The Spacious Room

As a gift to you, dear listener, I have released this special BONUS BIRTHDAY Episode of the Spacious Room to celebrate my birthday this week! In this power-packed episode I talk about how being a slightly ridiculous woman helps in those moments when you need to stand on the hillside and fight and pray. Whether it's for your own kids, or someone's else's, if they've lost their passion for God, step...

As the saying goes, ‘Practice makes perfect’ but practice can never make anything perfect. We live in a flawed, imperfect world and practice and perfection cannot coexist because one will inevitably cancel out the other. Perfect is about avoiding mistakes in the process of practice and the sense that everything needs to be perfect before we even think about the practice causes this tension on the...

The trouble with us doing all the clearing out is we cannot keep it up. Clearing out every piece of clutter, each thing we believe is collateral damage from our past and fixing ourselves up won’t last. Instead of allowing God’s extravagant love to get rid of and keep what He deems necessary and essential in our lives. 

Trusting. With all our controlling, managing, and fixing we view God as an uncontrolled, untameable, wild horse that we need to break in so we can trust Him. But deep down we know we cannot break God in so He becomes more manageable and more compliant. So, what do we do? Well, we decide to pull our carts on our own.

Remember those ‘Magic Eye’ pictures that were all the rage back in the 1990s? The optical illusion caused people to go cross-eyed while staring blankly at a random patterned poster until they suddenly shouted, “I’ve got it! Look, see the giraffe!” as they excitedly pointed at the patterned picture to others who couldn’t see the giraffe or whatever else it was that was hidden in the picture. The tr...

‘She has plan’ could perhaps be the title for the whole of Proverbs 31. Reading about this truly excellent woman can get women all stressed and anxious because we compare and measure her against our own short comings, failings, and inadequacies. But the dreaded Proverbs 31 woman who seems linger over us, the one who has her life all wrapped up in a neat, little package tied up with a big, red bow....

Bells ringing out are a representation to celebrate endings and new beginnings. The sound of bells has been a long-held tradition to ring in the new year. But with all our busyness, our time with God seems shorter, more hurried, and more frenzied than before. The sound of bells that once rang loudly as they announced our intention to enter God’s presence and not want to leave the holy place for qu...

Sometimes we just have to stop thinking and doing so much busyness and just go where our heart leads us, back into the stillness and quietness that resets us. Stillness teaches us things which busyness knows nothing about. Jeremiah 33:3 says, ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you. I will tell you of great things, things beyond what you can imagine, things you could never have known.’ But how can we k...

Joy is possibly one of the most understated emotions that we are equipped with in our spiritual weaponry as it is far more powerful than we first believe. It’s why the enemy fires little poisonous darts, piercing the protective membrane around this precious emotion we call ‘joy’ instead of the large arrow tips which normally assail our faith.  So, what are we to do about it? Well, girl, it’s time...

When there is a war to wage and a kingdom to win, each woman brings the same thing to the battle, a feminine heart. I know what you’re thinking, how could a nurturing spirit filled with love and kindness stop the enemy in his tracks? How could the tenderness of a mother’s heart win a war? Proverbs 31:35 reminds us that we are,   ‘clothed in strength and dignity’ When the enemy hurls intimidating a...

How often are we willing to go into the desolate wastelands to pray when we become popular? How many times has the backcountry beckoned us to come away from the crowds and fill our cups up to overflowing with God’s presence? Spending time with God cultivates a deep relationship with Him. It’s where our identity is secured, our calling is clarified and our cup is filled so we are able to pour ourse...

What does your next courageous step look like? It’s different for everyone but the chasm we must cross still looks the same - Scary. That enormous gap, that gigantic step, the massive move you need to make between where you would like to be and where you are always feels way too wild, too crazy, too wide, and too far to position ourselves into. Perhaps today, it’s time to simply take one step towa...

The posture of a bull elk when he’s polishing his antlers is one of distraction. His whole focus is to shine up his antlers to impress. With their eyes closed, busily making sure every part of their points is polished and rubbed, distracted by all his busyness, this becomes the good part of the hunter’s story when he retells it to his friends. However, this is not the good part of the story for th...

Wounds make us hide our true selves, and if we don’t allow Jesus to deal with them properly then we can’t live out an authentic life. The great news is that Jesus doesn’t leave you in those moments of shame as fear causes you to pick at the scabs covering your wounds. As with Peter, Jesus dealt with the shame attached to the wounds of Peter’s guilt because he had denied His saviour. Jesus sat righ...

Did you know that an elk’s anklebones make a distinct sound when they walk?  These sounds are the primary means of communication and engagement with other elks as the sounds of their anklebones cracking and popping are a way of communicating that another elk is approaching from behind. These familiar sounds are so important for an elk to listen out for because if they follow unfamiliar sounds that...

Did you know that elks like to wallow in mud?  A wallowing hole is created by a bull elk finding a pool of water, digging into the ground with his hooves and antlers to push up the dirt, urinating into it and then rolling in it. As gross as this may sound, wallowing attracts other elks and it’s the bull elk’s way of sending a clear message to all cows letting them know that his pheromone–soaked, p...

Blood trailing is when a bow hunter or a rifle hunter will track an elk, wound it, and then chase it through the forest until he finds it and kills it. Its classic hunter versus beast as the hunter looks for blood marks left on trees and tracks on the forest floor left by the elk so the hunter knows which way it ran. I’m sure you’ve got some wounds, and just like a human hunter who finds an elk to...

My friend and I were having coffee together a couple of weeks ago and during the conversation, she said, “I cannot wait to hold your new book in my hands and listen for the ‘crack’ as I open up the first page and start reading it.” Unbeknown to my friend, she had put words to the images I had in my head of the top of an oil jar being ‘cracked’ open as I recalled the still, small voice that had whi...

Kings and Queens can be seen as being born into a privileged life, however, according to the Apostle Paul, we as believers are destined to be adopted as God’s children through the sacrificial life of Jesus.  ‘He destined us to be adopted as His children through the covenant Jesus the Anointed inaugurated in His sacrificial life…With immense pleasure, He laid out His intentions through Jesus, a pla...

I will live unafraid. Hmmm, it says it right there at the end of Psalm 4, the poetry of God reminding the ones who feel afraid, anxious, out of control or discouraged to stop fussing, to stop controlling outcomes. To remember that God is our champion defender and to live unafraid, no matter what happens.   ‘Now, because of you, Lord, I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once, for no matter...

 “What do you see?” asks God to the reluctant prophet, Jeremiah. Jeremiah tells God that he sees an ordinary almond tree. This ordinary sight starts a chain reaction of events that leads Jeremiah into his vocation and calling. God had already chosen Jeremiah as His prophet to  ‘speak My word to the nations.’  (Jeremiah 1:5) This is where Jeremiah tries to talk God out of the calling He had chosen...

What is it that moves you with compassion? What motivates you enough to see God do something great through you? What do you feel creates a motion that motivates you toward action? When we’re moved enough to try something new, create something different, to be compassionate about something that we feel needs to change, why is it that fear suddenly rears its ugly head?  So, you hit the pause button...

Psalm 31:7-8 reminds us that God hasn’t handed us over. ‘I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.’ Let that truth sink into the depths of your soul. ‘You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.’ Satan wants to keep your...

The gravity of God’s love for us goes far beyond the moon and back because He gave His only Son so we could have the hope of our salvation. Amazingly, God created the universe with every syllable from His mouth. Yet, He still loves humans higher, deeper, and wider than all the cosmic stars put together because, unlike the universe, we get to have a relationship with Him. When we pause and remember...