As we wrap up the busy month of May, I’ve noticed a popular verse frequently appearing around this time of year. Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This is one of those verses that a lot of us cling to. We recite it to each other and write it on post-it notes to put on our mirrors. Graduating seniors often choose it as their favorite verse…and for good rea

I can’t claim anything close to genius status. I’ve never been asked to join Mensa or any other high IQ society. I’m just your regular, run-of-the-mill, average intelligence kind of girl, but I do like to solve a good puzzle from time to time. Nothing really difficult and nothing that requires me solving mathematical equations, just simple head-scratchers. Here are a few examples: “What has to be broken before you can use it?” An egg. “What is at the end of a rainbow?” The

Library of Congress In 1884, a woman named Belva Lockwood ran for president of the United States. Seeing as how you’ve probably never heard of her, you already know that she didn’t win. Her first campaign for the presidency (she would run again in 1888) came more than 30 years before women received the right to vote, so we can assume the majority of the voting public was not enthralled with the idea of a female president. Just from reading a short article about Belva (I hop

Think of a time when you felt really alone. Maybe you were sick in bed or on a long solo car trip. Maybe you were stuck in an elevator. Or maybe you weren’t physically alone, still surrounded by lots of people moving around you as they continued with their lives unaware of your profound hurt, but you felt in your deepest heart of hearts that you were all by yourself. When we’re feeling alone and wondering where God is, we have plenty of company, sometimes even people of fai

There’s a joke I’ve heard a lot: “We come from dust and when we die, we go back to being dust. That’s why I don’t dust. It could be someone I know.” There are a few places in the Bible that talk about our dusty origin story—one being Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Starting from the “dust of the ground” is about as low as you can get! Here’s anot

I recently had one of those “why did I wait so long to do this” moments. After sawing away with my dull kitchen knives, I eventually took them to a local hardware store to get them professionally sharpened. The difference is remarkable! Now I can easily slice through a tomato just like on those old Ginsu knife commercials . (I haven’t tried out the knives on a tin can. Seems a bit excessive.) There’s an axiom amongst chefs that may seem counterintuitive at first, but I can

“We are so busy!” That’s the general consensus amongst the people I spend time with the most. If you ask how they’re doing, you may get “Fine!” or “Boy, these allergies are killing me!” but a frequently repeated refrain is about how hectic their schedules are. Work, kids, and other obligations so often keep us hopping. Some, maybe even most, of what creates these busy lifestyles are legitimate responsibilities, but I can’t help but wonder if my inability to slow down is becau

I have this memory from when I was little of holding a heavy rectangular paperweight in my hand, staring through the thick slab of wavy glass to read these words beneath: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I don’t know why that memory keeps popping into my mind or where that paperweight is or, come to think of it, why paperweights are a thing in the first place. I mean, who’s doing paperwork in such windy places that they need a pound of glass to hold th

A friend of mine told me about an interesting thought experiment at dinner recently. She said to imagine I was holding a fresh lemon in my hand. She encouraged me to think about the texture and the weight of the fruit. Then she instructed me to imagine the process of cutting the lemon into fourths, smelling its sharp sourness and feeling the juice splash up onto my fingers. Next, I was told to pick up an imaginary piece of the lemon and taste it. When the experiment is done c

Back in 2019, there was a battle you won’t read about in any American history textbooks. It was the battle of the best chicken sandwich. The fast food restaurant, Popeyes, introduced a chicken sandwich to rival Chick-Fil-A and other similar fast food establishments. (Side note: I just found out that there’s no apostrophe in the name Popeyes . According to my research, restaurant founder Alvin Copeland said he was too poor to afford that little punctuation mark to make the nam

Like most people, I love a good story. The drama, the conflict, the resolution, the self-questioning of “what would I do in that situation?” And there’s no better place to look for good stories than in the Bible. It’s got everything—romance and betrayal, good guys and bad guys, peaceful leaders and blood-stained battlefields and mind-blowing miracles. Another thing the Bible has a lot of is people. There are more than 3,000 unique names in the Bible, with just somewhere aroun

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cain_and_Abel,_15th_century.jpg Reading through the Bible every year for several years in a row, you’d think I’d retain more of what’s written in this all-important book, but this practice never fails to reveal something new. For instance, a few weeks ago we read the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. In the story, Cain kills his brother Abel out of jealousy after Abel brings the better offering to God. God sees what happened and call

A few weeks ago, my husband got us tickets to see a live Christmas show at the historic Ryman Theater. I’m a huge fan of Christmas music, making this a great gift. If you’re in Middle Tennessee, you can’t throw a steel guitar without hitting a super talented musician or two, so, as you might assume, this was a stage full of Music City pros. Pretty quickly into the show, even with all that was happening on the crowded stage, my attention was nearly consumed by the half-a-do

Now that we’re in the middle of December, most of us are running around with long lists and busy plans and random dots of glitter speckling our cheeks which came from the many sparkly cards and ornaments lying around the house. It’s my favorite time of year, but with all the glittery rigamarole of the season, I have to remind myself of why I’m actually counting down the days until Christmas. When I was growing up, my mother would hang up our Christmas stockings on December

There are a lot of great things about the holidays (aka, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years). It’s a season designed for time-honored traditions, contemplative reflection and showing generosity, and it all begins with an emphasis on thankfulness. If you do a Google search for “thankful people in the Bible,” you get a few well-known names, such as the Apostle Paul and King David, men who professed their gratitude even in the midst of tragic circumstances. Another name in

Around 15 years ago, my sisters and I took a cooking class together. All three of us are relatively good cooks but we decided on a basic knife skills class to improve our cutting proficiency. (My older sister’s then ten-year old son was disappointed that “knife skills” didn’t mean that we’d enrolled in a self-defense class. I think he was hoping we’d return as full-fledged ninjas.) There were just six students in the class. The other three were older than us—a couple and an

With Halloween around the corner, this seems like the perfect time to talk about fear. (Typing the above words, I just realized that sentence could’ve ended multiple ways. “Halloween is the perfect time to talk about…wearing masks or gluttony or showing hospitality to people who turn up at your door.” So many directions to take!) Though I’m not a fan of the scary side of Halloween, such as horror movies and haunted houses, I know that fear is definitely tied up with this ho

When my husband and I traveled to Savannah, GA last summer, we took a trolley tour of the beautiful, historic city. A frequently highlighted feature of the homes in the wards and squares of Savannah is the presence of red doors on some of these incredible houses. We were told that there is a very strict rule about choosing this particular paint color: the only homes allowed to have a red door are ones that have been fully paid off with no outstanding mortgage. I’ve been rea

Here recently, I’ve really enjoyed a podcast about the Titanic . Over the 13 episodes, it goes in depth into the giant ship’s design and...

When our son Ezra joined our family after living his first five years in Africa, he became exposed to a lot of food he’d never eaten...

One of my favorite verses is 1 Thessalonians 5:11: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are...

My favorite goalie! As a parent of a soccer player, specifically a goalkeeper, there have been plenty of times when we get to the end of...

If I had to describe the month of August in just a few words, one of those words would probably be thirsty . I try to begin each day...

My husband and I took a trip to a couple of beautiful, old Southern towns recently. We stayed in homes near the bustling heart of those...