“I’ll give this $20 to anyone who comes up here and takes it.” The evangelist whipped out a bill and waved it in the air like a giant foam finger, but no one in the congregation moved. I wanted to but didn’t. The speaker repeated his offer. “This $20 belongs to anyone who will take it.” My intrepid husband leaped to his feet, strode forward and collected his gift. His smug smile provoked my envy. “Salvation is a…
The first sunny Sunday in September after my birth, Mom and Dad trundled me off to the church my father pastored in Dayton, Ohio. They started a habit I’ve kept my entire life. I married a minister. I teach Sunday school, and I play the piano in morning worship. But I was 31 years old before I truly believed God loved me. Why? I developed an orphan heart. I saw God not as a loving father an—“Abba, Daddy”…
“He’s gone.” Two little words altered my life forever. In my Washington, D.C. hotel room, I collapsed to the floor in grief. My 18-year-old brother had been killed in a construction accident. My honeymoon ended with a late night drive through mountains hazed with dense fog to come home for my brother’s funeral. I had not even been married for a full week. My first question, and one I sometimes still ask, is “Why?” That particular hurricane pounded…