BAGS OF LOVE “These children don’t know where they’re going, and then they have to wait in a rigid office, usually late at night, while the social worker calls up different foster parents to place the kids in the correct homes.” Jewel Lien’s voice softens as she explains, “At this crucial waiting time, [...]
FINDING HOPE TOGETHER “God created us from the beginning as social creatures, yet we are lonelier than ever before.” A pastor and good friend opened his heart. “We live in a world with so much suffering, and since my church serves hundreds of hurting people in our community, we see firsthand the results of [...]
MORE THAN A CANCER SURVIVOR, HOLLY IS A CHILD OF GOD “God, don’t let this happen!” The wind instantly changed direction, beating a raging wildfire away from their house, towards a stack of bales after swallowing up a quarter section of land on the other side of their fence line. The fire department [...]
Those five words hit me like a truck: “Launch out into the deep!” Immediately, resistance reared up: Deep? Into the D-E-E-P? Nah, I don’t think so…I’ve tried that before; it didn’t work. Simon Peter felt the same: “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing…" If Simon says: “This is not a [...]
BEING GOD'S ANSWER TO THOSE IN NEED FOLLOWING THE LYTTON FIRE Characters of various shapes and sizes, at all ages and stages of life, with different skin tones and fragrances flocked to her home, ate her husband’s Filipino food, and conversed in lawn chairs—a vibrant, joyous atmosphere permeating the air. Children ran around while [...]
BE A TREE Like a tumble weed at the mercy of the elements, I lacked stability and went wherever the winds of excitement swayed my wretched flesh. Drinking every weekend with fellow accomplices, killing brain cells, barely existing—a reckless, aimless, empty shell—I circled as dust in the wind. If you probed me at [...]
KNOWING GOD'S WILL? Her eyes glistened: “I am so happy high school is finally behind me, and so excited to start the next chapter of my life.” “This is a phenomenal season of your life, yet I detect some uncertainty.” “I wish I knew God’s will; it would help me make the right decision.” [...]
OPENING EYES AND UNLOCKING MINDS My fifth-grade teacher sent me to get my eyes examined; I needed glasses. It’s impossible to forget the first time I stared through those new lenses. Trees held individual leaves and letters on street signs were no longer blurred. The electricity of wonder lit up my brain with an [...]
IT HURTS MORE THAN DEATH I cemented my ten-year-old feet to the floor at the side of my big brother’s coffin. They told me he was dead, but I had watched enough cartoons to know that death means nothing. I had witnessed Wile E. Coyote time and again attempting to capture the Road Runner [...]
WHEN THE DARKNESS IS DEEPEST The incessant heartache of her life made prayer akin to breathing. My grandmother had lost her own mother, two stepmothers, and a number of brothers and sisters on the family farm where she worked day after day, her fingers raw to the bone, and her biceps bulging like a [...]
