Columns

Once upon a time—before the Internet, hand-held games, cell phones, cell phones with the Internet or cell phones with the Internet and games—there was this magical world right at our fingertips.
Not a virtual existence, but rather a real life experience.
That world is what we referred to as summer.

 “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now” (Romans 8:22).

The devastation of a modern American city is still etched indelibly on my mind—whole   communities abandoned, shopping centers gutted, hospitals and churches boarded up. A vibrant, colorful New Orleans sat in ruins, the victim of extensive flooding and wind damage from Hurricane Katrina— one of that decade’s natural disasters.  

By Christie Elkins

Unwashed faces, cold embraces, empty looks of sleepless nights. Tubs filled with trash, no place to bathe, toilets overflowing. 

This is what I saw. 

Drugs hidden in microwaves, meth labs where kids used to play, sleeping on the floor since someone took the bed away. 

This is what I saw. 

Wearing pajamas to school — since that was the only thing clean. Relying on free lunch — since they hadn’t eaten in days. 

 If you are a Christian and you love the Lord do you ever feel like searching your heart?

I am going to paraphrase Psalm 139 NIV, please read it in its entirety.

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in, behind and before you have laid your hand upon me such knowledge is too lofty for me to attain.