By far, the great majority of folks we've shared our grief with have been wonderfully supportive from the beginning. On the other hand, although I can't say we've yet encountered anyone who would come right out and call it "sin," surely a few have made us feel it is "unspiritual" to continue to grieve at our current level. Often, it seems, such folks tend to hang on to their own assumptions, and may be the last ones who would pause to read a post such as this. I'm sharin

Nova Massie's James Dean leather jacket was, without doubt, my favorite of all our wedding presents. One problem: it was a present to Nova Massie, not me! And, as such, it was tailor made to FIT a taller, leaner Indonesian, not me. I was slender enough back then (just barely; even though at about 130 pounds, Nova called me his "fat American friend"), but the sleeves were WAY too long! They extended to the tips of my fingernails, and beyond! But I LOVED that leather jacket,

(A TRUE story, in the grand tradition of "The Wedding Dress," and "The Sword in the Stone.") It was the most beautiful leather; perfectly James Dean-esque. (Alternately, it tended to remind me of Ray Verzi, the coolest of the cool, toughest of the tough, tight-jeaned, leather-jacketed rebels without a cause at Thurston H.S.) It was a high-gloss jet-black, fur-lined, taper-fitted, must-have-been-a-beautiful beast leather, that still retained that amazing new leather smell rig

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" Psalm 116:15 Only God, Himself, knows the sacredness, the solemn holiness of that priceless split second when His beloved child reports Home, at the very end of his or her earthly sojourn; the terminus of their commission in this temporal, physical realm among their fellow earthen vessels. I would think there must be great, abounding joy; as witnessed in Christ's majestic welcoming home of the noble martyr, Stephe

"Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things that a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on f

One of the things I love about the Inspired Word is God's understated style. He doesn't get all caught up in superlatives, or flowery descriptives (the O.T. poetic books being the exception), or the language of drama, as some writers do (who, me?). God never overwrites, and no one will ever be able to accuse Him of exaggeration. I'm confident that those He comforts will be comforted ABUNDANTLY. As inconceivable as it may seem in the midst, they shall be more than compensated

"Oh, my dears; you're still just BABES in the world of grieving!" She'd already won our hearts and our ears with her wealth of godly wisdom from decades of grieving her own son and her obvious love for us, so evident in that warm and tender smile. She had won, hands down, the right to speak things to our souls that would very likely offend, coming off the lips of nearly anyone else. Our dear friend, Alice, was unquestionably right; there's a PhD to be earned in the school of