In the spring of 2015, I had reached the end of what had become a pivotal freshman year of college. I felt isolated and confused over my own beliefs…

Your own breaking will come.  Oh, it will.  You will come to the end of yourself, and I promise you, hard as you look, there will not be a Plan B.  Nothing you do will work. But once you’ve surrendered to God, you won’t need Plan B.  God is plan A, and He is more than enough.

While Naomi lost her faith in God, her daughter in law Ruth, now a widow, was an inspiration of innocence, love, humility a child-like faith and a deep desire to go back to Bethlehem with Naomi. Her words were lyrics of song written in 1872 called the “Song of Ruth” and describe her heart.

On December 29, 2019, a gunman opened fire during a Sunday morning worship service at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, TX, killing two people. The horrific incident ended quickly after it started when a gun-carrying churchgoer shot and killed the attacker.

There is a feature on my cell phone that allows me to decline an incoming call. There are a thousand reasons why I might choose to hit the “decline” button when my phone rings. Sometimes I have a deadline to meet. Decline. Sometimes a call comes in when I’m mid-conversation, mid-meeting or connecting with family. Decline.

About 10 years ago when my husband was early in his diagnosis for a terminal disease, a group of people offered to come to our home to pray for him. I didn’t know the man well who organized the effort and didn’t know some of his companions at all. Their prayers intrigued me…

If I could only have one television channel to watch it would be the Biography channel. I love to hear true stories of people’s lives: finding out where they came from and how they grew up, who or what influenced their life’s decisions, and where they eventually ended up. 

Throughout my time in the corporate world, I’ve encountered a multitude of different leaders and leadership styles.  I’ve learned, from both favorable and unfavorable situations, how much my day to day is impacted simply by the character of those calling the shots.  

What is it, exactly, about sharing a meal with a friend, or someone new you want to get to know, that seems to foster a sense of closeness, and emotional intimacy?

The planets in our solar system are making noise right now – If we could hear the dreary drones of the sound octaves, it would drive us mad. Most of us can tell if a musical note is off key even if we are not musicians with perfect pitch.

I’ve heard it said that in the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips. This rings true in my life. I’m thankful to have girlfriends that hit their knees when I hit a wall. I do the same for them. We have each other’s backs through thick and thin. 

We are not commissioned to tell the world about some transcendent being who is disconnected and unconcerned with the brokenness of life. We represent the God who entered into that brokenness and took it all upon himself so that we could be rescued from it. This is the one who is now seated at the right hand of God and sends us out promising to be with us, always.

Work doesn’t have the most pleasant connotation. It sounds hard. Arduous. It is the antonym of “play”, yet work was created BEFORE the Fall. God placed Adam in the garden to “work it and take care of it” while everything was still GOOD. It was a curse of the Fall that caused work to become an act of toil. Work now produces sweat, blisters and pulled muscles along with stress and work-a-holism.

Hanging on the wall of our daughter’s bedroom is one of my favorite things: a growth chart. Each of my children received a personalized chart when they were born, and we have loved marking them annually to see the growth each has experienced. While our teen boys have now surpassed their charts by several inches, our daughter still loves to back her heels up against the floorboard and stand as tall as possible, hoping to see a significant difference from the previous blue line.

Have you ever asked yourself what brings you to a house of worship each Sunday? Put a different way, imagine every church building in the US suddenly vanished.  No more live music from a lighted stage.  No more coffee shop lobby.  No more celebrity pastors.  No more kids’ programs…

What does it mean to pursue God at all costs?  If we understand this to really mean “without any limits” or “at any price”, would most of us say we actually do this?  Would we really be willing to do it?  Have we been tested to the limit, as Paul had?  Probably not.

Several years ago I bought a box of Cheerios that came with a free children’s book. The little book that came with the O’s had a darling and oh-so-prickly little varmint on the front cover. The title? How Do You Hug a Porcupine? 

“Hallo”, said the driver in his Dutch accent as I boarded the airport shuttle van,  the only passenger in Eindhoven Netherlands, for a two-hour ride to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. After 60 days in Holland, I was ready to get back home to Ohio. Jon, my driver, was a 62-year-old retired worker and loved to talk about everything and every place I visited. As our conversation covered every topic from our families to World War II, I felt compelled to ask some questions about his faith.