enLIVEn Devotionals

Abiding in Jesus - Overflowing His Spirit

New Beginnings

When you find yourself beginning a new chapter in your life, you feel both anxious and excited. It is hard to start over or begin it again. We challenge ourselves and doubt everything along the way. I am beginning multiple new chapters in my life, so my anxiety, doubt, and excitement are even higher. Being a woman, a mother, and a wife, of course, makes all of this an even bigger deal. My mind can’t help to wonder, why do I have to start over and begin again? Is this the plan, and if so why I did I not get it right the first time? My first new beginning was finding myself as a new ... Read the Post

Freedom to Play

I love to watch children as they play. There is such a freedom to express who they really are. We took our God-niece (4-year old) to Macdonald’s Playland for supper and, of course, ate with all the other brave moms, dads, grandparents, and sitters in the community. Miss Annabelle (AB) was certainly more interested in playing than eating but was only looking at the tubes and slides. I realized the problem when I remembered that she had commented in the car that someone had told her not to be afraid of the red slide. I asked the mom sitting next to us if I could introduce AB to her ... Read the Post

Be Noble

Back in college I attended an early morning women’s Bible study. Once a week, I would roll out of bed and look forward to coffee, community, and encouragement through God’s word. There was one morning, however, that I was faced with a daunting task. We were split up into pairs and asked to translate Proverbs 31, making it more applicable to our modern day lives. Upon reading it over with my partner, I was instantly overwhelmed. Boy, was there a lot to The Wife of Noble Character. She was more precious than rubies, virtuous and capable, praised publicly for her deeds. Me, be like her? ... Read the Post

My Son Hears!

Isaiah 29:8 reads, “In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.” This verse has given me such grief for many years. Every time I heard it, it felt like a thorn in my side. My youngest son, Aric, is deaf. Finding out Aric was deaf was no big deal. Being a believer, I knew that God does not give us anything we can't handle. So why was this verse about the deaf being able hear bothering me so much? Well in my little brain I wasn't hearing the bigger picture. All I was hearing was the deaf could hear. Uh, hello! There is ... Read the Post

The Tree on the Rock

It caught my eye immediately, high on a rock-hewn mountainside in West Virginia. The lone pine tree towered over jagged stair-steps of granite, a startling sliver of green among dull grays and browns. We were heading home after a week-long stay in Pennsylvania, tired but grateful for the fun vacation with our family. I-77 snaked through towering mountain peaks, along vast, tree-filled ravines, and over bridges so high I wasn’t sure if they covered land or water. Because I’ve lived in flat, palm-tree dotted Florida almost half my life, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the never-ending green peaks ... Read the Post