Once upon a time… and the fairytale ended there. But God wrote a story that was better than any fable, because every trial, heartache, and lament, pointed Elizabeth to Christ and his glory, teaching her endurance, producing in her a spiritual strength, the kind that knocks you on your knees in prayer. As His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts …

Bad reviews, spiritual gifts, and serving the body in love. We’re talking about worshiping God through serving in your local church! Spiritual gifts matter, but perhaps not like you think they do. Spoiler: you have to be a member of a local church so you can serve in it, in order to obey this commans. ________________________ When this is the day y…

Episode 17: Fools hate God. Calling one a fool is truly a cutting insult. They do not love him, know him, or seek to understand. Yet, even faithful believers can act foolishly. What’s the antidote to being a fool? Getting wisdom. Wisdom is biblical knowledge in action. It’s not enough to know about the Lord, if we don’t put that knowledge into acti…

It doesn’t matter if you’re one to cry your eyes out or you appear impassive and cool - we are called to lament our pains to the Lord. Expressing fears, struggles, anxieties, and trials in righteous lament, using scripture as a guide or as our entire lament, provides us with the words to articulate profound sorrow when we find ourselves at a loss f…

Tornados, cannibalism, human trafficking: big trials demand a big response. Sometimes our response is to glorify God. Often our response is anger, blame, and penance. With trials like these, we sometimes stray to questioning the goodness of God. Is God good? Is God faithful? Is God powerful? Is there sin that needs to be murdered? Sin that needs to…

The extreme feminist and the extreme homemaker. Both styles are trending on social media. One makes men subjective to women, erasing as many roles of men as possible. The other - the extreme homemaker, also called a “trad wife” - centers around creating an impossibly perfect, unrealistic aesthetic, marking women who are unable to achieve this farce…

Women empowerment is a trending theme in the world right now, and as women ourselves, we have a few thoughts on the matter. We filtered the idea of "Female Empowerment" through a biblical lens, and... surprise, surprise! Even if a woman wears a pantsuit, empowerment via our gender is never something we’re told to strive for. But Eve just wanted to …

The hip new word for gossip is "tea" (as in "spill the tea!") and Proverbs says gossip goes down like choice morsels. Coincidence? I think not! The fact is, gossip and slander go deep into our being, defiling our hearts and minds. Paul's greatest desire was for believers to grow in Christlikeness and in the unity of the church. Gossip and slander d…

The tongue. Life or death is in the power of the tongue. It dishoners or builds up and greatly affects those around us. Our hearts are known by what comes out of our mouths. When anger or anxiety are are present in our heart, our tongues will make it know. When unrepentant sin has taken told, our tongues will make it known. Criticicizing, belittlin…

Monika gets personal and shares how the Lord's steadfast love abiding in her, brought her through the greatest trials of her life (thus far), and continues to sustain her every single day. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) _____________________…

The character of God is trustworthy, no matter how discouraging this day is. Rehearsing the character of God in your life is a great way to deal with a difficult day. When we respond in faith, knowing the character of God, it brings him great glory and lifts up our souls. It is good to trust in the Lord. ________________________ When this is the da…

Romance shmomance. It’s the month of love, or so declared the marketing gurus of way back whenever. So we’re looking at romance through the Biblical lens of Psalm 118:1-4. God's hesed love is merciful, given freely, even when we are in the most pathetic state. Way better than a box of chocolates - it never runs out and you ALWAYS know what you’re g…

Are you already wishing for a New Year’s Resolutions do-over? Hopefully not the case if your resolutions had to do with reading God’s Word! The Bible says that all scripture is breathed out by God and it’s profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (…

Having a Sunday spot is not enough to make us feel like we belong. In our culture, we look to sameness in activities, hobbies, sports, etc but we get disappointed when it doesn’t bring about the sense of connection we really crave. That’s because belonging starts and ends with the gospel. God made us belong to him, when he drew us to himself, givin…

Dying to self: a godly habit that we have to practice and be sanctified in until we literally die, because it’s really really hard. But dying to self is what it takes to make friends and to keep friends - if you want those friendships to be built on the awesome love of Christ, that is. And you do. Friendship expresses the love of God through us, to…

Is friendship really any easier nowadays than it was back when we were in kindergarten? Nope. It’s harder because now we overthink it all, plus we’ve become reeeeeeally skilled at sinning. So what’s a girl to do? Forgo friendships? Settle with besties who only reside on social media? How does one go about making friends anyway? How does one choose …

If we are all called TO disciple OTHERS, then we all must be called to BE discipled OURSELVES. Is that really called a disciplee? Spell check doesn’t think so and we don’t know, but we like the way it sounds, so we’ll roll with it. Galatians 6:6 tells us to let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Hmmm…. It…

How many Bible trivia questions do you have to get right before you’re qualified to disciple another? It all depends on what your goal is. To know what your goal should be, we should probably look at the Gospel, and see what God told us about discipleship, through his servant Paul. Paul said it was a struuuuuggle to disciple others. But we endure t…

Our first episode! We're smooth as butta' (in our dreams!) and have more criticisms about our first several episodes than you do, we're sure. And yet - what a joy it is to launch! Hang with us. We improve! ;) We are starting off with the topic of discipleship, looking at it through Matthew 28:18-20. What is discipleship? We discuss some common conf…