On Good Friday I went to Catholic Mass. It was early April, the kind of day that is damp and heavy. No matter the year, on Good Friday I can’t help but think: Jesus is going to die today. The morning of mourning consistently makes that truth feel fresh once again — a gaping wound ripped wide open. Soon, love would gush down the side of a wooden ...
When we were stationed in Hawaii, I homeschooled for one very, very, very long year. Let's just say it wasn't a raving success because I let distractions interfere as much as my kids. This proved especially true with those subjects I didn't really like — namely, anything involving the left side of my brain. One thing said more than once by my ...
A few years ago, my family spent week after week sitting in waiting rooms and hoping for answers. Just a few hours before the light of Easter morning began to stretch across the sky, my phone lit up with one of the worst text messages of my life. Exactly two years prior, on the greatest In-Between day, I began writing Even If Not. At the time, I ...
He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17 (CSB) This is the promise for today: God holds it all together so I don't have to. It's normal to want to control something when everything seems to be out of our control. We try out schedules and rhythms, but with the constant changes that bombard us every ...
Just in time for Mother's Day, meet the newest (in)courage book — A Mother's Love: Celebrating Every Kind of Mom -- which is available TODAY! (in)courage writer and team member Anna Rendell compiled this book with all women in mind so that we can celebrate those who made us, shaped us, helped us grow, and loved us well -- whether they're our (or ...
I’ve been staring at a blank screen for hours. With tensions soaring and our immediate future unknown, there’s so much noise. With the push and pull of voices, statistics and graphs, declarations and dissension, I'm hesitant to be one more voice throwing words to the wind, yet our quarantine has evolved quite differently than most. When our ...
But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 (CSB) Every month of 2020, we will feature the Love Over All theme verse on the first Sunday of the month. We love everything about Love Over All (read more about it here) and can’t wait to share these amazing verses and ways to live them out ...
I wrote this post a while ago, in what I’ll call “the beginning.” The post was written back then for good reason: We have deadlines here at (in)courage. Our stories are carefully reviewed and edited, talented designers create those pretty graphics you see here every day, and someone has to handle all the technical things that make this website ...
My dear mom fell down the stairs recently and landed on a hard basement floor. She was in pain, but who wouldn’t be after falling down the stairs? Nothing was bleeding and she could move everything, so she thought she was okay. But when she went to use the door handle, she knew something was wrong. A trip to the urgent care showed that she had ...
The phone call comes. Hard news on the other end of the line. I listen and nod. By the time I hang up I feel a weight on my shoulders, like it all depends on me. I begin to worry. This is what I can do, isn’t it? I can carry this around like a dog with an old bone. I can gnaw and twist, bury it and dig it up again. Surely this will be helpful; ...
