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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....
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The Battle Strategy

The drums are deafening; I can feel them in my chest. I watch the worshipers in front of me sway, hands raised.

What’s the big deal about singing praise songs? I’m a skeptic in the crowd tonight, tracing the ugly pattern of the carpet in the church.

Because I forget how Corrie Ten Boom sang hymns smack-dab in the middle of Nazi brutality.

I forget how the martyr Jerome worshipped in song until the flames were too hot to continue.

I forget how Paul and Silas faced a night in prison with singing.

And how Jim Elliot and his friends entered their life-threatening gospel mission with song.

If worship is why we are here and song is its vocal expression, then the devil must shriek at the sound.

Our battle cry.

And while nation rises against nation and the world cries in despair…

the church sings.

the Devil runs.

and hope remains.

“After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.’ As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men…who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.” 2 Chronicles 20:21-22

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