Perhaps you would have laughed, peering into my kitchen last Friday afternoon. There was the pot of soup simmering on the stove, the challah rising forgotten in a bowl, the mop bucket, the grubby floor…
and the pealing bells and pomp of a royal wedding playing out live, just on the other side of the sea.
Once upon a time, I was required to design a short seminar. Not surprisingly, I chose the topic of writing. So I read (and read), taking some forty pages of notes that translated into an entire mini-course, handouts and all.
I never actually taught that seminar.
But as I reread my notes today, I discovered that God had surprised me. The principles I write by, the ones I repeat to students, clients, and long-suffering friends: yes, those wise words? Many of them come from the novelists and wordsmiths whose books I read and seemingly forgot.
It’s Epiphany today: the feast of the three kings, the three sages, the three very wise men. They arrived late on the scene — some say two years — when Jesus was no longer described as a baby, but a young child; staying not in a stable, but a house. The point is: they showed…
Bethlehem.
A plain and simple town, named after an everyday item…
is showing some signs that something special happened here…
I’ll just say it: I’m allergic to schedules.
I like to think I’m a flexible person. As the oldest child in a large family, and as a young adult involved in volunteering, freelance work and travel, this trait has stood me in good stead. But it also trips me up nearly every day, whenever I allow (usually good) non-essentials to deflect me from the tasks God has actually give me to do.
But sometimes the very distractions are His assignment for me at that moment.
first published on ylcf.org, January 23-24, 2007 read original comments here and here Human nature is the original fake. In fact, our moral frailty is one of the sturdiest constants of history: a fascinating and discouraging thought, isn’t it? Modern advertising’s common use of words like ‘genuine,’ ‘real,’ and ‘actual’ clue us in to the…
first published on ylcf.org, April 15, 2008 read original comments here Sometimes in the very middle of the howling winds of my wants I remember how short a distance I can see and Who knows what truly brings me joy. And so I ask the One who sees to choose my inheritance for me. And…
first published on ylcf.org, April 2, 2008 read original comments here (click here to read part one) She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh for herself carpets of tapestry; her clothing is fine linen and purple. Sounds like a pretty classy lady…
