Glad and Golden Hours: an Advent book to bring rest to weary hearts
Glad and Golden Hours is a companion for Advent, but it’s also a companion for the seasons of grief and longing that occur all year long.
Glad and Golden Hours is a companion for Advent, but it’s also a companion for the seasons of grief and longing that occur all year long.
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!’?”
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…
Before my son passed away, I spent almost every night hunched over his medical bed, checking to make sure his feeding tube was working correctly, adjusting his body in the darkness, rolling him on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his saliva.
This was my nightly medical drill as the parent of a child with a rare disease. My son was dying and the weight of that reality meant I did everything to keep him alive while praying for a miracle.
But what happens when there is no miracle? No immediate healing? No answer in the long darkness?
My husband, Devin, and I attended a marriage conference earlier this year with our church and left with an assignment: to read the book Cherish by Gary Thomas. Since we are both readers, we were not only excited to read a book together (something we’ve done sporadically since our dating days) but even more excited…
Anatomy and physiology was fascinating to me, until the day we walked into the lab and had to dissect a cat. I remember thinking, “Nope.” I sat shamefully and watched my lab team in horror, as they slowly peeled back the layers of that cat and pulled out its insides. My apologies to the friends…
Today I have the privilege of introducing you to one of my personal heroes, Jordyn Glaser. Jordyn is married to my cousin Brian. Together, they are saying yes to the hard things God calls them to, stepping out in faith without waiting to see how God will provide. Brian and Jordyn’s story has had a…
“Let not our longing slay the appetite of living.” Jim Elliot’s words in a letter to the girl he wanted to marry would become famous when he was slain just a few years later, a martyr at 28 years old. He waited to propose, believing he was called to be a single missionary. They had…
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…
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t familiar with George MacDonald’s unforgettable characters. The Princess and Curdie, Ranald Bannerman, and Sir Gibbie were just as much a part of my world as Lucy Pevensie, Anne Shirley, and Jo March.
I remember losing myself in the thrilling tale of The Princess and the Goblin from the time I could pull books off the shelf when I visited my grandmother’s. And Linda Hill Griffith’s rich illustrations of The Christmas Stories of George MacDonald were the backdrop that accompanied my perusal of his tales each and every December.
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…
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…
The End.
The End.