With the coming of the New Year, I am in agreement with Jose Feliciano when he sings “próspero año y felicidad,” a prosperous and happy New Year. As Christians, we can expect that, right?
Close your eyes and picture this: Jesus is looking up toward Heaven...
I’m sitting in the Indianapolis International Airport, waiting for a connecting flight to Detroit and on to Baltimore before returning home to Lancaster, PA. My husband and I are heading back from volunteering at the Cross Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana...
Often, it’s not the big problems in life that steal our joy, it’s the accumulation of the little ones.
My husband and I have a prodigal.
She came to us when she was nine, and left us just before her eighteenth birthday. We were certain (and still are) that God brought her to us. She was alone in the world. A literal orphan. Her mother died when she was six. Her father was incarcerated. Her extended family couldn’t care for her. I noticed her because of her beauty — impossibly huge brown eyes, a wavy chestnut pixie cut that framed her innocent face, and a confident countenance that defied her inner turmoil, a turbulence birthed through years of trauma and abandonment. It didn’t take long for God to show us that she belonged in our family...
Today is the last day that I will fret over this election...
I was fifteen when Star Wars first hit the big screen. With my four year old cousin in tow, I sat in a packed house in the Queen Street Theater in Lancaster, PA’s downtown. The theater is now a bus terminal, but when I drive by there I sometimes reminisce sitting in the dark, cousin and popcorn balanced on my lap, and being blown away as spectacularly as the Death Star. What a phenomenon...
When my children were little, and we would come across some natural beauty in the world-a sunset, the ocean, a scenic view-I would ask them, "What is God?." They would respond, "A good artist!." I never wanted them to forget for a moment the author and the origin of beauty. I was reminiscing about this recently, and realized that this description of God is not enough. It's lacking...
If the doors of St. Luke’s were open, we were there. While the men had their meetings and the women worked their sloppy-joe magic in the church kitchen, we kids played in the bowels of the church basement, losing ourselves in exploration, ping-pong, and hide-and-seek. We were (fairly) careful not to disturb Mrs. Scheffer’s felt board and puppets. And it was awfully fun to play the old pump organ downstairs in the Primary Room...
There is an account in the Bible (John 9) that tells of a beggar who was blind from birth, whom Jesus healed by spitting in the dirt, making mud, and putting it on the man's eyes, healing his blindness. Witnesses who saw the man come home with his sight restored doubted the account and said it wasn't the same guy. The "learned leaders" of the day came to the man and interrogated him, indignant that Jesus had healed him on the Sabbath. They called Jesus a sinner, but the man called Him a prophet. Incredulous, they interviewed the man's parents, who being nervous that they would be persecuted by the legalist set, verified that the beggar was their son, and that he was, indeed, blind from birth. They then readily deferred to their son for a detailed explanation. The leaders went back and grilled the man, accusing him of being a liar and a sinner. The man became indignant and basically told these "righteous" authorities, "Hey, you guys claim to have all the answers, yet you don't know where this guy Jesus comes from. How in the world could he have made me see with just his spit if he wasn't from God? And we all know that God doesn't listen to sinners, so what does that make you?" (Just a bit of paraphrasing, there). Then the man added simply, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!." (No paraphrasing here.)...
Lately I've been wrestling with pride vs. confidence. God gives us gifts. We are called to use them. But if we walk in complete confidence as we use those gifts, which is the only way to use them to their capacity, we run the danger of falling into pride as we enjoy success and perhaps even affirmation or accolades from others...
There is a sliver of me that doesn't want to give any gifts this Christmas. At least to my family. It's not because I don't think they deserve gifts, or that they've been "bad" in some way. I have a wonderful family. And, it's very true when God says that we love to give good gifts to our children. No, that sliver of me just wishes that Christmas wasn't what it turned out to be...
Every morning when I pray, I praise God because He’s good. I got to thinking about that, and I realized that my love for God is based on the fact that He is good. But my reverence for Him stems from the fact that He is also great. He is both. And this is significant to my walk with Him...
We had a rough week two weeks ago. A seriously rough week. It was the kind of week that led me to question God and to wonder where in the world He had gone. I related to the psalmists who lamented their souls were downtrodden, their bones were broken, and their hearts were troubled...
I’ve just finished reading the book of Acts...again. I really wish Peter Jackson or someone would make an epic movie about this amazing book. It’s full of suspense, peril, action, adventure, miracles... and the start and spread of the Church of Jesus Christ...
I read a blog recently on disabilities and the Gospel. It was written by a man whose son was born with multiple disabilities, so he read the Gospel through the lens of his experience, as I suppose we all do to some degree. I was tracking until he proposed that the reason Christ, when He revealed Himself to the disciples after His resurrection, didn’t heal His broken body, but kept the holes in his hands and feet and the wounds on his side in tact, was that he would be able to relate to people with disabilities. I stopped reading and mulled that over. I concluded that this gentleman, though sincere in his premise based on his trying to make sense of his son’s disability, had a very narrow and misguided view of the Gospel of Christ and what the Bible has to say about those with disabilities...