so many times we (and when I say “we” I mean “I”) enter into our prayer time with a laundry list of things we “need” from God… be it wisdom, healing, financial breakthrough, emotional breakthrough… we sit there and rattle them off sandwiched between our “dear Lord”s and “heavenly father”s. Now, there is nothing wrong with this until it becomes our only time of prayer. We “close the call” with a quick amen and are back on our way. Today I was reading through Psalm 27 and I realized that we are missing something… that I am missing something. I often have these times of revelation that humble me and…

So today I was out running errands and I needed a few things from the store. I saw that some of the things I wanted to get were on sale at Aldi’s so after returning some overdue library books, that’s where we headed. When we arrived a nice lady gave us her cart (For those of you who don’t know about Aldi, you have to put a quarter in to get a cart and you get that quarter back when you return the cart). I thought that was so nice! Then we went inside to get what we needed. We were having fun just wandering around the store. I got…

so here i am once again distracted from my to-do list. particularly from my massive amounts of reading for my american history and earth science classes…. i can only read so much textbook before starting to go cross eyed. So I do what any college student would do… procrastinate. and i find myself drawn to write… i’ve been thinking about the seasons changing. profound, i know (especially considering tonight marks the official start of fall). i’ve started to see a few leaves changing here and there, although the weather could fool you into thinking we were in the middle of summer, rather than on the cusp of fall. i love…

i enjoy learning. sometimes the season of learning isn’t easy. sometimes its long. and painful. but i can honestly look back and say i’m thankful for the lessons learned up to this point. and i’m thankful for the lessons i’m learning now. some are so simple, yet so profound. i’ve been listening to the song “how he loves us” quite a bit lately. i am completely blown away by the lyrics, and sometimes I can’t get past the first line… HE is jealous for me. the God of the Universe… the vast, uncontainable, being… is jealous for me. sometimes i think about what God thinks about me. obviously I “know”…

sometimes my mind starts racing a million miles an hour with thoughts so deep. other times i feel like my mind is a shallow pond consumed by the thoughts of this world. today i felt torn between the two, but felt a strong tugging towards the all too often ignored deep waters. it started this morning as i was driving, i was praying and listening to worship music i started to remember my innocent genuine prayer times when i was a young girl. i long for that purity and innocence again. i chuckled as i thought of my idea of repentance during those prayer times. i thought of myself as…

This was the title of my devotional this morning. I had to sit back and chuckle. It’s like one of those obvious jokes. I sat back and said “ok, God, good one.” His timing is always perfect. We hear it all the time, but it seems like those lessons are quickly forgotten when the time comes to use them. I can’t tell you how many times my youth pastor had me read, memorize and quote James 1. We used to joke that when things were a little rough and people asked us how we were that we could respond “joyful” because James 1:2-4 tells us to consider it pure joy.…