Your nest, so to speak, is your safe place, your comfort zone. Maybe your nest is symbolic of your job, your geographical location, your schedule, or your general life plan. But there may come a time that while your nest is comfortable, it’s not what’s best for you anymore. Regardless of whether you’re crazy excited, overly nervous, or somewhat sad about this realization, throwing yourself out of your nest may be just the ticket to make your inner ambitions and heart’s passions possible. In ...
Throw Yourself Out of Your Nest
Feeling Discouraged Because You’re Not Consistently Wanting to Do Good?
Do you ever read or listen to messages that proclaim if we’re walking closely with Jesus, all our wants and desires will automatically and almost involuntarily align with His – with no effort given on our part? They seem to sometimes say, we need not even feel the need to try because we’ll only ever act on what is good. To get straight to the point, I believe these messages to leave people confused, misinformed, and discouraged. The way I see it, you could walk away with two different ...
Is there such a thing as too many friends?
Having a myriad of friends can be truly wonderful, especially in certain seasons of life. In college, I absolutely loved trying to see all the friends I had. Finding someone who would go with me to dinner, head to a midnight premiere, shop at the nearby mall, eat lunch on or off campus, or grab coffee at Starbucks was incredibly easy because we all lived within 1.5 miles of each other. Walking in the student center and finding a crowd of friends was a meal-to-meal event. I lived and breathed ...
The Value of Downtime
As I sit on my back patio writing this post, my precious little Frenchie niece is playing around in my backyard. I have no plans this weekend. She is my plans. I’m not at the NFL draft, I didn’t run the Nashville Half Marathon, and I’m not downtown Nashville. (Everyone else I’m following on Instagram is though.) I’ve actually had several weekends recently that I haven’t had my evenings booked with dinner plans, my days full of activities, or my lunchtime dates mapped out. Much of that is ...
What Testing Reveals to Us
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.Hebrews 11:8 If you’ve read certain Bible stories repeatedly or heard them taught several times, they become very familiar, which is certainly a good thing. But it’s important that no matter how many times we read them, we do so with our eyes wide open, our minds ready to learn, and our spirits prepared to experience awe. The Bible gives us ...
Where We Can See Redemption: In the Beginning
I love reading Genesis because the stories are incredibly fascinating, and some of them are just completely wild. Different verses, themes, or story lines stand out to me each time I reread a book of the Bible. As I reread Genesis a couple months ago, I saw instance after instance of God’s redemption. Adam and Eve are redeemed. All starts well and good for Adam and Eve. They live in the Garden of Eden with food, shelter, and each other. God gave them one instruction—not to eat from the ...
Don’t Give Up
I started my blog with the hope of it being a source of encouragement for you, one of inspiration and support. I wanted to create a space where you could come on any given day, perhaps a bad day, read a post, and leave feeling uplifted. I hope you’ve found that to be true In keeping with that goal, I like sharing resources and books that I find to be encouraging – so that you can find encouragement there, too. Enter: Kyle Idleman’s new book, Don’t Give Up. Kyle Idleman is the senior pastor ...
The Benefits of Reading the Bible Every Day
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.2 Timothy 3:16–17 I taught Romeo and Juliet as a high school English teacher for several years. A few of those years I was at a school on block scheduling, so I taught one group of students in the fall (three classes) and another group in the spring (three more). When I was at a school with a year round ...
How to Enjoy Winter More
I think we can all agree that this winter has been c-o-l-d. And it’s been cold pretty much no matter where you live, except maybe Florida or California. Personally, I live for the summer months. Warm weather is where it’s at as far as I’m concerned, so I have to work a little harder to make winter more enjoyable. But it’s possible to enjoy winter with a little extra effort. Here are some ideas about how to stay cheerful, make the most of the season, and enjoy winter more!*This post is not ...