As a choral educator, I know the power of singing rounds. All learn a simple melody, repeat it over and over, and when the round begins, groups of people sing the same song at staggered times. I remember singing this round as a teenager, memorizing Scripture with song: Seek ye Read more
I detest being in conflict. Relational conflict keeps me up at night. I run past conversations on repeat in my mind, ruminate on words I might say tomorrow, and kick myself with guilt for what I did or didn’t say today. When someone disagrees with me, my knee-jerk response is to Read more
As I live with chronic illness, my body forces me to listen to symptoms of unpredictable flares. Sometimes, my symptoms force me to cease striving (Ps. 46:10a NASB), to rest, to be still, as I use all the therapies doctors suggest. My calendar and to-do lists are wiped clean until symptoms subside. Read more
The day COVID-19 shut life down became my best day of 2020. But it sure didn’t feel like it in the moment. We silently gathered for a hushed emergency faculty meeting: “Prepare for an imminent, sudden shut down.” I walked down the hall, swallowing tears, to bravely face a class Read more
I felt anything but a healing peace in my problems. I was “wearied by the length of [my] way” (Is. 57:10 ESV) and I felt down, low, and weak. My frustration and anxiety over unwanted problems produced exhaustion. No wonder I felt no peace. I needed to look away from my desperate Read more
Are you experiencing a new, even desperate, yearning for intimacy with God? Maybe it’s just me, but this pandemic has given me a deeper longing. Written for those experiencing discouragement, attack, and loneliness in exile, Isaiah 35 describes my longing well…maybe it will encourage you too. Five S’s leap from Read more
Singing Christ’s hope into suffering includes singing of heaven as He releases our grip on this world. Before the Lord graciously drew us to Himself in Christ, we had no hope and were without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, we have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:13 ESV)! Read more
Crisis threatened once again. Frightened, she prayed, “I am so scared. Lord, show me how to pray. I need You. I need Your guidance and wisdom. I need Your rescue. Please help me. Comfort me.” I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning Read more
One minute, things are fine. The next minute something suddenly changes. A hassle, a broken, a phone call, a mess, a tragedy. Suddenly, life changes and things are not fine. But are they good? Somehow? It’s ALL good If God is Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph. 4:6 ESV) and He Read more
I call it “micro-stress” when I chat with students. We laugh about it, but there is a quiet knowing and empathy about its compounding challenge. You know…that underlying anxiety caused by constant infusion of horrific on the news. That incessant loud of needing the next “like” on social media, of Read more
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