My mom was silent in response to my frantic question of her: Momma, will it be there in the morning? Tears were running down my cheeks as I glanced at the flames greedily licking up the wood walls of our 73-year-old farmhouse. My nine-year-old brain was trying to shut out the undeniable fate of my beautiful canopy bed. My grandmother had recently bought my sister and me a matching bedroom … [Read more...] about How To Not Panic When God Seems Silent
hope
How To Acknowledge Your Grief First To Forgive Your Offender
Looking back, grief should have been obvious, but its face stayed hidden from me as I struggled to forgive my offender. I did not realize that the first step towards forgiveness was to grieve over what had happened. In fact, I didn't realize that I was grieving until I was months into the struggle. Why we often miss grief as the first step in forgiving others: Who willingly signs up … [Read more...] about How To Acknowledge Your Grief First To Forgive Your Offender
Why Favoritism Robs Us
My son asked me to pick up a library book for him last week for his social studies class assignment. I am an absolute history LOVER. If I could plan my dream vacation, I would make the theme around some locations in which the history of our country happened on a grand scale. I guess my love of history can be summed up as a study of human reactions to circumstances. I love trying to understand why … [Read more...] about Why Favoritism Robs Us
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
What I Really Want
We celebrated my daughter's twelfth birthday this week. Her older sister and I ran around earlier in the day to pick up the last of her gifts. To surprise my birthday girl, I pulled her out of school early for a fun afternoon. We spent the time together doing what she liked before going to her favorite restaurant for dinner. As I tucked her into bed that night, she whispered in my ear, … [Read more...] about What I Really Want
