エピソード
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This morning, wide awake way too early, I pondered how there’s nothing else I’d rather have running through my head when I can’t sleep than the weighty glory of God Himself.
Unless I proactively tell my thoughts where to dwell, they wander willful and easily distracted. I lean into lies that incite fear or unworth rather than lean on the One who knows every tender hope and unspoken prayer.
Maybe that’s you too.
And you’re ready to change the string of what-if’s and self-belittling on repeat inside your head. Ready to root deep in what you need to believe:
That God’s good in the middle of the story.
Capable even when it appears all’s gone awry.
Worthy of praise long before He brings redemption.
So I want to tuck a few ideas in your hand for holding onto truth–tried and true ones that I personally use. They all hinge on repetition, which I find to be the gentlest, most effective way to adjust trajectory.
Links mentioned:
1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
3. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge, searching for names of God as I read like it’s some sort of treasure hunt. Never though to look for God in this way until I began journaling through Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer.
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These are the days of appointments and answers I don’t like. Of whispering hope in a waiting room to one anxious heart.
Links mentioned:
1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
3. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge, searching for names of God as I read like it’s some sort of treasure hunt. Never though to look for God in this way until I began journaling through Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer.
4. I’m also reading an early copy of Ann Voskamp’s newest book, Loved to Life. And maybe it’s the best of her work, if that’s even possible since every one of her books has deeply changed me.
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エピソードを見逃しましたか？
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It’s a hopeful whisper: soul-sister friendship.
Isn’t that what we long beneath the obligatory “I’m good! How are you?” and mustered-up smiles and silent sighs?
We want something more than surfacy talk about movies and weather, car lines and school projects. More than flighty friendship that unravels over bent feelings and assumptions.
Perhaps your heart-felt prayer is not for more friends but deeper friendship.
The kind that welcomes your crying face into the chaos of the kitchen and hugs you with flour-dusted hands.
The kind that pauses and makes space, knows before you say anything, loves fiercely when it’s inconvenient, remains loyal when it’s costly.
The kind we find between two would-be rivals–a prince and God-chosen king, Jonathan and David–in the book of 1 Samuel.
Links mentioned:
1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
3. “Ten Things You Might Be Doing That Keep Your Relationships Shallow" (FREE download).
4. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading challenge (and you can too!). Sign up HERE.
5. Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer journal is the one I’m using, and her questions gives space to record who God is, where we are in relation to God, and more. I find it dovetails beautifully with Mary’s challenge.
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How would you talk with God if you knew He was walking around in your house?
I recently read a mandate God had spoken to the Israelites through Moses: “Treat your camp as a sacred place because the Eternal your God will be walking around in it” (Deut. 23:14, The Voice).
And I wonder, what would it change if we knew how paper-thin is the distance between God and us? If we knew He was right here when we’re worn from wonted rhythms? When loss hits and questions rise? When we have to make wretched-hard decisions in this busted-up world?
Links mentioned:
1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
3. Watch/listen to Steffany Gretzinger - This Close [with Chandler Moore] (Official Lyric Video)
4. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading challenge (and you can too!). Sign up HERE.
5. Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer journal is the one I’m using, and her questions gives space to record who God is, where we are in relation to God, and more. I find it dovetails beautifully with Mary’s challenge.
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I’m writing by candlelight while walking but I can’t stop. Here, another name. There, two more. I’m chasing the God I’m finding as I read.
Links mentioned:
1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
3. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading challenge (and you can too!). Sign up HERE.
4. Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer journal is the one I’m using, and her questions gives space to record who God is, where we are in relation to God, and more. I find it dovetails beautifully with Mary’s challenge.
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You know that dismantling way a verse in Scripture can seem like it’s just for you? How you feel seen through in an instant by the kind gaze of Jesus?
That was me on day three of a 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge—overcome by “the God who answers me whenever I am in distress and who is with me wherever I go” (Gen. 35:3, The Voice).
Links mentioned:
1. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
2. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
3. Psalm 63 by Justin Rizzo. Watch on YouTube HERE.
4. Get the Song I Play on Repeat playlist from the resource library HERE.
5. I’m taking Mary Demuth’s 90-Day Bible Reading challenge (and you can too!). Sign up HERE.
6. Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer journal is the one I’m using, and her questions gives space to record who God is, where we are in relation to God, and more. I find it dovetails beautifully with Mary’s challenge.
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Maybe New Year’s Eve feels like a celebration of endings. We get to bury what didn’t do well or go right and start over. Plant fresh seeds and forget the ones that never grew.
I get it. It’s wearying caring for seeds that haven’t sprouted yet. And your heart just needs a break, your lungs a moment to breathe.
But here, on the cusp of all a fresh new year has to offer, I want to share what I’m clinging to for my own unsprouted seeds.
Links mentioned:
1. Get 200 Word of the Year ideas PLUS monthly reflection sheets to amplify your growth HERE.
2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
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In the midst of tinsel and torn paper tomorrow, may we remember the greatest gift ever wrapped is a baby in swaddling clothes. May our hearts thump with the excitement of a child when we behold Him, fully God even as a babe.
Links mentioned:
1. Get 200 Word of the Year ideas PLUS monthly reflection sheets to amplify your growth HERE.
2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
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Sometimes you go looking for a word of the year, and sometimes it finds you–like a cat who adopts you first or a word nestled into Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer journal that stills your heart. And you know, without scouring word lists or weighing options or praying long for clarity, that the Hebrew word korban is your one word for 2025.
Links mentioned:
1. Get 200 Word of the Year ideas PLUS monthly reflection sheets to amplify your growth HERE.
2. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
3. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
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Sometimes you go looking for a word of the year, and sometimes it finds you–like a cat who adopts you first or a word nestled into Ann Voskamp’s Sacred Prayer journal that stills your heart. And you know, without scouring word lists or weighing options or praying long for clarity, that the Hebrew word korban is your one word for 2025.
Links mentioned:
1. Mary Demuth’s 90-day Bible reading challenge.
2. The five songs I played most in 2024:
Savior Worthy of It All At The Altar I Breathe You In God What A Miracle3. Get the Songs I Play on Repeat Playlist from my resource library.
4. Subscribe to Tuesdays with Twyla.
5. Get 200 Word of the Year ideas PLUS monthly reflection sheets to amplify your growth HERE.
6. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
7. Read the written version of this episode HERE.
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How’s this for a trade? Your never-named aloud fears, your residual shame, your tucked-deep message of unworth, the lists you haven’t completed, the names you’ve called yourself inside your head, the band-aids over old scars–for the deepest inhale of grace that makes you feel light and lovely from your nose to your toes.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
Maybe you’re just not feeling it this year, but you’re wearing the smile anyways. You wish it could feel authentic.
I see you holding so much extra. Extra and also less, for there’s loss and disappointment and deeply-set worry scrunching lines in your brow. It’s a lot under the weight of amplified expectations and hold-your-breath prayers and silent wishes that everyone could at least pretend to be happy.
Joy seems like a novel idea. If only it could be produced with decor and Thanksgiving fixings. If only it didn’t feel fair-weathered and immensely fragile.
Links mentioned:
It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
I’m better at learning things fast—as if beginner to expert overnight is a goal worth pursuing. But the things that take grueling-slow learning and moment-by-moment surrender, those are the harder lessons to learn. The ones most worth learning.
Links mentioned:
It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
We give self-talk its own category and unreined license to belittle and badger. Under labels like inner critic, perfectionism, and people-pleasing, these self-directed lies appear safe.
But maybe we’ve normalized lying to ourselves about who we are and what we’re worth. Perhaps we’ve underestimated the impact of repeating self-condemnation and sharp comparisons, of setting inhuman standards of perfection, of marking our success (or lack of) with effort and efficiency rather than character and surrender.
And we feel scarceness, smallness, purposelessness, and discontentment in place of actual happiness.
Links mentioned:
It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
Set out to reflect Jesus like a mirror and you come face-to-face with your list of what you lack. Your squabbles and squeamish fears, your flat-out insecurity and sneaky pride. The features you’d change. The less-thans and not-likes and labels confirming your unworth.
Links mentioned:
It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts HERE and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
I find what works on a mountain also applies to our relationships with our Enneagram opposites and how we approach an election.
Links mentioned:
Discover your Enneagram number and how it helps you love your neighbors well HERE. To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
David finds himself in a spot many of us do today, sandwiched between the ugly and awful repercussions of a severed relationship with God and the invitation to find oasis in the here-and-now as we wait for full glory.
Links mentioned:
Check out Begin Within: A Gratitude Series. Get the weekly story in your inbox to cultivate year-round, ripple-effect gratitude! Take the #ReflectJesus gratitude challenge! To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here. Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
With-ness. Could there be a word that sits closer to the tender heart of God? It strikes me while praying for North Carolina, Chaing Mai, and Florida how God’s promise to join us as we gather in His name (Matthew 18:20) reveals His desire 1) to be with us and 2) for us to be together.
Links mentioned:
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE.
Samaritan’s Purse (choose hurricane relief, any other specific need, or simply where it’s most needed).
Health and Hunger Coalition (located in Boone, NC and providing hard-to-reach neighbors with food).
Within Reach Global (bringing compassion and the gospel to Chaing Mai, Thailand). -
A reflection is a mirror image. It captures the slightest tilt of the head, a shift in posture, merriment in the eye, or sorrow squeezing eyebrows together. It’s not static, but fluid, transcribing in real-time every stray hair and sigh, every question etched in a facial expression. The fullness of emotion, the details of dress, the way we slump or stand tall–a mirror will tell it truthful.
If we’re to mirror Jesus back to a hurting world, we’ve got to fall in sync with His breath, His heartbeat, His tears and tender expressions. We’ve got to memorize the features of His face, the veins in His nail-scarred hands, and the inflections of His voice.
Links mentioned:
I can’t say enough good things about Jennifer Dukes Lee’s guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God.
Read more on Matthew 5:7 HERE.
Check out my dear friend Jennifer Sakata’s newly released podcast, Living the Grace Life.
To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. -
What if I were a bit more like her? Noticed details and demeanor, presence and absence? Gave others a glimpse of how we each matter to God?
Links mentioned:
Discover your Enneagram number, what we love about you, how your Enneagram strengths help you love your neighbors well, and how to best love your neighbors with different numbers HERE!
Around the Clock Mom by Sarah Butterfield.To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up here.
Read the written version of this episode HERE. - もっと表示する
