Obedience Baggage

I am learning that, frequently, when the scripture is reading like it is commanding something (and it may be — I’ll come back to that idea shortly), if you watch that obedience experience play out organically in the way God designed, you see it is closer to being a description of an inevitability. “When you…

Water Soluble Expectations

Do you ever find yourself either frozen from meaningful action, or over-exerting because of the task master of Invisible Expectations? By “invisible,” I mean that no one is currently telling or otherwise coercing you to do or not do the thing. You just have this nagging discomfort inside about it, and that discomfort might sound…

It’s An Abomination

This is not about how to simply focus on your own sinful state instead of someone else’s. Nor is it about calling all things good. What I’m trying to convey is the ability to observe and interact from an entirely alternate experience that is unshaken by external reflections of the spiritual war on our planet. I’m referring to Christ-filled hearts that close the gap.

The Bible is Like a Birthday Party?

The surprise party Recently I attended a surprise birthday celebration for a more-experienced young person. I didn’t know most of the people there, because attendees were from every stage of her life, but I saw a remarkable pattern emerge as the microphone was passed around from table to table. Each story, account, and testimony reflected…

Can We Trust God (and His Grapes)?

Examining God’s Love in Jeremiah I want to share what God put on my heart during my quiet time this morning, as I read Jeremiah 5. It’s really easy to gloss over the Old Testament (OT – the writings before Jesus’ time on Earth) and see an angry, violent God, and to feel totally at a…

Lessons From Proverbs 3, Part 1

Before the boys were born, Brian and I decided we really loved Proverbs 3 as a chapter of wisdom and life guidance — a sort of “theme” for our family. Recently, I’ve started taking individual ideas from the chapter and have used it for morning worship, and also as one of our sources for craft…

Our Baby Got De-ported!

Today is the day we celebrate Elijah officially being a normal, healthy boy, finally free of all physical “ties” to modern medicine. He had his surgery this morning to have his mediport removed, and he did great!  We weren’t thrilled that he had to wait two hours past his scheduled time, but were forgiving because…

Mathmagic

Ian begged me all week to make lemonade. Finally, I bought two bags of lemons and started the project. Our favorite recipe involves a cup of water per lemon and a quarter cup of sugar per lemon, a lot of peeling or zesting, soaking the peels/zest in the sugar, dissolving it in boiled water, removing…

Follow-Up CT Today (Updated)

UPDATE AT BOTTOM Today Elijah will have a CT Scan to follow up on some lesions in his lungs. They are probably scar tissue, but the doc is keeping an eye on them. Here is what we are looking at. Imagine you sliced the top of his body off at the shoulders and then looked…

The Fun “1”

Our baby boy has graduated into toddlerhood. Elijah had his first birthday last Friday. Brian went to work for the first time that week, since we had been iced in. Most places were closed. People were ice skating and skiing on the streets of downtown Atlanta. The Tuesday before was supposed to have been Elijah’s…