We are a chosen race! A royal priesthood! A holy nation! A people for his own possession! But why? Why have we been joined together as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? To proclaim something. But not just anything…
Read More
What do you do when the promises of God invoke pain, not comfort?
Read More
At the heart of the Christmas story are two pregnant women: Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist and Mary who is pregnant with Jesus. But this is no fairy tale for these women. They never got their “designer lives,” the lives they had hoped and planned for themselves.
Read More
Not every adopted child will grieve the loss of their biological family the same way, but every adopted child will feel this loss. And it doesn’t serve them well for us to ignore that reality.
Read More
I found out I was pregnant again. At this point, those two lines were more ominous than hopeful. Pregnancy had brought mostly disappointment. But, it was another chance at starting a family, nonetheless. I survived the first week. The second. The third. And suddenly something dangerous began to happen. I began to hope.
Read More
Taking up our cross to follow Jesus is often a painful experience—but we desperately need it. The invitation to die—to take up our cross and lose our lives for Jesus—is truly an invitation to newness of life, to union with Christ, and to ultimate freedom from sin.
Read More
An orphan comes into a world of sorrow before he is able to comprehend what he lost.But in the tragedy there is an invitation: Who will volunteer to make the orphan's grief their own? Who will step in to parent the parentless? And within our hearts we have found an unrelenting and determined answer: "Send us! We will go!"
Read More
I prayed. I believed. I trusted. I hoped. And in the end, I was disappointed. This December, like many before it, God's response to my prayers is no. No, your son will not be home by Christmas. No, that baby in your womb will not live. No, that marriage will not survive. Dashed hopes and unfulfilled longings are familiar companions to my holiday celebrations. I know I am not alone.
Read More
As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" John 9:1-2 Suffering produces an insatiable desire to blame. Surely there must be some reason why this poor man must suffer all his life without sight. We hunger and thirst for some impetus for it all.
Read More
Grief is the recognition that something has been lost forever. It forces us into an awareness that we have no control to change or fix the situation. What is gone is gone and can never be regained, at least not fully. Grief is an emotion we don't gladle welcome. We keep it at arms length pretending it will go away if we wait long enough. And sometimes it does, but are we really better off for avoiding it?
Read More