We just started a new series at Anthem House called, Fish out of Water. The heart behind the series is to equip and empower our community to better navigate the waters of drama. We've realized drama is not just a middle school nightmare, it's an everyday reality. Adults may not snap their latest drama, but they too have a way of getting their unmet needs met without asking. Avoiding drama is inevitable, which makes knowing how to navigate it, essential. I'm going to blog my w

It's not always easy to do the right thing. Especially when you are in the wrong place. When your circumstances aren't what you had in mind. His criticism, her judgment, they aren't what you asked for. The job you'd imagined isn't working out the way you'd hoped. Those friends, that coworker. Maybe you've been hit with sudden illness or financial issues. The unexpected loss of a loved one or the harsh reality of doing this parenting thing on your own. Life is hard, if it's n

Gratitude is not hard but it is a habit. If gratitude is a habit it's also safe to say ingratitude is also a habit. You will bend toward one or the other. Gratitude and ingratitude are muscles. The muscle you strengthen will be the one you grow and will ultimately become the muscle you lean to. The mindset of ingratitude comes very easily when we spend our time strengthening it. It's not hard to see what is wrong with everything around us. Things in the world are not as they

If God is always present and at work then it means, there is always an invitation to stop what your doing and join Him in what He's doing. Sometimes joining Him feels small, like realizing the lady in front of you is going to need help getting her groceries in the car because there's way too many and it's pouring down rain. Other times, joining Him feels massive, like walking away from a perfectly good job without knowing what's next. Transitions are a natural part of life.

A while back I wrote a blog about being a friend of God. If you didn't get the chance to read it, you can find it here - Friend of God pt 1. We talked about Moses and his invitation to follow God on an adventure. This is what the beginning of friendship often looks like. Coming together to discover one another. Putting aside insecurities, shame, fear, doubt all in order to know and be known. The life of Moses brings such hope. Moses went from hiding in the presence of God t

You know what I love? I love being a mom of older kids. I mean I loved having babies. I loved snuggles and I loved it when my girls were little and wanted to wrap my hair around their fingers as they fell asleep. But now that they are a bit older, I don't just love them and the things they do - I like them. I really do. I get that the pre-teen, teenage years are hard. We aren't perfect, we definitely have our fair share of run-ins. But there are casual moments throughout our

Recognizing the lies the enemy cleverly slips into our minds is not enough in and of itself. It's a part of the process of reigning in the Kingdom of God, but it is incomplete with out its counterparts. Recognizing we are responding a certain way because of shame or condemnation if a good place to start, but if we don't do something to resist this type of response then it will only continue. After recognizing untruth we must then resist it from taking root in our lives. Ther

Once we begin to see how big God really is, we can’t help but dream bigger. Living with dreams we can achieve on our own speak of a small God. Reality is, we have the attention of the Almighty God. He spoke the universe into being and can certainly handle any dreams we fear might be just out of our personal reach. If Ephesians 3:20, “He is able to do more than we ever asked or imagined possible,” is really true (which in case you are wondering, it is), then think of the bigge

I wonder if the problem has anything to do with how rushed life is, or if it's just there are so many things running through our minds. It might be that by the time we finish what's in front of us physically, we have long since moved on mentally. Whatever it is, the lost art of gratitude has an underlying effect no one is talking about. Gratitude changes things. It's a lot like the Gospel. The Gospel is Good News everywhere it's applied. It is Good News that you have a Savior

The brokenness around you is never to much for the God within you. The world teaches us to keep it together, but Jesus invites us to let it go. At the end of ourselves, we are only ever at the beginning of Him because our God is not the Redeemer of all things fixed, He is the Redeemer of all things broken. In our hands, the painful pieces task us with an impossible rebuild. Without the proper resources, we settle for Band-Aids as a quick fix rather than the root healing neces

Have you ever had a conversation play over and over again in your head? Maybe in a brave moment, you met a friend for coffee and opened up with the storm that has steam rolled its way into your life. Authenticity feels good as the truth of what's really going on pours out of your mouth. Finally, the weight of keeping your struggle to yourself is lessened. Hopefully, your friend meets you with compassion and understanding, grace and truth, but regardless of her words, you undo