Women's Ministry

In our household, sports account for a large amount of our time spent together as a family. If we are not outside shooting hoops, throwing a football, or kicking a soccer ball, we are at the YMCA, or taking our boys to their favorite gym for practice. Marek, our oldest son, and I spend a good portion of our date nights going to basketball lessons and then to his favorite restaurant for dinner. Marek is an athlete at heart and spends most of his time working to become the best competitor he can be. In the fall of 2023, Marek broke his femur at 10 years old, in his first football game of the season. You can imagine the roller coaster of emotions that our family felt.

For a mother, seeing your child in pain is one of the most agonizing experiences. The initial shock and fear can easily give way to a flood of negative thoughts—doubt, guilt, and despair. Questions like “Could I have prevented this?” or “Why did this happen to my child?” torment your mind. Yet, amidst the chaos of emotions, there lies an opportunity for growth and strength. If I have learned anything through this experience, it is the fact that the way we choose to respond to adversity not only impacts us, but also those around us.

I was determined after Marek’s injury for there to be purpose in our pain. This recovery is long, and it is not over yet, so I remind Marek often that because we choose to worship the one true God and trust in Him, He promises to work everything together for our good. In the early weeks, there were days and nights I found myself giving Marek pep talks about God’s faithfulness and reminding him that there is purpose in our pain. “You can do hard things” has always been a phrase I have used with the boys. I would later find myself texting friends with questions such as, “There is a purpose in this, right?” or “This will get better, right?” It is unbearable as a mother to watch your child cry practice after practice because they are in a wheelchair, watching their teammates participate in the one activity that they love more than anything. On the other side, it is the most profound experience as a mother to watch your child continually show up for his team day after day, encouraging them and cheering them on, knowing he could have quit when his season ended. We had a choice: we could be a victim of our circumstances, or we could choose joy and believe that God is bigger than any trial in this life.

The older I get, the more I look back at painful moments in my life and think, “God is so faithful, and I see now how He used that situation for good.” A few weeks ago, during Life Group, my prayer request was that Marek would finally be released to do the things he loves most. I shared how this had impacted him emotionally and how I just wanted him to get his wish, to be released for a few months before he must undergo surgery again. It was not until I shared this that a friend expressed how inspiring it had been to watch our journey from a distance and see how positive and resilient we had been. She then stated, “maybe the lesson isn’t for Marek, maybe it is for someone else.”  My mind was blown. In that moment I realized the power behind overcoming negative thoughts. God can use the way we manage life’s most difficult moments to draw others closer to Him. Life is hard and messy, and in those moments it can be so easy to want to quit or go straight to negativity, but God is good, and if we choose to focus on gratitude and perseverance during times of difficulty, that translates into helping others believe they can do the same because nothing is impossible with God. 

One scripture that resonates deeply in such moments, a scripture I have hidden deep in my heart, is James 1:2-3: “When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”

We want to thank Cassie Mogg for sharing this post.

When I was first asked to write about overcoming negative thoughts, my initial thought was, “I have no business writing about this!” I had negative thoughts about writing about negative thoughts! And then my next thought was, “I appreciate authentic people who are willing to talk about things they struggle with.” The Holy Spirit moves when we’re vulnerable.

I’ve walked through some dark seasons of negative thoughts in my life. As I was processing through those, I realized that almost every negative thought I’ve entertained is rooted in a lie about my identity, instead of the actual problem. It was because I didn’t believe I was worthy or good enough. The root was always my identity.

When my identity is found in anything other than Christ, negative thoughts ensue.

If my identity is found in my husband or my children or my job instead of Jesus, when issues arise, I believe I’m not a good enough wife or mom or employee. When my identity is found in my ability to protect myself, and situations arise where I feel attacked, I tell myself I’m not strong enough. When my identity is found in a person, and that person does me wrong, I tell myself surely, surely, surely, it’s me. It’s something I did wrong.

How do I know that it’s an attack on my identity? Because my negative thoughts are overwhelmingly about me not being good enough. You can fill in your blank. Our inner beliefs can become twisted by pain, disapproval, or other people’s words.

Our brains can trick us into unhealthy patterns of thinking. A thought becomes a seed. Then it becomes a lie I believe. That lie then becomes my first response to situations, and it turns into a habitual, instinctive negative thought pattern. Isn’t it so interesting that our first response to situations is usually negative and often unrealistic? Faulty perceptions will lead to faulty beliefs. On the other hand, true perceptions will lead to true beliefs. Our faulty perceptions automatically change as we fix our thoughts on the Truth—Jesus (Hebrews 3:1).

Your “root” may look different than mine. I think the most important piece of overcoming negative thoughts is figuring out where you’re leaving the door open for the enemy to sneak in. The enemy attacks the moment we take our identity off of Jesus and put it anywhere else.

God commands us to take our thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). It’s not a suggestion. He commands us to do this because He knew that we would allow negative circumstances and worldly views to cloud our thinking. And because He loves us so much, He gives us tools and instructions in his Word that He wants us to use. When we trust the Lord, and allow his truths to fill our thoughts, He will transform our minds (Romans 12:2).

If my identity is rooted in Christ, Holy Spirit truth will ensue.

The Father loves us so much He made a way for us to overcome. The Bible says, “This is how God showed his love among us; He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). He sent His son to take it all away. He sent His son to remind us that WE ARE WORTH IT. It’s all because of mercy we’re able to overcome. We can’t earn “good enough.”

When we figure out that something is a lie, we need to replace that lie with the truth of God’s word. The truth combats lies. The truth combats negative thoughts. The truth sets us free (John 8:31-32)!

I encourage you to fall in love with the Word, prayer, and worship. Spiritual disciplines are like balm to the wounds in our souls. Truthfully, negative thoughts don’t go away forever. The same ones sometimes still come up. New ones will come up too. We are human. Crucify them every day. Don’t pretend to have it altogether. Scripture tells us that by Jesus’ blood and by being vulnerable, HE overcomes for us.

“They conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony… “ Revelation 12:11

We want to thank JuLea Bouma for sharing this post.

I love what the Lord has shown me about overcoming negative thoughts. It is all so clear now.

First of all, we are the only of God’s creation that have been given “free choice.” Sounds easy, doesn’t it? I believe that we can choose how we feel about every situation. I love to say this when I am asked, “How are you?” My reply is, “I have been great ever since I found out I have a choice.”

It is an issue of the soul: the mind, will, and emotion. The soul is the pivot point where we choose life or death. How are we going to feel and react? The Bible tells us, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). How we think about ourselves and our situation makes all the difference.

3 John 1:2 says, “Dear friend, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul.”

So, with these two scriptures in mind, where do negative thoughts come from? We know that they don’t come from Father God. He would never talk to us and say the negative things that come into our heads. The enemy (devil) can only dangle bait in hopes that we will “bite the bait” and develop those thoughts.

2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We tear down arguments and every arrogant obstacle that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ.” If it was impossible to do that, Paul would not have told us to do it.

We overcome negative thoughts by recognizing where they came from and taking them captive. James 4:7 tells us, “So submit to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Resist him and keep our thoughts on Jesus, and these negative thoughts will fly through and out of our minds. We have the choice and the ability to capture them; judge them as to their origin; and either dwell on them and develop them, often times to their worst-case scenario, or choose instead to think on the blessings and the attributes of Papa.

I love the words of that old hymn.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His Glory and Grace.

We want to thank Di Ziegler for sharing this post.

Anyone who eats at a Mexican food restaurant with me, knows what I order every time. Cheese enchiladas with queso as the topping. It’s my go-to, all time favorite meal, but it didn’t used to be. It was created by a messed up ordered that I didn’t send back. Though it wasn’t something I would have ever ordered, it was so much better than anything I could’ve asked for. 

When it has come to my prayer life and asking God for what I want, I used to rely heavily on this verse and would believe that God would give me every desire of my heart…

Mathew 7:7 

Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

The only problem was, my desires were not always aligned with God’s best for me. 

I think often, we pray and believe that God will answer our prayers, but we have an exact way in which we want to receive what God has for us, but the beauty of what God has for us, is it’s not always what we ordered, but even better. 

Sometimes, we reflect and think well the trials I’m going through really aren’t what I wanted. Or, why didn’t I receive this financial blessing even though I’ve worked incredibly hard and believed in God’s provision for me? When I think these thoughts, I can have the tendency to stray away from praying and believing. Have you ever felt that way before? The thought of “well if God isn’t going to give me what I ordered then I’m just going to stop going there”. 

Then I reflect on the prayer life of Jesus when he walked this earth as a human being. He continuously turned to God in prayer. He did not ask to be stuck in the wilderness, who would ask for that? He didn’t ask for Judas to betray him, no one wants to ever feel betrayed. He didn’t ask to be beaten on a cross and killed for our sake, but what a beautiful outcome it had for us all. He believed God had the very best outcome and we should as well. 

So as we pray, believe and receive, let’s take what God’s best is for us, even if it’s not what we ordered.

We want to thank Sarah Perry for sharing this post.

​I’ve always been a sucker for a white Christmas. EVERY year, I pray for snow on Christmas. Two years ago was not an exception to this rule. I had been praying for months before for there to be snow on Christmas. And I really believed it was going to happen that year! It hadn’t in a while and I just felt like it was about time! Well December 25^th came and went, no snow. I was disappointed for sure, but I just kind of went passed it and didn’t think about it much again. But a few days later, sometime around New Years, I can’t remember the exact day, we were having Christmas with my side of the family. With so many in-laws in the family, we rarely have our Christmas ON Christmas Day. Towards the end of the day we started realizing that a storm was coming and we might want to think about heading home. Well, the normal 45 minute drive from Lubbock to our house took us about two hours that night due to what was basically a blizzard! And even though that drive was extremely stressful to my husband, we woke up the next day to the most beautiful snow-covered ground! And it was then that I remembered my prayer. And I also realized that it had been answered SPECIFICALLY for me! And I say specifically for me because it hadn’t snowed on December 25^th, but it snowed on the exact day that WE had OUR Christmas. How amazing! I found myself incredibly grateful and amazed that God had answered my prayer, and in such a way that I knew He was responding to me. And what was even more amazing to me was that God was willing to answer such a small, seemingly trivial prayer. It made me even more in awe of our God knowing that He cared about my very small request that year.

Mark 11:24 CSB “Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for – believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” 

1 Peter 5:6-7 CSB “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares for you.” 

Psalms 139:16 CSB “Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.” 

God is faithful to remind us that He cares about every little detail of our lives. He knows us intricately. He knows the big things that make us unique. And He knows the little things that only our closest confidants would know, or maybe nobody would know. He knows what is important to us, and what we need, every minute of every day. He knew I needed a white Christmas. 

Now I know in our fast-paced lives it is sometimes easy to get complacent in our prayers, or at least I know it is for me. But when I think back to times like this story I have shared with you, or other times in my life when God has proven Himself faithful to me, I am humbled and reminded that my prayers should be fervent, bold, and constant. 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 CSB “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

For a long time I struggled with this verse because I couldn’t understand how to pray constantly. That seemed impossible to me. But then the Lord taught me that prayer doesn’t have to be absolute quiet behind a closed closet door with your face to the ground. While it can be that, prayer can also look like being at the grocery store and lifting up the woman behind in you line to the Lord. Prayer is living a life surrendered to the Holy Spirit. So when the Holy Spirit hints to me that I have gotten complacent in my prayers, a simple prayer of repentance, and surrendering to Him again is all it takes to get my life and my prayers back in line with Him. And when we are surrendered to Him, we can rest in His love and the fact that He CARES about every detail of us, even the little things like wanting snow at Christmas!

So I will ask you this question: what have you been praying for lately? Or what is something so big, or small, that maybe you’ve been afraid to pray it? I implore you to be BOLD in your prayers! When a heart is submitted to the Holy Spirit, then we are praying in alignment with the Spirit. And it’s at this point that we can trust our prayers to God. And because God is trustworthy, then we can still trust Him even if the outcome of a prayer doesn’t look like what we thought. We can trust that He has the BEST for us, and only He can see the beginning and end! So let go of all hesitation! I will say it again, pray BOLD prayers! Pray for that thing you’ve put on the back burner. Pray for the friend that hasn’t found Jesus. Pray for the marriage you know is struggling. Pray for the child that has wondered from truth. Pray for the broken relationship. Pray for the job. Pray for the pregnancy. Pray for the financial situation that seems helpless. Pray for the healing. Pray. Pray. Pray! 

Our God is a big God, and He wants our thoughts and prayers, no matter how big or small!

We want to thank Joanna Capps for sharing this post.

We have to admit to ourselves that this principle sounds very simple.  In theory, it is.  We so often think about something that has been pressing on our hearts and minds and we say to ourselves – “I am really going to start praying and believing for this thing (however great or small it may be).”  We tend to think that’s all there is to it and in our human mind we want the receiving part to come quickly!  I can recall a few times in my life where it all worked out just that simply. 

However, I recall more times in my life when I was frustrated with these three “easy” steps because it wasn’t working out as I thought it should. In our spiritual journey these frustrating times often come with the temptation to place blame on God, the people around us, or even ourselves, and give up on whatever it is we are praying and believing for.  But, in these moments Jesus is inviting us to take a deeper look at what these three steps truly require, and as always, there are wonderful promises found in the Word for our obedience.  

Words can become so familiar to our daily use that sometimes changing them up a bit can give us a new and refreshed perspective.  

What if instead of saying…

Pray, Believe, Receive

we change them to 

Discuss, Understand, Accept

Discuss

Instead of simply taking our requests to the Father, we should lay our desires at His feet and then hear what He has to say about them.  To hear, we must take time to be quiet and listen, searching the Word to see what He says about the matter.

Isaiah 55:8

My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord.  And My ways are far beyond anything you can imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.  

Understand

As we are listening for His voice and searching the Word we can pray for spiritual understanding, asking Him for strength to lay down our worldly views and selfish desires bringing them into alignment with His will for us.  Open our eyes to what He has planned for us.  

Matthew 13;12

To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge.  

Philippians 4:9

Keep putting into practice all you learned and received form me- everything you heard from me and saw me doing.  Then the God of peace will be with you.  

Accept

God’s plan for us is so much greater than we can imagine.  Even though at times it’s also much harder than we imagined.  Accept what He has shown you in your time of discussion and understanding.  When we obey and are open to the Holy Spirit’s leading, we become free to accept all He has created us for.   

Ephesians 3:20

God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, and above all, you could ever ask, imagine, or think.  According to His power at work in you.

We want to thank Jill Winders for sharing this post.

The decision to adopt was one we had spent years praying on. God put it on both our hearts but we felt we would both know when the time was right. So about 5 years into marriage we really both felt the nudge that it was time to start the process.  

Lucas had it on his heart that we would adopt from Asia. 

With trial and error we found an agency that aligned with our values and really supported families on both sides-adoptive and birth parents. 

At this point we were 2 years into the process. 

The timeline we thought would happen is that we would go through all the required training and homestudy steps and THEN would be eligible to match with a child. 

So we were enjoying life, on a snowboard trip when to our surprise, we got an email. The email was the agency letting us know they had a failed match with a child and family. But this child, she felt, would be well fitted in our family. She wanted to check with us first before the child was put back in the waiting child list. 

I quickly opened the document. Saw her picture, read every line of her file. Learned about her medical history, her family, her background, read her social worker reports, learning about her big personality. 

I was doing all I could to not let myself commit, right then, she was the one! Lucas reminded me we need to seek God. We need to pray on this to make sure we both are hearing for our next steps. This child deserved to go with the family God had for her and we needed to make sure we were thinking through this. 

We prayed, read and re read her file. We consulted Doctors with her medical conditions, family, close friends, and our neighbors who had great insight. 

After a few weeks of thoughtful prayer we felt peace that she was our child, and let our agency know. 

We began preparing our hearts. We walked in faith, trusting God with our family and with our child. 

The process from us saying yes to picking our little one up was 1 year

 (About 3 years total).

During that year was an opportunity for our thoughts to second guess, question, fear. Lucas has a gift for steadfastness and trust but I wrestled with doubt and anxious thoughts. 

I remember one night I was having trouble sleeping. I was afraid things wouldn’t work out and we wouldn’t be able to bring our little one home. 

I felt God saying:…. imagine your life with her. Let your brain imagine what it will be like with her in your house. I have given you a promise … let yourself see what that promise is. 

So I did. I saw her at our kitchen table. Playing with Lucas. Running through the house. Laughing. 

I was afraid to let myself dream for fear it might not happen. For fear I might not actually be able to trust God with this. 

God has shown his faithfulness in our life, time after time, what would make this time different? 

We had prayed, felt God’s direction, heard his promise, and now I needed to trust he would provide. 

Almost a year to the date we said yes, we were on our way to Taiwan. We met our beautiful Stevie. Yes the fears and the anxious thoughts came, but the peace and faithfulness that God showed us covered us. He completed our family. He provided his promise. He brought Stevie home. He covered us in the process of adjusting at home. Home adjustment was difficult for all 3 of us but God was so faithful to provide us with friends, family, and his grace to cover us in healing and molding our new family. 

“Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you”

Looking back now Stevie is 100% our child. God cared for her in her life circumstances and God brought us a blessing. We prayed, believed, and received. 

We want to thank Lori Johnson for sharing this post.

I remember reading or hearing the story once about a girl who was away at school.  In the wintertime, she needed a coat. So, she called her father and told him that she really needed a new coat, and her father told her that it would be in the mail to her the next day. She thanked him and went about her business. A few days went by, and someone asked her if she needed to go get a new coat, since it was getting colder. She said, “No thank you, I have a coat.” She had not yet laid eyes on the coat, but she still said that she had a coat, because she believed her father who had said he would get the coat in the mail the day after she spoke with him. When the coat finally arrived, she was not surprised, but she now had in hand what she had been expecting since she first talked to her father about it.

To me, this is a wonderful illustration of pray, believe, and receive. In Mark 11:22-24, Jesus speaks about prayer when He says, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”

What can I pray about and really BELIEVE that I have what I am asking for?  I think we put more limits on that than our Father does.  When I was a little girl, about 4^th grade, I wanted a dog so badly! It seemed impossible that I would ever get one, because my dad was allergic to dogs.  However, one night I prayed with all my heart for a puppy. I was in my room, not praying in front of my dad or mom, just to God. The next day, my dad brought home a puppy that would be a part of our family until I was in college. I so clearly remember that puppy as an answer to prayer!  God really was listening to MY prayers!

I am not saying that our heavenly Father will answer every whim that comes into our minds, but I believe that He is interested in the desires of our hearts. When I began to pray about getting married, someone suggested that I make a list of qualities that I really desired to have in a husband. I did that, and God answered my prayers – even though I didn’t see all the qualities I had prayed about in Kelly Warren at first – God saw them! I believed my Father gives the best gifts, and I received His answer.

Through the years, I have not been afraid to ask God for things that are on my heart. Sometimes, after I have prayed about something, God moves the desire for that thing to the back burner. Sometimes, He shows me something better, and sometimes, He beautifully answers my prayer above and beyond what I would have imagined. I’ve never been disappointed in God or His answers to my prayers. The key is to have that trust in Him as a good Father who loves me, and to believe that He knows how to meet my deepest desires better than I do.

Pray about everything! Believe that He is listening!  Receive His answer, even if it looks different than you had imagined. 

We want to thank Sheri Warren for sharing this post.

**During the month of January, we will be reposting some of the top posts from 2023. We hope these will encourage you and connect to your heart. Stay tuned for all new posts coming in February 2024!

“For God so loved the world…” John 3:16

What could inspire you more than the words of this passage? God loved us so very much that He gave His one and only Son for ME!  Could I give up my child for anyone?  For God? 

Oh wait, I don’t have any children. Well, biological children. As you can imagine, wanting kids and not having them was very hard for me. But, over the years, inspired by God’s love, I have since adopted many children, that may not be mine by blood, but are mine in my heart.

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”  Zephaniah 3:17

In my season of desperately wanting children of my own, I was not finding inspiration in God’s love. I was sad, angry, and wondering what I had done so wrong that God didn’t want me to have children? I know now that then, I needed to believe and receive God’s love for me, by faith. I wish I would have read this scripture in Zephaniah and sat in His presence until I understood and accepted His will, until He quieted me with His love. I did finally do just that, but it took me a few years. Well, a lot of years. 😉

“My command is this; Love each other as I have loved you.”  John 15:12

After many years of hard-fought battles, that is what I decided to do. Love others as God has loved me. But I couldn’t do it on my own, I needed God to inspire me. When I married my husband Dewitt, that marriage brought his three children into my life. I worked hard on my relationship with them with God’s help. I grew to love them as if they were my own and let me tell you about my two granddaughters! They call me Granbe and love me like I’m related by blood…and I love them right back!

“And so, we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  In this way love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in the world we are like Him…  We love because He first love us.”  1 John 4:16–19

God wants us to accept His love and then let Him love others through us. He gives us many examples of His love in His word, all you have to do is look for them. How many times was He present for the children of Israel, even when they turned their back on Him? How many times has He loved me, even when I turned my back on Him and felt so unlovable? He loves us so much, so let’s be inspired by His love and choose to love others!

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  Psalm 37:4

He has given me a lot of my heart’s desires. Do you know how many children that Dewitt and I have “adopted” into our heart and lives?  We love on many “kids” young and old, black, white, or brown.  I have one son that I asked his mom if I could be his mom when she is not around and she said yes.  I love him and his wife and their kids as my very own. This is only one of many examples. 

How can I do this if not for the inspiration that God gives me to love? I have been told by many that maybe if I had biological children, I couldn’t love you and your children so much.  I want to encourage you to read Psalm 139…it tells us how much He loves us and how He knows all about us.  He knew us before we were even born.  I love the old song, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.”  But sometimes I like to turn that around and say, “Jesus knows me, this I love.”  He knows me and loves me anyway.  

So, why not be inspired by God’s love and choose to love those around you? 

We would like to thank Debbie Crosby for sharing this post.

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.” 

2 Thessalonians 3:16

It’s Christmas 2022 (but celebrated January 2023), and we finally have all the family together at the farm with Larry’s mom and sister, our three kids and their spouses, eight grandkids, and four dogs. It was crazy, loud, and a wonderful chaos!

Peace? Not happening—if you look at peace as being a state of tranquility or quietness, as it says in Webster’s Dictionary. 

The meaning of the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, is much richer than just being “quiet and calm or absence of noise.” Biblical peace is represented by safety, well-being, completeness, and wholeness. 

Shalom brings rest, reconciliation, and restoration.

And that is what kind of peace we strive for in our home: a place where everyone is safe, they feel loved, and they can find rest and feel the love of Christ!

In fact, that’s what I feel when my crazy family is laughing, talking, eating, and watching football while the kids are wrestling or throwing balls around, and the dogs are barking. I’m at peace. Shalom!

I am whole, complete, and at rest. 

My family gives me shalom, a wholeness and completeness that comes from love—a deep love that cannot be wiped away by the craziness of the moment! All I can say is thank you, Jesus. This is my circus, and these are my monkeys!

Philippians 4:7 says, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

You see, Larry and I made a stand many years ago concerning our home and family. We declared, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15b).

The Lord fills our hearts with love and his peace. And by bringing Christ into our home, it brings the Prince of Peace into our home. By making him the center of our home, we get shalom among the chaos.

You see biblical peace is not something we can create on our own; it is a fruit of the Spirit. God is the source of peace. And peace within our home is our choice when we invite God into our hearts and into our homes. 

So, choose today whom you will serve, and let the peace of Christ reign in your home!

We want to thank Bambi Lutrick for sharing this post.