This time, my prayer was different. I asked God to change me—my heart, my mind, my attitudes, whatever He wanted. That prayer was difficult because it required me to get myself out of the way.

I went on to complete the 40 days, which took me about 45 days. And it was during this time that God opened my eyes to prayer in new, transformative ways. 

You’re sitting at your office desk, waiting for payday to pay a stack of unpaid bills, while your adult daughter stops by for some motherly advice, and your phone buzzes with a text from your mother that her oxygen levels are dipping and she needs you to come by after work. You feel less like the "virtuous woman" of Proverbs 31 and more like a human panini—pressed between the heavy weights of two generations, with the heat of a toxic workplace turned up to high.

I’ve carried a soft place in my heart for girls who live in that tension. Maybe it’s because I’ve been there—the small-town whispers, the sharp edges of words meant to sting, the ache of feeling just outside of belonging. I once thought that moving, studying, changing everything around me would dissolve it.

When shame tightly clings, prayer can become the very instrument needed to loosen its grip by reawakening truth, re-centering our identity in Christ, and opening a channel through which healing flows. “Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; neither be disgraced.” (Isaiah 54:4) This promise allows you to show up proudly in this world with a Kingdom daughter posture and purpose. 

It’s a revelation Christians have missed for centuries. Whether it was forgotten, softened, or simply assumed away, it is one we need right now. In a world growing ever darker, praying for God’s miraculous daily provision goes far beyond asking just for what you need in the moment.

An Ode to the Praying Woman She settles herself in her prayer corner and opens her prayer box again It is overflowing with requests, all seemingly insurmountable  She looks up and is comforted when she sees Him  Her eyes question, “Which one today, Lord?” 

There are moments in life when prayer feels like the last thing we can do. Not because we do not believe or love God, but because our hearts are too heavy to lift the words. Crisis steals our language. Grief sits in the chest like a stone. Fear clouds our thoughts. Anger rises quietly, and sadness wraps itself around our spirit until even whispering “Lord” feels like too much.

Love is not just a feeling, or a theory, or a nice word. It’s action—it’s the way you treat people…what you do for others. Love will always cost you something: time, energy, effort, money, giving up your pride, doing what’s right when you don’t feel like it, and keeping a good attitude when you don’t get your way.

Motherhood has a quiet way of exposing every fracture, every hidden fear, leaving you feeling as though you are always just shy of enough—especially when your daughter is a teenager. December, with its glittering promises of warmth and wonder, only sharpens the edges, turning small disagreements into storms and fleeting frustrations into waves of guilt. She presses against the boundaries of your patience, you push back in kind, and in the stillness, you recognize the reflecti

The holiday season is often wrapped in twinkling lights, cheerful music, and endless reminders to be merry. But beneath the sparkle, many hearts carry something deeper—grief, disappointment, longing, or loneliness. While the world tells us to choose joy, I’ve learned that sometimes, the most honest place we can stand during the holiday season is holding both joy and sorrow in the same hands.

Patience is a sacred surrender. Fall and winter are my favorite seasons of the year… nature’s invitation to slow down. But for caregivers, this quiet can feel more like uncertainty than rest. So much of caregiving is waiting for answers, for healing, for next steps we cannot see.

So why am I hooked on hectic? Why do I look for a sign to see whether this season is going my way? It’s as if I have this cookie-cutter idea of what I expect from the holiday, and if it’s a fraction of an inch different than my expectations, I moan and marvel at how it just doesn’t seem like the way I experienced it before. Goodness, how nostalgia can tempt and trap.

When I stopped chasing “perfect” holidays and leaned into the relentless love of Jesus, everything shifted. I realized I didn’t need to manufacture magical moments—I simply needed to abide in the One who is the source of joy and peace.

A shepherd pauses to listen intently for any strange sounds coming from the pasture. Slowly, he scans the far edges of the field for dangers lurking in the darkness. He’s not frightened; being a watchman is a normal part of protecting the flock. But tonight is not a normal night

The Lord displayed His grace by bringing these lives together: one with a broken heart, the other abused and homeless. He knows that in this life, we will go through trials and heartaches. But He promises, through Jesus, to deliver us out of them all in victory and with strength. His love is so great that He will reach out in answer to a simple prayer—even bringing an abandoned little dog to a man’s doorstep to help ease the pain of a loss.

There are sons and daughters, husbands and wives, grandchildren and loved ones who have lost their way in a dark and broken world. Confused and wounded, many are searching for refuge in all the wrong places—places that lead only to deeper pain and despair. Some turn to drugs, alcohol, or destructive relationships in a desperate attempt to fill the emptiness inside. Others chase identities that were never meant to define them, living in lifestyles that mask deeper wounds.

If you’ve ever felt unseen at the table, weighed down by the ache of rejection or the sting of family dysfunction, I want you to hear this truth from my heart to yours: God’s relentless love can heal what feels unhealable—and even more, it can restore generations.

We must lay what we’re carrying down at His feet and leave them there. Then there will be nothing to keep us from getting close to Jesus as we abide in Him. There is a woman in Scripture who shows us how she laid her burdens down so that she could abide, fully engaged, at the feet of Jesus. Let’s do Bible study!

Let’s just say it: nobody really prepares you for this season of motherhood. You know the one.  Where your daughter starts straddling the line between girlhood and womanhood, one minute  she’s asking you to braid her hair for church, and the next she’s shutting her door and asking for  “space.”