Cure for the Common Crush

Cure for the Common Crush

How many different emotions do you have every day? Dozens, scores, maybe even hundreds? Let’s just say that if the average woman was an air-traffic controller and her emotions were incoming planes, she’d have a full-time job telling them where (and where not) to land. Some of the most persistent and challenging of all my…

From Head to Foot

From Head to Foot

Annie Downs loves Scotland, ice cream, and unexpected shades of nail polish. Even more, she loves Jesus — and talking about Jesus to girls like you…and me. I’m older than Annie’s intended audience. In fact, I’m even a little older than Annie herself. But she had me from the very beginning: from the snow day…

Fox in Socks

Fox in Socks

One evening found me in the kitchen with two 20-something friends, passing a book from hand to hand, one we each read aloud with gusto. Three people meant three complete read-throughs, but not a single complaint. What was the book? Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss. Who could resist a tongue-twister that has its own…

first

first

I can’t keep procrastinating on trust. If I can’t trust Jesus with this unwanted, anticlimactic, homely, nubbly, little faith-tester of a circumstance (whatever it happens to be today), I won’t be ready to trust Him tomorrow with something more grandiose. Either I trust Him, or I don’t. Right here is where the rubber meets the road.

A Passion to Help

A Passion to Help

I was practicing the spiritual gift of service for years before I realized what it was. But I can tell you from experience that serving out of my own strength just doesn’t work. I over-commit. I run out of energy and enthusiasm. And sometimes I even grow resentful of those I set out to help. I must serve God, not needs. I must let Him assign the tasks.

The Golden Rules of Writing
Writing

The Golden Rules of Writing

Once upon a time, I was required to design a short seminar. Not surprisingly, I chose the topic of writing. So I read (and read), taking some forty pages of notes that translated into an entire mini-course, handouts and all.

I never actually taught that seminar.

But as I reread my notes today, I discovered that God had surprised me. The principles I write by, the ones I repeat to students, clients, and long-suffering friends: yes, those wise words? Many of them come from the novelists and wordsmiths whose books I read and seemingly forgot.

Epiphany

Epiphany

It’s Epiphany today: the feast of the three kings, the three sages, the three very wise men. They arrived late on the scene — some say two years — when Jesus was no longer described as a baby, but a young child; staying not in a stable, but a house. The point is: they showed…

Excuses

I’m tired of making excuses for God. Am I the only one who does this? I hate bad-mouthing anybody — least of all my Good Shepherd. And so I find myself saying the equivalent of this: God’s a nice guy. He means well; He just hasn’t come through for me yet. That’s ridiculous: it’s unsatisfying…

Christmas Past
Christmas

Christmas Past

Once upon a time, my Christmases really were like Victorian greeting cards. Back when all ten of us lived in one house, when everyone bought presents for everyone else. (With a little help from our mom, if necessary). There were the secrets in the closet, the anticipation of seeing this person’s face when they saw…

The End.

The End.