We had been sightseeing along the southern California coast and had just stopped at a motel for the night. After being in the car much of the day, our three restless sons had quickly changed into their swim suits and were about to jump into the swimming pool. “Mom, I don’t feel good; my head hurts,” my ten year old…
One bright autumn morning I needed to take our son for his weekly oncology visit, but our family sedan wouldn’t start. When I turned the key, all I heard was a click. I started to react and feel sorry for myself: Here I am alone, with a tremendous responsibility on my shoulders. My husband couldn’t help me—he was on a…
My experiences with a living God began to change me. I’d known about God all my life, but now I’d directly experienced his presence and power for myself. My faith no longer rested on someone else’s experience. I felt so excited, I wanted to tell everyone, especially my husband Jerry. But somehow I sensed that I wasn’t to say much…
In his parable of a hungry child and his father, Jesus chose a loaf of bread, a fish and an egg. Why did he pick just those edibles? Because they embody essential spiritual truths! If we can grasp the inner meaning of the parable and its imagery, we’ll begin to understand the heart of our heavenly Father and the promise…
Our search for God often begins with a crisis. We encounter something that we don’t have the resources or power to handle. For me, it was my child’s diagnosis of leukemia. I knew then that, if I didn’t find a living God, I would never survive this. My search brought me to the realization that I needed the Holy Spirit.…
In a recent post (“I Find The Key”) I told about Nancy emphasizing the importance of faith in God’s kingdom. Here are the steps she used to help me find the key to the path of life. First, she read aloud the words of Jesus: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and…
The path of life requires that we do what Jesus says, to seek (continually) for the kingdom of God. Here are some thoughts from a spiritual father, Ralph Nault. He offers some practical suggestions on how we can stay in the peace and joy of the Lord, even though there are spiritual battles waging war around us. Spiritual warfare We…
During this time of my intense spiritual searching, something unusual was taking place in our Sunday School class. The room had swelled to overflowing with people. An air of expectancy was present; people were searching for something—they wanted more! I noticed that one couple in our class seemed different from the others. When Andy and Nancy prayed, they acted as…
Last week, the movie Jesus Revolution played in theaters across our country. It tells the story of the Jesus People Movement in Southern California in 970. We were living in San Diego at that time and were deeply impacted by what we saw going on around us. This movement was the forerunner of the Charismatic Movement. Here is a blog…
In our house on Evanston Ave, in Muskegon, Michigan, where I was born, the oldest of six children, in 1939, we grew up to the sounds of silence — no stereo, no television, no laughter, not even a chiming clock — except for the milkman’s clatter in the wee hours. The world felt quiet back then…, real quiet, as fierce…