Moments in Grace

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 F...

The path around the lake was a thing of beauty, blue sky blazing overhead in the crisp fall air. And I almost missed this.   In fact I have missed this over and over again for so many years. But not this time. The kids and I walk, hunters of beauty birthing, curious wanderings. We handle our field guides and nature notebooks like the novices we are but this glory can’t be missed even by the most ineffectual of us.   “Look! Look! A tree frog!” In Ohio, this is not a common sight and we stare in wonder. “Look at that caterpillar! It’s all white and fuzzy!” “Let’s identify that tree over there,” I say.   We walk, drinking in the splendor and I think, when was it that I had stopped believing this was possible? Faith is always the first step to joy. And it has been my doubt, my worries that have kept me wearied and burdened for far too long. “Can your worries add a single moment to your life?” ...

The sun was shining into my windshield like glory flashes as I made the commute down to the University.   I was on my way to the Bible study for international moms and this was week two.   And I was trying to pray.   My mind was wandering over last week’s lesson, our first group, and my baptism by fire.   I had been asked to lead the study the very first week of the group and I had, but I was feeling in a word, inadequate.     The group is made up of mothers from all over the world, some brand new to our country, most only here for a year or two at most.   About half to three-fourths are believers and the rest are seekers, women who want to understand the Bible and who God is but who have little to no spiritual experience with Christianity.   And these women ask difficult questions.   The kind that make you want to hide under a rock because you are not sure that you can possibly explain what they are asking...

“You read me my Bible, Mommy?”   He asks this same question every single day sometimes several times a day, this three year old voice chirps like a baby bird hungering for more.   He carries his Bible everywhere and during morning family devotions he sits with his Bible storybook trying to follow along with the others. Each time I ask a question about any passage in the Bible that we have just read he says, “I know, I know!   Jesus die on the cross?” Yes, I say, Jesus did die on the cross for our sins. But this day as we are sitting in the afternoon sunlight, he asks for the story in his Bible storybook with the picture of the cave with the stone that is rolled away. First, we have to read the story of the cross, I say. So we do.   When we get to the picture of the cross, he knows this one by heart. “Jesus die on cross!   Jesus die on cross!   For us! See, see!” “Yes,” I say with a smile, “he did, but that is not the en...

On the day that the international mom’s Bible study starts up, I’m there with my own six week old son, strapped to my chest like I’m Sacagawea ascending the mountain with Lewis and Clark.     Maybe I feel a little like her, this woman who embraced these visitors to her nation and showed them the way to map out a new land.   And isn’t that what we’re here to do, to study the map leading to new life?   Life in Christ is what we are seeking, and these, my fellow sojourners, are looking for new and better Land and I don’t mean America.   There is a map to Heaven, and it is found in this book.  The Bible isn't just for Sundays.  The Bible is your everyday map and who really wants to walk this wild world without one? As I look around the table at these faces, breathtaking beauty, I catch a glimpse of wonder, Heaven touching earth.  Because when we behold Heaven this is what we are going to see: people of every skin color, language, nat...

My momma always told me, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Yeah, well, I guess lately I’ve taken that to heart. I haven’t been able to write, to talk, to process much because the ugly truth is, I think I’ve been afraid if I opened my mouth, not too much nice was going to come out.   The ugly truth is, sometimes you can struggle through and put on a brave smile and hold back the spewing lava behind your eyes but it still burns you up from the inside.   It still burns.   Bitterness never leads to betterness. And here I am, this very, very pregnant mama, pregnant with this seventh baby, skin splitting ready,   any day now, ready, and feeling very unready to actually deliver this most precious cargo into the light of this broken world.   Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last nine months contemplating whether his delivery day will be my dying day.   And sure, I shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts, I shouldn’t be focusin...

So the kid down the street, the teenager we bring to church, he punches my son in the face….again. And this kid with no mother, and hardly a father, this kid who gets suspended from school at the drop of a hat because he….well, he punches everyone in the face who gets in his way, and how do you keep reaching the lost and the broken when they beat you up over and over again? This dilemma is not new. This is the struggle of every person who has ever set out to love lost and broken people in Jesus' name. Sometimes you get your nose bloodied. Sometimes you get wounded, because hurting people will hurt you .   It is not a matter of maybe.   It is only a matter of when and how.   It doesn’t mean that it is not hard.   Oh, yes it will be hard to love unlovely people.   It will be painful.   It will cost you something.   It will be ugly at times.   You will wonder if it is worth it.   You will want to quit. You will ...