The Evil One had a hand in all that has happened to you. If he didn’t arrange for the assault directly—and certainly human sin has a large enough role to play—then he made sure he drove the message of the wounds home into your heart. He is the...
READ MOREThe assault on femininity—its long history, its utter viciousness—cannot be understood apart from the spiritual forces of evil we are warned against in the Scriptures. This is not to say that men (and women, for they, too, assault women) have no...
READ MOREWhy did God curse Eve with loneliness and heartache, an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill? Wasn’t her life going to be hard enough out there in the world, banished from the Garden that was her true home, her only home, never able to...
READ MOREHave you ever wondered why the Cinderella story keeps haunting us? Not only is it a perennial favorite of little girls, it haunts us as woman. Think of all the movies made along its themes, movies like Pretty Woman and Ever After...
READ MOREStasi Eldredge's book "Free to Be Me" helps teen girls become the young women God created them to be.
Embracing ourselves has everything to do with embracing the goodness of God’s creative work in us. It means...
READ MOREThe kingdom of God will not advance as it needs to advance without women rising up and playing their role. The transformation and healing of a man requires the presence, strength, and mercy of a woman. Men will not become the men they are meant...
READ MOREAfter creating this stunning portrait of a total union, the man and woman becoming one, God turns the universe on its head when he tells us that this is what he is seeking with us. In fact, Paul says it is why God...
READ MOREWe are the sons and daughters of God, even more, the Beloved, pursued by God himself. We might think that, having our heart and mind bolstered by these images of beauty and truth, we would live our lives with courage and energy that arise out of...
READ MOREThis is the power of addiction. Whatever the object of our addiction is, it attaches itself to our intense desire for eternal and intimate communion with God and each other in the midst of Paradise—the desire that Jesus himself placed in us...
READ MOREIt is a beautiful paradox that the more God’s we become, the more ourselves we become—the “self” he had in mind when he thought of you before the creation of the world. She’s in there; she might be badly bruised and covered with all sorts of muck...
READ MOREIt’s getting close to the new year as I write now. It’s as good a time as ever to look back, take stock, sit with Jesus, and ask where He’d like me to grow, to focus, or to challenge myself in this next season of my life. It’s good for us all to...
READ MOREA young woman came to see me, as most seeking counseling do, because she was at the end of her rope. What had begun a year earlier as mild depression had sunk deeper and deeper until she found herself contemplating suicide. We met for many weeks...
READ MOREThere are many things we need to rename in our lives. Our work. Our relationships. Even our life itself. Rename them. Rename your life. It’s good. Because your life belongs to our good God, and he’s got you. Rename yourself. God has.
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READ MOREHe made you — on purpose. You are the only you — ever. Becoming ourselves means we are actively cooperating with God’s intention for our lives, not fighting him or ourselves. God accepts us right at this moment, and he wants us to accept...
READ MOREThe reason we don’t know what we want is that we’re so unacquainted with our desire. We try to keep a safe distance between our daily lives and our heart’s desire because it causes us so much trouble. We’re surprised by our anger and...
READ MOREYou are amazing. Well, okay, maybe not every day. Every day the wonder of you is amazing, but many days the wonder of you is buried beneath the rubble of a world gone mad. You were born into a glorious mess, and we all have become something of a...
READ MORE“In all their distress he too was distressed” (Isa. 63:9). We can know that in our distress God too is distressed. Jesus understands heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, sorrow, and pain. He is acquainted with grief. He cares. He cares...
READ MOREEvery human being has some vital place in their life where they are not living in the victory they long for, and it colors how they view themselves. Every woman’s personal struggle rooted in her past, be it fear of intimacy or a deep-rooted self-...
READ MOREThe story of my life and the struggles I have lived with—make that “live with”—have helped to shape me into the woman I am today and the woman I am becoming. My scars, my struggles, my failures, my joys, my private lonely agonies have been...
READ MOREThey left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed. (Luke 2:17-18,...
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