No More Prejudice

Many years ago, Julie Landsman auditioned for principal French hornist for New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The MET held their auditions behind a screen to avoid prejudice by the judges. Landsman did well in her audition and ended up winn…

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Strange Places

God, why is this happening? Is this really your plan for us?
As a husband and a dad of young children, those questions and more swirled in my mind as I wrestled with a serious cancer diagnosis. What’s more, our family had just served with a miss…

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Quick to Listen

I felt my heartrate increase as I opened my mouth to refute the charges a dear friend was leveling against me. What I had posted online had nothing to do with her as she implied. But before I replied, I whispered a prayer. I then calmed down and heard …

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Scraps to Beauty

My wife, Miska, has a necklace and hoop earrings from Ethiopia. Their elegant simplicity reveals genuine artistry. What’s most astounding about these pieces, however, is their story. Due to decades of fierce conflict and a civil war that rages on…

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The Right Focus

We’d known Kha for more than a year. He was part of our small group from church who met weekly to discuss what we’d been learning about God. One evening during our regular meeting, he made a reference to having competed at the Olympics. The…

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Drop by Drop

“In everything / we look for pleasant ways of serving God,” writes sixteenth-century believer Teresa of Avila. She poignantly reflects on the many ways we seek to stay in control through easier, more “pleasant” methods than tota…

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Calling Out to God

In his book Adopted for Life, Dr. Russell Moore describes his family’s trip to an orphanage to adopt a child. As they entered the nursery, the silence was startling. The babies in the cribs never cried, and it wasn’t because they never…

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God’s Protective Love

One summer night, the birds near our home suddenly erupted into chaotic cawing. The squawking intensified as the songbirds sent piercing calls from the trees. We finally realized why. As the sun set, a large hawk swooped from a treetop, sending the bir…

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Washing Feet . . . and Dishes

On Charley and Jan’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, they shared breakfast at a café with their son Jon. That day, the restaurant was understaffed with just a manager, cook, and one teenage girl who was working as hostess, waitress, and buss…

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Choosing to Follow God

“The average person will make 773,618 decisions over a lifetime,” claims the Daily Mirror. The British newspaper goes on to assert that we “will come to regret 143,262 of them.” I have no idea how the paper arrived at these numb…

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