By the time I was in middle school, it was official: I needed braces. It was bad enough to need them and it was psychologically petrifying to need them but not be in a position to get them. Such was the case for me. I went through middle school and high school with tartar build-up, an overbite, some serious crowding. The summer before I was scheduled to go off to college I pulled out a calculator, did the math, and realized that if I saved all the money I was on track to make at my summer Continue Reading
Silence Speaks
A friend and I decided to meet up for lunch on our college campus one day. I could hardly wait. I was bursting at the seams with an overwhelming eagerness to share some information about a mutual colleague. Mind you, it was the type of information I would not dare share if the person about whom I was speaking was present. I’m pretty sure Webster would define this as gossip. Nevertheless, they were not present and I just had to tell somebody what I had come to know! We sat down, got our food, Continue Reading
Where is the Hope?
Confession: I oftentimes roll my eyes when I hear people from previous generations go on and on and on about “the good ol’ days.” I just read Judges chapter 19. This grotesque series of events involving a Levite and his concubine have me convinced the “good ol’ days” must have started after 1000 BC, when these passages were recorded, and ended in 1981, the year I was born. For “in those days Israel had no king; [and much like today] everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25). Talk about Continue Reading