Gaining a heart of wisdom
For the reader who writes (or for the writer who reads), certain authors are a gold mine. With a bracing vocabulary, a precision of thought, and a way with a sentence that manages to be both wise and witty, David Bentley Hart has a perspective on the world that requires a careful reading -- that… Continue reading Wicked Splendid
A toddler-sized pair of skates wired to an evergreen spray and adorned with a bow -- that's the best I can do! But not everyone is craft-challenged like I am, and Sarah O. Maddox has made a practice of hanging a beautiful wreath on the door of her home no matter what the season as… Continue reading Wreathed in Contentment
Remember the last time you were in a conversation with someone who really seemed to be listening? They asked all the right questions, and they seemed, honestly and truly, to want to hear your story. They nodded and looked you right in the eye, smiled with encouragement, laughed in all the right places. And it's… Continue reading Always a Surprise
Little people find words first for the people and the things that are most important to them. As one of the "named people" in my grandson's life, I love to read books to him that include pictures of the sun, moon, and stars, because he responds by pointing to them, naming them over and over,… Continue reading The Heavens Declare!
A favorite Elisabeth Elliot quote comes to mind whenever I overhear fragments of the ongoing row about the role of women in the church: "I am not a different kind of Christian because I am a woman, but I am, most certainly, a different kind of woman because I am a Christian." Since ten of… Continue reading A Different Kind of Woman
Elisabeth Elliot coined the most memorable definition of human suffering that I have ever heard: "Suffering is wanting what you don't have -- or having what you don't want." These words came to mind often as I read Between Pain and Grace, because Gerald W. Peterman and Andrew J. Schmutzer have initiated a fresh conversation which does… Continue reading Pain, Emotion, and God
We did it! In August, my Sunday morning kids finished our study of ten of God's incommunicable attributes -- the characteristics we marvel at but cannot share. (How many can you name? I will list the ten that we studied in the comment section below.) All that majesty has not been wasted on me as… Continue reading Musings – August 2016
A long-ago friend I'll call "Beth" suffered from depression, growing more and more discouraged as she slogged through her days under the weight of it. I asked her one day, "Why don't you try reading a book about depression?" "I've tried," she replied, "but they only make me feel worse!" If only she could have… Continue reading The Way to Hope
“You don’t need to fast,” she said. “Your prayers are enough.” But I did need to fast, because her situation sounded really bleak, and God was talking to my heart about it. Bev was traveling alone in Uganda when she injured her knee hurrying across a busy street. Swollen to nearly twice its size,… Continue reading Let It Burn!
For quite some time now I've had the urge to poll a room full of people with this question: What words come to your mind when you think of God? First impressions are what I'm looking for, and I have a feeling that very few responses would include the word "happy." In The Happiness Dare, Jennifer Dukes… Continue reading The Holy Pursuit of Happiness
Living Our Days 