Gaining a heart of wisdom
I had never led a question-and-answer session during any of my past women's events, but I was looking forward to the experience. I wanted to hear the questions that had bubbled to the surface after a weekend of immersing ourselves in the Bible's teaching on hope. I wasn't prepared for the challenging contexts the women… Continue reading What Happens When You Fight For Genuine Joy In Impossible Circumstances?
Whenever I travel, and often even when I simply open my email, I encounter the stories of people who are carrying heartache, managing loads unimaginable to me. I'm not a trained counselor, and my gifts don't even lie in that direction, so I'm usually at a loss for words. And really, words are not the… Continue reading Bring Your Broken Heart to the One Who Named the Stars
Like beads on a string, our minutes slide by. Poor, cynical Solomon bemoaned the futility of it all, dismissing his significant accomplishments as a chasing after the wind. Author Annie Dillard speaks a better and more hopeful wisdom: How we live our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. The most common complaint about time… Continue reading 4 Habits for Managing Moments When Time Is Scarce
The baby wakes up an hour early—the hour you had planned for quiet study and prayer.The teen driver totals your car on her way to a ballgame.The job interview seems to go so well that you let yourself hope, but the postion goes to another candidate. In ways that are both trivial and seismic, life… Continue reading How Can I Love My Given Life When It’s Not What I Had Planned?
Keeping my voice confident (more confident than I felt!), I greeted my Sunday morning learners with an unexpected request: “Let’s stand together for our reading of God’s Word this morning.” They didn’t know I had chosen a longer passage than usual.They didn’t know I had timed the reading to fill about three minutes.They didn’t know… Continue reading How Can I Cultivate a Listening Life in a Noisy World?
I pushed the damp mop across the kitchen floor, knowing full well that I would be finding sticky spots on cupboard doors and drawer handles for days to come. The transformation of a bushel and a half of apples into smooth, pink applesauce is the work of a couple hours on my own. However, with… Continue reading What Does It Look Like to Serve Others as Jesus Served?
Today I attacked the kind of cleaning chores that I envision other more diligent and domestically devoted women doing all the time: the tidying that requires pulling furniture away from the wall, vacuuming under beds, and applying a ferocious dust cloth to the rungs of chairs and the hidden recesses of bookcases. Homely household routines… Continue reading Elisabeth Elliot’s Unique Blend of Grit and Grace and My Review of a New EE Biography
My young friend’s question was as deeply earnest as it was misguided: “I know I need to read and pray every day, but isn’t it just hypocritical to go through the motions on days when I’m not feelin’ it?” It’s not hard to trace this line of reasoning to its source. In Western thought, a… Continue reading Is It Hypocritical to Practice Spiritual Disciplines When I’m Not Feelin’ It?
If I learned anything at all from twenty-one years of homeschooling it is this: the daunting, two-inch-thick school book is managed in daily assignments, one lesson at a time over the course of an entire school year. If we persevere, we will be able to say in June, “We did it!” Thirty summers and thirty… Continue reading What Story Do You Want to Be Able to Tell?
Spring is officially here, and it's time to begin planning my annual dinner for the women of my church. Trust me, I'm no hospitality expert, but I try to make it special for them with a pretty table and a scrumptious dessert. One year I made a turkey dinner, another year it was chicken cordon… Continue reading What is Biblical Hospitality? Rediscover the Powerful Practice of Simply Making Room
Living Our Days 