alone in the dark
Gravity tells the story of Dr. Ryan Stone—a brilliant biomedical engineer on her first space shuttle mission. Her partner for the journey is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski. During a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone, tethered to nothing but each other, and ominously spiraling out into blackness.
gradual catastrophe
Scott and Robin began to worry when cracks appeared in the walls of their home. Over the course of 2 weeks, the fractures widened until their garage dropped away from their house. The rest of their property shifted and eventually sank 10 feet below street level. Then eight of their neighbors endured the same gradual catastrophe, linked to underground leakage from a county water system.
forgive and forget?
Sergei said to his pastor, “It’s been 2 years since Danica cheated on me, and I still can’t get past the hurt. Some days I think I’ve moved on, but the pain is always lurking beneath the surface, ready to explode in the most unexpected moments. We can be having dinner in a restaurant, and sorrow and anger washes over me and I feel that I despise her. How can I forgive if I can’t forget?”
what follows...
Someone close to me (and to those I love) recently made some poor decisions that affected us all, and what followed wasn’t pretty. Pain. Grief. Suffering. Those words capture the essence of the bitter sting brought by foolish choices.
You’ve been there. We all have. Broken and strained relationships can haunt our days with all the ragged emotions and troubled…
a different Christmas
With gifts wrapped and under the tree, Christmas Eve came to a close. God’s goodness had been evident, but this year was different. Unfolding blankets and sheets, my husband and I created beds of the two couches in our family room. My husband’s parents, who live in town, were using our bedroom upstairs. Three months earlier, their oldest son—and only…
never alone
She remembered the day her dad left. Though only a child, she lay in bed and listened to her mother crying herself to sleep in the other room. At 5 years of age, she determined she would never be the cause of her mom’s tears. Now 14, she shared how she had determined to be happy and carefree in front…
a noun or a verb
A recent movie portrayed a teenage girl who got pregnant and had to decide what to do with her baby. Her relationship with her boyfriend wasn’t working out, her dad’s first marriage had failed, and the couple to whom she decided to give her baby was having major marital issues. With broken relationships as the backdrop, she said some profound…
tender talk
Sheryl Crow gets it—at least when it comes to loneliness. Many of her song lyrics express our longing for relationships and the questions that bubble to the surface when we live in isolation for too long. Does anybody want me? Does anybody need me? What will I do if the answer is “no”?
For Hagar, the answer was no, and…
the first cut
In 2003, Sheryl Crow covered the old Cat Stevens song “The First Cut Is the Deepest.” In this song, she bemoans her first love, who wounded her so deeply that she now struggles to feel anything. She wants to love again, but because her heart is broken she doesn’t know if she ever can.
The songwriter’s first love has moved…
forgiveness
We were shocked when a woman associated with a dark time in our past had the nerve to show up at a family reunion. She had broken up my father’s family when he was a young boy, and despite our attempts at reconciliation she had never confessed and asked forgiveness for the mess she had made. Yet here she was,…
failures and rejects
John Mark, a young man, had joined Paul and Barnabas in their first missionary journey (Acts 13:4-5).
For some unspecified reason(s), he abandoned the missions trip (v.13). Perhaps he was homesick. Perhaps he couldn’t take the tough life of the mission field. Paul was ticked because of John Mark’s lack of commitment and because he abandoned the mission.
Three years…
