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Only the Best
Tonight as I was feeding my littlest miss and cutting up her broccoli, I paused to consider what I was doing. I think most probably prefer the broccoli flower over the stem, though for me it goes beyond preference. I love broccoli, but I don’t want to eat broccoli stems and it’s crazy annoying to open a bag of broccoli only to see that half the bag is stems. I willingly pay more to avoid this disappointment. Yet, as I was cutting up broccoli for the miss, I was giving her all the flower and eating the stems myself. It’s what I always do. Sure it’s a trivial act of…
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The Cost of a Life Lived in Indulgence
In recent weeks I’ve been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, Little House in the Big Woods with my five year old. Despite the hardships of living off the grid, before there even was a grid, Laura and her family felt content and secure in their snug little cabin with their dog, Jack, standing guard and Pa’s loaded gun over the door. When she tells of her aunt and uncle along with her cousins coming to stay with them for Christmas, there’s no hint of the frustrations endured by the Griswolds in Christmas Vacation, yet they all shared one modest space with no indoor plumbing. On Christmas morning when the children woke…
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Cheerfully Single?
It’s been several years since my last relationship ended and I mourned the death of yet another dream. Sure I cared for him, but the truth is I was grieving the loss of more than just a man. Much of my feeling for him was entangled with grand expectations of what I believed we could be. I wanted love, craved acceptance and hoped to be validated through his desire to commit to me, but after two and half years he chose to leave instead. I was devastated, not just because I got dumped, although that definitely had some punch, but rather because I finally saw I was the problem. I’m…
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Are you Living Like You’re in the Army?
There used to be an ad for the Army that suggested enlisted individuals do more before nine a.m. than most people do all day, with the tagline “Be all that you can be”. I suppose the ad was intended to inspire, but it just made me feel guilty, like I really needed to step up my game if I didn’t want to be like all those other slovenly Americans. It probably sounds a bit ridiculous, but the truth is I’ve always carried this oppressive feeling I had to prove myself, driving me to become this perfectionistic, over-achiever that rarely rested. In my mind, I was singing Ethel Mermen, “Anything you…
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The Spirit of Discouragement
It never ceases to surprise me how quickly I can shift from fully confident and at peace in a situation, to suddenly being buried alive in a plague of misgivings, sometimes in a matter of just moments. Most of us have probably been there, humming down the highway, making good time and carelessly pondering life and all of its quirky nuances with little concern over what lies ahead. The sun is sunny, the sky is radiant blue, and the birds all seem to chirp in unison as they flutter about. Then suddenly it happens. Yes “it” and we’re not talking horror flicks here, though “it” can be a little horrific…
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Three Things God Taught me Through Mowing the Grass
It’s officially summer and even more certain than summer sun, is the confidence we can have that the grass will grow and someone will have to cut it. Until just a few years ago that someone had never been me. It wasn’t until I bought my own home, that I purchased a flashy orange mower and set out on my first grass mowing experience. Those early workouts behind that roaring beast were intimidating, yet exciting. I felt tough and accomplished as I trimmed the steep embankments of my small section of Appalachia. Even in the heat, I didn’t complain. It needed done, and I was the one to do it.…
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Three Reasons Christians Should not Condemn the LBGTQ+ Community and Their Supporters
As the Biden administration amps up its support for the LBGTQ+ community by proclaiming June 2021, as Pride Month, many conservatives are pushing back, infuriated by what feels like another political attack against their Christian values. Businesses creating ads in support of Pride Month have already received backlash from conservatives. Many protest saying that businesses should remain nonpolitical and strive to minimize divisiveness, while providing all customers equal service regardless of race, religion or gender orientation. They wonder what is the point of the ad when there is really nothing new in the content. Haven’t they already been doing this? While others are utterly offended, and threaten to put action to their offense by boycotting businesses that advertise their support for the LBGTQ+ community, based upon…
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Easter Hope
As I sit and relax in the post-Easter rush, I find myself pondering the day and the season. When we’re busy with young children and family, playing Easter Bunny and planning meals and activities, it’s easy to get bogged down in the preparation and miss the opportunity to truly consider what Easter means to us, not what it means to our neighbor or the church, or even our significant other, but what does it mean us? If we understand in our heart what Easter, and more specifically Jesus, means to us we can better evaluate what we’re conveying to others every day through our actions and words. Easter is a…
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Health, Wealth & Prosperity
The blessings of God are real. The Bible is full of stories that tell of God’s presence and blessing upon his faithful servants. We see it throughout the Old Testament, in the lives of the Patriarchs, Joseph, King David, Job and many others. If we read nothing beyond their years of blessing it’s easy to see why many might believe righteous living is always rewarded with perpetual good health, wealth and prosperity, but is this what the Bible really teaches? Sure David became king and Joseph ruled over Egypt, but there was great hardship in their long journey to prosperity. David spent years on the run, eluding the envious wrath…
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Divorce, Remarriage & The Bible
Although we think of divorce as something unique to our modern world, divorce is nearly as old as marriage itself. It is recorded in Ancient Mesopotamia, Rome and Greece, and is addressed in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Before Mosaic Law an Israelite could easily send his wife on her way with nothing, for any reason, and still demand she return if he later changed his mind. It made her undesirable for marriage to others and likely subjected her to a life in poverty if her husband never called her back. Although the Bible is clear that God’s intention for marriage is that it be a…
