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Sep 17, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
836 Inside: There are moments and seasons in our lives when praying is the last thing we want to do or even feel able to do. But could it be that we sometimes make it harder than it is? ~The older I get, the more I’m realizing the importance of long-haul living. It makes sense, right? Although James 4:14 describes our lives as vapors that appear for a little while and then vanish away, most of us will have many decades to learn and grow and experience joys and hardships of all sorts.
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Sep 3, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
97 Inside: It’s hard to navigate that line between trusting God and taking things into our own hands. We can start by not filtering God’s promises through the lens of our expectations. ~Years ago, my laptop was updating—very slowly—when the following message popped up: “Leave everything to us.
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Aug 6, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
76 Inside: As years past and healing happens, it often becomes easier to see the good that was present in the middle of the very hardest days. ~“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities• • •For a long time, I described 2019 as the worst year of my life. My mom and dad died in the spring of that year, five weeks apart.
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Jul 9, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
34 Inside: Experienced marketer Bethany McIlrath joins us to talk about life’s zigs and zags, God’s timing and what it’s like to promote her own book instead of the work of other authors. ~I’m not sure when Bethany McIlrath and I first crossed paths online, but at some point in my earlier days of blogging, we became friends.
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Jun 4, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
13 Inside: Sickness led to soul-searching, then a comment from a friend helped me reaffirm my “why” and continues to provide encouragement for all of us today. ~One thing I learned from having Covid twice in one year is that, for me, the recovery phase is often just as emotional as it is physical.
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May 28, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
17 Inside: In honor of my dad’s birthday, I’ve written about his favorite flowers, funeral slide shows, the heaviness of grief, kind friends and where my heart is now. ~I was at Wal-Mart recently, headed toward the insect repellant, when Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” came on the instore music system. I don’t recall ever hearing the song before one of my brothers chose it as part of the accompaniment for the slide show at my dad’s funeral.
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May 14, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
89 Inside: It started with a pity party and ended with a deeper understanding of how the Gospel frees us to release others from meeting needs that only God can meet. ~Years ago, the biblical concept of dying to self became intensely personal for me during a stressful time of my life. I shared what this looked like last week. But the story didn’t end there. I continued thinking about dying to self as the months went by. We even started talking about it as a family.
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
164 Inside: You don’t have to be a professional wordsmith to benefit from writing through grief. Here are a few practical tips if you’re not sure how to start or you’re afraid it might be too painful. ~My parents died five years ago this spring. As I ponder my grief journey, I see how writing through it—here on the blog as well in other places—has facilitated a huge amount of healing in my life. I suppose this makes sense.
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Mar 26, 2024 | 
instaencouragements.com | Lois Flowers |Patsy Burnette |Michele Morin
One of my favorite parts of the book, "16 Names of God: a Strong Tower to Run to" is the personal reflections. Each of the 16 chapters in the book contains a personal reflection written by a different girl. These personal reflections are moving! They challenge us. They are thought-provoking and we are better off having read them.
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Mar 19, 2024 | 
wp.me | Lois Flowers
180 Inside: As time drags on and it seems like nothing ever changes, it helps to remember a few key truths about faith, feelings and God’s faithfulness. ~When it comes to faith, I often find it easier to trust God in the middle of my own struggles than it is to wait for Him to come to the rescue of someone I love. I don’t know why this is. I just know that it happensMaybe it’s because I don’t like to wait. I look up movie spoilers in the middle of the show.
