When God Has Other Plans
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it,...
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Grace & Salvation
81 articles gathered under this theme.
What is Our Tower of Babel Today?
When many were saying, “Next thing you know, they’ll be listening to us in our houses,” my dad was carefully picking up the receiver on our wall party line to listen to our neighbors. Eve...
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When Christian Living Fights a Battle With Compromise
“Owwwwwch!” I moaned to no one but anyone who might be so inclined as to listen. Making the bed has its risks. Working from left to right I consistently stub my toes on the hard edge of t...
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Faith During Troubling Times
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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Is Loneliness A Mercy?
“Ain’t no man that good,” I quipped. Everyone feels lonely at times. Truly good friends are rare and precious. I have book friends. Gym friends. Writing friends. Bible study friends. Hobb...
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Winter’s Damage Reveals the Soul
Whiter than snow, Lord, whiter than snow. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Wherever you live in the USA, you’ve been aware of the great snow storm. You have likely been part of pr...
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Can We Step Off the Pedestal, Please?
“He hit me first,” little arms cross in defiance, and little legs plant firmly. No retreat without a struggle. These are days grown ups brawl and pick sides, while firmly clinging to thei...
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Clean Slates And New Beginnings
A white board hangs on one of the walls of our basement. On it scribblings mark the agenda of the day, that is, those perceived as most important through the eyes of the last grandchild t...
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What Message Are You Giving?
What is it about autumn that calls all gnats into my kitchen like the plagues of Egypt? And woe to the one who leaves out the banana peelings. Jesus’ message in Matthew, chapter 23, seem...
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What Does Practice Make Perfect?
My dad, talented in all things musical, had a sharp ear and perfect pitch. “Should have been a B-flat not a B-natural.” He could be working the back forty, but when I struck a wrong note...
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God Is In the Detour
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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The Smell Under the Kitchen Sink
One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four… The smell started as a vague drift of unpleasantness. But as I cleaned off the counter, a sniff of something not quite right remained. Afte...
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“Did God Save Us To Let Us Starve?”
“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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The Greatest of All Miracles
You know the type, right? The one who must correct every statement another makes. Someone who can wax eloquent on just about everything, and does. That person. The one who knows it all. T...
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Is This Too Trivial For God?
Sunshine bright with glory bathed our tiny backyard. Blue sky beckoned. Winter months had been long for our four-year-old son, and he was ready for play. “If you need me, I’ll call you,”...
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What Does It Mean to be Found?
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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How Do I See Others?
I tilted my head a bit to look for myself in his stick figure drawing. I wondered is this truly how he saw me? “Is that me?” I asked. He nodded. He held a felt tip marker in a small hand...
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Keeping Your Balance In An Imbalanced World
She toddles toward me, hands outstretched. My eyes are wide, excited and inviting, “Come on,” I urge with a half whisper. A foot lifts, and then another. A wobbly sort of drunken-sailor-t...
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What Is God Teaching You?
“What’s God been teaching you through His Word?” I ask as we settle in, past the mundane of life. We’ve left behind kids, jobs, routines, and the cycle of activities that spin our lives....
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Who Are You Wearing?
Have you, like me, noticed how very popular the emblem of the cross is in jewelry and clothing? Both men and women wear crosses around their necks, fingers, waists, and wrists. Crosses ad...
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Open Hearts Find Room For Jesus
The slammed door echoed into the hallway and shocked the kitchen. Probably every teenager has managed a few. Ours did. And, although door slams were outlawed, the ugly secret was that I w...
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Do You Greet or Meet With Jesus?
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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Grandsons, Scooters, and Laying Down the Law
“Put me in jail, put me in jail,” our six year-old grandson shouted. “Put me in jail, Gramma,” The boy’s scooters whizzed by, daring me to move out of the way, challenging me to capture l...
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When God Seems Remote
I was my big brothers’ TV remote. I can still hear their call. Through the bleaching heat waves of Kansas, over the baked and cracked ground, their summons reached me. Underfoot brown far...
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God’s Light Pierces the Darkest Grief
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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Who Holds Your Heart?
One of our teenaged granddaughters spent a few days with us recently. She came loaded with gift cards she’d received from Christmas. We spent a day shopping and she had a day of bliss. Bu...
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How Balanced Are You?
Balance. It’s a thing. She toddles toward me, hands outstretched. My eyes are wide, excited and inviting, “Come on,” I urge with a half whisper. A foot lifts, and then another. A wobbly s...
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Can God's Children Trust God's Gifts?
How is it that a man who hates shopping finds some unexplainable driving challenge in riffling through one bottomless brown bin after another? I watch the man I thought I knew so well, be...
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How Do You See People?
I tilt my head a bit to look for myself in his stick figure drawing. I wonder is this truly how he sees me? He waits. “Is that me?” I ask. Pen in hand, like Picasso, he nods. Proudly. Ser...
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What Do You See?
Our refrigerator died. Second fridge demise in six months. The next week my computer met its maker. It went like an apple with a bite out of it. Sometimes life is like that. “Grandma,” my...
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What Offends God?
I don’t often sit around begrudging my past. Shoot, it’s difficult to remember what happened yesterday, but I admit, there are some offenses that are more difficult to forget than others....
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When you are powerless how should you respond?
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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Old Backgrounds, New Creation, and A Happy Father’s Day
What is a “new creation?” Am I one? Are you? “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV). Who Gets What? B...
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A Passover Rebel and The Lamb
“Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabb...
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What's Beneath It All?
Things were bad, dire in fact. A line which separated life and death grew so slender at times I thought she was already gone. My forehead found a resting spot on my daughter’s still one,...
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Sometimes There's Creep
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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What Are You Wearing Today?
My husband wakes up every morning and makes a decision. “What class clothing is this day?” What he does during the day determines what he wears. When he used to go into an office, the dec...
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When the Storm is On The Inside
“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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When Life Doesn’t Turn Out Like I Think It Should
“Call me Mara,” Naomi said. Tragedy chiseled her face and spilled from her lips. Pleasant, the meaning of her name no longer fit. Mara suited her, for it meant “bitter.” “I went out full...
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True or False: You Only Live Once
“You only live once,” she quipped. Laughter followed that flippant remark. I turned away from the screen. I’ve used those same words to justify indulgences from purchases, to a risk, and...
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How Harvest Time Points to God’s Impeccable Timing
The blue-overall-clad farmer plucked a bearded head from its white stalk. His form blotted a black silhouette against the bright sky. I squinted in the sunshine. A shadow lay across me, i...
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Is God Unjust?
This year as Father’s Day approaches I am so aware of the attack on the family, on the role of Fathers, and disengagement and disrespect placed on family in society. It’s complicated by p...
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It’s Not Over Yet
Holidays come down with a splat for me once they are over. If I’d schedule a pity-party that is precisely when it would be. It’s symptomatic of intense preparation coupled with a lack of...
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Why Did Mary Anoint Jesus For His Burial Before He Died?
A big plastic red cup sits on the edge of the tub where he bathes. It keeps company with a yellow ducky, Noah’s ark, and a flapping tailed fish. The cup, once used for drinking water, now...
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God Sees The Whole Picture
As a child I loved working with dot to dot pictures. I pondered them before I put pencil to paper, trying to form in my mind the whole picture, wanting to unravel the yet unknown. With a...
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Can Someone Like That Ever Change?
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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Hidden Temper, Undeserved Grace
“Thar’ she blows,” a friend quipped of his late wife. A sweet soul and my dear friend, she apparently hid a temper under her skin, not easily aroused but impressive to its recipients. He...
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Where’s The Free Lunch?
“TANSTAAFL,” the text read. That crazy duck quack my husband has on his phone announcing incoming texts sometimes drives me crazy. At almost 1:00 a.m., it’s enough for a heart attack. “Wh...
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Thanksgiving Transforms Hearts
As we enter the season of thanksgiving, I love the emphasis on remembering, being aware of the little things, the falling leaves, slivers of sunshine and raindrops of life. We talk of the...
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If a Tree Falls in a Forest?
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" I’ve not lived a long time in Virginia, but in the time I have, I’ve seen a lot of trees. Coming from...
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Kinda Like God Who Sees All We Do
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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Don't Touch
“Uh, uh, uh,” I hear the warning in three short grunts. I turn quickly to find out what my not-quite-two-year-old grandson is doing. My quickness is due first to fear for his safety and s...
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Sorting away the Bad, the Good and the Ugly
“Pick me up,” my grandson says. He reaches little arms high, and his mommy leans down, puts her hands against his solid tiny body. Her brown hair swings forward and covers the smile I kno...
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What a Thorn Patch Teaches About Marriage
Anybody who grew up barefoot on a Kansas farm knows about stickers. A flat lying torture-in-waiting plant with seeds like tiny wooden barbs. They spread viciously, looking for tender skin...
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Is your practice helpful or harmful?
My dad, talented in all things musical, had a sharp ear and an equally sharp tongue. His pitch was perfect. He judged without apology. “Should have been a B-flat not a B-natural,” he burs...
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Get rid of the Filth and Put on the Clean
Before farms had fashionable “mud rooms,” they existed. “Don’t you come in the front porch,” my mom insisted to my black-dirt-clothed brothers before supper. Because of course on the farm...
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BC and AD of Charity
I tend to separate my life into BC (before Charity's illness) and AD (After the Destruction) of Charity's physical body. Those categories can also stand for Before Children and After Daug...
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What the Fig Leaf Won’t Cover
Well, the first lesson should be, never, absolutely never engage in conversation with a serpent. That is where everything started to go downhill. Because where else would Satan strike but...
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6 Questions That Will Center your New Year
New makes me skittish. While everyone else revels in the thought of a blank-slate New Year ahead, I’ve always anticipated a new beginning with a bit of fear and dread. When others see pos...
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Joseph Did You Know?
Rows of little feet too short to reach the floor, swung like swing sets on long wooden pews. Lined up by grades, and bookended by teachers, the oldest sat in the back, the littlest in the...
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Straining Gnats and Swallowing Camels
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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Bad Words and Clean Hearts
“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” Matthew 15:18 (ESV) When our family moved to Italy and went through the agony of language learning, o...
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Beyond My Borders
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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Easter Reboot
“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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With 936 Weeks To Raise Our Kids, Maybe Parenting Isn’t About The Big Things
We were three weeks into a month-long road trip with our three young boys. And although we are no strangers to roadtripping with young children, I was feeling rather tired, overwhelmed, a...
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Stepping Forward With God
I’ve never been one to jump with two feet into a new year. I don’t even take giant steps boldly into the future. Let me tip toe into it with baby steps, slightly fearful and hopeful not t...
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4 Days to Christmas: VINE
I used to stuff little arms into sleeves like a turkey at Thanksgiving. But somewhere between the years of babies and grand babies, the art went south. I’m all thumbs, trying to capture s...
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11 Days to Christmas: NAME
I peeked at the little form of my granddaughter. Black eyelashes quivered against pale cheeks as she kneeled at the bedside of her mommy. “Jesus, peeease help her move again,” she prayed....
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15 Days to Christmas: JESUS
Picking a baby’s name is a big deal. Seriously. Our third daughter was three days old before we agreed that Charity she would be for all eternity. Mary and Joseph didn’t have that dispute...
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When the Dots Don’t Line Up
Sometimes the dots line up, and we connect one to the other and the picture is clear. We see what God was trying to do and we say, “Oh, I get it. That’s why that had to happen that way.”...
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Are You a Good Lover?
I’m not a good lover. Let me pause before you think I just handed you more information than you care to receive, like a bad Facebook post. Here is what I mean: I don’t know how to love li...
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When I Asked to Know You
There is a sudden ache in my gut, like I’ve been kicked. As much as I prepare for hospital-sterile, IV’s and blinking lights, the moment I enter my daughter’s room I cannot stop the sudde...
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God Goes There
I am into the fear of God. It seems to neon-light itself at me throughout Scripture. People have turned it into an undesirable emotion, but the fear of God is a good thing. The book of Pr...
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Politics and the Real Life
I confess. I yell at the TV. I’ve even thrown a pillow or two. Watching media news at our house looks much the same as watching a football game, albeit a very depressing one. Why watch yo...
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Check Your Words At The Door
Check Your Words at the Door, Please “…From the same mouth come blessing and cursing, My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” James 3:10 (ESV) I remember the gagging rancidity of s...
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Don't Blink
To my dear daughters and daughter-in-law, who are doing a priceless job of being mommies who love Jesus and train my grandchildren to love Him as well. People say it will all be done in a...
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Needing Jesus
Scenes of carnage replay across the screen. Footage shows people running, crying, bleeding, images of devastation and grief. Brussels, Paris, even Hesston Kansas, fifteen miles from where...
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The Big Red Elephant in the Room
“It’s not gonna turn out good for you,” Phil tells the young man and his lovely wife sitting close together on our couch. Their lives are about to tumble like clothes in a dryer. Packing...
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Living in the Projects
Living in the Projects The upstairs of our house is down to its studs. A major project is underway. Between now and the vision of a new bathroom and bedroom is a gorge of unimaginable pro...
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(guest blog by Philip Schroeder) I was cleaning out old wood. I've worked with wood and construction since my teens years and am fully aware what the smallest of splinters can do to my ha...
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It is root canal morning. I hate root canals. I’ve got teeth that crumble like coffee cake, fortunately, my dentist is pretty good. I climb into the dental chair and the hygienist recline...
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