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
perseverance
How God Is Unsafe And Still Good
Have you ever had an experience which made you wonder if God was unsafe? Dare I ask, if He was good? I became a voracious reader after our move to Congo. In part, this was because I had little else to do to pass my time. The late 1970s had not seen the invention of VCR or DVD machines (my children can hardly imagine anything so awful as my brother and sister and I having to wait to see … [Read more...] about How God Is Unsafe And Still Good
Hand-to-Hand Combat
"Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light." Micah 7:8 (NIV) My dad made history come alive for his children. The summer before we left for Congo, he and my mom took us to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I was ten years old, Nicol was eight, and Todd was five. What could have been a very boring day turned out to be … [Read more...] about Hand-to-Hand Combat
Through the Fire
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
What I Didn’t Realize About Forgiveness
Biblical forgiveness... What is it and what does it look like? I have rarely struggled with any concept more than this one. I believed that if I forgave someone, I was condoning their wrong actions against me. That I was saying what they did was ok. My heart rebelled at the lack of justice I felt that the person who had wronged me would get off "scott free." Yet, I was the one who was in the … [Read more...] about What I Didn’t Realize About Forgiveness
Living in a Saturday World
Have you had a season in your life when you felt as though you were undergoing a full-out satanic assault? Life is one mass of confusion, uncertainty, and full of fear. Although you may normally be an "up" person, one who tends to be hopeful, this time of life can be characterized by leaving you feeling depressed and hopeless. Many times you may wonder if God hears you or has forgotten you … [Read more...] about Living in a Saturday World
