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A Letter Reflecting on Unity

  Dear brothers and sisters, I implore us to seek unity with one another, just as John encouraged us to do through his letters to the early church. Let us not be pulled apart by disagreements that lead to hate and division. Can we show the world what it looks like to disagree with love? Can we show what it looks like to have differences but be united because we have something so incredible connecting us that we can’t be pulled apart? We all have this one major, amazing, life changing thing in common, not only with each other in the church but with those outside the church. We are loved by God, who provides and cares for us so deeply. Within the church we recognize the need we have for God, not only for salvation but for true and abiding hope, for unshakable peace and unspeakable joy. We know as a church family that the only reason we can stand before a loving, perfect, Holy God is because Christ stands besides us and reminds God that we have been pardoned because of His sacrifice. ...
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A Letter Reflecting on What Would Jesus Do?

  Dear brothers and sisters, I write these letters to you because I love you. I don’t want to see you destroyed by hate and pride and isolation. I don’t want to see the church fall apart because we are so focused on ourselves and our comfort that we ignore the pain of others. We’ve stopped looking at others with God’s eyes and instead we’ve begun to label others as “them”. We’ve started to first consider what works best for me, what is comfortable for me and not what Christ considers best. We’ve started to judge first and then, maybe, consider what Christ would have done within the confines of what we want. My generation of believers who grew up in the church was raised with the question, “What would Jesus do?” I fear that as we tossed those bracelets in the trash we also tossed away the question and reflection it brought. Can we say with confidence we respond as a church the way Christ calls us to? Are we reaching out with love and compassion? Sitting down with those cast aside, j...

A Letter to Canadian Believers

  Dear brothers and sisters,  I am writing to you from the darkness of my bedroom in the dead of night because my heart aches within me.  I’ve had this song running through my head recently that I learned back in grade three. It goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love."  I don’t believe this is how Christians are seen anymore which deeply saddens me. When I look at the general state of  North America and the hate that is often spewed and fear that is lobbied like bombs, meant to attack, used to defend, I feel so heavy. I think Christians are known more for our hate- not only for those outside of "us” but for those within "us”.  I think it is truly time for all of us who call ourselves believers and followers of Christ, myself included, to really look at ourselves and look at the Bible. Actually, read for ourselves verses in context, and read to discount our own hypothesis (because this i...

A New Series

 Hello! Thanks for reading this. I know it's been a while. I'm not the most consistent and steady of bloggers so I appreciate you taking the time to even click the link and pop over to my blog! I'm so glad you're here. Recently, as I've been reading the news and talking with close friends I've had this heaviness weighing on me. It is partly the heaviness that comes with the reality that the world is not as it should be. I think no matter your faith background you could probably agree with me on this point. Another aspect of the heaviness comes as I observe and see Christians within Canada (and much of North America) and the way that we show up in spaces. In reflecting on this I had this song pop up in my head that I had learned in elementary school (I went to a Christian school). That song spun out into more reflection and one night when I was lying in bed, unable to sleep because of the sadness (and to be honest anger), I felt prompted to write a letter to my f...

A God Who Knows

Disclaimer: This has been written over a period of a few weeks due to school ending and then all three of my kids getting sick one after the other. So, continuity may not be great and I cannot guarantee that all thoughts will flow perfectly.  The other day as I was journalling through the feeling of discomfort coming from not knowing myself as much as I would like to, a feeling of being off balance and a certain measure of anxiety thrown in there it suddenly hit me in the middle of it...God knows. God knows. He knows me so intimately and deeply, none of my insecurities, fears, struggles are a surprise to Him.  I've always loved to know the why. I will happily analyze myself endlessly to discover the why (or at least attempt to)...but sometimes the why can't be known and that is unsettling for me. The unknownness of something is constantly something that can cause me nervousness/anxiety and it's something my clients often share as a source of anxiety for them as well.  I d...

Trust

The idea of trust in God has continually been on my mind recently. The realization that there can be an incredible amount of peace that will consume my life if I can trust that God is good, that He will work in the ways that are in line with who He has shown himself to be throughout my life and throughout history. I am inconsistent with my devotional readings, however, whenever I have picked it up recently they have been talking about trust, specifically trusting God with my children.  However, some of them have just reminded me of the importance of trusting that the Holy Spirit can and will work in the lives of those I love. There was one from May 27th (the devotional is by Nancy Guthrie and it's called The One Year Praying Through the Bible For Your Kids) and this is what I underlined, "We are never meant to be the Holy Spirit to them. In fact, we can't be. Instead we are meant to trust that the Holy Spirit will do his work of comforting, convicting, teaching and guiding...

Thoughts from Sleep Deprivation

 Man, the levels of sleep deprivation we have experienced with our youngest has been just brutal. Every little milestone we hit we think, "Maybe this will be when she starts to sleep better? Maybe now she won't be awake multiple times a night or for hours in the middle of the night." And according to most recent research we're doing everything "spot on" so it can be incredibly frustrating to yet again hear her little voice call out at 11:00, 2:00am, 2:15am, 2:30am and 5:30am.  I started this post yesterday while in the pit of sleepless despair and wasn't able to finish it due to the lack of thinking that felt possible for me to have. This will be a bit of an all over post today but I'm hoping in the end to hit cohesive takeaway.  One thing that I have found consistently over the past...7 years (?) is that as soon as I sit down to start writing more consistently something comes up that kind of causes a wrench in that plan. After our eldest was born an...