Preacher’s Wife Teaching Life

Have you ever had to tell someone the truth but you were afraid it would hurt them? I hate having to give constructive criticism, but there's a way to make it much less painful. It's called a compliment sandwich. I learned this technique in my first year o f teaching and it has helped me in every area of my life. The neat part is that Jesus does it too, so I know it's an approved method. Jesus does this in Revelation. Here's an example: To the angel [ a ]  of the church in Ephesus  write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand  and walks among the seven golden lampstands.   2  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested  those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.   3  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name,  and have not grown weary.   4  Yet I hold this against you: Yo...

Have you ever looked back at old pictures, watched old videos or read old Facebook posts and noticed yourself cringing a little bit? Come on, I know you have at least once. At the time, what you're doing feels so right and then looking back, with wisdom, you can see how misguided your decisions were. I know this is certainly true for me. I have changed so much in my young adulthood that sometimes I cringe at the younger me. With a little distance, maturity and wisdom I can see the error of my ways. However, I'd be lying if I said those were the only three ingredients in my recipe for finding my true self. The main ingredient, the flour of the recipe, is Christ in me. My time with him has broken off so many lies of my past, regret, blame, shame and generational curses. He alone has revealed my true identity...the person he created me to be and I'm still not done chipping away the junk. When I visualize this process I get an image of "Thing" in Fantastic Four (t...

A year and a half ago, this puppy chose us to be his parents; we named him Troop. He stole our hearts and brought us joy, but what we didn't know was that he was born with some problems. We can look back now and see the effects of those problems, but at the time we didn't know that each event was connected. His last accident affected him in a way that he couldn't recover and we had to say goodbye…two days before my birthday.   I know God well enough that I have confidence He is good and everything He does is good…so my dog dying is good? I wouldn't necessarily classify a death of a loved one as a good thing, but I can say it's good that he doesn't hurt anymore and that his life was good. I can say every memory I have of him was joyful and happy; his impact on our lives was good. He taught us more about love, leading and joy in every circumstance, and that was good. I know God brought him into our lives to show us a greater capacity of love; He didn...

I don't know if you've ever lived on a farm before or even with any kind of animal but surprises are to be expected. We have our cows enclosed in an electric fence; they get moved around every couple days for fresh grazing and we love the system . Either our cows are genius or stupidly hit the jack pot but last weekend, they rolled the hay bale over the electric fence and walked right off our property, down the road, and found greener grass on the other side of the fence (literally). We got a phone call that the cows were out so we put on some jeans, a work shirt, boots and picked up a bucket of feed to retrieve the cows. With help, we found them and Jarrod walked them 2 miles home with a bucket of food while I trailed behind in the truck to make sure they didn't escape. They are now safe at home with the hay bale far away from the electric fence. Suiting up is part of going into any battle. Soldiers, athletes, academic competitors, farmers, etc suit up to prepare for their...