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www.insideoutwithcourtnaye.org As you read this post, I want you to look forward, not backwards. I don’t want you to look at what you did already and failed. I don’t want you to look at what you didn’t do in your marriage or past relationships, or how you think you may have failed your children in some way in the past. No doubt, grow from any mistakes that you’ve made, but don’t park in condemnation. Instead, repent, ask for God’s forgiveness and begin moving forward by living with no regrets from here on out. Think about it this way. Do you want to be a better wife or mother? Do you want to be a better employee, boss, or business owner who shines the light of Christ in your conversations and actions on the job? Do you want to be a stronger ministry leader or flow in your gifts bette...

I got a new notebook. It’s orange and floppy, with two orangeish threaded bookmarks embedded in the top of the spine. I write in it most days. Weekdays at 5:30 am. When my heart is awake and before my mind has a chance to speak. When the alarm goes off I pull my legs over the side of the bed and try to not step on the dog. I take the notebook out of my bag that goes everywhere with me and crunch barefoot through gravel to the studio out in the back of our house.  A blue ballpoint pen. My reading glasses so I can see. My phone to use as a flashlight. Sometimes I light a candle. I sit in the dark until I worry I will fall back to sleep at my desk and then turn on the dim lights. I still need my flashlight to see a page. It is a separate place. Not sacred. But holy all the same. It is a ...

What To Do When Your Child’s Friend is Struggling by Jennifer Maggio I was 14 years old, when a dear friend’s father left her mother.  She was devastated.  The fighting had gone on for months. It had been tense at home, but she never imagined her parents would actually split.  We stayed up and cried together many nights in those first weeks and months.  We mourned the loss of the family that would never live in the same home again. We mourned what once was and what could now never be. I listened as she shared her pain and fears of what would eventually happen and how life would never be the same. Her pain became my pain.  I just wanted to help her heal, and mostly, I just felt helpless. My mother died when I was only 18 months old, so I knew the trauma of living wi...

I hadn’t realized that I was living in a bubble until the moment it burst.  When it finally came undone I was devastated. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? I’ve never seen myself as a bubble-dweller. I’ve taken countless missions trips to third world countries. I’ve seen firsthand the horror and destitute lives of people living in awful conditions. I’ve visited streets where multiple homes without running water shared a single bathroom. I’ve visited the colonies of Lepers outcast from society. I’ve dug holes for latrines in dump sites where families lived off the waste of other people… I’m not unaware. Still, memories can’t fix a heart condition. When bills pile up and finances are inadequate, frustration and ungratefulness can grow. In the USA, there are things we generally tr...

www.insideoutwithcourtnaye.org So many people are waiting on the Lord in our world. Some are waiting for the pain to stop from the loss of a friend or loved one. Some are waiting for someone that they care about dearly to come out of the hospital, healed. Some are waiting for their adult children to be saved or make wiser choices in life or for patience and strength as they raise small children or teenagers. There are many who are waiting on financial breakthrough, marital challenges to cease, healing from a divorce or separation, healing in their bodies, big decisions that need to be made, and so much more. Truth is, we’re all typically waiting on the Lord for something. Where are you? What are you waiting on the Lord for today? Are you waiting on God to move on your behalf or on the beha...

10 Sure Signs of a Strong Marriage By: Jennifer Maggio             I sat with Becky as she shared with me the feelings of utter shock, horror, devastation, and heaviness she felt that Thursday morning.  She was shaking and tears steadily streamed down her face.  Her husband had just announced that he wanted a divorced after twenty years of marriage.  They had raised three children together. They had built a house – a home – together for over two decades.  Becky hadn’t worked outside the home since they married.  What would she do now for income? For companionship? It was a shock, to say the least.             The next several weeks began a dialogue between ...

        www.insideoutwithcourtnaye.org If you’re reading this post in this season of your life, then maybe you’re in a dry place. Or maybe you’re reading this because you’d like to know more about what to do in this particular condition. Well, in either case, I believe the Lord has led you to the right place and at just the right time. So, let’s talk about the wilderness experience and what to do when you’re in it. For starters, I’m going to begin with “Why?” And it could be for a few reasons. The first would be unconfessed or known sin. The second could be testing. And the third could be preparation. If you examined your life right now, I would consider all three and tackle each one. In other words, go through the process of elimination and acc...

We were already late for the second day of Vacation Bible School as I carried one child to the car because his shoes still weren’t on. A plastic toy I could have sworn I’d never seen before quickly became the source of an argument as I buckled the children in and the volume increased. We are going. You. Will. Have. Fun.  Stop yelling at each other. STOP YELLING. As the words left my mouth I knew there was not much I could do to change the trajectory of our morning.  More than the noise, all of our hearts were out of whack. In what my children are sure to remember as the “scary mom whisper” I told them I would be right back and I turned my back on the screams. I walked a few steps from my car, stared at the bright white garage door, and took a deep breath.  There have been mo...

To tell you why I have started writing poetry is to let you in on a secret. A secret whose complete answer I still don’t understand. But I can tell you a bit of the truth, for I do want you to know it. But you’ll have to bear with me. I am figuring this out, you see. I am just learning the way. But the part I know, or I am pretty sure of, at least, is this:  Poetry has lent itself to me (for I am participating in something both within me and outside of me simultaneously) as an exercise inevitable and mandatory. A bit surreptitious, perhaps, even covert, but necessary and imperative all the same: I have been writing for a solitary purpose, the rescuing of my heart. Now, before you begin to think that this sounds weird–that I think I can rescue myself–and on my own–that is not exactly w...

10 Signs You Are Enabling Your Adult Child’s Bad Behavior (And How to Stop) By: Jennifer Maggio             The moment I gave birth to my 9 pound, brown-eyed, overly-chubby, bouncing baby boy, I was in love.  Like most moms, the joy of holding his soft hands in my arms and snuggling his sweet face into mine far outweighed the fears and worries that I knew would be part of our journey.  As a then single mom, I knew that the mountain we’d climb over the next twenty years or so would probably be harder than I could even imagine, but nonetheless, he was all mine and I couldn’t have loved him more.  I don’t know if was my youth (I was only 18), my single motherhood, my lack of a mother in my own life, or my parenting ignoranc...