As with many other things—train travel, hot springs, and baseball, to name just a few—you’ve never seen Valentine’s Day done quite like it’s done in Japan. The stores are decked out with hearts and teddy bears and red and white ribbons galore, of course, but that’s just the... Read More →

I am rarely left speechless. Snappy retorts are part of my native language, and those few times when my mother’s instructions for what to do when I cannot say anything nice dominate my response, the conversation in question is likely a memorable one. Oddly enough, these... Read More →

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught (Isaiah 50:4). The above passage is one of the servant songs in Isaiah that... Read More →

 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them (Ephesians 5:11). It is one thing to refuse to participate in evil. It is quite another to expose it. Yet this is what light does. By its very nature, light dispels darkness, thereby revealing what is done... Read More →