Author, Podcaster, and Bible Teacher
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Messy Beautiful Friendship
Many women privately wrestle with the complexities of adult friendship. Perhaps you are one of them.
I certainly have struggled with friendship over the years. I’ve known years of friendship drought. I’ve experienced conflicts in relationships— some of my own making—that have tied my insides in knots. I’ve received wounds so bitter that I’ve retreated to cocoon in the false security of isolation.
But I’ve also experienced deep relationships with other women that have enriched my life beyond measure, pointed me toward Christ, and challenged me to grow. These relationships have taught me that friendship is worth any struggle they have taken to discover and deepen.
No matter where your friendships currently are, you’ve probably found that your heart never ceases longing for fulfilling companionship. Friendship seems such a rarity to find and such a fragile joy when we’ve found it, doesn’t it?
We all long for deep and lasting friendships but often find them challenging to make. The private angst we feel regarding friendship often translates into our own insecurity. In this book, I offer you a fresh, biblical vision for friendship, one that acknowledges the difficulties and past hurts, but also helps you move toward the relationships you desire.
How to Thrive as a Pastor's Wife
Every pastor's wife is a faithful servant and leader in her own right. She has great influence on her church, her community, her family, and her husband, and she finds joy in seeing God move in the lives of others. Yet she also faces unique challenges that too often go unnoticed and unaddressed. At times, a pastor's wife may feel she can't talk about her struggles even with those who are closest to her, which can leave her feeling alone, depleted, and misunderstood. She may settle for this way of living, but that's not God's desire for her.
I know firsthand the unique struggles and opportunities afforded a pastor's wife--I've been filling that role for more than 20 years. Coming alongside you as an understanding friend, I offer encouragement and guidance to the struggling pastor's wife, showing you how to make meaningful personal relationships with God, your husband, your children, your church community, and other women--relationships that will sustain you and help you thrive.
From Good to Grace
In my role as a pastor's wife, I've discovered in countless conversations with Christian women that they often feel confusion and even pressure about what they should be doing in order to please God. They are asking, "What does God want from me?" and unsure that they'll ever be enough for Him.
I can relate. I spent two decades of life after my salvation asking the same questions and struggling with the same uncertainties. And then something happened: God made it clear to me that I didn't understand His grace, and that because I didn't understand His grace, I didn't understand Him. He took me on a journey through Scripture that transformed my heart, my perspectives, my relationships, and my ministry.
From Good to Grace: Letting Go of the Goodness Gospel is for women like I was, who long to please God but fear they never will. Instead of asking "What does God want from us?", From Good to Grace asks, "What does God want for us?" The book illustrates how we confuse being good and trying hard (the goodness gospel) with the true gospel, which is really about receiving the grace and love that Jesus offers us and responding with our lives by the Holy Spirit's help. Readers will discover that it's possible to know God's love, live in peace and freedom, and serve others with great joy.
Searching For Spring
Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God makes everything beautiful in its time. In other words, the work he is about is the work of redemption, and he is currently turning all that is wrong into all that’s right and good and beautiful.
But when I look around at our broken and marred world—and, even closer in view, at my broken and marred heart—so much of what I see and experience is not right and good and beautiful. Jesus came to redeem, but he left so much temporarily unfixed that it can be difficult not to despair. So how do we live with hope? How do we walk forward by faith, waiting for the future redemption of all things? These are the very questions I’ve attempted to answer in Searching For Spring.
Searching for spring is really a search for God’s redemptive work, where suffering and death become fruitful life. Framed by Ecclesiastes 3 and the changing seasons, I invite readers like you to join me on a treasure hunt for beauty in both familiar and unexpected places. I wrote this book for all who are in the midst of suffering, who find their faith withering, or who are questioning whether God is at work—or even present—as they wait for something in their lives to become beautiful. My prayer is that Searching For Spring will be a welcome reminder that God never stops his redemptive work and a boon to the weary heart.
With All Your Heart
Joy can be yours! And it comes through allegiance.
Our hearts are made for unswaying allegiance to a king and a kingdom, a concept that Jesus talked about more than any other. Yet every day, the false kings of anxiety, approval, comfort, image, escape, power, accumulations, self-sufficiency, and shame plot to reign over our hearts instead. Their lies about the true king are so subtle and insidious that we rarely recognize them, and we go on living with divided loyalties that stall our spiritual growth, infect our relationships, and hinder our witness.
If you want to find freedom from the forces vying for your heart, let me equip you for the fight. In this heart-check kind of book, I'll help you root out your own misplaced allegiances so that you can live wholly as a subject of the king who made and redeemed you.
The Church Planting Wife
Behind every church planter is a church planting wife, who plays an integral role in the formation of the church, who is often the sole encourager for her husband, and who juggles such an intense ministry while nurturing a family.
Because she is so crucial to the church planter and the church, church planting wives need support, encouragement, and help in their roles. They need an apt word from someone who has been there and applicable biblical wisdom that will sustain them.
Finally, a rich resource is available for the wives of church planters: The Church Planting Wife: Help and Hope for Her Heart.
The Church Planting Wife is a practical guide for wives of church planters, who when the faith-filled adventure of church planting turns into fear-filled reality, find themselves asking one question: “What have I gotten myself into?” The book speaks to her greatest internal struggles—sacrifice, uncertainty, loneliness, fear, stress, and discouragement—and offers her guidance, encouragement, and hope.
Church planting is difficult work, but it is also a positive, rewarding, faith-filled adventure. This resource will aide church planting wives at every twist and turn of the journey.
Seek First the Kingdom
In an age where we have so much pulling at our attention, to what do we give our lives? Where do we focus? What is our purpose?
In the book of Matthew, Jesus talked about the kingdom of God more than anything else, emphasizing its primacy in the lives of His disciples, and inviting us to life and joy with Him in this kingdom.
Join me for an 8 week in-depth exploration of the kingdom of God in the book of Matthew. We'll learn what the kingdom is, how we enter, what Jesus offers us within the kingdom, and how we find purpose and joy as His subjects.
Most of all, we'll learn about and grow in affection for our wonderfully benevolent King, Jesus Christ.
You Are Not Forgotten
Have you ever felt forgotten, disregarded, wounded, invisible, or invalidated by others? Do you ever experience the pain and anger of feeling unseen? Has this left you wondering if you’re truly worthy of being acknowledged, listened to, and loved?
Oftentimes, when we are in this place, we turn toward God with soul-wrenching questions: Where are you, God? Have you forgotten me? Are you paying attention to what is happening to me? Can I trust that you will act on my behalf?
If you’ve asked these questions, you are not alone. I've asked these questions too, and I've found that none of us are the first to feel overlooked or forgotten—and yet God has always been a “God Who Sees.” In fact, it was a woman named Hagar in the Bible, alone in her desperate wilderness, who first spoke this particular name for God. Her story along with others in Scripture reveal that God not only looks upon us when others disregard us, He looks after us.
If you feel disregarded or forgotten, take heart, for your God is One who always remembers His people and acts on behalf of them—and that includes you! He hears your cries, gently shepherds and heals your wounds of disregard, grants you refuge to ask questions, emboldens you with courage to forgive, calls you out of hiding for fear of disapproval, and even gives you eyes to see others in the compassionate way He sees you.
No matter who in this world may look right past you, know this: You are not forgotten. Your God is the God Who Sees, and He not only looks upon you but looks after you–always.
He is the God who sees….you.