Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

Conversation was abundant around a table at the local coffee shop. The gathered friends hooted with laughter as they talked over their lattes and caught up on the things going on in one another’s lives.   But when the door opened and they turned to see the new customer walking in, they became silent. “Can… Continue Reading

When I was nine years old, I went away to summer camp for the first time.  Judging from the whirlwind of preparation that overtook our household in the weeks before I left, you would have thought I was going to another continent, maybe even to the moon. In the midst of all the piles of… Continue Reading

In my grandparents’ sitting room were several large photo albums containing yellowed black-and-white pictures. Those albums also contained something more intangible: stories. If I sat with my grandmother with the albums open on her lap, she would turn the pages and tell me stories about these strangers who were actually relatives I had never met…. Continue Reading

I always thought it would be fun to have twins. Matching babies are so cute dressed up in identical outfits, wheeled out on display in a double stroller for the world to stop and coo over. The reality of having two babies at once is so much different than the dream world of matching outfits… Continue Reading

Think about the story of Abraham and Sarah. When I recount their story, I find myself thinking “hurry up and wait!” That phrase or something like it may have echoed in Abraham and Sarah’s minds. They received awesome promises from God but no timeline about when they would be fulfilled. They learned quickly that trusting… Continue Reading

I love to read. You might even say that books are a bit of an addiction for me. The evidence is obvious: my home and office are over owing with bookshelves, which are over owing with books. I even got engaged in a bookstore! So when one of my favorite authors (and one of my… Continue Reading

Jeff was one of my favorite speakers to invite to special events for teenagers during the years when I was a youth minister. He always held their attention, and he always had them crying by the end—one of the unspoken standards for success in youth ministry. Our teens loved the drama of Jeff’s testimony and… Continue Reading

These was my message to the inaugural meeting of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, where over 1700 United Methodists gathered in Chicago on October 7. In January of 2009, 7 years ago, U.S. Airways flight 1549 took off from New York’s Laguardia airport headed for North Carolina. The passengers settled back in their seats for the takeoff,… Continue Reading

If you have spent any time at all in the checkout line at the grocery store, then most likely you’ve noticed the many magazines that draw us into the stories of our world’s royalty.  If you are old enough to remember Princess Diana, you’ll remember the minute-by-minute coverage of her life from the moment she… Continue Reading