Therefore encourage one another and build each other up. — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV A desperate woman once came to see Jesus. She was out of doctors, money, and hope. But worst of all she was out of friends. Her sickness rendered her ceremonially unclean, cut off from her family and any house of worship.…
A Classic Christmas
This year, the editors at Thomas Nelson have gathered meaningful and heartwarming works of literature that celebrate the Christmas season and published them together in A Classic Christmas: A Collection of Timeless Stories and Poems. Authors like Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning often wrote about the spirit of Christmas and the…
Imperfect Faith
What Joy Davidman’s Spiritual Journey Teaches Us Today “If we should ever grow brave, what on earth would become of us?” This question asked by Joy Davidman does more than beg for an answer, it might also set us off on a spiritual journey that irrevocably alters our lives, which is exactly what happened to…
Choosing Gratitude
When Joshua Kaufman survived Hitler’s brutal concentration camp in Dachau, he had only one wish: he wanted to thank one of the United States soldiers who had liberated him. Joshua waited seventy years for that moment… Eighty-nine-year-old Daniel Gillespie was making his way across the street. The soldier who had entered Dachau as a strong,…
What Is the Enneagram?
Learning the Essentials of This Ancient Tool Often misunderstood as simply a personality tool to describe quirks and traits of people’s individuality, the Enneagram goes much further than mere caricatures. The contemporary Enneagram of Personality (1) illustrates the nine ways we get lost, but also the nine ways we can come home to our True…
When Less Becomes More: Just a Glass
It was a funny joke in the early days of motherhood: Is it time for wine yet? Haha. My girlfriends and I would have playdates on Fridays that always involved a glass or two of wine and not-so-healthy snacks. It was our source of relief from the stresses of new motherhood. None of us had…
Healthy Comfort for the Grieving
Editor’s Note: When someone is hurting, it’s hard to know what to say. How can we help? In times of hardship, loss, and pain, Scripture beckons us to look up and out. We pray you are blessed by this excerpt from The Book of Comforts. * Meaning to be friendly, I asked, “How was Christmas?” If…
Less Is More, Especially Through the Holidays
Have you ever wondered when life began to be different? When did we change from happy little girls to frenzied women? Is there a mark on our timelines when we changed from carefree little girls into frazzled grown-up girls? Somewhere along the way, we went from thriving to surviving, from being full of joy to…
Learning To Trust, All the Way Home
The trouble is that relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing has yet been done. ~ C. S. Lewis, Letters To Malcolm, Chiefly On Prayer She approached me after a speaking engagement, her face lit up with a big smile: “Oh, don’t you worry, honey,” she said,…
The Age Old Question: “Did God Really Say?”
One minute, I was on a high of living my best life now! I had it all — my good ol’ boy husband, Justin, who would take a bullet for me, healthy children, a dream home nestled in the heart of East Texas complete with white picket fence and a kitchen overflowing with friends on…