Archives

  • Disappointing in the Very Best Way

    The reality that we were going to Israel for a month took equally as long to sink into my brain.  It was one of those things that seemed unbelievable, like meeting your favorite celebrity or being gifted a brand new car.  I couldn’t believe I was actually going, and every time it occurred to me […]

  • No Mountain High Enough: Why Christmas is All About Descending

    You know those moments when you’re keenly aware that you are experiencing something profound, something that will become a treasured memory in a matter of hours? I had one of those last week. A very strange and hectic turn of events took me to Peru on the first week of December when I expected to […]

  • Choice Words: Why Choice Matters When it Comes to Love

    I heard something last month (the month that in the last five years has undergone a cultural name change from June to Pride) that shook me deeply because it was fundamentally and experientially incorrect. Someone said: “You don’t choose who you love.” My mind and heart in that instant both rose in defiance of this […]

  • This is the point of Easter

    I regularly do devotionals with my children. I’m not on top of it every single day, because there are some days that just get derailed, frankly, by a hectic schedule of our own making, a sick child, school or travel. But, at least five days a week, I sit down with the kids and open […]

  • Why the climate means it matters how Christians unwind

    I bought a huge bag of oranges from Costco a couple of weeks ago–mostly for school lunches, healthy snacks at home, and soccer games. I pulled a few out of the bag for our tabletop fruit bowl when I got home, then stored the bag with its remaining oranges in the pantry.  Then I kind […]

  • Whose You Are: Why Good Things Happen to Bad People

    “Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered.” R.C. Sproul A Tale of Two Pavements In both scenarios, tears were streaming down my cheeks and I felt utterly alone. In both scenarios I’d watched a man drive away and leave me stranded. One held a gun to my […]

  • From Victory to Valley: What Happens After Our Big Moments

    Recently I heard a sermon about Elijah, an Old Testament prophet who is most famous for initiating the competition between God and Baal on Mount Carmel according to an account in 1 Kings 18. Bible-readers will remember this story as the one where God shows up in the form of fire on a drenched altar […]

  • Why worry is a major issue for so many mothers

    It often begins as a small remark about someone’s health, a scary experience with a food allergy, a stressful day of travel with kids, an economic crisis or reports of crime in the news.  Something in us grabs ahold of a passing remark that elevates legitimate concerns to full-blown, action-quenching, logic-robbing WORRY.  And for some […]

  • COVID-19 Days: An Exodus of the Heart

    It’s an undeniable human tendency to get caught up in one’s current reality, a tendency as old as time.  We easily forget the joys and victories, the struggles and lessons we’ve had in the past, focusing instead on our current circumstances and allowing our limited vision to color the way we see the future.  This […]

  • It’s Not About Us: the Secret to Living and Loving Freely

    Did you know that Earth is one of the smaller planets in the solar system?  Our sun could comfortably contain 1 million Earths. It would take 36 years to travel to the outermost regions of our solar system.  The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across–by the way, a single light year is equal to […]