• Sin & Repentance

    How to Encourage Struggling People

    It sure is easy to say the wrong thing to someone who is struggling. It’s even (temporarily) easy to say nothing at all and just avoid the person. But to say an apt word? An apple of gold in a vessel of beaten silver (Prov. 25:11)? How difficult! How (seemingly) impossible. But this article (that references one of my favorite books—How People Change by Lane and Tripp) provides some tangible, practical, grace-based help: Encouragement (by Jamie Dunlop)    

  • Uncategorized

    Fear Not Retreat & Biblical Peacemaking Retreat FREE AUDIO

    I was sharing some teaching notes with a new friend in Ethiopia (to help her prep for some teachings she will be doing on biblical peacemaking) and I remembered that the super cool Living Water Community Church has free audio recordings available for both of my most-requested women’s retreats. If you sort by “preacher” Tara Barthel, “Sermons” 531, 532, 533, and 534 are my standard women’s retreat on biblical peacemaking and Sermons 630, 631, 632 and 633 are my (relatively) new “Fear Not” retreat. Fred and I are gearing up for my eight spring events. (Zweep! Things are about to get very busy.) Hope you had a blessed and restful…

  • Uncategorized

    Visiting Fred at the Peacemaker Ministries Office (and Baby Micah is Cancer Free!)

    I love living in a small town like Billings. One of my favorite things? Stopping by Fred’s office at Peacemaker Ministries just to say hello. BTW—For those of you who don’t know about the (truly miraculous! amazing!) news re: sweet baby Micah (born to a Peacemaker staff member at Christmastime 2010 with metasticized liver cancer) …   We received a two word text from his parents this week (from the Children’s Hospital in Denver): CANCER FREE  

  • Relationships & Peacemaking

    Enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice …

    I am re-reading some of my favorite C.S. Lewis books and thoroughly enjoying peeking into very-young-Tara-ness because of my (near constant) underlining and notes in the margins. My old paperback books may be falling apart, but that doesn’t mean I’m not immediately transported back to First United Presbyterian Church (Moline, Illinois) and Augustana College and Dr. Paul Jensen’s Sunday School classes and philosophy classes. What a grace that God brought me there way back in 1988. My topic du jour? I am continuing on the theme of friendship. The Four Loves is a must read, of course, and that transported me immediately to Dr. Jensen’s message at our wedding in…

  • Relationships & Peacemaking

    Chesed and Emet

    I love this classic article by David Powlison, not just for its application to marriage, but for its wisdom re: all relationships: Renewing Intimacy: Closing the Gap between You and Your Spouse This is my favorite paragraph:   “In the Old Testament two Hebrew words are often used to describe God: chesed and emet. Chesed is translated in the Old Testament as ‘lovingkindness,’ or ‘steadfast love.’ It means committed kindness, a chosen generosity, a resolution to do good to another person no matter what. Emet is translated as ‘faithfulness’ or ‘truth.’ When we say of someone, ‘She was a true friend,’ we’re using the word ‘true’ in the sense that…

  • Uncategorized

    Through the Bible Through the Year

    We are all enjoying Fred’s reading for us each evening: John Stott’s “Through the Bible, Through the Year: Daily Reflections from Genesis to Revelation” Tonight, we go to bed with these verses in our hearts:   “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:30-31  

  • Hope in Suffering

    Minimizing Our Suffering

    Have you ever looked around your life and seen so many people “truly” suffering that you are tempted to minimize your own? Doesn’t it sometimes feel selfish and self-indulgent to weep over your (small amount of) pain when there are people “out there” who are REALLY experiencing TRUE pain? I struggle with this propensity myself and I hear it in the voices of women at events coast-to-coast too. One of the truths I try to remember to believe myself—and I remind women of over and over again is that pain is pain, suffering is real. To restate an old poem: Yes. We can cry over the man who has no…

  • Perfectionism & Shame

    Feeling Guilty …

    Throughout this last week, I’ve had a number of really awful things I’ve done in the past just JUMP on me. I’ve physically cringed (and sometimes cried out a silent, “I can’t believe I did that!”) when I’ve thought of what I’ve done. So I thought it was a good time to review Ed Welch’s article and try to lay hold of these truths that I really do claim to believe: Feeling Guilty? Who Doesn’t?    

  • Fear Not!

    Insomnia and then … nightmares about insomnia

    If I weren’t so tired, I would’ve found it a little funny that my really bad night of insomnia apparently was punctuated by some brief times of REM sleep, because then I had nightmares about being awake with insomnia. Pathetic! But such is life. I keep thinking of the end of the last session of my Fear Not! retreat: Sleep in Peace—God is Awake!  ‘I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.’ Psalm 16:8-9 If only my subconscious mind would get the message…