Tag Archives: love

3 Truths You Need to be Reminded of This Christmas

Four Suicides Too Many

Overall, Christmas 2020 looks a little different than any other year. This year has been a year like no other. Some people have been able to continue on as if nothing ever happened, and others have had their lives literally torn apart. I started a file of pictures on my phone of people that we know that have taken their lives this year. Right now, I have four pictures in that file. That’s four lives too many; four lives cut short way too soon. My heart breaks every time I look at those photos.

I keep those photos because I don’t want to forget the huge impact this year has had on some people. Unsurprisingly, this year, more than any other year, we have dealt with divorce, infidelity, depression, and suicide more than any other year in our ministry.

3 Truths Somebody Needs to Hear From You

I say all that to encourage you with this— Don’t underestimate the power of a kind word this season. This year more than ever, we need to remind the people in our lives of these three truths:

They are loved.
They have value.
They are needed.

If you’re not struggling this year or this season, use your strength to help someone else. Give your love to somebody this Christmas. Write a card, call someone just to let them know you are thinking of them, cook a meal for a family, send flowers, do Christmas for a family. If you look around, you won’t find it hard to find someone who needs extra love and encouragement this Christmas season.

3 Truths You Need to Hear

Maybe you are at a place where you need to hear these truths yourself. Maybe you are the one who needs to hear these truths. So, let me repeat them.

You are loved.
You have value.
You are needed.

Don’t believe the lie of the devil that your family would be better off without you. We’ve been there too many times to pick up the pieces after a suicide. Let me tell you—the family and friends left behind have never been better off. Their hearts and lives are beyond devastated, and they aren’t sure if they will ever be whole again.

Whatever you are dealing with or going through right now, I know with one hundred percent certainty that your family is not better without you. They need you. They can’t do life without you.

More Encouragement

Two of the Christmas songs that I am loving this year are Hope is Here by Building 429 and Behold Him by Francesca Battistelli. Both songs came out within the last month or two. Listen to the words and let them encourage your heart as they have mine.

For more posts like this, read Now is Probably Not the Time and What Now?

**With a post like this, I feel that I need to say that if you are seriously struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, please get the help you need. Get professional help. There is no shame in that. We all need extra help sometimes.

Love Is Still the Answer

Our Growth Group

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture at this time feels that way. This picture was taken at our house back in September. Every Tuesday night (aside from COVID), this group meets at our house. It’s our growth group or small group. We started as strangers and have become a group of tightly-knit friends. We have had candid discussions about so many topics. We’ve had good times as a group and endured losses as a group.

In this group, we have lost two grandpas, two dads, a mom, an uncle, and a baby. We have walked through those hard times together. We’ve listened and prayed for each other as we’ve lost jobs, changed jobs, and experienced hardships. We’ve also celebrated the birth of two babies, new jobs, new homes, new businesses, book launches, birthday parties, and so much more together.

We are a mixed group of black and white who are simply choosing to do life together and loving every minute of it!

Life Is Messy

Life isn’t always neat and clean. It’s messy. I think that has never been clearer than in times like these. We want our lives to be a neat picture where everything makes sense and looks good, but that’s not reality. The reality is that life is hard. It’s confusing and absolutely heartbreaking at times.

We live in a broken world with broken, sinful people. We can focus on all the evil and wrongdoing around us and be discouraged, disillusioned, and disheartened. Or we can choose to do what we can to make this world a better place.

Love is Still the Answer

We can choose to love others the way we want to be loved. Jesus told his disciples a simple truth that still rings true today. Jesus told his disciples, “People will know you are a follower of Me when you choose to love other people.”

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way, I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” John 13:34,35 MSG

If all of us would choose to simply love those around us, we could do our part to bring change. Loving those around us includes our neighbors, the mailman and garbage guys, the post office and grocery clerks, the employees at the local fast-food restaurants, people in our church, our family, and friends. We must simply choose to love all the people we do life with regardless of skin color, ethnicity, or socio-economic standing.

Does that fix everything, no. But it would be a start in the right direction!

Matt’s Message

My husband, Matt preached a message two Sundays ago that was all about this topic. He does such a better job of addressing the issue than I do. You can listen to that message HERE.

What Kind of Dad Do You Think You Have?

My Kids’ Dad

My husband Matt is such a good dad to our kids. He loves each of them so much! One of his favorite things to do is to take them on dates and buy them a toy. As much as I try to keep us on budget and not spoil the kids too much… there is Daddy, always ready to shower them with more love, grace, and gifts.

I see this all the time with my kids’ dad. So why is it so hard for me to see my heavenly Dad this way? So many times I don’t see God anything like this. I don’t see God as my doting Father wanting to love on me, spend time with me, and shower me with gifts. Instead, I see Him more as a disapproving Dad, a Dad that focuses on all my sins, failures, and short-comings. I see the disciplinarian Dad, taking me through another trial to make me better, change me, grow me, and rub the rough edges off.

My Heavenly Dad

But God is so much more than just a strict disciplinarian Father. He is better at being a Dad than any earthly dad could ever be! How do I know this? His Word says so.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

Sometimes I wonder if God looks down at me when I’m feeling so discouraged and unworthy of God’s love and asks me,” What kind of Dad do you think you have?”

God’s Plan for My Life

Just as Matt can see and understand what our kids need more than they can, so my Heavenly Father knows what I need more than I do. He knows that the thing I have been so afraid to do is what is going to radically change me. He knows that the prayer request I have been praying for for several years is not going to be answered the way I think it is, but His answer and plan is going to be so much better.

His plan for me involves waiting right now because the rest of the story hasn’t played out yet. If He brought it to pass now, I would only see half of the blessing He has prepared.

God’s Plan for Your Life

I don’t know where you are at in life right now. Maybe you are waiting for a relationship, and it just won’t come. Maybe you are in financial need and no matter how much you pray and work hard, you just can’t get ahead. Perhaps it’s a health problem, a relationship difficulty, a job need that seems so out of reach, maybe it’s loneliness or failure. Maybe you have convinced yourself for so long, like I have, that you just don’t deserve God’s help and love, that you are unworthy, lazy, unlovely, incapable. And the whole time, your Heavenly Father is looking down on you and asking…

What kind of Dad do you think you have? I see the full picture, and it is more beautiful than you could ever imagine! Trust Me. Believe in Me. Joy in Me. For I am your Father, and I love you more than you will ever understand this side of Heaven .

Encouragement for a Weary Heart

Sometimes I just need to be reminded of a few of my favorite verses.

The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31:3

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3

As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him. Psalm 18:30

So I ask you in the midst of life’s pressures and struggles, what kind of Dad do you think you have?

Photo credit: Frank Mckenna

Faithfully Stepping

Encouragement for Women on their Journey of Faith