I have gathered, when kids express they feel it can be hard to be a kid, some parents laugh, saying the kids’ feeling is wrong, that what is hard is being an adult and having to work and pay a mortgage, to earn money to care for and provide for kids who would turn and complain about their lot in lives. Certainly, children know little of the problems of adulthood. There’s the exertions of work, the stress of finances, and the time consuming tasks of raising children. There’s the emotional stresses of wondering whether our life has really mattered, if we’ve made the right choices,Read More →

Peace, brothers and sisters in Christ, peace.   Lately, I’ve encountered a disturbing amount of Christians bickering amongst ourselves, sometimes with the eyes of a lost world literally watching, and likely thinking if our unkind, unloving, disrespectful attitudes in the moment represent what Christ is about, no thanks. They can get plenty of that without the Lord. Meanwhile, often, everyone involved in the fussing is sure they’re right and the other person is wrong, no one is respectfully listening and respectfully responding to each other, and everyone feels justified in their bad behavior by the other side’s bad behavior, and this ugly cycle just goesRead More →

Guest Post By: Diane Velikis I was married for eighteen years to a man I thought was my soul mate. Together we traveled the world, and yes, faced some hard times as well. I took care of his aunt with Alzheimer’s for over seven years, loved her, and grieved her passing. During that time I had spinal surgeries that left me in excruciating pain crying out to God for mercy. I rededicated my life to the Lord and prayed fervently for my “good” husband to come to know my Savior. Really know Him. As a little girl, I often dreamed of returning to North Carolina,Read More →

The Gospel of John is interesting in that it focuses on 7 “I Am” statements. It starts with Jesus’ genealogy as the pre-existent one1. It’s hard to recognize that as a family record, but each of the gospels presents Jesus in a different way, and three of four have genealogies. Mark doesn’t because Mark presents Jesus as a servant and no one cares about the genealogy of a servant2. John focuses on Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. To accomplish this, there are 7 “I Am” statements. The first is “I Am the bread of life3.” In this segment, Jesus uses an analogy ofRead More →

Or, as Adam Graham would’ve titled this, “The Realm Makers After Action Report.” This year, Adam Graham determined to send me to Realm Makers, to keep his promise that it was my turn next time, so he could go next year. After being persuaded he had just enough money on our tight budget squirreled away, I let myself get excited. Made my plans, carefully prepared everything I thought I’d need at the conference, packed a big suitcase with my laptop, professional clothing, night clothing, exercise clothing, my costume party gear, and multiple folders worth of conference materials, including one for taking notes and three to giveRead More →