freedom

Jul

2021

Please stop working so hard for Jesus

Once there was a girl who grew up in a good Christian family. From the time she was young, she served in her dad’s church. When she graduated from Christian school, she enrolled in Christian university where she studied hard and eventually met and married an evangelist. For years she and her husband traveled the country, serving God together.

One birthday in her early 40’s, her husband wrote her a message for all to see, ending with:

“May God bless you with many more years of service to Him!!”

Maybe she smiled fondly as she blew out her candles. Or maybe . . .

Jun

2019

It’s Okay to Trust Your Heart

Are you surprised, too, that summer’s arrived? Summertime can sometimes make us feel like kids freed from school–ready to stay up late, play outside, eat ice cream, watch movies, and ask each other a hundred times a day, “What do you want now?”

It’s an interesting question – “What do you want?” To answer honestly, you have to be in touch with the true you, deep inside, and what she truly desires. Answering “What do you want?” means trusting your heart.

And that can prove tricky, especially if we’ve been taught good Christians have “desperately wicked” hearts (Jer. 17:9), instead of beautiful, wise hearts made new through salvation in Christ. (Ezek. 36:26; 2 Cor. 5:17)

Continue reading →

May

2019

We Can Stop Apologizing Now

As I flip through the pages of Real Simple (May 2019), I make it as far as pg 10, “The Editor’s Note,” where Leslie confesses she is a recovering chronic apologizer. Which is why she loves this issue’s essay feature: “Women on what they no longer apologize for.”

Color me intrigued! I flip to page 126 and read all seven articles, right in a row. Sweet confessions of women no longer apologizing for things like loving cats or hitting the snooze button or being vulnerable.

I’ve been a chronic apologizer for much of my life too. Many of us are.

Continue reading →

Jul

2016

What I Learned from Getting Ditched Twice in One Day

Not too long ago I was ditched. Twice. On the same day. No, it wasn’t some online dating scenario gone wrong. It was just one of those odd coincidences that makes you pause for a second and use your scrunched up “What in the world?” face.

Two of my employees quit on the same day. They didn’t know each other, and each had a perfectly good reason. But, it made me pause.

Even as God clearly showed me He had other plans in mind, I wondered, “Yeesh! What gives?” Continue reading →

Nov

2013

because we all need a duty break now & then

Not many days ago I stumbled upon several grownups engrossed in childlike fun, and I asked myself why we don’t do that more.

Why we don’t break away from daily duty to enjoy life more?

The first was a grown man flying a red triangle kit at the park. The kite was enormous – at least three or four feet across – but flying so high it was only the size of a quarter held at arm’s length in the blue CO sky. (I know because I held my arm up to measure.) Continue reading →

Sep

2013

stuck like a terrier with his leash in the seat crack

When I take my Maltese-Yorkie, Buster, on a car ride he adores sticking his head out the window, and I have to confess I’m a sucker for the happy doggy grin he wears when the wind’s in his face.

He gets especially excited when he sees a dog on the sidewalk or a swift bicycler and gets so worked up he’ll jump back and forth over the back seat repeatedly. (Yes, I have a very high-energy dog. You don’t know the half of it.)

Without fail his leash gets stuck between the seats, and he’ll start to whine and scramble frantically with his paws even though the more he frets the tighter his leash sticks. I can’t untangle him until we park, and by that time he’s moping because he has to sit still until I jerk his leash from the seat crack.

I know how Buster feels–stuck in bondage to something I can’t control and can’t escape. Continue reading →