Dear Christmas, I hope you look different this year This was my silent prayer in September as I saw the store shelves begin to bear their annual load of Christmas stuff. A singing reindeer, a nativity set, biscuits and tinsel and platters and bonbons. I couldn’t help but feel a little deflated. My pet hate is clutter, and I reserve a particular hostility for Christmas-themed clutter. Take Christmas-themed crockery for example. Why should I store …
Young people are amazing! This is my very biased opinion based on lived experience, and about a decade of working in youth ministries and programs. This is my opinion based on my daily interactions with children and families in hardship. This is my opinion as I watch my friends’ babies learn, but also teach. This is my opinion based on the brave responses of a generation to the injustices of the world they’re inheriting. Young …
Patient Papa God. I’m going to call it: 2020 is the Year of Growth. At least, in my world anyway. And not the fruitful, picture-perfect, hustle-and-slay, wholesome-family-viewing kind of growth. So far, 2020 is proving herself full of the painful, earthy and hungry kind of growth that leaves me tearfully stumbling around for pen and paper to keep track of the deep work God is doing within me. A few years ago, in an old …
“What was the last thing you heard God ask you to do … and did you do it?” I felt the Father press this question into my spirit a few weeks ago – I’d been praying for the courage to have bolder conversations. The answer to my prayer was this awkward “ice-breaker”. No witty segue or magically electrified conversation but a call to step up and risk discomfort. I’ve learned over the years that God’s …
“Longer the dry spell, bigger the rain” My salt-of-the-earth “Poppa” made this comment as we chatted about the barren brown land that is becoming the Darling Downs, Queensland. My grandfather is an umpteenth generation farmer with hands as rough as his heart is tender and God-fearing. Living on the land, he’s learned its rhythms. I can remember being hushed fiercely at the dinner table as a child when the weather segment appeared on an otherwise …