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Life in the Rearview Mirror
There’s nothing normal as we head toward the end of 2020. We long for “normal.” We want things to go back to the way they were in February 2020, or October 2019, because no matter how hard things were then, at least we understood our known normal.
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Your Life through the Keyhole
Have you ever seen a really old door on a house or stone wall with the thick iron hardware that creeks every time it opens? Back in the day, big heavy doors stood as formidable barriers that couldn’t be breached by force. Yet many of these doors were no match for prying eyes. The huge iron keys required to unlock the latches were so wide that you could actually put your eye up to the keyhole and look through to the other side. Nowadays we have small metal slits for slender keys, and sometimes only touch pads, so we can’t peer through keyholes to catch a glimpse of something beyond.…
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Giving Thanks for Everything
Today, some of us will gather around festive tables, eating our fill of roasted turkey, whipped potatoes, and pumpkin pie. It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, and so we pause today to celebrate —to give thanks—for a year filled with beautiful and hard things. But it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Perhaps there’s a chair at our table sitting empty this year. There’s a longing within us that a smile can’t dull. Maybe there’s financial stress that the holidays only highlight. A festive tablescape and full stomach may make us feel good for a moment, but they cannot fix the hurts and heartaches that we often carry with us…
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Around the Table: Why Gathering Matters
Gathering is nothing new. All throughout sacred history, women and men have been gathering around tables to celebrate, reflect, feast, and remember. From Israel’s inception the sacrificial system ushered people into God’s presence and then around a table as they often enjoyed a meal as part of their offerings and festivals. In the book of Ruth, Boaz sat around the table with his workers, inviting an unknown Moabite woman to eat of his bread. In Psalms David celebrated God’s banquet table. And in the New Testament, Jesus gathered around tables with friends and sinners, and then he instituted his memorial supper around over the Passover meal as he and…
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Gratitude Challenge
Each year in October the social media community challenges itself to post, share and declare one gratitude per day for 40 days. From what I understand, the effort started eight years ago by Tisha Poncia, who blogs at On the Wings of Gratitude. Usually, I shrug away from social media challenges. However, the more I thought about this one, the more I realized, I needed to do this. Although I didn’t post it anywhere, I thought I’d share my first seven days with you. Day 1: Toilets. I’m thankful for toilets—indoor plumbing, I should say. The first five years of my life, we had an outhouse. Words…
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Life with a New Liver
Meet Lisa. She’s a dear friend, coach’s wife, lover of Africa, and most recently, a liver transplant survivor. Her story will challenge you to live each day more fully. “We’ll be there in 7 minutes.” Those are the last words I remember from my care flight. Although I can’t recall much from the week of February 2, 2014, I realize God performed a miracle in my life. On Sunday afternoon, I went in for a routine gallbladder removal—or so I thought—but God had different plans. After the surgery, my general surgeon was concerned about my liver. An MRI revealed that I had developed a rare liver condition called Budd Chiari.…
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In the Scope of Eternity. . .
There’s a piece of my calligraphy in our bathroom, where it’s been for many years in a place where my sons would see it (over the commode!), of one of life’s most important questions: “In the scope of eternity, what does this matter?” This simple question can create a lens or filter through which we can assign value and importance to our experiences. It helps us know if something is worth getting upset about or not. If it’s not going to matter two weeks from now, much less in eternity, let it go. Many of our stressors would be less stressful if we would just put them in perspective. Both…
