Weeks ago I wrote about God’s will in a proactive sense. Knowing and doing the will of God in everyday life. There is another facet of God’s will that is far more difficult to grasp, that is when He – in His sovereignty – seemingly says “no” or “wait” to our plans, or we suffer […]
Hope
I am expecting my Dad’s passing any time. These days I like to think that my Mom’s last (and greatest) gift was graciously allowing me to learn from my mistakes over her illness and death (two years ago this month) how to walk with Dad in his illness, and pending death. (Thanks Mom.) Mom’s death […]
Bruising of Blessing
I have been communing with Abram lately. I mean, I have been reading and rereading his story, from the book of Genesis. There was no organized Hebrew religion during his lifetime; the temple was still a distant dream in the mind’s eye of God. Yet Abram knew God in a personal way that we can only imagine […]
Re-remembering 9/11
I tried talking with my father today about the 9/11 attacks. There have been some wonderful specials on TV recently, and as I tried to relate these to him on a level his Alzheimer’s might allow, I realized he didn’t remember the attacks on America at all. But he was alarmed to think that our […]
Suffering-Part 2
Last post, I shared some thoughts from Joni Eareckson-Tada about suffering. Coming from just about any other individual, the words might sound distant, heady, even cold, but from a long-time quadriplegic and pain sufferer, my heart nods in agreement. God puts up with suffering as a by-product of our fallen human nature, while He waits […]
Is “Radical” Too, or not Enough?-Part 2
In the preface of his book, “Crazy Love” (published 2008 by David C. Cook), Francis Chan tells this story: We all know something’s wrong. At first I thought it was just me. Then I stood before twenty thousand Christian collegestudents and asked, “How many of you have read the New Testament and wondered if we […]
Is “Radical” Too, or Not Enough?-Part 1
Wow, I didn’t realize it had been so long since my last blog post. I’ve been doing some traveling, hosting guests at our home, and dealing with a couple of deaths. I mean to be more faithful, thank you for bearing with me, and returning to this page! During the down time these past couple […]
Memories
“Memories, may be beautiful and yet…what’s too painful to remember, we simply chose to forget.“ —from The Way We Were Memories certainly can be beautiful or painful. Jack, my husband, plays Ce La Luna Mezz’o Mare (a Sicilian song) on his iPod each morning. Says it reminds him of his father, who used to sing […]
Unity in Christ-Windows of Glass
Paradox [par-uh-doks] -noun. “Any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.” Paradoxes are usually called such because they create tension. I have always enjoyed stained glass windows as symbolic images of paradoxical ideas, because of how seemingly incongruent shapes and odd mixes of color combine to form something incredibly beautiful when light shines […]
Unity in Christ-Grafted into Eternity
To our finite minds, eternity is an extremely difficult concept to grasp. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said God has placed “eternity in the human heart” (Eccl. 3:11). Makes me think of a built-in homing device…a beacon that keeps pointing us toward our true home with God. But the wiring has gone bad, […]