When You’re Left with No Choice: Living with Severe Asthma

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – 2 Corinthians 12:9

For the past 1 1/2 years, few people who don’t live or associate closely with me would have known I (more…)

So That You May Know You Have Eternal Life

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. – 1 John 5:13

Recently I heard about an elderly churchgoer who was certain she would go to heaven because her husband was righteous. Another churchgoer is certain her husband will go to heaven because (more…)

A Family Likeness

Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me.—1 Corinthians 4:16

I never looked like anyone in my birth family. My mother had medium brown hair, dark skin and blue eyes; my sister was blond, blue-eyed and big-boned; then there was tiny little black-haired, green-eyed me. “You must be adopted,” I heard more than once—from extended family members, no less.

In fact, everything about (more…)

The One That Got Away

Yesterday I received a magazine in the mail from my journalism school. I flipped to the back to see what some of my classmates had been up to, and I saw his name. His is the name that was announced as the winner of the prestigious scholarship I was supposed to receive. And for years I had imagined how my professional (more…)

Jesus Heals

We all know someone who needs healing. Sometimes it’s a serious short-term illness; sometimes it’s chronic or even incurable. The logical response is prayer, except when it seems illogical.

Today I learned a man I admire exceedingly has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a death sentence by conventional wisdom. And how I pray for him says something about my faith.

I serve a (more…)