I love writing, y’all. I am so excited to see the stories that God gives me to pour forth into the world. It is my hope that He will equip me to make them beautiful, theological, and accessible, that people may know Him better through the words they read.
Author: ellaem7
A Time to Find
A few weeks ago, I decided it was high time that I clean out my wardrobe. It had been months since I did so, and it needed it badly, especially the top shelf. Everything in there was a jumbled up mess of medicines and instruction manuals, loose papers, clothing, and batteries. I pulled everything out and set (or tossed) it on the floor at my feet. As I flailed through the shelf’s contents…
Best 2023 Reads and 2024 Predictions!
I love books, and I love reading. Check out a list of my favorite books from 2023, the 2023 books I predicted I would most like in 2022, and books I’m looking forward to reading in 2024, here!
Beauty is a Process
Beauty is a process. And nothing is going to be fully and completely beautiful when it is unfinished. Even as its growing, even as its becoming more and more beautiful, it isn’t the finished product yet. Sometimes as something, whether its a story, a house, or me, is growing, it gets uglier before it gets better. But that’s okay, because the ugly isn’t the end product.
Lucy Maud Montgomery and the Hint of the Gospel
Something tells me that Lucy Maud Montgomery knew more about the Gospel than she realized she knew. Deep in her heart, she had some idea that God was not what the religion of the time said He was. You look at the themes of her books, and see that she had a yearning for something better. The actions of her characters speak louder than their words.
The Bookshop by the Beach
The bookstore was a vivid menagerie of color, each of the mismatched shelves brimming with books in every shade you could imagine. One main aisle stretched down the middle of the shop with little alcoves of books branching off from either side. As I headed toward the back…
Warriors of Another World
It’s so easy to have a passive attitude about the evil going on around us. Subconsciously, we dismiss the fight on this earth because this isn’t our home. This attitude could not be more wrong. We are called to be salt and light to the earth.
Resting
I do believe that rest comes in many forms. It looks different for many people. Ultimately, however, there is one denominator that we cannot forget: God is the only one who can give us rest…
Where Homes Converge: Brokenness, BUT GOD
Does it ever break your heart? Sin tints and distorts everything that once was whole. There are few things that it has not touched. But God does not let the story end there…
Where Homes Converge: Beauty
All beautiful things reflect the Beauty of God. All beautiful things should point us toward heaven. Toward the day when we will see perfect Beauty made manifest as we enter Zion.
Even the ugly and beautiful things mixed can remind us of our Creator’s beauty. An exquisite…
Where Homes Converge: Service
But Jesus had come to set straight the mindset of the world. Just like He showed the first to be last, He demonstrated how the greatest were to humble themselves in service. He was displaying to the world what had been intended for it when God first created it, a place where heartfelt love and genuine kindness triumph over sin and selfishness.
Where Homes Converge: Worship
This physical witness to the hope that is in us continues far, far outside the church building. Worship happens at home, within families. It also happens individually, even as we step out into the world and reflect our faith to the world around us by living it out. In every situation where this happens, it’s more than a person or a group of people coming to God and hearing from Him: it’s the Kingdom of God coming so close that the rest of the world can see, hear, and touch it.
Where Homes Converge: New Stories
Narnia was my first safe haven. I remember grabbing The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe off of our living room bookshelf and approaching my mom with the question, “Can I read this?” When she said yes, I snuggled up in my bed with my stuffed kitten in the middle of the day. As I opened the book, a feeling of excitement ran through me. By the time I reached the ending line…
Where Homes Converge: Tabernacle
As Andrew Lazo, a C.S. Lewis scholar who specializes in Till We Have Faces, notes, Joy is a signpost to Love. To use the many analogies often referenced in regard to sehnsucht: the longing leads to the Longed For, the blue flowers lead to the Gardener, the mountain leads to the God of the Mountain, the creation leads to the Creator. When you already have the One it all leads to, those signposts on the road to the Destination often just become signposts.
Where Homes Converge: Music
I love listening to music – I love sitting with my headphones on, eyes closed, just absorbing it. This is kind of a new thing for me. Six or seven years ago, I could have cared less. I mean, I didn’t dislike music at all, I just never really sat down with the sole purpose of listening to an album. Totally different story these days….
Where Homes Converge: Reunion
I don’t believe for a moment that it’s wrong to long to see everyone we love in heaven. It will be the one place where the people I wish could all be together finally will be. There will be a joy of reunion when I see my great-grandparents for the first time since I was little and when I finally meet my brother. But again, Lewis expresses it the best in The Last Battle. Along with the excitement of reunion will be the most overwhelming joy of all when I see Jesus for the first time.
Where Homes Converge: Grief
Grief comes when you lose something you loved. You can grieve over all manner of things: relationships, seasons of life, projects gone that you poured yourself into. You can grieve your childhood or your innocence or the conclusion of a beautiful story. But grief in a Christian context also has an element of yearning to it. One day, our grieving tears will be wiped away by the hand of Jesus.
Where Homes Converge: Pain
The world is broken by pain. On the days when we experience it first hand, we long for it to be over. In this life, in this moment. Gone. And we look forward to the next life, when pain will not exist…
Where Homes Converge: Light
Light promises us hope. Even when there is darkness all around us, light is somewhere. There is a lantern burning in the darkest of nights, stars shining against blackest skies. Just like there is always hope. And no matter how long the night may last, we’re always promised morning. Just like no matter how long the sin in this world persists, believers are promised perfection and healing in heaven.
Where Homes Converge: Stories
Stories are the stuff that reality is made of. They show us truth and point us toward the greatest Story ever told…