Preacher’s Wife Teaching Life

I've talked about God's redeeming love in almost every one of my posts so I feel like I can talk shorthand with y'all on this one. The quick synopsis is: No matter what you did, what you're going to do or what you're thinking about doing, God forgives. With his forgiveness, he brings love and generous redemption (Psalm 130). His love is all consuming and runs so deep that when he's truly allowed into your life, it changes you.   All over the news, social media and every day events I see hate and anger. I see love too, but the anger consumes the lion share of "news". It's almost as if hate and anger is like a virus that keeps spreading. I'm challenging you to spread God's love. As a child of God, you've been forgiven, set free and are a vessel of God's love. God's love is so big that it can be spread to an infinite number of people - it won't run out. Please take the love you've been given and make it contagious. Sho...

In Psalm 129 , the Israelites express their frustration for being persecuted since youth and they ask God to cut the cords that tie them to the wicked.  For them, it's about slavery and the way they've been treated in the past; for us it's more about being slaves to the things that torment us - like depression, addictions, anxiety, etc. God is trying to teach us, in this day, that: Our suffering is not a lifestyle, it is merely a gateway to our freedom in Christ. Suffering is not a phase we live in for the rest of our lives while we wither away in sorrow and frustration - it should be used as an opportunity for God to cut the chains that bind us so we can experience true freedom in him. For example, years ago when financial burdens plagued us I used to get very worried, stressed and hopeless about our situation. I would try to come up with ways we could earn more money to afford the things that came up unexpectedly. I lived this way - chained down to this fear of lack o...

We know from reading the Bible about the concept of the fear of the Lord, and as Christians, we’ve mostly developed a healthy amount of fear for his greatness and holiness. Fear of the Lord in the simplest terms is a respect for God and what he is capable of in the areas of his greatness but also in the areas of his discipline. We hold a high reverence for him and know not to curse his name, stomp on a Bible or disrespect him or those who serve him in any way. Jarrod and I are learning about the fear of the Lord in a whole new way: a way that sparks change in our mindset and heart. When we were on a local-ish mission trip, God allowed us to usher in miracles, signs and wonders. One girl in particular stands out in my mind because of her reaction to God. She was dealing with an injured foot and a recent concussion from getting knocked over in the bounce house. We prayed for her head and it felt a little better, moved on to her foot which improved about 50%, prayed for her foo...

After I quit my full-time teaching job a couple years ago, I knew, financially, that I would need another job to help pay bills. I looked and applied for a couple months with no luck. We prayed about whether I should keep searching or not and we felt like God was saying not to. He wanted me to be with my husband full-time in the ministry. That was unfathomable to me because I have a degree, a skill set, and a desire to work but God wanted me to step out of my comfortable box and live a life dependent on Him. I’m not going to say it was all butterflies and flowers - there were months I felt tempted to get a job and pay for things we couldn’t afford, but God said not to and he repeatedly provided for our every need. Three years later, I was living a dependent life on God and not looking for a job when one fell into my path that seemed too good to be true. I didn’t want to assume this opportunity was for me and force my way into a job (plus, I was kind of enjoying not “working”), so we p...