Exhausted from multiple flights, I arrived at the Taoyuan International Airport with bleary eyes and dragging feet. Although I desperately wanted to stretch out horizontally, I had one more thing to do. Moving toward the currency exchange booth, I was thankful to find it open. The words “foreign exchange” were boldly posted in Mandarin and English above the booth. Thirty …
A great quiet has fallen over my soul. It’s not the shock of silence, for I experienced that a couple of years ago when my spirit stood at the portal of heaven, gasping for air. At that time, my prayers foamed up from the depths of my soul in fragments and groans, unexpressed but painful. And it’s not the bleak …
In the mid-60s, I spent some of my best vacations underneath our kitchen table. I took this imaginative journey twice a year whenever the new Sears and Roebuck catalog arrived. The old catalog filled with go-go boots and dropped waists now belonged to me. I loved the glamour within the glossy, slick pages of printer’s ink, mostly in dreaming of exotic …
Growing up as a dry land farmer’s daughter, we always asked God for “moisture” in our family. My mother wasn’t particular about how it should arrive. Mist and fog counted, for either was better than no moisture at all. I still hear her soft, rhythmic voice asking our Heavenly Provider for “a shower of blessing.” When rain did come, especially …
By: Mark Persall In the first century, widows were often homebound, shut-in, and confined. She could not freely leave her residence if she had physical or medical constraints. Almost nobody paid a call, although a few might drop by briefly. As a result, the first-century disciples intentionally visited widows to ensure they were fed and cared for. Still, the task was …
After a few years of living overseas and studying Chinese, my Canadian friend and I needed a break. A local expat group was hosting a women’s retreat on our island of Taiwan, so we planned to attend. “We can take our car,” I announced bravely. “I’ll drive, and you read the map.” The map was in Mandarin, but as Julia …
Truth perforated Adam’s heart in his reflection. The face looking at him from the placid pond penetrated with piercing perception. He was unique, one-of-a-kind, and yet incomplete. The awareness had been dogging him for days. Time so newly formed, passed slowly, one day as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. Up to this awakening, his eye …
My mother was a quiet individual, only comfortable with lifetime friends. While others flew off the handle, Mother kept her peace. But when she wanted to make a point, she could – by a poignant one-on-one discussion. I experienced many of those conversations, for she had a higher value on who I would be than who I was. On the …
Father, You are the Originator and Transmitter of Life. You have infused Your Spirit into us to activate and initiate our minds. You rule from the highest seat of order. Thank You for being our Creator, Preserver, Guardian, and Protector. I acknowledge Your character as respected and venerable. You are separated, holy, and set apart from everything I’ve known. Even though You …
In the surrounding glow of radiance, angels watched with mouths open as their glorious King spoke light into reality. Although these spirit beings lived in an expanse of crystal, enveloped in the incandescence of timeless eternity, they stared with wide-open eyes as the sun, moon, and time appeared. Their ears knew the roar of worship and the hum of wings, but when …
