{Previously published on Palm Beach Women’s Network website} There’s something you need to know about me. I’m that sick girl. You know, the one always battling an illness. And when I say sick girl, I mean the kind who fought cancer twice by the age of 26, the first time while pregnant. The laundry list […]
“For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” —2 Corinthians 4:11-12 (NIV) My 16-year-old walked to the front of her speech […]
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”—Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV) After battling infertility for years, and finally accepting […]
“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”—Psalm 107:6 (NIV) I remember the day Erin Brockovich, the well-known environmental activist, visited our town and confirmed what our community had feared: We were living in a cancer cluster and water contamination was to blame. Each bath, hand-washed […]
{Devotional} Fear is the great silencer in life. I remember the moment a friend asked if I’d speak at his crisis pregnancy fundraiser. After an uncomfortable chuckle, I refused. “I’m not a speaker,” I reminded him. He wasn’t looking for a speaker, he said, followed by something along the lines of, “God has given you […]
I’ll never forget the day I learned my cancer had returned. Standing in the kitchen, I gripped the phone as my oncologist shared the news. My knees gave out, and I slid to the floor. Deep from within, moans I’d never heard before bellowed out. Shock, fear, and then anger set in as I shouted […]
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.”—Romans 1:8 (NKJV) In this verse, the apostle Paul praises the faith-filled Christians living in Rome. At first glance, it’s easy to miss the historical significance of Paul’s admiration. Consider this: Rome was a hedonistic […]
“A football-sized tumor is embedded around your lungs,” my ER doctor explained. It’s not every day you hear this news, especially when you’re 25 years old and six weeks pregnant. But my diagnosis isn’t where my story begins — because every illness has a unique symptom that internally whispers something’s wrong. Mine seeped out […]
{A recent guest post I shared over at ILoveDevotionals.com.} I used to be fearful of a lot of things. I worried about money. I agonized over work projects and whether I was competent to perform a job well done. Seeking the approval of others was another fear. Did I offend them? Will they like […]
It started when the police officer knocked on my door. That’s when I knew my week had finally culminated into crazy. Just an hour earlier my sister’s power had blown, making it impossible for her industrial-sized printer to produce the last of the merchandise for my “Get Well” baskets we created for that afternoon’s event. […]
I suppose I’ve always liked to control things — to plan my career or vacations or schedule my day in half-hour increments, for efficiency’s sake. It was a gift, I thought, this mapping out of my life so I didn’t waste time reaching my goals. That was until I found myself in the emergency room […]
I want my husband to love me unconditionally, even in the midst of my dumb choices. But I’m human. He’s human. And we both really stink at playing God. After 17 years of marriage, we started attending an ongoing Bible study group to guard our hearts because we knew how fleshly they can be. We […]
My daddy died recently. As you can imagine, I’ve been thinking a lot about Heaven. I know he’s there. I know he’s finally pain and fatigue-free. This thought brings me the most peace. But I have an awful admission. In my mind I envision Heaven as boring. That’s pathetic. God created earth and every waterfall within it. […]
God embedded gifts within each of us before the beginning of time to perform specialized tasks here on Earth (Ephesians 2:10). Actually, the calling God places on our hearts can never be withdrawn;, according to Romans 11:29 it’s irrevocable. Kind of like a divine Mission Impossible assignment ordained by the Father. This revelation is freeing. […]
We have all said dumb things we wished we could take back. Like, asking a woman her due date only to find out she is not even pregnant. My biggest foot-in-mouth incident happened when a friend lost her daughter to an awful shooting. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I reread the Palm Beach Post […]