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God’s Faithfulness in a Winter Season: The Gift of Witness

MARISSA HENLEY|GUEST “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth. O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” (Habakkuk 3:1-2) Have you ever found yourself in a winter season of suffering, when your world feels dark and cold? My winter season started 14 years ago when I found a lump in my breast. The lump led to tests, which led to a biopsy, which led to a phone call on the day before my 34th birthday. The doctor said the biopsy revealed a rare and aggressive cancer in the lining of my blood vessels called angiosarcoma. A quick internet search informed me that I was statistically unlikely to live to see my three young children reach adolescence. I started a treatment plan of high doses of chemotherapy, covered by the prayers of thousands of people and supported by the most amazing community of family and friends. After two rounds of chemo, my situation got even worse. My platelets were dangerously low from the chemo, and the only way for me to continue treatment was to start a clinical trial at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, 700 miles from my home in Arkansas...

God’s Faithfulness in a Winter Season: The Gift of Witness2025-01-28T19:09:55+00:00

Ambassador for Christ: An Occupation with No Early Retirement

ELIZABETH TURNAGE | CONTRIBUTOR Missionary Rose Marie Miller turned 100 years old on December 23, 2024. In an email update on January 1, 2025, she reflected on highlights of the previous year. Chief among them was a two-week trip to Southeast Asia, where she taught missionaries. In her teaching, she shared with the missionaries insights from Scripture, focusing on familiar characters like Adam and Eve, Sarah, and Hannah, demonstrating how “the gospel pervades all of Scripture.” After returning home to London, Rose Marie fought a chest infection for the next two months. She wrote, “I was weak in body and soul and wasn't sure I would make it to 100.” Describing this as a “time of testing,” she humbly explained, “I would not take credit for what God did.” Few of us will live to be 100 years old; even fewer 100-year-olds will have the energy to travel internationally to teach the gospel. Yet, we will always be ambassadors for Christ; this calling comes with no retirement age. The Role of Christ’s Ambassadors By definition, an ambassador represents a country or organization and is tasked with creating relationships with foreign entities, promoting the interests of the home entity, and engaging in diplomacy. In 2 Corinthians 5:20, the apostle Paul describes himself and his fellow believers “ambassador(s) for Christ.” As Christ’s ambassadors, we represent Christ’s kingdom, our heavenly homeland, to those outside it. As Christ’s ambassadors, we promote the interests of our heavenly country by sharing its beauty with citizens of the world. As Christ’s ambassadors, we engage in diplomacy to advance the purposes of our heavenly country...

Ambassador for Christ: An Occupation with No Early Retirement2025-01-28T19:05:22+00:00

Trading Striving for Rest in Motherhood

GRACE THWEATT|GUEST Six months after my second child was born, both kids were sleeping through the night. I, however, wasn’t. My body exhausted; I’d lay my head on my pillow only to find my thoughts racing: I haven’t spent enough quality time with my oldest since the baby came. I wonder if he feels neglected. Goodness, I wish I hadn’t yelled at him when he disobeyed earlier. I really need to work on having more patience. I’d begin to drift off to a restless sleep, only to have a stressful dream wake me and leave me with an urgent sense that a child needed me or that I had forgotten to do something important. I would check the time, and my heart would drop with despair at the glaring number, 3am. I needed sleep to have energy to face the next day! My worrisome thoughts continued: Should I reset my alarm to get a little more sleep and just skip having an early-morning quiet-time? But I’m already feeling distant and lacking in my relationship with God… Anxiety and striving had grown to characterize my life, and they were eating away at me. I imagine I’m not alone in this. As moms, it seems we often strive in response to the anxiety we feel about our parenting. We worry: Are we teaching our kids the right things about God? Should we be memorizing more Scripture with them? Are we praying with them enough? And discipline… are we doing it right? Are we really helping facilitate heart change? We move through our days trying to do it all and do it all right. Our striving often comes from a good place: we desire to be good moms and godly individuals. But our striving ultimately leaves us feeling burned out and in bondage to our finite strength and capabilities...

Trading Striving for Rest in Motherhood2025-01-20T19:13:31+00:00

What Does God’s Protection Entail?

AMY SANTARELLI |GUEST I pushed my 4-year-old granddaughter on the swing while she chatted away. My attention was suddenly piqued as she ended her ramblings with the words, “But I know that God will keep me safe.” I was happy to hear her talking about God, but I also found myself pondering the accuracy of her theology. Is it true that God will keep us safe? What does God’s protection entail and not entail? How do we properly understand this ourselves, as well as teach it to our children? We don’t want to tell them God will keep them safe and then when difficulty strikes, they feel God abandoned them, think He doesn’t care about them, or that He couldn’t or wouldn’t come through for them. The Importance of Biblical Context In the Bible we find many wonderful passages describing God’s care and protection of His people. But it is crucial that we practice good hermeneutics as we interpret those passages. We need to look at the context of the verses, who they were originally written to, and for what purpose. Here’s an example from Deuteronomy 28:7:  The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. To discern the context here, is it helpful to understand biblical covenants...

What Does God’s Protection Entail?2025-01-20T18:59:38+00:00

Parenting is Hard

LISA UPDIKE | GUEST Parenting is hard. I mean really hard. I know. Of course, parenting is rewarding, wonderful, and awe inspiring. I’m not denying any of that. In parenting, we experience a depth of love that we never knew we could fathom. In parenting, we catch a glimpse of our Heavenly Father’s great love for us. In parenting, we begin to understand just a wee bit of why Jesus laid down his life for us, his beloved children. Still. Parenting is hard. Some days more than others. I’m right, and you know it. It’s important on those difficult days to remember that hard isn’t bad; it’s just hard. In fact, hard might even be good. It’s funny. We think if God calls us to do something then He will make the path clear, straight, navigable. Somehow, we actually believe that if God calls us to something, and we obey, then it should be easy. But somehow life just doesn’t work that way, does it? You see, God calls us to the hard. Jesus promised that we would have tribulation in this world (John 16:33). Paul even said that Christians rejoice in their sufferings! (Rom. 5:3) And sometimes, parenting is definitely full of both tribulation and suffering. I wonder if, when God told Eve there would be pain in childbearing (Gen. 3:16) if He meant the whole experience of raising children would increase in pain. We parents are so vulnerable. After all, we love these children of ours and want to protect them from all the difficult things that can happen: rejection, failure, sickness, disability, temptation…on and on the list goes. When our children suffer, we suffer. But our job isn’t to protect them from suffering, is it? After all, God loves us far more than we love our children, and He actually brings suffering to us for our good. Our job is to point our children to Jesus in the midst of it all...

Parenting is Hard2025-01-18T15:06:55+00:00

Wrestling With God in Our Suffering

JULIANNE ATKINSON |GUEST As soon as I saw the area code of the phone call my husband was receiving, I knew something was off. I was pregnant with our first child and set to move for his job to Nashville, TN at the beginning of my third trimester. This was a city I had friends in, I knew there were good churches there, and it was a city we both liked. After a short conversation, my husband conveyed the news that there was a post they hadn’t accounted for in rural, northern New York state and he was now at the top of the list to take it. I was disappointed, but it wasn’t my first move and I hoped that God would have a good church and community there waiting when we arrived. Instead, I found a desolate place I never grew to love. I had left a large church in San Antonio where I was on staff and knew and loved each family and their kids by name. In New York, there were a  handful of families hoping for a PCA pastor to come and pastor them. Church members brought meals when I had my son, but it felt more like they were checking off a box than done so out of friendship. I gathered the women of the church and started a Bible study in hopes of fostering fellowship as we studied God’s Word together. I ended up spending the study time preventing my son from climbing sky high, getting into people’s desks, and drinking bathroom chemicals. My husband worked long hours, weekends, and sometimes over an hour away. I was more lonely than I was during the Covid lockdown. It seemed like every hope I had for our move was dashed. The depths of disappointment I felt contrasted with the hope of change and led me to wrestle with God through it. Here my head-knowledge intersected with my very real and difficult circumstances. Were my toes digging into a sandy beach as the storm swirled around me or were they resting on the solid rock of the foundation of God’s promises? If everything around me fell down, I knew He would not.  As believers, sometimes we suffer pain and loss so deep that we come to a crossroads in our relationship with God and who he is. Some might respond to that pain as though with a finger in his face saying, “How could GOD do this to ME?” Our hearts are hardened. We feel bitter. We struggle to forgive God. And we turn and run FROM him. Others might ask the same question, but with trust in God’s faithfulness to his promises—that he really is who he says he is. “How COULD God do this to me?” In that moment, we run TO Him and His Word. As we wrestle with his Word, we will find rest in the midst of our pain and rock under our feet...

Wrestling With God in Our Suffering2025-01-08T18:35:45+00:00

All We Can Do Is Pray: Prayer for California and the Wildfires

SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR This year, more than one illness spread through our extended family, hampering most of our plans for Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. It seemed like we missed so much of the fun we normally associate with Christmas time that I left our tree up a little longer than usual in an effort to hang on to the season. To extend some of the festivities, I even went with a friend to see the Rose Parade floats that were lined up for viewing on Jan 2nd. I usually just watch the parade on TV, but this year I felt the need to make the drive to Pasadena and smell the roses for myself. Who could imagine that less than a week later, I would be watching some of that same area go up in smoke as wildfires spread across southern California. Our local news is full of stories about individuals who lost their homes and businesses. Many left their homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Yet as I have listened to the live interviews of people who escaped and who are waiting to hear if their house is still standing, or of those who have lost it all, one theme surfaced. They shared the perspective that they had lost only things. They had their lives, their loved ones and their faith. The subject of prayer came up often as newscasters casually ended their reports with the phrase “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” One commentator reporting the devastation as the TV cameras panned block after block of scorched homes even stated in a resigned tone, “All we can do is pray.” All we can do is pray? All we can do is pray!...

All We Can Do Is Pray: Prayer for California and the Wildfires2025-01-18T15:03:18+00:00

From Ambivalent to Aligned: Considering Life in the Womb

JANE STORY |GUEST The request was gentle. I was surprised that a couple who cared so deeply about this issue wasn’t more inflammatory. I had been conditioned to expect pro-life ‘radicals’ to be pushy, condescending, and unsympathetic. My boss sent an email (from his personal address) inviting all his coworkers to join him and his wife at the March for Life. They didn’t demand our attendance or stump the position that all Christians should be on their side. They simply stated that they cared about the issue, they thought it was worth their time to go, and that they could give us a ride. If we had questions, they’d be happy to talk more. I was a young twenty-something and felt affronted by what I considered to be a bold political move. Although I was a strong Christian, I hadn’t decided what I believed about abortion. I had never been confronted with how the Bible spoke to that issue, nor had I had any role models make their own views known. Instead, I had subsisted on our culture’s words about protecting mothers and respecting choice. I was led into confusion about when life begins. All I could say was, it was wrong to kill people, but I wasn’t sure if abortion was killing people. I would have never personally advocated for it, but I wanted to be kind to those who chose it. Finally, I knew I was ill-equipped for complex scenarios where people must choose between the baby’s life and the mother’s life. I’d never heard a Christian give adequate answers to those questions. While politics brought the issue to the forefront for me, the origins of my questions were theological. My theological ambivalence needed to be set aside, and my heart needed to align with Scripture...

From Ambivalent to Aligned: Considering Life in the Womb2025-01-02T20:35:46+00:00

Nothing to Do But Pray

MARISSA HENLEY|GUEST It was around 4:45 a.m. when I gave up on sleep, got out of bed, and reached for my phone. I saw a notification from our family’s tracking app—my oldest son’s phone was out of battery as of 3 a.m., and I knew what that meant. I could picture my sleep-deprived college student in his apartment, lying across his bed, fully clothed, with all the lights on. He had fallen asleep without meaning to, which meant his phone wasn’t charging and his alarm wouldn’t wake him in time for class. My brain went into panic mode. It was near the end of the semester, so he could miss an important quiz or test. Within seconds, my anxiety convinced me that his GPA and career goals would be ruined by one morning of oversleeping. And yet, I knew I was powerless to do anything to wake up my son. I was left with a last resort that should have been my first response: I prayed. Praying for our children is a gift from the Lord, whether our children are babies in our arms or adult children living hundreds of miles away. The Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 98 teaches us this definition of prayer: “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.” As we consider this definition, we see how prayer shouldn’t be a last resort. God uses the gift of prayer to grow our dependence on Him, comfort our troubled hearts, and turn our focus to His faithful purposes...

Nothing to Do But Pray2025-01-02T20:18:05+00:00

Spiritual Synergy: The Impact of Gospel Partnership

KAREN HODGE | CONTRIBUTOR Synergy is not a word that often rolls off the tongue, but when you look around, you will begin to see it everywhere. Synergy finds its roots in the word for sun and energy and working together. It is where impact and multiplication collide. It is the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. On most days, one plus one always equals two. But synergy and collaboration offer the prospects of one plus one equaling three, ten, or one thousand. Don't believe me? Look around at God's creative acts. Bees exponentially pollinate, thus helping to oxygenate our world. Singular ingredients that may taste simple or bland when combined in a recipe delight the palate. Solos are nice, but how magnificent to sit in a sanctuary filled with an orchestra and the four-part harmony of a choir. It's the better together quotient! I write a strategic plan for our National Women’s Ministry Team each year. In 2025, we are inviting women to join us in stepping out in faith and asking God to enable the rich interdependence of spiritual synergy. Gospel Partnership Brings Joy, Thanksgiving, and Missional Alignment We don't read anywhere that Paul had favorite churches, but if he did, I am guessing that the church at Philippi would've been at the top of the list. This church was not perfect, but they were delighted to be partners. Paul expressed his joy in serving alongside them when he wrote, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:3-6). This shared mission compelled him towards worship and thanksgiving. Planting the church at Philippi was no casual once-in-a-blue-moon connection. It started the day they met, and because of the gospel's power, it persevered daily. He knew that unpacking the content of the gospel in the context of community was eternally shaping him and his fellow brothers and sisters. Growing and serving together as a Body was not a one-and-done partnership but a process of gospel transformation that would find its finish on the day of Christ Jesus...

Spiritual Synergy: The Impact of Gospel Partnership2025-01-02T20:10:18+00:00
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