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Yahweh

Yahweh, Breath of God.   At the end of July, my girls and I went with my sister and two of her kids to the Frio River in southeast Texas to camp and float the river. Floating the river is a long-standing Texas tradition. You get in an innertube and just let the river current take you downstream. You pack food and drinks for the day, and you just bask in the sun and float away. After a few days of hot sun and cool water, we were packing up to go home. My 16-year-old daughter and I were hitching the trailer to my Tahoe, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to what we were doing. My right index finger got caught, and I couldn’t move it. My daughter tried her hardest to help, but I couldn’t communicate in anything but screams. I made a movement with my left hand to move the trailer. In her effort to free me, she pushed when I needed her to pull. The end result was half of my fingertip being severed off. Through cussing and screaming, I immediately found paper towels to wrap around my finge

Taking Offenses

“I am so offended,” one of my freshman students called out after reading the introductory scene from  Romeo and Juliet . I can understand her feeling that way, as it is a particularly misogynistic scene. “You don’t get to be offended,” I replied to her. She looked at me haughtily, as if I can’t tell her what she can be offended by. “You see,” I continued, “you don’t get to be offended, because it wasn’t written to you, nor was it written about you.” I went on to tell her that she can most definitely find Shakespeare’s scene offensive—because it is—but she doesn’t get to be offended, because she cannot take it personally. A look of understanding slowly started to wash over her face. The entire classroom’s attitude shifted from feeling victimized by Shakespeare to understanding that the material is offensive, and therefore we can call it that and learn from it. However, all too often, we get offended by people’s words and actions, as if they were directed toward us.  Being offended is a

I’m Exhausted

Sometimes I just don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like rejoicing. I don’t feel like worshipping. I don’t feel like even talking to God. I’m tired. I’m physically exhausted. I’m emotionally exhausted. David felt this way, too. In Psalm 31, David talks about how exhausted he is. “I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.” He goes on to say how he is like broken pottery, and people were conspiring to kill him. Does David give up? Does David languish in his agony? Over and over, David makes a conscious choice to praise God. He says repeatedly, “Bless the Lord, oh my soul.” As a kid growing up, I always thought David was “the worshipper,” so therefore he must have felt a deep connection to God all the time. But when you look deeper at the scripture, you’ll see that he is telling his very soul what to do. He isn’t just pouring out praises here. It is as if he is commanding his soul, “Hey, there David! You need to bless the Lord.” Our soul is comprised of

Godly Discipline

The biggest rock concert of my generation was RockFest '97. It featured just about every popular rock band of the 90's. More than 400,000 people crammed into Fort Worth's Texas Motor Speedway. The Nixons, No Doubt, Matchbox 20, Jewel, Bush, The Counting Crows, and more took the stage as the sun blazed in the Texas summer. Growing up in a conservative Christian household in the 90's, going to a secular rock concert was taboo. I knew my parents would never let me go, but I wanted to go more than anything. I told my parents that some friends and I were going to Six Flags over Texas, an amusement park about 45 minutes away. I thought it was the perfect cover--we would still be outside (that would explain the sunburn), and we could be gone all day.  As children of God, we don't get to sin and get away with it. In the book of Amos, Israel is prosperous and powerful. However, their hearts are not bent toward the Lord. They choose to disobey God’s commands and do as they pl

The Idolization of Intelligence

The greatest man I ever knew had an IQ of about 55. My Uncle Jeff had Down Syndrome, and he could never have had a philosophical conversation about the meaning of life. He could have told you all about Tom Landry and his Dallas Cowboys, though. There's no way he would have been able to solve an algebraic equation, but he could have told you all about the TV show HeeHaw. He couldn't have been able to process complex ideas, but he could tell you why Coca-Cola was the best drink ever made. He had none of the markers of "intelligence" we deem important in our society, but he loved Jesus, and he loved you.  His love was simple and pure. He didn't complicate his love with intrusive thoughts or overthinking. He never sat around worried what others thought about him. He just loved you. He wanted to talk to you and give you a hug. "All-right!" was a favorite word when he was excited. His sense of humor was unmatched. If you asked him if he was ready to go, he w

Let Them

What other people think about you is none of your business. Read that again. What other people think about you is none of your business.  My whole life, I have struggled with what other people think about me. Not in the sense that I have to post on social media daily to garner likes and hearts. Not in the sense that I have to be dressed to the 9's every time I walk out my front door. What I struggle with is that I want to be seen. I want people to perceive me as I perceive me — that I am kind and giving. That I have a good heart and always mean well. I want people to see my heart is always in the right place, even if I may fall short.  For years, my ex-husband has slung blatantly false accusations at me. For years, it hurt me to my core that he would genuinely think that I was abusing our children or that I didn't care about them. I would cry for hours that the father of my beautiful girls would think I'm such a vile person. I cried out to God, and I wanted answers. I wante

Does God Answer Prayer?

Crying out to God in desperation and feeling like He just doesn't answer can feel isolating. It can make us feel unloved and utterly alone. Sometimes, we feel like God just isn't answering our prayers. We think that because He didn't come out and just give us the answer we wanted, that He didn't answer. We get upset that He didn't give us an answer how we wanted Him to answer us.  The dictionary defines an answer as a response or reaction to a question, statement or situation. So given this broad of a definition, He may be answering us, just maybe not how we would like Him to answer us.  James 5:16 says, "The effectual prayers of a righteous man availeth much." I Peter 3:12 says that "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer..." So scripture tells us that He does indeed listen to our prayer. We know from Jeremiah 29:11 that God's plans are to "prosper you and not to harm you. To giv

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Because of Who I Am

Someone posted on Facebook the other day the following: Why would you fight for someone who clearly doesn't want you? Please let them go. You are valuable, just not to them. I thought about it for a minute, because I indeed fought for my husband when he clearly didn't want me. I fought for our marriage, even when he had zero interest in making our marriage work. He had already checked out and told me point-blank that he just didn't want to work on our marriage, but yet I fought on my knees before the Lord. Throughout the first few months of our separation, I prayed day-in and day-out. I beseeched the Lord to intercede. I rebuked Satan, and I prostrated myself before the Lord God Almighty. I went to therapy, and I watched sermons online. I listened to every Jimmy Evans podcast I could find. I journaled and devoured God's Word. I wrote my husband scriptures and prayers daily. I soon filled a 100-page journal front and back. Shortly after he left in June