Journeying Home Together
Throughout the season of Lent, I’ve felt led this year to reflect in depth on the things God has done in my life. Easter is about all of us – collectively, the Body of Christ – being rescued, but it’s too easy for us sometimes to remove the personal elements from the picture. It’s easy to speak of God saving US…to sing of God’s love for US…to rejoice in His
This isn’t the post I was going to write today, but when something grabs my heart and shakes it, I figure I have two choices: I can wait until it settles down to respond, or I can move while I’m still in turmoil. With things like I want to write today, I have to write while it’s raw. I have to write while I feel it, or I am being
My eyes brimmed with tears, and I struggled to focus on the computer screen in front of me. I lifted my hands from the keyboard and covered my face, my chest heaving with sobs and emotions pouring forth from the deep recesses of my memory. I had a speaking engagement the very next day, and God had not-so-subtly informed me that the talk I thought I was to deliver was
I’ve recently begun something I never – ever, in a million years – thought I’d do. In fact, if you had asked me point blank even a few months ago to become a consultant for a direct sale company, I’d have furrowed my eyebrows, shaken my head as I backed away, and said that was not for me. No way, no thank you, I don’t think so. Today, though, that’s
When I was little, I had a friend who…well, let’s just say she had an intense desire for things that belonged to other people, and she was quick to make those things her own if given the chance. On several occasions she had been accused of stealing things that weren’t hers, and rightly so. It was an ongoing thing with her, and those of us who knew her knew we
About a year and a half ago, I had some pretty extensive dental work done. I had never been quite that numb before, and it was funny to me how my face felt detached from my body. What wasn’t funny, though, was once the numbness started to fade away. As the tingling set in, letting me know the nerves were waking up, my tongue began to throb excruciatingly. Apparently, during
We’re in a series at my (awesome) church right now called “The Big Picture,” and we’re exploring the idea of God’s will for our lives. We’ve been saying how so often we act like God’s will is something far out there for us to search for…unearth…discover, but the reality is that God – who WANTS to be discovered – has made His will within reach as well. Honestly, in our
When I was in kindergarten, we lived just a few blocks from the school. Every morning, after filling my little belly with rolled eggs (the rest of the world calls them omelets) and taming my thick hair into a top-knot ponytail, my mom would load my sister and me into…the bugger. Yes. The bugger. It was an odd contraption, even then. Made of a huge chunk of black plastic and
A couple of weeks ago my daughter’s teacher sent home a plastic ziplock baggy with two beans in it. The beans represented hours of anticipation on behalf of her preschool class, as they watched and waited for the two beans to show signs of life. Finally, roots sprung forth, splitting the seeds from their core, proving to everyone what they had known all along: something better was coming. And now
I sat in the tiny chapel for the second night in a row. I was hoping for a special Word for my heart alone but feared that it had already come and, unbeknownst to me, had slipped past unnoticed. Retreats are always like that for me. I come with hopes and expectations of what may come, but in the back of my mind I always fear that in my self-absorbed
