Last week, I had the privilege of teaching several young children (and some of their parents) about four interesting Bible animals, explaining how God created each one with specific traits and what we can learn from these lovely creations.  The lessons were only about 20 minutes long, but I spent hours preparing for them. The animal facts or Bible verses weren't what was causing me trouble.  No, it was making sure every lesson ended with a brief introduction to, and explanation of, salvation.

I know what it means to be saved. I know what the Bible says about salvation. I know how one can be saved. But explaining it to young children can be overwhelming. I didn’t want to make it too complicated, but I also didn’t want to oversimplify it and leave them believing everyone goes to Heaven. So, I agonized over every word, and in the end, I still feel like I tripped over my tongue and did a miserable job representing the gospel.

I'm an introvert who cries at commercials. Insurance commercials. Dog food commercials. Once, a mattress commercial got me. Nobody has ever explained why a mattress sale should require tissues, but there I sat, sniffling on the couch like a woman with a deep, personal connection to memory foam (which, actually, I am).

Over the years, I've gotten the message loud and clear that this is a problem.

"Toughen up."

"Don't be so sensitive."

"It's not that big a deal."

I've even said it to myself in the mirror: Pull it together, Dana. Nobody wants a leaky redhead.

So when I recently read John 11, it stopped me cold. Let me set the scene because it's one of the most dramatic in the Bible.

Lazarus is sick. His sisters, Mary and Martha, send word to Jesus with one of Scripture's most tender messages: "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick" (John 11:3).

Last week was our Holiday Bible Club, the UK version of Vacation Bible School. I had the privilege of teaching every day, and I spent a week with a few wiggly, wonderful children. Afterwards, several adults told me how amazed they were at how well I kept the kids engaged. They also said they had learned something themselves from the lessons. One gentleman summed it up: "It's like your energy and passion were contagious."

He was right. When you teach, especially children, your excitement is catching. If you want your audience excited about what you're saying, you have to be excited about it. Five-year-olds can smell fake enthusiasm from across the building. I taught Kindergarten for nine years, and trust me, they will tell you when you're boring…usually by wandering off to lick something.

Because I was teaching the Bible, my enthusiasm came naturally, and it spilled right over onto my little audience.

Unfortunately, enthusiasm wasn't the only thing spreading that month.

Have you ever been quick to judge someone, only to later discover a whole backstory you never knew? I've been guilty of this too often. This tendency of the human heart recently hit me afresh when I re-examined the story of Moses striking the rock at Kadesh.

Like many believers, I've often viewed this account through a simplistic lens. God said, "Speak to the rock," but Moses struck it instead, and punishment ensued. An open-and-shut case of disobedience, right?

However, as I dug a little deeper into the passage this morning, something was revealed. Standing once again at Kadesh after forty years of wilderness wandering, Moses wasn't merely facing another water crisis; he was standing at the epicenter of Israel's greatest failure.

Imagine what must have raced through Moses' 120-year-old mind. Here he was, back at the scene of the crime, so to speak.

I've always been the kind of person whose home is rarely silent. Music fills the corridors of our Welsh bungalow from morning until night, serving as the soundtrack to my day. It's fascinating how I instinctively select different genres for different activities. Upbeat Southern Gospel blares when I'm doing dishes, making even the mundane feel like worship. Instrumental compositions flow when I'm writing or studying, while gentle hymn arrangements play during my quiet time with God.

Yesterday, while creating a new playlist for an upcoming writing project, it struck me that our spiritual lives have soundtracks too. Much like my carefully curated music selections, we all have different "songs of faith" that minister to us in various seasons and emotional states.

When I need encouragement to face a challenge, I turn to my spiritual "pump-up" songs.

I'll admit it, I'm a perfectionist to my core. My world revolves around precise alignment, immaculate organization, and flawless execution. Spreadsheets must be color-coded, books arranged by genre and height, and every project I tackle must be completed to exacting standards. It's exhausting, really.

Lately, though, the Lord has been gently working with me to differentiate between excellence and perfectionism. Both seem similar on the surface, but their motivations are entirely different, and only one is pleasing to God.

• Excellence is a spiritual discipline motivated by love for God. It's about giving your best effort, talent, and time because you love God and want to honor Him. It is a form of worship, and it is flexible and adaptable.

• Perfectionism is a work of the flesh motivated by fear and a desire for control. It's about striving for an impossible, flawless standard to gain approval from others, to control the outcome, and to avoid criticism. It is a form of self-worship, and it is rigid and brittle.

Life in rural Wales comes with its own peculiar challenges, not the least of which is grocery shopping. When the nearest proper supermarket is a good thirty minutes away, online ordering becomes less of a convenience and more of a necessity. Jason and I have our system down to a science. The delivery arrives in stackable plastic crates, we unload everything, and then return the empty crates to the driver.

We even have our division of labor sorted. Jason tackles the refrigerated and frozen items while I handle the pantry goods. It works seamlessly... well, most of the time.

During our most recent delivery, Jason gestured toward what appeared to be a single crate sitting on our kitchen table. "That's all pantry stuff," he said casually, already turning his attention to the cold goods.

I nodded, reaching for the handles of what I presumed was one solitary crate. I'd taken precisely two steps when physics delivered a painful lesson.

We live in a world of transactions. You work, you get paid. You study, you get good grades. You're nice to people, they're nice to you. Everything is earned. Everything is deserved. Everything is based on what you've accomplished or contributed. So we often bring that same mindset into our relationship with God and assume salvation works the same way.

We think we need to be good enough. We think we need to pray enough, serve enough, believe enough, do enough to earn God's approval. We believe grace is something we receive only after we've proven ourselves worthy. And we spend our entire lives trying to tip the scales in our favor, to do enough good to outweigh the bad, and to make ourselves acceptable to a holy God.

But that's not grace. That's works. And it will exhaust you.

You can be in a room full of people and still feel utterly, devastatingly alone.

I know this because I've been there. Surrounded by voices and laughter, yet feeling invisible. Present at the table, yet somehow on the outside looking in. Smiling and nodding while your heart screams, "Does anyone really see me? Does anyone really know what I'm going through?"

Loneliness is one of those struggles Christians rarely discuss openly. We're supposed to have community, the church, and be surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ who care about us and walk alongside us. And yes, that's beautiful when it happens. But what about when it doesn't? What about when you're sitting in a pew next to dozens of believers and have never felt more alone in your life?

The Christian community has often responded to loneliness with a Band-Aid solution: “Just serve more.”

When I was a child, my family played a game called "Don't Tip the Waiter." A cardboard waiter, balanced on a swinging base, held a tray over his head. We took turns piling tiny cardboard food tokens onto the tray. The goal was to add one more without sending the whole thing crashing to the floor. There was a pork chop token, a pie token, and I think a very questionable cardboard fish. Someone always groaned, someone always gloated, and someone always had to crawl under the table to find the pie.

It was great fun until recently when I became the waiter. Now, not so much!

For the past couple of months, life has been handing me tokens. Here's an obligation. Have a little sickness. This circumstance is for you, and here's a second helping of the same one. I have watched that tray pile up and thought, Well, this is it. Somebody call the cleanup crew. Yet here I am, still upright.