While looking at greeting cards today, my eyes fell upon a pale green one with an image of wispy white trees and glittery orange flowers.  Its golden scripted message, so bittersweet, reminded me that ‘when the sun sets in one place it rises in another’. How is it that this card has travelled through time and place to reach me right where I am? Last year a close friend of mine moved half-way across the globe.  We talk on the phone now, before I go to sleep and after she wakes up.  I miss her real presence, and it feels strange to be out of sync with her. But it’s comforting, in the darkness he ..read more

I’ve been talking with a friend about his upcoming move in February, and the anxiety he’s been feeling.   Today he told me that he’s now excited about going.  I asked him what changed. “Someone told me to think of the move as a clean slate, a chance to reinvent myself.” Hearing that made me feel so sad, because I don’t want him to change.  My comfort in February will be in knowing that, somewhere out there, he will go on being the person I have come to know and care for.  I like him just the way he is, and I told him so. By the look on his face, I’m guessing he had no idea how highly I favored ..read more

Trust God.  It sounds so simple. But what does it mean?  What does trusting God look like?  Why is it so hard, sometimes? Salvation required nothing of me.  Jesus did everything needed for me to be saved, on the Cross long ago. Faith is also a gift from God, and His work in me.  I hear His Word and, by the power of His Spirit, I believe.  This faith that God gives me will not fail me in the end. Trust, though… Trust is my response to the situation at hand, whatever that may be.  Should I ‘wait and see’ or ‘act now’?  Can I stay patient and calm, or will I give in to anxiety and worry?  (The Lo ..read more

“There is no difference,” he reads aloud from your Bible, as he takes a seat in the chair you’ve pulled out from the table.  Your hand shakes, as you pour coffee into the cup you’ve placed before him. “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he continues reading.  He takes a sip of the steaming brew.  Then he closes your Bible and, leaning toward you, catches your downcast eyes and whispers, “You’re no different.” After a short silence, he sits back in the chair and asks if you have cookies. He’s right! You’re no different, and you know it.  Your cheeks flush with shame as yo ..read more

Is it just me, or do you also find that you have some of the most interesting conversations at the grocery store?  And even when you wouldn’t think it possible, like the day I ran in to buy apples and found a great lull in shoppers. “Perfect,” I thought, “I don’t have to talk with anyone, just get in and out and back to my day.” When I arrived at the checkout, the cashier was reading the newspaper. “Any good news?” I asked him as I placed my apples on the conveyor belt. “No, there’s never good news in here,” he replied as he keyed the apple code into the register and pushed the fruit down the ..read more

Before moving into her college dorm this year, my younger daughter tidied her bedroom here at home.  It was time to let go of some things.  Looking through her shelf of books, she found one about unlikely animal friendships (monkeys and kittens, elephants and dogs, and the like).  Paging through it one last time with her reminded me of an unlikely friendship of my own, with an elderly neighbor. Elliot lived in a little blue house and tended to the flowering perennials that populated his back yard and peeked through the fence into mine.  What mattered more than our differences – his worn work c ..read more

People have given me decorative journals as gifts, and I take them down from my closet shelf from time to time, dust them off and admire them.  The covers are so beautiful, but I especially love all those crisp, blank pages just waiting to be filled, so full of promise.  Someday their wait will be over, when I have more time, when I have something journal-worthy to write about, when my handwriting no longer reflects my stress level but rather a new-found, serene peace of mind and body… I do have two ‘garden journals’ (lined composition notebooks) which I have actually made marks in.  One dates ..read more

Often the help we ask of God in prayer coincides with the work He is already doing in us, and it rarely looks like what we imagined it would or should. It’s all traffic cones and construction mess, and the unavoidable noise, delays and detours that result.  If we were only able to make the connection at the time, between what we originally prayed for and what is presently going on in our lives, we might rise up in inexpressible awe and wonder at the work God is doing in us.  Most often we don’t recognize His hand in our discomfort.  If we did, some of us might actually sink into regret of ever ..read more

“Is your faith your anchor?” my friend asked me recently. Her question is a vivid reminder to me that yes, when trouble and storm toss me around my faith keeps me secure.  Faith in my Savior Jesus Christ steadies me at all times. But what does that anchor look like, exactly? The pastor of my church, and many pastors, welcome people attending worship services with the words, “Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  It’s an ancient and time-honored way for Christians to greet one another.  The Apostle Paul used it in his Epistle letters to the early Christi ..read more

After sitting for a while on her eggs, so full of the promise of new life, the female Cerulean Warbler tucks her wings close to her body and hops from her tree nest into a kind of free fall.  At a certain point in her rapid descent through the air, just before all hope is lost, she suddenly spreads her wings and glides. We never should have doubted her. With God’s promise of salvation before him, Jesus took our sin upon himself on the Cross and descended fully into death in our place.  Then, just as all hope of the fulfillment of that promise seemed lost, Jesus surprised everyone by rising aga ..read more