Church Wounds

by Wendy Speake | | 3 comments

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My earliest memories of being taught from the Bible include Ruth Gosting. Her flannel board stories were the building blocks of my young faith. Ruth was the director of the children’s ministry at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in the late seventies. On Sunday mornings my friends and I played games, sang the books of the Bible, and listened to Ruth’s Bible stories. She had an animated, high-pitched voice that was full of inflection and wonder. Her eyes were always wide open, as if she were perpetually surprised. Every time she saw me, she exclaimed, “Oh, Wendy, I’m so glad you’re here!” And she was. And so was I.

I loved church because I was loved at church, and the

When Fear Taunts You, Do This

by Katy McCown | | 5 comments

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I crouched behind a wall in my living room, peeking out only for a few seconds at a time. I didn’t really want to keep watching, but for some reason I couldn’t stop.

A real-life tightrope walker dared to cross a gorge near the Grand Canyon on live television. I didn’t know this man from Adam, but my fear for him and his potential plummet to the bottom of the canyon was real. With each step he took I prayed, please God let him make it across!

The wind blew so hard at times he stopped and crouched down on the rope to lower himself beneath the gusts. He would pause and pray then stand up and continue across.

Yet quite

Knocked Down by Words

by Sharon Jaynes | | 2 comments

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Have you ever felt like someone just knocked you over with words…not caring how it made you feel? I know I have. One day my Golden Retriever showed me just how it’s done.

Shortly after we had planted a maple tree in our backyard, we went on vacation. It was the first time we had left Ginger, our Golden Retriever, home alone. A neighbor fed and watched out for her while we were away. On the second day of our trip, I called Cathy to see how Ginger was doing.

“Well, Ginger’s fine,” Cathy reported. “But you know that tree you planted last week? She dug it up!”

“She did what!” I exclaimed.

“She dug it up. The tree’s lying in the

The Danger of Judging People

by Kelly Balarie | | 6 comments

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Who pulls in a car like this? What are they thinking? What is wrong with them?

The people maneuvered their car an inch away from mine! Who does that? Not only did they pull close, but they pulled in horizontal to the front of my car, leaving me almost zero ease at inching out of the car line at my kid’s school.

I lifted my head and craned my neck. Who in the world would do such a thing?!

I began to formulate a mental script of who they were based on what they did. These are the sorts of people who do that.

Friends? As embarrassing as it is to say, that was me, yesterday morning. It’s horrible, I know.

The Manufacturer’s Guarantee

by Mary Southerland | | 1 comment

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In the early days of the automobile, a man’s Model – T Ford stalled in the middle of the road. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t get it started. A chauffeured limousine pulled up behind the stalled car and a wiry, energetic man stepped from the back seat to offer his assistance.

After tinkering with the engine for a few moments, the stranger said, “Now try it!” Immediately, the engine leaped to life. The well-dressed man then identified himself as Henry Ford. “I designed and built these cars,” he said, “So I know what to do when something goes wrong.”

When our lives are broken, when the plan falls apart and everything goes wrong, we need to wait on

How Can I Let Go?

by Suzie Eller | | 7 comments

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She was three. She arched her arm and pointed her fingers at me.

“You’re frozen, Gaga!”

I stopped in place, one arm behind me, the other in the air. She giggled, then quickly unfroze me.

There was a time if you were in the vicinity of anyone under the age of six, you were familiar with the movie, Frozen. It’s the story of two sisters struggling in their relationship with each other and in finding acceptance. At one point Elsa, the older sister sang these words:

Let it go, let it go

And I’ll rise like the break of dawn

Those words are similar to those I sensed God whispering years ago.

Suzie, let go of the past that you cannot undo. 

Let me rise

Out of the Darkness and Into the Light

by Mary Southerland | | 6 comments

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Children are wonderfully different.

When our son Jered was nine months old, he began to pull up on every piece of furniture he could find. He maneuvered his way around our home until the day he took his first step … alone. It was a step of inches, but we celebrated as if he had run a marathon.

Our daughter Danna had a different plan. When she was ten months old, Danna stood up, looked around, and trotted across the room. Jered and Danna both walk extremely well today as young adults, but they both began with tiny steps … and in their own way.

Nobody gets depressed overnight, and nobody overcomes depression overnight. The journey out of the pit is

Stop Taking the Bait

by Gwen Smith | | 4 comments

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In C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series, a young Edmund Pevensie is a fictional character who, at one point, almost traded his soul for a Turkish delight. He naïvely gave into cravings that ended up costing him way more than he anticipated.

The evil White Witch was initially shocked by his presence in Narnia, but quickly implemented a crafty plan to destroy him that began with temptation. First, she pretended to care about him. Then, like the crafty serpent in Eden’s garden, she warmed him up by providing a sugar-coated death delight. And just like the first Adam and Eve, Edmund, Son of Adam, took the bait.

Similarly, our very-real enemy tries hard to get you and me to

Retraining Verbal Reflexes

by Sharon Jaynes | | 1 comment

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One day I was driving home from the beach in July Fourth holiday traffic. It was Southern muggy hot, and cars were a throng of metal on wheels. Everyone was going faster than the posted speed limit and I was trying to keep up. I was also young and distracted. Ok, here’s the truth: I had just broken up with my boyfriend and was crying my eyes out.

At one point, I felt my front right tire slip off the asphalt and onto the gravel shoulder of the road. In a flood of panic, I heard the voice of my driver’s ed teacher from four years earlier, “If you run off the road, do not, and I repeat, do

One Question that Will Help You Love Well

by Holley Gerth | | 5 comments

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We’re celebrating love in happy ways this month. We’ll give each other heart-shaped balloons, cards with warm words, and boxes of chocolates. But what about the times when someone we love is in a hard place, not a happy one? What can we give then?

I’ll confess I’ve offered many unhelpful things to people I love through the years, like unwanted advice or spiritual clichés. But I’ve finally learned to ask one question that is actually a gift to someone who’s hurting.

I hear the tears in my friend’s voice. “I’m fine,” she says, “It’s no big deal.” She’s trying to stay strong but I know her well enough to sense her weariness. My first instinct is to try to