The bakery started as a small hole-in-the-wall, hidden behind a single glass door along a narrow Taiwanese alley. This mom-and-pop shop smelled of freshly baked bread the moment you opened the door. Joint-owned by a Kiwi chef and his Chinese wife, Chef Dereke named it Finga’s, for everything within was handmade. In time, Dereke and his wife Lily were no …
The music was different here. Unlike the staticky radio in Daddy’s Ford, this music was living and active, piercing my nine-year-old heart and energizing my soul. We didn’t just listen to the music; we sang along, from the youngest Sunbeam to the oldest member of the Brotherhood. This was the wooden church of my childhood. I knew this place well …
Often, the best words on the page are the ones only used once. Explicitly crafted by the author to surprise the reader with insight, a single well-chosen word can open a glorious portal for inspiration. How much more thought-provoking is a word unique to an entire book? I recently stumbled across one such word in the epistle to the Hebrews. Used nowhere …
Faith believes what God says. Period. It doesn’t believe and then figure out His method. True faith is not worrying about how He will act but merely trusting that He will. I confess to frequently getting tangled in the anxiety of God’s how. I can resonate with God’s promise, but then, with my next breath, try to figure out how …
Holy Father, Why am I so opposed to going through the fire? You promised that You would never fail me or forsake me (Joshua 24:20), but somehow I still have my doubts. I confess that when I look back on my life, I see Your complete faithfulness. But then again, there is tomorrow. What’s the deal? It’s that trust thing, …
I get discouraged. Discouraged at my unanswered prayers. Discouraged at my slowness of growth. Discouraged at my tendency to fail. I used to think that after some mature moment in my Christian walk, this wouldn’t happen anymore. However, I’ve realized that as long as we live in this world, but not of it, God’s children can struggle with discouragement. A …
For as long as I can remember, one of my mother’s favorite pieces of jewelry was a mustard seed necklace. Dangling from a simple, inexpensive chain, a globe of glass encapsulated a tiny grain of mustard. It held no intrinsic value, but my mother’s estimation of it made it valuable to me: “You see, Kandy,” Mother explained, “This tiny little …
“The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” (Genesis 1:2) Our lives were a black hole before Him. Formless and void. Covered in darkness. But the Spirit of God moved and introduced Light. He called us “out of darkness and into His marvelous Light,” so we can now be called “children …
My anxiety had teeth that summer day. In the quiet darkness of the early morning, apprehension stealthily lurked in my dreams and poised to strike with the initial ray of the sun. Before my first cup of coffee, my heart was hemorrhaging with fear as the deceitful claws of panic gripped my soul. I knew the feeling all too …
The morning of the party had arrived. Because I wanted everything to be just right, I’d asked both Mark and our teenaged daughters to help. Everyone had a list. Clean the bathroom. Dust your room. Unload the dishwasher. And because I like checking things off the list, each detail included a small hand-drawn box beside it. When all boxes are …
