Callie Mitchell 6 Minute Read Speak to me inside of her. That was the word the Lord whispered into my heart the day I hit my knees in prayer for a friend. I had struggled in our relationship. We were in a Bible study together and it seemed that no matter how I tried to encourage her in her walk…
Rachelle Rea Cobb 4 Minute Read I had spent too long in front of the mirror that Sunday morning. After swapping with a friend a bag of clothes we no longer wanted, I had a new-to-me lacy top to wear to church. That Sunday morning also happened to be one of those first indecisive spring days: the morning began with a…
Caroline Rose Kraft 6 Minute Read I had been called many things, but “traitor” had never been one of them. Until that day at the orphanage in Haiti when those hurting children took their anger out on me. I crawled crying into my parents’ bed that night and I remember them saying, “They probably don’t even know what that means.” And…
Shelley Smucker 4 Minute Read “Who does she think she is?” “I don’t know, but she definitely tries too hard.” “I mean, I can’t believe she is after him. Like she has a chance with him.” “I know, right? It’s painful to watch.” It was an innocent enough scene, teenage girls lying in their bunks at a summer break retreat,…
Shelley Smucker 7 Minute Read “Mommy, those girls wouldn’t let me play with them today.” I heard the voice of my little four-year-old cutting through my thoughts, wistful and clear. “Oh?” I asked. “What do you mean they wouldn’t let you play?” “They just didn’t want to play with me.” My heart caught in my chest as I felt that…
Callie Mitchell 8 Minute Read “I just need some help.” This wasn’t the first time total and utter exhaustion had settled in. Being pregnant with number three made for many challenges while chasing a toddler and spending countless hours on the city bus getting my bigger one to school. “Can you call someone to come over?” my husband asked. My…
Caroline Rose Kraft 5 Minute Read Have you ever accidentally overheard a segment of a conversation which sounded important and, upon inquiry, been told “not to worry about it”? If you’re like me, the first thing you’re going to do is completely disregard their command. How can you not worry about something that’s obviously being kept from you for a reason?…
Jenni Marie 6 Minute Read In a room of 45 ladies, we counted off 1 through 5 nine times and every fifth person stood up. I stood up. I stood up and looked around the room, marveling at the statistic that 20% of the women in that room have battled mental illness or are battling mental illness. I am that…
Elisabeth 5 Minute Read Once upon a time, I was a skinny blonde seven-year-old, learning to make cookies in a ranch-style home in California. I left the actual baking to my mamma: a mysterious process that involved way too much heat for me. And that was my very first kitchen, a place that has since become my natural habitat….
Callie Mitchell 4 Minute Read You can see the problems in your friend’s relationship, and maybe you want to scream “Break up with him already!” But what do you do? I was on the opposite side of this question once, when a close friend spoke honestly to me about the red flags she could see in a long-term-going-nowhere relationship. It…
Callie Mitchell 5 Minute Read We could hear the engine from our driveway. The big yellow school bus was headed towards our house. I remember standing there, watching it come closer. Though we had talked through getting on the bus many times, fear was taking over. I don’t want to do this! It stopped. My mom and dad were both…
Mandy J. Hoffman 3 Minute Read “I couldn’t do church without it!” I exclaimed to the other ladies in the car. Two of them agreed with emphatic nods and “yeses” as we told our third friend about a private Facebook group for the ladies of our church. Social media is not the church. Despite how commonplace social media is in our culture, it was…
The End.
The End.