How To Overcome Your Challenges

By:
On:
In: Looking Back & Looking Forward, Blog, Blog Posts
With: 3 Comments

I’d call myself a pretty good skier, although one particular afternoon on the slopes I faced a challenge beyond my ability, or so I thought. Skiing with my family, we took a chairlift higher up the mountain where only single and double black diamond runs—for experts only—could be accessed. Usually, we skied an easy groomed run to the right of the lift, but on this occasion my husband suggested we turn to the left and explore one of the many ungroomed runs on that side. Although a little reluctant, I agreed to the adventure. Having left the crowds behind and with our teens shooting offRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts, Bold Prayers for Wellness
With: 12 Comments

And the Lord released Job from captivity when he prayed for his friends. Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Job 42:10 KJ21 Whenever we’re going through a hard time, we look to friends for comfort and support, don’t we? The afternoon the radiologist confirmed the lump was cancer I rang the leader of our women’s prayer team and asked her to pray. Our Pastor of Women, who I also call my friend, rallied to help. With my husband on business across the country and my family three thousand miles away, I relied upon them during those initial dark moments.Read More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 7 Comments

We plan to attend a sunrise service this Easter Sunday at Red Rocks in Colorado, along with thousands of other worshippers. 14,000 people attended the last service. Organizers recommend arriving no later than 5 am. I am not a morning person. Do we find a hotel to stay in nearby or do we make the hour and a half drive from Breckenridge that morning? I think the former—although, if half the people attending have the same idea, we’ll be sleeping in the car. Regardless of the likelihood of my bleary-eyed state, I am excited. Someone I chatted to the other day, who had attended, told me theRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 8 Comments

Have you ever sensed you will be let down? You arrange to meet someone, for instance, and they don’t turn up. “I knew this would happen,” you say to yourself. Jesus knew he would be deserted, too. Of course, being the Son of God, he had far greater knowledge of situations than we do. Just before his death, Jesus’ friends failed him. In the Garden of Gethsemane they fell asleep instead of praying like he asked them to. Judas, one of Jesus’ chosen followers, and taught by Jesus, betrayed him. Many of the other twelve disciples scattered after Jesus’ arrest. And then Peter… The GardenRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 13 Comments

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. (Alexander Graham Bell.) A beautiful wedding takes a lot of planning. To get a good grade in an exam takes revision. For a hard conversation to go well, it means thinking through the consequences. You get the idea. Preparation for all these tasks can be hard work, and sometimes not easy. It took many discussions, some heated, with my parents on a location, the food, the date to suit family and friends, and who to invite and not to invite to our wedding. I tried to persuade them to agree with my point of view. TheRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 14 Comments

When the contractions came, I didn’t recognize them. I thought my back hurt from the weight of carrying 36-week twins. When the pains became more regular and only minutes apart, I changed my mind. “Bring her into the hospital,” a nurse announced casually when my husband called concerned. Maybe we should have mentioned two babies were on the way, and my obstetrician had said: “when they come, it will be quick.” With no gas in the car, my husband considered calling 911. He didn’t tell me this at the time. Unable to sit down, I crouched on my knees on the front seat as weRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 2 Comments

I discovered something about myself a few years ago. I am a rule-breaker. I don’t like anyone telling me what to do. Of course, I don’t always go against their instruction. However, other times I do, even if it has the potential to get me in trouble. I find some reassurance in my rebellion, because Jesus was not a rule-keeper either. We see it most often in his clashes with the leaders of the Jewish law, the Pharisees. He intimated at his plan for liberation at the beginning of his ministry: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to theRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 8 Comments

My friend and I owned a boat with blue and purple sails. It was a small sailing dinghy with just enough room for two people. We kept our boat on a large lake just outside London. On a weekend when the weather was nice, we would drive down, drag our boat into the water, hoist the sails and spend a few hours enjoying ourselves on the water. Sailing on a lake is a completely different experience than sailing at sea. One difference is, it’s harder to read where the wind is coming from. Out on the sea, the wind is constant from one direction. However, onRead More →

By:
On:
In: Blog Posts
With: 13 Comments

Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali. Matthew 4:13 I visited Capernaum on an October day of bright blue skies. The sun high overhead burned the back of my neck and the top of my arms. I sought relief under the branches of a Ficus tree, a species of fig cultivated from ancient times for its fruit. From there I took in my surroundings. Capernaum was deserted long ago. Once a busy town nestled on the northwest shore of Galilee, today Capernaum lies in ruins. Excavations show black basalt remains of small, simpleRead More →

How to Overcome Negative Thinking and Think Clearly

By:
On:
In: Blog, Blog Posts, Bold Prayers for Wellness
With: 4 Comments

Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have scrutinized the brains of my three children. My daughter spent two hours in an fMRI machine while they watched how her brain reacted when reading and doing puzzles. We have the images on CD which one day, my husband says, we must get printed, framed and hung on the wall. The purpose of the study was to learn how the brains of children with dyslexia change when they read so advances can be made in teaching techniques. Scientists used to believe the brain was fixed and hardwired—that the way you think could not be changed. Now they know theRead More →