by | Faith Lived Out
I was sitting with some new friends at dinner recently. I wanted to know more about their life so I did what I do best, asked questions.
My new friend Dan said this about his 20+ year marriage to Mary,
“We’ve been married for a long time, but it wasn’t until the last few years I knew she really liked me. I know she loves me. She took a vow to love me, but that doesn’t mean she has to like me. But she does. There’s nothing greater than knowing my wife actually likes me and wants to be around me.”
Seriously.. does that not make your heart melt?
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by | Faith Lived Out
Have you ever been in an all too familiar situation and all of a sudden flashbacks from your past come flooding back as if you’re reliving the moment all over again?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. This is called a trigger.
It happened to me recently. All of a sudden, I wasn’t the 32 year old Sundi Jo anymore. I was a broken-hearted little girl, sleeping on the pool table at the bar, waiting for my dad to finish drinking so we could go home. Music from the juke box played, the crowd laughed, and the all too familiar smell of Seagrams 7 and Pabst Blue Ribbon filled the air.
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by | Faith Lived Out, Life Application
She lie next to me in bed, speaking these words to me as she rubbed her fingers through my hair: “I wish I could tell you that you’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will be fixed, but I’d be lying. This is something you have to go through and I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”
I silently cried myself to sleep, 32 years old, with my mom sleeping by my side, wishing her words weren’t true. Wishing I could wake up and everything be fine. But I knew she was right. Sometimes I hate when my mother is right.
But I held onto her words, “This is something you have to go through.” I’m still holding onto them.
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by | Faith Lived Out
The first time I met Gary Smalley, we sat across from each other at the dinner table, surrounded by the ugliest wall paper you’ve ever seen in your life. Someone said he was a famous author, but honestly, I didn’t have a clue. You think that would’ve hurt his ego, but not at all.
I was a student at the Table Rock Freedom Center and he stopped by to have dinner with all of us girls. He didn’t talk about the 60 books he’d written. He didn’t share about his multiple appearances on Oprah. He didn’t tell us about the thousands of marriages he had poured into.
Nope.. he talked to us about his struggles with pride and how they almost destroyed his career and his marriage. He talked about God’s grace weaving in and out of his life. He cried as we shared stories of our own struggles in life – struggles with addiction, sadness, suicide, shame, fear, doubt, etc.
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by | Faith Lived Out, Life Application
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility brings wisdom. These words are locked into my brain without a chance of escape.
They’ve saved my life more times than I can count. Okay, maybe not my life, but definitely my relationships, my work environment, etc.
However, before absorbing the truth of this powerful Proverb, pride destroyed some relationships, both personal and professional.
I haven’t always been the greatest fan of being confronted and called out on my junk. During my year-long stay at the residential discipleship program I was a part of, that was a daily part of the deal. “You said this to me in this way. When you did that it hurt me. When you look at me that way, I feel…. When you pretend everything is okay, you’re only hurting yourself.” If I heard those words one more time….
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by | Faith Lived Out
One year ago today I packed up this Uhual in the middle of crazy snow to move back to my hometown – Belle, Missouri – the one place I hated the most. The one place I swore I would NEVER live again.
The place where so much pain had burdened my heart – both pain done to me and pain I’d done to myself and others.
BUT GOD REDEEMS THE TIME.
In Joel 2:25, “The LORD says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts.”
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