Join the quest and Accept The Love Challenge!
![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…
The holiday season is a time when we think about giving… Especially, nowadays, with #GivingTuesday! But how much should we give… The woman with the oil gave all she had!? ************************* Five years ago, I issued the very first Love Challenge to myself… It was at the height of the Ice Bucket Challenge. I remember…
This past summer as I was leaving church one Sunday morning, out of nowhere, I had the thought “I wonder if Mr. Rogers knew what he was doing when he wrote the song “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” My suspicion told me the answer was a resounding, yes! So, when I began investigating, a few…
Through the ages, so much thought and emphasis has been placed on answering the question “Does God really exist?” And “Is Heaven real?” But seldom have we asked “Where does evil come from?” Most of the time, we barely acknowledge that evil even exists in this world. And when we do, we attribute its identity…