A little encouragement today from one of my favorite passages, Lamentations 3:

“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.
Let him sit alone in silence for the Lord has laid it on him…
For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.

Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.
For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.”

“Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, ‘We are going to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day, he will rise again.’

The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about…

After Jesus said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached…he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” Tell him, “The Lord needs it.”’

They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down to the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen…

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’

‘I tell you,’ he replied, ‘if they keep silent, the stones will cry out.’

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace.'”

Luke 18:31-34; 19:28-42, etd. NIV.

In honor of the new Like button on Facebook that debuted this week — finally allowing you to finally choose between Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry. TBT to a post from three years ago:

I once thought you couldn’t use the word “like” any more than we did in the 1980s. It was, like, a time when people said things like “radical” and “holy cow,” wore shoulder pads, spandex and drank Pepsi Free. “Like” was a prelude to pretty much whatever you were going to say.

Every schoolchild knew there was an important distinction between when someone “liked” you or “like liked” you, and when there were no words deep enough to express just how you felt on a subject, you could just say, “Like…yeah man.” Or if you were female, “Like…I know…right?!”

But as much as I thought the word couldn’t be overused any more than circa 1989, I think I was wrong. All you have to do now is log onto Facebook to see that like is back. 

Let me preface this by saying I think I might be the queen of liking other people’s statuses. On any given day, I am prone to like Chick-fil-A, Jane Austen, NBC Nightly News, peppermint bark (YES!) and swiffers.

Not enough for you? Don’t worry, because stuff that didn’t make the cut the first time will show up in the “Stuff you might like” column, along with “people youmay know” (but clearly don’t, or you would have friended them by now) and “stories you might be interested in.” Get carried away with your likes? Don’t worry – you can “unlike” it later. And while I have quit trusting Facebook since it suggested I might like Nick Saban, I have to admit, it’s fun to like stuff.

I like to like stuff. So sue me. Continue reading…

Well, Valentine’s Day is this weekend, which always leads to a slew of questions no one wants to answer. Single people just want to know how to survive the day and married people just want to know how to please him/her without being cliché, reading minds, hiring a babysitter or blowing the budget.

It’s the first group of people I’m mainly speaking to – those who are single.

What do you do on Valentine’s Day? That’s the million dollar question that arrives every Feb. 14.

For those who are single on Valentine’s Day, it seems like there are two inevitable options:

• Have a girls night where you have a romantic moviefest, chocolate and wine.
• Have an anti-Valentine’s Day party where you treat the day like it didn’t exist.

I would like to propose…neither. Continue reading…

“When trying to discern God’s will for our lives, it is tempting to spend all our our time in prayer. God, what do you want me to do with my life? Should I take this job? Should I move to that city? Should I enroll at the school? Should I marry him? Should I break up with her?

The list of prayers could run on till eternity. But what if the key to discerning God’s will for your life was to stop praying so much about it?”

Read the full article here

“I heard God say, ‘You want to know what I want you to do? Start by being obedient to what I’ve already commanded you. I’ve given you a lot to do.”

Great article by Greg Darley, director of college and millennial mobilization for International Justice Mission.  

Sometimes it’s important not to take things too seriously. Today, just for fun, check out John Crist’s parody of Christian Girl Instagram  #Blessed

Well played, John Crist.

Well played.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

…The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, not or of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, but God’s only begotten, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”

John 1

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is of course, decorating the tree. It’s kind of a spiritual experience for me. I like to put the tree up early in the season so I can enjoy it for weeks. Its ornaments are a reminder of childhood, whimsy and a few of my favorite things.

Below are a few of my favorites:

I used to joke that my Christmas tree was pretty much all Auburn and Jesus. That’s still pretty much true, from just about any angle.

Two of the oldest ornaments on the tree — a popcicle stick ornament with an “M” I made in kindergarten and Strawberry Shortcake, who captured so much of my childhood.

Continue reading…

You know you love it. C’mon, you know you love it. We’re talking about Hallmark Christmas movies, of course. Well, Hallmark/Lifetime/Ion Christmas movies, to be exact.

By now, year three of my Hallmark Christmas movie review, you ought to know that there are a few elemental rules of said movies:

• Someone is teaching someone else the meaning of Christmas.
• A city slicker finds magic in a small town
• Saving a town that’s going to go bankrupt because they’re shutting down a toy factory
• Someone is in the wrong relationship (usually dating a rich jerk)
• Someone is a secret relative of Santa
• Someone trades places or gets a glimpse into the future
• A businessman falls in love with his penniless assistant, or a woman loses a promotion to her boss’s relative, then falls in love with them

Continue reading…

“We have entered the Culture of Whatever. Ironically, the more we know, the less we care. This info-glut age can make us dangerously numb…

The greatest challenge is to attach yourself to the cares of the world and still keep going. To know the world, and love it still.”

To know the world, and love it still…In One Thousand Wells: How An Audacious Goal Taught me to Love the World Instead of Save It, author Jena Lee Nardella takes the reader through the 10-year journey of Blood:Water mission, which has brought clean water to more than 1 million people in Africa.

Nardella offers these observations and more from the perspective of a start-up non-profit and a 20-something trying to find their way in the world.

Overall a great read — you can check it out here: One Thousand Wells