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 →
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 →
The Glass is Not Half-Full
We’ve all heard it said that some people look at the glass as half-empty and others see the same glass as half-full. This week, I was thinking about where the Christ-follower should fit into this spectrum. The words from Psalms 23:5 popped into my head: “My cup overflows.” Early in the week, I was reading... Continue Reading →
Attitude of Joy
One of the greatest gifts I have been given is being taught by my pastor that God means for us to live with joy. I spent a lot of years allowing my disappointment with life to be my focus. To some degree, I behaved as a victim of my circumstances rather than as a victor... Continue Reading →
Window Screens and Simple Blessings
This summer, I have had to learn to ‘let myself off the hook.’ My to-do list constantly exceeds my capacity to accomplish tasks, and I had to make a choice: I could be upset and stressed out about what I wasn’t getting done, or I could find peace with what I was able to do.... Continue Reading →
200th Post: ‘Traded Dreams’
I’ve always been a writer. When I was young, I wanted to be a novelist; specifically, I wanted to write literature. In my teens and early twenties, I wrote a lot of poetry. In hindsight, it wasn’t very good. My senior year in college, I took a creative writing class and wrote some short stories.... Continue Reading →