Presently Engaged with Mandy Pallock

There's a place for you at the table.

Are you feeling bombarded today? What would it look like to raise a flag of faith and fly it proudly?

What would you do if you knew you could not fail? If you knew that the God of the universe promises to never leave you or forsake you, if you were confident that you serve a powerful God who designs and ordains your days, if you were positive that He who calls you is faithful, and that He will also do it, what would you do?

If someone asked you to write three things that you ARE, what would you write?

As One who has neither beginning nor end, God is not bound by time. A God this big, this immeasurable, who exists outside of time itself, also exists outside of my comfort zone.

Have you ever wanted to have a different name than the one your parents gave you?

I walked by our refrigerator to see blue painter’s tape swathed around the entire thing. Words festooned the front, written in an anonymous yet recognizable hand: Leftovers are bad!

For six days, San Antonio shivered through rolling blackouts, complete electricity outages, and no water.

If you are breathing, it’s not too late. If you are wondering “Is it too late?” it’s not too late.

You want to set yourself up to hear the word of God preached to you? Memorize Scripture with someone. My children have been preaching truth to me all summer long as we have hidden God’s Word in our hearts together.

Listening from the other room to our Kindergartener “read” a book to his younger sister, I didn’t recognize the book they were discussing. From where I sat, it sounded quite ominous.

To my children’s consternation, I had just announced chicken for dinner. Internally, I prepared myself for the clean-your-plate dance that I knew the evening would entail.

This world you’re inheriting is a broken place. Just this weekend, I saw a sight I never expected: Confederate, American, and Nazi flags all flown together in the face of all that is good.

“What made it so messy back here? Do you have stuff out all over your house? What do you have in your house?”

I still remember the day I learned to drive the old red Farmall.

Do you have a dream germinating inside of you? A passion you have a hard time even defining? Be encouraged: God never wastes passion

The Pandemic exposed so many things about us, didn't it? Counsel your heart with truth regardless of how exposed you may still feel.

For a guitar to make beautiful music, its strings have to be tight. When a musician makes the strings tighter or looser, it changes the pitch created when the string is plucked. If a string is far too loose, all you will hear is a disappointing “thwump.” Life is like that, isn’t it? I may wish for an easy life, for a tension to be resolved or for a challenging circumstance to go away. But I wonder...

On movie night at our place, something interesting happens after the last scene is over. No one gets up and turns off the screen. The end credits have become an art form of their own, and the movie isn’t over until the credits have finished.

Before taking the tape off that bordered and ran through the project, it was just chalk on a board. Some would have called it scribbles. But now? Now it was art. Original, carefree, beautiful art.

“…Speak softly and carry a big stick.” [Theodore Roosevelt] Something happened that caused them to take a stick of some sort with them on their walk. They could stay inside because of what might happen. They could ignore the possibility of danger and walk hands-free. They may even have a valid reason to not go on a walk again. But they don’t let those things keep them inside. They still venture ou...

Just because it’s good, doesn’t mean that it’s my good. All of life is sacred. There is no dividing line between the sacred and the secular. Serve Jesus where you are, in the way that He has called you.

In the world of photography, there are as many ways to take a picture as there are photographers. How the elements are arranged in your scene, your angle and perspective, and your subject itself when you click the shutter button—that is composition.

Do you wear a wedding ring on your left hand? Remember that happy day when you were engaged? Everything that you did was about and for your fiancé. Their every preference on the forefront of your mind; you arranged entire schedules and commitments so that you could spend as much time with them as possible. And so much about your previous relationship led up to the point of being engaged…of him get...

In what ways am I “keeping the tabs open” in my life? Do I think, “I’ll come back to that someday”? Do I keep tabs open, not because I need them, but because I can’t move on from them? Are there tabs that keep me from really living engaged right where I am, because of the constant reminder of what could have or should have been?