Ever since Saturday before last when we all heard Erika Kirk’s amazing words of forgiveness for the man who shot and killed her husband, many of our heads have been spinning with questions and incredulity. How could she forgive him? And why should she even try? If anyone has the right to not forgive, she certainly qualifies. We are in…
AS WE APPROACH Easter and the celebration of the resurrection, we first come to the cross. For before the victory is the pain and suffering. If we are among those who have suffered rejection, we meet there a Savior who knows our pain. For not only did Jesus suffer the pain of an excruciating death on the cross and the…
…When Our Tears Touch the Heart of God… I HEARD HER VOICE CRACKING as she described the situation in her marriage to me over the phone. She paused briefly, cleared her throat, and resumed her story. I could tell she was trying to hold back her emotions. At the end of our conversation, I asked if I could pray with…
STANDING AT THE FRONT of the church, I gazed into my husband’s eyes and repeated our wedding vows—promises that would join our lives together in marriage. “I Linda take thee, Marvin, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love…
WHEN YOU KNOW LOSS IS COMING, when does grief begin? Afterwards? Or before? And how do you work through it? Tracy K. Pratt’s book, Anticipatory Grief: The Journey of a Thousand Losses and Endless Grace, is a book I shared three years ago on Heart Talk but want to share again because I believe this book is so important in…
WHEN I TRY TO PICTURE my husband entering Heaven, I imagine him surrounded by lots of family members and friends who’ve gone before as they greet him and welcome him to his new home. Occasionally, I also wonder if among the crowd there might be a rambunctious Akita, a fluffy, tail wagging Peek-a-poo, a white cat with the shape of…
THE FLOWERS SENT by my publisher after the death of my husband were beautiful. The red and white roses, settled amidst the drama of orchids and the soft gracefulness of blue hydrangeas blended together in a stunning Christmas arrangement that lifted my spirits in the sad days following my husband’s death. Now the flowers were dying. As I gathered the…
I SEARCH THE HEAVENS, looking for what is unseen by human eyes, wondering where you are, what you’re doing, longing to touch you again, longing to hear your voice. The partition between heaven and earth is vast and is not to be traversed by the living. You are on one side of this vast chasm, I am on the other….
IT’S STRANGE HOW the journey of life moves us through various circumstances so that a story might impact us one way at one point in our life and as we turn a corner, it suddenly meets us once again to impact us in an entirely different way. When I wrote Broken Heart on Hold, I tell the story of walking…
IN THE WEE HOURS of Tuesday morning I sat beside our much-loved 15 year old Akita as he passed from this life. With grief flooding my heart, I prayed that he was entering into a Heaven where God promises that “the wolf will live with the lamb.” Although scripture doesn’t specifically say it, I interpret that to mean that our…