Freedom

Women Have a History

  “History is no longer just a chronicle of kings and statesmen, of people who wielded power, but of ordinary women and men engaged in manifold tasks. Women’s history is an assertion that women have a history.” ~Aparna Basu, Professor of History at the University of Delhi, India And what a history it is! From warriors like Boudica, Zenobia, […]

What I Want Them to Remember

Their nightstand and bookshelves tell you all you’d need to know. Anne of Green Gables, Ramona, Laura Ingalls Wilder. We have Girls Think of Everything, Rosie Revere Engineer, Not One Damsel in Distress. Harriet Tubman. Helen Keller. Sojourner Truth. Marie Curie. These are their heroes. We go through our Bible with care and find all […]

The Slow Nature of New Things

What does it mean for God to do a new thing? Seven hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote,  For I am about to do something new.     See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness.     I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Isaiah […]

Getting the Most Out of Regret

My top five regrets: Not dropping everything and going to the west coast when my sister’s husband was going through cancer treatment. Not being emotionally honest with friends for the first half of my life. Not traveling to a close friend’s destination wedding because it felt too expensive. Teasing a middle school classmate. Not getting […]

Of Regrets? (almost) FEARLESS

Of regrets, I have exactly none. To regret something is to wish it never happened. Relying upon the words of Jeremiah 1:5 (KJV), Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Every move we’ve made, every step and […]

Fear and Faith in the Desert Places

I love Robert Frost’s poem “Desert Places.” Typical of Frost, the speaker in this poem describes a natural environment of forests, fields, and snow. But this isn’t a beautiful or peaceful place. Quite the opposite: it’s a place of darkness, cold, and isolation–it’s a menacing and threatening place. For me, the genius of the poem […]

Prayer Requests Make Me Anxious

I don’t think I have a normal reaction to prayer requests. Rather than making me want to go pray, they tend to edge me towards hyperventilation. Take the other day in my small group. There were some doozy requests. People suffering from the death of a spouse, cancer, job loss, financial holes, a risky and […]

When You’re Afraid of Dying

“If you want Elita to throw anything away, just tell her it causes cancer.” This was the advice a friend gave my husband, Mark, when we first got married. It was true. I had once thrown away a whole box of scented candles and a series of scratched Teflon frying pans because someone had told […]