Several years ago, I started paying attention to the testimonies of believers from around the world. As I read story after story, I’ve noticed that the way they engage with the Bible is often very different from how I engage: There are no highlighters, no coffee mugs, and no devotionals or notebooks. But many of … Read more
Honestly, having a regular quiet time is hard. It’s hard for a variety of reasons from busyness, to kids, to straight-up spiritual opposition. It’s normal for us to go through seasons when having a quiet time feels more difficult than others. In her book Quiet, Naomi Vacaro describes these different seasons. “If you’ve practiced the … Read more
The Secret to Successfully Memorizing Scripture I grew up memorizing scripture but truthfully, I didn’t enjoy it. Memorizing was something I did because I was encouraged to by my parents and Sunday school teachers. When I was around 17, I stumbled across a YouTube video of Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth quoting scripture from memory. For over thirty … Read more
The hardest verse I’ve memorized is Colossians 3:9. I only tackled it because I wanted to memorize the entire book of Colossians. I enjoyed memorizing the first two chapters. However, when I got to chapter three, verse nine, everything in me wanted to quit. Colossians 3:9-10 says, “Do not lie to one another, since you … Read more
Have you ever stopped to consider why you have a quiet time? It’s easy to think that as long as we’re having a quiet time, our motive doesn’t matter. After all, doesn’t God just want us to show up, read the Bible, pray? I used to think that way, until God led me through a season where He … Read more
I still remember watching spell bound as she quoted scripture from memory for over 30 minutes. She made God’s word sound beautiful. She made it sound powerful. She made captivating. I became convinced that there is something special about hiding God’s word in your heart. And something amazing about quoting it by memory. When this … Read more
Memorizing the Bible is a powerful weapon against sin and temptation. David memorized scripture as a means of fighting sin (Ps 119:11). Jesus also used His arsenal of memorized verses to fight temptation. Often, when struggling with sin we are encouraged to memorize specific verses. Such as memorizing Philippians 4:6, “be anxious for nothing, but … Read more
Recently I asked my readers what topics they most enjoy reading on a blog for young Christian women. Your answers shocked me. The overall category that got significantly more votes than anything else was … Christian disciplines. While this surprised me, it was also exciting to know that girls want to learn spiritual disciplines and … Read more
“Dear 25 year old self,
Today is your 20th Birthday. I don’t know if you will still be on earth for your 25th birthday.
But assuming you are still in the trenches, here are some hopes, dreams and prayers from your 20 year old self. ”
It’s become a tradition of mine to take time to remember the goodness of God and plan for the future every New Year’s and every birthday. Last summer on my 20th I did this in the form of a letter to my future-self.
One particular set of hopeful words buried in that letter have provided more motivation than I could have ever imagined when they dripped from my pen.