The English Nerd

They were just a little upset over burying their favorite linking verbs today. Goodbye passive voice. We shall miss you…well, they shall. Their teacher shall not! 😭😆

A little Punctuatianos fine Italian dining to review punctuation rules 🍝 (adapted from for my big kids 🙂).

That’ll preach!

Crime Scene - Day 1 👁🔍 Collecting all the evidence!

I watched a vulture pick at a dead carcass the other morning. I first saw him around 10:30 on my way to the store. I passed him again maybe an hour after that only to find him still pecking away, tiny morsel by tiny morsel. Then, almost 2 hours later, it seemed he’d invited a friend to join him. Birds of a feather…right?

I thought to myself - there has to be a spiritual application here…and there is. Dead parts of us that haven’t been healed are prime targets for the vultures of this world: fear, anxiety, anger, bitterness…and those vultures love to pick at the dead places. What’s unfortunate is that those vultures don’t usually stay solo; they bring their pals with them to peck at us until there’s nothing left but an empty shell. And what’s painful? They devour slowly, tiny morsel by tiny morsel.

When we don’t allow healing to come into our dead places - the places we’ve been hurt by others, the places of unmet desires, the places of disappointment - we will find that fear and anxiety and anger and bitterness start to show up. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Healing can come. The vultures can be shooed away. It’s up to us to invite the healing into our hearts by the only One who can heal, Jehovah Rapha, the Mender of Broken Hearts.

Just one…

We don’t have to be overseas to be on the mission field. Wherever you are at any given moment is your God-ordained mission field…a classroom, Walmart, the doctor’s office waiting room - wherever you are. I ❤️ that! PS: If you’ve never listened to Jill Briscoe, you’re missing out! She is a wealth of godly wisdom. Find her on YouTube 🥰

This one stopped me in my tracks - literally. I stopped the YouTube video to jot it down and chew on it for a minute. As she unpacked Romans 1 a bit while telling her conversion story, Rosaria Butterfield spewed this profound wisdom. This, friend, is why we run after whatever we think God is denying us. This is what gets us into trouble. This, dare I say, is what often lands us in sin. Psalms 34 & 84 tell us that we will lack no good thing as we follow God, so if we don’t have something, it isn’t good for us right now. Should we chase after it since God is withholding in our eyes? Absolutely not! Don’t demand from men what God says is not good for you...at least not good for you right now. Trust Him. Trust His ways. Trust His timing. He will bless you as He sees fit in due time. (PS If you don’t know Rosaria’s story, go find it on YouTube. You won’t regret it!)

Leave it to Spurgeon to fill my word-loving-bank before noon 😆...but how true! What we allow to sit on our lips will eventually make its way into our hearts and minds and form a belief system that is built upon lies. How vital it is for us to let Truth be on our lips so that Truth will reign in our hearts. ❤️

Don’t know about you, but I’ve already had opportunities to see God’s grace in the midst of this pandemic and chaos ❤️ While we wouldn’t choose it, His lovingkindness is still evident if we open our eyes. Is it a time of stretching and growing pains, especially for educators? Sure. But is He still good? Is He still sovereign? Is He still worthy of praise? Absolutely! Panic or praise? Which are you choosing right now?

While and I just announced this week that Joshua would be the book of choice for our summer study, I’ve been sitting in Isaiah for a bit now. This struck a chord with me today: We can backslide and set up idols all around us, yet God pursues us because He wants us to want to be near Him, to be like Him. “Heart-melting” is an understatement. How underserving we are, and how loving He is! ❤️

I’ve been chewing on this quote for a couple days now...while it’s scary to step out of our comfort zones, obedience to what He’s calling us to do is always worth it. ❤️