Life in Jesus

I have a special affection for IHOP restaurants. Well, maybe just the one behind the seminary on Gaston Avenue. You remember that as a student, you didn’t eat out a lot—unless it was eating sandwiches out on the lawn. In my first summer at DTS, I made it my personal mission to welcome all the new women students. Being a woman student was a new thing then. We were about 20 strong in number that first year and doubled in strength by the next. And so it was in the front parking

Gracious God, We stand before You in gratitude on this day the way our parents did and their parents before them, thanking You for giving us life and breath, food and shelter, mercy and grace.  We join the train of the faithful and the faithless alike, looking to You. Please strengthen our hearts as we remember who You have been to us this year.   We thank you for these faces around this table, both of family and friends without whom our lives would be poorer and hearts less

The church was the most important place in the world for our family while I was growing up. Tabernacle Baptist Church, on the corner of Academy St. and Main on the edge of downtown Poughkeepsie. We were there every time the doors were open and often when they weren’t. All the people I loved most sat in their respective pew every Sunday. Giving to the needs of the church and our missionaries shaped my view of finances from my earliest days. Every Christmas, Kathy, David, and I

A passenger plane went down in a Pennsylvania field yesterday.  Flight 93.  45 people died.  Amidst all the horrors of that beautiful September day, this crash broke my heart.  I watched the reports where they searched for wreckage, not survivors, and I cried.  Not so much because of the tragedy itself—scores of people die every day all over the globe, in violent, tragic, sudden ways.  Many more died in two nearby U.S. cities.  But this crash rocked me.  I wept for their fami

Once a year, everyone should fly into their home airport at sunset.   That’s what I did today and it was amazing. Little did I realize that mile upon mile of red barns and farmland stretch out less than ten minutes flying-time south of downtown Chicago. Freeways edge the city’s outskirts like patterns of lace.  And familiar businesses and homes look downright spectacular washed in the glow of the setting sun.   But all too soon our descent took us into O’Hare and our perspect

I have virtually ignored the Lord’s Prayer most of my life.  In my mind, the familiar “Our Father” belonged in a category of high church liturgy or at best, “nice verses” that lacked power or grandness or personal application.  But in spite of my inattention, The Lord’s Prayer had somehow gotten itself lodged in my memory.   And I’m so glad it did.   This year was a tough one.  On the stress management point scale, I experienced some big numbers and consequently took on some

Sometimes waiting for an answer from God feels like an ambulance trying to get through heavy traffic. Turn the siren louder if you like, but the cars aren’t moving. You can’t get through.  We’re in a hurry but God is not. We pound heaven’s door pleading for a response and all we get is . . . silence. What is God doing? The delay is a mystery to us.   Not long ago, my life was stuck in traffic. A job had unexpectedly ended—a new job in a new town was waiting for me a thousand