For Reflection
Devotionals and writings for personal reflection.
Related topics: Christian Music, Creativity and Art, Life of Worship, Spiritual Practice
LATEST POSTS
Jesus is like topsoil [4 thoughts about our relationship with Christ]
I'm a sucker for a good simile. Especially ones that help me understand my faith. Statements like, "Jesus is like a [blank]," help us to understand various characteristics of his nature. In fact, the Scriptures are full of names for God which all tell us a great...
carrying christmas
My husband and I will celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary on Wednesday. On Friday, I'll remove my diamond rings. Not to worry, though. It's only temporary. I've had my flu shot, popped my first malaria pills, and packed last year's Cipro just in case. I'm making...
the testing of boundaries
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16.11 (ESV) Five weeks after total knee replacement and my therapist thinks I'm doing great, but it's hard work, and I sometimes...
power of the Blood
On Monday, we take communion around our worn dining table after missing it on Sunday, share the hand blown goblet from Mexico filled with grape juice poured from small boxes. "This is His blood shed for you," my husband says, and the five of us remember the drink...
how we love
Lillee bounces down the aisle and slides into the pew like she comes to this church with us every week. She pulls a hymn book out of the rack. When time comes for the children’s sermon, she beats everyone to the platform steps and takes a seat next to Miss Jeannie,...
when you find it hard to forgive
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong which we did to him!” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father charged before he died, saying, ‘Thus...
of waterfalls, honey, and mushrooms
The upper falls, they say, is the third largest vertical waterfall east of the Mississippi at over 200 feet across with a 48-foot drop. The river falls at more than 50,000 gallons per second and looks like honey tumbled. “Look,” my husband says. “There’s why.” He...
lessons mom never shared
Storm clouds roll in thick, billowy and dark, blowing small branches and leaves across the field of wildflowers where butterflies make their habitat, laying flat the flowers and thicket on which they find their life and breath. One butterfly frail and tattered lays...
a heart set on a different fortune
If you follow Jesus only because he makes life easy now, it will look to the world as though you really love what they love, and Jesus just happens to provide it for you. But if you suffer with Jesus in the pathway of love because he is your supreme...
when you’re overcome by noise
The sign read “huzzah & welcome.” We walked through the gate and found ourselves in a whole new time and place—the village of Hollygrove in the 16th century. A small group of medieval singers greeted us. Knights and pirates and squires and maidens and men in...
when jealousy visits
Jealousy is one of the occupational hazards of being a writer, and the most degrading. And I, who have been the Leona Helmsley of jealousy, have come to believe that the only things that help ease or transform it are (a) getting older, (b) talking about it until...
what are we waiting for?
I almost missed it, but it’s been one of those weeks, and the very last proverbial bump-in-the-road is a 2-inch incision with eleven stitches across the back of my shoulder. Rest and don’t get hot and sweaty, the doctor tells me. Down here at the edge of the hot...