Taking Jesus Seriously (& Not Much Else)
WriterCaroline.com - Taking Jesus seriously and not much else
If I was your mother, I’d warn you that people will tell you to be a “good girl” or a “good boy.” It’ll feel like a badge of honor, and you’ll want to hustle to earn it. But as a former good girl, I want to tell you the truth about that badge: It’s dangerous.
It makes you think goodness is something you can manufacture or hustle for. Something someone else can proclaim over you in approval: “Yay! You followed these rules! Good girl.”
Read More"But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.'" Isaiah 43:1
Names matter. My parents named me “Caroline,” and somehow that particular string of letters feels eternally linked to who I am, as if they line my DNA like biological alphabet soup. (It’s weird because they could have named me something else, like Karen or Bubbalicious or Raisin Bran, and I’m sure I’d feel just as connected to those series of letters if they had.) Praise the Lord, even though Dad actually loves Raisin Bran, my folks thought carefully and chose Caroline, just for me.
Read MoreWe moved into our house over a year ago, and from the very first day, I’ve been pondering how to fill the giant wall above our couch. It felt like a lot of pressure, this wall, so I ended up becoming completely paralyzed by indecision (very normal for me), and never filling it. But guys—this week, we finally hung something on that wall, and I am SO EXCITED!
Read MoreMy beautiful daughter Adelaide is my giggly, silly, twirly testimony. We prayed for her for so long. My desperate desire for a baby took me by surprise, and it soon morphed into a deep anger when every month revealed my lack of control. The medicine didn’t work, but one day I discovered I was pregnant anyway. I called the nurse from my driveway, and I stood there in disbelief and cried. What a gift! I was beside myself with gratitude, but pregnancy was hard, and I was afraid. My love for this person I’d never met shocked me and sometimes oppressed me. I wanted to get this right.
Read MoreGoing out to eat is one of my favorite things in the world. However, I have two toddlers, and this makes things tricky. Truthfully, I think we’ve trained them pretty well: we repeat our simple “restaurant rule” in the car (“bottom in seat!”), I have a bag of plastic animals in my bag that they’re only allowed to play with at a restaurant, and we keep trying and practicing, which is key. They do about as good of a job as two toddlers can do, but also? They are, undeniably, tiny sinners.
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