On Sunday night, I did perhaps one of the most admirable acts a human has ever done. It involved a waitress and an Applebee’s menu. “What can I get for you?” she said. “I would like the grilled salmon please,” I told her. Did you hear that? I ordered the low-calorie plate. It didn’t even…
Well, has your December calendar worn you out yet? If you’re coming into Christmas tired of soul, here’s a word of encouragement that I wrote a few years ago. It just needed some dusting off, and I think the message still fits. Merry Christmas to you, dear friend. Merry Christmas. I like a thick ream…
For the next two weeks, I’m taking a rest from writing and am enjoying the holidays with my family. (Isn’t it good to rest from our normal routines?) But I have pulled up a few blog posts from the archives and have enjoyed tweaking them a little. I thought this was a good one to…
It was a simple assignment. To be honest, I thought my students could use some no-brainer activity as we wound down toward the holidays. In their more academic classes, they were facing finals and end-semester projects, so I thought I could make life easier in the world of Spanish. So there were 25 Spanish sentences…
Our friend quit his cabinet-making job and took employment on the east side of the mountains. He works with three Nicaraguans who come north to work a ranch for half the year, and together they brave the winters of eastern Montana. Cold on the east side. Watch the weather forecast for Cut Bank, where it’s…
I stirred in bed, because my throat hurt. His hand reached out and rested on my shoulder. If I am restless in the night, always the weight of his hand finds me. “Rest, baby,” he says to me with a gentle touch. Strong hands. When our daughter was little, every night her daddy went into…
When I needed something but felt guilty asking for it, dad loved to pull out his wallet and let the hundreds fan in front of my eyes for a second. “Oh man, I’m almost out of money,” he would say. Then we would exchange smiles. His smile would say, “What’re you worried about, kid?” My…
“Look at your phone,” my husband said, with great urgency, on Wednesday morning. Someone is hurt, I thought. Cue worst-case-scenario thoughts. “It’s nothing bad,” he said, after he saw my expression of terror. There was a picture from our son, and it was this: Okay, so a selfie with a camel. I could see the…
It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip that had taken me a year’s worth of courage to embark on. Our 10 days of Bible teaching in Kampala, Uganda, was wrapping up, and we were finishing our time in the country with a shopping trip for souvenirs. Our hosts took us to a little market, where I did…
Probably it started over breakfast when I thought of a painful memory from my past. The Lord encouraged me through my Bible reading, but it still left me a little on edge. Then I started coffee brewing and thought, Hmmm. Why is the coffee so light? “Oh no! Not that!” I yelled. Because every once in…
You know that lady at Costco who has the clicker in her hand as you come in? Counting people. Wednesday was like that for me. One click for a voicemail to our daughter. One click for a question to the school secretary. Two clicks for greeting the lunch ladies. One click for a message to…
I caught a few lines of a song the other day (although I didn’t realize how raunchy and godless it was until I investigated it further, so yeah -not sharing it with you.) But it caught my attention because the artist sang a question and then an answer, repeating this over and over. It made…
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