Life can be so difficult. Humanity in general is not always compassionate, caring, generous, or just plain kind. In a world where people call each other names, bully one another online, and where there seems to be so much violence and war, it can be hard to feel hopeful. Yet this is what the season … [Read more…]
Have you ever noticed that when you help someone it just completely changes your day? Right before I left the preschool my teacher’s assistant at the time was someone who didn’t drive and the city bus stop was a mile away. I decided that I would give her a ride to her house at the … [Read more…]
You ever look around at the world or go through times in life when you wonder to yourself “What in the world are you doing God”? I think we all have wondered this several times in our lives. When I was a young child, this was a question that I came face to face with. … [Read more…]
I had a close friend in seminary that was going through some challenging times in her life shortly before entering seminary. In one year, she and her husband lost everything they had in a fire, her dad died, and she lost her job. Anybody experiencing what she did would have been more than a little … [Read more…]
As a teenager, my favorite past time was talking on the phone with my friends. The worst punishment for me, at that age, was to ground me from the telephone. It was my connection to the outside world. It allowed me to find out what was going on in the group’s gossip, to discuss the … [Read more…]
Light is such an important part of the Christmas season, even in our scriptures. God and Christ are portrayed as light illuminating the paths of righteousness for those who seek. Christ was born into a world that was run by violence. The Jewish people were subjugated by the Romans and a violent unstable despot was … [Read more…]
I love the annunciation scriptures because it depicts the shear grace with which Mary handles being approached by the angels of the Lord and finding out that as an unwed teenager she is pregnant. And she is not only pregnant but she is to bear the Christ child. No pressure. The average person, I feel … [Read more…]
True hope can be a very powerful thing. Hope can bring out the very best in us. Biblical hope is different from desiring and wishing for something to occur. My Biblical dictionary defines hope as “trustful expectation, particularly with reference to the fulfillment of God’s promises. It’s the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God’s … [Read more…]
Today is Reformation Sunday. This is an important day for Protestants around the world because this is where our religious sects originate from. But for many of us we have little concept of the radical ideas that went behind such a movement and the courage of many believers and clergymen to stand up to the … [Read more…]
On the surface you may be asking why these two stories are intertwined and what the meaning of these stories is. But the story of the daughter of Jairus and the bleeding woman are about what it takes to have faith. In life, it is hard to not become cynical about the world around us. … [Read more…]
