Every one of us, no matter our circumstance, was created in God’s image and should be treated with the honor and respect that is due to God’s image-bearer. Understanding that we are thoughtfully designed in God’s divine image should lay the foundation for how we perceive ourselves.
Read MoreHealing is an ongoing journey that takes us from injury to recovery. It moves us from turmoil to peace, and from negativity to joy. Along any journey, we will find guideposts to help direct us. This Weekly Word outlines 12 steps that serve as guideposts along our journey to healing through hospitality.
Read MoreGift giving is an act of love. A thoughtful expression that makes people feel cared for, encouraged, and seen. And while the act of gift giving is primarily intended to bring happiness to the recipients, witnessing a gift that we’ve given being appreciated often feels just as gratifying to us as the giver.
Read MoreFaith lays the foundation for hope. Hope is a belief based in our desire for something to get better. Faith, which is more spiritual conviction than mental attitude, is a belief that there already is something better. The Bible describes faith as, “the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is the thing that backs our hope, as it gives us something to trust and believe in.
Read MoreGenuine empathy requires self-awareness. The ability to sense other people’s emotions and to imagine what someone else might be going through is built, in part, upon our ability to identify and connect with our own emotions first.
Read MoreThe word discipline doesn’t always move us in the way that words like affirmation or self-care might. For many, discipline conjures childhood memories of authority, punishment, and control. Even the lauded self-discipline evokes thoughts of 5:00 AM wake up calls, regimented meal prep, and planners waiting to be filled. Yet and still, this ever-elusive key ingredient to success is something that we desire.
Read MoreWe are seeking something deeper and more purposeful. Mindfulness practices, online cycling communities, Bible studies, book clubs, and monthly meetups seek to address our human yearning for the same things – community and spiritual connection. We long for a sense of belonging, a sense of belief, and a sense of benevolence.
Read MoreThere is no healing without boundaries. Boundaries help us to set limits around our participation in relationships and activities, they protect our time and energy, and they promote peace in our lives. A critical boundary that I have set in recent years, is the one around my relationship with God. Creating this boundary provides the space and time for me to meet with my Creator daily.
Read MoreSometimes we use the term “seeking closure” as a pseudonym for what it is that we really want – one more conversation, getting the last word, regaining control or having our say. When in reality, closure isn't something that we get through someone else. Like so many things, it's an inside job. At its core, finding closure comes from an acceptance of what has happened.
Read MoreMy friend, Eunique Jones Gibson, joined us on Season 2 of Love, Maaden: The Podcast and said this, “At the end of the day, I just want to make God smile.” Isn’t that something? To know that we have the ability to make God — the Creator of all things — smile.
Read MoreMore and more, I have seen the Thanksgiving holiday get squeezed out by stores and on social media for more marketable spending opportunities like Halloween and Christmas with all their decorations, costumes, candy, and gifts to buy.
We all noticed as "Black Friday" started creeping back earlier and earlier into Black Thursday-after-dinner, and stores started decking the halls on November 1st.
For a while, it didn't bother me.
Read MoreHappy fall, y’all! I pray that you had a sweet summer, that you were able to make the best of the season, and that you took the time to rest and reset. I am beyond grateful for long summer days spent digging my toes into the sand, toasting frosé with friends, eating dinner on my parents’ deck, and watching my big girl learn to pedal on her tricycle.
Read MoreWe spent the last week of The Hope Series focused on “waiting well.” The idea of “waiting well” has been such an important concept in my own journey, that I am dedicating this note to describing just what that has looked like for me.
To help it stick, I have organized it into four A’s.
Read MoreAfter an intensely difficult season of losing four pregnancies back to back, and one more since her birth, my daughter is the very real manifestation of hope in my life. She is hope realized.
I would venture to guess that you have also hoped for — or are hoping for — something in your own life. Aren’t we all asking God for something? We’re hoping for healing, relief, answers, freedom, forgiveness, and love.
Read MoreToday is my 38th birthday.
Two years ago, I celebrated my 36th as a brand new mom. After 4 years, and 4 miscarriages, the answer to our prayers was home in my arms. Sore, achy, and leaky I sat at our big wooden table with a handful of my closest friends, determined to celebrate both my birthday and my biggest blessing.
It was at that very table, that I’d gathered over the years with friends to break bread, and to get together and talk. It was at that table, with friends, that I’d process season after season of loss and grief and waiting on my journey to motherhood.
Read MoreI hope that the 21-day challenge for The Love Series was just as encouraging and timely for you as it was for me. I had no idea when I launched the challenge on January 1, just how different February 1 would look than I’d imagined.
Early that morning, I hit “publish” on the first episode of Season 3 of Love, Maaden: The Podcast and practiced my first act of loving God — praise — from a narrow recliner at my daughter’s bedside. My husband and I would spend the first half of the month living and working out of a small hospital room, while nursing our sweet girl back to health.
Read MoreWe hear quite a bit about the importance of humility, the benefits of self-deprivation, and why one should guard herself against self-indulgence. The Bible has been used for hundreds of years to bolster warnings intended to keep us from thinking too highly of ourselves, to help subdue, control and keep us in check. And while messages of abstinence, restraint, and modesty are not inherently harmful on their face ,the sub-text is often that self-care and self-love are selfish.
However, the Biblical text reads differently.
Read MoreToday is January 1, 2021. We are turning the page on 2020. Happy New Year, lovelies. And happy 1 year anniversary to us! It’s Love, Maaden’s birthday!
I birthed this community one year ago, bright-eyed and excited to finally do my thing. The thing that God created me to do. A happy marriage between the things that I care about, have expertise in, and am just plain good at. A sweet spot between women’s wellness, ministry, communication, and gathering people together.
Read MoreIt's December. As in the last month of the year. *insert wide eyed emoji* This has been the slowest-fastest year ever, y’all. I feel like the pandemic has been going on for decade, but also, "2020 is nearly over?" Weird. Do y’all feel the same?
Read MoreIt's Election Day. Whew, chile. As we wait expectantly for the results of this year's U.S. election, and as we move into the final few months of what's been a really tumultuous year, I am set on expecting the best in the weeks and months ahead. Regardless of what the year on the calendar says, or who is in the Oval Office, I am expecting great things.
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