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March 28, 2024
Death Defying Faith Finding ourselves walking through the final events of Holy Week, most of us prefer to vault from seeing Jesus around the table with his closest circle to the glory-filled, Sunday morning, resurrection. We opt to squeeze all the middle events into a little box in the corner of our minds, casting them a mere sideways glance. The box contains, in the least, dreadfulness. In the extreme, gruesome horror, depending on our willingness to recount all He suffered...
December 16, 2021
Hope in the Hard “There will be no Christmas card this year.” The decision declared wandering through a shop in October, shelves heaped with box upon box of colorful artwork, warm scenes, and warmer phrases. None of the greetings made sense sent from the center of our surreal, difficult journey these past months. Nope. Not. Doing. It. (When Covid Crashes Through Your Front Door: 1879) Turning to bolt for the door, searching for air to breathe, my eyes fell on a card...
April 22, 2021
When Covid Crashes Through Your Front Door What do we name this dark valley we travel. Where sunlight mocks the darkness in the space we try to breathe. What cruel trick transpired that two weeks took us from sweet fellowship with you around our table, to crushing sorrow you are not here with us, laughing and talking and loving and sharing life. How do we bring together the depths of our faith and the depths of our sorrow? How do...
March 11, 2021
4 Offerings of God’s Goodness in Relational Hards There exist a vast array of hards we face in life. All of them bring varying levels of pain, uncertainty and testing. However, there’s something about relational difficulties that take pain to a different level. Unresolved conflict with another makes our soul feel raw. Tensions wear our emotions to a thread. Rejection causes us to doubt our value and purpose. Betrayal tramples our ability to trust. Abandonment leaves barren land within us....
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...
April 30, 2020
Though the world battles a shared dose of fear today, fear is not a new reaction to unknown or frightening circumstances. Fear entered our world when the first man and woman disobeyed God. Just a few sentences later, we witness Adam saying, “I was afraid”. (Genesis 3:10). Like other emotions, fear comes in many shapes and sizes and in varying degrees; some rational, some not so much; demonstrated in the statement, “I am afraid of wasps and a family member...
February 13, 2020
Though many hards come through dramatic changes, unexpected events, or out of our control scenarios, one hard creeps up for the opposite reason. We experience phases where the pace of life rolls out day after week after month in ordinary, blah, routine. We find ourselves wandering around on the flat, prosaic plains of monotony. Everything so uniform and predictable it’s wearisome. Another ordinary day. More of the same at work. The unending grind of daily tasks. Constant repairs and cleaning...
January 16, 2020
None of us escape physical suffering, either facing this hard in our own life or in the life of someone we love. With difficulty, we witness a sharp and clear mind trapped in a body that crumbles from disease or aging. Or the opposite, with a confused, fading mind in a physical body that remains strong. We wrestle with the “why” of such affliction, and struggle to understand the rightness and fairness of circumstances played out before us. And when...
December 12, 2019
While many scramble to conquer the chaos, yet warm with excitement anticipating celebrations of the Christmas season, sometimes an opposite scenario befalls us. Life has dealt a blow and nothing is normal. The season drags by, filled with pain and loneliness. Uncertainty and dread are our companions. We hear no echo of laughter. Carols have lost their warmth and sparkling lights mock the darkness swirling around us. Numbness escorts us to gatherings. Fear replaces peace. Sorrow deadens joy. When all...
November 28, 2019
Thanksgiving. A crushing hard. How do these mesh? God’s Word encourages us to “give thanks in all circumstances” and to “always give thanks for everything”. Does that include this mess? This pain? When darkness seeps in and our dreams lay shattered. When finances are wrecked, our hope stagnant, our bodies diseased and broken. Being thankful seems a far stretch and somewhat ludicrous. Nothing in our circumstance stirs thankfulness. Yet, living with a thankful heart is important to the Lord. In...