A Growing Faith

I want to be interested. I think it is one way to live well. To be interested is to care, to learn. I was in St. Louis earlier this month and went to the Saint Louis Art Museum. Among the things that caught my eye at the Museum was a painting of Halsey Cooley Ives. Anders Leonard Zorn, Haley Cooley Ives, 1894-95, oil on canvas Like me, you may not be familiar with him. What I learned was that he was the first director of the Museum. A well-known portrait artist, Anders Leonar

“Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.” Ps 100:3 I recently had a chance to stay in a little cottage by the sea. It was a small, simple, comfortable home set right off the water. However, between the house and the sea, there was a pasture. It was sectioned off into smaller lush green grassy plots. The center section had long grass. The grass in the section off to the left, yet still in front of the cot

Do you have a sensory superpower? I recall noticing that a close friend of mine had a superpower of smell. It was so obvious to me because I was not able to smell as they could. All kinds of things were connected to their sense of smell that seemed a bit foreign to me. My husband sometimes jokes that I have hawk eyes. I see things. I have always liked the beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” It is quite amazing the way our eyes were designed. Al

There is a beautiful flowering bush blooming outside my window. It is filled with white flowers from top to bottom. We have had this bush for many years. I always find it a wonder when it is in full bloom, especially because just a few weeks earlier, all it had to show for itself was some bare branches. I have to admit that while I would love to always be blooming, I often go through a lot of bare-branched days. As one person said, “Every flower blooms in its own time.” It’s

Certain words are both so common and at the same time so profound that they seem almost indescribable. These are words you know best through experience. Grace is one of those words. Our goal here is to consider how living into the word grace could help us grow in faith. Here are at least four ways we can experience grace: Grace is love. “The Lord longs to be gracious to you.” (Isa 30:18) God’s gracious longing to love us runs throughout the Bible. In the beginning, God was ev

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever… When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid… I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done… The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is goo

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?… All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. “He trusts in the Lord,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him.” … I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint…My mouth is dried up like potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death… All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes around them and cast lots for my garments… All