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 out seems as vast as the entire universe. I wonder if God didn't just create all the stars and solar systems for a practice run, knowing that the humans-to-come would be much more difficult to put into motion and save from colliding. We don't orbit well. We want to be the center of our own universe; we choose carefully who gets into our … [Read more...] about Dear Christian: You’re Scaring Them to Death
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 wants to explore. Yes . . . in the soft moonlight of midnight. Smiling, cooing, laughing. In the first 10 years of our marriage, Lisa and I had five babies: four boys and then, a daughter. It was common among them to go through a period when they would have their nights and days … [Read more...] about A Bridge Between Night and Day
Remember Who You Are
God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Numbers 23:19 Flee. Run. Hide. Seek. Turn. Emerge. Rinse and repeat? For too many people, life has become an extended game of playground freeze tag. There they stand, scattered around like trees in winter, fixed and flash-frozen either as they have been proclaimed to be by someone more righteous, or as they in their brokenness project themselves to be, perhaps in a state of readiness to run at the first approach . . . or in … [Read more...] about Remember Who You Are
The Life We Can’t Erase
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” – Revelation 21:5 I wish -- though I don't believe in wishes -- that I could take a number two pencil and write down on a blue-lined piece of three-hole-punched notebook paper the moments of my life, label it "draft," study it a bit, and then turn the pencil around to the pink side -- the eraser -- and smudge away forever a line here and there . . . many lines, major smudges. Study it a bit more, swipe away with my hand the little black rubber crumbles, dirty from the mix of pink eraser and pencil lead, onto the … [Read more...] about The Life We Can’t Erase
And Still We Try to Reason Why
It’s okay to question why. It’s okay to even cry. Don’t ever hesitate to try. God will answer; He won’t lie. There’s no answer He won’t know. There’s no place He will not go. There’s no path He will not show. God will answer; He loves you so. No question lies within your mind. That God cannot in love unwind. That’s how we’ve all been so designed. To seek from Him what we can’t find. In His answers lies our peace. In His words, we find release. Our search can end, our troubles cease. It all begins with show me . . . please. It’s okay to question why. It’s okay to even … [Read more...] about And Still We Try to Reason Why
Why We Shouldn’t Argue About Sex
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” -- Matthew 22:36-40 Christians do few things worse than share the love of Christ and the reality of healing and forgiveness with the sexually-disses among us. That would be the disoriented, the disappointed, the disturbed and the roundly discussed and often … [Read more...] about Why We Shouldn’t Argue About Sex
Wait for the Whisper
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. -- Isaiah 40:30-31 The man slept. Finally. His body had pleaded; his mind had relented; his spirit was depleted and his heart had retreated, so he slept. It was restless, not restful, and the dreams were not sweet, but instead added to the eventual misery of awakening, leaving him already tired upon rising. The few things he did not constantly replay while … [Read more...] about Wait for the Whisper
The New Math of Forgiveness
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” -- Luke 23:34 Nothing hurts like hurting about hurts that make you hurt others. What a compound of pain that leads us to do unto others because something was done unto us and we've come all undone over it. So, we hurt and we cry and we ask ourselves why. And we hide and we run and we pray and we seek and we rise and we walk and we declare ourselves done. And then we see . . . we're not. For the carnage lies along the trail we yearn to leave behind and it calls out to us, to which we can only, in exhaustion … [Read more...] about The New Math of Forgiveness
Another Blind Eye to a Small Boy’s Cry
(Note: Once again, little ones have gone unprotected, with small boys victimized by both the twisted and broken and the blind and indifferent. I was sexually- abused decades ago, at the age of 8. No victim ever forgets. For the hope of the Penn State small boys and other children being abused, often despite the awareness of others who look the other way, I'm sharing my story here. If you are aware of a child predator, please speak up. Silence truly like a cancer grows.) The little one who smiles and hides the pain Lets tears fall when he plays out in the rain. The innocence … [Read more...] about Another Blind Eye to a Small Boy’s Cry
“Who Told You You Were Naked?”
One of the most discouraging aspects of battling a deeply-internalized sexual issue or other commanding presence of repetitive sin is that, even after you face it, fight it, and deprive it, something in that deep-internal goes right back to work to revive it. You choke it, pound it, bury it, surrender it and then, before you know it, you're back under it. You toss it out the window on your journey to freedom and about the time you peek in the rear-view mirror, it's splatting on the windshield. I've heard of . . . and would like to shake the hand of -- some people who faced-down the … [Read more...] about “Who Told You You Were Naked?”