An e-mail from God showed up in my in-box last November, during a year I strained to wring out the deeper novel my literary agent was convinced I had in me. I needed to scrape out my emotions and smear them on the page. But I only knew how to shove them inside.
Writer Jennifer Slattery: When my daughter was young, I spent a great deal of time shining up the inside and outside of our house. I wrapped so much of who I was in what others could see. Pretty ugly, huh? God thoughts so, and as I grew closer to Him, He redirect my heart to things of greater value—eternal value.
Today we have a guest post from author Morgan Busse. Have you ever had a dream?
I think I’ve been coasting through life lately. I’m contemplating what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2 and wondering how it’s challenging me to grow today.
I don’t know about you, but I get so wound up in what I am doing that I forget to talk to God.
Our Romans Bible study has gotten to Romans 8, the last third of the chapter. We were trying to decide which verses to memorize. Want to help me decide?
Those messy piles are the remnants of my childhood home. I’m compiling the material into an archive, and each time I dig in I learn something new.
Most of all I loved taking my toddlers to the park to pick dandelions. In the spring, there were lots of beautiful flowers in neighbors’ yards that they longed to touch, pull, pick, and generally destroy. I had to steer them away. They couldn’t admire them without touching them, so we had to go somewhere else.
Deuteronomy 32:2 says “Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.” Even though we didn’t have an intense winter this year in Georgia, I am thirsty for what spring has to offer. Spring makes me want to write and read and socialize and do all sorts of neglected projects around the house. God’s spring (His teaching) waters my soul just like the real dew nourishes the grass and plants.
In my small group studying Romans, we grappled with Romans Chapter 7, where the Apostle Paul describes his struggle with sin. He switches from past tense to present tense and launches into a confession: “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. …I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.”
I was thumbing through my Bible at devotional time and my eye fell on Hosea Chapter 11. Reading it, I was brought to tears by this shimmering glimpse into the mind of God.
Do you ever catch yourself saying something, then clamp your mouth shut with the realization you’ve become your mother? Or maybe you’ve glanced behind you to see your child rolling their eyes…just like you…
