We all long to be close to others. What if we were designed to be close with God? This episode describes this longing and how to make practical steps forward in our relationship with God.
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I’m tired of all the fighting, and I don’t want to hear from another extremist! Have you ever felt that way? Balance is key to a successful life: joy and pain, truth and fiction, sweet and salty 🙂 Jesus modeled a balanced life. We are told in the gospels that Jesus came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Get that? Grace and Truth. People are constantly reacting to extremism by racing to the opposite extreme. Yet Jesus balanced two seemingly opposed forces. We see this written in the Scriptures, and we see it in Jesus’ interactions with others. Check out this passage from…
When I was a sophomore in college I met a new friend named Linda through a campus ministry we both attended. After a little while, Linda asked me if I would like to meet with her one morning each week to read the Bible together. I had been in a Bible study in high school, but I had never met one-on-one with anyone. I was a little nervous about what it might be like, but I agreed. So we set a day (Wednesday mornings at 7 am at the Ohio Union if memory serves), and we began to meet. Linda was…
APRIL 30, 2012 BY VICKIGATCHELL In Light of Eternity Photo courtesy of Tami Werling Years ago I attended a summer training program with a Christian ministry called The Navigators. It was a 4 week venture where a small group of collegiates, together with a few staff, met to work, to play, and to study the scriptures. It was a time of intense growth, and the lessons I learned then have served me well. In this world you will have trouble… Life is hard sometimes, isn’t it? Often it even seems that we finish one problem, only to begin work on the next, or, just as often,…
Have you ever noticed what a difference it can make to change your gaze? Last Saturday I had a terrible afternoon. It shouldn’t have been that way since I had free time and I was with my family. The thing is, we were watching our Ohio State Buckeyes and they were playing poorly, just as they have every Saturday for a month. Never mind that they are reigning national champions and currently ranked first in the country, the fact that the Buckeyes were playing terribly was blowing my entire day. Somehow the Buckeyes pulled off the victory that day, and I pulled…
It’s Friday night and I am finishing a week of posts about how we can only find lasting fulfillment in Christ. It seems fitting that I end with one of my favorite quotes from early church father St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine lived in the third century after Jesus, and was a theologian and philosopher. I like the fact that he was a deep thinker and he wrote many profound things about relating to God. Here is my favorite: Sometimes translated, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” I love this quote, and…
There’s a waterway in the woods at our farm that fills with several inches of water every spring during the rains. Scientists call it a vernal pond because it only lasts a few weeks in spring, just about as long as it takes for tadpoles to grow into frogs. For several weeks each year, the music of the pond comes to life at dusk and reverberates into the night with a chorus of spring peepers and bullfrogs we can hear from a quarter mile away. And then they fall silent. By fall, the pond is just a dried-up ditch filled with old, dead wood. Nothing grows there,…
It’s not what you know, but Who you know I’ve done more reading in the last two years than I’ve done in the past 25 years put together. At least it seems that way. I’ve never been an avid reader, never gotten hooked on romance or adventure novels, and always found my relaxation in active things such as hiking or gardening. But this reading has been different. Wonderful. The reading has been part of my Master’s program in Ministry Studies and Women’s Leadership. I’ve been learning theology and ministry skills. I’m not in it for the academics, or to win contests in Bible Trivia. I’m certainly…
I’ve had trouble collecting my thoughts today, so here’s a reblog from my old site. I can see how God has continued to work in this area since the post 3 1/2 years ago: MARCH 19, 2012 BY VICKIGATCHELL Hi, my name is Vicki, and I’m a perfectionist. (Hi Vicki!) It was my friend Lisa who first mentioned the concept of pursuing Excellence rather than Perfection. Her words were refreshing, -–like a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day! It’s funny. Since that time, the topic keeps coming up in my reading, reminding me that I, the perfectionist, must pursue attainable goals, and…
It’s been a year or two now (actually 20-something), since I was in college doing everything I could to get accepted to Ohio State’s physical therapy program. I remember how important it was to me, and how difficult. Physical therapy was, and remains, a course of study in high demand, but it enrolls a limited number of students. PT was attractive to me because it combined my love for science with my love for people in a career that offered many job opportunities. I’ve been in the field 25 years now, and it has been good for those reasons, but…
Tell me something you find irresistible. I love to walk in the quiet of the woods where I can hear every bird calling out his territory and each hickory nut pelting the ground in autumn. I’ve learned that if I climb high into the hunter’s treestand I can feel the gentle breeze on my face, see the sun gazing through the canopy, and even catch the silhouette of a hawk soaring against the cottony clouds that don’t seem so high above as they did before. There I can sit… and pray… and think, a rare commodity in my industrious lifestyle. I also…