Blog
From and about women who love Jesus and want to share His message through Scripture, everyday inspirations, and relatable stories.
I was running through my mental to-do list while my husband dug out another pile of dirt in our overflowing garden beds. As I prepared to wheel yet another pile of dirt to our backyard, I found my heart growing increasingly resentful.
“I’m thirty-five and single—haven’t I learned enough about waiting?” I said it as a joke when telling a friend about yet another delay in my kitchen renovation project, but I wasn’t entirely kidding. For me, singleness has been the greatest lesson in waiting that I never asked God for.
Pareto’s Rule, or the 80/20 principle, states that 80 percent of the consequences come from 20 percent of the causes. Over the years, I’ve heard this applied to the church: 20 percent of Christians do 80 percent of the giving and work of the church. If Pareto is right, and experience is any indication, a minority of professing believers participate in the life of the church, including outside of the four walls of our church buildings.
Julia Child brought the “art of French cooking” to the American populace in 1960s through her cookbooks and television show. To gain the culinary skills that earned her the book contract (and the adoration of housewives across the United States), she studied at the prestigious Cordon Bleu cooking school in France and worked under master chefs.
“Are you happy?” That was the question asked in frustration by my then husband as he stood in my room one night six months before our divorce was final. What I once thought was a good marriage, certainly with room for improvement, but good, had been systematically destroyed by lies, the unhealthy influence of others, and infidelity.
I’ve been a follower of Jesus now for twenty-five years, but until just recently, every time I’ve heard the Great Commission—go and make disciples—I’ve felt ill-equipped. Everyone else obviously knows so much more about the Bible and God than I do.
April was a tough month. My eighty-nine-year-old dad was hospitalized because of complications from a “minor” surgery. To care for and advocate for him, I visited the hospital once or twice a day. Concern for my eighty-year-old mom, now living alone thirty miles away, niggled at my consciousness.
Situated between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the Bay of Fundy had fascinated my husband and I many years ago when we were passing through the area on our way home from Prince Edward Island. Now on a vacation to Nova Scotia, Canada, we decided to visit Burntcoat Head National Park to see the Bay once again—this time from the other side.
After my husband’s first cancer diagnosis, we met with the surgeon, who worked hard to put us at ease. After surgery, we waited for the results to see if the cancer had metastasized from the tumor and spread throughout his body. Though we felt God was present, He didn’t speak words of comfort or assurance to us, but it seemed to us that He would.