Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs” (Matthew 19:14). Statues is a beloved playground game that has stood the test of time. My children played it growing up, and now my grandsons play it as well. […]
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this (Esther 4:14). So many stories in Scripture tell of people who, in […]
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). At 67, I’ve reached the age when the deaths of dear ones are increasingly common events. I remember that my Nana always turned to the obituaries first when she read her New York Times. She would joke that as long as she didn’t […]
“If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. … Face it, friend. He is crazy about you!” —Max Lucado, minister and author For nearly 40 years, as long as I’ve been a mom, my kitchen refrigerator has been a magnet (pun intended) for snippets of my family’s story, secured by (what else?) […]
“We read to know we are not alone.” —C.S. Lewis I’ve always adored books, especially fiction. My childhood favorites usually had a character who was a bit like me. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, is about Francie Nolan, a girl growing up in New York City in the early years of the […]
“Now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). I’m not a big fan of the winter months. I’m already dreading the coming of ice and snow to the Northeast. I’m aware that cold winter weather, like the warm sunshine of summer, is […]
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world .… The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” —W.B. Yeats, from “The Second Coming” “[Irish writer] Fintan O’Toole has proposed the ‘Yeats Test’: ‘The more quotable Yeats seems to commentators and politicians, the worse things […]
As a little girl, I loved mermaids. I recall being crushed to discover that they didn’t exist in real life. I’d look at pictures of “The Little Mermaid,” Edvard Eriksen’s bronze statue based on the Hans Christian Andersen story, at Langelinie Pier in Copenhagen, feeling so sad that mermaids weren’t truly swimming in the ocean. […]
“[Science] is glimpsing God’s mind and being in awe of it.” —Francis Collins, to the Templeton Foundation For most of my life I had no interest in science. I considered myself an “artist,” even as a young child. I adored reading and writing and music, and merely endured math and science as boring, if necessary, […]
