Not many worship services stick out in my mind, but I remember one from my freshman year of college. My church had been reading through the Bible in a year, with the pastor preaching each Sunday on a passage from that week’s reading and telling the story of redemptive history throughout the year. I remember… Continue reading A Prayer for Advent
It’s the word no one wants to hear: cancer. We were three months pregnant with our baby girl. My husband had just been offered his dream job. My mom had just celebrated her fiftieth birthday. And then the call came from my mom. After the call ended, as the tears started to fill my eyes,… Continue reading A Prayer to the God Greater than Google
Sometimes prayer is hard. It seems like it shouldn’t be. The Lord’s Prayer appears so simple. Yet time and time again I find myself lost in prayer. What should I pray for? How do I pray? What are the “magic” words to make it work? And maybe it would be easier if the outcomes of… Continue reading Prayer in the Mundane
These past couple of months, my prayer life has been like a drought, cracked and lacking a drop of joy. I have been like Hannah praying for a son at the temple: “Hannah was very troubled. She prayed to the Lord and cried with sorrow” (1 Samuel 1:10). My grievances centered around a lack of… Continue reading Prayer that Changes You
To be honest, I’ve never followed a presidential campaign closely before. Four years ago, when I had my first opportunity to cast a vote for president, I just followed my parents' voting pattern. When it rolled around this time, I was actually excited to watch the candidates, research their positions, and make a difference with… Continue reading A Prayer for Presidential Candidates
Hi, my name is Bethany, and I am a recovering perfectionist.I love when everything in my life works out perfectly as I intended. I love it when my house, my marriage, my work, my social life, everything is perfect order because it’s safe. It’s easy.
This past week, I turned in my last school assignment and ended my graduate assistantship. In two days, I will graduate with my master’s degree, and two days after that I will start my first job. If you missed it, that’s a lot of change. And it’s not that I don’t like change; I love trying new things and gaining different experiences. What I hate is all the unknown. What will my new coworkers be like? Will I be good at my new job? Will I survive the 40-hour work schedule?
The Importance of Spiritual Memorials in Your Life I remember when my grandmother taught me how to prayer journal. It was nothing fancy or complicated, but through her spiritual discipline, she taught me the importance of recording the requests I plead before God. She has notebooks upon notebooks filled with intercessions on behalf of herself… Continue reading Why Keep a Prayer Journal?
Every month or so I’ll read another blog post that gives wives a list of ways she can pray for her husband. Many of these are very good resources, and I eagerly begin to add them to my prayer journal. But I recently realized that, though I had good intentions, my heart was not always… Continue reading How not to pray for your husband
My mornings are predictable. I roll out of bed, grab a cup of coffee, and wait for my brain to wake up as I scroll through my iPhone. After perusing social media, I open the Associated Press news app. I like to know what’s going on in the world, and the AP app gives you a quick glimpse of the news, both good and bad.
But I recently realized I was letting this app ruin my mornings. As I scrolled though headlines about natural disasters, child abuse, racism, terrorism, murder, etc., I would get depressed and even fearful that one day the dateline might read my hometown and that I would be the victim in one of these horrendous stories. The news terrified me because the evil in the world seemed to be running rampant, and there was no way I could ensure that such tragedies wouldn’t affect me or my family.
Bethany Broderick 