Good morning… Letting down our guard and sharing our genuine self is a lot easier said than done. In truth, our guard is an important part of us, serving us well until it doesn't anymore. We are handmade uniquely in our Creator's image (Genesis 1:27) and filled with the living breath of God (Genesis 2:7). Freshly formed from our [...]
Good morning... "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What? You, too? I thought I was the only one!'" - C.S. Lewis I have witnessed similar exchanges amid Bible study after Bible study these past few weeks. When we let down our guard and share our genuine selves, "What? You, too?" experiences birth new [...]
Good morning... After reading yesterday's blog God's Grace With Skin On, my writer-friend wrote: "I read your blog with tears of joy and gratefulness. God really does make beauty from ashes. He used your extraordinary skills to transform what I felt was ugliness into something for His Kingdom. Sometimes people need to see an honest exchange like we had in [...]
Good morning... God says, "I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). "'Choose life.' That's God's call for us, and there is not a moment in which we do not have to make that choice. Life and death are always before us. In our [...]
Good morning... One of the books we are studying in my living room this semester is Margaret Silf's The Other Side of Chaos: Breaking Through When Life Breaks Down. On pages 5 and 6, we read: "Transitions make you ache everywhere. They make you ache, in every joint and muscle and in every brain cell, and in every fiber [...]
Good morning... One line lingers from yesterday's "sue2you" message. "Oh honey, even the saints had spiritual dry spells!" It strikes me that spiritual "dry spells" are not really dry. Actually, dry spells of the Spirit are quite often wet. Wet with weeping. Moist with meaning. Damp with deep desire. Spiritual "dry spells" carry us downstream toward the Savior of [...]
Good morning... Chaos. We hate the word. We hate the experience. We hate her synonyms. Disarray. Jumble. Turmoil. We love her antonyms. Order. Peace. Calm. Yet one line from one book has stayed with me for twenty five years. "Identity is born out of chaos," penned Sue Bender in her 1991 book, Plain and Simple. What does Bender mean? [...]
Good morning... When darkness was upon the face of the deep (Genesis 1:2), one Hebrew word sums up the atmosphere into which God spoke the first light. "Tohu." English words resembling "tohu" describe an experience familiar to many of us. Confusion. Emptiness. Formlessness. Complete chaos. "Tohu's" primeval disorder precedes God's creative activity. Always has. Always will. A trying time [...]
Good morning... How fun it is for my fingertips to listen for the LORD's movement in the early morning hours. As hurricane Hermine exposes the vulnerability of Florida's Gulf Coast, God's winds now blow us back to the start of it all. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, [...]
Good morning... Thanks to a friend of a friend, who is an intake worker at a dog rescue organization, we patiently found our way to our next family member. We are still settling on a name as this eight week old golden retriever/yellow lab pup settles into our home. I have not cared for a puppy or a baby [...]
