Job 1–2: Suffering & Support

Read the Bible in 2011 ◊ Week 1: Thursday Today’s reading is in the book of Job, chapters 1 and 2.  When you read Job without having experienced lengthy suffering, you may read as if you’re looking through a window into someone else’s world.  But when you read it in the midst of extensive and […]

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A New Year’s Second Chance

Have you been running away lately?  Maybe not physically, but in your mind or emotions?  Have things seemed overwhelming and you don’t know exactly how God is going to help you or deliver you?  Are you thinking you just ought to give up?  Or maybe at some point in the past perhaps you did give […]

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A New’s Year Reflections on Prayer

As I was reading in the book of Joshua today, I thought of my children, and that led to thinking of how grateful I am to God for all the prayers He has answered regarding them.  There were so many times I scrambled to understand how to be a mother, and I felt my failures […]

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A New Year’s Anchor of Hope

I wrote this post for New Year’s Day 2011. I’ve revisited it and revised it yet again for clarity because it continues to be read as people search for hope. I’ve left this one up so that if it turns up in a search, the link won’t lead to a page that says error, but […]

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Coventry Carol

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the […]

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Hallelujah!

When I was growing up we attended a church with a large music program, and I first sang in a choir as a young child.  Our minister of music frequently had us sing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah during December.  The adult choir was at the front of the church behind the ministers, while […]

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Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour

Carol of the Bells featured a hand bell choir in Taiwan.  The lyrics of Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour were written in China by Frank Houghton, an Englishman.  The words, the music and the story behind the writing of this hymn make this song one of my favorite Christmas carols. “…This hymn was […]

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Having—Minding—Counting—Looking

In Philippians 2:1 Paul lays the foundation of these next three verses by describing the reality of God’s grace in the Philippians’ lives. Because of this reality, he tells the Philippians to  “make full (the measure of) my joy.” 2 make full (the measure of) my joy by being of the same mind, having the […]

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The Context of Two Gifts

You may have wondered why, if Joy to the World is my favorite Christmas carol, I didn’t wait and post it on Christmas Day. I have several reasons. Joy is a major theme of Philippians, and I want to keep this theme in mind—because the topic of  Philippians 1:29 is one that is difficult for us […]

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