We all need someone. This is a beautiful, lonely, hard, and easy truth. Beautiful if you have someone. Lonely if you don’t. Hard for the times you’d rather not need. Easy for the times when s...
I sit across from a friend who knows me well. We’ve walked together for more than a decade. My eyes are tear-filled as I look at her and say, “I messed up.” I tell her of how I have failed ...
This past summer, when (in)courage announced that its annual retreat for its writers would be in Cancun, my first thought wasn’t, how generous or I can’t believe I’m going to an ocean with ...
I remember her determination. That’s what I remember the most. It was the first week of the new year, and my friend was, as my grandmother used to say, “bound and determined.” This year wou...
We’re an expressive family, and we love finding creative ways to demonstrate our love to our four boys who range in age from toddler to teenager. Sometimes it’s an encouraging note on the kit...
It had been a hard day, running too many errands with two small children. My three-year-old didn’t understand why we couldn’t buy every toy his tiny hands could touch. And he insisted on clim...
When I was a girl, there was a boy in my school who had made himself locally famous for being a bully. Looking back, he reminded me of Biff from Back to the Future. Do you remember him, always to...
I stood in the school supply aisle, my head spinning. It was our third trip here and I couldn’t remember whether she needed the spiral notebook with the folders or a spiral notebook plus a sepa...
There I was, standing in the middle of my classroom surrounded by my students thinking, God, what were You thinking here?! And He was gently whispering to my heart, Will you stop thinking so much...
We tried to get rid of it. One sunny Saturday morning, we hauled the cement garden statue of a woman onto the front lawn with a collection of other unwanted items, in preparation for a neighborho...
Do you really believe that Jesus loves you? Or are you more like the woman picking petals off a daisy, saying: He loves me. He loves me not. The Gospel truth is, even when I fail Him, even when b...
Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you! I will praise you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. Psalm 63:3-4 NLT The Unfailing Love of God Unfailing. ...
Let me tell you how a heart stops. It stops on a June afternoon so thick and sticky, you’d swear it’s late August. You’re driving the one short mile to the coffee shop in the rust-bucket ...
“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to b...
God knew it from the beginning. We met in junior high. Four girls from different backgrounds, but very much the same. After graduation, I moved to a land far far away. Okay, it was only 500 miles...
We didn’t have the money to see the doctor. But I was sick. What had started out as a cold was growing worse. Now I was having chills, a fever and my throat was burning. I was eleven, which me...