The Ragpicker King by Cassandra Clare
I got sucked into Cassandra Clares’ new world of Castellane!
Lessons from Sunday Sermons - August 4, 2025
I have been struggling with my health, mentally and physically, for years now. In the midst of those struggles, I’ve created some bad habits, and I’ve allowed sins I abandoned years ago to creep back into my life.
When these struggles happen, I often isolate myself from God. I tell myself I am not worthy to approach Him. I am convinced He will not hear me or answer me. Though there is a reality that my unconfessed sin causes a rift in my relationship with God, but that distance is meant to draw me closer to Him.
Habakkuk found himself in a similar situation, except it was the entire nation of Israel that had sinned.
Lessons from Sunday Sermons - July 9, 2025
’ve always been hard on myself, probably because as a child, I was repeatedly made to feel as if I wasn’t good enough. Every victory came with a, “Good job, but how much better would it have been if you’d worked a little harder.” Every failure came with a disappointed look and an I-told-you-so statement.
God doesn’t work that way. He knows exactly how He created us, and He loves us more than we can ever hope to understand.
That’s the whole message of the Cross. To do for us what we COULDN’T do for ourselves, and to bring us into a relationship with the Father we AREN’T worthy of on our own.
The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma
This book gave me similar vibes to Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Not One Day Too Soon
Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming. - Alice Walker
Overnight successes usually aren’t. There are months and years of work that often go unnoticed and unrecognized. In today’s world with 24 hour news, instant updates via every social media outlet imaginable, fast food, pizza delivery, and cellphones there seems little reason to wait for anything.
Tearing Down Idols
For 20 years, from the time I came to stand on the solid stone Foundation called Christ, I built the structure of my Christian life using someone else’s plans, materials, and methods. I built a life and set the rhythm for my faith by relying on other people’s vision for my life. I trusted them to know what God wanted for me because they had known the Lord longer, and they were in a position of authority over me.
After committing my life to Him, I was desperate to know Jesus, and in my desire to know Him, I blindly followed another human who seemed to know so much more about God and what it meant to be His follower than I did. I allowed this human to define what my walk with Him should look like. I ended up confused, depressed, anxious, and oppressed.
Thankfully, my God is a jealous God, and He will not allow anyone else to sit on the throne of my life. And so, He moved me out from under that person’s authority and tore down every structure that was not built by Him in my life. Every piece of framework I had put up to support and shape the structure and rhythm of my faith was left lying in rubble around me.
Forging Silver Into Stars By Brigid Kemmerer
Forging Silver Into Stars officially busted my reading slump!
Beautiful Beginnings
I’ve heard a quote that says something like, “If you want God to laugh, tell Him your plans.”
I don’t know about you, but thinking the God I’ve entrusted my life to laughs at my ideas feels more than a bit condescending. And that’s not the kind of god I would ever want to trust.
Rather, I think He is more likely to say, “I know the plans I have for you. Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11