In the first year of my firstborn’s life, I remember sitting in the rocking chair late at night, scrolling my phone while I fed him. I remember headlines of awful happenings in the Middle East. I specifically remember reading a post about ISIS beheading Christians who would not renounce Christ. I can still see that…
Tag: Trust
A Definition of Trust
Did you ever play the game “Trust”? The “victim” stands facing away from a group of people and is to freefall into the arms of the “trusted” and be caught. A popular game in my high school youth group, but I never could muster the courage to fall. When I attempted this game, I would…
His Perfect Plan
By Kara Williams Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21 (NIV) Every person reading this has received the time-gift of living through the past decade: ten autumns and winters, springtimes and summers; 3,652 sunrises and sunsets; air filling and leaving your lungs over a…
The Perseverance of Hope
I ordered freshwater pearls off the internet to adorn my neck on my wedding day. Their rough, imperfect sheen was just the look I wanted. Classic, but not as perfect as the identical spheres I imagine gracing the necks of British Royalty at a tennis match or June Cleaver as she welcomes her children home…
3 Reasons to Embrace Conviction
I loved Anne of Green Gables as a child, not this new-fangled imposter gracing Netflix with an E, but L.M. Montgomery’s creation. In Anne of the Island, Anne is talking to Davy, a child that she and Marilla took in. “That was your conscience punishing you, Davy.” “What’s my conscience? I want to know.” “It’s…
3 Women of the Bible Who Brought Unexpected Celebration
Author: Karly Grant June is often a time of celebration. From graduations, end of a school year, Father’s Day and the beginning of wedding season, there is often one party after another. In my family there are several birthdays and retirements as I have always been surrounded by educators. All of these milestones are absolutely…
Diagnosing Fear
Author: Kate Franken I hung up the phone, after having received the results of my liver ultrasound. I felt strangely calm, despite the words the doctor had spoken. I dialed my mom. The minute she picked up, the calm dissipated and the tears formed. With a shaky voice, I relayed the call, “The calcifications they…
3 Paths to Lead You Away from Fear
The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word “fear” is our car accident nearly a year ago. I’m reminded of how I felt as I crouched on the dusty sidewalk off Hwy 22. Sobbing, I clutched my four-year-old, my two-year-old, and my six-week old baby and assured myself that they were…
Positively Perplexed
Undulating road rolls under my chronically tumbling mind as I seek to soothe it by cycling into exhaustion. Call it my relief effort, or my ride to escape. However, I neither find relief nor escape. But I do find God. Perplexed. That’s what I am. And being perplexed is like walking the side of a…
Remembering the Birds
Numbers are not my favorite. I line them up, pencil it out, move things from one category to another. Every month, my heart rate unconsciously rises and the same budget conversation happens: Why am I so anxious? I remember before, when we had so much less. Why am I more high strung now, when so…
Anchored Voices 