This morning I woke up feeling like it was time to go to bed, like every year of my life creaked and groaned somewhere or someplace in my connections. Purpose felt dried and brittle. Pieces of life felt disconnected. Then I read Psalm 92, a song sung as part of Old Testament Sabbath worship. It […]
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Oh my goodness, how I loved my three older brothers. With a number of years between us, I looked up to them like heroes, as if the sun rose and set in their background. And in spite of being paid to eat raw sparrow eggs and earnings gained per electric fence shock, they were the […]
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“I am so ready for an angel to come,” Phil said that morning. I’d been thinking the same. I got up from my cot next to our daughter’s bed and joined my husband where he stood at her side. It was a ritual, a new sort of rotten routine that had just a pinch of […]
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There is a lovely little addition behind our house so covered in Virginia woods I didn’t even know it existed until the leaves dropped. The first autumn we lived here, I saw a light from a kitchen window barely distinguishable through the balding trees. As more leaves fell, more house and lights showed. In full […]
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My blender is revving up with its loud whir when the door bangs open and my grandson runs in from outdoors. He puts on the brakes barely past the threshold, stops, and covers his ears. I see terror in his big blue eyes and quickly turn to find the little button to stop the loud […]
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“The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” Psalm 37: 23-24 ESV One tiny hand gripped deep inside my own, another in the hand of my husband. Chubby legs danced in-between, steps uneven but oh so joyous. […]
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This past Christmas might have confirmed what we knew all along. Many of the things we want most don’t come wrapped in beautiful packages. While holidays wind down and stores fill with red hearts, we realize, Christmas couldn’t give what we desired most. And we beg God for more. We wished for the list no […]
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I grew up with a silver aluminum tree. There will be those who respond to that fact with pity. There will be others for whom an indescribable nostalgia sweeps through from head to toe. Ours was a fancy tree with a turning color wheel at its base. I thought it to be the most beautiful […]
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Four different Biblical characters in the Christmas Story point to answers which might change the way you see Christmas. 1. “How can I be sure of this?” (Luke 1:18 ESV) Zechariah the priest’s question came not just from a logical curiosity we can easily relate to, but from underlying unbelief which we don’t wish to […]
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Black Friday, get-all-you-can-day, comes directly after be-Thankful-for-what-you-have-Day. Ironically paradoxical isn’t it? After feeding on bounty and gratefulness we rise from our fattened seats ready to grab and conquer. Christmas preparations begin in earnest. Preparedness defined by the Cambridge dictionary means, “ready to deal with a situation.” Advent, the drum beat between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas […]
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