Years later, after other experiences with dogs, I wondered if their species were shaped and charmed to serve as four-legged guides able to assist in leading humanity back to our first—and lost—home. By the example of their joy and humility, by wa...
There's a difference between waiting with patient expectation, and waiting because you never know what God will do. If you don't know how God thinks or what God wants to do in your life, read the Bible. When you know what God wants you to do, go out ...
The world is in sore need of good listeners. And in our own lives, it’s amazing to recognize just how valuable listening can be for us. How many mistakes have you made because you didn’t listen well? Personally, I’ve made many—and I’ve miss...
Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren...
Jen's Mum Will Write Jen's mum writes advertising copy. She specializes in white goods: washing machines, dryers, fridges, freezers, dishwashers. She hates these appliances hulking in corners, power-hungry and fractious. One day, she will have a wood...
My fear is that of all the choices people face today, the one they rarely consider is, "How can I serve most effectively and fruitfully in the local church?" I wonder if the abundance of opportunities to explore today is doing less to help make well-...
I often wondered after David’s death: Had they known something then? Did their very souls recognize each other? Did Jacob, closer to God than anyone else I knew, somehow sense this was the last time he would see his grandpa? Had there been a messag...
She wondered when her daughter would realise that for the most part, people weren't that different. Young and old, male or female, pretty much everyone she knew wanted the same things: The wanted to feel peace in their hearts, they wanted a life with...
The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort t...
The South Pacific is not a paradise, in the sense that Eden wasn't either. There are always apples and snakes. But it is a wonderful place to live. The green vales of Tahiti, the hills of Guadalcanal, the towering peaks about Wau, and the noonday bri...
Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. This ...
Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. A song you didn't even pay attention to at the time, a place that you di...
Slowly, inch by inch, I felt myself recovering. After a few weeks, the darkness began to recede; my appetite for life returned. Haven was wonderful; she understood and nursed me through these weeks until I felt strong enough to go out in public, to g...
This was maybe the first time she’d done it when she’d felt the true intimacy of it. The first time she’d done it because she wanted to express her feelings for a guy in some new way she hadn’t before. The first time it meant something. The f...
Home is where the heart is. That's what they always say. But where does home begin,If you have lost your way. Do you turn to family or neighbors you don't know? You heart may wonder far and wide until you learn to grow. You go outside and look around...
I couldn't tell what colour her eyes were. They were wet and dark and shining, like pools of deep, still water. For a second I thought I could see pictures in them, like I was looking right inside her to where her memories were. She smiled, and I won...
To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more...
Redwing had read somewhere that one of his favourite writers, Ernest Hemingway, had been asked what was the best training for a novelist. He had said “an unhappy childhood.” Redwing had enjoyed a fine time growing up, but he wondered if this whol...
As he talked, I watched Emma and wondered what is to become of her. She is of an age to be married but she spends her time with people who are so much older than she, that she is never likely to meet a husband. And if she does, I do not know if she w...
III. I have often wondered how it should come to pass, that every man loving himself best, should more regard other men's opinions concerning himself than his own. For if any God or grave master standing by, should command any of us to think nothing ...
I feel like a child who has found a wonderful trail in the woods. Countless others have gone before and blazed the trail, but to the child it's as new and fresh as if it had never been walked before. The child is invariably anxious for others to join...
