When you long to know the ‘why’ behind your sorrow: Tim Challies asks, “It’s very hard to see why it has happened. Why would God allow this unremitting pain? Why would God permit this distressing sickness? Why would God take that person I love? If God cares and God loves and if God ordains and God controls, why would this be his will? How could this ever make sense?”
Six things women in your church wished you knew about pregnancy loss: Mary Holloman offers us some wisdom in comforting those who have suffered loss (Angel and I are among the many who have suffered the loss of a child in pregnancy), “The overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters in Christ cared for me so well during that difficult time. However, I was shocked at the number of insensitive comments and platitudes I received from others—an experience I share with thousands of women who have walked through pregnancy loss. Four years later, I still can’t decide what hurt worse: the relentless chatter (“You’ll get pregnant again;” “You’re fine;” “At least it happened early;” “At least you weren’t attached yet”) or the deafening silence.”
The Christian tradition in a castle, not a cabin: Trevin Wax reminds us that we do not need to shrink, “Believers battle feelings of inferiority, and we often feel patronized by the world. It’s as if the church’s intellectual tradition is a crumbling cabin, poorly constructed, barely able to keep out the rain. Oh, it may provide a cozy fireplace of personal warmth, but not much more—nothing we expect to prove deeply compelling to others. Meanwhile, the atheists and agnostics of our time inhabit an imposing edifice of unassailable arguments.”
Tracing Christianity’s impact on slavery through the generations: Sharon Jones, “If we live in the West, we often take freedom for granted. But the idea that every human is of equal dignity and should be afforded liberty has not been obvious to most cultures.”
Best photos of 2023: Just stunning. Check out the mirage of the old man over the ocean.
Buying a house in the 1990’s: A silly 1990s style HGTV spoof (video).

Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash