spirit
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What Do You Give a Graduate Who Needs More Than a Celebration?
There is a particular kind of worry that settles into a parent somewhere around graduation season — not the kind you talk about at the party, but the kind that finds you in the kitchen at night, long after the dishes are done, thinking about your child and what comes next for them. You have watched them grow up. You have watched them struggle and push through and figure things out, sometimes with your help and sometimes very much without it, the way kids have to when they are becoming their own person. And now they are standing at the edge of something enormous, and you are proud — genuinely,…
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Because You Can’t Walk Beside Them Anymore
While you’re out shopping for dorm room supplies, there’s something else nagging you behind the anticipation of their new adventure. Yes, you’re full of excitement and joy for their new adventure, but you’re fearful of the heavy isolation of the world might find them first. You remember every prayer you’ve whispered over them since they were small, and all you can do now is hope that it was enough. But here’s the thing you can’t and shouldn’t let go of: One in three, they say, that 1 in 3 young adults inevitably face frequent, high levels of loneliness. So yeah, despite the new adventure that awaits them, despite all the…
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Watch How God Works in the Messes
God is not named in this book. But God is moving. He works through disruptions. Through refusals and anger and empty thrones. Through human choices—good and bad—that crack open the door for something none of them can see coming. This is the mystery of providence: God does not need perfect people to accomplish His purposes. He does not wait for clean hands or tidy narratives. He works in the mess. He moves in the breaking. Joseph in the pit.David in the cave. Mary in the scandal of an unexpected pregnancy. Vashti refuses. Xerxes rages. The advisors panic. And maybe you’ve been there too— feeling like your world is off-course, your…
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Be Still, Advent Day 13: The Art of Soaking: Using Scripture to Build Your Sanctuary
Be still, and know that I am God, Psalm 46:10 You Have a Problem. You pray. But peace is elusive. You are worried. The worry spreads. You become anxious. And God is more distant than ever. Peace feels like a dream you’ve never held, and God? He feels farther than the stars. When Peace Slips Through Your Fingers It’s not that you don’t want to trust. It’s that trusting feels like losing control. And control feels safer than free-fall. The Scriptures speak of stillness, of trusting God and casting your cares, yet in the heat of your unraveling heart, they seem like platitudes too simple for your complexity. The promises…
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Be Still, Advent Day 11: The God of the Unseen Reality.
“…He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not,” Romans 4:17 “….Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left,” 2 Kings 4:7 Romans 4:17 paints a picture of God’s creative power—He speaks, and reality forms.It’s one of those verses that grab you, and you want to jump online to see how it’s worded in at least 15 different versions: “… the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not,” NIV. “…the God who brings…
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Be Still, Advent Day 4: This is Why Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick
Catch up on all of the Be Still Advent readings here. Genesis 18:10-15 “Then he said, ‘I will certainly return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.’ Sarah heard in the tent door, which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, will I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’ Yahweh said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying, “Will I really bear a child, yet I am old?” Is anything too hard for Yahweh? At the set time I will return to you, when the…
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Protected: Trusting God In the Dark: Chapter 1 of Ruth Devotional
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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The Visit
Before I reached down to touch her, I said her name, so that she wouldn’t be frightened. As soon as she heard the first sounds of my voice, she looked toward me with eyes that could not see me and pulled me into her. Tears flowed as I held her. Sorrow over all that has gone wrong, the joy, and the deep, buried sadness that all the memories we have built together over these years are surely coming to an end. Sorrow, tempered with the joy that we are right now graced with this moment; a free pass for today. Stripped of so much, she has no barriers left, so…
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They Placed It In Our Hands and Asked Us To Sing
In spaces of time, of which I have no business indulging, because of its lack of, I have been playing more and more pieces of my collection from the “piano years.” The years when I was playing a lot. I haven’t touched it in decades, but there is one piece, written my Mendelson, that has been running through my mind, because I miss it, and I have been yearning to play it again — for its beauty. Tonight, I finally pulled it out of my archive, after searching and searching for it. Weathered, and yellowed, just like it should be. And the story behind the piece goes like this: There…
