Mackenzie Standing

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. -Galatians 3:26-29 I'm not going to lie: I do not treat people equally. I do not love people equally. I struggle with understanding and accepting people who are different from me. I'm not proud of it. I'm not going to cover it up, though, because that simply aggravates the problem. For years, I've adored knowing that I am a child of God. My broken, lonely heart took comfort in a God that not only loves me, but chose me and adopted me. Christ does not reject; Christ envelopes. Is there a better truth than that? I don't think so. Here's the thing, though: I'm not God's only daughter, but it...

Grace, what have you done Murdered for me on that cross Accused, in absence of wrong My sin washed away in your blood Too much to make sense of it all I know that your love breaks my fall  The scandal of grace, you died in my place So my soul will live Oh, to be like you Give all I have just to know you Jesus, there's no one besides you Forever the hope in my heart. -Hillsong, "Scandal of Grace" Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind but now I see.  -John Newton, "Amazing Grace" I do not understand the mystery of grace- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.  -Anne Lamott Of all the words in the dictionary, I'm pretty sure grace is my favorite. Of all the gifts in all the earth, I'm pretty sure grace is the one I need the most. And of all the concepts in the Bible, grace is the one I often struggle with accepting. I'v...

This is my New Year's Resolution. Well, okay, not this post, per say, but being more intentional about blogging in general. So often, though, I want to write but struggle with deciding what to write. While I have nothing against the types of blogs where people post every day about what they had for dinner, I never wanted to be like that. There's not much meat to those kind of posts (pun intended). Instead, I issued myself a challenge. I decided to pick a book of the Bible and spend an entire week on each chapter. At the end of the week I'd blog about something related to what I'd learned and what God had been teaching me. Sounds pretty easy, right? Here's the thing, though: A week is a long time to spend on just a chapter of the Bible. A looooong time. With this in mind, I set out to pick a book with two stipulations: 1) It had to be one I hadn't studied intensely before (where's the challenge in picking one I know super well?) and 2) It had to be a s...