• Devotionals,  Faith

    Express your love to God!

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest story by Sandi over at @refreshingmelodies Express your love to God! ‘O my soul, bless God. From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name! O my soul, bless God, don’t forget a single blessing! – Psalm 103:1-2 (MSG) I love to worship. In simple terms, worship is the act of attributing reverent honour and homage to God. This can be accomplished in various expressions. Most people would automatically think of singing, playing a musical instrument or dancing as the most common expressions of worship. But did you know that whatever you do, if you are doing it unto God, it can also be…

  • Devotionals,  Faith

    Faith Training

    Editor’s Note: This is a story by veteran Diva Maria Drayton. Thank you so much Maria for continuing to share your writing with us! “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” 3 John 2:1 NKJV Working out is not one of my favorite past times. I don’t enjoy running, lifting weights, machine workouts and the worst of all is sweating. But I’ve learned that I must do it in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As a youth, I ran track and “no”, I didn’t enjoy it then either. The worst part was always the beginning of the…

  • god loves technology
    Devotionals,  Faith

    Guess What? God knows technology!

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest story by June Titus, a veteran Diva writer. Thanks for sharing again, June! The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29: 29 Human beings, ever since the creation, have been trying to find out things. They found out about fire; discovered time; discovered out how to make a wheel; invented the boat; figured out a microscope, and found germs; a telescope, and learned that the earth rotated around the sun; and introduced modern technology…and everything in between. God has…

  • Devotionals,  Faith

    Dragonflies – Fall 2020

    Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Fall 2020 submissions cycle! Today we have a beautiful devotional from our friend Sheila Lloyd. Her bio is down below if you don’t remember her! We live in a beautiful neighborhood hemmed in by the river on one side and wooded mountain foothills on the other.  The route of my usual walk passes through quiet streets lined with volunteer tricklings of water from some elevated stream through ditches filled with leaves from last fall. Frogs jump as my foot falls get closer, and I suddenly stop to gaze at a dragonfly poised and still. Amazingly it remains in place long enough for me to bend…

  • Devotionals,  Military Life

    Healing + submissions are open!

    Most mornings, I wake up with a start. I look around my room and remember where I am. And then I tell myself, “everything’s okay.” I know this isn’t normal. And I am undergoing treatment for my anxiety and nightmares. But it’s my reality after living for three years under what I can only describe as a personal hell. I think I’ve been frank about how hard living in Italy was, but I haven’t shared how it’s still affecting me. And mind you, it wasn’t just living overseas, with only a few other American families nearby. It was the constant “hello-goodbye” that was our ship’s movements. Constant worry about being…

  • Devotionals,  Faith

    A Moral Imperative

    Hi guys. I’m going to talk about George Floyd. I have always stood by the belief that everyone is welcome and loved here, regardless of color or faith, and will continue to do so. Some things I’ve been thinking about during all this: Are those cops Christians? With a knee on his neck, what was that officer thinking? As the police standing by heard the words “I can’t breathe”, over and over again, what did they think they were doing? Did they not believe they were murdering, or were they caught up in the moment? Finally, what would Jesus do if he was standing watching this scene? I think we…

  • Devotionals,  Faith,  Family

    Believing We Are Right…But Still Being So Very Wrong

    Editor’s Note: She’s back again, our veteran writer with my favorite name! Maggie Meadows Cooper! While home on quarantine, I have had the privilege (and let’s be real…sometimes headache) of homeschooling my sweet babies. One is in preschool, preparing for the start of Kindergarten in the Fall. We have been working on addition and subtraction with numbers 1-10, and she had been doing great…when the problems were written down on paper. But after practicing a bit, I decided to ask her some problems out loud and see how she did. So I asked expectantly, “Ok baby, what is one plus one!?” And she answered, “Eleven!” Hmmm…a conversation ensued explaining that…

  • Devotionals

    Bleeding in the Midst of a Calling

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest story by Ann Grace. A great devotional for you today. Have you ever had to comfort someone after a hard fall or loss? Well, I have had my fair share of “mommy moments” where I kissed a bloody booboo or wiped the tears off a child’s face. Funny thing is though, that even in the midst of my children’s intense pain, they still managed to get back up! They didn’t let the pain or the fear of failure paralyze them to stay down or quit. About 5 years ago, I experienced a calling of widowhood to which I failed miserably. The overwhelming urge to…

  • Devotionals

    Onomatopoeia

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest story by June E. Titus. Thanks so much for this encouragement, June! Psalm 86: 1 (Read entire chapter), O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. I love words. Especially intriguing to me are words that sound like what they mean—“onomatopoeic” words. “Ennui” could be one of those words. It aptly describes a recent blah-ish period in my spiritual life. The word sounds—well, blah. Many excuses could be listed to attempt justification of those spiritual doldrums. But, to quote late nineteenth/early twentieth century evangelist, Billy Sunday, “An excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.” Like a sausage.…

  • Devotionals,  Family

    Shadows: A Mother’s Day Devotional

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest story by Sheila Lloyd! Welcome back Sheila. I hope that this devotional can be an encouragement to you all today. Shadows lengthen on a mid-October lawn reminding me of Autumn afternoons of my childhood and adolescence in a veritable garden of love, where kindness and tenderness cast long shadows on walls of growing maturity. The gift, not only of being loved but actually enjoyed, of not just feeling protected but also supported and celebrated, engendered confidence to fly high pursuing dreams. And when the wild blue yonder conjured up storms that tore the parachute, my parents were soft piles of hay ensuring a safe…