As I write this post, I am in the midst of a familiar battle.  This battle rages not on worldly fields, but in the darkest parts of my mind.  The lies and doubts come from every angle. Let’s face it. Almost all women, even Christian women, are bombarded with a plethora of worldly messages on a daily basis that seek to steal our joy and assurance. These post- modern, New Age subtleties infiltrate every crevice of our existence from the billboard on the freeway, to the pop-up ad invading our simple attempt to check an email. It’s no wonder that many completely innocent, well-meaning Christian women fall prey to the…

  In 1999, I was diagnosed with a rare disorder of the esophagus called achalasia. For you non-medical folks (like me), this is a disorder where the muscle in my esophagus responsible for opening and closing when I eat (it’s called a sphincter muscle…teehee…) stopped working. Completely. As in, everything I ate came back up…  Yuck. Laparoscopic surgery in the summer of 1999 corrected the problem, but the “cure” was really just an incision across the non-functioning muscle to allow food to pass by.  Since I was so young, 22 at the time, doctors said the chances of the surgery permanently correcting the problem were small.  Their warning turned out…