Category
October 1, 2020
Two Calls Ringing Across America Two hand-in-hand messages resound across our Country. They resonate from various venues, to the tune of different voices. These two calls make us uncomfortable as we pinch our ears shut and slip way from their conviction. The first is the cry to repent: as individuals, as a church, and as a nation. The events of 2020 and where we are as a society speak with clarity to the “why” of this call. To repent is...
September 17, 2020
Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Steal My Joy Anybody else feel like you’re living under a cloud that just doesn’t go away? Walking around in a smoky haze the sun can’t break through? Seriously, just about one more “thing” added to the chaos and we vote to cancel the rest of 2020. Need we list all the things? Viral pandemic. Racial tensions. Brain-numbing riots. One destructive storm after another. Fierce wildfires. Hateful election rhetoric. And these don’t include world tensions and personal...
September 3, 2020
Surviving “In the Moment” Uncertainty In a difficult time, we often hear platitudes like “It’ll work out. It’ll be okay. It’s just a phase. This too will pass. My brother’s uncle’s cousin’s neighbor went through this and they’re getting along fine now.” But the truth is? In the moment of the crisis, we don’t know. We don’t know if it will be okay or work out or pass. Our minds run down a list of other’s experiences, or our own,...
August 20, 2020
How to be Awakened, Even if You’re Woke Can we just be honest? All of us share the same hard right now. Between Covid-19, social turmoil, and presidential election discord, we are embedded in a difficult season. We find ourselves at conflict within ourselves, with family members, church members, and the world. Turmoil stirs within as we check and double check our beliefs and position on a wide range of issues from how to do life with a virus to...
August 6, 2020
Being a woman today is HARD. Yes, we have conveniences and luxuries our grandmothers did not have. More opportunities and advantages open to us than ever before. But appreciation wanes because the space opened up by those benefits quickly fill with endless expectations; placed on us by society, the church, family, friends, and ourselves. Somewhere between the raging storms we battle and the mundane, routine of life we slosh through, we lose ourselves. We forget who we are in Christ....
July 30, 2020
Proven often during a lifetime, ungracious hards pile up in layers, one heaping atop another. Many experience this with the pandemic. People already struggling with difficult situations had another layer added when the virus spread. Despite the dissension over aspects of Covid-19, we all agree on one thing: the results make life difficult. From sickness to unemployment to malaise. From nightmare schedules to loneliness to financial distress. As these difficulties pile more layers to already existing struggles, we begin to...
July 23, 2020
Formed in the deep recesses of our mind lurks a hard with potential to knock us flat on many levels: mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual. Secret imaginations. There we flirt with relationships and scenarios, real or imagined, with energy to destroy our lives and the lives of those we love. We allow Satan to stroll us down avenues of real estate we neither own nor have business seeking or desiring. In the meantime, ignoring growing weeds in our own landscape;...
June 18, 2020
It’s so hard to hear You, God, when the world screams loud. We are a mess down here. Every time we think things are settling down we open our eyes to new chaos. Your daughters are weary. Our spinning minds and aching hearts need Your touch. It’s so hard to walk in peace when conflict abounds. Arguments. Opinions. Confusing and conflicting information. Messages with uncomfortable undertones. Hashtags and slogans crowding our streets, our screens, and our minds. Statistics and reports...
June 11, 2020
Can we hear them? Are the ears of our hearts open to the hushed groans and faint sighs of people suffering in silence? So many languish in daily distress as we rush by, faintly aware. Or oblivious. We press on, all systems go, while others endure on-going pain from a broken relationship with a parent, child, or spouse. Some are tormented with chronic physical pain. Others hide shame from emotional or physical abuse. Too many desperately try to breathe through...
June 4, 2020
Just as we feel the coronavirus rollercoaster slow, allowing our spinning worlds to calm, our disorientation to adjust, and our expectations rise the ride will end soon, the tracks take an unexpected turn into a dark tunnel. A neon flashing light fizzles and spits the word “horror” as our vision fills with surreal sights and images. Pinned to the ground, a man pleads for breath. Crowds fired-up with frustration and anger, protest in peace but with passion for justice. Their...