http://www.thecollectiveschurch.com/

The Collectives, Cleveland, TN (2026)

01/13/2026

Gen Z is coming. They are attending church at a higher rate than any other generation.

We have to build systems to disciple, develop, & release them into their girls and callings.

They are coming. But if we cannot offer clear pathways of formation, will they stay?

Invest in those coming. Build a plan. Release them into space!!

01/12/2026

There is to get to the .

01/11/2026

One the most important things you can do in your college years is FIND A LOCAL CHURCH!

Find a church ⛪️ and get planted there 🌱.

1) it’s a place of intergenerational community
2) it’s a place of encountering God
3) it’s a place of encouragement
4) it’s a place that is not campus

Find a church. Get rooted there.

04/29/2024

There’s nothing quite like a grey, rainy morning for those of us spring and fall lovers. We see a hint of mist and we’re digging out our fuzzy blankets, a good book and smashing all the lights save for about 20 candles. Summer people might not get it, this want to be cozy indoors or, even better, sat wrapped up on a covered porch listening to the rain. Those of a sunnier inclination long for heat baking deep into bones chilled by the very thought of a rainy morning.

That’s how you find me this morning, soaking in the grey and rain for as long as I can BEFORE the baking heat and smothering humidity of a southeast Tennessee summer kicks in. We’ve been so lucky this year with a cool and gentle spring. Nearly 9 years ago now we moved to our particular part of East Tennessee and every spring up until this year has been truncated, launching us directly into hell’s armpit from early April (once, it was the end of March and TOTALLY uncalled for). I’ll use up every last bit of this blessing and watch it water my garden for me. Of course, I have children so candles will be few and moments to read farther between – but you get the idea.

This specific rainy day has me more reflective and, to be honest, a wee bit sad. Our pastors are stepping down with their hands open and raised, waiting for what God has next for them.

Backstory:

Ever since we moved to East Tennessee we searched for the right church for our family. We tried house churches, Baptist churches, non-denominational churches, Assemblies of God, Church of God, Church of God of Prophesy, Wesleyan, Methodist… Each church had its different reasons for not being the right fit for us: distance from our home, small differences in opinion on how Scripture is interpreted but ones we felt a conviction to pursue not just for our own sakes but for our children, a few real stinkers but, for the most part, just not the right fit. Then we happen to stumble upon a tiny church plant meeting in a very atmospheric Christian church building, full of young people and welcome, and, unwittingly, right into where we are supposed to be.

Jump forward to today and I’ve been sitting with the sad news our pastors won’t be ours anymore…

“I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart.” Psalm 119:32

Do you know how hard it is to try church after church, move more times than you have years (and I’m 42 this week, to give a little context), serve in different countries then come home to the US with the hope of finding a community to recover in only to not find home?

“A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.” Psalm 68:5-6

In the KJV and NKJV Bibles, the word “family” isn’t mentioned often. Instead, “house” or, more likely, “household” is used to indicate family. I like how the culture of the day considered the meaning of “household” to mean family and that’s including the servants, both slave and paid/bondservant. When Jesus was on Earth and, after He went home to Heaven, when His disciples were sent out and they encountered someone asking to be saved – we see the whole “house” or “household” being saved as well. Then, when believers were meeting together to learn more about their newfound faith, they would meet in the house of other believers. These houses became houses of worship, what we call churches today.

“Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” Matthew 21:12-13

Did you see it? How angry Jesus became when His house became “a den of thieves?” If your entire family slid into a horrific way of life, lying/stealing/cheating/drugs/drinking/sex, wouldn’t you, too, be upset and start flipping some tables over to get your point across?

“Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” Proverbs 24:3-4

The house mentioned above is more than a structure and the “precious and pleasant riches” refer to much more than physically nice things. A home is built around the love of those inside. As such, a home built on love is pretty hard to destroy and takes some doing.

Bring that back to our church’s news, our home of prayer’s news, and it’s heartbreaking and heart mending all in one painful and wonderful weaving.

“You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in Your word.” Psalm 119:114

“One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4

He puts the lonely in families. Home is a hiding place and shield from all the hard of the world we face each day. God’s house, His church, is a family to run to each week and to sit, learning from His Word together and singing out our worship, our lament, and our praise to Him. This is our church, The Collectives, for us and others and our pastors let God be the answer to our prayers to find home…

My children, especially our Littles, love making cards and bringing in w**d bouquets to decorate every table and kitchen cabinet we have. They come running into the room bearing gifts of adoration.

Gracie, our youngest, has a hard time sitting still to learn unless Mommy sits with her, getting my whole attention, and then she fairly blossoms, absorbing new information like a sponge.

My sweet husband struggles with the weight of guiding our family, providing for us, strategizing and figuring out how to take what we have and make it stretch to be enough. He comes into our room, lays on top of our (never made) bed to rest for a bit. Sometimes I join him and let him talk through what he needs to. More likely than not, just 5 minutes in our quiet space is enough for him to be able to come back to the chaos that is our daily life and be able to carry on with Dad Life.

Home.

Home church. Home-away-from-home. Homefires.

There are many meanings of home but family is intricately woven into the word and when part of our church family is ready to move on it hurts just like it hurts like crazy trying to let my eldest grow up and out of our home.

The thing is – once in our family, always in our family. Our past foster children are prayed for just as much as our family living under our roof and this same reasoning is true for our pastors. They will be MISSED and prayed for and hoped for and kept tabs on, whether they like it or not, because “family is family.” (Hilarious country song, there!)

We will miss them, our family, and we will continue to make the house a home for others coming in to find the same thing we were looking for all these years.

04/21/2024

When He speaks…

Every Sunday is a battle in our house, without fail. Gracie loses her shoes. Ian pesters EVERYONE, including the dogs, to within an inch of our lives. Jo always seems to be standing exactly in the way of all of us trying our best to be ready for church on time and hasn’t a clue that, by her standing stock still in the pathway to the door, she could be a stumbling hazard and a grump-maker because she won’t simply sit down for a minute until it is time to load up into the van. Hannah and Barry inevitably loudly grumble about their younger siblings moving something of theirs they now can’t find and Katie Rae, bless her, moves at the speed of pond water as is according to her very make up.

So, this leaves Stewart and I profoundly agitated and just about fed up enough to say, “ENOUGH! That’s it! We’re not going! You’re ALL going to bed early and we, your parents, are going to book a GROWN-UP only holiday while you all stay home to sort out your quibbles with your grandmother watching you for a week!”

DO we go on the holiday? Do we ever actually get to church on time? Well, you’d have to ask Jeff and Rachael but I believe we get there very nearly on time and with only a whiff of disagreement on our lips before we compose ourselves enough to sit down (then promptly stand up) for worship.

And then? Oh, and then… There’s the car ride home!

By this point, dinner is a distant memory and HANGRY has taken over. We try to resist the temptation of stopping at Checkers for 6 of their $5 meals to split between us (I can’t take another Wendy’s 4 for $4, hence the change up to Checkers’ value meal) but this means dealing with the whining, crying, and general gnashing of teeth and that’s from us grown up people never mind the Littles.

This last Sunday was a different story altogether. Well. For the second half of the journey, at least.

As usual, Gracie was whining about how hungry she was, Ian was pinching her and Jo and Katie Rae were taking turns shredding up only the mice know what kind of leftover take-out trash in the back row of seats to make confetti too small to pick up by hand, a messy clean up job for late. Hannah and Barry were blissfully unaware of the mayhem because we let them drive separately, a necessary extra expense we can’t really afford but make do to make peace. We turned onto Bowater Road and Gracie’s complaints were nearing frenzied status when God spoke:

“Roll down the windows. All of them.”

I didn’t take a second to decide and rolled down the windows.

Now, a little back story:

I have asthma and allergies, not a great combination here in East Tennessee, and my recent surgery has me extra cautious because it just plain hurts to cough and sneeze right now. In fact, I’ve had an asthma attack at least every other day, sometimes twice a day, since a few days before surgery. Common sense would tell me to keep the windows firmly shut and the air conditioner on to filter the interior air. What’s more, there are chicken farms on Bowater Road and, after Hannah and I contracting histoplasmosis several years ago, we’re keen to avoid another histo infection. In addition to all of this, Gracie doesn’t always like her hair flying around when the windows are open, becoming quite the disheveled growling bear in the process.

Yet, I didn’t even give a second’s pause to think. I opened the windows.

Instantly, the Littles started laughing. Hands in the midst of mischief reached to ride the air streams coming in on warm drafts. Everyone had messy hair and not one of us cared a bit. The mood of our car changed in a moment as if we blinked and went from a dour, gravelly and grating ride home then transformation happened and we were riding on a smooth, grass-gliding sleigh through new blooms and leafing trees.

Oh, sure, this ride home was nothing life changing. It was no message from the Lord pronouncing judgement on the people of Israel for their disobedience, no voice from a donkey trying not to be killed by the angel of the Lord in the road with a sword waiting for Balaam for not going the way he should go. (That’s a GREAT story in Numbers 22!)

God spoke. Clearly. Quietly and with gentle surety. And He was right.

I am so quick to rely on my own understanding that I can be guilty of not waiting on God to speak – you only have to ask any of my teachers growing up, my mom, Stewart, my old pastors and youth leaders, probably people I worked with, friends… Guilty as charged. Try as I might, I quickly assess a situation and act accordingly. As I’ve grown the decisions are made with, hopefully, a good deal more gained wisdom (from failing – a LOT) but they are still mine and not always ones I waited for God to give.

You know, I bet you anything Solomon had the same problem. No, I’m not comparing myself to his wisdom, goodness, no! I bet he did, though. Think about it – all the wisdom under the sun and all the wealth, fame, respect from other world leaders, even whole sections of the Bible down to him sharing what God gave… And look what happened…

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 1:1

Solomon starts out the book he writes, declaring it’s all vanity and a decision I make on my own without waiting on the Lord is simply that: vanity.

Jonah tried to skip town and was swallowed by a whale for his troubles. Vanity.
Paul, then Saul, was on his way to go and murder a bunch of Jesus’ followers when he was struck blind. Vanity.
Zacharias had THE angel of the Lord, Gabriel, tell him he was going to be a father and, in Zacharias’ own knowledge and understanding knew he and his wife to be as old as dirt. Vanity to think THE angel of the Lord, the big guy himself, Gabriel, must not know what he was talking about. Vanity.

God often speaks to us and we refuse to listen or, like me, we act BEFORE we even think to ask the Lord what He wants us to do. Thankfully, in His amazing mercy, He keeps talking to us and waits for US to be patient, to turn our hearts toward Him instead of the goal we have in front of us.

When Jesus told His disciples what was about to happen, He told them to wait in the Upper Room for His Holy Spirit. Do you remember? (Acts 1 and 2)

When God speaks… It is a NEW thing, a holy thing and a thing to be treasured, immediately obeyed and waited upon.

Do you have someone like that in your life, someone you hang on their every word? For some, it’s waiting on the next Avengers movie with such anticipation they wait in line for tickets several nights in advance of opening night. For others, they wait with finger hovering over a shaking computer mouse as tickets go on sale for Taylor Swift’s newest concert release date. I think those count as hanging on every word (or lyric).

Do I wait on Him like that? Nah, I’m more apt to ask Him a question then jump to my own conclusions and deal with the consequences because at least then it’s all in my own control. Youch…

Sometimes, God surprises me and speaks before I’ve even asked the question. Why is it so much easier when He speaks first? Well, because then I’m not left wondering and worrying and strategizing and planning and…

How much more would I recognize Him speaking first if I took His Word to heart more regularly? Sure, I read my Bible and pray every day as we’re taught to do in Sunday school. (Did you hear the familiar children’s church song playing when you read that? I did.) Reading and praying is about more than our growth as people and as followers of Jesus – it’s about learning what His voice sounds like. How can I recognize His quiet voice when the world around me is shouting, “Buy THIS to get _ results!”? Or, “War is starting/has started/is about to start in __ country!” Or even, “Research suggest consuming _ leads to (insert horrible disease here).”

Sometimes, when God speaks, He roars. Usually when that happens it’s a life-changing event and I’ve never heard a roar myself. What I HAVE heard has been about like I heard it on the drive home from church the other night: quiet, sure, and firm. I heard it when I asked Him how long He wanted me to stay in a REALLY uncomfortable mission internship. I heard it when we asked if we were to return to Scotland. I heard it when He told me to go to the bloomin’ hard mission internship in the first place.

With me, He voice is quiet. Firm. Kind but insistent.

How does His voice sound to you? Is He musical with you? Full of laughter? Or mourning? Is He loud and boisterous or does He sound like the wind and waves to you?

Find out

04/12/2024

From Anna Livingston - April's Artist in Residence

On an Indiana farm, up on a low hill with cornfields and soybean fields as far as the eye can see all around, sits my best friend in her own cozy lady’s living room decorated in soft greens, comfortable furnishings and carpet surrounded by sewing projects, old family photos and her piano. She has pillowy soft skin, blue eyes and gives the best hugs that side of the North/South divide and she’s about 82. Barbara, my best friend and mentor (second mom, actually), has always been a farmer’s wife. To see Barbara, you wouldn’t for a minute think here was an adventurer who’d flown over to the other side of the world time and again to go and preach the Gospel to people in Thailand or smuggled in Bibles and encouragement in Myanmar. Gracious! You’d think she’d never left the county, let alone the country.

I can imagine how it was when she crossed the heavily guarded border into Myanmar after hearing word there was a woman who wanted Barbara to come encourage her Bible study group and, hopefully, bring much needed Bibles. Sweet Barbara is the SWEETEST lady I have ever met and few would guess at the band of steel at her center.

She reminds me so much of, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty,” 1 Corinthians 1:27.

Yet she, being mild in manner and knowing full well she is just a woman (not something the culture she was entering looked well upon), and an American woman at that, walked past armored guards without issue and took the most dangerous message on this planet to a group of women hungry for more about God and Who His Son is.

There have been many times in our own lives, mine and Stewart’s, where we wondered at just how on Earth God could use us as He has!

One instance was during the first adoption proceedings for two of our children. The adoption was in Scotland and, as was the case for adoptions in Glasgow, parental rights and responsibilities weren’t yet terminated because the council was trying to keep their budgets low and, at the same time, timelines for kids in care low by putting the prospective parents front and center in the battle to create a forever family. Talk about intimidating! Add in an incredible amount of complications + 1 lawyer we dubbed “The Viper” (she really did earn her name, that one)…

Stewart is just an ordinary man from Glasgow. I’m just a regular girl from the American Midwest. We’re, both of us, not particularly clever or witty or learned or artistic or… I could go on, but suffice it to say, we, neither of us, have law degrees and when our own lawyer (think “Andy Griffith” in demeanor and not an ounce of ruthlessness about him) tells us we are going to have to go up against “The Viper” on the witness stand in the fight of our lives for our children…

“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?... For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness…” 1 Corinthians 1:20, 22-23

Yeah! Where IS the wise? We wanted THAT guy on the stand, not us! In fact, we wanted the test tube baby of Hulk Hogan and Sheldon Cooper to go on the stand to match wits and strength with “The Viper” and, should wits fail, pulverize accordingly!

Know what happened? Well… In the end, it was only me. Just me. Sitting below the high seat of the judge in a wooden box facing “The Viper,” the biological family still in the case (some of the family members withdrew their case by this point), professional witnesses for both sides, several other lawyers and guards and, oh… I can’t even remember. In fact, I can’t even remember what was said.

The night before I was to take the stand (“Andy Griffith” thought it best if I testified because Stewart might get a bit too riled by “The Viper”), Stewart and I prayed the only thing we knew to pray:

“You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” Matthew 10:18-20

That’s what happened. Those exact verses Jesus spoke Himself were precisely what happened – to the point that perhaps it wasn’t for me to remember what was said. Maybe it was just too holy a thing for me to remember and to help keep me from claiming any of the good those words did.

Because it wasn’t me, please, PLEASE understand. No word spoken from my mouth, apart from my name, was me. It couldn’t have been. I was so utterly, TERRIBLY sick with fear of losing our babies. No WAY could I have done any more than a small, tiny-voiced answer to the question of my name. It had to be God.

And it was God. And it is God. This whole living life as a family of 8 (+1, my mom) is a confusing, scary, WONDERFUL ball of no-way-that-makes-sense. To the outside world, we look pretty foolish.

How can 2 people without full college educations expect to pay for and raise 6 children with such complex needs?

How can 2 people with such varied pasts, more moves (internationally and nationally) than years under their belts, carrying trauma themselves from losing children to miscarriage, multiple foster placements, infertility struggles and lengthy, horrific adoption proceedings stay married let alone stay happy together?

How can 2 people expect to live past 45 with so many health complications?

The world will tell us we need to do and be perfect and satiated in order to be ok. None of those things will help us find peace nor will it last longer than our world has left. No, give me Jesus and His upside down wisdom with Words so life-giving on one hand and which cut bone away from marrow on the other hand. He spoke it straight, our Jesus. He didn’t mince words and told us His Spirit was to come after He went home to Heaven to keep us, guide us and, as was in our case, silence the lying lips of “The Viper.”

I wish you could have been there, the day I sat on the stand. It’s no one else’s business what went on in the courtroom but I WISH you could have seen how God showed up with such power as to make the greatest world leader shake in their boots. It was that incredible, what my God did that day. The proof is our life today, our family today.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:2-5

What I hope Stewart and I have in common with Barbara is a willingness to let God walk us through the hardest times of our lives. They do come, you know, times so hard they feel like every bone in your body is being crushed by the weight of it. During those 2 years of court hearings, social worker visits, social work team meetings, court-appointed evaluations, other visitations with professionals and biological family – I permanently felt ILL. I didn’t count it all joy every moment of every day. Goodness, I did well get out of bed some days. Looking at the face of my children in happy, carefree times reminded me of the joy of testing because it meant the testing, our literal trial was our means to an end – our FAMILY. If getting and keeping our children safe meant going to court every day for the rest of my life, I’d do it without a second thought.

That’s the joy set before me – my children.

More than that, the joy set before me is knowing without even a hint of a doubt that God is WITH me. He isn’t leaving. He doesn’t have any other plans or more important work to get to. Right here and right now, in this minute and in the coming, He IS right here and will be. I never, EVER have to doubt whose I am and Who He is. He proved that once and will continue to prove it as needed until it’s my turn to go home one day.

There is wisdom not even “The Viper” could laugh at.

04/06/2024

~ April’s Artist Spotlight from The Collectives - Anna Livingston

When faith is no longer inherited…

“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done… That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments.” Psalm 78:4, 6&7

“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.” Proverbs 13:22

Several years ago, my dad wanted to talk. I was visiting with my parents at this time of year, Dad’s 65th birthday, and he decided now was the time to talk about inheritance. Ugh… Talk about my heart dropping to the pit of my stomach. Dad wanted to talk about what was next, after he went home to Heaven, and what he wanted to happen with the inheritance he worked so many hard, long and frustrating years to accumulate. More than that, he wanted to talk about Mom and his hopes for her care when he could no longer do that himself.

I didn’t want to hear. I wanted to close my ears, turn and run. I wanted this conversation to stop. Money talks have always made me uncomfortable but THIS… This was something else. This was talking about my strong, quiet, funny, humble, goofy, stubborn, grumpy dad not being here anymore and I didn’t want to even think about it for a second! Dad did. He knew his time on Earth was short, a gift of foresight the Lord gave him, and he wanted to get this right for us, his children and his greatest work on Earth.

Mom sent my brothers and me a picture of a very familiar scene: Dad, on his front porch, praying over his prayer list. You don’t see his Bible in the picture but it’s there, just out of the frame.

Dad didn’t have the same kind of inheritance I gained. His father, my Grampa Larry, was a good businessman and worked with his father, my Gramps (great grandfather), to allow for their offspring to be comfortable. When it came to things of God, theirs was more of a traditional and uninvolved kind of faith unlike what my father’s became – all consuming. And money was never my dad’s main goal in life. (We were, and are, doing ok, my brothers and I, and his gift to us after death is a sweet reminder of how much he loved us.) Instead, Dad ploughed his energies into his race of faith.

My always active dad was a runner and a cyclist. In high school and college, Dad was training for the Olympics and actually ran off not just the bottom of his shoes in a race but also the soles of his feet! I’m not exaggerating. He trained hard for years and when an injury put paid to his hopes of Olympic medaling, he kept going in other ways. We were, all four of us Robinson kids, active throughout high school and in just about every sport going. That was down to Dad but his energies into his walk with God made his physical training pale in comparison.

Every morning before school and work, every phone call or text or letter from a family member or friend, despite more than 25 years of cancer treatments and associated (and unassociated) surgeries, when life was for once going well, when life was unthinkably hard, on children’s wedding days, on the day he buried his grandmother, his grandfather, his father, his mother…

I don’t know exactly how Dad made the decision to run so hard after God, but he did. Praise God, he did.

And that is my inheritance.

But what happens when inheritance runs out?

Remember when the famous Prodigal Son runs out of money? What then? What happens when Dad’s faith and prayers and hours upon hours of travailing with the Holy Spirit is done and finished?

“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done… That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God but keep His commandments.” Psalm 78:4, 6&7

If my faith were only as deep as what my father paid with his time, tears and prayers then I’d not ever have “fought the good fight” or “suffered producing perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

If faith were inherited because of the work of another then it could be taken because of the work of another.

“So that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:7

God’s grace is given when asked for, when requested, and the inheritance that comes as a result of asking for Him to take us in as His own child. I didn’t ask my dad for an inheritance. In fact, if it meant I could keep my dad around longer I would have PAID my dad to stay for even just a few more hours. No. That’s not how this thing works, inheritance.

That suffering and perseverance reference? Well, it’s part of Romans 3 which goes on to say, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 3:5

It is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Not some Holy slap upside the head. Not hellfire and brimstone. No, both of those things may come along in our individual walks with God (I’ve had more than my fair share of slaps upside the head!) and even other reasons a lot of traditionalist Christians may believe is the initial way of meeting God. Becoming someone’s child is a joyful miracle no one can quite fully describe. No. I found in my 41-year walk with God over and over again that His kindness to me blankets me with a want drop everything I was holding and run, full pelt, into God’s chest for the biggest hug of forgiveness imaginable.

Dad wasn’t a hugger, something I try hard NOT to inherit. If you were to greet me with a hug and think it’s a bit like hugging a 2x4… Well, that’s down to my dad. I freeze. With my kids, I have to TELL myself to be soft, to wait until they’re the first to let go. However, with my husband, I melt into his hug. Stewart usually knows just when I need to stop and be held. I think his hugs are a bit like what it will be like, one day, to hold my God in the biggest hug ever.

Inheritance is something with which I struggle. I can never, ever match what my dad or others have done before me as far as works, prayer, strength in adversity and it’s not for me to match what they did. It’s for me to do the new thing He asks me to do, the new walk of faith on an uncharted trek across goodness knows (well, GOD knows) what kind of terrain and facing only Heaven knows what kind of obstacles and adversity. Whether or not I have a legacy of faith from my forebears makes not a jot of difference because it’s my own heart and mind that have to do the deciding. However, it does makes the seeing ahead that tiny bit easier because I have the history of my parents and their faith as past road markers – their faith in God brought them this far. If they can, then I can. Not because of anything we do ourselves but because of the incredible amount of grace, fortitude, endurance and peace God provides right when I need it.

As I write this, I’m preparing for yet another surgery. One of my brothers said on the phone to my mom that he wondered just how much my body can take. My own heart wonders the same so I went in to hug my littlest just one more time so her last memory of me wouldn’t be of her mommy being disappointed in her causing chaos at bedtime. It’s silly. The surgery is supposed to be a minor thing. Tell that to my quaking knees and stomach! And it’s back to this faith thing.

My dad went through far more in his body than me. He trusted God would wake him up for the next part of his adventure. I’m trusting the same because I’ve seen Him to the same for me. My faith HAS to be greater than what was inherited because this world needs to see what loving an invisible Father looks like in today’s climate/economy/battlefields.

“The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:6

Lord, be near.

The Collectives

01/13/2026

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01/11/2026

04/29/2024

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