Inconceivable

“You keep using that word…” Some can quote The Princess Bride movie. Having seen it once or twice myself, I only remember bits and pieces of a silly dialogue about the word “inconceivable.” Wallace Shawn’s character kept saying it to describe the...

God Has a Better Plan

Two thousand years ago, Elizabeth wanted children. In her culture, children were her priority. She didn’t have any, therefore others looked down on her. Her society wrote her off as too old to be a successful Jewish woman. She was too old to have children. She was...

Grenade!

What do soldiers or Marines do when a grenade lands among them? The most heroic among them might make a split-second decision to jump on top of it. Falling on the grenade usually results in the death of the one in hopes of saving others. That is heroism worthy of the...

Their Hope of Gain was Gone

Money makes the world go ‘round. Might makes right. The ends justify the means. These statements have a semblance of wisdom and are confirmed by our historical bias. But are such sentiments really true? Is there something more important than money, power, or...

Right Hace! Forward Harch!

I remember learning to march. The drill instructor was very patient and repeated a command as many times as necessary for all of us to get it. We carried refreshments around with us on our belts. We smiled a lot. It was spring. It was beautiful. Or maybe not… The...

Reading Between the Lines

Have you ever been told, “Read between the line.”? Sometimes it is a subtle social cue, like not being invited to a wedding. Other times it is painfully obvious, like someone making a statement by wearing white after labor day…. Do we need to read between the lines to...

Sweat the Small Stuff

Rich Carlson has a book titled, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and It’s All Small Stuff. Sometimes we need to sweat the small stuff because it is big stuff. What might appear to be a pebble in our lives is a boulder in someone else’s. In Acts 6:1-7, we read of a...

Come and See for Yourselves!

A friend from Germany visited Penelope, Texas. She had seen a map and intellectually understood that towns in Texas were separated by miles and miles. She did not truly understand it until she saw how long and empty the road was between Birome, Leroy, Penelope, and...

A Simple Question

Sometimes people are highly motivated to learn something new. It could be house repair, a foreign language, or how to cook a soufflé. With all of the resources available to us via the internet, we can literally have someone show us how to do these things at any time...

“Those Who Can Do. Those Who Can’t Teach”

My uncle said it. I am pretty sure he had never read George Bernard Shaw. Most of us who know the saying, believe it is a proverb— not something lifted out of a novel. The Bible, however, teaches us something different in Ezra 7:10, “For Ezra had set his heart to...

New Testament

God Has a Better Plan

God Has a Better Plan

Two thousand years ago, Elizabeth wanted children. In her culture, children were her priority. She didn’t have any, therefore others looked down on her. Her society wrote her off as too old to be a successful Jewish woman. She was too old to have children. She was...

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Greek Yogurt Is Terrible

Greek Yogurt Is Terrible

Johnny stood, mouth open in disgust. “It gets stuck between your teeth, is too tough to chew, and tastes like day-old Dr. Pepper. Greek yogurt is yucky!” He wrinkled his nose even thinking about it. Jen paused her spoon an inch from her open mouth. “Have you ever...

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Come and See!

Come and See!

Nurses just know. They’ve been there, done that. They say, “Just slap a bandaid on it and stop complainin’!” But that same gruff nurse who blows off our ouches and owies as an annoyance will soften like butter in the warm, Texas sun when confronted with a patient who...

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Old Testament

Change Is Tough

Change Is Tough

The Air Force provides a lot of training, very little of it on a volunteer basis. One of the trainings I took was in “Change Management.” It may have had a different, more military sounding name, something like “Non-linear Progression of Leadership Requirements” but I...

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The A-Team

The A-Team

When the Air Force stationed my dad overseas, the only real disadvantage of living “on the economy” was a lack of US TV programs. If you lived close enough to base, you could watch the Armed Forces Network, but we lived too far away. Somehow, one of the American...

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