scentofheavensblog

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A man's withered hand is healed and we learn what it looks like to exchange religious rule-keeping for Christ.

[scentofheavensblog]

Choosing Stillness First

What would happen if we chose stillness first in 2025 before rushing to set our goals and agendas?

With its hopes and promises, the new year stretches out before us. This sparkling collection of a fresh 365 days offers us an acceptable and celebrated place for our ambition. A chance to fulfill all the misplaced and forgotten goals from last year. A veritable do-over. And maybe that is precisely what we need. To crank up our gumption. To make new goals. To jump back on the wagon we fell off—a…

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Celebrate the Season: I'll Be Home Christmas Anthology is Here!

I'm so excited to announce that the Fab Four Christmas anthology, I'll Be Home, released this week!

This week, something rather special occurred—the release of the Fab Four Christmas anthology, I’ll Be Home, a compilation of four novellas of faith, hope, love… and trains. This collection is the birth of an idea, tossed out last spring during one of our road trips, now released into the world. It is a combined work of creativity, comradery, and companionship, and a physical reminder that we…

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Embracing Life's Seasons

It isn't easy to traverse the different seasons of our lives, is it? But here is a bit of encouragement as you face this current one. xo

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” ~ Eccleciates 3:1 Summer yawned into Fall this year, hesitant to depart and lazily lounging over the shortening sunshiney days. It warmly greeted me for coffee on the porch and lingered in the cricket-chorused evenings. Even now, as I peer out my window while writing this, I question its impending departure. The…

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I Should Sit on Benches More Often

Have you noticed that often, the extraordinary is tucked between the ordinary and mundane? A bee pocketing pollen as it flits from flower to flower. A child’s laughter amid the strain of a long day of bewildered parenting. The sun that creates never-two-the-same sunsets. This phenomenon was punctuated a few weeks ago when I attended the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference in North…

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Nurturing Growth & Beauty: Lessons from the Garden

I'm always amazed at the parallels gardening has to our lives—such things as necessary weeding and pruning for things to grow.

This spring, my husband, daughter, and I, spent hours installing mulch in our garden beds. We worked in the blazing heat, my husband pushing wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of mulch to various locations around our property while my daughter and I spread it over the dirt and around the plants. To do this job properly, the garden beds must first be weeded otherwise you’re simply covering over the…

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5 Things to Let Go of This Year

If you’re like me, you’ve already made your goals and chosen your word of the year. But here’s a thought. What would happen if we let go of a few things and lightened our load instead of adding to our burden? I know it sounds counter-intuitive, and how could I bring up such a thing at a time like this when we are busy breaking down how we’ll execute our plans? But what if our best-made plans,…

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Some encouragement to moms from a mom of four and a grandmom of two.

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The Messiness of Motherhood

"You're doing better than you think." Some encouragement to moms navigating the parenting journey from a mom of four and grandmom of two.

Moms, you’re doing so much better than you think. No one, except maybe you, expected you to be perfect. The truth is, motherhood is messy. Very little of it is tidy. Not the birth, the innumerable diapers, or the soaked-through nursing pads. Not the scattered toys, countless crumbs, or the endless piles of laundry. Not the tears—oh the tears!—the meltdowns, or the sibling squabbles. Nope,…

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Keep Creating. Don't Stop Doing Your Brave Thing.

Need some encouragement to keep creating? I did too...