Surrendering Fear. Exercising Faith. Living Free.

My time in God's Word has been very powerful this week. As I seek him more and more, he is revealing more and more to me. It's amazing! This week I read an awesome article from Proverbs 31 ministry about Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It was great! The devotion was written by Max Lucado and is entitled "The Power of a Simple Prayer." In it he talks about how life doesn't always fit our mold for it, that the pieces we are given don't always go together, and that things often don't work out the way we think they should. The important part, though, is how we react to that. Is our response one of fear, anger, frustration, or prayer? He reminds us of the power of a simple prayer by highlighting John 2, which tells the story of a wedding in Cana that both Jesus and his mother were invited to. While Jesus was there, the wedding party ran out of wine. Most of the women I know are fabulous hostesses and I know they would be freaking out over this, particularly of wh

For those of you who have been following, you know I felt very convicted that coming to Atlanta would force me to rely on God, rather than myself, completely. In our daily lives it's almost easy to forget that God is in control of everything. We wake up, go through the moves and motions of a morning routine, go to work or stay home with the kids and perform whatever activities and roles coincide with that, we eat dinner, we get ready for bed, and we repeat that the next time. We might pray to The Lord with special requests, in times of need, or about a certain challenge or problem, but we tend to feel like we only need him for certain things, right? It's just our human nature. In reality, he's in charge of it all, allows it all, sends it all, holds us through it all, and knows it all, whether we want to acknowledge that or not. There's nothing like a move, or something major like a job loss or illness, to pull the rug out from under you and leave you as blank as a white

So as most of you know, we moved to Atlanta, GA this past week. This was a huge decision for us, and boy oh boy did we go back and forth. We prayed over it a lot and didn't feel like God was leading us to Atlanta. In fact, I actually felt pretty convicted of the fact that God was asking us to stay in Buffalo to focus on growing in our faith through all the classes and ministries at our church, and to trust that HE would provide for us when it didn't look like my husband's salary would do a very good job of that. He hadn't had any luck finding a job in Buffalo for months and when he did it was a lower salary than he has ever had and one we knew we would have trouble getting by on, let alone continuing to save for a house. Appearances aside, because obviously staying in Buffalo didn't seem like a "smart" decision, I felt led to Matthew 6:33, which talks about not worrying about the things we need, like clothing or food: "But seek FIRST his kingdom a

As I continue to grow in the Lord, I'm finding it challenging to trust him. I say I trust him of course, and it's easy to trust him when things are going well, but the moment an unexpected trial or hardship strikes, I often notice that trust begins to waver. Other times the peace I feel (thanks to him) in the face of adversity surprises me, but then as I continue to walk it out day after day, as other things happen to tempt me or weigh me down even more, that's when I start to lack trust. Because what is trust? The definition from Dictionary.com says "reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety of a person or thing; confidence." So if I say that I trust God, that means I know I can rely on him, no matter how bad things get or how bleak they seem. I can rely on his integrity, his strength, and his ability. Of course I can; he's GOD! He is perfect, all-knowing, unconditionally-loving, forgiving, helping, encouraging...everything! I find the last word of

I think I've already shared this, but lately I've been struggling a lot with a big decision. A very big one. One that will, in many ways, determine my future, my family's future, and our quality of life for quite some time. I won't lie, I have struggled with so much anxiety and even weariness from the weight of this decision. My greatest anxiety has been that my husband and I will make the wrong decision, that we will be making a decision out of our will for our lives instead of the Lord's. I once heard someone say that the scariest place to be is outside God's will, and I agree with that completely. To me, this decision, like so many others in life, boils down to My Way, or God's Way. But what do you do when you don't know which way God's way is? Therein lies my dilemma. I was born again nine months ago, so I'm a pretty new Christian. That makes this more challenging. I read The Word every day, I'm in church every week because I need to b

The Lord has been doing amazing things in my life lately and I honestly can't wait to share! My husband and I were baptized in the Holy Spirit three weeks ago, we got married two weeks ago and decided to wash each other's feet like Jesus did for his disciples (which The Lord used to touch a lot of people), my husband and I have been drawing more near to Jesus each day, and we are both noticing how our desire to learn about Him and please Him is becoming our main focus. God has become the lens through which we view our lives and all our activities, but that has opened our eyes to exactly why the Christian life can be so challenging, and confusing, to walk out. Both Shawn and I knew the Christian life would be awesome and very rewarding, but we are starting to see where a lot of the challenge comes in. More than a few people made fun of our decision to wash each others' feet at our wedding. People always mock the things they don't understand but knowing that didn't