Mornings with Jesus

RECENTLY I WAS LISTENING to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, and I was surprised to hear in it a message about prayer, something I’d never considered before. As you will remember, Jesus is passing through Samaria. Tired from Hi

THIS SUMMER I VACATIONED WITH my family to South Dakota’s Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We drove our RV and ended up having a great time, but the first few days were rough for me. I struggled to stay in the moment and appreciate wh

I GLANCED AT THE DOOR of the bank, eager to step inside so I could make a bank transaction before the end of the day. Then I saw a gray-haired man, wobbling and straining to reach for something firm to hold on to as he made his way unsteadily toward

THIS MORNING AT 2:00 A.M. my husband and daughter climbed into the rented moving truck and set out for Nashville. My girl is moving across the country for a job with a company she loves. I’m thrilled for her opportunity and her courage. But here’s th

MY GRANDKIDS WERE THRILLED ABOUT the big Fourth of July celebration in their new town. They wore patriotic clothes and bought red, white, and blue “glow” glasses and light-up sticks. My three-year-old granddaughter, Lilah, enjoyed dancing to the musi

I’M ROUTINELY AMAZED AT HOW Jesus reveals Himself through real-life experiences, particularly when I include Him in the process. My son, Isaac, has Down syndrome, and loving him has blessed and grown me in unexpected ways. Isaac has inspired me to be

“MOM, SHOULD I TAKE THIS robe?” My about-to-be-a-teenager daughter is holding out her pink fleece robe as we pack for sleepaway camp. It comforts me to imagine her snuggled in the soft robe during a cold night when she is far from home. I want to wra

I’D JUST ACCEPTED A NEW research project and needed a millennial perspective, so I texted my daughter to ask her what FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) meant to her. FOMO is all over social media these days. “It’s when you see your friends’ posts of wedding

MY FATHER WAS A GIFTED talker who relished sharing life lessons and telling jokes. At family or social events, a crowd of attentive listeners would gather at his feet. He wasn’t a writer, but he could weave oratorical yarns that would make you laugh

WHENEVER I AM IN A multistory building, I take the stairs as much as I can. This week I am staying in a hotel to attend our church conference. Today while walking up the stairs to my hotel room, I breathlessly reached the top of the fourth floor wher

MOUTHS PARCHED, STUMBLING FROM HEAT and exhaustion, both kings floundered in the wilderness with their armies. What started as a bold campaign to reclaim Moab’s tax now looked grim. Because of their roundabout route, the kings ran into a problem: no

EVERY SUMMER OUR CHURCH OPENS its doors to the community by hosting a VBS (Vacation Bible School.) This year, a group of older children stood at the back of the registration line. These rowdy kids had attended before, but now they were older and rowd

GROWING UP IN A CHILDREN’S home and foster care left me with bad memories. For years I was haunted by nightmares about abusive caregivers. One night after a bad nightmare, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Jesus, please give me peace, I prayed as I slid c

THIS SPRING, I MADE A new friend, Steven Batchelor, at one of my workshops. After class he told me about his ongoing fight with cancer and went on to mention a book he’d written called Don’t Miss Love. Sadly he passed away shortly thereafter. As I r

EIGHT MONTHS AGO, OUR FAMILY of five moved from a four-bedroom, two-bath rental home to a nine-hundred-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath rental home. It squeezed us in more ways than one. We lost a bathroom in the process, and bathrooms are importan

ONE AFTERNOON, MY HUSBAND ATTACHED our new license plates to the backs of our vehicles. I joked about ordering a custom plate containing some profound words for the front end of my car. “Well, I’ll probably put Live, Love, Laugh on mine,” he said. Ri

PHOTOS ARE PRECIOUS, BUT SOCIAL media has distorted the time-honored tradition of memory making for me. At some point I started to feel as if I were staging my life rather than living it. Getting the family to all look at the camera for a few vacatio

JUDY HAD NOT SPOKEN TO her sister in thirty years. One night as she added the usual “Bless Mary Beth” to her prayers, she sensed a clear message: That’s not good enough. You need to go ask her for forgiveness. Judy felt shocked. “Ask her for forgiven

ALONG WITH JAMES AND JOHN, Peter received a special revelation. Jesus briefly revealed His glory to these three disciples on a mountaintop, His clothing and face glowed with a supernatural brightness. Suddenly the two greatest Old Testament prophets

“THE HALIBUT, PLEASE.” I FOLDED the menu shut and smiled at the server. My husband and I sat at a small table at an outdoor café in Mexico. “I’m sorry, we’re out of halibut tonight.” The waiter glanced downward before handing the menu back to me. I b

A BOUT WITH PNEUMONIA—MIDSUMMER, OF all things—sapped my strength. I’d had such plans. The weather was beautiful. I couldn’t get off the couch. I had meaningful, soul-refreshing work to do. It waited, untouched. I had to cancel a speaking engagement.

MY FRIEND RECENTLY CLIMBED MOUNT St. Helens and reached the summit. She said, “It was a very challenging climb but truly rewarding.” Friends congratulated her for the feat, since she was in her fifties. She’d also climbed the peak in chilly, windy we

MY HUSBAND AND I RECENTLY explored Portland Island, a provincial park in the southern Gulf Islands off British Columbia’s coast. It features more than six miles of hiking trails. At the start of the trail system stands a map that shows optional desti

IT’S THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER, and last week the weather forecast called for rain for ten days. Invitations to summer fun fell like dominoes, parties canceled, outdoor activities postponed. And then—you guessed it—it turned out that the forecast was gloo

MY THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD SON, PIERCE, IS a natural athlete. As his bookish mom I’ve had a lot to learn. Initially going to practices and games was purely a labor of love, though I enjoyed watching my son enjoy himself. Over time, I’ve come to appreciate

MY HUSBAND AND I TOOK our granddaughter to a local museum. They were hosting a special “girls in science” day with many hands-on activities. Instead of viewing paintings and sculptures from a distance or displays of taxidermy animals and pottery shar

I SYMPATHIZE WITH THE DISCIPLES. God’s commandments felt overwhelming, and they wanted encouragement. Perhaps a pat on the back and “At least you’re trying your best.” Instead, Jesus said disruptive things like “It’s worse than you thought. To meet G

JESUS OPENED MY EYES TO the importance of honoring my mother and father. As a teenager I was disrespectful toward my mother. When my parents were going through their divorce, I was experiencing my own lonely descent into low self-esteem and depressio

I USED TO DISQUALIFY MYSELF from ministry or job opportunities because of my weaknesses that seemed too glaring, too great. Yes, I disqualified myself. Even when an opportunity came to me or I was assured of my suitability. I’d tell myself that I was

WHEN I WAS FOUR YEARS old, I traveled with my church to a youth convention in Texas. We lodged at a Dallas motel with a pool. I was the “baby” in our group. The remaining youth were college students. While my mother read a novel in our motel room, th

WHEN MY ELDEST DAUGHTER, STEPHANIE, was born with hydrocephalus—water on the brain—at a mission hospital in Nepal in 1985, she needed lifesaving surgery, but limited resources meant surgeons couldn’t perform the operation there. As a result, my husba

IN ONE MORE MONTH, I will be at a new school. I will have to learn new names and new surroundings and face new challenges. It’s an opportunity for me to start over with a new attitude to help affect positive change. A part of me is anxious because of

IN 1997, MY HUSBAND AND I playfully discussed the possibility of living on a sailboat someday. That conversation turned serious in August 2017, when we both sensed Jesus say, Now’s the time to act. We knew this would be a significant transition. We a

PREPARING TO MOVE ABOARD A sailboat meant purging nearly all our earthly belongings. The only other option was to rent a storage unit nearby, but that seemed like unwise stewardship. “It’s cheaper to replace those belongings when we return to shore t

FIVE MONTHS AFTER WE MOVED into the marina, an eleven-month-old puppy belonging to one of our neighbors broke its leg. The neighbor, unemployed at the time, managed to take the dog to a vet. Surgery was necessary. “I don’t know what to do,” the neigh

MOVING ONTO A SAILBOAT HAD many ramifications. Besides having us purge our possessions and planting us in a new environment, it meant no longer having space to host all our kids and grandchildren overnight. Family time brings me great joy, so that re

OUR MARINA IS AN ENVIRONMENT unlike anything I’ve ever known. My former neighborhoods had families with young children and people who shared my beliefs and values. But it’s different here. About fifteen permanent residents live along our dock. Only t

MY GRANDDAUGHTER’S DOG KNOWS MY voice. And my name. All dog lovers will understand. I don’t see Sadie very often, but she “knows” that I’m family. If my daughter says, “Sadie, Grammie’s coming,” the dog will run to the door, sit, and wait for me. My

SOON AFTER MOVING ABOARD, WE set aside a Saturday to sail with friends and family. The weathermen predicted strong winds—the kind on which experienced sailors thrive. As we motored down the Fraser River, we ran into howling winds. I felt queasy. Two

AUGUST IN FLORIDA. SIGH. UNLESS you live on the equator, you haven’t felt heat like this until you’ve been here in summertime. I grew up in suburban Baltimore and saw my share of hot summers, but this is altogether different. The humidity is like bei

I LOVE LIGHTHOUSES! WHENEVER I go on vacation and there is a lighthouse nearby, I try my best to find it. Last summer, I was excited to finally get a chance to take a tour inside a lighthouse in Biloxi, Mississippi. The lighthouse was a magnificent w

I’M USUALLY LATE FOR THIS meeting but for once I’m early. Thank You, Jesus! I thought as I was driving. I pondered the route I should take. The bridge over the railroad tracks really terrifies me, so I’ll just go through town and cross the tracks. As

TODAY I AM GOING TO meet my sister, Jenny, for coffee and a pedicure. We have lived within thirty miles of each other for the past fourteen years. In three weeks . . . she and her family will be moving to Colorado. I have known the day of Jenny’s dep

MY DADDY FATHERED AN ILLEGITIMATE child. This betrayal is one of many things that led to my parents’ divorce. Sound crushing? It was. To make matters worse, as my baby brother grew up, doctors discovered he had a learning disability. My father enroll

FOR A YOUNG WOMAN WHO “woke up to Jesus” in my mid- to late-twenties, these words were among the first that really jumped out at me when I started reading the Bible. In my case one thing was clear: following Jesus meant waking up—the opposite of putt

A FEW YEARS AGO, MY mother requested an iPad, so my siblings and I pitched in to buy her one. With the help of her computer-savvy grandson, she eagerly learned how to use it. My mother retired years ago, and has been out of school even longer, but sh

MY HUSBAND AND I STOLE away for a weekend at the coast. Along the way, we stopped at a picnic area above the Columbia River. Below was an island, a teardrop of forested land, punctuated with meadows and small structures. I was intrigued. On a whim, w

MY THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD SON, PIERCE, PLAYS baseball (among other sports), and now this nonathlete, writer mom is enriching her writing with lots of handy sports metaphors. In baseball, the umpire is in charge. He’s the all-powerful referee. He starts an

THIS PAST WEEKEND I VISITED a town in northwest Arkansas where one of my best friends lives. She invited my girls and me to join her at her house on Beaver Lake, where we rode on her boat, swam, and relaxed. As we always do, we reminisced about the y

BY THE TIME I DUG my phone out of my purse, I’d missed a call from my sister-in-law, Julie. We rarely talk on the phone, so my imagination kicked in and my mind raced. Was my eighty-eight-year-old mom okay? It must be something really bad—because if

I LOVE TO TRAVEL, BY myself or with my family. This summer, my husband and our two grown children took a twelve-hour overnight bus trip to reach a mountain tourist destination. After enjoying our time there, we left for another city, but this time we

DURING A RECENT WEEKEND TRIP to the coast, my husband and I stayed in a motel at a marina. Sailboats and fishing vessels lined up, cozy as eggs in a carton. We sat on our balcony that evening, talking. The next morning, I woke early. I tiptoed to the

WHO DOESN’T REMEMBER THE SCENE in the movie Jerry Maguire when the Tom Cruise character realizes that Renée Zellweger is in fact the love of his life? He bursts into a room full of bitter divorcées and declares to a teary Renée, “You complete me.” La

“HEIDI! HEIDI!” I YELLED, STANDING at the edge of the woods. Heidi, one of our four dogs, was lost. I had already looked for her down by the pond and all around our yard. Please help me find her, I asked Jesus. I had driven around the neighborhood ho

THE ROAD TWISTED THROUGH SWITCHBACKS, making its way up the mountain. My husband, daughter, and I were driving to a family reunion in Colorado. Cliffs loomed over the road. Signs warned of avalanches and rock slides. The terrain was beautiful but for

THE HALLWAY WAS PITCH-BLACK. I’D awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of my cats squabbling in the living room. Coming out of a deep sleep, I hadn’t been alert enough to flip the light switch as I raced past. Now I stood, disoriented and

I LOVE LOOKING AT THE big, tall trees on the riverbank by the Mississippi River. I also appreciate their shade while I stroll on the bank, gazing at the muddy waters in the river. The roots of those trees go deep down in the river, which lets me know

FOR YEARS, A LOCAL RADIO station conducted an all-day Bible trivia contest and invited teams and individuals to compete for prizes. Our church team fared well and worked hard to keep our competitive nature secondary to the fun and tidbits of Bible kn

LIKE PORTS WORLDWIDE, TAMPA BAY has a carefully charted narrow shipping channel—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) chartbook leaves no guesswork for a boater, whether a day sailor or a freighter captain. My husband once went sail

TWO YEARS AGO, MY HUSBAND bought me an adult tricycle. It’s blue and beautiful. I love it. That first year I rode until the weather turned. Last year, not strong enough to ride, I fought back and joined a gym. I rode a stationary bike, then followed

REVEREND WILLIS VISITED THE NEIGHBORHOOD gym every day. We spoke to each other when I found myself walking next to him on the treadmill. He was a blind preacher whose wife drove him to and from the gym. Besides that, I knew nothing about his life. On

I REMEMBER A PARTICULAR WEEK when people close to me were either moving up, moving out, or moving on. My son was moving up to college. Our neighbors—a married couple with five girls—were moving out of their apartment. And a friend confided to me that

A GUIDEPOSTS PUBLICATION EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Edward Grinnan EXECUTIVE EDITOR Rick Hamlin MORNINGS WITH JESUS EDITOR Janet Talbert CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Susanna Foth Aughtmon, Elizabeth DeGear, Tracy Eldridge, Gwen Ford Faulkenberry, Grace Fox, Heidi

WHENEVER I FEEL INADEQUATE OR feel I don’t have the ability to accomplish something, I remember a lady I once met when I applied for a job. She was the receptionist and her desk was located behind a wall with a sliding glass window. When I tapped on