I preached for the first time on Thursday, September 22, at The Well, a campus ministry on the campus at Ashland University. The subject of the sermon was on two parts of The Well’s mission statement: to “Encounter the Transformative Power of the Lord” and to “Experience the Joy of Incarnational Community.” Here is whatContinue reading “Experiencing the Transformative Power of the Lord and the Joy of Incarnational Community“
Category Archives: joy
How Do You Cultivate Joy?
It’s coming on fall now as we approach the end of August in Ohio. Even if it’s humid and 90, there’s a hint of that shift – darker evenings, school beginning, Friday football games and county fairs in full swing. The morning light is more angled, shadows longer, world tilted a little more than itContinue reading “How Do You Cultivate Joy?”
Joy Full and Filling
Being a Type A, INTJ, 1W9, etc., I really like lists, and checking things off my lists, and adding things to my list so that I can check them off. So here we are, nearing the middle of the year! Time to check on my 17 Resolutions in ’17: Start a new job! ✔️ Knock theContinue reading “Joy Full and Filling”
Dying Mom Stories and New Year’s Resolutions
As a reader and editor for River Teeth, one of my major biases was dying mom stories. Writers think just because their loved one has died or might die or is dying, they ought to write about her. It’s sad. It’s hard. It’s life changing. So we write dying mom stories. The trouble with the vastContinue reading “Dying Mom Stories and New Year’s Resolutions”
Praise God from whom all shopping bags flow…?
I stood in line for an hour and a half without a cart carrying a basket full of stuff and two boxes full of more stuff for $160 worth of merchandise today. There was much sighing. I kept telling myself, this might be the only day you have free child care and can actually goContinue reading “Praise God from whom all shopping bags flow…?”
Advent Day 21: We Are Outraged!
It is the darkest day of the year. Folks in the northern hemisphere will see just nine hours and thirty-two minutes of daylight today, and if you are here in Ohio, that light is blocked by a thick layer of clouds and rain. Time is short to spread the light, to let the light shineContinue reading “Advent Day 21: We Are Outraged!”
Advent Day Ten: God With Us
It’s true, I tell you, it’s true. Grant me this moment of ecstasy, this moment removed from the grief and the pain and the loss that seems to overshadow this season of hope. God is with us; I’ve witnessed it sprawled on the floor after our multiple miscarriages, in the NICU after Elvis was born,Continue reading “Advent Day Ten: God With Us”
Advent Day Three: His Resting Place
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.Continue reading “Advent Day Three: His Resting Place”
Well, Hello There
Would ya look at that? It’s been a month. The MFA summer residency was here and then gone, those two weeks that last two months and then feel like just days once it’s over. I think it might have been the smoothest residency we’ve run since 2007, which is saying something, since I was alsoContinue reading “Well, Hello There”
Advent – The Third Candle: Joy, Mary’s Candle (Poem)
First“But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.” – Luke 2:19 You wouldn’t stop moving, pushed against my ribs, and I pushed back. We exchanged our first conversation,just my skin between your hand and mine. We spoke our first nursery rhyme, sang our first hymn. I breathe every memory—not of visitors orContinue reading “Advent – The Third Candle: Joy, Mary’s Candle (Poem)”
Sarah Marie Wells 