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when you’ve been hurt by legalism or the church, hold onto faith
But I urge you, Christian who has been hurt by legalism: Don't give up on God. Hold onto faith.
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Failed courtship: when you trust and obey but your heart still gets broken
Have you ever had your heart broken by a relationship gone wrong or a dream unfulfilled? Have you ever found yourself trying to find the answers to the blame game? Have you ever…
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hiding in shame, packing up my dreams
I was standing in an empty dormitory room, the one right across from mine. It had been empty for the entire semester, but now it was where I was hiding all of my…
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Standing Under the Broken Heart: How Shaming Leads to Legalism
A war had been started within my soul. Part of me that believed that their opinion of me was also God’s opinion: that I really was a rebellious person if I didn’t follow…
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what is “legalism”?
After some prayerful consideration of the objective and direction of this series, I feel that it is necessary to share what I mean when I use the term "legalism." When I was living…
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some self-observations about legalism
I was driving with a new friend back from the park, and we were discussing our religious backgrounds and some of the standards that we used to follow when we were growing up.…
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“composing a beautiful existence that barely needs a savior”
"I impress the world with passionate, visible morality while avoiding God altogether. There is something to humility that is costly...something resembling humiliation...an outright declaration of the wreck we are without God rather than…
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Earning God’s love
For four years of marriage, I based how good of a wife I was on my performance. ...I stopped singing and shook my head at the irony, as I realized that this problem…
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When I’m not enough to be a good mother: where God’s grace begins
I think that God created motherhood to show me how sinful and inadequate I am at being a good mother…and thus how much I desperately need Him and His grace. Because there is…
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Harmful Courtship Teachings: the Myth of the Construction Paper Heart
I’m currently a 25-year-old married woman and mother of one. This morning my son woke up at 5:45, but was scared to enter the hallway because the hall night-light was broken. He crawled…