Bible at Home

In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis wrote that one of the surprises in experiencing grief, is how very similar grief is to fear, in one’s life. When fear and grief come together, they deepen our sadness and sense of loss. I believe that fear, in fact, attaches itself to any large or small change in…

Next week begins the season of Advent in the Christian Calendar. For some churches it is entirely ignored; for others, it’s a time of feasting, with advent calendars holding sweets for each day, and parties and celebrations. For others, it’s a significant fast , eliminating meat and dairy foods for the four weeks until Christmas.…

Thanksgiving One evening Jack received a phone call and talked at length before ending it; and turning to me with a dazed look, he said, “The Lord really wants me to be an usher at church.” He had been called earlier and invited to usher and so had been showing up every Sunday for a…

Feed My Sheep Jacob said, “Behold, the sun is still high. It is not time for the flocks to be gathered. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture.” “We can’t,” they replied, “until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we…

Growing up reading or listening to fairy stories, I was attracted mostly to stories of poor shoemakers who fell asleep at their bench and and woke up in the morning to find that elves or fairies or an angel had come in the night and completed the work, to their very great joy, and prosperity.…

To have an albatross tied around your neck means walking through life with a heavy burden impeding your movement and very freedom. It’s an expression that comes from sailors who witnessed the albatrosses when at sea and saw their very large size and remarkable ten-to-twelve foot wingspan. They noticed, too, that the birds fly for…

Holly is the name of my younger, though not youngest sister. We are quite close in age, and in growing up she has been an inspiration in many ways. When Holly was a young mother of three toddlers, and living in New Jersey, her husband Tom took a good job in Illinois and they arranged…

I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. ( Psalm 121 : 1&2) I once thought that this psalm meant that God lived in the mountains somehow, and that being near those, a person would be nearer to…

One Love Once I picked up a child and took him to our children’s home, gave him a bath, clean clothes, and everything, but after a day the child ran away. He was found again by some body, but again he ran away. Then I said to the sisters, “Please follow that child. One of…

Denny was a boy my age who lived down the street from us and who came to play on our swings and our sandbox. I looked forward to his visits until they became less and less frequent, and I saw him in my brother’s room talking about his comics. A long time later I asked…