Category Archives: hopelessness
Where is Christ today?
[A repost from the past] This is the day when everything is silent. We can go about the day not giving much of a thought to it–just seeing it as the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Yet monumental things were happening in the spiritual realm. Christ descended to hell to set captives free. …
1000 years is as one day
See this plant? It was grown from seeds brought back to life. No big deal, you might think. Well, the seeds were 32,000 years old! They “had been entirely encased in ice, were unearthed from 124 feet (38 meters) below the permafrost, surrounded by layers that included mammoth, bison, and woolly rhinoceros bones.” According to …
Look straight up and praise
I’m still delving deep into Amy Carmichael’s commentaries on the psalms. I can’t help but share the precious tidbits I keep finding. Here are her comments on that transition we find in the psalms from weeping to praise, that encouragement to look straight up and praise God with a song (when we least feel like …
Doing the next thing
Sometimes the best thing you can do to love the Lord is to just do the next thing. Ann Voskamp, in her usual honest and beautiful way, shares about not wanting to get out of bed one morning: When perfectionism and to-do lists overwhelm.
Do not lose heart, O soul
This is the week of penance services. Along with that can come the temptation–yes, it is a temptation–to overdwell on our sins, on how we have offended God to the point that we never really return to the arms of our loving Father. We stay in the pig sty rather than running with confidence to …
God’s visitation
A word for those of you who are in very challenging or distressing situations, situations that you hope are a dream you will wake up from. Last year I found myself in just one of those situations, and a very wise priest said to me, “Don’t miss God’s visitation in the midst of this.” Don’t …
Sail at an angle
I want to share an excerpt from a book I’m reading, Wild Child, Waiting Mom–written by the mother when her daughter (with two young children) was once again making a bad decision about her life (and the life of her children). The mother was very tempted to slide into depression–she and her husband had been …
It’s worth quoting again
It’s worth quoting again. One of the quotes from the talk I gave last night at Witnesses to Hope, that is. It’s from Michael Card’s book, The Hidden Face of God: “Those who are lost in this wilderness of grief, most especially at the loss of a child, have come to know that there is …
What to give up for Lent
I realize that Lent is well underway and numbers of you have already pondered this question: “What should I give up for Lent?” and well on your way into Lent, giving that thing up as you decided. At the same time, there are probably some of you that are either behind in answering it . …
In time of need
Yesterday was the funeral for my aunt and the reason for my not posting. Today, of course, I am a bit weary. The funeral went well, but now, in addition to what I call the “mother-wound” I carry in my heart because of the loss of my own mother, I now have an “aunt-wound” because of …
