When I was little I said I wanted to be a teacher so I could be with my children when they got home from school. I missed my momma when she dropped me off at daycare (she didn’t have a choice) and I knew I didn’t want to do that one day. Thankfully I had the privilege of staying home with my children during their little years. Even though it was hard and we didn’t have as much as we could have I knew I didn’t want them to ever miss me like I missed my mom. We played, fussed,

I had the best blessing this morning to speak at my high school’s FCA. I’m thankful for the opportunity to speak wisdom back into the students who are literally sitting where I sat. It was such an honor and privilege! Thank you Annie Skoneki and FCA Sponsor, Coach Jessica Owens for having me. ————————————————————————————— I never really felt good enough in middle school or high school. I had three things that really pressed on me for who I was “supposed to be”.. I felt pressu

I’ve seen the most beautiful mother daughter relationships and I’ve seen the hardest. There is something so special and unique about the Mother Daughter relationship God has created. God gave you your daughter for the exact purpose that you are the best mom for her. If there was anyone better to be her mom, God would have given her that mom. Don’t you believe that? God doesn’t make mistakes. Through this unique relationship, seeing personally, and through working with girls,

Girls will be girls or Girls will be like Christ? I was recently at an outreach youth event that started out in a large room. I watched groups form. Mostly I watched forming crowds of pushing and shoving as girls competed for the attention of the group. Chaos. Girls running from group to group, laughing, cutting up, having fun, dancing and being girls. While all this fun was going on, I also watched one girl who stood on the outside of the crowd. Following her friends, but th

I hear it serval times a week. Most students talk about what they watch, what they listen to openly and without conviction or guilt. When I ask about Netflix they get giddy, they get excited, they can’t wait to tell me what they watch, the whole storyline, and it always begins or ends with “It’s bad but it’s so good.” When I think about students spending all their time on Netflix and I think about the shows on Netflix, it makes me cringe. There aren’t many good shows on Netfl

IT IS YOU. Nobody is obsessed with me. I don’t get hundreds of likes and comments. I don’t have millions of followers. I don’t have flawless pictures. My life isn’t perfect and I don’t portray it to be. But you do. Most of the time, social media makes me feel worse. On any given day, I can see engagement pictures, photography shoots, food placed just right, just the right filter and just the right light, beautiful people and beautiful places. Social Media never makes me feel

Last night I saw ‘Miracles From Heaven.’ I won’t tell you too much because I want you to go see it. But a lot of the movie is about the mom questioning her faith, wondering if there was a loving God, how could her child be suffering so much? I can relate to her. When times get tough, I don’t automatically praise God, I don’t always take joy in my suffering, I don’t right away drop to my knees to pray continuously. That is almost hardly ever my first response. My flesh takes o

Decisions. Decisions are hard. Chocolate or vanilla. Steak or Chicken. Jesus or the world. PaPaw or Honduras. Sometimes you can have both and that makes decisions a little easier. You can have a swirl ice cream, steak and chicken together, tea and lemonade together, strawberries and blueberries. Many things you can compromise to make it all work out. But today, I can’t be with my granddad and go to Honduras.  Today I had to make the decision to stay home from Honduras. If you

Nobody wants to hear that word. It was like I was listening to someone else’s story, looking into someone else’s life. Almost two weeks ago, the doctor told my granddad the fluid from his lungs had cancer cells and it had more than likely come from metastasizing from somewhere else. Thursday, we were told it was stage 4 lung cancer and not much could be done. When I was 10, my dad told me he had lung cancer sitting on my grandparents’ bed, where I now lay next to my granddad

I feel most compelled to write when I am hurting. And most the time I talk myself out of posting because of it. But maybe I’m most compelled because most of the world is hurting too. Last week my beautiful Kimmy took her last breath and I have had the hardest time breathing since. With Jesus He turns our tests into testimonies, our messes into messages and He uses our pain for His Gain! We can rest knowing with Christ we will always come out victorious! But what happens when 

I keep having this reoccurring feeling that I truthfully haven’t had much of in the last ten years. I want to call my dad. When he died I didn’t have a cell phone and eleven year olds don’t typically pick up the phone to call someone. I was too busy playing outside to call my dad. I just knew I would see him when he got home. So calling my dad isn’t something I did, so I’ve never really missed it. But here lately, in my car, on the way somewhere, late at night, when something

When you look up “Fatherless Girls” on Pinterest, google, any website you mostly get mad girls, women whose dads left them. You see pictures and stories that say “Dad, I made it without you.” “A Letter To The Father That Doesn’t Know How Awesome I Am.” Things about forgiveness, ways to look past the fear of losing someone else. Statistics of all the girls living without dads who grow up to give into sexual temptations because of their loss, or abuse, neglect or just simply th

Last night, I was at a Kari Jobe concert. Kari Jobe is a worship leader! WOW! It was a night of worship! It was amazing! As I stood in the church that grew my faith immensely my freshman year of college, I found myself looking around a whole stinkin’ lot and then it hit me. What would this world be like if we looked at everyone as the story God has given them? Everyone has a story. We know it. We’ve heard it. But it doesn’t really change anything. It hasn’t for me, at least.

April 4, 2005 my dad was taken to the hospital. I was leaving to go to my next door neighbors for the night and he wouldn’t wake up so I could tell him bye. I don’t remember being scared. Today, it scares me so bad just to think about it. As I was getting ready to go to sleep, I heard an ambulance. I peaked out the window when my next door neighbor yelled “SHUT THAT! It’s time for bed.” I had no clue it was for my dad. It didn’t even cross my mind. God protected me from so mu

One thing I have loved about growing up is learning relationships are not about convenience, relationships are about love. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a relationship with someone because it was convenient for Him. Do you think it was convenient for Christ to come from Heaven, be born a human, and life a life of torture and ridicule? Do you think that it was convenient for Him to talk to the woman at the well? Do you know that conversation at the well is the longest r

I just wanted to feel accepted. From an eleven year old heart that had been shattered and lonely, I never felt good enough for anyone or anything. I was simply looking for love and a place to belong. I was vulnerable and God only knows what could have happened to me. Think about that next time a lonely, needy person comes quietly screaming into your life. Some are loud just trying to get your attention and some are quietly struggling and shy praying you’ll notice them- either