Encourage-[en-kur-ij] to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence.
The enCourage Blog is weekly dose of encouragement in a world that is often filled with bad news. We offer life-giving entries each Monday and Thursday written by gifted women from across our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). You can subscribe below to have them delivered to your inbox. With hundreds of blog pieces, you can search on a variety of topics in the search bar above to read and share with friends. Christina Fox, a gifted author, serves as our enCourage General Editor. If you are interested in submitting a piece, you can contact her at cfox@pcanet.org.
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Our Joy is Not in the Trials, but in Him
MARYBETH MCGEE | GUEST Recently, my own words echoed in my head: “Our joy is not found in the trials, but in Him.” Those words—from an article I wrote here last Advent—were suddenly tested in a trial unlike any we weathered before. On May 22, 2025, our home erupted in chaos on the first morning of summer break. My middle son and I discovered that my oldest son had passed away—unexpectedly, quietly, without any warning. At just fourteen, he was gone, and there was nothing we could do. Years of waiting and praying for this child—and his brothers—felt ripped away in an instant. Powerless. Crushed. Broken. Even as I spoke with emergency services, I felt the battle for my soul begin. Shock, fear, anger, and a grief beyond words swirled inside me as I heard the familiar whisper echo from Genesis 3: “Did God really say?” Peter’s words became more real than ever—there truly is an enemy who prowls like a lion, seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8). I knew this would be a test of my faith. Our family was being called to the front lines of spiritual warfare, and we needed reinforcements. My second call, just minutes later, was to my pastor. Like any good shepherd, he rushed to our home and stepped straight into the chaos. My husband was an hour away at work; our house filled with firefighters, paramedics, and sheriffs—faces my children had rarely seen outside of children’s shows, let alone in our front yard. Over the next several days and weeks, our home was a constant flow of people, tears, laughter, joy, and deep mourning. The circumstances were devastating, but something different was happening. Trials, both great and small, tend to stir up thoughts about gratitude—or the lack thereof. We can’t talk about gratitude without acknowledging the tension between our expectations and our circumstances. If anyone ever had an excuse to skip gratitude during a trial, the loss of a child would seem like a good one. But do we really get a pass because life feels unbearable? As you might guess, my answer is no...
A Wonder-Filled Advent
MARIA CURREY | CONTRIBUTOR What sparks wonder in your mind and heart? Psalm 77:11-12 is our call to WONDER! “I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.” Oh, that this will be an Advent season of wonder for you! When you consider who God is and what He’s done for you, how do you behold Him in amazed wonder and awe? Childlike Wonder Children understand what WONDER means. They are filled with wonder over the smallest things: the feathers of a bird, the amazing, assorted animals at the zoo, the yummiest flavors, a creeping caterpillar. Meandering our way through the wonder of their favorite animals, my grandchildren enjoy many-striped zebras, long-necked willowy giraffes, floppy-eared, giant grey elephants, all created by our God of wonder. How about favorite childhood flavors? My mom is a 92-years-young woman of wonder; she was a foodie before they were named as such. She happily lavishes favorite flavors on her family, lovingly making rhubarb custard pie for my oldest brother, carrot pudding and vanilla sauce for the youngest, all thoughtful flavors of wonder. These lighter-level delights make me think that in a much grander and more WONDER-filled way, God loves us. He surrounds us with wonder in all of His Creation, lavishing us with tangible reminders of His wondrous love!...
Happy Thanksgiving
CHRISTINA FOX | EDITOR Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from all of us at enCourage! "...give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thess. 5:18).
Three Questions to Ask When Using AI
AMANDA DUVALL | GUEST Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere—in the news, in my internet searches and online shopping, and even my personal conversations. The advances and changes are coming so fast, I teeter between growing excited about how this tool will help me get more done and spiraling down a rabbit hole over all the ways technology is changing the world as we know it. In my limited usage, I’ve already found AI powerful and useful for a variety of tasks. AI has helped me get my one-year-old to sleep better, research for and edit work quicker, gain ideas to treat odd health symptoms, plan travel, and more. AI can do it all—in mere seconds! Still, there are so many moral and ethical concerns surrounding AI, regarding privacy and data, content and regulation, intellectual property rights, threats to creative work, relational confusion, and massive disruptions in education, the economy, and health care. It is easy to give in to fear and frankly, I prefer to delegate these concerns as “out there,” for someone else to unravel. I am just a normal nobody trying to keep up and figure out how to use AI to make life a little bit more manageable. Then, I remember the day I got my Facebook account. As a college freshman sitting in my dorm room, suddenly I was connected to college students across my campus and the country. Social media opened a world of possibilities, what could go wrong? We know so much more now than we did then about how social media affects our brains, our ability to focus, and our mental health, to name a few issues. Haven’t we learned our lesson, then? I’m not sure. Too often, we are so desperate to adopt a new technology with the promise of optimizing our lives without considering, “just because I can use it for all these things, should I? We need to be discerning, not just about how AI is changing our world, but also how it is changing us. With all this change spinning out of our control, we cling to the promise, “the Word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:25). We can turn to Him in this, and in every situation. Here are three questions, grounded in what God tells us is good and true, to ask when using AI...
Gratitude in the midst of Grief: Finding Hope in the Lord’s Kindness
ELIZABETH TURNAGE | CONTRIBUTOR Imagine this story: A woman’s husband and her son are killed in a car-jacking. After her husband’s death, the 75-year-old widow discovers that he had mortgaged all of their assets to invest in a real estate deal gone sour. Once the wife of a wealthy lawyer, the older woman now finds herself homeless and bankrupt. Her only option is to return to the small hometown and the childhood home she had sworn never to revisit. Despite her protests, her son’s fiancée insists on joining her in the move. If this synopsis sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the plot of Tyler Perry’s movie Ruth, which is based on the book of Ruth. Naomi, the main character, like the biblical character, is an older woman whose heart has become bitter through grief. She resents God and the community who tries to show her His love. When Grief Embitters The biblical Naomi, like many aging women, has suffered multiple losses over the course of her life—the death of her husband and both her sons, the loss of both her homeland and her adopted home, the loss of financial provision and security. When she is forced to return to the home she left years ago, she laments to the women who welcome her, “Do not call me Naomi (pleasant); call me Mara (bitter), for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). Naomi sees the Lord’s sovereign hand in all her losses—family, financial, and home, and is not afraid to name them honestly to God in lament. Many older women can relate to Naomi. As we age, we face a barrage of limitations and losses—the death of a husband or child, the loss of independence that comes with declining vision or mobility, the loss of community when we must move from the home we’ve owned for almost half a century. Add to that the seeming loss of purpose and meaning that came from vibrant work and ministry, and it’s not hard to see why older women might feel that the Lord has dealt bitterly with them....
It’s the Little Things
SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR When I had emergency shoulder surgery from an accident while in Yellowstone, I was transported in a two-hour ambulance ride to a small hospital in Jackson. I was blessed with a fine orthopedic team there, very experienced from treating broken bones from all sorts of extreme sports accidents. When it came time to leave the hospital, the man who brought my meals each day presented me with a loaf of homemade pumpkin bread wrapped in cellophane with a note attached that said he hoped this would make my trip home a little sweeter. It was a little thing, but his kindness really lifted my spirits! Opportunities to Bless Others In the Thanksgiving season, we are provided with so many opportunities to practice being thankful by helping others. We give prayers of thanks for God’s grand plan for our redemption, but we also give thanks for His simple daily provisions. As the hands and feet of Jesus, we must be on the lookout for those opportunities where we can make life a little sweeter for someone else. It is the appropriate response for all our blessings. It is easy to overlook these possibilities. A neighbor you know is alone for the holiday. She might be included in yours. Those who must work at the grocery store on the holiday may appreciate a kind word of thanks. Not a day goes by that the mail does not contain a heart-warming request for donations. There are requests for holiday gifts for veterans and their families, meals for the homeless, and shoes for needy children. We might like to help them all, but it is easy to just pass. Paul gave practical advice to believers about living in grateful response to God’s blessings. “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17). We are called to resemble God the Father and His Son, Jesus, in compassion for others, in humble service, in kindness to all, and with gratitude in our hearts. This includes all our daily actions, great and small. Fruits of our Faith...
