Today the Spirit of Truth showed me something so simple, yet so profound. I’ve read Isaiah 61 many times. I’ve prayed it. I’ve quoted it. I’ve tried to put on the garment of praise. Yet there were seasons when joy seemed just out of reach. Today, the Holy Spirit put one word on it. Mourning. Jesus said the Spirit of Truth would guide us into all truth. Today, He did exactly that. In my season of heaviness, I wasn’t lacking praise. I was carrying mourning. Isaiah 61 suddenly c

I was writing a birthday message to my daughter when I typed these words: “The place you hold in my heart is unmatched.” Then I laughed. Not because it wasn’t true. Because it is. But it also made me realize something. When someone holds that much of your heart, they also have the ability to break it. That’s the risk of loving deeply. As parents, we know that feeling. Our children can bring us our greatest joy and our deepest sorrow. A phone call can make us celebrate, or it

NUMBERS 14 There is something in Numbers 14 that made me smile. Our prayer group leader has been encouraging us for weeks to pray according to God’s Word. Then I read Moses’ prayer. “And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken…” (Numbers 14:17, KJV) That made me smile. Moses prayed according to what God had already spoken. Then he prayed according to who God had revealed Himself to be. “The LORD is longsuffering, and of great merc

Throughout Scripture, God’s people built stone altars to remember what God had done. Not because they were afraid they would forget the event. But because they never wanted to forget the God who met them there. This is one of mine. I would love to say I had a perfect walk with the Lord. That my testimony was one where Jesus got ahold of me, set me free, delivered me, and I never looked back. But that’s not my story. My journey looks different. If you would have told me in my

Living in survival is one of the most overlooked realities in the Christian walk. We celebrate deliverance, but rarely talk about the process of learning how to live abundantly afterward. A person can truly love Jesus and still live in survival instead of abundance. I did. Just trying to get through the day without even realizing it. Carrying pressure constantly. Living one day at a time. Fear becoming familiar. Struggling to fully rest. Not because I wasn’t saved. Not becaus

Sometimes we walk away from places, assignments, relationships, or seasons because of disappointment, frustration, confusion, or circumstances around us. At the time, it can feel like the right thing to do. We move on, convinced we’re following wisdom, protecting our hearts, or responding to what is happening around us. But sometimes, after prayer and reflection, we realize something important: God never told us to leave. That doesn’t mean there weren’t real issues. It doesn’

One day in ministry, I felt very vulnerable, inadequate, and weak. That was unusual for me. I didn’t feel like the warrior. I felt fragile. I felt the weight of what I was carrying. Insecurity tried to creep in. For a moment, I found myself comparing. Comparing my weakness to someone else’s strength. Comparing my suffering to someone else’s victory. Comparing what I felt in that moment to what I thought prayer was supposed to sound like. Then I remembered something. The Holy

The grief wasn’t that someone was cruel. The grief wasn’t that someone betrayed me. The grief wasn’t even that a season ended. The grief was simpler than that. I hoped for more. I hoped for deeper friendship. Deeper connection. More understanding. More mutuality. I hoped that time would deepen what already existed. I hoped one day I would feel chosen. Not tolerated. Not appreciated. Chosen. That’s the hardest part. Not accepting what was. Accepting what wasn’t. Accepting that

There is a strange grief that comes with doing the right thing. You know where God is leading. You know the decision is right. You know it is time. And yet, you sit in your car and cry. Not because you are confused. Not because you made a mistake. Not because you want to go back. But because endings are still endings. One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is that obedience and grief can exist in the same moment. The fact that something hurts does not automatically mean it i

There was a time when every loss cost me a piece of myself. A relationship ended and I questioned my value. A door closed and I questioned my calling. Someone rejected me and I rejected myself. I didn’t just lose the situation. I lost me. But healing changes things. Now when something ends, I still grieve. I still cry. I still feel disappointment. But I don’t hand over my identity with it. This time I let go. But I kept Kim. I kept my worth. I kept my dignity. I kept my voice

Lies can only remain where there is an absence of truth. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) I was bound because I believed lies. Freedom didn’t come because I tried harder. It came because I sat with the Lord until the Holy Spirit began revealing truth. As truth came, the lies began to lose their power. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. He shines His light into places we cannot see on our own. He exposes what deception

The parable of the talents has been stirring in me. James tells us that faith without works is dead. I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to pray like everything depends on God, yet forget that He also tells us He will bless the work of our hands. Our hands have to find something to do. For years, God has been building character in me. Faithfulness. Self-control. Wisdom. Understanding. Discernment. Those years weren’t wasted. They were preparation. But eventually preparati

As a teenager, one of my favorite says was: “I’m here for the party!” I thought I knew what that meant. Then, years later, I was reading a book when two simple words stopped me in my tracks. Celebration matters. I stopped reading and started thinking. When did I stop celebrating? Not birthdays. Not holidays. Life. So I looked up the word celebrate. Then I started looking through the Bible. God didn’t just command His people to worship. He told them to celebrate. He establishe

Most of what we admire in people was born in places we never witnessed. The faith. The wisdom. The compassion. The joy. The celebration. We see the fruit. We rarely see the roots. We hear someone share a testimony and forget there was a test. We see someone celebrate and assume life has always been light. We admire their faith without realizing how many ordinary days it took to grow. If you only knew. If you only knew how many prayers came before that testimony. If you only k

Yesterday, a devotional challenged me to walk back through my day. I almost wanted to skip the page. In this season of my life, I’m trying so hard to move forward. Looking back almost makes me feel captive. Even yesterday can feel painful to look back on, even when it was good. That alone made me stop and ask myself, why? I always thought it was because I didn’t want to live in the past. Now I’m not so sure. So I started replaying yesterday. I spent time with Jesus. I had a r

I had a deep revelation today. Someone said that when a child grows up being criticized, eventually that criticism becomes her inner voice. I just sat there. Then the tears came. Because I realized… Kim has been Kim’s biggest critic. I’ve spent so much of my life encouraging people. Praising them. Uplifting them. Exhorting them. Loving them. Believing in them. Calling out the good in them. As I sat with the Lord today, I wondered if part of the reason is because those were t

I was a little girl who wore shame that didn’t belong to her. I knew where it came from. I knew it came from things that happened in my family. I knew it came from things people knew. I knew it came from whispers, opinions, comparisons, and labels that found their way onto my shoulders long before I was old enough to understand what to do with them. I remember not wanting people to know what was in the newspapers. I remember not wanting people to know who my dad was. Not beca

Something hit me today. I realized I have spent years managing things I do not have authority over. That one thought brought me freedom. I’ve spent a lot of years learning about authority. Praying about authority. Standing in authority. Teaching authority. But today I found myself asking a different question. What do I actually have authority over? Not what do I care about. Not what affects me. Not what concerns me. What has God actually given me authority over? The answer wa

Recently someone shared Deuteronomy 9:3 with me, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. “But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; He will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.” I love the order of that verse. God goes first. He goes before His people like a devouring fire. He destroys what they cannot destroy. He su

NUMBERS 12 We can walk away from a conversation thinking nothing of it. God doesn’t. I was reading about Miriam and Aaron speaking against Moses because of the woman he had married. Honestly, it didn’t seem that unusual at first. People talk about people all the time. We talk about the decisions they make. We call it concern. We call it processing. Sometimes we don’t think much about it at all. But God did. God wasn’t looking at the conversation the way they were. Miriam and