A young woman came to see me, as most seeking counseling do, because she was at the end of her rope. What had begun a year earlier as mild depression had sunk deeper and deeper until she found herself contemplating suicide. We met for many weeks...
READ MOREThere are many things we need to rename in our lives. Our work. Our relationships. Even our life itself. Rename them. Rename your life. It’s good. Because your life belongs to our good God, and he’s got you. Rename yourself. God has.
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READ MOREHe made you — on purpose. You are the only you — ever. Becoming ourselves means we are actively cooperating with God’s intention for our lives, not fighting him or ourselves. God accepts us right at this moment, and he wants us to accept...
READ MOREThe reason we don’t know what we want is that we’re so unacquainted with our desire. We try to keep a safe distance between our daily lives and our heart’s desire because it causes us so much trouble. We’re surprised by our anger and...
READ MOREYou are amazing. Well, okay, maybe not every day. Every day the wonder of you is amazing, but many days the wonder of you is buried beneath the rubble of a world gone mad. You were born into a glorious mess, and we all have become something of a...
READ MORE“In all their distress he too was distressed” (Isa. 63:9). We can know that in our distress God too is distressed. Jesus understands heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, sorrow, and pain. He is acquainted with grief. He cares. He cares...
READ MOREEvery human being has some vital place in their life where they are not living in the victory they long for, and it colors how they view themselves. Every woman’s personal struggle rooted in her past, be it fear of intimacy or a deep-rooted self-...
READ MOREThe story of my life and the struggles I have lived with—make that “live with”—have helped to shape me into the woman I am today and the woman I am becoming. My scars, my struggles, my failures, my joys, my private lonely agonies have been...
READ MOREThey left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed. (Luke 2:17-18,...
READ MORENow Beauty feared that she had caused his death. She ran throughout the palace, sobbing loudly. After searching everywhere, she recalled her dream and ran into the garden toward the canal, where she had seen him in her sleep. There she found the...
READ MOREPhilip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?” (John 14:8-9)
You can hear the disappointment in Jesus’ voice...
READ MOREJesus was walking to Jairus’s house, but he didn’t go alone. A crowd went with him. He was being jostled, pushed against, pressed into when suddenly he stopped and asked the seemingly ridiculous question, “Who touched me?”
A woman...
Let us then remember who we truly are. Let us go further up and further in to all the riches and the joy and the intimacy and the healing that God has for us! Do you remember who you are? Whose you are?
First, you are the daughter...
The story of Eden is not over. Every day we reenact the Fall as we turn in our desire to the very things that will destroy us. As Gerald May reminds us, addiction exists wherever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things that are...
READ MOREJesus longs for you to come close to him. And he has been moving throughout all eternity, battling, suffering, dying, and triumphing to win your heart for himself. He wants to capture your heart as a response to his overwhelming love for you. ...
READ MOREGod dreams big. And he invites us to dream big with him. God has planted dreams and desires in each one of our hearts, and they are unique to us. Opening up our spirits, our minds, our heart, our imaginations to what we would really like — to...
READ MOREHow do you find peace in the midst of difficult, painful circumstances? Let Peace find you. He’s right where you are, right smack dab in the middle of your life.
In the midst of our joy, our busyness, our sorrow, and our suffering,...
It is a mystery almost too great to mention, but God is the expression of the very thing we seek in each other. For do we not bear God's image? Are we not a living portrait of God? Indeed we are, and in a most surprising place—in our gender...
READ MOREOne night, in desperation and hope, I gave up trying to fix my life and collapsed into the waiting arms of Jesus, responding to his invitation, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and...
READ MORELet me say this again. Let suffering be the door you walk through that draws you to deeper intimacy with Jesus. Let it play its sanctifying role.
Because though God doesn’t cause all the trials in our lives, he does use them. He does work...
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