A highlight of my week is Wednesday evenings, when about half a dozen of us ladies slip into a church basement and study the Bible together. We are an odd assortment, but we love each other. Sometimes we laugh over zany high school memories and other times we cry over present struggles. I'm the oldest …
Category: Hearing God
Do not harden your heart
2020 is the year the world got sick and the wackos came out of the woodwork. Or so it seems.I have never seen such strong polarization among the world as I know it. People's emotions are on edge, the verbal sparring always threatening to overwhelm anyone wanting to engage in simple conversation. Feelings are hurt, …
Father, in the heavens
A few months ago I stumbled across a snippet of advice that became transformational in an unexpected way. When the deluge of information about COVID-19 first hit, including the instruction for frequent hand-washing, someone on Facebook suggested praying the Lord's Prayer while washing our hands. The idea stuck with me since I work as a …
Seeking the Stream
If you ask me how Covid-19 has affected me personally, I feel a gaping numbness inside. I may be a nurse and one of "those" essential workers, but the time-consuming job of covering up from head to toe like a masked robber and ramming a swab far into the nether regions of a patient's head …
Participating with God during the COVID-19 pandemic
The internet is an overwhelming place right now. Yesterday Will and I discussed it as I dropped sweet corn seeds into a newly-tilled patch of earth in our front yard. "It's like walking into a room where 30 people are all screaming at you," Will said. The current coronavirus pandemic has made many people nearly …
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Changing the World by Listening
The world is full of noise. If you are like me, you find it very overwhelming. Social media hasn't helped curb the constant stream of ideas, feelings, and opinions flooding our personal spaces. I have often thought about the lost art of listening. I believe one of the primary ways that God touches broken lives …
Shame and Criticism
Is shame the only thing that grows into criticism? Is criticism always based in shame? Some of you asked these questions after I wrote about criticism's mother. No. As I stated in my last post, criticism can be healthy. Even in unhealthy criticism, other causes can be present such as pride and hardness of heart. …
Criticism’s mother
Once in a while, a perplexity that has fogged my brain for a long time suddenly clears. That happened to me last weekend when I attended Inspire, a women's retreat in Indiana. The keynote speaker spent her sessions giving us a good dose of much-needed Christian psychology. Understanding how we are put together and how …
Why I Write
One of the best parts about blogging is the emails I receive from readers. I always feel honored to be allowed a peek into their hearts and lives. So many good friendships have been forged through these online connections. Occasionally I get feedback that could be helpful to improving the blog. One such email this …
When God doesn’t heal, and what it says about faith
Often I hear a particular narrative that bothers me. I just heard it again from a respectable pastor in a conservative, Bible-believing church. The scenario goes something like this. A man we will call Daniel gets very sick. He goes to the doctor and discovers that he is full of cancer. Now Daniel loves Jesus …
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