163 results for tag: Ashlee

Choose Hope: Testimony

It had been three years since my first loss. Three years since National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day first felt significant to me. This year, October 15 caught me by surprise. With all of the changes brought about by a recent move and an ever shifting season of life, it had completely escaped my radar. When I realized what day it was, I ran out to grab balloons and helium so that we could do a small balloon release as a family after our kids got home from school. Most of our belongings were in storage as our family was attending a four month training residency at the time, so the items that we would typically get out as we remembered our ...

Bear Much Fruit: Patience

“May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might,for all endurance and patience with joy.” -Colossians 1:11 Strength and patience walk hand in hand. This is why Paul prayed for the church in Collosae to be strengthened with all power in order to be patient. Patience requires great inner strength. Take a minute to read through this definition of patience: “The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset—calmly enduring pain and trying situations.” I don’t know about you, but there are days (which occur more often than I’d like to admit) when this level of ...

Book Review: Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Throughout many years of pastoral ministry, Timothy Keller and his wife Kathy, walked alongside countless individuals in the midst of suffering, and faced great suffering of their own. Through these experiences they came to realize that “the heart of why people disbelieve and believe in God, of why people decline and grown in character, of how God becomes less real and more real to us — is suffering.” (6)  Suffering is inevitable. No amount of planning and preparation can completely guard you from facing suffering in this life. In John 16:33 Jesus says, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. We ...

Abide in Christ

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.” -John 15:16 God created you to bear fruit. But what does it mean to be fruitful? What is the fruit that you are called to bear?  Dear one, you bear fruit when you allow God to nurture Christ-likeness in you. We are God’s fruit-bearers when we choose to live for Him and grow to be more like Him. As the Spirit of God is working in our lives, He is producing fruitfulness in us.  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things ...

Yet I Will Praise You: The Life of Daniel

History bears witness to the many men and women who have gone before us in choosing to praise God in spite of the great suffering they endured. We can learn much from their testimonies of faithfulness and perseverance in the midst of grief and pain. In this series, we share about the trials others have endured, and of their commitment to praise God from the valley. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had besieged Jerusalem and taken captive Israel’s most skilled, accomplished, and brilliant inhabitants—youth of the royal and noble families—to be taught to serve within his courts. Among those deported to Babylon was a young man ...

Yet I Will Praise You: The Life of Moses

History bears witness to the many men and women who have gone before us in choosing to praise God in spite of the great suffering they endured. We can learn much from their testimonies of faithfulness and perseverance in the midst of grief and pain. In this series, we share about the trials others have endured, and of their commitment to praise God from the valley. Moses’ life was in danger from the moment he was born. The people of Israel had been living as slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years, and Pharaoh had ordered that every newborn Hebrew boy be put to death. However, instead of obeying Pharaoh’s edict, Moses’ mother ...

Anticipating Our Eternity

As we’ve spent the past few days growing our understanding of eternity and what our life will be like there, I imagine that for many of you it has served as a reminder of how temporal this life on earth really is. And the more we understand just how harsh and painful the effects of sin are in this world, the more a longing for our true, heavenly home arises in our hearts.  These glimpses of what heaven is like awaken us to all that God has in store for those who place their trust in Him.  Through His Word and His Spirit, God gives us a small taste of what is ahead so that our hearts will never be able to settle for anything less than what ...

Yet I Will Praise You: A Psalm of Asaph

History bears witness to the many men and women who have gone before us in choosing to praise God in spite of the great suffering they endured. We can learn much from their testimonies of faithfulness and perseverance in the midst of grief and pain. In this series, we share about the trials others have endured, and of their commitment to praise God from the valley. “I cry aloud to God,aloud to God, and He will hear me.In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;my soul refuses to be comforted.When I remember God, I moan;when I meditate, my spirit faints.You hold my eyelids open;I ...

Yet I Will Praise You: The Life of Abraham

History bears witness to the many men and women who have gone before us in choosing to praise God in spite of the great suffering they endured. We can learn much from their testimonies of faithfulness and perseverance in the midst of grief and pain. In this series, we share about the trials others have endured, and of their commitment to praise God from the valley. “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac ...

Yet I Will Praise You: The Life of Peter

History bears witness to the many men and women who have gone before us in choosing to praise God in spite of the great suffering they endured. We can learn much from their testimonies of faithfulness and perseverance in the midst of grief and pain. In this series, we share about the trials others have endured, and of their commitment to praise God from the valley. One of the most difficult aspects of losing a child for me has been watching so many of those dear to me experience the same sorrow. Now that I am familiar with the devastating ache of having to say goodbye to two of my children on this side of eternity, those wounds seem ...