Remember that shy kid in your grammar school class? The timid, sensitive kid who was anxious to follow the rules and get good grades? The last kid you’d go to for help if a bully picked on you? That kid was me. Not that I was apathetic; it’s just that my feelings had a hard time finding their way out of my mouth. It’s like I was wired with perpetual inner conflict between my strong values and my distaste for conflict. Does that sound familiar? The one place I found I could pour out my heart without holding back was with pen and paper. A sixth grade essay, a smattering of Continue Reading
Five Reasons You Need “Not Marked”
She was only five years old when it started. Two teenage brothers came to her babysitter’s house and offered to take her for a while. Mary went with them, an innocent lamb. They took her to forests, to ravines, to their own bedroom. They took her again and again. They took her innocence and scarred her soul. But the story does not end there. Mary survived those episodes, along with the pain of rejection, poverty, and dealing with her parents’ addictions. She bravely tells of the redemption she found, and is finding, in Jesus. She tells her story not to be dramatic or sensational, but Continue Reading
How Art Offers a Taste of Things to Come
It was the third movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. Watching the black-clad orchestra play under the precise baton of the conductor, letting my eyes wander to the gilded ceiling of the theater, my soul was soul stirred and my senses full. Somewhere between pizzicato strings tiptoeing me through imaginary green meadows and a crescendo that lifted me heavenward, it hit me. Cities are important. They are centers of culture, gathering places of artists and architects, of scientists and businessmen. Cities display the best and brightest achievements of man. And God loves cities. He Continue Reading
Increase Your Joy This Thanksgiving
Our children are some of the best gifts we will ever receive … but we often miss the joy that could be ours as parents. As I tried on clothes in the changing rooms of a department store recently, I couldn’t help but tune in to the conversation between a mother and little girl in a nearby stall. “Oh, come on. Stop doing that…I’m not going to dress you for the rest of your life, you know. Don’t do it that way. Oh, hurry up. I told you, stop that!” were some tidbits from Mom. Predictably, the little girl’s replies to her irate mother became more defensive and high-pitched every minute. “I’m Continue Reading