Barren to Beautiful

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Searching for Spring: Real Hope for Cold-Climate Dwellers

Culture· Growing in God· Marriage

I don’t think feeling desperate for spring is wrong. Actually, I think it’s a foretaste of what we long for in heaven.

I think that the longing from everything being cold, and dead, and buried underground in the dirt, to getting warm, and soft, and pushing up out of the dirt like the first daffodils is something wired deeply into our souls.

I think God gives us a longing for spring.

In this physical world that God did make, I think that seeing and touching and smelling new life speaks to some deeper part of our hearts that longs for this to happen in our souls and in our bodies in heaven.

woman in snow

Why Your Soul Needs Tending in Winter

About This Blog· Soul Care

January, February, and March feel like the awkward puberty months of the year. I just don’t know what to do with myself. And sometimes, especially after the holidays, I struggle emotionally and spiritually. I don’t know that I have actual “seasonal depression,” but there’s just something about this time of year that tends to make me feel a bit “lost.”…
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woman sitting alone

An Open Letter To Those Who Lost Someone to COVID

Culture

“Why did he have to die, Mom?” my 8-year-old daughter Selah asked me, her green eyes full of tears.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. And I hug her. I hold her and think about Harold, my father-in-law we lost unexpectedly last year. As I hold her, I look up and see the giant life-sized picture she drew of him taped to her wall, and the banner that says, “Grandpa” hanging above her window, and the tears roll down my cheeks and into her blonde hair. I don’t know how to explain to her why her vibrant, funny, joyful Grandpa died.

woman on mountain

5 Things I Learned From A Summer Off Social Media

Growing in God· Soul Care

Many nights, I would go to bed by the electric glow of my screen, keeping me from rest. And even when I shut off my screen, I couldn’t shut off my mind; I would lay in bed and all the news and opinions would rattle around in my soul. Sometimes, it made my heart feel anxious, like a tight a fist. Other times I felt a sense of panic. Panic over the state of the world. And sometimes, I would just feel angry. “How could they say that? How could they think that?” The world felt dark and chaotic. And I was drinking it in, cup after cup, right before bed. It was no way to “rest.” I needed to come away from there. Here’s how I did it, and what I learned.

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