Category: Love
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Love One Another (Like Jesus)
Love one another…as I have loved you. These are some of the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples before his crucifixion. The world does not understand this kind of love. The world says: Love those who love you. Love those who look like you, talk like you and agree with you. The world divides…
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Where Are You Aslan? We Need You Now.
I’m writing during our recent winter storm. It’s snowy and beautiful outside. The giant pine tree boughs are laden with white fluff. Suddenly, the weight is too much and the mounds of snow flutter to the ground. This white mask encases everything in my world and a bluish-gray mist hovers over the mountainous horizon. The…
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Love: The Other Four-Letter Word
In the English language, we use the word love to convey a multitude of meanings. I can say “I love my cup of coffee” and “I love my grandchildren” in the same conversation. Yet the value I place on the objects of my love is completely different. With so much division and hate in our…
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Relinquishing Our Right to Always Be Right
Life is very confusing. I feel as if I live in an upside-down world. What am I to believe or not believe? A drove of information surrounds me but very little truth. Everything seems to be relative based on who it benefits. Entitlement consumes our culture. We each shout loudly, “My rights are more important…
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Learning to Love Beyond Labels
The human brain is an amazing superpowered personal computer tailored uniquely to each individual. It recognizes, analyzes, and labels inputted data within seconds. No matter how much we try to mimic it, nothing quite compares to the mind’s ability to imagine and create. For good or for bad, our brains make split-second judgements about the…
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Abiding in a Bubble of Love
At a recent Christian writers conference, one of the speakers made a statement that touched my heart . It wasn’t at all about the craft of writing but about who we are as followers of Jesus. She said, “Remember (as Christians) we have a bubble of love surrounding us at all times.” Her words struck…
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The Greatest Gift of All
The Christmas season is a magical time of year filled with twinkling lights, sacred music and children’s laughter. Gifts sit under carefully decorated evergreen trees ready for opening. If I’m honest, I admit to wondering what treasures lay hidden for me in these brightly wrapped packages. What will be the greatest gift of all this…
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Through Loving Deeply We Become Real
As a young girl, I learned what it meant to become real. When I was only 5 years old, I remember going to visit my great, great grandmother, Anna Peterson. She had just turned 103 and many family members gathered to celebrate her birthday at my great Aunt Mena and Uncle Augie’s home in Marion,…
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Choose to ‘Be the Good’ Anyway
On a wall in my sister’s living room hangs a plaque. It reads: Believe there is good in the world. Be the Good. This mantra embodies her life’s message. We may not recognize the good in the world, but we can always choose to be the good anyway. As many of you know, my sister…
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Free to Flourish At Last
I spent the early part of the morning pulling weeds in my flower beds. This mindless activity offered my brain some time to think … to process the events of the past eighteen months. Yesterday my sister took her last breath after a long, painful battle with cancer. It’s an understatement to say that the…
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What’s Next This Year?
The year 2020 stands as a test of our resolve…and it isn’t even half over. Between my sister’s cancer, the Covid 19 pandemic, the economic downturn, and now riots in our cities, I can’t help but ask, ‘what’s next this year?’ How am I to respond personally as the world falls apart around me? In…
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Washed Clean by the Power of Love
Rain has fallen off and on all morning. One moment the sky drizzled while the next it poured. I sat at my computer watching through my window as I worked from home. Finally the sun broke through the clouds. Its rays made the water droplets on the plants in my flowerbeds sparkle. After my workday…
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Love: A Choice of the Heart
Every year Valentine’s Day falls in the middle of our frigid Midwestern winter. How ironic that a holiday celebrating fiery emotions, presents itself at this coldest season of year. But perhaps its timing isn’t a paradox but a symbol. Love in its purest form is a choice of the heart. It chooses to persist in…
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Time: The Most Precious Commodity
Time. It’s the most precious commodity. Yet often we appreciate it the least. People seek after wealth and fame but let time slip away. Even though we all understand that our days are numbered, we waste much of what we’re given. Only when life brings difficult circumstances, do we suddenly recognize the priceless value of…
