Colorful Characters

By Cynthia Ruchti

Consider any troupe of sit-com characters. What makes the blend work? Their differences linked by a common bond.

For example: the quirky young people with vastly different internal conflicts, all struggling to become full-fledged adults in the big city environment.

The unique family dynamics that often erupt in a firestorm that keeps us laughing because, though exaggerated, the mother-in-law seems like our own…the brother’s phobias sound familiar…the grandpa’s caustic comments show up at our own Thanksgiving dinners.

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Locker Room Grace

By Cynthia Ruchti

Our adult small group left our open Bibles and notebooks and coffee cups to spend some time voicing our support of and prayers for the young people who met at the same time in another part of the church. We walked into the multi-purpose room to stand in an embracing semi-circle at the back while they worshiped in all-out abandon.

“We’re here and we care,” we wanted to say.

We had to hurdle something to get into that room packed to the wall studs with teenagers. It smelled like a locker room in there. Teens with lots of energy but too little deodorant and an excess of gym shoes and two-day-old socks.

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New Use For Old Pain

By Cynthia Ruchti

Have you found a new use for old pain? It’s a biblical principle spelled out clearly in II Corinthians 1:4. The wording can seem a bit cumbersome if we skirt over the passage without thinking too deeply about it.

It reads this way, beginning with the last phrase of verse three: “…the God of all comfort… comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (NIV). In one version, the last part is “with the comfort wherewith we’ve been comforted.”

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A Well Of Our Own

By Cynthia Ruchti

This morning, did you have other clothes to change into besides the ones you wore yesterday? More than one choice for shoes? Even if you chose to skip breakfast, was there something in the cupboard or the fridge you could have had?

How many people in the world ache for something as simple as clean drinking water?

We have so much more than we realize. My husband and I are among those who have one well for the two of us. What extravagance! It’s an old country well, but it has more than enough good, clean water to meet our needs. My ice cube maker probably uses more water in a day than some Third World villages see. Decadence.

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A Boy!

By Cynthia Ruchti

What did Joseph do while Mary was in labor with their son Jesus? Did he pace outside the stable? Did he read magazines, boil water, argue with the innkeeper for a better room?

Did Joseph sit around a campfire with other travelers and let their wives attend to Mary?

Did he spend the night in prayer, alone with his God, or at his wife’s side?

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