Canvas of the Heart

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7 I began praying last April that the Lord would give me a word or theme for 2018. A word that would give me resolve in difficult times, a word that would motivate me to run my race well, a word that would encourage me. In December, I found myself daily pouring over Psalm 37. As I put it to memory, a word jumped off the page at me, and the day after that word came to light, it also flashed across the screen in large letters at a church plant we happened to be visiting. This particular Sunday I was feeling a bit out of my element and a bit emotional, like I was on the verge of tears, not because of sadness, but because my heart was full. God had recently called Mark and I to plant a church in Ridgefield, Washington. It was so hard to step away from all we had at First Baptist Church, Longview. It was our second Sunday since st...

Western Scrub Jay It's been sooooooo long since I've put my heart and time into an art project!Ridgefield has an active art community. I've really enjoyed meeting new people and trying my hand at watercolor. It feels good to get back to my roots! I used to love expressing myself through art. Kathy Winters is a patient,skillful and encouraging art teacher.I'm really thankful for her class!

Matthew 1:18-25 This Christmas season, I have been reflecting on the nativity story reading through the various Gospels. Mary and Joseph were ordinary people like you and me, yet God revealed Himself to and through them in extraordinary ways. Something in all of us longs to see the Divine break through the mundane, the ordinary eclipsed by the extraordinary. In those moments, the glory transcends the grime and we see the world with different eyes. Eyes of faith. By faith we have believed what we cannot see just as Mary and Joseph, and glimpses of glory remind us that we live and breathe and have our being for something eternal.  That eternal hope is what gives our lives meaning and purpose here on this temporal, sin-soiled earth. That hope is what fuels our endurance and bids us to take courage and stand strong through the storms of life. Have you lost your way?  Have you let the demands of this life crowd out or cloud your purpose? Does auto-pilot fee...

Make Room for a Bigger God Psalm 24:7 “Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.” As I watched the heavens move this morning I was in awe of God and His creation. I was acutely aware of my smallness and in the midst of the largeness of God’s spinning universe, and yet overwhelmed that the same God who spoke the stars in existence knows how many tears I have cried and how many hairs are on my red head. As I opened up my Bible for a time of worship and reflection of God this morning, I came upon Psalm 24. I read, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it…” Not only do the heavens declare God’s vastness, but the earth does too. Recently, I traveled by car from Missouri to Washington. We moved from wide, open skies, prairies as far as the eye could see, and rain storms that could be identified from a far distance to the huge buttes and mesas of Wyoming. Our small car rolled through mountainous terrain with enormo...