Amanda Buccola “As much as I love God, you, Graham, and our unborn child, I loved myself more…I know that revealing this blackness inside of me is necessary…but I understand that in confessing this, the blackness and burden is now also felt by you.” Those words and many more were read to me one Tuesday …
Author Archives: ebenezercollective
WAITING
We live in a culture of instant gratification. We loathe waiting…. From waiting in line at the grocery store to waiting on our kids to find their shoes…even waiting for our Instagram feed to load. In our society, we are used to getting what we want when we want. We put so much emphasis on control and …
THE GRADUAL SLOPE TO ROCK BOTTOM
Nick Buccola My story of redemption began in March 2014 when I reached my rock bottom. I did something I never thought I was capable of doing. But my way to rock bottom wasn’t by jumping off a cliff and hitting it hard. It was a long, slow road that gradually went deeper and darker, …
ADDICTION RECOVERY BY THE POWER OF GOD
Anonymous Five years ago I was a mess. A total mess. But the mess had begun ten years prior… I grew up in a Christian household with the best parents and siblings on earth. My parents set a fabulous example and taught us of Christ’s love for us. I attended our non-denominational church on the …
FORGIVENESS
“Forgive and forget.” “Just hug it out.” “There is no use, they will just keep hurting you.” “They don’t care about what they have done.” “They can never repay what they have done to me.” Most of us have heard some of these phrases before and maybe even thought them ourselves. But are they true? …
THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES
Sallie Dean Four year old me, little legs sprawled out on a warm quilt in the sun, feeding and burping my cloth diapered baby dolls. I was nurturing from the moment I could grip a lovey. “Story” – a baby girl name on my long list of potential baby names to swoon over. I was …
CARRIED THROUGH CANCER
Robin Buffington Spring Break is always a blessing for a teacher. The week of rest, relaxation and fun was typical for my annual break from school, and I looked forward to Spring Break 2014. A month before, I had found a lump during a breast exam and had scheduled a mammogram during the week of …
COMING OUT FOR CHRIST
Cheryl Reed In the fall of 2009, my daughter Logan left for college. This left me in a place of despair, loneliness and isolation. For the first time in my life, I felt truly alone and was grieving the loss of motherhood as I knew it. With Logan moving away, it meant that many other …
DREAMS COME TRUE
Jenni Norsworthy In April of 2014, I turned 30 years old, and the idea of starting a family – which was something that I had put on the back burner for the first four years of our marriage – suddenly became something I could not stop obsessing over. Not only were my husband …
GRACE
In Exodus 33:18, Moses boldly asks God, “show me your glory.” God graciously agrees, but He is so holy, that Moses has to hide behind a rock, and he’s only allowed to see God’s back as He passes by and proclaims His name. God introduces Himself to Moses as “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate …
Ebenezer Collective 