pink impatiens
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The Beauty of Patience

As we walked past the beautifully manicured yard, I couldn’t help but admire out loud the gorgeous multicolored impatiens in full bloom. No sooner were the word out of my mouth, when my four-year-old grandson questioned my praise for the flowers. “But Nonie,” he said, “isn’t impatience a bad thing?” Yes, sweet boy, it is….

A woman looking over a city
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Let’s Celebrate Our Losses

The past eighteen months have been marked by losses. Loss of life, employment, mental health, and more. Those are serious tragedies and shouldn’t be glossed over. I have suffered my own hardships over the last year. But I want to take a moment to celebrate some of the losses I’ve experienced. Celebrate losses? Can losses…

A bouquet of sunflowers on an open Bible
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How Can This Be?

“Did a big fish really swallow Jonah?” my seven-year-old son asked as I closed his children’s Bible. Barrett recently took up fishing, so bass and bluegill are on his mind a lot these days. He watches tutorials on fishing lures and practices tying them in the garage. He also studies the saltwater species. We know…

An open Bible on a woman's lap
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Troubling Texts Can Become Trusted Truths

I looked at the caller ID and was both surprised and thrilled to see the name of an old friend with whom I had attended church and Bible studies years ago. Ann and I had never been best friends or even close friends, but I always admired her humor, her insight, her compassion, and her…

A woman on a journey in the mountains
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We Are All Sojourners

I was a naïve twenty-six years old when the army sent our family to Germany. Over thirty years later, three things about the half-hour drive from the Stuttgart airport to our apartment are still vivid in my memory. I was unspeakably relieved to be with my husband again after six months in separate countries. I…