Reblogged from incourage
August 26, 2011

Yesterday I asked you to finish this sentence: “If I were to be totally honest, ______.” I wasn’t sure what would come out, but let me tell you what did:

Worry. Anxiety. Longing. Regret. Exhaustion. Loneliness. Comparison. Failure. A little bit of hope. Mostly fear.



You who are brave and beautiful, who have great things to offer the world not because of what you can do, but because of who you are, you who spoke out into the darkness yesterday – may blessing and peace and hope and abundance pour out all over you today.

“When I was a child my parents loved me not because I was good, but because I was Madeleine.”

Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

What would happen if we believed it? Would love make a difference in our ability to be honest about these difficult places where we find ourselves? Because it’s one thing to say honest things in a comment box on a blog. It’s completely another thing to sit in a room with other women, to look into their eyes, to hear their voices, to see their pain, to nod your heads together.

But that? Is so risky. Because those same people who might really understand are also the people whose opinions we so desperately want to manage. And so we hide from one another and stay fine.
Maybe it’s time to give up fine. Here are some ways to start:

Are you a small group leader? Read this book with your group. You won’t be able to avoid authentic no matter how hard you may try. There is a complete small group leaders guide in the back of the book designed to run for 8 weeks. Or you can visit Chatting at the Sky and download and print the leader’s guide for free right now.



Are you looking for someone to read with? If you aren’t in a small group, might a make a suggestion? Don’t read Grace for the Good Girl alone. Grab a girlfriend or a sister or a co-worker or a cousin and read it together.

If you are in a season of loneliness or isolation and you physically don’t have anyone to chat with about this book, perhaps you will find some people in one of these places:

Chatting at the Sky – a place for your soul to breathe, where I write nearly everyday-ish. Many of the women who read my blog will also read the book, so perhaps you will find some kindred conversations here. Also, the entire month of October, I’ll be writing a series called 31 Days to Change the World – because I really do believe that this grace changes everything.

Facebook Page – Women who are reading the book often come to the Facebook page and comment. Perhaps you can join in the conversation there.

Is it possible to live a life of joy? Peace? Hope? Willingness? Expectation? Rest? Fellowship? Satisfaction? Is it possible to believe, really believe that the God of the Universe who lived so long ago lives and walks in and among us right now? Is that a fairytale? A lie? A dream? A joke?

Jesus doesn’t tell us to try to figure out a way to follow him. He didn’t come to this world upside down just to show us how to live life and then dare us to get it right.



He came, not to show us how to do it, but to do it for us. He showed up not to inspire us to copy him, but to indwell us with his Spirit. He does not simply tell us to have patience and be strong. He becomes patient in my impatience. He becomes strength in the middle of my weakness.

This life is impossible. But God shows up in the middle of impossibilities. Impossible is His favorite.
I have so enjoyed being here at Bloom (in)courage this week. Your words, insights, and honesty have been a spacious place for this rookie author. I don’t know how to do this stuff really – to talk about my art, to share it with the world, to offer it to friends – but you have helped me remember the beauty and grace and acceptance available in community. I hope to do the same for you.

love and grace.
- emily, Chatting at the Sky

Emily Freeman is a writer who encourages girls of all ages to create space for their souls to breathe. She is the author of Grace for the Good Girl (Revell). She and her husband live in North Carolina with their twin daughters and twinless son.

It's not to late to register for Biblical Women's Institute classes!  Class start next week.  We want to spotlight one of our most popular classes today.  Biblical Foundations for the Minister's Wife is a class taught by Dr. and Mrs. Akin on Thursday evenings from 7-9 pm.  The class provides a practical survey of issues relating to the role of the minister's wife. This class is directed primarily toward pastor's wives, current and potential, but the class is open to women in all roles - students, spouses and women in the community.

The class is underwritten, which means that it is a class at no-cost to the student.

You can find more information about this class as well as our other Fall courses online here.  

Childcare is available as well.  We offer childcare on Thursday evenings for a small fee.

For more information on how to register for classes or childcare please contact the Women's Life Office at (919) 761-2340.              

Surrender. It all comes down to surrender. Does anything we have in our lives actually belong to us? Did we decide on and create the people in our lives to custom fit our needs and our circumstances? No, of course not! Our all-knowing, wise Creator did! The people in our lives are gifts from God. They are instruments used for God purposes.

Surrender is key to Christ-centered relationships; so that when the time comes to let go, you already have. Now I am not saying that you should not love or even that you should love less. Of course that would be disobedience to Christ’s many commands to love one another and give thanks for each other. This does not mean you live at an arms distance either because the New Testament clearly demonstrates living life with each other and bearing each others’ burdens and joys. But the best love, what I believe to be the most Christ-glorifying love, is love with open hands. Holding loosely to the things and people God has entrusted to you.

This comes back to living with eternal perspective. Relationships, as we know them, are also temporary. 

They serve eternal purpose and with believers they have an aspect which will last for an eternity. But that is the Christ-glorifying aspect! What we manage to accomplish in the slightest way here of centering our relationships around Christ is only a shadow of the purpose of our eternal relationships with other followers of Christ. John Piper writes in Don’t Waste Your Life about a plaque which hung in his home as a child. My sister also made me a replica of it which hangs over my bed. It reads, “Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

If you live a life of constant surrender, you respond differently to God’s direction. Take possessions for example. If I have surrendered my possessions to God, then when something is stolen, sold, or given away it comes with ease and joy because I’ve already given it to God! It is His anyway. My life doesn’t fall apart at the loss of those things. Surrendering your possessions can be tough and has to be done every time you make a Christmas wish list or start packing for a big move. But something I believe is even harder to surrender than possessions is relationships. Relationships of all kinds – with our parents, with our friends, with our sisters and brothers, with our church family, with children, and with husbands.

Remember the idea of living with open hands. This is where holding loosely becomes so important. In receiving and giving of the things we’ve been entrusted with by God, keeping this “open hands” mindset gives freedom to live for eternal things. Again, this does NOT mean you do not love, invest in, cherish, and serve the people in your life; rather it means you do those things for the sheer glorification of Christ. If in Christ’s call for you to die to self and take up your cross, He requires you to go great distances from your family and friends or you lose a dear one to death or sickness, open hands enables you to trust God’s greater purpose and bigger plan. Great challenges and lose will come in our fallen world, ask God to instill this concept into your heart and life ahead of time.

For example, as a single I surrender my future husband to God. I hold loosely to him before I even know who he might be. Whether or not God chooses to give him to me or however long or short God allows me to have him before one of our deaths, I surrender him.  I surrender my children, before I even have them. That means whether or not God allows me to have children, how long my children might live, and how they might obediently follow Christ in difficult or distant ways. I have neither husband nor children right now, but these are areas in my life that demonstrate the need to live with open hands. Even when God entrusts us with relationships for a season of our life, we are to receive, rejoice, and release- all with open hands.

What if we don’t surrender? Sometimes we turn the blessings from God into idols. We turn the things that God intended for us to use as tools for serving Him into things we serve instead of Him. This is no different from those mentioned in Romans 1 who traded worshipping the Creator for worshipping mere created things. Living continually with two open hands leaves no room for clinging to an idol or hiding it behind your back. Surrender has to be daily. We cannot muster up the ability to surrender. We must ask for it from God. The good news is- it is God’s desire too, and He will equip us and strengthen us each day!

 Katie Kasey is a 2+2 (International Church Planting M-Div) student at Southeastern. God has given Katie the privilege of serving Him in Ecuador on several occasions, as well as Ukraine and East Asia. Katie serves at North Henderson Baptist Church in Henderson, NC, with her family.  She is excitedly preparing to serve God both at home and overseas. Katie’s greatest joys in life are her two sisters Britney & Meredith and their wonderful husbands- John Marks & Ricky, and her parents Brent & Teresa. She also loves using photography and writing to encourage others and promote God’s glory among all people.

Reblogged from Answers of Truth

Nothing of love and romance matters if you aren't flourishing in the Great Love Story. For most of you this story isn't new, but listen closely to the Passion unfold:

The Great Love Story
Jesus, the Creator God, made his dwelling among men (Jn. 1:1-14). Though He is in very nature God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Leaving the triune Godhead (the Trinity—God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit), He came to earth to save mankind (Phil 2:6-7). These men, however, were so wicked and full of sin that it was written, “There is no one righteous, no not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good not even one. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:11-18).

But God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son, that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. The world needed a Savior, one who would die for their sins, die for their wickedness. This Savior is Jesus, the promised Sacrifice (Isa. 53). Jesus told all men, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Then God said to those men, “Whoever believes in my Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects my Son will not see life for my wrath remains on him (Jn. 3:16-18, 36).

So Jesus came to those who would believe in his name, giving them the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (Jn. 1:1-13)—children who would be heirs with Him in His inheritance. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:14-18). And although men were evil, Jesus who is fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life (Heb. 4:15). To pay for the sins of mankind he would be betrayed, beaten, arrested, flogged, stabbed with a crown of thorns, pierced with sharp nails through his hands and feet, and crucified on a cruel cross. He died.

But this Jesus did not stay in the grave.

On the third day he rose, conquering sin and defeating death. Jesus said, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Death has been swallowed up in victory” (Hosea 13:14). Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 5:57). This victory, through faith in Jesus our Savior and Lord, restores mankind to God to spend an eternity with him in Heaven. Jesus said, “In my father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (Jn. 14:2-3).

If we believe in faith that Jesus is Savior and Lord, that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9-10), and that none of our own works bring us merit before God (Isa. 64:6, Eph. 2:8-9); we are told because of His Great Love, we can be saved from God’s justified wrath and enter into His awesome presence. Our Prince, our bridegroom, Jesus, has gallantly come to rescue us from captivity and death. He has invited us to be His Love, His Bride (the Church). This is the Greatest Love Story ever written. A marriage not ending in death; but a marriage beginning with death to our sin and newness of life to our souls. Our Great Love will last throughout all eternity. “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Rev. 19:9).

This is what we LIVE for! As exciting as it is to fall in love and be married to a godly man, it is dull in comparison to the pleasures and joys which are found in the arms of our Savior. He is the Prince who sacrificed his life to rescue us. He is the King crowned in Majesty inviting us to share in His inheritance. And he is our Great Lover who desires unity with us for all eternity. Our job is to fall more in love with our Prince, our King, and our Great Lover, Jesus Christ. The most important preparation we can ever do, is to ready ourselves to stand before our Bridegroom! Are you more preoccupied with a human lover or a Holy Lover? Can you say, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you” (Ps. 73:25).

The only way to have successful human relationships is to have Jesus Christ as your Greatest Love. A joyous marriage, begins with a foundation that flourishes in Christ first.

Where are you putting your greatest energy and affection? The answer should be Jesus. If it is not…what is causing your affection to turn to others lovers (idols)? 

 K.J. Nally is a writer, teacher, and counselor. She is pursuing her master’s degree in Biblical Counseling, concentrating in women’s ministry from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. K.J. and her husband, Dustin, have a passion to fight for Godly marriages, spur on teens to seek purity, and encourage men and women to live obediently to their Creator God.

K.J. and Dustin are marriage and individual counselors at Hope Counseling Center through their church, North Wake. They also work with Converting Hearts Ministries,’ a Christ-centered addictions ministry.

K.J. currently works as a freelance journalist with The Wake Weekly. Check out more about Christian Living at K.J.’s blog, Answers of Truth.