"Searching for Sanity..." by Lindsey Bell

Instead of pulling her hair out or banging her head against a wall or running outside to scream like some mothers do, Lindsey Bell took the sanity approach. She reached for the scriptures and looked for a better way. Using parents from the Bible—the good, the bad, and the ugly—she gleaned from their actions and God’s preferred reactions to raising kids.

Lindsey Bell is a stay-at-home mother of two little boys, a minister’s wife, chocolate lover, and my friend. A couple of months ago, my sweet friend asked me to be a part of her debut book, “Searching for Sanity: 52 Insights from the Parents of the Bible.” I was thrilled to accept and honored to write an endorsement for her and the book.

Healing Balm of Gilead

[This is not what I intended to write today. It is, however, what God intended. I don’t know exactly where this is going but I must start from where it began.]

“Because my people are crushed,

I am crushed.
    I cry loudly and am afraid for them. 
Isn’t there balm in the land of Gilead?
    Isn’t there a doctor there? 
So why aren’t the hurts 

of my people healed?”

Jeremiah 8:21-22 nasb

Crushed and perplexed, but not destroyed

“We are pressed on every side by troubles,

but we are not crushed.

We are perplexed,

but not driven to despair.

We are hunted down,

 but never abandoned by God.

We get knocked down,

but we are not destroyed.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 nlt

The same day after writing and posting my last blog, something happened that shook my soul. I won’t share the details, but it certainly perplexed me.

Exposing myself…not because I seek your pity, but rather your prayers

“…We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ.”  

2 Corinthians 10:5b ncv

Creation; the act of turning chaos into order. When God called the universe into order, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…” “In the beginning God created…” and brought order. (Genesis 1)

Where chaos lives, life is out-of-order

Steadfast: firm, persistent, determined, disciplined

 

Happy & Blessed New Year!

Out with the old…in with the new!

Leave the past in the past and set your face toward the future…

2013 was not a star-studded year for me—physically, emotionally, or even spiritually—