Pursuing Truth in the Messiah

     Did you know that husbands are even more romantic after you are married?      So often the pretty, little stories stop at the wedding day.  But it actually gets even better after that.  And I have a story from this week to prove it.      I was at the grocery store, getting ready to purchase a very large shopping-cart-full of food for the next 2 weeks.  And my debit card was declined.      I've never had my card declined before.  And thus began a long (1 1/2 hour) drama of phone calls to the bank and the Grocery Store fraud detection system, driving home for other payment methods (which also didn't work), and countless other harrowing details...all while my cart with its vegetables and frozen foods sat waiting patiently for me to take it home.      When I had exhausted every possible method and pursued every possible channel, I was left with a string of hopeless store clerks an...

I learned something new in our study of Joseph -- a little gem I had never noticed before -- something that was implied but not said outright.  Here's what our commentary led us to notice: Pharoah was excited to learn that Joseph's brothers had come.  He was happy for Joseph. I had always thought this spoke well of Pharoah and Joseph's relationship.  That the Pharoah would be happy for him.  That Pharoah would want to meet Joseph's family. But the commentary pointed something else out. Joseph hadn't told Pharoah of his brother's sins. If Joseph had told Pharoah, Pharoah probably would have been ready to rush to Joseph's rescue and help him punish his brothers for betraying Joseph and selling him into slavery. But Pharoah didn't know.  He welcomed Joseph's brothers with open arms because he didn't have any pre-set prejudices against them. Joseph hadn't told his sob-story.  He didn't gossip.  He didn't seek sympathy or jus...

      During the Torah Club meeting earlier this month, one of the men said something that struck home with me.  He said that, at his job, you can go very quickly from hero to zero, and it's often not even based on your performance.      I think I get myself into a lot of trouble with this in my job.  The work of a midwife makes a huge difference in the lives of people.  My actions and insight can often be the difference between life and death, or peace and turmoil, smooth flow and chaos, preparedness and loss.  The stakes are pretty high.      There are also a lot of things beyond my control.  Sometimes a birth is especially beautiful and peaceful...and it wasn't because I was especially awesome that day.  Sometimes a birth has complications or hard things, and it isn't because I failed as a midwife.      But it is so easy to ride that rollercoaster.  It is so easy to look at somethi...

     This was a question that I sought some guidance on when I first got married...especially pertaining to the day that Garrett and I would have children.  There were a few spiritual things that Garrett and I disagreed on.  How would we teach our children?      I knew, when I was growing up, that my mom and dad disagreed on how they thought the Creation story happened.  For just about everything else, mom and dad were agreed.  So I formed my own conclusions based on the data I could find, and I didn't worry too much over the answer, trusting that God would teach us someday.  And maybe the actual details of Creation were a little different than any of us had quite imagined.      My older sister gave me this guidance: when she was teaching her children, and she came across something that she knew that she and her husband didn't agree on, she would explain that to the children.  She would say, "Your daddy a...

This is just a random picture from the internet that seemed to fit my subject.      I am so excited.      Because the men of the group are excited.      There is this band of God-fearing men -- my husband included -- who are seeking God and studying His Word and praying together.  And they are meeting together on extra days of the week to talk about how to share their faith in God with other people.  They are passionate.  And wise.      It's not something that I've seen often.  Maybe I've just been in the wrong places. But I've seen a lot of groups led by excited women.  And I've seen groups led by one excited man.  But the way that Garrett and these 3 other men are linking arms and following God with their whole hearts is something that I don't get to see every day.  And I love it.      And the wives are right there with them.  If you eavesdrop on the men's convers...

     My sister and I had an interesting discussion the other day.  We've had friends who made very, very foolish relationship decisions and got badly hurt.  And so often we hear them blame their decision on their low self-esteem.      The story runs something like this: "I knew I shouldn't have gotten into the car with them, but I really struggle with low self-esteem...and I just thought this was probably the best I could ever hope for, and I don't really deserve better than this...and I was just so happy that somebody could actually think I was pretty and those words meant so much to me that I couldn't walk away even though I knew I should have...because no one ever tells me that they care about me like that."      Low self-esteem is bad.  It's like a disease that has reached epidemic proportions.  I can't tell you how many people I know struggle with it...especially young people.  In fact, I don't know an...

Reading through the stories of Abraham and Joseph have given me a new outlook on faith.  And by faith, I mean that whole-hearted, unwavering confidence that God will do what He has promised.  That confidence that is so strong that people can see it by your actions. When I was reading through the story of Abraham this time, I realized that he really was a foreigner in the land.  Somehow I had always pictured the Promised Land as a big, wide-open, unclaimed plot of land...with some different people groups that happened to wander through it from time to time.  But that's not quite the case.  After all, Abraham BOUGHT a piece of land to bury his wife.  He wouldn't have bought it if the land didn't belong to someone. But Abraham walked through this land with such confidence in God's promise that I, the person reading the story several thousand years later, shared his confidence that the land was his. So the first thing I want to solidify in your brains ...

This post isn't actually about this horse, although I just got to meet her the other day and she is a really cool new friend, too.       Have you ever met somebody and felt inspired by them?  Like they were such cool people and you just wanted to be around them more?  There are a few of them in existence, and I recently met 2 more of them!       One of them is younger than I am.  But she has a lot of wisdom and a lot of passion for the things of God.  She is far from home...far from friends and family and support...but she is shining strong and brilliant wherever God puts her without seeming to skip a beat.  I hope that my own children someday can shine like that wherever God puts them.      One of them is older than I am...I think...or, at least, she has more children than I do.  She is one of those women who look like they are tough enough to handle anything, who looks like she is forever friendly an...