Faith, Hope, and Love

One of my favorite times of year is Easter. It wasn't always like this. As a kid, Christmas took the cake. Decorating the tree, presents, Christmas carols and pageants. It's all joy and gladness. And Easter? It just felt a little more doom and gloom--especially on Good Friday. I mean, what's happy about The Cross? And while I learned and understood that the Sunday was coming, and the tomb would be empty... it just never felt as exciting. But, as I've grown older, I've spent time in Lenten devotionals that have really brought Easter alive for me. Spending 40 days reflecting on my sin and depravity, and truly grasping me need for Christ and His sacrifice has made Easter so special. This year, IF: Gathering, which hosts one of my favorite devotional resources, launched a study on the Nicene Creed at the beginning of Holy Week. Initially, I felt it was ill-timed. Every other study was going through a real-time journey to the Cross and Resurrection, and they wan...

In some Christian circles, it is the "thing" to ask people their salvation story. How did you come to know the Lord? It is often on mission trip applications, volunteer forms, and it might even comes up when you're meeting your new boyfriend's friends, mentors or family. Someone, somewhere is going to ask. Tell us your testimony. This has always made me a little uncomfortable, or sometimes even rubbed me the wrong way. And then I'd feel guilt. Shouldn't I be excited to share my story? To shout from the rooftops the story of how God saved me, redeemed me, made me whole? So why do I feel a little bit of discomfort or shame when I think of my story? Of the place where I first met the Lord? It's taken me a while, but I realized it boiled down to one thing: I don't remember it.  I don't remember the day, the time, the moment where I first surrendered to His call and embraced the message of the Gospel. I grew up in a Christian home. When I w...

Three days and all of history was change. Three days and all of life  was changed. On Friday, the crowd gathered to watch as He was walked to a hill, battered and bruised, and nailed to a cross. Saturday was silent; full of pain and confusion for those who loved Him, uncertainty and regret for those who had wanted to trust Him, empty triumph for those who hated Him. And then there was Sunday... oh, glorious Sunday.  Sunday led to an empty tomb, a risen Savior, to the defeat of Death.  How thankful we all should be for these three days.  Without Friday, no blood would have been shed to cleanse our sins and be the true sacrifice. Without Saturday, no chance for us to wait--to lie between despair and joy. Which might seem cruel, but the wait makes Sunday that much more victorious. Because without Sunday, there would have been no resurrection. No victory over death. No chance for a new life, an eternal  life.  As Christians, we tend to make...

I can be a major worrier. I hate making decisions because I worry whether or not the choice I don't make would have been the better choice. I worry that others will hate my choices. That I will regret them. Every time I moved, I worried that I wouldn't make new friends,  find a good church, or end up hating my new apartment. I worry that I am not kind enough, or perhaps I'm too kind. That I am not giving enough, or that I give too much. That I am too aggressive, or perhaps too passive. I just worry about everything.  It's actually quite silly. Earlier this week, I heard someone else share about how much of a worrier she can be too. And her place of encouragement,  what calms her and eases her worry are birds. Every time she sees a bird, she stops worrying. The birds remind her of Matthew 6:25-34. Specifically verse 26--"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,  and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not ...

At the moment, my little sixth graders are in the throes of learning about economy. It's been going amazingly smooth so far... especially since I know very little about economy myself. I scrapped by with a low B in high school, made a 1 on the AP test (or did I even take it?), and completely avoided it in college. But here I am teaching kids about exporting and importing, goods and services, and a whole bunch of other complicated economic terms. The one lesson that was probably the hardest (and which I'm still not sure if the kids really understand) is Factors of Production. You know... land, labor and capital. Except we called them "human resources," "capital resources," and "natural resources." Somehow they don't seem to equate human to literally mean human (I'm still getting kids who think a car is a human resource since it's made by humans--that by the way, would make it a capital resource). And then let's not even get star...