First and foremost, I identify myself as a child of God, a Christian, a sinner saved by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus Christ defines my life, because He gave me life. Within that context, I spend my days as a writer (which means I love to observe the world in all its curiosities). \u00a0Ten years ago, the Lord led me to meet and marry the kindest, most loving man I’ve ever met — my remarkable husband, Derek Gilbert. \u00a0His multi-talented daughter rounds out our ‘nuclear family’, even though we don’t see her nearly as often as we’d like.\u00a0Derek and I strive to reveal the spiritual battle that lies behind headline news.Ephesians 6:11-18 sums it up:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.\u00a0Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.\u00a0For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of\u00a0the darkness of this age, against spiritual\u00a0hosts<\/em>\u00a0of wickedness in the heavenly\u00a0places.<\/em>\u00a0Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.\u00a0Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,\u00a0and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;\u00a0above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.\u00a0And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;\u00a0praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints–and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,\u00a0for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lately, we’ve seen more than a few ‘fiery darts’ heading our way, but through it all, we know that God continues to hold us in His all-powerful hand. Do you know Christ as Savior and King? There’s no better time than now to get start, if you don’t. Read the gospel of John. Salvation comes through trusting in Jesus to cleanse away all our sins. We’ve all sinned — every one of us — and the penalty, according to God’s justice, is death. Christ provided His own death to cover that penalty — all you and I need do is accept it. Isn’t life better than death?Choose life. Choose Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First and foremost, I identify myself as a child of God, a Christian, a sinner saved by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus Christ defines my life, because He gave me life. Within that context, I spend my days as a writer (which means I love to observe the worldContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharonkgilbert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}