I’ve had many moments when I’ve felt so weak that my remaining time on earth feels like a mission impossible. In my body’s weakness, it’s given many extra hours for prayer and time in God’s Word. It’s created time to ask our “mighty to save” LORD (Is. 63:1) to save Read more…
Are you tired too? I’m weary of ongoing physical suffering and incessant problems and losses in this fallen world. It easily threatens to take over my emotions and thoughts. A deeper weariness of sin’s temptations to bring me down. Lately, I’m desperate to take refuge in my union with Jesus. Read more…
What a mess. My heart breaks by what I see on social media these days…people judge others’ heart motives and force their personal “if-then” ideas. They echo themes of the book of Job, such painful destruction on top of his grief, financial loss, and chronic illness. Job’s “friends” accuse him Read more…
God has woven some underlying themes into my 35 years of suffering from chronic illness and pain, much like themes in a sonata. As I read my prayer journals, one theme has been the ongoing need to believe the gospel…daily. I see the subtle spiritual warfare and temptation of the Read more…
I’ve been pondering the wondrous truths God reveals about His saving gift. I once asked Him, “What are believers in Christ saved from, exactly?” If anything brings me to my knees in humble gratitude within this year’s suffering Christmas, it’s His answers throughout Scripture. Handel’s Messiah echoes the truth, the very bad Read more…
In this week’s one-year anniversary of brain surgery, I am in awe of what our Lord and King has done. I’m alive! Hallelujah! Beloved in Christ, it’s far grander than His kind gift of so much physical healing. It’s way more holistic and weighty than that. I can only describe what Read more…
A mighty fortress is our God,a bulwark never failing;our helper he, amid the floodof mortal ills prevailing. (“A Mighty Fortress,” Luther, M., 1529) Mortal ills and storms of life in this fallen world, raging temptations to sin, all of us desperately needing God’s help. Here’s one of the greatest of Read more…
God made us emotional beings, housed in a body with a cognitive brain that thinks and an emotional brain that simultaneously “feels.” Beloved in Christ, God not only understands our emotions, but He created us with physical brains… that automatically have them. Many faithful and mature children of God (e.g., Read more…
My heart is in agony, and I have to share. Thousands have written me, having been taught that if we “do” things a certain way, God “has to” remove suffering and give us “favor,” as a reward for our works. Beloved, do you see the pride and pain this brings? It’s making ourselves into gods above Him. Read more…
Sometimes, it feels like being trapped. Like we’re victims, prisoners of war. Stuck in pressured darkness, feeling there’s no way out of problems, imprisoned in sick bodies, continually being revisited by trauma. It’s all within our contexts of ongoing battles in this fallen world decaying in sin. Sometimes, we’re faced Read more…
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