My Christian upbringing taught me the gravity of sin. I knew I was a sinner. Knowing the joy of forgiveness, not so much. My parents herded me and my four siblings to church every Sunday, usually twice. I attended Sunday school where my aunt lined up her pupils against the wall and instructed us to…
Confession is humbling, embarrassing, and at times, even mortifying. So why bother? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply hide our sins and pretend all is well? Denial might be easier, but if we want to get free from sin, confession needs to become a regular part of our lives. Confession helped me break my 40-year…
I remember the day I met Jesus. It was in a basement in Chicago. I was invited by a friend and when I got there and swung the door open I saw other 20-something people like me. They were sitting around long tables that had Bibles piled on the ends. There were bowls of snacks…
I really don’t consider myself a generous person, but maybe that’s because when I think of generosity, I’m usually thinking about money. But we can be generous with other things as well. And one thing we all have is time—a precious commodity. Too often, we tell ourselves we need to hold onto things, time included….
Meet my unexpected friends: Theophilus I was in Washington, DC with a young friend, heading for the Air and Space Museum, but construction was concealing the entrance. So I approached an older man sitting on a concrete wall. “Do you know where the entrance is?” He told us where to go. As we were turning…
Investing in one another involves a beautiful exchange of giving and receiving. But it’s not always easy to accept generosity. Pride keeps it at bay. In addition, a cultural emphasis on “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” cultivates a stigma of interdependence. Six years ago, my oldest son began having health concerns. Sometimes he seemed…
I sat in the darkened parking lot while my husband helped the woman and her son load up our van with her belongings. She had showed up a couple of weeks ago in my Sunday school class looking very foreign to Florida culture in her black clothes and European accent. The distress on her face,…
Sheltering in place has left us all feeling out of place. So how should we live in a world of frightened, exposed people? These days, it’s as if we’re all walking around naked. Stripped of many of those things we covered ourselves with—our jobs, our people, our accomplishments—there is a raw vulnerability in the air….
We were headed to our first week of drive-thru church during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our pastor preached online that Sunday morning, and during the afternoon the congregation was invited to drive through the parking lot to take communion from their cars and drop off any tithes and food pantry items. The tithe checks were already…
The Holy Spirit is the member of the Triune God whose role is hardest to define. Can it be that part of his job description includes creating art? He convicts us of sin, guides us into truth, draws us toward Christ, transforms us, and hides the Word in our hearts. He is our comforter, strengthener,…
“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not…
The amount of words in the world today is astounding. According to one estimate, there have already been more than half a million books published worldwide in 2020. How many words do you think that adds up to? When you factor in journals, blogs, and social media, how many words pour into the world each…
A framed print of Norman Rockwell’s Jo Writing in the Attic hangs in a prominent corner of our little home library, and not far from it, on a nearby bookshelf, rests an old abridged edition of Little Women, my childhood introduction to Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel. I recall my first experience with the story…
I’ve found the beauty of God’s redeeming work through the art of reclaimed wood. It started with discovering a pile of discarded dock wood alongside the road in our neighborhood. I texted my husband who came to help me take it home. We used that wood to build a large dining table for the back…