Happy Saturday!

We had a women's Christmas event at our church this morning. It was a place to start fresh and focus anew on King Jesus before the holidays begin.

The refrain of my heart this season seems to be "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus." The world around us is in turmoil. Pain and sorrows beyond imagining occur all around us and sometimes within us. It's not supposed to be this way.

I wonder if this holiday season is especially hard for you this year. Perhaps you're currently in a season of unimaginable pain. Perhaps you're in a season of feeling pretty apathetic toward everything in general. If that's you, dear friend, my heart goes out to you. I've walked miles in the shoes you're walking in right now. But there is hope, one true Living Hope. Can I tell you about him for a second?

Theologians call this era we're in, this post-first coming of Jesus, post-crucifixion and resurrection, this era of a building church, the "already and the not yet." Already Jesus has freed us from our captivity to sin. Already, Jesus has fulfilled his promise to redeem his people. Already, he has come as a gentle and lowly servant and given up his perfect life in place of us. And yet we remain in this fallen world that is still enslaved to darkness, the "not yet." We live in the shadows of what is to come.

One day Jesus will return in all his glory and vanquish the evil one once and for all. One day the pain and sorrow of this world will permanently wash away. And friends, I yearn for that day. But I also yearn for the people around me to know and love the One True King, Jesus.

So today, I pray, come, Lord Jesus.

If you don't know Jesus personally, I'd love to chat with you about that. I'd love to tell you my story of redemption. Reach out to me on my website (button below), and I'd be thrilled to respond!

I have a fun book to highlight today, so keep scrolling for that! If you're stateside, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

-Audrey

Guest Author Spotlight

Jade Behr and Blue Huxley's

A Problem Like Maria

Lively, good-natured Maria Karlovna travels to Mint River, Wyoming to avoid a marriage arranged by her Russian immigrant parents, and falls head over heels for a mysterious Army captain with ghosts in his eyes.

Luke Andrews has never had a problem like Maria before. A Civil War veteran who's been to hell and back and has the gray hairs to prove it, he knows he has nothing to offer a vibrant, loving woman—but he’s drawn to her like a moth to flame.

Maria has one Wyoming winter to convince him to take a chance on love, or she'll be going home in the spring with a broken heart.

Get it Here!

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine."

Isaiah 43:1