Apple Juice & Orange Juice

As my parents’ first baby, I was the guinea pig on whom they developed their parenting style, the tiny human on whom they began to try all kinds of methods for sleep and feeding techniques. Once they had mastered that, I’m sure they expected that their subsequent...

Helped People Help People

I’ve heard several times in the last few years about how “hurt people hurt people,” and “we can’t give our children anything we don’t have and neither could our parents give us anything they didn’t have.” These two quotes have actually been really helpful reminders...

Thanks for the Trials

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything,” James 1:2-4...

When Patience Isn’t Your Virtue

It was the store’s employee who directed me to the express lane. He would’ve made a different choice had he known how many products were packed into my small basket. But the dude behind me saw full well. And as the clerk rang up item after item, the man at the end of...

God, Use My Soiled Hands

It was a night like many others, maybe busier, when I heard the sweetest sound from my daughter’s room. “Mom, will you pray with me?” Don’t worry, this isn’t where I tell you this was the culmination of our perfectly orchestrated Bible times together or my own...

A Promise for the Prodigal

She was fifteen, in the very middle of the turbulent teen years. She no longer confided in her mom; her friends were her confidantes. “It’s part of growing up,” I told myself. Everyone goes through this stage of trying to figure out who they are as an individual. When...