Ok, so today I’m sharing something that has been on my heart about the impact of the Gospel on us as women and it’s this: understanding the Gospel means that we can stop striving for our own perfection, and instead abide in Jesus’ perfection on our behalf. I wrote an entire chapter about this in my book Impact: Gospel Hope For Every Woman, and I’d love to share a part of it with you today. 🙂 I’ve broken up this post in sections similar to the ones in the book. From Self-Perfectionism To Rest Self-perfectionism As the word suggests, self-perfectionism (a term I created!) is essentially a striving for perfection…

For The Christian Who Struggles With Perfectionism Today I want to bring you some Biblical truth to help you grow in grace if you struggle with demanding perfection from other people and things. When I talk about perfectionism, I’m talking of both the wish for perfection and the demand of that perfection in others (whether human beings, experiences or objects). The latter is not necessarily an overt demand for perfection, i.e. you must do this X way, or else! Demand for perfection manifests in subtle actions, such as criticism, controlling behaviour, and contempt. On the other hand, a desire for perfection manifests in our dissatisfaction with circumstances, possessions, events, people,…

What does God say about control? Is control godly or not? Let’s look at this in today’s post and start by defining what control actually is. What Is Control? The dictionary defines control as “to exercise restraining or directing influence over; ​​to have power over: rule” (Mirriam-Webster dictionary reference). So the next question is: can control be part of God’s will? What God Says About Control There are two types of control: godly control and sinful control. Godly control, or biblical control, is about faithful stewardship and self-control as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Sinful control, or independent control (i.e. not in dependance to God) is ungodly because it’s…

In today’s post I’m going to be exploring what I believe to be the most common heart issue we have as sinful human beings: pride. The word pride originally came from the word pryto to mean unreasonable self-esteem; haughtiness; pomp; love of display. In fact, in its early use, pride was written with a capital P and it was ‌one of the seven deadly sins. A few centuries later, however, the word pride took on a new use: reasonable self-respect. In effect, people started using it to explain their deep satisfaction or delight regarding their own or other people’s achievements.  Finally, in more recent years, the word pride has taken…

Today’s post is about conformity. What is it? Is it God’s will for us as Christians? In this article I answer both these questions and give Bible verses for context. If you’re new here to this blog my name’s Anna and I share Christian devotions and reflections, homemaking resources, and specific content for mothers, as well as short stories for children. Conformity is a topic I think about a lot, and I’ve even written a chapter about it in my book Impact (due to be pubished in the Fall of 2022). This post is a summary of said chapter, and because it’s long I’ve broken it down into sections. Check…

We live in a toxic comparison culture, and the evidence is all around us: keeping up with the Joneses, discontent towards what we have, consumer culture, the idolization of cultural beauty standards. Comparison culture is in effect driven by a false belief that worth is measured by performance, appearance, and popularity. Back in my young adult days (before Social Media had exploded) I used to read the Daily Mail newspaper, which was popular in the UK. Not really for news, but for photos and gossip about celebrities. What happened though was that I became dissatisfied: with myself, my appearance, and my circumstances. I felt envious of all those celebrities that…

“You’re enough” is one of the most used affirmations circulating around social media, but today I’m here to tell you that I’m not enough. And that’s ok! Yes, I get it. We live in a culture of comparison, unrealistic perfection standards based on appearances and the cult of self. And when we look at ourselves realistically, we see our flaws. We feel like we’re not enough. But this begs the question: what does being enough even mean? The dictionary defines enough as: “as much or as many of something required.” So being enough is about meeting a need. As human beings, we all have needs: physical, emotional and spiritual. The…