Life is busy. We are busy. We are bombarded with school, emotions, family, church, and so many responsibilities. With our commitments and schedules, it's very easy to blow through our lives without taking time to stop and appreciate the beauty that is all around us. Truly, God crafted an amazing world! God created this majestic [...]

Have you ever felt rejected? What happened? What did it feel like? Rejection comes in many forms: hurtful words from someone close to you, not being invited to a party that everyone else is, being made fun of by a group of people, or sitting alone in a crowd. Regardless of the form it takes, [...]

Some of our most memorable mistakes can come when we try to speak a different language from our own. A mistake like this happened to me when I was in Guatemala—because I speak very little Spanish. At one point during the trip, we went to a busy market. A man started speaking to me in [...]

"Don't eat like a pig!” This expression usually means, “Don't eat everything in front of you” or “Don't make a mess”—because pigs can be pretty messy and indiscriminate eaters. In fact, along with grain, many farmers will feed pigs something called “pig slop.” Pig slop often contains mixed together leftover produce and dairy from local [...]

Can you name five types of apples? There's the Granny Smith, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, Red Delicious, Gala—just to name a few of the 7,500 varieties! Each variety of apple has a distinctly different taste. Some are sweet, others are tart, and some are both. Even though they have different tastes, they have one thing in common: [...]

The betrayal of a close friend, a sickness, a crime against us, the death of a family member, natural disasters, family difficulties, financial woes so many things can put us in the middle of a whirlwind of emotions. Whether we're feeling overwhelming sadness over a loss, anger as to why it happened, anxiety about what [...]

Do you share your friends with God? You're probably wondering what that means. Some may even think it's a typo and should read, “Do you share God with your friends?” While it is important to share Jesus with our friends, it's just as important to share our friends with God through prayer. When our friends [...]

Do you watch the news? I know some people who refuse to because it can be so depressing. There are a lot of sad stories: school shootings, people losing their homes in devastating storms, terrible diseases, deadly car accidents, theft, etc. It can be scary to think of all the bad things happening in this [...]

Do you know someone who has dementia? Dementia is a group of conditions that involve declining thinking skills—such as memory and communication. Since these changes usually happen over time, family members of those with dementia often say it's like losing their loved ones in stages—making the grief process long and complicated. Dementia is very much [...]

Have you heard the loud, shrill beep following a test of the emergency alert system? On the radio, TV, or cell phones, tests like these ensure that emergency communication systems are up and running before they're needed. In fact, in the United States, tests like these are so important that it is illegal to play [...]