It was mid-June. The proceeding eight months had been difficult, to say the least. It was time to face the fact: I was exhausted. It wasn't just because we’d been traveling or working a lot (that actually energizes me). It was the combination of eight months of a variety of physical issues in our family and the life-changing circumstances these issues produced all in the mix of an especially taxing Mantour during a pandemic season. There just wasn’t time to deal with e

Like many of you, my social media was lit up this week with pictures of kids going back to school. I have to admit I love seeing all their smiling faces, and I’m always surprised at how fast my friend's little ones have grown. Babies we once held in the nursery are now tweens, and the tweens I taught in Girl’s Ministry are now young brides. How did this happen! It makes me feel so old! This summer, as I’ve seen these pictures and more, I’ve been saddened by a startling truth.

Have you ever watched a movie or television show and been tempted to read the book the story on which it was based? That happened to me when I got totally hooked on a Hallmark Channel show and thought, "How fun would it be to relax a good book?" So I bought the Kindle version and prepared to enjoy. Only the books were quite different from the television show. Even though the characters were still intriguing and their dialogue was still rich, I was surprised to find profa

It was over twenty-five years ago and I was teaching at a Christian retreat. We were teaching children's church when one of the other volunteers started talking to the kids about yoga as if it was a good thing. I almost fell of my chair. Being young enough to not know better, I stopped her right there and said, "No, Christians should not do yoga. It's a false religion that opens your mind to demonic influences. Christians should not have any part of it." Well, it's been tw