Latest release in the Missionary Kid series! 

Mia wants her parents to stop arguing and show love to each other. Like they used to when their family lived in America. But living in another culture and learning the French language and customs consumes all their time and energy. It's like studying has sucked all their niceness away.

When Mia makes a new friend, and learns that her parents are divorced, she wonders, Could that happen to my mom and dad?

Mia's on a mission to make sure that doesn't happen. With her friend's help, she cooks up an idea that just might bring the sweetness back into their home.

But will her parents cooperate before it's too late?

Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle ebook.

An Odd Place in Time

 

(Baby feet family photo)

Ecclesiastes is an odd place to find Christmas.

Yet that’s where my chronological Bible reading took me this week.

This morning I turned the page to chapter three where Solomon’s familiar list reminds the reader that there is a time for everything.

Time. An earthly concept.

In chapters one and two, Solomon seems mentally stuck in time. And that very focus leads to despair.

Granted, we are bound to this earth by time, yet our hearts yearn for eternity.

Enter the God who placed that longing within us.

The God who always was ushered in time via creation, stepped into time via the cradle, and gave us eternal life via the cross.

He willingly entered the mess of the manger—our mess—to become Messiah (Savior) for us.

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3

While we celebrate Christmas with family and friends, may we remember that the babe born in time and who died in time--indeed in the fullness of time, notes Paul in Galatians 4:4—is eternal and invites us into a forever relationship with Him.

This forever relationship begins in time but extends beyond the limits of this life into a place where time is no more. This eternal perspective brings meaning and purpose to this life and to the next as we love the Lord Jesus Christ and share Him with others.

Where God Shows Up

As a writer, I feel an obligation, even a compulsion, to write something in response to Charlie Kirk's murder. So many voices have weighed in. What can I say that will add to the dialogue?

Praying and thinking through my part, God keeps pointing me back to two things: His Word and His People.

We desperately need both.

Charlie would agree.

For in His Word and through His People, we find His Presence.

The poet of Psalm 42 writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit modeled this best. He hungered for both.

As you thoughtfully, prayerfully read through the psalm, notice the poet's deep anguish and longing for God's Presence amidst trouble.

He does not diminish nor sugarcoat his agony. He states it plainly with all the wrestling involved.

He questions his own soul, and answers himself with the Truth . . .

How ultimately the enemy of our souls is defeated when we choose to HOPE in God, whose Presence is available to all who claim Him as Savior and Lord.

Read and pray this for the Kirk family, but also read it for yourself. Gather with your local Body of believers (so vital) and pray the psalm together.

Oh, how we need His Word and His People! This is where God's Presence shows up best to our souls and to our hurting, desperate world.

I1As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me,
“Where is your God?”

4When I remember these things,
I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.

5Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

6[f]O my God, my soul is cast down within me;
Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan,
And from the heights of Hermon,
From the Hill Mizar.
7Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;
All Your waves and billows have gone over me.
8The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me—
A prayer to the God of my life.

9I will say to God my Rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10As with a breaking of my bones,
My enemies reproach me,
While they say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”

11Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God. (NKJ, Psalm 42)