A GIFT DELAYED It was another of many moves, and I had packing down to an art. I was sitting on the floor of our tiny bedroom-slash-office sorting things that I would be sending off to our son Luke, now living in Florida. There was a time when he (Luke) had been forwarding packages to our home, and it was this arrangement that caused me to set aside a box that had arrived many years before, misplaced in one of the previous shuffles of moving and storage.  Well, it had never b

LETTER FROM A MOTHER OF A PRISONER Dear Kay Lee,   My name is Anna McGurk, and I am the mother of a Florida prisoner.  I live and raised my sons in California.  They left here to join family members in Florida several years ago.  My son, Micah Talley, was arrested and convicted of attempted murder and aggravated assault during a street fight there in Florida, eight years ago, when he was seventeen years old.  He spent the past four years at Hardee C.I. He has now been transfe

FRIENDS ON A BOAT             Okay, now this is hard.  Work all day, then errands, wash, exercise, shower, hair…now 500 words – pop out of me, because I feel I am spent.  But this is the enemy I am fighting.  The enemy that has whittled away at me so that the passion to write I once had seems to have disappeared.  It has not.  I will fight.             The lake was like glass this morning.             “Hi, Pastor Mike!”             “Hi Anna, come on board,” he returned.      

WASH ME AND MAKE ME CLEAN When I don’t know anything, you sustain me.  When I don’t know anything, and all I’m doing seems inadequate, and I have no answers, and I don’t know what is ahead of me, you sustain me.  When all I can do is rely on faith in the promises you have given me over and over again, you sustain me.             Then I choose to remember all you have done for me, how you brought me from a life of violence, of mental abuse, of sexual depravity, and utter despa

NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN There is nowhere to turn without God.  I am a sinner, and I have fallen in anger.  My darkness will remain and there is nothing to do but walk through it, as these are the consequences of sin.  I repent, and still my anger wants to shout its righteousness, its argument about how I have been wronged, and wronged for such a long time.  He comforts me with the hush of his spirit, and tells me unabridged, how I must love (I Cor. 13) how I must reconcile (2 Co

I WILL HIDE THY WORD IN MY HEART Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. Psalm 119:11   Memorize God’s word, and it will be hidden in your heart, apt to spring forth at a moment’s notice and even to our own surprise at times.  As we study to show ourselves approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of truth, even so is the recipient of that very verse being prepared to hear you speak it.   Haven’t you heard the words of the Lord spilling off t

THE PELICANS God’s Word says He will lift us up on the wings of eagles, and so He does.  I guess He knows we all aspire to ride on the wings of something beautiful, but he spoke to my heart with pelicans.   One day, I stepped outside my office at the warehouse and looked up.  Now I didn’t know it was a flock of pelicans  as I watched, because they were just far enough away not to notice those ungainly wings and enormous beaks I was used to seeing down at the beach.  Besides,

FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS “What’s more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this?” Esther 4:14   February 16, 2004   You may not be living in a palace. Still, if you are finding complaint with the job, the family, the circumstances you have been given, stay your imagination on God and ask him to reveal to you just a glimpse of the answer to the question Mordecai asks Queen Esther in the passage quoted above.   Ask yourself: Why was

INTO THE EAR OF GOD The mysteries of the universe are a small thing when you’re in pain.  Some pain can make everything that came before it disappear, and everything to come, no wider than the howl rushing from your mouth into the ear of God.  That’s how she felt when she got the call from Florida.  Up until then, she still thought somehow, some way, the kid would grow out of it, come to his senses, have a spiritual awakening.  Surely, her perseverance would make a difference

GRACE OR THE LAW? "Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise." Galatians 4:21-23 You have received the Lord, and his strength is your joy. You live an obedient life out of gratitude for what the Lord has done for yo

FAITH TO EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN   On the eve of my 42 nd  birthday, I prayed for the faith of a child.  This is the only place wherein contentment lies.  In the faith of a child is trust, and a lack of fear of the unknown.  In the faith of a child is freedom from worry.  In the faith of a child is love without conditions, life without definitions.  In the faith of a child is belief in promises.  In the faith of a child is rest and confidence, and peace.  It is freshness and spon

SEEKING THE LIGHT "Your statutes stand firm; holiness adorns your house for endless days, O Lord." Psalm 93:5 It is comforting to have God's absolutes when the place where we are standing appears tenuous, ready to swallow us up in grief, anger or resentment. God's statutes are immovable; they do not sway, regardless of emotion, circumstances or consequences. They are the measure against which all thought, motives and action are weighed. They are a secure fence, a boundary in