Call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. (Ruth 1:20, NLT) First, a famine sent her small family into exile in a foreign land. Then her husband died. Then her two sons married unbelieving women. Then her two sons died. Naomi knew something about profound loss. And she wasn’t so…
Anxiety likes to hang out in waiting rooms. If you’ve ever waited in a doctor’s office to hear the diagnosis, or in a surgical area to learn the results, or in a hospital room to get your pain meds, you know what I mean. Anxiety rumbles in the waiting room like tremors before an earthquake,…
The Bible instructs us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:16-18) and to trade worry for thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6), but the question is how?! In order to appropriately address this question, we need to consider the source of gratitude. Gratitude is the appropriate response to God’s gracious work in the world. It is…
Sammie, a regular attendee at the women’s Bible study I led, invited me to lunch. I had wanted to get to know her better, and I was looking forward to our time. When the waitress arrived, Sammie didn’t order anything, which seemed a little odd, since she had issued the invite. It should have tipped…
Do you ever have those days — weeks — years, when your spiritual blood runs cold, when your deer-panting thirst has seemingly dried up? Or when you’re parched, dying for a drink from God, but his springed-up well seems to be saturating other cracked hearts but not yours? Disclaimer: There’s no such thing as a simple…
As I prayed this morning, so saddened by the news of another leader confessing “moral failure,” I remembered a story that renewed my hope. Here’s the story re-told: Once upon a time, a man a young man, a small shepherd, was chosen by God to be king… a son, a friend, a husband, a father, persecuted by…
Ah, finally, a moment to write what I’m living right now — We’ve talked about the feeling of disorientation and ambivalence that strikes hard and fast, sometimes so dizzying we don’t even know what hit us! Today — five thoughts on living in God’s story of grace through these seasons: Grieve the loss. Yes, it is…
I love ministry; I hate the temptations that accompany it. The temptation to believe our work is meaningless. Ugly thoughts intrude at times, even though I’d rather pretend I don’t have them. But from what my coaching clients and others tell me, we all struggle at times with the temptation to believe that what we do somehow doesn’t…
First of all, I don’t know why the new issue of Parenting Magazine seems to show up in my mailbox once a month. I suspect there is a mom out there who has judged me the worst mother in the state of Florida and has taken me on as a mercy ministry. She probably sponsored my subscription hoping the articles will…
Tis the season – graduation invites are dropping in my mailbox like flies on watermelon juice, so I am re-visiting some of my previous thoughts on the season. (This year, our third child, second daughter is graduating from college — and getting married 3 weeks later, and moving, and starting a new job….! So, once…