How do two porcupines hug? Very Carefully. How do we love our enemies? With divine grace and guidance. Jesus told His disciples to love their enemies. What did He mean? What does it look like to love your adversary? We associate love with warm feelings. I love beach sunsets, chocolate chip cookies, and my standard poodles. What do I mean when I toss love around these dissimilar objects? I love how sunsets look, cookies taste, and my dogs make me feel. Biblical love is not based on how Continue Reading
Do You Know the Good News About Easter?
Did you know that you can grow up in the church and miss the meaning of Easter? I know, because for many years, I did. I started attending church nine months before I was born and could recite the historical facts of Good Friday and Easter. I’d even memorized John 3:16. But, somehow, I’d missed the personal ramifications of Easter. That changed when a speaker at middle school camp spoke on the cross and I realized God didn’t just love the world in general; He loved me in particular. God so Continue Reading
What the Bible Says About Weakness {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
A few years ago, I tore the meniscus in my knee. Hobbling around reminded me how much I hate being weak. I already dealt with low energy and sensitivities. Now my limited strength stretched to cover physical therapy too. We love our strengths. They open doors, garner accolades, and earn money. But no one has only strengths. Everyone has weak areas. The person who gets things accomplished may bruise people. The people person may be easily distracted from tasks. These weaknesses may frustrate Continue Reading
When Facing a Problem, Follow Mary’s Example {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
What do you do when you come up against an unexpected or impossible problem? Try to fix it, panic or call for help? Mary, the mother of Jesus, models how I want to act. At the beginning of His public ministry at age thirty, Jesus attended a wedding at Cana. Mary must have been helping at the wedding. When the wine ran out, she brought the problem to Jesus. You can read the account here John 2:1–11. Mary said to Jesus, “They have no more wine.” That’s it. No pleading, no explanation of Continue Reading
New Year Reflections from “The Bishop’s Wife” {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
Are you doing more and enjoying it less? Growing up, I often heard, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” It took me a while to realize the devil also uses busyness to steal, kill, and destroy. The 1947 Christmas movie The Bishop’s Wife challenges the idea that more work, higher status, and impressive achievements mean a better life. After being promoted to bishop, a clergyman, played by David Niven, loses his joy and sacrifices almost everything else in the pursuit of success. In trying Continue Reading
How a White Christmas Showed Me God’s Love {Recharge Wednesday LINKUP}
The first Christmas I spent away from my family was also my first Christmas walking with the Lord. I was living in Needham, Massachusetts. Having grown up in the deep south, my assignment to Boston out of college couldn’t have been more exotic if it’d been Mars. I arrived in early October. The beauty of the colored leaves intoxicated me. I loved the quaint town with its mixture of Victorian houses and small clapboard homes. The locals’ accents fascinated me. One student, named Barbara Continue Reading
