Author: Josiah

Ah Harold. You know him. He’s your husband, your father, your brother, your friend, your neighbor. He’s the guy you knew you could call on for anything. When you had to have surgery, he came to the hospital and sat with your family, praying, encouraging. When he left the hospital he went home, got his…

In the summer of 1992, Bill Sandles celebrated his graduation from the University of Michigan the way many young men with restless hearts do — he went abroad. Kenya had always stirred something in him: wide skies, open savannas, the promise of something untamed and magnificent. So, he booked the trip, packed his bags, and…

In the summer of 1967, I was eighteen years old, just graduated from high school, and working maintenance in a housing project just outside Detroit. To meet government requirements, our crew was evenly divided—half Black, half white. The men I worked with were good men. They treated me with respect, even though I was the…

“The cost of a thing is that amount of life that must be exchanged for it.” Henry David Thoreau “Who is wise?  He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful?  He that governs his passions. Who is rich?  He that is content. Who is that?  Nobody!” Benjamin Franklin “It’s right to be contented with what…

TAMAR AND HER VINDICATION (Genesis 38) The wind is dry in the hill country of Canaan. Tents pitched in a deliberate circle, as clans had done for generations — Judah’s tent closest to the center, the place of honor and command. His sons’ shelters radiated outward, servants, farthest from Judah’s, and the herds kept along…

Have you ever been to a large city emergency room late on a Friday night? It is not a quiet place. The waiting room is crowded with humanity in all its forms — young and old, wealthy and poor, every color and condition. Pain does not discriminate. Watch the doors. See the man being rushed…

It was already dark when I took my father to the emergency room. Winter darkness — the kind that settles in early and feels permanent. The kind that makes the parking lot lights hum louder than they should. He had been struggling for days, trying to brush off what his body was clearly no longer…

A STORY TOO SHORT He had just bought a new car. It wasn’t really new—nothing we owned in high school ever was—but it was new to him, and that mattered. In those days, cars weren’t important because they took you places. They were important because they said something about who you were. They were rolling…

I must have been about five years old. It was spring—warm enough that the windows were rolled down, warm enough for the air to move freely through the car. I wasn’t sitting in the back seat. In those days there were no safety seats, no seat belt laws. I was standing behind the front seat,…