by Maddie

How does a bee pollinate a flower ... If said flower is closed tight? It can’t. So why do we expect God to work miracles in our lives … Without opening ourselves up to Him? Since we've had some lengthy blog posts as of late, this one's short and (maybe not so) sweet: Don’t view God as some distanced, far-off, holier-than-thou figure, when Jesus is proof that He’d rather descend into the dirtiest stable, sink to a humiliating death, and dive into the pits of Hell … Than be sep

Gardeners cut and prune their plants… so they can grow more. Construction workers have to break down the old… before they can build the new. Blacksmiths have to hammer and mar… shaping the metal to fit the mold. Potters have to cut and smash and use brute force… for the clay to yield to their hands. Christ had to be crucified and killed… in order for us to live with Him again. There’s an interesting pain/growth symbiosis found in life, isn’t there? The end results c

I wanna start with a quote today: “Act not on the mere strength of what you have, but in expectation of that which you have asked.” -...

I'm gonna be honest with you guys - I don't know when or why I wrote this mini's quote. All I know is that it proves true for what I'm...

Fun fact: I’ve learned to write … with only nine functional fingers! You see, this morning, I accidently sliced open my finger (sorry for...

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maddie. Now, this Maddie girl was seven months into a bizarre "break" with a guy, and well, she...

This is for all you introverts out there. And for you extroverts … I bet you get sick of people too. It might take a lot more peopling...

Readers, guess what... I'm officially writing my LAST book for my fantasy series! I wrote the first two pages a couple days ago (not only...

This design was birthed in my journal, bright and early on a random Bible-studying morning. I start each day that way, in fact—open my...

A couple weeks ago, I bought a hamster. Her name is Annalise. I don’t know why I named her that; I just liked it. But I digress. You see,...

Sometimes people ask me what my favorite part about writing is. My answer always seems to shock them, for it's not about concocting...

When tasked with the responsibility of writing about this painting , my mind came up empty. In truth, this piece was a commission for my...

You wouldn't know it, but I'm writing this from abroad. Not in my office like normal, but at my gym. Bright and early. As I await my turn on a machine. Which is perfect because I wanted to talk about straying from the routine, from the norm. You see, God's been doing some cool stuff in the past 14 hours (yes, I’m being that exact). Yesterday, while I was rereading my latest Fear Fighting chapter, I realized that I needed to cite my sources. So, I went back to my commentar

In honor of Independence Day, we’re going to be reading a freedom-focused excerpt from Mari’s story : Mari knew they wanted her to be like that swallow, the bird that wasn’t chained to fear but free to live boldly and confidently and believe that she was loved and lovable. Even her bright and bold flower-of-a-name pointed her to that conclusion. And the mantra Cresida taught her was helping… unchain… her, as it was teaching her how to look at things less fearfully and mor

What’s the thing you really want… but are yet to have? And I’m not talking about really wanting a certain item from the store, or craving your favorite meal, or your dream vacation. I’m talking about a big thing; a desire that aches within you. The thing you’ve prayed about a thousand times… only to still be lacking an affirmative answer. What’s that thing? For me, it’s progress. To move forward with my life—meet a guy, get married, have kids—instead of going through

Did you know that Jesus is actually a part of the Old Testament? Even though the New Testament is comprised of His life and ministry, mentionings of the Messiah are certainly not limited to this latter half of the Bible. In fact… Way back in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve sin, God curses the Satanic serpent. He declares, “I will put enmity [between] you and the woman, [and] between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, [and] you shall bruise His heel” (Gen 3:15)

When I think of summer, I don’t think of Easter. Maybe that’s just me, but, ya know, Easter’s for springtime and bunnies and lambs and chicks, right? Well, come to find out… Easter season actually lasts for over a month (forty to fifty days, according to my online sleuthing). You see, there’s this handy dandy thing called a church calendar because, as it so happens, we celebrate a lot more than Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection. In fact, there are specific times ass

I wanna tell you a little story. A couple years ago, in a season where lies felt more potent than the Truth, I went to my parents and asked the most vulnerable, soul-bearing question I could think of: Why do they love me? When I asked this, I was expecting something along the lines of, Maddie, we love you because you’re smart. We love you because you follow Jesus. Are kind, creative, etc. Instead, my typically-stoic dad gave an answer that stopped me in my fear-believing trac

We're going to do something a little different today. What is it, you may ask? I've come to the mind-altering conclusion that not everyone is going to read my books. And I get it; fantasy isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I'm sure that a devotional on anxiety won't be either. However, there are pieces of Christ embedded in all of my creative endeavors; thus, I want to start sharing exerts from my written works... not just my visual ones. And so, I give you a piece from my unpu

This afternoon, I was sitting outside and pondering God’s lovely summer creations (my fancy way of saying Maddie was taking a break from writing to eat a snack and get some sun ) when a tiny, spirited bird soared across my yard. Now, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what kind of songbird it was, nor even the colors—it was that fast—but I do know that it was making a ruckus while hopping around in our bushes. And it got me thinking: although I couldn’t see it, I knew it wa