“If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.” I have loved this lyric from John Mark McMillan’s song “How He Loves” since the moment I first heard it. Perhaps it’s because of my love of the ocean, which so easily brings the word picture to life. Or maybe it’s because the word picture meets my…
We protect what costs us the most. Consider a great piece of art like the Italian painter Caravaggio’s Conversion of Saint Paul. In this oil painting, light bursts through chaotic darkness and rests on a blinded Saul. It’s valued as high as $100 million and kept safely in a private collection. Jackson Pollock’s Number 5,…
For several years now, my family has received a box of caterpillars in the mail every summer. Through clear cup containers, we watch them turn into butterflies. The instructions include transferring the chrysalides so the butterflies emerge in a spacious, netted container. This year I ordered and promptly forgot about the caterpillars. Weeks later they…
My father was a pastor, and when I was five years old he was leading a church in a small Indiana town. The place had one stoplight, which was eventually removed because it was unnecessary. That’s small. My maternal grandmother lived with us, caring for my younger brother and me so my mother could teach…
It’s fall. My baby is headed back to school for her last year of college. Neither one of us can believe this ride is almost over. She has loved her four years, and she knew from the first time she set foot on the campus of Greenville College (now Greenville University) that she would love…
I’m not a good lover. Let me pause before you think I just handed you more information than you care to receive, like a bad Facebook post. Here is what I mean: I don’t know how to love like Christ loved. I simply can’t reach it. I know this because a pile of dirty laundry…