woman in blue and white dress standing in the middle of a road

How can I live within this suffering? Speak, oh Lord!

Recently, I shared about some precious friends who’ve experienced our Father’s comfort in affliction, who then shared that comfort with me and my husband. It came after their intense affliction. But how can we experience His comfort within this suffering, a suffocating affliction? How can we know His desires for Read more…

close up of hands

Lord, I know. Rest me.

Precious Lord, Take my hand. I come to You weary. Help me to sing today. I need no other argument,  I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died,  and that he died for me.  (“MY FAITH HAS FOUND A RESTING PLACE,” EDMUNDS, L. H., 1891)  Who shall bring any charge against God’s Read more…

woman looking at sunset

Help me, for You are my Help and Comfort

God, sometimes my prayers are simply, “Help me.” You tell me You are my Helper, in the person of the Holy Spirit. What a gift of Your grace to me! I come to You now, so weak and needing Your help. Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;  wean it Read more…

flock of sheep on green gras field

I praise and trust You as my Provider, Lord

Father, I remember Abraham’s anguish. You’d told him to kill his beloved son, as a burnt offering. “Where is the lamb, Dad?” Abraham encouraged his son with the trust You gave him, “God will provide for himself the lamb.” You had promised that You would create Your own people through Read more…

landscape photo of pathway between green leaf trees

I’m suffering…but take heart! But God!!

As always, this week’s “praise interruption” interrupts our suffering with loads of Scripture, with God’s Word of truth. I agonized on a recent morning when I couldn’t see a way to manage my new treatment plan, even while grateful for having one now. So graciously, the Lord again came near Read more…

woman sitting while showing heart sign hands

My omnipresent God is with me and my children

I’ve noticed that the hardest suffering for many women has to do with mothering, in multiple ways. Mothering starts with the anguish of labor, yet it’s mingled with joy (John 16:21). In the sacrificial love required, exhaustion of child-care, and continual seeking of God’s wisdom, we sometimes suffer in mothering Read more…

man standing on a rock near snow covered land

Praying to our wise God as we suffer

Are Job’s words echoes of your thoughts? I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes (Job 3:26 ESV).  Like Job, suffering trial after trial, we don’t understand why this is happening. How could we? We are not God and we have limited wisdom Read more…

scenic view of dramatic sky during winter

Rest of a New-Hard Season

Are you walking in a new-hard season as the New Year approaches? Is this Christmas song lyric your own context right now? In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long Read more…

gray concrete triumphal arch surrounded by flowers

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms in Crisis

Crisis screams. A phone call that shatters, symptoms that destroy, an emergency that swirls into chaos. If you’re like me, you grasp for control and try to hold things together as you pray, “Help me, help me” or just “God,” until you finally breathe and melt. In the siren lights Read more…

pathway between green grass field

God’s song in the night, a song of joy

Joy? How can we possibly find any joy right now? How can we find joy when anger, pain, fear, and personal troubles seem to escalate weekly?  My heart has wearied this week, yet He beckons me through this Scripture. God’s song in the night You shall have a song as Read more…

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