Something About The Joy

There are two kinds of people in the world. I love those general statements! They open you up to challenges on every side. Of course there are more than two kinds of people, but comparisons between two extremes sometimes help us see ourselves more clearly. This summer I presented a two-part sermon series to my church on trust. The messages were based on Jeremiah 2:13, where God accuses Israel of committing two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. The imagery God uses here is powerful. He is an Artesian Spring, spurting out an abundant supply of clean, fresh water (representing life) constantly, forever. But Israel prefers to dig empty holes in the ground, with cracks in the bottom, and trust the rains will come once in a while to fill them up. If you walked for miles in a dry desert and came across a fountain of water spurting into the air and splashing down on the parched ground bene...

Today is my little Zouxi's third birthday. She lives in the Dominican Republic with her Mama, Eridania, Dad, Andy, and brothers, Alex and baby Rowan. I still feel the same as I did when she was born and I wrote this poem: It’s hard to be a grandma Who lives so far away, When you’d love to give her kisses At least five times a day. It’s hard to wake up worried In the middle of the night, When you can’t go in and check her, To see if she’s all right. It’s hard to think she’s crying In someone else’s arms, When your arms long to hold her And soothe her baby storms. You’d so much love to tell her In words her heart could hear, That Jesus wants to be her friend And He is always near. But you have to make adjustments, so, To calm your fears and cares, If you can’t hold her in your arms You hold her in your prayers. You know that you can trust Him To watch her day by day. He loves her more than you do And He’s not too far away. And so I’ll be a grandma Who lives too far away, And spoil...

We traditionally (at least in this culture) perceive imagination as being a method for creating ideas or things that have no foundation in reality. Things that are “imaginary” are not real. Novels are imagined. They are fictional. Children’s fantasies are shadows of reality, practices designed to prepare them to function in the “real” world. Often this is the case. Novels certainly are imagined, and child’s play is pretend. But I’m becoming convinced that this limited perception of imagination might be short-changing us. What if imagination is actually a gift from God, designed to allow us to “see” the unseen. To “see” Him? What if we were designed to use our imaginations to picture and better understand (and more readily believe in) unseen realities? There are dangers here, of course. It’s very possible to imagine things that do not exist. Relying on my imagination as a revelation of truth could put me out of touch with reality. And I’m leery of believing you can create re...

Ha! I knew that title would get your attention. You want to know what my sins are, don’t you? Well, I might tell you. I don’t know yet. My sins are pretty personal and blogs are not. But I have been thinking about my sins this morning, with questions. The first question is, what are sins? I know what the “big” ones are—the ones the Ten Commandments tell us NOT to do. It’s pretty easy for me to avoid them. I currently have no thoughts of murder. I don’t even hate anyone, which Jesus says is the same thing. And in the forty years I’ve been married to my husband I’ve never even been tempted to commit adultery. Bearing false witness is definitely a no-no. Truth is too important to me. I can remember the two deliberate lies I told in my youth and the consequences were so excruciatingly painful I’ve been afraid to tell a lie since. At least not with malice and aforethought. Hmm. I’ve probably told some without noticing, or some that I’ve rationalized away before they could be...