I paused and looked out over the small crowd of children sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Sunday school room, waiting for their response. I played the role of narrator in a short play about the book of Esther, and as I’d just said the name “Haman,” I was waiting for the hisses and…
The past paralyzes, and the future is unknown. My calendar captures future events as my “to-do” list increases with things I should have done yesterday. In the meantime, social media drags me down in the game of “what if”: The world will come to an end if democrats win, and the world will go to…
“Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women.” The sun was peeking over the edge of the mountain ridge when the rumblings started. Jael looked up from the fire she was kindling to bake the day’s bread. In the fringes of pink that touched the grey…
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…
When Momae moved up north to Massachusetts to join Daddy, she brought her most precious possessions stuffed inside my granddaddy’s big brown leather suitcase. She also brought recipes handed down from my Nana, some hastily scribbled on paper, and others committed to memory. Daddy was an ensign in the Navy; his ship docked in Boston…
Allow me to tell you a story. There is a woman, worried for her daughter. She has tried everything with no success, but today she has a new idea. A teacher and healer has slipped into town, his reputation preceding him. The odds that he’ll see her, or help her, aren’t great – but this…
We were raised to be timid, most of us. In the tiny white churches speckling the countryside, we were taught to be cautious, to be courteous, to be kind and good and avoid even the appearance of evil. Being a good Christian looked like wearing clean, pressed clothes to Sunday School, like going to grandma’s…