Wanted: One Trumpet

Wanted: One Trumpet

Much of my world right now is midsummer green—a jungle of tomato plants, a row of towering sunflowers, a trellis overrun by cucumber vines, and chicken wire covered with sprouting beans and peas. There is the promise of fresh produce everywhere I look. The sun is...
“We’ve Had the Better.”

“We’ve Had the Better.”

My dad and I stood at the double doors to the sanctuary, waiting for twelve bells to chime and the doors to swing open. Looking at me, he said, “I’ve waited a long time for this day,” and I said, “Me, too, Dad. Me, too.” What I didn’t say—because I would have come...
The Blessing of Being in Need

The Blessing of Being in Need

“We might be in trouble” are not words you want to hear when it’s -12 degrees outside and you have 125 miles of desolate highway between you and home. It was New Year’s Eve, and we were finally on the other side of back-to-back road trips to celebrate Christmas with...
The Value of a Brick

The Value of a Brick

In one of my moves since amassing a library, my sister hefted a box across the room and asked, “What’s in here?! Bricks??” I think the answer to her question with respect to that particular box was “no,” but she was onto something about me: I do, actually, move bricks...
A Desperate Faith

A Desperate Faith

Two years ago this week, I drove across the country to a start a new life in an act of desperate faith that was probably more desperate than faith. My reason for moving was that it was the only door for change that God had left open, and I desperately needed a change....
The Kind of Teaching We Need Most

The Kind of Teaching We Need Most

I posted these thoughts three years ago, but they came to mind again yesterday during carol-singing at church, and I realized anew how much I am in need of this kind of teaching: While most churches don’t crack open hymnals anymore (if they even have them), the ones...

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