This is the month of Thankfulness. All you have to do is log on Facebook to affirm it. Many friends participate and show their gratitude by posting a different thing they are thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving. While it’s good to give thanks for our blessings, Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “The Turkey,” …
There are quite a number of books that I have bought over the years with every intention to get to reading one day. They sit waiting for just the right time to crack open. Some people like to stock pile emergency items for their pantry in case of some sort of national disaster. I may …
So this is interesting. This weekend I began reading Karen Swallow Prior’s fantastic book on the life of Hannah More titled Fierce Convictions, and I stumbled upon a paragraph lamenting the quality of women’s reading material in the mid 18th century. I could have written something similar today:
Now there is a leveling question. It is asked by Thomas Shepard in The Parable of the Ten Virgins. The question is part of his sermon notes on the visible church of God. Shepard opens with the point that the church is the very place that God prepares his bride to meet Christ, and that …
I read an article over the weekend on the Aquila Report that disturbed me. The article warned of a disturbing trend that we will see in our churches in 2015: “What is this one trend? It’s that your most committed people will attend worship services less frequently than ever in 2015. [Emphasis added.]“What does this …
I came across this excerpt from Martin Luther’s Tabletalk today. It is under the chapter heading “Offences”: We little know how good and necessary it is for us to have adversaries, and for heretics to hold up their heads against us. For if Cerinthus had not been, then St. John the Evangelist had not written …
My husband has an irrational fear of food poisoning. I can’t even tease him about it, because I would then be the one who has to deal with the imagined stomach aches. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard him ask some sort of question before we sit at the table to …
These days we use the word friend as loosely as “Sure, you look great in those jeans.” And so we use a qualifying word when we want to express an actual friendship, a “He is a good friend,” or “She is a true friend” kind of thing. Plenty of thinkers have lamented that one can …
Have you ever thought about what your dying words would be? Well, I have, and I asked that question to my Bible study gals as we were studying the faith of the patriarchs. In Hebrews 11:20-22 we see faith that finishes well. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph end their lives holding fast to the confession of …
Well this is strange. My daughter was playing a song called “Car Radio” off her phone while we were riding in the car and something about it made me think of cancer. Well, not just cancer in general, but cancer and faith as Todd Billings describes it in his outstanding book, Rejoicing in Lament.
Aimee Byrd 