I had only been working as a physician assistant for a year or two. There were several medical assistants at the practice, but for some reason, one of them was consistently rude to me. When I asked her to do anything for my patients (like draw blood or run a strept screen), she would roll her eyes or huff and then take her own sweet time to get it done. She did not treat the other employees like this, so clearly her issue was with me, but I had no idea why she disliked me. Since this girl was only a couple of years younger than me, I thought that if I reached out in friendship, maybe she would soften towards me . . . so I invited her over to my house to hang out with me and my roommate. The look on her face clearly communicated she was not . . .

I used to think witches, demons, and magic spells were just fantasy, something made up for entertainment . . . but by the time I was in Middle School, I knew otherwise. My dad was a Baptist pastor, and even he did not grasp the reality of demonic oppression until tormented people started coming to him for help. Some of these individuals had even been victims of satanic ritual abuse, the worst kind of evil you can imagine. This certainly was not something he learned about in seminary, but my dad was determined to help these people find freedom . . . so he went searching for understanding. Because there were few pastors who knew how to navigate such situations, my dad became the local expert in deliverance ministry, and this ended up becoming a large part of my dad’s passion and calling. This is why I learned about Halloween at a young age. I learned that it is the highest “holy” night for Wiccans and Satanists, a time for ritual sacrifices and ceremonies, and for the worship and invocation of evil. But we did not just read about these things in a book, we learned about them from people who had lived through the unfathomable atrocities that occur on this day. This insight forever changed my view of Halloween, and I could no longer . . .

Over the past decade, I have watched several of my Christian friends walk away from their faith. And these were no laissez-fair Christians either – they were passionate Jesus lovers who ran after God and seized every opportunity to share His love with others. But now, some of these same friends deny the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and have embraced a form of religious pluralism instead (the belief that there are many ways to God and we will all end up in heaven). So what happened - how did they get derailed? And what can we do to . . .

It was one of those days. You know, the ones you never want to repeat again . . . or have anyone remind you of what went down. Connor was three, and he had discovered the fun of stuffing lots of toilet paper in the commode before flushing. He yells for me that the toilet is overflowing and I dash upstairs to assess the damage, only to find he had stuffed the toilet full with paper after . . .

Last year, I had the odd idea that I should give up wearing make-up for Lent.  But Lent was starting in just a few days, and the thought of not wearing make-up to certain places felt daunting . . . so I put the idea on hold.  I try to say “yes” to all of the Lord’s promptings, but He knew I needed more time to process this idea.  This was one of those thoughts God planted for me to ponder . . . until I felt His grace to move forward. So I told my Abba I was listening and gave Him my “yes” for the following year.  And now here I am a year later . . .