Hiram woke to the sound of ripping fabric. He tasted blood and felt gravel digging into his cheek. He tried to open his eyes, but only one would yield. Through a single slit of vision, he saw an empty water pouch lying in the middle of the road, its torn edges curled as they baked in the sun. If he could just reach it, maybe there'd be one drop. But his limbs would not obey. Sandals shuffled around his head, and dust settled on his lips. Fabric ripped again. Cool liquid drenched his wounded … [Read more...]
The Far-Fetched Stories of Sacrificial Love
It’s hard to explain love to a preschooler. You’d be wasting your breath giving a definition like “warm personal attachment.” Instead, we read stories like The Runaway Bunny, in which a young bunny tries to run from his mamma, but she lovingly, and sometimes stealthily, finds him and brings him home. In addition to reading far-fetched stories, parents “explain” love by caring for the children, even when they don’t want us to. Even adults find it hard to understand God’s over-the-top, … [Read more...]
What’s Your Love Story?
Every year around this time, especially when I'm pondering what to write about "love," I'm bombarded with song lyrics from the soundtrack of my teen years. Most of them come from pop songs I recorded on cassette with my single-speaker boom box. In so many of the lyrics about love, questions surround the concept. Questions about Love "What is love?" Haddaway asked, and has asked repeatedly for two decades. "What's love got to do with it?" lamented Tina Turner with her signature hair … [Read more...]