For the past few years now, I have awakened most mornings at “O dark 30” with a different song in my heart, aware that Zephaniah 3:17 is a real thing: “The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with joy/gladness, He will quiet you in His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” And whether the song of the day is something I heard the day before, residual glow from the Sunday service, or wherever the song came from and what promp

This morning I woke up suddenly and started with my morning prayer before realizing it was only 1:30 am. I am learning that when I get the opportunity to be awake at odd hours, it’s generally an invitation to prayer, confession, and realigning with God’s presence. As I thought about different people I wanted to pray for, I remembered that I hadn’t answered a text message yesterday from my pastor asking how I was doing. “Fine” or “good” – or worse, “good under the circumstance

I am in awe of all the ways God, our Creator, designed from before the creation of the world, in all the things He made long before anyone walked the earth, to draw us to Himself and lavish us with so many ways to see Him, others, and ourselves in relationship with Him! In Romans chapter 1 Paul writes that “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they a

This morning I woke up to parts of two different songs playing in my head – sleepy, but wanting to hear what was coming next (after drifting back to sleep a time or two!) I grabbed my laptop and phone and looked up the songs. Micah Tyler popped up when I typed the chorus: “When the Devil Come Try to Get Me Gonna Praise the Lord…” The images in the music video got me grinning ear to ear in less than 10 seconds. When he got to the dentist chair, I almost laughed out loud! This

I woke up this morning drifting back and forth from some kind of dream I can’t recall, to awake and aware that this song was very much in mind: “This is my testimony, from death to Life, 'cause Grace rewrote my story, I’ll testify, by Jesus Christ the Righteous, I’m justified! This is my testimony, this is my testimony!” I started thinking about the details of my past, reflecting back on my actions, reactions and outcomes, the changes God has made - sometimes despite my best

Waking up this morning I am aware of the chill in the air, that I need to get up, and...remember what Pastor Chris said yesterday about God waiting for me to open my eyes so He can talk to me! <3 This has been an amazing week at Prayer Dock with the team from I Must Manifest here. The perspective shifts that have happened in me are stunning. I want to go forward from here with those things alive and actively lived out every day, not set aside in a few days for something else!

Waking up this morning, a conversation I had earlier in the week popped into my head and the script in my thoughts was off and running! A friend and I were exploring the idea that so many of the thoughts or sayings our actions on are based on should probably be discarded. There are several reasons why this can be true, but top of the list for me as a child was missing out on a good time. Sayings like “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” (then why bother having it?”) One

Waking up this morning with a renewed sense of purpose, of intentional discipleship – both submitting and reaching out – to an assignment of teaching what Jesus gave as His last words, after modeling what that actually looks like in practice in Bethany. Nearly two weeks before His crucifixion, Jesus was standing in front of the tomb of His friend Lazarus, who had died. His two sisters, in two separate conversations, had cried out to Him, “If You would have been here, my broth

Oh Lord, You are so good to us! You truly put eternity in our hearts! Thank You for being so insistent and patient and continuing to draw us to Yourself, with both blessings and holy discontent with the things we keep putting in front of You!! I woke up this morning in the middle of a conversation reminding me that the same things we get frustrated with others for doing, we do ourselves. I am grateful God doesn’t let us point fingers at others without interjecting His own con

This morning’s rising was...strange. I woke up aware my body was uncomfortably warm and peeled back the covers. The early-ness of 2:20 am had me negotiating a return to sleep, even though I already had a lot running through my head, and I had a desire to put thoughts to paper to see where God would take me this morning. After an Encountering Peace meditation – and still being awake – I opened my Bible to see what He wanted to say. I opened to a divot in the side of the pages