the beautiful empty jar

“For she did not know that I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and multiplied her with silver and gold- which they prepared for Baal.” Hosea 2:8 God was talking about His people, Israel. God loved His people so much, and out of His love He lavished them with gifts. Grain, new wine and oil can be symbolic of God’s provisions in the bible. Grain can represent God’s physical or material provisions, new wine is often synonymous with joy in the bible, and oil used to mark spiritual anointing. God gave His people wealth, provisions of abundant food and safety, and He gave them Himself. But not only did they neglect to acknowledge these things as gifts, but they took those gifts and used them to worship, show affection for, and honor other gods. It breaks my heart to read this. I realize my own lack of gratitude for the gifts given from God’s own hands. It’s Thanksgiving, 2020.  Ironically, if 2020 has given us anything, it has been a clear vision of what we have taken for granted, the t...

I’ve had a misunderstanding of what spiritual warfare looks like. I had this visual that true, unshakable faith looked like meditating; sitting quietly, legs crossed, hands in lap, and soft smiles on lips while the war raged around me. But you know, I have found that I can’t seem to just tell myself to stay calm when it feels like my world is falling apart. And when I can’t stay calm, I start dumping shame on top of my anxiety because a good, faithful Christian should  simply says “I trust God” and that’d be the end of it. If you have ever experienced this, that is known as the shame cycle, because more shame, just begets more anxiety and so on. The past month seemed to be slammed with insecurities, rejection, and fear. I even had this dream where one of my ministry heroes attempted to comfort me by telling me that he had figured out my problem. He took me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, smiling, and said “You just want attention.” I burst into tears and told him that h...