I’ve been referred to as a parent more that usual lately, and it catches me off guard every time. Whether it’s when I pick my kids up from their class at our church or from strangers commenting on my kids or when I’m having to fill out waivers for my kids to play in indoor playgrounds. And every time I hear it or read it, it feels so misplaced  because I still don’t feel like a parent. Every time I get an email made out to “Parents of Lydia and Judah,” I feel like it was sent to the wrong email. Every time I see other moms anywhere, I feel like they are a season ahead of me; like they are way more mature and put together in life than me, which is how I saw moms when I was 16. And 10. And 5. Because that’s how we saw our moms growing up, right? We saw them as untouchable. All-knowing. Ready for anything life throws at them. The smartest, most equipped and capable people we could think of. And I still feel like an 18 year old trying to figure out who I am, what I like, what I’m good at, who I am. I don’t feel like I can be a mom. A parent. That stage of life feels so far away, and yet here I am 4 years into it and still scratching my head so often.

Can I be honest? Raising kids is still terrifying to me. I don’t like how much responsibility I feel day to day to keep all the clothes clean, all the healthy and unhealthy foods balanced in their diets, all the diapers changed, and you know, all the kids ALIVE. It often feels heavy. I always thought that by the time you are mom-age, you are mature enough to be a model of patience and kindness and generosity and consistency to these little people who so desperately need someone to help them become decent humans. But instead, becoming a mom has shined this ultra-bright flashlight on the fact that I am actually just as selfish and greedy and impatient as my kids are. Who am I to try to “fix” them when I am just as bad so much of the time? Was it a mistake to think I could raise kids of my own?? I see myself as wrong for not being the perfect image of all things good, and then I start wondering if I’m even capable of raising kids who aren’t totally screwed up in the end. And doesn’t the enemy just love to have us questioning our identities and callings? Doesn’t he love trapping us in insecurity? It’s a dark hole of self-pity when you start putting question marks where God has already put periods. 

God is really, awfully sweet and powerfully kind when you take time to listen to what he thinks. That’s one thing I HAVE learned on this weird morphing journey into motherhood. His opinion is really really nice and He’s also always right. One day, He gave to me this revelation- that parenthood isn’t about knowing all the right stuff. It’s actually meant to show us that we need the parenting of the Father just as much as our kids need our parenting. It’s meant to highlight our insufficiency. Not so that we feel inadequate, but so that we can allow Him to parent us as we parent our kids. It also levels the playing field. It shows us we are no better than our kids. We need a Savior just as much as they do. We need grace and forgiveness and healing just as much as they do. And because of this, we need someone bigger, stronger, more capable and more powerful than we are to help us raise our kids. This can feel like a painful blow to the areas of pride we keep on the shelves of our heart that tell us WE need to be enough for our kids so people can see that we have what it takes. But when we can clear away the pride and humble ourselves, this actually takes such a heavy weight off our shoulders and gives so much hope. We can’t be enough. We don’t have what it takes on our own. But as we turn our attention to Jesus, we discover that He has all that we lack. This job of parenting is a weight that He wants to carry for us. He wants the responsibility of guiding and molding our kids, and we just get to play a part in guiding and influencing them alongside Him. But it’s His work, not ours, that will change their hearts. We are just along for the journey towards wholeness with them. Next to them. What sweet, freeing truth!

Being a parent isn’t about being in a club full of elite humans who have unlocked the secrets to perfection. Even though all social media outlets display parents desperate for a platform to try to prove that they have all the answers and to prove that you are likely doing something wrong or not doing enough of something else or doing too much of another thing. We need each other to grow, yes, but more than that we need to embrace the beautiful fact that we are ALL sheep who are lost without a shepherd. We just can’t direct our kids to the path of wholeness without the sweet, guiding staff of a Shepherd. None of us are able to do it alone. None of us know fully what we are doing or what will happen to our kids. We are all dependent on a Savior to make it to the place of wholeness.

I don’t know what I am doing. I am still getting used to this whole parenting thing. But I think there’s something really sweet in my kids getting to see me pursuing wholeness and healing right alongside them versus acting like I already have it all together. Maybe there are some sweeter lessons in that place of my own vulnerability and humility for them than my strength and confidence could ever bring. And maybe embracing my place of being a child of God right alongside my kids will help them understand what it means to follow Jesus more than if I were to try to wrap my embrace around all the rules and lists and do’s and don’ts that convince me I can be enough for them if I can just do it all perfectly.

I’m learning to follow God’s voice instead of the world’s. It brings freedom and life and perspective that catalyzes me into a passion for things that used to feel suffocating. His burden really is light. He really does want me to cast my cares on Him so He can care for me. I’m really not made to do this whole thing alone, and neither are you. He has a word for your season that can transform what feels heavy into something light and beautiful and maybe even exciting. Let Him tell you what He thinks about you. Let Him tell you what He thinks about your situation. He is so kind, He is so encouraging, and He is always right.

I need to repent of something. I have stopped writing for most of the past few years. I have been blaming it on the fact that I haven’t felt very inspired by much of anything and it has been very hard to try to push through and write something that I feel good about. That’s all true, but that isn’t the root. At the core of it has been this unique vulnerability in this season that I have never experienced before. I have always kind of prided myself on being a transparent person and someone who talks about the stuff a lot of people shy away from. But the past few years have marked a season full of a lot more questions then answers, a lot more searching than receiving, and a lot more death than life. I haven’t wanted to write about this place because it feels scary. It feels confusing and maybe even wrong. There has been this gap between what I believe and what I have been experiencing. And writing about that place hasn’t felt right. And more than that, I guess I haven’t wanted anyone to think that I am slipping away or “drifting.” I have wanted to keep up this appearance of raw strength. I have wanted to be seen as an immovable pillar and someone who can clearly see and hear God in every single place. I guess there has been this place of pride that refused to believe that I was capable of devastating weakness.

But I am.

Surprise.

The only revelations I have been seeming to have are how completely and utterly dependent I am on God. For wisdom, for strength, for energy, for passion, for desire, for discipline, for humility. I cannot do any of this life by myself. I thought I knew that already. But this season has been stripping me of the things I carried around my neck like shiny gold medallions; the things that subconsciously were giving me worth and value and purpose. They were things that were GOOD, too. My calling, my giftings…. But ultimately,  I’ve been realizing that I have been living for the calling on my life, not for Jesus. As long as life was pointing me in the upward direction of reaching my destination where my calling and promises were from God, then I felt strong and purposeful, I felt close to God, I felt fearless and bold. But the last 5 years have been full of just life happening and life has felt like its been pulling me in the opposite direction of where I feel like I should be going— away from the promises I have been clinging to so tightly leading up to this season. I haven’t been able to use my giftings the way I know I can, I haven’t been able to give myself to the things I know will get me to where I am called to be, and it feels a whole lot like I am missing my shot all the time. And I have felt so lost, so directionless, purposeless, confused, and so distant from God. Nothing has really made sense the past few years for me. I see purpose on the people around me–on Cale, on my kids, on my friends. But I have not been able to see where I fit into the picture I have found myself in.

Who wants to sit and write about that? So I stopped writing. But as I have talked with mentors and friends around me, I have continually heard the phrase, “you are in such a good place, Ali.” Which isn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear them tell me what I was doing wrong, to maybe slap me upside the head and knock sense back into me somehow.  I wanted to hear that this place was an accident and that I just needed to get back on the road with Jesus that I had lost. But I didn’t hear that. I heard that I was in a good place. Which got me thinking about that word. Good. I was certain that I was nowhere near being in a good place because I was defining that word. Good couldn’t be a place that feels bad. That doesn’t make sense. But isn’t that what Eve did in the garden? Didn’t she want to decide for herself what was good; to be “like God” in being able to see good from evil? Don’t we all have the tendency in ourselves to determine our own best? 

What if this season I have been in is for my good?

Once I started to ponder that thought, I started to feel this release inside of me; this release of fear and anxiety that something is wrong, that I have lost my way and am doomed, that I would never reach the place God has for me. I released my tight grip on MY way, and slowly started looking through the lens of my life that posed the question, “What if this is the best way?” 

I began to understand how to surrender a little better as I chose to live in that lens of life. And one day I got this image from the Lord. I wasn’t hearing God clearly or seeing Him clearly or really doing anything clearly, but this was clear. This was real and it did something in my heart that brought so much vision. It kind of happened all at once as it usually happens with the Lord’s way of speaking—I got a picture in my mind of a cocoon with an immediate download of revelation attached to it. This cocoon represented the season of life I was in. I felt the Lord say, “Your whole life has been as a caterpillar. Of course that’s all you know—it’s how you came into the world. You have become confident in who you are, how you work, what you have capacity for, where you go to find your nourishment. A caterpillar isn’t born with the understanding and knowledge that it will one day trap itself inside a tight cocoon where it will digest itself from the inside out, become a puddle of cells that re-form themselves into a brand new creature with new habits, new abilities, new environment, new nourishment, new purpose. It doesn’t understand what it’s doing as it happens. Can you imagine what a caterpillar must feel once its trapped in the cocoon and the process starts? From the outside, onlookers see a peaceful, quiet nest of solitude and stillness and rest. But inwardly, it is literally dying in order to be recreated. So it has been with you. You have entered into the cocoon; the necessary process needed for transformation. This is the only way. I say, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24) The flesh must die for the spirit to be produced. But look at what I bring from the cocoon. Look at the miracle that emerges from that confinement. Look at the wonder that is produced, the awe, the glory that is expressed as a butterfly makes its way out of that place of suffering. It’s miraculous. Beloved, I have written your journey in creation. I have given you visuals of the beauty, the power, the wonder of the way I work in your life. Your story is imprinted into creation itself. You are right where you need to be. And in the same way the caterpillar doesn’t fully understand what happened to make it a butterfly, you also will not fully understand your transformation. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The place of silence is the place of faith. There are things in your life that you will never fully understand. You must learn how to surrender your need to understand in order to enjoy and embrace your seasons. I promise I am making you into a new creation. It’s ok that you don’t see it. It’s ok that it doesn’t make sense. Let it not make sense! That’s how I receive my glory! Trust Me, beloved. I am making all things new.” 

My cocoon season ended two months ago. That’s a story for a whole new blog. (This blog in and of itself took 2 years to write and finish). But friends, IT WON’T LAST FOREVER. I was in my cocoon for 5 years. I questioned God’s existence, His goodness, His grace, His will for me, His heart for me. I was in that dark, tight space for 5 long years. But it ended. And you know the crazy thing? I didn’t do anything to change it. I spent so many years trying to do everything right, trying to press in more, read more, have more quiet time, pray more, serve more, love more, whatever it was I had to do more of to get out of that season. I ignored that small voice for so long that said, “Just hang in there. You’re almost there. Just don’t give up. That’s all you have to do. Don’t give up.”  I can’t even fully tell you when I entered into this new season. As a good friend said, ‘It was slowly, and then all at once.’ There was no fire falling from heaven, no shaking on the ground with the power of God, no booming voice telling me I was done. It just happened. 

Jesus has so much more grace for you then you could ever have for yourself. He is so confident in His ability to bring you new life and a new heart. He isn’t waiting for you to figure it all out. HE WILL DO IT. ALL OF IT. “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:14). 

Take a deep breath of fresh grace. You are not crazy. You are not failing. You are right where you need to be. Jesus us fighting the battle of your flesh for you. It’s OK that you don’t understand it all. And there is so much more beauty happening in your season then you could ever know or believe. JUST DON’T GIVE UP. 

Fear acts like my best friend.

It convinces me.

It persuades me.

It tells me to build, and so I do.

It says safety is my ultimate goal, and so I build frantically with hurried hands these walls that seclude me and enclose me in a thick glass case where I am seen but not known; admired but not touched; pointed at but not held.

Fear tells me risk is stupid. It tells me vulnerability is foolishness. It tells me that jumping is death. It keeps me from doing so much; saying and feeling so much.

It keeps me shiny and clean in a glass box; unable to be broken, hurt, damaged, or held.

It keeps me in control of me.

I used to be more free, you know. Before fear and I became friends. I would live with my heart exposed, I would love with loyalty and depth, I would feel with this recklessness that somehow brought life and adventure. But then I got hurt. I began to learn that people didn’t see the same beauty and wonder in the softness of my heart that I did. They didn’t value loyalty like I did. And overtime, rejection and betrayal left hard black spots on my heart.

And that’s when I met Fear. That’s when he began to teach me how to protect and keep safe my heart and my feelings.

And that’s when I began to die.

Because here’s what Fear didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me that Love was the only source of life. He didn’t tell me that enclosing my heart meant shutting out Love, and when you shut out Love you stop living.

The enemy wants us to live a dead life. He wants us to fear rejection and betrayal. He wants us to avoid pain at all costs. And isn’t that what we want, too? Don’t we want to stay away from pain?

But the truth is that Love is a risk. Choosing real, raw love means choosing exposure to pain. And when we fear pain, we reject love.

1 John 4:7-8 says,

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

When we reject love, we reject God. We cannot know God if we do not live choosing to love. What’s more, Love is the only way to experience full, real Life.

Embracing Love means embracing Jesus. It also means embracing pain. Jesus doesn’t promise a life free of pain with Him. He tells us to anticipate and expect the pain. But we can’t fear it. Fear cannot be our teacher when it comes to protecting our hearts. God believes so much in the joy and abundance that comes in living a life of love that He sent His only Son to die so we could have the opportunity to live it. There is something in pain that makes us fully alive. There is something in choosing to love people REGARDLESS of what might happen to us that brings immeasurable joy and life to us. There is something about sharing in Jesus’ suffering that brings intimacy like you’d never know if you didn’t experience it. We must reject the fear that entangles us in nets of apathy and numbness and pursue Love.

If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poorand give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.  1 Corinthians 13:1-3

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I found myself today sitting on the shag carpet in our living room next to a pile of spit-up, surrounded by blocks and piles of clothes my toddler pulled out of her dresser right after I had cleaned up earlier in the day, a crying baby in one arm and a crying toddler in my other arm, and I was in full on meltdown-mode. I was so overwhelmed with this feeling of being stuck and so incredibly in over my head, and I didn’t even care that I was letting my toddler watch me sob and kind of throw a mini fit.

I think people do a great job of talking about how obviously amazing having kids is and what a blessing they are. Because they are. But I’m not sure I was warned enough about how utterly difficult momming is; how much self-sacrifice is required of you once you become a mama. Maybe it’s just me, and maybe I just went into this whole thing with completely wrong expectations. I mean, in my defense, I think we all have that friend on our instagram pulling around 5 kids under the age of 4  with SUCH ease and whimsy, going to water parks or play dates or gymnasiums or museums every day of the week and oogling over how amazing mom life is. I know social media is a trap of comparison, but I didn’t even realize I had fallen into that trap until I had 2 kids and realized I was so not the mom any of those ladies seemed to be for their kids.

But maybe some of you moms reading this actually DO relate to me and have felt the same exact way. Maybe you don’t have the help you thought you would have in taking care of your kiddos. Maybe you pictured yourself being one of those moms at the zoo with four of her other mom friends all lugging their kids around in red Radio Flyer wagons, chatting away about life and their kids but real life has proven you, instead, to be the mom home alone day after day, getting out only to brave the grocery store or to go to Target to get that weird feeling of freedom you can only experience at Target, no matter how many kids you have to bring with you. Maybe you don’t have the community you thought you’d have in this incredibly hard season and loneliness has kind of overwhelmed you.

If you find yourself relating, please contact me. Lets hang out. Lets go to the zoo with our kids. Let’s talk about real life instead of constantly running to the addiction of comparing ourselves to the other moms on our instagrams inadvertently telling us our worth. Let’s do this together.

Because the reality is there are days, and many of them actually, that feel like too much. There are many days I need a reminder of the bigger picture of motherhood because I can’t see it through the chaos of laundry and boogers and being pooped on. We desperately need each other as moms.

Momming is tough. It’s a daily dying to self. A daily self sacrifice. A constant season of sowing.

Sowing and sowing and sowing and sowing and wondering WHEN will the reaping come? The constant giving of self makes it easy to wonder, WHO IS GOING TO FILL ME UP? And I am reminded of this verse.

 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not give up.

–Galatians 6:9

Let us not lose heart in DOING GOOD. Mama, your life is being spent on doing GOOD to the little ones who look up to you. Who knew doing good could be so exhausting? But the promise here is that your unseen, often unnoticed, unpraised acts of goodness towards your children WILL reap a harvest in your life. Not probably or maybe or if you’re lucky. It’s a cause-and-effect of the Kingdom. As you expend yourself day in and day out with what seems like no end in sight, you are actually building something incredibly huge and wonderful. Motherhood is all about focusing on the UNSEEN versus the SEEN. When all you do is look at the things right in front of you, it’s so overwhelming sometimes. But gosh, we need each other so we can remind one another that there is a bigger picture! We can’t see it, but it IS there. We ARE building something wonderful for the Kingdom of God. The sacrifice of ourselves day in and day out is a fragrance to Jesus that smells like nothing else; so pleasing and wonderful to Him. It’s wonderful because you are starting to walk a little more like Jesus, look a little more like Him, smell like Him. He recognizes Himself in you as you bring yourself low so He can lift you up in due time. And he will.

Don’t lose heart, friend. Whoever you are. Momming is hard. And we need each other in it. Reach out to me. Let’s go to the zoo and remind each other of the goodness of God through the midst of the chaos of boogers and spit-up and poop.

A few years ago when Cale and I moved to Phoenix, I was really struggling with adjusting to the new life we were building. I felt alone, unknown, and incredibly uncomfortable. On top of that we found out we were pregnant, and I felt like everything I had known was just gone. I was in unknown territory on every front, and I could feel my spirit scrambling to find some sort of solid ground. I remember Cale would consistently pray over me that I would be able to thrive in that season. He vowed to me that he would make every effort to set me up to thrive, to position me to thrive, to war for me in prayer to thrive. I remember spending a lot of time thinking and praying about ways to do things that made me feel like I was thriving. What would it take for me to thrive?

It’s been about two years since then, and I still don’t feel like I am thriving. I’ve been so baffled as to why God would bring me somewhere where I don’t feel like I am getting stronger in my giftings or seeing crazy fruit coming out of my life. But the Lord asked me a question the other day that made me realize maybe I have been asking the wrong questions and searching for the wrong solutions these past couple of years; that maybe my expectations have been wrong all along and I’ve just been missing it.

The question was simply this: What does thriving look like to you?

My answer was that it looked like joy, abundance, success, strength. I picture flowers blooming, like in the picture above, or like fruit growing on a tree.

I looked up the definition out of curiosity and saw this: “to grow or develop well or vigorously.”

And then it hit me. Thriving doesn’t happen after growth, thriving IS growth. A tree doesn’t begin to thrive after it produces fruit, the fruit is an indication that the tree has been thriving all along. It’s the product of a thriving plant. Which means a tree can be thriving before it ever pokes its head up above the soil. It can be thriving in the winter when it has no leaves and no fruit. This doesn’t mean a tree stops thriving after it produces fruit. It continues to thrive. But thriving has seasons, and it looks different in those seasons.

My expectation of what it means to thrive will change from season to season. 

I was searching for joy and strength and success in this season as an indication that I am doing well, that I am receiving what the Lord has for me here. And since I haven’t been seeing those things, I’ve been in an internal state of panic. I haven’t been experiencing strength, I’ve been experiencing extreme weakness. I haven’t been experiencing joy, I have been experiencing daily, continual death to myself. And in place of success, I’ve been failing more then I ever have in my life.

But I felt the Lord gently nudge me to His truth. His idea of growth for us IS weakness, death to self, and being humbled. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6) Every one of these areas pushes me to have to trust Him, to let go of control and my huge ego, to lay at His feet and say, “If you don’t come through, I am screwed.” And that posture of falling before Him, giving up all control and crying out for Him is when I am thriving deeply in the Lord. I can be assured that this season WILL produce fruit, it WILL result in a beautiful blossom, it WILL bring me to great joy. But they will be the result of thriving underground where my roots are stretching deeper, spreading wider, anchoring me more securely to my foundation on Jesus.

I hope this encourages someone today to TAKE HEART; your hidden season of growing where no one else sees, where it hurts, where it feels like you’re dying in so many places, that place IS a place of great thriving and you are creating a foundation for abundant fruit, and fruit that will LAST to grow on your branches. (John 15:16) You are right where you need to be. You’re deaths are bringing resurrection to Christ IN you. Your weakness is igniting the strength of God in its place. Your failures are guiding you to see that God is pleased with you outside of your successes.

YOU ARE THRIVING.

This past year, I have been riddled with anxiety and health issues. I have been dealing daily with dizziness, pressure in my head, my ears, behind my eyes, fatigue, and post nasal drainage. Every single day one, if not all, of these symptoms takes my body on a joyride and triggers my anxiety, making it worse. Unable to pinpoint the root of it all after multiple doctor visits, I have just been praying it away, assuming at this point its the enemy trying to keep me from Jesus and from being who God has called me to be to the people around me. I have been claiming victory over my body, saying that I will not be overcome by anxiety or fear, and all the bit. There have been many moments where as I pray it goes away and I have peace, even if only for a bit of time.

Last night, I was overcome with so much pressure in my head that even the light in the room was making me feel sick. I laid down on the couch with a pillow over my head, feeling dizzy and so anxious, wondering the question that has been on a repetitive tape in my head: “What is wrong with me? What is happening to me?” I asked my husband to make a bath for me, thinking that sitting in warm water with the lights off would help. As I sat in the bath, beginning to feel soothed, I began praying again– moreso speaking to the enemy than praying– telling him he didn’t have authority and that he had to go. But as soon as I started speaking it away, it got worse. I was getting so dizzy I had to sit up and put my head over the tub, thus triggering the anxiety to build up. I felt so defeated at this point, wondering why God would allow this to keep overtaking me. Wondering why if I am praying in Jesus’ name this won’t go away. Wondering why it has been a year of me trying to fight back and feeling so defeated and exhausted and desiring so badly to give up but not being able to, because I am so miserable. A song came into my head that was so strange; it was a song that I must’ve known when I was younger because it is SUCH a 90’s song. There was no reason I would be playing it over in my head other than maybe possibly because the Lord put it there. So I began to sing it and pay attention to the words.

“Jesus, lover of my soul/ Jesus, I will never let you go/ You’ve taken me from the miry clay/ You set my feet upon the rock, and now I know/ I love you, I need you/ Though my world may fall, I’ll never let you go/ My Savior, My closest Friend/ I will worship you until the very end.”

As I was singing it became a praise in my spirit and a declaration of dedication to my God. “Though my world may fall, I’ll never let you go.” I began speaking to the enemy again. It was no longer a fight back though. I thought of Job, and how he endured so much sickness and heartbreak and loneliness, never getting relief through his prayers. But the point was that he didn’t give up on God. He never let go of God through his trial. And neither will I. I began to tell the enemy to hit me with his best shot. “Keep it coming. Do whatever you want. Nothing will keep me from Jesus. Nothing will keep me from worshipping him. I’m not going anywhere.” As this resolution filled my heart, the fear went away. The anxiety went away. The dizziness ceased. My head and heart had clarity for the first time in so long.

This was the moment I began to understand spiritual warfare. It’s not about fighting back and pushing to get healing all the time. It’s why Paul didn’t sit in his jail cell interceding and praying for God to save him. He praised God. He worshipped God. Nothing would keep him from loving his Lord. Nothing would weaken his spirit. And it was through his praise that the chains were literally broken off his wrists, and the cell door opened. He was freed through his resolution to worship Jesus in all circumstances.

Something shifted in my spirit last night. A strength was added to me that wasn’t there before. And it isn’t because I fought the enemy. It’s because I stopped fearing his tactics. I realized that anything he might do to me for a time will only turn around to be power added to my testimony of Jesus and His ability to win.

I win. This place of hardship this past year is only building my victory story. It’s only making Jesus more glorified in my life. Even when the enemy tries to ruin that story he only adds to it. So keep it coming you dumb devil. You can’t diminish the power of God in my life or the love for Him in my heart.