The kind of love God calls His people to almost certainly goes beyond our comfort zone. Most of us prefer safe company and familiar faces, but God’s call is rarely about comfort—it’s about compassion. A recent test of my love brought back a vivid memory from years ago. About thirty years ago, I went to…
There are many days when I wish I could go back and unsay a word, undo a deed, or erase a moment that plays again and again in my memory. Maybe you know that feeling—that sharp pang of regret when one of your wrongs surfaces out of nowhere to trouble you. Many of us carry…
Most life-changing news doesn’t come with any warning. In 1981, it started for us as a simple spot on my wife’s side—something odd, nothing urgent. By the time doctors scheduled surgery for what they thought was a harmless cyst, we had no idea our lives were about to change. I sat alone in the largest…
Growing up, my family lived in a simple wood frame house in a working class neighborhood, nestled in the shadow of refineries and petrochemical plants. Thanks to the G.I. bill, my father bought it new in the early 1950s for less than 12,000 dollars. Ours was a household shaped by thrift. My father, just 11…
This morning, I’m feeling low and troubled without any clear reason. I’ve always tended to live in my head, searching for answers. Whether I’m trying to fix a buggy computer or create a perfect logo for my website, my instinct is always to figure things out on my own, no matter how long it takes….
Have you ever felt like you didn’t exist? On Monday, I did—lost in a crowd, stripped of my name, reduced to a number. On Monday, I had jury duty in downtown Houston. I arrived at the jury assembly building, cleared security, and followed arrows to a row of self-service barcode scanners. I scanned my summons…
I still remember a freshman from my 1999 class: a friendly, determined young lady with binders covered in Britney Spears pictures. I was nearing 40, just old enough to have a passing familiarity with her from the media. She sat in the front of the class, and one day I asked, “Are you a big…
A few years ago, I heard a well-known pastor open his sermon with an old Scottish prayer: “Father, what we know not, teach us; what we have not, give us; what we are not, make us. For your Son’s sake. Amen.” I grew up in a church where prayers were spoken extemporaneously—prayers from the heart….
As a veteran economics teacher, my first days with a new class always felt awkward—students were cautious, not quite sure what to expect. To break the ice, I’d ask them to sum up economics in a single word. Almost everyone wrote: “money.” Then I’d reveal a hidden message I’d prepared behind the screen: “It’s not…
It’s not widely known, but I love audiobooks—a habit that’s shaped the rhythms of my life and, more often than I realize, the quiet spaces of my soul. In my 30s, I found myself balancing family, college classes, and hours on the road as a driver for a car service. Those long, empty drives between…
There’s an old saying among teachers: “There’s no tired like first day tired.” After summer break, the start of a new year brings a mountain of prep, endless meetings, and barely any time for what matters most—getting ready for our students. By the first official day, most teachers are already running on empty. On the…
Abraham Lincoln’s beloved son Willie died at age eleven in the White House. Lincoln’s anguish is well known to historians. He would visit the crypt where Willie lay, sometimes lingering for hours, even asking the caretakers to open the coffin so he could sit with his lost boy. In those hushed, sorrowful moments, the president…