The Day Mom Forgot Me
I’m a mom. I know the tug of the umbilical cord from birth until giving each baby away to love and cherish another. I’m a grandma, and I recognize the family units that must even take pre...
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Suffering & Grief
102 articles gathered under this theme.
The Measure of My Days
I hold one end of the measuring tape while my husband walks backward. The metal unwinds until he reaches the spot he wants marked. His thumb stops at the line and he bends the tape toward...
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In Awe and Wonder of How Great Thou Art
Slowly the crowd came to its feet. Some laboriously used the row ahead for leverage. Over the attendees, silver glinted, like imperfect halos, caught by the lighting above. Although the g...
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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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Holding True Today Prepares Us For Tomorrow
“Just do what’s right today,” my husband’s voice said into my ear. The cell phone pressed hard against me, as if the very pressure could somehow put his words into my being. But doing rig...
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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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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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To Strengthen And Encourage In The Faith
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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My Blessing of Struggles
I’m so excited to share with you something from my daughter Charity. As a result of a mass on her brain stem when she was twenty-six, Charity lives with incomplete-quadriplegia. She wrote...
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Does Jesus Always Answer What We Ask For?
“If Jesus wanted to,” my little seven-year-old fellow classmate declared, “He could flatten my thumb and make it big enough to go around the whole world.” He held his thumb inches from my...
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Decay Meets Our Bodies, Victory Meets Our Souls
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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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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God’s Holy Ways Shares Sorrow
There were days, dark and bare. Black and silent. And though those days are mostly past, sometimes even today, when I least expect it, the veil, which holds suffering inside, seems to eva...
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A Pivot in Time Marks Eternity
His eyes lighted when he saw me walking toward him in the crowd. My grandson headed straight toward me with a smile, and sidled up against my side. He stretched his arms around me and squ...
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Beyond What I See
I’m sitting inside and watching the perfect snowfall out our Virginia window. It came at a most inappropriate time, when our plans had to cancel, and schedules had to be re-scheduled. But...
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He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
“Are you being married?" our then four-year-old grandson asked. His whole body shoved forward to fit into a space in-between my husband and myself’s quick hug in the chaos of a kitchen sw...
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A New Year, A New Self
We make promises. We plan, envision, re-calibrate, and define goals. We look ahead and behind. We hope, determine, and anticipate. We look forward to a white page, a whole year ahead, wit...
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God is Good Regardless
“Oh Mom. God would be good if there was cancer,” she replied, sitting against the metal slatted headboard of the hospital bed. Her voice held that daughter to mother tone of reproof, and...
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Do Autumn Leaves remind you of Life in Christ?
It’s autumn. I’ve gotta admit that I am not a fan of fall. I see the beauty in the Virginia reds, yellows, and oranges. I love the floating leaves in the air. I like the sound of their cr...
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The Grieving We Do
I remember the clingers. I can feel those little arms that hugged tight around my neck and the legs circling my body. I remember the process, of disentangling a hand, then a leg, then the...
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We Laugh and We Cry
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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In The Father’s Arms
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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It’s Our 50th Wedding Anniversary
“He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5:24 NKJV) 50. The Big 5-0. 5 Decades. A Half Century. As a bride, I had no idea. I thought people who had been marri...
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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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The Victorious Crown of Thorns
We call them “thorny situations.” They describe something we’d usually rather avoid. Because thorns hurt. Because a situation wrought with barbs and little wiggle room is bound to bring p...
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Is It Too Heavy?
“It’s too heavy,” he whined. His little hands strained to lift a fat rough log. He wanted to imitate his grandpa who seemed to hoist them like twigs into a wheelbarrow. The red cheeks of...
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Is Jesus the Prince of Peace?
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Princ...
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Light and Peace in a Dark World
How dark it must seem to walk in the thick dust of bombed buildings and destroyed lives. How thick would be the despair of cruelty, death and loss. And how desolate feels a future built f...
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You Are Not Invisible to God
I heard the bang of a metal door next to me before I leaned down for that “underneath” the gas-station-bathroom-stall search. In my bent over rectangular view, two thick-soled black shoes...
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If Jesus Wanted To
“If Jesus wanted to,” my little seven-year-old fellow classmate declared, “He could flatten my thumb and make it big enough to go around the whole world.” He held his thumb inches from my...
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Handling Behemoths, Leviathans, and Those Other Monsters of Life
In the shadows of the farmhouse where I grew up, monsters dwelt. They hid in the barn after dark, in the upstairs midnight hallways, and most certainly underneath my bed. Big, hairy, but...
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Did God Show Up?
“…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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It's Not Fair
So, my grandson who is four years old beat me at a game of memory. There are a lot of reasons this happened. The cards, for example had some sort of out of this world superpower heroes. I...
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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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Incomprehensible Faith
It is often the incomprehensible pieces about God and His Word that bring us back to the rudiments of our faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things no...
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Are You Walking In the Mire?
Mud, thick red goop clumped his little shoes like melted cheese oozing out of a sandwich. Hunks of it fell in globs I tried to avoid as I scooped him up. Briefly his legs swung from side...
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When Insignificant Connectors Pave the Way To Important Truths
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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Do You Carry More Than You Should?
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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Does God Hear Me?
My blender is revving up with its loud whir when the door bangs open and my grandson runs in from outdoors. He puts on the brakes barely past the threshold, stops, and covers his ears. I...
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Grateful for the Baby We Never Knew
“How do you feel?” My husband’s voice asked through the anesthesia. My hand moved heavily to the spot where a baby had grown. “Empty,” I whispered. He scooped my tear before it hit the pi...
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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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Who Knew When We Said “I do?”
My father-in-law used to shake his head and say with a bemused look on his face, “Who knew that someday…,” then he’d finish the sentence with something particular from that season of life...
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Defining Peace When We Have None
If you have been disturbed by current events, you aren’t alone. We’ve had weeks of images difficult to forget. Wouldn’t it be so nice to turn on the TV and find the world at peace, evil c...
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How Good Do You Think God Really Is?
Between believers, a high-five of “God is good,” covers a lot of ground. It is inspired by a happy outcome, good grade at school or maybe a really good deal on a new pair of shoes. How co...
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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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The Biggest Reunion
“…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne o...
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Taste, Smell and Spiritual Sense
“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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What Do You See?
“I no see it,” he says. His little spying eyes are squinted almost shut, focused on finding the far away airplane I point towards in the blue sky. “There,” I say to my three-year-old gran...
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I Fell in Love with American Thanksgiving While Living In Another Country
I learned to really appreciate this American tradition in a place where it was not celebrated. Our first years we felt alone without family. We joined with fellow North Americans, friends...
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The Purpose of Suffering
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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Bitter Roots
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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When Mom Forgot Me
“Where do you live?” she asked. Wind whipped her white curls into a crown around her head against a blur of golden wheat fields as we sailed along the dirt road. I glanced her way. She sa...
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The Resurrection Isn’t Over
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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Resurrection Hope Moves the Stone Away
Things had begun to get dicey. Fame’s two sided coin’s darker side threatened. Not everyone was a fan of Jesus nor of those who claimed to be His followers. Jesus laid out coming events,...
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What if My Angel’s Wing is Clipped?
I found it in the bottom of a box marked kitchen in big bold Sharpie script. Moving and packing can throw the best laid organizational plans askew. Not enough space in a box mixes with to...
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My Life Has Not Turned Out the Way I Expected
A year ago, before the shadow of Covid darkened our skies, my daughter wrote a guest post. As we look for the light at the end of the 2020 tunnel, it relates to our lives now even more. T...
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Have We Lost Thanksgiving?
Proclamation 118—Thanksgiving Day, 1864 October 20, 1864 Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November...
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God Does Not Social Distance Us
Last night I dreamed I was in a crowd of people in a store. We were pressed together in a small space and I knew I was too close. Too near. I woke up wound tight like a mummy and with a h...
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How Do You Want COVID-19 to End?
The long marble hallway stretched like a tunnel ahead. I remember the wavy lines narrowed to another corridor where doctors and nurses passed like a hospital thoroughfare of workers inten...
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How Do You Define Faith in the Coronavirus Pandemic?
Maybe now is actually the right time to doubt your faith. How can I say such a thing in the middle of the biggest global crises most of us have experienced? Why would I bring more uncerta...
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Life Will Never Be The Same
The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Proverbs 16:1 (ESV) “Life will never be the same,” I told my friend. “No matter how this turns out, li...
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What if the Light at the End of the Tunnel is Just More Tunnel?
-Guest post by Charity George Too often I wait till I’ve reached the light at the end of the tunnel, to be thankful. “Thank you that those test results turned out good.” “Thank you that t...
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Those moments no one sees
It was in a moment when the house was quiet, the girls at school and my husband at work that the little blue sleeper called my name again. The sun’s bright rays bleached my vision and I s...
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Without Apologies
I stood before my mini-version. Blonde hair curled at the shoulders, bright blue eyes sparkled, and a pleased smile lighted her face. Behind her on the wall splashed brilliant colors in w...
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An Audacious Crown of Thorns
“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. (Mark 15:2; NIV) Easter mornings looked like new clothes and smelled like ham baking. It culminated with E...
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Till Kids Do Us Part
Okay, so it’s possible I don’t like her child. That friend who’s been a friend for as long as I can remember, the one who dried my tears after break ups and sad movies, the friend who kne...
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It is Good to Give Thanks
“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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Can my prayer reach his suffering?
He sat alone at the table, palms pressed together like hands praying, shoulders hunched, and chin resting on the tips of his fingers. He stared into space a million galaxies away. Togethe...
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Strengthen the Souls
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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Call Me Mara
“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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Mom, I'm such a sinner
The door opened with a bang against my front hall. “Mom!” Something was wrong. My heart revved like a racecar. I wiped wet hands against my apron and hurried to meet my daughter, home fro...
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If You Need Me, I'll Call You
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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Easter Sunday Brings Monday After
“…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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Those Conjunctions in Our Lives
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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That One Perfect Moment Will Rescue Us Today
The sun streams through trees, dappling its light across the deck. Its brightness bathes my upturned face in warmth. I sigh, and the sound is a whisper of praise. It is a perfect moment,...
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10 Days to Christmas: OMEGA
“I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End,” says the Lord. Jesus had a birthday. Just like us, from the day He drew His first breath, time moved toward His death. Alpha and...
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16 Days to Christmas: IMMANUEL
One of my dearest friends lay in the cold Kansas soil. November winds blew the tree limbs outside the window where we sat. My husband and I listened as the grieving spouse talked, his sor...
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Losing Thanksgiving
Proclamation 118—Thanksgiving Day, 1864 October 20, 1864 Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November...
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Thanksgiving Despite Unhappy Circumstances
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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The Truth About Grief
“Teach me,” my words stumbled out. “Teach me how to lose my daughter.” Surely this godly woman who’d lived through the horrific murder of her son could tell me how to keep from drowning i...
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Unconditional Finds Its Way Through a Child
Ps 78:5-7 “…That they should make them known to their children; That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their...
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What’s Good About Good-bye?
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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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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When It's Too Heavy
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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When the Troll Sings Russian
My name is Sylvia and I am technophobic. Technology scares the crud out of me. “Hover,” my husband advises. “Just hover and see if it is a good site or one that will eat your computer ali...
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Shelf Life
For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. I woke up this morning and felt like I’d lasted longer than my shelf life. I’m tired, weary and it is the just the first month of a...
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Bye-Gones
“…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). Backgrounds. Everyone has them. They are the backdrop of our...
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Leftover Thanksgiving
“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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Paralytically Speaking
If people would ask me how I feel about the event of my daughter’s paralyzation nine years ago, I might want to say a lot of things. One is that it makes me sad in waves of sorrow. Period...
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Do you have Holes in your net?
My net has holes. “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.” Matt...
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As a Father
As a Father “I can’t fix her,” ragged sobs shook the bed where we slept. For just a moment I thought I was home in Italy again where sometimes the earth trembled, but then I recognized th...
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Heading the right direction
Squiggled blue and red lines crisscross between Kansas City and our destination. The map divides my screen into roads and rivers. I know where I’m headed, but I don’t know the route. This...
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Eyes Everywhere
My pocket vibrates a split second after Phil’s buzzes. We both reach for our phones, quick on the draw. Our 16-month-old-grandson has the flu and we are anxious. The text reads, “He is so...
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The Sixth Stocking
Today is my son’s birthday. I wrote the following story over 20 years ago after he was born. It may be a little sappy, but is it a taste of the blessing he has been to us ever since the f...
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Food Fights
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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Mom's Legacy
On the farm, after dark meant black. Light shone from a tall pole smack in the middle of the yard. A sphere of brightness left edges beyond with shadows that bent and swayed. The big grey...
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Expectations
I’m hacking into the New Year. Struck down on Christmas Day with a cold and fever, and pushing through the fog ever since. From my sick bed, I watch the New Year roll into New York City....
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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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When Thanksgiving Doesn’t Come
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 ArticleThe Blog Thing
To 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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