As I turn on the barn lights and gather the cows for their early morning milking, a few sparrows begin a soft chatter in the milking-parlor rafters. They remind me of...

My friend Virginia was overwhelmed and exhausted, having to go to work each day and also care for her husband, who was confined at home with terminal cancer. Tearfully, she would...

My husband, Jim, and I enjoy a well-cared-for vegetable garden. We like nothing better than fresh vegetables, and looking at those straight rows of plants gives us a sense of accomplishment....

I sat in disbelief as I read the message. Hundreds of miles away, my mom was nearing the end of her battle with cancer. Just two weeks earlier she had been...

While waiting with my sick children to see a pediatrician, I noticed a face that looked familiar. As she came closer with her two kids in tow, I was pleasantly surprised...

When my daughter was two years old, I needed to take her to daycare so that I could work. She had terrible separation anxiety; she clung tightly to me and cried...

I spent my youth feeling angry and bitter. When I was 30, my marriage was falling apart. In the midst of that pain, I discovered the Bible. I came to believe...

When I was in divinity school, I took classes about God, church history, the Bible, Hebrew, and Greek. Seminarians take these classes for three or four years to gain knowledge that...

I was carrying a 40-pound sack of corn along the path to our house. Because I was wearing flip-flops instead of the usual rubber work boots, I slipped on loose stones...

For months, we on the board of campus ministry were focused on our fundraising auction. As chair of the board, I met frequently with a young woman who had offered to...