Perhaps you have seen the object lesson where a glass of water gets bumped. If the water is dirty…dirty water sloshes out. If the water is crystal clear…clear water sloshes out. It illustrates what happens when we get bumped by life. I had lunch with a friend recently. During our conversation she referenced a beautiful [...]
Phyllis Johnson
The past five years have been an intense time of introspection and reflection for me. At one point I became acutely aware that I suffered from shame based living. I had a vague but constant sense of hating my personality. The voices in my heart grew in volume and repeatedly told me that authentic Godly [...]
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I am an irresponsible gardener. I love flowers. I love to tend to them. I love to look at them. I love to pick them. I love to put them in quaint, delicate vases throughout my home. I love the way they announce freshness! I love to leave work, arrive, park my car by the [...]
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I have a dear friend who is gravely ill with a brain tumor. While she fights for her earthly life, she is acutely aware of the majesty of God who brings life out of death. Watching her journey has focused my attention on the splendor of death processes. Living through dying places is quite the [...]
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I worry. Worry is a sin. I don’t want to sin. Worry begins as a slippery, benign thought that worms its way into your soul (after it has morphed into a weird little brain train in your head) that ends up being heart palpitations and insomniac nights. My son is taking his three little boys [...]
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The sun was just starting to rise as I clicked my door lock and started to get in my car. As I glanced I spotted a dead sparrow lying on the driveway…frozen as though she just fell out of the sky. On any other day I probably would not have noticed. Who notices sparrows? They [...]
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Just the night before I was in a social setting where the conversation drifted to a discussion about loneliness. The topic seems to come with an understood way of expression…it is talked about in soft tones….downcast eyes…almost in an embarrassed manner. Some mentioned how hard it was to attend church alone. Other’s shared the way [...]
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II Corinthians 10:12 says it is ignorant to compare ourselves to each other. One translation even says it is stupid. I just spent a good part of last week at a conference featuring some of the best and brightest of Christian leaders in our country. 13,000 people attended. Talk about a comparison trap! One of [...]
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I attended a secular high-school right when everything was changing. Good girls “did” and marijuana was the common center of parties. Even though I ran with the popular crowd, because of a combination of good parenting and God’s mercy I escaped the drug and sexual revolution unscathed . Half-way through high-school I had an encounter [...]
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Perception… Perception is everything. A definition of perception is a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present. Anyone who has worked with children for any length of time will tell you one of the perks of the job is the hilarious observations children make…and they are without filters in their [...]
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