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Silent Nights Suffering Nights
From heaven's height to manger low There is no distance the Prince of Peace won't go
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Releasing “Mom Guilt”
Once upon a time I served as an educator. While serving a special needs family, the mom revealed to me that she felt like her daughter’s disability was a punishment for her own sins. This mom was steeped in deep grief, somehow allowing herself to believe that she was personally responsible for her child’s cognitive disability. I knew her to be a healthy mom in a healthy home environment. She was actually a wealthy mom with all the comforts this modern world offers. Despite having the American dream, she was unable to enjoy the rich blessings of her life due to this story of guilt she had written for self. …
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Hanging on to Hope
An unexpected divorce. An aging parent’s diagnosis. An unnerving wait in an emergency room. An untimely death of a friend. Events like these can shake even the most stoic among us. We detest conflict. We dislike difficult diagnoses. We despise death. And we should detest, dislike, and despise disruptive life events because they remind us that life is not the way it should be. Yet Jesus, on the eve of his crucifixion, told his disciples that though they would have trouble and tribulation in this world, they were to “Take heart! Have courage!” (John 16:33). How could Jesus tell his disciples (or even himself, for that matter) to “take heart!”,…
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Let Jesus satisfy your heart with His Love
How confident are you that Jesus loves you? Do you need assurance that He loves you? You might think that Jesus could not possibly want you because your life has been so messy or because someone has told you that you are not good enough for God to really love. The truth is that your heart need for love is real, and Jesus will satisfy your heart with the goodness of His love as you let Him do it. The Quest for Satisfaction Several years ago, my daughter and I were talking about the quest for satisfaction that drives women in our culture. From our experiences in ministry to women,…
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How to Maintain Hope Amidst Closed Doors
When you’re navigating a season of closed doors, it’s hard to have hope. Every door of opportunity that closes feels like yet another letdown. If you’re really honest, every closed door feels like a letdown from the Lord. The year 2016 was such a season for us. My husband and I were pursuing the possibility of having children, both biological and adoptive. Given our marrying later in life, we had our ages working against us. But we tried to have a biological child anyway. What happened, as a result, was a difficult season of infertility and loss. The door of having a biological child had closed. Concurrently, we pursued domestic…
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For the Love of Mothers and Others
If upon meeting you for the first time I asked, “Who are you?” How would you answer? (Para español, lea abajo.) Perhaps you’d say: I am a teacher. I am a student. I am a wife. I am a business owner. I am a missionary. I am a homemaker. With the recent celebration of Mother’s Day, you might also identify with one or more of the following: I am an expectant mother, a new mother, an adoptive mother, a single mother, a stepmother, a divorced mother, an empty-nester mother, a widowed mother, a grandmother, a mentoring and disciple making, spiritual mother, I am a caregiver of my mother. Research A…
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The Importance of Pronouns
Recently, I discovered an important lesson in the book of Lamentations from my Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) questions. Upon observing the pronouns used in the different chapters of Lamentations, some things became clear in chapter 3 that impacts my life and how I live. Most scholars consider Jeremiah to be the author of Lamentations. So, in Lamentations 3:1-20, the pronouns “I” and “me” refer to Jeremiah. These particular pronouns occur 30 times in the first 20 verses of chapter 3. Furthermore, “my” occurs 18 times in these verses. The references to God in verses 3:1-20 focus on retelling the devastation Jeremiah has experienced from God’s hand. In summary, in the…
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End Times: I Wish We’d All Been…Discipled
I’ve seen and heard my colleague Dr. Mike Svigel, who teaches eschatology at the premillennial dispensational seminary where I also teach, say, “If your eschatology leads you to fear the antichrist rather than to hope in the Christ…or to hate unbelievers rather than to love your enemies…then get a new eschatology.” Can I get an amen? Abigail Dunlap, a Millennial friend, grew up with a family member steeped in the former sort of end-times focus to which Dr. Svigel is referring, so I invited her to write a guest-post adding her voice to the active end-times conversation (recently seen here, here, and here): The American evangelical church of the 1980s and 90s can…
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Are You Ready for Perseverance in Your Life?
Is something going on somewhere in your country, town, neighborhood, or family that has someone upset, nervous, or in panic mode? It might even be even you! Cancer. Disaster. Job loss. Death. Enemy attack. If you like to plan and control your environment so that your loved ones (and yourself) can rest, relax, and be productive, these interruptions to life are very hard to bear. What do you do? Do you try to escape to something that makes it go away for a while—a feel-good movie, book, or a retreat? But then you get back to the rough-and-tumble of real life and find that whatever is stressing you is still…
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The Greatest of The Big Three is Love
During February we emphasize love. Even though Hallmark has turned love into a marketing campaign Scripture agrees that it is worth celebrating. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 Since the big three* are often grouped together, we can’t speak of love without its companions—faith and hope. The Apostle Paul describes how they intersect when he greets the church at Colossae: We heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. Your faith and love have arisen from the hope laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard…
