Dear Reader, Recently I listened to an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, The Next Right Thing, with Emily P. Freeman. Emily interviewed Amanda Held Opelt, the sister of well known speaker Rachel Held Evans. Amanda lost her sister suddenly in May of 2019. On the podcast, Amanda talks about her book A Hole…
Dear Reader, When my grandson was born and I was helping his mom during those first days of motherhood, I hung out at their apartment with her so she wouldn’t be alone while my son was at work. I didn’t have much to do when she and the baby were napping–which was often–so I binge…
Dear Reader, A little more than five years ago, I stepped into a few major transitions in my life. My youngest child graduated from the parent-involved K-8 school where our family had been heavily involved for 15 years with all three of our children. I left the staff of the missionary organization I had been…
Dear Reader, I am blessed by a rare collection of close girlfriends. Most of us have known each other for more than a quarter century. Two of us were even in each other’s weddings more than 30 years ago. There are seven of us, and we are from diverse parts of the country and we…
Dear Reader, I love stories. I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. I devoured books late into the night–or rather the early hours of the morning–especially during summer months when I didn’t have to be up early for school the next day. My imagination would often run away with…
Dear Readers, In my 60 years of life, I have lived in 11 places, including my college apartment and a couple of short-term apartments: one when I moved to another city, one when I got married, and one when we moved to a new state. I’ve been in my current house for 22 years. My…
Dear Reader, It was just three years ago that I started writing for a Christian meditation app called Abide. I hadn’t really thought about meditation too much prior to that. I didn’t have anything against it. I know that the Bible talks a lot about meditating on God’s Word and how important that is. But…
We’ve done more than a few home renovations. One involved our kitchen and jack hammering up our floor to move water pipes. The other involved our master bathroom and punching through drywall to again, move water pipes. My husband got our boys involved in this particular demo project, giving them thick gloves and telling them…
Dear Reader, What’s so holy about going to the grocery store? Or doing laundry? Or taking a meal to a sick friend? Or changing a diaper? You might think of sacraments as things like the Eucharist (Communion) or Baptism, or Marriage. But when we do all that we do for Christ and in Christ, we…
Dear Readers, Happy New Year! I’m both happy and sad to see 2021 in my rearview mirror. There were several milestones my family crossed during the last year. Early in the year I took over this editor-in-chief job from my dear friend JoHannah, who lost her battle with cancer on February 4th. It was quite…
Dear Readers, Welcome to the last month of the year! We’ve been through a lot together. From living in a continuing pandemic, inaugurating a new president, watching continuing tension around the world, and yet still hoping and believing in a good God who cares about each one of us intimately. We here at the Redbud…
Dear Friend, Do you believe that you are completely and wholly loved by God? Some people more readily feel it than others. Maybe those who grew up in nurturing families instinctively know that God loves them, while those who struggled with hard parental relationships have a tougher time believing that they are worthy of love….
Dear Reader, I live in Florida, so every summer we hear tragic stories of toddlers falling into backyard pools and drowning. We have a pool, and we have a 3-year-old grandson who spends a lot of time at our house. We also have a pool fence. Or at least we did until we paved our…
I taught 2nd grade at a small Christian school for a couple of years before moving up to 6th grade. I remember one day in class talking about James, the brother of Jesus. You would have thought I had just told them that the Easter Bunny was real the way some of them reacted to…