“Hey, do you want to hear a God story?” my friend Jamie said before we wrapped up our phone call the other day.

“Sure,” I said, taking a minute to listen.

Jamie went on to tell me that a friend visited her that day who needed some help.

Her friend was looking for some used clothes for her son and asked Jamie if she knew of anyone who might have some to pass down. While she was speaking, Jamie’s phone started beeping, signaling that she was getting a call.

Jamie politely let the call go to voice mail and focused on her friend.  And later after she had left, Jamie checked her message.

Listening, Jamie couldn’t believe what she heard. ...

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Holding up the 100-year-old wooden flail, our Sunday School teacher explained it was a threshing tool similar to the ones used in the days of Ruth.

We had been studying about Ruth in the Bible, and seeing the flail was like stepping back into time for me. 

Amazed, I ran my hand along the tool’s smooth, wooden surface and touched the hardened leather that joined its two pieces together. 

Ruth must have been a pretty strong woman to swing that flail over her head and beat down on the barley she gleaned from Boaz’s field. I had enough trouble a few weeks ago, trying to hold and start our gas-powered weed wacker!

 I can’t imagine beating down on the barley again and again with that flail in an attempt to separate the grain from its husks. I’m sure Ruth’s hungry stomach, and her mother-in-law Naomi’s depended on Ruth’s strength.

And, if your familiar at all with Ruth’s story, you know that she had to use that strength in many other ways as well. You see ...

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The pastor asked several members of his congregation to get up in front of church, spread their arms out wide and form a line facing us. 

Then he called a small girl from her seat and asked if she would place her hand out flat and squeeze it in somewhere near the middle of that human chain.

            
The pastor then explained that the chain formed by the arms represented eternity and the little child’s hand represented our life.

Pointing to the chain on one side of the child’s hand, he said that this end represented the life that went on forever, before we were born, and the chain on the other side of her hand, represented life that goes on forever after we die.

That was an eye-opener me. You mean there was all that before my life and, there’ll be a whole lot after it – here on this earth and forever after?

If you’re anything like me, you may be a bit ...

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The three blue Mason jars waited in a cardboard box in my basement for nearly five years. 

Spiders had their heyday with them, but I wouldn’t touch them. 

Never mind the fact that I had a small collection of antique Mason jars and longed to bring the three up from the basement and display them with my others.

There was something about those jars that made me want to hide them away. Because I knew that if I took them out, I’d be overcome with guilt.

No, I couldn’t get the jars out. Couldn’t enjoy their sturdy, rounded shoulders, their clear sky coloring, their block “PERFECT MASON” lettering. You see, I wasn’t sure if the jars were really mine and every time I thought of them, my conscience was pricked.

The last house we lived in we rented and towering shelves of canning jars new and old were in the garage. I was new to the whole farming thing, but 29 acres and a plowed vegetable garden were pretty strong indications that I start.

And so I did. My first year was an absolute ...


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God is not a mean old ogre waiting to squash us for our mistakes. In fact, he’s more than willing to take on the burdens of our sin, if only we’d give them to him.