
Last week I talked about how “idealizing” people or God is actually rejecting (or hating) them, not loving them. “Idealizing” people opposes God’s heart, because God sees the entire person and does not claim a person is all good or all bad. Initially the idealist only sees the person’s good qualities and denies anything bad … Read more “False idealism” hurts people and displeases God