I stared at the seat I’d occupied in the church choir for nineteen years. End seat, soprano section. No longer. This was the day. I had to do it. It was past time. I swallowed and grabbed my black folder, clutching it to my chest as I marched past the director and plopped next to the empty chair in the …
Sometimes I think we humans give ourselves far too much credit. We think the world will collapse without us. We are irreplaceable. The universe begins with our birth and ends with our death. We have a mountain of tasks that depends on our follow through. Our own self-importance is staggering…or it can be, if we actually believe all this to …
Have you ever felt God has forgotten you? Perhaps He showed you something phenomenal He’s about do in and through your life. The arrival of a long awaited child, a gift or talent maybe. Perhaps it was a vocational change or ministry calling of some sort. Perhaps it’s a long-held dream right on the cusp of fruition. God revealed that …
I’m preparing to speak at an upcoming women’s retreat and the theme is “Start a Fire”. No, this isn’t a retreat for closet arsonists. It’s a time designed to get fired up for our Creator. But in preparing for the retreat, I began meditating on the word ‘passion’ and started thinking about what most of us are passionate about. What …
The past week was a taste of paradise. I was overjoyed to attend a writers retreat for the authors who are signed with the fabulous agents of Books & Such Literary Agency. Boy, did they spoil us! We met in Monterey, California to enjoy a time of learning, fellowship, planning and fun. My brain is overwhelmed with everything they taught …
Thees and Thous. Hedge of protection. Traveling mercies. Let go and let God. So many odd phrases pepper our western Christian culture. Some are rooted in Bible and some have been twisted over time. Some were never in scripture to begin with. Over the past two years, I’ve meditated continually on 1 John 2:6. “…the one who says he abides in …
Walt Disney messed me up, and it appears I’m not the only one. Not long ago I was perusing the books at our local Christian bookstore, and began to notice a troubling theme in many of the nonfiction works. A large number of them boasted subject matter along these lines: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” “If …
Imagine a man slowly sailing through the clouds in a bright, striped hot air balloon. The air is cool, save for the spurt of fire keeping the balloon bellowed and full. As the current toys with his hair, he studies the tiny images below…rectangles of green and brown grass, houses and snaking highways. Everything seems so small, and from his …
I stared at the Hot Wheels car submerged at the bottom of our toilet and frowned. I arched my brow and turned to spear my wide-eyed three-year old son with “the look”. He stood in his under-roos, clutching his Buzz Lightyear doll in his chubby arms, blinking those big brown eyes up at me with the innocent look of a …
I was sitting on a rumbling plane in Chicago, waiting for the painfully slow pilot to push us back from the gate. No one seemed to be in a hurry that morning. Not the airline nor the stewards. Even the ground controllers outside my window appeared to be dragging their feet. I blinked the grit from my eyes. I wasn’t …