The Gospel Is Not Fair

“I just don’t think it’s fair.”

I was complaining to my husband, and the frustration of the day poured out of me as I recounted the story. I had played by the rules, poured my heart and soul into a project, and worked my tail off to get it done.

And then I had sat back and watched as someone else received the praise for all of my hard work. Continue reading “The Gospel Is Not Fair”

The Pessimistic Christian

You know who might not be the best candidate for spreading the Good News? Someone who is perpetually expecting bad news. I’ve been there. I prefer to call myself a realist, but the truth is that I am often cynical, expecting the worst from people and situations. I let my past hurts and disappointments color the way I see the things around me.

Most recently, as I prepared for the end of my maternity leave, I found myself stressing out over all of the unknowns and coming to the worst possible conclusions: We aren’t going to be able to find a good daycare. He’s not going to take his bottle. There’s no way we are going to pay off all of these medical bills.

A few days ago, while I was in the middle of one of my pessimistic breakdowns, God revealed something to me:

Pessimism is viewing the world through our own scars instead of His scars. Continue reading “The Pessimistic Christian”

The Messy Places

Today, as I was putting away a folded pile of laundry, I realized that of all the rooms in our house, our bedroom is usually the messiest. Logically, I suppose it makes sense. We want people to feel welcome in our home, so we spend most of our time cleaning the rooms they are going to see.

But how often is our marriage that way? Continue reading “The Messy Places”

Filling Your Spiritual Hunger With the Fullness of God

Life with a toddler is always interesting. It’s the age where children are learning to express their thoughts and emotions, but don’t always understand how to reason through them. It’s the age where the wrong sippy cup can lead to a meltdown and every simple yes or no decision can take half an hour.

Last week my two-year-old told me she was starving, so I laid out a spread of her favorite foods: turkey, apples, cheese, sweet potatoes, peas, and blueberries. Naturally, the “starving” toddler took three blueberries and one piece of cheese and decided that was all she wanted. Not ten minutes later, she looked up and said, “Mommy, I’m still hungry.” Continue reading “Filling Your Spiritual Hunger With the Fullness of God”

You Can’t Control Your Legacy

In this day and time, we have control over so many aspects of our identity: we choose what status updates we want to make online, we select (and edit) the photos we want to share with the world, and we actively construct the persona we want to portray on our social media platforms. But we have to keep in mind that while we can create our own highlight reels, we don’t get to write our own obituaries. Ultimately, we can’t control the way other people remember us. Continue reading “You Can’t Control Your Legacy”