Leaders fall. And when Christian leaders fall, depending on how high their orbit, people can become disillusioned and forget that many do lead with integrity. When we lived in Kyiv, Ukraine I took an Ethics seminary course taught by Dennis Hollinger, President of Gordon-Conwell. I will never forget the day he lectured on power, sex…
Category: Faith
Thoughts on Easter Traditions and Resurrection Life
Lviv, Ukraine bloomed with spring flowers and girls in diaphanous, floral dresses days before everyone came out with their woven Easter baskets carrying freshly-baked Paska bread covered with brightly-embroidered cloths. I searched the art bazaar where artisans sold their crafts for an Easter cloth that depicted Christ instead of Easter eggs. I was pleased to…
Year-End Review & Faith in a Faithful God
Let’s be honest. In all the good we want to do, mountains we want to climb, giants we want to slay, and people we need to love, we are faced with a challenge. If we could view an accurate panorama of the last year, we might see that our God was too small. Not in…
The Not-So-Silent Night that Rocked Our World
“Seeing Shepherds,” a painting by Daniel Bonnell, arrested my attention. It’s the images of angelic light flooding a dark night and the shepherds, transfixed, caught up in the heavens right there in the lowliness of their mundane existence. The sound must have surpassed the greatest performance of Handel’s Messiah. They must have been jazzed, jubilant,…
A Perspective on Thanksgiving
My friend in Beijing, China sent a greeting today and thanked me for her first and last “warming and touching” Thanksgiving celebration she experienced with my family many years ago. As she goes on “compliance leave” from work for a week, I try to imagine November without Thanksgiving, without a fresh reminder of the faithfulness…
Stability When We Don’t Undersand: Faith like Abraham
Change is human. So is insecurity. We are riddled with it. We cannot find within ourselves a fixed point, an anchor, for our own souls. We can change with the weather, the news, or a bad doctor’s report. We stand for the first time on wobbly legs, elated, and are thrilled as we take our…
The Eeyore Antidote: Looking at Life through Grace-colored Glasses
Our childhood stories made us feel cozy and warm. While snuggling in a blanket, we were transported to another world learning lessons about life as we listened to a grown-up read to us. I love to enter into story from time to time because stories found in books, film and biography resonate with our lives…
The Damascus Road Encounter
To have an encounter with, to meet, the omnipotent God instead of merely aligning ourselves with impotent religious traditions and laws is our greatest need today as it was thousands of years ago. Nothing short of this will change us. We cannot save ourselves any more than we can give breath to life. But first…
Comfort and Joy
Telling stories breathes life into them, forming habitations in our minds and hearts built with words. I remember as Christmas approached during my early childhood we would deck the halls, then my father would lift me into his arms and carry me around to see the dazzling ornaments, especially the ones too high for me…
Myra Watkins 