This weekend my dear – and very pregnant – friend Angi had a baby shower.

“Pumpkin seed” is Angi’s first.
This was also my first baby shower.

I know husbands, boyfriends, significant others and the like who have attended baby showers, but I never had.

I was feeling a variety of feelings as the moment to leave for the party arrived:

It’s true, there are a lot of hypocritical & judgmental Christians, but the Bible was written by real people like you and me.

The Bible was inspired by a real God who knows we struggle and doesn’t want us to settle for just being who we’ve been.

Rather than slipping into pretense the Bible wants us to embrace honesty. If you struggle, struggle; but if when you struggle, don’t settle.

Paul, a struggling man confessed to his tension in trying to follow God, and then explained his hope: