Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5) It was Saturday and we were in church. A big city church sat back on one of Portland’s wooded corners. Imago Dei. Image of God. Two years of Latin and I still had to look that up, just to be sure. The woman with the sophisticated and expertly coiffed gray hair stopped me as I approached the Ladies Room. She called me by... Read more
He wore coveralls over his jeans and flannel shirt. The kind farmers wear when there is snow on the ground, which there was that day. Not a fresh covering, mind you, but the slick kind that can fool a fella, make them fall into the ditch, which somebody in the household had just a few days prior when getting the mail from the mailbox. But the fall wasn’t the problem, the getting back up was, which is often the... Read more
The last thing Claire did before heading out the door that Friday morning was drape pearls around her neck. They were the gift Claire bought herself upon completion of her graduate studies at George Fox University. There had been no family members at graduation to cheer her on, no one to hug her, or hand her a dozen roses. It wasn’t that Claire didn’t notice her aloneness on that day. It’s just that she’d grown used to it.“Solitude... Read more
We hear it all the time. How we’ve moved into a post-Christian era. A time and place where children are growing up far removed from the faiths of generations before them. Imagine, John Lennon said, there’s no hell below us, no heaven above, only sky. Imagine a world of no religion, all the people living for today. Imagine the whole of history void of Creator God. What about the beauty? What about the goodness? What about the creative? Imagine a... Read more
“I haven’t been able to read a book aloud since.” Jackie Barden was speaking about the shooting death of her son Daniel at Sandy Hook. Saturday marks the one year anniversary of the day Adam Lanza stormed into the elementary school and using a gun – not a knife – killed 20 students, and 6 adults. Daniel loved to cuddle in bed and have his momma read books to him. “To think it’s been a year since I held him, it’s... Read more
Book Giveaway Signed Copy Tell me the name of your first love. How old were you? Read more
People say it to me all the time and it is true: You are exactly the same in person as you are online, in your books, in your columns, etc. It never occurs to me to be otherwise. Sometimes they tell me I even look like my photos. That makes me laugh. Perhaps I should have photo-shopped my head on Cindy Crawford’s body? I don’t fear being myself or being vulnerable. I fear the day when I will feel the... Read more
Speaking of addictions, consider the following from the Vancouver Sun: Kendall, the B.C. chief medical health officer, found that gambling addiction more than doubled between 2001 and 2007 — the latest data available to him due to a lack of government monitoring, which in itself is damning — and that the province has done little to stem it … One would conclude, after connecting the dots — the promotion of the most addictive forms of gambling, the enormous... Read more
My mother loved Christmas. She made a big fuss over it every year. As daughter Shelby says: Giving gifts was grandma’s love language. Getting them was, too. Mama loved to give & get gifts. When I got the call last year on Christmas Day telling me that Mama was dying, and that I needed to get to Seattle as soon as possible, Tim and I took off, leaving the kids and their spouses at home to deal with the rest of... Read more
“Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot…” Isaiah 11: 1 Advent. It can be hard, hard, hard. This waiting. You tell yourself that this thing you hope for, it will come. One. Day. Soon. All in due time. You only have to be patient. And good. You have to persevere. You have to try harder. Pray without ceasing. And never, ever lose hope. But when this child, you are waiting so desperately for, doesn’t appear, You... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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