God is the gardener, the pruner of the vine which is His son, Jesus Christ. Where we fit into this metaphor is as the branches off the one true vine. As the Gardener prunes our branch, He heals our sufferings and discards the unnecessary or the aberrant. He will bring us to our true […]

  When I think about who God chooses to do His work in this world, I am amazed that God would choose such flawed people. He abstains from using the “perfect” ones in order to transform and use the imperfect. There are lots of examples of God’s choosing a flawed man or woman for His […]

There are two sons in the Parable of the Prodigal or Lost Son in Luke 15, but we often just focus on the errant one. He is the one who asked for his inheritance and then went off and lived a fun life and spent/lost all his inheritance. He was brought to his knees by […]

“Hush, Hush, somebody’s callin my name                                     Oh my lord, oh my lord, what shall I do?”     Do you have any idea about what is coming in your life? How often do our lives take a turn that we never anticipated? And how do we respond to those changes? With acceptance and grace? […]

I learned so many lessons from being married for thirty-seven years to Hank Adams and raising our daughter and twin sons. By far the biggest lesson I learned was to not take anything personally. Early in our marriage, when Hank was mad at me, I took it personally. It was my fault; he was angry […]

  Does God choose the people who have never sinned, the followers of the law, the do-gooders who stand out? No. So often he chooses sinners to carry out his will. Think of Abraham who showed the door to Haggar and his son by her when his son Isaac was born. And what about Jacob […]

One of the least understood ways of dealing with the pain and suffering in our lives and in this world is to not resist the pain and suffering, to not resist what is already in our lives or someone elses. Everyone in this world suffers to a greater or lesser extent and nothing, not education […]

“Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name                                      Sounds like Jesus. Somebody’s calling my name.”   Walking step by step in Jesus’ presence through this precious Advent time, may we behold the Christ Child as He steps into our lives, into our minds, into our hearts and bodies. For there is nowhere that Christ isn’t. But […]

Paul described the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-3: peace, joy, love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Fruit is the end product of a long growing season, the product the plant or tree offers the world. That this “fruit” comes from the Spirit of God means that it is given to us, […]

I have come to believe that even we Christians are most often deaf and blind to God’s presence in us and in our world. We don’t see the blessings and grace He showers on us daily. We don’t see or understand the answers to our prayers that He sends. We take everything personally, often as […]