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Sorrow and Love: Finding God’s Presence in Our Pain
About once a decade, Easter or Resurrection Sunday falls on my birthday. This year is one of those times, and last month brought me closer to Jesus’ wounded side through some painful experiences. I’ll share just one of them here for now. What began as a beautiful ski trip to Beech Mountain ended in the emergency room. On day two, I crashed on the slopes and dislocated my shoulder. The pain was brutal. Although I hope you’ve never dislocated your shoulder, you more than likely have your own pain you could share. Pain takes many forms whether physical or emotional, and the two often interconnect. What I learned from last…
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God Cares for You
The other night, I woke up at 4 am, wide away and overcome with a sense of anxiety. It wasn’t a panic attack, but my heart wasn’t buying my head’s coaxing that everything was fine and to go back to sleep. Finally, I tossed off the covers and retreated to my quiet place. Opening the Psalms, I started reading in the last place I had left off and just prayed that the words would soak into my insecure soul. The enemy was feeding me lies: You’ll never be enough. You’re not doing a good job. A personal story Transparency moment: I’m an easy-going person who finds pleasure in life’s simple…
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Our Maker’s Metronome
Click, click, click. Beep, beep, beep. That metronome used to drive me crazy as a beginning piano student. If you play piano (or some other instrument), maybe that little device was the bane of your early musical years, too. Of course, my teacher had my best interests at heart, and thanks to her persistence and the nagging of that metronome, my timing improved. All along, I knew its steady beat was right, but I still resented it. Am I that way with God’s timing? Are you? We might say we believe His ways are best, but truthfully, we’d rather speed up the tempo. However, when we rush ahead of God,…
