“You’re Out!”

I am not here to call myself or you a failure for falling short because falling short does not make us failures. This isn’t what this is. Rather, this is a moment to be real—honest. To call myself out when I mess up. And we all mess up! There is not one of us that has not made a mistake, done something, or said something we wished we hadn’t. This happened to me recently.

In The Presence Of The Majestic

I’ve heard people who have seen the Grand Canyon or other spectacular sights say things like, “Pictures don’t do it justice,” and now I know it’s true. Why? Because I saw with my own eyes. And even though my eyes beheld it, I’m not even sure that was doing it justice! The majesty of the Grand Canyon is that it commands respect. Respect by staying away from the edge because if you fall, you will surely not survive. The most accurate definition of majestic I found was in the Cambridge dictionary as this: *“having the quality of causing you to feel great admiration and respect for it because of its size, power, or beauty”. And boy did it! Because we stayed there for hours just looking at it, never growing tired of staring at it,

Are You Prepared?

Have you ever felt like that? You thought you were prepared, but then WHAM! Something unforeseen happens and it can leave you feeling like you are fighting a losing battle. Is this that season for you?…Unlike a hurricane that is detected by high tech equipment enabling us to plan accordingly, in life, there is no such radar that allows us to predict when and where the storms will hit. And they can leave us feeling unprepared to face a battle we never saw coming. But what if you’ve been unknowingly preparing all your life?

Shelter Me

I think for a long time I was confused. I believed that if I could shelter my kids, or myself from any pain, that we could escape it. Avoid it. See the storm, but be unaffected by it. Anyone else? But that is not reality, is it? Reality is, we all face painful experiences

Another Year Older (And Hopefully Wiser!)

The usually packed mall was empty. Super weird. It felt like we were living in an apocalyptic movie! I know you all have your stories that ring very similar to mine. We, along with the rest of the world, waited with bated breath for the next bad report, the other shoe to drop, the closure of another state. It seemed the world had come to a standstill. But as we all know, whether in quarantine or not, life marches on.

Be Loved

Who doesn’t want to be loved? We all want it, we all crave it and we all want to receive it and feel it. And when we give love, we want what we’re offering to be accepted. My heart overflows with joy and hope when the love I have to give to another is received then returned. However, when love is unrequited, we can suffer great pain and rejection, maybe even experience mourning because our love is refused.

In The Stillness

Does your soul long for some quiet and stillness? To turn it all off and just BE? To just breathe? What would that be like? To rest with Jesus for just a few minutes a day? Where do we even start?

Finding Hope In A Hopeless Place

Ever find yourself in a hopeless place? Where you can’t see a way out of or through a situation? When it seems nothing will ever change or nothing seems to help? I know I have and if you’ve experienced this feeling, you know there is no place worse to be than a place without hope. So, where can we find hope?

And The Greatest Of These Is Love

“Love guides us into maintaining faith and holding on to hope, and when we do that, love helps us to see others as precious treasures to be loved. By choice. Not by feelings. Without love, we fan the flame of hatred. Without love, we fuel the fire of intolerance. Without love, we are nothing and gain nothing. Without love, we will struggle to endure through every circumstance.”

Coming Out Of The Darkness

Ever get scared in the night? In the dark, our imaginations can run wild and things can seem scarier than they actually are. Every little thing becomes a monster. Typical minor problems feel overwhelmingly impossible to deal with in the dead of the night then they can in the light of day. And in those foreboding moments, have you ever had anyone tell you that things will look better in the morning? Why is that? The darkness shrouds reality and twists it into something hideous. Unrecognizable. Unmanageable. When in truth —in the light—it’s not that terrifying, not so unmanageable.

	Teresa Lyn Barton on Do You Know?
	Wendi Rader on Do You Know?
	Teresa Lyn Barton on Be Loved
	Patty on Be Loved
	Teresa Lyn Barton on Stalemate