Anxiety and Worry

The Journey: Beauty from Ashes has a new look and a new home! Please join me over at thejourneybeautyfromashes.com and be sure to click the follow button to receive updates on blog posts! If you have "liked" or shared posts be sure to do so again! Thank you!

When life takes over and we have quite a bit on our plate we can become very overwhelmed. I’ve been there many times myself. In some ways I’m there right now so what I’m saying here I’m also prescribing to myself regularly. CONTINUE READING...

Like a Slow Drip of Poison

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To tell this part of my story is very difficult for me. While I’m pretty open to talk about other aspects of my story this part I have not shared publicly. My experience at Mars Hill feels small and insignificant when standing next to the many experiences others have endured. 

When Nicholas (my first husband) disappeared in February 2008 CONTINUE READNG... 

The Other Side

The Journey: Beauty from Ashes has a new look and a new home! You can find this post, The Other Side, at thejourneybeautyfromashes.com and be sure to click the follow button to receive updates on blog posts! If you have "liked" or shared posts be sure to do so again! Thank you!

Six years ago I suffered a deep wound that is still healing. The loss of my first husband, Nicholas, is a wound that cut so deep the depths are immeasurable. During the weeks after that initial day I felt so dark and empty inside. I was pregnant with our third child and knew that I needed to take care of myself but I didn’t care. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t move from my place on my couch where I could see out my window to the place his car should have been parked. I wanted and needed to sit there and wait and watch for that miracle of him coming home to me and our kids. As silly as it sounds I thought that if I sat there long enough his car would pull into the driveway, that this horrible night would just be a nightmare and not be my new reality. CONTINUE READING...

Be Careful Little Mouth...

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We are all drawn to stories; the greatest and truest stories ever written are in the Bible. Why is it that we are so drawn to the ugly stories in life? The ones that reveal another’s wrong doings or embarrassment. Why do we only want the unsightly details and pay no mind to the good ones?

Introverts, Wilderness, Faith

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Just over four years ago God pulled me out of a city I loved living in and placed me into what I would describe as a hostile community. I use the term hostile in reference to a cold and unwelcoming community. One that has made it very clear that we do not fit with their culture and predetermined molds of what they feel people should be and do. Surviving here has been emotionally and spiritually challenging but at the same time I continually feel God tirelessly pulling me closer to Him. Living here has often made me wonder if this is how the Israelites felt wandering in the wilderness for forty years. Then again our entire time on this earth could be likened to the wilderness, as this most certainly isn’t the Promised Land. CONTINUE READING...

I Call You Friend?

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A False Comparison

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I'm certain that I'm not alone in my desire to be a woman serving God well. Like many it is my desire to be the woman, wife, and mother that God created me to be. It is a daily struggle wrapped in joy and often dipped in pain and defeat.

All too often I find my head spinning and my heart aching with every sin and failure starring back at me when I see my reflection. I know who I want to be and no matter how hard I work I seem to constantly stumble and fall. I see so many seemingly well-equipped women standing before me; both in scripture and in my everyday.

Sticks and Stones

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The day you were born was an important day so we celebrate your birthday. Birthdays happen everyday but we celebrate each birthday of those we know and love because each person is important and each person is loved by God.

The day your husband died of cancer was an important day so we grieve with you and pray with you. Death happens everyday but we recognize this is a particularly hard day for you and so we offer up our sympathies and comfort you any way we can because you are important, because we love you.

Just As I Have Loved You

The Journey: Beauty from Ashes has a new look and a new home! Please join me over at thejourneybeautyfromashes.com and be sure to click the follow button to receive updates on blog posts! If you have "liked" or shared posts be sure to do so again! Thank you!

We live in a broken and sinful world full of so much evil sometimes it’s hard to see or feel God and his love. I am frightened and grieved by my sin. How can I be so unloving to God by sinning against him? How is it he can in return still love me? Not only does he love me but even in the depths of my sin he loves me unconditionally. When I take pause and see my sin I am so disgusted. It can be a challenge not to get stuck there, looking inward, being self-condemning but that is where we look to the cross, that is where we see the gospel.