During this Advent week of Love, I’d like to take a look at love through the eyes of the woman who carried Jesus from conception, through birth, childhood, and then through to the cross---Mary.

God initiated our love relationship by creating humankind. He then lovingly outstretched his arms to us in Jesus. God is certainly our first and foremost example of overflowing and very specific love. Emmanuel, God with us.

We know that Jesus was divine as Son of God. He was also...

Do you ever suffer from decision fatigue? I have been feeling it more often lately.

Think about how many decisions we have to make:

One set of decisions: What house do I live in? What city do I move to? What job do I take? Where are my kids go to school? Where should I retire?

Another set of decisions: Who do I vote for? What is my involvement with social justice? How do I manage the ongoing dynamics of the pandemic?

And what about the mundane overwhelm of trying...

Growing up on a small farm in rural Washington, we had many varieties of trees–pine, cherry, weeping willow. But the tree I spent the most time with was the lone apple tree in our front pasture. I’m not sure why there was only one tree out there. Why didn’t they plant more? Why didn’t they cut it down? Certainly, there was no need for this single fruit-bearing tree in a huge field.

Whatever the reason for its existence, that lonely apple tree became my thinking...

In our book, What Does Your Soul Love?, I shared the story of how I was learning photography at the same time as I was in the midst of a dark night of the soul.

At the time, and even still, I carry within me the metaphors of photography as a paradigm for life. There are many connections between photography, presence and perspective. I’ll share three with you today.

LOOK FOR THE LIGHT FIRST. Any skilled photographer will tell you that light is the most important factor in...

I’m well past the child-bearing years. My sons are all in their 20s. But those long ago days of pregnancy and little people are still as fresh in my memory as ever. I can still picture their little cherub faces and tiny chiclet teeth. And I can remember how their hair smelled like cookies until they were about five years old (yes, even dirty, stinky boys can have cookie hair).

All of this brings to mind Isaiah 49:15:

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
...

As I’ve been leaning into the new year, one of the themes that has emerged for me is love. Specifically, love people. 

For insight and wisdom into love, what better passage to turn to than 1 Corinthians 13? Last week, I took some time in my journal to type up the simple phrases from verses 4-7. We’ll get to that in a minute. But first…

In Peterson’s Message version of verses 1-3, it says that without love we are:

• The creaking of a rusty gate.
• Nothing.
• Bankrupt.
...

A new year has begun. A new decade is here. I’ll turn 59 this year. Part of me still feels thirty-something inside, but my body reminds me more and more often that I really am in my late fifties. 

Aging sometimes makes me nervous, even fearful. There’s a far better chance that I’m in two-thirds life rather than midlife at this point. (There’s always the thin chance that I’ll end up breaking the world record for longevity!).

But you know what the good news is...

Rick Warren once said that life is like the parallel rails of a train track. Just like the two tracks, the good and the hard parts of life often occur at the same time. 

Around the same time as the release of Rick’s Purpose Driven Life, his wife, Kay, was diagnosed with cancer. Two rails in action: the exploding popularity of a book alongside a devastating diagnosis.

You’ve probably noticed this over the course of your own life--the disorientation of incredible grace...

In An Unhurried Leader, one of my favorite chapters is titled “Questions That Unhurry Leaders.” It’s rooted in the Romans 8 passage that ends in these memorable lines:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

So nothing can actually...

Happy New Year! I’ve been enjoying the holiday season this last month, including some time with extended family. A few days ago I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law about end-of-life decisions. She is 78 and so it is appropriate to be thinking about, and planning for, such things.

In addition, Alan and I had an appointment with our financial planner and he raised these kinds of questions with us—What about your will? Who has access to it? Does your family know what...