Elisabeth Adams 6 Minute Read For many years as the eldest sister of eight, I never doubted I would someday have a houseful of children of my own. Now–well, now I’m in my forties, and that’s not the case. Lanier Ivester, a writer whom I’ve long admired, has walked a similar path. Already this Advent, her brand-new book Glad and…
Elisabeth Adams 8 Minute Read Until well into young adulthood, I would say, “I’m the happiest person I know.” Then – well, then life happened. Among my loved ones, I saw broken relationships, illness, and disappointment. My own dream of being a young mother faded into the rearview mirror, and singleness stretched on much longer than I had ever expected. The near-death of a sibling and the loss of my aunt – a close friend – led to a crisis of faith in which I cried out to God, “When will You say ‘Enough!’?”
Elisabeth Adams 5 Minute Read Once upon a time, I was a prone-to-dramatize teen who devoured many of Elisabeth Elliot’s books. I still need her forthright counsel to help rescue me from the swamp of self-pity, enabling me to diagnose even small disappointments as suffering — and thus something I can bring to Jesus. Once a starry-eyed twenty-something who sat…
Elisabeth Adams 3 Minute Read It was just like God — days into my school year in Jerusalem, when I finally had a little time to feel a twinge of homesickness — to prompt my friend Jan to call. Jan is definitely walking in a tradition as old as Job: “the dark night of the soul.” As long as I’ve known…
Elisabeth Adams 15 Minute Read Have you ever picked up a George MacDonald novel, only to discover that is peppered with dialogue in a Scots dialect? As wonderfully fascinating as these conversations might sound if encountered in real life, these MacDonald passages can be downright impenetrable to readers from other countries. Today, a Scotsman by the name of David Jack…
Elisabeth Adams 8 Minute Read Three years ago, I interviewed Michael Phillips about his lifework of reintroducing George MacDonald’s writings to the world. Naturally, thinking and writing on the topic made me homesick for the familiar stories, and so I began to reread. While curled up in my Jerusalem home, vicariously roaming the hills of Scotland, I noticed that everyone…
Elisabeth Adams 12 Minute Read Michael Phillips is the author of at least 60 novels and 20 non-fiction books. A California native, he and his wife Judy raised three sons. They also ran their own press and bookshop, motivated largely by a desire to bring the works of the Scottish Victorian writer George MacDonald, the “Father of the Inklings,” back…
Elisabeth Adams 6 Minute Read At several key points in my life, a book has come along just when I needed it. In the last few months, there have been two: my friend Natasha Metzler’s Emma and the Reasons, and Kingdom Single by Tony Evans. Some books tell you that singleness is valuable, a gift even: these books helped me…
Elisabeth Adams 6 Minute Read Unexpected life-detours can be hard — whether you thought you’d have ten children by now and you’re not sure how to do this singleness thing, or you planned to be single for awhile and now you’ve lost your vision. As a thirty-something woman who is still waiting for marriage, what has made an enormous difference…
Elisabeth Adams 6 Minute Read This would work a whole lot better if you were sitting in my living room. As I pester you with tea choices (black, green, or herbal?), heat the teakettle, and pour you a fragrant cupful in a brightly flowered Polish mug, I’d be bubbly and a little too talkative, with lots of hand motions and…
Elisabeth Adams 6 Minute Read The other day, my brother stopped plowing snow to tell me that the setting sun had just dropped into line with the ice-clad treetops. Outside our kitchen window, branches sparkled with diamonds against a melba and dove-grey sky. I grabbed my camera, while my brother shucked his enormous boots for me to borrow. I ran…
Elisabeth Adams 7 Minute Read Why do I love reading love stories that really happened? Is it the part of me that enjoys real butter, homemade bread, chicken soup from scratch . . . or the fact that a little suffering creates a great big desire for authenticity? Most of all, I think it’s the fact that true stories show…
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