by Patricia Alderman My four-year-old niece was spending the weekend with me. Whatever I did, she wanted to help. Including when I began loading several large tote bags into my car. She wrapped her arms around one tote in a bear hug and grunted loudly as she picked it up. She had to peer around the bag to see where she was going, and she huffed and puffed as she struggled to carry the load.When I asked if she needed help, she gasped, “No, I ... Read More about The True Meaning Of Casting Your Cares On Him
Inspirational
The God Who Breathes Life into Dry Bones
It was somewhere around my third anniversary that reality hit hard enough to make me gasp for breath. I really couldn’t have babies. Not without a miracle.I had so many dreams that involved motherhood and they all crumbled around me. I found myself standing there with dying dreams and agony ripping my heart to shreds.I spent a whole season of my life shoveling dirt over dead dreams.And I learned something new in that season: God does ... Read More about The God Who Breathes Life into Dry Bones
Heaven is my home, earth is my business address.
“Tell me, do you like stories about things that really happened? Wonderful things that the Lord did?” I grew up listening to Allegra McBirney’s stories. Not fairy tales or even parables, but true stories about real little girls and boys all around the world.Our radio didn’t carry her program, “A Time for Sharing”, but she sent me cassette tapes of some of her programs. I treasured those tapes alongside my collection of Ethel Barrett and ... Read More about Heaven is my home, earth is my business address.
Found Treasure: A Love Story in Books and Memories
The year I turned twelve years old we moved into the upstairs of my grandparent's house in Northern New York.Until this point my family had been living in far off Homer, Alaska where my father taught at a Bible School. Our interactions with my mom's parents included a handful of visits, many phone calls, and handwritten letters that flew back and forth. But this year things were different. We were going to live with my grandparents for a ... Read More about Found Treasure: A Love Story in Books and Memories
She Laughed at the Days to Come
One of my earliest memories of my mother is an image of her doing many things at once. She would rock my baby sister to sleep while giving me instructions (in song) on folding socks. I realize now that she was soothing, singing, rocking, supervising, entertaining and teaching all in that one moment, and I can still hear her voice crooning something like, "Those socks are Daddy's, that sock is Joey's" to the tune of "Lavender's Blue."Today I ... Read More about She Laughed at the Days to Come
for the one who feels empty and weak
Our son came home on a rainy November day. Instead of a hospital room, we gathered him to us from an airport waiting area. We knelt and talked to him by the luggage carousel and bonded over dinner at Cracker Barrel. My heart cracked with the glory of the Lord’s redemption in my life. While my body was barren, my life wasn’t barren at all, and this child coming home was the settling of another layer of God’s incredible grace into me.This ... Read More about for the one who feels empty and weak
6 Books to Grow Your Faith
“That is a good book it seems to me, which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.” (Louisa May Alcott) Did you ever sit on a phone book as a kid? Maybe you were too short to reach the table at grandma's house and the latest, hefty edition of The Yellow Pages was commissioned as a sort of "booster." Well, though phone books are quite endangered these days, books can always be a booster, a stepping stone or a staircase to new heights. ... Read More about 6 Books to Grow Your Faith
When Life Goes Sour
Despite doing everything right and following best practice, even thrown in some extra precautions for good measure, our day turned sour. Fast.In a foreign country, halfway through our long anticipated vacation-for-the-memory-books, the bliss turned bad. Our practically perfect day of waterfall-swimming and wave-jumping ended with a jolt. A jarring sense of violation. The locked car had been forced open and the locked glove-box was ripped ... Read More about When Life Goes Sour
how to catch your breath when you can’t stop running
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” (1 Corinthians 9:24) I’m no stranger to hard work. As the oldest, Type-A child growing up on a farm with seven siblings, I learned early that self-discipline and diligence are fundamental to accomplishing goals. I know projects don’t accomplish themselves. I’m a self-starter who enjoys checking things off a list and I don’t mind ... Read More about how to catch your breath when you can’t stop running
Silver Spoons and Grains of Sand
A friend and mentor once told me that when you're trying to get going again with Bible reading, you can always start by just reading the Proverb that coincides with the day of the month. That is precisely how I wound up reading Proverbs 30 one dreary morning before work. My breath caught in my throat, for though I had seen it before, I had never realized how applicable it was to myself. "Do not make me rich, but give me each day what I need; for ... Read More about Silver Spoons and Grains of Sand
How to Persevere When Things Get Hard
Right before Christmas my husband was injured.We were just upstairs in the barn, cleaning up a few building scraps from when we built the house last year. It wasn’t hard work, nor was it particularly dangerous work.When my husband took a deep breath and told me his finger had just been cut off, I looked around bewildered, trying to grasp what in the world he was talking about.Later that night, sitting in the ER, waiting for the doctor ... Read More about How to Persevere When Things Get Hard
How to Find Your Vocation
Your vocation: what is it?It isn’t exactly the same as your career or job, says Jeff Goins, though it may include them. Its scope is life-long: it is the theme you will return to again and again, however many times your specific job description might change. The fact that I've gone from teaching English abroad to housekeeping for wealthy summer neighbors in the rural United States doesn't have to rock my sense of calling: I just choose ... Read More about How to Find Your Vocation
