Tag: life
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Peace in the Storm: When the World Feels Too Loud to Choose
There is a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing too much, but from holding too much inside. It lives in the chest, tight and unmoving, formed by thoughts that never quite find words and decisions that never feel safe enough to make. For many young adults today, the world does not feel short…
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Peace in the Storm: Afraid to Choose
By the time Mara turned twenty-three, she had become very good at disappearing without leaving. She showed up online every day. Her face appeared in group photos, her name lit up in story views, her phone chimed with notifications from people who assumed proximity meant connection. But when it came time to speak or to…
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Peace in the Storm: When Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Forgot
There are storms that roar in with wind and thunder, and then there are storms that arrive in silence—the kind that unravel you from the inside out long before you realize something is wrong. Trauma does that. It doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it whispers through numbness, fog, and dissociation—through a body that remembers pain even…
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Tea Time with Mandy: The Emerald Chandelier Tea Room
The Taste and See That the Lord Is Good Series. Part I There are moments when God invites us to slow down long enough to notice His goodness again. Stepping into The Emerald Chandelier Tea Room in Griffin, Georgia, felt like stepping into one of those moments. The morning sunlight filtered through floral draperies as…
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The Isolated Are Devoured
Why We Cannot Survive Without Family, Community, or the Body of Christ. There comes a moment in every life when the weight becomes too heavy, the silence too loud, and the loneliness too sharp to ignore. A moment when even the strongest among us feel the ground give way beneath our feet. It is in…
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🌾 The Grace of Ordinary Days: Finding Gratitude in the Weight and Wonder of Life’s Storms
This past year has taught me more about thankfulness than perhaps any other season of my life. Not the easy kind of gratitude — the one that flows naturally when everything’s going right — but the kind that aches in your chest and trembles through your prayers. The kind that whispers, “Thank You, God,” even…
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The Frozen Abyss: When Treachery Meets Truth
As we near the end of Dante’s Inferno, we arrive at the most chilling and terrifying place of all—the Ninth Circle of Hell, reserved for the treacherous. It is here, in the frozen lake of Cocytus, that Dante comes face to face with the very image of despair: Satan, bound and frozen in ice, flapping…
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Life or Death: The Choice That Defines You
Let’s be honest — the world’s loud right now. It screams at you from every direction: “Do what makes you happy.” “Live your truth.” “There is no right or wrong.” But what if I told you that “your truth” could be the very thing leading you to destruction? Sin doesn’t show up in chains —…
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The Great Waterfall of Blood and Fire
As we continue our journey through the realms of Hell, I want to briefly revisit the seventh circle before we plunge into what lies beyond—the horrifying depths of the eighth, the circle of fraud and deception. Both Dante Alighieri and my husband, Dexter, bore witness to this descent in their separate yet eerily parallel experiences.…
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Country Girls Can Survive
There’s a grit that runs deep in the veins of a country girl. It’s not just about boots on the ground, farm chores, or knowing how to wrangle life when it comes at you hard—it’s about love, loyalty, and devotion. Devotion to God, to family, and to this great nation we’re blessed to live in.…
Country Girl Gone City 