They say it often, and it is true, there is no miracle like that of a new birth. You have joined with us in praying for such a miracle ever since Mama learned she was dying. Thank you for your prayers uttered on our behalf. The doctors weren’t sure Mama would make it. It’s a fast-growing cancer, they warned us. First order of business was shrinking the tumors in the brain. Then, maybe, addressing the tumor in the lungs. We didn’t know... Read more
I learned to love reading long before I first stepped inside a Bookmobile. Mama taught me the value of story by reading to me most every night. But it was more than love of great books that made me linger inside that Muskogee County Bookmobile parked on the corner of Lake Forest Trailer Court in Columbus, Georgia. Air Conditioning. The Bookmobile had AC. Real AC. Sweet. Cold. Freon. I was always the first one on and the last one off.... Read more
When the economic collapse of 2008 took place an important story got buried. It seems an investigation discovered that employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were using their work time to surf pornography sites. A few of the offenses included: *A senior attorney at the SEC’s Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he... Read more
The dawn of this day began with a flight west. Headed home. Home used to be the place where my mother lived, but that was decades ago. Before she up and moved off West. She was trying to stay a step ahead of grief. She thought if she could walk faster, move quicker, stay busier than everybody else, then that emptiness that is sorrow would not catch up to her. She could cry for others. Those sick and... Read more
After my mother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in August, someone told Mama that God was trying to get her attention and that cancer was the two-by-four God used to do that. I could never trust a God who carries a two-by-four for the sole purpose of whacking people who ignore him, could you? God didn’t give Mama cancer. Tobacco did. She sits in a chair, hunched over a stack of leather bibles and devotional books by... Read more
The lines to D-gates were inexplicably long at PDX Thursday afternoon. They divided us up into two lines that reached nearly all the way back past the doors of Pendleton store. It was there by the door that a woman approached me, smiling. The election was over so I had no idea what she was hawking but I backed away as soon as I saw the 4 by 6 card in her hand. Would you mind helping us? she... Read more
She sat in the pastor’s office, a blubbering heap. I just don’t know what we will do now, she cried. Pastor wasn’t quite sure what had prompted this woman’s breakdown. Was a family member sick? Were there marriage problems? Had a child gone prodigal? Gently, he inquired, What’s the matter? Clinton won the election! she wailed. Oh. That. Pastor refrained from rolling his eyes. Far as I know the Bible is still true, he said. Jesus still reigns over... Read more
I wonder why it is that Believers are willing to speak out about this: And yet remain silent about this: Why do pastors speak out about this? Yet remain silent about this? If it is true that children are precious in His sight as we are taught in church Then, why, oh, why is this church silent on this? If Christ’s gift to us is peace Then why do we so often let our fears propel us to... Read more
John & Charica Daugherty – Day in Court Remember our story about the failure of the staff at Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma to report child abuse? Well they were back in court this week. Senior Pastor Sharon Daugherty’s son and daughter-in-law, John and Charica Daugherty, both youth ministers at Victory Christian Center, were charged along with three other church employees in September with failing to report child abuse. But the Daughertys maintain that they did nothing wrong in failing... Read more
This was a Facebook post. Reportedly just a joke, says Andre Curry, the father of the child, who also texted the photo to the child’s mother, writing: “Mommy help me.” The mother, Yesmin, 21, testified in a Chicago courtroom this week as Andre faced charges of unlawful restraint and domestic battery. Andre maintained it was all just a bad joke. Said he had only duct-taped his daughter for fun and had not left her that way long. But when he posted... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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