Two men offered judgments in 2 Samuel 12:1–7 (NIV). One was a king, and the other was a prophet. The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor…
Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it. (Hebrews 13:1–2 NLT) “What’s the matter, honey?” I heard her voice before I saw her face. My own face was bent into my hands, covered in tears. A lot…
“She has, you know…issues.” I hate having “issues.” The dreaded connotation underlying the word implies different, problematic, maybe even burdensome. I hate burdensome. Yet the reality is, we are born with”issues” all but written on our foreheads. Our connotation of “issues” as something negative, a problem, comes from the old English meaning “to flow out…
Watching my parents fight cancer for two years forced me to consider what life would be like without them. Talking to my single friends about their loneliness puts a sad ping in my stomach. Seeing my girlfriend worry about her widowed mother, I panic a little on her behalf. Watching a military wife while her…
When I was fourteen years old, just discovering the “mall bang” and a love for sweater dresses, I stumbled upon another discovery. This one was life-changing, and it happened on what I believed to be an ordinary Sunday. My family and I loaded our too-large clan into our too-small vehicle and headed off to church….
Pearl was the only child who had her own code at the zoo building where I worked. Whoever saw her first was required to push the alert button on their walkie-talkie and send the message “Code Pearl” crackling over the radio system. Hearing those two words meant we were in for another crazy day. Pearl…