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This Is Advent | The Stretched Out Threads of Grace
The tree is in the corner of our living room. Its lights are bright and the ornaments are high so a certain little boy doesn’t mess with them. I splurged on embroidered stockings last year and they hang off the blanket ladder to the right of the tree. All gifts have been ordered and wrapped and are piled under and around the broad artificial branches. During this time of Advent, a spirit of uneasiness has lingered and I just can’t quite shake it. One morning I sat by the tree with the twinkling lights and asked myself the hard questions. I saw all the gifts and the unease rose to…
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My Great-Grandfather’s Well | A Legacy of Faith
The Bible sits on one of my mom’s bookshelves. It’s red, normal looking. Doesn’t have an interesting design on the cover. Doesn’t even have a name imprinted on the lower corner. I was ten when he died. My great-grandpa on my mom’s side. She asked to have this particular Bible after his death. Inside the cover is a pamphlet from when he and my great-grandma drove her to college for the first time. It may be non-special to look at, this red book, but it’s very special to her. Blue pen marks mar the otherwise pristine thin pages. They tell a story, that shaky script, of demons fought, of spiritual…
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Why Journaling Matters
It was my sixth Christmas when I got my first journal. It was green and had a praying angel on the cover. Even though the pages would be penned in my very large learning-to-write characters and the greatest climax it ever saw was the frustration to be getting a second brother instead of a long-awaited sister; it would spark in me a passion. I wouldn’t become part of God’s family for another year and I wouldn’t fully follow him for years after that – but that angel covered book, and the countless ones I filled after, would be a tool. A tool God gave me to harness the words within.…
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Pitching My Tent
I sighed. “Back to reality,” I said as we turned off the highway and down the road that led to our house. The car stopped and Hawk shot a look over to me, “Reality is real life. It’s our life.” The way he said it stuck with me. I thought it over as we passed the green fields, the cows in the pasture taking refuge from the sun in the pond and under the shady trees. It wasn’t the beach, where we had just returned, but it was home. I was already feeling the post vacation woes, reflecting on a week of no responsibility, a week of no work – a…
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Here’s My Heart
I’ve always loved the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Maybe because I see all too often my own wandering heart despite my desire to have it bound to Christ. However, only recently have I really come to appreciate the deep theology tucked within the lyrics penned by Robert Robinson (1735-1790). Come, thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. 2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by thy help I’m come;…
