It’s no secret that the Pacific Northwest is my favorite place to visit. I love long barefoot walks on cool beaches, the sounds of the waves and the smell of the salt air. When you walk along the water’s edge, the waves lap up erasing your footprints. No evidence remains of where you had just been, just the smoothness of the sand. Forgiveness is a bit like this. The footprints represent events in our lives that need to be forgiven and the water is like God’s love washing them away. Once God’s love has covered a transgression, there is no reminders of it left in His eyes. Unlike meandering…
Undisclosed: Sexual Abuse Awareness
The recent reported moral failure by Christianity Today within the Southern Baptist Convention’s former leadership is absolutely heart wrenching. The National Center for Victims of Crime reports that approximately 1 in 5 girls are subjected to childhood sexual abuse. The number is based on cases that are disclosed. Many cases go undisclosed so this statistic is bound to be on the low side. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center states that an astounding 81% of women report experiencing some sort of sexual abuse, assault or harassment. Eighty-one percent is mind boggling. A list of effects of sexual abuse include depression, isolation, hyper-independence, substance abuse, mental illness,…
What Exactly is Prayer?
In our most recent previous posts, we provided you with some tips and truths about prayer. We’d like to take the conversation a little deeper and will be answering several questions about the practice of prayer in the next few articles. I think the best place to start is with the question: What exactly is prayer? When people are asked this question, a common response is “talking to God”. Even the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as: “an address (such as a petition) to God or a god in word or thought”. While these might be technically accurate answers, they are also incomplete ones. Prayer is so much more. Prayer…
Suffering: The Attention Getter?
I never imagined that I would be the one to land in the hospital with covid and yet this past September, that is exactly where I found myself. The doctors didn’t paint a pretty picture and seemed to be fairly concerned. I know my family was horribly worried about me and I understood why. Even as I was in the hospital, several people we knew were in hospitals across the US, fighting for their lives with this nasty virus. And a few of them lost the battle. Men and women of great faith, gone too soon. I’m not sure if it was naivety or faith or some combination of the…
