When one of our daughters was in second grade, her school teacher mentioned an issue that she’d observed. Our daughter had begun to limp. She complained about her leg hurting, especially at night. She was going through a growth spurt like many children tend to do, with every hem of her clothing attesting to that […]
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Mud, thick red goop clumped his little shoes like melted cheese oozing out of a sandwich. Hunks of it fell in globs I tried to avoid as I scooped him up. Briefly his legs swung from side to side and in the arc. Piles of wet Virginian soil splattered. He’s too heavy to carry now, […]
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“She’s my friend,” my daughter said with a nod. “She doesn’t cheat.” My head shot up. “And some of your friends do?” I asked, thinking at least my six-year-old was on the right side of that conversation. “Sometimes,” she said. Then she ran out of the room. A pinkballerina streak, while I stayed sitting on […]
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She sat in front of me, a crumpled mess. Words halted and poured again like the start and go of a sputtering fountain. Lines furrowed her forehead. They drew the portrait of a weary soul. My heart twisted with her paradox of stories from cross cultural ministry, both uplifting and exhausting. Paul, the missionary, faced […]
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I checked again to make sure the blue passport lay in my palm. Lines of weary travelers stretched long behind and in front of us. In tightly clasped fists, passports of green, maroon, and brown blurred with our shuffling. They were irreplaceable identifications of citizenships from around the globe. We shoved suitcases with a knee, pulled […]
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I tilted my head a bit to look for myself in his stick figure drawing. I wondered is this truly how he saw me? “Is that me?” I asked. He nodded. He held a felt tip marker in a small hand stained with reds and greens. He waited. Proudly. Seriously. Expectantly. I went for the, […]
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She toddles toward me, hands outstretched. My eyes are wide, excited and inviting, “Come on,” I urge with a half whisper. A foot lifts, and then another. A wobbly sort of drunken-sailor-tilt, propels her miniature body. A little too far to one side and then the other, she comes closer. And then, just before she […]
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“If Jesus wanted to,” my little seven-year-old fellow classmate declared, “He could flatten my thumb and make it big enough to go around the whole world.” He held his thumb inches from my wide eyes. I stared at it without saying a word. I could almost see it spread and widen. I imagined it […]
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Pacing from streetlight to streetlight, with my phone pressed hard against my ear, I wore a circled path on the asphalt. My head down, my feet entered the illumined cone shaped area on the pavement. There I turned again into the darkness and repeated my walk back to the lighted area I’d come from. The […]
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“What’s God been teaching you through His Word?” I ask as we settle in, past the mundane of life. We’ve left behind kids, jobs, routines, and the cycle of activities that spin our lives. It is this question, which brings a smile. The atmosphere changes from just friendship small talk to things that really matter, […]
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