Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes.
I've learned that anyone capable of adoring you is equally capable of abhorring you.
You have not quite lived in this ridiculously silly celebrity culture until you've been told one day how loved you are and the next day how hated you are - and sometimes by the same individual.
As God took me through the journey that became the Bible study 'Breaking Free', He taught me to look for a common denominator among the things that triggered my destructive habits.
I was crawling out of the bedroom window with my older sister when I should have still been playing with dolls.
The upside of a downward spiral into despair and defeat in young adulthood is that pretty early on, I was forced to face not only the foolish things I had done but also the stark realization that there was likely no end to what I was capable of doing.
My home and my upbringing and just the problems in my family within my extended family were such that it truly was a mix of the good, bad, and the ugly.
I don't know how to explain it. A lot of Christians actually like other Christians in Houston. A lot of Christians even like non-Christians in Houston. And, on frequent occasions, a fair amount of non-Christians like us.
I didn't have a fireworks moment for my salvation. I had a falling in love with Jesus in Sunday school when I was a very young child.
Any of us in the public eye must remember: Never, ever believe your own press, and pray to develop a hypersensitive gag reflex regarding your own importance.
We Houstonians, generally speaking, are hearty. The weather's too hot for us not to be.
I hope we have a whole lot of healthy men out there impacting their wives and daughters with a sense of value and dignity. They can have a huge impact. It takes a secure man to breed that sense of security in his family.
God wants us to believe Him to be huge, even if we don't know what to believe Him for in a particular situation and circumstance. I can believe God to be God, to come and show Himself mighty and merciful in that situation, even if I don't really know biblically what I'm to ask Him for.
I was the second-youngest child in a family that took up the better part of an entire pew at our Baptist church.
The Word of God is so much broader than people are giving it credit for. Look at Proverbs, a book written on how to live.
I was the worst teacher you have ever imagined - not that we did not have fun. We had a ton of fun. We just did not learn any scripture. I would think all week long what could I talk about on Sunday, and then I would scramble on Saturday to find some kind of scripture to go with it. This was my teaching.
As an 18-year-old, I really sensed the call of God. What was interesting about that time was, I come from a very conservative part of the body of Christ, so there was really nothing for a woman to do.
Sometimes you have to shove all the surface stuff to the side in order to see what's underneath.
I was an emotional wreck even as a young child, fearful and tearful.
