Untwisting Scriptures and offering the Living Water, to help others (especially those who have been abused) experience the joy to be found in Jesus Christ
It was three years ago this month that I participated in the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers’ Conference.
I listened to speakers talk about how to write nonfiction, the merits of self-publishing, and how to be a dynamite storyteller. I chatted with experts at the dinner table.
During such an empowering week, it’s always hard to get away for quiet time. But in a corner of the beautiful lodge, I discovered a little desk tucked away. Continue reading “Acknowledging My Inability”
Yes, the Science Guy. That one. The zany one who makes half hour programs that teach a modicum of science. [I used to have a photo of him here, but removed it for fear of recriminations from Disney, about which I’ve been hearing so much lately.]
One day, while Bill was teaching us that wetlands are wet, he held up two sponges, one dry, one damp. He told us that a wet sponge will soak up more water than a dry one. Even if you don’t actually do the experiment, you can picture a dry sponge and a damp one both being plunged into a big bowl of water and removed. Continue reading “Life Lessons from Bill Nye”
I’m a New Covenant Christian.
I say this without shame, with full understanding of the implications.
I believe that the New Covenant is not simply a new administration of the same covenant as the Old, but rather is a truly and radically NEW Covenant, based on the blood of Jesus Christ, completely fulfilling the Old. As we’re told in Jeremiah, Hebrews, Galatians, Colossians, and other places, the Old Covenant, by design, was not good enough. The New Covenant is better. Better. Better. In every way. Continue reading “On Reading Through the Bible in 2011”
Through the years, every time I read Leviticus, I felt as if I were wandering in the wilderness. It seemed vast, dry, and dead. And may I add, pointless?
I was reading through the Bible, over and over and over, and I knew that in order to really read through the Bible, I shouldn’t skip Leviticus, even though I really wanted to, every time. All the sacrifices . . . and so much detail . . . ugh. Why did I have to read all that? I struggled to keep my mind from wandering, usually without much success. Continue reading “Leviticus: My Wilderness Book”
A beautiful lady at our church just celebrated five years of being drug free. In writing her heart to God, she composed the following, which I want to reprint as a tribute to the great work God is doing in lives around the world: Continue reading “Celebrating Redemption”
“So what do you mean by gospel?”
My friend was taken aback by my question. She had just been talking about the importance of living a gospel-centered life, based on the transforming power of the gospel.
But I had been feeling some concern that gospel is becoming more and more of a buzzword Continue reading “Should My Life Be Centered Around the Gospel?”
My daughter is getting married, and she wants to wear a veil. In front of her face.
She knows that veils aren’t that common nowadays. It’s probably because at some point people thought that since their faces wouldn’t show up in the photographs, the pictures wouldn’t be good, so it wouldn’t be worth it.
But the symbolism of the veil hiding the bride’s face, the veil that the groom has to turn back in order to kiss her . . . that symbolism is rich with meaning.
He can now, as her husband, enter a place where he was never allowed before. Now things are different. Now he is welcome. And her eyes will say to him, “Come.”
I remember with crystal clarity a day twenty-one years ago, when this same daughter was two. We sat snuggled together in the big green armchair while I told her Bible stories. I was talking about a different veil. I pointed to the picture of the shocked priest, watching the veil of the temple being ripped from top to bottom.
Tears came to my eyes as I explained the symbolism of the tearing of the veil and what that meant Jesus had done for us on the cross: that now we can enter a place, in the presence of God, where we were never allowed before.
Little Katy stared up at me with her solemn eyes. She didn’t understand, but that was okay. I understood it better than ever.
This morning our pastor will be preaching about the rending of the temple veil, the shockingly beautiful symbolism springing out of and accomplished by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
This is the picture of our bold and joyful entrance into the very presence of God, a place we were never allowed before.
Everything is different. Now we are welcome into His very presence.
Now He says to us, “Come.”
I could make a metaphor about the pea-brained bird that kept banging at the window for an hour trying to get in to a place that he would have found out too late he didn’t want to be. You know where it would have gone: I would have applied it to our frenetic activity at Christmastime.
But I’ll refrain. Continue reading “The Peace of God at Christmas . . . and All Year”
I was doing a Biblical word study, because I wanted to understand the concept of perfection, often translated “maturity.” After all, with two children young adults, it seemed about time.
Mature, perfect, complete, sanctified, holy, whole-hearted. The study got bigger and bigger, but I kept doggedly Continue reading “Maturity: Praying in Faith or in Fear?”
In honor of my fifty-second birthday season this past week, I re-read some old journals (always an instructive venture). I went back to 2003, as far back as they go on my current computer.
I found the entire year, with the rare exception of an occasional glimmer of peace, to be filled with anxiety, teeth-gritting, knots in the stomach, frustrations, barely-contained impatience. I was worried and stressed about money (not enough), stuff (too much), scheduling (too much to do), homeschooling (too Continue reading “Reflections On My 52nd Birthday: The Opening of the Eyes”