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Today is my 40th birthday.  Cue the, “No way! You only look 29!” comments! Just kidding. Mostly. 🤣  But really, I’ve officially made this circuit around the sun f.o.r.t.y. times. Google tells me that in that amount of time, our planet has traveled 23 billion miles and my point on the globe is moving at 1,000 miles per hour as we rotate and spin. Do I really expect to accumulate that kind of mileage looking as fresh-faced and new as I did at the beginning of this ride? Getting older is a privilege, the gift of each new day stacking on the ones that came before, growing into a dizzying tower of grace. There is a confidence that comes from reaching this milestone. A confidence that I have found Jesus to be faithful and present through all my foibles and stumblings and victories and joys and losses and wrestlings. He has been with me for 23 billion miles and whatever happens in however many miles I have ahead of me, I know I won’t be alone.  So, let’s face these next years a...

There is beauty everywhere this time of year. I find myself wanting to capture it, to savor it because this fresh bloom of early summer is so fleeting. It’s interesting how often the Scriptures link the beauty of flowers with the fleeting nature of our lives. “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its plac e knows it no more.” Psalm 103:15-16 “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.” Isaiah 40:7 “For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.” James 1:11 There are no romantic poems in Scripture glorying in the beauty or fragrance of these magnificent creations. Rather, we are constantly reminded, “This won’t last. Your life won’t last.” Depressing? It will be if we fix our eyes on the here and now. Rather, t...

I remember the feeling of being huddled in our basement during a tornado warning when my big kids were preschoolers. My husband was at work, they were afraid, I was nervous - tornadoes and lightning (along with spiders...) are high up on my list of biggest fears. Everything in me wanted to look into their wide eyes and confidently assure them, "Nothing bad will happen! We are safe! God will protect us!" The words were on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to say them. I wanted to believe them. I wanted to see them relax in the reassurance that we were invincible. Except that it's not true, and I couldn't say it. I've seen too many people wrestle with ramifications of this bad childhood theology that was drilled deeply into their view of the world from a young age. Because the truth is that this world is utterly broken. Creation groans. People sin. Tornadoes strike. Diseases rage. People die. Bad things  do  happen - all the time . I don't want them to fa...

Reading news headlines brings back memories. Thoughts of water park trips, the feeling of dropping at dizzying speeds through twists and turns of slides with names like The Toilet Bowl . The thrill, the moments of breathless panic, the utter exhaustion. It makes me want to hold my breath - this downward, ever faster, desperate pull of our world. Huddle the kids close. Strap lifejackets on tight. I don't want them caught in the undertow and pulled to the deep. As culture degrades, politics divide, social media dishes depravity and broken identity, how do we help them find their footing? How do we prepare them to stay afloat in the deep, not try to isolate them on the shore? Today we finished the last page in Long Story Short . As we have journeyed through the lives of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah - men growing up and living for God through exile in pagan Babylon - the truths they held close, truths that inspired faithful lives in an unfaithful land, ring out loud and clear. Bet...

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...