Join the quest and Accept The Love Challenge!
I try to live by two mottos. 1️⃣ Assume the best of people. Even when proven wrong, be cautiously optimistic! All of us are fighting hard battles this side of heaven at one time or another. 2️⃣ Never withhold a compliment. No matter who the recipient may be!? The world has enough criticism and harsh-ness….
![How to LOVE the Unlovable… [and #AcceptTheLoveChallenge]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/image.png)
LOVING the unlovable is never easy, my friend!? But God calls us to do just that… We are called to love as God does with extraordinary grace and unfathomable love. The kind of immeasurable love Jesus displayed on the cross. And the kind of love God unfurled when He sent his son to die—for sinners…
![[How to Avoid] Being a Karen…](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/89CC6F18-1AC8-4F99-BAF6-279E2B531F63.jpeg)
We’ve all been there right!? At one time or another in our lives, we created [or contributed to] a nasty scene of sorts. Therefore, creating a messy testimonial of our love for a loving Savior. My inner Karen is most often irritated by the indignity or injustice of a situation. So much so, I have…
![Letting Go… [and Choosing Forgiveness]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/4D3767FE-F460-4E0E-9863-4C9FCE66CEEF.jpeg)
Fall is a season for letting go… Although it doesn’t feel very Fall-ish here in Hometown, OK with temps hovering around the nineties—I’m desperately searching for autumn-ness. Maybe it’s because the temperatures refuse to succumb. Or maybe it’s because we’re sliding into my mama’s favorite season and birthday month. But a heaviness hangs in the…
![Godly Mamas and Good Water… [one year later]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CAE93EFB-3332-4651-9FD9-F2F5993AFF1E-1024x1024-1.jpeg)
It was the Clifford women who gathered early that second morning to sing as we waited the arrival of others. Her favorite hymn was Rock of Ages. Mama knew (and sang) every word of each stanza. She likely played it on the piano thousands of times over her lifetime. “While I draw this fleeting breath,…
![How to Walk in LOVE in Hurt or Trauma… [learning to love those who’ve hurt us.]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/762FCE60-F649-4CCA-938D-0B959142E838-1021x1024-1.jpeg)
Acknowledge the Reality of Hurt. The reality is we live in a fallen, imperfect world full of messy, broken people and it’s only a matter of time before we are hurt by someone or we inflict pain on another. We are even told in God’s Word that we are to expect trouble in this world….
![How to LOVE others… [a #TLCjourney]](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/92966B60-6ED6-4E8B-A776-D439BDC53C5F-edited-scaled-1.jpeg)
The Love Challenge is a strategy for tackling the greatest challenge ever set before us—loving one another! If the world is our mission field as Christ followers, then the Love Challenge is our field guide; prompting us to be ‘so full’ of God’s love. But the world isn’t only a mission field, it is a…
![Am I Where I’m Supposed to Be…. [asking for a friend]!?](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/24A203FA-2220-4E9C-9BE6-29F9F3DF3553-scaled-1.jpeg)
I have long dreaded this first week back in January. Knowing this week is when our journey began, I worried. Would I feel saddened by the long, brutal journey of moving to Hometown, OK knowing mama would leave this earth just a few months later? Not to mention, now being marooned in a foreign land…
![The Secret [Lesson] of Life…](https://rachelwrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/9AEDC35A-CE9D-406D-8F27-A10D4B5DA466-scaled.jpeg)
Humility isn’t exactly a characteristic we value much less elevate nowadays… “Humility has a dank and shameful smell to the worldly, the scent of failure, lowliness and obscurity.”* But Jesus came into this world humble in birth and he died on the cross equally in stature. He set the finest example in humility for all…