In my daily reading material I hear a lot about gratitude lately. People have even studied it scientifically, observing the positive effect of thankfulness on the biochemistry of the brain. Added to all the anecdotal evidence, it’s an easy sell to say that it’s good for humans to be appreciative.
Recently I read an interview of author Seth Godin,…..
While we readily acknowledge love as the most powerful force in the universe, we often discount the vulnerability of loving.
Who of us has not felt the frustration of loving someone so much, being so sure we know what is best for him or her, and then not being able to “fix” the problem and “make” the beloved see…..
Is there anything worse than being sick with a dreadful cold or flu and realizing you can’t stay in bed?
Illness doesn’t exempt us from our responsibilities and at the very least we have to find someone to take our place if we can’t show up for work or care for children.
I can remember times as a young…..
When we read Exodus’s story of Israel’s flight into the desert, we usually observe the fickleness of the Hebrews – how they praise God one minute and turn around and complain the next. But when we find ourselves in our own spiritual wilderness period, it’s pretty easy to find things to grouse about.
In the first place,…..
Trust is valuable. We want people we trust and aspire to being trustworthy.
Yet, like so many precious things, it’s fragile. Once broken, it’s challenging to reassemble.
Such a valuable commodity predictably requires delicacy. Yet when we speak of building trust, we forget that it can also be a pretty messy and graceless process.
Let’s go back to Exodus……
I spent a lot of my day recently jumping through bureaucratic hoops. I had calls to make where I listened to a lot of music, forms to fill out online that didn’t work the first time and had to be re-entered, and then I had to take notes and make copies documenting all my progress so that I wouldn’t lose…..
How do we cope with the down times in our lives? Where should we turn when we feel spiritually dry, when nothing in our lives feels productive, and circumstances conspire to discourage us from actions we thought were important?
In short, what can we do when we’re “spiritually” depressed?
It’s in these times that I think the Old Testament provides our…..
Often we forget to take note of how many women led the early evangelism of Christianity. Luke mentions Lydia briefly as one of the first converts in Philippi in Acts 16:14-15, 40. I base this imagining on that account as well as Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
Though my husband and I were originally from Thyatira in Asia Minor, we…..
In celebration of Pentecost, an imagining of Philip, the Evangelist following his story in Acts 6:5-8:40 and 21:8-9.
I was scared too – after they killed Stephen. We understood that some people inevitably resist change. What we hadn’t counted on was their willingness to defend their precious status quo with stones.
You might scoff because you know the Master…..
Whether we admit it or not, most of us want to believe in heaven as the place we go when we die. Its notion that there we will live “happily ever after” echoes our primal fairy tale mentality.
Because of this, some people doubt the Easter story of Jesus’s resurrection as simply “too good to be true.” They wonder…..