Self-what?

I am beating myself up this morning because I caved and got a strawberry milkshake at Chick-Fila last night. That little voice is saying, kind of loudly, “Who are you to write about self-control?” Shut it, Devil. We are all works in progress. Just because we have not mastered something does not mean we haven’t…

Gentleness

I long to be gentle. As long as I’m still cleared for quick comebacks. And dad jokes. Once I ended a joke about the unsteady composition of a rocking chair with “cane just wasn’t able.” I know. It wasn’t funny then, either. I’m here all night! Tip your waiters and waitresses! Back to being gentle….

Gotta Have Faith-fulness

Would you have married your husband (or wife) if you knew they would be unfaithful? Would you have promised to love and honor and devote the rest of your life to a person who disrespected and hurt you with continuous infidelity? Hosea was a prophet; a man of God who lived about eight hundred years…

Are You Good?

What image comes to mind when you think of the word “good”? Is it a delicious meal and great conversation with the people you love? Is it taking in a beautiful sunrise with that first cup of coffee in your hand? Is it that dream vacation, or watching your little one sleep so peacefully in…

Wait for It…

This is how I explain the concept of patience to a six year old: “Patience is waiting with a good attitude.” Works for adults, too. Patience is the fourth fruit of the Holy Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23. I know we often think of patience as not losing it in day…

Joy in the Time of Kamala

First of all, before you ask for my address so you know where to send the hate mail, I only wrote Kamala because it sounds similar to “cholera”. Just tell yourself it means “current times”. Joy is a term we often hear during big celebrations in life: a wedding, the birth of a child, finding…

Love and Other Four Letter Words

If you surveyed one million people and asked them to define “love”, you’d probably get thousands of different answers. Love is a hard concept to pin down. It can be romantic or familial (but not both, people). It can suggest fluttery butterflies or a deep bond of friendship. It could be the contentedness of a…

Are you Fruity?

For anyone who has placed their faith in Jesus: Galatians 5:16-26 NLT[16] So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. [17] The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us…

Me-ology and the Churld

If you are a Christian, and your pastor is preaching anything other than what’s in the Bible, it’s time to find a new church. Today. I recently heard of a local pastor who refuses to officiate any weddings at all because he’s too afraid to stand on Biblical principles and say “no” to marrying couples…

FNLY HPY

On our drive down to Gatlinburg last Friday the license plate on a little red car in the next lane caught my eye. It read “FNLY HPY”. As we accelerated past, I glanced over at the driver; a sixty-something woman with shortly-cropped gray hair and dark-rimmed rectangular glasses. For some reason I expected the owner…