It was just another day in the life of Bartimaeus. He sat beside the road in the dust, the sun beating down on his head and back, hoping that a few kind-hearted people who passed by would give him enough money to buy food. That’s the way many blind people made a living in those […]

Failure Is a Stepping Stone, Not a Destination
·“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” Sir Winston Churchill. I’ve been thinking about defeat and what is considered being defeated or failing and what is considered being a success or successful. By the time a person reaches my age, she or he has probably succeeded […]

A Fearful, Agonizing Day Called Good Friday
I think Good Friday is misnamed. How could the day that the Lord Jesus died have been called anything but horrible, heart-breaking, anguished? An explanation is that it was once called “God’s Friday” but through translation, was interpreted as Good Friday. We think of it as good because, even though it was the day the Lord was crucified, it was […]

The Peace and Triumph of Palm Sunday
·Palm Sunday–a Day to celebrate the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is a cloudy, warm day in NW Arkansas, but five years ago, that was not the case. In 2013, on Monday, the day after Palm Sunday was memorable for being downright uncomfortable. A brisk wind blew snow in front of it; snow that […]

Thank God for the Morning
·I thank God for the morning, for the freshness of rain-washed air, for new light as it clears away the shadows of the night. I thank God for the promise of another day that comes with the rising sun, as surely and certainly as it has since the beginning of time. I thank God for […]