My sister said this novel by Khaled Hosseini made her glad she is a woman in the United States.I read Hosseini's novel last week.  Hosseini immigrated from Afghanistan to the United States in 1980.  This story is set in Afghanistan and is a dark tale of two generations of women trapped in a loveless marriage. Continue reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns"

The Red dot is Waterloo, IA, where I spent a day earlier this week.  I had lunch on Wednesday with Vineyard pastors George and Judy Marshall of the Harvest Vineyard Church.  Iowa is great state.  Dotted with hundreds of farm communities and friendly people.  Hard-working people.  Good people.And guess who George and Judy reach?  TheContinue reading "This IS God’s Church"

Unspeakable is Os Guinness' take on the utter mystery of evil and suffering.  It's a very sobering read, but emotionally satisfying.  Guinness asks hard questions and somehow makes his peace with not knowing the answers.Guinness explores three sources of evil and suffering:  our bodies, nature and other human beings.  I have had countless discussions withContinue reading "Making peace with what we cannot know"

Choose this day whom you will serve.  You have to choose everyday.  You will serve the Lord, or you will serve yourself.  But you will make a choose.  You're not a robot.  From Carol Kent's book A New Kind of Normal (Thomas Nelson, 2007) here are eight choices you can think about as you celebrateContinue reading "You always get to choose"

I just finished Carol Kent's A New Kind of Normal  -- Hope filled choices when life turns upside down.  In 1999, Carol and Gene Kent watched their good life unravel when their only child was arrested and eventually sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.This book is Kent's story of how youContinue reading "Normal, really?"

"A Christmas Carol," a poem by eighteenth-century writer Christina Georgina Rossetti, always has fascinated me.  I read it every year.  See if you can see how Rossetti deftly moves the reader back and forth between the original Christmas scene, the present, and the future return of Christ the Lord.  The final 8 lines really bringsContinue reading "Giving Jesus our heart at Christmas"

I read Matthew 1:1-17 this morning.  It's Matthew's version of Jesus' ancestry.  Jesus' forebears included children born of incest (Perez) and children born of mixed races (Boaz).  Solomon is in there, too.  Imagine stepping in this Christmas scene and someone trying to explain who Solomon is ..."See that pretty woman sitting there to the leftContinue reading "Accepting your ancestry at Christmas"

After John the Baptist was thrown in prison he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah  we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?"  This verse popped into my mind this morning as I read the New York Times and the story of thousands of Congolese fleeing their homesContinue reading "Christmas tension: John the Baptist felt it too"