Tag: Mary
Christmas Changes Everything
The story of our lives has more to do with what God is doing than our ability to manage it. Gail Johnsen This is my all-time favorite quote about Christmas: “God has interrupted our ordinary expectations, as cherished as they were, to conceive something. We cannot manage it. We can’t even understand it. All we ...
Crazy Joy!
Choose joy! We hear it all the time. In this way, we often think of joy as simply a choice we make. It’s where we are in control; we muster up the strength, gather all our internal resources and make a cognitive decision…and “will” our way to joy. Choosing can only take us so far. ...
Unforced Joy
Is joy a choice or an fruit? Yes. How often have we heard that “joy is a choice”? Yet how often have we tried to be joyful only to discover it only lasts and long as we are trying hard to make it so. Trying to “produce” joy through verbal confession can feel manufactured and ...
An Interrupted Life
God’s grace comes often in severe ways to open our eyes to a greater reality that we have yet experienced. Our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. In speaking about Mary the mother of Jesus, Craig Barnes writes, “God has interrupted our ordinary expectations, as cherished as they were, ...
Gail Johnsen 