I sat on a dock on the coast of Southern Maine alone with my thoughts. I held an ice cream cone in one hand and struggled to eat it before it melted down my wrist. The wind coming off the sea pulled at the baseball hat hiding my ratty hair. It was quiet save for…
Brother Saul
I’m studying the book of Acts and here’s what I think: Luke was a master storyteller. As he recounts the story of the apostles and the early church, he gives us little notes about Paul to prepare us for his dramatic conversion in Acts 9. Known as Saul, this young man was present at Stephen’s…
The Goal of Scripture Memorization is Not Recitation
When I was in sixth grade, my teacher had our class memorize Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech. I remember rehearsing the speech over and over with my classmates, trying to memorize it word for word with enough emotion to convince our teacher we knew exactly what Henry meant when he…
For William
Through the living room window, I watched him throwing a football with our fifteen-year-old son in the backyard. I knew his shoulder was hurting, and I’d expected him to say as much when the request came to toss a ball around. Every day they wait for his arrival: “Mom, when will Dad be home?” When…
Hope for the Slowly Sanctified
Do you ever look at your life and think, “This isn’t who I thought I’d be by now?” Maybe you thought you’d be more faithful, more studied, more patient, more self-controlled, wiser, holier, kinder. Maybe you hoped that after all these years some of those things you really hate about your old self had stayed…
What We Regard as Little
Sometimes I think it might be easier to be faithful to Christ when life is hard. Do you know that feeling when you get to the other side of a crisis and once you finish basking in the way everything held together, you wonder what it will take to recover your tight-fisted grip on the…
Are They the Ones Who Pray All the Time?
For dinner that night, I’d roasted some potatoes and seared some spicy chicken (which my seven-year-old deemed way too hot). Before we ate, we grabbed hands as my husband prayed. He mentioned some news of the day in his prayer, things we wanted to remember before the Lord. A couple from church had suddenly lost…
My Grandmother Would Tell You That
I watched the sun set from 30,000 feet on a Sunday last month. I was sitting on the front row only because it was a tiny plane with maybe thirty souls on board. Not only does the front row of those planes not mean first class, but there is also no overhead compartment for those…
It All Holds True
The sunlight lengthens across the dining room table where I sit and write. It’s late afternoon and in this part of the world, we’re enjoying that gold stretching of light at the end of the day. I couldn’t sleep last night, tossing and turning and trying to figure out why I’ve had so much trouble…
Jesus Is In the Boat
I took my laptop to the hospital. I don’t really know what I was thinking. When I’d packed it in my tote bag, I figured there’d be lots of sitting and waiting—and there was. But did I really think I’d do anything but stand next to my son’s hospital bed? Because that’s what I did…