Preacher’s Wife Teaching Life

We got this kitten a year or so ago. My mom found her on the side of the road in the rain on her way to our house and brought her to me. She's a beautiful calico kitten that looks malnourished, dirty, and sopping wet. Of course I adopted her! We fattened her up, kept her safe at night, and gave her lots of love. Later we got more kittens from my mom and dad's farm - they were all from the same litter and you could tell they were a family unit. Fast forward to current time...I was sitting on the porch, watching the cats interact with each other and I realize Rory, the calico, has assumed the role of queen bee of my little kitty family. She rules the roost and it's clear she does. All she has to do is LOOK at the others when they are misbehaving and they shrink away in fear. I love Rory's success story. She went from being a literal street rat and rose up to be the Queen of them all. With love, care and acceptance, she's totally immersed herself with the others and...

I know this girl from high school who was...let's say less than nice to me. And I have to confess that maybe I wasn't very nice back to her. I think we resolved in our minds that we just didn't like each other (for who knows what reason 16 year old girls choose) and stayed away from each other as much as possible while trash talking each other at the same time. We graduated, went to college, graduated again (not at the same time), and guess what? Our paths crossed again. We were put in a situation that was awkward given our background and were forced to talk to each other and work together. And do you know what happened? She spoke up and said, "I think we knew each other in high school..." and I said, "yeahhh kind of." And she said, "I don't think we were very nice to each other." I replied, "no not really." God prompted us both at that time to agree that our tiff was stupid and high school brings out the worst in people and we fo...

I hear from different denominations in Christianity about what being saved means, whether it expires, and how to maintain it. Salvation to me is an initial acceptance and faith in Jesus Christ, verbal confirmation in your choice, and an ongoing relationship to keep the wheels spinning smoothly. For example, a couple weekends ago, I got some bad news in the mail and immediately went into panic mode. I started crying, freaking out and going into these impossible scenarios in my head about how our world was going to end (drama queen, I know). Deep in my heart I knew that God is bigger than any of my problems and that everything would work out fine because it ALWAYS DOES. (What's that saying? 90% of the things we worry about end up never happening.) Despite my devout belief that God is bigger than my problems, I had this sudden attack of voices in my head about how stupid I was, how this was my fault, how we were never going to get it fixed, that we would go into debt and lose everyt...

This weekend was our church's annual progressive dinner/ ornament exchange Christmas party. It was fantastic. It was loads of fun, more people show up every year, and every single person I talked to had a good time. It's a time for the people in the church to celebrate Jesus as a body and bring friends outside the church to show them this love and celebration. My husband and I went home in good moods and crashed in bed after a night of what we call "herding cats". I guess I shouldn't be surprised that after such a joy filled, spiritually packed night of celebrating Jesus' birth together that we suffered from terrible dreams and bad thoughts. Not because I'm a pessimist (because I'm not) but because when the evil one witnesses something like this, he seeks to destroy what was built. I awoke suddenly at 4 am with a constant stream of bad thoughts about the party. All of a sudden I was plagued with worries about what we should have done, how we could have...

If you've been following me, you know we just finished studying the book of Joshua. Our church is headed into the book of Ephesians to study the attributes of Christ. Follow along as we read through the chapters and try to find these attributes yourself as I teach about them. The first attribute of Christ is that he is our entrance. Entrance to what? The entrance to a life with meaning and purpose. To a life with joy and thanksgiving. In the unbelieving mind, the highest power in your life is yourself. You never experience true love and everything is hinged on what you can and can't do. These cans and can'ts are decided by strongholds, personal victories, and fear. The life of the unbeliever is defeating and has no real purpose or joy. Your life is driven by addictions, sickness, and an unending attempt to find happiness. Now is the time to read EPHESIANS 1 . I ask before you read it to pray and request God to open your mind and heart to what he wants you to learn. Be p...