I may not be going too far out on a limb when I suggest that you have probably not heard the name Anna Laetitia Barbauld. For various reasons she has been largely forgotten by history, and this despite achieving a significant level of fame in the eighteenth century. Though at one time she was a…
Is it possible for beauty to exist alongside realities as distressing as dementia and as dreadful as death? Is it possible to write about such realities in a way that is both devastating and encouraging, that is both shatteringly sorrowful and heartbreakingly beautiful? Karen Martin’s Memorable Loss: A Story of Friendship in the Face of…
A friend and I recently realized that we have not been spending as much time together as we would like. We agreed it is high time to do something about it. But what to do? We put our heads together and determined that we will deliberately build time for one another into our schedules. But…
This week I read Michael Haykin’s Iron Sharpens Iron, a short book about great friendships. I found a couple of quotes in the book that I thought would be worth sharing so you can reflect on them as I have. The first is an excerpt from John Ryland’s sermon at the funeral of his friend…
Most of us are familiar with the term “means of grace.” Means of grace are the ways in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives to lead us into holiness. You might think of them as the “channels” through which sanctifying grace flows from God to his people. Most prominently he does this through…
You may have noticed that books tend to arrive in bunches. Once publishers identify that readers are interested in a particular theme, several will often commission authors to write on the subject. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen quite a number of books on friendship. Most of them address friendship in a digital…
Newton’s third law tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Though this law pertains to physics, it seems equally true in the realm of ideas. Recently, a renewed emphasis on the value of the Billy Graham/Mike Pence Rule as a means of protecting sexual fidelity has provoked an equal…
Are you friends with your friends for the sake of your friends? Or are you friends with your friends for the sake of yourself? I suspect you don’t really know while you derive some clear benefit from the relationship. As long as the relationship is gain, not loss, as long as it enhances your reputation…
Charles Spurgeon said that the voices of childhood echo through life in such a way that the “first learned is generally the last forgotten.” The lessons we learn in our earliest years tend to remain fixed to the end. This is tremendously beneficial when the lessons have been sound, but terribly detrimental when they have…
I have always been glad that there was one person who brought out her alabaster jar and anointed the Lord before his burial. Most people would have waited. They would have kept the jar sealed until after his death. Only then, when his body was torn and cold, would they have broken it open to…
Love is a risky business. In one way or another, at one time or another, we have all suffered because we have loved. We have all been shocked to learn something we didn’t know before, we have all been grieved as we have discovered another person’s hidden actions or behavior. Some of us have even…
You don’t really know who your friends are until their relationship with you becomes a liability instead of a benefit. Many celebrities, and even Christian celebrities, have learned this lesson the hard way. In the blink of an eye, or the release of a news story, they went from fêted to ignored, from celebrated to…
A couple of days ago Aileen and I were at the gym, alternating between lifting heavy stuff off the floor and then putting it right back down again (with a bit of running to nowhere in the mix as well). This kind of activity often leaves us rather sore, and, as it happens, there was…
Have you ever had a friendship that entered into irrevocable decline because your friend just up and moved away? Have you ever had a friendship that ended over matters of convenience or preference? My guess is that most of us have experienced something like this at one time or another. And I wonder if this…
Sometimes I read a book and think, “If we all just got this, the church would be so much stronger. If we all just did these things, the church would be so much better.” And Ed Welch’s new book Side by Side is exactly that kind of book. If we could all just agree to…
I am not easily offended. People will sometimes apologize to me for something they have said or something they have done, concerned that I was offended at their behavior. But I rarely am. It usually doesn’t even occur to me to be offended. But then there is that one situation with that one friend. A…
The “I love you.” You know the words, and you know the weight they carry. Recently Aileen and I were remembering back to the first time we said those words to one another. Each of us already knew how the other felt, but that did nothing to temper the thrill of actually voicing it and…
Have you ever dreamed of being rich? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to know that money poses no barrier between you and your dreams? I think we all have at one time or another, haven’t we? And most of us are convinced that we would use our wealth for good, to…
As a cofounder of Cruciform Press, I like to provide occasional updates on news and tell you about our more recent titles. One recent release focuses on a subject we often struggle with but don’t often talk about: friendship among Christians. One of the most fundamental truths about the Christian life is that we were…
I think it may be the Calvinist in me, or maybe it’s the inner bibliophile, but for some reason I’m quietly convinced there is no problem that can’t be solved with a few facts. If only you knew what I know, you’d change your behavior. If you would read what I’ve read, if you would…