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Digging Out; Where Does Your Help Come From?
I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2 The boy’s day starts long before his sister or I consider waking. Winter brings challenges to our West Michigan home, primarily in the form of a relatively long driveway built on an incline. There is a slight curve in the middle, identifying those who belong to this driveway and those who do not. Experience is required to navigate both an entrance to and an exit from the home that sits atop the hill, experience or a four-wheel drive vehicle. The boy’s…
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Choosing Something from a Landscape Cluttered with Nothings
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Psalm 119:37 I find myself living in the midst of superfluous options, like one who sits and eats from a box of chocolates. Chocolates that come packaged in a flat white cardboard box, lined in neat rows. A box once opened reveals a homogenous landscape of too sweet, too many. I am in the middle, surrounded by flimsy brown papers, reminiscent of a Shel Silverstein line drawing (complete with a slightly cynical but true rhyme) with my pigtails askew, cheeks and tummy puffy, holding a partial box of carrageenan filled chocolatey choices. Partaking fully in…
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Stepping in Faith; Unlocking Your Destiny Through Obedience
For we walk by faith, not by sight. 1 Corinthians 5:7 In childlike ignorance, only in the grown-up form, I had envisioned the Christian life to be a mountain climb followed by plateau living…a happily ever after story of sorts. Having all that I wished, uh-uhm, I mean, prayed for, all that I wanted, happiness for everyone all around. Have you ever seen a mountain range, or better, attempted a climb? A hike marked by elevation change along with miles. The up and down, habitats dependent upon elevation and whether the land receives the gentleness of the morning sun or the beating of the afternoon sun. Above the tree line,…