I was juggling housework and a very energetic two-year-old yesterday morning when the phone rang. My friend on the other end, also dealing with a little one, had called with a very specific question about suffering and sin. As I’ve mulled it over, I decided to address her question publicly (with her permission). She asked…
perseverance
How to Have Joy When the Holidays are Hard
It was December, 2015. I’d never approached the holidays on such shaky ground. We pulled out the decorations and sipped hot cider while Christmas songs spilled from our favorite holiday Pandora station. If you’d seen us through the windows of our home, it was likely the warm, sugary image of holiday perfection. But tears streaked…
Changing Diapers to the Glory of God
It was an exceptionally trying day. My energetic and precocious two-year old had gotten away from me more than once during our quick errands to the library and post office. Employees at both venues laughed and nodded and offered commiserating quips about the “terrible twos.” I forced laughter while wrestling my squirrelly toddler to the…
The Strongest Thread
It was mid-October a year ago when my mom had brain surgery to remove a tumor from her left frontal lobe. Hovering over the place where her speech and emotions live, the tumor had grown quickly enough to cause a seizure and lost time. I remember how nervous we were when it all happened on…
What Do You Say to the Suffering?
“It was suicide,” she said. Her eyes swam with tears that leaked down her cheeks while she explained what had happened earlier this year. I whispered, “I’m so, so sorry,” and wrung my hands uselessly the way you do when there is nothing that will make a situation any better and you know it. The…
Future Discipleship Part 2: God’s Part in Our Perseverance
When my husband and I first settled into rural church ministry twelve years ago, I was a little unprepared for the pace of life offered by the farming community where we had made our new home. We had left a much larger college town buzzing with traffic and commutes, a life where I’d had a…
Future Discipleship: Perseverance Now Means Perseverance Later
A few hot summers ago, the first week of August found me in the early stages of marathon training. For accountability’s sake, I had already signed up for the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis, Tennessee, and paid my registration fee. My financial investment was the impetus for faithful training. I’d spent the previous year working…
I Prayed for Healing. He Answered with His Presence.
These are slow summer days, stretching long at the ends from first light to last. We drink them in deep swallows, savoring the absence of hurried schedules. We sleep later than normal and wear pajamas longer than we should. The hours unspool without our notice or care. It seems a luxury. I’ve not had such…
Be Faithful with Small
My husband and I have lived in a rural part of Missouri for just about twelve years now. Since that sweltering summer day in 2005 when we unloaded the moving truck, we’ve been ministering at the same church in the same small town for all this time. We’ve both left our 20’s and nearly our…
The Story of the Song: “Hold Me Fast” (on faith and chronic pain)
For five years, I lived with an unnamed illness that split my body wide open with pain every single night. I’d seen doctors and had multiple tests and scans but always walked away with a clean bill of health. Except that I wasn’t healthy. I’d been stooped over with debilitating back pain that never…