I grew up during an interesting era of American Christianity. I lived in the southern U.S. and attended a couple of different Southern Baptist churches throughout my upbringing.* In our Vacation Bible Schools and Sunday school classes, we were taught Old Testament stories with felt boards and puppet shows, always emphasizing moralisms and character traits…
God is faithful
Preparing for the Storm
As I write, the entire state of Missouri is bracing itself for a giant winter weather system that will bring a significant amount of freezing rain and ice with it. Where we’re located just south of Cape Girardeau, we find ourselves in this position often. My young son is praying for snow because we so…
Kansas Via Ethiopia and Stories I Didn’t Write
Sometimes God cancels your good plans to accomplish His best plan. I had that thought while decorating our Christmas tree this weekend. From a box of tissue wrapped ornaments, I pulled a delicate wooden ornament painted red and green and yellow. “Melkam Gena” it said, which is Amharic for Merry Christmas. I held the ornament for…
What If He’s Faithful?
It only takes a few experiences of loss or long-deferred hopes to become a person bent on protecting yourself from future sorrows. You begin to view every potential good thing in life as the harbinger of your next greatest loss. Rather than bringing your desires and concerns to the Lord with hope that He will…
When God Takes His Time
I started praying for healing about fourteen years ago. I started praying for a baby twenty years ago. Of all the things I have prayed for in this life, those two things have topped my prayer list the longest. With an autoimmune disease that has only fairly recently been tamed, I’ve spent many agonizing nights…
Wherever He Leads, He’ll Go
In the Baptist church of my childhood, every Sunday service ended with an altar call. My pastor stood at the front of the church in case anyone needed prayer or wanted to make a profession of faith in Jesus. During that time, the music minister would lead the church in a hymn from the Baptist…
Remember
The other night, I curled up with a book in what my kids call “Mom’s Corner” of the couch. We bought our gray sectional last year because of that corner. Well, technically we bought it because our fifteen-year-old sofa was just about to fall apart. But, I sat in the corner of the floor display…
The Manna is Always There
I have a plastic bin filled with beans hidden in my basement. I packed that bin two years ago when I, like everyone else, worried about food supplies. I’ve borrowed from the bin a little, but if you need rice or dried beans, I’ve got you covered. I also have gallons of water in case…
Chasing Sunsets
“Let’s chase the sunset,” I told my son. We were driving to our weekly kid’s club at our church’s community center, and we glimpsed the sinking sun through the trees. In this corner of southern Missouri, flat isn’t quite the word to describe the landscape. This is farming country, and the fields stretch for miles…
All This Wasted Worry
I once spent a whole night worrying about a bug bite. Well, eight of them, to be precise. My son had been playing outside that afternoon and came in with a strange assortment of bites across his shoulder that didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. They weren’t your average Southeast Missouri mosquito bites, but…