The Thing Trap

By Sarah Onderdonk 

Overcoming Unhealthy Give & Take

I received a special gift once. I remember reaching deep into a cake-size blue box and working through clouds of white tissue paper. My fingers landed on cold metal. I remember audibly taking in some air as I retrieved a lovely antique silver box covered in textured swirls and bygone metal loops. I touched my hand to my heart and said “It’s just beautiful… thank you.” To which the gift giver quietly but purposefully relayed a condition around which the gift could be kept.

So I had just opened and accepted a gift that was not really a gift. But a strange loan of sorts. I could feel the blood swoosh from my feet to my head as I contemplated the deeper meaning behind the gift and what it said about the giver's feelings toward me.

Many years have passed and the sting of that incident has faded. What’s more, this unusual present would ultimately become one of life’s most special gifts. Because it would begin for me an uncomfortable but spiritually essential journey to a place of discernment about the things in life that really matter.

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Make Your Marriage a Legacy

By Stanley Leffew 

You ever observe couples handling their marriage like a New Year's Resolution? 

Yes, it's the time of year again when people everywhere start looking to change something about their life. Perhaps, it is having just come through the holiday season where the primary focus is "other-centered" that triggers this sudden interest in what we can change about who we are. Whatever it is, more people at this time of year than at any other decide to punch the clock at "ME, Incorporated." In other words, they go to work on themselves.
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Do The Right Thing

By Marty Norman 

Recently I saw on TV that Governor Mike Huckabee has written a new book titled “Do The Right Thing”.  I haven’t read it yet but I sure like the title.  As best I can tell it pretty much says it all.

“Do the right thing” has always been part of my own personal philosophy. Even as a young girl my father always told me to “do the right thing”.  That was when he was still alive, and I was lucky to have him help guide and mentor me in exactly what the right thing was.  Whenever I got confused I could go and ask, and trust that he knew best.
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The Importance of Obedience

By Rhonda Clark 

Obedience is a rebellious word. It’s a word we all love to hate. Its demanding requirements can wreak havoc on the family unit. Couples divorce because of it, and children become defiant and unreasonable. The family is splintered into multiple factions all because of obedience, or lack thereof. This is not how God intended obedience to be perceived.
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Two Luke

By Jane Thornton 

I was on a mission. With a scrapbook assignment and a deadline, I had no time for nostalgia or reminiscence. But when I flipped a page, both swamped me.
            
My dad was a marine. Just that label encompasses so many of his strongest images:  sternness, authority, integrity, high expectations. Throw in a little temper, and sometimes those severe impressions overwhelm the memories of light-hearted teasing and laughter which were also sprinkled throughout my childhood.
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