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![The Best Kind of Friend… [and God’s Purpose in Suffering.]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/A4A34026-4B78-4E7D-BD8C-9D74E63CC826.png)
The best kind of friend is a praying friend. It’s no secret 2024 has been a hard year for the Rains’ household. Little by little, I’ve pulled back the curtains in this season of life and let friends in… I might’ve overshared a time or two. But the reality is when we share our “stuff,”…
![10 Years Ago…. [Looking Back and Pressing Onward]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/01D74DE5-F8AB-433A-B8A4-C030317343A1.jpeg)
10 years ago this summer, two incredible things happened… A New Calling… “See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19 10 years ago this summer, at the height of the Ice Bucket…
![Why Should I Choose a Word of the Year… [in 2024]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/47107FF7-42B3-4A6E-9818-FDBB276C8A28.png)
“The seeds of death are at work in us, but LOVE is stronger than death. Your death and mine are our final passage, our exodus to the full realization of our identity as God’s beloved children and to full communion with the God of Love. Jesus walked the path ahead of us to choose the…
![How to Have Joy [and Be Joyful] in a Not-So-Perfect World.](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/05A5D243-B06B-4D77-A18E-69ECE0C54FC3.jpeg)
Joyful people see with open eyes the hard reality of human existence and at the same time are not imprisoned by it.” – Henri Nouwen Radiating hope ✨ and Shining God’s love in a weary, not-so-perfect world is what the manger message is all about, friends. God’s love for us does not change like the…
![The PERFECT Christmas… [and the meaning of advent]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/E6357934-CD53-4B38-96B9-3BE6321696E1.png)
Christmas is a busy time for everyone. But it also can be a stressor for many. Even if you absolutely LOVE the holiday—travel, finances, time constraints, challenging people, and difficult circumstances can overwhelm the merriest Christmas diehard. Wherever you fall on the Christmas holiday scale, the best gift you can give yourself and others this…
![Surrendering Your Dreams… [and the Dream-Maker].](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/7F552247-2DE2-4B5A-9DDB-26ED39C15E9E.png)
Right now I’m livin’ the DREAM I dared to pray for… Does it look exactly like I thought? Uh, no. Does that make it easy? An emphatic, no. But does it ever!? So, humbly I must SURRENDER this new season of unrealized dreams-—to the Maker of my dreams, again and again. The Great Adventure In…
![Why Your [Broken] Story Matters…](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/D5A9670F-6671-44C7-81C1-1D9AE57875AF.jpeg)
Last month as we chased the Blue Moon, as oft we do, I was experiencing increasingly infuriating health issues which eventually led to the canceling of hubby’s birthday celebrations over the holiday weekend. It was a hard blow—for both of us. And for different reasons. But out of the ashes, a tide of healing burst…
![Wearing God’s Love… [a not-so-easy how-to]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/634E1C98-1F00-4722-9401-3D2CBAD514BE.png)
Wearing Love LOVE will be the most important thing we wear as believers and Christ followers. And the nature of that love will be visible to a watching world through acts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. This is why Paul stated in his letter to the church at Colossae we are to “put…
![How to BE LOVE in a [Not-So-Perfect] Barbie World…](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/656F884D-5B0F-4ABF-B8EF-C7DDFB78B681.png)
I snapped this photo of a wayward, perfectly pink Barbie shoe as I walked into my Bible study in Nashville—four summers ago. And I’ve kept it on my phone, all this time?! What can I say, it spoke to me. I guess because I’m still a Barbie girl at heart. As a young girl, Barbie…