Two Weeks Ago, I Googled Myself

faith, freedom, Life Lessons

When the devil whispers a lie to you, it’s not random. It’s intentional. Deliberate. It’s the exact opposite of the Truth. The specific Truth he is trying to discredit in your life. It gives you a little insight into his playbook. Two weeks ago, I googled myself. It wasn’t out of arrogance, I promise, rather shear curiosity. Barry (my husband) and I were driving around town when he told me about a DJ friend of his from college, “He moved to L.A. and is like a real life, big time DJ. You can google him!” So naturally I thought, I wonder what happens when you google “Author Rachel Dawn”? So I did. To…

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Jesus with Skin on

grace, marriage, relationships, second marriage, Spiritual Growth

Earlier this Spring, my husband took a group of high school guys to an event our church coordinates called “MAN CAMP“. He left Friday morning before I woke up, so when I came into the kitchen to fix myself breakfast, I found a note waiting for me. It started with “Morning Rach! A few things…” and I felt myself bristle. I expected it to be a list of things he wanted me to do/take care of while he was gone. Because that’s the kind of note I would have left him. In fact, I had been leaving him lots of notes like that lately, because in my opinion, he had been increasingly pulling…

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Would All the Real Martha’s Please Stand Up?

faith, Life Lessons, Spiritual Growth

My friend Katie Reid just finished her book, “Made Like Martha: Good News for the Woman Who Gets Things Done” and invited me to be on the launch team. I eagerly jumped at the chance  – not just to help create buzz for my friend and her release in July, but a little selfishly, because the book sounds like it was written just for me. There’s a story in the Bible, in the book of Luke, about two women, sisters – one’s named Mary and one is Martha – who have an encounter with Jesus.  Martha invites him to their house for dinner, but spends the whole time doing things for her guest,…

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Catch Me Up: Permission to Be Imperfect

faith, freedom, grace, Spiritual Growth

You know what my favorite feature in the Bible App is? It’s the “catch me up” button. When I open the app and see I’m 5 days behind on a reading plan, it can be really discouraging. It’s easy for me to start spiraling into shame and guilt. I start to feel like I’m not doing enough spiritually, like I’m not a “good enough” Christian. And that can pretty quickly snowball into to overwhelm. I start thinking about all the things in my life I’m behind on, that I’m not doing “well enough” in. But one tap of the gear icon and “catch me up” shifts the dates of the plan forward so…

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Are You There God? It’s Me Rachel

faith, Life Lessons, Spiritual Growth

“Tell them to go home and flourish in their planting, in the place where I have planted them, and if they do, they’ll change the world.” – Bobbie Houston  It was a sweltering Friday in July, but I was inside. I was sitting just outside of a hotel meeting room door anxiously waiting for my name to be called. It was my first writer’s conference and I had scored one of the few, coveted appointment slots with a publisher; during which I would pitch my book in hopes they would offer me a contract. I sat quietly, legs crossed at the ankles, my hands in my lap resting on top of the three…

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I Love Jesus, But I Cuss A Little

faith, freedom, grace, Life Lessons, Spiritual Growth

The first time I saw that t-shirt I was offended.  Like any good Christian girl should be. And I immediately started judging the person on my facebook friends list who posted it.  Of course she would post something like that. The recently-divorced single mom whose status updates were littered with F-bombs on the regular.  She was a trainwreck, so it was natural a post like that would come from her. (Nevermind the shirt was true about me; but I don’t cuss “as bad as her”, and I would never admit it outloud or gasp! post it on social media!) I scrolled past the garment disgusted and with an eye roll, but that shirt…

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God Will Never Give You Someone Else’s Husband

Life Lessons, marriage, relationships, second marriage

A friend of mine recently posted this image on Facebook and I was torn by it. While I wholeheartedly agree with its truthful message, I was a little jarred by its delivery. In my past life, I would have reposted the image with hearty agreement, and all the judgment and condemnation I could muster to go along with it. (Note: I’m not criticizing the poster for posting. I don’t know her story. Maybe there’s a woman pursuing her husband right now, and these words are coming from a fragile, threatened heart? I’m just saying in my past life, I would have clicked “post” from a place of self-righteous pride.) But for me today,…

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#RealTalk

freedom, grace, Life Lessons

Can we talk about something? Life is messy. Like….really messy.  #realtalk My life was like a fairytale, until it wasn’t anymore.  And I didn’t know how to handle that at all. I spent a lot of years angry and bitter at God. Today, my life doesn’t look anything like I dreamed it would, but I’m learning to love the way it looks now. I started out polished and perfect (at least pretending to be) and knowing all the answers but came out the other side of the lowest pit of my life real and raw and vulnerable, asking “Now What?”. I met and fell wildly in love with Grace – you might know Him…

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Unfinished: Waiting for What’s Next

faith, freedom, grace, Spiritual Growth, Success & Motivation

“Not scared to say it, I used to be the one Preachin’ it to you, that you could overcome I still believe it, but it ain’t easy ‘Cause that world I painted, where things just all work out It started changing and I started having doubts And it got me so down…” -Mandisa, Unfinished Turns out Mandisa and I are practically the same person.  Who knew? Remember last month when I wrote to you about What to do with the Death of a Dream?  It’s not that I was being disingenuous at that time, but I have a confession: The reason I felt compelled to share that message with you is because I…

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What to do with the Death of a Dream

Life Lessons, Success & Motivation

Have you ever given up on a dream? Has life ever beaten you up or beaten you down so badly, you felt it was pointless to believe in a better or different future? In my book Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them, I talk about how after my divorce in 2011, I felt like my life was ruined. Like I had blown my chance at the dream life I pictured in my head, by mistakenly marrying the wrong person, and would just have to settle for whatever second-rate existence I could get from thereon. A divorce is not only the death of a relationship, but the…

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