Across from me, on the sofa, sat someone I considered a close friend, I tried to absorb her words.  “Pastor committed adultery.”  At the time, my fragile faith easily shattered.  I fully trusted no man, as I uncovered time after time the betrayal in my own memories that I had stuffed inside out of survival.  I struggled to process what she told me.  A small amount of trust in our pastor had been built over time, but now the crashing and burning of it imminently loomed.  What was my friend’s motivation?  Was… Read More

Leaning over the side of the bed and tilting the alarm clock towards me, I read the time for the fifth time that night, 3:30 a.m. Wide awake again. After losing my last child in an early miscarriage, weeks of insomnia had set in. “Will I ever sleep again, Lord? Please help me rest. I can’t do this anymore.” My tears wet the pillow. You will rest in me dear one. The familiar voice soothed my fears for a moment. I released a deep sigh, scooting my back against my husband’s for… Read More

My friendship with the Holy Spirit began when I was a teenager. Before that, I knew Jesus as my savior, but not as my friend. At the time I met the Holy Spirit, my life had been turned upside down, inside out. My parents divorced, my mom remarried: from Baptist to Pentecostal, from severe abuse to a new man in the house. I quit high school my freshman year, because of health issues, yet found myself forced to return to school, spending most of the first few months of my sophomore year… Read More

Cars, semis, pick-up trucks, and motorcycles zipped around us in a game of Russian roulette. At least that’s how Atlanta traffic feels to me. Yet, to our far left, the cars glided with ease at great velocity, speeding out of sight unhindered by the weaving, honking, frustrated drivers around us. “What’s that lane?” our new driver in the family Sarah, inquired. “The Palmetto Pass Lane,” her father said. “You pay a fee that gives you permission to travel down that lane.” As my husband spoke the words, another voice echoed in my… Read More

“Hold onto what you have so that no one will take away your crown,” (Rev 3:11) If you have been taught to live in sin-consciousness, I just stirred up guilt and fear of loss. How does that agree with a God whose perfect love casts out fear? Instead of life and peace that Jesus came to infuse in us, you may have been taught to believe in a God who is just waiting for you to mess up…again, so that he can take from you, punish you, distance himself from you. That sounds… Read More