We get to stay home to save lives. I get to be with Terry 24/7. I know not everyone is happy about being stuck at home during this time, but I am. We enjoy it.

You see, for so many years, my prayers were for change. My prayers were for protection. My prayers were for deliverance. My prayers were for peace. My prayers were for happiness.

It took a lot of years of praying, but the light at the end of the tunnel was sunshine, not a train coming toward me.

Keep walking through your tunnels. God is listening. Follow His voice which you will find in scripture, and look for the light.

That’s where you’ll find Jesus.

My sister-friend Jessica shared something with me the other night that really helped me. She said, “When I can’t get something out of my head, I close my eyes and visualize physically holding the situation and putting it at Jesus’s feet. Like I walk through the whole scenario - like what I’m wearing and what it feels like and what the room looks like and how I walk and everything.”

I have such comfort knowing my precious sister-friends to whom I turn when I need wise counsel or prayers, have sweet nuggets like this to share with me.

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” - Matthew 11:28 (NLT)

Jesus meant those words. Jessica painted the word picture for me. Sometimes it helps to visualize handing over whatever it is weighing us down, and placing it at Jesus’ feet. The night Jessica said that to me, I went into our bedroom, sat on the edge of our bed

Every single time I open social media, I see someone writing about their fears and anxiety. I see people "tired of this," and "ready to get back out there." Some are writing, "What's life going to be and look like now? Will it ever be the same, or are the good days gone and soon forgotten?"

I understand those feelings, I really do, and I cannot predict what the coming weeks, months and years will look like. I have a feeling things will be very different. Permanently? I do not know. But things will certainly be different for a while.

Here's what I do know and claim tightly to during all of this:

"Yet I am confident I will still see the Lord's goodness while

I woke up one morning with such a sense of heaviness. I had a dream about my grandmother and it was just so real. I dreamed I got up and when I walked into the living room, she was sitting there in a recliner (a recliner we don’t have) rocking and I stopped in my tracks. She smiled at me and said, “Well aren’t you going to come give me a hug?”

I could feel her in my dream. I could feel her soft sweat jacket she loved to wear. I could smell her perfume. I could feel the way her hands felt as she held my hands and looked in my eyes. She said to me, “Baby, I want you to remember everything I ever told you. Okay? Remember what I would always say.”

She started to get up and in my dream, I knew she was dead, yet I couldn’t let her go. I kept trying to pull her back toward me, and she turned around still holding my hand, smiled so big and said, “Just remember what I would always say, okay?” And she put her hands on my face and then was gone.

As Terry and I were sipping our coffee, I told him about

When I was little, my mom used to tell me, “If you can go to bed every night having learned at least one thing, then it was a good day.” The importance of learning was crucial in our home. When my brother and I got in any sort of trouble, we had unique punishments. Dad would give us a topic and we would have to write an essay (he determined the number of words) on said topic, and we had to use the Encyclopedia Britannica as our source. We were also grounded, mind you, and for me, I was often grounded from using the phone. This was torture, late 80s and early 90s style.

I can look back now and see Dad played a very big role in my becoming a writer.

I got into a lot of trouble growing up. Mainly for t

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” - C.S. Lewis

This is one of those phrases to stick with me the way oatmeal sticks with you on a cold day. Sometimes we just need the reminder we can get over painful experiences. We just need to picture ourselves crossing monkey bars. You let go at some point and grab onto the next one. And then you do the same thing, over and over until you reach the end. By this point, you can jump off and go over to the swings or the slide.

The letting go part is hard. I know. I have a tendency to want to hold onto things for far too long. Pain, grudges, victories, memories, celebrations, you name it … I probably have a tight

It’s Holy Saturday. Can you fathom what the first Holy Saturday felt like? Miserable. Aching. Full of grief and despair. Broken. Agonizing. Desperate. Full of questions and doubt. Confusing. Dark.

Quiet.

But when I reflect on the deepest meaning of my walk with Jesus, today is a beautiful summary. We wait for the hope we are promised while we wander our way through the darkness. We are still when we since God is listening, and we desperately await His response. We are quizzical and search for His truth amidst the enemy’s doubt. We wonder why God is so silent when we are pouring out our hearts to Him?

Is He there? Is He listening?

The answer is always Yes! God’s silence does not equal God’s disappearance.

Friend, I have been there. I have been in the dark, lonely, painful, wrecked

Today is Good Friday. There is so very much to be said about this day.

As a writer, I love analogies. I love symbolism. I love to look at oxymorons and say out loud, “Ha! That’s an oxymoron!” My sweet Terry is so tolerant of my nerdiness. Anyway, we could easily look at, “Good Friday” and say, “It is an oxymoron. It is not good what they did to our Savior.”

And yet, Jesus knew His death was always part of the plan from His Father.

Last summer, our precious pastor, Steve Lawes shared with us, “Jesus knew who He was, and unless we are settled in who we are and whose we are, we won’t become a servant. Jesus took off the garment of Deity and put on the towel as a servant.” He was explaining this to us based on Jesus washing His Disciples’ feet. As I am reading this passage now and writing today’s devotion, I can’t help but sit here and cry. I am always amazed at what our Savior

"I’m spare change in God’s pocket. He can spend me any way He wants.” - John Wimber

Our pastor, Steve Lawes, has shared this quote with us several times. I love the image. I have to admit, though, I don’t often love the process, though. When God spends me any way He wants, it is often uncomfortable. God sometimes nudges me to do things I do not like doing, or things I feel are exceptionally difficult.

But with His strength, you see, we can do anything.

Take dealing with difficult people, for example. Most of us are well versed in sarcasm, and we like to show off just how fluent we are and how well we have mastered the language … especially when we are dealing with difficult/toxic people. “Flip a coin,” comes to mind when it comes to a snarky reply. Heads, I go full speed ahead with my sarcasm. Tails, I sit back and keep my mouth shut.

Want to know something? If we were to make it a game and flip a coin with the Holy Spirit, it would be tails, every single time.

Every. Single. Time.

Why?

The Holy Spirit does not jive with sarcasm.

When I align myself with

My sweet Terry has discovered through this quarantine life, he can, in fact, enjoy leftovers!

I have been cooking a one pound bag of pinto beans, then using the leftovers for taquitos!

I cooked 1 pound of ground turkey and added chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. To this mixture, I added a can of chipotle salsa. This has a bit of a

In the 90s, a new name made the rounds in political settings. “RINO.” It stands for, “Republican In Name Only.” The phrase caught on, and people use it without batting an eye now, especially in campaigns. During the 2016 election, my friend Lauren and I were on the phone one day for about two hours. We talked about how much politics had changed since the 2002 campaign where she and I met. We also laughed about the term, RINO, and how weirdly accurate it is for some people.

I was thinking about my friend Lauren this morning. Lauren died last August, and we all miss her, terribly. Early last summer, I sent a link to a dress I liked and asked Lauren, “Could I pull this off?” She said, “Yes. If you were a foot taller. Sleeves like that will just look like you need a running start and a runway to takeoff!” Lauren had a wicked sense of humor, and she also had an incredibly big heart. She loved others with every ounce in her. She didn’t hold back on her funny, quick wit, and she didn’t hold back on her love, either.

As I sat there thinking about her this morning, I smiled. You just can’t think of anything bad to say about Lauren. If there was something bad, it would be something humorous, and she would have laughed at it. Lauren was funny but she was never mean.

I then found myself wondering what people will say about me when I die? Obviously, they will all laugh and talk about how hilarious I am. I mean, come on, how could they not? I’m sure there will be the circulating photo of the now infamous $8 gladiator sandals

Every hour when our prayer alarm goes off, Terry and I have been praying together. This is such an unbelievable time in which we are all living. I keep thinking it is a nightmare and we will wake up soon. As we go through each day, though, I am truly learning to pray the words of James: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” - James 1:2-8 (NIV)

I have a note in the margin of my Bible next to this passage where Pastor Steve

In the South, Easter is a really big deal. We bring out the white shoes, the white pants, the white skirts; we don hats and new dresses. We color our deviled eggs, we make Resurrection cookies, we make the 5-day coconut cakes, we baste the ham and roll out all the stops for the scalloped potatoes, the hashbrown casserole, the sweet potato casserole, because let’s face it: you simply cannot have too many potatoes on your table at any given time in the South. We host Easter egg hunts and fill baskets with chocolate and Peeps.

But more than anything clothing and food related, we as believers want to tell the world, “This is what it’s all about! This day is our very reason for living! Get excited! Easter is what saved us!”

More people attend church services on Easter and Christmas/Christmas Eve than any other time throughout the year. And I’m okay with this statistic. If we can

I think we often mistake having a peace for what it often is: desire. Have you ever been guilty of this? I sure have been. New Year’s Eve, 2018, Terry, Michala and I got to spend the night by the water. I went out early and sat by the water, praying. I prayed specifically about something Terry and I were facing; a decision we knew we might be forced into making, and a decision we did not want to face. So I prayed, “Please show us a sign, Papa. Show us if you want x, y, z to happen.” While I won’t go into what x,y,z was just yet, it was something Terry and I both wanted, badly. We wanted it so much we could taste it.

Terry and I decided to pray specifically for God to give us a peace about what we needed to do. We knew what we wanted to do, but we were not sure about what we needed to do. Our desire filled our hearts and minds with ideas on how to achieve what we wanted. But was it what God wanted for us? This was where we struggled, because we desperately wanted to be in the Will of God.

So on New Year’s Eve, 2018, I sat by the water and begged

I was at a dinner party one night when we had to be around a person who seems to be mean, for sport. I bent over backwards trying to be nice and kind to this person to no avail. “This person desperately needs Jesus, and it shows,” I told myself.

As the night began to unfold, there were continued jabs directed at me. It was such a crappy thing for this person to be so nasty and I wanted so badly to retaliate with a quick, snarky comeback. This was the night I invented the game, “Let’s invite Jesus to play.” I realized I needed a way to not focus on what the enemy was stirring up, but rather what God’s message to me was.

I knew God prepared my place at His table the moment I accepted Jesus

Several weeks ago, one of Michala’s precious friends from high school, who is one year older than she is, was working near us during her spring break. Sam is studying to become a Physician’s Assistant and had the opportunity to shadow a PA. So what does this precious girl decide to do during her spring break? She decided to work.

She signed up to shadow a PA located not too far from us, for her spring break. Sam texted me and asked if we would be around the next week (this was in February) and would want to meet up for lunch? In a heartbeat, I replied yes and yes!

Sam is an absolute hoot. I love her to pieces. She and Michala would hang out at our house a lot during summer and Christmas breaks, and much to my eye rolling, they would watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette; whatever was airing at the time, in our living room. Terry and I would

A couple of years ago, Terry and I were in the middle of dealing with some yucky evil. We only let a few, trusted people in on what we were facing, knowing they would just cover us in prayer as we sought to do the right thing.

One afternoon, my precious friend Betsy texted me and said, “Listen to this song. Right now.” I know I have shared this before, but Terry and I were up to our elbows in cleaning and rebuilding our house after Hurricane Irma. Something in her text made me think, “Okay. I’ll give it a listen. Right now.” The song is, “Defender,” by Francesca Battistelli, Steffany Gretzinger, and Rita Springer.

This song is on Terry’s and my favorite worship playlist. (It’s also on my Aimee’s Favorite playlist. You know the one … the one I made for my “favorites” thinking I would have about 25 to 30 songs, only it’s now up to 303 songs. I probably need an intervention, but we will save it for another day).

When I listened to this song the first time when Betsy sent it to me, I immediately went to purchase it. This song carried me for months.

“When I thought I lost me, You knew where I left me. You reintroduced

When my sister-friend Jessica got married, I marveled at her tight-knit group of friends. Her girls. Her girls from college and her girls from law school. Their bond and love for one another was precious and I wanted it for Michala.

So I began praying that weekend for Michala’s future roommates and college friends. I prayed they would be Jesus loving girls who would be Michala’s people. I prayed they would love Michala and each other so well, they would lift one another up in daily prayer. I prayed they would become friends for life. I thought about Rebecca, my college roommate and my other girls from college and how fortunate I am to have some of the most precious, thoughtful friends who lift my family and me up in prayer; who laugh with (and at) me. Who make me laugh and cry with me when I cry.

I wanted similar relationships so badly for Michala. So I began praying at Jessica’s and Todd’s rehearsal dinner, for similar friends in Michala’s future. I begged God to prepare the way for Michala and put precious, like-minded girls in her path. I prayed for her future church; not having any idea where she would go to college, much less where she would go to church, but

Terry and I have a saying we tell each other. “I love you and I’m so glad you’re mine.” One afternoon I was just really feeling beat. Exhausted. I did three miles that day on the elliptical when I had planned to do five. I just wasn’t feeling it. I was hot, sweaty, tired, and a little disappointed in myself. When I came out of the garage from working out, Terry was standing there and held open his arms for a hug. I said, “I’m really sweaty and gross.” He said, “I don’t care.” He held me for a minute then kissed me and said, “I love you. And I am so glad you’re mine.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t as disappointed in myself for not getting the five miles I wanted that day. For a moment, I looked at myself the way Terry looked at me.

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” - Song of Solomon 6:3 (NIV)

I love the New Living Translation of Song of Solomon 6:3: “I am my lover’s and my lover is mine.”

I can be sweaty, cranky, exhausted, happy, sad, giggly, emotional, mad as a hornet, anxious. I can be in my pajamas or in a cocktail dress and heels … and Terry calls me

Day Six - Dwell in the House of the Lord Forever

“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” - Psalm 23:6 (NIV)

Jesus, our Shepherd King made it possible for you and me to spend all of eternity with God. I am often amazed when I look at a passage in the Old Testament and see a glimpse of Jesus. Psalm 23 is from David, yet you and I cannot help but see it through the eyes of believers, knowing “The Lord is my Shepherd,” means “The Lord Jesus is my Shepherd.”

Jesus is our Shepherd King. And because He is, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

We are living in a time where it seems the news is far more devastating than our minds can grasp. The rapid spread of this deadly virus has been horrific, no doubt. But look at the way people have shown kindness and goodness. Grocery store employees are staying open, making sure we all have what we need, working around the clock to restock the shelves; risking their