by | Faith Lived Out
In December 2005, I walked into a church that my bosses had been trying to get me to attend for a while. I didn’t really wanna go, but my parents were coming to visit for Christmas and I knew they’d want to go to church, so I sucked it up and said I would go.
I walked into that church with the weight of the world on my shoulders. The weight of my past. The weight of sins done to me. The weight of my own sins. It wasn’t just weight; I had a chip on my shoulder the size of the Frito-Lays factory.
The day I walked into that church I was in a relationship with another woman.
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by | Faith Lived Out
I originally wrote this article in 2017. I wasn’t sure if I would ever publish it or not, but I needed to write it for me – not anyone else. But in light of recent events regarding the charges of sexual assault and rape against him, I felt the Lord leading me to share now.
If you automatically know who Ron Jeremy is when you hear his name, I’m sorry. Oh how I wish I weren’t writing this blog. I wish I could just be a 36-year old who knew nothing about the world of pornography and sexual addiction. But I can’t.
I “met” Ron Jeremy when I was a child. He was in his 30’s or 40’s and I hadn’t even turned 8 years old yet. His mustache was thick and his forehead rather large. His New York accent was gentler than it was thick and overbearing.
I can still recognize his voice from a mile away – a voice that forever changed my life.
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by | Faith Lived Out
“When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.” Those were the words Dr. Jake Houseman (Jerry Orbach) said to Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) in Dirty Dancing. It was a humbling moment for a father to say to the man pursuing his daughter.
Today, I say those same words.
In March, our worlds seemed to change overnight. “COVID-19” and “coronavirus” would become words we would soon repeat multiple times on a daily basis as we stayed inside our homes waiting for the next right move.
I think many of us had the assumption that this would only be for a couple of weeks, then we’d be back to normal.
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by | Faith Lived Out
I was praying with someone a while back who asked for prayer for a loved one who wasn’t making wise choices in his life.
As he was asking me to pray he said, “I don’t understand why he’s living like this. He grew up in the church, and especially in the Pentecostal church.”
It took me a while to absorb his words because I felt my stomach drop. I remember I immediately stopped praying for the “broken man” and started praying for the very person who had just asked me to pray, because there was something broken there.
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by | Faith Lived Out
There are so many things I want to say, and probably will say.. eventually… as I continue to process through the emotions of watching the events of this last week unfold.
But today is not the day… Because today I want to talk about something else…
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by | Faith Lived Out
Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons.
I wish I could tell you that’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln and you could turn it into a meme to spread around the internet. It’s not. No, it’s Paul’s heartbreaking reality he shares in 1 Timothy 4.
I’m grieving this morning as I grasp the news of yet another turning from the faith. Jon Steingard, lead vocalist for the Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, recently denounced his faith in God in a recent Instagram post.
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