No sticks or stones have broken my bones, but words have surely hurt me. And I’ve never broken bones with sticks and stones, but surely I have hurt with words. Maybe it was easy in kindergarten to chant them away with a catchy limerick, but, it becomes harder as we grow and find that there […]
When You’re Tempted to Tempt Temptation
I find myself in an odd situation at this point in life: looking for a suitable job. Three years out of “early retirement” from AT&T, with two books behind me and The Guest House established, I am in an odd position that seems best described as between doors. So many have closed behind me to make me […]
Beyond Chikin and Kissin’ are People in Pain
Chicken sandwich wrappers are headed to the landfill in record numbers. Digestive juices have done their duty. Thousands upon thousands of waffle fries have worked their way into the calorie count. And it’s Thursday and we’re hungry again. Thousands of men and women who struggle with sexual identity, poised between the pain of the pull, […]
You Don’t Need Permission to Change
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. — Matthew 7:7-8 It was in a summer in the ’60s in the steamy hot apartment-laden suburb […]
The Summer of the Bully in the Barn
He is jealous for me Loves like a hurricane I am a tree Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy When all of a sudden I am unaware of these Afflictions eclipsed by glory And I realize just how beautiful you are and How great Your affections are for me — John […]
Lead Us Not Into Confusion
If we had it to do all over again We’d make so much better decisions. Only opening doors we should enter in Building lives without all the pretensions. With character above reproaching, And no reason to second-guess, With this sin no longer encroaching Doing nothing we need to confess. And, if they had the chance to redo […]
President Obama Takes Brokenness to the Bank
“This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and she, (Michelle) you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat […]
“At the Statue of Jesus, Turn Left”
As more decades descend upon my timeline, my confusion about the perfect randomness of God, as He demonstrates His all-knowingness, does not unravel, but remains tightly wound, safely bound by trust. I often do not know how or why His will is what it is, and my clarity remains unclear on the entire “God allows” […]
At the Corner of Grace and Gray
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. — Matthew 5:15 God created minds . . . and people think pure and impure thoughts God created hearts . . . and people love and hurt. God […]
The Line Between Almost and Always
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And […]
Dear Christian: You’re Scaring Them to Death
Sometimes the distances between what people know of you . . . and what they think of you . . . and what you know of yourself . . . and what you think of yourself . . . and what is true of all of this knowledge and all of these thoughts when sifted […]
A Bridge Between Night and Day
In the soft moonlight of midnight, shadows dancing against the baby-blue wall of the nursery from a cottonwood tree moving gently in the nighttime breeze, it is party time. The baby is awake and searching for his toes, his pacifier, his blanket, his mommy or his daddy. He is ready for his day to begin; he […]