If you had asked me years ago which promise of God I clung to, I honestly don’t know that I would have had an answer. There was a season when I wasn’t clinging to His promises at all—I was wrestling with Him.

Not long after I handed in my resignation, Bruce and I hit the road on a ministry trip. During the ensuing days, I had to stand and fight for my faith. The monetary offerings were low because of the economy. The spirit of fear tried to overwhelm me with questions about provision. I fought back by speaking the Word Of God.

Infertility became one of the hardest journeys I have ever walked. It was a road filled with doctor appointments, fertility treatments, surgery, and five heartbreaking miscarriages. Year after year, I heard the painful words, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bolinger… the test was negative.” I smiled through baby showers while quietly grieving in private. I celebrated with friends who were expecting while wondering why my own prayers seemed unanswered.

As a mom of two young boys, I was diagnosed with a rare, incurable disease when both of my children, just 18 months apart, were still in diapers. They don’t know a life outside of Mommy needing IV chemotherapy, doctor’s appointments, medications, and eventually a stem cell transplant and post-transplant care.

By Nicole Roth God's Surprising Ways It was 2008; we had small children, and our Texas home had a fenced yard bordered by a veteran who seemed mentally unstable. He would climb his ladder, peer into our yard, comment on our dogs, and it all made me very nervous. I wanted out. Immediately. I shared my desire with my husband, and although he wanted me to feel secure in our home, he was in no hurry to move. Despite his lack of interest, I decided we had to leave. Tabs were co

I had known Jesus for 45 years. I reminded myself that He is a sovereign God. His thoughts are higher than mine, and He works all things together for good. Still, I asked “Why, Lord?” Like Jacob, I wrestled with God as I fought to hold onto the beauty, fulfillment, and financial security our jobs had provided for so many years.

Surrender. Say it again… Surrender. Just saying that word feels like a weight has been lifted, and yet how often we struggle to surrender. I never realized how much I struggled until the weight of the world was being piled on top of me; I was truly being crushed.

By Jane Bjork Is trusting that we have a “Promise-Keeping God” difficult? It can be, and there are a few answers I can think of as to possibly why. The first is that we often evaluate our God according to our human understanding and experiences. For example, my experience is that we struggle to keep promises. I have actually been guilty of this recently. My neighbor shared a health issue he's having and asked me not to share it with anyone. I told him I wouldn't, but the more

For years, I unknowingly measured God’s goodness by outcomes. Goodness meant my husband staying sober. Goodness meant a peaceful marriage. Goodness meant ministry flourishing and life moving forward the way I had imagined. If those things were happening, I believed God was being good. But what happens when they aren’t?

A generational curse can be understood as an uncleansed iniquity—something unresolved and unaddressed—that grows in strength from one generation to the next. It doesn’t just affect individuals; it can influence entire families and even those who come into close relationship with them. Many people live with patterns they don’t fully understand, repeating cycles that seem bigger than personal choices alone.

“I sound just like my mother!” I’ve said that. Have you? Our words come out in a quirky saying, an idle threat, or a certain tone of voice, and images of our mother saying those same words flash through our minds. Let me tell you: It’s scarier to hear an adult daughter speak and to think, “My daughter sounds like me!”

Generational sin is often misunderstood. It is not about being guilty of someone else’s choices, nor is it about God holding one generation accountable for another. Rather, it reflects how patterns of broken thinking, behavior, and belief can be passed down if they are never brought into the light. These patterns may not always be obvious,

There are those of us who believe that you must be good, brave, or virtuous to be used by God and leave a solid legacy behind. We let our past disqualify us, when God will use that very past as a testimony of His love and grace.

You do a quick internet search, you’ll see that my story includes the devastation of an abortion of a wanted baby within the context of marriage. I write with a heart that will always lead with love and compassion on the topic of abortion, untangled from political opinions. This piece is intended to discuss how abortion, like other painful decisions, can sometimes stem from generational patterns within families that not only impact women but also men, extended families, and

My parents divorced when I was three. My father was bound by alcohol and drug addiction for most of his short life. He died of lung cancer. My mother, bound by food addiction, lost 100 pounds at least three different times in her life. All of my grandparents used some form of tobacco daily, either cigarettes or chewing tobacco.

No giant could take me out. No hardship could crush me. No weapon formed against me could prosper (...and it can’t). But I had developed a cycle of proving my strength by what I did instead of just being a woman of strength. Because when you operate from the identity of being a woman of strength, you can have moments of weakness and still be a woman of strength.

There comes a point in our walk with Christ where we begin to notice patterns, not just in our lives but in the generations before us. The way we respond to stress, the way we process emotions, even the things we prioritize… they don’t always start with us. Some of these patterns are beautiful—faith, resilience, love. Others require us to pause, reflect, and invite God into a deeper level of healing.

The term “it could never happen to me” was a lost platitude in our family. When one realizes that “it” can actually happen, one lives life a little jumpy, fearing what may lurk in the shadows. And voilà, the dangerous root of fear takes hold, watered by experience. Could fear be a generational sin? I believe so. Generations can pass down that spirit through actions and words. In my case, “taking the edge off” with the wine was my way of coping with anxiety from work situatio

You may not have had words for it then, but you could feel it. You knew something was off. So you learned to read the room. You learned when to stay quiet, when to keep the peace, and how to just keep going. You smiled, you showed up, you did what needed to be done, but under the surface your body was telling you, “Something is not right here.”

b y Kathy Van Benthuysen After 30 years in the classroom, I learned something that changed the way I see both teaching and parenting: Children don’t learn the most from what we say. They learn from what we repeat. I could have the best lesson planned and the clearest expectations, but what stuck with them was always what I modeled consistently. And the same is true at home. Whether we mean to or not, we are all teaching an invisible curriculum… every single day. For a long ti