I’ll be honest, I’m not a sports fan. I know which way a ball is supposed to go, but that’s about it. My husband, on the other hand, loves the games. If I’m sitting with him while he’s watching one, I want to know about the players’ families, where they’re from, and other nonsensical information that has nothing to do with the game. Read more…
When my husband, Steve, was in high school, he worked various jobs and was notoriously frugal. His twin brother, Dan, and their best friend, Mike, were not quite as thrifty. Dan and Mike had odd jobs from time to time—flipping hamburgers at the Wild Pig being the most infamous. But their funds disappeared as quickly as they got them. Steve, Read more…
I can do it. No, I can’t. Yes, I can. No, I can’t.
Have you ever had that conversation with yourself? You feel like God is calling you to reach out to someone, start a new venture, teach a Bible study, write a book, share a story about your past that you’ve never shared before. But then your fear shouts at your faith to keep quiet. Read more…
I walked to the mailbox and then to the recycler. Don’t need this one, or this one, or this one I whispered as I dropped the shiny flyers in the red box.
I don’t know about you, but I get tired of slick ads for things I don’t need and junk mail from services I don’t want. Read more…
Have you ever felt that something done to you or done through you disqualified you from doing great things for God? Let me tell you a story about when I felt sooooo disqualified.
My son, Steven, was in the ninth grade when I turned in the manuscript for my book, Being a Great Mom, Raising Great Kids. Read more…
Have you ever felt stuck in your faith? Like you can’t seem to grow any deeper? Stand any stronger? Believe any better? I know I have.
Sometimes I feel like a trapeze artist who’s stuck hanging over the vast expanse in a circus tent, wondering why I can’t fly through the spiritual life with the greatest of ease like so many others seem to. Read more…
I remember as a little girl, hiding under the covers of my bed, trying to shut out my parents’ yelling and screaming in the next room. I heard bad words. I didn’t know what some of them meant, but I did know how they made me feel. Dirty. The next morning, I awoke to the aftermath of the night’s tirade—Mom’s black eye, Read more…
Have you ever dealt with rejection? I have. And it’s so hard. I remember one night…
I went to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and had a big ole pity party. Once again, I had been rejected…come in second place…told I wasn’t quite what “they” were looking for. The scarlet letter loomed large. It wasn’t an A like Hester Prynne’s in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book I had to read in high school, Read more…
Is there anything in your life that causes you to slump? Maybe not physically…but emotionally?
When my brother was a teenager, my mother used to threaten him when he hunched over at the dinner table. “If you don’t sit up,” she would say, “I’m going to buy you a back brace from Sears.” I don’t even know if Sears made back braces then, Read more…
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14 NIV).
Do you remember the first Rocky movie? (I just looked it up and there have been eight.) In the very first film about the Italian Stallion, Read more…