Is Go Into All the World Outdated?
I remember the cool feel of the wooden pew in the church of my childhood, that little hop I needed to get my seat onto it, the shimmied push to the back until finally ruffles surrounded m...
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133 articles gathered under this theme.
I remember the cool feel of the wooden pew in the church of my childhood, that little hop I needed to get my seat onto it, the shimmied push to the back until finally ruffles surrounded m...
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It might have been at our little town’s parade, or maybe at the State fair, but I have a faded memory from childhood of a cart with balloons floating above it. They were bunched together...
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I stretch my arm in waking fogginess. My fingers begin a walking search for my glasses. I am not a morning person. “Not” in an extreme sense. I get up at neither an insanely early hour no...
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Our grandson drops his arms and ducks his chin. His despair comes from missing a soccer goal, a basketball shot gone wrong, or a race not won. His feet drag. He is disheartened. Unfortuna...
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Long before America created an overflowing and beautifully sophisticated Thanksgiving table, thanksgiving was a thing. Before pilgrims gathered around a rough wood hewn table, or a sweet...
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In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV) Last weekend I picked up my grandson’s big fat backpack to throw over my should...
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It’s been a long yawn to full Autumn in Virginia. Trees have hesitated to blush but few have succumbed to their eventual fiery reds and yellows. This season seems hesitant to drop its lea...
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My friend looked in his rearview mirror and saw the sign to a church, which propelled him to whip his car into an unplanned detour. His life’s trajectory changed that Sunday by his decisi...
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“Did God save us to let us starve?” I may not have said it quite like the complaining Old Testament Israelites are recorded after their exodus from Egypt, but I may have had that very sam...
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“I don’t know where we’re at,” Phil’s dad used to say from the front seat of his handicapped van. In his later days my father-in-law, sweet and intelligent seemed to live in an anxious st...
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I’m not good with directions. I never could find where we were on that big paper Rand McNally map, so when the first GPS came out, I considered it to be a marriage saver. Until I realized...
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She sat in front of me, a crumpled mess. Words halted and poured again like the start and go of a sputtering fountain. Lines furrowed her forehead. They drew the portrait of a weary soul....
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I checked again to make sure the blue passport lay in my palm. Lines of weary travelers stretched long behind and in front of us. In tightly clasped fists, passports of green, maroon, and...
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I’m not sure how old they were, but to me the title “ancient” applied. My parents, had an entire cabinet of dietary supplements. Every morning they’d pull them out and a ritual began. The...
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In the budding of a greening spring, bringing life and color to these naked woods, a lot of decay happens. We counted five dead deer on the way to church. Vultures are having a feast. Sur...
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“There is certainly a lot of uncertainty,” the television news commentator reported. Well…that pretty much sums up life, doesn’t it? The reporter went on to elaborate on his statement, al...
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We started married life in an upstairs apartment of a small house in a small town. Below us lived our landlady and her son. I always heard her puttering about in the kitchen. She puttered...
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Somewhere in the middle of dodge ball tag and baking cookies with three grandsons, my youngest grandson cocked his head to the side and asked, “So Grandma, what do you two do here all day...
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Does it seem at times like the whole world is a powder keg about to blow everything to bits and pieces? Yet, it’s the personal kind of powder kegs, when life feels out of control, that sh...
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Three of my grandsons love baseball. And that is an understatement. Growing up they lived it. They chewed wads of gum, memorized plays, and spit. Yes, those little guys could spit with th...
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The words stop me when I come across them, … “the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people…” They make me pause and close my eyes...
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My eyes had been glued for a while to the little boy in the row ahead of me. He must have been about a year old. Fussy on his mother’s lap, I could see the parental exchange. “Should I ta...
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“Gotta be thick-skinned to survive ministry,” advised a pastor to my young husband. “I’d never have continued if I’d let every criticism get under my skin.” As a pastor’s wife and mother,...
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Our church has started a meet and greet time during the service as many churches do. It is one of those things which make introverts run for the bathroom. Although it is a good practice f...
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My husband is a fan of split screens and simulcasts. The more the merrier. One corner of the TV can play a football game, while the opposite corner shows something completely different. T...
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A shadow, long and wide, interrupted the sunshine for just a moment and then glided over the bright green foliage. My grandson and I squinted into the blue above us. We saw the outstretch...
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If you are a fan of home improvement networks like I am, you are well acquainted with the satisfaction some people get from Demolition Day. It’s like party time. However, although I enjoy...
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Our last few weeks have been ones of weeping with those who weep as we’ve watched dear friends mourn the loss of a beloved son. Yet, they have also been days of seeing glimpses of pure gl...
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In August of 2017 an eclipse marked our path in Kansas City, Missouri, where we lived. I wrote about it on a blog then. Today, we live in Virginia, not smack in the center, but still near...
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It broke my heart and stole my resolve. As a writer, rejects come. It’s kind of part of the whole deal, it happens and though difficult, it usually helps me grow. But this email rejection...
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Have you ever hit a fork in life when you have asked, “Now what?” You might be thinking of the last time you put together a 1,2,3 step project out of the box. Only it didn’t turn out so s...
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One of my missionary colleagues gave me an illustration of life in the jungle. It held a punch that I hope I never forget. South American roads at times are little more than frequently tr...
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“…for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” Hebrews 13:5 ESV Recently I was asked how I feel now about God’s response to our daughter’s illness in the past. We prayed fo...
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Welcome to this guest post from my husband Philip Schroeder. One of the transformers serving the office building where I worked blew. There was no power in most of the building, including...
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Tiny baby puffs of air caress my cheek. Her dark hair, fuzzy and soft, tickles against my neck. What can be sweeter than those barely heard snores and the soft breathing of an infant warm...
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Today my best friend is writing a guest post. He’s been around since high school, and I’m honored to have been married to him for almost 49 years. You may not realize how much Phil alread...
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This morning I woke up feeling like it was time to go to bed, like every year of my life creaked and groaned somewhere or someplace in my connections. Purpose felt dried and brittle. Piec...
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Oh my goodness, how I loved my three older brothers. With a number of years between us, I looked up to them like heroes, as if the sun rose and set in their background. And in spite of be...
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There is a lovely little addition behind our house so covered in Virginia woods I didn’t even know it existed until the leaves dropped. The first autumn we lived here, I saw a light from...
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Black Friday, get-all-you-can-day, comes directly after be-Thankful-for-what-you-have-Day. Ironically paradoxical isn’t it? After feeding on bounty and gratefulness we rise from our fatte...
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It wasn’t unusual to hear our house creak, but the distinct soft footsteps on the staircase made my scalp tingle. I stood quietly inside my bedroom on the second floor, then creeped to th...
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“Are we there yet?” little voices once asked from the back seat. Years slipped by, like miles passing underneath. Complaints changed, the questions grew more sophisticated, and the voices...
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If Humpty Dumpty and I sat down for a heart to heart, I think we’d find we have a lot in common. The first and most obvious is the state of our brokenness. The thing about the king’s hors...
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“You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” (Psalm 89:9, ESV) There are storms and then there are STORMS. The amount of inner turbulence bothered me over such a...
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It’s a routine day at Grandpa and Grandma’s. A brightly colored skyscraper of towering Duplo blocks decorates the middle of the living room. Grandpa has taken time off from his Foot-a-eat...
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The first August I lived in Italy, I had no idea what had hit the entire country. Still anemic in language and culture, I didn’t know what to make of the silent streets of Florence, usual...
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Ah, Spring. You’ve been a long time coming. The day was perfect as I walked the neighborhood. The depth of the sky’s blue called me. Azaleas bloomed in vibrant bush bouquets. Every bird’s...
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Little hands on mighty hips, my seven-year-old face-offed with her teacher. The innocent question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” torched the classroom. It seems out of the en...
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There is a rock outside the church we attend. It’s a huge sort of how-in-the-world did that-big-thing-get-there boulder. It shoots out of the ground with no apparent means or logic. Wheth...
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“It has no taste,” I told my husband last summer, disappointed the meat on my plate was not cooked right. But once the words came out, I recognized them as significant. My sense of taste...
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The talk was fierce. Fear rampant. He had orchestrated one murder, and was bent on more. Mobs and riots cheered the violence he inspired. It was unthinkable someone like that could ever c...
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Asaph, King David’s talented musician had issues. He agonized over life’s inequality and unfairness and fell prey to a common problem. “For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the p...
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“Is there wildlife?” she asked over the phone. After moving from the midwest where deer and antelope play and seldom is heard a discouraging word, I paused just a moment to consider. Well...
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My son’s eyes sparkled like sun kissed waters when he pulled a bright red package from under the tree. His little hands reverently held the wrapped box, its smashed bow wobbled, as if rea...
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We went to Italy back in our young days knowing my husband might have an advantage in language and culture. He grew up as a missionary kid in Ecuador. I grew up a farmer’s kid in Kansas....
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Almost three years had passed, since our daughter’s illness, but the pain hadn’t lifted. It wrapped around me like a lead blanket. Peter, Jesus’ disciple and I were buds. “While walking b...
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I yanked and pulled until the weed snapped, its root still intact like a vein under the skin of the earth. I’m not a great gardener. I might even be a lousy gardener. Roots like those, wi...
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From the back of the car, three kids sang with megaphone voices. “Do everything without complaining, do everything without arguing, so that you will become blameless and pure, children of...
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My youngest grandchild has begun to climb out of his crib with his mattress as low as possible while wearing his sleep sack. It’s a feat. The security camera recording shows his formidabl...
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“Remember what I told you,” I said to my little girl with golden hair, long and silky. She tilted her chin upward, her blue eyes fringed in black lashes locked into mine, digging deep, sh...
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“Putting ourselves first doesn’t come naturally,” a glossy magazine lay open on my lap. I said aloud to absolutely no one, “Well that’s a bunch of bologna.” The article continued in the s...
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Are you looking high enough for connection? You know that wonderful feeling of finding someone with your same interests, passions or thinking? “She gets me,” you say. Or “he knows exactly...
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Hey, not so fast. Although the Easter holiday is past, the resurrection is not. “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He ap...
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It’s the craziest thing when you see someone who looks like someone else from some place else in a place they shouldn’t be found. When we moved to Italy across the ocean, across culture a...
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Do you know where the term “green with envy” stems from? Shakespeare is credited with the English idiom in Othello. Before he came along to make it popular, the Greeks are thought to have...
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My acquisition of the Italian language really doesn’t reflect the amazing teacher I had in Florence, Italy, or the excellence of her skills. Like Michaelangelo she chipped away, always co...
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“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw hi...
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“For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Cor. 3:9 (NIV) “A house tells a lot about the person who lived in it,” my husband, the carpenter mumbled....
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“So,” she asked, “are you beginning to feel settled yet?” How do I answer that, I wonder? Should I mention we haven’t even carried our furniture up from the basement because first we have...
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“Nothing of value has changed,” he said leaning over our daughter. His young face was earnest and sincere. His blue eyes searched to connect with hers, foggy and distant. Day after day an...
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Her name was Candy. I couldn’t describe her if I had to. I never knew the color of her hair, the width of her smile or touch of her hand. Because she didn’t exist. Yet, every meal time fo...
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Our middle daughter was about the sneakiest two-year-old imaginable. Quiet, sweet and oh so cunning. But the one sneak I never got used to was the tip-toe out of bed escape. Because she d...
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Sometimes I just want to see to the other side before I get there. I confess to reading the last page of a book to calm my nerves in the middle, or wanting to know the end of a movie befo...
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“Can’t we all just get along?” she asked. Watery pools gathered at the bottom of her eyes ready to splash over, waterfalls of reflected blue. Life as a thirteen-year-old had become invade...
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Every morning I take a walk in the city and pass a spot where I can see a massive field of grain. As I top a hill it’s there. My entire vision fills with gold. Day by day whiter, riper, f...
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She sat on my daughter’s bed, bent forward and fumbling with the gadget on her lap, a thin white line connected it to her ear. Even though I stood across the room, I could hear the music...
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A round robin family letter, the kind meant to keep families connected in normal times when coronavirus has nothing to do with being apart pops up in our inbox several times a year. Cousi...
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“Oh mom,” my college aged daughter said, and could it be I heard a tiny bit of impatience in her voice? “Half the kids I know in college live in the same town as their parents and they ar...
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It’s an odd time to sell a house. It’s an odd time to move. It’s an odd time. Boxes scatter the floor and emptiness echoes off the walls of the only house we’ve ever owned. Outside a For...
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How is your, “But even if He does not” faith? My husband, Phil, and I have been reading some of those New Testament verses that beg childlike faith. Verses like, “if you ask me anything i...
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My husband and I stayed in a motel in Nashville two nights before a tornado ripped through the area. We watched the destruction on television and wondered at the fact that we were just th...
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What would it have been like to reach a hand to Jesus’ shoulder where he slept and shake him awake? We relate well to the waves of Mark 4 splashing into the boat, the wild winds and terri...
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“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV) Typically on the farm, Labor Day meant a day to labor, another of many laboring days...
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“First,” my husband said listening to my remodeling ideas, “I need to see if it’s a load bearing wall.” My face fell like a house made of cards. In the back of my mind, from the day we pu...
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Fire darted from blue eyes. “I don’t want to go.” White ruffles flounced around her squirming legs as we clicked the strap into her car seat. She crossed her arms, defiant. A frown like a...
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They come, like the Israelites in Joshua 3-4, instructed to stick a foot into the water, and trust God for the next step. Testing, poking and prodding Jesus’ calling on their lives, they...
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“I’ll still be here,” he whispered as he climbed back into bed next to me. The sun still slept outside the dark window. Chill replaced the warmth of good-bye hugs, of little arms around m...
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In the small town where I grew up, “turning out” was a big deal. A person turned out right when they got a steady job, got married, had a family, and stayed in the same church in which th...
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Ugg, this time of year I fight a big battle with a tiny creature. What is it about autumn that calls all gnats in the Kansas City area into my kitchen like the plagues of Egypt? Woe to th...
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She sat in front of me a crumpled mess. Not a particularly deep conversation quickly turned into infinity pools of tears. Words halted and poured like the start and go of a sputtering fou...
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I have a friend who looked in his rear view mirror and saw the sign to a church, which propelled him to whip his car into into an unplanned detour. It altered his entire life. His traject...
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He walked the church aisle past where I sat. A little girl, about two-years-old straddled on his hip, her shoe dangled against his leg. His left arm circled her securely. Another little g...
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The struggle shows in the quiver of a cheek, tremor of lips, and an escaped tear. It comes with a mass of curls shading her face, falling forward with her bowed head. She hides behind its...
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What if Tarzan hadn’t married Jane, the tree swinger? What if Tarzan married Penelope who didn’t share the same desire to swing from a tree? What if she had no idea that people killed spi...
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“Try rebooting,” my husband tells me. It seems rebooting is the castor oil of ailing computers. It always gives me a gut ache, like I may never again see beyond the spinning wheel on my s...
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“…be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” When we lived in Italy I loved the day after Easter because it was also a holiday. While Easter Sunday was chocked full of activity, food an...
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In a backdrop of politics, taxes and kings, the disciples came to Jesus with a question. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? It was the underlying challenge of Satan when he sou...
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Suddenly prepositions and conjunctions are popping up in my Bible everywhere, because in fact, they are everywhere, joining words and clauses. I’ve overlooked them. What are little insign...
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A fistful of trousers yanks in my grandson’s little hand. “Dadda,” he urges. His little face is upturned. Longing and hope fix his expression. My grandson expects response. After all, thi...
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A dirt road led to the house I grew up in. I loved that road. Impassible in winter, a mud pit in spring, and like the dust bowl in summer. No other house sat on that road. It was the way...
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“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” Matt. 2:2. “For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” Growing up, our family put up our tree the day after Tha...
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(My husband Phil writes about his father.) There were those who went before us to battle against a great evil in our world decades ago. There are fewer and fewer of those World War II vet...
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Thanksgiving tangled with unanswered prayers. I slumped against the antiseptic tiled hallway. My stalwart, “Hang on and hold it in,” gave way to unrestrained tears like prisoners let free...
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“…He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.” Daniel 4:35; NKJV In anticipation of what could be one of the worst storms of modern history...
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So, we are in the "path of totality," dead center for the total eclipse of the sun. It’s a little crazy. Major interstates are closing, people are camping out, hotels are full, and busine...
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From the back seat window the countryside slid by. Green grape vines draped across wooden stakes like outstretched arms. The road ahead curved to the left, I knew it well. A hen, halted m...
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The seconds tick at the cash register. We shake out our Italian, like a moth-eaten shirt, and blink away the fog of jet-lag. Everything is a de-j-vu of having been and done long ago. Phil...
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Japanese rubbish took over five years to hit our shores after an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s shores in 2011. Everything from house parts to car parts, about 20 million tons...
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Back in the day when “missionary” brought to mind pith helmets for the men and polyester ruffles for the women, my husband and I took three little girls away from their grandparents and e...
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I wedged myself half onto my daughter’s hospital bed. The other half rested uncomfortably over the gap between my cot and Charity’s paralyzed body. I’d prayed every possible prayer in eve...
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They watched the One they loved suffer agony and succumb to a tortuous death. It was the greatest event of history, but they likely didn’t realize it. To experience exceeds preparedness....
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Spring Cleaning My hands immersed in suds, I stand at the kitchen sink and gaze at the aura of green tinging the trees against blue sky outside my window. Buds are beginning to open. A hi...
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“For our citizenship is in heaven…” I hold the blue covered booklet in my palm. Lines of weary travelers are long. They hold passports in green, maroon, and brown, irreplaceable identitie...
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“You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” (Psalm 89:9, ESV) There are storms and then there are STORMS. On the scale of 1-10, ten being hurricane level, I rem...
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After a weird night of outside noises, my foggy early morning Bible reading arrives at Revelation 3:20. The familiarity of its long ago memorized words steal into my heart immediately lik...
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Herod the Great ruled Jerusalem and its surrounding villages with cruelty and deceit. His ruthless murders made him almost as famous as the magnificent building projects he instituted. Du...
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“I’ll still be here,” he whispered as he climbed back into bed next to me. The sun still slept outside the dark window. Chill replaced the warmth of good-bye hugs, of little arms around m...
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I pull a faded black suitcase, it’s wheels rumble over the sidewalk, a grey path between verdant green. The rhythm of smooth concrete broken by lines reminds me of the clickety-clack of a...
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“Thank you for the sghetti,” my daughter prayed. Her little fingers entwined into a ball were folded against the edge of the kitchen table. Her forehead puckered and her eyes squinted. Th...
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“For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Ps. 73:3 (NKJV). Asaph, King David’s talented musician had issues. He agonized over life’s inequality and unf...
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My family drives one another crazy with the pause button on the TV remote. We pause to go to the bathroom, we pause to get something to eat, and we pause because someone didn't catch on a...
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My dad sang like Pavarotti, my mom accompanied him as if she could read his heart. Because they were so talented, we sang. A lot. Evenings we often gathered around the piano and harmonize...
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From the back of the car, three kids sang with megaphone voices. “Keep your tongue from evil, keep your tongue, Keep your tongue from evil keep your tongue.” The melody echoes in my memor...
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When our children were ten, seven and five, we blitzed throughout America for three months on a church-visiting, supporter-reporting, story-telling, home from Italy ministry tour. Our thr...
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God’s timeline stretches, a banner of Sovereignty before time and ahead of time farther than any eye can see. Anna, advanced in years, a dot on the expanse of eternity, lived within the m...
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To perform certain tasks well one needs the right tools. My husband informed me of this when to my starry gaze a bedroom remodel looked like Pinterest, Wayfair and HGTV all blended togeth...
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“Remind me again of why I love football,” I moaned. My gut sank while I watched another win slip into defeat. I felt like a deflated balloon. Not just for minutes, but for hours, even day...
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A wise man doth not comment on his wife’s diet. Certain subjects within marriage wisdom doth behoove us to tip-toe past. Weight gain and loss is one of those. Is important to keep yoursel...
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I am not a good rememberer, and it has much less to do with my age than with my desire. My husband loves to remember. He enjoys thinking about the past, pouring over pictures from years g...
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Jesus’ admonishment to the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane is intriguing. “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mar...
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My husband grew up the pale-skinned blond boy in a black and white background of Ecuador. A child of missionaries, he biked deserted dirt roads, rode in airplanes and ate iguana. Immune t...
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Thanksgiving tangled with unanswered prayers. I slumped against the antiseptic tiled hallway. My stalwart, “Hang on and hold it in,” gave way to unrestrained tears like prisoners let free...
Read ArticleTo be honest, I’m going into the whole blog thing with a bit of kicking and screaming. Blogs come and go like the national debt ticker. I have technological deficits within my brain that...
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