One

I woke up this morning and looked at my calendar in disbelief… a big, empty box stared back at me. There is nothing compulsory on my calendar today. Oh, there’s still plenty to do. Dishes sit in my sink from a merry gathering of friends last night. My homeschool agenda has a list of goals. Work tasks await me in my email and my planner. And, why, oh why, do I never seem to be caught up with laundry? But for now, I sit. Jesus and I are having coffee. I started “quickly” reading through the book of Matthew in September. I’m now in chapter 14 –  obviously I’m making excellent time . I started reading Matthew in a cafe’ in Thailand. I left part of my heart in Thailand in the fall of 2014. If you didn’t read  my post at the end of 2014 , just click back a couple of posts… 2015 has been very full but not so full of the writing. Throughout this year God just kept right on breaking my heart. Breaking my heart for 400,000 children in foster care  –  we w...

The nation is still reeling from Friday. The Supreme Court’s decision has created waves of emotion – jubilation, vindictiveness, grieving, anger, despair… responses have been swift. The rainbows boldly painted across our nation have added to the dizzying swirl of reaction and unbridled words. Scandalous rainbow. For me, I look on that prism of light and I see so. much. more. The scandal of that rainbow stretches far back into history. Back into days when “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5) Back into the days when the pervasiveness of egregious sin demanded the response of the Righteous One. His response? “I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.” (Genesis 6:17) All life. Every creature. Everything. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23a) All life, except one man and hi...

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while now know that human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children has become something I just can't shake. Five years ago God began to deeply stir my heart to speak for the voiceless and to act. But how? It's a complex issue and there aren't easy answers. Some victims are literally in chains, many are held in invisible bonds of drug addiction or psychological control. Some women find themselves deceived and sold against their will, some think they have no other alternative, or choose to enter a life of degradation as the best of the terrible options they see in front of them. It's a deep darkness. But God is at work. Jesus is light that overcomes the dark, hope that shatters hopelessness. Now, five years after God began to tug at my heart with this issue, after I've blogged and shared and hosted events and done what little I could... it is my great privilege to say that I will be part of a t...