Second Homes

There is a place I sometimes used to call my second home: the waiting room. I’ll never forget the hours I spent with my special-needs son in waiting rooms—rooms with foam-filled sofas, tattered magazines, crying children, and tired-looking people who were staring at smudged, blandly painted walls. If there were windows, I watched the outside […]

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One Step at a Time

Don Bennett was on top of the world. He was wealthy; he owned a ranch, an eight-bedroom waterfront home on Mercer Island, and a ski chalet. Life was good, until everything changed. A boating accident resulted in Don losing his right leg; and while he was in the hospital, his business fell to pieces. After […]

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Back to School

It’s back-to-school time! I’m guessing some parents (including me) are delighted, and most kids are disappointed. Kids tend to ask lots of questions before school begins: “Will I be riding the bus?” “Who is my teacher?” “Are the kids nice?” “Do I wear regular clothes or a uniform?” But kids don’t ask questions just about […]

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An Advocate

When I read this, I thought of you and all of us who care for loved ones in need. An Advocate by Charles R. Swindoll Job is portrayed as “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil” (Job 1:1) . . . and yet the bottom drops out of his world. He loses everything […]

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Reframing Life: Beauty from Ashes

My world was rocked for the first time when I was four years old. We had recently moved to Southern California. Early morning sunlight had just begun to peek through the window in the room my sister and I shared upstairs when our beds began to shake. The matching white pom-pom trim on our bedcovers […]

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Painful Days

Are you in physical pain today? Someone reading this is in pain. Perhaps it’s you. Or maybe you know someone in pain. Pain rarely makes sense and often continues without relief. Throughout the ages, others who have endured pain have turned their attention from the temporary pain to things eternal by meditating on passages of […]

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Daily Tests

Mrs. Moses’s cookbook surely had a special section on “A Thousand-and-One Ways to Fix Manna.” Unless I miss my guess, she had tried them all . . . many times. What potatoes are to Ireland, apples are to Somerset, cod is to Grimsby, and porridge is to Scotland, manna was to the wandering Hebrews for […]

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What You Never Expected

The opening story of the evening news was about a parent who forgot her child in the car. The day’s temperature was 107 degrees, outside of the car. The next story was about several people gunned down, and the next one detailed a car accident that resulted in severe injuries to all parties. By then, […]

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Injustice

The old prophet Habakkuk wrote relevant words of truth when he put this down in the first chapter of his prophecy: Yes, destruction and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises. Therefore the law is ignored And justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted. (Habakkuk […]

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Strength and Dignity

Esther exhibited a grace-filled charm and elegance. In Esther 2:9, the literal translation of the original language says, “She lifted up grace before his face.” Isn’t that a beautiful expression? Though she was brought to the harem and participated in these things reluctantly, Esther did not display a sour attitude. I’m convinced she sensed God’s […]

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