For the first time since we moved to Charlotte, we are experiencing a “real” snow. Not the usual tentative dusting that vanishes by noon, nor the dreaded “wintry mix” of ice and slush that defines a Southern winter, but inches—actual, honest-to-goodness inches of snow. It is breathtaking. The world has shifted into a different perspective.…
Dialing It Down
When my football coach would scream, “Dial it down!” it usually meant we were too caught up in the adrenaline of the moment. We were vibrating at a frequency that invited chaos; we were out of control and risked doing something really stupid. Of course, I heard the expression in other places, though usually with…
The Constant and the Fickle
People are funny; heck, I am funny. We exist in a constant state of “if only.” We wish for something with a desperate intensity—a promotion, a partner, or even just the simple ability to walk without a medical boot—and then, the moment we receive it, we either ignore the blessing or immediately pivot toward the…
Be Careful What You Ask For
When Jesus saw him lying there… he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” — John 5:6. In the Gospel of John, we find a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, lying by the pool of Bethesda. When Jesus approaches him, the question he asks seems almost redundant, if not…
A Shift To Reality
The first thirty years of Jesus of Nazareth’s life are referred to as the “silent years.” While the Gospels provide a brief glimpse of his birth and a single episode in the Temple at age twelve, the vast majority of his time on Earth was spent in the quiet anonymity of a carpenter’s workshop in…