Key Truths - Page 11

Poppies by the seashore at dawn - one of them reaching up above the others and framed by the sun's light

I choose light

Post published:September 18, 2020
Post category:My Story Trauma and Grief
Post last modified:March 12, 2025

As I stumbled around, stuck in the fog – confused as to what was good and what was evil, what was true and what was not – my Lord knew I wanted to see. And he kept showing me what I needed to know to be free.

Sunset over Sea of Galilee, October 2009

Women, ordination and walking on the water

Post published:July 19, 2020
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church My Story
Post last modified:March 12, 2025

When asked if I wanted to be ordained, I didn’t know how to answer. So I waited on God. And oh my! When he called me to walk on the water to meet him – I went.

Closeup of person's hand, holding a black pen and making a lengthy checklist on graph paper

Checklists, idols and loving God

Post published:July 7, 2020
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:January 12, 2025

The preacher urged people to love the Lord with all their hearts. Yet, tragically, he himself did not know how to do it. He could only offer a checklist.

A streak of lightning flashes through dark blue storm clouds.

God who loves fiercely

Post published:June 14, 2020
Post category:Knowing and Going with God
Post last modified:July 16, 2024

Nothing about our Lord is casual. The day he came down on Sinai has this in common with the day Jesus died in our place: Both show how fiercely God loves.

Closeup of cannon from the cover of my book, We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church

Tell us about past events

Post published:June 6, 2020
Post category:From: We Confess!
Post last modified:August 1, 2024

What one bewildered, battered woman found, and dared to write, before patterns from the past began to replay in the present in such a visible, alarming way.

A tiny person stands on a distant mountaintop at dawn, under a vast and brilliantly colored sky.

Prepare to meet with God

Post published:May 12, 2020
Post category:Knowing and Going with God
Post last modified:June 29, 2024

Some things, you can’t wait to tell God. You run to him with the news. The Lord who invites you to meet with him delights in your coming to talk. He delights in your coming to hear. For this God has important things to say to you too.

Dreamlike painting of the low-hanging branches of a huge weeping willow

Seeking shade

Post published:April 27, 2020
Post category:Living Life My Story
Post last modified:November 27, 2023

Today, I need to stand in the shadow of something taller than me - something sturdy and living, deep-rooted and lasting, that whispers timeless secrets as the wind passes through.

A jumble of brown, plastic, inextricably linked coat hangers

The coat hanger conspiracy

Post published:April 17, 2020
Post category:Living Life
Post last modified:March 8, 2024

Sometimes, it’s the little things that can get to you.

Silhouette of a person kneeling before a cross, under a sky of dark-to-brilliant clouds

“It is finished” – but how?

Post published:April 9, 2020
Post category:Knowing and Going with God
Post last modified:April 10, 2024

Raised above the heads of those who hated him, those who grieved for him and those who liked the show, how was he able to breathe? Breathing required pushing up on those pierced feet. Breathing required ramming splintered wood into his shredded back. Breathing required an unfathomable commitment to finish.

Bucking the system: Pencils neatly lined up on a paper point to a row of empty check-boxes. But one red-lead pencil points the other way, to a red outline of a heart.

Bucking the system: Shunning, submission, Jesus

Post published:April 2, 2020
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:January 12, 2025

Jesus grew up in a religious system God had instigated, and people had hijacked to use for their own ends. Jesus’ life shows us when and how to buck the system.