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![How to Love Your Enemy… [When Evil Strikes]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/80D7B089-0A6D-4727-A587-1B1EA131E7DA.png)
If God really does exist, then why do bad things happen? Putting aside the age old question, temporarily. Do you believe evil exists? I doubt anyone denies evil exists. I think enough evidence exists to prove otherwise. But surely, if evil exists, then goodness must exist, too. And if the battle of good and evil…
How do you love your enemy? Jesus loved in all sorts of challenging circumstances, but none more difficult than Mount Calvary. As he hung on the cross, Jesus’ prayed for his enemies [Luke 23:34]. When praying for our enemies, it becomes easier to love them. Praying for our enemy opens our hearts and allows us…
![How to Love The Unlovable… [in the wake of another tragedy]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/9916C315-6131-4A51-90E8-E3AA83992B54.png)
Every time I hear of another school shooting, I always return to the same, recurring thought. “Woe is the suffering/misery this person surely endured to have committed such an unfathomable act of horror.” Often you’ll read the words, “I hope the killer rots in hell.” But clearly they’ve already experienced hell. Hell on this earth….
This tattered, incomplete set of 1950’s commentaries may not look like much to you. But to me, they are proof of God’s love for me. As I prepared this week’s #TLCcommunity study, I thumbed back through some old notebooks. It was then I had the thought, I wish I had the Barclay commentaries that I…
![Shining God’s Love Through Art [in a Dark World]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/47C85D92-D517-4009-A1F9-6A5B4C6E7C59-scaled.jpeg)
I’m still processing much of our European trip. We experienced so much—in such a short amount of time. An image that has stuck with me, more than any other, is that of the immortalized young ballerina, Marie van Goethem. The idyllic, romanticized life of Degas’ La Petite Danseuse de 14 ans is far from the…
![Telling the Story of His Wondrous Love… [a Christmas memory]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/90647690-C713-4A56-B7C5-2540A3E49D4D.jpeg)
My [almost] oldest childhood friend gifted me this photo of us for my high school graduation. I believe it was taken shortly after moving to Hometown, OK from Dallas, TX. Late in the fall of ‘73 my little brother and I stayed with my grandparents while our new home was being readied for our arrival….
At the end of last year, I felt more joy-depleted than joyful. Life’s circumstances had me feeling battered and bruised. But the testing of my faith produced long-lasting evidence of fruit in my life–of which I’m eternally grateful! Perhaps you’ve been there yourself? Or perhaps, joyless is an accurate depiction of your current circumstances? If…
![Talk to Your Kids… [Active Shooter Alert: The Call No Parent Wants to Receive]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/0F8C2CC7-7265-4C67-B4FE-DE28DE7A004D.png)
One fall morning in 2015, I received a call no parent wants to receive… An active shooter was reported on my daughter’s campus. And not only was the shooter in her immediate vicinity, but he was headed towards the College of Business. As she took cover in a professor’s office along with her classmates, we…
Days later and I am still in recovery mode from our little excursion in south Texas… The heat way down south in San Antone was excruciating. We’re still scratching our heads, wondering if we had a good time!? 😂 Similar, the heat on the OK/TX border this summer has truly been unbearable. More than once…