Welcome

Author: Josiah

  • WHY?

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    One of the greatest questions asked after every tragedy is simply, Why? Whether one life is lost or a hundred thousand, our hearts search for an explanation. We long to discover some reason that will make sense of what has happened. Why would God allow such suffering? Why this person? Why these people? Why now?…

  • THE WEDDING CHAPEL

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    GRANDFATHER It was May, 1931. My grandfather, Marcus Grand, whom I was named after, had just turned eighteen. He had never known his father, Julius. Julius had met and married my great-grandmother, Martha, only days before leaving for the war in Europe. They had been husband and wife for just one week when he boarded…

  • THE FIG TREE

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in ,

    There is one moment in the life of Jesus that we have struggled to understand and explain. He didn’t heal someone. He didn’t feed anyone. He didn’t forgive anyone. He walked up to a tree and killed it. Not in anger at a person, not in response to sin, not in front of a crowd.…

  • JUST A DOLLAR

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    She was a peculiar person, set in her ways, and her ways were often different from mine. Yet she was kind—very kind. When I was young, she often looked after me. She did her best to care for her children and for those around her. That was simply who she was. She was my Aunt…

  • PONDERING DEATH

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    One of my favorite songs by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band is Like a Rock. Many of us see our own lives reflected in those words sung so wistfully and mournfully. Old men like me look back through the eyes of memory and remember those days when we were convinced we would live…

  • TURN THE PAGE

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    Stories are everywhere. We tell them around dinner tables, in sermons, in novels, and in the quiet conversations that happen on front porches and hospital waiting rooms. We tell stories because facts alone rarely satisfy the human heart. Facts can inform us, but stories help us understand. They give shape to experience. They help us…

  • LOVE IS…

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    Love. It’s a word, right? It’s an interesting word, and we seem to use it all the time, but what is it? Kendra Cherry, on the website Verywellmind, said this: “Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust.” (Link –…

  • THE ALTAR THAT REMEMBERED

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    Revelation 16:7 For generations the great brass altar stood in the temple courtyard. The altar standing there was far more than a piece of religious furniture. It was the spiritual heart of Israel’s worship. Every person approaching the temple would first see this great bronze altar standing before the sanctuary. Day after day, year after…

  • PERHAPS THE RAIN

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    The sun had not yet burned the haze off the pasture when Tom Ellison stepped out onto his porch and looked across his land. It wasn’t much, not compared to the big spreads he’d known in his younger days. Eighty acres, a weathered barn, a handful of black Angus that moved slow and easy in…

  • MEMORIES

    —

    by

    Josiah
    in

    There is a great gift from God that blesses us richly, yet we rarely stop to think about it—or about the joy, and sometimes sorrow, it brings. Many have spoken of it, written of it, and even sung about it. For instance, Alfred Tennyson wrote: “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,Tears from…