God is > my Emotions

Kelly Nicole 3 min read

If you asked me a few months ago how I was doing emotionally, I would have told you I was an emotional train wreck. I felt unseen, forgotten, and not needed by anyone, especially by God.  Although part of me knew these irrational thoughts and feelings were far from God’s truth – it was much easier to believe them than it was to fight past them, run to God, and seek out his life-giving word. Instead of running to the cross, I gaven power to these irrational thoughts that had quickly spread like wildfire; leaving me feeling defeated, abandoned, and utterly alone. In other words, my emotions were running my life.

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The Most Unlikely Missionary of All-Time

Rachel Marissa 5 min read

Who do you think is the most unlikely missionary of all-time? Maybe you’d say Paul (See Acts 9), a persecutor of the early church turned apostle for Christ. Or, maybe you think of more modern day missionaries like Jim Elliot, William Carey, and CT Studd.

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Putting on our New Selves

Eileen Drake 4 min read

Ephesians 4:22, 24 (NIV)  says, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires… and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

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The Weight of Sin

Melanie Badyna 3 min read

He looked at me with glassy eyes. As if it had taken him away from me. As if it stripped him of anything that made him human. He laid back down and began to breathe deeply and quickly as if the room was depleted of air. He didn’t respond before, but the light had left his eyes now. Then a shiver came, then a shake, then came the tempest. His chest raised as if his spirit was being violently removed from his body. Body and spirit so tightly interwoven that the lift of his chest revealed his body’s resistance to his spirit stretching towards heaven without it. In all this breath…. and shake… and groaning… he never appeared to me less alive. Then the question: “What have I done?”

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When Home Isn’t Home Anymore

Natalie Mayo 5 min read

You may know that feeling when you’ve been traveling on a long journey and you open the door to your home and…ahhhhh….there’s that feeling of relief, rest, and contentment. You suddenly remember that there really is no place like home. There’s also a coming-of-age phenomenon many people discover after they go off to college or move out on their own and then they’re back at their childhood “home” in their “hometown,” and yet can’t wait to go back to their new city or home. Home isn’t home anymore.

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Lessons from the Wilderness

TaKasha Smith 5 min read

“This is my prayer in the desert, when all that’s within me feels dry.  This is my prayer in my hunger and need.  My God is the God who provides.”  (Desert Song, Hillsong United) I often think the Bible is filled with stories of people doing good that I could never achieve or evil that I would never fall to.  I know there is much to learn in those stories, but I have to admit, they don’t always feel personally relevant to me.  The journey of the Israelites from Egypt into the Promised Land (Exodus 6- Joshua 4) is not one of those stories.

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Insecurities: Don’t be fooled, we all have them

Jin Jung 4 min read

What defines confidence for everyone is so different. Is confidence being able to speak out about what you believe in? Or being able to keep quiet to really show that you’re not swayed by other people’s words. Is confidence the same thing as courage? What distinguishes those?

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Why Resolutions Don’t Work

Sandy Merat 2 min read

As the temperature starts to rise and the flowers start to bloom, we know that spring is in the air.  Wait, spring? Oh no! Where did time go? Is it me, or does it feel like we just skipped the first quarter of the year?

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