• Redeeming Church Conflicts,  Relationships & Peacemaking

    When Christians fight, they become either legalistic legalists or legalistic antinomians …

    I think Dave Edling’s post over at our RedeemingChurchConflicts site is brilliant. One of his best writings to date! I encourage you to read and enjoy: 495 Years and a Lot of Conflict Two of my favorite excerpts from the essay: There has been one consistently common thread among all church conflicts. It is best captured by a question: If we are justified before God not by our works but the free grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ, why are church conflicts almost always characterized by defensiveness and self-righteousness?   What happens when Christians fight is that they become either legalistic legalists or legalistic antinomians. They defend their…

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  • Just for Fun!

    Reconcilosec

    A classic! I laugh every time. (Particularly appropriate as we head  into November and the holidays …)   

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  • CCEF Live Blogs

    CCEF Conference: Guilt & Shame

    Having prayed for him for years as he worked on it, our family was thrilled with Dr. Ed Welch’s book on shame was released this year: Shame Interrupted: How God Lifts the Pain of Worthlessness and Rejection It really is my favorite book from 2012. I encourage you to read it, even if you don’t struggle with overwhelming feelings of badness, not-good-enough-ness, not measuring up, being worthy only of rejection (all descriptors for unbiblical shame) … because someone you know and love probably does. So don’t you want to be equipped to minister the beauty and power of the gospel to the shame-based people in your life? I do. (I…

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  • Fear Not!

    “My fears feel like necessary defenses against being hurt …”

    Whenever my women’s events carry over from a Friday to a Saturday, Fred and I always invite the women to respond to three questions in writing (based on the topic of the event—peacemaking, Fear Not!, teens, etc.) and then we spend a significant amount of time reading through each response and then praying for all of the women. Over the years, we have done this for thousands of women—I would say easily 10,000+—and we have kept every single prayer card that we have ever received. I have boxes of them! I just can’t throw them away … they are such precious glimpses into the hearts of these dear women. One card…

  • Fear Not!,  Hope in Suffering

    Service Starves Worry (and Depression)

    I can’t remember if it was David Powlison or Tim Keller (probably it was both of them) … but I have paraphrased one of their teaching points to (hopefully) repeat it to myself often and thus, engrave it in my memory: Service starves worry. In fact, I would say the same thing about depression:   Service starves depression. Even in your darkest, toughest season of life, there is always some way to give yourself away. 

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  • Relationships & Peacemaking,  Singleness & Marriage

    The Most Peacemaking-y Response in That Exact Moment? Back Off and Give Me Some Time

    Fred and I had a whopper of a fight recently. It was one of those awful cul-de-sac conflicts where even our best efforts to pull out of fighting only wrapped us around even more into deeper, more hurtful, more frustrating exchanges. Finally, I just broke down and wept. I sobbed in a way that I don’t easily or frequently sob. I was literally begging Fred to just stop the fight; to do whatever it took in that moment to relieve me of the crushing hopelessness I was feeling. And Fred, being the kind and loving friend that he is, did just that. He backed off. He recognized that even though…

  • Fear Not!,  Just for Fun!

    And then a GIANT SPIDER crawled right over my notes on the podium …

    Even though it’s usually my happy place, I can understand why some people are afraid to speak in front of large groups. And even though they don’t usually freak me out, I can likewise understand why some people are afraid of spiders. They can be creepy! So today? I had an experience that would definitely be extremely troubling to any people for whom both of these fears overlap … as I was teaching at my women’s retreat in Tennessee, a GIANT SPIDER skittered up and over the edge of my podium and right across my speaker notes. Yeek! Pretty much without blinking, I set down the microphone, grabbed the nearest resource…

  • Hope in Suffering

    Reality Does Not Operate According to Our Preferences

    From my friend, Anne’s, FaceBook update: ‎”We desire a world that we can control, where suffering is a problem to be solved and everyone gets what he or she deserves: this is the gravitational pull of Original Sin. Like Job’s friends, we prefer the safety of “if-then” conditionality. Suffering, however, often serves as an unwanted reminder that reality does not operate according to our preferences.” Tullian Tchividjian in

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