Faith
God Preserve Us!
I discovered this morning that I have been writing 2020 on my journal entries for a whole week! “Understandable,” you say, “It happens to people every year.” Perhaps…but I have also written DECEMBER!!! This is a picture of how life has felt: “Groundhog Day”…over and over, the same day, full Read more
Christmas
Advent: Looking Forward to His Plan
During a lively question-and-answer time that included the subjects of heaven, hell, the New Jerusalem, and why it wasn’t creepy for all those who belong to Jesus to be His Bride, the Lego platform on my dining room table was adorned with all the yellow bricks, eaves and flats I Read more
Christmas
Advent: Celebrating His Plan
When I think of a plan, it might be a blueprint for an addition to my parents’ house, it might be a calendar grid populated with menu ideas, it might be a flow-chart for ministry processes…but these things are all comprehensible, human-brain-sized, linear, and chronologically time-oriented. Recently, I have been Read more
Beauty
House-Keeping…but Which House?
Following Jesus every day in the everyday is sometimes a glorified housekeeping job… There are enough different uses of the word “house” in Scripture that when, as a New Testament believer, I encounter Old Testament passages about God’s house, I have to ask the Holy Spirit for understanding about what Read more
discipleship
Why the Hard Things?
Last week I wrote about taking hold of our thoughts so that we are in calm, joyful agreement with what God tells us in James 1: that difficulties are what is needed to shape us to be like Jesus. But why does it take hard things to make that happen? Read more
Biography
It’s Bouncy!
Last week Hubby and I were finally able to visit our newest grandchild and her proud parents. There had been travel restrictions on visiting their state since the week of her birth, so when they were lifted and airline tickets appeared for a good price, we were like horses given Read more
discipleship
The Full Extent of His Love (Part 2)
Who considers that when Jesus washed feet, He washed twelve pairs…not eleven? The cobblestone city streets were likely to be strewn with animal droppings and covered with dusty dirt or clingy mud. Even in sandals, feet sweat. Especially in sandals, they were the most likely limb to be injured and Read more
Creativity
When Invitation Collides with Separation
Since the beginning of the disease-generated restrictions, most of us have experienced what happens when invitation collides with separation; the pain combines with creativity: graduation exercises conducted by robot in a mostly empty auditorium, drive-by birthday parties, masked air-hugs, group video chats, home-style 3D printers creating face masks to protect Read more
discipleship
Revealing His Glory
So…there is every day and everyday. There is day-after-day and thoughtless routine… autopilot, if you will. One of my “every day” things is time in the Scriptures. Sometimes that time is an unengaged habit. Sometimes it is a rock-my-world event! Even remembering the horrific suffering and brutal death of Jesus Read more