READ: PSALMS 6; 42; JOHN 11:1-44 When was the last time you had a good cry? I’m not talking about letting a few tears go and moving on with your day, but an all-out, feels like your heart is breaking, flooding your couch with tears kind of cry. I recently allowed myself to weep like [...]

READ: PSALM 42; JOHN 14:25-27 I am prone to forgetting. I’m not talking about the usual things like my cell phone, car keys, or sunglasses—wait, they’re on my head. I’m referring to the more profound things. When I am downcast and my soul is disturbed, sometimes I forget to put my hope in God. Sometimes [...]

READ: PROVERBS 19:11; 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-5; PHILIPPIANS 2:1-13 Frigid air made my eyes water as I pulled my cloak tighter around me. I watched my breath come out in little puffs of white, an ode to the snow that most certainly lingered on the horizon. Night would soon be upon me, and I needed to [...]

READ: MATTHEW 7:24-27; 1 PETER 2:4-10 Not long ago, we were scattered like pebbles across the ground. Unwanted, forgotten, far from found. That was, until the day He came. Bare feet scudding across the sand, bending down to gently pick us up and place us in His hands. Rejected by others, chosen by Him. He [...]

READ: 1 SAMUEL 16:1-13; MATTHEW 23:23-39; COLOSSIANS 3:1-17 Appearances aren’t everything. We probably know this in our heads, yet how often do we find ourselves getting worried about what others will think of us based on how we look or what we do? Maybe you really care about your clothes, the image you portray to [...]

READ: ISAIAH 9:1-7; MATTHEW 1:18-23 God with us. Closer than our very breath, YH-WH, “I am,” here (Exodus 3:14). From the seeking of humanity in the Garden of Eden, when we first sinned and God called to us, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). To the seeking in the desert, when the Lord spoke to Hagar [...]

READ: ISAIAH 53; LUKE 2:1-21 Listen. Can you hear it? That whisper of hope on the horizon? The echoes of an infant King born in a manger. The culmination of hundreds of years of prophecy born in a tiny babe in Bethlehem— Immanuel, God with us. The rush of the season, the crush of life— [...]

READ: PSALM 1:1-3; JEREMIAH 17:7-8; JOHN 7:37-39; 15:4-17 Minutes before sunset was my favorite time of day. I sat on an outcropping of rock, dangling my bare feet above a crystalline spring of water. My home, this floating island in the sky, was level with the setting sun precisely at this time. Golden light skimmed [...]

READ: 1 SAMUEL 16:1-13; LUKE 10:25-37 Just above the sea’s drop off into the cold depths lay the city of Aquis. Turrets of shell and pearl sparkled under the liquid bubble that encased the city, allowing its inhabitants protection and breathable air. Most of the Colo colony had come from above the sea, before the [...]

READ: ROMANS 15:7; COLOSSIANS 2:12-13; 3:9-14; 1 PETER 5:6 If we were real with God, that deep well of frustration, discontentment, or fear could be emptied one putrid bucket at a time and filled with His unfailing love, faithfulness, and grace. Without recognition and an honest emptying of the ugly, how can we make room [...]