If you’re not a Hebrew scholar, this says “Shabbat shalom,” or Sabbath peace. All of my young life, Sundays weren’t synonymous with peace, per se. More like pure tedium. A test of patience. Endurance was required to go to church and get through the dullness until I had my own …
This is one of the strangest times in my life because I vacillate daily between being a gracious listener to others’ opinions and wanting to blast back. So far I haven’t succombed to the latter, but in a time when so many people are speaking up caustically, I am strongly …
About 25 years ago, I decided to do a summer job that involved some very unusual things. First, a lot of us college students from California carpooled across the country to Nashville, Tennessee, to go to a sales school. That one-week “school” taught us how to sell books door-to-door on …
I liked school. I liked learning. And I liked getting As. In high school, I got As without doing some of the work I disliked. (Sadly.) In English, for example, though I liked all of the other work we did, as tedious as some of it was (diagramming sentences, for …
One of the worst emotional choices I can make these days is deciding to open Facebook. I used to go there now and then to see how friends were doing and what people’s thoughts about different things were. Now, the atmosphere is so hyperinflamed that I can feel sickened after …
Scriptures I love, that evoke the idea of a loving God: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the …
I volunteered our family to do the “kids’ minute” on this week’s online church service… And here are the bloopers… Here’s the whole service…
I don’t like labels. I only use this word to get to the point of the matter right away. Here’s my point. Would a person ever walk one of the hardest paths in life because it was interesting or fun? No. According to the bible, we are not to judge …
A saw a man named Gary Haugen speak one time and I’ll never forget it. Gary quit his job as an attorney for the US Department of Justice when he realized that perhaps there was no one out there taking the risk of rescuing innocent children enslaved in the sex …
Our son is starting to worry about grown-man issues like having to pay taxes someday and doing the amount of homework each night that college demands. I remember when, as a girl, I used to worry about things I didn’t think I could handle, like passing a baby out of …
There’s enough loneliness in the world for single people and widows. But couples are not meant to be lonely. That’s why they have each other. I feel very strongly about this loneliness thing. I’ve been there. For years. While married. A spouse may not realize how immobilized their other half …
It doesn’t matter whether you go to a beautifully-presented megachurch service with worship music that rocks the house and sends chills up your spine like nothing else can, a rigidly rote service that leaves you feeling uptight and unfed, or a sleepy service that makes you doze. No church service …
Christian radio music has never been my thing. I tried. Hard. I started reading the bible at 29, I got married at 30, and we had our first child when I was 31. When I started an intentional journey to follow God’s guidance, I immediately began to examine all of …
I love emotion. I love happy. I love love. When you’re in a community of Christians, you sometimes hear that someone “heard” God speak to them. You often hear people say they “love” the Lord. And it’s common for people to talk of their “relationship” with God. I’m here to …
In this phase of my life, I was loving church, loving studying the bible, loving the weekly women’s bible study, and loving the fact that I had a manual for life. I felt released from having to figure out how to live – it was all there in the book. …
I went home that night feeling giddy. He told me to start looking at rings on the Internet so he could get an idea of what I liked. I was thinking beach glass but he wanted something a little more than that for me. (I still like the beach glass …
My favorite scripture is three simple words: “Love never fails.” It’s in 1 Corinthians 13, after the paragraph you usually hear at weddings: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast…” It may be three simple words but it’s anything but shallow. Sure, love comes …
Before I read the bible, Sundays were duplicate Saturdays. Fun days. Do-anything days. Ever since reading the bible, Sunday has become my least favorite day of the week once I get home from church. This is why… The fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments says the following: “Remember the Sabbath day …
But wait a minute. I had started dating someone, then all of a sudden I was studying Jesus. Would this new relationship in my life be tied to what I ultimately decided I thought of Christianity after studying it thoroughly? I loved sitting around, talking about the bible. But would …
The next day, he called and asked if I’d like to go to church with him on Sunday. I remember he wanted to make sure I felt no pressure about it. An emphatic “YES!” was my answer. “Really?!” He was shocked that I was so eager to go. He had …
In 2009, when our son was three and still taking naps in the rocker with me, I was thinking a lot about missionaries around the world. They often came to speak at our church when they were in town, and they were the true celebrities in my mind, aside from …
I always figured I’d wait until marriage. That was the expectation, and I was glad for it. I couldn’t imagine being naked in front of anyone! How things change when you go off to college and meet your knight in shining armor – “the one.” I went from puritan to …
I always loved listening to people play guitar. I’m so giddy about having a family now who can play for me! One of my dad’s favorite songs, How Great Thou Art, four years ago… Guitar and ukulele… Guitar and guitar… And a last one for the road, Oceans on electric …
Teenagers and college kids, every form of media is telling you about love. You don’t turn on the radio and hear songs about riding horses or flying drones. You don’t see teen magazines in the store with articles about identifying birds or fixing engines. No. Everything you hear and see …
I absolutely loved growing up in a big family, perhaps because I came along so much later. No arguments, no sibling rivalry, no jealousy, all fun. I was basically born into a party already happening. I had four siblings from 11-16 who held and hugged me, rocked and rolled me. …
Teenage (and college) guys, when a girl says she just wants to be friends, take her up on it. If she’s anything like I was, she’s not yet comfortable articulating the details behind that statement. Perhaps some girls say it to soften a blow when breaking up, but when I …
I am the fifth of five children, thanks to Catholic procreation. I wouldn’t be here if contraceptives had anything to do with it. Thank God! (I don’t say that here for political reasons relating to the whole abortion issue, but simply in relief that I’m alive!) My devout mother believed …
My mom was proposed to five times before saying yes. How does that happen? Did she seriously lead a bunch of guys on, then dash their dreams? Were things a little more flippant back then, and you asked a girl to marry you on the second date? My mom was …
I hated church. My mom made us go every Sunday of our lives until we were 18. There was no way out of it. Believe me, I tried. I don’t think any of us were lucky enough to get sick on Sunday. It was the monotony of it all. I …
