Author: Michelle Van Loon
-
Fighting for peace
I don’t remember what the argument was about. It was just one in a string of those “But everyone else is doing it” versus “If everyone else was jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you follow?” skirmishes that often come with parenting young teens. (I also don’t remember actually using the Brooklyn Bridge as a…
-
Plagued by prayerlessness?
We wept. We fasted. We knelt in prayer. We stepped outside of our usual local church schedules and gatherings to join hands with other believers in our city. We gathered in sync with Christians across the nation to intercede for our shattered county. It appears those days are relics from another time, and it’s not…
-
Peeling away the veneer
What’s under the surface? We had a home inspection before we purchased our 1970’s-vintage mobile home in April, 2019. The inspector told us he saw evidence of a bit of termite damage, but assured us it was par for the course in a sub-tropical climate like Florida. We planned to get an exterminator after we…
-
Rebuilding after the storm?
These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the…
-
Spit
I sat on an empty bench on a busy city sidewalk while I waited to meet up with some friends, soaking up the midday sunshine and enjoying that delicious sense of invisibility that comes with people-watching. Everyone was on their phones, leaving a trail of bits of conversation in their wake, their purses and backpacks…
-
Praying the Lord’s Prayer in the first person singular
My Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give me this day my daily bread, forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me, and lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil for…