My friend is married. In a flood of mixed emotions, I found myself back at the essential question I posed in my last blog: Do I believe that there is more happiness in following Jesus than in being married? I found myself crying to God with the words of the father of the possessed boy... Continue Reading →
Asking All the Wrong Questions
I carry around this grief inside that I usually manage to keep tamped down. It crops up sometimes when I see pregnant women or babies, or when people not much older than me talk about their children getting married and having children of their own. It is all so normal for everyone else. At forty-five,... Continue Reading →
Who’s Going to Take Care of my Stuff?
I have always been a writer and, for much of my life, I have kept everything I have written. In my closet are boxes of notebooks and folders. I have papers written for classes in high school and college, as well as ‘poetry’ from as far back as junior high. When I was a teenager,... Continue Reading →
Book Review: Married in 12 Months or Less
A book was given to me by a friend at church, who had it in a manilla envelope so that no one could see the title. She was embarrassed, but I was happy to know that I have a friend who cares and wants to help me. When I first saw the title, I thought,... Continue Reading →
Desperate Pursuit
Somewhere I must have stopped praying for a husband because when I caught myself pleading with God, recently, it felt as though I had regressed. It was all at once as though my faith was stronger because I was taking it to Him, but weaker that I wasn’t believing that He was enough. What is... Continue Reading →
Sinking Friendship
You make decisions, and you live with them. Some decisions make particularly bad roommates. I have not been a good friend. I long for close relationships in my life, but I have all but thrown out the ones I had when I was younger. The people who knew me well twenty-some years ago, don’t know... Continue Reading →
Don’t Look Back
Early in February, I read through Hebrews in The One Year Bible. I am not reading it on the book’s schedule, but I always seem to be on God’s schedule. I enjoyed reading Hebrews 11, so I decided to try to memorize it. It is a great way to meditate on Scripture. As I commit... Continue Reading →
Win, Lose, or Quit
In my first couple of years at the Coast Guard Academy, the athletic director was Chuck Mills. I still remember something he said at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes breakfast: “There are only two ways to stop losing: win or quit.” I quoted that on my year book page when I graduated. I was always... Continue Reading →
Hidden Life
Somewhere along the path, I side-stepped having a normal life. I didn’t do it on purpose, and I don’t even know how it happened. Sometimes I think that if I could figure out where I went wrong, I might be able to do something to change it. Of course, there is really no such thing... Continue Reading →