Moments in Grace

Photo by Caleb Robinson On the day after the attack on OSU’s campus by a Somali Muslim student, the world is a bit tilted today.  Sometimes the hardest places to see Christ at work is right here at home.  On Saturday OSU was on a national stage, winning their double overtime victory against the University of Michigan; on Monday morning the campus was on lockdown and blood was running in the street.  So maybe there is shock, and maybe life goes on as usual even here, the day after terrorism hits Columbus.  And there could be fear; there could be disbelief.  Maybe we would all like to just pack it up and close it in and pull the curtains tight and pretend that this isn’t happening and it isn’t real and maybe we can just Merry Christmas our way through this.  But fear is never overcome with escapism.  And anger that leads to violence is never overcome with more violence.  And hatred is never overcome with hate.  The only way we ever overcome evil is with good.  And fear is only

Pain can be a great purifier.  It tests us, it tries us, it reveals us to us.  Pain is often the place we find out what we are made of, what we really believe and exactly where our hope is placed. Pain is a mighty instrument of God’s grace. It is in the moments of greatest pain that we see what we are trusting in, where the foundation of our hope is bedded and exactly how deep our trust in God is. In the last year I have experienced more pain than I ever thought possible.  But in the moments of greatest pain I found out one thing:  Jesus is all I need. I found out that “my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ my righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame but only trust in Jesus name.” On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand. For me the words of Psalm 23 became like bread and water.  I prayed them back to God in confession, in desperation, in faith.  I prayed them over and over, usually many, many times a day, meditating on

They say that what ever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That when you go through hardship, suffering, trial and fire, you can come out bitter or better, that the fire, it purifies. That gold, when it is put into the furnace, put under fire, it gives up its impurities, these other things inside of it, they rise to the surface to be skimmed off, leaving behind only the gold. In the Christian life, the heat of battle can purify us. In the midst of the hardest battles we are tested.  We are seen for what we are, all the impurity rising like so much waste coming from hidden places. The battle tests our hearts.  The battle reveals what we are made of.  And when we see it, it provides the opportunity to be purged of what is hindering, to shed our dead weight and become all that we need to be to fight the good fight of faith. We studied American history this year in our homeschool, and sometime in the thaw of winter into spring we studied the Winter of Valley Forge.  We read

Every December it happens.     This monumental, earth shattering strain that is the Christmas season in America.   The activities multiply, the rushing intensifies, the pressure of gifts to buy and events to attend, decorations to put up and food to cook, family to visit, and houses to clean, and as a woman, as a mother, the person who has to plan and orchrestrate the Christmas chaos for a family (in my case, a family with seven children) it can almost put you over the edge.   But as Christians somehow we know that this is wrong.   We know that Christmas is intended to be something other than this stress-inducing, materialistic, month long period of psychosis. This season that was meant to bring us the deepest peace, often brings us the most stress. This time that was meant to shine so much love in our hearts often makes us the most angry. These days that were meant to fill us with so much joy so often bring us pain. Ask me how I know. I have been known

It happened the day before Thanksgiving.     The day my world spun me a little farther off course, sent my faith flying like some planet hurling into the cosmos, sheathed in blackness. I should have been thankful.   I wasn’t very.   I was rocked, spinning, without a compass. Maybe you’ve been there? It was the day the pregnancy test came back positive, announcing the impending arrival of baby number seven into our family and all I could see ahead was suffering. I don’t have easy pregnancies.   They come with pain, months of vomiting and nausea, sometimes heart problems, sometimes high blood pressure, exhaustion, and the last time, I almost died. With my fourth baby I had to wear a heart monitor because my heart just wouldn’t keep up on me.   It raced out of control.   I couldn’t breathe and eat at the same time without difficulty.   I was in a constant state of exhaustion.   Baby number five was almost the same except this time my midwife p

Standing at the sink, soap suds filling my hands I hear a voice behind me.   “Mom, I feel like I don’t have a purpose.   I mean, I can’t do anything well.   I’m not really good at anything, I don’t have any talents or whatever.   Why am I even here?” I know this question all too well, precious child.   In a world that manufactures idols out of ordinary people every day, where people make idols out of themselves, where movies, t.v. and social media continually tempt us to self-aggrandize and self-publicize, and where all it takes is one glance at another person’s facebook page to make you feel that all of life is a competition to be won and you are clearly the biggest loser that there ever was, yes, my child it can be hard to feel like you matter. But I need to tell you something. You matter to God. You are important to God. Because God, the eternal Creator of all things, does not make trash.   He does not make mistakes.   And He