Trials are hard. They’re messy. They’re down right painful. Do you feel blessed when you experience them?
Refined as Gold
Do you know how precious metals are refined? Smelting is the process in which gold is separated from ore and other metals. The ore is first pulverized with extreme pressure to create tiny particles, which are then melted at almost 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the gold becomes molten, most of the impurities are burned up.
Trials Like Fire
No matter how you slice it, life is full of challenges. Each hardship represents some sort of loss; loss of a person, home, safety, stability, or purpose. This is why these experiences can be so painful.
Rescuer of Pit Dwellers
Praise the Lord! He rescues us from the pit! I don’t know about you, but I have been in the pit many times throughout my life. Sometimes it’s sin that throws us into the pit, however, sometimes it is circumstances out of our control that throw us head-long into it. spit
Meaningful Work
Contrary to what some might think: work is not a curse.
When A Baby Tooth Hangs On
My teenaged son lost his last baby tooth today — about two years past the typical time kids do.
Tapestry of Friends
I got an unexpected email this weekend from the first babysitter who ever kept my boys.
What I Learned from Dry Eyes
For the past two fall seasons, I’ve experienced severely dry eyes. Raw, irritated and red. Most of the time I just want to close them.
What Do I See?
As I sat in Sunday School, I heard my husband read this scripture. The words jumped out. I was guilty even as he spoke the words. And I’m one of the teachers.
Just Do It
“Just Do It” is a phrase Nike coined in 1988. It’s a slogan to inspire athletes to out run, out train, and out move. The apostle James used similar words to inspire Christians hundreds of years earlier.
The Bear That Came to Town
Last fall my husband and I spent a week in Avon, Colorado. One day while we were in a restaurant, we saw a crowd gathering outside around a crabapple tree. They were pointing toward the top of the tree and snapping pictures.
Leap of Faith
I grew up in Miami, Florida in the 1950s and have some great memories of that time. Life was simple, safe, and carefree. I moved away from my hometown after college, but one of my friends stayed on and became a federal judge there.
Sandcastles
When my grandchildren were little, we vacationed one summer at the beach. During that week I rediscovered the simple joy of building sandcastles.
A Teachable Spirit
The young man sitting across the table confided, “When I was twenty-five, I thought I knew everything and was bullet proof. Nothing could hurt me, and no one could teach me anything. In the past few years I’ve discovered neither of those was true.”
Destiny: Where Am I Headed After I Die?
We’ve come full circle from the dust of creation to the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” of death (Genesis 3:19). One for one we die, that much is certain. Inevitably then, the final big question will hang in the air: where am I headed after I die?
Morality: How Do I Know Right from Wrong?
Ladies, all the answers to the big questions seem to radiate out from my God belief. Certainly that is true about the moral question: how does one know right from wrong? Standing on God’s truth gives the believer solid footing, compared with the slippery slope of the flat-out untruths and half-truths of secular insight.
Meaning: What Brings Life Meaning?
The big, big questions bleed into each other, don’t they ladies? Of necessity, meaningfollows my answer to being. Once I understand that I live and move and have (my)beingin God, I can more easily determine what will bring meaning to life for me.
Origin: How Did I Come into Being?
The apostle Paul is on a roll. The city of Athens was a junkyard of idols(Acts 17:16, MSG), befitting the myriad of gods they represented. Add to that this detail: “The Athenians had a foolish notion that they were self-produced, and were the aboriginals of all mankind…that the first men sprung up in Attica like radishes.”* Laugh not, ladies. One wonders if our culture has taken a step back in time—oh, not graven images, but idols of fame, fortune, and self; not radishes per se, but persistent theories of evolution.
Big, Big Questions
The shower was running, the music blaring, when I walked down the hall to the bedroom: “How deep is the ocean? (How high is the sky?)”* Exactly, I said to myself in light of the lunar eclipse of the evening before. How could a Blood Moon turn red in the shadow of the earth? Space.com tells us this much: “Sunlight scatters to produce the red colors of sunset and sunrise when it enters Earth's atmosphere at a particular angle.” Does it not make you pause for a moment to wonder at the majesty of creation?
A Thirsty Soul
The sad houseplant looked like how I felt. Forgotten, parched, brittle and malnourished. I had been so busy these last few weeks with all the responsibilities of keeping a family fed, clothed, and content, that I’d neglected that plant. I rushed it to the sink like a heart attack victim to the ER. Refreshing water flowed, but the soil was so hard and dry that the life-giving liquid just ran off into the sink. No matter how heavy the flow or how long the water ran, it just poured off the surface, wasted and unappreciated. I finally placed the weary plant in a pan of water to soak and hoped that the leaves would rise, the color would return, and the plant would be vibrant again.