I hated walking home after Daylight Savings ended. I didn’t live far from where I babysat, but the road wasn’t lit. Not even houses along the way—houses of people I knew, who were friendly—erased the nagging fear that something could happen, I could be hurt, and no one would come to my aid. I’d clutch […]
LORD, MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME!
“O God, come to my assistance; O LORD, make haste to help me!” Who hasn’t prayed this, or something like it, at some time in their life? It comes from Psalm 70, where it is a strong cry for rescue. But those words are far more than a cry for help. The early desert fathers […]
HOW STRONG ARE YOU INSIDE?
We’ve lost a lot of trees lately. Tiny leaves were just breaking out of the one in this picture when it stooped over, without warning, and dove into the lake – right where the dock would have been come summer. Then the tops of two more twisted off in a wild wind, barely missing the […]
SEVEN REASONS TO REJOICE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
I LIKE MY JOY STRAIGHT UP, or maybe neat: pure, with no rocks at all. But is that what joy is all about? Webster’s calls joy “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” So when all’s right with the world: Ah, joy…. Then why […]
WISDOM FROM JAMES: Intro & “Count it All Joy” (1:2)
Sometimes I feel like Little Red Riding Hood. I’m traveling toward the Father’s house along a winding road, running from wolves in the bushes. I can’t always see well, and I stumble. Accidents happen. I pass people on other roads who look like they’re having a much better time than I am, and who […]
WHEN NEEDS OVERWHELM
In the mid-60s, my parents packed up their small family and moved us to Hong Kong, where my Dad helped to start a missions hospital. Refugees had flooded into Hong Kong after the civil war in mainland China and the needs were great. At five years old I knew little of refugees or hospitals. But […]
