So many negative things have been written about the year 2020 that there is no need to rehash them or review them here. As a child closes their eyes and imagines that they have disappeared, so too we want to close our eyes and make the dingy wrongs and muddy ills tracked all through our … More A Garden of the Heart (Time to Uproot)
If there were to be a motto for 2020 from the Bible, it might be this verse from Ecclesiastes: “A time to refrain from embracing” The key word here is the verb “refrain”. It literally means “to stop oneself from doing”. If i could sum it up – no one single word could probably express … More A Time to Refrain from Embracing
Love Your Enemies, Really? I’m a comic book fan. Especially Marvel, and most especially Spiderman. I grew up reading the comic books, collecting them, watching the different cartoon series, and then as an adult, watching all the movies. Despite some pretty terrible flaws in some of the movies, I can’t help but smile through each … More A Time to Love
This past two weeks have been a whirlwind of motion for me… I arrived here in Lithuania for a teaching session with MA students for a class which focuses on asking the “big questions” about language teaching – what are our motivations and goals for teaching a language, how does language shape our perspective … More A Time to Embrace
(Photo Credit: Casey Horner) Something in my makeup compels me to stand up for what is right. Time has taught me, however, that what I think is right in one period may not look the same one year or ten down the road. And when I later reflect back on a conflict, my sin may … More A Time for Peace
By Guest Author: Matthew Kanitz This last Halloween our neighborhood, just like many neighborhoods throughout the world, erupted in a cacophony of spooky ghosts, inflatable black cats, and the occasional spoof graveyard. “What are those Dad” asked my son Caleb with all of innocent curiosity a 6 year old could muster. “Those are gravestones. You … More A Time to Die
It was a glaring hot day at the beach one summer afternoon and my dad and I were catching our breath sitting on the sandy towels and shielding our eyes from the sun’s sparkling brightness catching on every wave that rolled in. We started people watching and making comments about the different ways people reacted … More The Way Through the Waves
I had not expected to be making a trip back to the old West Virginia farmhouse where I grew up so soon – but here I was taking the familiar route along sparsely populated roads back to my hometown on the western edge of the state. It is the height of summer and my poor … More A Time to Weep
Come, let us return to the Lord. “For He has torn us, and He will heal us; He has wounded us, and He will bind up our wounds. He will revive us after two days, and on the third day He will raise us up so we can live in His presence. Let us strive … More A Time to Build Up
It was the spring of 2016 and I was just beginning to enjoy the blooming cherry blossom flowers of the “not-so-foreign-anymore” Central Asian landscape around me. Although the landscape was an urban one (with tall apartment buildings and metro stations), there were arid mountains in the distance and the sound of farmers selling fruit at … More A Time to Break Down
