True Compassion That Helps The Hurting
O, Lord, the grieving are many! A wayward son, now beyond what the family can help. Another son can’t shake the depression but won’t take his medicine. Another son runs away from home leaving parents worried without information on his whereabouts. A husband gone to another woman’s bed, leaving his wife and young children […]
When Black and White Mix With God, What Happens?
When worlds collide, what happens? Things can get ugly, even deadly, quickly. Then again . . . When worlds collide, what happens? God’s kingdom can expand. Last week, black met white as we marked our 8th annual Nature Camp here on our 44 acres of country. Long before we moved to this farm, we drove […]
A Letter for My Father (and maybe you?)
Dear Dad, We have history, you and me. Like the time you made that multi-colored Styrofoam tower with me and it reached clear up to the ceiling. Even you needed a chair to place that last block, though in my mind you could touch the clouds without one. That’s what five year-old girls think of […]
On Our Knees—Together
What you are about to read is true. Names are changed. Broken has no bounds. Broken affects us in a small farming community. Broken affects us all. But so does God’s grace—even more. God wants to love us in our broken. Will we let Him? Will we be part of the healing process? Or will we […]
Faith, Not Feelings (and sometimes some medication)
I’ll be real here. I was struggling with feelings the past two days. Ever been there? After a week of pretty much nonstop caring for two injured kids on pain meds and doing all the farm chores they usually do but can’t, I’m tired. Despite my best efforts to pray, coach myself with scripture, exercise, […]
Prickly Pear
Even prickly pears bloom. My mother passed away in the dark of the night, just a few hours after Mother’s Day ended. Thirteen years ago, this year. I talked to her early on Mother’s Day. She was so excited about the bouquet of red carnations I ordered and sent the day before. I had told […]
Fare at the Fair
This morning, I’m pondering something deep, as usual. I’m thinking about the deep-fried food I saw last night at the Pima County Fair, about 60 miles north of the Arizona/Mexico border. I should be mourning like the dove cooing melancholy on the wall outside our condo. Instead, I’m cackling loudly like the thrasher out there also, waiting for his morning […]
FIRE!
I’m steeping in suffering, reading sociological, psychological, historical, and theological research and writings on the subject. Tim Keller, my favorite contemporary author, wrote a whole book last year, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, where he views the subject of suffering from different vantage points and offers sound advice about how to deal with it in ways […]
Get Real and Heal
Ok. So here I go again, getting all vulnerable and transparent. I hate it. And I love it. I hate it because why in the world would anyone want to expose themselves for anyone and everyone to see, to know? Because such raw exposure can have devastating consequences. For heaven’s sake! Someone I don’t know […]
Fake or Real?
This seems to be the prominent question when it comes to Christmas décor. One of my friends walked into our kitchen yesterday and admired an arrangement I had made. As she asked whether it was real or artificial, she reached out and touched the branches. “Oh, it looked so real!” The branches felt fake so […]
Beauty Marks
Give thanks. In all things. I’m spending much time these days confessing. I’m confessing that I haven’t been giving thanks—in all things—always. When I confess my failure, I am agreeing with God. And when I agree with God, change for the better can begin in me. That’s the whole point of confessing, I believe. Not to […]
Death and Birth the Whole Spectrum of Feelings
My first glance at Facebook today left me near breathless. One of my very good friends posted a picture of a baby—in black & white. It wasn’t any particular baby known to her. It was taken off the Internet—off some random site. But the status was very, very personal. The baby—the one conceived shortly after […]