Christina Fox, Author at Women.pcacdm.org

Awaiting the Light of the World

KERRY ANDERSON | GUEST I’ve always loved that we celebrate Christmas during the darkest week of the year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). I love that Christmas lights start going up just as the days are the shortest. In the dark mornings, I love coming downstairs, not to a dark and lifeless kitchen but to the warm light of the Christmas tree that turns on before I wake up (thank you, light timers!). And I love that when we’re introduced to John, the forerunner to Jesus, in John 1, scripture tells us that John “came to bear witness about the light”…to tell us that “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:6-8,9). There are so many descriptors and names for Jesus throughout the Bible, but in these verses, we’re told that what is coming is light, the true light. What we’re waiting on in this dark month is the Light of the World. O Splendor of God’s glory bright, from light eternal bringing light, O Light of light, light’s living Spring, true Day, all days illumining...

Awaiting the Light of the WorldChristina Fox2025-12-06T17:51:18+00:00

Singing Through Christmas in Minor and Major Keys

JOANNA HODGES|GUEST ‘Tis the season of bright and glimmering baubles, loud and busy parties, and exuberant and merry music. As we prepare for Christmas, we eagerly anticipate singing our favorite festive songs around the piano. Through well-known happy tunes in a major key, we proclaim “Joy to the World” because Christ came to crush the head of the serpent. We gather our friends to sing “O Come All Ye Faithful” and can’t wait to hear our kids shout “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in the church program. Yet the more holidays God gives us in this broken world, the more we realize that every Christmas season rightfully includes not only the triumphal tone of major keys, but also the wistful waiting and somber tone of the carols in a minor key. A Partial Celebration Even though the Savior accomplished His earthly mission and sits at the Father’s right hand to reign in victory, those nagging foes of the world, the flesh, and the devil still assault us here on earth. They don’t take a vacation during Christmas, and often it seems they rear their ugly heads even more intensely this time of year. Our hearts may be filled with awe and wonder as we read our Advent devotional in the morning, yet by the afternoon we are overwhelmed by the Christmas day menu, family dynamics around the holiday table, and the jam-packed calendar of parties. We scroll through Facebook’s Time Hop pictures of past Christmas gatherings and realize how much our own bodies and those of our loved ones have been marred by disease, dysfunction, and death over the years. Sometimes it’s not easy to take a deep breath and sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” with smiles on our faces when the sadness of a sin-cursed existence makes us want to silence our voices and quietly mourn....

Singing Through Christmas in Minor and Major KeysChristina Fox2025-11-28T15:39:14+00:00

The Journey of the Magi: A Christmas Reflection

REBEKAH COCHELL | GUEST James Tissot, Journey of the Magi, 1894, Minneapolis Institute of Art. Public Domain. There is a Christmas poem that has haunted me ever since I read it years ago: The Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot. It is not your typical cheerful Christmas poem; it has a somber tone, contrasting the Birth of Christ with death. Yet I keep revisiting it, finding truth and beauty—and, ironically, Christmas cheer. If you are unfamiliar with it, you can read it here. A Brief History Between 1927 and 1931, the publisher Faber & Gwyer created Christmas pamphlets called the Ariel Poems. Each pamphlet was a collection of beautifully illustrated Christmas poems meant to be given as Christmas cards. They were collaborations between popular poets, artists, and typographers. Among them, Eliot’s Journey of the Magi (1927) stands out as a strange inclusion. It begins: ‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’...

The Journey of the Magi: A Christmas Reflection Christina Fox2025-11-28T15:31:14+00:00

Waiting in the Hope of Coming Redemption: Walking with Our Sister Anna

ELIZABETH TURNAGE | CONTRIBUTOR “Lead us this day, Lord Christ, that we might walk its paths in the light of the hope of our coming redemption. Amen.”[i] As we move through the season of Advent, which literally means “coming forward,” we remember that God’s chosen people once waited for our Redeemer to come and now await His final return. Advent is a season of waiting. What indeed does it look like to walk the paths of each day “in the light of the hope of our coming redemption”? Anna, the prophetess and widow of Luke 2:36-38, shows us the way. When we meet her in Luke 2, Anna is an older woman, either 84 or 104.[ii] Widowed as a young woman, probably around the age of 20, and apparently childless, Anna had no means to support herself. She likely became a recipient of Ancient Near Eastern welfare, moving near the temple, where she could access food and shelter. Despite her many losses, Anna avoided the secondary suffering that can add to affliction—she refused to indulge in self-pity. Instead, she devoted her life to waiting for redemption. Over time, she became known as a prophetess, someone who delivers messages from God. As we study how Anna spent her days, we discover a compelling portrait for walking each day in the hope of redemption. Anna shows us how to wait for our returning Redeemer who will one day come to restore all broken things...

Waiting in the Hope of Coming Redemption: Walking with Our Sister AnnaChristina Fox2025-11-28T15:27:35+00:00

Jesus: The Perfect Gift

SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR When our children were growing up, Christmas celebrations included gifts under the tree that appeared Christmas morning. During the season, the kids would make lists of their desired presents, mostly based on the recently advertised toys. But rarely did they receive something on their list. As parents, we took delight in finding the perfect gift for each child. I once overheard our second oldest tell his younger siblings not to waste their time making lists. The gifts they would receive were always far better than the ones for which they wished! Our Father’s Perfect Gift Our heavenly Father sent us the perfect gift, the gift of His only Son. Some had wished the promised Messiah would come as a king, saving them from their enemies. But our heavenly Father knew we lived in darkness, so He sent the perfect gift, Jesus, who would bring light into the darkness. When Jesus started His earthly ministry He declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12)...

Jesus: The Perfect GiftChristina Fox2025-11-22T18:45:11+00:00

Our Joy is Not in the Trials, but in Him

MARYBETH MCGEE | GUEST Recently, my own words echoed in my head: “Our joy is not found in the trials, but in Him.” Those words—from an article I wrote here last Advent—were suddenly tested in a trial unlike any we weathered before. On May 22, 2025, our home erupted in chaos on the first morning of summer break. My middle son and I discovered that my oldest son had passed away—unexpectedly, quietly, without any warning. At just fourteen, he was gone, and there was nothing we could do. Years of waiting and praying for this child—and his brothers—felt ripped away in an instant. Powerless. Crushed. Broken. Even as I spoke with emergency services, I felt the battle for my soul begin. Shock, fear, anger, and a grief beyond words swirled inside me as I heard the familiar whisper echo from Genesis 3: “Did God really say?” Peter’s words became more real than ever—there truly is an enemy who prowls like a lion, seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8). I knew this would be a test of my faith. Our family was being called to the front lines of spiritual warfare, and we needed reinforcements. My second call, just minutes later, was to my pastor. Like any good shepherd, he rushed to our home and stepped straight into the chaos. My husband was an hour away at work; our house filled with firefighters, paramedics, and sheriffs—faces my children had rarely seen outside of children’s shows, let alone in our front yard. Over the next several days and weeks, our home was a constant flow of people, tears, laughter, joy, and deep mourning. The circumstances were devastating, but something different was happening. Trials, both great and small, tend to stir up thoughts about gratitude—or the lack thereof. We can’t talk about gratitude without acknowledging the tension between our expectations and our circumstances. If anyone ever had an excuse to skip gratitude during a trial, the loss of a child would seem like a good one. But do we really get a pass because life feels unbearable? As you might guess, my answer is no...

Our Joy is Not in the Trials, but in HimChristina Fox2025-11-22T18:37:42+00:00

A Wonder-Filled Advent

MARIA CURREY | CONTRIBUTOR What sparks wonder in your mind and heart? Psalm 77:11-12 is our call to WONDER! “I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.” Oh, that this will be an Advent season of wonder for you! When you consider who God is and what He’s done for you, how do you behold Him in amazed wonder and awe? Childlike Wonder Children understand what WONDER means. They are filled with wonder over the smallest things: the feathers of a bird, the amazing, assorted animals at the zoo, the yummiest flavors, a creeping caterpillar. Meandering our way through the wonder of their favorite animals, my grandchildren enjoy many-striped zebras, long-necked willowy giraffes, floppy-eared, giant grey elephants, all created by our God of wonder. How about favorite childhood flavors? My mom is a 92-years-young woman of wonder; she was a foodie before they were named as such. She happily lavishes favorite flavors on her family, lovingly making rhubarb custard pie for my oldest brother, carrot pudding and vanilla sauce for the youngest, all thoughtful flavors of wonder. These lighter-level delights make me think that in a much grander and more WONDER-filled way, God loves us. He surrounds us with wonder in all of His Creation, lavishing us with tangible reminders of His wondrous love!...

A Wonder-Filled AdventChristina Fox2025-11-22T18:29:46+00:00

Happy Thanksgiving

CHRISTINA FOX | EDITOR Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from all of us at enCourage! "...give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thess. 5:18).

Happy ThanksgivingChristina Fox2025-11-16T16:30:24+00:00

Three Questions to Ask When Using AI

AMANDA DUVALL | GUEST Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere—in the news, in my internet searches and online shopping, and even my personal conversations. The advances and changes are coming so fast, I teeter between growing excited about how this tool will help me get more done and spiraling down a rabbit hole over all the ways technology is changing the world as we know it. In my limited usage, I’ve already found AI powerful and useful for a variety of tasks. AI has helped me get my one-year-old to sleep better, research for and edit work quicker, gain ideas to treat odd health symptoms, plan travel, and more. AI can do it all—in mere seconds! Still, there are so many moral and ethical concerns surrounding AI, regarding privacy and data, content and regulation, intellectual property rights, threats to creative work, relational confusion, and massive disruptions in education, the economy, and health care. It is easy to give in to fear and frankly, I prefer to delegate these concerns as “out there,” for someone else to unravel. I am just a normal nobody trying to keep up and figure out how to use AI to make life a little bit more manageable. Then, I remember the day I got my Facebook account. As a college freshman sitting in my dorm room, suddenly I was connected to college students across my campus and the country. Social media opened a world of possibilities, what could go wrong? We know so much more now than we did then about how social media affects our brains, our ability to focus, and our mental health, to name a few issues. Haven’t we learned our lesson, then? I’m not sure. Too often, we are so desperate to adopt a new technology with the promise of optimizing our lives without considering, “just because I can use it for all these things, should I? We need to be discerning, not just about how AI is changing our world, but also how it is changing us. With all this change spinning out of our control, we cling to the promise, “the Word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:25). We can turn to Him in this, and in every situation. Here are three questions, grounded in what God tells us is good and true, to ask when using AI...

Three Questions to Ask When Using AIChristina Fox2025-11-13T21:20:17+00:00

Gratitude in the midst of Grief: Finding Hope in the Lord’s Kindness

ELIZABETH TURNAGE | CONTRIBUTOR Imagine this story: A woman’s husband and her son are killed in a car-jacking. After her husband’s death, the 75-year-old widow discovers that he had mortgaged all of their assets to invest in a real estate deal gone sour. Once the wife of a wealthy lawyer, the older woman now finds herself homeless and bankrupt. Her only option is to return to the small hometown and the childhood home she had sworn never to revisit. Despite her protests, her son’s fiancée insists on joining her in the move. If this synopsis sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the plot of Tyler Perry’s movie Ruth, which is based on the book of Ruth. Naomi, the main character, like the biblical character, is an older woman whose heart has become bitter through grief. She resents God and the community who tries to show her His love. When Grief Embitters The biblical Naomi, like many aging women, has suffered multiple losses over the course of her life—the death of her husband and both her sons, the loss of both her homeland and her adopted home, the loss of financial provision and security. When she is forced to return to the home she left years ago, she laments to the women who welcome her, “Do not call me Naomi (pleasant); call me Mara (bitter), for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). Naomi sees the Lord’s sovereign hand in all her losses—family, financial, and home, and is not afraid to name them honestly to God in lament. Many older women can relate to Naomi. As we age, we face a barrage of limitations and losses—the death of a husband or child, the loss of independence that comes with declining vision or mobility, the loss of community when we must move from the home we’ve owned for almost half a century. Add to that the seeming loss of purpose and meaning that came from vibrant work and ministry, and it’s not hard to see why older women might feel that the Lord has dealt bitterly with them....

Gratitude in the midst of Grief: Finding Hope in the Lord’s KindnessChristina Fox2025-11-13T21:15:09+00:00

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