One cold November evening, when I was nine years old, our 73 year-old farmhouse caught fire due to a faulty oil space heater. Weather-beaten and aged, the house was completely engulfed in flames within twenty minutes. My father was away on a ministry trip in California thousands of miles away from our western Michigan home. My mother, sister, brother, and I escaped the flames with the clothes on … [Read more...] about Through the Fire
Perseverance
Discouragement’s Antidote
katy.pumphrey.art Do you have someone in your life that continually points out attributes about you that make you feel depressed? I can't stand to be around people like that and yet, on an almost daily basis, I allow myself to be exposed to lies whose source is difficult to turn off and tell to leave. My soul. Nothing is more killing to a soul than the want of … [Read more...] about Discouragement’s Antidote
A Great Teacher
I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. Psalm 119:102 I was hopelessly failing and there seemed to be nothing I could do about that fact. The first time I took Algebra 1, I was a freshman in high school during our year of furlough in the United States. It was a horrible year regarding my aptitude in math, consisting of depressing progress reports and me … [Read more...] about A Great Teacher
God’s Amazing Gifts: Being Misunderstood
The apostle Paul shared an experence that grieved him deeply in a personal letter to the church at Corinth. Although we do not have any idea what his thorn was, we do know that God refused to grant Paul's request that the Lord remove it from him.Being a curious person by nature, I would love to know the exact details of what Paul struggled with. But I am also grateful that the Lord has recorded … [Read more...] about God’s Amazing Gifts: Being Misunderstood
God’s Amazing Gifts: Dependency
Would you describe yourself as being self-reliant?I learned to be self-reliant when I went away to boarding school as a sophomore in high school. I didn't realize what was happening at the time to my heart. I would grow up and marry a wonderful man, but I had unconsciously made a promise to myself that I would never let my heart truly love him the way I wanted or needed to. As a missionary kid … [Read more...] about God’s Amazing Gifts: Dependency
God’s Amazing Gifts: Lost
All of us can remember that terrifying moment as small children when we were separated from our parent in a grocery or department store. There are emotions that rush to the forefront of my mind, burned in my memory, when I think of being lost:Fear,helplessness,a sense of being forgotten,not belonging."For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." Luke 19:10All of us have been lost. … [Read more...] about God’s Amazing Gifts: Lost
