DEEP WATERS

Hurricane Harvey is a national tragedy.  If you're like me, you've watched the footage through tears - footage of ravaged homes, destroyed landscapes and lost lives. Raising four children of my own, I struggled to watch an interview with the mom who lost four children in Harvey. My heart breaks for her and so many others. Yet I had a thought while watching the many Texans that stepped up to the call to help their fellow Texans during the storm and in its aftermath... Hurricane Harvey might be a wake up call. I believe Hurricane Harvey, and tragedies like it, could be a wake up call for a nation that's becoming more and more polarized. You see this polarization everywhere... CNN, Fox and MSNBC news. Our Twitter feeds. And should I even mention the vicious comments and fights on Facebook these days? Just name the topic, and folks are fighting over it - Black Lives Matter, Civil War monuments, immigration, Alt-right marches and demonstrations, and on and on... G...

T'was the day before Christmas, when all through the house... I wish I could say not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse in my home. But... we still have gift-wrapping to do and grocery shopping and cooking and baking. And yet, I had to take a break from my holiday preparations to write the final post in this blog series. As I've connected with friends and family members, it seems I'm not the only one grieving loved ones this season. And I'm certainly not the only one working through hurts and disappointments and major life transitions. So if you, or someone you love, is balancing loss and grief while also celebrating the most precious Gift we've ever received - our Savior, Jesus Christ - this post is for you. In my first two posts, I shared the two ways to help a grieving loved one during the holidays: expressing empathy and the Gift of Presence . Today I want to share another. It's pretty simple, but I've had confirmation over the last f...

If you're like me, you've been watching the 24-hour news stories about yesterday's terrorist attack on Paris, France.  If you're like me, you were mortified over the news. If you're like me, you're asking lots of questions... How can people have such hatred for perfect strangers? Why do such horrible things happen to good people? How do we make sense of the senseless? I honestly don't have answers to these real life questions. And yet, today I purposefully opened my heart to God's voice while praying over this tragedy.  This is what I heard God say in my spirit... Carla, you've spent most of your Christian life pursuing comfort and safety. But I haven't called you, or any of my children, to a life of safety.  Instead of a life of safety, I've called you to a life of meaning and purpose. Hearing these words from the Lord made me think about  The Barbarian Way,  a book written by one of my favorite pr...

Most of you have heard the news  already. A young man of about 24 entered an elementary school in the small town of Newtown, Connecticut and killed 26 people. I've heard that twenty of those people were mere children. As the news drones on and on and the facts stack up about this heinous crime, many of us are dumbfounded. How could someone enter a school and randomly kill so many young, innocent children? Why didn't someone see this coming? And what can we do to prevent another massacre like this one? Well, I don't have any answers to these questions. But I do want to share what I plan to do in the midst of this national tragedy. Look Up At times like this, no one has any real answers. We debate about gun control and the government setting the example for the rest of the world by getting along. We stress that we've got to be more vigilant about stressing mental healthcare for our family and friends. But really there are no answers. So, at this time I...