When my husband and I were engaged, the wife of an important church leader in our lives told me that, as a new wife, it would be my job to follow my husband wherever he went, even if I had to “follow him off a cliff.”

In other words, even if I believed he was making a bad decision, my job as a wife was to submit to him in that decision and just trust it to God. (I’m sure she would have excluded sinful decisions from this, though I didn’t ask, and she didn’t clarify.)

That advice terrified me.

One of my goals for this new year is to walk in greater peace and awareness of God’s presence, no matter my circumstances. It’s one of those easy-to-say but harder-to-do realities of the Christian faith. Yet I fully believe it is possible. Jesus died to give us peace that surpasses our understanding, peace that doesn’t make sense in the space we are in (see Phil. 4:7). And his presence is always with us, comforting and providing and guiding, no matter how violent the storm (see John 16:33; Luke 8:23-25).

No hardship or grief we face is mightier than his sacrifice on the cross. His peace and presence are always available, and I don’t want to settle for less than what he died to give me.

Only a few days into the new year, my commitment to peace and presence entered a real hurricane. Without warning, grief and loss flooded in. If you’ve faced pain that feels unbearable—pain so deep you feel it in your body and everything in you longs to flee—then you know the kind of storm that hit.

Growing up in the church, I never heard anyone explain or argue for a co-leadership model of marriage. In my world, it didn’t exist. Certainly, some couples operated essentially as co-leaders, but they still believed in male headship. It seemed unquestionable that God had ordained men to lead and women to follow. I didn’t even know another Christian marriage model existed.

Today, the marriage landscape in the church has changed significantly. Increasing numbers of people are beginning to question and reject the male-headship model in search of something based in mutual submission.

For most of us, this journey from a male-headship model to a co-leadership model is not a simple one.

I used to believe my husband, Mark, needed to be the leader (often called the “head”) in our marriage. But over the first five years of our marriage, Mark and I realized a few things. First, male headship wasn’t working for us. In fact, it had created a lot of pain and dysfunction. Second, not everyone believes the Bible teaches male headship. The more we studied, the more we became convinced that God’s heart for marriage goes back to Adam and Eve’s experience of co-leadership in the Garden of Eden before sin entered the world. Two become one isn’t just about our physical union, but about learning to live and lead and grow together.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her God’s plan to birth the messiah through her, he told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:30 CSB). This command against fear is the most repeated command in the Bible.

Almost every time God or one of his angels appears to a person, he tells that person, “Fear not,” or “Do not be afraid” (see Gen. 15:1, 26:24; Exod. 20:20; Josh. 1:9, 8:1, 10:8, 11:6; Judg. 6:23; Luke 1:13, 30). An admonition against fear also appears throughout many books of both the Old and New Testaments—in historical books, poetry, in prophecy, in letters.

My social media feed is currently full of pictures of friends chopping down Christmas trees with their families, their cute Christmasy living room décor, and their baking adventures with their kids. I love the happiness those photos represent. Yet I also want to speak to an important truth. While we are inundated with cozy and heartwarming images of family and togetherness on TV and social media at this time of year—many people still feel deeply lonely.

Recently, I finished reading the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, which highlights the ways in which the Israelites had turned from God to worship idols. The last few chapters of the book paint a prophetic picture of God’s heart for his people. Though they were like dry bones, he would revive them with his Spirit (see Ez. 37). Though the old covenant had failed, he would make a new covenant. He would build a house where his glory could dwell (see Ez. 43), where the river of his presence flowed ever deeper (see Ez. 47), and the name of that place would be “The Lord Is There” (Ez. 48:35 CSB).

God has always desired one thing above all others—to dwell with his people. This is why Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the exact expression of the Father. Jesus shows us what God’s heart has always been—to know and be known.

Brave people act fiercely in the face of danger—like rushing into a burning house to save a child or stepping into a violent situation to rescue a victim. Many of us will never need to make that kind of brave sacrifice, yet we each face a choice in our lives that requires more bravery than acting the hero. The bravest choice we can make is the choice to face our own pain.

If that seems ridiculous, hear me out.

Our kids have wanted a dog for a long time. The timing never felt convenient; our house was never big enough. And truthfully, I didn’t want a dog. I’ve never been a dog person, and it just felt like too much of a burden.

But recently, a series of events led us to suddenly start considering getting a puppy for our kids. I knew the kids would be thrilled—and that was the only reason I was even thinking about it. The joy of making a dream come true for people I love is no small thing. I felt an inexplicable peace about it, even as I worried about all the extra responsibility it involved. As my husband and I prayed and talked about the decision, I felt God whisper to my heart that this decision to get a puppy for our kids would mirror his extravagantly generous heart toward us.

Several years ago, our family walked through a very difficult season of loss, both personally and vocationally. Loss of innocence in a child’s life. Loss of mental health. Loss of a dream we’d been investing in for years. Loss of vision and purpose. Loss of my editing business. Loss of physical health. Loss of finances and friendships and so much of what had been our normal. I share in more depth about that time in my book, but in short, it felt like looking down a long, dark tunnel and wondering if we’d make it through.

That season lasted about two years, and we spent six months of those two years on high alert in constant vigilance with one of our children. When we finally reached the end of that dark tunnel, some of those losses were restored, but most were not. Though we had survived that season, our healing journey had just begun.

Recently, I’ve been working on processing disappointment about a years-long dream in my life that feels like it is dying.

I think most of us have been there at least once. We really wanted something, but for a variety of reasons, it didn’t work out. And now we need to grieve that dream and move forward.

And in this process, I’ve realized something about myself. Sometimes, when facing grief and loss, I gaslight myself. I tell myself that what I wanted doesn’t matter that much. Or it wasn’t that important compared to other things. Or that it isn’t very spiritual or mature to be so sad and disappointed about material things.

When on October 2, 2006, a gunman shot ten girls at the West Nickle Mines Amish school, killing five, before killing himself, people around the U.S. wondered how the Amish community could respond so quickly with forgiveness. Not only did the Amish publicly declare that they had forgiven the man, but they demonstrated it by attending his funeral and visiting his family members, who were deeply grieved by his actions. One Amish man reportedly held the shooter’s father in his arms for more than an hour as he cried. This response stunned the world. They couldn’t understand it and even debated whether it was OK to forgive someone who hadn’t shown remorse.

We often think of forgiveness as hard—maybe even unattainable at times. Yet Jesus flipped the narrative on forgiveness, presenting it as not just possible, but actually normal for his followers.

A few years ago, our pediatrician noticed one of our kids had an unusual heartbeat. She sent us for some tests and then called with the bad news—our child had a growth on her heart. The doctor suggested we take her to a heart specialist who would be able to give us more answers about what was wrong and what we could do. We scheduled the appointment at the earliest opening—one week away.

Such a big and potentially serious unknown in the life of one’s child feels terrifying, but we also had seen God do many miracles in our lives and the lives of our friends. We knew that his possible includes tumors disappearing, so we called a few trusted friends who are mighty in prayer, and we began praying and declaring God’s healing power over our child.

Most Christians believe that consistent time with Jesus is important, yet over and over, people have told me how they struggle to make that happen. A while back, I served as a mentor for a four-month discipleship program. During several years of mentoring students, I consistently received the same feedback from students after they had finished the program. They had not continued spending time with God every day. They wanted to, but when they were no longer required to do it for the program, they struggled to maintain the habit.

Perhaps you can relate.

Christians are often really good at forgiving people and giving second chances. After all, forgiveness and redemption are the essence of the gospel message. It’s a beautiful part of who we are—until it’s not.

The desire to see good in others can also be weaponized against us.

In one of my favorite animated movies, Rise of the Guardians, Santa tells Jack Frost that he (Jack) feels so lost and confused because he doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know what’s at his center, or core, that defines his identity and purpose.

Using a Russian doll, Santa successively uncovers the layers of who he is—unveiling wonder as his core trait. Everything Santa does comes from that place of seeing the world through large eyes full of wonder.

The question for Jack—and for all of us—is “What’s at your center?”

An encounter is not just a meeting.

Recently, when I looked up the roots of the English word encounter, I discovered that it frequently refers to a chance meeting of two hostile groups or individuals. It can also refer to an unexpected romantic or celestial meeting, but in most contexts, when we use encounter, we mean something shocking or uncomfortable or even combative. If I happened, while shopping at the grocery store, to run into someone who had harmed my family, that would be an encounter. And I would wish I could have avoided it.

I wonder, then, at our frequent use of the word encounter to speak of our relationship with God. And whether we know what we’re asking for when we pray for encounters with him. In fact, the more I think about it, encounter seems like an appropriate word for what happens when human meets divine. Before we knew him, conflict existed between our nature and his, and after we received his forgiveness, a transformative conflict continues, in which his presence changes us into his image.

In college, even though I majored in English literature, I needed to also take various non-major courses to graduate, including Biology. This particular course was dumbed down for people like me, who do not love science, but it was still very difficult.

One night, as I was studying for the next day’s Biology quiz, I felt God asking me to put my work aside and spend some time with him. I felt him inviting me to attend a late-night worship service, because he had something he wanted to speak to me.

“God, you know I need to study,” I said. “I am not doing very well in this class. I can’t just blow off this quiz.”

“Trust me,” he said. And that was it. He was inviting me to prioritize him in a way that felt scary and costly, but I knew I couldn’t say no. No quiz was that important.

It’s easy to think that we must be enough or do enough to be loved by God. Too often, our human relationships are like that. When we fall short, we experience some sort of relational punishment from family members or friends. But that’s not how God loves us, and it’s not how we should love one another.

One of our great callings as believers is to be the love of Jesus to others in the ups and downs of life. As Jesus told his followers, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34 NIV). So many Christians are not known for loving like Jesus, and it’s because they don’t understand how he loves.

I once met someone who insisted that Christians need to be circumcised. After I got over my shock at this statement, I found myself wondering if that person had read the New Testament—where Paul repeatedly rails against the idea that believers must follow old covenant circumcision rules.

And then I started wondering why, in fact, Paul had given so much time to a topic which, to me, seemed so peripheral. Today, circumcision is not an issue that most of us think much about, especially in the context of our faith, but in the first century church, it was a big deal. The Greek New Testament makes a whopping 75 references to circumcision, and Paul taught on it in seven of his New Testament letters (Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Titus). Clearly, circumcision matters. The question is, why?