The news is horrific, isn’t it? Suffering abounds. We’re in agony for many whose daily existence is threatened. We find ourselves praying, “God, please help me as I suffer. Please help our world and Your people.” Who are we praying to, beloved in Christ? Maybe today we need to remember Read more…
Is this world’s ugly invading your thoughts and emotions lately? Is it hard to see any light right now? When darkness and ugly infiltrate our thoughts in suffering, we grasp for light and beauty. Sometimes the pain in this world becomes so big in our suffering, that we’re desperate to Read more…
God’s songs in Scripture drip with honest emotion. So we know He understands our emotional needs when we suffer; He gives us words to pray when our hearts run dry. In our pain and suffering, He even gives us moments of praise, interspersed within those tearful songs in His Word. Read more…
Is your landscape starting to look foreign? With head-spinning changes, escalating evil all around, pervasive hardship, and seemingly impossible suffering? I’ve had that kind of week as I write this. Many of us have. Psalms 137 and 138 have been the Lord’s gift to me this week. God’s people, exiled Read more…
Are you walking through a time of “unanswered prayer?” Does it seem like a lifetime of waiting for something? Are you experiencing discouragement and loss? I wrote this last week, not knowing that I would be suddenly walking in “the valley of the shadow of death” a few days later. Read more…
What if this suffering means my faith isn’t strong enough? What if God doesn’t actually love me? The enemy loves to dagger these questions into our thoughts. Just as in the Genesis 3 garden, the tempter wants us to forget the gospel, doubt God’s love for us because pain is Read more…
As this New Year begins, are you begging God for rescue from a new-hard season? If you’re like me, as I pray for rescue, I also must look back, rehearsing His past rescue when my circumstances overwhelm. I first need to remember that He’s already rescued and delivered us! So, Read more…
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…
Snow burst into the gloomy, dark, cloudy day after Thanksgiving. My husband and I agreed, “The first thing we must do today is to fill our home with Christmas lights, in a way we’ve never done before.” We gathered every dusty old light we could find, he replaced bulbs and Read more…
What does the tender image of a baby born in Bethlehem have to do with my suffering? How does the gospel relate to my suffering? I’ve spent years seeking God with these thoughts, especially when suffering continues through Christmas Day. So often I’ve cried, “O come, Lord Jesus” as I Read more…
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