Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. Waiting for God is like waiting for your next heartbeat Eager anticipation Forming spiritual elation A collective breath Held throughout all creation Weakness abounds in every earthly nation All things can be done through Christ and salvation Just as a child craves to be born This world desires The veil to be torn God give me not stillness For apathy is death Let me feel purpose Until my

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. I watched as the last minute ticked on the clock, then hit the off button just as the alarm sounded. I’d already been awake at least half an hour, even though I had crawled beneath the covers just a short while before. My gear was carefully laid out, and I dressed as the coffee brewed. The house was quiet. A few short words passed between my friend Bobby and me. The night before, we had hashe

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been living with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. I’ve been sick before during the holidays, but never as sick as I am right now. And it feels very much as if hope, peace, joy and love are the ghosts of Christmas past. Clinical depression is a mental disorder that can be caused by a number of things. My predisposition is genetic; depression runs in b

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. Thankfully, 2017 is about to bite the dust. This has been a difficult year. As the planet reeled from one natural disaster after another, we witnessed moral corruption and abuses of power at every level. Worse, we often saw God’s own people turning away. We watched the Church grow impotent and lazy—more interested in political power than in making disciples for Jesus Christ or in ministering

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. I've been thinking a lot lately about this term "making memories." It seems everyone these days talks a lot about it. Before a family trip or vacay, "Let's make some memories!" many of us might exclaim, or even post on social media with excitement. Is this something we actively thought we were doing before the age of social media? The act of making memories, I mean. I know I never really did,

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. Why wait 364 days to celebrate one day of remembering how blessed we are, when we should do it everyday? We really don’t need lights and we don’t need snow to have Christmas. We don’t need gifts, either. Let the love in your heart be the gift you bring to work, to school, and to church. Not just at Christmas, but anytime. One song that gives the big message is “Christmas Everyday” by Unspoken

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. A Silent Night: Believing in the Good and the Hope of Peace Have you ever heard of the Christmas Truce of 1914? If you havenʼt, it might do your heart some good to read about it here (and then also to watch this story recounted from WWII). There are of course conflicting views of historians on the actual details of the truce since it was pieced together mainly by verbal accounts or letters ho

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. I remember when I was a very young child my parents bringing me and my three siblings together on Sunday nights in December to light candles on a wreath and to talk with us about the Christmas narrative. One year as we sat down for the first week of Advent, I asked my parents, “Why do we have to do this every year?” Sitting still for an entire fifteen minutes felt like quite the chore. But my

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. Love. This seems to be the overwhelming thought I am having as we begin this Advent season. The amazing love God must have for us as we prepare to celebrate the birth of His only child and our Savior. The love I have for our Father and for Christ because I was chosen by them to part of His family. The love I have for my family and for my church family. The love I have for my own children as t

Click here for a printable PDF of this post that includes a devotional journal page. Ravn Alaska is a regional airline that flies into the little-known, wild and not-easily accessible areas of the state; places with names like Chuathbaluk, Deadhorse, Nunapitchuk, Russian Mission and Shaktoolik. But the only one I’m interested in right now is Valdez, where our daughter Naomi is finishing up her degree in Outdoor Adventure Leadership. It’s been a tough semester and she is in th